KONIAH _Facing page_ 22

III. KAZAK " " 36

IV. SEHNA " " 44

V. CHICHI " " 50

VI. KABISTAN " " 62

VII. GHEORDEZ " " 70

VIII. KOULAH " " 72

IX. MELEZ " " 74

X. BELUCHISTAN " " 80

XI. ANATOLIAN PILLOWS " " 94

XII. BERGAMA " " 124

The Oriental Rug

CHAPTER I

THE MYSTERY OF THE RUG

To judge of an Oriental rug rightly, it must be looked at from several
points of view, or, at least, from two aspects; against the light and with
the light. From the first standpoint, against the light of knowledge,
speaking figuratively, there may be seen only a number of rude and awkward
figures in crude colours scattered erratically on a dark or dingy-looking
background, a fringe of coarse and ragged strings at either end, and rough
frays of yarn at the sides. This is what is accepted by many people as an
Oriental rug. And indeed this is what most rugs are.

If, on the other hand, we view our rugs with the light of a better wisdom
and happier experience, we will see the richest and softest of colours,
the most harmonious shadings and blendings, medallions brilliant as
jewels, or geometrical designs beautiful as the rose windows of a
cathedral; or, again, graceful combinations of charmingly conventionalized
flowers and delicate traceries and arabesques,--all these displaying new
glories of ever changing and never tiring beauty. Each woven picture, too,
is as soft to tread upon as a closely mown lawn, and caresses the feet
that sink into its pile. These are Oriental rugs as their admirers know
and love them.

Perhaps the chief charm of all such beautiful rugs is in their mystery.
Their designs are odd and strange and full of hidden meanings, and their
effects are often evolved from the crudest and clumsiest figures, hooks
and squares and angles; they owe their wealth of colour to simple
vegetable dyes from the woods and fields and gardens, and yet the secret
of many of these dyes is still a secret, or has long ago been lost. The
places whence the rugs come, the people who make them and those who sell
them, all are mysterious and hard to know and understand.

Moreover, broadly speaking, there are no experts on the subject, no
authorities, no literature. He who would know them