View of the Russian Empire,
During the Reign of Catharine the Second, and to the Close of the Eighteenth Century.
By William Tooke, F. R. S.
Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Free Economical Society at St. Petersburg.
In three volumes. Vol. III.
The Third Edition.
Dublin: Printed by P. Wogan, No. 23, Old-Bridge.
1801
Another tannery of great importance is that of the SAFFIAN, or maroquin, which is carried on to a great extent in several towns of the empire, but particularly in Astrakhan, and in which they proceed in this manner: The saffians are dyed in Astrakhan of three colours, red, yellow, and black; but only in the two first colours, and especially in the red is the aftrakhan saffian-work famous, and next to the turkish excelling all others. Whereas the black saffians which are there prepared, are not better than those wrought in Kazan or elsewhere in Russia; and for that reason in Astrakhan no more are made than suffice for the demands of the town: while, on the other hand, great quantities of red and yellow saffians go to all parts of Russia and out of the country, and likewise form a considerable article in the asiatic commerce.
No other skins are taken for making saffians than those of bucks and goats, and the preparation for each of the above-mentioned favourite colours is somewhat different: the red saffians demanding more labour and expence than the yellow; they are, therefore, also dearer in price. The treatment of the red saffians is usually in the following order; the raw hides are first laid in large vats, and have river water poured upon them, in which they are left to soak for three or four times twenty-four hours. They are then taken out, the water is drained and squeezed from each skin, and are fcraped one by one on the stretching-bank with scraping-irons, uraki, quite gently on the flesh side, in order to take away the grosser impurities, but principally for opening the skin and to qualify it for the ensuing operation.
They now proceed to make the hair fall clean off chiefly by the application of lime. To a hundred hides is stirred in about half a bushel of unslacked lime in vats with river water, and the hides are laid in so as that the lime may as much as possible be equally distributed over all of them. The Astrakhan Tartars let the hides lie in this lime-pit frequently three weeks; but it is well known, that their saffians are so harsh and liable to crack, and even scorched by it, that they are fit for nothing, and can only impose upon an inexperienced purchaser. They then take out the skins, wash them and carefully scrape off the hair, now become loose, with wooden scrapers. It often happens, that the hair is not perfectly loosened by the first lime-lye, but but that many tender stubbles and small hairs are left remaining. In this cafe the hides must be put into fresh lime-lye, and be left perhaps two weeks in it; the hair then comes off, and the hair side of the skin gets a green and very white appearance, but the substance is then also very soft, and the saffians, by this corrosion of the lime, are very little durable in comparison of other kinds of leather.
The method now for taking the lime again out of the hides, is the second treatment with dog- excrement or white gentian, which is carefully collected for this purpose. This excrement, which is indispensably necessary, is pounded, put into a narrow not very large vat, warm water poured upon it, the mass thoroughly stirred, and the cleansed hides are put with it into another vat, so as that the dissolved album grecum is spread and insinuated over and between every skin, In these ingredients, the skins must lie only twenty-four hours, or if the quantity of album grecum prove not rich, some, what longer. The proportion here to be observed cannot be accurately ascertained; for the saffianmakers are guided generally by eye-measure, and observe only that the water be very thick and turbid, and confequently acrid enough.
The hides come out of this corrosive much softer and thinner than they were, and are now freed from the force of the lime; but no time must be lost in endeavouring to extract the corrosive likewise, that the hide may not be even more ruined by it than by the lime. They are generally very careful that the hides lie not too long in this corrosive, which they judge of by their eye from the pliancy and suppleness of them. As soon as the skins are lifted out, the unclean moisture is carefully and forcibly pressed out, and they are laid without loss of time in a vat, wherein wheat bran is stirred to a tolerably thick gruel with warm water, in this they lie again about thrice twenty-four hours, whereby all the former defects are completely remedied, and the substance of the skin is softer and mellow.
All these particulars are in some measure of no other service than to bring off the hair thoroughly clean from the skin.
Now follows the proper preparation of the skins taken out of the wheat-bran. This is done chiefly by honey. To eighty hides they take about twenty-five pounds of raw honey, boil it in a kettle, pour as much water to it as is neceffary for giving it a due consistence, and stir it for a pretty long time boiling on the fire. They then let the kettle cool, till they can but just bear the hand in it, and then pour the still-hot honey-water on the hides lying singly in little trays by ladle-fulls till they have thoroughly imbibed the honey-water.
When all the skins are duly drenched, they are thrown into a dry vat all together, laying at top a board with weights upon it, and covering the whole vat with felt, carpets, or furs, that the vapour during the fermentation may not efcape; and in this manner the skins must ferment once more thrice twenty-four hours. By this means they acquire the grain. From the honey-vat they are rinsed clean in lukewarm water, wrung as dry as possible, and steeped immediately in a moderately strong pickle or brine made of common salt, in which they must be left five or six days. This time being elapsed the skins are taken out of the pickle and hung upon clean poles that the brine may drain out, as it would be thought injurious to squeeze it out with the hands. This done, the skins have received their whole preparation, and may now be dyed red, but not yellow; because for the yellow saffians, as was said before, the preparation is of another kind.
*Nitrosalsola ericoidesFor giving the red saffians the colour, nothing is used but cochenille, or as the Tartars call it kirmiss, and that in the following method: first, they boil a quantity of the herb salsosa ericoides*, by the Tartars called tschagan plentifully growing on the arid Astrakhan salt-steppes. To about four russian vedros of water is put of this dried herb somewhat less than a pound, and is set to boil for a whole hour, whereby the water acquires a dark-greenish colour, but betrays no acrimony to the taste. The saffian maker only takes care that the water be not too deeply tinctured, and that when dropped on the thumb-nail shews only a scarce perceptible green; and in case it have adopted too many particles of the colour, it is drawn off, and fresh water put, in which the herb must boil again, till the decoction has received the due degree of saturation.
The herb is then with a scoop taken clean out of the kettle, and then the previously nicely powdered cochenille thrown into a kettle of four russian vedros to about half a pound, well stirred and fresh fire added, in which great attention must be paid, that the red scum, which arises from boiling, does not boil over, therefore constantly some is taken and again poured in, in order by this refrigeration to prevent the overboiling and to allay the foam.
After boiling for about an hour and a half, the water has obtained a strong tincture; but, as much of it is boiled away, the kettle is filled up again with the remaining decoction of the herb tschagan, and the thus attenuated colour boiled afresh, till it is seen that the cochenille is perfectly dissolved and the colour become thoroughly bright. Upon this, to the whole kettle is put about two lote of pounded and burnt alum into the dye, with which it is to boil about a quarter of an hour, and then the fire is taken from under the kettle, leaving only some hot embers, that the dye may retain as much heat as the hand can but just bear.
This done, the skins prepared for dyeing are taken in hand, the dye poured by ladles into trays, one skin folded together after another with the hair side outwards, and then are worked in their portion of dye fo long, till they have uniformly absorbed all the dyeing particles, and only somewhat of a pale moisture remains. The leathers being thus for the first time stained are quickly squeezed out, hung up singly across poles, and when they are all done, they are directly taken for the second time and imbued in the same manner with dye, and this treatment is repeated for the third and the fourth time; so that each skin gets four ladles of the dye. From the fourth dye the skins are no more pressed out, but hung up entirely wet to be ventilated upon poles.
1 Rhus cotinus.After the dye the skins are once more curried with the leaves of the tan-tree1, which the Armenians call belgè. The crushed or pounded dry leaves, which the Astrakhan saffian-makers get from the Terek, are stirred in broad troughs to a thick gruel with river water, and the coloured skins laid in it, between each of them leaving a sufficiency of the leaf-ooze; the tanner then goes barefoot into the troughs upon the skins lying on one another. In this tan or quas, as the workmen call it, the saffians lie eight days and nights, adding fresh tan every other day; so that four tans are necessary.
Here it must be observed that some Armenians who prepare saffians, for enhancing the quality of the red colour of their saffians, to half a pound of cochenille add two lote or rather more of sorrel (or lutor or loter as they call it) in the dye-kettle, but it is usually omitted in Astrakhan on account of its high price; for which reason the Astrakhan saffians are excelled by the Turkish in beauty of colour.
Secondly, it is to be known, that instead of the leaves of the tan-tree bruised nut-galls are held to be still more serviceable for giving the saffians the tan. By this means the colour is so durable as never to pass away but with the leather; whereas the saffians prepared with the tan-tree begin soon to be discoloured. But the nut-galls are likewise too dear in Astrakhan to be customarily used by the saffian-makers. The kazan Tartars colour their saffians with red wood and tan them with the shrub uva ursi, but it makes the worst saffians of all, as they presently fade.
When the saffians are lifted out of the tan, still the last work remains. They are first left some time in the air to dry, they are afterwards scraped on the stretch-bank with sharp scrapers on the fleshside quite smooth and clean, then washed in running water, each skin duly stretched with pegs all round the edges, and thus left till they are dry.
The skins must now be smoothed on the hair-side with a wooden instrument for that purpose, and lastly they are laid on a thick felt, where, with an iron heckle that has blunt points, those little pittings, which the saffians are generally seen to have, are impressed on the same side. And thus they are ready for sale, without being smeared with linseed-oil as is mentioned in Gmelin's travels, which would infallibly spoil them.
2 Anthemis tinctoria.The yellow saffians are little made in Astrakhan, as the demand for them is much less, and there are but few saffian-makers who know much of the matter. The dye which they make use of for this purpose is of the berries of a sort of rhamnus (perhaps lycioides) which are brought from Persia under the name of uloscharr, and usually bought for six to nine rubles the pood. The Kazan Tartars colour their ordinary yellow saffians with the flowers of the yellow camomile2, which they gather under the name fare tschetschiak, i. e. yellow-flower.
In preparing the yellow saffians, they observe in Astrakhan the following difference of treatment:
1. They make no use whatever of honey in the preparation.
2. They never at all put the hides into the salt-brine.
3. Instead of the honey-preparation and the pickling, they lay the hides before the dyeing, in the foregoing manner, in the tan of the leaves of the kitzliar tan-tree, leaving them in it eight days.
4. For preparing the dye they have no need of the herb tschagan, but the berries alone are boiled in clear water, of which to four Russian vedros ofwater about ten pounds are requisite, and heighten the colour afterwards with three lotes of alum to every pound of berries.
The dyeing is performed in the same manner as has been related with the red, and after the dyeing there is no need to lay the saffians in the tan, as having before received it. Nothing more is necessary than to scrape them clean, to work them thoroughly, to polith and to ornament them. The yellow saffians usually are sold at one ruble 20 kopeeks; but the red at somewhat more on account of the dearness of the dye, generally one ruble 80 kopeeks 1.
Ei kommentteja :
Lähetä kommentti