Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/93

 budding damsel in Japan. To two articles of apparel only do the ladies give special heed. Of these, the more important is the petticoat, if such a misleading and commonplace term may be applied to the closely fitting underskirt of Japanese habiliments,—the yumoji, a broad band of silk, folded round the body and reaching from the waist to a little below the knee. In the vast majority of cases the colour of this item of clothing is crimson. Its glowing uniformity may, however, be varied by sundry devices, from an almost imperceptible sprig pattern of darker hue, to wonders of deft weaving and happy caprice, and a quick-eyed ethnologist may look to see much exercise of tasteful coquetry in the yumoji that grace the suburban shell-beds of Tōkyō at spring-tide picnics. The second article demanding and receiving unusual care is nothing more or less than a towel. Here, again, the paucity of our Anglo-Saxon language becomes perplexing. "Petticoat" may pass for yumoji, faute de mieux, but to speak of the tenugui (literally, "hand-wiper") as a towel is to convey a very false impression of the little blue-and-white linen kerchief which these shell-seeking ladies twist into the daintiest coiffures conceivable, not so much to shade their complexions as to preserve the gloss and symmetry of the achievements that their hair-dressers have turned out for the occasion. The water, as has been said, is only a few inches deep, but a few inches mean much when skirts