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The exports were costus, a kind of spice; bdellium, a gum; a yellow dye, spikenard, emeralds, sapphires, cottons, silk thread, indigo, or perhaps the indicum of Pliny, which was probably Indian ink: skins are likewise enumerated, with the epithet serica prefixed to them, but of what kind they were cannot be determined: wine is specified as an article of import into this and other places; three kinds of it are particularized: wine from Laodicea in Syria, which is still celebrated for its wine; Italian wine, and Arabian wine.
She tried again to build a world of fantasy, of unreal delight, around her; to close her eyes, and wander abroad with her imagination. She roamed in reverie over land and sea, from Atlantis to Serica; and dwelt in the dull country of the Hyperboreans and saw the gold-sanded plains of the Ethiops.
A strange enough story it was Demetrius had to tell, though Cornelia had heard it before; of two voyages to wealthy Taprobane, one as far as the Golden Chersonesos, almost to the Silk Land, Serica, of voyages out beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Sea of Darkness, everywhere that keel of ship had ploughed within the memory of man. Ceylon. Malay Peninsula.
With few exceptions, his geographical knowledge of the east and of the north, the parts of the world of which the ancients were the most ignorant, was very inaccurate: he supposes the Ganges to be the north-eastern limit of Asia, and that from it the coast turned to the north, where it was washed by the sea of Serica, between which and a strait, which he imagined formed a communication from the Caspian to the Scythian ocean, he admits but a very small space.
Tyre exchanged its purple for the silk of Serica; Cashmere's soft shawls, to-day yet a luxury of the wealthiest, the diamonds of Golconda, the gorgeous carpets of Lydia, the gold of Ophir and Saba, the aromatic spices and jewels of Ceylon, and the pearls and perfumes of Arabia, the myrrh, silver, gold dust, and ivory of Africa, as well as the amber of the Baltic and the tin of Thulé, appeared alike in their commerce, raising them in turn to the dominion of the world, and undoing them by too careless prosperity.
The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively reigned over that industrious people.
In this month insects are scarce, Elater and a black earwig being the most frequent: two species of Serica also flew into my tent, and at night moths, closely resembling European ones, came from the fir-woods.
If needle-work had its poetry, it had also its reckonings. Old account-books bear many entries of heavy payments for working materials used by industrious queens and indefatigable ladies of rank. Good authorities state that, before the sixth century, all silk materials were brought to Europe by the Seres, ancestors of the ancient Bokharians, whence it derived its name of Serica.
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