nt, invariably
consisted of 'milk, salt fish, and rice,' but which will be privately
supplemented afterwards with potations of arrack-punch by those who
can afford nothing better and with draughts of sack or canary by those
who can.

In the course of a few years the 'Company's Garden' was spoiled. Black
Town had been springing up close by; and, when a wall was built round
old Black Town, the Company's Garden was unpleasantly included
therein, and the Garden was now in the north-west corner of the Indian
city. Moreover, a part of the Garden had begun to be utilized as a
European burial-ground, and huge funeral monstrosities of the bygone
style had begun to dominate the enclosure.

The Company's agents in Madras felt that a new recreation ground was a
necessity; and they were agreed that there ought to be not merely a
'Company's Garden,' but a 'Company's Garden-House.' They wrote to the
Directors saying that there were occasions on which the Company in
Madras had to entertain 'the King (Golconda) and persons of quality,'
and that they had no building that was suitable for any such
ceremonial proceedings. True there was the Council Chamber in the
Fort, but the Council Chamber was the place where the Company's
mercantile transactions were discussed; and the Chamber, as well as
all the other buildings in the Fort, was closely identified with the
'Factory;' and the Company's chief officials in Madras declared--not,
we may suppose, without regard for their own convenience--that a
stately 'Garden House,' unassociated with ledgers and bills of sale,
ought to be built, in due accord with the stateliness of the Company
itself. Their application for permission to put the work in hand was
met by the Directors in London with the typically frugal reply that
the work might be done but care was to be taken that the Company
should be put to 'no great charge.' Possibly the representatives in
Madras were able to provide additional supplies on the spot, but,
however that may have been, the house was 'handsomely built,' yet
'with little expense to the Company.' The new garden seems to have
comprised the area within which the Medical College and the General
Hospital are now situated. The grounds, which stretched down, even as
now, to the bank of the river, were well laid out, and the Company's
first 'Garden House' was a fine possession.

In 1686 Master William Gyfford, Governor of Fort St. George, had a
fancy for using the Garden House as