MIRZA ZU-L-QARNAIN, A CHRISTIAN GRANDEE. 159 



,c To finish this relation, I wish to speak awhile of our Brother Mirza, Zulcarane, 

 the founder of the College of Agra, and the column of that Christianity; and, if Fr. 

 Morando had lived after the Mirza's death, 1 he might have written a relation of 

 many pages on the life and exemplary conduct of this good Christian. I shall 

 mention and relate here only some things, which, while I was in the College of Agra, I 

 heard sometimes related by Fr. Francisco Morando, who during 22 years, when Mirza 

 Zulcarane was in the King's lascar? followed him to Bengala, Cabul, Laor and 

 Multan, and twice he was many years with him at Sambar. 3 



"Our Brother Mirza Zulcarne was not, as some thought, of Armenian parentage, 

 but the son of a very honourable and powerful Christian merchant, of Alipy nation- 

 ality and born at Alepo [sic], who came with his merchandise to Mogol, to the Court 

 of the Mogol King Hacabar, during the last years of his Reign and Empire. This 

 merchant, during King Janguir's reign, found the climate of the country to his taste, 

 and settled in that Court, and King Janguir married him with one of the Ladies of his 

 Palace, who, it was said, had some Armenian blood in her. She became a Christian 

 with her husband, and bore him two or three sons, who were also baptized by Fr. 

 Hieronimo Xavier, as appears from my calculations. 4 ' As this woman could freely 

 enter into the Palace of the King's wives, since she had lived there many years, she 

 took with her Mirza Zulcarane, her first child, a love of a baby, they say, whose baptis- 

 mal name was Belchior. 6 The King obtained from the mother that she should leave 

 him in his Palace to be brought up with he young Prince Corrao [Khurram], later 

 Xajan [Shah Jahan], both being of the same age. However, young Mirza would often 

 speak with his father and mother, who instructed him in the faith, and King Janguir 

 was as fond of this little Mirza as of his own son Corrao, and many times, when he 

 went out, he took him with him in his palanquin. Years rolled by and young Mirza 

 continued to be the object of the King's favours. When Mirza was now 14 years old, 

 the King, in his love for him, wished to make him a Moor and get him circumcised ; 

 but the youth would not agree, saying that he had to keep the law of his father 

 and mother, and that || he was a Christian like them. Before the youth's reso- Foi. w- 

 lution the King's caresses changed to grievous threats. These proving unavail- 

 ing, there followed cruel strappings and lashes with thongs of camel-hide. The boy 

 was in such a pitiful plight after this scourging that he was brought to death's 



1 Father Morando appears then to have predeceased the Mirza, but we do not know the year of the death of either. 

 Morando's tomb is not at Agra. If we suppose that he came to Mogor in 1631 , it would follow that, as he was 22 years 

 the Mirza's chaplain, he left Mogor in 1653, a year before Pr. Botelho. How many years did he live -after that ? The 

 Mirza is still heard of in 1652. 



2 Lashkar: army. 



! > An allusion to his serving under Sultan Shuja' in Bengal. Probably, he followed Shah Jahan to Afghanistan- in 

 1648. I do not remember any other reference to his having been in Multan. If Fr. Morando was twice with Zu-1-Oarnain 

 at Sambhar, he must have been there between 1633 and 1642, since the Mirza was in Bengal from 1642 to 1648, and 

 Morando was with him (the second time ?) at Sambhar in 1649-51. Cf. infra, p. 161. 



* Melcbior: was this an additional baptismal name to that of Goncalo ? Cf. supra, pp. 143, 146. 



& Fr. Botelho is incorrect in many of these details, e.g., when he fancies that Sikandar (senior) came to Mogor at the 

 end of Akbar's reign, that Lady Juliana was alive in Jahangir's reign, that she and her husband were not Christians (does 

 he mean Catholics ?) at the time of their marriage, that Pr. Jerome Xavier baptized them. Like Bernier, he differs from 

 the Tu;:uk-i-Jahangiri and the earlier Jesuit accounts in stating that, not Akbar but J ahangir influenced Sikandar's 

 marriage with Lady Juliana. 



