ire confidence in the fidelity of the
narrative.

This interesting work was known to European scholars, until quite
recently, in a fragmentary condition, frequently disfigured by errors of
transcription. Since the French occupation of Algiers, however, two or
three perfect copies have been discovered, one of which, now in the
Imperial Library at Paris, bears the autograph of Ibn Djozay. The
publications of the _Societe Asiatique_ furnish us with the narrative,
carefully collated, and differing but slightly, in all probability, from
the original text. Let us now run over it, freely translating for the
reader as we go. The introduction, which is evidently from the elegant
hand of the amanuensis, is so characteristic that we must extract a few
Title and all, it opens as follows:

A PRESENT MADE TO OBSERVERS,
TREATING OF THE
CURIOSITIES OFFERED BY THE CITIES AND
OTHER WONDERS ENCOUNTERED IN
TRAVEL.

'In the name of God, the Clement, the Merciful: Behold what says the
Shekh, the judge, the learned man, the truthful, the noble, the devout,
the very benevolent, the guest of God; who has acquitted himself of the
visit to the holy places, to the honor of religion; who, in the course
of his travels, has placed his confidence in the Lord of all
creatures--Abou Abdallah Mohammed, son of Abdallah, son of Ibrahim
Allewatee Alhandjee, known under the name of Ibn Batuta: may God be
merciful to him, and be content with him, in his great bounty and
generosity! Amen.

'Praise be to God, who has subjected the earth to those who serve him,
in order that they may march by spacious roads--who has placed them on
the earth, and there located the three vicissitudes of their destiny:
the creation, the return to the earth, and the resurrection from its
bowels. He has extended it by his power, and it has become a bed for his
servants. He has fixed it by means of inaccessible mountains, of
considerable elevation, and has raised over it the summit of heaven,
unsupported by a pillar. He has made the stars to appear as a guide in
the midst of the darkness of the land and the sea; he has made a lamp of
the moon, and a torch of the sun. From heaven he has caused waters to
descend, which vivified the ground when it was dried up. He has made all
varieties of fruits to grow, and has created diversified regions, giving
them all sorts of plants. He has caused the two seas to flow--one of
sweet and refreshing waters, the other salt and bitter.