408 IBN BATUTA'S TRAVELS IN BENGAL AND CHINA.
nothing loth, to remain behind and take charge of the tomb of Sultan Kutbuddin, whose servant the Sultan had been, and for whose memory he professed the greatest veneration.' He renewed his personal extravagances, spending large sums which his friends had left in deposit with him, and reviling those who were mean enough to expect at least a portion to be repaid ! One who scattered his own money and that of his friends so freely was not likely to be backward when his hand had found its way into the public purse. The account he gives of the establishment he provided for the tomb placed under his charge is characteristic of his magnificent ideas. " I established in connexion with it one hundred and fifty readers of the Koran, eighty students, and eight repeaters, a professor, eighty sufis, or monks, an imam, muezzins, reciters selected for their fine intonation, panegyrists, scribes to take note of those who were absent, and ushers. All these people are recognised in that country as alarbcTb, or gentlemen. I also made arrangements for the subordinate class of attendants called alheishiyah, or menials,2 such as footmen, cooks, runners, water-carriers, sherbet-men, betel-men, sword-bearers, javelin-men, umbrella-men, hand-washers, beadles, and officers. The whole
carry the traveller's palankin ; the farccshes to pitch his tents and load his camels ; the runners to carry torches before him in the dark. Moreover he tells us he had paid all these people nine months' wages beforehand, which shows that the system of advances" was in still greater vigour than even now.
The French translators do not recognize the word kdharon, putting
gohars ?" as a parenthetic query. But it is still the ordinary name of the caste of people (KahGrs) who bear palankins or carry burdens on a yoke over one shoulder, and the name is one of the few real Indian words that Ibn Batuta shows any knowledge of. I think the only others are tat& for a pony; Jauthri (for Chaodri) the Shaikh of the Hindus," as he explains it; Sccha, as the appellation of a certain class of merchants at Daulatabad, a name (Sahcc) still borne extensively by a mercantile caste ; Katri (Kshatri) as the name of a noble class of Hindus; Jogi; morah, a stool ; kishri (for kichari, vulgo kedgeree, well known at Indian breakfasts) ; and some names of fruits and pulses (iii, 415, 427; 207; 388; iv, 49, 51; ii, 75; iii, 127-131).
1 This was Kutb-uddin Mubarak Shah, son of 'Ahluddin, murdered by his minister Khosru in 1320.
Rabb, Dominus, Possessor, pi. arba ; Hhdshiyah, ora vestis vel alius rei, inde domestici, asseclœ (Freytag in vv).
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