The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence- The region's Western customers found it hard to believe that Dhaka muslin could possibly have been made by human hands - there were rumour that it was woven by mermaids, fairies and even ghosts.
Once upon the silty banks of the Meghna River, a miracle was spun - a fabric so light it was called "baft-hawa", or woven air. This was Dhaka Muslin - the world's most coveted cloth. (1). Handspun from a rare cotton called Phuti Karpas, found nowhere else on Earth, and woven with a 16-step sacred ritual - beginning with cleaning the cotton using the teeth of a river catfish! (2). Every spring, the maple-like leaves pushed up through the grey, silty soil to produce a single daffodil-yellow flower twice a year, which gave way to a snowy floret of cotton fibres. (3). Spun at dawn on boats by sharp-eyed young women, its threads were so fine the elderly could barely see them. Motifs of wildflowers, river breeze, and soul were etched into each piece - some so light, a 91-metre bolt could pass through a ring, or a 60' length fit inside a snuffbox. It draped Greek goddesses, Roman nobles, Mughal emperors, and European aristocrats. Marie Antoinette, Empress Josephine - even Jane Austen adored its floating grace. (4).
The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence- The region's Western customers found it hard to believe that Dhaka muslin could possibly have been made by human hands - there were rumour that it was woven by mermaids, fairies and even ghosts.
Once upon the silty banks of the Meghna River, a miracle was spun - a fabric so light it was called "baft-hawa", or woven air. This was Dhaka Muslin - the world's most coveted cloth. (1). Handspun from a rare cotton called Phuti Karpas, found nowhere else on Earth, and woven with a 16-step sacred ritual - beginning with cleaning the cotton using the teeth of a river catfish! (2). Every spring, the maple-like leaves pushed up through the grey, silty soil to produce a single daffodil-yellow flower twice a year, which gave way to a snowy floret of cotton fibres. (3). Spun at dawn on boats by sharp-eyed young women, its threads were so fine the elderly could barely see them. Motifs of wildflowers, river breeze, and soul were etched into each piece - some so light, a 91-metre bolt could pass through a ring, or a 60' length fit inside a snuffbox. It draped Greek goddesses, Roman nobles, Mughal emperors, and European aristocrats. Marie Antoinette, Empress Josephine - even Jane Austen adored its floating grace. (4).
Solution
The missing sentence conveys outsiders' disbelief that such cloth was human-made, voicing its near-mythic status. This sense of wonder belongs right after the cloth is called "the world's most coveted cloth" and before the concrete account of how it was actually made by hand. Blank (1) bridges the claim of legendary status and the factual production details, so Option 1 fits best.