A great warrior is depicted wearing a tightly-fitting shirt of mail composed of bronze scales sewn on to soft leather, displaying short sleeves and descending below the knees, a white metal gauntlet protecting the left wrist. On the head is a high, narrow helmet which completely conceals the hair, and from it floats three pendent ends of striped material. About the throat is a jewelled and enamelled collar, and from a thick gold chain hangs a large gold ornament engraved with figures.
It is known that the finest and most transparent muslins were first manufactured by the ancient Egyptians, and doubtless these were used for making dresses; indeed in proof of this many representations are extant of female musicians clad in diaphanous muslin through which the body can be clearly seen. The loose robe is drawn under the right arm and fastened on the left shoulder.
Did Egyptian women ever grow old, I wonder, and if so, what did they wear? The artists have left us no record save of the eternal feminine eternally youthful.
CHAPTER XIV
OF ORIENTAL DRESS (continued)
"And never the twain shall meet," lilts Kipling of the East and the West; and in the province of dress, as everywhere else in the Orient, caste, ruling supreme, writes incontroversial laws of separation.
In India, the article of masculine attire to which most importance attaches is the turban, its shape and general aspect denoting the social and spiritual status of the wearer.
Until the founding of the Mogul Empire in 1505, the women of Hindostan were strangers to the tyranny both of the Zenana and of the veil, but from that time onwards traces of Mohammedan influence are plainly visible in the habits and costume of the people.