Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 1.: The Exploration of the WorldVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 1.: The Exploration of the World
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
From Mesjid, the traveller went to Bussorah, and entered the kingdom
of Ispahan, and then the province of Shiraz, where he wished to
converse with the celebrated worker of miracles, Magd Oddin. From
Shiraz he went to Baghdad, to Tabriz, then to Medina, where he
prayed beside the tomb of the Prophet, and finally to Mecca, where
he remained three years. It is well known that from Mecca, caravans
are continually starting for the surrounding country, and it was in
company with some of these bold merchants that Ibn Batuta was able
to visit the towns of Yemen. He went as far as Aden, at the mouth of
the Red Sea, and embarked for Zaila, one of the Abyssinian ports. He
was now once more on African ground, and advanced into the country
of the Berbers, that he might study the manners and customs of those
dirty and repulsive tribes; he found their diet consisted wholly of
fish and camels' flesh. But in the town of Makdasbu, there was an
attempt at comfort and civilization, presenting a most agreeable
contrast with the surrounding squalor. The inhabitants were very fat,
each of them, to use Ibn's own expression, "eating enough to feed a
convent;" they were very fond of delicacies, such as plantains
boiled in milk, preserved citrons, pods of fresh pepper, and green
ginger.
After seeing all he wished of the country of the Berbers, chiefly on
the coast, he resolved to go to Zanguebar, and then, crossing the
Red Sea and following the coast of Arabia, he came to Zafar, a town
situated upon the Indian Ocean. The vegetation of this country is
most luxuriant, the betel, cocoa-nut, and incense-trees forming
there great forests; still the traveller pushed on, and came to
Ormuz on the Persian Gulf, and passed through several provinces of
Persia. We find him a second time at Mecca in the year 1332, three
years after he had left it.
But this was only to be a short rest for the traveller, for now,
leaving Asia for Africa, he went to Upper Egypt, a region but little
known, and thence to Cairo. He next visited Syria, making a short
stay at Jerusalem and Tripoli, and thence he visited the Turkomans
of Anatolia, where the "confraternity of young men" gave him a most
hearty welcome.
After Anatolia, the Arabian narrative speaks of Asia Minor. Ibn
Batuta advanced as far as Erzeroum, where he was shown an aerolite
weighing 620 pounds. Then, crossing the Black Sea, he visited the
Crimea, Kaffa, and Bulgar, a town of sufficiently high latitude for
the unequal length of day and night to be very marked; and at last
he reached Astrakhan, at the mouth of the Volga, where the Khan of
Tartary lived during the winter months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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