1882.] 



IBN BATUTA IN THE MALDIVES AND CEYLON. 



9 



sits with his friends. This room has two doors, one opening on 

 the vestibule by which strangers are introduced, the other on the 

 side of the house by which the owner enters. Near the room 

 in question is a jar full of water [? and] a bowl called ouelendj* 

 made of the coconut shell. It has a handle of [only] two cubits, 

 wherewith to draw the water from the wells, by reason of their 

 little depth. 



All the inhabitants of the Maldives, be they nobles or the 

 common folk, keep their feet bare. The streets are swept and 

 well kept : they are shaded by trees, and the passenger walks as 

 it were in an orchard. Albeit every person who enters a house 

 is obliged to wash his feet with water from the jar placed near 

 the mdlem, and rub them with a coarse fabric of Uf] (stipulw 

 which envelope the base of the stalks of the date-palm leaves} 

 placed there : after which he enters the house. Every person 

 entering a mosque does the same. It is a custom of the natives 

 when a vessel arrives for the canddir (in the singular cundurah ) % 

 i.e., the little boats to go out to meet it, manned by the people 

 of the island and bearing some betel and caranbah § that is to say, 

 green coconuts. Each presents some of these to whom he will 

 of those on board the ship, and then becomes his host carrying 

 to his own house the goods belonging to him, as if he were one 

 of his near relations. Any one of the new-comers who wishes to 

 marry, is at liberty to do so, When the time comes for hig 

 departure, he repudiates his wife, for the people of the Maldives 

 do not leave their country. As for a man who does not marry, 



* Ouelendj :— These cocoanut bowls with long handles (M. ddni, but cf : S a 

 valanda " chatty" ) are regularly used by the Islanders for drawing wates 

 The ordinary cocoanut ladle or spoon they call uduli, — B» 



f Li/:— Pers.— B. 



% Canddir, cundurah : — The old Portuguese ^historians speak of Maldive 

 il gundras," and the term is still commonly applied in Ceylon to these Islanders, 

 (e. g.,S. Gundara-hdrayo) and their boats (M. ddni, odi). — See too C. A. S. Jour, 

 No. 24, p. 135, 1881.— 



§ Camnhah ; = S. Mrumla [M. Imruba.— B.} 



