Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/155

 "'I am a King; you shall be welcome—Christians, Moors, Jews—all shall be welcome.' He medled not with faith. They came all in love, and he would protect them from wrong. They lived in his safety and none should oppress them.

"And this often repeated, but in extreme drunkenness: he fell to weeping and to divers passions and so kept us till midnight."

Jehangir, besides being a debauchee, was, there can be no doubt, a poseur. He seems to have deliberately set out to impress Roe by displays of amiable personal qualities. In the drunken fit just described the idea clearly was to create a tradition of his magnanimity and toleration. Some days later Roe was given a highly theatrical demonstration of his humility.

Entering the royal presence Roe found Jehangir sitting on his throne and a beggar at his feet—"a poore silly old man, all asht, ragd and patcht, with a young roague attending on him." This gosain, or fakir, for such no doubt he was, presented the Emperor with a cake, cooked on ashes, made of coarse grain, "which the King accepted most willingly, and breaking one bit ate it, which a dainty mouth could scarce have done." Afterwards Jehangir's meal was brought in and "whatsoever he took to eat he brake and gave the beggar half, after many strange humiliations and charities, rising the old wretch up, he being unable, he took him up in his arms which no cleanly body durst have touched. Embracing him and three times laying his hand on his heart, calling him father, he left him and all us, and me, in admiration of such a virtue in a heathen prince."

Roe seems to have conceived a real regard for the