the character of the progeny of despicable slaves,
than of a civilized race of beings.
“ They are remarkably fond of bathing and ablutions,
and they make use of a large tub for this
purpose, which holds three hogsheads of water,
and in which they immerge their whole body, at
least twice a week. Some of them do this in the
morning, in one of the running streams out of the
city.
“ In common with most of the women in India,
they cherish a most excessive jealousy of their husbands,
and of their female slaves. If they discover
the smallest familiarity between them, they set no
bounds to their thirst of revenge against those poor
bondswomen, who, in most cases, have not dared
to resist the will of their masters, for fear of ill
treatment.
“ They torture them in various ways; they have
them whipt with rods, and beat with rattans, till
they sink down before them, nearly exhausted:
among other methods of torturing, they make the
poor girls sit before them in such a posture, that
they can pinch them with their toes, in a certain
sensible part, which is the peculiar object of their
vengeance, with such cruel ingenuity, that they
faint away by excess of pain.
“ I shall refrain from the recital of instances,
' which I have heard, of the most refined cruelty
practised upon these wretched victims of jealousy,
by Indian women, and which have been related to
me by witnesses worthy of belief; they are too repugnant
to every feeling of humanity, and surpass
the usual bounds of credibility.
“ Having thus satiated their anger upon their
slaves, their next object is to take equal revenge
upon their husbands, which they do in a manner
less cruel, and more pleasant to themselves.
“ The warmth of the climate, which influences
strongly upon their constitutions, together with the
dissolute lives of the men before marriage, are the
causes of much wantonness and dissipation among
the women.
“ Marriages are always made at Batavia on Sundays,
yet the bride never appears abroad before
the following Wednesday evening, when she attends
divine service ; to be sooner seen in public
would be a violation of the rules of decorum.
“ As soon as a woman becomes a widow, and the
body of her husband is interred, which is generally
done the day after his decease, if she be but rich,
she has immediately a number of suitors. A certain
lady, who lost her husband while I was at
Batavia, had, in the fourth week of her widowhood,
a fourth lover, and, at the end of three months, she
married again, and would have done it sooner, if
the laws had allowed of it.
“ Their dress is very light and airy ; they have a
piece of cotton cloth wrapped round the body, and
fastened under the arms, next to the skin; over