Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/79

 When he had concluded, "Come here," said Khasib, "and open this seam." He did so. Khasib then said, "Take this ruby." The poet refused; but being adjured to do so, he complied, and went away to the street of the jewellers to offer it for sale. From the beauty of the stone, it was supposed it could have belonged to no one but the calif, who, being informed of the matter, ordered the poet before him, and interrogated him respecting it. The poet ingenuously related the whole truth; and the tyrant, repenting of his cruelty, sent for Khasib, overwhelmed him with splendid presents, and promised to grant him whatever he should desire. Khasib demanded and obtained the small minyet in Upper Egypt in which he resided until his death, and where his fame was still fresh when Ibn Batūta passed through the country.

Frustrated in his attempt to reach Mecca by this route, after penetrating as far as Nubia, our traveller returned to Cairo, and from thence proceeded by way of the Desert into Syria. Here, like every other believer in the Hebrew Scriptures, he found himself in the midst of the most hallowed associations; and strengthened at once his piety and his enthusiasm by visiting the graves of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the many spots rendered venerable by the footsteps of Mohammed. As the believers in Islamism entertain a kind of religious respect for the founder of Christianity, whom they regard as a great prophet, Batūta did not fail to include Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, in the list of those places he had to see. Upon this town, however, as well as upon Jerusalem, Tyre, Sidon, and others of equal renown in Syria, he makes few observations which can assist us in forming an idea of the state of the country in those times; but in return for this meagerness, he relates a very extraordinary story of an alchymist, who had discovered the secret of making gold, and exercised his supernatural power in acts of beneficence.