1896.] BH. D. Maclagan—Jesuit Missions to the Emperor Akbar. 107 
patiently several times during the space of one year and a half, but 
at last he sent him away back again! to Goa honourably, with some 
good gifts bestowed on him, telling him as Felix did Paul, after he had 
so reasened before him, ‘that he would call for him again when he had 
a convenieut time’ Acts xxiv. 25. Which time or season neither 
of them ever found afterward.’* 
The Jesuits themselves admit that they were unable to administer 
the consolations of their religion to Akbar in his last moments. The 
following is the narrative given by the Provincial in his report of 20th 
December, 16078 :— 
‘The Emperor having lived so that none could say to what religion he 
belonged, God in his righteous judgment deprived him in his last hour 
of the Christian faith, the which, however, he had formerly much praised 
and favoured. As soon as our missionaries heard of his illness they went 
to visit him, but finding him in apparent good health they did not find it 
advisable then to speak to him of the life to come. When next day it was 
rumoured in the city that the Emperer had been poisoned, they went 
again, but were not admitted by the chamberlains although they announced 
themselves the bearers of healing medicines... When the Emperor was in 
his last agonies, the Muhammadans bade him think on Muhammad, where- 
on he gave no sign save that he repeated often the name of God.’ 
And still more clearly is the nature cf Akbar’s end shown in a 
manuscript repert* written by Father Antony Botelho, wko was Provin- 
cial some years after Akbar’s death. In tlis report the Father narrates 
a conversation which he held with the Idal Shahi Prince of Bijapur 
und in which the prince had said to him: ‘Sachehe qui bara Batxa 
Hacabar Christin muha qui nan?’ [Sac hai ki bara badshah Akbar 
Kristan mua ki nahi? Is it true or not that the great Emperor Akbar 
died a Christian?] To which the Father replied: ‘Sire, I would it 
were so: but the Emperor while living failed to be converted, and at 
the last died as he was born, a Muhammedan.’ 
Compared with the conversion of the Emperor the evangelization 
1 This, as well as the term of a year and a half, is an error. 
2 In the Introd. to Gentil’s Memoires, p. 22,n. we are told that Akbar promised 
to embrace the religion selected for him by an intelligent monkey: three cards were 
put in a bag: the monkey taking out that of Muhammadanism tore it up in a rage: 
that of Hinduism it used in a still more ignoble way: while that of Christianity it 
lifted reverently to its head. Akbar, however, demanded leave to have several 
wives: ‘on le lui refuse, et it n’y pensa plus.’ The story of the monkey is ascribed 
to Jahangir’s reign in Bry’s India Orientalis, which contains an amusiog picture of 
the episode. Soalso by Roe (M. Thevenot Relations, p. 79). 
' 3 Drei Neue. Relationes (Augsburg, 1611). 
4 Brit, Mus. Marsd. MSS, 9853. 
