Note 93 — Chapter IV · HISTORY OF THE SILK MANUFACTURE CONTINUED FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF SILK-WORMS INTO EUROPE, A.D. 530, TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

Journal Asiatique, 1823, tom. ii. p. 246. Julius Klaproth (Tableau Historique de l’Asie, Paris, 1826, p. 57, 58.) says, that in the year 165 B. C. the inhabitants of the country called by us Tangut, who constituted a powerful kingdom, were attacked by the Hioung Nou, and driven to the West, where they fixed themselves in Transoxiana, and that these events led to an uninterrupted communication with Persia and India, especially in regard to the silk trade. Klaproth considers that the Seres of the ancients were the Chinese; but he appears to include under that term all the nations which were brought into subjection to the Chinese.

Professor Karl Ritter (Erdkunde, Asien, Band iv. 2 te Auflage, Berlin, 1835, p. 437.) observes, in allusion to the authority just quoted, that all the names of the silk-worm and its products are to be accounted for on the supposition (which he considers the true one) that they were first known and cultivated in China, and from thence extended through central Asia into Europe.