IBN BATUTA, born A.D. 1304, died 1377-78, was one of the great travellers of the Arab race. He spent 24 years (from 1325-49) in travelling throughout the east, from Tangiers across Africa to Alexandria, and in Palestine, Syria, and Arabia ; down the east coast of Africa to tiuiloa ; across the Indian Ocean to Muscat, Ormuz, Kish, Bahrein, and El Catif ; through Central Arabia to Mecca and Jiddah ; and again in Egypt and Asia Minor, and across the Black Sea to Caffa or Theodosia, and by Azov or Tanna, on past the bills of the Russians, to Bolgar on the Volga,—but not daring to penetrate .farther northwards into the Lanc,1 of Darkness.' Returning south to Haj Tarkhan (Astracan), he proceeded, in the suite of the wife of the Khan of Kipchak, the daughter of the Greek Emperor Andronicus, westward to Soldaia and Costantiniah (Constantinople ; he mentions Istambul as a part of the city) ; whence, returning to Bolgar, he travelled on eastward to Bokhara, and through Khorasan to Kabul, Multan, and Dehli, where he remained eight years, 1334-42. Being sent by the Sultan Muhammad Taghalaq on an embassy to China, he embarked from Kinbaiat (Cambay), and, after many adventures at Calicut (where he was honour ably received by the Samari or Zamorin) and Hunawar (Onore), and in the Maldive Islands, and Ceylon and Bengal, he at last took his passage toward China in a junk bound for Java, as he calls it, but in fact Suniatra. 'Returning from China, he sailed direct from the ;coast:of. Malabar to Muscat and Ormuz ; and, travelling hy Shiraz, Isfahan, Bussora, Baghdad, Tadmor, Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, and (for the fourth time) Mecca, Egypt, and Tunis, at last reached Fez I again, after an absence from Morocco of half his lifetime. Subsequently he spent six years in visiting Spain and Central Africa, where he was 1./le guest of the brother of a countryman of his
fro'nt' Ceuta, whose guest ho, had been in 'Idea. ' What an enormous distance lay between hese two I ' he exclaims. He says that in his we Cairo was the greatest city in the world out bf China, and that the finest trading ports he had seen were Alexandria in Egypt, Soldaia or Sudak in the Crimea, Koulam (Quilon) and Calicut in India, and 'Layton (Clunchau) in China. lie also describes Aden as aplace of great trade, to which merchant ships of largo burden resorted from Cambay, Tanna, and all the ports of Gujerat and Malabar. Among the productions of the Indian Archipelago, lie describes gum-benjamin, aloes-wood, cloves, camphor, and sandalwood; and enumerates also cocoanut palms, areca-nut palms, jack trees, orange trees, mangoes, and jamuns (Eugenia jambolana). Porcelain, he says, is made in China nowhere except in the cities of Zay ton and Sinkalan (Canton). It was exported to India and elsewhere, passing from country to country until it reaches Morocco. The first de tailed account of his travels was published in Europe in 1808. They were translated from the Arabic, with Notes by S. Lee, London 1829. Ile enumerates many large and populous towns, and gives a high opinion of the state of the country. He speaks of Madura as a city like Dehli, and that through the whole of Malabar, for two months' journey, there was not a span free from cultivation ; everybody had a garden, with his house placed in the middle of it, and all surrounded by a wooden fence. And the ports were frequented by ships from China, Persia, and Arabia, and other neighbouring countries.—Lee's Ibn Batuta ; Birdwood's Report; India in the 15th Century ; Tr. of a Ilindoo l • Yule's Cathay.