The Japanese women have luxuriant, straight, black hair. The wavy hair which Western women prize so highly is not beautiful in the eyes of the ladies of Japan. Curly hair is to them positively ugly. They spend much care upon the arrangement of their tresses, and their mode of hairdressing is elaborate. Even the women of the poorer classes will visit the hairdressers. The locks are first treated with a preparation of oil, and then done up in the conventional style so familiar to all from pictures of Japanese women. This is expected with many to remain intact for six or eight days. At present the modes of dressing the hair of female children and growing girls, as well as of married women, vary according to taste and circumstances. In ancient days, however,--and the custom still prevails in some of the more conservative regions,--the hair of the female children was cut short at the neck and allowed to hang down loosely till the girl reached the age of eight years. At about twelve or thirteen, the hair was usually bound up, although frequently this was delayed till the girl became a wife. In the romantic poem of Mushimaro, _The Maiden of Unahi_, we find this custom referred to, as well as the custom of secluding the young girl from the eyes of her would-be suitors: "For they locked her up as a child of eight, When her hair hung loosely still; And now her tresses were gathered up, To float no more at will." As a rule, the women wear no head covering whatever, except that which their luxuriant hair furnishes. In the coldest weather, however, they wrap the head gracefully in a headgear of cloth. Gloves are rarely seen upon the dainty hands of the women, and shoes are worn only when out of doors.