(d) The actual tying of the colored yarn to the warp, the maker weaves the salvage of a diaper, beginning at the bottom of the warp. To do this he introduces a shoot of hemp or wool or cotton by means of a treadle and crossing the warp, which is re peated until a desired width is woven; then he beats this down with his comb. This cross warp, introduced after each row of the knotted yarn, is called the weft of the rug, which often determines the fineness and the strength of the finished article.
(e) The Oriental rugs are actually tied to the warp— tuft by tuft sepa rately — these are tied by hand; so, properly speaking, rugs are not woven, but built, tied, knotted. This part of the process requires great accuracy and more than Job-like patience.
Two ways of knotting are employed through out the Orient in rug making: (1) The Persian (Sehna) knotting; (2) the Turkish (Ghiordez) knotting. The Persian knotting consists in winding the two ends of the yarn around two separate threads of the warp, and bringing the two ends of the yarn to the surface from between each space of the warp. The Turk ish knotting consists in winding the two ends of the yarn around two separate threads of the warp alternately and bringing the two ends to the surface between every two threads.
The Yarn.— Almost every wooly animal and hairy beast contributes its quota to the floor covering of the Orient, and cotton, hemp and linen, in some cases silk, and even gold and silver threads are used to bind together the °flowing lines of beauty" of the rug.
In the inaccessible fastness of Kirman, the vast mountain chains of Kurdistan and in the enchanting valleys of Shiraz and Kashmere and Euphrates, countless flocks of sheep yield the finest wool, not to mention the soft and downy wool raised in the shadow of Ararat in Armenia, and under the shelter of Demavend in Persia; and the camel of Arabia and the goat of Angora and of Bokhara vie with each other in their contribution of marvelous hair, which is transformed into bits of scintillating gems in the hands of the skilful artist of the Orient.
The wool, after being sheared, is washed thoroughly and sorted and carded upon crude wooden or iron rakes and afterward spun very much after Mr. James Bryce's descrip tion: °Each, (spinner) like the fates of Ca tullus, bore a distaff in her hand, with a lump of wool upon her wrist, and this they plied as they drove their flocks before them.* And,
when thus the wool is spun, it is made into skeins ready for the dyer's vat.
The Dyes.— To dye the yarn is a separate industry in the Orient, and the skilful dyer holds equal rank with the °dervish* and the conjurer, — for, to extract beautiful dyes from animals, insects, trees, plants, roots, herbs, seeds, barks, flowers, berries, fruit and from every imaginable thing yielding color is no less wonderful than the feats of a howling °dervish* or the mysterious exorcism of the magician's wand.
From the old Tyrian purple. which adorned the royal vestments of the ancients, and which is a lost dye to-day, to the ordinary red madder of Asia Minor the extracting of dyes and color ing the yarn is a long-drawn process in an exceedingly primitive manner.
The usual method is to boil in water the ingredients of a given color, with their mor dam of vinegar or some other acid, in an earthen pot, till the desired consistency is reached, every little while the dyer smelling and testing the liquid. Afterward the yarn in skeins is dipped in this preparation until the required shade is obtained, then withdrawn and dried in the sun. Often the dyed yarn is ex posed to the influence of the elements for weeks and weeks, till in the laboratory of nature the dye becomes a permanent portion of the wool, and remains thus as long as the material exists.
There are some dyes which require no such treatment, others which must be produced in an entirely different manner, but in each case the skilled dyer knows just how to obtain best results, and left to his own resources, given his own time, he usually accomplishes the desired end.
Ornamentation.— Taking a wide survey, from the Sea of Marmora at the west to the Yellow Sea at the east, Oriental rugs may be divided into two general classes, according to ornamentation: (a) geometrical; (b) floral. The development of geometrical ornamentation is attributed to the Turanian races occupying the northeastern portions of Asia, most of whose rugs bear the stamp of a more primitive type, which lead us to believe that they are more closely related to the rugs of prehistoric times. The design, popularly known as the Swastika or filfot cross, is believed to constitute the basic pattern of all geometrical ornamenta tion in rugs — indeed, some authorities go further in the assertion that the Swastika was the first design used for ornamentation by the human race.