IBN BATUTAH IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 
55 
celebrated with great pomp, and largesses were freely distri- 
buted among the poor. 
One of Nasir-ad-din's first acts was to kill the son of his 
paternal aunt, who was the husband of Ghiyas-ad-din's 
daughter. He himself then married this princess. He also 
condemned to death a few other political offenders. The 
ships that had been fitted out for an expedition to the 
Maldives were to be made over at once to Ibn Batutah, but 
he was seized by the malignant fever of the country and 
believed himself to be dying; however, he recovered, and 
ascribes his restoration to health to the remedy he used, 
which was a decoction of tamarinds. In three days he had 
shaken off the fever, but having taken an aversion to 
Mutrah, he asked and obtained permission from the sidtan 
to return to Fattan. A restless desire for travel seems to 
have then seized him, and after a second short visit to the 
Maldives, he set sail for Bengal, thence to Java and Sumatra, 
and so at length to China, meeting with many vicissitudes 
both by sea and land, but ever ready to receive the gifts of 
fate, good or bad, as they chanced to come, with impertur- 
bable serenity. 
NOTE.' 
Coins of most of the rulers mentioned by Ibn Batutah 
occur, those of Ahsan Shah and 'Ala-ad-dm Adtiji being 
fairly common still in Madura and Malabar, while others, 
notably the billon issues of Ghiyas-ad-din Aldamghani (of 
which only two specimens have yet been found), of Nasir-ad- 
din, his son-in-law, and the copper ones of Kutb-ad-din, are 
very rare. Issues of Muhammad bin Taghlak, struck prior 
to the revolt of Ahsan Shah, are still frequently found, and 
differ somewhat from those figured by Thomas or recorded 
in the Catalogue of the British Museum. Ahsan Shah, on 
5 I am indebted to Mr. L. White King, B.C.S., and Captain R. H. C. 
Tufnell, M.S.C., for this preliminary note on the Coins of the Muhammadan 
Viceroys in Southern India. 
