Dissipation and luxury appear to be congenial to the inhabitants of this climate, and great numbers must annually fall victims to their very destructive influence. Their fatal consequences are indeed too visible in the men, who have indulged themselves in intemperance and other sensual gratifications, and who appear withered and enervated in the extreme; nor do the generality of the Creole females exhibit a more alluring appearance; they are languid, their complexions are sallow, and the skin even of the young ladies is frequently shrivelled. This is however not the case with all; and I have been acquainted with some who, preserving a glow of health and freshness in their lovely countenance, were entitled to contend for the prize of beauty with the fairest European. But, alas! the numbers of this last description are so small, that the colonists in their amours most usually prefer the Indian negro and mulatto girls, particularly on account of their remarkable cleanliness, health, and vivacity. For the excesses of the husbands in this respect, and the marked neglect which they meet from them, the Creole ladies most commonly, at a very early period, appear in mourning weeds, with the agreeable privilege however of making another choice, in the hopes of a better partner; nor are they long without another mate. Such indeed is the superior longevity of the fair females of Surinam, compared to that of the males (owing chiefly, as I said, to their excesses of all sorts) that I have frequently known wives who have buried four husbands, but never met a man in this country who had survived two wives. The ladies do not, however, always bear with the most becoming patience the slights and insults they thus meet with, in the expectation of a sudden release, but mostly persecute their successful sable rivals (even on suspicion) with implacable hatred and the most unrelenting barbarity; while they chastise their partners not only with a shew of ineffable contempt, but with giving in public the most unequivocal marks of preference towards those gentlemen who newly arrive from Europe; which occasioned the trite proverb and observation in the colony, that the Tropical ladies and the musquitoes have an instinctive preference for a newly-landed European: this partiality is indeed so very extreme, and the proofs of it so very apparent and nauseous, that some command of temper is necessary to prevent the disgust which such behaviour must naturally excite, particularly where the object is not very inviting; nay, it was even publicly reported at Paramaribo, that two of these Tropical Amazons had fought a duel for the sake of one of our officers.