Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/811

Rh the loins-girdle. It has originated in and is adapted to warm climates, it is loose and flowing, it has evidently originated in ornament. It is the dress of China and Japan, of the Orient, of ancient Greece and Rome, and of old Egypt. No matter how elaborate the style or how beautiful the material, such dress may all be reduced to the two simple articles before mentioned. The northern type may have been largely due to the wish for protection against the cold, although even here the ornamental has not been lacking in influence. Perfectly developed, the type presents us close-fitting jackets and trousers with tight sleeves and legs. The first materials for this type of dress were skins, and the form of the garments is doubtless due to the fact that the skins were at first tied with thongs about the limbs and trunk. We have said that even here we find the influence of the strife for display. We believe skins were first worn as trophies. Frequently in the classics the heroes are described as wearing skins of lions or leopards. In Egypt, Diodorus says the king wore a lion's, dragon's, or bull's skin over his shoulder. In a severe climate such trophies would become protective coverings, The forms of southern dress were developed by draping, those of the northern by wrapping; but, as the body draped and wrapped was the same, we need not be surprised at finding somewhat similar garments in both series. Jackets and trousers are worn by both Chinese and Eskimo, but in the one they are loose-fitting, flowing garments, in the other close-fitting and tight.

It is most interesting to see how, after the idea of dress was once developed, it has stimulated man's mental progress and mechanical skill in searching for better materials for clothing and devising means of using them. Let us briefly consider some of these dress materials and the ways in which they are treated to render them fit for use. Skins were employed early and are in use the world over. Schweinfurth, in speaking of his Niam-niam guides, says: "They wear large aprons, like cooper aprons, in the early morning, as a protection against dews and dampness. None of these skins are more beautiful than that of the