Page:Gódávari.djvu/134

108 hides and skins are first soaked in clean water for a night, then in chunam and water for twelve days so that the hair may be easily scraped off, next in clean water for two days, then for two more days in chunam and water, next in a decoction of tangédu (Cassia auriailata) bark for a fortnight, and finally in a solution of gall-nut for three days. They are then rubbed with gingelly oil and are smoothened by being scraped with a blunt copper tool. Most of the leather thus produced is exported to Madras. Rough shoes of home-tanned leather are made by Mádigas in almost all the low-country villages. Those produced in Siripalli in the Amaláapuram taluk are well known. Sanapalli-lanka in the same taluk had formerly a name for this industry. Good boots and slippers, excellent native shoes and Muhammadan slippers (sadávu) are i manufactured in several centres. The common work is done by Mádigas, and the better class by Múchis, who ornament the Muhammadan slippers with elaborate designs in silk and bits of metal. The handiwork of the latter is exported to Hyderabad and Rangoon through the local Muhammadan merchants. Cocanada and Rajahmundry are the chief centres of the industry, but the work at Peddápuram is good, and some is done at Samalkot, Tuni, Pithápuram and Dowlaishweram. Good boots and slippers are also made at the Rajahmundry jail. Baskets are made from date fibre, palmyra leaves and split bamboo by Yerukalas, Mádigas and Médaras respectively, and from rattan by Yerukalas in parts of Pithápuram taluk.

Black 'glass' bangles are made in several villages, notably by a few Linga Balijas in Sítarámpuram and Hamsavaram in the Tuni division and at Rágampéta in Peddápuram and by some Kápus in Duppalapúdi in Rajahmundry. At Rágampéta the Linga Balijas also blow simple flasks or retorts of this 'glass,' which are used in making sublimate of mercury (see below) in the neighbouring village of Jagammapéta. The 'glass' is imported from Nellore or Madras, and is manufactured by lixiviating alkaline earth, allowing the salts to crystallize out in the sun, and heating them in a crucible for some hours with flint and bits of broken bangles. The vitreous mass so produced is melted in this district in circular furnaces and the bangles are made by taking a small quantity of the molten 'glass' on the point of an iron rod, which is then twirled rapidly round until the glass assumes a roughly annular shape. This ring is transferred, while still glowing, to a heated conical clay mould, which the workman twists rapidly round with one hand while with the other he shapes