Kirman is a tract of country close by tho Persian Gulf, to the south of Persia. Ita wool finds its way into the Panjab in considemblo quantities. It is a soft, delicate wool, but its principal use at present unfortunately appears to be the adulteration of genuine pashin. The Kirmani wool from the Persian Gulf finds its way to Amritsar pretty largely from both Kuraehee and Bombay, and is 0 13 0 of the staples used iu adulter ating the pashm or genuine shawl-wool.
The Lena shawl-wool is the produce of the goats of the Tibetan Himalaya. It used to bo prevalent opinion that these goats were found in Kashmir, but that celebrated valley is far too warm and damp for them.
The best shawl-wool is produced in the vicinity of Garo, Manasarowam, and the elevated lands to the eastward. Tho shawl-wool is the fleece of the goat next the skin only ; the outer coat is coarse hair, and the two colours are white and light brown. The dogs of Tartary have also a soft down below tho hair, very little inferior to that of the goats.
Goat's hair is very commonly produced in almost every district of the Panjab, and called cjat.' It is used for making ropes, also for matting, and for the strong bags wherein grain. etc., is carried on the backs of oxen. Grsin dealers use rugs made of it in the shops in which the grain is poured out when being winnowed or weighed. At Dala and Gyani, in Hundes, four or five fleeces of wool, according to size, sold for one rupee, which averages to 2 annas or 3d. the pound. Shawl-wool is produced in a variety of districts in Tibet.
The wool of E;u3tern Turkestan is known as Turfani wool, so called from the city of Turfan. It is this exquisitely fine wool from which the finest shawls and other fabrics of Kashmir are made.
The following are the wools used in the Pan jab :— (a) Pashm, or shawl-wool properly so called, being a downy substance found next the skin and below the thick hair of the Tibetan goat. It is of three colours,—white, drab, and dark lavender (tusha). Tho best kind is produced in the semi Chinese provinces of Turfini, Kieliar, and ex ported via l'arkand to Kashinir. All the finest shawls are made of this wool ; but list he maharaja of Kashmir keeps a strict monopoly of the article. the Panjab shawl-weavers cannot procure it, and have to be content with an inferior kind of pashm produced at Chathan, and exported via Leh to Amritsar, Nurpur, Ludhiana, Jalalpur, and other shawl-weaving towns of the Panjab. The price of white peal= in Kmlimir is, for uneleaned, Ifs. :3 to 4 per lb. ; ditto, cleaned, Its. 6 to 7 per lb.;
of tuslia, uncleaned, Its. 2 to 3 per lb. ; cleaned, from Rs. 5 to 7.
(b) The fleece of the Dumba sheep of Kabul and Peshawur is sometimes called the Kabuli pashm. It is used in the manufacture of the finer sorts of choga, an outer robe or cloak with sleeves worn by Afghans and other Muhammadans of the western frontier.
(c) Wahab Shahi, or Kirmani wool, the soft white wool of a sheep found in Kirman, a tract of country in the south of Persia, by the Persian Gulf. It is used for the manufacture of spurious kinds of shawl-cloth, and for adulterating the te,xture of ICashmir shawls.
(d) The hair of a goat common in Kabul and Peshawur, called pat, from which a texture called pattu is made. (Qu. put ?) (e) The woolly hair of the caniel. From this a coarser kind of choga is made.
(f) The wool of the country sheep of the plains.
A considerable and increasing quantity of wool is exported from India, mostly all of it, latterly, from Bombay, and chiefly to Great Britain, France, and America. Wool of Afghanistan from the white sheep has been increasing as an export, via Kurachee to Britain. The white and the rufous-coloured sheep are shorn twice a year. Sind is not a wool - producing country, though it is to be obtained in its western confines to a great extent, particularly in Cutchi and the Jalawan mountains of the Brahui. The Hindus of the country carry on the trade, and thus much of the article coming into the Bombay market through Sind is misnamed Sindian wool. Many districts, however, accessible through Sind anct the Indus, yield this important article abundaiatly ; that furnished by the Kelat territories finds its way to Bombay via the mountainous road to Sonmiani.
Mr. Powell mentions that all or most of the mammalia of the HimalaYan regions and other Sindlarly situated localities, at an elevation of 11,000 to 13,000 and 14,000 feet, which are consequently subject to severe winters and a high rarity of atmosphere, whether domesticated or wild, such as the dog, yak, ka,rghan etc., possess a wintry inner coat of pam ' of different degrees of fineness. The pashm the•goat is alone the marketable commodity ; but the hair of the yak and Kirghiz camel is in parts cropped, and both in a cleaned and coarse st,ate is made into cloth of different degrees of fineness, for Kirghiz (nomadic) tents, clothing, bedding, saddle-bags, ropes, etc. etc. The hair picked from marketable pam at Kashmir supplies material for a different branch of manufacture, viz. of ropes, saddle-bags, and haircloth of differ ent kinds, qualities, and uses.