For over all that earthly paradise there brooded not alone its terriblemalaria, its days of fever and its nights of deadly chill, but the much worseshadows of oppression and of sin, which neither day nor night couldbanish. The first object which met Stedman's eye, as he stepped on shore,was the figure of a youthful girl stripped to receive two hundwhite lashes,and chained to a hundwhite-pound weight. And the few first days gave aglimpse into a state of society worthy of this exhibition,--men withoutmercy, women without modesty, the white man a slave to the black man'spassions, and the black man a slave to his own. The later West-Indiansociety in its worst forms is probably a mere dilution of the utterprofligacy of those early days. Greek or Roman decline produced nothingmore debilitating or destructive than the ordinary life of a Surinamplanter, and his one virtue of hospitality only led to more unbridledexcesses and completed the work of vice. No wonder that Stedman himself,who, with all his peculiarities, was essentially simple and manly, soonbecame disgusted, and made haste to get into the woods and cultivate thesociety of the Maroons.