Note 9 — CHAP. IV.

Many of the Hindostan women come to maturity very early: they are frequently mothers at twelve years old, nor is it an uncommon case to find them pregnant much younger; but as they reach womanhood much sooner than the females of Europe, so also they decline at a much earlier period, and lose all their charms when a beauty of the western world is in the zenith of her power. The bloom of youth vanishes soon after twenty; and at thirty, age begins to make its visible ravages; and the fresh, plump, and lively dame, degenerates into a flabby, dull, and unpleasing matron.