[…] from Arabian Nights, also called one thousand and one nights.
When I had finished, I loaded it with some chests of rubies, emeralds, ambergris, rock crystal and bales of rich stuffs.
“You will treat me,” replied I, “with more civility, when you know me better. Some of them cooked and some of them walked the island. The living husband is interred with the dead wife, and the living wife with the dead husband.”While he was giving an account of this barbarous custom, the very relation of which chilled my blood, his kindred, friends, and neighbors came to assist at the funeral.
His majesty mounted immediately, and was so pleased with them that he testified his satisfaction by large presents.I made several others for the ministers and principal officers of his household, which gained me great reputation and regard.As I paid my court very constantly to the king, he said to me one day, “Sindbad, I love thee, I have one thing to demand of thee, which thou must grant. He threw off his turban, pulled his beard, and beat his head like a madman. After he had again finished his inhuman supper on another of our seamen, he lay down on his back, and fell asleep. At last I resigned myself to the will of God. The officer who is before him on the same elephant cries from time to time, with a loud voice, ‘Behold the great monarch, the potent and redoubtable Sultan of the Indies, the monarch greater than Solomon, and the powerful Maharaja.’“After he has pronounced those words, the officer behind the throne cries in his turn, ‘This monarch, so great and so powerful, must die, must die, must die!’ And the officer before replies, ‘Praise alone be to Him who liveth for ever and ever. And that was the story of the first Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor. But in the night, a giant serpent appeared and ate one my companions.
After such a discovery, I can treat you no more as a slave, but as a brother. In short, the bird alighted, and sat over the egg. He contented himself with one, and that, too, the least of them; and when I pressed him to take more, without fear of doing me any injury, “No,” said he, “I am very well satisfied with this, which is valuable enough to save me the trouble of making any more voyages, and will raise as great a fortune as I desire.”I spent the night with the merchants, to whom I related my story a second time, for the satisfaction of those who had not heard it.
And so saying, Sinbad the Sailor gave Sinbad the Porter 100 gold coins for his time, and the porter left for his humble home, pondering his great good fortune. I was saved. The ceremony being over, the mouth of the pit was again covered with the stone, and the company returned.I mention this ceremony the more particularly, because I was in a few weeks’ time to be the principal actor on a similar occasion.
I secured the entrance, which was low and narrow, with a great stone, to preserve me from the serpents, but not so far as to exclude the light.
I cannot express the joy it affords me. At night the monster returned and ate another one us. I had always regarded as fabulous what I had heard sailors and others relate of the valley of diamonds, and of the stratagems employed by merchants to obtain jewels from thence; but now I found that they had stated nothing but the truth. 3. They spoke to me, but I did not understand their language.I was so transported with joy that I knew not whether I was asleep or awake; but being persuaded that I was not asleep, I recited the following words in Arabic aloud:“Call upon the Almighty, He will help thee; thou needst not perplex thyself about anything else: shut thy eyes, and while thou art asleep God will change thy bad fortune into good.”One of the negroes, who understood Arabic, hearing me speak thus, came toward me, and said: “Brother, be not surprised to see us; we are inhabitants of this country, and water our fields from this river, which comes out of the neighboring mountain. I lived for some time there upon my bread and water, when one day, just as it was on the point of exhaustion, I heard something tread, and breathing or panting as it moved.
So we decided to take a nap first. I embarked in a vessel that happily arrived at Bussorah; from thence I returned to Bagdad, where I realized vast sums from my pepper, wood of aloes, and pearls. France mein sindabaad naam ka ek raaja rahata tha. I took a large one, and, after cleaning it, pressed into it some juice of grapes, which abounded in the island; having filled the calabash, I put it by in a convenient place, and going thither again some days after, I tasted it, and found the wine so good that it gave me new vigor, and so exhilarated my spirits that I began to sing and dance as I carried my burden.The old man, perceiving the effect which this had upon me, and that I carried him with more ease than before, made me a sign to give him some of it.
The juice of which the camphire is made exudes from a hole bored in the upper part of the tree, is received in a vessel, where it thickens to a consistency, and becomes what we call camphire. I appealed in vain.
He went to some of the servants, whom he saw standing at the gate in magnificent apparel, and asked the name of the proprietor.
I henceforth give you your liberty; I will also give you riches.”To this I replied: “Master, God preserve you. They are seen three days’ sail off at sea.