Note 08 — Chapter III · IN WHICH MISS FREYNE ENTERS CALCUTTA, BUT NOT IN TRIUMPH.

Talking in this way, so fast that I could scarce understand him, Mr Hamlin accompanied us to wait upon the captain, whom he thanked very genteelly for his care of us during the voyage, and bade visit him at his garden-house on the way to Surmans[08] as often as he should be in Calcutta. Having bid farewell to the mates of the ship and our fellow-passengers, and avoided the importunities of the extraordinary great number of gentlemen that had come aboard in their budgeroes, and would have had Mr Hamlin present them to us, he replying that they should wait till Sunday, we descended into our boat, and so set out with great magnificence. During this second short voyage, Mr Hamlin showed himself very obliging in pointing out to us the places we passed by, as Fultah, where the Dutch have a factory, seated on the most unhealthy spot in the country, and Buzbudgia,[09] which is a fortress belonging to the Moors,[10] as also is the place called Tanners,[11] on the opposite bank. When we were past Tanners, Mr Hamlin bade us look alive, for we should soon find ourselves on British soil, and coming to a piece of water called Govindpoor’s Reach,[12] he showed us on the shore a little pyramid in stonework, which, said he, marked the boundary of the Company’s territory. My dearest friend will comprehend how fast my heart beat at this spectacle. Now at last, Sylvia (I said to myself), thou art to find a parent and a home. But Mr Hamlin, seeing how much I was moved, refused to give me any leisure for meditation, and went on pointing out all the objects we passed, now the garden called Surmans, and the garden-houses of the Company’s servants beyond it, then the Company’s docks and the garden of the Armenians on t’other side of the river, and lastly the town itself, with Fort William and the church. On our exclaiming at the odd aspect of the sacred edifice, which seemed to have lost its upper parts, Mr Hamlin told us that in a great storm near twenty years ago[13] the whole of the steeple, which was of the most elegant proportions imaginable, was blown down by a frightful gust of wind, and driven fifteen feet or so into the earth without breaking. But this I have since seen reason to doubt, for in such a case, sure the gentlemen of the factory would have restored the steeple to its place, or at least have preserved it where it lay, on account of the strangeness of its fate, but there’s no sign of it, wherefore I believe that when it reached the ground ’twas in ruins, and fell speedily into decay. Of the Fort, Mr Hamlin bade us mark the crumbling state of the walls, and the many fine cannons that lay on the ground, without their carriages and useless, outside them, observing that we might now see the trust entertained by the gentlemen of the Presidency in the innocency of their lives and the justice of the Soubah (this was all Greek to me, but I’ll tell you the explanation later).