hands and feet, and limbs well proportioned. They are not handsome, perhaps, according to European ideas of beauty; but they are, nevertheless, often very comely, as much from expression, as feature, or more so. They pay great attention to the adornment of their persons. Their long black tresses (frequently like their European sisters, enriched with false tails), carefully dressed and perfumed, are gathered at the back of the head, à la Madonna, and gracefully adorned with fresh flowers, usually an orchid, a jasmine, or a chumpac.

Their petticoat, or hta-mein, is of silk from the native loom, woven in vandyke, cable, or serpentine patterns of the brightest dye and varied hues, but always blended with great taste. This is wrapped

round the body, and the bust covered by a bodice generally of Turkey-red cloth, folded in under the left arm. The petticoat is tucked in tightly at the waist, and falls down in front to the ankles; but merely slightly lapping over discloses a portion of the leg when walking, one limb being visible at a time, according to the forward step.

To the petticoat is attached a skirt of a different pattern, most generally of a pale pink, with horizontal narrow stripes of dark colours, interwoven with gold or silver threads. This skirt trails behind some ten inches to a foot on the ground, and its graceful management, in either walking or dancing, is one of

the accomplishments of a Burmese belle. An engyce, or jacket, of muslin, silk, or satin, worn open; a ta-bet, or shawl, thrown over the shoulders, and red sandals, complete the habiliments of the sex. When in full-dress they are in the habit of powdering their faces with tha-nat-kha-a cosmetic prepared from the Murraya exotica, having a somewhat similar fragrance to sandal-wood-pencilling their eyebrows and rougeing their lips.

Their necklaces and ornaments, of pure gold, set with rubies and other precious stones, are handsome and in good taste. But their most remarkable ornaments are their ear-tubes *-for they cannot be called earrings, which are introduced into a large orifice made in the lobe of the ear. The boring of the lobe of the ear is common to both sexes. It is pierced in the ordinary manner, and the aperture gradually enlarged by introducing small slips of bamboo, increasing in number by slow degrees. The ear-tubes most commonly in use are cylinders of gold, about one-and-a-half inches long, and threequarters of an inch in diameter, and into which is often thrust a half-smoked cigar. Men, women, and children are all great smokers; and even infants at the breast, incredible as it may appear to those who have not seen them, are occasionally observed having a pull at the fragrant weed.

* Na-doungs.

The ceremony of boring* a child's ears is kept as a great festival, and all the relations and friends of the parents are invited. The invitations are not made by notes or cards, but, according to Burmese custom, by sending round small conical packets of pickled tea (let-phet-dhok). After the completion of the ceremony a dinner is given, and a Burmese play, open to all comers, is generally performed under a temporary theatre in front of the house.

A singular practice prevails of accustoming girls, from the earliest age, to turn the inside of the elbow outwards, as if dislocated, and, by constant working, the joint is rendered so flexible that it moves with equal facility either way. When the arm is extended the elbow is inverted, the inside of the joint being protruded, and the external part bending inwards. This is considered the ne plus ultra

* The custom of enlarging the lobe of the ear, so as to enable it to carry ear-tubes of large size, appears to be a very ancient custom, and is supposed to be connected with sun worship. Spanish historians mention that elaborate religious ceremonies were held at the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, on the occasion of boring the ears of the young Peruvian nobles, and in the case of princes of the blood, the Inca himself pierced the ear-lobes with a golden pin.

The image of Gautama is always portrayed with long pendant ear-lobes reaching to his shoulders, "characteristic of his pre-eminence over all men."

In Pinkerton's "Voyage" (vol. xi., p. 375) it is related that Pigafetta, who sailed with Magellan in 1519, heard from an old pilot that there was an island where a race of diminutive stature existed, with ears as long as their bodies, so that they lay on one ear, and used the other for a coverlid. They were said to be Troglodides. A similar story is told by Strabo, on the authority of Megasthenes. Pliny also states that in the “Isles of the Scythians" there were reported to be natives with ears of similar dimensions, and used for the same purpose. See article in the "Journal of the Anthropological Institute," vol. ii., No. 11., by J. Park Harrison, M.A.

VOL. II.

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