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The city of Vijayanagar is, as already stated, generally supposed to have been founded in the year 1336, and that that date is not far from the truth may be gathered from two facts. Firstly, there is extant an inscription of the earliest real king, Harihara I. or Hariyappa, the "Haraib" of Ibn Batuta, dated in A.D. 1340.
Such, consequently have been the prevalent notions in all ages, even amongst the most intelligent foreigners, as well as the higher class of natives, from Herodotus, Etearchus, and Juba, to Ibn, Batuta, and Bello of Soccatoo. Vice President of the Geographical Society, that Leo Africanus actually reached Timbuctoo.
Her master-hand has ever since been employed in smoothing them. Aden's reputation for barrenness is an old one "Aden," says Ben Batuta of Tangiers, "is situate upon the sea-shore; a large city without either seed, water, or tree."
It is just below the great cave I have mentioned, and, as a remarkable natural phenomenon, it must have been looked upon with awe in ancient days, and it was a seat of worship, as the ruined walls and gateway prove; furthermore, it is just half a day's journey east of the city of Mansura or Zufar, where, Ibn Batuta somewhat contemptuously says, 'is Al Akhaf, the abode of the Addites, and there is no other point on the plain of Dhofar where the oracle could satisfactorily be located from existing evidence.
Owing mainly to the fact that the Tatar princes had adopted Islamism instead of Christianity, after the failure of Gregory X. to send Christian teachers to China, Ibn Batuta was ultimately enabled to greet all three brothers of Borhan Eddin.
Ibn Batuta goes on to say that the Raya sent his guest safely away to a neighbouring chief, probably the Hoysala Ballala, king of Dvarasamudra in Maisur, then residing at Tanur. He caused a huge fire to be lit on which his wives and the wives of his nobles, ministers, and principal men immolated themselves, and this done he sallied forth with his followers to meet the invaders, and was slain.
We may suppose that since the eleven sons became followers of Islam they were for ever blotted out of account to the orthodox Hindu. After the capture of the fortress the Sultan, according to Ibn Batuta, pursued Baha-ud-din southwards and arrived near the city of the prince with whom he had taken refuge.
He also substitutes Oxus for Gozan. The name of the city according to our text is Ghaznah, which eight hundred years ago was the capital of Afghanistan. Ibn Batuta says it was ten stages from Kandahar on the way to Herat. Istakhri says: "No city of this countryside was richer in merchants and merchandise, for it was as the port of India."
They had even advanced if the lists of countries and nations discovered at Karnak by M. Mariette may be believed as far as the great Lakes of the interior. In the twelfth century, the Arab geographer Edrisi writes an excellent description of Africa for Roger II. of Sicily, and confirms these data. Later on, Cadamosto and Ibn Batuta travel over Africa, and the latter goes as far as Timbuctoo.
The Arabian writers of the twelfth century, give the most gorgeous, and we fear overrated, accounts of the flourishing state of these kingdoms. In the fourteenth century, Ibn Batuta, an abridged account of whose travels has been recently translated by Professor Lee of Cambridge, made a journey into Central Africa.
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