The great Moroccan world traveller and explorer Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Abdullah al-Lawati al-Tanji Ibn Battuta - Ibn Battuta for short - visited China in the middle of the fourteenth century. He travelled all over the ancient world, covering some 120,000 kilometres in 29 years. Ibn Battuta arrived at Guangzhou (Canton) in China in 1345 (Ibn Battuta, 1982). He was particularly interested in local crafts, boat construction and porcelain making, and visited a number of places and towns. He travelled north to Hangzhou, which he described as the largest city he had ever seen. He could not reach Beijing and returned to Guangzhou in 1346 to sail to Sumatra.  
It is also claimed that Admiral Zheng He's Treasure Fleet took some foreign dignitaries back to China to pay homage to the Ming emperors. It is not clear if  
some Africans from the Swahili city-states of Mogadishu, Malindi or Mombasa were involved in these visits. In summary, from as early as the eighth century, Africans were present in Chinese imperial courts and in some wealthy families in southern China.