The circumstance mentioned by Herodotus, that King Amasis of Egypt, in sending as a gift to Sparta a corselet padded with cotton and ornamented with gold thread, thought it a fit present from a King, and in dedicating a similar one to Minerva in her temple at Lindus considered it an offering worthy of the goddess, shows that it was at that period a novelty and a rarity. The first knowledge of cotton in Egypt may, I think, be correctly assigned to that date--about B.C. 550. Linen was the principal clothing material of the Egyptians, and the manufacture of it from flax by them is probably of as great antiquity as the growth and wearing of cotton in India. The embalmed bodies of their dead were wrapped in it during successive ages through a period of more than two thousand years, and their priests wore it during the same period, its clean white texture being accepted as a semblance of purity, whereas wool, taken from a sheep, was deemed a profane attire. Flax and linen are frequently referred to in the Bible. The earliest mention of the former is in Exodus ix. 31, in the account of the plague of hail that devastated Lower Egypt B.C. 1491, and destroyed, when they were nearly ripe for harvest, the two most important crops of the Egyptians--that of the barley on which they relied for food for themselves and for export to other nations, and the flax on which they depended for their clothing and manufacturing employment. For flax was not only used for wearing apparel, but the coarser kinds were employed for making sail-cloths, ropes, nets, and for other purposes for which hemp is generally used. It is surprising that notwithstanding the comparative proximity of Egypt to India, cotton, which had been for ages so extensively manufactured in the latter country, should have remained so long unknown or unappreciated by a people to whom it would have furnished a cheaper and more comfortable article of dress than the flax-plant. But it is certain that linen was held in favour and the use of it prevailed in Egypt till the Christian era, although the cotton fabrics imported into Berenice were gradually coming into more general wear. Pacatus mentions that Mark Antony’s soldiers wore cotton in Egypt, and says that they felt so much discomfort from the heat that they could hardly tolerate light cotton clothing, even in the shade.