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AM ITALIAN BOY'S ADVENTORES
MADE HIM INDIA'S: MABCO . POLO
mMMafm SB
IV/HEN'the manuscript of Niccolo Manned' s autobiography was found in an Italian junk
VV shop 40 years after his deaths publishers refused to believe it was a serious historical
document and not a fantastic fabrication. But historians slowly corroborated its substance and
later came fd count it a source of reference to 17th-century life at the magnificent court of India's
last and harshest, Asiatic , conquerors, the Moguls.
AT "VENETIAN , Manucci ran away
yii-om home In 1653 to see the
world as v a precCcious ? 13-y ears-
old, and attached himself to a
famhyV. group boarding a ship
about to sail he knew, not where.
-:'A|ter.-';lildihg: for £-;lay, he sur
rendered to the captain and de
manded to be fed. Only the in
tervention of an English noble
man, wh6 admired his gall, saved
him from .being thrust over the
side. "
'"The nobieman was the dare
devil young Lord Bellomont, who
: was fleeing from a death sentence
imposed by Oliver Cromwell for
his royalist plottings. The strange
pair landed at Smyrna in Turkey, .
and proceeded to carry out a Con
fidence trick on a royal scale.
They organised a great caravan
and plunged : out into the wilds
of Asia MinoC posing as ambassa- -
dors from the King of England.
Surviving several brisk encbiin-
' ters with brigands, Bellomont; and
Manucci filially reached Persia,
where they presented themselves
, at the court of the Shah and . de
manded hospitality in the name
of His Britannic Majesty. ; '
Impressed, the Shah laid open
the fleshpots of Qazwin, and for
weeks, the impostors, feasted and
caroused in Oriental splendor-. J ,
Then Bellomont recalled that'
20 years previously, the British
fleet had captured the port of'
Ormuz; from the Portuguese and
handed it back to the rightful
owner, the Shah. He now- de
manded payment for this act.
After dickering had been coun
tered with threats the Shah paid
over, a considerable sum in gold
and provided a royal escort of 200
horsemen to see the two adven
turers safely to the shores of the
Persian Gulf. „
There they took ship for Sind
in what is now Pakistan. The
magnificence of their entourage
and the prodigality of their
spending persuaded the natives
that they were as they said— am
bassadors on their way to the
Great Mogul's court at Delhi.
The exertion of trekking 1400
imles to Gwalior in intense heat
killed" Bellomont.; Manucci, in his
memoirs, breathes not a word of
sorrow , for his companion, but
merely records that "he called for
wine, and then died before I could
give it to him."
The- 14-year-old Venetian now
alone in a barbaric country, was
undismayed.' When his native
carriers deserted him, taking all
the baggage with them, Manucci
Went to Delhi .to lay a formal
complaint before the Great Mogul.
And to show his independence of
spirit he bowed only once to the
mighty >king instead of the three
times laid down by law.
The Great Mogul asked if he
knew anything about guns. Man
ucci brashly said yes; . and was
engaged as a skilled "artilleryman
in the army of the king's son,
Dara. r
Becoming bored by the absence
of live targets at which to fire the
guns, and observing there was a
brisk demand " for illegal grog
among the Moslem population, he
distilled fiery spirits as a sideline.
When haled before a court of
law, he threatened . to shoot the
magistrate for meddling with the
rights of "a representative of the
Dpge of Venice," and so bluff ed
his way to an acquittal.
Fratricidal war broke out be
tween the Mogul princes and
Manucci's employer was defeated.
The conquered army . of; -28,000 ;
horsemen and 50D elephant riders
was almost wiped out, "and Man
ucci was chased to Lahore.
When soldiers caught him. there,
they argued so much as to who
should have h is -magnificent
clothes that he was able to inake
a break for freedom; and by
throwing off articles of clothing
as he ran— Kiver which his pur
suers argued : and fought— made
good his escape.
Completely naked finally, he
ran through the streets of Lahore
to the house of a friend. There
he\disguised himself in Persian
clothes and went back to Delhi.
He forced his way in to see the
new Great Mogul, Aurangzeb, and
argued that as he was so fearless
as to have done so, he could well
be of use to the new. regime.
Aurangzeb saw the logic of this
and engaged him— but, illogically,
as a doctor. Manucci had to fall
in with the idea held by Aurang
zeb that all Europeans were
skilled physicians, and, under
threat of the headsman's axe
should he fail, was ordered to
treat a sick sister of the Great
Mogul. . " ' /
More by virtue of .his "bedside
manner" than anything else, she;
recovered in five days with the
aid of a potion he mixed from ,
materials bought at' random in
the market place, supplemented
by prayers that she might re
cover and thus save his own life.
He knew he could not carry on
the pose of dpctor for long with
out making a mistake likely to be
fatal to himself as well as his
patient, so he escaped at night
and travelled to Bengal. But the
thought of medicine as a career
was established in his mind, and
he decided to teach himself the
art of pill rolling. i
His chance of more expert in
struction came when Portuguese.
Jesuits . attempted to build a
church in Patna, Bengal, against
the will , of the local nabob, who
threatened to cut off the hands
of every Indian who worked on
it. '
The Jesuits got Manucci to ne-
gotiate with the nabob, and in re
turn for getting them permission,
"to build their church, kept him
for two years while he studied
blood-letting and surgery.
. This was the first of Manucci's
I expediences at. negotiation, - in.
Which he becapie skilled, speaking
many languages
and anticipating
the tortuous and
crafty ways of
the Indian rul
ers.
From Patna
he went to Agra.
On the way he.
and a. Portu
guese angrily
, dragged a Hin
du woman from
a flaming pyre
on which she
was about to be
burned a 1 ive
with her hus
band's d e ad
body in the
cere mony of
suttee or widow-
burning. This
- inter f e r e n c e
with tradition
so enraged the
populace that
the two Euro
peans had to
fight their .way .
out of the vil
lage. The Portu
guese later mar
ried the woman.
At Agra, Man-
ucci became
friendly with a rajah by offering
to teach, him to play cards. . So
successful — or unsuccessful — was
his teaching that Manucci won a
small fortune at hombre, a game.
. something like poker.
He moved on to the Portuguese
coastal settlement of Goa — and
straight into trouble. The Portu
guese were preparing to attack
Arabia, and every man in .Goa
was being forced into the army. ,
Manucci disguised himself as a
monk and headed back" into the
interior. On the way he was rob
bed of everything he had. For a
second time, he was naked and
penniless among enemies.
This time he stole some rags
from a bazaar and crossed a river
into Mogul territory riding on a
floating bedstead. He begged his
way to Delhi, and there lived for
a year in great style, "having con-,
siderable means of making
money." >
He assiduously studied medi
cine while somehow putting off
the demands of the Great Mogul
that he cure or kill, according to
the monarch's whim of the mo
ment, sundry royal, relations.
The plotting and intrigue with
which the- Mogul court seethed
fascinated Manucci, but he ;
shrewdly steered, clear of becom-.
ing embroiled, knowing that the
temperamental Mogul's toleration
Of his evasions could in a moment ,
-change to disfavor severe enough
to cost him his -head.. .:
As it was the assassinations of
Moslems and slaughtering of Hin
dus provided him with useful
material for his medical, studies in
a steady supply of bodies 'for dis
section. . . ' ' .-
Nor was his interest confined
. only to. the sick and the schem
ing." His dalliances with Women
of the court were the cause of
more than one upheaval from
which his ready tongue extracted
him only with difficulty.
It was as the result of one of
these affairs that he decided to
set up his first practice in Lahore;
The' prospect of treating the sick!
frightened him at first. "My heart
beat fast for I had no real ex
perience," he wrote in - his
memoirs. But he went carefully,
always pointing out the extreme
gravity of each case and thus ab
solving himself from blame if the
patient died.
He cured the ' wife of a high
official and won such a reputa
tion that when the Great -Mogul
in Delhi was in process, of having
the Governor of Lahore secretly
poisoned he sent word to Manucci
that he was on no account to
make well the unfortunate offi
cial.
Manucci was . alarmed by this
order, for only a few days before
he had presented the governor
with some bottles of wine, and he
knew' he would be suspect if he
died. Sure enough, when the gov
ernor began to be attacked by
cramps he suspected Manucci's
wine and after imprisoning him
forced him to drink-the rest of it
straight off so that he too would
suffer.
When Manucci got no more
than a hangover and 12 days later
was still alive, the governor or
dered from his deathbed that he
was to be released with apologies.
He had another of his many ,
narrow escapes when a madman
stabbed a princess and he
was called in to attend her. He
successfully treated her blindfold
so that he could not look on her
face or body in contravention of
Moslem observances. But the
populace was so enraged at even
this genteel desecration of the
royal person by a foreign infidel
that Manucci was forced to flee
the province.
He took his considerable savings
and returned to Goa, intending to
live a life of ease, and invested
his capital in a ship and cargo
he commissioned to trade up the .
coast. The captain returned with
a flimsy tale of the ship and cargo
having been stolen by pirates, and
after beating the rogue within an
inch of his life and hurling him
into a sewer, the .Venetian found
himself in search of a job once
more. The glitter of. the Mogul
court was a magnet, and he" join
ed a minor rajah as a doctor at
Delhi in 1678.'
For: five years he travelled
northern India on military cam
paigns,, adding to his mastery of
the country's languages and his
knowledge 'of the people.
By now Europeans were ap
pearing in greater numbers along
the coast and their encroach
ments were irritating the Mogul
princes. They , decided to forget
their differences and unite to at
tack Goa, the focal point of for
eign invasion.
Manucci heard of the plan and
rode post-haste to Warn the
Portuguese at Goa, and in a series
of extraordinary spyings and
dickerings later managed to play
, off one potentate against the
other so successfully that the
threatened attack : came to hoth-
ing. ' V '- :/:/
For this the Portuguese, knight
ed him and he was offered a pen
sion if he would remain in Goa
;as their adviser on Indian affairs.
Again he passed up security for
the chance of seeing strange
lands.. He cleared off to become
doctor and general factotum to
an unimportant ruler near the
Afghan border. In his five ad
venturous years there, Shah Alain
grew to value him so much that
lie was refused permission to
leave. . .
His schemirigs to escape and
the plots to circumvent them be
came a kind of game between, him
and the Shah. Each time he was <
brought back he was given- a rise
in hisr. princely, salary, but he
could never be sure of the mon
arch's uncertain temper. The
fourth time he made a successful
dash for Madras dressed as an
Afghan horse-dealer.
Restored to European clothing
and the practice of medicine, he
made a hit with a wealthy Eng
lish girl, abandoned all thoughts
of returning to Europe, and mar
ried her.
In 1688 he was engaged by the
English to act as mediator with
the Great Mogul Daud Khan.
Madras had been threatened by
attack as the Portuguese in Goa
had been. Manucci travelled to
Delhi, where he threatened
terrible reprisals if . the Moguls
failed to . behave themselves.
Manucci, thereafter, was able to
name' hia own: price as adviser
among the European nations com
peting for trade and the role of
dominant nation in India. He
.eventually chose , to livp among
the- French at San Thome — not
because he liked the French more
than .others,: but because .he had
not yet seen that part of India.
His reputation for eccentricity,
which he had carefully fostered
among the Moguls, knowing that
Moslems dislike to harm those
"touched by the finger of God,"
did nothing to harm his reputa
tion as a doctor. He soon built
another thriving practice despite
his propensity for appearing each
day in- different gaudy bejewelled
native costumes.
In 1706. when the . then Great
Mogul visited San Thome he de
manded to stay with the doctor
who had known .so many of his
predecessors. In his memoirs,
Manucci records the visit with
pride. /
In the year of the Great Mogul's
visit Manucci's wife died childless,
;but he lived on at San Thome
alone. In the intervals between
blood-lettings up to his death in
1717 at the age of 78 he wrote his
memoirs.
One of the last sentences in
'them is a strange contradiction
to a life full of impulsive and. of-
; ten reckless incident : "In voyag
ing," it says, "prudence - is re
quired — and patience."
[?]
y Right: Aurangzeb, the Great Mogul, 2 at whose court Manucci practised 2 medicine.1 Help
y Right: Aurangzeb, the Great Mogul,
2 at whose court Manucci practised
2 medicine.1
Below: Ah English embassy .to the - court of the Great Mogul.. Help
Below: Ah English
embassy .to the
- court of the Great
Mogul..
$