IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
438 IBN BATUTA'S TRAVELS IN BENGAL AND CHINA.
told by the historians of India, and add many new details. The French editors have shown,in a learned and elaborate tabular statement, how well our traveller's account of the chief events of that monarch's reign (though told with no attention to chronological succession) agrees with those of Khondemir and Firishta. The whole of the second part of his narrative indeed seems to me superior in vivacity and interest to the first ; which, I suppose may be attributed partly to more vivid recollection, and partly perhaps to the preservation of his later notes.
Ibn Batuta has drawn his own character in an accumulation of slight touches through the long history of his wanderings, but to do justice to the result in a few lines would require the hand of Chaucer, and something perhaps of his freedom of speech. Not wanting in acuteness nor in humane feeling, full of vital energy and enjoyment of life ; infinite in curiosity ; daring, rest- less, impulsive, sensual, inconsiderate, and extravagant ; superstitious in his regard for the saints of his religion, and plying devout observances, especially when in difficulties ; doubtless an agreeable companion, for we always find him welcomed at first, but clinging, like one of the Ceylon leeches which he describes, when he found a full-blooded subject, and hence too apt to disgust his patrons and to turn to intrigues against them. Such are the impressions which one reader, at least, has gathered from
the surface of his narrative, as rendered by MM. Defrémery and
Sanguinetti.1
1 In preparing this paper I have to regret not being able to look over
Lee's abridgement, though I have had before me a few notes of a former !
reading of it. If I can trust my recollection, there are some circumstances in Lee which do not appear at all in the French translation of the com-
plete work. This is curious. I may add that in the part translated by 1
M. Dulaurier I have on one or two occasions ventured to follow his version where it seemed to give a better sense, though disclaiming any idea of judging between the two as to accuracy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.