may have children, if she happens to produce a handsome daughter, she carries her child to the _bod_[12], so the idol is called. When this girl has attained the proper age, she takes an apartment in the temple, and waits the arrival of strangers, to whom she prostitutes herself for a certain hire, and delivers her gains to the priest for the support of the temple. All these things they reckon among their meritorious deeds. Praised be God who hath freed us from the sins which defile the people involved in unbelief! Not very far from Almansur there is a famous idol called Multan, to which the Indians resort in pilgrimage, from the remotest parts. Some of the pilgrims bring the odoriferous wood called Hud ul Camruni, so called from Camrun, where there is excellent aloes-wood. Some of this is worth 200 _dinars_ the mawn, and is commonly marked with a seal, to distinguish it from another kind of less value. This the devotees give to the priests, that it may be burnt before the idol, but merchants often buy it from these priests. There are some Indians, making profession of piety, who go in search of unknown islands, or those newly discovered, on purpose to plant cocoa nut trees, and to sink wells for the use of ships. There are people at Oman who cross to these islands that produce the cocoa nut trees, of planks made from which they build ships, sewing the planks with yarns made from the bark of the tree. The mast is made of the same wood, the sails are formed from the leaves, and the bark is worked up into cordage: and having thus completed their vessel, they load her with cocoa nuts, which they bring to Oman for sale. The country of the Zinges, or Negroes, is of vast extent[13]. These people commonly sow millet, which is the chief food of the negroes. They have also sugar-canes and other trees, but their sugar is very black. The negroes are divided among a great number of kings, who are eternally at war with each other. Their kings are attended by certain men called Moharamin, each of whom has a ring in his nose, and a chain round his neck. When about to join battle with the enemy, each of the Moharamin takes the end of his neighbour's chain and passes it through the ring in his own nose, by which the whole are chained together, so that no one can possibly run away. Deputies are then sent to endeavour to make peace, and if that is done, the chains are unfastened, and they retire without fighting. But otherwise, when once the sword is unsheathed, every one of these men must conquer or die on the spot[14].