Litchfield Enquirer

Hindoo Women.—The forms of the women of the high castes are delicate and graceful; their eyes dark and languishing; their hair fine and long; the complexions glowing, as if they were radiant; and their skins remarkably polished and soft. The only feature about them that does not quite harmonize with European notions of female symmetry is the size and projection of their ear; but with this exception, nothing can be more blithe and sylphlike than a genuine Hindoo beauty. Their dress is very elegant, and upon a fine form is more classical than the fashionable bundles of knots, tattlers, and head dresses as broad as the umbrella over a palanquin, which in the present year, 1831, give the belles of America an outline, which, if it should please nature to fill up with flesh and blood, would certainly render them of all created beings the most shapeless, or at any rate the most unmeaning in shape, either for use or ornament. The close part of the Hindoo female dress is a jacket with short sleeves, which fits tight to the shape, and covers, but does not conceal the bust, and this in females of rank is made of rich silk. The remainder of the dress is the shawl, a large piece of silk or cotton, which is wrapped round the middle, and contrived to fall in graceful folds. till it falls below the ankle on one leg, while it shows a part of the other. It is gathered in a bunch in front, and the upper end crosses the breast, and is thrown forward again over the shoulder, or over the head like a veil. The hands and feet are always adorned with rings and other ornaments, and sometimes a jewel is worn from the nose. Even the working girls have their anklets and armlets of glass, tin, brass, &c higher classes wear a kind of slippers or sandals, which are long, turned up, and sometimes ornamented at the points: but the poorer classes go barefooted. The ornaments that are worn upon the person are the only costly articles in the establishment of a Hindoo, but they are of a nature not soon to wear out, and they never become unfashionable.