ern newspaper, which were written
by paid correspondents, whose duty it was to give their clients news
of London and of England and of Europe. The news was often astounding,
and was sometimes extraordinarily behind-time. For example, the
Company's employees in India were still professing loyalty to the Most
High and Mighty King James II nearly a twelvemonth after that monarch
had fled to France and had been succeeded by William and Mary; and the
employees at Madras were surprised indeed when a ship arrived one day
from England with the belated news.

The salutes have been fired, and the vessel has been surrounded by a
flotilla of surf-boats and catamarans. The commander and the
passengers are being rowed ashore, and the Governor with his
Councillors, dressed all of them in their smartest official attire,
are waiting on the beach outside the Sea-Gate of the Fort to bid them
a hearty welcome. Amongst the passengers there are probably some
youths who have been posted to Madras either as apprenticed 'writers'
or as military Cadets; and perhaps there is a senior employee who is
returning to India after the rare event of a holiday in England.
Possibly too there are some ladies, either wives of employees who have
been willing to accompany or to follow their husbands to the
mysterious East--or, as was not infrequently the case, young ladies
who, with the consent of the Directors, have been shipped out to India
by their parents or guardians or on their own account, in the hope
that companionable bachelor employees, pining in their loneliness,
will jump at the chance of matrimony.

[Illustration: SURF-BOAT]

The surf-boat comes nearer and nearer; and when it gets among the
breakers there are feminine screams of terror. The alarm is not
without cause; for at one moment the boat is being balanced on the top
of a heaving wave, and the next it is almost lost to sight in a
foaming hollow. The excitement in the tossing boat is tremendous; but
it is brief; for there are only three or four breakers to be
negotiated, and in less than a minute a curling wave has caught the
boat in its clutch and hurls it with a thud into the shallows. Naked
coolies rush forward and lay hold of its sides, lest the backwash
should carry it seaward again; and, with the help of the next wave,
they manage to haul the boat a little further on shore, and the
passengers are able to disembark--splashed, perhaps, but safe and
sound.

When the greetings are ove