Which of the following pairs are correctly matched ? Traveller Country from 1. Marco Polo Italy 2. Ibn Battuta Morocco 3. Nikitin Russia 4. Seydi Ali Reis Turkey Select the correct answer using the code given below :
- (a)1, 2 and 3 only
- (b)2 and 3 only
- (c)1, 2, 3 and 4
- (d)1 and 4 only
Correct — C, 1, 2, 3 and 4. Every pair holds. Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant, and Venice is in Italy; he touched the Malabar and Coromandel coasts on the sea route home from China in the 1290s, and described the Pandya country in his Travels. Ibn Battuta was born at Tangier in Morocco in 1304, reached India in 1333 and served about six years as a qadi under Muhammad bin Tughlaq before being sent onward as an envoy to China; his account is the Rihla. Afanasy Nikitin was a Russian merchant of Tver who set out about 1468, spent roughly three years in India from 1471, and left the narrative called A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. Seydi Ali Reis was an Ottoman admiral of Constantinople, born 1498, who commanded the Ottoman fleet in the Indian Ocean, was driven onto the Gujarat coast by a storm around 1554 and returned overland, writing the Mirat-ul-Memalik or Mirror of Countries.
- (a)1, 2 and 3 only — This drops Seydi Ali Reis, and he is correctly paired. He was an Ottoman Turkish naval commander, so Turkey is right for him. He is the least familiar of the four names, which is precisely why this option is the most tempting wrong one.
- (b)2 and 3 only — This drops both Marco Polo and Seydi Ali Reis. Marco Polo's Venetian origin is not in doubt, and Venice was an Italian city-state, so the pairing with Italy stands.
- (d)1 and 4 only — This drops Ibn Battuta and Nikitin, both of whom are correctly matched — Ibn Battuta to Morocco, where he was born at Tangier, and Nikitin to Russia, where he was a merchant of Tver.
Foreign accounts are one of the standing sources for medieval Indian history, and each traveller is held with three things attached — where he came from, when he came, and what he wrote. Al-Biruni came with Mahmud of Ghazni in the eleventh century and wrote the Kitab-ul-Hind. Marco Polo passed along the coasts in the 1290s. Ibn Battuta arrived in 1333 and served Muhammad bin Tughlaq. Nikitin came in the 1470s, in the Bahmani period. Duarte Barbosa and later the Portuguese wrote of the west coast in the early sixteenth century, and Seydi Ali Reis of Gujarat in the 1550s. The Mughal century brought Hawkins, Thomas Roe, Bernier, Tavernier and Manucci.
An all-of-the-above key is uncomfortable to mark, so it is worth testing each pair rather than looking for the one that breaks. Three of the four are easy: Polo is Venice, Ibn Battuta is Tangier, Nikitin is Tver. The item lives or dies on the fourth name, and the tell is in the name itself — Reis is the Ottoman naval rank for a captain, which places him in Turkey. On the layout, the paper printed this as a two-column list under the headings 'Traveller' and 'Country from'; the wording of that second heading is the booklet's own and has been kept as printed. The list is set as text, not as a figure, so nothing in the item depends on an image.
- Marco Polo (1254-1324) was a Venetian merchant who described the Malabar and Coromandel coasts on his return voyage from China.
- Ibn Battuta was born at Tangier, Morocco, in 1304, reached India in 1333 and served as a qadi under Muhammad bin Tughlaq; his account is the Rihla.
- Afanasy Nikitin was a merchant of Tver in Russia; his narrative is A Journey Beyond the Three Seas, from his visit of about 1471-74.
- Seydi Ali Reis (1498-1563) was an Ottoman admiral of Constantinople who reached Gujarat about 1554 and wrote the Mirat-ul-Memalik.
- 'Reis' is the Ottoman naval title for a captain, which is the simplest handle on his nationality.
All four pairs hold; the highlighted row is the one candidates most often strike out by mistake.
- Striking out the unfamiliar name on principle when an all-four key is on offer.
- Placing Marco Polo in some other European country because Italy was not yet a unified state — the pairing is with the modern country.
- Confusing Nikitin with a Central Asian or Persian traveller; he was Russian and travelled in the Bahmani period.
NDA sets travellers as pairs to be matched against country, ruler or book, and sometimes as a chronological ordering.
Which one of the following foreign travellers elaborately discussed about diamonds and diamond mines of India ?
- (a) Francois Bernier
- (b) Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
- (c) Jean de Thevenot
- (d) Abbe Barthelemy Carre
Answer(b) Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Set two months after this NDA paper, on the same source-base of foreign travellers — this time the European group of the Mughal century.
Assertion (A): Muhammad bin Tughlaq issued a new gold coin which was called Dinar by Ibn Batutah. Reason (R): Muhammad bin Tughlaq wanted to issue token currency in gold coins to promote trade with West Asian and North African countries.
- (a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A
- (b) Both A and R are true but R is not a correct explanation of A
- (c) A is true but R is false
- (d) A is false but R is true
Answer(c) A is true but R is false
Ibn Battuta used as a source rather than as a name to be placed — a reminder that the examiner expects the traveller's testimony as well as his nationality.
Who among the following has described the medieval Indian postal system as of two kinds—the horse-post called ‘Uluq’ and the foot-post called ‘Dawa’?
- (a) Al-Biruni
- (b) Duarte Barbosa
- (c) Ibn Battuta
- (d) Seydi Ali Reis
Answer(c) Ibn Battuta
Two of this item's four travellers reappear as options there, Ibn Battuta as the answer and Seydi Ali Reis as a distractor — the same small pool, reshuffled.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The account 'A Journey Beyond the Three Seas' was written by
- (a)Marco Polo
- (b)Afanasy Nikitin
- (c)Duarte Barbosa
- (d)Seydi Ali Reis
Answer(b) Afanasy Nikitin — the Russian merchant of Tver who visited India in the 1470s.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Ibn Battuta served in India as a qadi under which ruler?
- (a)Alauddin Khalji
- (b)Firoz Shah Tughlaq
- (c)Muhammad bin Tughlaq
- (d)Sikandar Lodi
Answer(c) Muhammad bin Tughlaq — Ibn Battuta reached Delhi in 1333 and served him for about six years.