Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. IV.pdf/28



IN China, as in other countries, we find dress obedient to the shifts of capricious fashion. Yet by no means slavishly so, as is the case among ourselves. The principal changes known to the Chinese may be reduced to the casting aside of winter costume, and the putting on the summer dress. The style of dress worn during these two seasons is much alike, frequently all that is done is to render the summer coat a warmer one by padding it with cotton for winter wear, or else it is lined, sometimes with sables, sometimes with inferior sorts of fur. In these last cases the fur is turned inside and the silk which, with us, would serve as a lining, forms, with the- Chinese, the outside surface of the garment. Besides the above variations, there is also a special style of dress to be used on marriage; and one of another kind is the only costume permitted at funerals. The full robes of a Chinese lady or gentleman of the better classes are highly picturesque, and remarkable also for the richness and beauty of their materials. The costume, besides this, is ample, graceful, and well adapted to the requirements of any climate, light in summer, and warm enough in winter to do away with the necessity for the artificial heat of an in-door fireplace.^

Le Comte who was in China about two centuries ago, thus describes the dress of Chinese ladies, and his account is a fitting description of the costumes in vogue among them even at the present day. « The ladies wear, as men do, a long satin or cloth vest, red, blue, or green, according to their peculiar fancy; the elder sort habit themselves in black or purple; they wear, besides that, a kind of surtout, the sleeves whereof are extremely wide, and trail upon the ground, when they have no occasion to hold them up. But that which distinguishes them from all the women in the world, and does, in a manner, make a particular species of them, is the littleness of their feet.

Le Comte names only three colours as being fashionable for dresses, but the hues adopted by the Chinese ladies nosv-a-days are infinite in their variety and shade; I may add that delicate and quiet tints are most ,n favour. Red is used as a bridal dress; blue is slight mourning; and a white spotless robe denotes the deepest sorrow.

Plate No 15 shows another variety of dressing the hair common among the ladies at Swatow, while Nos. .6, ,7 ,8 and 20 represent the coiffure of married Manchu or Tartar matrons. Of this last head-dress, which differs widely from anything Chinese, Nos. ,6 and, 7 show respectively the full front and the full back views so perfect y as to enable any of my fair readers to try the experiment with their own tresses if they so please. The basis of the device consists of a flat strip of wood, ivory, or precious metal about a foot in length. Half of the real hair of the wearer is gathered up and twisted in broad bands round this support, which is then laid across the back of the head. I confess myself unable to explain the mysterious mode in which the tresses have been twisted, but careful study of the illustrations will, I doubt not, reward any lady who may desire to dress her hair " a la Manchu. The style is simple and graceful, and must have been designed, one would almost think, to represent horns enabling the wearer to hold her own against her antagonistic husband. It might be called the trigonometrical chignon, for, ,t will be observed, that if we produce two lines from the point of the chin to the tips of the chignon, an equilateral triangle is obtained, whose three sides support the axiom, "Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other; » and my fair reader is quite at liberty to deduce, as a just consequence, that a lady ,s quite equal to her lord Joking apart, I would seriously advise the ladies of our land to try this chignon, as ,t would be a deeded improvemedt upon those now in vogue, and should their husbands or brothers be devoted to artistic or literary pursuits the basis could easily be procured in the shape of a limners brush, a ruler, or a paper-knife, while the flowers and other ornamental accessories would be readily found where ladies always obtain them.

The old dame presented to the reader in No., 9 , shows still another style of head-dress, one worn by Mongol women during the winter months. The cap is of fur. We might, at a first glance, suppose that we see here the lady's own hair, devoid of the bonnet we are used to in some elevated positions. The whole is, however, m reality the bonnet, or hat, of the wearer, who has an eye to comfort as well as to adornment. The jewels or ornaments which are indispensable to the gentler sex of every clime, are, in this instance, fixed principally to the lobes of the ears. The face, with its high cheek bones, is one thoroughly characteristic of the Mongol race.