h they
wear a half-boot, and besides, as I have already said, they are clothed
with a toga. And so aptly fitting are the garments, that when the toga
is destroyed, the different parts of the whole body are straight-way
discerned, no part being concealed. They change their clothes for
different ones four times in the year, that is when the sun enters
respectively the constellations Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, and
according to the circumstances and necessity as decided by the officer
of health. The keepers of clothes for the different rings are wont to
distribute them, and it is marvellous that they have at the same time as
many garments as there is need for, some heavy and some slight,
according to the weather. They all use white clothing, and this is
washed in each month with lye or soap, as are also the workshops of the
lower trades, the kitchens, the pantries, the barns, the store-houses,
the armories, the refectories and the baths. Moreover, the clothes are
washed at the pillars of the peristyles, and the water is brought down
by means of canals which are continued as sewers. In every street of the
different rings there are suitable fountains, which send forth their
water by means of canals, the water being drawn up from nearly the
bottom of the mountain by the sole movement of a cleverly contrived
handle. There is water in fountains and in cisterns, whither the
rain-water collected from the roofs of the houses is brought through
pipes full of sand. They wash their bodies often, according as the
doctor and master command. All the mechanical arts are practised under
the peristyles, but the speculative are carried on above in the walking
galleries and ramparts where are the more splendid paintings, but the
more sacred ones are taught in the temple. In the halls and wings of the
rings there are solar time-pieces and bells, and hands by which the
hours and seasons are marked off.

_G.M._ Tell me about their children.

_Capt._ When their women have brought forth children, they suckle and
rear them in temples set apart for all. They give milk for two years or
more as the physician orders. After that time the weaned child is given
into the charge of the mistresses, if it is a female, and to the
masters, if it is a male. And then with other young children they are
pleasantly instructed in the alphabet, and in the knowledge of the
pictures, and in running, walking and wrestling; also in the historical
drawings, and