496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dling bis tools is precisely the opposite of ours. He draws his plane 

 toward him, works his saw in the reverse direction, taps with the side 

 of his queer hammer, and handles his quaintly-chased graving tool in 

 a way at which an English workman would stare. Yet, whether he 

 is laying the shingles on the roof of a cottage, or chasing one of those 

 wonderfully elaborate caskets in metal- work, what English workman 

 can approach him ? His ideas discover an endless originality; indi- 

 vidual impulse, rather than education, seems to inspire his fancy, al- 

 though it may work according to received traditions of the quaint or 

 beautiful ; and, look where we will through a most miscellaneous col- 

 lection, we can scarcely see a trace of servile repetition. In his pic- 

 torial art he can convey a world of expression and suggestion in the 

 very smallest number of touches. Yet when it pleases him to finish, as 

 when he is painting on his delicate porcelain, he is scarcely to be sur- 

 passed in harmonious minuteness. As for his colors, you may puzzle 

 out his secret if you can ; at least he shows you in an open case the 

 chemicals which, as he professes, form his ingredients. All that can 

 be said is, that none of the numerous attempts at imitation have ever 

 proved to be any thing approaching a success. That strange superior- 

 ity in color, not only in the tints, but in their management, is to be re- 

 marked in every one of the Oriental courts. The silks of China excel 

 even those of Japan, in their bright blues and gorgeous crimsons; while, 

 for softened brilliancy and exquisite delicacy of blending, the Persian 

 carpets are confessedly unequalled. The invariably subdued beauty 

 of these patterns argues something more than great mechanical per- 

 fection in the arts of color-making and dyeing. It is proof of a gen- 

 eral purity of taste on the part of the Oriental purchasers for whom 

 the fabrics were originally intended ; for, although many of the best 

 may now be consigned to Europe, the manufacture, precisely as we 

 see it, has been practised from time immemorial ; there are carpets in 

 the Exhibition called modern by comparison, although they may date 

 back for a century or so, and these are of patterns exactly similar to 

 the latest ones. In every thing exhibited from China and Persia, the 

 work is almost invariably good, and the designs felicitous ; although, 

 except in certain specialties, they cannot vie with Japan, yet every 

 now and then one stumbles upon something that is extremely beauti- 

 ful in art. So much can hardly be said of Turkey. Turkey makes a 

 very imposing display; the Sultan contributed 100,000 toward form- 

 ing the collection, and some of the great merchants in Constantinople, 

 Smyrna, and elsewhere, have apparently done their best to advertise 

 themselves. There is a good deal shown in Turkey, as well as in 

 Tunis, that would have attracted great admiration had there been no 

 Japan and no China to provoke unfavorable comparison. The famous 

 Turkey carpets can scarcely be said to be satisfactorily represented. 

 The very best, beautiful as the texture is, fall far short, even in that 

 respect, of the Persian ; while the contrasts displayed in the body of 



