In that part of Asia, where some of our brave countrymen have penetrated only to die—in that country where Charles Stoddart and his friend Conolly, whose faces will never be forgotten by some of us, and whose voices still sound in our ears, consoled each other through a loathsome imprisonment, and went out together to lose their heads in the market-place of the capital; in that distant and impracticable country of Bokhara, which we are ready to say we will never have any connection with—there are people always employed in our service. We are not now thinking of the Bokhara clover, which is such a treat to our cows and horses. We owe that, and lucerne, and others of our green crops, to the interior of Asia; but we are thinking of something more elaborate. In Bokhara, the camel is watched while the fine hair on the belly is growing: this fine hair is cut off so carefully that not a fibre is lost; it is put by until there is enough to spin into a yarn, unequalled for softness, and then it is dyed all manner of bright colors, and woven in strips eight inches wide of shawl patterns, such as—with all our pains and cost, with all our Schools of Design, and study of nature and art—we are not yet able to rival. These strips are then sewn together so cunningly that no European can discover the joins. The precious merchandise is delivered to traders who receive it on credit. On their return from market, they pay the price of the shawls at the Bokhara value, with 30 per cent. interest; or, if they cannot do this in consequence of having been robbed, or of any other misfortune, they stay away, and are never seen again in their native land.
Where is this market?—So far away from home that the traders wear out their clothes during their journey, and their fair skins become as brown as mulattoes. On, on, on they go, day after day, month after month, on their pacing camels or beside them, over table-lands mounting one above another; over grass, among rocks, over sand, through snows; now chilled to the marrow by icy winds; now scorched by sunshine, from which there is no shelter but the flat cotton caps with which they thatch their bare crowns: on, on, for fifteen thousand miles, to the borders of Russia, to sell the shawls which are to hang on ladies’ shoulders in Hyde Park, and where beauties most do congregate in Paris and Vienna.
The passion for shawls among all women everywhere is remarkable. In one country, the shawl may flow from the head like a veil; in another, it hangs from the shoulders; in another, it is knotted round the loins as a sash; in yet another, it is swathed round the body as a petticoat. Wherever worn at all, it is the pet article of dress. From a time remote beyond computation, the sheep of Cashmere have been cherished on their hills, and the goats of Thibet on their plains, and the camels of Tartary on their steppes, to furnish material for the choicest shawls. From time immemorial, the patterns which we know so well have been handed down in a half-sacred tradition through a Hindoo ancestry, which puts even Welsh pedigrees to shame. For thousands of years have the bright dyes, which are the despair of our science and art, been glittering in Indian looms, in those primitive pits under the palm-tree, where the whimsical patterns grow like the wildflower springing from the soil. For thousands of years have Eastern potentates made presents of shawls to distinguished strangers, together with diamonds and pearls.
At this day, when an Eastern prince sends gifts to European sovereigns, there are shawls to the value of thousands of pounds, together with jewels, perfumes, and wild beasts, and valuable horses; just as was done in the days of the Pharaohs, as the paintings on Egyptian tombs show us at this day. And the subjects of sovereigns have as much liking for shawls as any queen. At the Russian Court, the ladies judge one another by their shawls as by their diamonds. In France, the bridegroom wins favor by a judicious gift of this kind. In Cairo and Damascus, the gift of a shawl will cause almost as much heart-burning in the harem as the introduction of a new wife. In England, the daughter of the house spends the whole of her first quarter’s allowance in the purchase of a shawl. The Paris grisette and the London dressmaker go to their work with the little shawl pinned neatly at the waist. The lost gin-drinker covers her rags with the remnants of the shawl of better days. The farmer’s daughter buys a white cotton shawl, with a gay border, for her wedding; and it washes and dyes until, having wrapped all her babies in turn, it is finally dyed black to signalize her widowhood. The maiden aunt, growing elderly, takes to wearing a shawl in the house in mid-winter; and the granny would no more think of going without it at any season than without her cap. When son or grandson comes home from travel, far or near, his present is a new shawl, which she puts on with deep consideration, parting with the old one with a sigh. The Manchester or Birmingham factory-girl buys a gay shawl on credit, wears it on Sunday, puts it in pawn on Monday morning, and takes it out again on Saturday night for another Sunday’s wear, and so on, until she has wasted money that would have bought her a good wardrobe. Thus, from China round the world to Oregon, and from the queen down to the pauper, is the shawl the symbol of woman’s taste and condition. Whence come all these shawls? For it is clear that the supply which arrives from Asia—over bleak continents and wide oceans—can only be for the rich and great. Some of the shawls from Bokhara sell, in the market on the Russian frontier, for two thousand four hundred pounds each. Whence come the hundred thousand shawls that the women of Great Britain purchase every year?
Some of the richest that our ladies wear are from Lyons; and the French taste is so highly esteemed, that our principal manufacturers go to Lyons once or twice a year for specimens and patterns. Some of our greatest ladies of all, even the queen and certain duchesses and countesses offer to our chief manufacturers a sight of their treasures from India, their Cashmeres and other shawls, from a patriotic desire for the improvement of our English patterns. From these, the manufacturers of Norwich and Paisley devise such beautiful things that, but for the unaccountable and unrivaled superiority of the Orientals in the production of this particular article, we should be all satisfaction and admiration. The common cotton shawls, continually lessening in number, worn by women of the working-classes, are made at Manchester, and wherever the cotton manufacture is instituted. In order to study the production of British shawls in perfection, one should visit the Norwich or Paisley manufactures.
If any article of dress could be immutable, it would be the shawl—designed for eternity in the unchanging East—copied from patterns which are the heirloom of a caste—and woven by fatalists, to be worn by adorers of the ancient garment, who resent the idea of the smallest change. Yet has the day arrived which exhibits the manufacture of three distinct kinds of shawls in Paisley. There is the genuine woven shawl with its Asiatic patterns; and there is that which is called a shawl for convenience, but which has nothing Asiatic about it: the tartan—which name is given not only to the checks of divers colors which signify so much to the Scottish eye, but to any kind of mixed or mottled colors and fabric—woven in squares or lengths to cover the shoulder. The third kind is quite modern: the showy, slight and elegant printed shawl, derived from Lyons, and now daily rising in favor. The woven kind is the oldest in Paisley. The tartan kind was introduced from Stirlingshire—without injury to Stirlingshire—which makes as many as ever, but to the great benefit of Paisley. The printed kind has been made about six years, and it is by far the greatest and most expanding manufacture. The most devoted worshipers of the genuine shawl can hardly wonder at this, considering the love of change that is inherent in ladies who dress well, and the difference of cost. A genuine shawl lasts a quarter of a lifetime. Ordinary purchasers give from one pound to ten pounds for one, and can give more if they desire a very superior shawl: a process which it is not convenient to repeat every two or three years. The handsomest printed shawls, meantime, can be had for two pounds, and they will last two years; by the end of which time, probably, the wearer has a mind for something new. The time required for the production answers pretty accurately to these circumstances. It takes a week to weave a shawl of the genuine sort—in the same time, ten or twelve of the tartan or plaid, and twenty or thirty of the printed can be produced.
The processes employed for these three kinds of shawls are wholly different; and we will therefore look at them separately, though we saw them, in fact, under the same roof. As for the tartan shawls, there is no need to enlarge upon them, as their production is much like that of any other kind of variegated cloth. We need mention only one fact in regard to them, which is, however, very noticeable, the recent invention of a machine by which vast time and labor are saved. As we all know, the fringes of cloth shawls are twisted—some threads being twisted together in one direction, and then two of these twists being twisted in the opposite direction. Till a month ago this work was done by girls, in not the pleasantest way, either to themselves or the purchaser, by their wetting their hands from their own mouths, and twisting the threads between their palms. The machine does, in a second of time, the work of fourteen pairs of hands; that is, as two girls attend it, there is a saving of twelve pairs of hands and some portion of time, and the work is done with thorough certainty and perfection; whereas, under the old method, for one girl who could do the work well, there might be several who did it indifferently or ill. The machine—invented by Mr. Hutchinson—must be seen to be understood; for there is no giving an idea, by description, of the nicety with which the brass tongues rise to lift up the threads and to twist them; then throw them together, and rub them against the leather-covered shafts, which—instead of human palms—twist them in the opposite direction. In seeing this machine the old amazement recurs at the size, complication, and dignity of an instrument contrived for so simple a purpose. The dignity, however, resides not in the magnitude of the office, but in the saving of time and human labor.
Of the other two kinds of shawls, which shall we look at first? Let it be the true and venerable woven shawl.
The wool is Australian or German—chiefly Australian. It comes in the form of yarn from Bradford, in hanks which are any thing but white, so that they have first to be washed. Of the washing, dyeing, and warping we need not speak, as they are much the same to the observer’s—and therefore to the reader’s—eye as the preparation of yarns for carpets in Kendal, and of silk for ribbons in Coventry. While the washing and drying, and the dyeing and drying again, are proceeding, the higher labor of preparing the pattern is advancing.
But how much of the lower kind of work can be done during the slow elaboration of the higher? It really requires some patience and fortitude even to witness the mighty task of composing and preparing the pattern of an elaborate shawl. Let the reader study any three square inches of a good shawl border; let the threads be counted, and the colors, and the twists and turnings of the pattern, and then let it be remembered that the general form has to be invented, and the subdivisions, and the details within each form, and the filling up of the spaces between, and the colors—as a whole, and in each particular; and that, before the material can be arranged for the weaving, every separate stitch (so to speak) must be painted down on paper, in its right place. Is it not bewildering to think of?—Much more bewildering and imposing is it to see. As for the first sketch of the design, that is all very pretty; and, the strain on the faculties not being cognizable by the stranger, is easy enough.