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
0221 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 221 (Color Image)

New!Citation Information

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

OCR Text

 

AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.   461

When I entered Sadkâwân I did not visit the sultan, nor did I hold any personal communication with him, because he was in revolt against the Emperor of India, and I feared the consequences if I acted otherwise. Quitting Sadkawan I went to the mountains of KAaMRU, which are at the distance of a month's journey. They form an extensive range, bordering on China and also on the country of TIBET, where the musk-antelopes are found. The inhabitants of those regions resemble the Turks [i.e. the Tartars] and are capital people to work, so that as a slave one of them is as good as two or three of another race.'

My object in going to the hill country of Kamru was to see a holy personage who lives there, the Shaikh Jalaluddin of Tabriz.' This was one of the most eminent of saints, and one of the most singular of men, who had achieved most worthy deeds, and wrought miracles of great note. He was (when I saw him) a very old man, and told me that he had seen the KhalifMostasim Billah the Abasside at Baghdad, and was in that city at the time of his murder.3 At a later date I heard from the Shaikh's disciples of his death at the age of one hundred and fifty years. I was also told that he had fasted for some forty years, breaking his fast only at intervals of ten days, and this only with the milk of a cow that he kept.' He used also to remain on his legs all night. The Shaikh was a tall thin man, with little hair on his face. The inhabitants of those mountains embraced Islam at his hands, and this was his motive for living among them.

Some of his disciples told me that the day before his

ities represent. The Ali Shah of Ibn Batuta is no doubt the Ali Mubarak of Stewart.

A discussion as to the direction of this excursion to Kcamrzc will be found in Note E at the end of this paper.

z Further on he is styled Shirai, instead of Tabr-izI (iii, 287).

3 The Khalif Mostasim Billah was put to death by Hulagu, after the capture of Baghdad in 1258, therefore eighty-eight years previous to this visit.