ORIENTAL IVORY CARVINGS 109 



and card-cases which go by the name of 'Bombay Boxes.' 

 They are made in the variety of inlaid woodwork, or mar- 

 quetry or tarsia, called 'pique, and are not only pretty and 

 pleasing, but interesting on account of its having been found 

 possible to trace the introduction of the work into India from 

 Persia step by step, from Shiraz into Sind, and to Bombay 

 and Surat. In Bombay the inlay is made up of tin wire, 

 sandalwood, ebony, sappan (brazil) wood, ivory white, and 

 stained green, and stag horn. Strips of these materials are 

 bound together in rods, usually three-sided, sometimes 

 round, and frequently obliquely four-sided, or rhombic. 

 They again are so arranged in compound rods as, when cut 

 across, to present a definite pattern, and in the mass have 

 the appearance of rods of varying diameter and shape, or of 

 very thin boards, the latter being intended for borderings. 

 The patterns commonly found in Bombay, finally prepared 

 for use, are chakar-gul, or 'round bloom,' katki-gul, 'hexag- 

 onal bloom,' tinkonia-gul, 'three-cornered bloom,' tiki, a 

 small round pattern, and gandiric, 'plump,' compounded of 

 all the materials used; also ekddnd, 'one grain,' having the 

 appearance of a row of silver beads set in ebony; and port 

 likur, jafran marapech, jeri, baelmutana, sankru hansio, and 

 prohansio, these eight last being bordering patterns. The 

 work was introduced into Sind from Shiraz about a hundred 

 years ago." 



The best modern ivory carving is said to come from the 

 establishment in Delhi conducted by Lala Faqtr Chand, the 

 art having been carried on and transmitted by four genera- 

 tions of his ancestors. He employs about twenty workers, 

 with whom the industry is also hereditary; they are princi- 

 pally, though not exclusively, of the Brahmin caste. The 

 general conditions are very simple, the factory being located 

 above the shop in a small room which the ivory carvers have 

 to share with wood carvers and miniature painters. Space 



