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FURR, or FUR, in Commerce, signifies the skin of several wild beasts, dressed in alum with the hair on; and used as a part of dress, by princes, magistrates, and others. The kinds most in use are those of the ermine, sable, castor, hare, rabbit, &c. See MUSTELLA.
It was not till the later ages that the furs of beasts became an article of luxury. The more refined nations of ancient times never made use of them; those alone whom the former stigmatized as barbarians were clothed in the skins of animals. Strabo describes the Indians covered with the skins of lions, panthers, and bears; and Seneca, the Scythians clothed with the skins of foxes and the lesser quadrupeds. Virgil exhibits a picture of the savage Hyperboreans, similar to that which our late circumnavigators can witness to in the clothing of the wild Americans, unseen before by any polished people.
Gens effræna virum Riphæo tunditur Euro;
Et pecudum fulvis velantur corpora setis.
VOL. IX. Part I.
Most part of Europe was at this time in similar circumstances. Cæsar might be as much amazed with the skin-dressed heroes of Britain, as our celebrated Cook was at those of his new-discovered regions. What time has done to us, time, under humane conquerors, may effect for them. Civilization may take place; and those spoils of animals, which are at present essential for clothing, become the mere objects of ornament and luxury.
It does not appear that the Greeks or old Romans ever made use of furs. It originated in those regions where they most abounded, and where the severity of the climate required that species of clothing. At first it consisted of the skins only, almost in the state in which they were torn from the body of the beast; but as soon as civilization took place, and manufactures were introduced, furs became the lining of the dress, and often the elegant facing of the robes. It is probable that the northern conquerors introduced the fashion into Europe. We find, that about the year 522, when Totila king of the Visigoths reigned in Italy, the Suethons (a people of modern Sweden), found means, by help of the commerce of numberless intervening people, to transmit, for the use of the Romans, sophilinas pelles, the precious skins of the sables. As luxury advanced, furs, even of the most valuable species, were used by princes as linings for their tents: thus Marco Polo, in 1252, found those of the Cham