Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/173

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the name itself is transferred to an altogether different style of manufacture. Thus, beside Baud ek in from Baghdad, we have Damask from Damascus, and Satin from Zaytoun in China [Yule], Sindon, Syndon, Sendai, Sandal in, and Cendatus, from Sindh, Calico from Calicut, and Muslin from Mosul, Marco Polo, Book I, ch. v, writes of the kingdom of Mosul, “All the cloths of gold and silver that are called Mimlins are made in this country; and those great merchants called Mosolins who carry for sale such quantities of spicery and pearls, and cloths of silk and gold, are also from this kingdom.” In his note [voL i, p, 59] Colonel Yule observes : “We see here that mosoUn or muslin has a very different meaning from what it has now. A quotation from Ives, by Marsden, shews it to have been applied in the middle ages to a strong cotton cloth made at Mosul. Dozy says that the Arabs use Maudlli in the sense of muslin." Tartar! unis, Colonel Yule [Marco Polo , i, 259] believes, were so-called, ‘ ‘ not because they were made in Tartary, but because they were brought from China through the Tartar dominions." Dante alludes to the supposed skill of Turks and Tartars in weaving gorgeous stuffs ; and Boccaccio, commenting thereon, says that Tartarian cloths are so skilfully woven that no painter with his brush could equal them. Thus also Chaucer, as quoted by Colonel Yule :

“On every tnimpe, hanging a broad banere Of fine TartariumP

This is the cloth of gold which Marco Polo calls Natick and Naquts, and he evidently describes the primitive working of gold in strips into it where, Book II, ch, xiv, he writes : ‘‘Now on his birthday, the Great Khan dresses in the best of his robes, all wrought in beaten gold." Buckram is said to be derived from Bokhara. The word occurs [Yule, Marco Poh r i, 59] as Bochorani , Buchcrani , and Boccassini 1 Fustian is said to be derived from Fostat, one of the mediaeval cities that form Cairo, and Taffeta