=Chundries.=—These are chiefly manufactured in the native State of Kotah, in Rajputana, and have been produced there from time immemorial, for use as clothing and hangings. Those that are imported to this country (see Figs. 3 and 4) are generally made of extremely thin, flimsy muslin, most elaborately decorated in three or four colors, with patterns made up of an infinite number of small round or rectangular rings of white or light colors, against a darker background. They can be obtained in the same condition that they left the dyer’s hands, folded tightly together, colored red or brown or black from the final dye-bath, and covered over with hundreds of little hard knots or lumps. These, on examination, prove to be the tied places, each tied by hand, by winding round and round the base of the projecting loop of cloth, a very fine thread, closely laid and knotted extremely firm and tight. When unwound, which must be done with much care on account of the thin, fragile nature of the cloth, the knotted portions often show most beautiful and interesting designs—done in different colors, put on before tying, and protected from the final bath by the close tight layer of thread. Among the most interesting of them are the so-called “Shikar” chundries, where the design, repeated over and over again, illustrates some hunting scene, as, for instance, a tiger hunt, with the animal springing at a man armed with a sword, and a horse or elephant with howdah. When fully opened one of these chundries makes a strip of cloth some five or six yards long, and in Rajputana is used as the full-dress costume of a young lady of fashion, being folded round and round the body and over the head in most graceful and charming lines. On studying one of these chundries one is struck by the immense amount of labor expended in the tying process. The knots which form the pattern make, frequently, as many as twenty-five or thirty to the running inch, and each one is tied so tightly around the cloth, folded so as to form four thicknesses, and drawn or pressed out into loops, that it completely protects the part it covers from the dyestuff, only the tip of the loop remaining exposed. Hence, when it is untied, there results a small circular or rectangular ring not over three-quarters of an inch in diameter. To obtain a surface around which the string can be thus tightly tied, the folded cloth is evidently pressed out from the back by a thin pin or spike (the effect can be produced by tying a thin piece of cloth tightly around a wooden toothpick) around which the thread can be tightly drawn and knotted, and which usually is left in during the dyeing process and taken out afterwards.