[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Travellers (1500–1858)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel) › [Storia do Mogor](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci) › [Storia do Mogor (Irvine)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine) › 98 # Storia do Mogor 98: I go to Dihli and then to Agrah. Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 98 - **Language:** English ### I go to Dihli and then to Agrah. ### [98.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.1) To describe here the royal camp would occupy much space and be very difficult, owing to its beauty, its order, and the number of people who collect on such occasions; and everybody can infer, from what happens when a European monarch moves out into camp, what it is like in the Mogul territory, where the kings display indescribable magnificence. All I will say is that it looks like a great city travelling from place to place. For there are wanting neither bazars, nor shops, nor markets, nor sports, nor pastimes, nor gold, nor silver; in short, all that could be looked for in a flourishing city is to be found in this camp. Out of curiosity I marched with it three days only, and finding it did not suit me to go on to Kashmir while out of employ, I decided to turn back. I meant to go to Bengal, as it is a productive country where living is cheap, having also many Europeans in it \[53\]. ### [98.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.2) This is why I do not write the whole of the king's journey to Kashmir, although in its proper place I shall touch on some matters in Kashmir of which I have information. I leave it to the reader's curiosity to read what Monsieur Bernier has written about that journey, although, if I am to speak the truth, he puts many things of his own into his Mogul history; and I could, through his chronology of the times, make it clear that he writes many things which did not occur — nor could they have occurred — in the way that he relates them. Nor could he have been too well informed, for he did not live more than eight years at the Mogul court ; it is so very large that there are an infinity of things to observe. Nor could he so observe, for he had no entrance to the court. As it seems to me, he relied for what he said upon the common people ; and if there is any good thing in his books, it is due to the information given him by Pere Buzeo, also to what I gave him, having then no intention of writing anything. If I write now, I do so at the demand of my friends, chiefly Monsieur Francois Martin, Director-General, and Monsieur Deslandes. ### [98.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.3) Thus I returned to Dihli, where I stopped several days to take leave of my friends. Then I started for the city of Agrah, where I came across the Jesuit fathers. I remained there for a while in the enjoyment of the conversation of my old friends, with whom I had been in the fortress of Bhakkar. I did not care to take service with Aurangzeb, but they had accepted and at this time were artillerymen in the fort at Agrah. They were urgent for me to enter the service ; but finding I would not listen to their words, they went and spoke to I'tibar Khan, fancying that he could persuade me. I'tibar Khan sent for me, and on visiting him I presented a cup of crystal. Receiving it with a pleased face, he ordered robes of honour to be given to me. He endeavoured to win me over, and urgently entreated me to remain in the fortress and enter the service. He would grant me any terms I demanded, and allot me the pay I received from Prince Dara at Bhakkar. He would make me captain over the Christians (which was what they desired, remembering how well I had treated them at Bhakkar). ### [98.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.4) I tendered my excuses, and said in addition that I was most desirous to see different parts of the world ; there was also the aversion \[54\] I had to Aurangzeb ; and equally the face of I'tibar Khan displeased me — in fact, to speak properly, he looked like a baboon. To me it seemed that from one with a face like that no good deed could proceed. Nevertheless, I did not fail to go several times to court, as requested by I'tibar Khan, he imagining in this way to overcome little by little my resolve and bring me to take employment. But each time I went to the audience served only to renew my determination not to stay in Agrah. Going thus several times into the fort, I noted that the imprisonment of Shahjahan was closer than can be expressed. There passed not a day, while I and others were in conversation with the governor, that there did not come under-eunuchs to whisper into his ear an account of all the acts and words of Shahjahan, and even what passed among the wives, ladies, and slave-girls. Sometimes, smiling at what the eunuchs told him, he would make the company sharers in what was going on inside, adding some foul expressions in disparagement of Shahjahan. Not content with this even, he sometimes allowed it to be seen that he treated him as a miserable slave. Once an under-eunuch came to tell him that Shahjahan was in want of ' papuz ' (pāposh), which are slippers without heels, such as Mahomedans wear. ### [98.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.5) He ordered several pairs to be brought, and the tradesman produced different kinds of pāposh, some of leather worth half a rupee, some of plain velvet, and some of velvet more or less embroidered. Some were worth as much as eight rupees, a very small thing for a great king like Shahjahan, even when in prison. In spite of this, the eunuch, immeasurably stingy, sent him shoes neither of eight rupees nor of four nor of two, but the common leather shoes. He smiled over it as if he had done some great deed ; and it was a great deed, being after the nature of his friend Aurangzeb, who knew from this eunuch's physiognomy the vileness of his soul, and selected him to receive charge of his greatest enemy in the world, his father, so that by force of ill-treatment the wretched old man (Shahjahan) might die. ### [98.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.6) I know not how it was with the others who were present when this was done, but certainly I felt it much. I knew the dignity with which Shahjahan had lived when he was free and Emperor of Hindustan, above all, when one remembered that I'tibar Khan was formerly \[55\] a slave of this same Shahjahan, by whom he was given to Aurangzeb. This faithful eunuch made it his boast to do such-like things to Shahjahan : One day while a number of us were present and conversing, he (Shahjahan) sent him (I'tibar Khan) two violins he used, asking for them to be repaired and sent inside again as quickly as possible. The eunuch did not trouble himself about having them repaired ; then three days afterwards Shahjahan sent to inquire whether they were mended. At this the eunuch flew into a rage, and with a vinegary face, sent them off to be repaired. Thus it was only after eight days that they were returned. ### [98.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.7) It is easy to understand the nature of this eunuch from what he did to his parents. They came from the country of Bengal as far as Agrah, having heard that their son was governor of that fortress. They anticipated the receipt of something to help them in their old age and poverty. On reaching the gates, they stayed there several days, the door-keepers not consenting to permit their entrance, until they swore they were the parents of the governor. Thereupon came a door-keeper at the time of full audience (I was there myself), and reported to the eunuch that an old man and an old woman had been at the doors for several days. As they had been refused entrance, the old people swore that they were the parents of his excellency. ### [98.8](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.8) For a little I'tibar Khan sat silent, like one to whom something has happened that he does not like, then said under his breath, 'Are the wretches still alive?' He ordered them to be brought into the audience-hall. On their appearing, he inquired angrily who they were, what their names were, where they came from, what was their village. To all this they replied in such a manner that by this time I'tibar Khan could have no doubt that they were his parents. Recognising that most certainly they were such, he said publicly to them : ' How have ye the great temerity to come into my presence after you have consumed the price of my body, and having been the cause, by emasculating me, of depriving me of the greatest pleasures attainable in this world ? Of what use are riches to me, having no sons to whom I could leave them ? Since you were so cruel as to sell your own blood, let not my auditors think it strange if I betray anger against you.' He therefore ordered each to receive fifty stripes. Through the courage that inspired me, I took up my parable and told him the story of Joseph and his rise to the greatest place in Egypt, and how God made use of the cruelty of his brothers to raise that patriarch to the highest dignity. Then I made the application to his case, so that, quieting down, he forgave them, and ordered one hundred rupees to be given them, enjoining them never to appear again, for if they did, he would without fail take their lives. ### [98.9](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98.9) Let not the reader be astonished at the eunuch ordering into his presence his miserable, poverty-stricken parents, for it is against our nature to have arrived at high rank and yet not be annoyed at having to disclose the misery from which we started, and allowing it to be found out that our progenitors were of lowly origin ; but it is notorious that all eunuchs, grandees as they may be, have no other than poor and miserable progenitors, who out of absolute hunger have sold their sons. Nor do they themselves hold it out as otherwise, deriving hence occasion to vaunt themselves of their own high abilities and great deeds, through which they have risen to such rank. It was very revolting, the strange manner in which this eunuch treated his own parents, and angered thereby I resolved to leave Agrah. This eunuch was such a close-fisted fellow that it soon came to his selling the dung of his elephants and horses, whereby he made ten thousand rupees. With this money he bought an elephant, which one day escaping broke one of its legs, and the populace, who in Hindustan are very free of speech, began to shout as a joke that it was no wonder the elephant broke its leg, for it was an elephant made out of dung. In spite of all this avarice, he built for a memorial during his government an outer wall (coirassa, literally 'cuirass') round the whole of the Agrah Fort, which cost him a great deal of money, it being good work and decorative. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.travel.manucci~en-irvine.98) · Pramāṇa