ABSTRACT
The infidel sultan of Sandabúr, from whom we had captured the town, now advanced to recapture it. All the infidels fled to join him, and our troops who were quartered in the [outlying] villages, abandoned us. We were besieged by the infidels and reduced to great straits. When the situation became serious, I left the town during the siege and returned to Cálicút, where I decided to travel to Dhíbat al-Mahal [Maldive islands], about which I had heard a number of tales. Ten days after embarking at Cálicút we reached these islands, which are one of the wonders of the world and number about two thousand in all. 1 Each hundred or less of them form a circular cluster resembling a ring, this ring having one entrance like a gateway, and only through this entrance can ships reach the islands. When a vessel arrives at any one of them it must needs take one of the inhabitants to pilot it to the other islands. They are so close-set that on leaving one island the tops of the palms on another are visible. If a ship loses its course it is unable to enter and is carried by the wind to the Coromandel coast or Ceylon.
