OCR Text |
Show 1 origin of papermaking in that locality was told to me: Six or seven hundre years ago, as the story gocs, a master-craftsman from Kashmir journeye through the mountain passes and reached Sailkot after undergoing man privations and hardships. On the banks of the Aik he set up a paper mill but the canny old Kashmirian did not reveal the secrets of his trade t anyone. He employed native helpers and instructed them in the operatio of the stamping mills that were to be used in the maceration of the materia from which the old man was to form sheets of paper. The native people ha never before seen paper and they were curious as to how the fibres could b united into thin white sheets. He allowed none of his helpers o see th actual moulding of the sheets upon the grass and horsehair laid moulds. Th sizing and polishing were also closely guarded secrets and the old craftsma was jealous lest one of his beatermen should see him at work in the vathouse. The Kashmir artisan valued cvery sheet of paper he made at on Tupee so that it was only natural that he did not wish the craft to becom common. The old master-craftsman, however, made one mistake, and tha in the selection of his son-in-law, for it was the son-in-law who peepe through the crevices of the vat-house. Henceforth the mysteries of the ar were secrets no longer. The indiscreet son-in-law could not keep the discovery to himself, and much to the distress of the Kashmirian the nativ Sailkot people soon knew how the sheets of paper were moulded, sized an burnished. Numerous mills sprang up along the same stream and pape came 50 common in Sailkot that the merchants no longer were forced t y a rupee a sheet to the old man who had introduced the craft into thei locality After the trade was firmly established in Sailkot, with innumerable smal mills scattered along the banks of the muddy Aik, the art of papermakin took a southerly course until there were many localities where the craft wa practiced. Aside from Nowshera, Kashmir, the towns of Sailkot, Lahore Delhi, Maultan, and Mauttra will always hold prominent places in the his |