Page 313 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat
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THE ADVENTURERS AND THEIR TIMES 313

           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 conveni­
            ences 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
                                                                               I
           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 cere­
           monial 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 pro­
           gressed 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 cling 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
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