Page 313 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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