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"The finest specimen of linen was found stitched on to the back of that on which the shell was embroidered. Its texture is even, but there is a perceptible difference in the tightness of the warp and weft. It is evidently a part of what we would call the fag-end of the piece, having the tassels attached to it, and tied exactly as we find them at the end of a piece of modern Irish linen. There are thicker threads crossing the piece near its end, a plan still in use; but the ancients appear to have adopted the thick lines to prevent the piece tearing length-wise, and for the purpose of ornament. In two of our specimens, we find twelve of these thick threads crossing the piece, and the tassels tied as usual, but the slipping or unravelling of the weft is prevented by a curious process performed by tying the threads of the warp together, so that each is secured to the thread at each side of it. This process forms a slight ridge at the end of the piece, and is rather ornamental.*

"5. Several specimens of a species of linen have been found with double, though not twisted threads, in both warp and weft. We might apply the epithet diaper to this pattern, though it is not exactly like that fabric, which is now manufactured. This linen resembles matting, and in the finer specimens is really very handsome. It probably wore very well on account of its softness. It is worthy of notice, that the weavers saved themselves exactly one-half their labour, by weaving with a double weft, as the thread had to be inserted only half the number of times. Though there are numerous specimens of this kind of linen, no selvage was found to any of them, so we cannot tell how the second thread was passed. This linen is very flat, and the number of the threads, in warp and weft, in a superficial inch, nearly equal. We may be sure that this manufacture had its specific name, which distinguished it from the other two, which are essentially different. The Indians manufacture a cotton article with double warp and weft; finds its way to Europe, as a wrapper to fine silk

and cotton goods.

"6. A quantity of twine was also found, and used with the greater proportion of our specimens, in bandaging up a half dozen of sacred crocodiles, which Mr. Knox took, with his own hands, out of a catacomb in Egypt, so full of snakes and reptiles that no Arab could be induced to enter into it. On removing the parcel to the open air, a large snake, of a venomous nature, actually escaped from it; frightening the Arabs so much, that they would not touch the bundle, which, being lapped up in a mat of dateleaves and ropes, was boxed up without their scrutiny, and not opened until its arrival in London. The ropes were composed of two yarns, very nicely made, and though very dry, were, in many places, very sound, and

* This fringe appears to be alluded to in Numbers xv. 38, where the Israelites were directed to make "fringes in the borders of their garments, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a riband of blue." I have seen species of mummy-cloth in Egypt corresponding to this description precisely. Such was likely the "hem of the garment" spoken of in the New Testament.

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capable of lifting a load of upwards of 50 pounds. The ropes formed a weft to a warp of date-leaves, which formed a coarse kind of mat, round which the rope was also bound. Underneath the leaves, the envelope was composed of a great number of rags of all kinds of linen, from which our collection was chiefly made. The rags were sewed together so as to make a bandage, which enveloped the six animals, independently of the wrapping which was on each, and which was wound round with thread. The large bandage was secured by a piece of twine, made of ten threads of yarn, in two sets of five each, twisted very slightly together, and forming a very strong kind of twine-not that probably used for common purposes. The labour of making it must have been enormous, compared with that necessary to spin a piece of common twine out of plain flax, and not out of yarns already spun. It may be here noticed, that all the thick lines or ornamental ribs made on Egyptian linens are composed of the same thread, repeated or doubled, once or oftener, and in this way they may have been able to produce many pleasing stripes and plaids.

"From certain similitudes in the names of the standing or long part of the piece of linen in the Egyptian loom, and a well-known mythological story, it was suspected that this story might have been originally an allegory or riddle, descriptive of the rise and progress of an article of dress made of flax. Some ideagraphic and phonetic hieroglyphs also favoured the supposition; which, however, could not be proved; nor was any evidence of the fact considered extant, when it was found, on opening a piece of mummy-cloth, discovered by Dr. Wilde, under the head of a mummy at Sackara, that the threads of the warp of a piece of ancient Egyptian linen are double; that is, they pass from the tassel-end of the piece down to the other end, and turn round the first thread of the warp, which is compounded of five in our example. This compound thread is the radix or root of the piece, its foundation, as it were, and, properly, is not woven, for all the threads of the warp pass round and cover it. Though our piece is only a span wide, and has neither of the selvages, it is quite clear that this compound radix thread must have been secured to the loom, as it was stretched from side to side, to take the warp, as it was set in the loom, at the top of which it was arranged, by being passed through a looped cord, which distributed the threads-an operation effectually performed below by the first two or three threads of the warp, when first passed.

"The hollowing or bending up of the first thread of an Egyptian piece of linen, is a serious defect in that manufacture; it decreases rapidly as the piece advances, and a more general strain can be obtained by means of the roller, on which the work may be wound. Another great defect of the linen arises from the great length of the loom, and the looseness of the warp, which is consequently drawn in and crowded at the selvages, which are generally very good. The picture of the loom in Wilkinson's book, representing females weaving, is sufficiently explicit; and though it only

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presents them passing the weft, by means of a long ruler, with a bent end, yet we may, from an attentive examination of the linen, imagine the whole process from the beginning, when the yarn is in one or more balls, up to the time when it is cut out of the loom, a perfect piece of linen, with one tassel. We may even imagine a thrifty spinster of old, cutting or separating her thread for the first time, at the moment the piece is finished; under such circumstances, the piece would exhibit no knots, and be nearly faultless, and, beyond a doubt, must have been considered worthy of being constituted the standard of beauty, industry, economy, and perseverance, worthy of Venus, Vesta, and Minerva, &c.

"Many curious speculations concerning these personages present themselves; but here they would be out of place. We cannot conclude these remarks on Egyptian weaving without taking some notice of their spinning process.

"On several ancient Greek vases, we find representations of women spinning flax, exactly by the same process still practised in Spain, Madeira, and elsewhere, and which was common in Ireland before the introduction of the spinning-wheel.*

"The instrument consisted of a spindle, with a round disk attached to it, which the spinster spins with her finger and thumb, allowing the instrument to escape into the air, when it continued spinning for a certain time, twisting the fibres of flax together, supplied by the moistened fingers of the other hand, from the rock, which consisted of a pole, on the top of which was a slight frame for securing the flax. The Greeks and Romans have left us many designs representing this process, which appear to have been common to all long-haired people; yet, no representations of an Egyptian woman spinning in this way has been published; on the contrary, the pictures published by Rossellini represent women twisting and doubling a thread already spun, and with spindles so very long and heavy, that twine, probably intended for bird and fish nets, and not linen yarn, is the article manufactured. The spiral motion is given in a different way altogether to that commonly used for fine yarn, and the spindle is differently made, for it ends in a long tale, which is rubbed by the palms of the hand against a strap fastened on a woman's leg, by which means a rapid spiral motion is given to the bobbin, by an act not unlike that of the shoemaker, when twisting his wax-end.

"Coarse woollens and linen yarns could certainly be manufactured by this process; but it is quite monstrous to suppose, for a moment, that these

* While in Algiers, my attention was often attracted to a spindle of this description hẳnging down by the sides of the houses, and twisting rapidly. On looking up, I observed some of the female Moors on the housetop, spinning as my friend describes. And in that country, among the Kabyles, the loom is still the same as it was in ancient Egypt.

APPENDIX.

609 figures, if correctly drawn, represent the spinning process of the finer Egyptian yarns.*

"Making allowances for the false proportions of the women, and the spindles they are using, we might suspect that they were employed in untwisting coarse Chinese silk thread; drawing it out and twisting it again, a process known to the ancients; or, we might suppose that they had a process not unlike a modern improvement in power spinning, of making a thread rather coarse, and then untwisting and drawing it out and twisting again. For such an operation, their flax appears to have been well adapted; for it is very fine, and the staple very short, apparently from its mode of preparation, performed chiefly by pounding it with a wooden beetle on a stone, and twisting the flax into a rope at the same time; by this plan, the blow being oblique, it splits the fibres, though it broke them at the same time, giving them very much the look and feel of cotton. Many of our specimens are so like cotton, that the best judges have been deceived by their unassisted sight; but when we have submitted the ultimate fibre to the microscope, we found it always to be exactly like the fibre of Irish flax, and altogether different from any kind of cotton, whether North or South American, Indian, Arabian, or Egyptian, with all of which it has been carefully and repeatedly compared."

F.-PAGE 144.

PHYSICAL HISTORY OF THE KABYLES.

Or the many different nations inhabiting the northern division of the African Continent, or that portion denominated by writers Atlantica, few have caused more discussion, or become, in later years, a subject of stricter investigation, than the Kabyles or Berbers. These rude and primitive people, who form a part of one great nation divided into several distinct tribes, but still preserving a sufficiency of analogies in language, manners, customs, and physical conformation, to prove their common origin, are by some supposed to be of Punic or Phoenician descent; while others look upon them as the aborigines of the country, who, by intermixture with, or contiguity to, the Phoenicians who settled on these coasts, adopted some

"We have heard such statements of the doings of the Commission, of which Rossellini was a member, in Egypt, that we can place no dependence whatever on his publication, unless, indeed, other witnesses confirm his statements. In this instance, Wilkinson is deficient."

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of those traits and characters that have given rise to the former opinion.

Africa, as known to the ancients, was divided into four parts-Barbary, Numidia, Lybia, and Negroland. Barbary included all that district lying between the Atlas mountains and the Mediterranean, and extended from the point of the Atlas near Messa to Gibraltar; and on the west to Mount Meies, situate about three hundred miles from Alexandria.

Numidia, called by the Arabians Biledulgerid, or the Land of Dates; its boundaries were the city of Eloacat, about one hundred miles distant on the east; on the west, the town of Non; on the north, the southern side of the Atlas; and on the south, the sandy deserts of Lybia.

Lybia lay still further south, having the ocean on the west; the Nile on the east; and the adjoining territory of Negroland forming its southern border. Negroland was still more remote, but parallel with the former; its western extremity was Gualata; and its eastern, Gaoga. Its southern boundary was unknown. Thus there were four great bands of country lying nearly parallel to each other; and beyond that it was a terra incognita. This is the description of John Leo Africanus. Marmol and Ptolemy have given a more complex subdivision.

John Leo gives the following account of the inhabitants of Africa:"In ancient times, Negroland was the only inhabited country of Africa; at least Barbary and Numidia were for many years destitute of inhabitants, till the Tawny people settled in that country, who were called by the name of Barbar, an Arabic word, probably derived from Barbara, i. e. to murmur; because the Arabians looked upon the African language as an articulate sound of beasts. Others will have the Barbar to be only the repetition of Bar, i. e. Desert; supposing Bar-Bar, to the Desert, to the Desert,' to have been the word among Ifricus's followers when they fled out of Arabia Felix.

"These Tawny Moors are divided into five tribes-namely, the Zanhagi, inhabiting the western and southern part of Mount Atlas; the Musmudi, inhabiting the provinces of Hea, Sus, Guzula, and the territory of Morocco; the Gumeri, possessing the Barbary mountains upon the Mediterranean Sea, and the river Rif, which takes its rise near the Straits of Gibraltar, and runs eastward to Tremeson, or Mauritania Cæsariensis; and the Haoari and Zeneti, who were dispersed all over Africa. These tribes are distinguished from one another by certain marks, and wage continual war among themselves. In former times, they had their habitations and tents in the field; every one favouring those of his own tribe, and labouring for their interest and common benefit. The governors of the country attended their droves and flocks, and the citizens followed husbandry, or some manual art. Ibnu Racco, who writes of the genealogies of the Africans, divides these people into five hundred several families. Though their posterity is run out into innumerable branches, and at that great distance from one another, yet they retain one language, called by them Aquel Amarig, i. e. the Noble

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