VANITY FAIR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 188, 11 August 1931, Page 2

VANITY FAIR

PERSIAN RUGS When you come into a new room, do you ever notice the rugs on the floor. I used to. I was apt to notice everything else first. But live in Persia fo r a while, and the course of your observations will begin where it formerly ended. I conclude it’s pari ly because music and theatres and other forms of diversion that absorb surplus energy at home still shun Teheran and other Persian towns. Whatever the reason, you should become engulfed in the atmosph ere of rugs, and you must watch yourself, or else when you come home you'll be thought to have acquired a misplaced sense of humour or down-right bad manners. For in Teheran, while wailing to go in to dinner, let us say, one may stoop, quite casually, throw back a corner of the rug one is standing on, finger it critically, and at dinner start conversation by asking one’s host its origin and price. No ofence is taken, and it is done, 1 assure yo u, in the best circles. Rugs are as recurrent and more interesting than the weather as a topic of social con versation. "Have you got a new rug?” is the most natural of queries to address taciturn neighbours an d loosens the tautest silence. When you move from most localities you don’t aslr your friends if they ca rc to sell you this or that which takes your fancy; but when you leave Teheran it is not amiss to tell yo ur neighbour of your admiration for his Peramin or Turcoman, and ask whether he cares to sell it. Unless he’s got an especially Warm spot in his heart for it, the answer is as likely to be "Yes” as “No.” And after you’re gone he'll have the fun of getting something else to put in its place. Now I don’t pose as a connoisseur of rugs. . . . But it’s not easy to reside in Persia without getting swept into the current. It doesn't matter whether you’re rich or poor, only in the former case you're a bit more lilfely to waste your money. For which there are various reasons. \ou need rugs to cover your floors, which in most cases are of mud or sun-dried brick. Teheran’s stores don’t carry linoleum or machine-made carpeting. Your servant buys strips of straw matting in the bazaar, bu I neither comfort, cleanliness, nor the fitness of things allows you to stop there. Rugs must cover your flo ors as they do those of all your friends and neighbours. Celling rugs is part of the atmosphere. . . You pick U P much information of a geographic kind through this playing with rugs, which is useful, for Persian rugs are usually given the name of the > egion where they are woven. Only don't be 100 sure. A Baluch rug is not woven in Baluchistan, hut by nomad Baluchis far to the north in Khorassan; a Kcrmanshah is not woven in or near the city of I hat name, but in Kerman miles to the east; and a Bokhara, a name adopted by western trade and familiar at home, is made by Turcoman tribes, rarely, I am told, in the poltictal stale of Bokhara. —Copley Amory Junr., in "Persian Days.”