Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/317

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THE ADVENTURERS AND THEIR TIMES
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junior officials, some on horseback, some in carriages. Even the ordinary movements of the members of the staff were strictly regulated. The chief and the second in rank had palankeens at their disposal, and the other members of the council, with the chaplain, were honoured by having an umbrella borne above them when they left the factory. The less favoured mortals were denied these conveniences with a stern regard for the native laws of etiquette, which demanded that authority should be marked in this special way.

In the matter of dress the Englishman, at the outset at all events, largely adhered to their European garb. Roe made a special point of this during his embassy, under the rightful supposition that he was more likely to win respect by observing his national customs as far as possible than by masquerading in native costume. He probably set the fashion in this matter, for, for a generation at least, broadcloth was the only wear of the Englishman on ceremonial occasions. It must have been a terrible infliction in the sweltering days of the Indian hot season to move about in the thick heavy garments which the fashion of the day decreed, and it was doubtless with a sense of what was due to comfort and health that as the century progressed a more rational style of dress was introduced, the English cloth giving place to the indigenous calico. Wigs, too, were largely discarded, though those high in authority continued to clung to them as adjuncts which lent their personalities additional impressiveness in the eyes of the natives. That there was something in this theory was shown about the end of the century when a Sumatran queen before whom a deputation of officials from Madras attended was so attracted by the wigs that she was not