University of Virginia Library

A DUTCH VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY.

Suffice it then to say, the voyage was prosperous and
tranquil—the crew being a patient people, much given to
slumber and vacuity, and but little troubled with the disease
of thinking—a malady of the mind, which is the sure
breeder of discontent. Hudson had laid in abundance of
gin and sour crout, and every man was allowed to sleep
quietly at his post unless the wind blew. True it is, some
slight dissatisfaction was shown on two or three occasions,
at certain unreasonable conduct of Commodore
Hudson. Thus, for instance, he forbore to shorten sail
when the wind was light, and the weather serene, which
was considered among the most experienced Dutch seamen,
as certain weather breeders, or prognostics, that the
weather would change for the worse. He acted, moreover
in direct contradiction to that ancient and sage rule
of the Dutch navigators, who always took in sail at
night; put the helm aport, and turned in; by which
precaution they had a good night's rest, were sure of
knowing where they were the next morning, and stood
but little chance of running down a continent in the
dark. He likewise prohibited the seamen from wearing

more than five jackets, and six pair of breeches, under
pretence of rendering them more alert; and no man was
permitted to go aloft, and hand in sails, with a pipe in
his mouth, as is the invariable Dutch custom at the
present day. All these grievances, though they might
ruffle for a moment the constitutional tranquillity of the
honest Dutch tars, made but a transient impression; they
ate hugely, drank profusely, and slept immeasurably; and
being under the especial guidance of providence, the ship
was safely conducted to the coast of America; where,
after sundry unimportant touchings and standings off and
on, she at length, on the fourth day of September, entered
that majestic bay, which at this day expands its ample
bosom before the city of New-York, and which had never
before been visited by any European.

LETTER
FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELIKHAN,

Though I am often disgusted, my good Asem, with
the vices and absurdities of the men of this country, yet
the women afford me a world of amusement. Their
lively prattle is as diverting as the chattering of the red-tailed
parrot, nor can the green-headed monkey of Timandi
equal them in whim and playfulness. But, notwithstanding
these valuable qualifications, I am sorry to
observe they are not treated with half the attention bestowed
on the before-mentioned animals. These infidels
put their parrots in cages and chain their monkeys; but
their women, instead of being carefully shut up in harems
and seraglios, are abandoned to the direction of their
own reason, and suffered to run about in perfect freedom,
like other domestic animals: this comes, Asem, of treating
their women as rational beings, and allowing them
souls. The consequence of this piteous neglect may easily
be imagined;—they have degenerated into all their native
wildness, are seldom to be caught at home, and, at an
early age, take to the streets and highways, where they
rove about in droves, giving almost as much annoyance

to the peaceable people as the troops of wild dogs that infest
our great cities, or the flights of locusts that sometimes
spread famine and desolation over whole regions of
fertility.

This propensity to relapse into pristine wildness convinces
me of the untameable disposition of the sex, who
may indeed be partially domesticated by a long course of
confinement and restraint, but the moment they are restored
to personal freedom, become wild as the young
partridge of this country, which, though scarcely half
hatched, will take to the fields and run about with the
shell upon its back.

Notwithstanding their wildness, however, they are remarkably
easy of access, and suffer themselves to be approached,
at certain hours of the day, without any symptoms
of apprehension; and I have even happily succeeded
in detecting them at their domestic occupations. One
of the most important of these consists in thumping vehemently
on a kind of musical instrument, and producing
a confused, hideous, and undefinable uproar, which
they call the description of a battle—a jest, no doubt, for
they are wonderfully facetious at times, and make great
practice of passing jokes upon strangers. Sometimes they
employ themselves in painting little caricatures of landscapes,
wherein they will display their singular drollery
in battering nature fairly out of countenance—representing
her tricked out in all the tawdry finery of copper
skies, purple rivers, calico rocks, red grass, clouds that
look like old clothes set adrift by the tempest, and foxy
trees, whose melancholy foliage, drooping and curling
most fantastically, reminds me of an undressed periwig
that I have now and then seen hung on a stick in a barber's
window. At other times they employ themselves
in acquiring a smattering of languages spoken by nations
on the other side of the globe, as they find their own language
not sufficiently copious to supply their constant
demands, and express their multifarious ideas. But
their most important domestic avocation is to embroider,
on satin or muslin, flowers of a non-descript kind, in
which the great art is to make them as unlike nature as
possible; or to fasten little bits of silver, gold, tinsel, and
glass, on long stripes of muslin, which they drag after
them with much dignity whenever they go abroad—a
fine lady, like a bird of paradise, being estimated by the
length of her tail.

But do not, my friend, fall into the enormous error of
supposing that the exercise of these arts is attended with
any useful or profitable result; believe me, thou couldst
not indulge an idea more unjust and injurious; for it
appears to be an established maxim among the women of
this country, that a lady loses her dignity when she condescends
to be useful, and forfeits all rank in society the
moment she can be convicted of earning a farthing.
Their labours, therefore, are directed not towards supplying
their household, but in decking their persons, and
—generous souls!—they deck their persons, not so much
to please themselves, as to gratify others, particularly
strangers. I am confident thou wilt stare at this, my
good Asem, accustomed as thou art to our eastern females,
who shrink in blushing timidity even from the
glances of a lover, and are so chary of their favours, that
they even seem fearful of lavishing their smiles too profusely
on their husbands. Here, on the contrary, the
stranger has the first place in female regard, and, so far
do they carry their hospitality, that I have seen a fine lady
slight a dozen tried friends and real admirers, who
lived in her smiles and made her happiness their study,
merely to allure the vague and wandering glances of a
stranger, who viewed her person with indifference and
treated her advances with contempt.—By the whiskers of
our sublime bashaw, but this is highly flattering to a foreigner!
and thou mayest judge how particularly pleasing
to one who is, like myself, so ardent an admirer of the
sex. Far be it from me to condemn this extraordinary
manifestation of good will—let their own countrymen
look to that.

Be not alarmed, I conjure thee, my dear Asem, lest I
should be tempted, by these beautiful barbarians, to break
the faith I owe to the three-and-twenty-wives, from whom
my unhappy destiny has perhaps severed me for ever;—
no, Asem, neither time, nor the bitter succession of misfortunes
that pursues me, can shake from my heart the
memory of former attachments. I listen with tranquil
heart to the strumming and prattling of these fair sirens;
their whimsical paintings touch not the tender chord of
my affections; and I would still defy their fascinations,
though they trailed after them trains as long as the gorgeous
trappings which are dragged at the heels of the holy
camel of Mecca, or as the tail of the great beast in our
prophet's vision, which measured three hundred and forty-nine

leagues, two miles, three furlongs, and a hand's
breadth in longitude.

The dress of these women is, if possible, more eccentric
and whimsical than their deportment; and they take
an inordinate pride in certain ornaments which are probably
derived from their savage progenitors. A woman
of this country, dressed out for an exhibition, is loaded
with as many ornaments as a Circassian slave when
brought out for sale. Their heads are tricked out with
little bits of horn or shell, cut into fantastic shapes; and
they seem to emulate each other in the number of these
singular baubles, like the women we have seen in our
journeys to Aleppo, who cover their heads with the entire
shell of a tortoise, and thus equipped are the envy
of all their less fortunate acquaintance. They also decorate
their necks and ears with coral, gold chains, and
glass beads, and load their fingers with a variety of rings;
though, I must confess, I have never perceived that they
wear any in their noses—as has been affirmed by many
travellers. We have heard much of their painting
themselves most hideously, and making use of bear's
grease in great profusion—but this, I solemnly assure
thee, is a misrepresentation: civilization, no doubt, having
gradually extirpated these nauseous practices. It is
true, I have seen two or three of these females who had
disguised their features with paint, but then it was merely
to give a tinge of red to their cheeks, and did not look
very frightful; and as to ointment, they rarely use any
now, except occasionally a little Grecian oil for their hair,
which gives it a glossy, greasy, and, as they think very
comely appearance. The last mentioned class of females,
I take it for granted, have been but lately caught and still
retain strong traits of their original savage propensities.

The most flagrant and inexcusable fault however,
which I find in those lovely savages, is the shameless and
abandoned exposure of their persons. Wilt not thou suspect
me of exaggeration when I affirm—wilt not thou blush
for them, most discreet Mussulman, when I declare to thee
—that they are so lost to all sense of modesty as to expose
the whole of their faces from their forehead to the chin,
and they even go abroad with their hands uncovered!—
Monstrous indelicacy!

But what I am going to disclose will doubtless appear
to thee still more incredible. Though I cannot forbear
paying a tribute of admiration to the beautiful faces of
these fair infidels, yet I must give it as my firm opinion

that their persons are preposterously unseemly. In vain
did I look around me, on my first landing, for those divine
forms of redundant proportions, which answer to
the true standard of eastern beauty—not a single fat fair
one could I behold among the multitudes that thronged
the streets: the females that passed in review before me
tripping sportively along, resembled a procession of shadows,
returning to their graves at the crowing of the
cock.

This meagerness I first ascribed to their excessive volubility,
for I have somewhere seen it advanced by a
learned doctor, that the sex were endowed with a peculiar
activity of tongue, in order that they might practise
talking as a healthful exercise, necessary to their confined
and sedentary mode of life. This exercise, it was natural
to suppose, would be carried to great excess in a logocracy.
“Too true,” thought I, “they have converted,
what was undoubtedly meant as a beneficent gift, into a
noxious habit, that steals the flesh from their bones and
the rose from their cheeks—they absolutely talk themselves
thin!” Judge then of my surprise when I was
assured, not long since, that this meagreness was considered
the perfection of personal beauty, and that many a
lady starved herself, with all the obstinate perseverance
of a pious dervise, into a fine figure! “Nay more,” said
my informer, “they will often sacrifice their healths in
this eager pursuit of skeleton beauty, and drink vinegar,
eat pickles, and smoke tobacco, to keep themselves within
the scanty outlines of the fashions.”—Faugh! Allah preserve
me from such beauties, who contaminate their pure
blood with noxious recipes; who impiously sacrifice the
best gifts of Heaven to a preposterous and mistaken
vanity. Ere long I shall not be surprised to see them
scarring their faces like the negroes of Congo, flattening
their noses in imitation of the Hottentots, or like the barbarians
of Ab-al Timar, distorting their lips and ears out
of all natural dimensions. Since I received this information,
I cannot contemplate a fine figure, without thinking
of a vinegar cruet; nor look at a dashing belle,
without fancying her a pot of pickled cucumbers? What
a difference, my friend, between those shades and the
plump beauties of Tripoli,—what a contrast between an
infidel fair one and my favourite wife, Fatima, whom I
bought by the hundred weight, and had trundled home
in a wheelbarrow!

But enough for the present; I am promised a faithful
account of the arcana of a lady's toilette—a complete initiation
into the arts, mysteries, spells and potions, in that
the whole chemical process, by which she reduces herself
down to the most fashionable standard of insignificance;
together with specimens of the strait waistcoats, the lacings,
the bandages, and the various ingenious instruments
with which she puts nature to the rack, and tortures herself
into a proper figure to be admired.

Farewell, thou sweetest of slave drivers! The echoes
that repeat to a lover's ear the song of his mistress are not
more soothing than tidings from those we love. Let thy
answer to my letters be speedy; and never, I pray thee,
for a moment, cease to watch over the prosperity of my
house, and the welfare of my beloved wives. Let them
want for nothing, my friend, but feed them plentifully
on honey, boiled rice, and water gruel; so that when I return
to the blessed land of my fathers, if that can ever be,
I may find them improved in size and loveliness, and sleek
as the graceful elephants that range the green valley of
Abimar.