The garden was prettily laid out with shrubs and tall trees, with a raised platform in the centre; and on one side was a whole colony, consisting not only of the usual number of servants allowed to a military chaplain, but of a host of pundits, moonshees, schoolmasters, and poor nominal Christians, who hung about him because there was no one else to give them a handful of rice for their daily maintenance.
Here Mrs.Sherwood describes a motley entertainment, at which she was the only lady.

Her husband, in his scarlet and gold uniform, and Mr.Martyn, in his clerical black silk coat, were the only other English.

The other European present was Padre Giulio Cesare, an Italian Franciscan, whom Mr.
Martyn was obliged to receive when he came to minister to the numerous Irish Roman Catholics in the regiment.

He wore a purple satin cassock, a cord of twisted silk, a rosary of costly stones, and a little skull-cap, and his languages were French with the Sherwoods, and Italian and Latin with Mr.Martyn.

Sabat was there in his Arab dress; there was a thin, copper-coloured, half-caste gentleman in white nankeen, speaking only Bengalee; and a Hindoo in full costume, speaking only his native tongue: so that no two of the party were in similar costume, seven languages were employed, and moreover the three Orientals viewed it as good breeding to shout at the very top of their voices.
Unluckily, too, Mr.Martyn in his politeness suddenly recollected that Mrs.Sherwood had expressed a liking for certain mutton patties, and ordered them to be brought, in a bachelor's entire oblivion whether any mutton was procurable otherwise than by killing a sheep: and the delay forced the guests to continue to sit on the platform in the dark, with the voices and languages making too great a Babel for the night-enjoyment sometimes so valued, when Mr.Martyn would show Mrs.Sherwood our own Pole Star just above the horizon, or watch the new moon "looking like a ball of ebony in a silver cup." At last the patties were ready, and Mr.
Martyn handed Mrs.Sherwood to a seat by him at the top of the table, while Sabat perched himself cross-legged upon a chair at the bottom.
The good chaplain's simplicity seems to have been a great amusement to the Sherwoods.