The Departure — İbn Battûta

I left Tangier, my birthplace, with the intention of making the Pilgrimage and of visiting the sacred sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina. I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveller to cheer the way, nor caravan to join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me, and a desire long-cherished to visit these illustrious shrines. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet alive, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow. I was at this time twenty-two years of age.