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“How gracious is your majesty, whose greatness God preserve and prosper.  As upon a rose in a garden of pleasure, so are mine eyes fixed upon your majesty.  May God maintain your greatness, so that your monarchy may prosper and increase, that you may obtain all your desires, worthy the greatness of your renown.  As your heart is noble and upright, so may God give you a prosperous reign, because you powerfully defend the majesty of Jesus, which may God render yet more flourishing, having been confirmed by miracles,” &c.

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We travelled two years with the Great Mogul, who was in progress through his dominions, moving only during the temperate months, between October and April.  On this occasion, I am confident that the leskar, or camp, contained not less than 300,000 persons, including men, women, and children, besides elephants, horses, and other beasts, that were fed upon grain; yet we never experienced any scarcity of provisions, not even in our nineteen days journey through a wilderness, between Mandoa and Amadavar, [Ahmedabad.] On this occasion, a road was cut for us through the forest.  The tents of the leskar were of various colours, being regularly arranged, and represented a large and splendid city.  The king’s tents were red, and raised on poles to a great height, being placed in the middle of the camp, and covering a great extent of ground; the whole of the royal quarter being encircled by canats, or walls, made of red calico, held up by canes at every breadth, and standing upright about nine feet high, which was guarded all round by soldiers every night.

The king removed ten or twelve miles every day, more or less according to the convenience of procuring water.  His wives and women of all sorts, which are not less than a thousand, all lodged and provided for in his tents, were carried along with the leskar, some in palanquins, others upon elephants, or in cradles or panniers slung upon dromedaries, all closely covered up that they might not be seen, and attended upon by eunuchs.  In the choice of his wives, the Great Mogul respects fancy more than honour, not seeking affinity with neighbouring princes, but to please his eye at home. Noormahal, the best beloved among his wives, whose name signifies the Light of the Court, was of mean origin, but has since advanced her friends to high rank and employments, and in a manner commands the commander of the empire, by engrossing his whole affections.  The king and his great men continue to maintain their women, but little affect them after thirty years old.