Page 148 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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I 148 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST
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comes with his buckler and sword, the former “ set all
over with great diamonds and rubies ” and the latter
: being fixed to a belt of gold similarly embellished with
precious stones. A third tenders a quiver with thirty
arrows and his bow in a case. On the Mogul’s head was
set “a red turban with a plume of horse tops, not many
but long ; on one side of the turban was a ruby unset as big
as a walnut, on the other side a diamond as great; in the
i! middle an emerald like a heart, much bigger. His sash
was wreathed with a chain of great pearls, rubies and
diamonds drilled. About his neck he carried a chain of gold
... as great as I ever saw. On his elbows were armlets
set with diamonds and on his wrists were three great rows
i; i of diamonds of several sorts. His hands bore on almost
i every finger a ring. . . . On his feet were a pair of em­

broidered buskins (adorned) with pearls, the toes sharp
and turning up.” On each side of the Emperor were two
eunuchs, carrying small gold maces, and equipped also with
a long bunch of white horse hair to drive away the flies
from the imperial face. Before the Mogul “ went drums,
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ill trumpets and loud music and many canopies with strange
ensignes of majesty of cloth of gold set in many places with
great rubies.”
Jehangir took his seat in the first of two coaches which
were drawn up outside the entrance to the imperial apart­
ments. The vehicle was the one which had been made by
his order in imitation of the coach forwarded by the
Company a year previously and upon the box was the Eng­
lish coachman, “ clothed as rich as any player and more
gaudy,” sitting up in all the dignified majesty of his class.
The second coach, the presentation one, was allotted to
Noor Mahal, and into it that imperious lady stepped, with

Hunt