.1898.] ESSAYS. 87 



as possible of the interesting things in Japan. One of the most 

 entertaining things is to have young ladies corae in and read, 

 dance and furnish music for you. Here are two girls who can 

 be employed to come in and read from the Japanese books 

 or play on Japanese musical instruments in your hotel. Here 

 you have the characteristic dress of the people of Japan. They 

 dress ditferently according to their class, and according to their 

 age. The women especially are distinguished by the different 

 kinds of dress. A little girl will be dressed in the brightest 

 colors, mostly crimson and blue, and as they get a little older 

 the colors are less bright, but they are striking. The girl who 

 is standing there has a sash around her waist. This is the 

 " Obi," the pride of the Japanese woman. Here is where most 

 of the money furnished by her father is invested. The sash fits 

 very nicely and gives her a very graceful appearance. It is 

 wound round and round her waist (five or six yards of silk or 

 sometimes velvet), and is tied in a bow behind. You notice the 

 way her hair is done up. A .Japanese lady never dresses her 

 own hair. A regular hairdresser comes in and does her hair up 

 to last four or five days. It is very carefully and very artisti- 

 cally done. 



While we are in our room, it may be of interest to have the 

 dancing-girls come in. Here are three. They generally belong 

 to the middle class, and to some extent are of ill repute. But 

 here they play an innocent role. Their form of beauty is very 

 striking, a beauty that appeals to some eyes but not to others. I 

 found the Japanese women to be very beautiful indeed, with 

 a delicacy of feature and a healthfulness of body. These girls 

 are dancing and what are called dancing-girls, but their dancing 

 is very difierent from ours in America. Theirs consists of 

 posturing, swaying to and fro, and bending and moving the 

 body, and they do it very gracefully. You see some of the 

 principal postures of the dancing-girl here. They always have 

 a fan, and that takes part in their movements and adds attrac- 

 tiveness to them. You notice that these girls have their hair 

 done up in the way that I showed you in a previous picture. 

 They wear a peculiar kind of wooden shoes. 



