ings for the feet. The shoe,
especially of the females, is, beyond question, the most tasteful
article in their costume. It is, as I have said before, made of silk,
generally of a lavender, salmon, or rose color, embroidered in beautiful
and artistic patterns of leaves, flowers, and insects. The soles are of
the whitest doeskin; and so particular are they that they shall retain
their unsullied appearance, that, like the cats, they seldom walk
through a wet or muddy street.

The system of binding the feet of the women is by no means so universal
as we have been led to believe, and we must confess to having been
deceived in this matter; we all thought, probably, to have seen _all_
the women with that useful member reduced to the dimensions of a baby's
foot--instead of which, what do we really see? scarce one deformed woman
in all our walks. Yet this nation considers this cramped, tortured lump
(it has lost all semblance to a foot) an index of beauty.

Their hair is by far their finest possession, which, with their large
almond-shaped eyes, is invariably of a black color. I once saw a
Chinaman with _red_ hair, and you cannot think how ludicrous his queue
looked beside the sable tails of his brethren. The manner in which the
women dress their hair is most wonderful, and materially helps to give
them their uninviting appearance. They have a fashion of sticking it out
around the head in the shape of a teapot, stiffened with grease and
slips of bamboo. That this style of head-dress enhances their ugliness
very few Europeans I think will deny; for some women whom we have seen,
with their hair combed neatly back over their heads and coiled up in a
trace behind, looked not altogether uncomely.

The head is dressed but once in ten days; and as the people sleep in
their day clothes, the possibility is they entertain about their persons
a private menagerie of those interesting creatures whose name looks so
vulgar in print. It is one of the commonest scenes in the streets to see
a Chinaman squat on the kerb-stone and turn up a fold or two of his
trousers to manipulate these little pests; and even the high officials
and well-to-do people look upon it as no outrage to the proprieties, to
be seen removing one of "_China's millions_" from the garment of a
friend or guest.

CHAPTER VIII.

----"All the deep
Is restless change." * * *

PREPARATIONS FOR THE NORTH.--AMOY.--WUSUNG,
AND WHAT BEFELL US THERE