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0160 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 160 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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400   IBN BATUTAS TRAVELS IN BENGAL AND CHINA.

Batuta continued his voyage down the African coast, visiting Zaila, Makdashau (Magadoxo of the Portuguese), Mombasa, and Quiloa in nearly nine degrees of south latitude. From this he sailed to the coast of Oman, where, like Marco Polo, he remarks the surprising custom of feeding cattle of all sorts upon small fish. After visiting the chief cities of Oman he proceeded to Hormuz, or New Hormuz as he calls the city or the celebrated Island. The rock-salt found here, he. observes, was used in forming ornamental vases and pedestals for lamps, but the most remarkable thing that he saw at Hormuz appears to have been a fish's head so large that men entered by one eye and went out by the other.1

After visiting Kais or Kishm he crossed the Gulf. to Bahrain, Al-Kathif, and Hajr or Al-Hasa (or Al-Ahsa, v. supra, p. 216), where dates were so abundant that there was a proverb about carrying dates to Hajr, like ours of coals to Newcastle. Thence he crossed Central Arabia through what is now the Wahabi country, but without giving a single particular respecting it, and made the Mecca pilgrimage again. He then embarked at Jiddah, landed on the opposite coast, and made a journey of great hardship to Syene, whence he continued along the banks of the Nile to Cairo.

After this he revisited Syria, and made an extensive journey through the petty Turkish sultanates into which Asia Minor was then divided.N During this tour he tells us how he and his

Marino is Kûs, the ancient Cos or Apollinopolis Parva, between Keneh and Luxor, described by Ibn Batuta (i, 106) as in his day a large and flourishing town, with fine bazaars, mosques, and colleges, the residence of the viceroys of the Thebaid. That traveller embarked at Kus to descend the Nile, after his first visit to Upper Egypt. It is nearly in the

latitude of Kosseir. The Carta Catalana calls Kosseir Chos, and notes it as the place where the Indian spicery was landed.

1 Whales (I believe of the Spermaceti genus) are still not uncommon in the Arabian Sea. Abu Zaid mentions that in his time about Siraf their vertebra were used as chairs, and that houses were to be seen on the same coast, the rafters of which were formed of whale's ribs. (Reinaud, Relations, p. 146.) I remember when in parts of Scotland it was not unusual to see the gate-posts of a farm-yard formed of the same.

2 There were at least eleven of these principalities in Asia Minor, after

the fall of the kingdom of Iconium in the latter part of the thirteenth century (Deguignes, iii, pt. ii, p. i6).