Morning journal and courier., 1880-12-29
A Tale of Turkey Carpets.
How and Where They nre Made and the
Cost of Their Manufacture.
Gave Ia

How and Where They nre Made and the
Cost of Their Manufacture.
From st. James Gazette.l
One of the most important Industries of
the Ottoman Empire, and certainly the chief
industry of Asia Minor, always excepting ag
riculture, is the making of carpets. Some of
the factories are now furnished with looms
quite in the European manner, but it is not
in such factories that these famous fabrics
are chiefly produced; the peasants IN their
mud-houses, and the nomad Yuruks IN their
tents, all contribute to the many kinds that
are made The annual value of the carpets
of Anatolia approaches e10O, 900; and of
these but a small number remain in Turkey
when compared with those distributed over
Europe and America, where the demand is
constantly increasing. About three-fourths
of the carpets come to England (but not all
for home consumption) and about one-sixth
goes to France. These large exports keep
prices at fair level, and in the best shops of
London and Paris all kinds of eastern carpets
can be got for ready money more cheaply
than the casual traveller can buy them on the
spot This applies to the finest old carpets
as well as to the new ones; for even with
good and trusty dragoman one may have to
lose the best part of day hagglng for half
dozen yelvety mellowed Daghestans with a
carpet dealer of Smyrna, Cairo or Alexandria,
and after all be victimized to some extent.
Ooshak, large village of artisans, about
six days journey due east of Smyrna, is the
headquarters of the manufacture of the car
pets known to us for generations as Turkey
carpets'' and in France as "tapis de Smyrne."
The patterns are Turkish, or rather arabesque.
At Ooshak there are at full work hundreds of
the looms called tesy1k, employing about
three thousand women, and turning out about
eighty-five thousand square yards of carpets
of all sizes and qualities annually. carpet
of between seven and eight yards long Will
L. at
by side Their wages are about eight pias-
tres week, which, it is estimated, comes to
about Is Sd for each yard of carpet woven
The wool used comes from the villages round
about, and is bought for about halfpenny
q pound in its uncleaned state. When washed
and bleached it loses at least one-third of its
weight. The foundation of the carpet is
made of an inferior wool, and the whole ma
terial of the fabric may cost Is. Cd. yard.
This does not include the dyeing, which is
managed by the men and forms the chief Item
of cost. The colors that have SO long salts
fed our western eyes are produced for the
most part with madder, cochineal and indigo.
Madder root, or alizari (Rubtu tt'actorune)
gives the fine old Turkey red, " and is large
ly grown in Asia Minor; the best roots cost
from 4d to sd. per pound. Coch1neal is I'M
ported from England and France, and being
an expensive dye, considerably raises the
price of carpets It was not used before the
year 1856 anterior to that date madder alone
was employed for reds, and this fact gives an
epoch for the carpet fancier. The indigo is
brought from England or from India. Vel
lows are got from the seeds of RhdnaraLs At-
tes7sus, which is cultivated largely in the cas-
tern parts of Karamania and is getting dearer
every day; it now costs about Is &c. pound.
Other dyes which are imported from Eu-
rope, are used to obtain the more tender
tints and tone down to the general effect.
The ssvelvet'' carpets which have attained
such a vogue were not made at Ooshak till
the year 1860.
At Ghiurdhes, which is also village of
artisans in Anatolia, two days journey to the