Glimpses of Modern Persia 
In some Turkoman rugs—not many— 
certain small parts ot the octagonal pattern 
will be found wrought in silk for the sake of 
the color effect, but the makers of these, 
even, use them preferably for hangings. 
Aside from the velvet wall-coverings, the 
most effective use made of silk piled fabrics 
in Persian house decoration is for portieres. 
1 'hese are woven in the rich Kerman designs, 
though mostly made, I believe, in the North. 
They are amazingly thin and fine and woven 
with great skill, usually following the purely 
floral forms, and are, perhaps, the most 
beautiful things woven in Persia at the pres¬ 
ent time. The shal ,—tor shawl, strictly 
speaking, is, in the land of its derivation, a 
material and not a mere article of apparel,— 
is also extensivelv employed for portieres. 
It is made in Kerman and throughout the 
south of Persia generally and is of exceed¬ 
ingly soft and fine texture. It is about the 
weight ot an ordinary French cashmere. 
For wall rugs a diversity of fabrics and 
designs is used. The Persian, at his best, 
has a clear notion of decorative gravity and 
manages to keep the lighter colors upper¬ 
most in a room, but for practical furnishing 
extreme latitude is assumed in this regard, 
and very substantial fioor rugs are used on 
the walls. The fact that no two panels of 
a wall-covering are alike does not seem to 
matter nowadays. Uniformity is not an 
object. 
Kilims, the pileless fabrics used in this 
country only for couch-covers and portieres, 
are considerably affected for walls in Persia 
on account of their lightness and for the 
reason that they do not take up dust. 
This, too, makes them particularly con¬ 
venient for traveling. In fact, for a multi¬ 
plicity ot purposes the kilim is indispensable, 
and may perhaps be accounted the most 
serviceable fabric known in the Orient, 
since there is no purpose to which it cannot 
be turned. 
The chief advantage which Americans 
would discern in using the rug as it is used 
in Persia, largely to the exclusion of other 
forms of ornament as well as furnishing, 
would be in the vast saving of anxiety in the 
matter of labor, and in its admirable cleanli¬ 
ness. This, cannot, however, be considered 
a factor in the Persian system, for servants 
there are as plentiful as the leaves on the 
trees and are content, almost, to give their 
labor in exchange for what we would count 
the bare necessities of life. With this 
abundance of help the task of house-clean¬ 
ing is reduced to a minimum and robbed 
of its chief terrors. But the Persian’s choice 
of the rug for such universal use must 
rather be credited, as has before been sug¬ 
gested, to his esthetic tendencies and his 
fondness for what conduces to perfect ease 
of mind and body. 
John Kimberly Mumford. 
One of the Gates of Teheran 
43 6 
