Travels in India (Tavernier) 21.4
Travels in India (Ball) 21.4
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21.4.1
On the 16th I wrote to the Nawāb to know what reason he had for ordering his Receiver not to pay me. On the 17th, in the evening, I left for Hugli in a boat with fourteen oars, which the Dutch lent me, and that night and the following I slept on the river. On the 19th, towards evening, I passed a large town called Nadiyā, and it is the farthest point to which the tide reaches. There arose so furious a wind, and the water was so high, that we were compelled to stop for three or four hours and draw our boat ashore. On the 20th I arrived at Hugli, where I remained till the 2d of March, during which time the Dutch made me welcome, and sought to give me all the amusement which the country could afford. We made several excursions on the river, and we had for food all the delicacies which are found in our European gardens, salads of several kinds, cabbages, asparagus, peas, and principally beans, of which the seed comes from Japan, the Dutch desiring to have all kinds of herbs and pulses in their gardens, which they are most careful to cultivate, without having been able, however, to get artichokes to grow. On the 2d of March I left Hugli and arrived on the 5th at Kāsimbāzār.
21.4.2
The following day I went to Murshidābād to know if the Receiver who had refused to pay me had received another order from the Nawāb. For I have above said that I immediately wrote to Shāistā Khān to complain of his action and to know for what reason he did not wish my bill of exchange to be paid. The Director of the Dutch factories added a letter to mine, and pointed out to the Nawāb that I was too well known to him — having, formerly at Ahmadābād, at the army of the Deccan, and in other places, had many transactions with him — not to deserve favourable treatment; that he ought to remember that I, being the only person who often brought to India the choicest rarities of Europe, it was not the way to make me wish to return as he had invited me, if I should leave discontented; besides which, owing to the credit which I enjoyed, I should be easily able to dissuade those who intended to come to India with rare objects, by making them fear the same treatment as I had received.
21.4.3
Neither my letter nor that of the Director produced the effect we had hoped, and I was in no wise satisfied with the new order which the Nawáb had sent to the Receiver, by which he ordered him to pay me with a rebate of 20,000 rupees from the sum which I ought to receive, and was carried by my bill of exchange, according to the price upon which we had agreed. The Nawáb added that if I was unwilling to content myself with this payment I might come to take back my goods. This action of the Nawáb had its origin in an evil turn played me by three rogues at the court of the Great Mogul. And this is the history of it in a few words.
21.4.4
Aurangzeb, who reigns at present, at the solicitation of two Persians and a Banian, had established a short time ago a custom very injurious to merchants who come from Europe and other places to sell jewels to the court. When they arrive, whether by sea or by land, the governors of the places where they arrive have orders to send them to the King with their goods, either with their consent or by force; this the Governor of Surat did to me in the year 1665, sending me to Delhi or JahAnAbAd where the King was. There are in the employment of his majesty two Persians and a Banian, whose duty it is to see and examine all the jewels which one wishes to sell to the King. One of these two Persians is named Nawdb Aril KhAn, i.e. the prince of wit, and it is he who has charge of all the precious stones of the King. The other is named Mirza-Mauzim(?), whose duty is to tax each piece. The Banian, called Nyalchand, has to see whether the stones are false and if they have any flaw.
21.4.5
These three men have obtained permission from the King that they shall see, before he does, all which the foreign merchants bring to sell to him, and that afterwards they shall present them to him themselves; and although they have sworn to take nothing from the merchant, they do not neglect to extort all they can in order to ruin him. When they see anything beautiful from which there is reason to hope for a large profit, they desire him to sell it to them for half its value, and if he refuses to let them have it, they are malicious enough to estimate the jewels when they are before the King at half their value, besides which the King Aurangzeb cares but little for stones, and loves gold and silver much better. On the day of the King’s festival, of which I shall elsewhere speak, all the princes and nobles of the court make him magnificent presents, and when they are unable to find jewels to buy, they present him with golden rupees, of which the King, as I have said, makes more count than of the precious stones, although precious stones constitute a more honourable present than golden coins. It is at the approach of this festival that he sends out of his treasury numerous diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls, which he who values the jewels entrusts in the hands of several merchants, to sell them to the nobles, who are bound to make presents to the King, and in this manner the King receives back both the money and his jewels together.
21.4.6
There is still another disadvantage for the merchant jeweller. It is that after the King has seen any stones, a prince or other noble who knows of it will never buy them, and besides, while these three men appointed to view the jewels are considering and examining them in their dwellings, where he is obliged to carry them, he meets several Banians who are experts, some for diamonds, others for rubies, for emeralds, and for pearls, who write down the weight, quality, perfection, and colour of each piece. And if the merchant afterwards goes to the Princes and Governors of Provinces, these people send them a memorandum of all that he carries, with the price, which they maliciously place at half the true value of the things. These Banians are in business a thousand times worse than the Jews, and more cunning than they are in all kinds of dodges and in malice when they wish for revenge. Observe then the bad turn which these three personages played me. When I arrived at Jahānābād, one of them came to me and told me that he had the King’s order to see what I brought, before being permitted to exhibit it in his presence. They wished very sincerely that the King was not at Jahānābād, because they would have sought to buy for themselves all that I had, in order to profit by reselling it to the King, and to the Princes when the opportunity should occur — this, nevertheless, they had never been able to obtain from me.
21.4.7
On the following day they all three came to see me, one after the other, and they wished to get from me amongst other things a grand bouquet of nine large pear-shaped pearls, of which the largest was thirty carats and the least sixteen, with another single pear-shaped pearl of fifty-five carats. As for the bouquet, the King took it; but with regard to the pearl, seeing that, notwithstanding all that they could say, I was unwilling to sell them anything, they so managed that before I had shown my jewels to the King, Zafar Khān, uncle of the King, saw it, after which he did not wish to return it, saying that he would pay me as highly for it as the King, asking me not to mention it; for in fact he desired to present it to the King. After the King had selected from among my jewels those which he desired, Zafar Khān bought several pieces from me, and at the same time purchased the great pearl. Some days afterwards he caused my payment to be made according to what had been agreed upon, with the exception of the pearl, upon which he desired me to rebate 10,000 rupees. The two Persians and the Banian had maliciously informed him that on my arrival they might, if they had wished, have had the pearl for 8,000 or 10,000 less than I had sold it to him for ; this was wholly untrue, and Zafar Khan having told me that if I would not accept the money which he offered me I might take it back, I took him at his word, assuring him that during his life he would never see it again.
21.4.8
I kept to my word, and remained firm in my resolve. That which made me so fixed was in part because I desired to carry, if I could, something considerable to Sháistá Khán, and if it had been permitted to me on my arrival at Surat to go to him first, I would not have gone to see the King at Jahánábád, regarding which I had a great dispute with the Governor of Surat. For when I went to salute him, he immediately told me that it would not be as on my other journeys, and that the King wished, absolutely, to be the first to see all that was curious which was brought into his kingdom. I was more than four months disputing in vain with this Governor ; at last I was obliged to go to visit the King, and from fear lest I should take another route they gave me fifteen horsemen to accompany me to Jalor.