The figures on the opposite page give an illustration of Chinese women in full dress. Fig. 3 represents a married lady with her hair tied on top of the head. A quantity of false hair was used to make a tuft as large as possible, filled with gold or silver pins, the ends of which were highly ornamented with jewels. Artificial flowers were often used to ornament the head. But the favorite coiffure—the object of a Chinese lady’s greatest admiration—was an artificial bird, formed of gold or silver, intended to represent Fong-Whang, a fabulous bird of which the ancients relate many marvellous tales. It was worn in such a manner that the wings stretched over the front of the head; the spreading tail made a kind of plume on the top, and the body was placed over the forehead, while the neck and beak hung down; and the former, being fastened to the body with an invisible hinge, vibrated with the least motion.
3 4
The recorded history of China begins 2697 years before Christ.
The above figures, Nos. 3 and 4, represent the head-dress and costumes of a later date.
The researches of scholars and critics which have been so generously and successfully lavished, for the last two centuries, upon the ruins of Egypt, are perfectly marvellous, and only increase our desire to be more acquainted with its customs, of which we can find but little in the way of head-dress to ornament these pages. Figure 7, on the opposite page, represents King Rameses First and his queen, who reigned through the most illustrious period of Egyptian history, in the nineteenth dynasty, about 1411 B.C.
