We went to the silk bazaar, as one of our party wanted to buy some kerchiefs, and after looking around we went out of the bazaar into a Khan, or caravansary. This was a court, with a fountain in the center. A double story of little rooms opened into this court, and on the upper floor was a silk merchant we wished to find.
The bargaining was conducted a l’Orient. We had coffee and cigarettes, and then the silks were shown.
The merchant wanted twenty francs, the buyer would give six.
Neither could do better, but they slowly unbent so that at the end of half an hour the prices were fifteen selling and ten buying. Then we bade the merchant good-bye, and departed.
We returned in an hour, and then the negotiations went on; the seller stuck at thirteen, and the buyer at eleven and a half, and finally, after at least an hour of talk and the assurance of the merchant that the kerchiefs cost him more than that, a bargain was closed at twelve.
The coup de grace was given when the buyer showed the money in bright Napoleons, and rattled them before the other’s eyes.
The silk merchant wanted to sell something more, and sent his partner or attendant to bring a piece of goods from another room. The piece came, the wrapping was removed, and behold! there appeared on the end of the roll a ticket with the name of a French factory at Lyons.
Much of the silk sold in Constantinople, Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, and Bagdad, as Oriental, is from French looms. I have been repeatedly told so by the merchants, and also by an agent of one of the houses especially devoted to Oriental fabrics. It requires an expert to distinguish the native silks from the French ones.