A History of Agriculture in India v2.c50.33

v2.c50.33

Apart from *namas* and histories, we get information of great value from the accounts of European travellers about the Mughal India. During the seventeenth century a number of European travellers, English, Dutch, French and Italian, came to India. The most prominent of these were Ralph Fitch (1583-1591); John Mildenhall (1603-1605); William Finch (1608-1611); William Hawkins (1608-1613); Thomas Coryat (1614-1617); Edward Terry (1616-1619); Francisco Pelsaert (1620-1627); Pietro Della Valle (1623-1624); John De Laet (1625-1631); Peter Mundy (1628-1634); John Albert de Mandelslo (1638-1639); Sebestian Manrique (1640-1642); Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1640-1667); Niccolas Manucci (1653-1708); M. Francois Bernier (1656-1668) and Monsieur de Thevenot (1666-1667). Of them Pelsaert, Manucci and Bernier made excellent observations on the crops and people of India. Bernier, the French doctor—the most scholarly of all—came of a peasant stock and he noted with sympathy and concern the wretched condition of the peasants in India.