Storia do Mogor 15.2.4

15.2.4

'Finally, to disenchant him, Muhammad Muqim one day directed his servant, who acted as interpreter — an Armenian called Giuseppe (Joseph) — to sit down close to him. My "patrician" was aggrieved thereby, and on reaching home told me. I knew not what else to say except that he must have patience. The following day he went back and wasted his time, seated there for over three hours. At last the Hakim asked if he knew what God was. At this question Legrenzi was stunned and said nothing, perceiving that such a demand was equivalent to dismissal; thus was his joy turned into sorrow. Therefore he went back by the road he had come, lamenting his strange fortune, and resuming his old place which he had quitted, where he was well received. Signor Protasio remained with me, as he had no money to meet his journey; a year afterwards he started, I helping him as well as I could, and I never heard of him again.' It is a mere surmise, but it seems to me very possible that Manucci had seen Legrenzi's book of 1705 before he wrote the above passage taken from Part V., and that it is his retort courteous for Legrenzi's somewhat uncivil depreciation. Or as an Italian writer, P. Amat di S. Filippo ('Studii sulla Storia della Geografia . . .' I., 440) says: 'This judgment [of Legrenzi on Manucci] is, however, not devoid of prejudice, both being followers of Esculapius';