Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 60

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MARCH, 1924
year 1671---72)37 at Manar; after that he proceeded to San Tomé, and from there to Pegu, where opium had in the meantime gone down in price, so that he again suffered great losses. In order to repair them he bought lac at Pegu, and went with it to San Tomé38 and thence to Ormuz : from there he returned by Chiaul-Goa-Cochin-San Tomé to Pega, where be mado good progress in selling opium. Finally he returned, and stayed during the winter in Cochin (fol. 396), 39 after which he left India, and proceeded to Ormuz. In that town he fell in with Messer Francesco Beretin from Venice and other Italians and accompanied them to Basrah, where he had to wait 40 days for boats ; after that he proceeded to Babylon, where he stayed for four months. Thence his caravan arrived in 40 days at Aleppo (of which 36 were spent in the desert). Leaving Aleppo he went to Tripolis and Zaffo (Jaffa), and thence to Jerusalem, where he remained for 40 days to visit the holy places. Having returned to Tripolis, be embarked in the ship Ragazzona, and arrived safely at Venice on November 5th, 1581.40
Gasparo Balbi, on the contrary, has in his book everywhere referred to the day and year when he arrived at or left different places, and it is thus quite easy to follow him closely during the whole of his journey.
He left Venice in 1579-he has not given the date and went (probably by the same route as Federici) to Aleppo, where he arrived on the 13th of December. On the 16th, in the evening, he came to Albir (Bir), where he remained until the 5th January, 1580, when he .continued the voyage, and on the 25th of that month he finally reached Babylon.4 On March 13th he left that town after a stay of more than six weeks, which he himself curiously enough speaks f as "some days " (dopo esservi stati alcuni giorni), and on the 21st he arrived at Basrah ( Jara Basora, fol. 32").4. After having spent about a month at that place, he and his com, ons set sail for Ormuz on April 22nd, 1580, in the morning; having experienced different adventures, they arrived on May 10th at the port of Ormuz in the morning. There Balbi stayed until September 29th, when he embarked in a ship belonging to the Portuguese governor, D. Gonsalvo di Mienza (fol. 47' ),43 in order to proceed to Goa. On October 24th (fol. 58 ) they cast anchor in the port of Diu, where they heard very important news : the Cardinal D. Henrique II, King of Portugal, had died without heirs, 44 and further il gran Re di Magor poco prima dopo haversi fatto disputar la fede di Christo N. Signor da alcuni padri Reverendi di San Paolo si volse batezzare insieme con le moglie, e due suoi figliuoli, eto. E'his refers to Akbar's invitation to the Jeguits in Goa and the mission of Fathers R. Acquaviva (+ 1583) and A. Monserrate (f 1600), thence to Fathpur-Sikri (November 1579).46
37 Generally those older authors by winter' widerstand the rain-period, but this is scarcely the case hore
31 As he says himself (fol. 395lt) that ships went only in March from Pegu to 8. Tomé, he can scarcely have returned there before March 1573.
39 As he came back to Venice in November 1581, this must have been in the year 1679-80.
40 If we put together the sums given by himself (Basrah 40 days, Basrah-Babylon 40 days, Babylon 120 days, Babylon-Aleppo 40 days, and his stay at Jerusalem 40 days), we get 290 days, or 9 months 20 days. The journeys Aleppo Tripolis-Jaffa-Jerusalem and Jerusalem-Tripolis-Venice may have taken at least some 50 days. Thus his journey Ormus-Venice should have lasted some 11 months, and he may have left Ormuz about December 1st, 1680. But this is, of course, mere guess work.
41 Fol. 22v; on fol. 239 he says that he had spent 49 days between Albir and Babylon, which must be a misprint. Federici used 45-46 days for that journey.
41 According to Federici exactly 8-9 days were used for the route Babylon-Basrah.
43 I have not boen able to trace any person with that name in the Decadas of Do Couto; the index of the edition of 1788 is, however, very incomplete.
4 He died on January 31st, 1880. 46 of. Vincent A. Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, Oxford 1917, p. 168 fl.