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. The first few pages of this work are lost, but its earlier portion was obviously written by one who had himself made the China voyage. The second part of the book dates from the year 916, and is the work of a certain Abu Zaid Hassan, a native of Siraf on the Persian Gulf, who, though he does not appear to have had any personal experience of the trade-route dealt with, must have enjoyed opportunities of obtaining first-hand information from those who had themselves made the voyage. The portion of the book written by the mer chant-mariner is in the nature of sailing directions, and the Arab's genius for mispronouncing foreign tongues, which is second only to that of the Englishman, causes the proper names given in the manuscript to present a series of puzzles to the enquirer. M. Reinaud himself would appear to have completely misunderstood the route indicated, and by far the best identification which has yet been suggested is to be found in an article from the pen of M. Alfred Maury in the Bulletin de Géographie for the year 1846.

It would be tedious to examine in detail the grounds for the identification of the various seas and lands there set forth, but the facts to be gathered from an examination of the somewhat wearisome itinerary laid down in the manuscript are that ships sailing from India for China took, during the ninth century, approximately the following After touching at Ceylon and the Nicobars, they came to anchor in a port near the northeastern extremity of Sumatra. Thence, after occasionally touching at a State on the western coast of the Malay