Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/281

 in indigo. This line was then carefully covered by a thread of starch, drawn from a glutinous ball held upon the point of a stick, while the painter turned and tilted the crape to receive it. This starch, or “resist,” as occidental dyers term it, is to prevent the spreading of the colors by capillary attraction, and the limits of every color must be carefully defined, unless the fabric is to be made one of those marvellous studies of blended and

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KINU CHIRIMEN

merging tints. As soon as the first color dried, the first starchy outline was washed out, and another drawn for the second color. After the removal of each “resist,” the square was stretched on bowed bamboos and dried over a hibachi. The artist had purposely worked out his design with such cunning that it was only when the last touches in red had been given that we discovered the Daimonji’s fires burning on the mountain-side, and 265