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bating, or head-dress, which with the Lower Burmese is an 

 ordinary coloured silk handkerchief, covering the whole head, 

 while at Mandalay it consists of a piece of white muslin rolled in a 

 neatly-folded band, and tied tightly round the head like a coronet 

 just above the eyebrows, the two ends forming a butterfly- 

 like tail at the back, in the arrangement of which no little trouble 

 is bestowed. This mode of head-dress is adopted no doubt 

 with a view to displaying the hair, which is tied in a 

 knot at the top of the head, and, when neatly arranged, 

 closely resembles what sailors call a turk's head. Both men and wo- 

 men are exceedingly proud of thick, long hair, and take every oppor- 

 tunity of displaying their luxuriant dark tresses (sometimes of ex- 

 traordinary length) when they can.* There is little difference in 

 the manner adopted by either sex in dressing the hair. With the 

 men the knot is worn on the top of the head, and with the women 

 quite at the back, and generally finished off with an artificial 

 wreath or single flower of French or English manufacture. The 

 pith-flowers originally in use, have apparently long since been 

 superseded by foreign imitations, which are now largely imported, 

 and find a ready sale. I have seen artificial Chinese flowers ex- 

 posed for sale ; but they are poor specimens in comparison with 

 the European article, while the difference in price does not com- 

 pensate for the inferiority of quality in the eye of the fantastic 

 Burruan belle. A preference is always given to real flowers when 

 obtainable ; andamongthe rural classes, when these are not in season, 

 a delicate tuft of grass, or a few variegated leaves of some plant or 

 shrub, is selected as an ornament for the hair by the country mai- 

 dens. The costume of the women of the Upper and Lower Provinces 

 differs in respect to the jacket and cloth worn round the loins. At 

 the capital, the loongyee^ and little white or coloured jacket is never 



* Yule in his Ava writes : Capillary deficiencies are often supplied artificially. I was 

 surprised, in a list of property made out to be charged against the Burmese Government, 

 as having been carried off from a village near the frontier, to find an entry of twelve sets of 

 false hair." The author was apparently unaware that the females of Burma like our own country- 

 women as a rule, not contended with the gifts of nature, enlarge their back-knots by the addition 

 of gazoos (thick pieces of false hair) for which often as much as Bs. 9 is paid. Naturally 

 the Burmese have a most prolific growth of hair, which I am inclined to attribute to the shaving 

 of the head in their early youth, and the excellent hair- wash they use, which is made from the 

 bark of a grewia and the seed of the acacia concinna. A mucilage is prepared from the bark of the 

 former, and mixed with a decoction of the seeds of the latter, which serve to stimulate growth, 

 and prevent the hair from turning prematurely grey. Judging from the records of the past, it 

 would appear that masks, fans, muffs, and false-hair were of Italian origin, and introduced 

 into France about 1872, but it was some years later before the fashion reached England, In 

 Love's Labour Lost, written about 1594, we find mention made of " Don Armado," a fantastical 

 Spaniard, railed for taking upon himself the office of a lady's fan-bearer. In Romeo and Juliet, 

 again, allusion is made to fans ; while, when Queen Bess died, her wardrobe was said 

 to contain twenty-seven fans, one of which sold for £400. 



t The loongyee is a petticoat without a string, fastened round the waist by gathering in the 

 black and tucking in the gathers. No jacket is worn, as is often the case, the loongyee is 

 srought up under the arm-pit so as to conceal the breasts. The pattern is either in stripes of 

 various colours, or neat plaids. 



