Halat-i Asad Beg 6.1

6.1

In Bijapur I had found some tobacco. Never having seen the like in India, I brought some with me, and prepared a handsome pipe of jewel work. The stem, the finest to be procured at Achin, was three cubits in length, beautifully dried and coloured, both ends being adorned with jewels and enamel. I happened to come across a very handsome mouthpiece of Yaman cornelian, oval-shaped, which I set to the stem ; the whole was very handsome. There was also a golden burner for lighting it, as a proper accompaniment. ’Adil Khan had given me a betel bag, of very superior workmanship; this I filled with fine tobacco, such, that if one leaf be lit, the whole will continue burning. I arranged all elegantly on a silver tray. I had a silver tube made to keep the stem in, and that too was covered with purple velvet. His Majesty was enjoying himself, after receiving my presents, and asking me how I had collected so many strange things in so short a time, when his eye fell upon the tray with the pipe and its appurtenances ; he expressed great surprise, and examined the tobacco, which was made up in pipefuls; he inquired what it was, and where I had got it. The Nawab Khan-i ’Azam replied: “This is tobacco, which is well known in Mecca and Medina, and this doctor has brought it as a medicine for Your Majesty.” His Majesty looked at it, and ordered me to prepare and take him a pipeful. He began to smoke it, when his physician approached and forbade his doing so.