When a hide is to be cured the inside is first cleaned with the
_rampi_, a chisel-like implement with a short blade four inches broad
and a thick short handle. It is then soaked in a mixture of water
and lime for ten or twelve days, and at intervals scraped clean of
flesh and hair with the _rampi_. "The skill of a good tanner appears
in the absence of superfluous inner skin, fat or flesh, remaining to
be removed after the hide is finally taken out of the lime-pit. Next
the hard berries of the _ghont_ [461] tree are poured into a large
earthen vessel sunk in the ground, and water added till the mixture
is so thick as to become barely liquid. In this the folded hide is
dipped three or four times a day, undergoing meanwhile a vigorous
rubbing and kneading. The average duration of this process is eight
days, and it is followed by what is according to European ideas the
real tanning. Using as thread the roots of the ubiquitous _palas_
[462] tree, the Chamar sews the hide up into a mussack-shaped bag
open at the neck. The sewing is admirably executed, and when drawn
tight the seams are nearly, but purposely not quite, water-tight. The
hide is then hung on low stout scaffolding over a pit and filled with
a decoction of the dried and semi-powdered leaves of the _dhaura_
[463] tree mixed with water. As the decoction trickles slowly through
the seams below, more is poured on from above, and from time to time
the position of the hide is reversed in such a way that the tanning
permeates each part in turn. Sometimes only one reversal of the hide
takes place half-way through the process, which occupies as a rule
some eight days. But energetic Chamars continually turn and refill
the skin until satisfied that it is thoroughly saturated with the
tanning. After a washing in clean water the hide is now considered
to be tanned." [464]