Such forbearance was of course dictated in no way by sentiment. The women, in common with the young children, were regarded by the conquerors merely as accessions to their numbers. Unchastity was an exceptionally rare thing among the married females; and in no other particular do the different accounts of the natives given by the earliest observers agree more markedly than in the statement that both the women and the girls were peculiarly modest in their demeanor. The Dutch farmers occasionally took Indian women for their wives, refusing to abandon them for females of their own country. One of the most curious domestic institutions of the Indians of this region was the sweating bath, " made," says Van der Donck, " of earth and lined with clay." " A small door serves as an entrance. The patient creeps in, seats himself down, and places heated stones around the sides. Whenever he hath sweated a certain time, he immerses himself suddenly in cold water; from which he derives great security from all sorts of sickness." Of medical science they knewT nothing, except how to cure wounds and hurts. They used for many purposes an oil extracted from the beaver, which also was considered by the Dutch to possess great virtues. Upon the " medicine man,1' who was supposed to effect cures by supernatural powers, their reliance in the more serious cases of sickness was mainly placed. Inured to abstemiousness by the rigors of his lot and but little disposed to sexual gratification, the Indian yet fell an easy victim, and speedily became an abject slave, to strong drink. It was not the taste rum which enbut the stimulating properties of the white man's thralled him. Hudson relates that when he first offered the intoxicating cup to his Indian visitors while at anchor in New York Bay, they one and all refused it after smelling the liquor and touching their lips to it.