I Find That This Book
Was Composed In The Year Of The Hegira 237, And That The Accounts Given By
The Author Are Conformable With What I Have Heard From Merchants Who Have
Sailed From Irak Or Persia, Through These Seas.
I find also all that the
author has written to be agreeable to truth, except some few passages, in
which he has been misinformed.
Speaking of the custom, of the Chinese in
setting meat before their dead, and believing that the dead had eaten, we
had been told the same thing, and once believed it; but have since learnt,
from a person of undoubted credit, that this notion is entirely groundless,
as well as that the idolaters believe their idols speak to them. From that
creditable person we have likewise been informed, that the affairs of China
wear quite a different aspect since those days: and since much has been
related to explain why our voyages to China have been interrupted, and how
the country has been ruined, many customs abolished, and the empire
divided, I shall here declare what I know of that revolution.
The great troubles which have embroiled the affairs of this empire, putting
a stop to the justice and righteousness there formerly practised, and
interrupting the ordinary navigation from Siraff to China, was occasioned
by the revolt of an officer named Baichu, in high employment, though not of
the royal family. He began by gathering together a number of vagabonds, and
disorderly people, whom he won to his party by his liberalities, and formed
into a considerable body of troops.
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