Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/394

 replace it by one of a finer texture. The cotton used for the finest thread, was grown in the immediate neighborhood of Dacca, more especially about Sunergong. Its fibre is too short, however, to admit of its being worked up by any except that most wonderful of all machines—the human hand. The art of making the very fine muslin fabrics is now lost—and a pity it is that it should be so.

In 1820, a resident of Dacca, on a special order received from China, procured the manufacture of two pieces of muslin, each ten yards long by one wide, and weighing ten and a half sicca rupees.—The price of each piece was 100 sicca rupees. In 1822, the same individual received a second commission for two similar pieces, from the same quarter; but the parties who had supplied him on the former occasion had died in the mean time, and he was unable to execute the commission.

The annual investment, called the "Malbus Khás," for the royal wardrobe at Delhi, absorbed a great part of the finest fabrics in former times: the extreme beauty of some of these muslins, was sufficiently indicated by the names they bore: such as, "Abrowan," running water; "Siebnem," evening dew, &c. The cotton manufacture has not yet arrived at anything like this perfection with us, and probably never will. *