But not only was she regarded as the _oleae inventrix_-inventress of the olive--as Virgil phrases it, but also as the inventor of all handicrafts, whether of women or men. Like Isis, she was deemed the originator of agriculture and many of the mechanic arts. But, above all, she was the inventor of musical instruments and those plastic and graphic arts which have for ages placed Greece in the forefront of civilization and culture. From the beginning it was woman who first made use of wool and flax for textile fabrics; and of this prehistoric woman one can affirm what Solomon, in his _Book of Proverbs_, said of the virtuous woman of his day: "She seeketh wool and flax and worketh diligently with her hands; She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff." She was also the first one to weave cotton and silk. It was Mama Oclo, the wife of Manco Capac, as the Inca historian, Garcilasso de la Vega, tells us, who taught the women of ancient Peru "to sew and weave cotton and wool and to make clothes for themselves, their husbands and children." And it was a woman, Se-ling-she, the wife of the emperor, Hwang-te, who lived nearly three thousand years before Christ, to whom the most ancient Chinese writers assign the discovery of silk. Her name is perpetuated in the name China, the goddess of silkworms, and under this appellation she still receives divine honors. The preparation and weaving of silk were introduced into Japan by four Chinese girls, and the new industry soon became there, as in China, one of the chief sources, as it is to-day, of the country's wealth. To perpetuate the memory of these four pioneer silk weavers the grateful Japanese erected a temple in their honor in the province of Setsu. According to tradition, the eggs of the silk moth and the seed of the mulberry tree were conveyed to India, concealed in the lining of her headdress, by a Chinese princess. She was thus instrumental in establishing in the region watered by the Indus and the Ganges the same industry which her countrywomen had introduced into the Land of the Rising Sun. Cashmere shawls and attar of roses, the costliest of perfumes, are attributed to an Indian empress, Nur Mahal, whom her husband, in view of her achievements, as well as on account of his passionate love for her, called "The Light of the World."[228]