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Persian rug: about

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to discover the exact value of the export and import trade of Persia. The source of this information is naturally the Customs Administration, which in Persia exists but in name.

The duties of the ports and principal towns are farmed out to various persons, whose interest it is to send the inquirer away as ignorant upon the subject as he was before the interview began. But it is possible, after a great deal of labor in collecting statistics from the dealers of a particular article, to form an estimate probably not very far from the truth. By this method we judge that the average yearly export value of rugs in Aaragh (the Sultanabad district) is three hundred thousand dollars; Hamadan one hundred thousand; Bijar one hundred and ten thousand; Malair one hundred thousand dollars; Kurdistan fifty thousand; Pars seventy-five thousand; Kirman and Khorassan one hundred thousand; and in the less known districts collectively, fifty thousand dollars.

The total of these figures classes the rug export in the very first order of exports. It is plain that this amount does not represent the full value of the manufacture, inasmuch as a great quantity of the goods does not leave the country. This quantity is perhaps small in comparison with that exported, but it is large enough to make the value nearly a million dollars.