Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1895-03-09
ROMANCE or COTTON.
Ming In America end Asia When w.
known In Europe.

WVOwU W eOFOp0.
At the beginning of the Christian
era we find cotton In cultivation and
In use in Persia. Arabia and Egypt
but whether indigenous to these
countries, or conveyed westward dur
ing the centuries from India, we
know not. Thereafter. the westward
spread was slow; but the plant Is to
be traced along the north coast OF
Africa to Moro CO, which country it
seems to have reached in the ninth
century. The Moors took the plant,
or seed, to Spain. and it wrs being
grown on the plains of Valencia in
the tenth century, and by the thlr.
teenth century 1t was. as we huvS
said, growing in various parj9 of
southern Europe
Yet. although the Indian cloths
were known to the Greeks and 10.
mans century or two before he
Christian era, and although in the
early centuries Arab traders brought
to the Red Sea ports Indian calicoes,
which were distributed in Europe. we
find cotton known in England only
as material for candlewicks down to
the seventeenth century. At any
rate, M'Culloch is our authority for
believing that the first mention of
cotton being manufactured In Eng.
land is in 1641; and that the Eng.
lish cottons, of which earlier men.
ton may be found, were really
woollens.
And now We come to n very curious
thing in the romance of cotton. Co.
lumbus discovered-or, as some say,
Observation-Disclosures in 1902; and
when lie reached the islands OF the
Caribbean sen the natives who came
of to barter with him brought,
among other things. cotton yarn and
thread. Vasco da Cana. few years
later than Bartholomew Diaz. In 1897
rounded the Cape OF Good Hope and
reached the Zanzibar coast. There
the natives were found to be clothed
In cotton. just rs Columbus found
the natives Of Cuba to be, as Pizarro
found the Pcruvians and as Cortez
found the Mexicans. These Euro.
peans. proceeding from the Iberian
Peninsula east and west, found the
peoples OF the new worlds clothed
with q material OF which they knew
nothing. Cotton was king In Amer
ica, as in Asia, before It began even
to be known In western Europe.
Not only that. but cotton must
have been cultivated In Africa at the
time when the mariners Of Prince
Henry the Navigator first made their
way cautiously down the west coast.
1t Is, ut any rate. upward OF 400 years
since cotton cloth was brought from
the coast OF Guinea and sold In Lon.
don as II strange, barbaric product.
Whether the plant travelled to the
Blight OF Benin from the land Of
Prester John. or from the land Of
tho Pharaohs, or across from tho
Mozambique coast, where the Ara
bians are supposed to have had set.
Elements and trading stations In pre-.
historic days, who can now sayP
But II Is curious enough that when
Africa was discovered by Europeans
the dark continent was actually
producing both the fiber and the
cloth for which African labor
and English skill were afterward to be
needed. The cotton plantations Of
southern America were worked by
the negroes OF Africa In order that
the cotton mills OF Lancashire might
be kept running. Ard yet both Africs
and America made cotton cloth from
the vegetable wool long before We
knew OF 1t otherwise than as trav'
eler's wonder.
Even In Asia, the natural habitat
Of the cotton plant, the story has
been curious. Thus, according to
the record above named, cotton hos
been In use for clothing for three
thousand years In India, and 1ndia
borders upon the ancient and extern
sive empire OF China. Yet cottor
was not used In China for cloth max
ing until the coming OF tho Tartars
and has been cultivated and manufact
ured there for only about five hundred
years.