More of a luxury and confined mostly to sachems and sagamores was the wampum belt, alternate white and purple strings attached in rows to a deerskin base, and worn as a belt about the waist, or thrown over the shoulders like a scarf. Ordinary belts consisted of twelve rows of one hundred and eighty beads each, but they increased in length and breadth with the social importance of the wearer. As many as ten thousand beads are known to have been wrought into a single war belt four inches wide. The regular alternation of white and purple rows was not always adopted, but birds and beasts and such other rustic fantasies as suited the owner's taste, were often interwoven with the different colors. One of King Philip's belts surrendered by the Sagamore Annawon to Capt. Church, was nine inches wide, of sufficient length when placed about Capt. Church's shoulders to reach to his ancles, and curiously inwrought with figures of birds, beasts and flowers. From another belt of no less exquisite workmanship and designed to be worn about the head, two flags fell in graceful folds upon the shoulders. A third and smaller one had a star embroidered upon its end, and was to be worn upon the breast. The haughty old chief was wont to adorn his person with these insignia when he sat in state among his subjects. They symbolized, by striking emblems, his might and prowess, and kindled in beholders feelings and emotions that royal pomp and purple could not awake. The idea of gaudiness is apt to associate itself in our minds with Indian trappings, but we must confess that the simple grace and force of these rustic adornments would put to shame many a glittering article of more modern wear.