DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. 209 



around vocal with the echo of their creaking 

 and frightful sounds. 



The New Mexicans are celebrated for the 

 manufacture of coarse blankets, which is an 

 article of considerable traffic between them 

 and the southern provinces, as also with the 

 neighboring Lidians, and on some occasions 

 with the United States. The finer articles 

 are curiously woven in handsome figures of 

 various colors. These are of different quali- 

 ties, the most ordinary being valued at about 

 two dollars apiece, while those of the finest 

 texture, especially their imitations of the Sa- 

 ^'ajie Navajo, will sell for twenty dollars or 

 more. There have also been made in New 

 Mexico a few imitations of the Sarape Sal- 

 Ulkro,— the blanket of Saltillo, a city of the 

 south celebrated for the manufacture of the 

 most splendid fancy blankets, singularly figur- 

 ed with all the colors of the rainbow. Thes^ 

 are often sold for more than fifty dollars each. 

 Vvhat renders the weaving of the fancy blan- 

 kets extremely tedious, is, that the variegation 

 of colors is all effected with the shuttle, the 

 texture in other respects being perfectly plain, 

 "Without even a twill. An additional value is 

 set upon the fine sarape on account of its be- 

 ing a fashionable substitute for a cloak. In- 

 deed, the inferior sarape is the only over- 

 dress used by the peasantry in the winter. 



Besides blankets, the New Mexicans manu- 

 facture a kind of coarse twilled woollen stuff, • 

 called gerga, which is checkered with black 

 and white, and is used for carpets, and also 



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