for the many misfortunes he had lately endured, Jemaleddin presented him with a slave girl, clothing, and other necessaries; and he remained with him several months. Still, however, he was not reconciled to the loss of his pretty female slave and other property which had been embarked in the Chinese ship, and requested the king's permission to make a voyage to Kawlam for the purpose of making inquiries concerning it. His request being granted, he proceeded to Kawlam, where, to his great grief, he learned that his former mistress had died, and that his property had been seized upon by the "infidels," while his followers had found other masters.
This affair being thus at an end, he returned to Sindabur, where he found his friend Jamaleddin besieged by an infidel king. Not being able to enter the city, he embarked, without delay, for the Maldive Islands, all parts of the earth being now much alike to him, and after a ten days' voyage arrived at that extraordinary archipelago. Here, after dwelling upon the praises of the cocoanut, which he describes as an extremely powerful aphrodisiac, he informs us, as a commentary upon the above text, that he had four wives, besides a reasonable number of mistresses. Nevertheless, the natives, he says, are chaste and religious, and so very peacefully disposed that their only weapons are prayers. In one of these islands he was raised to the office of judge, when, according to his own testimony, he endeavoured to prevail upon his wives, contrary to the custom of the country, to eat in his company, and conceal their bosom with their garments, but could never succeed.
The legend which ascribes the conversion of these islanders to Mohammedanism, the religion now prevailing there, to a man who delivered the country from a sea-monster, which was accustomed to devour monthly one of their most beautiful virgins, strongly resembles the story of Perseus and An-
