Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 3.8.6

3.8.6

Now it happened that the Kings principal astrologer fell into the water and was drowned. This melancholy accident caused a great sensation at court, and proved injurious to the reputation of these professors in divination. The man who had thus lost his life always performed the Sahet for the King and the Omralis; and the people naturally wondered that an astrologer of such extensive experience, and who had for many years predicted happy incidents for others, should have been incapable of foreseeing the sad catastrophe by which he was himself overwhelmed. It was insinuated that in Franguistan, where the sciences flourish, professors in astrology are considered little better than cheats and jugglers, that it is there much doubted whether the science be founded on good and solid principles, and whether it be not used by designing men as a means of gaining access to the great, of making them feel their dependence, and their absolute need of these pretended soothsayers. The astrologers were much displeased with these and similar observations, and particularly with the following anecdote, which was universally known and repeated:—Chah-Abas, the great King of Persia, having given orders that a small piece of ground within the seraglio should be prepared for a garden, the master-gardener intended to plant there several fruit-trees on a given day;