House <y Garden 
Kerman or Tabriz designs. The velvet, 
attached at top and bottom, produces a rich 
effect, similar to that of brocades, or possibly 
of the finest and most ornate of our wall¬ 
papers. There are harder fabrics, too, which 
may be used for this purpose, a plain ground- 
web, embroidered deftly, in repetitive pat¬ 
terns, some of them exquisitely artistic, by 
the same method as is used in the djijims 
common among the Arabs and the Turko¬ 
mans, and by the Persians in the beautifica¬ 
tion of garments. The pronounced colors 
in all these fabrics would make them a 
poor background for pictures or other wall 
ornament, save possibly plaques of ware or 
metal. Where any of these weavings is 
used for wall covering, wainscoting is made 
of some deeper color or heavier design. For 
friezes, in some houses the Turkoman custom 
is followed. Every Turkoman’s tent has 
suspended around its felt wall a long, narrow 
strip, varying in width from eight inches to 
two feet,—a plain web of cream yellow or 
pale fawn color, upon which is woven, in 
raised pile of the finest wool, a running 
design, usually of an arabesque character 
combined with some more realistic element, 
the whole being indicative of the owner’s 
tribe and family, a sort of hall mark. Strips 
similar to these are sometimes woven in 
modern Persia, but with the ordinary rug 
designs, and serve well the purpose of frieze 
or border. 
Wall decorations of the class referred to 
above are far beyond the reach of the ordinary 
Persian pocketbook, however, and the rugs 
are the customary thing. If any number of 
these are silk the owner is fortunate. Ex¬ 
cepting about Samarkand and the Chinese 
border and in some places near the Caspian, 
where mulberry forests abound and silk is 
about as cheap a filament as wool, silk rugs 
are but little used on the floors. They are 
shipped instead to America where there are 
Philistines sufficiently rich tostrewthe floors of 
halls, parlors and even bedrooms with them. 
435 
