“The _oostand_, or head-workman,” says Hamilton, “superintends, while his journeymen are employed near him, under his directions. If they have any new pattern in hand, or one with which they are not familiar, he describes to them the figure, colour, and threads that are to be used, while he keeps before him the pattern on which they happen to be employed drawn on paper. During the operation the rough side of the shawl is uppermost on the frame, notwithstanding which the head-workman never mistakes the regularity of the most finished patterns. A shop may be occupied with one shawl above a year, provided it be a remarkably fine one, while other shops make six or eight in the course of that time. Of the best and most noted sorts not so much as a quarter of an inch is completed in one day by three persons, which is the usual number employed. Shawls containing much work are made in separate pieces at different shops; and it may be observed, that it very rarely happens, when the pieces are completed, that they correspond in size.”
Forster was much disappointed in the women of Kashmere. They were handsome brunettes, but by no means endowed with that extreme beauty or elegance of form which has been attributed to them by other travellers. It is probable, however, that since the period of the Afghan invasion, which introduced into the country a rabble of adventurers from Kabul and the neighbouring regions, the race may have been deteriorated by a mixture with these ill-favoured foreigners; and that poverty, compelling them to have recourse to inferior food, and inducing habits of filth and a general squalidness, may have considerably aided in producing this result. In fertility they have by no means degenerated. Their families are numerous, whether poor or rich,—a circumstance which our traveller, who participated in Montesquieu’s opinion respecting the fecundity of all ichthyophagi, partly attributes to the great abundance of fish in their lakes and rivers.
During his stay in this country he was much alarmed at the suspicions of a Georgian, who, on observing the form of his head, which he averred was too flat at the top to be that of a Mohammedan, declared him at once to be a Christian. Forster, understanding that this man possessed an estate at Benares, in order to check his indiscretion or impertinence, disclosed to him his true story, informing him at the same time, however, that should any evil arise from his treachery or want of discretion, his estate would be confiscated, and the person of his commercial partner residing in the British territories exposed to punishment.