in their hair and walked as if on stilts were women. When these hobbled still nearer the cause of their queer stilted walk was obvious. Their feet were “bound,” i.e. deformed and distorted, pathetically--and to Western eyes abhorrently--out of shape. Up to this time I had always supposed that only among the “upper classes” in China were the feet of the women bound; those of the class who could afford to go always in ricksha or sedan-chair. But all the women of the Chinese-Formosans--except those of the despised Hakkas--bind their feet; rather, have them bound in infancy. A woman with unbound feet is regarded as a sort of pariah, and her chances of a “good marriage”--that goal of every Chinese woman--are almost nil.[27] These peasant and coolie-women hobbled nearer to see the train as it stopped at the little stations between Keelung and Taihoku, especially when it was reported that there was a white woman aboard. Many of them could not walk without the aid of a stick or without resting one hand on the shoulder of a small boy, thus maintaining their balance. “Lily feet” were obviously a handicap in the carrying of such burdens as most of these women had on their backs. In some cases the bundles consisted of babies strapped Indian-papoose fashion to the shoulders of the mothers--a custom common to both Chinese and Japanese women; in other cases, of heavy bundles of food or of faggots. Unattractive as were the figures of the women--the entire leg being undeveloped, as the result of the cramping of the feet from infancy--their faces were generally attractive; sweet, with a wistful, rather pathetic expression. Only the lips and teeth of the older women were often hideously disfigured from the habit of beetle-nut chewing. The women out of doors who were not burden-bearing were kneeling at the side of the streams and canals, used for irrigating the rice-paddies, busily engaged in washing the family linen--very much in public--or pounding it between stones. As these washerwomen--and they seemed legion, for the Chinese devote as much time to the washing of their clothing as the Japanese do to that of their bodies--knelt, I saw the soles of their feet. In the case of some of the poorer and more ill-dressed women, the splashing water had displaced the rags with which their feet were bound, and the “shoes” which were supposed to cover them. The feet themselves--those members which every lily-footed woman most carefully conceals--were exposed. The sight was not a pleasant one.