Beyond the Three Seas

Many of the European travellers that visited Mughal India left behind enthralling accounts of their experiences. Beyond the Three Seas is a collection of the best of these writings, starting from the mid fifteenth century and spanning two hundred years. There are stories of hunting with the emperor Akbar and his blindfolded panthers; of being stripped penniless in Surat and fleeing from angry in Bengal in the middle of the night; descriptions of the Mughal roadside sarais, trying paan for the first time and of the lax morals of Indian women. The travellers themselves could not be more different: from the god-fearing, petulant Russian, Afanasy Nikitin to the Portuguese Father Antonio Monserrate desperately trying to convert Akbar to the plucky eighteen-year-old Venetian Niccolao Manucci who finds himself a patron in Dara Shukoh. Full of colour, detail and the occasional tall story, rarely has Mughal India been brought so vividly and fascinatingly alive.