The shalvar, or full trowsers, are made to match the dress, and again of varied and contrasting hues.
There in a great variety in the fashion for trimming the dresses and handkerchiefs, which generally are adorned with most exquisite embroideries in silk or gold, as may suit the mode, or taste of the wearer. Sometimes an immense cashmere shawl is wound round the waist; at others, a light gauze scarf, or belt of gold, with a clasp adorned with brilliants, serves for a girdle. No Turkish lady can dispense with jewelry, and even women of the lowest rank adorn themselves with diamonds.
Abundant occupation is afforded to the jewellers by the constant transformation of their bijouterie; for one day the capricious beauties fancy a star or a crescent, and the next, nothing will suit their toilet but a large spray of brilliants.
The number of the ladies in the royal palace and in other wealthy harems, all of whom are bedecked in elegant and costly costumes, causes a demand for the services of many merchants, through whom the last new fashion is immediately promulgated.
Their beauty is such, however, that it might well afford to be unadorned, for their complexions are generally exceedingly fair, and of the most delicate softness; owing to the constant use of the bath, as well as the protection of the yashmack, or veil, without which they never go abroad.
Their features are very regular, and their almond shaped eyes, so much sung by their poets, are dark and lustrous, and so valued for their size, that the enjoyment of the great-eyed ladies is promised by Mohammed as one of the sublimest joys of Paradise. The power of these electric and darkly beautiful orbs is so terrible, that woe to those upon whom they are turned, for, as Pertev Pasha, one of their celebrated poets, has described:
“On the point of each ray that is darted from those bright meteors, there is a bloody slaughter house,” or as the French would expressively say, “un regard assassin.”
Exquisitely arched eyebrows are also so essential to their ideas of beauty, that they are never contented, till by the repeated application of artificial means, they raise their brows to a lofty semicircle.
Beauty spots, or moles, are considered of great value; and if nature has proved niggard in this respect, art is brought into requisition to produce the same contrasting effect between the tiny circle of jetty hue and the surrounding fairness. The poet Hafiz has sung their value in flowing numbers, offering the wealth of Semerkand and Bokhara for the possession of the Indian mole on the cheek of the fair beauty of Shiraz.
The tips of their fingers and toes are frequently stained with henna, producing the roseate hue so much à la mode.