In the Egyptian Museum of the Royal Library of Paris, you may cast your eyes upon mummies, found in the catacombs of Cairo: the cloth in which they are wrapped is not at all coarser than the cambric of your shops; and yet it has been woven three hundred years. On this occasion it is not inappropriate to add that the art of weaving is still more ancient than that of embalming; which this answer of Abraham to the king of Sodom indicates: “I will not carry away a single thread of your wool,” said the patriarch to him, “lest you should say—I have made Abraham rich!” Elsewhere, Moses informs us that Abimelech presented a veil to Sarah; that on the approach of Isaac, Rebecca covered her face with a veil; and that when Joseph was appointed viceroy of Egypt, Prince Pharaoh covered him with a linen robe after having placed his own ring upon his finger. The Book of Job (the most ancient writing perhaps in existence) mentions a weaver’s _shuttle_, (chapter 7.) A thousand years before the Christian era, do you see, setting out along the desert, those messengers of the wise Solomon, going to procure in Egypt cloths of fine linen for the king, their master? Shortly after, the city of Tyre obtained great celebrity for the beauty of its fine linens; and Ezekiel dwells enraptured on the opulence of its merchants in the following terms:—“All the planks of thy vessels are of the fine fir tree of Senir, and their masts are of the cedar of Lebanon! For their sails thou hast employed the fine linen of Egypt, splendidly embroidered.” Do not suppose that all the sails of this period were of as precious a material as those of the Tyrians: like those of the Arabians of our days, they were generally composed of woven rushes.