It has been suggested to me that the origin of the pointed shoe is to be found in the mediæval horror of witchcraft. Thus, a writer on Bavarian superstitions says: “As the twelfth hour struck came the witch, but she could do nothing against the servant, who had taken the precaution to have shoes with the points upwards.” I have a more utilitarian theory. Of the Indian shoes at Cluny two have been engraved. In the modern Indian wear (35) the peak has become merely an ornament, but in the older fashions (36) its use is plain. The point is so long, and of so soft a material that it must have been attached by some means to the instep. A shoe from the Punjaub (37) and one from Persia (38) suggest that it was designed to prevent the foot from kicking up the dust, peculiarly unpleasant in hot countries. The name given in the Middle Ages in France to the peaked shoe was suggested, as I have said, by its resemblance to the prow of a boat; but here in Persia we get shoes which look like little models of boats. Our example only wants a mast and sail, and you might imagine it lying in some Oriental river. The pointed toe, then, comes from the East, and its origin was a simple necessity of common life. Fashion, ever ignorant and careless, elongated it into an ornament beautiful or barbarous, or reduced it to a mere rat’s tail, as it appears in some Persian boots (39). Or, doing away entirely with the strap, Fashion left it a curved point, as in the Chinese military boot (40); the curious shoe from Southern Albania (41); the pretty slipper from Cochin-China or Annam (42), and the comfortable shoe from Lapland (43). Shoes in India are only worn by the higher classes, and among a few of the lower castes. This habit of going shoeless seems to render the toes of the Hindoo foot almost as lissom as fingers. A blacksmith with a piece of iron to file fixes it between the jaws of a small pair of tongs, grasps them between the toes of both feet, and holds them so firmly that he is able to file with all the strength of his arms. As he works sitting on the ground, he occasionally stretches out a leg, and picks up some article which happens to be beyond the reach of his arm. Such a workman’s foot tends to assume the character of a hand; not only does the great toe become prehensile, but there is an actual enlargement of the distance between it and the other toes.