- neying eastward from this place, Batūta proceeded
through a desert lying between two ridges of mountains, inhabited by Hindoos, whom the traveller terms infidel and rebellious, because they adhered to the faith of their ancestors, and refused submission to the power of the Mohammedan conquerors of their country. Ibn Batūta's party, consisting of twenty-two men, was here attacked by a large body of natives, which they succeeded in repulsing, after they had killed thirteen of their number. In the course of this journey he witnessed the performance of a suttee, and remarks upon the occasion, that these human sacrifices were not absolutely required either by the laws or the religion of Hindostan; but that, owing to the vulgar prejudice which regarded those families as ennobled who thus lost one of their members, the practice was greatly encouraged.
On arriving at Delhi, which, for strength, beauty, and extent, he pronounces the greatest city, not only of all Hindostan, but of all Islamism in the east, he resorted to the palace of the queen-mother and presenting his presents, according to custom, was graciously received and magnificently established by the bounty of that princess and the vizier. It is to be presumed, that the money he had received in presents from various princes on the way had exceeded his travelling expenses, and gone on accumulating, until, on his arrival at Delhi, it amounted to a very considerable sum; for with his house, costly furniture, and forty attendants, his expenditure seems greatly to have exceeded the munificence of his patrons; indeed, he very soon found that all the resources he could command were too scanty to supply the current of his extravagance.
Being of the opinion of that ancient writer who thought a good companion better than a coach on a journey, Ibn Batūta appears to have increased his travelling establishment with a mistress, by whom he seems to have had several children, for shortly
