MIRZA ZU-L-QARNAIN, A CHRISTIAN GRANDEE. 151 



orders to return to Goa and to go where they might do more good. From Goa they 

 encouraged them to have patience ; for patience and long-suffering surmounted all 

 obstacles. King Hacabar fell into another folly. He said to the Fathers that he 

 had heard whatever pertained to our law, and that with the knowledge || he had of Foi. 4 iy. 

 the various religious schools among Muhammadans, he wished to make a religion 

 which would combine ours and his. When the Fathers saw his extravagance, they 

 undeceived from there the Fathers Superiors and said they wished to leave the place. 

 They were told from there to come at once, but not without the King's permission 

 and good pleasure. The Fathers laid the matter before the King, and he told them 

 he had no hold on them: if they wished, they could go back to their country; but 

 they should know that, if they left his Court, he would be much displeased and 

 chagrined. The Fathers continued to have patience still some time, until the King 

 resolved to send an Ambassador to the Sovereign Pontiff with Fr. Antonio de 

 Monserrate. The Ambassador came to Goa, whence he was to go to Rome ; but he 

 died at Goa, 1 and Fr. Antonio de Monserrate remained on this side, while Fr. Rodolfo 

 Aquaviva, too, returned to Goa after some months. I do not know what was his 

 pretext, but he had the King's leave. A few months after his return, Fr. Rodolfo 

 Aquaviva went to the Christianity of Salcete, where he obtained afterwards at Cunculy 

 [Cunculim] the crown of a glorious martyrdom. A few months later, the King heard 

 how the Holy Martyr Rodolfo Aquaviva had been so cruelly killed for the faith ; and, 

 speaking to his courtiers, he said that God had thus chastised him for not wishing 

 to remain in his Kingdom and Court. 2 Such is the preposterous judgment of those 

 who are ignorant of our holy faith ! They take as a punishment from the hands of 

 God the reward He bestows on His elect. The Superiors of Goa, knowing how King 

 Hacabar had been unwilling to let our Fathers depart from his Court, however just 

 their reasons, thought proper that we should return to that Court and send others 

 again, seeing that we were treated there with so much respect that the King kept 

 us at his expense, and that, even if the conversion of the King himself did not follow, 

 our residing at the Court of the greatest Monarch of the whole of Asia redounded 

 to the greater glory of God, while it made the world wonder. 3 It was thought in the 

 beginning and at the Court of King Idalxa, up to the time that I was there by order 

 of obedience, that King Hacabar had died a Christian. King Idalxa himself told 

 me these very words: 'Antonio Botelho, sache he qui bard Patxd Hacabar Christao 

 muhd, qui na? ' * That is : ' Antonio Botelho, is it true or not that the great King 

 Hacabar died a Christian ? ' I answered : ' Would to God it had been so; but he kept 

 us deluded with such hopes, and died in your sect of Muhammad.' I do not now 



l Monserrate (op. cit., p. 637) does not state that 'Abdullah died at Goa, neither does Father Goldie, nor Francisco 

 de Sousa, S.J., Oriente Conqtiislado , II. C. I, D. II, §§43-48, 53-64, 74 sqq. Fr. Daniel Bartoli, S.J., Missione al Gran 

 Moqor, Roma, 1714, p. 73, says he returned to Court. We hear of him still in 1595 and later (MS. letters). 



1 According to Monserrate, Akbar, on hearing of Rudolf's death, put his finger in his mouth and said, deeply moved : 

 " Woe to me ! Father, I told you timely enough not to go, but you did not wish to listen to me!" Cf. op. cit., p. 637. 

 See also Bartoli, op. cit., p. 149. 3 The fact is that Akbar recalled the Fathers in 1590 and 1595. 



* Sack hat hi bard Pad%hdh Akbar Khristdn mud ki nd ? — Some parts of the abridged Latin translation of Fr. Botelho's 

 memoir were quoted by Sir Edward Maclagan in J.A.S.B:, 1896, p. 93 n. 2, p. 107. Fr. Botelho must have been at the 

 Court of the Idal Shah of Bijapur some time between 1654 and 1670. 



