world, that all the infidels have shown themselves willing to adopt it.
These deputies, setting out in company with the ambassadors from Bengal, reached the noble court of the emperor, and the Emirs laid before that monarch the letter and the presents by which it was accompanied. The messenger was a Mussulmaun, distinguished for his eloquence; in the course of his address he said to the prince, "If your majesty will be pleased to favour my master, by despatching an ambassador sent especially to him, and who, in literal pursuance of the precept expressed in that verse, 'By thy wisdom and by thy good counsels engage men to enter on the ways of thy Lord,' shall invite that prince to embrace the religion of Islamism, and draw from his beclouded heart the bolt of darkness and error, and cause the flame of the light of faith, and the brightness of the sun of knowledge to shine into the window of his heart, it will be, beyond all doubt, a perfectly righteous and meritorious deed." The emperor acceded to this request, and gave instructions to the Emirs that the ambassador should make his preparations for setting out on his journey. The choice fell upon the humble author of this work. Certain individuals, however, hazarded their denunciations against his success, imagining in their own minds that it was likely he would never return from so long a voyage. He arrived, nevertheless, in good health after three years of absence, and by that time his calumniators were no longer in the land of the living.
As soon as I landed at Calicut I saw beings such as my imagination had never depicted the like of.
Extraordinary beings, who are neither men nor devils,
At sight of whom the mind takes alarm;
If I were to see such in my dreams
My heart would be in a tremble for many years.
I have had love passages with a beauty, whose face was like the moon; but I could never fall in love with a negress.
