Umbrellas and their History | Page 4

records of ancient life are
not nearly full enough to justify any one who may Assert that the
pictures in our pages are not as accurate as those in the British Museum.
Anyhow, what they ought to have been, rather than what the ancient
were, our artist has striven to delineate.]
In Persia the Parasol is repeatedly found in the carved work of
Persepolis, and Sir John Malcolm has an article on the subject in his
"History of Persia." In some sculptures--of a very Egyptian character,
by the way--the figure of a king appears attended by a slave, who
carries over his head an Umbrella, with stretchers and runner complete.
In other sculptures on the rock at Takht-i-Bostan, supposed to be not
less than twelve centuries old, a deer-hunt is represented, at which a
king looks on, seated on a horse, and having an Umbrella borne over
his head by an attendant.
This combination of business and comfort forcibly reminds us of a
certain wet day in Carlsruhe, where we witnessed from the window of
the Hôtel d'Angleterre a stout, martial-looking national guardsman
marching to the exercising-ground with an Umbrella over his head, and
a maid-servant diligently tramping through the mud behind him,
bearing his musket.
As in Assyria, so in most other Eastern countries, this use of the
Parasol carried with it a peculiar and honourable significance. The
tradition relating to its origin in China has been already alluded to, and
we can trace notices of its use a very long way back indeed.
According to Dr. Morrison, Umbrellas and Parasols are referred to in
books printed about A.D. 300, but their use has been traced still further
back than this. A very ancient book of Chinese ceremonies, called
"Tcheou-Li, or The Rites of Tcheou," directs that upon the imperial
cars the dais should be placed. "The figure of this dais contained in the
Chinese edition of Tcheou-Li, and the particular description of it given
in the explanatory commentary of Lin-hi-ye, both identify it with an
Umbrella. The latter describes the dais to be composed of 28 arcs,
which are equivalent to the whalebone ribs of the modern instrument,
and the staff supporting the covering to consist of two parts, the upper

being a rod 3/18ths of a Chinese foot in circumference, and the lower a
tube 6/10ths in circumference, into which the upper half is capable of
sliding."
In the second Tartar invasion of China the emperor's son was taken
prisoner by the Tartar chief, and made to carry his Umbrella when he
went out hunting.
Starting from the royal significance attached to the Umbrella, came a
feeling of veneration for it, very different from the contempt with
which we are now-a-days too apt to regard it. It was represented by
many ancient nations as shading their gods. In the Hindoo mythology
Vishnu is said to have paid a visit to the infernal regions with his
Umbrella over his head. One would think that in few places could an
Umbrella have been less appropriate, but doubtless Vishnu knew what
he was about, and had his own reasons for carrying his Parapluie under
his arm. Perhaps like Mrs. Gamp he could not be separated from it. So
much for the ancient history of our subject in the East. We may now go
on to countries about which we know a little more than of ancient
China and Assyria.
In Greece, as Becker tells us in his "Charicles," the Parasol was an
indispensable adjunct to a lady of fashion. It had also its religious
signification. In the Scirophoria, the feast of Athene Sciras, a white
Parasol was borne by the priestesses of the goddess from the Acropolis
to the Phalerus. In the feasts of Dionysius (in that at Alea in Arcadia,
where he was exposed under an Umbrella, and elsewhere) the Umbrella
was used, and in an old has-relief the same god is represented as
descending ad inferos with a small Umbrella in his hand, like Vishnu
before mentioned.
There was also another festival in which they appeared, though without
any mystical signification. In the Panathenæa, the daughters of the
Metceci, or foreign residents, carried Parasols over the heads of
Athenian women as a mark of inferiority,
"tas parthenons ton metoikon skiadaephorein en tais rompais
aenankazon." --OElian, V. H., vi. 1. [Footnote: "They compelled the

maidens of the Metceci to act as umbrella-bearers in the processions."]
Its use seems to have been confined to women. In Pausanias there is a
description of a tomb near Pharæ, a Greek city. On the tomb was the
figure of a woman--
"themapaina de autae prosestaeke skiadeion pherousa." --Pausanias, lib.
vii., cap. 22, Section 6. [Footnote: "And by her stood a female slave,
bearing a parasol."]
Aristophanes seems to mention it among the common articles of