Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/83

 6. Molochinê or mallow cloth, was a coarse cotton cloth dyed with a preparation of a variety of the hibiscus native in India. This purplish cloth must have corresponded closely to the coarse blue drills still in demand on this coast.

6. Lac.—McCrindle notes that the Sanscrit is lâkshâ, a later form of râkshâ, connected with the root ranj, to dye. The Prakrit form is lakkha. It was used by women for dyeing the nails and feet, also as a dye for cloth.

The lac insect (Tachardia Lacca, Kerr) is native in India and still practically confined to that country.

According to Watt (Commercial Products of India, pp.1053ff.), it yields two different products: a dye and a resin. The dye competed on favorable terms with the Mexican cochineal until both were displaced by manufactured aniline, when the resin shellac again became more important.

The resin is formed around the young swarms as they adhere to the trees; the lac being a minute hemipterous insect living on the plant-juices sucked up by a proboscis.

The dye is taken from the bodies of the females, which assume a bright red color during the process of reproduction. For a complete account of the product and its uses see Watt.

Of somewhat similar nature to lac was the "kermes-berry" produced on the Mediterranean holm-oak; whence the dye known as carmesin, cramoisi, crimson or carmine; or, by another derivation, scarlet; or, referring to the pupa-stage of the insect, vermiculum or vermilion.

These insect dyes were used separately, or, associated with murex, as an element in the so-called "Tyrian purple."

6. Tortoise-shell.—This was a great article of commerce in the Roman world, being used for small receptacles, ornaments, and for inlaying furniture and woodwork. It is one of the most frequently-mentioned commodities in the Periplus. The antiquity of the trade is uncertain, but this seems to be the "shell" brought from the Land of Punt by Queen Hatshepsut's expedition in the 15th century B. C.

6. Rhinoceros.—The horns and the teeth, and probably the skin, were exported from the coast of Abyssinia, where Bruce found the hunting of this animal still a trade and described it (Travels, Vol. IV).

7. Avalites is identified with the modern Zeila, 11° 20′N., 43° 28′E. It is 79 miles from the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. The ancient name is preserved by the village Abalit, on the north shore of