Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 4.djvu/76

ZUNOZIS. will continue to be, a distinctive feature of the people of India of all ranks and classes who can afford it, whether Hindoo or Mahomedan. The poorest marriage trousseau is not without tissue of some kind as trimniing to wedding garments, and the richer classes indulge in it to the utmost of their means. In Mahomedan families of rank it is in daily use, and it is the province of the mogailanee, or female milliner of the household, to remove the laces and tissues of scarves which "have to go to the wash," and sew them upon fresh ones. Sahoukars and Mahajuns, or bankers, make great use of brocade and tissue scarves, shawls, and turbans, and the same may be said of Zemindars, or landed proprietors of all ranks and classes, and soldiers, especially those in the service of native princes. The chief localities of production in India, and those in which the manufacture has been most perfected, are Benares, Moorshidabad, and Delhi, in the north, Boorhanpoor and Aurngabad in the Deccan, and Arcot and Mysore in the south; but above all those of Benares are the most beautiful, though those of Boorhanpoor and Am'ungabad are the most substantial.

The great beauty of these superb fabrics is owmg, as well to the skill in weaving them, which is well nigh incomprehensible, as to the gold and silver thread which is woven into them in combination with silk or cotton as a basis. The gold thread is made from a bar of the purest silver richly gilt, then beaten out until it can be drawn into wire, which is flattened by being drawn, in its finest state hardly thicker than a hair, over a steel anvil, where it is struck sharply as it passes by a polished steel hammer, and wound on a reel. The delicacy and certainty of this operation is hardly to be described, but is certain and invariable. The wire is then either wound upon silk thread or used plain, as may be required, and the silver wire is used in the same manner. The practice of the craft among Mahomedans is not considered a low one by any means, and the occupation, in most instances, is hereditary. Women are not employed in it, except as winders of the silk and tissue thread, which, in the latter, to avoid knots and kinks, requires peculiar dexterity.

In the brocades of Lyons, the Irish poplins, and other rich European fabrics, gold and silver thread is frequently introduced; but its employment bears no comparison with Indian manufactures, either in the delicacy of the work or its durability. In Indian cloths the gold or silver never tarnishes, while in the others it is very liable to discolour, and is perishable; and this is no doubt attributable to the absence of all alloy in the Indian thread.