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By Root 1198 0

and the Royal Navy could no longer order ships from us. Then they created new laws which made it much more expensive to use India-built ships in the overseas trade. My father-in-law was among the first to understand what was happening. He knew that under these conditions the Bombay ship-building trade would not survive for long. That is why he wanted the Anahita to be the best and the most beautiful ship he had ever built. He used to say to me in those days: Bahram, you see what is happening to our shipyards? The same thing will happen also to all our other trades and crafts. We have to find alternatives or it is just a matter of time before we are driven out of business.

But what does that mean, Bahram-bhai?

It means we have to find a way Zadig Bey, our own way. We have to move our businesses to places where the laws can’t be changed to shut us out.

What places?

I don’t know. Maybe England itself. Or elsewhere in Europe. Perhaps even China. Or perhaps – here Bahram flashed Zadig a sly smile – perhaps we could have a place of our own. With enough money we might be able to buy a country, no? A small one?

Zadig burst out laughing. Bahram-bhai – it sounds as if you’re preaching sedition!

Sedition? Bahram laughed too, but mostly in astonishment. Arré, what bakwaas! I am the most loyal of the Queen’s subjects …

Before he could say any more, the door flew open.

Patrão!

Vico had climbed the stairs so fast he had to stop and catch his breath.

Patrão – a runner has just come! From Mr Wetmore. A meeting has been called. You must go at once!

*

March 21

Once again, Puggly dear, I find myself resuming an interrupted letter – and I cannot say I am at all sorry for never was an interruption more welcome than this last! Suffice it to say that shortly after I responded to the knock on my door, I found myself in a boat with Charlie King, sailing towards French Island!

French Island lies behind Honam, in the direction of Whampoa: it is a considerable body of land, with hills, valleys and plains, all thickly cultivated. The foreigners’ cemetery lies on a wooded slope, a short distance from the river. It is a tranquil spot and seems all the more so because the busy waters of the Pearl River are so close by, scarcely a mile away. A stream runs past the cemetery and its shores are lined with tall trees that throw their shadows upon the graves. The scene has something of the clouded melancholy that haunts the rural landscapes of Mr Constable: some of the headstones are tilted and overgrown, and some are cocooned in moss. To read the inscriptions is a piteous thing, for like James Perit, many of those who lie there were snatched away when scarcely past their boyhood – I could not help reflecting that were I to be laid there now, I would be older than many.

Mr Perit’s grave is among the few that are well-tended (Charlie pays a nearby villager to look after it). He had brought flowers with him, and when he knelt to say a prayer I saw a tear escape his eye and go rolling down his cheek.

I must not dwell too long on this, Puggly dear, or else I too will not be able to restrain my tears: I shall content myself with saying merely that it was as tender a scene as I have ever witnessed (and you may be sure that I was not as composed then as I am now – indeed my handkerchief was quite ruined).

Afterwards, when we were making our way back, Charlie spoke at some length about his departed Friend, and I understood that this loss is in no small part responsible for his deep attachment to China. Mr Perit’s grave has become for him an anchor, as it were, tying him to this land. For that reason, and many others, it is impossible for him to think of the Chinese as a race apart: he sees them as a people who have their virtues and their failings, as do people everywhere – but to exploit the more feeble-minded among them by pandering to their weaknesses seems to him just as unconscionable here as it would be anywhere else. And the worst of it, in his view, is that the foreign trade has created, in the eyes of the Chinese, an inseparable linkage between