in carving blackwood. Many of the best have left Gujarat for Bombay; but in Ahmedabad itself the finest specimens of this work are still to be found. Next to the Ahmedabad carvers, and in some respects with an even higher local name, are the carpenters of the neighbouring town of Dholera. Before the days of railway, it was the chief timber mart in the district. Here Lavana and Vania [Banyan] merchants bring logs of teak from Thana, and of blackwood and sandal- wood from Malabar, and sell them to the district carpenters, who work them up into chairs and tables, and cots and screens, and chests of drawers and almirahs of English fashion ; and into handsome well-finished brass-bound boxes, much sought after in Kathiwar and even in the city of Ahmedabad. I once saw in a Parsi house in Bombay some stately blackwood couches, which had been designed in the Assyrian style from Raw 1 in son’s Ancient Monarchies. The common jackwood [Artocarpus integrifolia] furniture of Bombay, rectangular in its forms, and simply fluted and beaded for its ornamentation, is far superior in taste to the blackwood furniture for which the place is celebrated.
Blackwood furniture is extensively made in the city of Madras also, but exclusively of European design.
The cabinet work of Monghyr in Bengal is well known. The principal woods used there are tal or palm [Borassus flabelliformis] and ebony, and the European articles of furniture made of them are highly prized in Calcutta.
According to the Brihat Sanhita, a celebrated work on astronomy by Varaha Mihira [quoted by Rajendralala Mitra], which dates from the sixth century a.d., the woods most esteemed by the Hindus of India for furniture are asana [Pentaptera tomentosa], sy an dan a [Dalbergia Oogeinensis], chan- dan [Santalum album, sandalwood], haridra [Mesua ferrea], suradaru [Pinus Deodara], tinduki [Diospyros glutinosa], sala [Shorea robusta], gambhar , or kasmari [Gmelina arborea], anjana [Michaelia Champaca — query, Mcmecylon tinctorium]
