Within a few years the "English House" at Surat was well known to all European sea-captains and voyagers. Not only British travellers, but Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen, were heartily welcomed by the honest factors at Surat. All were impressed with the order and regularity of the establishment, in which decorum and discipline were as strictly maintained as in Leadenhall Street or the Cheape. But when working hours were over the grave men of business proved to be convivial Britons of the old-fashioned type, and on Friday evenings especially, all the married men met together to drink the health of their absent wives to the detriment of their own. Foreign guests who could not speak the English tongue were in no want of amusement. In 1638 a young gentleman from Holstein, named Mandelslo, spent some months in the "English House," and passed the time very pleasantly, visiting the ships at anchor outside the bar of the river Tapty, and hearing the latest news of Europe from sea-captains versed in many languages, or wandering down the row of banyans' shops, which often contained as much wealth, hidden under dirt and squalor, as the houses of London merchants and goldsmiths. On Sundays, after sermon, the factors carried off their guest to their gardens outside Surat, where they all shot at butts, and were regaled with fruit and conserves. [Sidenote: British and Moguls.] The European gentlemen at Surat were always polite to Mohammedan grandees, and were generally politely treated in return, excepting perhaps at the custom-house. British sailors and ill-mannered Englishmen would, however, occasionally show a contempt for Asiatics, which the President could not always restrain. British interlopers on the high seas set the Company's charter at defiance, and carried on a lawless trade, plundering the Mohammedan pilgrim ships and ill-treating the passengers. The Mogul authorities insisted that the Company's servants were to blame, and would listen to no explanation, but sent large bodies of Mogul soldiery to environ the "English House," and stop all trade, cutting off all food and water, until a sufficient fine or ransom had been paid. [Sidenote: Trade on the eastern coast.]