PLATE no. XII
Collection of D. J. Hile, Esq.

No. 54. Specimen of antique Oriental shoes.

No. 53. Specimen pair of Persian shoes, with straps and buckle. This shoe suggests that it was designed to prevent the foot from kicking up the dust, peculiarly unpleasant in hot countries.

The name given in the Middle Ages in France, chaussure à poulaine, was given on account of the resemblance of the points of the shoes to the prow of a ship; but here in Persia we get shoes which look like little models of boats. Our example only wants a mast and sail, and you might imagine it lying in some Oriental river. The pointed toe then comes from the East, and its origin was a simple necessity of common life. Fashion, ever ignorant and careless, elongated it into an ornament beautiful or barbarous, or reduced it to a mere rat’s tail, as it appears in some Persian boots.

No. 55 Grecian shoes, similar to those worn by Lord Byron. Seventeenth century. (See Plate XV.)

No. 57. Man’s Spanish sandals, probably worn at the, beginning of the present century.

No. 58. African sandals. Niger River distri&; antique.

No. 59. African sandal. Niger River distri&.

No. 56. Burmese sandals.