Captain Freeman then coming in for to bid us farewell before going on board of his ship at Swally, we left speaking of the matter, and turned to other topics. But Mr Martin was as good as his word in speaking for me to the Council, and thereafter, in due course, all was appointed as I most desired, and I was given the vacant place in the party that was about being made up. The shipping season was now at its height, when the life in our Factory at Surat is the busiest imaginable, and I had already had much ado to see to my private matters, being forced at last to trust them almost entirely to the discretion of that good friend of mine, Captain Freeman, than whom, as I may truly say, there never was a discreeter person. He being at last departed, and with him all the other India ships, sailing in company for fear of pirates and other enemies, we were at liberty to set about our preparations, which being finished, we started on our journey.

In our company was there we four merchants, together with twelve English soldiers for the better protecting of our goods and the rich gifts we carried for the emperor, and also several banyans with their servants and followers. It was counted proper for us to travel in some state, with banners borne before us, as persons of quality in the East use to do, and with a sufficient retinue of attendants. The Europe merchants in the Indies do never journey but they carry with them their own cooks, both for the avoiding of danger from poison and for the better satisfying of their palates, and many other servants also are needful, for to look to the beasts and the merchandises and for to prepare the night lodging. Journeying by way of Brodra[105] and Cambaya, both of ’em considerable towns, and so to the Company’s house at Amidavat, was all old ground to me, but when, after some days’ rest at the place last named, we passed on and came into the country of the Rashpoots,[106] I found there much that was new to me. And these Rashpoots, or as some render the word, Rasboutes, are a kind of highwaymen, or Tories, such as gain their livelihood by attempting and plundering travellers, so that it behoved us all to keep good watch against ’em. And this was to us a matter of no small anxiety, so as we were almost fain to ask for a guard of soldiers from the Moorish governor of Oudyepour,[107] which was a great town we come to, but refrained, fearing lest they should prove worse to us than the robbers themselves, being, like all the Mogul armies, ill paid and worse disciplined. But it so fell out, thanks to the kind care of Providence, that we were able to travel with little molestation or stoppage, having at Amidavat changed our Europe clothes for garments made after the Indian fashion, and so reached safely the great city of Agra, the goal of our journeying.

This city is a place of prodigious force, being defended on every side by a good wall of red freestone and a ditch of thirty fathoms broad. The circuit of the walls is extreme extensive, and the streets very fine and spacious, though to our eyes the common houses and shops seem mean enough, and in divers cases the upper rooms, projecting out on either side of the way, do meet overhead in the midst, making, as it were, a vaulted passage for to go through. Of public edifices there is a prodigious quantity, and these so fair and stately as ’tis said no city in Asia can surpass them, both in the fashion of their architecture (which is after the Persian style), and the conveniency of their ordering. Chief among these in our opinion on our first arriving was the eighty caravan-serawes[108] or inns of the place, whereof we chose one, on the advice of them that knew the city well, and there took up our abode, finding therein such noble lodging as I had never imagined to myself. For these caravan-serawes are many of ’em of three storeys high, with fine sets of rooms for travellers, together with good vaults and cellars for their goods, and suitable stabling for their beasts, and all the chambers opening one into another with private doors and galleries for the conveniency of those that occupy ’em. To each caravan-serawe is there a keeper appointed, for the better safeguarding of the goods therein and the comfort of the travellers, and he, in return for the payment of a decent sum of money, will provide for you both forage for your beasts and victuals and firing for yourself, and all this with mighty care and respect.

We then, having settled ourselves in this place, did send word to the emperor of our being come, and ask his permission to wait upon him for the presenting our letters of commendation, and did also send to certain Armenians that did represent the Honourable Company in this city, that they might come and examine the merchandises we had brought, and carry away musters of them for to show to them that dealt with ’em. And this business being ended, we did set to work to make ourselves at home (as they say), as being likely to spend some months in the place (for if Justice be slow anywhere, sure her course is scarce swift enough to be perceivable here), and so divided among ourselves the apartments that we held, taking each two chambers, very decent and seemly, and a part of the gallery before ’em.

Now the day after our coming, a Brachmine,[109] which is an Indian priest (for such are commonly used for clerks and messengers among the Moguls), brought to us the emperor’s reply to our letter, bidding us welcome very graciously, and counselling us to take certain days to refresh ourselves after our journey, and then he would admit us to an audience. And this counsel we followed, diverting ourselves with going about and examining the place, with one of the Armenians, a pretty young fellow enough, and one that spake English passably, having been bred up in the house they have at Surat, for our druggerman,[110] which is interpreter. For there are in Agra a prodigious number of metchids or mosqueys,[111] where the Moguls used to worship, and chief among ’em that wonder of the world and delight of all beholders,[112] built by the late emperor Shaw Jehaun,[113] the father of Auren Zeeb, for the glorification and remembering of his queen. But so strict is the watch maintained over these temples, that it cost us prodigious pains to see more than the outside only of one or two, and this with much reluctance on the part of their keepers and of those that we found worshipping therein. Likewise we visited many tombs of holy men among the Moors, that are held in great honour and veneration, and divers fine public baths, where you may be bathed and anointed in the greatest luxury imaginable for a trifling small sum.

Then lastly, when the day was come that the emperor had appointed, we took our presents that we had brought for his majesty, and being borne in palenkeens in our best array, started for to come to his court. The palace of the Great Mogul is a mighty pretty piece of building, well fortified against all attempts, and ornamented with much curious work after the Moorish fashion. Passing in at a great gate that looks towards the west, we were showed the cistery,[114] that is, the emperor’s place of decreeing justice, where all men, even the poorest, may demand admittance, and seek redress at his hands. And next we saw a great tower, covered all over with gold, where the emperor’s treasury is kept, and after this they brought us into a court paved with marble of divers colours, very pretty, and at the upper end thereof, under a rich portal with pillars of silver, we found the Great Mogul himself, sitting upon a platform with silver railings, and a carpet thereon fringed with gold. So bright and shining was the magnificence of this throne and of all the appointments on’t, that for a time our eyes were verily dazzled thereby; but I was able to perceive that the emperor was a man beyond middle age, very grave and reverend of countenance, and most majestical of person. His habit consorted well with his air, being a cassock of white satin, very delicately flowered, and oddly wrought with broidery of silk and gold, and a shash[115] of rich woollen stuff about his middle. His turbant was of gold cloth, with a string of great pearls woven therein, and a plume set with very fine diamonds in the forefront thereof. Round about the platform whereon he sat was all the ombrahs[116] of his kingdom, and many famous soldiers and generals, all in very rich apparel.

The emperor received us with much affability, and accepting our gifts, heard what we had to say, I being interpreter, and then dismissed us very graciously, assuring us that our matters should have his attention before very long. And we returning to our lodging, found a great store of goods sent thither after us, for this is the custom of the East, but we must needs put them to the credit of the Company, whose servants we were, and not keep them ourselves. Bringing these gifts from his majesty come a Europe gentleman of his household, a Frenchman as I believe, that had studied medicine at the great school of Montpellier, and was now, after many wanderings, become the emperor’s physician—a very ingenious person, and well skilled in all manner of curious knowledge. He having been of late absent from the city, visiting one of the emperor’s sons at Dhilly, had but just heard of our arrival, and came to visit upon us with great kindness, rejoicing that he might once more find himself in the company of Christians. And he sat and talked with us until very late, delighting us mightily with the variety of his information and the extent of his travels, and departed at last, being as earnestly desired to visit upon us again as he himself was anxious to do this. So great was the esteem (and that, as I believe confidently, well-grounded) that the emperor felt for this gentleman, that he made him the depositary of all his secrets, and even sent him on divers occasions to confer with Mr Kidder, the head of our party, as to the immunities that were desired to be confirmed. And thus it arrived that the doctor became a very near friend to us all, and opened and explained to us many things that we could not understand, and made himself in general so needful to us, that we felt that day to be empty wherein he came not to pass some time at our lodging.

Now upon one of these days was it that Mr Kidder and I rid abroad upon an elephant, which beast’s paces are extreme disagreeable to them that han’t accustomed themselves thereto, so that when we came to dismounting by the means of a short ladder, I, being somewhat giddy, catched a slip, and fell to the ground. As it so chanced, I was not hurt in nowise, but only my watch, the which was sorely crushed and broken in the fall. And I was the more grieved at this, that the watch was a gift from Mr Martin, he having sent for it as far as to Swisse,[117] intending it for me on my return from Goa, and keeping it by him all the time wherein he knew not whether I were alive or dead, gave it to me before my going to Amidavat, and a mighty fine piece of workmanship it was, and cost him a great sum of money. I then lamenting loudly the loss of so precious a thing from among my possessions, when as we sat the next evening under the colonnade before our lodging, our friend the physician bid me take comfort, saying that there was a Christian prisoner in the court that was either a Frenchman or a Swisser, and was most cunning in mending of clocks and in all work of that kind. And I asking where I might find this person, he promised to direct him to me, and that as soon as might be. And being thus a little comforted, I put away the watch for the night, little dreaming into what company it should bring me.

But the next day, towards noon, when I was in my own chamber, smoking that strange fashion of pipe that they call hucca,[118] I was disturbed by my servant Loll Duss, who come to say that the workman sent by the gentleman physician (this is their civil and respectful way in speaking of the doctor) was arrived and waited my pleasure. Then I bade Loll Duss carry him to the gallery, being minded myself to talk there with him as he worked, and learn through what strange turns of Fortune’s wheel he was come into such a plight. Going out to him, therefore, I found him a person of a very fine stature and an air of great nobility, though poorly apparelled in a Moorish habit, his eyes dark and piercing, his hair and beard long and untrimmed. And he receiving me with a prodigious low reverence, as elegant as any I had seen in my lord marquis his court at St Thomas, I felt myself moved to return his civility, and wondered what his quality might be. Showing him then the watch, and explaining how I had broke it, he sat down and took out his tools and set to work with great skill and diligence, I sitting by and watching him.

“ ’Tis easy to see, sir, that you were bred to this trade,” says I to him at last in French. He left his work for a moment, and looked upon me with a smile.