Little girls, as well as little boys, have their heads shaven when they are about a month old. This is done before an idol, with a good deal of parade. Young girls also wear their hair in queues, but as when older their heads are not shaven like those of the boys, a larger quantity of hair is drawn back into the braid, making it much heavier. When married their hair is put up in the fashion of the women of the district where they live, but married women never wear their hair braided.
One who has lived long in China does not like to see a thin, uneven queue, tied with a cotton string; it has a slovenly, poverty-stricken air; while a thick, glossy braid, with a heavy bunch of silk in the end of it, looks tidy and prosperous; and a neat plat of silvery hair betokens comfortable old age.
[MEXICAN WATER-CARRIERS]
A Mexican water-carrier is always an oddly, dressed fellow. He looks something like the man some one met "one misty, moisty morning," who was all clothed in leather. He has a leather cap, jacket and trousers, the last reaching only to his knees, and held aside with bright buttons of silver, so as to show the white cotton drawers beneath. Down the front of his jacket, too, and around the rim of his cap, are bright buttons. Fastened at his side is a leather wallet holding his money. On his feet are leather sandals. Over his head are two stout leather straps, holding two jugs of earthernware, one resting on his back and the other hanging in front.
ALWAYS ON A LITTLE INDIAN TROT.
He begins work early in the morning. If you go into any of the public squares in the city of Mexico, you will then see a great many of them all seated around the stone basin and busy preparing for the day's work. They reach far over the edge and, dipping up the water, fill their large jug. Throwing that on their backs they reach down once more and fill the smaller one, and then trot off and visit the different houses of the city, and sell the families what water they want.
You would say, perhaps, it was a heavy load to carry by the head and neck, but the carrier does not seem to mind it, for he is very strong, and the jugs just balance each other. It is said an Englishman was once told of this balance, and, to see if it were so, he waited until a carrier came along and then, with his cane, broke one of the jugs. Alas! down came the man, jugs and all; his balance surely was gone.