We have traced the course of the haïk along the shores of the Mediterranean; found it clothing Solomon, Hannibal, Pericles, Amalek, and Porsenna. We have carried it back to Hercules, to Abraham, and his fathers before him. Here is a monument of antiquity, to which the Propylæa of Memnon and Palaces of Ninus are modern structures. If in Pheleg’s time we know the earth was divided, when were the costumes? When the division took place, the original was reserved to the elder stock. If the clothes were varied with the tongues, then again must this one have kept its Edom dialect. Through Babel over the Flood, and dropping there all its associates from amongst the devices of man, or the works of his hands, it strides backwards alone till it reaches the first family’s solitary cot, where it grew between Eve’s soft fingers. We find it still the chief work in the far West of Eve’s fair daughters;--no pauper child has sighed over its fibres, nor have the spindles begun their turning to the dismal tinkling of the factory bell. Haïks are like leaves of trees--you never see two alike:--as sentences are interminable, yet the syntax one, so have haïks their grammar. They are of all textures--of many substances--plain, striped, yet uniform. Silk and cotton are mixed together; both are mingled with wool; they are alternated in stripes. The texture varies from felt to sarcenet, from coarse blanketting to gauze; there is the massive fold defying the tempest--the gossamer wing trembling with a breath; colours are not excluded, gold is not forbidden. The most beautiful specimen of workmanship and taste I ever saw, was a white haïk with a deep border of gold. The haïk of the men is absolutely and undeviatingly white. Colours are reserved for children, sometimes also for women, but they are associated always with the idea of indulgence and distinction. Thus was distinguished the daughter of David, Tamar, and this was what aroused the jealousy of Benjamin’s brothers, and when the last of the Ptolemies was saluted king of the Romans, he too received from the senate a coat of many colours.