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تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.102

English (machine translation) 13.102

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English

13.102.1

The print of the noble Foot, the foot of our father Adam, God bless him and grant him peace, is in a raised black rock in a spacious place. The noble Foot has sunk into the rock so that its place has become a hollow; its length is eleven spans. The people of China came to it long ago and cut from the rock the place of the big toe and what adjoins it, and put it in a temple in the city of al-Zaytūn, to which they come from the farthest lands.

13.102.2

In the rock where the Foot is there are nine carved hollows in which the infidel pilgrims place gold, rubies and jewels, so you see the poor, when they reach the Cave of al-Khiḍr, racing one another from there to take what is in the hollows! We found in them only a few small stones and some gold, which we gave to the guide.

13.102.3

The custom is for the pilgrims to stay at the Cave of al-Khiḍr for three days, during which they go to the Foot morning and evening, and so we did.

13.102.4

When the three days were over we returned by the path of Māmā and halted at the cave of Shīm, that is Shīth (Seth) son of Adam, peace be upon them both; then to the Inlet of the Fish; then to the village of Kurmula (with u after the k, no vowel on the r, and u after the m); then to the village of Jabarkāwān (with a after the j and the b, no vowel on the r, a after the k and the w, ending in n); then to the village of Dil Dīnawa (with two undotted d's with i, between them an unvowelled l, a long ī, n with a, w with a, and final tāʾ marbūṭa); then to the village of At Qalanja (with hamza with a, an unvowelled t, q and l with a, unvowelled n and j with a). There Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh b. Khafīf spends the winter.

13.102.5

The place sought by all religions

13.102.6

All these villages and halting places are on the mountain. At the base of the mountain on this path is the Darakht Rawān — darakht with a after the undotted d and the r, unvowelled dotted kh and t; rawān with a after the r and the w, alif and n. It is an ancient tree whose leaves never fall, and I have never met anyone who has seen its leaves. They also call it 'the walking tree', because one who looks at it from the top of the mountain sees it far from him and near the foot of the mountain, while one who looks at it from the foot of the mountain sees it the other way round! I saw there a number of jogis staying at the foot of the mountain waiting for its leaves to fall; it is placed so that it is quite impossible to reach. They have lies about it, among them that whoever eats of its leaves regains his youth if he is old, which is false! Below this mountain is the great inlet from which rubies are taken; to the eye its water is a deep blue.

13.102.7

From there we travelled two days to the city of Dīnawar (spelled with undotted d with i, long ī, n and w with a, and r), a great city on the sea inhabited by merchants. In it is the idol known as Dīnawar, in a great temple in which there are about a thousand brahmins and jogis and about five hundred women, daughters of the Hindus, who sing and dance every night before the idol. The city and its revenues are an endowment for the idol, and everyone in the temple and whoever comes to it eat from that. The idol is of gold, the size of a man, and in the place of its eyes are two great rubies which, I was told, shine at night like two lamps.

13.102.8

Then we travelled to the city of Qālī (with q and i after the l), a small town six parasangs from Dīnawar. In it is a Muslim man known as the nākhudā Ibrāhīm, who entertained us at a place. Then we travelled to the city of Kalanbū (spelled with a after the k and the l, unvowelled n, u after the b and w), one of the finest and largest towns of Sarandīb. In it lives the vizier, ruler of the sea, Jālastī, and with him about five hundred Abyssinians.

13.102.9

Then we set off, and after three days we reached Baṭṭāla, which has been mentioned already, and we went in to its sultan, who has also been mentioned. I found the nākhudha Ibrāhīm waiting for me, and we sailed making for the land of al-Maʿbar. The wind grew strong and the water nearly came into the ships, and we had no experienced captain.

13.102.10

Then we came upon rocks on which the ship nearly broke apart; then we entered a shallow sea and the ship ran aground. We saw death before our eyes; the people threw overboard what they had with them and bade one another farewell. We cut down the ship's mast and threw it overboard, and the sailors made a raft of timber. There were two parasangs between us and the land. I wanted to go down onto the raft. I had two slave-girls and two of my companions, and they said: “Will you go down and leave us?” So I preferred them to myself and said: “You two go down, with the slave-girl whom I love.” The slave-girl said: “I am a good swimmer; I will hold on to one of the raft's ropes and swim with them.” So my two companions went down—one of them Muḥammad b. Farḥān al-Tawzarī, the other an Egyptian—and the slave-girl with them, while the other swam. The sailors tied ropes to the raft and swam with it. I put with them what I valued most of my goods, jewels and ambergris, and they reached the land safely, because the wind was helping them.

13.102.11

I stayed on the ship, while its owner went down to the land on the rudder. The sailors set about making four rafts, but night came before they were finished and the water came in on us, so I climbed to the stern and stayed there until morning. Then a party of infidels came to us in a boat of theirs, and we went down with them to a shore in the land of al-Maʿbar. We told them that we were associates of their sultan, under whose protection they were, and they wrote to him about it; he was two days' journey away, on campaign. I also wrote to him, informing him of what had befallen me. Those infidels took us into a thicket and brought us a fruit resembling a melon, borne by the muql tree; inside it is something like cotton containing a honey-like juice, which they extract and from which they make a sweet they call al-tall, which resembles sugar. They also brought good fish.

13.102.12

We stayed three days. Then there arrived from the sultan an amīr known as Qamar al-Dīn with a company of horsemen and foot soldiers; they brought the palanquin (dawla) and ten horses. I mounted, as did my companions, the ship's owner and one of the two slave-girls, and the other was carried in the palanquin. We reached the fort of Harkātū—its name is spelled with a after h, r without vowel, a after k, then alif, t (the dotted-above letter) with u, and w.

13.102.13

We spent the night there, and I left the slave-girls, some of the servants and companions there, and on the second day we reached the sultan's camp.

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