Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/88

 unproductiveness, our traveller found cities, but thinly scattered; and vast droves of cattle, which, protected by the excessive severity of the laws, wandered without herdsmen or keepers over the waste. The women of the country, though they wore no veils, were virtuous, pious, and charitable; and consequently were held in high estimation.

Arriving at the Bish Tag, or "Five Mountains," he there found the urdu (whence our word horde) or camp of the sultan, a moving city, with its streets, palaces, mosques, and cooking houses, "the smoke of which ascended as they moved along." Mohammed Uzbek, then sovereign of Kifjāk, was a brave and munificent prince; and Ibn Batūta, having, according to Tartar etiquette, first paid a visit of ceremony to each of his wives, was politely received by him.

From this camp our traveller set out, with guides appointed by the sultan, for the city of Bulgār, which, according to the Maresid Al Etluā, is situated in Siberia. Here, in exemplification of the extreme shortness of the night, he observes, that while repeating the prayer of sunset he was overtaken, though he by no means lagged in his devotions, by the time for evening prayer, which was no sooner over than it was time to begin that of midnight; and that before he could conclude one voluntary orison, which he added to this, the dawn had already appeared, and morning prayer was to be begun. Forty days' journey to the north of this place lay the land of darkness, where, he was told, people travelled over interminable plains of ice and snow, on small light sledges, drawn by dogs; but he was deterred from pushing his researches into these Cimmerian regions by the fear of danger, and considerations of the inutility of the journey. He returned, therefore, to the camp of the sultan.

Mohammed Uzbek had married a daughter of the Greek Emperor of Constantinople, who, being at