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use (having no quarters), has a very high heel; but with this exception, the heels in these countries are generally flat. No shoes or even boots have more than a single sole (like what we call "pumps"), which in wet weather imbibes the water freely. When the shoe without quarters is used, a slipper, with quarters, but without a sole, is worn inside, and the outer one alone is thrown off on entering a house. But in Persia, instead of this inner shoe of leather, they use a worsted sock. Those shoes that have quarters are usually worn without any inner covering for the foot. The peasantry and the nomade tribes usually go barefoot, or wear a rude sandal or shoe of their own manufacture; those who possess a pair of red leather or other shoes, seldom wear them except on holyday occasions, so that they last a long time, if not so long as among the Maltese, with whom a pair of shoes endures for several generations, being, even on holyday occasions, more frequently carried in the hand than worn on the feet. The boots are generally of the same construction and material as the shoes; and the general form may be compared to that of the buskin, the neight varying from the mid-leg to near the knee. They are of capacious breadth, except among the Persians whose boots generally fit close to the leg, and are mostly of a

sort of Russia leather, uncolored; whereas those of other people are, like the slipper, of red and yellow morocco. There is also a boot or shoe for walking in frosty weather, which differs from the common one only in having under the heel iron tips, which, being partly bent vertically with a jagged edge, give a hold on the ice, which prevents slipping, and are particularly useful in ascending or descending the frozen mountain paths-reminding us of the sort of boot worn by Tartarian ladies, as given in fig. 8. The shoes of the oriental ladies are sometimes highly ornamented; the covering part being wrought with gold, silver, and silk, and perhaps set with jewels, real or imitated. Examples of such decorated shoes are given in plate IV., figs. 9 and 10, and will sufficiently explain themselves to the eye of the reader, rendering detailed description unnecessary. The shoes of noblemen are of precisely similar construction.

In China, the boots and shoes of the men are worn as clumsy and inelegant as in any country.

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They are broad at the toe, and sometimes upturned. We give a specimen of both in the foregoing engraving. They are no doubt easy to wear. Not so are the ladies' shoes, for they only are allowed the privilege of discomfort, fashion having in this country declared in favor of small feet, and the prejudice of the people having gone with it, the feet of all ladies of decent rank in society, are cramped in early life, by being placed in so strait a confinement, that their growth is retarded, and they are not more than three or four inches in length, from the toe to the heel. By the smallness of the foot the rank or high-breeding of the lady is decided on, and the utmost torment is endured by the girls in early life, to insure themselves this distinction in rank; the lower classes of females not being allowed to torture themselves in the same manner. The Chinese poets frequently indulge in panegyrics on the beauty of these crippled members of the body, and none of their heroines are considered perfect without excessively small feet, when they are affectionately termed by them "the little golden lilies." It is needless to say that the tortures of early youth are succeeded by a crippled maturity, a Chinese lady of high birth being scarcely able to walk without assistance. A specimen of such a foot and shoe is given in plate III.,

fig. 11. These shoes are generally made of silk and embroidered in the most beautiful manner, with flowers and ornaments, in colored silk and threads of gold and silver. A piece of stout silk is generally attached to the heel for the convenience of pulling up the shoe.

Having bestowed some attention on ancient Egypt, we may briefly allude to the shoes of modern times, as given in Lane's work devoted to the history of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians. They, like the Persian ones, have an upturned toe, and may with equal ease be drawn on and thrown off. Yet a shoe is also worn with a high instep and high in the heel, which will be best understood by the first figure in the accompanying cut.

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The Turkish ladies of the sixteenth century, and very probably much earlier, wore a very high shoe known in Europe by the name of a “chopine.” In the voyages and travels of N. de Nicholay Dauphinoys, Seigneur D'Arfreville, valet de chambre and geographer to the king of France, printed at Lyons, 1568, one of the ladies of the grand seign

eur's seraglio, is represented in a pair of chopines, of which we copy one in plate III., fig. 12. This fashion spread in Europe in the early part of the seventeenth century, and it is alluded to by Hamlet, in act ii., scene 2, when he exclaims, "Your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine," by which it appears that something of the kind was known in England, where it may have been introduced from Venice, as the ladies there wore them of the most exaggerated size. Coryat, in his "Crudities," 1611, says: "There is one thing used of the Venetian women, and some others dwelling in the cities and towns subject to signiory of Venice, that is not to be observed (I think) among any other women in Christendom". the reader must remember that it was new to Coryat, but a common fashion in the East"which is so common in Venice that no woman whatsoever goeth without it, either in her house or abroad- a thing made of wood and covered with leather of sundry colors; some with white, some red, some yellow. It is called a chapiney, which they never wear under their shoes. Many of these are curious painted; some of them I have also seen fairly gilt; so uncomely a thing, in my opinion, that it is a pity this foolish custom is not clean banished and exterminated out of the city. There

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