ner hung up to dry, after which they were laid by for exportation. Occasionally, during the heats of summer, the malabathron lakes were dried up, upon which the natives were accustomed to scatter heaps of brushwood over their whole site and set them on fire, so that the entire surface of the earth might be burned, without which, it was supposed the plant would no more appear. Among the uses of the malabathron was the sweetening of the breath, which was done by placing a leaf under the tongue. Thrown into coffers or wardrobes it communicated a perfume to raiment, and preserved it from the moth. The uses to which the wood of aloes was put were in some respects similar, as it was kept in the mouth to sweeten the breath, and sprinkled, when reduced to powder, over the body to repress perspiration. 3 A coarse kind of bdellion,' and a species of lycion were reckoned among the productions of India. From an island on the coast was obtained a precious bark called macer, of great medicinal virtue; aloes, too, was thence exported in abundance. The artichoke was plentifully produced on the banks of the Indus, as well as in the mountains of Hyrcania and Khawaresmia. The substance denominated onyx shell, procured from a fish resembling the myrex, was found in certain Indian marshes, where a species of spikenard is said to have flourished. On the drying up of the waters in the great heats of summer, these shells were found strewed over the soil, and exported for their odoriferous and medicinal qualities. The great lizard, called the land crocodile, has likewise been enumerated among the productions of India. Other Indian commodities were fine muslins, ivory, and tortoise shell, from 1 Dioscor. i. 80. 2 Id. i. 132. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 15. 3 Dioscor. i. 93. Galen. de Facult. Simpl. Med. p. 205. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 16. 4 Athen. ii. 82. Galen. de Aliment. Facult. cap. li. 5 Dioscor. ii. 10. 6 Id. ii. 71. 7 Lucian. de Sacrif. § 11. 8 Lucian. Musc. Encom. § 1. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 77. 3 2 Taprobana, a rich species of marble, steel of the finest quality, peacocks, and a large, beautiful breed of white oxen.5 Two kinds of indigo, employed both in painting and dyeing were exported from Hindùstân. Of these the one is said to have been a natural production which exuded from certain canes and hardened in the sun, the other was artificial, consisting of the substance which adhered to the copper vessels wherein artificers dyed blue. Having been scraped thence it was supposed to be dried and introduced into commerce. These accounts have already, by other authors, been shown to be erroneous, but they prove at least that indigo was in common use among the ancients, though we understand nothing of the means by which it was produced, or how it was cultivated.' The cotton tree appears to have been grown in India from the remotest antiquity, where the natives manufactured from it the finest fabrics, as calicoes, and chintzes, and muslins, regarded even as superior to the manufactures of Greece. Another production of Eastern Asia, which was. imported into Greece much earlier than is generally believed, was silk,10 of the origin and natural history of which they had but an imperfect and confused knowledge. It was understood, however, to 1 Strab. ii. 1. t. i. p. 114. Cf. Diod. Sicul. ii. 37. t. i. p. 169. Wesseling. 2 Athen. v. 39. 3 Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions, iv. 247. + Lucian. Navig. § 23. As the Brahmins looked upon the parrot as a sacred bird, they did not perhaps permit it to become an article of commerce, although they had already begun to employ their leisure in teaching it to imitate the human voice. Elian. de Nat. Animal. xiii. 18. 5 Athen. v. 32. 6 Dioscor. v. 107. See the Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 414. 7 Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 101, seq. Cf. Asiatic Researches, iii. 414. Hen. van Rheede, Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, p. 102. 8 Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 7. 7. 9 Lucian. de Musca, § 1. Herod. iii. 106. 10 Pausan. vi. 26. 6, sqq. be created by the labour of an insect with eight feet, called ser, about twice the size of the largest beetle. In other respects it was compared with the spider which suspends its web from the boughs of trees. These insects they kept in houses, the temperature of which was regulated according to the change of the seasons. The fine thread spun by the ser was found twisted about its legs. They fed them during four years upon the leaves of common panic, but on the fifth, because they knew they would live no longer, they gave them green reeds to eat, which was the food in which the creature most delighted. On this it fed so greedily, that it burst itself, upon which store of fine thread was found in its bowels. The country whence this substance was obtained is said to have been a kind of delta, situated in a deep recess of the Indian ocean, and inhabited by a mixed race, half Indian and half Scythian. In this account there is we see some truth, mingled with a great deal of error. The greatest care is still taken in China to regulate the temperature of the houses in which the silkworms are bred, as well as to remove them beyond the reach of all noises. and offensive smells. With respect to the figure and food of the insect Pausanias had been misinformed, though he might have obtained more correct knowledge by passing over into the island of Ceos, where the silkworm had been found from time immemorial. In later ages the merchandise of India, and central Asia was chiefly conveyed to the countries on the Mediterranean by way of Arabia and the Red Sea, but at an earlier period it came wholly overland. The exact course pursued by the caravans in these remote times has not been accurately described to us; but as the nature of the country has 1 Hazelquist, Travels, p. 234. Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 428. 2 Aristot. Hist. Animal. v. 19. always remained unchanged, it is to be presumed, that they pursued exactly the identical tracks which they at present follow. Occasionally some few of the commodities of Central Asia may have found their way into Greece by the desert, north of the Caspian, but the more common route lay through Khawaresmia and Syria, whence they were distributed to the rest of the western world by the Phoe nicians. The produce of India was probably transported across the Indus at Attock,' and from thence through one of the nine passes into Persia, by way of Candahar and Herat, after which the caravan fell into the road leading to Susa, Ecbatana, or Persepolis, according as its destination was the northern or southern part of Mesopotamia. Sometimes com merce followed the course of rivers, down the Indus for example, thence along the coast of Persia, and up the Persian gulf and the Euphrates or the Red Sea. On most of the roads mentioned there appear to have existed in those ages caravanserais, as at present, where merchants and travellers were accommodated with lodging, water, and fuel, being expected to carry along with them whatever provisions they required. Into this part of the subject, however, it is not my purpose to enter at any length, since to investigate it thoroughly would require a separate volume. 1 Here the ferry-boats, in the present day, are built of hillcedar, fastened together with clamps of iron, and ornamented with carvings. Vigne, Affghanistân, p. 32. 2 When certain articles of this merchandise, as pepper, for example, reached Athens, the merchants were sometimes denounced by sycophants as spies of the great king, and threatened, at least, with the torture. Antiphon. ap. Athen. ii. 73. Casaub. Animadv. t. vi. p. 445. 414 CHAPTER XIV. FUNERAL CEREMONIES. HAVING now gone through the whole circle of private life among the Hellenes, we shall consider them in the hour of death, and during the ceremonies with which dust was committed to dust. From a great variety of causes, the dissolution of the body was regarded by the pagans of antiquity with less terror and apprehension than modern nations experience. Their belief in the continuance of existence was not perhaps more unshaken than that of pious men in Christian countries, but the life to come was contemplated as more nearly resembling the present; and they imagined that, by the performance of certain rites and ceremonies, and through the favour of the gods in various ways obtained, they might easily secure to themselves a blissful immortality, which, according to their creed, was denied to none but the incorrigibly flagitious. In earlier times, moreover, before the birth of the sceptical systems of philosophy, no chilling doubts had been thrown on the doctrine of immortality. Ignorant they might be of the Divine nature, of the relations of man to his Creator, of the true duties, obligations, and rules of life; but they were so fully convinced of the existence of a race of superior beings, that they might almost be said to feel its truth as they did that of their own existence. These beings they believed to be everlastingly occupied with human, or rather with Hellenic, concerns; for it seems evident that most of the gods were looked upon more as the parents and guardians of the Grecian race than as remote and general watchers over |