ABSTRACT

Passengers for Bombay had to content themselves with the steamers of the East India Company which were "neither so commodious nor so expeditious as those belonging to the Oriental and Peninsular Company". The social atmosphere of Bombay was almost from the beginning of the century different from that of Calcutta. In 1832 a quiet middle-aged man landed in Bombay. He was interested in the China trade and he bought a house, which he used both for office and dwelling, in Tamarind Lane. The atmosphere of Bombay, long regarded as a backwater, was hardly changed by a suddenly enhanced prestige, or by the acquisition of wide territories. The more sensible bungalows of Bombay seemed at first rather humble. Every visitor to Bombay commented on the "olfactory horrors " of an evening drive. The queue was seen in Bombay in 1799; and thereafter a certain manly carelessness in grooming one's tousled hair was fashionable.