Prince of Wales, and which were expressly prepared for him, were twenty yards long and one broad, and weighed i,68b grains [three and a half ounces] each. Tavernier states that the ambassador of Shah Safy [a.d. 1628-1641], on his return from India, pre- sented his master with a cocoa-nut, set with jewels, containing a muslin turband thirty yards in length, so exquisitely fine that it could scarcely be felt by the touch. A rare muslin was formerly produced in Dacca, which when laid wet on the grass became invisible : and because it thus became undistinguishable from the evening dew it was named subimam , i.e. “the dew of evening.” Another kind was called ab-rawan , or running water, because it became invisible in water. The demand for the old cotton flowered and sprigged muslins of Dacca in Europe has almost entirely fallen off, but there is a brisk and increasing demand for tussur embroidered muslins, denominated kasidas , throughout India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey.
Central Provinces . — In the Central Provinces cotton looms are found everywhere, and the gold-wrought cotton tissues, which seem like woven sunshine, and brocaded silks of Barhanpur, and the richly-embroidered apparel of Nagpur and P>handara, are famous, and still hold their own against all competition, throughout Central India.
Barhanpur is, however, Mr. Grant informs us in the Gazetteer for Central Provinces, Nagpur, 1870, a declining city. The re- moval from it of the seat of the native government is one cause of this, and another is the return of peaceful times under our administration, which has induced many of the cultivators of the neighbouring lands who resided within the walls for protection, to move nearer to their fields. A third is the advent of the railway, which has destroyed the business of Barhanpur as the depot for the trade between Malwa arid the Dakhan. Another, and the one usually adduced as the sole cause, is the falling-off of the demand for the richer fabrics of inwoven gold, for the production of which the city has always been famous, owing to the breaking
