1882.] tm BATUTA IN THE MALDIVES AND CEYLON. 51 



'the Father's path 5 and the other by that of ' the Mother's path. 

 By these terms are Adam and Eve designated. The Mother's 

 route is an easy one, and by it the pilgrims return; but any one 

 who took it for the ascent would be regarded as not having done 

 the pilgrimage. The Father's path is rough and difficult of 

 ascent. At the foot of the mountain, at the place of the gate- 

 way, is a grotto also bearing the name of Iskandar, and a spring 

 of water. 



of the fig-tree. Before he went to the Maldives, Ibn Batiita was at Deh Fattan 

 (? Devipatam), a town on the Malabar Coast, where he records the existence of 

 an extraordinary tree near the mosque. " I saw that the mosque was situated, 

 near a verdant and beautiful tree ; whose leaves resembled those, of the fig, 

 except that they were glossy. It was surrounded by a wall and had near it a 

 niche or oratory, where I made a prayer of two genuflexions. The name of this 

 tree with the Datives of the country was derahht (dirakht) accliehadah 1 the 

 tree of the testimony. 1 I was informed at this place that every year, on the 

 arrival of autumn, there fell from this tree a solitary leaf, whose colour passed 

 first to yellow and then to red. On this leaf were written, with the pen of the 

 Divine power, the words following ' There is no God but God, and Mohammed 

 is the apostle of God.' The juris -consult Hougain and many other trustworthy 

 men told me that they had seen this leaf, and had read the inscription upon it. 

 Hougain added that, when the time arrived for it to fall, trusted men from 

 among the Musalmans and the idolaters sat down under the tree. When the 

 leaf fell the Musalmans took one half of it, while the other was deposited in 

 the treasury of the idolater Sultan. The inhabitants preserve it for the pur- 

 pose of curing the sick. This tree caused the conversion of the grandfather of 

 Coue'il [the Sultan at the time of his visit] to the faith, and he it was who 

 built the mosque and the tank [from its description similar to the Sinhalese 

 pokuna]. ' This prince could read the Arabic characters : and when he 

 deciphered the inscription and understood what it contained, he embraced the 

 true faith and professed it entirely. His story is preserved in tradition among 

 the Hindus. The juris-consult Hougain told me that one of the children of this 

 King returned to idolatry after the death of his father, governed with injustice, 

 and ordered the tree to be torn up from the roots. The order was executed, 

 and no vestige of the tree was left. Nevertheless it began to shoot again, 

 and became as fair a tree as it had been before. As for the idolater, he came 

 to die full soon thereafter." (Tome IV., pp. 85-87.) I have quoted this passage 



