In furthest Ind : $b The narrative of Mr Edward Carlyon of the honourable East India Company's serviceGrier, Sydney C.
General
In furthest Ind : $b The narrative of Mr Edward Carlyon of the honourable East India Company's service
Grier, Sydney C.
British -- India -- Fiction; East India Company -- Fiction; India -- Fiction
But I still stood up, and the procession passed by, the priests and
women all looking black upon me that durst insult their idols. And
when the people was rose up again from their knees, they come round
about us, hustling us and crying out that we was atheists and
heretics, and making ready for to stone us. But Dom Lewis crying out
to them very earnestly that I was a stranger that knew not their ways
in that place, and that they were all three good Christians, as might
be seen, they were content to let us pass, though with many ill words.
Thus we walked on to the palace, Father Sebastian going meekly with
his eyes cast down and his hands folded, and Dom Lewis with a dark and
gloomy air, while Dom Francis his cousin looked upon me askance,
avoiding me as a man might one that had the plague. I, indeed, was far
from being at ease with myself, and to add to my distemper, it seemed
that even in the palace I could not be free from peril, for we
reaching the building and standing on the great steps in the forefront
thereof for to take the air, there come up an ancient man, an Indian,
of a lean and shabby aspect, and he carried with him a little cabinet,
so to speak, with curtains before it of some old torn stuff. And
Father Sebastian asking what strange beast he had therein, the fellow
replied by bringing the cabinet up to us upon the steps, and showing
us inside on’t divers little images of the Virgin and the saints. And
his design was that we should kiss these, and withal give him some
small piece of money, as the custom is here. And Father Sebastian
motioning him to approach me first, being the guest of Dom Lewis, I
had in my hand half a ducket,[64] the which I purposed to give him,
seeing the man to be old and poor, but I refused to kiss the images
that he carried, whereat he departed much displeased, though the other
gentlemen were willing to pleasure him.
And now, Dom Lewis seeming to be ill at ease, we went into the palace,
and presently his highness entered to us, and the evening passed as
usual. But shortly before the company departed, while as they was
serving _jacolatt_,[65] Father Sebastian entered again into discourse
with me, and desired to hear many things concerning England. He held
many strange notions touching our country, such as I should conceive a
Frenchman might entertain, but so universally learned are these
Jesuits that I can’t so much as guess of what nation he was. And at
last he advanced this proposition--viz., that the English are a people
altogether destitute of all loyalty and reverence, and entirely given
up to lawlessness and irreligion. And this saying I did combat with
all my skill, bringing forward to the contrary thereof the loyalty
wherewith the Cavaliers fought for his late majesty, and the reverence
they testified toward the poor clergy in their extremity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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