Storia do Mogor 203.2.2

203.2.2

All women in India are in the habit of scenting their hands and feet with a certain earth, which they call mendy (mehndi), which colours the hands and feet red, in such a way that they look as if they had on gloves. They do this because they can wear neither gloves nor stockings on account of the great heats which prevail in India. They are also obliged thereby to put on such exceedingly thin raiment that their skin shows through. They call these clothes siricas (?sari) and others malmal (i.e., muslin). Ordinarily they wear two or even three garments, each weighing not more than one ounce, and worth from forty to fifty rupees each. This is without counting the [gold] lace that they are in the habit of adding. They sleep in these clothes, and renew them every twenty-four hours, and never put them on again, but give them away to their servants. Their hair is always very well dressed, plaited, and perfumed with scented oil. They cover their heads with a sheet of cloth of gold, and these are of different makes and colours. During the cold weather — that is to say, the less hot season; as for winter, they do not know in India what that means — in that season, I say, they wear the same clothes, covering themselves on the top of the other things, however, with a woollen cabaye (qaba, a long open gown), of fine Kashmir make. Above their other clothes they put on fine shawls, so thin that they can be passed through a small finger-ring.