140 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
aversion and disgust. The Dutch ladies, while young and 
unmarried, dress well and are tolerable 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 negligent 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 
countenances to be found that might be accounted handsome 
even in the opinion of an European. Those women, who 
have a mixture 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 there are a great number in all the Dutch settle- 
ments, sooner begin to look old than those who are wholly 
of European extraction. The Dutch ladies have a custom 
of cracking their joints, and rubbing them over with oil* 
which renders them uncommonly supple. 
Dancing is the principal amusement of the younger women ; 
while the chief pleasure of the married and elderly ladies 
consists in paying formal and ceremonious visits to each 
other. To these visits they go attended by a number of 
slave girls, dressed out for the occasion. These girls walk 
