, 1886-10-09
THE LONDON EXHIBITION.
The Wonders of Indian Art-Artisans at
Work-Ceylon and South Africa.

hhe wonders OF indian Art-Artlsuus at
Work-Ceyion and South Africa.
The London season is being prolonged
TINS year for several reasons, and the
colonial and Indian exhibition has intro
duced a new feature to the social whirl.
Ihere are special entertainments every
where for the colonial and Indian people,
Danquets, balls, flower shows, garden
parties, fetes at the Crystal Palace and
at every other place. The exhibition is a
vast. endless labyrinth Of things strange
and interesting, and one revels in Indian
art products particularlarly. The same
buildings at South Kensington hold it as
held the fisheries, health and inventors
exhibitions in preceding seasons, and
each colony has tried to outdo all the
others in making a great show for itself.
The Indian courts are dreams of carved
and inlaid screens lining the long gall
leries for hundreds and hundreds of
feet, with Indian carpets and draperies
covering the upper walls, trophies of
Indian arms over every doorway. and
the roof all a-futter with flags and pan
ners.
Within the arches of the carved screen
are the glass cases containing jewelry,
silks, muslins. and embroidered stuffs
by the half-mile, and one tears himself
away from one case TO go to another
filled with ven more distracting things.
There are embroideries in gold and colors
to make one sigh with envy, and tissues
of gold thread embroidered with pearls
and beetles wings until they surpass all
ones imaginings of East Indian gor-
geousness. Cashmere shawls and Chud-
dab shawls, chuddahs so fine and silky
that the mythical feat of drawing them
through a ring cen be lone in plain sight,
and ~chuddahs Of infinite shades of soft,
IL blues and reds and grays, bewilder
one In their various presentation. The
Benares brassware, the Bombay carved
woods and case after case of fretted sill
yer hold one before them, and as for
gold and silver and jeweled
1t would seem as if all India had emptied
such treasures into the exhibition. The
Dacca muslins, the famous fabrics known
there as dew of the evening" and
-woven air" from their ~fineness and
transparency. are shown, each yard
worth more than a tissue of gold thread
of the same width.
Better than all these things in cases is
the Indian palace in one of the open
courts, where the pink and white stone
work of the city of Jenpore is repeated
In a model palace, whose first courtyard
Is filled with the shops of native artisans
at work, weaving carpets, embroidering
shawls, cutting stone to the f%ineness of
lace-work, molding clay on the print
tive nntta,fs x.rbaaI n,l Ia.-- s Ill
and silver This Scindiah
palace contains two rooms sacred to the
use of the prince of Wales from which
h public is roped out, but into which
enc can at least look and see the domed
and softly shaded room with its beauti-
full walls, its divans and rugs and a CEN
trail basin of overlooking water that re-
fleets as a mirror the arches and the silk
c%anopied ceiling.
The Ceylon division begins with a copy
OF the gateway and parts of the Buddhist
Temple of the Sacred Tooth of Handy,
and Gantama and Buddhist emblems are
prominent in all the decorations of the
Ceylon gallery. There is a large case of
gems in this division, over which one
hangs enraptured. In it are cats eyes
as large as the end of your thumb, and
ticketed at $4,000 for one such trihe,
and rubies and sapphires Of a size and
color never seen in other exhibitions.
Rubies in the rough, and sapphires of
every other shade beside blue; dull as
trail sapphires that show a five-pointed
star of white light when held at a certain
angle; a~lexandrites hat are alternately
green and red, and softly shining moon
stones dazzle the eye in the range of that
one case of Ceylon treasures. and silver
and gold and pearls. lace and tortoise
shell. make a circle of attractions around
the gems.-"Ruhanah" in Globe Demo
crat.