India and China furnish all the raw materials for a great variety of colours ; and as indigo under goes a considerable degree of chemical change during its formation, as well as while applied to the dyeing of its blue colour, the people must have early known how to manufacture the several salts which have long been employed as mordants. Mr. Rohde does not think that any durable colours are communicated by natives of India to cotton cloth, except reds and blacks, and modifications of the one or the other ; their deep blues, yellows, and other colours seemed to him very fugitive.
The success which the art attained in India is owing chiefly to the abundant supply of mate rials, whilst the simplest possible form of working these materials has been adopted. The forest products in many places are collected by the dyers or their families. The myrobalan is often left to rot on the ground. The dyers conduct their operations on some river bank, or close to a well with a plentiful supply of water. A fireplace of bricks, and mud utensils of simple make, a large cistern for the principal dye-beck, a hollowed stone for a mortar, and such-like, are enough for the dyer in India, and are what his fathers have used for ages. Yet with these simple means, the Indian dyer, without any great knowledge of chemi8try, works with results which were once the admiration of the world, and are even still sufficiently creditable to him. In the west of India, for a time, the Khatri engrossed the art to themselves. But the trade was also taken up by Mahomedans, who are in India designated Rangrez. In the early days of European intercourse with India, the dyed cloths of Gnjerat were received with great favour in the Portuguese market of Goa ; and colonies of dyers were invited to settle under European protection at Diu and Daman, where dyeing was for a time largely carried on. But the dyers of Western India have fallen behind their brethren in Hindustan, especially those in the Panjab, Kashmir, and Sind, the last country having always been famous for its pre-eminence in this respect.
The dyeing industry in the N.W. Provinces is conducted in two distinct branches, each of which is followed by a separate class of Mahomedaus. These are the Rangrez, who dye in plain colours, and the Chipi, who are. calico printers. The former generally dye cloths which customers send them ; the Chipi purchase plain fabrics, which they print and sell. The Chipi sometimes also dye plain colours, such as the kharua (coarse red) cloth of Mau Ranipur, and the salu, which is a finer cloth, dyed red. The Rangrez also produce varieties of colours by combinations of different dyes.
In the calico printing of India, the apparatus consists of some patterned wooden blocks, and an earthen pot, on. which a_lifilat-,convex bamboo framework is fitted. Over this is placed a thick cloth, generally of wool. The cloth to be printed is stretched on a padded board, and the colour is hand-printed on the cloth with the dye, or a mordant only is printed, the colour being subse quently applied by boiling.
The carpet-wearers of Bangalore, in the most siinple manner, obtain their various soft shades, frotn a light greyish-white through brown and dark greys to black, by sorting the natural fleece, and by their combination aro produced tho har monious effects observed in the Bangalore carpets.
The bags of wool, coming in just as they are clipped, aro picked over by women and boys, and the different shades of wool separated, to be spun into different-coloured yarns. These dull colours forming the groundwork of the carpets, are relieved to a certain extent by indigo blues and turmeric yellows, and by a dull green when the two are combined. But the bright Purples, reds, oranges, and greens, observable on all but the plainest carpets, are now aniline, and the juxta position of these fugitive colours with tho abso lutely fast shades of the natural fleece is very curious. The aniline colours are fleeting. In the bright light of India they go in a few months, or even days, if exposed to direct sunlight ; but a little bright colour with no increase of prices tempts many purchasers.
Most of the colours used in dyeing aro vegetable, a few are from the animal and mineral kingdom. The most vivid and brilliant vegetable colours, such as those of flowers and other parts of plants exposed to the light, aro small in quantity, very fugitive, and difficult to separate. The colouring matters. of plants capable of being isolated, are mostly yellow, brown, and red. Blue dyes fur nished by plants are indigo and litmus. No black vegetable dye has been. isolated. Most vegetable colours are soluble in water, and those which are not FSO can be dissolved in alcohol, ether, or the fixed oils. Vegetable colours are permanent in dry air, but they gradually fade in moist air, especially under tho influence of light. The blue of most flowers is converted into red by an acid, and into green by an alkali. But the methods of dyeing vary. with the nature of the dyestuff, and also with that of the material to be dyed, different methods being adopted for cotton, silk, and wooL In India, the secrets of the mixtures of colours, of the methods of extracting the dyes, of the use of mordants, and of producing every variety of tint that may be nec,essary, descend front fattier to son. The Indian dyers have no chetnical pro cesses, a-s known iu Europe, but Safflower, madder, turmeric, indigo, aro used to produce tho bright est and most delicate tints of scarlet, pink, rose colour, crimson, purple, yellow, orange, and green. The colours aro for the most part very pure and beautiful, and the combinations of colours and tints are most ingenious. Tho people do not admire brilliant or gaudy colours for garments. Tho tints in these have almost a neutral effect. Sober greys, dull but rich madder and cochineal reds and crimsons, neutral greys, browns, greens, and purples, with dull but nch yellows, aro arranged by tho weavers FlO as to produce richness and sobriety of effect, with the utmost harmony of combination. Bright or gaudy colour is wed only sparingly, and then only to produce tho contrast which may be necessary.