messengers to the other isles, and their inhabitants were converted likewise. But by reason of the demon many of the Maldive Islands were depopulated before their conversion to Islam. When Ibn Batutah himself landed in the country he knew nothing of these things. One night, as he was going about his business, he heard of a sudden people saying in a loud voice, “There is no God but God,” and “God is great.” He saw children carrying copies of the Coran on their heads, and women beating on basins and vessels of copper. He was astonished at what they did, and he said, “What has happened?” They answered, “Dost thou not behold the sea?” He looked towards the sea, and beheld in the darkness, as it were, a great ship full of burning lamps and cressets. They said to him, “That is the demon. It is his wont to shew himself once a month; but after we have done that which thou hast seen, he returns to his place and does us no manner of harm.”[504] [Sidenote: The story based on the phosphorescence of the sea.] It occurred to me that this myth of the demon lover may have been based on some physical phenomenon, electrical, lunar, or otherwise, which is periodically seen at night in the Maldive Islands. Accordingly I consulted Professor J. Stanley Gardiner, our foremost authority on the archipelago. His answer, which confirms my conjecture, runs thus: “A peculiar phosphorescence, like the glow of a lamp hidden by a roughened glass shade, is occasionally visible on lagoon shoals in the Maldives. I imagine it to have been due to some single animal with a greater phosphorescence than any at present known to us. A periodical appearance at some phase of the moon due to reproduction is not improbable and has parallels. The myth still exists in the Maldives, but in a rather different form.” He adds that “a number of these animals might of course appear on some shoal near Male,” the principal island of the group. To the eyes of the ignorant and superstitious such a mysterious glow, suddenly lighting up the sea in the dusk of the evening, might well appear a phantom ship, hung with burning lamps, bearing down on the devoted islands, and in the stillness of night the roar of the surf on the barrier reef might sound in their ears like the voice of the demon calling for his prey.[505] § 3. Sacrifices to Water-spirits