9.  You and I think that only dirty, untidy people let their nails grow long.  Rich people in China never cut their nails.  They let them grow so long that they have to wear shields to keep them from being broken.

10.  The dress of a Chinaman is very simple.  He wears trousers and several cotton or silk tunics.  The outside tunic has very long, wide sleeves; these are used as pockets.

11.  The trousers are loose, and are covered up to the knee by white stockings.  When a Chinaman is in full dress he wears a long gown.  The Chinese boy wears the same kind of clothes as his father.  Every man, woman, and child carries a fan.

12.  Chinese boots are made of cloth or satin, never of leather.  The soles are made of rags or paper.  We blacken the uppers of our boots.  Chinamen whiten the soles of theirs.

[Illustration:  {Chinese boots}]

13.  Now I must end this letter.  When I come home you must ask me to tell you about the rice fields and the silk farms and the Great Wall.  I have a hundred more things to tell you about this wonderful land.—­Your loving father.

[Illustration:  A Rich Chinaman’s House.

(From the photograph by J. Thomson, F.R.G.S.)]

* * * * *

22.  A letter from Japan.

1.  My dear children,—­Once more I have made a long sea voyage, and once more I am safely on shore.  I am now in Japan.

2.  The Japs live on islands, just as we do.  They are brave and clever and busy, and they have many fine warships.  Because of all these things they are sometimes called the Britons of the Far East.

3.  Most of the people in the East are very backward.  They have stood still while the people of the West have gone forward.  Not so the Japs.  They have learnt everything that the West can teach them.  You will see in Japan all the things on which we pride ourselves.

4.  The Japs are first-rate sailors.  Some of their captains learnt to be sailors on board our warships.  They are also fine soldiers.  You know that not many years ago they beat the Russians both by land and by sea.

5.  I like the Japs better than any other people that I have met in the East.  Many of them still wear the dress of olden days, and keep to their simple and pretty ways.  Their country is beautiful, and they love beautiful things.

6.  They are very fond indeed of flowers, which they grow very well.  Their gardens are lovely.  When the flowers are in bloom the Japs troop in thousands to see them.  It is pretty to watch the delight of fathers and mothers and children at the form, colour, and scent of the flowers.

7.  The Japs are very clever workmen.  I have often stood and watched them at work.  They always try to beat their own best.  Good work of any kind gives them joy; bad work gives them pain.

8.  I have bought Jap fans for Kate and May.  On these fans there are pictures of a snow-clad mountain shaped like a sugar loaf.  There is no more beautiful mountain in all the world.