The Story of Silk

about 4,000 years ago the chinese discovered the secret of the no one knows exactly how or when this important discovery was one story says that a young princess was drinking tea in her garden and watching silkworms spin by chance one dropped into her tea and the hot tea made it when the girl tried to take the cocoon out of her tea, it became separated and she pulled out a long silk

the chinese learned to weave the silk thread into for 2,000 years they were the only people who knew how to make the chinese merchants sold silk cloth throughout asia and europe and became was so expensive that it was called the cloth of kings .everyone wanted to learn how to make silk, but the chinese kept the secret carefully guarded①.

finally the secret was in the sixth century, two monks learned about the silkworms and their they spent several years in china and finaly found a way to take some silkworm eggs out of the the monks always carried bamboo canes②. one day they hid some eggs in the hollow canes, and walked out of china with it is said that the development of the silk industry in other countries came from those few eggs which the monks had carried out of

①kept the secret carefully guarded 严守秘密

②bamboo canes 竹手杖