Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/177

 favourite drink, to which he had so long, perforce, been a stranger.

"Sack! Sack!" he exclaimed. "Is there any such thing as sack? I pray you, give me more sack," "and drinking it though moderately," says Terry, "it increased his flux which he had then upon him, and this caused his death in December, 1617."

In a grave afterwards covered with a modest stone like those in the old churchyards at home, Coryat's remains were laid to rest in the English God's Acre at Surat. Time has obliterated the evidence of the exact whereabouts of the grave, but the memory of the strange creature's irruption into the India of the Great Moguls with its whimsical features must always have a fascination for all who take pleasure in noting the lights and shades of human character.

Roe was too deeply engaged with matters of importance to give his quaint friend's death more than a passing tribute of regret. The old trouble about the delivery of the presents had come up in a new and rather menacing form. On the arrival of the consignment at Surat, Prince Khumim caused his seals to be put upon the articles with the intent that nothing should be opened without his cognizance. Roe's independent spirit chafed under this new assertion of the prince's power. He forwarded to the Emperor a request that the ban should be removed, and, when after a delay of twenty days no reply had been received, he proceeded to break the seals. His offence was an enormous one in the light of Mogul tradition. It brought him for the first time under the displeasure of Jehangir. When Roe attended him the Emperor " set on it an angrie countenance: told mee I had broken my word: that hee would trust me no more." Roe in reply calmly maintained that