Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/238

 219 any one were bitten he should repair to the royal tent ; but these very same men were able to cure other diseases and pains also. With many bodily pains, however, the Indians are not afflicted, be- cause in their country the seasons are genial. In the case of an attack of severe pain they consult the sophists, and these seemed to cure whatever diseases could be cured not without divine help.* XVI. The dress worn by the Indians is made of cotton, as Nearchos tells us, — cotton pro- duced from those trees of which mention has already been made.f But this cotton is either of a brighter white colour than any cotton found elsewhere, or the darkness of the Indian com- plexion makes their apparel look so much the whiter. They wear an under-garment of cotton which reaches below the knee halfway down to the ankles, and also an upper garment which they throw partly over their shoulders, and partly twist in folds round their head. J The Indians wear • That is, by the use of charms : see Strabo XV. i. 45. t A slip on the part of Arrian, as no previous mention has been made of the cotton-tree. X " The valuable properties of the cotton- wool produced from the cotton-shrub {Oossypium herbaceum) were early discovered. And we read in Rig-veda hymns of 'Day and Night' like * two famous female weavers' intertwining the extended thread Cotton in its manufactured state was new to the Greeks who accompanied Alexander the Great to India. They describe Hindus as clothed in gar- ments made from wool which grows on trees. One cloth, they say, reaches to the middle of the leg, whilst another is folded round the shoulders. Hindus still dress in the fashion thus described, which is also alluded to in old Sanskrit Hterature. In the frescoes on the caves of Ajanta this costume is carefully represented .... The cloth which Nearchus speaks of as reaching to the middle of the