SHAWLS, CASHMERE. The secret of the quality of these shawls is not in the working; it is in the beautiful wool from the goats of the Upper Thibet, the equal of which in softness has never yet been found. The goats live in high table-lands of Tartary, where the cold is intense, and to protect them from the piercing blast of winter they have the under-hair or " Poshai," of this deliciously soft and warm material. This wool is brought down to Cashmere once every year by merchants, and sold to the shawl-makers. After thorough cleaning, it is dyed of various colors ; the dyers possess the vegetable or mineral ingredients for all the colors except green, and this they procure from English green baize by boil ing. The color thus obtained is a most beautiful and enduring one, and is very much prized by Mohammedans, being their holy color, to be worn only by de scendants of the Prophet, or those who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. The shawl patterns are drawn upon paper, very minute, and with the greatest pos sible accuracy ; fifty rupees are sometimes paid for the mere drawing of a very elab orate pattern. The dealers in shawls are the agents of merchants residing in Bom bay, Delhi, Lahore, and having branch establishments throughout Asia. These dealers give the order and advance the money to the shawl manuflicturer ; lie makes only to order from the dealer or middleman, and is entirely dependent upon him. The loom is that of the com monest kind, the buildings in which the men work low, confined, and ill-ventila ted. Each man for no women work at the loom) sits with his little bundle of colored wools wound upon small spindles, and a written paper by he is entirely guided as to the number of threads, &e., to take up. He works dis tinct from his neighbor, on his own loom; and as all shawls are made up of small pieces, each piece being about eight inches long, by four wide, the qualities of every workman can easily be detected.
The most skilful earn about eight anus (equal to 25 cents) per day ; this sum is, however, equivalent to a much larger amount, if reckoned at what it will pro cure. These small pieces, when finished, are made over to the agent or dealer, who has them sewn together in a coarse man ner, to judge of the general effect—they are afterwards washed in particular places in a stream branching from the river, and the water is said to possess peculiar pro perties in softening the and bring ing out the brilliancy of the colors not found in any other spot. But few people visit Cashmere for the purpose of pur chasing shawls ; the agents despatch the shawls, after they have been washed, to the larger marts in Asia, and from their correspondents the local merchants pur chase them. Besides the shawl, there are several varieties of dress made from the wool—one the Ahlwan, perfectly plain, of a dirty-white drab, and lilac col ors ; the texture seems delightfully soft, but the large price asked for a piece five or six yards in length, seemed far above the value. The shawl manufacture above described is that of the genuine and much prized kind ; an inferior sort called the " zozuni," or sewn, is that in which there is a plain grOundwork of wool, the Ahl wan dyed of any color, upon which the shawl pattern is worked with the needle. Many of these are very beautiful in ap pearance, and of most elegant patterns, but to the eye of the connoisseur they are almost destitute of valne. The " fum awali" is a striped shawl material, wove in the piece, and used for dressing-gowns, ladies dresses, or for the alkaluk worn by the nobles' of Lucknow in the cold weather.