Storia do Mogor 38.4

38.4

During the time we were at Isfahan rumours were current to the effect that the Great Mogul meant to come against the fortress of Candar (Qandahar), which is held by the King of Persia in defiance of the Mogul. For this reason they began to prepare to march out to encounter him; then the spies brought them the news that this year the Great Mogul would not come. It happened in those days that the son of an officer, being twenty-two [22] years of age, was in attendance on the court. He fell in love with a lady in the palace and sent her several presents. When the king was told of this, he ordered the man to be beheaded. As the young man was actually at court, he got word of the king's order, and returned home with all the haste he could. There, with his own hands, he totally castrated himself, and without delay sent the severed member in a covered golden vessel to the King, with a request that he would chastise that which had committed the offence. The king, with regard to this deliberate act of his, pardoned his life, and gave him the title of the "Valiant Eunuch." In the city are two factories, one of the English, the other of the Dutch. There are also four churches, one of the Portuguese Augustinians, which the present king caused to be entirely gilded at his own expense, and he went there several times to see our ceremonial. Another church belongs to the barefooted Carmelites, another to the Jesuits, another to the Capuchins.