TROUSERS 259 



ments go to his son and heir. A very few working city 

 Arabs wear read3^-raade clothing from France, England, 

 or perchance even America. More's the pity ! It sounds 

 the death-knell to national costume. 



Where shall we go next to find an unspoiled nation, ex- 

 cept away to the interior of Asia or Africa ? The ver}- 

 remotest corners of the earth are invaded by ready-made, 

 clothes. If the Bible could be introduced with half the 

 ease of these abominations, this generation would see the 

 millennium with its own eyes. When I say Bible, by-the- 

 way, I mean the Sermon on the Mount, and not Jonah 

 and the Whale, as an article of faith. Far beyond the 

 reach of the railroad you see graceful national costumes 

 supplanted by cheap European clothing. Now, I maintain 

 that national character resides largely in legs. Years ago 

 you needed only to look as high as a man's knees to tell his 

 nationality. Think of the delicious legs of the old-time 

 Italian peasant — real stage-brigand legs, pure and unde- 

 filed — now chased into inaccessible mountain recesses! 

 Think of the legs of the Russian peasant of to-da}^, all 

 boots and padding, no more to be unwrapped than an 

 Egyptian mummy ! But all fin de slede legs look alike. 

 It is only when you get way beyond the path of Cook's 

 Tours that you find either a type of clothing or the grace- 

 ful looseness of garment which ignorance of civilization 

 breeds. 



I believe that no trouser-wearing human being, unless 

 he be a much - travelled man, can have any idea of the 

 horrible perversity of the cut of the Oriental home-made 

 pants ; it is atrocious, heart-rending. The variety of bad- 

 ness in style must be imagined ; it cannot be described, 

 but — well, it reminds me of an incident, the real origin of 

 the story as since sometimes narrated. It was very many 

 years ago, when the now godlike Poole was struggling 



