'Six Months in Persia. In two volumes. Vol. I' [‎210] (225/314)

2 IO
Six Months in Persia.
hands. The wretched weavers sat in two low
rooms, filled with a sour and sickening atmo
sphere. Most of them were pale-faced, weakly
children of ten or twelve years, who hardly
looked up as I entered, but remained bent over
their work, picking up the threads with their
nails, which are kept long, and notched for the
purpose. The patterns are written out in
pamphlets, and painfully committed to memory,
and the children are taught very young—the
younger the better. Their memories are
quicker than those of grown-up folk. So far
as I could understand the patterns, they seemed
to be written in much the same style as those
directions for knitting or crochet which one
sometimes finds on a lady's table— 'knit two,
purl one, thread over, and knit two together.
There was also a youth employed in reading one
of the patterns aloud. I am utterly destitute
of taste in carpets, and gladly made my escape ;
nor had I the courage to enter a shawl manu
factory An East India Company trading post. to which I was next conducted. A
carpet about sixteen feet by ten can be pur
chased in Karman for forty to fifty tomans—
say 16^. to 201. Some carpets take a year to
make, and a decently-good carpet will not be
finished in less than three months; thus,