Page 165 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

CHAPTER XI

A Group of English Adventurers in India
Robert Trully, the comet player—William Hemsell, the Great
Mogul’s coachman—Richard Steele—His Agra waterworks
scheme—Thomas Coryat, “ the Odcombo Leg Stretcher ”—
Coryat’s early career at the Court of James I—Coryat's
Crudities—Coryat’s journey overland to India—Coryat’s
audience with Jehangir—The Emperor and a Christian con­
vert—Coryat prepares to return home—Ho dies and is buried
at Surat—Roc’s last days in India—He secures an agreement
from the Mogul government permitting the English to trade—
He returns to England
ITT'OR- the present we may leave Roe resting on his hard-
Jl won laurels, and turn to the doings of some of the
subsidiary characters who were playing their part in this
interlude of what in the end was to prove the great drama
of British influence in India.
From time to time in the ambassador’s diary and in the
correspondence of the period, we come across allusions to
men of English birth who strutted and fretted their hour
upon the ample stage of Indian life, and then were heard of
no more. Some there were who were no credit to their race,
who to ingratiate themselves with the native potentates
“ turned Moors,” and disappeared from view under a cloud
of infamy. Of this class was Robert Trully, a musician,
who was brought out to charm the Mogul by his cornet
playing, and who, having acquitted himself of this duty
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