PLATE XXIV.
The Great Exhibition displayed, probably, no more striking deviation from the ordinary relation in whichthe method of manufacture stands to the finished article, than was evidenced by the extraordinary discrepancybetween the rudeness of the Indian looms and the refined beauty and delicacy of the fabrics produced by them.A very few lines of description will serve to indicate at once the simplest series of operations by which textilegoods can be fabricated, and the customary practice of the Indian weaver. The workman first determinesthe width and material of the stuff he is about to make, and selects as many skeins of yarn or twist, of uniformlength, as he wishes to have threads in the width of his fabric. He then prepares two bamboo rollers, anda fine comb made of strips of split bamboo tied together. Attended by his wife, or some other assistant, hethen carries out to a field the materials he has prepared. The ends of the threads are first passed throughthe interstices of the comb, and then secured to one of the bamboo rollers; this is done to every thread,until the whole series, making up the width, are attached in a uniform line. The roller, thus prepared, is fixed tothe ground; the skeins are then undone, and the threads are extended to their full length. The comb, beingdrawn along to the end farthest from the first roller, prevents the threads from entangling, and retains them at thesame distance apart at which they were secured to the first roller. The ends are then secured to the secondroller; the practice of the workman enabling him to give an exactly similar amount of tension to every thread.The first roller is then wound round, and thus the warp for the fabric is prepared.
The weaver then takes himself and his apparatus, either to a shady spot under a tree, or to an openshed if he should be fortunate enough to possess one. He there fixes one of his rollers in clefts cut in postsa few inches high, and then partially unrolling the warp, he extends the threads horizontally, and secures thesecond roller in a similar manner to that in which he had already fixed the first. A hole being dug beneathone of the rollers, the weaver places his feet in it, seating himself on the edge. He then suspends above hishead, at a foot or two in front of him, two pieces of bamboo, each one having half as many strings dependingfrom it as there are threads in the width of his warp. If we might imagine these threads to be distinguishedby odd and even numbers, it would be correct to say, that by means of loops in the dependent strings hethen attaches all the odd-numbered threads to one piece of bamboo (Anglice , a heckle), and all the even toanother. Each of the cords which, passing over either a branch of the tree, or a beam of the shed, servesto suspend a bamboo heckle, having a loop tied to it, through which is passed the great toe of the weaver’sfoot, enables him, by alternating his pressure upon the loops, to raise or depress each alternate thread of hisWarp. He then prepares his shuttle, which is more like a long knitting-needle than an ordinary English shuttle, winding on it a length of the thread which he determines to make use of for his weft or shute.
Seating himself in front of his work, and pressing down one of the loops, so as to laise the odd-numberedthreads above the even, he throws his shuttle from one side to the other, leaving a weft - thread behind:this thread he presses up to the bamboo roller with his long shuttle (thus superseding the use of the‘‘batten”), and then raising his foot so as to release the tension of the first loop, and pressing on thesecond, he depresses the odd-numbered warp - threads, and raises the even-numbered. The crossing of