"We Moals
believe that there is but one God, and we have an upright heart towards
him." "Then," said
I, "may God grant you this mind, for without his gift it
cannot be." He then added, "God hath given to the hand divers fingers, and
hath given many ways to man. He hath given the Scriptures to you, yet you
keep them not. You certainly find not in the Scriptures that one of you
should dispraise another?" "No," said I; "and I signified unto your
highness from the beginning, that I would not contend with any one." "I
speak not," said he, "respecting you. In like manner, you find not in your
Scriptures, that a man ought to swerve from justice for the sake of money?"
To this I answered, "That our Scriptures taught no such evil doctrine,
neither had I come into, these parts to get money, having even refused that
which was freely offered to me." And one of the secretaries, then present,
certified, that I had refused a jascot and a piece of silk. "I speak not of
that," said the khan; "God hath given you the Scriptures and you keep them
not; but he hath given to us soothsayers, and we do what they bid us, and
live in peace." He drank four times, as I think, before he disclosed these
things; and, while I waited attentively in expectation that he might
disclose any thing farther respecting his faith, he began another subject,
saying:
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