Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/87

HAWKINS RECEIVED BY JAHANGIR 61 William Hawkins was the first to set on record a portrait of this " talented drunkard," and very curi- ous it is. It was a singular situation for a bluff sea- captain to find himself, in a strange land, called upon to meet a great emperor, about whom absolutely noth- ing was known in England. There was nothing to sug- gest the most distant dream that in two centuries and a half the slight introduction Hawkins was then effect- ing between England and India would culminate in the sovereignty of a British queen over the whole empire where the " Light of the World " and her imperial husband then reigned. The gift of prophecy would doubtless have added considerably to the sailor's feel- ing of responsibility. As it was, he was quickly put at his ease by the complaisant emperor. Jahangir was so eager to see this messenger from a new country that he scarcely gave him time to put on his " best attyre "; and so far from seeming annoyed at the poverty of his offering for the governor of Surat had left him nothing but cloth for a present the emperor " with a most kind and smiling countenance bade me most heartily welcome," reached down from the throne to receive his letter, and, having read it by the aid of an old Portuguese Jesuit (who did his best to prejudice him), promised " by God, that all what the King had there written he would grant and allow with all his heart, and more." Jahangir then took his visitor into the private audience-chamber, where they had a long conversation, and, on leaving, Hawkins was commanded to return every day. The language of the court was