Introduction
In 1600, Ralph Fitch was among the advisers engaged in the founding of the East India Company, thanks to his account of a daring tour of Syria, Iran and India from 1583 to 1591 that had gripped Queen Elizabeth I and all London. In July 1585, Fitch had arrived in the Indian city of Agra, which with nearby Fatehpur-Sikri lay at the heart of the realm of Akbar the Great (r. 1556-1605), third Mughal Emperor.
AGRA is a very great city and populous, built with stone, having fair and large streets; with a fair river running by it which falleth into the Gulf of Bengala.* It hath a fair castle and a strong, with a very fair ditch. From thence we went for Fatepore,* which is the place where the King kept his court.* The town is greater than Agra, but the houses and streets be not so fair. Here dwell many people, both Moors and Gentiles.* The King hath in Agra and Fatepore, as they do credibly report, a thousand Elephants, thirty thousand Horses, fourteen hundred tame Deer, eight hundred Concubines; such store of Ounces,* Tigers, Buffles,* Cocks and Hawks that is very strange to see. He keepeth a great court, which they call Derrican.*
Agra and Fatepore are two very great cities, either of them much greater than London and very populous. Between Agra and Fatepore are twelve miles,* and all the way is a market of victuals* and other things, as full as though a man were still in a town and so many people as if a man were in a market.
* Agra (some 125 miles southeast of Delhi, in Uttar Pradesh) stands on the River Yamuna or Jumna. The river crosses northern India in a westerly direction and is a tributary of the Ganges, which empties into the Bay of Bengal. Today Agra is famous for the Taj Mahal, built by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1631-1648, but that was still fifty years away in the future when Fitch visited in 1585. For an Englishman’s take on the Taj, see Unrivalled Grace.
* Fatehpur-Sikri, pronounced fa-te-POOR see-KREE, was founded by Emperor Akbar the Great (r. 1556-1605) in 1570.
* Fitch calls him Zelabdim Echebar, but we know him today as Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, or Akbar the Great. He was the third Mughal emperor, reigning from 1556 to 1605. Fitch’s colleague John Newbery carried with him a letter of introduction from Queen Elizabeth I, addressed to Akbar. “The great affection [eagerness] which our Subjects have” wrote the Queen “to visit the most distant places of the world (not without good will and intention to introduce the trade of merchandise of all nations whatsoever they can; by which means the mutual and friendly traffic of merchandise on both sides may come), is the cause that the bearer of this letter, John Newbery, jointly with those that be in his company, with a courteous and honest boldness do repair to the borders and countries of your Empire.”
* ‘Moors’ is Fitch’s term for Muslims, drawing on the contemporary name for the Muslim inhabitants of Spain. ‘Gentiles’ is his term for Hindus, borrowing a term from the Bible for those who are not ‘under the law’, in this case Islamic law. The English words fitted nicely in with Portuguese moro and gentio. Thanks to their settlement in Goa on India’s west coast, the Portuguese were some way ahead of the English in establishing trade links with the Mughal Emperors.
* An ounce is a now rarely-used name for a snow leopard, related to the Latin Panthera uncia. See a photo from Hemis National Park in the far north of India.
* Editor J. Courtenay Locke notes that this is the French word for the animal called boubalos by the Greeks, and buffalo by the Italians.
* Probably Dera-i-khan, ‘house of the prince’. Locke wrote: “Akbar was accustomed to give audience in the Diwan-i-Khas and judgment in the Diwan-i-Am; ‘Derrican’ may represent one of these.” The Diwan-i-Khas was the Hall of Private Audience, used for nobles and dignitaries, and the Diwan-i-Am was the Hall of Public Audience, used for the general public.
* The distance is in fact about 22 miles, west and a little south. This is equivalent to about 12 kos (with the Indian kos equal to about 1¾ miles) which may explain Fitch’s mistake.
* ‘Victuals’ means foods. The word was mispronounced wittles by many a Dickensian character. “You get me a file, and you get me wittles — you bring ’em both to me,” growls the escaped convict Magwitch to Pip at the start of Great Expectations.
Précis
In 1585, English merchant Ralph Fitch visited Agra and Fatehpur-Sikri, chief cities of Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great. He reckoned each of them larger and more populous than London, though Agra was his favourite. The chain of shops strung over some twenty miles between the two cities impressed him, but Akbar’s collection of animals took his breath away. (58 / 60 words)
In 1585, English merchant Ralph Fitch visited Agra and Fatehpur-Sikri, chief cities of Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great. He reckoned each of them larger and more populous than London, though Agra was his favourite. The chain of shops strung over some twenty miles between the two cities impressed him, but Akbar’s collection of animals took his breath away.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, because, besides, despite, if, not, ought, whereas.
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