a remunerative post with Akbar while Fitch continued his journey of exploration. Fitch did the first leg of that journey, from Agra to Allahabad, by joining a convoy "of one hundred and fourscore boates laden with Salt, Opium, Hinge (asafoetida), Lead, Carpets and diverse other commodities" going "downe the river jumna (Yamuna)". He reached Allahabad sometime in November 1585, when work on Akbar's great Fort at Allahabad was nearing completion. In September 1585 Newberry decided to begin his return journey overland via Lahore. He disappeared, presumably being robbed and murdered, in the Punjab. Fitch went on, descending the Jumna and the Ganges, to visit Allahabad, Benares, Patna, Kuch Behar, Hughli, Chittagong, etc. (1585–1586). His appreciating words about the Indian muslin. He then pushed on by sea to Pegu and Burma. Here he visited the Rangoon area, ascended the Irrawaddy some distance, acquired a remarkable acquaintance with inland Pegu, and even reached to the Tai of Shan states and the Tai kingdom of Lanna (December 1586 and January 1587). Early in 1588 he visited Portuguese Malacca, another of Portugal's great fortresses and the gateway to the Far East, but found the security too strict to get passage into the China Sea. In the autumn of this year he began his homeward travels, first to Bengal; then round the Indian coast, touching at Portuguese Cochin and Goa, to Ormuz; next up the Persian Gulf to Basra and up the Tigris to Mosul (Nineveh); finally via Tirfa, Bir on the Euphrates. He was appointed the Levant Company's Consul in Aleppo and Tripoli, to the Mediterranean. He arrived back in London on 29 April 1591, eight years after he had left. Since no news of him had reached his family and friends in that time, he had been presumed dead after seven years and his will had been proved. He resumed his involvement with the Leathersellers' Company, becoming a Liveryman in 1599, serving as Warden in 1607 and joining the company's Court of Assistants in 1608. His experience was greatly valued by the founders of the English East India Company, including another of Elizabeth's adventurers Sir James Lancaster who consulted him on Indian affairs. Fitch ranks among the most remarkable of Elizabethan adventurers. There is no evidence he ever married and the main beneficiaries of his final will in 1611 were eight nieces and two nephews. Impact and legacy Fitch's journey is referred to