Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

This is one of the most useful insects yet discovered, to Europeans or natives. The natives consume a great quantity of shell lac in making ornamental rings, painted and gilded in various tastes, to decorate the black arms of the ladies, and formed into beads, spiral and linked chains for necklaces, and other ornaments for the hair.

Sealing-wax. Take a stick and heat one end of it upon a charcoal fire, put upon it a few leaves of the shell lac, softened above the fire; keep alternately heating and adding more shell lac, until you have got a mass of three or four pounds of liquified shell lac upon the end of your stick; knead this upon a wetted board, with three ounces of levigated cinnabar; form it into cylindrical pieces, and to give them a polish, rub them while hot with a cotton cloth.

Japanning-Take a lump of shell lac, prepared in the manner of sealing wax, with whatever colour you please; fix it upon the end of a stick; heat the polished wood over a charcoal fire, and rub it over with half melted lac, and polish by rubbing it even with a piece of folded plantain leaf held in the hand, heating the lac, and adding more as occasion requires; their figures are formed by lac charged with various colours, in the same manner.

In ornamenting their gods and religious houses, &c. they make use of very thin beat lead, which they cover with various varnishes, made of lac charged with colours; they prepare them, it is said, with alum and tamarinds; the leaf of lead is laid upon a smooth iron Leated by fire below, while the

varnish is spreading upon it, initate gold leaf they add tura.erick to the varnish. This art only known to the women of few families.

Cutler's Grindstones.-Take c Ganges sand three parts, of seed lac washed one part; mix them over the fire in an earthen p» 4, and form the mass into the ste of a grindstone, leaving a squar hole in the centre; fix it on axis, with liquified lac; heat the stone moderately, and by turi, €2 the axis you may easily form it into an exact orbicular shanjæ polishing grindstones are n only of such of the sard as w pass easily through muslin, in the proportion of two parts sand to one of lac. This sand is found at Rajamahal; it is composed of small, regular, crystalline part cles, tinged red with ina two parts, to one of the black mag netic sand described by Musicbrook.

The stone-cutters make grindstones of a crystalare with black iron specks reorur.. beat into powder, and nixed W. A lac, in the same proportions as with the sand; the coarse fr cutting, and the sifted powertr polishing. These grindstones o down iron very fast, and they want to increase its powe they throw sand upon it, ai 1 1 it occasionally touch the es get a vitrified brick. The same cvới :sm sition is formed upon stan. fr cutting stones, shells, &c by tie hand.

Painting-Take one ga the red bid, from the first wi ing of shell lac, stran it thr a cloth, boil it for a short time. then add 1lf (an ounce of man;

earth (fossil alkali); boil an hour more, and add three ounces of powdered load (a straw coloured bark); boil a short time, let it stand one night, and strain next day; evaporate three quarts of milk without cream to two quarts, upon a slow fire, curdle it with sour milk, and let it stand for a day or two; then mix it with the red liquid above mentioned; strain them through a cloth, add to the mixture an ounce and a half of alum, and the juice of eight or ten lemons; mix the whole, and throw it into a cloth bag strainer. The blood of the insect forms a coagulum with the caseous part of the milk, and remains in the bag, while the limpid acid water drains from it; the coagulum is dried in the shade, and is used as a red colour in painting and colouring. Dyeing-Take one gallon of the red liquid prepared as in the preceding page, without milk; to which add three ounces of alum; boil three or four pounds of tai rinds in a gallon of water, and train the liquor.

Light Red-Mix equal parts of the red liquid water and tamarind water over a brisk fire; in this mixture dip and wring the silk alternately, until it has received a proper quantity of the dye. Tɔ Hrease the colour increase the proportion of the red liquid, and let the sik boil a few minutes in the mixture. To make the sk hood the colour, they bol a handful of the bark called Load in water; strain the decoction, and add cold water to it, dip the dyed silk at o this liquor several tales, at 1 then day the sila. Cotton cloths are dve in this manner, but the dye is not so leting as in bila,

Spanish Wool.-The lac colour is preserved by the natives upon flakes of cotton dipped repeatedly into a strong solution of the lac insect in water, and dried.

Here I ought to have described the utilities of this body, as practised by Europeans, but I am not master of the subject, and shall be very glad to see it done by an abler hand. The properties of bodies should be as fully described as possible, for therein consists the principal utility of natural history. The present mode of describing natural productions merely as materiæ medicæ, pictoriæ, &c. is in my opinion highly injurious to the subject, trifling, unbecoming a natural historian, and is the cause of a great evil.

To be added.-After the grindstones, the gross remains after making shell lac is formed into balls, polished and painted for boys and men to play with, as our boys do with marbles. Perhaps in this consists the secret art of making the European marbles.

Added after Dying.-The dye is used in colouring that red powder with which the Hindus bespatter one another in their holy festival time.

AN ACCOUNT OP THF BIDDERY WAKE.

B, Ben. Heyne, M D. Natura'st to the Hon. Lust ka laa Company at Mirus.

From the sate

The Hindoos have since time immemorial not only excelled their he tours in the management of met is for useful and curious pur, but they are even tamilarly acquainted

acquainted with alloys unknown to our practical chemists.

Among those in general use that have drawn the attention of Europeans living in India, are the alloys for the gurry, and the Biddery ware.

The gurry is a disk of a cubit and upwards in diameter, about half an inch in thickness in the centre, but decreasing towards the circumference, where it is scarcely more than one-fourth of an inch. It is used to mark the divisions of time, by striking it with a wooden mallet. The sound is in general remarkably clear, full, and loud, when it is properly managed. In common they are suspended on a triangular pyramid made of three bamboos tied together at top. They are used in all large cities, at the cutwal's choultry, at the houses and cutcheries of great men, at the main guard of every battalion, and head-quarters of every detachment of troops. Some commanding officers have them even near their doors, to the annoyance of their visitors, whose ears are not so blunted and insensible as their own. In short, they are the regulators of time and business over all India. The exact proportion of the compound of which they are made I do not recollect, but I believe it is somewhat variable, as the gurries are prized according to the places where they have been manufactured.

The Biddery ware is used particularly for hooka-bottoms, and dishes to hand betel about to visitors, where more precious metals are not attainable. It is of a black colour, which never files, and which, if tarnished, may be evsly restored. To relieve the sable hie

it is always more or less in'id with silver. It is called Bidderw ware from the place where it w24 originally, and I believe is til exclusively, made; for though the people of Bengal have utensils of this kind, I have no where seen any new ones for sale, which we'd be the case were they manuretured there.

Biddery is a large city, alweer sixty miles N.W. from Hydera formerly the seat of mighty kizze, and one of the largest, of tot places of the Dekan, belongir g the Nizam. It is situated on 12/ eastern brink of a table-lzr', which is about 100 feet above the level of the surrounding euntry, and from S. to N. six to echt miles in diameter. The place fortified, has high walls and extensive outworks, particularly to the northward; but whether strong. or otherwise, I am not competere to judge. I found them very badly guarded; as is generally the case in the fortified places beinging to the native powers of In:

As I had been always very sirous of learning the corn; posit of the Biddery ware, and er get no information of it at Hvi bad, I requested. Ca; ta'n ham, then resident at that e to favour me with a dustukoor to the governor of Billers, place I was to pass on my wwI join the detachment at Janlua. assist me in getting the des red knowledge. I must observe here that it is not only extremely cult in general for travellers, almost impossible, with wrt m money, to acquire any inform on a subject of the met fereat nature, without the wing rence and actual support of the

head-man of the place. At Biddery the jealousy against Europeans of all classes is carried so far, that none are allowed to enter the gates of the city, except such as are in the service of the Nizam, and stationed in the fort. It happened fortunately that the chief of that place had some favours to ask of Captain Sydenham, and Mr. Russell, his assistant, whose kind assistance in promoting my inquiries on this and all other occasions I have gratefully to acknowledge: so that I received the dustuk without much delay, just as I ascended the table-land. On producing it at Biddery some of the manufacturers were immediately sent to me in the choultry, under a guard of peons, with the strictest orders that they should inform me of the whole and every part of their mystery. I wished to go to their houses; but as this had not been mentioned in the order, and as they lived in the city, I could not obtain permission. The men who attended me complained of want, in an employment which in former times had been the means of subsisting a numerous class of their own cast, and of enriching the place, but which now scarcely yielded food for five families that remained. They are of the goldsmith cast, which, together with some of other handicrafts, is the lowest of all sudras, though they wear the brahminical string.

At their first visit they brought nothing but a lump of their compound used for casting their ware, and a few vessels which they had just in hand, for inlwing them with silver, an operation which they conceived would be of all the most attractive to a curious fringi.

As the metal in this state was divested of all but its natural colour, I recognized it immediately as a compound of which its greatest portion is tin. It contained of this metal twenty-four parts, and one of copper, joined by fusion. I was herein not a little disappointed, as I had always understood that it was made of a metallic substance found on the table-land of Biddery, and which, as I never had made any experiment with a view of discovering its composition, I flattered myself might be a new mineral. In coming along I really had found also a lithomarga, which resembled the common Biddery ware in colour and appearance; and it was probably this that had given rise to the account which former travellers had given of that substance, as the mineral used for the ware manufactured at that place.

The business of their second visit was to cast, or to make before me, a vessel of their ware. The apparatus which they brought with them on the occasion consisted of a broken earthen pot, to serve as a furnace; a piece of bamboo about a foot long as a bellows, or blow-pipe; a form made of clay, exactly resembling a common hooka-bottom; and some wax, which probably had been used by several generations for the purpose for which it is yet employed.

The first operation was to cover the form with wax on all sides, which was done by winding a band, into which the wax was reduced, as close as possible round it. A thin coat of clay was then laid over the wax, and, to fasten the outer to the inner clay form, some iron pins were driven through

it in various directions. After this had been dried for some time in the sun, the wax was liquified by putting the form in a place sufficiently heated, and discharged through the hole, by which the melted metal is poured in to occupy its place. It is scarcely necessary to say, that when the metal is sufficiently cooled the form is broken, and the vessel found of the desired shape.

Colouring the ware with the standing black, for which they are celebrated, is the next, and in my opinion the most remarkable operation. It consists in taking equal parts of muriate of ammonia and saltpetre earth, such as is found at the bottom of old mud walls in old and populous villages in India, mixing them together with water, and rubbing the paste which is thus produced on the vessel, which has been previously scraped with a knife. The change of colour is almost instantaneous, and, what is surprising to me, lasting.

The saltpetre earth of this place has, when dry, a reddish colour, like the soil about Biddery. It is very likely that the carbonate, or oxide of iron, which it contains, is essentially necessary for the production of the black colour. The muriate and nitrate of lime, which is in considerable proportion in all earth from which saltpetre is manufactured in India, may be perhaps not an useless ingredient in this respect.

The hooka-bottoms of this ware happen sometimes to get tarnished, acquiring a brownish, or shillering colour, which is easily removed, and the black restored, by rubbing

the whole surface with a little or butter.

As nothing looks handsome the eyes of an Indian, but want glittering with gold or silver. may be imagined that their low wa and betel dishes, which are cho #fu used on festive occasions, are not left destitute of these ornamen te they are chiefly decorated silver, in the form of festi s fanciful flowers, and leaves times I have seen a little gvi-a terspersed.

The way of inlaying the.a very simple; but of course as tem dious as can well be imag tes could be only practised where t is of little value. The parts o the projected figure are first e out in silver leaf, which are an in a piece of broken earthenware before the artist, who cuts w a pointed instrument the same figure on the vessel, artles 1 e silver leaf, piece after pece. gently hammers it into its pave

The greatest skill consists tracing the pieces of the figure the vessel exactly of the same s as they are in the saver leaf. in this I have never seen thể mistaken.

They do their work very ditiously, and will make any ho on copper with the greatest i according to the sample wi. laid before them.

Note-Mr. Wilkins intrDr. Heyne that the B doorw is likewise marufactured in nares, and he thinks that ar used as an ailov in that tart India. I examined a pie e of tal statue, which Mr. Wara AVEN sidered as Biddery ware it was; an alloyed with a very little cupper.

« ForrigeFortsæt »