384 ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



This fabric has always been popular for the festal clothing of the 

 nobles, and the court used often to make gifts of it. Japanese 

 reports say that the Mikado in his excursion through Middle and 

 Northern Hondo presented many ells of Habutai to his hosts. 

 Kabe Habutai is always woven in broader widths than the common 

 smooth or twilled silks. In 1875, a piece of i6'6 meters, 70 centi- 

 meters broad, cost in Kioto, 13 yen, or a little more than £2 \os. 



The most popular rough, lustreless silk of Japan, both plain and 

 figured, undoubtedly is Chirimen or crape. While the manufacture 

 of the several kinds, as well as their appearance, is considerably 

 different, there is one trait common to them all. It consists in 

 this, that both threads are made quite strong, but the woof thread 

 is twisted on the twisting machine, part to the right and part to 

 the left. In the weft the double twisted warp thread alternates 

 with the two different kinds. When the piece (Tan or I'tan) is 

 finished it is placed in a bath, undergoes a considerable shrinkage, 

 especially in breadth, is then washed in water, and before drying is 

 stretched and rolled on a wooden cylinder, then perfectly dried in 

 the sun. Crape of this kind, for the making of which the so-called 

 crape machine is unknown, can only be dyed in the piece. The 

 crimping of the fabric in the bath, narrows the width from 20 to 30 

 per cent., but the length, only about 10 per cent. It will be 

 evident that this shrinkage and the uneven surface are due to the 

 peculiar twisting of the weft. Crape, when it comes from the loom 

 is light and porous, but the meshes close during the bath and 

 drying. Its durability is much greater and its price correspond- 

 ingly higher than that of smooth fabrics. 



Bavier, in Plate II. fig. 2 of his above-mentioned work, gives an 

 excellent illustration of the twisting machine used in Japan, which 

 prepares the woof threads for Chirimen. By it, from 24 to 48 woof 

 threads are strongly twisted at the same time, half to the right, and 

 half to the left. The apparatus is called in Japan 6-guruma — the 

 great wheel — after the most prominent feature, a great thread 

 wheel turned by the hand, which sets all the spools and reels on 

 both sides in motion. 



Plain Chirimen weaving is carried on extensively in Nagahama, 

 on the north-east shore of the Biwa Lake. Usually two or three 

 looms are to be found in a house, one for 0-haba, the widest 

 breadth of 84 centimeters, one for Ko-haba, narrow width of 45 to 60 

 centimeters, and one for Kinu-chijimi, a wrinkled-looking fabric, that 

 becomes wavy after the bath, but still differs from crape. For 

 crape fabrics warp and woof are made from six or seven simple 

 strands of reeled silk, and the woof thread twisted very hard. In 

 weaving, the shuttle with the left twisted thread goes in and out, 

 and then a second follows with the one twisted to the right. Thus 

 two threads with a left torsion are followed by two having a right 

 torsion. The finished web is boiled in an iron kettle for some 

 hours with straw ashes and water, and a bluish shade is often given 



