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(amongst the peasantry) with their small gold money, of which they also make necklaces; these latter are likewise sometimes of silver, in form somewhat resembling a collar, being tight round the neck, with silver pendants hung close around it. Their bracelets occasionally consist of three or four silver chains affixed to a broad clasp, but are most commonly rings of coloured glass, of which they often wear two or three on each arm. Every finger is loaded with a multitude of rings of brass, lead, silver, and some few of gold, generally with coloured stones in them. A broad belt is worn around the waist, hanging very loose and as low as the hips: its materials

vary according to the taste of the owner, but it is generally worked with gold or silver thread on blackvelvet, and fastened with a clasp as big as the palms of both hands; these are sometimes of gold or silver, richly embossed, and occasionally of brass or lead. A pair of silver clasps costs from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and seventy roubles.

The married women wear on their heads a large thin Turkish muslin handkerchief, the ends of which hang down behind, and over this a white veil, without which it is a shame for them to be seen. When they go out to walk they wear a large coat made of a very thin kind of woollen stuff,

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very white, which they spin and weave themselves; this is thrown over the head, and hangs down almost to the ancles. The few seen walking in towns are generally thus habited. The hair is plaited in innumerable small braids, which fall down the back, and usually descend below the girdle; for the greater number of them have a profusion of very long hair. They dye it of a deep chesnut, which, if the operation be well performed, is a beautiful colour. The married women paint their faces both white and red, and pencil their eyebrows and eyelashes; but as this is done with bad materials and bad taste (the ground-work, moreover, being sel

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dom pretty), they mar rather than mend, or improve their features. The privilege of painting the face is not allowed to the girls, who, however, participate in that of staining the hair and nails, both of which they dye of the same colour.

The Tatar women spin and weave all their own linen and that of their husbands, using not the wheel but the distaff. The Murzas' ladies sometimes spin the silk of the country, which (though coarse and rough) is a much more costly material, as a shift of it will cost about fifty roubles. Their linen is, for the most part, soft in its texture, and open, though not very fine. The summer dresses of

the men (I mean of the peasants) are entirely of white linen or calico, in which they look very neat and clean; but the women, generally speaking, are not so; and few, if any of them; escape the itch, which, as well as all scorbutic disorders, seems to be hereditary, and exists here with a virulence of which I had no idea, the hands, feet, and ancles being often covered with one entire sore..

They never wear stockings, but generally two pairs of shoes or slippers, the inner ones being made without stiff soles, and the upper assumed when they go out of the house. Besides these they wear large high wooden clogs when the weather is

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