Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/95

 *sure, rejoined, that he had appointed two learned men to be his deputies, and that these would advise him how to act. He moreover added, that it would be his business to sign all legal instruments.

Notwithstanding the profuse generosity of Mohammed Khan, Ibn Batūta, who seems to have understood nothing of domestic economy, soon found himself prodigiously in debt; but his genius, fertile in expedients, and now sharpened by necessity, soon hit upon an easy way of satisfying his creditors. Observing that, like most of his countrymen, Mohammed Khan was an admirer of Arabian poetry, more particularly of such as celebrated his own praises, our theological judge, whose conscience seems to have been hushed to silence by his embarrassments, composed in Arabic a panegyric upon his patron, who, to borrow his own expression, "was wonderfully pleased with it." Taking advantage, like a thoroughbred courtier, of this fit of good-humour, he disclosed the secret of his debt, which the emperor, who now, no doubt, perceived the real drift of the panegyric, ordered to be discharged from his own treasury; but added, however, "Take care, in future, not to exceed the extent of your income." Upon this the traveller, whether pleased with his generosity or his advice we will not determine, exclaims, "May God reward him!"

No great length of time had elapsed, however, before Ibn Batūta perceived that his grandeur had conducted him to the edge of a precipice. Having, during a short absence of the emperor, visited a certain holy man who resided in a cell without the city, and had once been in great favour with Mohammed himself, our traveller received an order to attend at the gate of the palace, while a council sat within. In most cases this was the signal of death. But in order to mollify the Fates, Ibn Batūta betook himself to fasting, subsisting, during the four days in which he thus attended, upon pure water, and