162 TJie Dutch of Ceylon, 
Dutch as rather calculated for men, and too harsh for the 
mouth of a lady. 
Although the men would not appear very amiable in the eyes 
of our British ladies, yet their Dutch wives look upon them 
with the greatest veneration and affection. Conscious of their 
own defects, and always kept at a great distance by their husbands, 
they look upon their caresses as a high honour, and are there- 
fore extremely Jealous of their favours. And yet their own 
manners after marriage are the worst calculated possible to 
• preserve the attachment of their husbands ; indeed in men of 
any delicacy they could only produce aversion and disgust. The 
Dutch ladies, while young and unmarried, dress well and are tole- 
rable in their persons, and many among them pretty and even 
handsome ; but afterwards they contract such lazy and indolent 
habits that they become coarse, corpulent, and dirty in their 
persons ; and their dress during the day is slovenly and negli- 
gent to excess. 
In this climate, and with these habits of life, it would be in 
vain to look for the bloom of health and the European red 
and white in the cheeks of the^ women ; their complexions are 
for the most part of a pale deadly white, although there are 
some exceptions to this observation, and a few female counte- 
nances to be found that might be accounted handsome even in 
the opinion of an European. Those women, who have a mix- 
ture of the native blood, are easily distinguished by a tinge in 
the colour of the skin, and their strong thick black hair ; 
marks which are not to be removed in the course of many 
generations. The women of this mixed race, of whom theie 
are a great number in all the Dutch settlements, sooner begin 
to look old than those who are wholly of European extrac- 
