IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
404 IBN BATUTA'S TRAVELS IN BENGAL AND CHINA.
M. Pol, p. 123).1 He then proceeded to Sind, reaching the Indus, probably somewhere below Larkhana, according to his own statement, on the 12th September, 1333. Here he terminates the First Part of his narrative.
Proceeding to SIWASTAN (Sehwan) he there met with a brother theologian, 'Ala-ul-Mulk, who had been appointed governor of the district at the mouth of the Indus, and after having travelled with him to LAHARI, a fine place on the shore of the ocean, he then turned northward to BAKAR, UJAH,2 and MULTAN, where he found assembled a large party of foreigners all bent on seeking their fortunes in India, and waiting at the frontier city for. invitations from the liberal sovereign of Hindustan.
This was Mahomet Tughlak, originally called Jnna Khan, whose contradictory qualities are painted by Ibn Batuta quite in accordance with the account of Firishta. The latter describes him3 as the most eloquent and accomplished prince of his time ; gallant in the field and inured to war ; admired for his compositions in prose and verse ; well versed in history, logic, mathematics, medicine, and metaphysics ; the founder of hospitals for the sick and of refuges for widows and orphans ; profuse in his liberality, especially to men of learning. But with all this he was wholly devoid of mercy and of consideration for his people ; the murderer of his father4 and of his brother, he was as madly
' The name appears still more exactly in another passage of Marco Polo, where he describes the invasion of India by the Mongol prince whom he calls Nogodar. He " marched by Badascian (Badaschan) and through a province called PASCIAI, and another called Chesciemur (Kashmir), losing many of his people and beasts, because the roads were narrow and very bad" (i, c. 13). Remarks on the Passes of Hindu Kush will be found in the Introduction to Goes, infra.
2 Lahari is still known as Lahori or "Larry Bunder," though it has disappeared from our recent maps. It stands on the western or Pitti branch of the Indus delta. Baker is Bakkar, the fort in the Indus between Sakkar and Rori, where the Indus was bridged for Lord Keane's army by Major George Thomson in 1838. Ujah is Uchh on the Chenab, below Bhawalpur.
3 Briggs' Firishta, i, 411-412 ; see also Elphinstone, ii, 60.
4 As the story is told by Ibn Bat uta after the relation of an eyewitness, Mahomed had prepared, for the reception of his father on his return from a campaign, a pavilion on the banks of a stream near Dehli. This pavilion was artfully constructed with the assistance of Ahmed son of Ayas
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