Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/182

 twist, and tapatis, ckarkanas , adotars , and h liras of Lan- cashire twist In the Hardoi district the muslin called mmnudi i's still in considerable demand, and weaving also thrives at Tan da, Nawabganj, Baiswara, and cotton printing at Kheri, all in the same district. In the Kheri district [quite distinct from the town before named] the largest in Oudh, cotton weaving is pursued by 3,155 and cotton printing by 990 artificers. At Biswari, in the Sitapur district, there are 100 families of weavers, and no emigration of distressed weavers has yet taken place from this district. At Jais, in the Sultanpur district, various kinds of textile cloths, both plain and brocaded, are manufactured, of which a peculiar kind of muslin called tanzih is the most famous. The weavers have a curious art of in-weaving with it, at the time of its manufacture, any design that may be suggested to them. Verses and sentences are most common, and these are varied to suit every taste and creed. Some are passages from the Koran, others from the Vedas, and others from Watts’s moral songs and hymns. In the Lucknow district the weavers were at one time highly prosperous, but have now but small work for their looms. The number of looms is said to be 1,474, the number of pieces turned out 89,159, of the total yearly value of ^15,347, or about ^10 on each loom. Cotton printing, however, still continues to be a successful calling in the city of Lucknow, although Manchester chintzes sell for a shilling the yard, while those printed on the spot cost twenty pence the yard. But the Lucknow chintzes are far superior in colour, the Kukrail and Eaita rivers being famous for the purity of the tints their waters give to the deep-toned dyes of India. Formerly the weavers of Tanda in the Fyzabad district used to produce the most delicate muslins, but now they are seldom made.

Bengal. — - Cotton fabrics are manufactured all over Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, and Assam. Superior cotton cloth is made in the Satkirah subdivision of the twenty-four Pergunnas, and at several places in Bard wan. The line cotton manufacture of