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0176 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 176 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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IBN BATUTA'S TRAVELS IN BENGAL AND CHINA.

grove, and a piece of water. Landing here, the traveller had a curious adventure with a Jogi, whom he found by the wall of the

temple.' Next day they came to HUNAwAR (or Onore), a city governed by a Mahomedan prince with great power at sea ; apparently a pirate, like his successors in later times, but an enlightened ruler, for Ibn Batuta found in his city twenty-three schools for boys and thirteen for girls, the latter a thing which he had seen nowhere else in his travels.2

After visiting several of the northern ports of Malabar, then very numerous and flourishing, they arrived at CALICUT, which

the traveller describes as one of the finest ports in the world,

frequented for trade by the people of China, the Archipelago, Ceylon, the Maldives, Yemen, and the Persian Gulf. Here they

were honourably received by. the king, who bore the title of Scamari (the Zamorin of the Portuguese), and made their landing in great state. But all this was to be followed by speedy grief, as the traveller himself observes.

At Calicut they abode for three months, awaiting the season for the voyage to China, viz., the spring. All the communication

with that country, according to Ibn Batuta (the fact itself is perhaps questionable) was conducted in Chinese vessels, of which there were three classes : the biggest called Junk, the middle-sized Zao, and the third Kakam.3 The greater ships had from

' For the identification of the places from Cambay to Hunawar I must refer to Note B at the end of this Introduction. Assuming, as there argued, that Sindâbiir was Goa, the small island was probably Anchediva,

a favourite anchorage of the early Portuguese.   In the middle of it is a
large lake of fresh water, but the island is deserted ; it may be two miles from the mainland; it was in former times inhabited by the Gentoos, but the Moors of Mecca used to take this route to Calicut, and used to stop here to take in wood and water, and on that account it has ever since been deserted" (Voyage of Pedro Aivares Cabral, Lisbon, 1812, p. 118).

2 He says the Sultan of Hunawar was subject to a Pagan monarch called Hariab, of whom he promises to speak again, but does not do so, unless, as is probable, he was the same as Bilal Deo (the Raja of Sarnata), of whom he speaks at iv, p. 195.

3 The French editors derive these three words from Chinese terms, said to be respectively, Chuen, Sao or Seu, and Hoa-hang (M. Pauthier corrects these two last to Tsao or Chéu, and Hoa-chw mn, ' merchant-vessel,'