In Pegu The Fashion In Dress Is Uniformly The Same For The High And Low,
The Rich And The Poor, The Only Difference Being In The Quality Or
Fineness, Of The Materials, Which Is Cloth Of Cotton, Of Various
Qualities.
In the first place, they have an inner garment of white
cotton cloth which serves for a shirt, over which they gird another
garment of painted cotton cloth of fourteen _brasses_ or yards, which is
bound or tucked up between the legs.
On their heads they wear a _tuck_
or turban of three yards long, bound round the head somewhat like a
mitre; but some, instead of this, have a kind of cap like a bee-hive,
which does not fall below the bottom of the ear. They are all
barefooted; but the nobles never walk a-foot, being carried by men on a
seat of some elegance, having a hat made of leaves to keep-off the rain
and sun; or else they ride on horseback, having their bare feet in the
stirrups. All women, of whatever degree, wear a shift or smock down to
the girdle, and from thence down to their feet a cloth of three yards
long, forming a kind of petticoat which is open before, and so strait
that at every step they shew their legs and more, so that in walking
they have to hide themselves as it were very imperfectly with their
hand. It is reported that this was contrived by one of the queens of
this country, as a means of winning the men from certain unnatural
practices to which they were unhappily addicted.
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