by the provident buyer.

The Soumac or Cashmere rug calls for no further description than a
Cashmere shawl. With the exception of choice antique specimens which time
has chastened and mellowed into pictures in apricot, fawn, robin's-egg,
and cream colours, the Cashmeres are rather matters of fact than of art.

What are known as Killims, or Kiz-Killims, the better class, are hard
fabrics akin to the Soumacs except that they have no nap on either side,
and are double faced. They are mostly Caucasian and Kurdish, with the bold
designs of those classes, or they come in the beautiful, delicate patterns
of the Sehnas. In their crudest and strongest Kazak figures they appear
in the most brilliant pigments, with soft reds, rose, lake, and vermilion
for contrasting colours, splashed together as on a painter's palette. Of
course they lack the sheen of a rug, but their colour effects are
marvellous. While generally used for portieres and coverings, they are
perfect rugs for a summer cottage, being most durable, and are worthy of
attention. Moreover, fine antique examples are still to be had. Some
collector might be the first to make a specialty of them and garner them
before they pass; the end of the Oriental weaver's pageant. The usual
warning, however, must be given, that they are often cursed with the
barbarous magentas hereinbefore mentioned, a colour which would ruin a
rainbow.

The products of Samarkand are quite out of the ordinary, and thoroughly
Chinese in character. Except by association and classification they have
no resemblance to the Turkestan or any other division. They form a class
by themselves, the legitimate successors of the old Chinese rugs, long
gone by. They are very bold in design, and in colour tend to yellow,
orange, and various soft reds. An inferior make of Samarkands often
appears under the title of Malgaras. They have neither quality nor colour
to commend them.

But there are old Chinese rugs also. Most of them are in the conventional
blue and white, with simple octagonal medallions, with no border to speak
of, and with little strength of character. They are coarsely woven and
have been so commonly imitated by machine reproductions in English
carpetry that even blue and white originals have small merit to boast of.
There were, and doubtless still are, Chinese rugs of far more importance.
Many are noted in the catalogue of a sale in New York City no longer ago
than 1893. From one item remembered,