Note 01 — Chapter V · IN WHICH DESPATCHES FROM ADMIRAL WATSON REACH CALCUTTA.

Don’t charge me with boasting when I tell you, merely in order to exhibit the absurdity of the whole affair, that I am now quite accustomed to be guarded home at night from a ball or assembly by a troop of gentlemen with drawn swords, who force every European they meet to uncover and stand humbly aside, and every Indian to take off his shoes and bow himself to the ground before my palanqueen. Day after day, too, I find my dressing-table covered with chitts (which are small notes or billets) and salams (by which is meant nosegays of flowers, and other tributes of admiration), all of which Marianna sweeps aside with the greatest coolness in the world, as though she had not accepted a rupee (and I’m much mistaken if it was not a sicca[01] one) for placing each of them there. Sure, my dear, these things are enough to make one feel silly, and indeed I thought myself the greatest fool imaginable at first, but by this time I have learnt to practise the carriage which becomes a Calcutta beauty. Why, Amelia, I would not lift a finger to brush a fly from my dress if there was a gentleman (or at the worst a servant) within call to do it for me; and as for taking the trouble to fan myself—! No, your Sylvia has learned the lesson of elegant languor which befits these climates, and even Miss Hamlin would hardly call her a boarding-school Miss now. The gentlemen say, I am told, that your friend has the coldest heart (and the finest eyes, they are pleased to add) in Calcutta, and they choose to resent my preference for a single life so fiercely that they have bound themselves together against me, all agreeing to support any one of their number who can show that he possesses good hopes of capturing the fortress. Now en’t this a quantity of silly stuff for a young creature to write that piques herself on her good sense? Forgive me, Amelia; your Sylvia’s head en’t quite turned, though it has often bid fair to be with all this violent admiration.