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75 and brilliancy of colours. The chief carpet-manufacturing districts are all situated in the north, from Herat to Kataghan. Mazari-Sharif, Daulatabad, Aqchah, Qarqeen, Andkhoi, Maimanah, Shibarghan, Shore-Tuppeh, Gulran and Herat are the chief centres of this industry, but the carpets manufactured at Daulatabad are of the best quality and are famous throughout the world. In addition to carpets and rugs, prayer rugs (called Jai-Namaz), saddle bags, pillow-cases, etc., are also made in carpet patterns. These rich and far-famed carpets and rugs are the work of women's hands, women who have spent their lives, from earliest childhood, to motherhood and grandmotherhood, at the loom. A few stakes driven into the earthen floor, cross-beams, warp-rollers with the ground fabric of the carpet stretched on them, a knife, a comb, and a pair of scissors—these are the ancient and traditional apparatus upon which from time immemorial the girls of northern Afghanistan prepare for their homes the principal furnishings, the carpets of wool and silk, that decorate the walls and doorways, the rugs of the floor, the saddle-bags and tent-flaps. The art of carpet weaving has survived to our own day, and it is still carried on by women, who still weave the designs that have been handed down from generation to generation. The loom used for the big carpets is the same used formerly, but the most perfect instruments of the execution of the work are the unerring eyes and the dexterous fingers that move to a swift rhythm with greater precision than those of a harpist. The delicate fingers now rest on the threads of the ground-work, pick up a couple raised by a heddle, tie them in a complicated knot, the ends of which are pulled through to the right