were broken into a silver plate for me, and sweetmeats
were handed in an enamelled silver bowl. Then the
“ Presence ” feeling sufficiently restored for such exercise,
I was shown other rooms with handsome pieces of
copper ware and many things of silvered tin, and I was
struck with the delicate tact that refused to press me
to buy when I had come as an honoured guest. In my
own boat I was evidently considered capable of fighting
my own battles!
Long were their lists of visitors and customers.
Their books were a guide to the men at the “ helm of
the Indian Empire” for many decades; orders, too,
came by every post; several fat envelopes arrived while
I was there, and with many apologies I was asked to
decipher the contents, as none in the establishment
could read though several could speak English. One
proved to be from a large English house asking for a
consignment of some hundreds of goods, and laying
great stress on the necessity for an equality of metal,
a hint the hosts evidently considered extremely unnecessary.
Another was from a very highly-placed lady,
ordering a complete silver toilet set; while a third from
an officer—young, I presumed—wishing for the sort of
thing people use on tables for a wedding present, to be
neither too' costly or too rubbishy. Then, as payment
for the trouble inflicted, I was offered and deigned to
accept a little napkin ring of crushed turquoise work,
and with much courteous salaaming I parted from my
kind entertainers and wandered into a neighbouring
warehouse, where was a family of workers in “ papier-
mache.”
That word is somewhat of a misnomer nowadays, for
practically that material, made by pulping and moulding
coarse country paper, is scarcely seen, but the style of
painting used on it in Persia and introduced from there
centuries ago, is now employed for decorating a variety
of objects made of a close-grained white wood, and the
result is very similar, the varnish, procured by boiling
clear copal (sundras) in pure turpentine, being that
used for the genuine papier-mache. The artist whose
work I was looking at was a well-known worker,
and certainly he deserved his reputation. Quite old,
his thin, dried-up hands still retained their early
steadiness and dexterity, and without measurements
or compasses he produced the most intricate and oft-
repeated designs with almost mathematical precision;
his colouring, too, was very lovely, and his combinations
of cherry red and green, blue greens and purples,
and his use of gold showed the perfection of his art.
Few of the Kashmir industries have suffered more than
the papier-mache trade from the many visitors who of
late years have wandered up to the northern capital
for the hot months, and the cheap, quick work, which
is chiefly in demand, has ruined the quality. A few,
however, still remain who are clever enough to be able
to get their own prices, and the one I visited was one
of these. I t was impossible to hurry him, but each
thing finished, whether tiny stamp-box or larger wares,
such as blotting-book or card table, was a masterpiece.
Many of his patterns were of unknown antiquity—the
“ flower patterns ” of Persian origin showing a network
of blossoms on a golden ground, the “ devil pattern,”
from mysterious Kabul, with a thousand fiendish
figures mixed in inextricable confusion. He was also
w illin g to copy anything that struck him as suitable or
pretty—sprigs of flowers from a sketch-book, birds, or
scrolls from English cards—and he was vastly delighted
by the present of a painting of a kingfisher, that being