| AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 475 does not eat of your dishes." Urduja rejoined "Let him be sent for." So a party of her guards came for me, and with them some of the captain's people, who said to me "Do as the Princess desires." So I went, and found her seated on her great chair or throne, whilst some of her women were in front of her with papers which they were laying before her. Round about were elderly ladies, or duennas, who acted as her counsellors, seated below the throne on chairs of sandalwood. The men also were in front of the Princess. The throne was covered with silk, and canopied with silk curtains, being itself made of sandal wood and plated with gold. In the audience hall there were buffets of carved wood, on which were set forth many vessels of gold of all sizes, vases, pitchers, and flagons. The skipper told me that these vessels were filled with a drink compounded with sugar and spice, which these people use after dinner ; he said it had an aromatic odour and delicious flavour; that it produced hilarity, sweetened the breath, promoted digestion, etc., etc. As soon as I had saluted the princess she said to me in the Turkish tongue Husn risen yaklishi miser (Khicsh misan ? Yakhshi misan ?) which is as much as to say, Are you well ? How do you do ?1 and made me sit down beside her. This princess could write the Arabic character well. She said to one of her servants Dawcat wa batak katur, that is to say, " Bring inkstand and paper." He brought these, and then present meaning in the native army of India, viz., Paymaster (Quatre-mère' s Rashiduddin, p. 184-198 ; see also supra, p. 149). Quatremère points out the occurrence of the term in the Byzantine historian Pachymeres under the form MiraZts. Ibn Batuta may have resumed the religious costume which he wore before his appointment to the embassy—indeed he appears to have worn the mantle given him by the hermit Jalaluddin,—and his sanctimonious excuse from dining with the princess made the application of the term natural. 1 Ibn Batuta had picked up these words on a former occasion when addressed to him by Alauddin Tarmashirin, Khan of Chagatai; but he then says they mean "Are you well? You are an excellent man!" (iii, 33.) | |
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