Storia do Mogor 15.1.6

15.1.6

But, I ask, can a man who attacks and kills two brothers, imprisons an aged father, and thus ' wades through slaughter to a throne,' be held up as a model of all the virtues ? Were the Portuguese, in those days of their decay, not open to the censures passed upon them by Manucci ? Were the methods of the Jesuits as missionaries, and their defiance of the Pope, deserving of no reprobation ? In all other cases Manucci is usually tolerant, but does occasionally break forth into bitter and bigoted remarks on both Hinduism and Mahomedanism. He also takes a very low view of the Indian character, Hindu and Mahomedan, a view, though far from being the whole truth, which has impressed itself strongly on the majority of Europeans. Strangely enough, he entirely disapproves of and ridicules astrology ; yet he is always ready to swallow anything in the nature of witchcraft or soothsaying. Another of his peculiarities is his readiness to attribute poisoning as the cause of any great man's sudden death. He is constantly making such accusations against Aurangzeb. Possibly there are some grains of truth hidden in this wholesale denunciation ; and Manucci's readiness to see poison everywhere may be attributed, perhaps, to his Italian origin, and his knowledge of what had been the case in his own country.