42 
IBN BATOTAH IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 
days prescribed for dyspeptics, the advantages of wMcli were 
appreciated in tlie fourteenth century. 
The Malabar coast was reached after a three-days' sail. 
Ibn Batutah speaks of it as celebrated for its pepper, large 
quantities of which were exported. 
From Sindabur to Kulam (f^/), a two-months' march 
along the coast, a fine road extended, well shaded by trees 
and supplied with rest-houses at distances of half a mile 
apart. The land was under cultivation the whole of the 
way, laid out chiefly in fruit gardens, and the traffic was 
great. Travellers, merchants and others proceeded on their 
way on foot or iu palankeens, their luggage and merchandise 
"being carried on men's shoulders, the sultan alone having 
the privilege of using horses. 
Though of such extent, the road was absolutely secure 
throughout, a theft being punishable by death. Ibn Batu- 
tah quotes, as an instance of the extreme rigor of the law, the 
case of a man, a Hindu, who, for steaKng a nut, was impaled 
and so left on the highway as a caution to evil-doers, whilst, 
as a wholesome reminder to the public generally, impaling 
posts were placed conveniently at intervals along the road. 
Muhammadans and Hindus kept entii-ely apart, holding no 
communication, and, not unnatui-ally perhaps, the f onner are 
represented as having occupied higher social distiuction than 
the latter. 
Malabar Cr^**) was governed b}"- no less than twelve 
sultans, and, on the Hne of demarcation separatiug their 
respective territories, gates were erected. A culprit flying 
from one state to another to escape the consequences of a 
crime coidd not be captm-ed once he had passed through one 
of these gates of refiige. This privilege was strictly respected 
and never iufringed even by the strong against the weaker 
states, 
Ibn Batutah mentions, as a cm-ious custom prevalent in 
Malabar, that the sultan was succeeded on the thi-one by the 
