168 H. HOSTEN ON 



Cemetery, within the fields which a strong tradition says belonged and should still 

 belong to the Catholic Mission of Agra ? There must have existed some sort of 

 Cemetery there. 



"On a low mound, under a tree 60 paces from the north wall of the enclosure of 

 the tomb of Abul Ala, and about \ of a mile from No. 4 milestone on the Poya 

 [Puya] Ghat Road" {Agra Archcsological Society Transactions, January to June 1876, 

 Agra, 1876), there is a group of six stones, three of them with inscriptions, one of 

 which records the name of one of Zu-1-Qarnain ' s great-granddaughters. 



The inscription, which I copied myself at the place in December 191 2, runs thus: 

 aqui ias/bibi ann/a dessa/bizneta/de mirza/guecar/[n ?]en faee/ceo em d/ieei 

 AOs/12 de mar/co DE 1736 / (Here lies Bibi Anna Dessa [=de Sa], the great-grand- 

 daughter of Mirza Gulcar(n)en, who died at Dilli [Dihli, Delhi], on the 12th of March 

 of 1736). 



Compare, in passing, the spelling Gulcarnen with Ghool-kurneyl , as C. Hyrapiet 

 has it from the Armenian writers (supra, p. 120, and infra App. E). 



A small MS. leaf in the Agra Cathedral Archives exhibits decipherments of the 

 inscriptions on these stones, with a tentative restoration of the text and an English 

 translation. It is undated. If the author is Col. A. S. Allen, who on December 9, 

 1848, drew up a plan of the Martyrs' Chapel and deciphered its inscriptions, leaving 

 a signed and dated copy for the Agra Fathers, the date of it would also be 1848. 

 Possibly it is older, for my impression, while at Agra, was that the writing in both 

 papers differed. 



My reading of Bibi Dessa's inscription was found to agree with the Agra MS., 

 except that, where I had read: 2 de Marco, the Agra MS. had 12 de Marco. I made 

 the change accordingly. The MS. was wrong in translating bizneta (bisneta) by 

 granddaughter. 



Why should Bibi Dessa, who died at Delhi, and several of the members of her 

 family, have been buried in that now solitary spot at Agra, unless it contained 

 some family graveyard ? ' 



Some of the ramifications of the Sikandar family were to be found at Aleppo 

 (Syria) in 1652. In January of that year we find at Lahore one of Zu-1-Qarnain's 

 nephews, George, a young " nobleman," who had come from Aleppo and spent more 

 than two years in Mogor. Just then he was preparing to go to Rome and offer to 

 His Holiness the respectful homage of his uncle, Mirza Zu-1-Qarnain, and of his 

 relatives in India. We may note also here that in at least two places of the Jesuit 

 letters the name of the Mirza is given as Zu-1-Qarnain <c Cururim " (?), the addition 

 being a puzzle to me. 



Between 1670 and 1678 we hear also of one Nuralla, " a relative of our Brother 

 Mirza Zulcarner, the Founder of the College of Agra," who, while at Delhi, took 

 into his house a sick Hindu woman, the slave of a Rajput, and was instrumental in 

 having her baptized before she died.* 



1 For the graves near that of Bibi Anna Dessa cf. App. B. 



2 Cf. Carta Annua do Imperio do Grao Mogol do anno de 1670 ate de 1678 p. a nosso M. R. P. Joam Paulo Oliva 



