after a homely Fashion: With this lose party-coloured Habit they mightily pleased themselves, so that when they saw our Shifts, made of the finest Linnen, yet they wondered at our Modesty, that we could be contented to wear them without various Works of divers Colours wrought in them.
But that which I most of all admired in them, was the Tower, which they wore on their Heads, for such was the Form of their Hats. They were made of Straw, braided with Webs over them. The Figure of them differs from the Hats Women wear in our Country, for ours hang down on the Shoulders, and the lowest Part of it is the broadest, and so it rises as it were into a Pyramid at top; but theirs is narrowest below, and so rises up like a top, almost nine Inches above the Head; but that Part of it that looks upwards, towards the Sky, is both very capacious, and also very open, so that it seems made to take in Rain, as ours are to shelter us against them; but in that Space, interjacent between their upper and lower Part, their hang Pieces of Coin, little Pictures or Images, small Parcels of painted Glass, or whatever is resplendent, though never so mean, which are accounted very ornamental among them.
Those kind of Hats makes them look taller, and also more Matron-like, though they are easily blown off their Heads, by a blast of Wind, or by any light Motion they fall off themselves.
When they appeared to us in this Dress, I thought they resembled Clytemnestra, or some Hecuba or other, in the flourishing Time of Troy, coming upon the Stage. This Sight suggested to me some pious Meditations, viz. How frail and mutable a Thing that which is called Nobleness of Birth, is; for when I asked of ome
