تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.75
English (machine translation) 13.75
- Language
- English
13.75.1
When the time for sailing to China came, the sultan the Sāmarī equipped for us one of the thirteen junks that were in the harbour of Qāliqūṭ. The junk's agent was called Sulaymān al-Ṣafadī al-Shāmī, and he and I were acquainted. I said to him: 'I want a cabin that no one shares with me, on account of the slave girls, for it is my custom not to travel without them.' He said to me: 'The merchants of China have taken up the cabins, going and returning, but my son-in-law has a cabin which I will give you; however, it has no latrine, and perhaps you will be able to exchange it.' So I ordered my companions, and they loaded the goods I had, and the slaves and slave girls went aboard the junk. That was on Thursday, and I stayed behind to pray the Friday prayer and then join them. Malik Sunbul and Ẓahīr al-Dīn went aboard with the gift. Then a page of mine called Hilāl came to me on Friday morning and said: 'The cabin we took on the junk is cramped and unsuitable.' I mentioned this to the shipowner, and he said: 'There is no remedy for that, but if you would like to be on the kakam, there are cabins on it of your choosing.' I said: 'Yes,' and ordered my companions, and they moved the slave girls and the goods to the kakam, and they were settled in it before the Friday prayer.
13.75.2
It is the way of this sea that its turbulence grows violent every day after the afternoon prayer, so that no one can sail on it. The junks had already set sail, and none of them remained except the one carrying the gift, a junk whose owners had resolved to winter at Fandarīnā, and the kakam mentioned above. We spent Saturday night on the shore, unable to go up to the kakam, nor
13.75.3
could those aboard it come down to us. Nothing was left with me but a carpet that I spread to sleep on. On Saturday morning the junk and the kakam were some distance from the harbour, and the sea hurled the junk whose people were bound for Fandarīnā, so that it was broken to pieces; some of its people died and some were saved.
13.75.4
On board was a slave girl belonging to one of the merchants, who was dear to him, and he offered ten gold dinars to whoever would bring her out. She had clung to a plank at the stern of the junk. One of the Hormuzi sailors volunteered for this and brought her out, but he refused to take the dinars, saying: "I did it only for the sake of God Most High." When night came the sea hurled the junk carrying the gift, and everyone on board died! In the morning we looked upon the places where they had perished. I saw Ẓahīr al-Dīn with his skull split and his brains scattered, and Malik Sunbul with a nail that had struck him in one temple and passed out through the other. We prayed over them and buried them!!! I saw the infidel, the sultan of Qāliqūṭ, wearing around his waist a large white cloth wrapped from his navel to his knee, with a small turban on his head and barefoot; a slave held the parasol over his head, a fire was being kindled before him on the shore, and his guards were beating the people to stop them plundering what the sea cast up.
13.75.5
It is the custom in the land of Mulaybār that whatever is recovered from any ship that is wrecked goes to the treasury, except in this town alone, where its owners take it; for that reason it has prospered and people frequent it greatly. When the people of the kakam saw what had happened to the junk, they raised their sails and went off, taking with them all my goods, my slave boys and my slave girls, and I was left alone on the shore with no one but a young slave I had freed; when he saw what had befallen me, he left me! Nothing remained with me but the ten dinars the yogī had given me and the carpet I used to spread to sleep on. People told me that the kakam would have to put in at the port of Kawlam, so I resolved to travel there. Between the two is a journey of ten days by land, or by the river as well for whoever wishes. So I travelled by the river and hired a Muslim man to carry the carpet for me.
13.75.6
Their custom when travelling on that river is to disembark in the evening and spend the night in the villages on its banks, then return to the boat in the morning, and we did so. There was no Muslim on the boat except the man I had hired, and he would drink wine with the infidels when we disembarked and behave abusively towards me, which made my distress all the greater! We arrived
13.75.7
on the fifth day of our journey at Kunjī Karī — its name is spelled with k with u, n without vowel, j, long ī, k with a, r with i, and b — which lies on top of a hill there. It is inhabited by Jews, who have an amīr of their own and pay the poll-tax to the sultan of Kawlam.
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic