The court ladies shaved off their eyebrows, and pointed two sable bars or spots on the forehead resembling false eyebrows. In addition to the gentle tasks of needle-work and embroidery, they passed the time in games of chess, checkers, painted shells, and a diversion peculiar to the palace, in which the skill of the player depended on her sensitiveness in appreciating perfumes, the necessary articles being vials of fragrant extracts. Their pets were the peculiar little dogs called “chin.”
They stained their teeth black, like the women o the lower classes; an example which the nobles of the sterner sex followed, as they grew more and more effeminate. One of the staple diversions of both sexes at court was to write poetry, and recite it to each other. The emperor frequently honored a lady or noble by giving the chosen one a subject upon which to compose a poem. A happy thought, skillfully wrought stanza, a felicitous grace of pantomime, often made the poetess a maid of honor, a concubine, or even an empress, and the poet a minister or councilor.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
