This little excursion being concluded, Batūta found the caravan in readiness to set out for Mecca, and departing with it, and arriving safe in the Holy City, he performed all the ceremonies and rites prescribed, and remained there three years, subsisting upon the alms contributed by the pious bounty of the inhabitants of Irak, and conveyed to Mecca by caravans. His travelling fit now returning, he left the birthplace of the prophet, and repairing to Jidda, proceeded with a company of merchants towards Yemen by sea. After being driven by contrary winds to the coast of Africa, and landing at Sūakin, he at length reached Yemen; in the various cities and towns of which he was entertained with a hospitality so generous and grateful that he seems never to be tired of dwelling on their praises. He did not, however, remain long among his munificent hosts, but, taking ship at Aden, passed over once more into Africa, and landed at Zaila, a city of the Berbers. The inhabitants of this place, though Mohammedans, were a rude, uncultivated people, living chiefly upon fish and the flesh of camels, which are slaughtered in the streets, where their blood and offals were left putrefying to infect the air. From this stinking city he proceeded by sea to Makdasha, the Magadocia of the Portuguese navigators; a very extensive place, where the hospitable natives were wont, on the arrival of a ship, to come down in a body to the seashore, and select each his guest from among the merchants.—When a theologian or a nobleman happened to be among the passengers, he was received and entertained by the kazi; and as Ibn Batūta belonged to the former class he of course became the guest of this magistrate. Here he remained a short time, passing his days in banqueting and pleasure; and then returned to Arabia.
During the stay he now made in this country he collected several particulars respecting the trade and manners of the people, which are neither trifling nor unimportant. The inhabitants of Zafār, the most easterly city of Yemen, carried on at that period, he observes, a great trade in horses with India, the voyage being performed in a month. The practice he remarked among the same people of feeding their flocks and herds with fish, and which, he says, he nowhere else observed, prevails, however, up to the present day, among the nations of the Coromandel coast, as well as in other parts of the east. At El Ahkāf, the city of the tribe of Aād, there were numerous gardens, producing enormous bananas, with the cocoanut and the betel. Our fanciful traveller discovered a striking resemblance between the cocoanut and a man’s head, observing that exteriorly there was something resembling eyes and a mouth, and that when young the pulp within was like brains. To complete the similitude, the hair was represented by the fibre, from which, he remarks, cords for sewing together the planks of their vessels, as also cordage and cables, were manufactured. The nut itself, according to him, was highly nourishing, and, like the betel-leaf, a powerful aphrodisiac.
Still pursuing his journey through Arabia, he crossed the desert of Ammān, and met with a people extraordinary among Mahommedans, whose wives were liberal of their favours, without exciting the jealousy of their husbands, and who, moreover, considered it lawful to feed upon the flesh of the domestic ass. From thence he crossed the Persian Gulf to Hormuz, where, among many other extraordinary things, he saw the head of a fish resembling a hill, the eyes of which were like two doors, so that people could walk in at one eye and out at the other! He now felt himself to be within the sphere of attraction of an object whose power he could never resist. There was, he heard, at Janja-bal, a certain saint, and of course he forthwith formed the resolution to refresh himself with a sight of him. He therefore crossed the sea, and hiring a number of Turcomans, without whose protection there was no travelling in that part of the country, entered a waterless desert, four days’ journey in extent, over which the Bedouins wander in caravans, and where the death-bearing simoom blows during the hot months of summer. Having passed this desolate and dreary tract, he arrived in Kusistān, a small province of Persia, bordering upon Laristān, in which Janja-bal, the residence of the saint, was situated. The sheïkh, who was secretly, or, as the people believed, miraculously, supplied with a profusion of provisions, received our traveller courteously, sent him fruit and food, and contrived to impress him with a high idea of his sanctity.
He now entered upon the ancient kingdom of Fars, an extensive and fertile country, abounding in gardens producing a profusion of aromatic herbs, and where the celebrated pearl-fisheries of Bahrein, situated in a tranquil arm of the sea, are found. The pearl divers employed here were Arabs, who, tying a rope round their waists, and wearing upon their faces a mask made of tortoise-shell, descended into the water, where, according to Batūta, some remained an hour, others two, searching among forests of coral for the pearls.
Ibn Batūta was possessed by an extraordinary passion for performing the pilgrimage to Mecca; and now (A. D. 1332), the year in which El Malik El Nāsir, sultan of Egypt, visited the holy city, set out from Persia on his third sacred expedition. Having made the necessary genuflexions, and kissed the black stone at the Kaaba, he began to turn his thoughts towards India, but was prevented, we know not how, from carrying his design into execution; and traversing a portion of Arabia and Egypt, entered Room or Turkey. Here, in the province of Anatolia, he was entertained by an extraordinary brotherhood, to whom, as to all his noble hosts and entertainers, he devotes a portion of his travels. This association, which existed in every Turcoman town, consisted of a number of youths, who, under the direction of one of the members, called “the brother,” exercised the most generous hospitality towards all strangers, and were the vigorous and decided enemies of oppression. Upon the formation of one of these associations, the brother, or president, erected a cell, in which were placed a horse, a saddle, and whatever other articles were considered necessary. The president himself, and every thing in the cell, were always at the service of the members, who every evening conveyed the product of their industry to the president, to be sold for the benefit of the cell; and when any stranger arrived in the town, he was here hospitably entertained, and contributed to increase the hilarity of the evening, which was passed in feasting, drinking, singing, and dancing.
Travelling to Iconium, and other cities of Asia Minor, in all of which he was received and entertained in a splendid manner, while presents of slaves, horses, and gold were sometimes bestowed upon him, he at length took ship at Senab, and sailed for Krim Tartary. During the voyage he endured great hardships, and was very near being drowned; but at length arrived at a small port on the margin of the desert of Kifjāk, a country over which Mohammed Uzbek Khan then reigned. Being desirous of visiting the court of this prince, Ibn Batūta now hired one of those arabahs, or carts, in which the inhabitants travel with their families over those prodigious plains, where neither mountain nor hill nor tree meets the eye, and where the dung of animals serves as a substitute for fuel, and entered upon a desert of six months’ extent. Throughout these immense steppes, which are denominated desert merely in reference to their comparative unproductiveness, our traveller found cities, but thinly scattered; and vast droves of cattle, which, protected by the excessive severity of the laws, wandered without herdsmen or keepers over the waste. The women of the country, though they wore no veils, were virtuous, pious, and charitable; and consequently were held in high estimation.
Arriving at the Bish Tag, or “Five Mountains,” he there found the urdu (whence our word horde) or camp of the sultan, a moving city, with its streets, palaces, mosques, and cooking houses, “the smoke of which ascended as they moved along.” Mohammed Uzbek, then sovereign of Kifjāk, was a brave and munificent prince; and Ibn Batūta, having, according to Tartar etiquette, first paid a visit of ceremony to each of his wives, was politely received by him.
From this camp our traveller set out, with guides appointed by the sultan, for the city of Bulgār, which, according to the Maresid Al Etluā, is situated in Siberia. Here, in exemplification of the extreme shortness of the night, he observes, that while repeating the prayer of sunset he was overtaken, though he by no means lagged in his devotions, by the time for evening prayer, which was no sooner over than it was time to begin that of midnight; and that before he could conclude one voluntary orison, which he added to this, the dawn had already appeared, and morning prayer was to be begun. Forty days’ journey to the north of this place lay the land of darkness, where, he was told, people travelled over interminable plains of ice and snow, on small light sledges, drawn by dogs; but he was deterred from pushing his researches into these Cimmerian regions by the fear of danger, and considerations of the inutility of the journey. He returned, therefore, to the camp of the sultan.
Mohammed Uzbek had married a daughter of the Greek Emperor of Constantinople, who, being at this time pregnant, requested his permission to be confined in her father’s palace, where it was her intention to leave her child. The sultan consented, and Ibn Batūta, conceiving that an excellent opportunity for visiting the Greek capital now presented itself, expressed a desire to accompany the princess, but the sultan, who regarded him apparently as something too gay for a saint, at first refused to permit him. Upon his pressing the matter, however, representing that he should never appear before the queen but as his servant and guest, so that no fears need be entertained of him, the royal husband, relenting, allowed him to go, and presented him, on his departure, with fifteen hundred dinars, a dress of honour, and several horses; while each of his sultanas, together with his sons and daughters, caused the traveller to taste of their bounty.
The queen, while she remained in her husband’s territories, respected the religion and manners of the Mohammedans; but she had no sooner entered her father’s dominions, and found herself surrounded by her countrymen, than she drank wine, dismissed the ministers of Islamism, and was reported to commit the abomination of eating swine’s flesh. Ibn Batūta was still treated with respect, however, and continuing to be numbered among the suite of the sultana, arrived at length at Constantinople, where, in his zeal to watch over the comfort of his royal mistress, he exposed himself to the risk of being squeezed to death in the crowd. On entering the city, his ears appear to have been much annoyed by the ringing of numerous bells, which, with the inveterate passion of all Europeans for noise when agitated by any joyous emotions, the Greeks of Constantinople substituted for their own voices in the expression of their satisfaction.