nitely varied, and so long as willing witnesses remain--which,
in simple justice to manly fortitude it should be added, is a good
while--so long will the "Chon Nookee" present a new and unexpected
phase, but it is thought expedient that no more of them be presented
here, and if the reader has done me the honor to have enough of it, we
will pass to the consideration of another class of dances.

Of this class those most in favor are the Fan and Umbrella dances,
performed, usually, by young girls trained almost from infancy. The
Japanese are passionately fond of these beautiful exhibitions of grace,
and no manner of festivity is satisfactorily celebrated without them.
The musicians, all girls, commonly six or eight in number, play on the
guitar, a small ivory wand being used, instead of the fingers, to strike
the strings. The dancer, a girl of some thirteen years, is elaborately
habited as a page. Confined by the closely folded robe as by fetters,
the feet and legs are not much used, the feet, indeed, never leaving the
floor. Time is marked by undulations of the body, waving the arms, and
deft manipulation of the fan. The supple figure bends and sways like a
reed in the wind, advances and recedes, one movement succeeding another
by transitions singularly graceful, the arms describing innumerable
curves, and the fan so skilfully handled as to seem instinct with a life
and liberty of its own. Nothing more pure, more devoid of evil
suggestion, can be imagined. It is a sad fact that the poor children
trained to the execution of this harmless and pleasing dance are
destined, in their riper years, to give their charms and graces to the
service of the devil in the 'Chon Nookee'. The umbrella dance is similar
to the one just described, the main difference being the use of a small,
gaily colored umbrella in place of the fan.

Crossing from Japan to China, the Prude will find a condition of things
which, for iron severity of morals, is perhaps unparalleled--no dancing
whatever, by either profligate or virtuous women. To whatever original
cause we may attribute this peculiarity, it seems eternal, for the women
of the upper classes have an ineradicable habit of so mutilating their
feet that even the polite and comparatively harmless accomplishment of
walking is beyond their power, those of the lower orders have not sense
enough to dance, and that men should dance alone is a proposition of
such free and forthright idiocy as to be but o