“The Sultan is to be saluted by touching the ground with forefinger, raising it to the head, and saying ‘May Allah give thee enduring rule.’ This I did, copying the Cadi; who seated himself at the right hand of the Sultan, and told me to be seated facing him. The monarch sat on a daïs, which was covered with ornamental silk stuff; and right and left of him stood his warriors. Around him are sword and buckler-bearers; nearer are bowmen; and in front of these, on either side, the chamberlain, the first men of the State, and the private scribe. Djandar, the Emir, is also present before him and the officers of the guard; but the latter keep their distance. When the Sultan takes his seat, all cry aloud, ‘In the name of Allah!’ and they repeat this when he rises; so that all who are in the Hall of Audience know precisely when he sits down and when he rises. Directly the Monarch is seated, all those who are wont to visit the Court and do him obeisance, come in and salute him. This done, each takes his allotted place to right or left, nor does he leave it or sit down unless commanded to do so. In the latter case, the Sultan says to the Emir Djandar, who is Chief Constable of the Palace, ‘Tell such an one to be seated.’ And the man so commanded comes forward a little way and sits down on a carpet in front of and between those who are grouped to right and left. Meats are then brought forth; and these are of two kinds, one kind being for the many, the other kind for people of importance, that is to say, the Sultan, the Chief Justice, the principal Sheriffs, jurisconsults and guests. The other sort of viands serves for the rest of the Sheriffs, jurisconsults, judges, sheiks, emirs, and officers of the army. Everyone takes the place allotted to him at the feast and everybody has room enough. I found the same form observed at the Court of the Sultan of India; and I know not which monarch hath copied it from the other.”
After visiting several cities of Yemen, which were flourishing centres of trade at that time, Batûta reached Aden, “a large city, but without water, and nothing can grow there. Rain is caught and stored up in tanks, and that is the only water to drink. But rich traders make their abode in Aden, and hither vessels come from India.”
Now the Arabs had sought for wealth in the products of Ethiopia; they had advanced along the Eastern Coast of Africa, and had established ports considerably south of Zanzibar. Batûta had a fancy to see these tropical parts; so he sailed from Aden as far as Kiloa or Kilwa, which is nine degrees south of the equator. The ship touched at various ports where there were Arab settlements; some of them by no means salubrious or agreeable. At Zeila, he experienced “an unbearable stench from decaying fish and the blood of camels, which are slaughtered in the streets:” At another station, Mogdishu, he was received with much civility. “When a ship draws up, the young men of the place come forth, and each accosts a trader, and becomes his host. Should there be a theologian or a man of station on board, he is taken to dwell with the Cadi. When it was known that I was there, the Cadi came to the beach, and his students with him, and I took up my abode with him. He led me to the Sultan who is styled the Sheik.... A servant brought vegetables and fawfel-nut ... and rose-water to us ... and this is the highest honour that can be done to a stranger.... The people are far too fat, because they gorge. One of them will eat as much as a whole congregation of worshippers ought to do.” From Mogdishu, the ship went on to Mombasa and Kiloa for a cargo of ivory. Batûta tells us of the productions of tropical East Africa, and how “the greatest gift to the peoples here is ivory, which is the tooth of the elephant.”
From Kiloa, he coasted back to the straits of Bab-el-Mandel, ran along the Gulf of Aden, and landed at Zafar, in Oman. He tells us, as does Marco Polo, how the natives feed their cattle on fish. Zafar “is a filthy place, plagued with flies by reason of the markets for fish and dates. Copper and tin pieces of money are used. The heat is so great that those who dwell there must bathe several times a day; and they suffer greatly from elephant’s leg (elephantiasis) and from ruptures. It is indeed beyond a marvel that they will hurt no one unless it be to return some hurt done to them. Many Sultans have tried to subdue them, yet naught but bale have they gotten thereby.”
Batûta travelled past the shores of Oman in a small coaster which touched at many ports. He found the banana, the betel-tree, and the cocoa-nut flourishing in this corner of Arabia, and describes them and their uses. Wishing to see what the hinterland was like, he took a seven-days’ journey from the coast, but found that it took six days to cross a desert. The inland people would seem hardly to have emerged from primitive promiscuity; for he tells us that “there wives are most base and husbands shew no sign of jealousy.” Jealousy as to the harem is an excellent masculine virtue to our good Moslem.
Crossing the Persian Gulf, the island of Hormuz was reached, whither traders had recently migrated from old Hormuz on the Persian mainland. Vases and lamp-stands of rock-salt were among the manufactures of this important mart and port of call; and hard by were the renowned fisheries for “orient pearl.” He was told, and believed, that the divers remained two hours under water, and was astounded to see people amusing themselves by crawling from orbit to orbit of the battered skull of a spermaceti whale which had been washed ashore.
Crossing the narrow strait to Persia, he hired an escort of Turkoman settlers, “a hardy and brave race, who occupy these parts and know the roads. Without them, there is no travelling.” His object in returning to Persia was to visit a man of saintly repute who dwelt far away in Lâristân. It took four days to cross a waterless desert where the Simoon blows in summer, “and kills everyone in its path; and their limbs drop away from the trunk.” At Lar, the capital, he found the saint in his cell, seated on the ground. He was clad in an ancient garment made of wool. Yet he was in the habit of giving costly presents, and had food and fresh clothing ready for all who visited him.