The textures of the dhoti, saree, loongee, man u , factured in Britain and sent to India, are in general too close, too much like calico in fact, which makes the garment hot, heavy in wear, and difficult to wash. The surface becomes rough and fuzzy' in use, from which the native fabric remains free. Comparatively few native women of any class or degree wear white ; if they do wear it, the dress has broatl borders and ends. But what all classea wear are coloured cloths,— black, red, blue, occasionally orange and green, violet, and grey. All through Western, Central. and Southern India sarees are striped and checked in an infinite variety of patterns. Narrainpet, Dhanwarum, and Aiuktul in the Nizara's terri tories ; Gudduk arid Bettigherry in Dharwar ; Kolhapur, Nasik, Yeokla, and ninny other manu facturing towns in the Delthau ; Arnee, in the south, and elsewhere, send out articles of excellent texture, with beautifully-arranged colours aud patterns, both in stripes and checks. For the costly and superb fabrics of cloths of gold and silver (kiinkhab), and the classe- s of washing satins (mushroo and heinroo), the gold and silver thread is simply the result of skilful and delicate manipulation. The gold and silver cloths (kinikliabs) rtre used for state dresses and trousers, the latter by men aud women ; and ladies of rank usually possess petticoats or skirts of these gorgeous fabrics. Mushroo and hemroo are not used for tunics, but for men's and women's trousers and women's skirts, as also for covering bedding and pillows ; they are very strong and durable fabrics, wash well, and pre serve their colour, however long worn or roughly used. They can hardly be compared with British satins, which, however, if more delicate in colour and texture, are unfitted for the purposes to which the Indian fabrics axe applied. Many of the borders of loongees, dhotis, and sarees are like plain silk ribbons. in some instances corded or ribbed, in others flat.
The manufacture of Kashmir shawls is not peculiar to that province. Those formerly issued from that province were exquisitely woven, with unrivalled elegance and chasteness of design, softne.ss and finish, in quality, arrangement of colours, and use of dyes which the finest Paisley and French shawls do not approach. The exquisite shawls of Kashmir grow rarer and rarer every year, and their place has been usurped by hand-embroidered fabrics of lower value, with more showy and more vulgar patterns. In the Panjab and Dehli, of late years, workmeu have commenced to embroider Kashmir cloth and net with floss silk and braid, but solely for sale to Europeans, who wear them as tunics, jackets, scarfs, and the like. In the hand-worked Kashmir shawls, as also in the Dehli work, wooden needles of hard wood are used, slightly charred, with a hole in the centre of the needle to receive the yarn.
The Muhammadan weavers of India produce plain muslins, such as turbands, scarfs, the loougees or waist-cloths worn only by Muham madams, and coarse cloths, called jote and khadi. They seldom weave coloured yarn, except for loongees, and pieces of soussi, a fabric somewhat coarse but very durable, used by women for petticoats and trousers.. They are strict in their religions observances. They marry among their own body. Hbadu weavers are of different degrees of caste ; those of Northern India are termed Kori or Koreya, aud have several divisions who eat meat and drink spirits. The
non - Aryan Koli also weaves a coaxse cloth ; as also the Julai, a Sudra race found all over India. They weave plain as well as coloured fabrics, fine goods, turbands, scarfs, bodices, or silk or cotton or mixed sarees, or women's cloths, and dhotis or men's cloths. The manner in which they arrange their colours' and weave stripes and checks, with broad borders of figured silks, evince great practical knowledge of and perfection in their art.
The rutual, used as a cloth for the head, is of cotton or of silk.
The saree of women is of silk, or of plain white, striped, and flowered muslins, with silk borders and ends, plain, or with gold thread. They are of comparatively loose, open texture, soft and pliable, and when worn as an entire garment, they fall gracefally to the shape, and are readily adjusted.
Ordinary cloths woven in India, are the dhoti, do-patta, and loongee waist-cloths \of cotton worn by Hindu inen.
Soussi is a somewhat coarse cotton fabric, used by Muhammadan women for petticoats and trousers, also for covering cotton mattresses and other like purposes.
The thread or yarn from which the manufac tures of Narrainpet, Dharwar, Muktul, Amar chinta, and Gudwal are woven, is spun in the adjoining districts. The spinners are Dhers, who are unrivalled in this branch of industry. They purchase the cotton in the seed, which is the produce of Shorapur and the country around, and it is cleaned entirely by the hand, as the use of a churka or otber cleaning implement they allege breaks or injures the fibre. The spinning wheel has a large circumference, and is in some instances worked by a treadle, and the spinning is carried on in a close room, from which wind is carefully excluded. The perfection of the cotton manufactures of Narrainpet, Dharwar, and Muktul, as well in regard to colour as texture, is attributed by the native weavers to the quality of the water, in regard to which they are most particular, and to the clays and earths obtainable near those places in which the thread is washed after its long oil process. The water is repre sented as hard and nnfit for culinary purposes or washing, yet without salt, arid which, in washing the thread, and brushing it as stretched on the loom, contracts the fibre and renders it clean and smooth in working. There can be no doubt of the permanency of the colours, and that all the madder reds and browns improve with washing. It is of essential importance to use none but per manent colours, as any others subjected to the rough treatment of Indian washerrnen would speedily fade or change. The silk dyes are perhaps less permanent than the cotton, but still they last many years, and bear frequent washing..
The Kori or Koreya are 'Hindu weavers of Northern India. The Tanti weavers are also Hindus. In theChutia Nagpur province of Bengal there are about 50,000, of helot weaver races, besides whom are thousands of weavers in the Pan or Panwa, Ganda, and Chik of the southern Tributary Estates, and the Pab and Panika of the western districts have features rather of Hindu form than Kolarian or Dravidian.
Thoughout British India Hindu weavers are considered a low caste, and to escape from this position many of them have embraced Muham madanism, and are called Julai or Julaha. Momin, in Arabic a true believer, is a name often applied to Indian Muhammadan weavers.—Ed. Rev., July 1867 ; Ward, iii. p. 126; Dr. TVatson. See Arts and .Manufactures.