Ibn Battuta — "I saw a man who had two heads, and another who had three legs, and another who h…"
I saw a man who had two heads, and another who had three legs, and another who had a hand like an elephant's trunk.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"I saw a bird that was as large as a camel, and it had a long neck."
"The people of this city have a strange custom of burying their dead in trees. It is a very unusual sight."
"I was once invited to a feast where they served a dish made of camel hump. It was surprisingly delicious, though I had my reservations at first."
"I saw a bird in this land that was as big as an ostrich, but it had a long neck like a giraffe. It was a most peculiar creature."
"The people of this city are all black, and their teeth are white, and their women are very beautiful."
About Ibn Battuta (1304-1369)
Moroccan Muslim scholar and explorer whose Rihla (travels) covered ~75,000 miles across the Islamic world from Mali to China — the most-traveled person of the medieval world. Closely associated with Marco Polo (his Venetian counterpart, traveling 50 years earlier in the opposite direction). For an intellectual contrast, see medieval European Christian insularity, the sheltered monastic-feudal worldview of 14th-century Latin Christendom — Ibn Battuta's 30-year journey demonstrates that the 14th-century Dar al-Islam was a single intellectual ecosystem from West Africa to Beijing, while medieval Europe was still tribal and parochial. The cleanest 'connectedness vs insularity' contrast in pre-modern history — Battuta could find a familiar Maliki judge in any city from Mali to Sumatra.