National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0173 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 173 (Color Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000042
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.   413

twenty-five horsemen and fifty-five foot-men, including Kafur the Eunuch. During a halt which ensued, Ibn Batuta, separating from his companions, got taken prisoner, and though he escaped from the hands of his captors, did not get back to his friends for eight days, during which he went through some curious adventures. The party were so disheartened by these inauspicious beginnings that they wished to abandon the journey ; but, in the meantime, the Sultan had despatched his Master of the Robes, the Eunuch Sanbul (Spikenard) to take the place of Kafur defunct, and with orders for them to proceed.

From KANAUJ they turned southwards to the fortress of GWALIOR, which Ibn Batuta had visited previously, and had then taken occasion to describe with fair accuracy. At PARWAN, a place which they passed through on leaving Gwalior, and which was much harassed by lions (probably tigers rather), the traveller heard that certain malignant Jogis were in the habit of assuming the form of those animals by night. This gives him an opportunity of speaking of others of the Jogi class who used to allow themselves to be buried for months, or even for a twelvemonth together, and afterwards revived. At Mangalore he afterwards made acquaintance with a Mussulman who had acquired this art from the Jogis.' The route continued through Bundelkhand and Malwa to the city of DAULATABAD, with its celebrated fortress of DWAIGIR (Deogiri), and thence down the Valley of the Tapti to KINBAIAT (Cambay).2

1 This art, or the profession of it, is not yet extinct in India. A very curious account of one of its professors will be found in a "Personal Narrative of a Tour through the States of Rajwara" (Calcutta, 1837, pp. 41-44), by my lamented friend M.-General A. H. E. Boileau, and also in the Court and Camp of Ranjit Singh, by Captain Osborne, an officer on Lord Auckland's staff, to which I can only refer from memory.

2 I will here give the places past through by Ibn Batuta on his route from Dehli to Cambay, with their identifications as far as practicable.

DEHLI.

Tilbat, 21 parasangs from This is perhaps Tilputa, a village in the Dadri

the city      Parganah, though this is some 17 miles from
old Dehli.

AA   Possibly Aduh, a Pargana town 8 miles west

of Bulandshahr.

Hilts ?