ABSTRACT
‘At last, stepping on deck one morning, I had a first glimpse of the land of my dreams, the wonderland India.’ As the panorama of Bombay ‘seemed slowly to rise out of the blue sea’, the Swiss merchant August F. Ammann felt that his ‘heart’s desire was gratified’ by finally being allowed to travel to India. 1 In contrast to this emotional release the reason for Ammann’s journey to South Asia in the year 1874 was rather mundane. He was delegated as an employee of the Swiss merchant house Volkart Bros. to settle problems at the firm’s branch in Cochin which had resulted from a local merchant’s incapacity to fulfil his obligations. Ammann’s reminiscences of this voyage are indeed furnished with exotic details such as shooting excursions to hunt down crocodiles or tigers, strange religious customs and disagreeable encounters with scorpions and cobras. Between the lines, however, his report emphasizes the efficiency of the Indian economy and the skill and honesty of the mercantile community, but also the problems European traders faced on the subcontinent. It is therefore a valuable source of information on the operations of a European merchant house in South Asia.
