Ibn Battuta makes a stop at Sumatra on the way to China.

Title: Ibn Battuta makes a stop at Sumatra on the way to China.
Description: “Twenty-five days after leaving these people we reached the island of Jawa [Sumatra], from which the incense called jawi takes its name. We saw the island when we were still half a day’s journey from it. It is verdant and fertile; the commonest trees there are the coco-palm, areca, clove, Indian aloe, jack-tree, mango, juman, sweet orange, and camphor cane. The commerce of its inhabitants is carried on with pieces of tin and native Chinese gold, unsmelted…When we reached the harbour its people came out to us in small boats with coconuts, bananas, mangoes, and fish. Their custom is to present these to the merchants, who recompense them, each according to his means. The admiral’s representative also came on board, and after interviewing the merchants who were with us gave us permission to land...I and my companions mounted, and we rode into the sultan’s capital, the town of Sumatra, a large and beautiful city encompassed by a wooden wall with wooden towers.

The sultan of Jawa, al-Malik az-Zahir, is a most illustrious and open-handed ruler, and a lover of theologians.”
Subject: Travel
Source: Gibb 273-274.
Bibliographic Citation: Ibn Batuta, Gibb, H. A. R. S., Sanguinetti, B. R., & Defremery, C. (1958). Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325-1354. Cambridge: Published for the Hakluyt Society at the University Press.
Date: 1345