Proceeding thence to Mali, or Melli, and remaining there a short time, being honourably received and presented with valuable gifts by the king, he next departed for Timbuctoo, which at that time appears to have been quite an inferior place, dependent on Mali. Returning thence by the way of Sigilmāsa to Fez, in the year 1353, he there concluded his wanderings, and in all probability employed the remainder of his life in the composition of those travels of which we merely possess a meager abridgment, the most complete copy of which was brought to England by Mr. Burckhardt. The translation of this abridgment by Professor Lee, useful as it is, must be rendered greatly more valuable by extending the English, and rejecting the Arabic notes; and by the addition of an index, which would facilitate the study of the work. How long Ibn Batūtata] survived his return to his native country, and whether the travels were his own work, are facts of which nothing is known.
LEO AFRICANUS.
Born about 1486.—Died about 1540.
The original name of this distinguished traveller
was Al Hassan Ben Mohammed Al Vazan, surnamed
Fezzani, on account of his having studied and passed
the greater part of his youth at Fez. He was, however,
a native of the city of Granada in Spain,
where he appears to have been born about the year
1486 or 1487. When this city, the last stronghold
of Islamism in the Peninsula, was besieged by the
Christians in 1491, the parents of Leo, who were a
branch of the noble family of Zaid, passed over into
Africa, taking their son, then a child, along with
