Ibn Battuta's travelogue, or Travels in Asia and Africa (also available as a *.PDF), is extremely interesting but also a bit on the lengthy side. For this assignment, I do not want you to read all of Ibn Battuta's Account. What I want you to do is skim the first part of the travelogue and then read the section that begins at the heading, "Ibn Battuta arrives at the city of Mali, capital of the kingdom of Mali p. 323-335." (Scroll way down to almost the end of the document.)
You might also want to check out this website, The Travels of Ibn Battuta.