the provinces. Even now the courting of a bride in Crete
is often prefaced with the question whether the girl is skilled in the
handling of a loom. But the modern Greek rug is seldom seen outside of
its own country, for it is generally made for home use, and the weaver
is not easily induced to part with it. Besides this, the foreign market
would not be large for them, especially in competition with the
well-known and excellent Oriental rugs.

Greek rugs are of two kinds--the heavy ones which serve for floor
coverings in the winter, and the thinner, which are used all the year
round. Both are made of home-produced wool, often with hemp woof, and
are worked by women and girls only, in wooden looms of a primitive
order.

Athens is the only place in Greece where rugs are produced in a factory.
Under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, an Association for the
Education of Poor Women exists. This philanthropic association has
founded an industrial institution which employs four hundred women and
girls in its various departments, of whom about thirty are engaged in
rug-weaving. The best rugs are those purely Grecian in design and
quality, and for these special orders are generally sent in. The rugs
thus woven are durable and effective. Sometimes an attempt is made to
imitate Turkish rugs, but without their superb effect. Coarse rugs of an
inferior class are sold in the bazaars of Athens. The predominant color
in these is a dingy white, with stripes of various colors at the ends.
The rug is really durable, though the noticeable, fuzzy nap soon wears
off.

MOORISH AND SPANISH RUGS

The Arab conquerors of Spain, or the Moors as they are often called, are
believed to have taught the Spaniards and Venetians the art of
rug-weaving. The rugs now known as Moorish are made by the descendants
of this race. Their leading color is yellow, and in style and quality
they resemble the so-called Smyrna rug. Antique Moorish rugs are found
in the cathedrals of Toledo and Seville. These are relics of the
thirteenth century and have geometric designs.

_Morocco_ rugs are Moorish. Those of modern manufacture are very
inferior. The poorest aniline dyes are used, and it seems hardly
possible that the splendid specimens of the fourteenth to the end of the
seventeenth century were woven in Morocco. But the rugs in the Sultan's
palace at Fez prove this fact, as does the splendid antique rug in the
possession of Prince Schwarzenberg, at Vienn