Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/238

190 bride brings with her. The designs of these plates are generally floral patterns; the fabric seems similar to that of the Italian Majolica, though coarser in material and execution. The designs are so Persian in character, that it has been thought by some archæologists that these plates were alll imported from the East to Rhodes. There is, however, reason to believe that the greater part of those still existing in the island are of native manufacture, for on some of them are escutcheons with heraldic bearings. Below these plates a string stretches right across the wall; from it hang embroidered napkins wrought with very good taste by the women of the place: below these ornamental hangings is a row of large cupboards, containing various household implements. In another corner hangs the bread-basket, which is a large tray made of reeds, suspended from the ceiling, so as to be quite out of the way of all animals. Arriving just after Easter-day, we saw the Easter bread which had just been made, and which lasts as a stock for many weeks: it is in form like a ring. On another wall was a horizontal string, from which depended the Sunday clothes of both men and women, all beautifully embroidered and scrupulously clean. On one side of the fireplace I noticed a round earthen pot shaped like a bushel, in which the forks and spoons are kept ; and hence this is called kyttalotheke,—.

The mortar is still called, pronounced ; the pestle, or the hand.

The implements of spinning are unchanged from antiquity. The spindle is still called ; the iron