From a passage in the comedy ‘Pausimachus’ of Cecilius Statius (who died B.C. 169), quoted by Mr. Yates in the work already referred to, the Greeks seem to have been acquainted with muslins and calicoes brought from India 200 years before Christ; and about a century later the Romans adopted the Oriental custom of using cotton-cloth as a protection from the sun’s rays. Ornamental coverings for tents were made from it, and awnings of striped and coloured calico were spread over the theatres, and gave welcome shade to the spectators. It was also used for sail-cloth. Cotton fabrics are frequently mentioned by the poets of the Augustan age, and by writers of a later date; but the finer qualities are almost always referred to in a manner which indicates that by the Greeks and Romans they were regarded rather as an expensive and curious production than as an article of common use. Their dress was almost entirely woollen, which, as they frequently used the bath, was always comfortable; and, for cooler wear, as Mr. Yates truly observes, “there appears no reason why cotton fabrics should have been used in preference to linen. The latter is more cleanly, more durable, and much less liable to take fire; and amongst the ancients it must have been much the cheaper of the two.” In Rome and Athens the finest woven goods were extravagantly dear, for the body of the people were practically excluded from manufacturing work. This was principally carried on by slaves for the benefit of their masters, for all the great men had large establishments of slaves who understood the art of manufacturing most of the articles necessary for ordinary use. The importation of cotton and piece-goods into ancient Greece and Rome was therefore comparatively inconsiderable. With the fall of the Roman Empire, into which Greece had previously been absorbed, art and science in Europe sank into a death-like trance which lasted for many centuries. We will therefore trace the progress of the Indian cotton trade in other directions during the long period that elapsed before science and art revived. As India carried on a very important manufacture of cotton for home consumption, as well as for her large exports, it might be supposed that China would have been led to participate in the advantages offered by it. But, as in Egypt flax had been for many ages the raw material principally used for the clothing of the population, so in China fabrics woven from the web of the silkworm were, from the earliest times, used for the dress of all classes of the people. By authorities of high repute in China we are informed that Si-Hing, wife of the Emperor Hoang-Ti, began to breed silkworms about 2,600 years before Christ, and that the mulberry tree was cultivated to supply them with food four hundred years afterwards.