Rug-weaving in the Orient is an industry that, until recent years, has been carried on almost exclusively by women and girls. From childhood to womanhood, and on to old age, these weavers are at work. Girls of six years of age help their mothers, until they become experienced by long practice. Even ladies of rank and wealth weave rugs of fine quality for their own homes. In some districts, besides weaving for the market, girls weave one or two rugs for their dowry; this purpose furnishes them with enough excitement to keep them interested in their work and ambitious to excel. Now that there is a greater demand for rugs, and not enough women to supply the demand, men and boys have come into the business, but generally only in places where there are large factories, and especially in the cities. This is noticeably the case in India, where boys from nine to fifteen years of age do much of the weaving. There are two classes of weavers, the sedentary and the nomadic. The former weave in their houses during the Winter, and in their courtyards during the Summer. The nomads spend the Winter in mud villages, and in the Summer go to the mountains with their flocks and live in tents made of goat's hair. The manner of life of the sedentary weaver works havoc with her constitution even in her youth; and consequently one is not surprised at her frail appearance. In Summer she is oppressed with heat as she sits before the frame, and in Winter she is almost frozen, for she has to work in the open air in order to have sufficient light. Hers is not an easy life. It would be pleasant to believe that in her toil, which she carries on with wondrous patience and in the humblest surroundings, the conscientious weaver finds the same inward satisfaction that comes to the true artist elsewhere.