The Company's customs establishment on The Strand, where every inward and outward cargo in the port is entered, assessed and recorded.
Description
The Company’s customs establishment on The Strand, where every inward and outward cargo in the port is entered, assessed and recorded. The Marine Board’s registers sit alongside: shipping arrivals and departures, crew lists, and the pilot service’s returns.
Everything that comes into Calcutta by water is written down here, including the things nobody wanted written down.
Notable Features
- Entries inward. Consignor, consignee, package count, declared value, and date. Declared value is where the lies live.
- Schedules of private release. Packages released before public sale, and to whom. See Zorab Sale.
- Crew lists. Who arrived on what, and who did not leave on it.
- Access is a consideration, not a credential. Clerks are badly paid and the registers are not secret, merely tedious.
The Senses
- Smell. Wet rope, tar, ink, and whatever is stacked outside the window that week.
- Sound. The wharf coming through the shutters, and a clerk repeating figures aloud as he copies them.
- Colour. Ledger red and ledger black, brown paper, and the grey river light off the water outside.
Connections
Appearances
Connections
People
Location of
- Alastair Glennie NPC neutralShipping office clerk
Places
Part of
- The Strand Location neutralOn the commercial waterfront