The fortune of Ibn Batūta was now changed. From the condition of a religious adventurer, wandering from court to court, and from country to country, subsisting upon the casual bounty of the great, he had now been elevated to a post of great honour and emolument in the greatest city then existing in the world. But it is very certain he was not rendered happier by this promotion. The monarch upon whose nod his destiny now depended was a man of changeful and ferocious nature, profuse and lavish in the extreme towards those whom he affected, but when provoked, diabolically cruel and revengeful. In the very first conference which our traveller held with his master after his appointment, he made a false step, and gave offence; for when the emperor had informed him that he would by no means find his office a sinecure, he replied that he belonged to the sect of Ibn Malik, whereas the people of Delhi were followers of Hanīfa; and that, moreover, he was ignorant of their language. This would have been a good reason why he should not in the first instance have accepted the office of judge; but, having accepted of it, he should by no means have brought forward his sectarian prejudices, or his ignorance, in the hope of abridging the extent of his duties. The emperor, with evident displeasure, rejoined, that he had appointed two learned men to be his deputies, and that these would advise him how to act. He moreover added, that it would be his business to sign all legal instruments. Notwithstanding the profuse generosity of Mohammed Khan, Ibn Batūta, who seems to have understood nothing of domestic economy, soon found himself prodigiously in debt; but his genius, fertile in expedients, and now sharpened by necessity, soon hit upon an easy way of satisfying his creditors. Observing that, like most of his countrymen, Mohammed Khan was an admirer of Arabian poetry, more particularly of such as celebrated his own praises, our theological judge, whose conscience seems to have been hushed to silence by his embarrassments, composed in Arabic a panegyric upon his patron, who, to borrow his own expression, “was wonderfully pleased with it.” Taking advantage, like a thoroughbred courtier, of this fit of good-humour, he disclosed the secret of his debt, which the emperor, who now, no doubt, perceived the real drift of the panegyric, ordered to be discharged from his own treasury; but added, however, “Take care, in future, not to exceed the extent of your income.” Upon this the traveller, whether pleased with his generosity or his advice we will not determine, exclaims, “May God reward him!”