THE SIXTH VOYAGE OF SINDBAD THE SEAMAN

KNOW, O my brothers and friends and companions all, that I abode
some time, after my return from my fifth voyage, in great solace and

satisfaction and mirth and merriment, joyance and enjoyment, and I
forgot what I had suffered, seeing the great gain and profit I had

made, till one day as I sat making merry and enjoying myself with my
friends, there came in to me a company of merchants whose case told

tales of travel, and talked with me of voyage and adventure and
greatness of pelf and lucre. Hereupon I remembered the days of my

return abroad, and my joy at once more seeing my native land and
forgathering with my family and friends, and my soul yearned for

travel and traffic. So, compelled by Fate and Fortune, I resolved to
undertake another voyage, and, buying me fine and costlymerchandise

meet for foreign trade, made it up into bales, with which I
journeyed from Baghdad to Bassorah.

Here I found a great ship ready for sea and full of merchants and
notables, who had with them goods of price, so I embarked my bales

therein. And we left Bassorah in safety and good spirits under the
safeguard of the King, the Preserver, and continued our voyage from

place to place and from city to city, buying and selling and profiting
and diverting ourselves with the sight of countries where strange folk

dwell. And Fortune and the voyage smiled upon us till one day, as we
went along, behold, the captain suddenly cried with a great cry and

cast his turban on the deck. Then he buffeted his face like a woman
and plucked out his beard and fell down in the waist of the ship

well-nigh fainting for stress of grief and rage, and crying, "Oh,
and alas for the ruin of my house and the orphanship of my poor

children!" So all the merchants and sailors came round about him and
asked him, "O master, what is the matter?" For the light had become

night before, their sight. And he answered, saying: "Know, O folk,
that we have wandered from our course and left the sea whose ways we

wot, and come into a sea whose ways I know not, and unless Allah
vouchsafe us a means of escape, we are all dead men. Wherefore pray ye

to the Most High that He deliver us from this strait. Haply amongst
you is one righteous whose prayers the Lord will accept." Then he

arose and clomb the mast to see an there were any escape from that
strait. And he would have loosed the sails, but the wind redoubled

upon the ship and whirled her round thrice and drave her backward,
whereupon her rudder brake and she fell off toward a high mountain.

With this the captain came down from the mast, saying: "There is
no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the

Great, nor can man prevent that which is foreordained of Fate! By
Allah, we are fallen on a place of sure destruction, and there is no

way of escape for us, nor can any of us be saved!" Then we all fill
a-weeping over ourselves and bidding one another farewell for that our

days were come to an end, and we had lost an hopes of life.
Presently the ship struck the mountain and broke up, and all and

everything on board of her were plunged into the sea. Some of the
merchants were drowned and others made shift to reach the shore and

save themselves upon the mountain, I amongst the number. And when we
got ashore, we found a great island, or rather peninsula, whose base

was strewn with wreckage and crafts and goods and gear cast up by
the sea from broken ships whose passengers had been drowned, and the

quantity confounded count and calculation. So I climbed the cliffs
into the inward of the isle and walked on inland till I came to a

stream of sweet water that welled up at the nearest foot of the
mountains and disappeared in the earth under the range of hills on the

opposite side. But all the other passengers went over the mountains to
the inner tracts, and, dispersing hither and thither, were

confounded at what they saw and became like madmen at the sight of the
wealth and treasures wherewith the shores were strewn.

As for me, I looked into the bed of the stream aforesaid and saw
therein great plenty of rubies, and great royal pearls and all kinds

of jewels and precious stones, which were as gravel in the bed of
the rivulets that ran through the fields, and the sands sparkled and

glittered with gems and precious ores. Moreover, we found in the
island abundance of the finest lign aloes, both Chinese and Comorin.

And there also is a spring of crude ambergris, which floweth like
wax or gum over the stream banks, for the great heat of the sun, and

runneth down to the seashore, where the monsters of the deep come up
and, swallowing it, return into the sea. But it burneth in their

bellies, so they cast it up again and it congealeth on the surface
of the water, whereby its color and quantities are changed, and at

last the waves cast it ashore, and the travelers and merchants who
know it collect it and sell it. But as to the raw ambergris which is

not swallowed, it floweth over the channel and congealeth on the
banks, and when the sun shineth on it, it melteth and scenteth the

whole valley with a musk-like fragrance. Then when the sun ceaseth
from it, it congealeth again. But none can get to this place where

is the crude ambergris, because of the mountains which enclose the
island on all sides and which foot of man cannot ascend.

We continued thus to explore the island, marveling at the
wonderful works of Allah and the riches we found there, but sore

troubled for our own case, and dismayed at our prospects. Now we had
picked up on the beach some small matter of victual from the wreck and

husbanded it carefully eating but once every day or two, in our fear
lest it should fail us and we die miserably of famine and affright.

Moreover, we were weak for colic brought on by seasickness and low
diet, and my companions deceased, one after other, till there was

but a small company of us left. Each that died we washed and
shrouded in some of the clothes and linen cast ashore by the tides,

and after a little, the rest of my fellows perished one by one, till I
had buried the last of the party and abode alone on the island, with

but a little vision" target="_blank" title="n.供应；规定；条款">provision left, I who was wont to have so much. And I
wept over myself, saying: "Would Heaven I had died before my

companions and they had washed me and buried me! It had been better
than I should perish and none wash me and shroud me and bury me. But

there is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the glorious,
the Great!" Now after I had buried the last of my party and abode

alone on the island, I arose and dug me a deep grave on the
seashore, saying to myself: "Whenas I grow weak and know that death

cometh to me, I will cast myself into the grave and die there, so
the wind may drift the sand over me and cover me and I be buried

therein."
Then I fell to reproaching myself for my little wit in leaving my

native land and betaking me again to travel after all I had suffered
during my first five voyages, and when I had not made a single one

without suffering more horrible perils and more terrible hardships
than in its forerunners, and having no hope of escape from my

present stress. And I repented me of my folly and bemoaned myself,
especially as I had no need of money, seeing that I had enough and

could not spend what I had- no, nor a half of it in all my life.
However, after a while Allah sent me a thought, and I said to

myself: "By God, needs must this stream have an end as well as a
beginning, ergo an issue somewhere, and belike its course may lead

to some inhabited place. So my best plan is to make me a little boat
big enough to sit in, and carry it and, launching it on the river,

embark therein and drop down the stream. If I escape, I escape, by
God's leave, and if I perish, better die in the river than here."

Then, sighing for myself, I set to work collecting a number of
pieces of Chinese and Comorin aloes wood and I bound them together

with ropes from the wreckage. Then I chose out from the broken-up
ships straight planks of even size and fixed them firmly upon the

aloes wood, making me a boat raft a little narrower than the channel
of the stream, and I tied it tightly and firmly as though it were

nailed. Then I loaded it with the goods, precious ores and jewels, and
the union pearls which were like gravel, and the best of the ambergris

crude and pure, together with what I had collected on the island and
what was left me of victual and wild herbs. Lastly I lashed a piece of