Her hair’s fair ornaments, the braids that bound, The net that held them and the wreath that crowned. _Homer._ O’er her fair face a snowy veil she threw, And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew. [Illustration: 2 Females. Musicians from Theban Tombs. In the reign of Menes, 3893 years B.C.] It appears that females were the chief musicians, and these were probably ladies of rank, for they are robed in that delicate texture which was then called “Woven Air.” The figures on the opposite page give an illustration of Chinese women in full dress. Fig. 3 represents a married lady with her hair tied on top of the head. A quantity of false hair was used to make a tuft as large as possible, filled with gold or silver pins, the ends of which were highly ornamented with jewels. Artificial flowers were often used to ornament the head. But the favorite coiffure—the object of a Chinese lady’s greatest admiration—was an artificial bird, formed of gold or silver, intended to represent Fong-Whang, a fabulous bird of which the ancients relate many marvellous tales. It was worn in such a manner that the wings stretched over the front of the head; the spreading tail made a kind of plume on the top, and the body was placed over the forehead, while the neck and beak hung down; and the former, being fastened to the body with an invisible hinge, vibrated with the least motion. [Illustration: 3 4] The recorded history of China begins 2697 years before Christ. The above figures, Nos. 3 and 4, represent the head-dress and costumes of a later date. The researches of scholars and critics which have been so generously and successfully lavished, for the last two centuries, upon the ruins of Egypt, are perfectly marvellous, and only increase our desire to be more acquainted with its customs, of which we can find but little in the way of head-dress to ornament these pages. Figure 7, on the opposite page, represents King Rameses First and his queen, who reigned through the most illustrious period of Egyptian history, in the nineteenth dynasty, about 1411 B.C. [Illustration: 5 6 Arabs in Syria and Palestine. 7 King Rameses and his Queen, B.C. 1411.] In the early history of Rome, 550 years B.C., in the reign of Servius Tullius, there seems to have been nothing whatever of head-dress. Thus we read in the “Æneid”:— Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind; Loose was her hair and wanton’d in the wind. Ribbons or fillets were a very general head-dress. Thus Virgil says:— In perfect view their hair with fillets tied. Her beauteous breast she beat and rent her flowing hair. Strabo says, that in Athens it consisted of a wreath of myrtle leaves and roses around the head, forming a corobulus.