Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/186

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these are made at Nagpur and Umrer, but those made in the neighbouring towns of Kbapa, Maun da, and Bhiwapur, are also of superior quality.

At Hoshungabadj the weaving trade flourished until the enor- mous demand for cotton wool In 1863-64 raised the price of the raw material beyond the weavers* means. All the cotton wool in the district was exported, and Manchester piece goods were at once imported, and they have held, the market ever since. Many native looms have in consequence stopped and the local manufacture has partially succumbed.

At Chanda, coarse and fine cloths are made which are still exported to all parts of Western India, and formerly found their way to Arabia. The Telinga weavers turn out cloths of colored patterns In very good taste, and cotton thread of wonderful fineness is spun for export to other parts of India.

At Bustar, the outcast Mahars and Pariahs weave the narrow coarse cloths used as kmgutis by the Murias and other wild tribes.

Berar . — In Berar the stout cotton cloths called kadis and dhotars are made everywhere. Fair turban d cloths are woven at Bolapur, in the Akola district ; and at Ellichpur, turbands and other fine cloths for male and female apparel. Excellent cotton carpets are also made at Ellichpur and Akot, and Bolapur in the Akola district.

Bombay . — In the Presidency of Bombay, Surat suffered as much as any town in India from the extinction of the East India Company’s trading monopoly in 1833, “A new era was opened to English commerce,” writes the historian, heedless of the two centuries of manufacturing activity and prosperity, under the Company’s fostering rule, which had preceded it in India. But within the last four or five years the cotton manufac- tures of Surat have shewn strong signs of revival, and the Hindu weavers have begun to make cloth of a new pattern, chiefly for bodices, which is largely exported to the Dakhan.

Baroach, also, under the East India Company, was a great