322 AN OFFER TO TAVERNIER book iii
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the Armenians and other merchants in Persia that he obtained the 2,000
loads of silk which had been ordered. It is true that beyond the 500 or
600 loads which the Dutch receive from the King, according to the
agreement made between his Majesty and the Company, Obrechit was
obliged to pay at a high rate for the others ; and he bought them from
the Armenians, who sold them to him at the same rate as those they had
sold to Aleppo and Smyrna. During these two years there was not a
single load of silk for which he did not place 4 tomans in his purse,
and he said some loads cost him 60 tomans. It was represented to him
that it would be better not to send so large a quantity of silk, as it
was so dear, and that the merchants of the country, both Christians and
Musalmans, were laughing at him ; but he only replied that he must obey
the Company's order. One day when I was alone with him we were talking
together about my travels, and he told me how astonished he was, after
my experience of the greater part of the trade of Asia, that I
underwent so much trouble in my long journeys ; that I should do much
better by serving the Company, and that if I wished he would send me to
the diamond mines on its account; but I believe it would have been on
his own. When I had thanked him for his goodwill, and told him I had no
such intention, he replied that I did not know what I was refusing,
that I would derive great profit, and that in his factory, with a
scratch of the pen, or by changing a figure, he obtained what he
wished. I replied to him that on three or four occasions my horoscope
had been cast, and on all occasions it had been agreed that I should
live to a good age ; and so, if I was able to acquire wealth, I desired
to acquire it honestly and by my labour, as God had ordained for me, in
order to be able to possess it with greater security and comfort to my
soul for the remainder of my days, and that my heirs might enjoy it
peaceably. If we were not to act in this way, replied he, we should be
miserable ; for the wages the Company gives us would not suffice to
clothe us. On my return from one of my voyages I went to see him at a
village bearing his name, situated one league from the Hague. I saw him
ill in bed, and suffering from several
