Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/83

 devoutly the tomb of the Sheikh Abu Is-hāk, a saint held in high estimation throughout India and China, especially by sailors, who, when tossed about by adverse or tempestuous winds upon the ocean, make great vows to him, which, when safely landed, they pay to the servants of his cell. From hence he proceeded through various districts, many of which were desert and uninhabitable, to Kufa and Hilla, whence, having visited the mosque of the twelfth imam, whose readvent is still expected by his followers, he departed for Bagdad. Here, as at Rome or Athens, the graves of great men abounded; so that Ibn Batūta's sympathies were every moment awakened, and apparently too painfully; for, notwithstanding that it was one of the largest and most celebrated cities in the world, he almost immediately quitted it with Bahadar Khan, sultan of Irak, whom he accompanied for ten days on his march towards Khorasan. Upon his signifying his desire to return, the prince dismissed him with large presents and a dress of honour, together with the means of performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, which, as an incipient saint, he imagined he could not too frequently repeat.

Finding, on his return to Bagdad, that a considerable time would elapse before the departure of the caravan for the Holy City, he resolved to employ the interval in traversing various portions of Mesopotamia, and in visiting numerous cities which he had not hitherto seen. Among these places the most remarkable were Samarā, celebrated in the history of the Calif Vathek; Mousul, which is said to occupy the site of ancient Nineveh; and Nisibēn, renowned throughout the east for the beauty of its position, and the incomparable scent of the rose-water manufactured there. He likewise spent some time at the city and mountain of Sinjar, inhabited by that extraordinary Kurdish tribe who, according to the testimony of several modern travellers, pay divine honours to the Devil.