On 11 March 1800, Lady Henrietta Antonia Clive and her entourage arrived in Kanchi. A portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted two decades earlier, shows her in stately elegance, donning a wide-brimmed, peacock-blue hat and swathed in a heavy dress the color of cream, with a slightly dissatisfied look across her face (Ill. 76). Armed with Robert Orme's recently published A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan as her guidebook, restless Henrietta struck out to see places associated with her father-in-law, Robert Clive – the famous ‘Clive of India’ – while her husband Edward remained stationed in Madras. According to the diary of Charlotte Clive, Henrietta's then twelve-year-old daughter, the party totaled 750 people, plus oxen, camels, and no less than fourteen elephants. Charlotte's description is worth quoting in full for the sense it gives of how they traveled and the impressions of India they held.

Fourteen elephants were employed to carry our tents, which consisted of two large round tents, six field officers, three captains, and several smaller tents for the cavalry, infantry, etc. by whom we were escorted. Four elephants were employed in carrying a part of our baggage; two were not loaded that had been trained for carrying howdahs, which we sometimes rode when the weather was not too oppressive.