PLATE XXX1Y.
The necessity for providing, in every hot country, such inclosures as maintain privacy, and at the sametime ensure efficient ventilation, has conduced, more especially among the Oriental nations, to the perfectionof a style of openwork design comparatively unknown to the inhabitants of colder climes. Such ingeniousreticulations of line as spread over a plain surface, and admit of numerous perforations, wdiich rather enhancethan interfere with the symmetry of the entire composition, found especial favour among the faithful followersof the Prophet, and wherever their conquests have planted his standard this especial style of design is found toflourish in its highest perfection.
In India, in Spain, on the north-west coast of Africa, and throughout Persia and Turkey, both in stone,in wood, and in plaster, numerous external inclosures and internal partitions are to be met with, framed on theprinciple to which we have alluded. These screens, for so they may be fairly called, serve at once to effectuallyconceal from the gaze of the distant spectator the precise form of any dark-eyed beauty who may take delightin peeping through their apertures, and at the same time to enable the lady to examine clearly and at herease whatever passing incidents may attract her attention and vary the monotony of the customary hareem life.
It is, however, in Cairo , above all other localities, that this style of inclosure has been most lavishlyindulged in. Perforated stone and wood-work are there to be met w T ith as the general basis of the archi-tectural decorations of the most ancient mosques as well as of the most modern mansions. The overhanginggalleries, wdiich tend to still further diminish the width of the already narrow streets, consist of framing ofwooden quarters, heads, and sills, so arranged as to leave openings which are almost invariably filled in withwooden lattice-work. The panels which are nearest the ground are generally closed, and the pattern as itrises increases in openness. Above the level of the head the air is allowed to enter as freely as possible, andthus, wdiile the occupants of the apartments are hidden, light and air are permitted to enter.
The above description of inclosure is, in proportion to the relative size of the tw r o cities, scarcely lessprevalent at Tunis than at Cairo ; and in the open-work filling-in of the various panels an almost equalamount of ingenuity is displayed. In Plate XV., an interesting illustration was given of the mode in whichplaster is frequently perforated to form a screen, and in the present plate w T e offer a specimen in wood of equalbeauty, exhibiting many of the most commonly-occurring patterns in the artistic and lace-like joinery of theTunisians. Although in the object engraved, which serves merely as a species of ornament across wdiich gunsand other arms are supported by metal brackets fixed on each side of it, the interstices are backed up withcoloured foil and with looking-glass, and by imagining that back-ground removed, we may form a notion of theextreme elaboration to which the ordinary wood-work, framed on the perforated principle, is carried. Oneof the most ingenious modes by wdiich economy in the formation, and strength in the construction of thelighter varieties of wooden screen-work are frequently insured, is by stringing alternately a number of woodenbeads and rolls upon a first series of iron rods, which are laid parallel to one another. The beads are alsopierced in a direction contrary to that by which they are strung to the first series of iron rods, and a second seriesof iron rods are passed through them, as well as through rolls, which serve to separate the two crossing lines of