MIRZA ZU-L-QARNA1N, A CHRISTIAN GRANDEE. 181 



Yakoob Khan, Nawab related to Afghan family." All this appears to show a connec- 

 tion with Mirza Zu-1-Qarnain. Does it not seem that, on being lost sight of after 

 Nuralla (1670-78), the Zu-1-Qarnain family passed through a period of obscurity at 

 Delhi and suddenly emerged again at Narwar in all its former splendour and with 

 all its ancient traditions of piety ? Other descendants would have been the Cardozo's 

 and de Sa's of Agra and Bharatpur (Cf. App. B.). 



If the Indian Bourbons belonged to a later period than alleged by themselves, 

 we do not see how or when they could have deserved their sudden rise to power, or 

 owed it to any other, Lady Juliana Dias da Costa, for instance. The family connec- 

 tions of Lady Juliana II. do not appear to point towards the Bourbons. Nor do I 

 see how they could be descended from that bold and hitherto unknown adventurer, a 

 common soldier, who passed himself off among the Dutch of Batavia as Don Luis de 

 Sylveira Lobo, Count of Sarcetas, then came to Madras and Mailapur, where he 

 borrowed a large sum of money from John Petite, a Frenchman, and was "recog- 

 nised ' ' as the genuine Count of Sarcetas by a Portuguese Missionary ; next he went 

 to several Portuguese towns on the West Coast duping everybody ; finally he came to 

 Delhi under the name of John de Souza Montenegro, deceived the Moghul Emperor 

 by his genteel airs, married Theresa Dias de Almeida, daughter of John Dias, a noble 

 of Cochin, and Maria Toscana, 1 a Moorish woman who became a Christian at the 

 age of 40, had a son by her, became a renegade, took the name of Din Muhammad/ 

 repented and died before September 7th, 1686. 3 



Near Martyr's Chapel, Padres Santos' Cemetery, Agra, there is a very indistinct 

 inscription, the date of which may be, from the appearance of the inscription, 

 anything between 1611 and the middle of the 17th century. It runs thus: 



AQVT IAZ IOAN DELACVILLA / DE BORGONHA QVE MORRE/O EM AGRA AOS MEZ DE 



agosto de / = Here lies Joao (Joam) Delacvilla (?) of Burgundy, who died at 



Agra in the month of August of ... . — Who was he ? 



The last word on the Bourbons has not been said. If John Philip de Bourbon 

 can be connected with Zu-1-Qarnain , the earlier and most romantic part of the 

 history of Zu-1-Qarnain's family remains to be told. These pages may help Fr. S. 

 Xoti, S.J., in unravelling the very tangled skein of that story. They will also have 

 given my readers a foretaste of the many surprises which the Jesuit letters during 

 two centuries will reveal, when published. 



1 Cf. on her Manucci, Storia do Mogor, II. 40; III. 216. Her husband, John Dias, a noble of Cochin, was probably 

 related to Agostinho Dias, also described as a noble of Cochin (cf. App. C). In that case, the " Count de Sarcetas" 

 married into Lady Juliana II.'s family. Manucci knew also a certain John de Souza, a physician at Delhi (1661-62), II. 

 40, 36 n. 2 ; one Juan Dias de Almeida and his daughter (III. 286). 



* Cf. Annual Letter of Mogor (1670-78), MS., foil 90^-93^. 



i Cf. Annual Letter of Mogor (September 7, 1686), MS., fol. 153. 



