"TRAVELLERS' TALES."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—Travellers, from the days of Mandeville, have been privileged to see and hear strange things ; but if your reviewer this week is to be trusted in his account of " Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," why, " I would I were a Bird," that I might surpass them all :— " Nobody wore any clothing above the waist, and only the women below it," says the traveller, as represented in the review, at page 1481. And again, half-a-dozen lines further down, "The women are less tolerant of life than the men, and are in the habit of going out at night, and, after filling their capacious sleeves with stones, jumping into a river or well." Quite so. But where, oh where ! if they wear no clothing above the waist, do the women of Japan get their capacious sleeves from P—I am, Sir, &c., [There is no inconsistency, and the explanation is very simple ; Miss Bird repeatedly states that the Japanese women have sleeves, but do not always wear them on their arms, they let them hang down from the waist.—ED. Spectator.]
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