Sometimes a man will appear in a costume which even seems more absurd than the almost entire nudity which has just been mentioned, and will walk about in a hat, a short jacket, and nothing else but the cloth.
In an [illustration] on the next page, the artist has shown a number of the ordinary costumes as they appear when the wearers are gathered round a ballad-singer. The most conspicuous figure is that of a Samourai or Yaconin, an armed retainer of a nobleman, swaggering along with the two swords emblematic of his office, and his features nearly hidden under his hat. The men wearing the extraordinary piebald dresses are a sort of street constable, who accompany a man of rank on his journey, and who jingle an iron rod laden with rings, in order to warn people to get out of the way of the great man. The other figures of men are arranged so as to show the mode of dressing the hair, and one or two varieties of costume.
(1.) DECAPITATION OF CHINESE CRIMINAL.
(See [page 1440].)
(2.) THE STREET BALLAD-SINGER.
(See [page 1450].)
The general appearance of the women’s dress is well shown by a figure opposite to that of the Samourai. The dress is almost exactly like that of the men, except that the materials are generally finer, and the sash which confines the garments to the waist is very broad, and gathered up into a large and peculiar knot, almost exactly like the “panier” of European fashion. Both sexes wear stockings made like mittens, and having a separate place for the reception of the great toe. Without this provision they would not be able to wear the peculiar sandals and clogs of the country, which are held on the foot by a Y-shaped strap, the fork of which passes between the great and the second toe. The clogs that are worn by the women very much resemble those of the Malays in general shape, and, awkward as they look, are easily manageable after a little practice. Some clogs in my collection elevate the foot of the wearer six inches above the ground, but I have found that walking, or rather shuffling, in them is not at all difficult.
The chief distinction between masculine and feminine attire lies in the hair. Whereas the men shave nearly the whole of the head, the women allow their hair to grow, and even add to it when they do not possess a sufficient amount to produce the extraordinary forms into which they twist their locks. Various fashions of hair-dressing prevail in different parts of the country, but in all cases the women take extraordinary pains with their heads, and twist their hair into elaborate and fantastic patterns, which scarcely any European hairdresser could equal.
Hair-pins are very fashionable, not so much for the purpose of confining the locks in their places, as of mere adornment. The pins are of enormous size, seven or eight inches in length, and half an inch wide, and are made of various substances, such as tortoise shell, carved wood, and ivory. Some of the most characteristic hair-pins are made of glass. They are hollow, and nearly filled with some colored liquid, so that at every movement of the wearer an air bubble runs from one end of the pin to the other. Sometimes a woman will wear a dozen or more of these pins in her hair, so that at a little distance her head looks as if a bundle of firewood had been stuck loosely into it.