Storia do Mogor 265.26.2

265.26.2

For it causes everybody to think of and estimate the King of Portugal as an impecunious king, who is unable to provide the requisite expenses for an ambassador, and therefore sends faqirs; for such is their conception of the position of these fathers. They have veneration and consideration for these whenever they see them exempt from worldly business. On the contrary, directly they mix in temporal concerns they think slightingly of them and of the princes who send them; for they hold it as true that states governed by the counsels of faqirs must be badly ruled, because the profession of a faqir is to live far apart from all the affairs of this world, and to consider nothing but things of God. Hence proceeds the little estimation in which the natives of India hold the King of Portugal. They see on the one side that in Goa and in all its provinces nothing is done without the advice of priests ; on the other hand, they see that the Portuguese do not have in their territories abundance of commerce, which is also one of the grounds from which they infer the greatness of a king. The reason for their having these opinions is that the Mahomedan faqirs never mix themselves up in any matter of government or politics ; on the contrary, they flee from them. It is the same for the Hindus with their jogis, who hold the character of priests, as I have stated in my history. [Pages 246 and 247 are blank.]