any stranger of their own persuasion happened to arrive, they treated him with such unsparing liberality, that they very soon made him as wealthy as themselves.

From Zaitun, Ibn Batuta made a voyage of twentyseven days to Sin Kilan, one of the largest cities in China. Here also he found a mosque and Mahometan judge; and indeed he affirms, that in every great town of China there were Mahometan merchants, with a judge and sheikh El Islam to settle their disputes. He learned that beyond El Zaitun there was no town of any consequence. "Between it and the obstruction of Gog and Magog there is, as I was told, a distance of sixty days: the people who inhabit that place eat all the men they can overcome, and hence it is that no one goes to those parts." By this obstruction of Gog and Magog, it has been supposed that we are to understand the great wall; but as Batuta takes care to inform us that he had neither seen it himself, nor received an account of it from any one wno nad, it seems likely that he doubted the truth of this part of his information. In Fanjanfur he met an acquaintance of his youth, a native of Ceuta. This man had also held an office in the palace of Dehli, but coming to China he had amassed great wealth. Ibn Batuta remarks, that he met the brother of the same person a short time after in Soudan, and exclaims, "What a distance between these two brothers!" But in Ibn Batuta's days the Mahometan merchants appear to have frequently extended their negotiations from China to the Atlantic.

A river navigation of ten days brought our traveller next to El Khansa (perhaps Chensi), which he describes as the largest city on the face of the earth. As every house is surrounded by a garden, the length of the city extends a journey of three days. The city of El Khansa was divided into six cities, each of these being surrounded by a wall. In the first were the guards, twelve thousand in number. In the second city, which was the most beautiful, resided the Jews, Christians,

and Turks, who adored the sun: the Christians mentioned here were probably some Nestorians, who penetrated into China either through Persia or from the Christians of St. Thomas, in Malabar. The third division was chiefly occupied by the officers of government. The fourth appears to have been the quarter of the wealthy. The fifth and largest city was inhabited by the common Chinese people. Among the curious manufactures which Batuta saw in this place he mentions particularly the dishes composed of reeds, glued together and painted over with brilliant and permanent colours. The population of the sixth city was composed of sailors, fishermen, ship caulkers, and carpenters.

Some troubles at this time broke out among the members of the reigning family, which led to a civil war and the death of the khan. The deceased monarch was buried with great pomp, after the Tatar custom. A large excavation was dug in the earth, in which a beautiful couch was spread, and the khan with his arms and rich apparel were laid upon it. All the gold and silver vessels of his house, four female slaves, and six of his favourite Mamelukes, were buried with him. The earth was then heaped upon them to the height of a large hill, and on this hill four horses were impaled. In consequence of the disturbances, Batuta hastened to quit the country.

From El Zaitun he sailed to Sumatra, and thence to Calicut and Ormuz. He then made the tour of Persia and Syria, and at length made the pilgrimage of Mecca for the third time, in the year 749 (A.D. 1348). He returned to Tangier the following year, and visited his native country. But his passion for travelling was not yet subdued. He set out soon after for Spain; and after wandering through the southern portion of that country, he returned to Morocco, on his way to Soudan, or the country of the Niger. After leaving Segelmessa, a journey of five and twenty days brought him to Thagari, a village in which," he observes, "there is nothing good; for its houses and mosques are built with stones of

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salt, and covered with the hides of camels."

The peo

ple of Soudan purchased this salt, cut into regular masses, which with them passed for money.

Having crossed the Great Desert he came to Abu Latin, the first district of Soudan. The inhabitants were chiefly merchants. Their clothing was brought from Egypt. The women appeared to our traveller extremely beautiful. "No one here," he observes, "is named after his father but after his maternal uncle. The sister's son always succeeds to the property in preference to the son; a custom which I witnessed no where else, except among the infidel Hindoos of Malabar."

Proceeding from Abu Latin to Mali, he found the roads shaded by trees of so great a size that a caravan might shelter itself under one of them as he passed by one of those trees, he saw a weaver working at his loom, in the hollow of the trunk. Happening while at Mali to meet the king one day at a feast, he rose up and said, "I have travelled the world over, and have seen its kings; and now I have been four months in thy territories, but no present, or even provision, from thee has yet reached me: now what shall I say of thee, when interrogated on this subject hereafter?" In consequence of this remonstrance, the sultan appointed him a house with suitable provisions.

Travelling along the Niger, which he calls the Nile, Batuta saw on the banks of a great gulf or lake a great number of Hippopotami. He was here informed, that in some parts of Soudan the infidels eat men; but that they eat none but blacks, the flesh of white men being unwholesome, because not properly matured. After a few days he arrived at Timbuctoo, regarding which he relates no particulars. The town of Kakaw, farther on, was thought to be the most beautiful in Soudan. He came then to Bardama, and afterwards to Nakda, a handsome town built with stone of a red colour. Rich copper mines were in its immediate vicinity. From this place he returned to Fez, where he took up his residence in the year 754 (A.D. 1353), eight and twenty years

after he had first set out upon his travels. He had in the mean time discharged all the obligations which he had imposed upon himself in the course of his wanderings: he had visited the three brothers of the sheikh Borhan Oddin El Aaraj, who respectively resided in Persia, in India, and in China; and to the brother of the sheikh Kawam Oddin, whom he had met in the last named country, he brought tidings of his relative in the heart of Soudan.

BOOK III.

PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

CHAP. I.

DISCOVERIES OF THE NORTHMEN.

ANTIQUITY OF THE SCANDINAVIANS. THE FINS. NORTHERN CRUSADES. TURKS, SARACENS, AND AMAZONS IN THE NORTH. VOYAGE OF OTHER. WHALE FISHERY.-WALSTEN DESCRIBES THE FUNERALS OF THE RUSSIANS. THE NORTHMEN INVADE IRELAND. OCCUPY THE WESTERN ISLES. THE WHITEMAN'S LAND. VOYAGE OF MADOC. WELSH INDIANS. ICELAND DISCOVERED.-RELICS FOUND THERE. GREENLAND DISCOVERED AND COLONISED.-JOURNEY OF HOLLAR GEIT.OLD GREENLAND LOST. VINLAND. SKRÆLINGUES OR ESQUIMAUX. MAP OF THE TWO ZENI. FRIESLAND. GROLANDIA. THE WARM SPRINGS AND HOUSES BUILT OF LAVA. CANOES OF THE ESQUIMAUX.— ESTOTILAND AND DROCEO.THE NEW WORLD. CANNIBALS. THE PRECIOUS METALS.

THE nations of the North, however rude and barbarous they might appear in the eyes of the luxurious Romans, were yet raised far above the abject condition of an utter indifference to knowledge. The kindred races of the German and Sclavonian nations were very extensively diffused: their free polity and restless disposition maintained a perpetual intercourse between them ; and even the nature of the country which they occupied seems to warrant the conclusion, that the geographical knowledge possessed by the northern nations was never circumscribed within such narrow limits as those which confined the views of the early inhabitants of Greece and Italy.

In all the accounts that remain to us of Scandinavia, from the age of Pytheas to that of Alfred, we