Page 150 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

150 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

than the distance covered by a musket shot from the
imperial tents. These were stately canvas structures
“ half a mile in compass in the forme of a fort, with divers
coynes and bulwarkes with high cannats of a coarse stuff,
made like arras, red on the outside within which were
!
figures in panes, with a handsome gatehouse.* In the
midst of the imperial enclosure stood “ a throne of mother
of pearl borne on two pillars raised on earth, covered over
with a high tent, the pole headed with a knob of gold,
under it canopies of cloth of gold, underfoot carpets.’*
; Within the enclosure were about thirty divisions of tents.
“ Those of the noblemen were in excellent forms, some
of white, some green, some mingled, all encompassed, as
h orderly as any house.” “ One of the greatest rarities and
magnificences I ever saw. The whole vale showed like
a beautiful city,” comments Roe; and then as if over­
whelmed with his own insignificance he adds, “ I was
unfitted with carriage and ashamed of my position. . . .
So I returned to my poor house.”
Many interesting details are given by Roe of the life
in the imperial camp. The Emperor spent his evenings
in hunting or hawking on tanks by means of boats which
{
I were removed from place to place on carts specially de­
signed to carry them. After these expeditions the state
L | business was transacted—that is, when Jehangir was in a
condition to deal with it, but it often happened that he was
r to prevented “ by drowsiness from the fumes of Bacchus.”
Sometimes his alcoholic indulgence made him argumenta­
tive.
On one such occasion, Roe records, the Emperor “ fell
to disputing of the laws of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed,
i and was so kind he turned to me and said—
II

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