Agra Is A Very Great City,
But In Every Respect Much Inferior To Lahore.
Here the Mogul used always
to keep his court, till within these two years.
From Agra I went in ten days to the Mogul's court, at a town called
Asmere, [Ajimeer,] where I found an English. Cape merchant with nine
more of our countrymen, residing there in the way of trade for our East
India Company. In. my journey from Jerusalem to the court of the Great
Mogul, I spent fifteen months and some days, travelling all the way
a-foot, having been so great a propatetic, or walker forwards on foot,
as I doubt if you ever heard of the like; for the whole way, from
Jerusalem to Ajimeer, contains 2700 English miles. My whole
perambulation of the greater Asia is likely to extend almost to 6000
miles, by the time I have returned back through Persia, by Babylon and
Nineveh to Cairo in Egypt, and thence down the Nile to Alexandria, when
I propose, with God's blessing, to embark for Christendom.
The reigning Great Mogul is named Selim.[247] He is fifty-three years of
age, his birth-day having been celebrated with wonderful magnificence
since my arrival. He was that day weighed in a pair of golden scales,
which by great chance I saw that same day, the opposite scale being
filled with as much gold as counterpoised his weight, and this is
afterwards distributed among the poor. This custom is observed every
year. His complexion is of an olive colour, something between white and
black; being of a seemly stature, but somewhat corpulent. His dominions
are very extensive, being about 4000 English miles in circumference,
nearly answerable to the compass of the Turkish territories; or, if the
Mogul kingdom be any way inferior in size to that empire, it is more
than equally endowed with a fertile soil beyond that of any other
country, and in having its territory connected together in one goodly
continent, within which no other prince possesses one single foot of
land. The yearly revenue of the Mogul extends to forty millions of
crowns, of six shillings each, while that of the Turk does not exceed
fifteen millions, as I was credibly informed in Constantinople, nor that
of the Sophy five millions, as I learnt at Ispahan. It is said that the
present Great Mogul is not circumcised, in which he differs from all
other Mahometan sovereigns.
[Footnote 247: He was Sultan Selim before his accession to the throne,
but was afterward known by the new name of Jehunguire. - E.]
The Great Mogul speaks with much revrence of our Saviour, naming him
Hazaret Eesa, that is to say, the Great Prophet Jesus.[248] He
likewise uses all Christians, and especially the English, with more
benevolence than does any other Mahometan prince. He keeps many wild
beasts, such as lions, elephants, leopards, bears, antelopes, and
unicorns, [rhinoceroses,] of which I saw two at his court, the strangest
beasts in the world.
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