The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Anonymous (best novels to read in english .TXT) 📗

it some juice of grapes, which abounded in the island; having filled the calabash, I set it in a convenient place, and, coming hither again some days after, I took up the calabash, and, setting it to my mouth, found the wine to be so good, that it made me presently not only forget my sorrow, but I grew vigorous, and was so light-hearted, that I began to sing and dance as I walked along. The old man, perceiving the effect which this drink had upon me, and that I carried him with more ease than I did before, made a sign for me to give him the calabash; and the liquor pleasing his palate, he drank it all off. There being enough of it to stupify him, he became drunk immediately; and the fumes getting into his head, he began to sing after his manner, and to dance with his breech upon my shoulders. His jolting made him vomit, and he loosened his legs from me by degrees; so that, finding he did not press me as before, I threw him upon the ground, where he lay without motion, when I took up a great stone, with which I crushed his head to pieces.

I was extremely rejoiced to be freed thus for ever from this cursed old fellow, and walked upon the bank of the sea, where I met the crew of a ship that had cast anchor to take in water and refresh themselves. They were extremely surprised to see me, and to hear the particulars of my adventures. You fell, said they, into the hands of the old man of the sea, and are the first that ever escaped strangling by him. He never left those he had once made himself master of till he destroyed them; and he has made this island famous by the number of men he has slain, so that the merchants and mariners who landed upon it dared not to advance into the island but in numbers together. After having informed me of those things, they carried me with them to the ship; the captain received me with great satisfaction when they told him what had befallen me. He put out again to sea; and, after some days sail, we arrived at the harbour of a great city, the houses of which were built with good stone.

One of the merchants of the ship, who had taken me into his friendship, obliged me to go along with him, and carried me to a place appointed as a retreat for foreign merchants. He gave me a great bag, and having recommended me to some people of the town who used to gather cocoas, he desired them to take me with them to do the like. Go, says he, follow them, and do as you see them do, and do not separate from them, otherwise you endanger your life. Having thus spoken, he gave me provisions for the journey, and I went with them. We came to a great forest of trees, extremely straight and tall, the trunks of which were so smooth that it was not possible for any man to climb up the branches that bore the fruit. All the trees were cocoa ones; and when we entered the forest, we saw a great number of apes of several sizes, that fled as soon as they perceived us, climbing up to the tops of the trees with surprising swiftness. The merchants with whom I was, gathered stones, and threw them at the apes on the tops of the trees. I did the same, and the apes, out of revenge, threw cocoa nuts at us so fast, and with such gestures, as sufficiently testified their anger and resentment: we gathered up the cocoas, and from time to time threw stones to provoke the apes; so that, by this stratagem, we filled our bags with cocoa nuts, which it had been impossible for us to have done otherwise. When we had gathered our number, we returned to the city, where the merchant who sent me to the forest gave me the value of the cocoas I brought: Go on, says he, and do the like every day, until you have got money enough to carry you home. I thanked him for his good advice, and insensibly gathered together as many cocoas as amounted to a considerable sum.

The vessel in which I arrived sailed with the merchants, who loaded her with cocoas. I expected the arrival of another, which landed speedily for the like loading. I embarked on board the same all the cocoas that belonged to me, and when she was ready to sail, I went and took leave of the merchant who had been so kind to me; but he could not embark with me, because he had not finished his affairs. We set sail towards those islands where pepper grows in great plenty. From thence we went to the isle of Comari[Footnote: This island, or peninsula, ends at the cape which we now call Cape Comorin. It is also called Comar and Comor.], where the best kind of wood of aloes grows, and whose inhabitants have made it an inviolable law to themselves to drink no wine, nor to suffer any place of debauch. I exchanged my cocoas in these two islands for pepper and wood of aloes, and went with other merchants a pearl-fishing. I hired divers, who fetched me up those that were very large and pure. I embarked joyfully in a vessel that happily arrived at Balsora; from thence I returned to Bagdad, where I made vast sums of my pepper, wood of aloes, and pearls. I gave the tenth of my gains in alms, as I had done upon my return from other voyages, and endeavoured to ease myself from my fatigues by diversions of all sorts.

When Sindbad had finished his story, he ordered one hundred sequins to Hindbad, who retired with all the other guests; but next day the same company returned to dine with rich Sindbad, who, after having treated them as formerly, demanded audience, and gave the following account of his sixth voyage.

The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor.

Gentlemen, says he, you long, without doubt, to know how, after being shipwrecked five times, and escaping so many dangers, I could resolve again to try my fortune, and expose myself to new hardships. I am astonished at it myself when I think on it, and must certainly have been induced to it by my stars. But, be that as it will, after a year's rest I prepared for a sixth voyage, notwithstanding the prayers of my kindred and friends, who did all that was possible to prevent me. Instead of taking my way by the Persian gulph, I travelled once more through several provinces of Persia and the Indies, and arrived at a sea-port, where I embarked on board a ship, the captain of which was resolved on a long voyage. It was very long, indeed, but at the same time so unfortunate, that the captain and pilot lost their course, so that they knew not where they were. They found it at last, but we had no ground to rejoice. We were all seized with extraordinary fear, when we saw the captain quit his post, and cry out. He threw off his turban, pulled the hair off his beard, and beat his head like a madman. We asked him the reason, and he answered, that he was in the most dangerous place in all the sea: a rapid current carries the ship along with it, and we shall all perish in less than a quarter of an hour. Pray to God to deliver us from this danger; we cannot escape it, if he do not take pity on us. At these words he ordered the sails to be changed; but all the ropes broke, and the ship, without any possibility of helping it, was carried by the current to the foot of an inaccessible mountain, where she was run ashore, and broken to pieces, yet so as we saved our lives, our provisions, and the best of our goods. This being over, the captain says to us, God has now done what he pleased; we may every man dig our grave here, and bid the world adieu; for we are all in so fatal a place, that none shipwrecked here did ever return to their homes again. His discourse afflicted us mortally, and we embraced one another with tears in our eyes, bewailing our deplorable lot.

The mountain at the foot of which we were cast, was the coast of a very long and large island. This coast was covered over with wrecks: and, by the vast number of men's bones we saw every where, and which filled us with horror, we concluded that abundance of people had died there. It is also incredible to tell what a quantity of goods and riches we found cast ashore there. All those objects served only to augment our grief. While, in all other places, rivers run from their channels into the sea, here a great river of fresh water runs out of the sea into a dark cave, whose entrance is very high and large. What is most remarkable in this place is, that the stones of the mountain are of crystal, rubies, or other precious stones. Here also is a sort of fountain of pitch or bitumen that runs into the sea, which the fishes swallow, and then vomit up again turned into ambergris; this the waves throw upon the beach in great quantities. Here grow also trees, most of which are wood of aloes, equal to those of Comari.

To finish the description of this place, which may well be called the gulph, as nothing ever returns from it, it is not possible for ships to get off from it, when once they come within ft certain distance of it. If they be driven thither by a wind from the sea, the wind and the current ruin them; and if they come into it when a land wind blows, which might seem to favour their getting out again, the height of the mountain stops the wind, and occasions a calm, so that the force of the current drives them ashore, where they are broken in pieces, as ours was; and what completes the misfortune, there is no possibility of getting to the top of the mountain, or getting out in any manner of way. We continued upon the shore like men out of their senses, and expected death every day. At first we divided our provisions as equally as we could, so that every one lived a longer or shorter time, according to his temperance, and the use he made of his provisions. Those who died first were interred by the rest; and for my part, I paid the last duty to all my companions. Nor need you wonder at this; for, besides that I husbanded the provision that fell to my share better than they, I had provisions of my own which I did not share with my comrades; yet, when I buried the last, I had so little remaining, that I thought it could not hold out long: So I dug a grave, resolving to lie down in it, because there was none left alive to inter me. I must confess to you, at the same time, that, while I was thus employed, I could not but reflect upon myself as the cause of my own ruin, and repented that I had ever undertaken this last voyage. Nor did I stop at reflections only, but had well nigh hastened my own death, and began to tear my hands with my teeth. But it pleased God once more to take compassion on me, and put it in my mind to go to the bank of the river which ran into the great cave, where, considering the river with great attention, I said to myself, This river, which runs thus under the ground, must come out somewhere or other. If I make a float, and leave myself to the current, it will bring me to some inhabited country, or drown me. If I be drowned, I lose nothing, but only change one kind of death for another; and if I get out of this fatal place, I shall not only avoid the fate of my comrades, but perhaps find some new occasion of enriching myself. Who knows but fortune waits, upon my getting off this dangerous shelve, to compensate my shipwreck with usury? After this, I immediately went to work on a float. I made it of good large pieces of timber and cables, for I had choice of them, and tied them together so strong, that I had made a very solid little float. When I had finished it, I loaded it with some bales of rubies,