• EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 



toflTed into the river, to be well fcoured outwardly ; nor 

 are the females exempt from this mode of rearing. youth, 

 which renders them not inferior to the men, in lize alone 

 excepted, while fome in running, fwimming, climbing, 

 and dancing, as well as wreftling, are even their fur 

 periors : thus, that it depends on education to form a race 



Amazonia?! females, is a proportion of which I have 

 vepy little doubt. 



Nor are thefe hardy daughters of the Torrid Zons 

 lefs remarkable for propagation. I knew a female fer- 

 vant at Mr. de Graaf's, called Lefperanza^.. who adlu- 

 al]y bore nine children in the courfe of three years, 

 the firft year four, the next two, and the third three. 

 They bring their offspring into the world without painj 

 an:l like the Indian women refuming their domeilic em-r- 

 ployments even the fame, day. During the firif v/eek, 

 their infants are as fair as any Europeans, except that in 

 the males there is a httle appearance of black in a certain 

 part, and the whole body becomes gradually of. that co- 

 lour. Their females arrive early at the age of puberty;: 

 but, as in the fruits of this climate,, this early maturity is 

 fucceeded by a fudden decay* Many of. the negroes,,, 

 however, live to . a very coniiderable age 1 have feen one. 

 or two that were above one hundred and the London. 

 Chronicle for Goober 5, 1780, makes mention of a negro, 

 woman, called Lcuifa '^ruxo, ■sx T^ucomea, in South Ame- 

 rica, ftill living, at the furprizing age of one hundred 

 and feventy-five years. In what tables of longevity is 

 there, fiich an. European to be found? though moft pro- 

 bably. 



