Leaving Gualior on the 1st April, 1610, we arrived at Doolpoor on the 2d, being nineteen c.  Within two c. before reaching that place, we passed a fine river, called the Cambue, or Chumbull, as broad as the Thames, a little short of which we went through a narrow and dangerous pass between two hills.  The castle of Doolpoor is very strong, having four walls within each other, with steep ascents to each, the outermost having a deep and broad ditch.  This castle is three quarters of a mile through, and has similar walls and gates to be passed on going out Its inhabitants are mostly Gentiles.  The 3d April we went to Jahjaw, nine c. and next day other nine c. to Agra.  In the afternoon the captain carried me before the king, where I found Mr Thomas Boys, three French soldiers, a Dutch engineer, and a Venetian merchant, with his son and servant, all newly come by land from Christendom.

In May and part of June, the city of Agra was much distressed with frequent fires by day and night, some part or other of the city being almost ever burning, by which many thousand houses were consumed, with great numbers of men, women, children, and cattle, so that we feared the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah had gone forth against the place.  I was long and dangerously ill of a fever, and in June the heat was so excessive that we thought to have been broiled alive.  The 28th June arrived Padre Peneiro, an arch knave, a jesuit I should say, who brought letters from the Portuguese viceroy with many rich presents, tending entirely to thwart our affairs.  In this time Mucrob Khan[240] was complained against to the king by our captain, Mr Hawkins, when Abdal Hassan, the grand vizier, was ordered to see that we had justice:  But birds of a feather flock together, and Mucrob Khan, partly by misstatements and partly by turning us over to a bankrupt banyan, would only pay us with 11,000 mamudies instead of 32,501-1/2 which he was due, and even that was not paid for a long time.

[Footnote 240:  Finch uniformly calls this person Mo.  Bowcan, but we have substituted the name previously given him by Hawkins.—­E.]

In July news came of the bad fortune of the king’s army in the Deccan; which, when within four days march of Aumednagur, hoping to raise the siege of that place, was obliged by famine and drought to retreat to Boorhanpoor, on which the garrison was forced to surrender after enduring much misery.  The royal army in the Deccan consisted of at least 100,000 horse, with an infinite number of elephants and camels; so that, including servants, people belonging to the baggage, and camp followers of all kinds, there could not be less than half a million, or 600,000 persons in the field.  The water in the country where they were, became quite insufficient for the consumption of so vast a multitude, with all their horses, elephants, camels, and draught cattle, insomuch that a mussock of water was