, and I found that its ruin was
complete, so that one could neither enter, nor even reach the gate.'

Commencing with Alexandria, Ibn Batuta is careful, in every city which
he visits, to give an account of the distinguished _shekhs_ or _imams_,
with characteristic anecdotes of their saintly or miraculous lives. The
value and interest of these sketches reconcile us to the brevity of his
descriptions. He tells us, for example, that the _kadi_ (judge) of
Alexandria, who was likewise a master of the art of eloquence, 'covered
his head with a turban which surpassed in volume all the turbans then to
be seen. I have never beheld, neither in the East nor the West, one so
voluminous. He was one day seated in a mosque, before the pulpit, and
his turban filled almost the entire space.' At the town of Fooah, in the
Delta, on his way to Cairo, occurred his first marvelous adventure.
'During the night,' says he, 'while I slept on the roof of the dwelling
of the shekh Abou Abdallah, I saw myself, in a dream, carried on the
wing of a great bird, which flew in the direction of Mecca, then in that
of Yemen; then it transported me to the East, after which it passed
towards the South; then it flew again far to the East, alighted upon a
dark and misty country, and there abandoned me. I was amazed at this
vision, and said to myself, "If the shekh can interpret my dream, he is
truly as holy as he is said to be." When I presented myself, in the
morning, to take part in the early prayer, he charged me to take the
lead, in the quality of _imam_. Afterwards he called me to him, and
explained my dream; in fact, when I had related it to him, he said:
"Thou wilt make the pilgrimage to Mecca, thou wilt visit the tomb of the
Prophet, thou wilt traverse Yemen, Irak, the country of the Turks, and
India; thou wilt remain a long time in the latter country, where thou
wilt see my brother Dilehad, who will extricate thee from an affliction
into which thou shalt fall." Having spoken, he provided me with money,
and small biscuits for the journey. I said my farewells and departed.
Since I left him, I have experienced nothing but good treatment in the
course of my travels, and his benedictions always came to my aid.'

Passing over the traveler's visit to Damietta and the other towns of the
Delta, let us hear his enthusiastic description of Cairo, at the time of
its greatest prosperity: 'Finally, I reached the city of Cairo, the
metropolis of the country and the