Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/136

 soil his hands with the business himself, but he was careful to send in the person of his favourite, Zulfikar Khan, a competent instrument for the execution of his designs. In the ordering of this policy Prince Khurrum had at least the tacit assent of the Emperor. Somewhat earlier Jehangir had received at Court a representative of the Company named Edwards, who delivered to him a letter from James and some new presents, including an English mastiff, which had distinguished itself on its arrival by "pinching" to death a leopard that was pitted against it. The sporting Emperor had been greatly impressed with this incident and had received the fierce animal with something like enthusiasm. But when the noveltyof the fighting mastiff had worn off, and he found that there were no more presents to be had, he assumed an attitude of contemptuous indifference towards the Company's representatives. One day, when Edwards was a little more importunate than usual at the durbar, the attendants, with blows and cuffs, bundled him contumeliously out of the presence, as they might have done some impudent beggar who had transgressed the laws of etiquette.

A circumstance which unquestionably militated against the English at the Mogul Court was their appearance there in the character of merchants. India at that period, and, indeed, still is the most aristocratic country in the world Nowhere are social traditions and prejudices more deeply rooted. Lofty unclimbable walls separate class from class and race from race. The basis of this rigid system is Hindu, but its broad essentials—the elevation of the warrior and priest and the depression of the trader—have been accepted by the Mohammedans, harmonizing as they do with their own ideals.