Page:A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1.djvu/128

 in their eager thirst for knowledge, used to flock to the centres of learning in India, and there drank deep at the very fountain-head. Indeed, it had come to be regarded as an essential part of completing one's liberal education to travel to India and learn the sciences firsthand.

That this is no language of rhetoric will be evident from the extracts quoted below from Gildemeister's "Scriptorum Arabum De Rebus Indicis loci et opuscula."

"Etiam Muhammed ben Ismail al Tanûkhi in Indiam profectus est eo imprimis consilio, ut Indorum astronomiam cognosceret.

"Ibn Albaithàr, rei herbariæ inter Arabes peritissimus, qui and eius disciplinae studium longinqua itinera per Hispaniam Africam et Asiam instituit, etiam in Indiam venit, teste Leone Africano; Abulfadà tamen et Ibn Abi Ucaibia, qui de eius vita scripserunt, eius rei mentionem non faciunt." p. 80.

"Sed etiam accuratius edocti erant, et scite iam vetus Indopleusta eas disciplinas, in quibus Indi maxime excellerent, nominat has: medicinam, philosophiam et astronomiam. Eodem modo Hagi