"How painful it must be!"
"So it is. When very young, a little girl's foot is tightly bandaged round, the end of the bandage being first laid on the inside of the foot, then carried round the toes, under the foot, and round the heel till the toes are drawn over the sole, in which an indentation becomes made and the instep swells out. After a time the foot is soaked in hot water, when some of the toes will occasionally drop off. Every time the bandage is taken away another is put on, and tied more tightly. For the first year there is, as we can imagine, dreadful pain, but after two years the foot will become dead and cease to ache. You can therefore understand that it is very uncomfortable for Chinese ladies to walk, and if they go any distance they are carried on the backs of their female slaves."
"Are all Chinese parents so silly as to have their little girls' feet bandaged?"
"A few are strong-minded enough to break through the rule, and all the Tartar ladies have natural feet. Anti-foot-binding societies have now been formed by the Chinese gentry in Canton and Amoy."
"I wonder what made people first think of doing this?" Sybil said.
"Some people think that it was first done to help husbands to keep their wives at home; others say that it was to copy an Empress who had a deformed foot which she bandaged; but whatever the reason may have been, we cannot but wish very, very strongly, that the cruel custom might be soon completely done away with!"
"I shall like to see the ladies being carried on their slaves' backs," Leonard said. "That will be fun!"
"You will soon see it now," was his father's answer, "for we have been six weeks at sea, and the captain says we may expect to be at Shanghai in another ten days' time, so I think I had better not tell you any more, and let you find out the rest for yourselves."
"I think we might have just one more 'Peep-show,'" Sybil replied, "and hear how we get our tea-leaves. I think we ought to know about that before we arrive."
The missionary smiled, and the next time his children wanted a "Peep-show" very much, only a very little persuasion was required to make him sit down between them and let them have it.