Offshore: MIRZA IʿTISAM AL-DIN AND MIRZA ABU TALIB KHAN

IN MARCH 1799, THE INDO-PERSIAN TRAVELER Mirza Abu Talib Khan Isfahani boarded an East India Company ship from Calcutta bound across the Indian Ocean to London. The voyage would take him from the Bay of Bengal along the edges of the Indian Ocean archipelago to the Arabian Sea, around the cape of Africa, and ultimately to Europe, or “Farangistan.” Offshore in the Bay of Bengal, the ship was blown off course and, in need of provisions, detoured in the Nicobar Islands, an archipelagic island chain at the southeastern edge of the Bay of Bengal, extending from the coast of the