Pagina 311 van 490

Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully chased, and

profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. It had been

taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of

Mohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy.

And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most

exquisite specimens that he could find of textile and embroidered

work, getting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with

gold-thread palmates and stitched over with iridescent beetles'

wings; the Dacca gauzes, that from their transparency are known

in the East as "woven air," and "running water," and "evening

dew"; strange figured cloths from Java; elaborate yellow Chinese

hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair blue silks and

wrought with fleurs-de-lis, birds and images; veils of lacis

worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish

velvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese

Foukousas, with their green-toned golds and their marvellously

plumaged birds.