Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/135

Rh and haori are invariably of silk, and the haori is adorned with the wearers crest in three places, sometimes in five. The head is mostly bare, but is sometimes covered by a very large straw hat, while on the feet is a kind of sock, named tabi, reaching only to the ankle, and having a separate compartment for the big toe. Of straw sandals there are two kinds, the movable zori used for light work, and the waraji which are bound tightly round the feet with straw string and used for hard walking only. People of means wear only the tabi indoors, and a pair of wooden clogs, called geta, out-of-doors. The native costume of a Japanese gentleman is completed by a fan, a parasol, and in his belt a pipe and tobacco-pouch. Merchants also wear at their belt what is called a yalate—a kind of portable ink-stand with a pen inside. A cheap variety of the kimono, or gown, is the yukata,—a cotton dressing-gown, originally meant for going to the bath in, but now often worn indoors of an evening as a sort of deshabille.

Take it altogether, the Japanese gentleman's attire, and that of the ladies as well, is a highly elegant and sanitary one. The only disadvantage is that the flopping of the kimono hinders a free gait. Formerly the Japanese gentleman wore two swords, and his back hair was drawn forward in a queue over the carefully shaven middle of the skull; but both these fashions are obsolete. The wearing of swords in public was interdicted by law in 1876, and the whole gentry submitted without a blow.

Besides the loin-cloth, which is universal, the men of the lower classes, such as coolies and navvies, wear a sort of dark-coloured pinafore (hara-gake) over the bust, crossed with bands behind the back. They cover their legs with tight-fitting drawers (momo-hiki) and a sort of gaiters (kyahari). Their coat, called shirushi-banten, is marked on the back with a Chinese character or other sign to show by whom they are employed. But jinrikisha-men wear the happi, which is not thus marked,—that is, when they wear anything; for in the country districts and in the hot weather, the loin-cloth is often the sole garment of