Known, some prince or person of
distinction had desired Abu Zeid to examine the former relation, and to
inform him how far the facts of the original work were confirmed by
succeeding accounts. The date of the commentary is not certainly
ascertainable; yet it appears, that Eben Wahab travelled into China A.H.
285. A.D. 898, and that Abu Zeid had conversed with this man after his
return, and had received from him the facts which are inserted in his
discourse, which therefore is probably only sixty or seventy years
posterior to the actual treatise of the nameless traveller.
[1] Translation from Renaudot, 8vo. Lond. 1733. See likewise Harris, I.
522.
SECTION I.
Original Account of India and China, by a Mahomedan Traveller of the Ninth
Century.
The third of the seas we have to mention is that of Herkend[1]. Between
this sea and that of Delarowi there are many islands, said to be in number
1900, which divide those two seas from each other[2], and are governed by a
queen[3]. Among these islands they find ambergris in lumps of extraordinary
bigness, and also in smaller pieces, which resemble plants torn up. This
amber is produced at the bottom of the sea, in the same manner as plants
are produced upon the earth; and when the sea is tempestuous, it is torn up
from the bottom by the violence of the waves, and washed to the shore in
the form of a mushroom or truffle.
