Ibn Batuta

Ibn Batuta, Arab traveller and geographer, whose proper name was Abu Abdullah Mohammed, was born at Tangiers in 1304, and spent thirty years (1325-54) of his life in travel. Settling at Fez, in Morocco, in 1354, he wrote the history of his journeys, and died there in 1378. The course of his travels led him first to Mecca, then to Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, the east coast of Africa, Asia Minor, the Caspian regions, Khwarizm, Bokhara, Afghanistan, and India; thence he proceeded to China by way of Sumatra, and finally came home to Fez in 1349. But his journeys were not yet done. He visited southern Spain, and then travelled as far as Timbuktu on the Niger. His narrative is extremely interesting, humour and anecdote alternating with graphic description, and through it all runs the golden thread of the writer's naive personality. It was published with a French translation, in 4 vols., by Defrémery and Sanguineti in 1858-59 (3d ed. 1893). See National Review, July 1888, and Scot. Geog. Mag., September 1888.