64 
IBN BATUTAH IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 
sultan wislied to return to him ; this he declined to accept, 
adding naively that he afterwards much regretted having done 
so, as the sultan died shortly after, and thus he ohtained no 
sort of return. Grhiyas-ad-din remained ahout a fortnight at 
Fattan, expressing a wish that preparations for the expedi- 
tion to the Maldives should he pushed forward. He then 
proceeded to Mutrah, which Jelal-ad-din had formerly made 
his capital and much embellished. He was shortly after 
followed by Ibn Batutah and found a terrible infectious 
malady raging that killed its victims in three or four days 
from the time they were first attacked by it. So that, he 
writes, all around him he saw only the dead and dying. 
When Grhiyas-ad-din entered Mutrah he found his mother, 
wife, and son had been seized by the illness. At the end 
of three days he moved out of the town to the river bank 
and encamped there, tents being also pitched close at hand 
for Ibn Batutah. On that same day the sultanas only son 
died, his mother on the following Thursday, and within a 
week of her burial Grhiyas-ad-din himself was dead. 
Fearing a tumult, Ibn Batutah hurriedly re-entered the 
town. Nasir-ad-din^ who had been sent for to the camp, tried 
to persuade him to return thither in his company. This he 
refused to do, greatly to the mortification of that prince. 
Nasir-ad-din had at one time been a domestic servant at 
Delhi before his uncle obtained the crown. When Grhiyas- 
ad-din became king, his nephew fled to him disguised as a 
fakir and was destined to succeed him on the throne. He 
received the oaths of loyalty of the nobles, poets recited his 
praises and obtained magnificent presents, which were lavished 
with a princely hand to all retainers according to theii' rank, 
Ibn Batutah receiving 300 gold pieces * and a robe of honoiu-. 
For forty days the funeral obsequies of Grhiyas-ad-din were 
* Unfortunately no gold coin of either Ghiyas Addin or his nephew have 
yet heen found. 
