82 E. D. Maclagan — Jesuit Missions to the Himperor Akbar. [No. 1, 
December, 1600. The report begins with an account of a journey made 
by Pimenta northwards from Goa. In January 1600 he put into 
Chaul and there met nine young men who had been sent by Pinheiro 
from Lahor by the Sindh route, Some of these were left at Bandora 
‘to learn from the best masters to play on all kinds of instruments for 
the new church at Lahor.’ A fifth became a Jesuit and what happened 
to the rest is not stated. From these youths the Visitor learnt some 
details not stated in Pinheiro’s letters. For instance how a young 
Catechumen was defending the faith against certain adversaries and 
how in the middle of the debate the leader of the BLES was by 
an unseen hand felled to the ground ! 
At Daman, whither he afterwards proceeded, Pimenta received 
from Xavier a letter and a copy of a book which he had written ‘ against 
certain sects of the unbelievers, more especially that of the Muham- 
madans,’ and had dedicated to the Emperor. It was called ‘ Lignum 
Vite’! and was in Pimenta’s opinion a work of great erudition and 
detail (pereruditum et prolixum). Father Xavier, who had learnt to 
speak Persian with fluency and idiom, was at the time preparing in 
conjunction with native scholars, a Persian translation of his work. 
Goes had also written to the Provincial describing among other things 
the fortifications of Burhanpur which Akbar was then besieging.? 
The Emperor, it must be observed, had by this time reached the 
seat of war in the Deccan and had brought Goes and Xavier south 
with him, In order, therefore, to help poor Pinheiro at Lahor, who 
was now ‘six hundred miles distant from Father Xavier at Burhanpur,’ 
the Visitor sent one Father Corsi,* with instructions to see Father 
Xavier on the way and to obtain from him the necessary information 
and guidanee. Father Corsi reached Cambay at the beginning of 
March (1600); there he was shown the order* issued by Akbar for the 
protection of the Fathers journeying to Agra, Lahor and Cathay, and 
was treated by the Governor with great courtesy. After some delay 
he left this city, but on the 12th May he wrote to say that he had with 
1 Du Jarric, III. 27, gives it the name of Fons Vite, and says that Akbar was 
introduced in it in the character of a philosopher seeking for truth. The book in 
question was doubtless that which was ultimately called ‘Speculum Veritatis’ or 
‘ Aina-i-Haqq-numda. See p. 111 below. 
2 See Elliot, Hist. Ind. VI. 99. Akbar arrived at Burhanpur on 30th April 1599. 
Noer, II. 480. 
3 When Terry was in India sixteen years later, Corsi was about 50 years old. 
He is described as a Florentine and ‘(if he were indeed what he seemed to be) a 
man of a severe life and‘yet of a fair and affable disposition.’ Terry’s Voyage 
(Ed. 1717) p. 422. @ 
4 See p. 80 above. 
