Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1891 — BOKHARA RUG. [ARTICLE]

BOKHARA RUG.

fhdjr by the Toorkoman gbepberd Women. #. G. W. Benjamin says in Harper's itazirr: The Toorkohiuns who weave the futnoUs rugs attributed by us to Bokhara aro a hordo th* precious ruffians, half shepherd, half robber, who ot ->ne time swept over the plains of Persia almost to the capital, and carried off the people into hopeless shivery, exactly us the Corsairs ot Algiers once harried the coasts of Italy and Spain. I never shall forget meeting a troop of Toorkoumn* on the border of the desert of Khorasstiu. Perhaps the circumstances added to the grotesque picturesqueness of their appearance, We hud boon travelling ull night, and now, as the sun was- rising, looked anxiously towards the little-wall*! town of Aivunketf clinging to the- slope of a treeless hill, where we looked for shelter from a limit that already at that early hour was 107 deg. in the shade. (Jut from the gates rodrf a traim of twenty or thirty Toorkonmns. They wove mounted on bony but sinewy and powerful steeds, and like all Orientals, were perched on lofty saddles that made them look gigantic. They were armed to th* teeth; their huge beak-like noses mid keen dark eyes gave them the aspect «f ravening eagles; their mussive mustaches swept their bosoms. But what gave them an especial appearance that I never shall forget, emphasized as it was by the long shadows they east on the ground, was the immense turban each one wore, reaching out like a sombrero, but of course far more massive. They looked like huge animated mushrooms. However grotesque their appearance, the lowering cowl each one bestowed on me tis ho passed caused nm involuntarily to soo if my revolver was in place, hnuily for immediate use if needed. Now it is to this very people, these roving tribes of slave-catching shepherds, once subject to Persia, but now to Russia, that wo owe some of the very finest rugs and textile fabrics made in the East. Every one Ims heard of the Bokhara rugs, Hut in Persia they tiro called Toorklinun or Toorkoman. Probably they uro attributed to Bokhara because the first rugs of the sort, to reach the European market may have boon taken thoro by travelling merchants trading between Russia ami Bokhara, which is one of the chief marts of the triinscaspian region. The Toorkoman or Bokhara rugs are made by the shepherd women foroxeluslve use in their touts, to spread over their bods, or to servo as portieres to the tent doors. A certain conventional polygonal pattern is peculiar to these rugs composed of nn agreeable arrangement of various tints of a brownish maroon, red, blue, and creamy white, the last tint being obtained by using unblonohod wool. But this design has endless variations. No two rugs are precisely alike. While of u close and durable texture, the Toorkonuin rugs aro generally quite flexible, and the close short surface of the pile is delightfully soft. Nothing cun exceed the tender bloom which the colors of a Toorkoman rug of prime quality assume when mellowed by time. But, on the other hand, one must bo on his guard in purchasing Toorkoman rugs of recent make, us they are liable to bo injured both in the durability of the tints by the intermixture of aniline colors.