446 COSTUME. 



their gaiters or socks are of white linen cloth, and their 

 neat leathern shoes are very much pointed and turned up 

 at the toes. Their hats are of enormous size, with very 

 broad brims, and are of a slight and slender texture, being 

 ingeniously made of a net- work of bamboo, stained black. 

 The crown is very peculiar, high, and conical, and two 

 or three peacock's feathers appended to a curved ivory 

 ball on the pointed apex, hang gracefully over the capa- 

 cious brim. The hats of the Mandarins are usually fur- 

 nished with strings of large amber beads, to fasten them 

 under the chin. An under tunic of white, and a broad 

 silken sash, usually complete the dress of these grandees. 

 They generally carry, moreover, a small piece of black 

 bamboo, with a coloured riband twisted spirally round it, 

 which is their wand of office, and on which their rank is 

 written. The soldiers wear a plaited string from the 

 crown of their hats, with a quantity of red horse-hair 

 depending from it at the hind part of the brim. In 

 winter time, some of the lower orders wear huge fur 

 caps, made of wolf or lynx skin ; and the heads of others 

 are covered with enormous brown or black sombreros, 

 fashioned from a kind of felt, while many again affect 

 huge cone-shaped hats, covered with painted oiled paper. 

 Serfs and husbandmen are very loosely clad, and go about 

 with the legs and fore-arms bare, and wear grass sandles 

 on their feet. Both men and boys have a habit of carry- 

 ing long staves, which gives them an appearance, when 

 seen at a distance, of being armed with spears. The 

 females we saw were very ugly, very dirty, and much 

 more degraded in appearance than the men. 



The natives of Korea, or more properly of Chaou-Seen, 



