without having every inch of his legs carefully covered; but the women
who acted as his servants were stark naked (Hellwald, 78).

While the etiquette of modesty is thus subject to an endless variety
of details, every nation and tribe enforces its own ideal of propriety
as the only correct thing. In Tahiti and Tonga it would be considered
highly indecent to go about without being tattooed. Among Samoans and
other Malayans the claims of propriety are satisfied if only the navel
is covered. "The savage tribes of Sumatra and Celebes have a like
feeling about the knee, which is always carefully covered"
(Westermarck, 207). In China it is considered extremely indecent if a
woman allows her bare feet to be seen, even by her husband, and a
similar idea prevails among some Turkish women, who carefully wrap up
their feet before they go to bed (Ploss, I., 344). Hindoo women must
not show their faces, but it is not improper to wear a dress so gauzy
that the whole figure is revealed through it. "In Moruland," says Emin
Bey,

"the women mostly go about absolutely naked, a few only
attaching a leaf behind to their waistband. It is curious to
note, on meeting a bevy of these uncovered beauties carrying
water, that the first thing they do with their free hand is
to cover the face."

These customs prevail in all Moslem countries. Mariti relates in his
_Viaggi_ (II., 288):

"Travelling in summer across the fields of Syria I
repeatedly came across groups of women, entirely naked,
washing themselves near a well. They did not move from the