Wool, as we have seen, was principally used for weaving in Palestine and Syria, in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy and Spain; hemp in the Northern countries of Europe; flax in Egypt (The history of the two last, hemp and flax, is given in Part IV. to which the reader is referred.); silk in the central regions of Asia[411]. In like manner cotton has _always_ been characteristic of India. We find this circumstance distinctly noticed by Herodotus[412]. Among the valuable products, for which India was remarkable, he states, that “the wild trees in that country bear fleeces as their fruit, surpassing those of sheep in beauty and excellence; and the Indians use cloth made from these trees.” In the same book (c. 47.) Herodotus says, that the thorax or cuirass sent by Amasis, king of Egypt, to Sparta, was “adorned with gold and with fleeces from trees.” These substances were perhaps used in the weft to form the figures (ζῶα), which were woven into the thorax; but it appears equally probable that the gold only was thus employed, the cotton being used as an inside lining or stuffing: and in this case it is possible, that the down of the Bombax Ceiba, a tree allied to the Cotton-plant (_Gossypium_), may have been used, since, though not fitted for spinning or weaving, it has long been used in India for the stuffing of pillows and similar purposes, and would be included under the phrase employed by Herodotus, “_wool_” or “_fleeces from trees_.” The thorax may have been made in Egypt; but the materials, used to enrich it, were probably imported: for we have no proof, that either gold or cotton of any kind was found in that country as a native product in the time of Amasis. [411] See Map Plate VII. at the end of Part IV. [412] L. iii. c. 106. Ctesias, the contemporary of Herodotus, seems also to have known the fact of the use of a kind of wool, the produce of trees, for spinning and weaving among the Indians. It is evident that Ctesias referred exclusively to cotton cloths, as may be inferred from the testimony of Varro, as we find it in Servius (_Comm. in Virgilii Æn._ i. 649.). “Ctesias ait in Indiâ esse arbores, quæ lanam ferant.”