Note 14 — The Seventh New Year’s Festival after the auspicious Accession.

On the 16th Farwardīn, Muqarrab K͟hān, who is one of my chief retainers and the old confidants of the Jahangiri service, who had attained the rank of 3,000 personal and 2,000 horse, came from the fort of Cambay and had the honour of waiting on me. I had ordered him, on account of certain business, to go to the port of Goa14 and buy for the private use of the government certain rareties procurable there. According to orders he went with diligence to Goa, and remaining there for some time, took at the price the Franks asked for them the rareties he met with at that port, without looking at the face of the money at all (i.e. regardless of cost). When he returned from the aforesaid port to the Court, he produced before me one by one the things and rareties he had brought. Among these were some animals that were very strange and wonderful, such as I had never seen, and up to this time no one had known their names. Although King Bābar has described in his Memoirs the appearance and shapes of several animals, he had never ordered the painters to make pictures of them. As these animals appeared to me to be very strange, I both described them and ordered that painters should draw them in the Jahāngīr-nāma, so that the amazement that arose from hearing of them might be increased. One of these animals in body is larger than a peahen and smaller than a peacock.15 When it is in heat and displays itself, it spreads out its feathers like the peacock and dances about. Its beak and legs are like those of a cock. Its head and neck and the part under the throat are every minute of a different colour. When it is in heat it is quite red—one might say it had adorned itself with red coral—and after a while it becomes white in the same places, and looks like cotton. It sometimes looks of a turquoise colour. Like a chameleon it constantly changes colour. Two pieces of flesh it has on its head look like the comb of a cock. A strange thing is this, that when it is in heat the aforesaid piece of flesh hangs down to the length of a span from the top of its head like an elephant’s trunk, and again when he raises it up it appears on its head like the horn of a rhinoceros, to the extent of two finger-breadths. Round its eyes it is always of a turquoise colour, and does not change. Its feathers appear to be of various colours, differing from the colours of the peacock’s feathers. He also brought a monkey of a strange and wonderful form. Its hands, feet, ears, and head are like those of a monkey, and its face like that of a fox. The colour of its eyes is like that of a hawk’s eye, but the eyes are larger than those of a hawk. From its head to the end of its tail it is an ordinary cubit in length. It is lower than a monkey and taller than a fox. Its hair is like the wool of a sheep and its colour like that of ashes. From the lobe of its ear to its chin it is red and of the colour of wine. Its tail is two or three finger-breadths longer than half a cubit, quite different from that of other monkeys. The tail of this animal hangs down like the tail of a cat. Sometimes it makes a sound like a young antelope. On the whole it is a very strange beast. Of the wild birds which they call tadrū (pheasant) till now it has never been heard that they breed in captivity. In the time of my revered father they made great efforts to obtain eggs and young ones but it was not managed. I ordered them to keep some of them, male and female, in one place, and by degrees they bred. I ordered them to place the eggs under hens, and in a space of two years sixty or seventy young were produced and fifty or sixty grew up. Whoever heard of this matter was astonished. It was said that in the Wilāyat (Persia?) the people there had made great efforts, but no eggs were produced and no young were obtained.