and subdued the temper of their souls. The fakeer saluted him, and wept; and the traveller, returning his salute, wept also. Ibn Batūta then inquired whether he had ever been in India, and was informed that he had remained for some time in the imperial palace of Delhi. A sudden recollection now flashed upon our traveller's mind: "Are you, then, El Bashiri?" said he; and the fakeer replied, "I am he." Ibn Batūta now knew who he was, and remembered that while yet a youth without a beard he had travelled with his uncle, Abul Kasim, from Africa to Hindostan; and that he himself had afterward recommended him as an able repeater of the Koran to the emperor, though the fakeer, preferring liberty and a rambling life, had refused to accept of any office. He was now in possession, however, of both rank and riches, and bestowed many presents upon his former benefactor. To show the wandering disposition of the men, our traveller remarks that he shortly after met with the brother of this fakeer at Sondan, in the heart of Africa.
Still proceeding on his way, he next arrived at the city of El Khausa (no doubt the Kinsai of Marco Polo), which he pronounces the longest he had ever seen on the face of the earth; and to give some idea of its prodigious extent, observes, that a traveller might journey on through it for three days, and still find lodgings. As the Chinese erect their houses in the midst of gardens, like the natives of Malabar, and enclose within the walls what may be termed parks and meadows, the population of their cities is never commensurate with their extent; so that their largest capitals may be regarded as inferior in population to several cities of Europe. However, the flames of civil war, which then raged with inextinguishable fury through the whole empire, prevented our traveller from visiting Khan Balik, the Cambalu of Marco Polo and the older geographers, and the Peking of the Chinese; and therefore he returned
