Genghis Khan; traveled by land to Constantinople, where he was presented
to the emperor; repeated his pilgrimage to Mecca, and reached Zanzibar.
Then, returning, he made his way to Bukhara, and through Afghanistan to
the Indus; exercised, for two years, the functions of a _Kadi_, or
judge, at Delhi; was appointed by the Sultan Mohammed, the son of Togluk
Khan, on an embassy to the emperor of China, but, missing the Chinese
vessel, was obliged to remain a year and a half among the Maldive
Islands. Nothing daunted by the delay, he started again, by way of
Ceylon and the Indian Archipelago, and finally succeeded in reaching
Pekin. He appears to have returned to Tangier in the year 1349, and to
have taken up his residence soon afterwards in Granada, under the
protection of the caliph Yusef. His thirst for exploration, however, was
not yet quenched, and in two years he was ready to undertake a second
journey of greater difficulty and danger. Leaving Fez with a caravan, in
the year 1351, he crossed the Sahara, and spent three years in Central
Africa, visiting the great cities Melli and Timbuctoo. He was thus the
first to give the world an authentic account of those regions. His
descriptions correspond, in almost all respects, with those given by the
travelers of modern times.

Ibn Batuta returned to Morocco in 1354, and there remained until his
death, in 1378. During the year after his arrival, he dictated the
history of his travels to Ibn Djozay, a young Moorish poet, who, having
been unjustly treated by Yusef, in Granada, fled to Fez, where he was
appointed secretary to the Sultan, Abau Inau Faris. The latter, it
appears, commanded that the work should be written, and it was also, no
doubt, by his order that Ibn Djozay became the amanuensis of our
traveler. 'He was recommended,' says the introduction, 'to bestow great
care on the correctness and elegance of the style, to render it clear
and intelligible, in order that the reader may better enjoy the rare