مسالك الابصار في ممالك الامصار 2.19

2.19

Shaykh Mubārak said: Lakhnawtī has two hundred thousand boats, small and light for travel; if an archer shoots an arrow from the stern of one, it lands in the middle of it because of the speed of its course. This is apart from the large ones, which do not reach even part of this number; some of them contain mills, ovens and markets, and sometimes some of their inhabitants do not come to know one another until after a time, because of their size and magnitude. I have extracted precisely from the Geography its length, which is from al-Wāq Wāq to opposite Aden, and its breadth from Sarandīb to Bawārū, which lies west of Qaraqorum. I state it in a more extended and clearer expression for whoever examines the map-plate in the complete Geography, and we say: its length is from the outlet of the Indian Sea from the Encircling Ocean at the end of China in the east, short of the Island of Jewels and al-Wāq Wāq which slant toward the south, following the sea to where it turns westward at the island of al-Mūja, the mother of the islands of China, along the length of the sea until it ends at the gulf of the west; then it extends from there by land and sea