MIRZA ZU-L-QARNAIN, A CHRISTIAN GRANDEE. 165 



ably married during his lifetime. One day, speaking to one of his great friends, a 

 certain Umbrao, who had easy access to the King, Mirza Zulcarane asked him, 'Will 

 you not get the King to appoint my sons Mancebdares [mansabdars], i.e., captains 

 of three hundred or four hundred horse, a dignity leading to that of Umbraos ? ' ' 

 The Umbrao answered, ' I shall ask the King to appoint your sons not only 

 Mancebdares, but even Umbraos, provided they are willing to embrace the law of 

 Muhammad.' — f Then, don't,' said he, ' and get away ! Our law is so precious that not 

 all the riches of the whole world can be compared with it ! ' The Umbrao stood con- 

 founded. Mirza' s two eldest married sons died during his lifetime ; the last survived 

 him; but (either deception or lack of judgment, for he seemed at times eccentric and 

 ill-balanced) he let himself be circumcised to follow the sect of Muhammad. It did not 

 last long, however. Recognising the error, which he, the son of such a great Christian, 

 had fallen into, he felt intensely grieved, and, making a very big cross, he took it 

 upon his shoulders, and, with a rope around his neck, dragged it about the streets of the 

 City of Dely, confessing his sin aloud, and begging God's mercy. He was reconciled 

 to the Church, and died shortly after in the faith, and I doubt not that God granted 

 him this grace through his father's praying in heaven that his house and family 

 might be spared such a slur. 



f ' I have not said all I could about the Mission of Mogol. I leave the rest to the 

 usual Annuals, which relate things of great glory to God and credit to that Christianity. 

 Comparing it with many others of the Society throughout this East, we can say of it : 

 Pusilns [sic] grex [little flock], as far as numbers go, but we can give it the first place 

 for fidelity to the practices of our holy law. May Our L,ord in His infinite mercy 

 open the eyes of that so vast heathenism and Moordom, and bring them into the way 

 of the true salvation." 



The Latin abridgment of Fr. Botelho's Rellagao da Christandade que temos no 

 Reino do Gram Mogol is evidently the work of a scholar in Europe, who, striking 

 the panegyrical note, indulges in some oratorical embellishments of his own. It 

 was natural that he should seize upon the similarity of name between the Mirza 

 and Alexander; but, " a Numa in peace, an Alexander in war, and a Csesar in 

 both " are flourishes which the sober historian would have avoided. In the light of 

 the documents we have handled Zu-1-Qarnain appears to us as a good administrator, 

 and a great Christian hero, not as a great soldier. 



For the sake of completeness, let the latinist speak. 



" But, as all the success we have had in Mogor, the flourishing condition of the 

 Christian religion, all the revenues possessed by the Agra College, are (after God) due 



would be Michael. The Mirza's son, who is mentioned in the Annual Letter of 1619 (cf. supra) as having died, could not 

 have been Mirza Observam, as Sir R. C Temple suggests (Travels of Peter Mundy, II. 376) ; he would be rather the boy 

 who is spoken of in 1619 as born after the death of the M.rza's then only child I do not know what Christian name 

 Observam represents. It may have something to do with the visit to Sambhar in 1624 of the Franciscans or Observan- 

 tines. Clara, too, the name of Zu-1-Qarnain's daughter, recalls a Franciscan Saint. Irij is a Muhammadau name (see 

 e.g., Blochmann, Ain, I. 339, 491, 511). 



I Mansabdars were of many ranks. "From the remarks and quotations of Blochmanu it would seem that 

 Mansabdars, from the commandant of 1,000 upwards, were styled umavd-i-kibar, or umard-i-'izdm, " Great Amirs " ; and 

 these would be the omrahs properly." Hobson-Jobson, s.v. omrah 



