JAPANESE STRAW SANDALS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5558, 8 April 1905, Page 12

JAPANESE STRAW SANDALS.

Tho waraja, or rioe-straw, sandal vTO.no, by Japanese coolies, and by Japanese oxen and paokhorsef., is mad© in greater quantities, perhaps than any other article in the Kmpire.

At every house in the single-streeted villages, and at ©very farmhouse along unfrequented ways, they are manufactured, and every shop of every sort sells them. You can buy two pairs, for a penny of our money, and the native buys them for much less. If you hire jinrickisha men for a day’s Jonrney, you will find several pairs of these stray? sandals hanging underneath •the vehicle. As one pair gives out. the, coolie steps out of them into a fresh cue, and goes merrily on his way.

But a *ight that makes the foreigner smilo is to find oxon and horses wearing -■andals. In tho island empire few cows are kept, and these few are usad as beasts of burden, as well as the ox. Their burdens are slung across their hacks, pannier-wise, and the coolie, ever mindful of his beasts, carefully ties on tho straw sandals made for the purpose. New nairs are strung around the saddle of the packhor.se, who requires re-shoc-i„„ every few miles. Iron horseshoes are confined to tho treaty ports and the countrymen still walk beside their horses or oxen, all wearing straw shoos, as did tho ancestors cf both of them hundreds of years ago.