Sindbad the sailor - The Seventh Journey of Sindbad

 The Seventh Journey of Sindbad (Sindbad the sailor)

You must know that when I returned from my sixth voyage, I resumed my former lifestyle of pleasure, relaxation and delight, and for a time I enjoyed continuous happiness and gaiety night and day, my gains and profits having been enormous. However, I then felt a longing to travel in foreign lands, to sail, to associate with merchants and to listen to their stories. When I had thought the matter over, I packed a quantity of splendid goods suitable for a voyage and transported them from Baghdad to Basra. There I found a ship ready to put to sea, on board of which were a number of leading merchants. I embarked and made friends with them, and we set out on our voyage in good health and safety and with a fair wind we reached a city called Madinat al-Sin. We were very cheerful as we talked with one another about our journey and about matters of trade, but while we were doing this, a headwind blew up into a gale. Both we and our goods were drenched by torrential rain, and we had to cover the goods with felt and canvas lest they be ruined. We addressed our prayers and supplications to Almighty God, imploring him to rescue us from the storm, and as we were doing so the captain tightened his belt, tucked up his sleeves and climbed the mast. After looking right and left, he turned to us, slapped his face and plucked at his beard. ‘What is the news, captain?’ we asked him. ‘Ask Almighty God to rescue us from our plight,’ he answered. ‘Weep for yourselves and take leave of one another, for the wind has driven us to the ultimate sea in the world.’

He then climbed down from the mast and opened a box from which he took a cotton bag. He undid its fastening and took from it soil that looked like ashes, which he moistened with water. After waiting a short while, he sniffed at it and then took a little book from the box, from which he read. He then told us that it contained an astonishing revelation, the gist of which was that no one who came to this part of the world would escape from it with his life. ‘This,’ he told us, ‘is the Region of the Kings, which contains the grave of our master Solomon, the son of David, on both of whom be peace. In it there are enormous and hideous serpents which attack and swallow every ship that comes here together with all its contents.’ We were dumbfounded on hearing what he had to say, but before he had finished speaking the ship was lifted up from the sea and then crashed down again and we were terrified to hear a roar like a peal of thunder, which left us half-dead and sure that we were about to perish. Then we saw a fish as big as a huge mountain making for the ship. In our fear we wept bitterly for ourselves and prepared to die, but as we watched it coming towards us, wondering at its formidable size, suddenly another one approached that was bigger than anything we had yet seen. We had said our farewells, shedding tears for ourselves, when we caught sight of a third monster, even larger than the first two. We lost all our senses, being stunned by fear and terror as these three creatures started to circle around the ship. The third of them had just opened its mouth to swallow it and everything in it, when suddenly the ship was lifted up by a violent gust and brought down on a huge reef, where it was smashed. All its timbers were scattered and its cargo, together with the merchants and passengers, was plunged into the sea.

I stripped down to a single garment and swam for a short time before I found one of the ship’s timbers, to which I clung. I managed to get astride it and, as I held on to it, the winds and waves tossed me around on the surface of the sea. One moment I would be carried up on a wave and the next hurled down again, so that in my fear I had to face the most extreme hardships as well as sufferings caused by hunger and thirst. I started to blame myself for what I had done and for abandoning a life of ease in order to court difficulty. I told myself: ‘Sindbad, you have not turned away from your folly. Time after time you face these hardships and difficulties but still you go to sea, and if you say that you have given this up, you lie. So you have to endure whatever misfortune you meet, as you deserve everything that happens to you, and all this is decreed for you by Almighty God to turn you from your greed, which is the cause of your sufferings, in spite of the fact that you have riches in plenty.’ Then I came to my senses and said: ‘This time I make a sincere promise to Almighty God that I will renounce travelling and never again talk of it or think about it.’

I continued to address tearful supplications to Almighty God, remembering the ease, joy, pleasure and relaxation that I had enjoyed, and things went on like this through the first day and the second day, but then I came to land on a large island with many trees and streams. I began to eat the fruits of the trees and drink from the streams until I had revived. My spirits came back; my resolution strengthened and I relaxed, after which I walked through the island and found on the other side of it a large freshwater river flowing with a strong current. I remembered my earlier adventure with the raft and I said to myself that I would have to construct another one like it in the hope that I might find a way out of my predicament. If I managed to escape, I would have got all that I wanted and I would swear to Almighty God never to set out on another voyage, while if I perished, I would be at rest and no longer have to face trouble and hardship. So I started to collect wood from the trees, and this, although I did not know it, was fine sandalwood, whose like was nowhere else to be found, and when I had done that, I managed to twist boughs and creepers from the island into what could serve as ropes, with which I lashed my raft together.

‘If I come off safely,’ I told myself, ‘it will be God’s doing,’ and after that I boarded the raft and launched it on the river. It took me to the end of the island but then went even further, and for three whole days I floated on. For most of the time I slept; I ate nothing at all, but when I was thirsty I drank from the river. Weariness, hunger and thirst had reduced me to little more than a sick chicken by the time the raft brought me to a high mountain, under which the river entered. When I saw that, I feared for my life, remembering the straits in which I had found myself on my last river journey. I tried to stop the raft and to get off it on to the mountainside, but the current was too strong and it dragged the raft, with me on it, under the mountain. When I saw what was happening I was sure that I was going to die, and I recited the formula: ‘There is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent.’

The raft floated on for a short distance, but then it reached a broad stretch where I could see a large valley into which the water fell with a roar like thunder and a rush like that of wind. I clutched my raft with both hands, fearful I might fall off. The waves were tossing me right and left as the current carried the raft down into the valley, and I could neither stop it nor bring it in towards the shore. This went on until it brought me alongside a large and well-built city, full of people, and when they saw the current carrying me downstream on my raft in the middle of the river, they threw me nets and ropes. They managed to bring the raft in to land and there I collapsed half-dead of hunger, sleeplessness and terror.

One of the crowd of spectators, a dignified-looking old man, welcomed me and passed me a number of fine clothes with which I covered my nakedness. He then took me with him and brought me to the baths, before providing me with revivifying drinks and fragrant perfumes. When we left the baths he took me into his house, where his family showed pleasure at meeting me. I was made to sit in an elegant room and my host prepared some splendid food for me, which I ate until I was full, and I then gave thanks to Almighty God for having rescued me. Servants brought me hot water with which I washed my hands, and slave girls fetched silk towels, which I used to dry my hands and wipe my mouth. As soon as I had finished, the old man got up and provided me with a chamber of my own, standing by itself at the side of his house, and he gave instructions to his servants and slave girls to serve me and to do anything I might want. I remained being waited on in the guest chamber for three days, eating well, with plenty to drink and surrounded by pleasant scents, until, as my fears subsided, I recovered my spirits and became calm and relaxed.

On the fourth day, the old man came to me and said: ‘We have enjoyed your company, my son, and we thank God that you are safe. Would you like to come down with me to the market by the shore where you can sell your goods? With the price that you get for them you may be able to buy some things that you can use for trade.’ I stayed silent for a while, saying to myself: ‘Where am I to get any goods and why is he talking like this?’ But he said: ‘Don’t be concerned or worried, my son; come with me to the market and if you find someone who will give you an acceptable price for what you have, I shall take it for you, and if not, I shall put your goods in my warehouses and keep them until a better time comes for trading.’ I thought this over and decided that I had better accept his offer in order to find out what these ‘goods’ might be. So I said: ‘To hear is to obey, uncle, for whatever you do brings blessings, and I cannot disobey you in anything.’ So I went with him to the market and found that he had taken my raft to pieces, it being of sandalwood, and had told the auctioneer to call for bids.

The merchants gathered and when the bidding opened, it went up and up until it ended at a thousand dinars. The old man then turned to me and said: ‘That is the price of your goods at times like these, my son. Do you want to sell at this price or would you prefer to wait? I can store the wood for you in my warehouses until the price rises and then sell it for you.’ ‘It is for you to decide, sir,’ I told him, ‘so do what you want.’ ‘My son,’ he said, ‘will you sell it to me for a hundred dinars more than the price offered by the merchants?’ ‘Certainly,’ I told him. ‘I agree to the sale and accept the price.’ At that, he told his servants to remove the wood to his warehouses and I went back with him to his house. We sat down and he counted out the entire purchase price for me, after which he brought me bags in which the money was placed, and these were secured with an iron lock, whose key he handed over to me.

Some time later he said to me: ‘My son, I have a proposal to make to you and I hope that you will follow my wishes in the matter.’ I asked what this was, and he explained: ‘I am now an old man. I have no son, but I do have a pretty young daughter, as rich as she is beautiful, whom I would like to marry to you. You could then stay with her here in this country and I would pass over to you all my wealth and my possessions. For I am old and you can take my place.’ I stayed silent for a time without speaking, and he went on: ‘Obey me in this, my son. I want to help you and, if you do what I ask, I will marry you to my daughter; you will be like a son to me and every single thing that I own will pass to you. If you want to go trading and to travel to your own country, no one will stop you. This wealth is at your disposal, so do what you want with it and make your own choice.’ ‘By God, uncle,’ I told him, ‘you have become like a father to me. I have experienced so many terrors that I no longer have any powers of judgement or know what to do, and as a result it is up to you to do whatever you want.’ At this point the old man told his servants to fetch the qadi and the notaries, which they did, and he then gave his daughter to me in marriage and provided a grand feast by way of celebration. When I was taken to my bride, I found her to be very lovely indeed, well shaped and wearing ornaments, robes, valuable stones, jewellery, necklaces and precious gems which, although no one could have valued them exactly, were worth thousands upon thousands of dinars. I was filled with delight when I lay with her, and we fell in love with each other.

I stayed with my wife for some time, enjoying the greatest happiness and contentment. Her father was then gathered to the merciful presence of Almighty God. We prepared him for the funeral and then buried him, after which I took over all his possessions while all his attendants were transferred to my service. He had been the leader of the merchants, none of whom, thanks to his status, had done any dealings without his knowledge and consent, and they now put me in his place as his successor.
On further association with the townsfolk, I discovered that once a month a change came over them. They could be seen to sprout wings, with which they would fly off into the upper air, leaving no one in the city apart from children and women. I told myself that on the first of the month I would ask one of them to take me with them to wherever they were going. When the first of the month arrived, their complexions changed as their appearance altered, and so I went to one of them and begged him for God’s sake to take me with him as a spectator and then bring me back. He told me that this was impossible, but I kept pressing him until he consented, and when I had got the agreement of the others, without telling any of my household, my servants or my companions, I clung on to him as he soared with me up into the sky. He flew so high with me on his shoulders that to my astonishment I heard the angels in the dome of heaven glorifying God. I said: ‘Glory and praise be to God,’ but before I had finished, fire came out of heaven, which almost consumed the townsfolk. They dived down and, as they were furiously angry with me, they put me down on a lofty mountain and then flew away and left me.

Alone on the mountain I blamed myself for what I had done, and I recited the formula: ‘There is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent,’ adding: ‘Every time I escape from one disaster, I fall into another that is even worse.’ I stayed on the mountain not knowing where to go when suddenly I caught sight of two young men walking there, resplendent as moons, each holding a golden staff on which he leaned. I went up to them and, after we had exchanged greetings, I conjured them in God’s Name to tell me who and what they were. ‘We are servants of Almighty God,’ they told me, after which they gave me a staff of red gold that they had with them, before going on their way. I walked along the summit of the mountain, supporting myself on the staff and thinking about the two young men, when from beneath the mountain there emerged a snake with a man in its mouth whom it had swallowed up to his navel. He was shrieking and calling out: ‘Whoever saves me will be saved by God from every calamity,’ and so I advanced on the snake and struck it on the head with my golden staff, at which it spat the man out of its mouth.

He came up to me and said: ‘As it was you who rescued me from that snake, I shall not leave you and you will be my companion on this mountain.’ I welcomed him and we were making our way over the mountain when we were approached by a group of men. When I looked at them, I noticed that among them was the one who had flown with me on his shoulders. I went up to him and excused myself politely, adding: ‘My friend, this is not the way in which friends should treat each other.’ He said: ‘It was you who almost had us killed by glorifying God while you were on my back.’ ‘Don’t hold it against me,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t know about this, but I shall not speak another word.’ He agreed to take me back with him, but on condition that I would not mention the Name of God or glorify Him while he was carrying me, after which he took me up and flew off with me as he had done before, bringing me to my own house. My wife met me and greeted me, but after congratulating me on my safe return, she warned me: ‘Take care not to go out with these people again and have no dealings with them. They are brothers of the devil and don’t know how to call on the Name of Almighty God.’ ‘How did your father deal with them, then?’ I asked her. ‘My father was not one of them and did not do what they do. My advice, now that he is dead, is that you should sell everything that we have, use the purchase price to buy goods, and then sail back to your own country and your own family. I shall go with you as there is nothing to keep me here now that both my parents are dead.’

After that, I began to sell my father-in-law’s possessions bit by bit, while waiting for someone to sail from the city whom I could accompany. I was still doing this when a group of city merchants made up their minds to embark on a voyage, and as they could not find a ship, they bought timber and built a large one for themselves. I hired myself a passage with them and, after having paid the price in full, I embarked with my wife and all that we could take with us, abandoning our properties and estates. We put out to sea and sailed on from island to island and sea to sea, enjoying fair winds, until we came safely to land at Basra. I did not stay there but hired a passage on another ship, on which I loaded everything that I had brought with me, and set off for Baghdad. There I went to my own district and, on coming to my house, I met my family, my companions and my friends, and then I stored all my goods in my warehouses. My family calculated that on this seventh voyage I had been absent for twenty-seven years and this had made them despair of ever seeing me again. When I arrived and told them of all my adventures, they were filled with astonishment and congratulated me on my safe return.

I now vowed to Almighty God that after this, my seventh and last, voyage I would never again travel either by land or sea, for I no longer felt any desire for this, and I gave thanks to Almighty God, glory be to Him, with grateful praise, for having brought me back to my family, my land and my country. So consider, Sindbad the landsman, what happened to me during my experiences and adventures.
‘Don’t hold against me what I said about you,’ said the other Sindbad, and the two of them continued to enjoy an increasingly happy, cheerful and contented life as friends until they were visited by the destroyer of delights, the parter of companions, the wrecker of palaces and the filler of graves, the bearer of the cup of death. Praise be to the living God, Who does not die.

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Sindbad the sailor - The Sixth Journey of Sindbad

 The Sixth Journey of Sindbad (Sindbad the sailor)

Know, my dear friends and companions, that after my return from my fifth voyage, in my pleasures, enjoyments and happy contentment I forgot all my past hardships. I remained in this state of joy and gladness until, while I was sitting relaxed and satisfied, a number of merchants came to me having obviously just returned from a voyage. I remembered my own return and how delighted I had been to rejoin my family, my companions and my friends, together with the pleasure I had experienced at returning to my own land. I felt a longing for travel and trade and so I made up my mind to set out once again. I bought splendid and valuable goods suitable for a voyage, and, having loaded my bales, I travelled from Baghdad to Basra. There I found a large ship, on board which were traders and men of importance who had with them costly goods. I stowed my own with theirs on the ship, and we left Basra in safety.

We sailed on from place to place and city to city, trading and looking at foreign lands. Fortune was with us; our voyage went well and we made profits until one day, as we were sailing on our way, the captain suddenly gave a great cry, threw down his turban, struck his face and plucked at his beard before collapsing in the centre of the ship, overcome by distress. Merchants and passengers gathered around him to ask what was the matter. ‘You must know,’ he told us all, ‘that we have strayed from our course. We have left the sea on which we were sailing and entered one whose ways I do not know. Unless God sends us some means of escape we are all dead, so pray to Him to save us from this.’ He then got up and climbed the mast with the intention of lowering the sail, but the wind was too strong and the ship was driven back. While we were near a lofty mountain the rudder was smashed and the captain climbed down from the mast reciting the formula: ‘There is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent,’ and adding: ‘No one can ward off fate. By God, we are in mortal peril and there is no possible escape for us.’

Everyone on the ship wept for themselves and said their farewells, convinced that their lives were at an end and there was no hope left. The ship struck the mountain and was dashed to pieces, its timbers being scattered and everything in it being submerged in the waves. The merchants fell into the sea; some were drowned while others, including me, came to land by clinging on to the mountainside. The island on which we found ourselves turned out to be a big one and was the site of a large number of wrecks; the beach was full of goods thrown up by the sea from sunken ships whose crews had been lost, the extent of this jetsam being enough to bewilder and confuse the mind.

I climbed to the highest point there, and as I walked I caught sight of a freshwater spring gushing out at the base of the mountain and flowing to a point opposite it. All the survivors from the ship who had come ashore scattered throughout the island and, dazed by the quantity of goods and effects that they saw on the beach, they started to act like madmen. For my part, I saw in the middle of the spring great numbers of gems of all sorts, precious stones, sapphires and huge pearls fit for kings. They were lying like pebbles in the bed of the stream as it flowed through the low ground, and the land surrounding the spring sparkled because of the precious stones and other such things that it contained. We also discovered there a quantity of the finest quality Chinese aloes wood together with Qumari aloes, as well as a spring that produces a type of raw ambergris which oozes out like wax over its sides, thanks to the sun’s heat, and extends along the shore. Sea creatures then come out and swallow it before returning to the sea, and when it becomes heated in their bellies they vomit it out and it solidifies on the surface of the water. Both its colour and its condition change and the waves drive it on shore where travellers and traders, who can recognize it, collect it and then sell it. Pure raw ambergris that has not gone through this process overflows the side of that spring and solidifies on the ground. When the sun rises, it melts again, producing a scent which makes the whole valley smell of musk, and when the sun leaves it, it solidifies. The place where this raw ambergris is to be found is completely inaccessible, for the mountain range that rings the island is unscalable.

We continued to wander around the island looking at the resources that Almighty God had provided there, but bewildered by what we could see of our own situation and full of fear. We collected some provisions by the shore and started to ration them out, eating a mouthful every day or every second day to avoid using up our food and then dying miserably of starvation and fear. We would wash the corpses of all those who died and shroud them in what clothes and materials were washed up on the beach. Many did die, leaving only a few behind, as we had been weakened by stomach pains caused by our exposure to the sea. Within a short time every one of my friends and companions had died, one after the other, and had been buried, leaving me alone on the island. Of our large store of food, only a little was left, and I wept over my plight, saying: ‘I wish that I had died before my companions so that they could have washed my body and buried me, but there is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent.’

Soon after this I got up and dug myself a deep grave beside the shore, saying to myself: ‘When I sicken and know that death is at hand, I shall lie down in this grave and die there. The wind will keep blowing sand over me until it covers me and so I shall be buried.’ I started to blame myself for the folly that had made me leave my country and my city in order to travel to foreign parts, in spite of what I had suffered on my first, second, third, fourth and fifth voyages. On every single one of them I had been faced with terrors and hardships that grew worse and worse each time. I did not believe that I could escape to safety and I regretted having set out to sea again, telling myself that I had been in no need of money, for I had plenty, so much, in fact, that I could not have spent it all, or even half of it, in my lifetime. That was enough and more than enough.

Then, however, I started to think the matter over and I told myself: ‘The stream fed by the spring must have an end as well as a beginning, and there has to be a place where it flows into inhabited country. The right thing to do is for me to make myself a small raft, big enough for me to sit on, which I can take down and launch on the stream. I can set off on it, and if I find a way out, then God willing I shall escape, and if I don’t, then it will be better to die there than here.’

Having sighed over my fate, I got up and worked hard at collecting timber from the island, both Chinese and Qumari aloes wood. What I got I lashed together on the shore with ropes from wrecked ships, and then I took matching planks from them and set them on top of the timbers. I made the raft just about as broad as the stream, or a little bit less, tying it together as firmly as I could. I took with me a store of precious stones, gems, cash and pearls as big as pebbles, together with other treasures from the island, as well as some good, pure, raw ambergris. This I loaded on to the raft together with everything else I had collected from the island, and I took all the food that was left. I then launched the raft on the stream, adding two pieces of wood, one on either side, to serve as oars, following the advice of the poet who said:

Leave a place where there is injustice;
Abandon the house to lament its builder.
You can find another land in place of that one,
But you will never find another life.
Do not let the blows of fate concern you;
Every misfortune will reach its end.
Whoever is fated to die in a certain land
Will die in no other place than that.
Send out no messenger on a grave matter;
The soul’s one sincere advisor is itself.

I set out downstream on the raft, wondering what was going to happen to me. I reached the place where the stream entered an underground channel in the mountain, and as the raft came to this passage I found myself plunging into thick darkness. The raft was swept on by the current until it got to a place so narrow that its sides rubbed against the edges of the channel, while my head scraped the roof. I had no way of going back and I started to reproach myself for having put my life in danger, telling myself: ‘If this is too narrow for the raft, there can be little chance that it will get out, and as I cannot go back, there can be no doubt that I will die a miserable death here.’ I lay face down on the raft because of the lack of space and drifted on with no means of telling whether it was night or day because of the darkness under the mountain. I was terrified and in fear of my life the further I went along the stream, which widened at times only to narrow again. The darkness made me feel extremely tired; I couldn’t resist falling into a doze and so I went to sleep, face downwards, and how far it travelled while I slept I could not tell.

When I woke, I found myself out in the light and, opening my eyes, I discovered that I was on a broad stretch of shore with the raft moored to an island. There was a crowd of Indians and Abyssinians around me, and when they saw me get up they came up to me and spoke to me in their own tongue. I couldn’t understand what they were saying and I kept thinking that it was all a dream, as I was still suffering from the effects of the hardships that had overwhelmed me. Since I couldn’t follow their language and could make no reply, one of them approached me and said in Arabic: ‘Peace be on you, brother. What are you? Where have you come from and why are you here? How did you get into this stream and what land is there behind the mountain, as we have never known of anyone coming to us from there?’ ‘Who are you?’ I asked in my turn, ‘and what land is this?’ ‘Brother,’ he answered, ‘we are farmers and we had come to water the crops and fields that we cultivate when we discovered you asleep on this raft. We took hold of it and tied it up here so that you could get up at your leisure. But now tell us why you have come here.’ ‘For God’s sake, sir,’ I said, ‘bring me some food, for I am starving, and after that ask me any questions you want.’ The man hurried off to fetch food, and when I had eaten my fill, I relaxed, regained my composure and recovered my spirits. I gave thanks to Almighty God for all His mercies and was filled with joy to have emerged from the river and to have reached these people. I then told them everything that had happened to me from start to finish, including my experiences in the narrow stream.

After talking among themselves, they told me that they would have to bring me with them in order to show me to their king so that I might tell him what had happened to me. So they took me, together with the raft and all the cash, goods, gems, precious stones and jewellery that was on it, and when they brought me into the king’s presence, they told him about me. He welcomed me warmly and asked me about myself and what had happened to me, after which I told him the full story of my adventures from beginning to end. The tale filled him with astonishment and he congratulated me on my escape. I then went to the raft and took a large quantity of precious stones, gems, aloes wood and raw ambergris, which I presented to him and which he accepted, showing me even greater honour and lodging me in his palace. I associated with the leading citizens, who treated me with the greatest respect, and I did not leave the palace.

Visitors to the island would ask me about my own land and in return for what I told them I would ask and receive information about theirs. One day, the king questioned me about my country and about the rule of the caliph in the lands of Baghdad, at which I told him about the justice with which he controlled his state. He was impressed by this and said: ‘By God, the caliph acts in a rational and an attractive way. You have endeared him to me and I intend to prepare a present for him and to get you to take it to him.’ ‘To hear is to obey, master,’ I said. ‘I shall bring it to him and tell him that you are an affectionate friend.’

For some time I continued to stay with the king, enjoying the greatest honour and respect and leading a pleasant life, until one day, when I was sitting in the palace, I got news that a number of the townspeople had prepared a ship with the intention of sailing to the region of Basra. I told myself that I should go with them as I would never have a better opportunity than this, and so I immediately hurried off, kissed the king’s hand and told him that I wanted to leave with this group on the ship that they had fitted out, as I felt a longing for my own people and my own land. ‘Do what you like,’ he told me, adding, ‘but if you want to stay with us, you will be welcome, as we have become fond of you.’ ‘You have overwhelmed me with your kindness and generosity,’ I replied, ‘but I feel a longing for my people, my country and my family.’ When he heard this, he called for the merchants who had fitted out the ship and instructed them to look after me. He made me many presents, as well as paying for my passage on the ship, and he entrusted me with a splendid gift for the caliph Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad. I took my leave of him and of all the friends whose company I had frequented, and then embarked with the merchants. We set sail, relying on God, and had a pleasant voyage with fair winds, passing from sea to sea and island to island, until, through our reliance on God, we arrived safely at Basra.

After I had disembarked, I stayed at Basra for some days and nights until I made my preparations, loaded my goods and set off for Baghdad, the City of Peace. There I had an audience with the caliph, to whom I presented the king’s gift together with a full account of what had happened to me. When I had placed all my wealth and goods in store, I went to my own district, where I was met by my family and friends, and I made gifts to all my family, distributing alms and giving presents. Some time later, the caliph sent to ask me the reason behind the gift that had been given to him and details about its source. I told him: ‘By God, Commander of the Faithful, I don’t know the name of the city from which it came nor how to get there, but when the ship on which I was travelling was sunk, I came ashore on an island with a river in the middle of it on which I launched a raft that I had made for myself.’ I went on to repeat what had happened to me on my voyage, how I had got clear of the river and reached the city, what had happened when I had got there and why I had been sent back with the gift.

The caliph was astonished by my tale, and he ordered the recorders to write it down and store the account in his treasury so as to provide a lesson for all who might read it. He then showed me the greatest favour and I stayed in Baghdad, living as well as I had done before and forgetting all my sufferings from beginning to end, while I enjoyed the pleasantest of lives in pleasure and delight. This, then, my brothers, is what happened to me on my sixth voyage and, God willing, I shall tell you of my seventh, which was even more strange and remarkable than the others.
Sindbad the sailor then ordered tables to be set with food, and when his guests had dined with him he ordered that Sindbad the porter be given a hundred mithqals of gold. The porter took the gift and went off as the other guests dispersed, astonished by what they had heard. He spent the night at home and then, after having performed the morning prayer, he went to the house of Sindbad the sailor, who, when all the rest of the company had assembled, began to tell them the story of the seventh voyage. HE SAID:

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Sindbad the sailor - The Fifth Journey of Sindbad

 The Fifth Journey of Sindbad (Sindbad the sailor)

Know, my friends, that when I had returned from my fourth voyage I immersed myself in pleasure, enjoyment and relaxation, forgetting all my past experiences and sufferings because I was so delighted by what I had gained in the way of profit. I then again felt the urge to travel and to see foreign lands and islands and so, after thinking things over, I bought valuable goods suitable for a voyage, packed them in bales and travelled from Baghdad, heading for Basra. When I got to the coast I saw a tall ship, large and with good lines and new fittings, which so took my fancy that I bought it. I hired a captain and a crew under the supervision of my own slaves and servants, and then loaded it with my merchandise. A number of merchants arrived and paid me to take them and their goods on board, after which we set out cheerfully and happily, looking forward to a safe and profitable voyage.
We travelled from island to island and from sea to sea, inspecting islands and lands, and disembarking to trade. Things went on like this until one day we came to a large, uninhabited island. This was a barren waste, but on it was a huge white dome which, on investigation, turned out to be a gigantic rukh’s egg. The merchants who came up to look at it did not recognize what it was and so they broke into it by striking at it with stones. A large amount of fluid came out and then they could see the rukh chick. They dragged this out of the egg, killed it and cut off large quantities of its flesh. I was on board at the time and they did not tell me what they had done until one of the passengers said to me: ‘Sir, get up and look at this egg which we thought was a dome.’ When I got up to look and saw the merchants striking at the egg, I shouted: ‘Don’t do that or the rukh will come, sink our ship and destroy us!’ They did not listen to me, but while they were busy with the egg the sun was hidden away from us; the day was obscured and a cloud darkened the sky. We looked up to find what was between us and the sun, and there we could see the wings of a rukh, which were blocking the sunlight from us and shadowing the sky.

When the rukh found its egg cracked, it shrieked at us until it was joined by its mate, and the two of them started to circle around our ship, screaming at us with a noise louder than thunder. I cried to the captain and the crew to put out to sea for safety before we could be destroyed. The merchants came on board and the captain cast off the ship’s lines as fast as he could, and we left the island heading out to sea. The rukh saw us and left us for a while as we sailed with all the speed we could in order to escape and win clear of its territory. Suddenly, however, we caught sight of the two of them following our course. They caught up with us, each carrying in its talons an enormous rock that it had picked up in the mountains. One of them dropped its rock on us, but as the captain hauled round the rudder, the falling rock narrowly missed us, although when it fell into the sea beneath the ship, its huge impact tossed us up and down and gave us a view of the seabed. Then its mate dropped the one that it was carrying, which was smaller than the other, but, as fate had decreed, it fell on our stern, smashing it, breaking the rudder into twenty pieces and plunging all on board into the sea. As I tried my best to save myself for dear life’s sake, Almighty God sent me one of the ship’s timbers and, after clinging to this, I managed to get astride it and started to use my feet as paddles, helped on my way by wind and wave.

It happened that the ship had gone down near an island in the middle of the sea and divine providence cast me ashore. I was at my last gasp when I came to land, half-dead with what I had experienced in the way of hardship, distress, hunger and thirst. For some time I lay sprawled on the shore, but when I had rested and regained my composure I penetrated into the island and discovered it to be like one of the gardens of Paradise, with flourishing trees, gushing waters and birds that chanted the praises of the Glorious and Eternal God. There were many trees and fruits, as well as flowers of all kinds, and so I ate my fill of the fruits and satisfied my thirst by drinking from the streams, giving thanks to Almighty God and praising Him.

I stayed there like that until evening came and night fell, when, thanks to the combination of hardship and fear that I experienced, I slept like the dead, having heard no sound on the island or seen anyone. I stayed asleep until morning, and then I got to my feet and was walking among the trees when I came across a stream flowing from a spring of water beside which was seated a fine-looking old man with a waist-wrapper made of leaves. I thought to myself that he might have come to the island as a survivor from a wrecked ship and so I went up to him and greeted him. He returned my greeting with a gesture but said nothing. I then asked him why he was sitting there, but he shook his head sadly and gestured with his hand as if to say: ‘Carry me from here on your shoulders to the other side of the stream.’ I said to myself: ‘If I do him this service and carry him where he wants, God may reward me for the good deed.’ So I went up to him and when I had lifted him on my shoulders I carried him to where he had been pointing before, telling him to take his time in getting down. But, far from doing that, he wrapped his legs around my neck, and when I looked at them I could see that they were black and rough as buffalo hide. I took fright and tried to throw him off, but he squeezed my neck with his legs, nearly throttling me. Everything turned black and I lost consciousness, falling to the ground in a dead faint. Then he raised his legs and beat me painfully on the back and shoulders until I got up again with him still on my shoulders. I was tired of carrying him, but he gestured to me with his hand to take him through the trees to the best fruits. When I tried to disobey him, he used his legs to strike me more violently than if he had whipped me.

He kept on pointing where he wanted to go, and I would take him there. If I faltered or was slow he would beat me, and I was like his prisoner. We went through the trees to the centre of the island with him urinating and defecating on my shoulders. This went on night and day, for when he wanted to sleep he would wind his legs around my neck, have a brief nap and then get up and beat me to make me rise in a hurry. So severe were my sufferings that I had no power to disobey him, and I blamed myself for having lifted him up in the first place out of pity. Things went on like this until I reached the point of complete exhaustion and I said to myself: ‘I did him a good turn but it has turned out badly for me and, by God, I shall never do anyone else a service as long as I live.’ Such were my hardships and distress that every minute and every hour I wished that Almighty God would let me die.

When this had lasted for some time, a day came when I carried my incubus to a place on the island where there were great quantities of gourds, many of which were dry. I took a large one of these, removed its top and cleaned it out, after which I took it to a vine and squeezed grapes into it until it was full. Then I closed it up again and put it out in the sun, where I left it a number of days until its contents had turned to pure wine. I started to drink some of this each day to help me fight off exhaustion in my dealings with that devil, as every sip that I took strengthened my resolution. One day, when he saw me drinking, he gestured with his hand as if to say: ‘What is that?’ ‘Something pleasant,’ I told him, ‘that brings encouragement and enjoyment,’ and I began to run with him, dancing between the trees, stimulated by the wine, clapping my hands and singing with joy. On seeing this, he gestured to me to hand him the gourd so that he could drink from it, and in my fear I handed it over to him. He gulped down all that was left in it, threw it on the ground and became merry and unsteady on my shoulders, until, when he had become even more sodden in his drunkenness, his whole body relaxed and he started to sway from side to side on my shoulders. When I saw that he was drunk and unconscious, I took hold of his legs and unwrapped them from my neck, after which I lowered myself to the ground with him, and sat down, throwing him off.

I could scarcely believe that I had managed to free myself and escape from my miserable state, but I then began to fear that, when he recovered from his drunkenness, he might do me some harm and so I picked up a large rock, went up to him as he slept and struck him a blow on the head that left him a lifeless mass of mixed flesh and blood, may God show him no mercy.

In my relief I walked to where I had first come ashore on the coast of the island, and there I stayed for some time, eating fruit, drinking from the streams and keeping a lookout for any passing ship. One day, I was sitting thinking over what had happened to me and the plight that I was in, wondering whether God would allow me to return safely to my own country to rejoin my family and friends, when suddenly a ship came sailing through the boisterous sea waves without a check until it anchored by the island. Those on board disembarked and I went up to them. When they caught sight of me, they hurried up and gathered around me, asking me about myself and why I had come to the island. They were astonished when I told them about my experiences, and they said: ‘The man who rode on your shoulders is called the Old Man of the Sea, and you are the only one on whom he mounted who has ever escaped. God be praised that you are safe!’ They fetched me food, and I ate until I had had enough, after which they gave me some clothes to wear in order to cover my nakedness and they then took me with them to their ship.

We sailed for some days and nights until fate brought us to a lofty city, all of whose houses overlooked the sea. The place is known as the City of the Apes, and at nightfall all its inhabitants leave by the sea gates and embark on skiffs and boats, spending the night at sea lest the apes come down from the mountains and attack them. I went ashore in order to look around, but before I knew it, my ship had sailed off, leaving me to regret having landed there. I remembered my companions and my first and second adventures with the apes and so I sat there weeping sorrowfully. One of the townsfolk approached me and said: ‘Sir, it seems that you are a stranger here.’ ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘I am a poor stranger. I was on board a ship that anchored here and I disembarked to look at the city, but when I got back no ship was to be seen.’ ‘Come with us,’ he said, ‘and get into this skiff, for if you stay here at night the apes will kill you.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ I replied, and so I got up immediately and went on board with the man and his companions. They pushed the boat out from land, sailing on until they were a mile off shore, and there I spent the night with them. The next morning they sailed back to the city, where they disembarked, and each of them went about his business. They did this every night, and any of them who stayed behind in the city at night was set upon by the apes and killed. In the day the apes would leave the city, eat fruit in the orchards and sleep in the mountains until evening, when they would come back to the city, which is in the furthest part of the lands of the Blacks.

The most remarkable thing that happened to me there was when one of the group with whom I had spent the night on the boat asked me whether I, being a stranger in those parts, had any trade that I could practise. ‘No, by God, brother,’ I told him. ‘I am a merchant and a man of means. I owned a ship which was laden with wealth and goods, but it was wrecked at sea with the loss of everything on it and it was only by God’s leave that I escaped drowning. He sent me a piece of timber on to which I clambered, and it was to this that I owed my safety.’ The man then brought me a cotton bag and told me to take it and fill it with pebbles from the city. He went on: ‘Go out with a group of townspeople to whom I will introduce you as a companion, telling them to look after you. Do what they do, and this may bring you something to help you get back to your own land.’ He took me out of the city, where I selected a number of small pebbles to fill my bag. We then saw a group of men coming out to whom my mentor introduced me, commending me to their care and telling them: ‘This man is a stranger, so take him with you and teach him the gatherers’ trade so that he may be able to earn his daily bread, and God may reward you.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ they answered, and they welcomed me and took me with them on their expedition.

Each one of these men carried with him a bag like mine, filled with pebbles, and they walked on until they reached a broad valley with many high trees that no one could climb. In the valley were large numbers of apes who were alarmed by the sight of us and swarmed up the trees. My companions started to pelt them with the stones that they had in their bags, to which the apes replied by breaking off from the trees and throwing down what turned out to be coconuts. When I saw what the others were doing, I picked out an enormous tree with many apes on it, went up to it and started to throw stones at them. The apes tore off coconuts and when they threw them down at me, I gathered them, as the others were doing, and by the time that I had used up all the stones in my bag, I had got a large number of nuts. When everyone had finished what they were doing, they put together all they had collected and we went back to the city in what was left of the day, each of us carrying as much as he could.

I went to my friend who had introduced me to the others and gave him what I had gathered, thanking him for his kindness, but he told me to keep the nuts and sell them so as to profit from the sale price. He then gave me the key to a room in his house, telling me: ‘Store the surplus coconuts here; go out with the gatherers every day just as you did today; then pick out the bad nuts and sell them, using what you get for them for your own purposes, while storing the good ones here. It may be that you can save enough to help you with your voyage home.’ ‘Almighty God will reward you,’ I told him.
I then did what he told me, filling my bag with stones every day, going out with the gatherers and doing what they did, as they helped me with advice, showing me trees that had plenty of nuts. This went on until I had collected a large store of good coconuts and had made a lot of money from what I had sold. I started to buy whatever took my fancy and found myself enjoying life as my status increased throughout the city. Things continued like this until one day, as I was standing by the shore, I saw a ship that steered for the city and anchored off the shore. On board were merchants with their goods, and they started to trade, buying up coconuts as well as other things. I went to my friend and, after I had told him of the arrival of the ship, I said that I wanted to go back home. ‘It is for you to decide,’ he told me, and so I took my leave of him, having thanked him for his kindness to me. Then I went to the ship, met the captain and paid him to take me with him, after which I stowed my coconuts and what else I had on board.

The ship sailed that same day, and we went from island to island and sea to sea. Whenever we stopped at an island, I would use my coconuts for trade and barter, and God gave me in exchange more than I had had with me at the start and had lost. One island that we passed produced cinnamon and pepper, and some people told me they had seen that every bunch of pepper had a large leaf to shade it and to keep off raindrops in wet weather. When the rain stopped, the leaf would turn away and hang down at the side of the bunch. In exchange for coconuts I took away with me a large quantity of cinnamon and pepper from there. Later we passed the island of al-Asirat, which produces Qumari aloes wood, and after that another island, five days’ journey in length, which has Chinese aloes wood that is superior in quality to the Qumari. The inhabitants of this latter island are more degraded and irreligious than those of the former: they are fond of depravity, they drink wine and know nothing about the call to prayer or how to pray.

Later we came to the pearl beds, and here I gave the divers some of my coconuts and told them to go down and see what my luck would bring them. They dived there and came up with a great quantity of large and valuable pearls. ‘By God, master,’ they told me, ‘your luck was in!’ I put all that they had brought me on board and we sailed off with the blessing of Almighty God, carrying on until we reached Basra.

I landed at Basra and, having stayed there for a short time, I left for Baghdad, where I went to my own district and came to my house. When I greeted my family and my friends, they congratulated me on my safe return and, after having put all the goods that I had with me in store, I clothed widows and orphans, gave away alms and gifts and made presents to my family, my companions and my friends. God had recompensed me with four times more than I had lost, and thanks to this profit I forgot all the hardships that I had suffered and I reverted to the friendly social life that I had enjoyed before. These were my most remarkable experiences on my fifth voyage, but it is now time for supper.
When the company had finished eating, Sindbad the sailor ordered Sindbad the porter to be given a hundred mithqals of gold, which he took before leaving, filled with wonder at what had happened. The next morning he got up, performed the morning prayer and returned to Sindbad the sailor’s house, where, on entering, he greeted his host. He was told to take a seat and the two Sindbads sat talking together until the rest of the company arrived. They chatted to one another, and when tables had been laid with food, they ate, drank and enjoyed themselves, after which SINDBAD THE SAILOR BEGAN TO SPEAK:

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Sindbad the sailor - The Fourth Journey of Sindbad

 The Fourth Journey of Sindbad (Sindbad the sailor)

Know, my brothers, that when I got back to Baghdad and met my companions, my family and my friends I enjoyed a life of the greatest happiness, contentment and relaxation, forgetting everything in my wellbeing, and drowning in pleasure and delight in the company of my friends and companions. It was while my life was at its most pleasant that I felt a pernicious urge to travel to foreign parts, to associate with different races and to trade and make a profit. Having thought this over, I bought more valuable goods, suitable for a voyage, than I had ever taken before, packing them into bales. When I had gone down from Baghdad to Basra I loaded them on a ship, taking with me a number of the leading Basran merchants. We put out, with the blessing of Almighty God, on to the turbulent and boisterous sea and for a number of nights and days we had a good voyage, passing from island to island and sea to sea until one day we met a contrary wind. The master used the anchors to bring us to a halt in mid-ocean lest we founder there, but while we were addressing our supplications to Almighty God a violent gale blew up, which tore our sails to shreds, plunging all on board into the sea, together with all their bales, goods and belongings.

I was with the others in the sea. I swam for half a day, but I had given up all hope when Almighty God sent me part of one of the ship’s timbers on to which I climbed, together with some of the other merchants. We huddled together as we rode on it, paddling with our legs, and being helped by the waves and the wind. This went on for a day and a night, but in the forenoon of the second day the wind rose and the sea became stormy, with powerful waves. The current then cast us up on an island, half-dead through lack of sleep, fatigue and cold, hunger, thirst and fear. Later, when we walked around the place, we found many plants, some of which we ate to allay our hunger and sustain us, and we spent the night by the shore. The next day, when it was light, we got up and continued to explore the various parts of the island. In the distance we caught sight of a building and kept on walking towards it until we stood at its door. While we were there, out came a crowd of naked men, who took hold of us without a word and brought us to their king. We sat down at his command and food was brought which we did not recognize and whose like we had never seen in our lives. I could not bring myself to take it and so I ate nothing, unlike my companions, and this abstemiousness on my part was thanks to the grace of Almighty God as it was this that has allowed me to live until now.
When my companions tasted the food, their wits went wandering; they fell on it like madmen and were no longer the same men. The king’s servants then fetched them coconut oil, some of which was poured out as drink and some of which was smeared over them. When my companions drank the oil their eyes swivelled in their heads and they started to eat the food in an unnatural way. I felt sorry for them, but I did not know what to do about it and I was filled with great uneasiness, fearing for my own life at the hands of the naked men. For when I looked at them closely I could see that they were Magians and that the king of their city was a ghul. They would bring him everyone who came to their country or whom they saw or met in their valley or its roads. The newcomer would then be given that food and anointed with that oil; his belly would swell so that he could eat more and more; he would lose his mind and his powers of thought until he became like an imbecile. The Magians would continue to stuff him with food and coconut oil drink until, when he was fat enough, they would cut his throat and feed him to the king. They themselves would eat human flesh unroasted and raw.
When I saw this I was filled with distress both for myself and for my comrades, who, in their bewildered state, did not realize what was being done to them. They were put in the charge of a man who would herd them around the island like cattle; as for me, fear and hunger made me weak and sickly, and my flesh clung to my bones. The Magians, seeing my condition, left me alone and forgot about me. Not one of them remembered me or thought about me, and so one day I contrived to move from the place where they were, and walked away, leaving it far behind me. I then saw a herdsman sitting on a high promontory, and when I looked more closely I could see that he was the man who had been given the job of pasturing not only my companions but many others as well, who were in the same state. When he saw me he realized that I was still in possession of my wits and was not suffering from what had affected the others. So he gestured to me from far off, indicating that I should turn back and then take the road to the right, which would lead to the main highway. I followed his instructions and went back, and when I saw a road on my right I followed it, at times running in terror and then walking more slowly until I was rested. I went on like this until I was out of sight of the man who had shown me the way and I could no longer see him nor could he see me.
The sun then set and as darkness fell I sat down to rest, intending to go to sleep, but I was too afraid, too hungry and too tired to sleep that night. At midnight I got up and walked further into the island, carrying on until daybreak, when the sun rose over the hilltops and the valleys. I was exhausted, hungry and thirsty and so I started to eat grass and some of the island plants, going on until I had satisfied my hunger and was satiated. Then I got up and walked on, and I continued like this for the whole of the day and the night, eating plants whenever I was hungry. This went on for seven days and seven nights until, on the morning of the eighth day, I caught sight of something in the distance and set off towards it. I got to my destination after sunset and looked carefully at it from far off, as my heart was still fluttering because of my earlier sufferings, but it turned out to be a group of men gathering peppercorns. They saw me as I approached and quickly came and surrounded me on all sides, asking me who I was and where I had come from. I told them that I was a poor unfortunate and then went on to give them my whole story, explaining my perils, hardships and sufferings.

‘By God,’ they exclaimed, ‘this is an amazing story, but how did you escape from the blacks and get away from them on the island? There are vast numbers of them and as they are cannibals no one can pass them in safety.’ So I told them what had happened to me and how they had taken my companions by feeding them on some food which I did not eat. They were astonished by my experiences and, after congratulating me on my safety, they made me sit with them until they had finished their work, after which they brought me some tasty food, which I ate because I was starving. I stayed with them for some time and then they took me with them on a ship, which brought me to the island where they lived. There they presented me to their king, whom I greeted and who welcomed me courteously and asked me about myself. I told him of my circumstances and of all my experiences from the day that I left Baghdad until I came to him. He and those with him were filled with astonishment at this tale. He told me to sit by him and he then ordered food to be brought, from which I ate my fill. Then I washed my hands and thanked, praised and extolled Almighty God for His grace.

When I left the king’s court I looked around the city, which was a thriving place, populous and wealthy, well stocked with provisions and full of markets and trade goods, as well as with both buyers and sellers. I was pleased and happy to have got there, and I made friends with the people, and their king, who treated me with more honour and respect than he showed to his own leading citizens. 
I observed that all of them, high and low alike, rode good horses but without saddles. I was surprised at that and I asked the king why it was, pointing out that a saddle made things more comfortable for the rider and allowed him to exert more force. ‘What is a saddle?’ he asked, adding: ‘I have never seen one or ridden on one in my life.’ ‘Would you allow me to make you one so that you could ride on it and see its advantages?’ I asked, and when he told me to carry on, I asked him to provide me with some wood. He ordered everything I needed to be fetched, after which I looked for a clever carpenter and sat teaching him how saddles should be made. Then I got wool, carded it and made it into felt, after which I covered the saddle in leather and polished it before attaching bands and fastening the girth. Next I fetched a smith and explained to him how to make stirrups. When he had made a large pair, I filed them down and then covered them with tin, giving them fringes of silk. I fetched one of the best of the king’s horses, a stallion, which I then saddled and bridled, and when I had attached the stirrups I brought him to the king. What I had done took the fancy of the king, who was filled with admiration, and, having thanked me, he mounted the horse and was delighted by the saddle. In return for my work he gave me a huge reward, and when his vizier saw what I had made, he asked for another saddle like it. I made him one and after that all the principal officers of state and the state officials began to ask me to make them saddles. I taught the carpenter how to produce them and showed the smith how to make stirrups, after which we started to manufacture them and to sell them to great men and the employers of labour. This brought me a great deal of money and I became a man of importance in the city, commanding ever greater affection and enjoying high status both with the king and with his court, and also with the leading citizens and state officials.

One day, while I was sitting with the king enjoying my dignity to the full, he said to me: ‘You have become a respected and honoured companion of ours; you are one of us and we cannot bear to be parted from you or that you should leave our city. I have something to ask of you, and I want you to obey me and not to reject my request.’ ‘What is it that you want of me, your majesty?’ I asked, adding: ‘I cannot refuse you, because you have treated me with such kindness, favour and generosity, and I thank God that I have become one of your servants.’ The king said: ‘I want you to take a wife here, a beautiful, graceful and witty lady, as wealthy as she is lovely, so that you may become one of our citizens and I can lodge you with me in my palace. Do not disobey me or reject my proposal.’ When I heard what he said, I was too embarrassed to speak and stayed silent. Then, when he asked why I did not answer, I said: ‘My master, king of the age, your commands must be obeyed.’ He sent at once for the qadi and the notaries, and he married me on the spot to a noble lady of high birth and great wealth, who combined beauty and grace with her distinguished ancestry, and who was the owner of houses, properties and estates.

After the king had married me to the great lady, he presented me with a fine, large detached house, providing me with eunuchs and retainers and assigning me pay and allowances. I lived a life of ease, happy and relaxed, forgetting all the toils, difficulties and hardships that I had experienced. I told myself that when I went back to my own country, I would take my wife with me, but there is no avoiding fate and no one knows what will happen to him. My wife and I were deeply in love; we lived in harmony, enjoying a life of pleasure and plenty over a period of time. Almighty God then widowed a neighbour of mine, and, as he was a friend of mine, I went to his house to offer my condolences on his loss. I found him in the worst of states, full of care and sick at heart. I tried to console him by saying: ‘Don’t grieve for your wife. Almighty God will see that you are well recompensed by providing you with another, more beautiful one, and, if it is His will, you will live a long life.’ He wept bitterly and said: ‘My friend, how can I marry another wife and how can God compensate me with a better one when I have only one day left to live?’ ‘Come back to your senses, brother,’ I told him, ‘and don’t forecast your own death, for you are sound and healthy.’ ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘I swear by your life that tomorrow you will lose me and never see me again.’ ‘How can that be?’ I asked him, and he told me: ‘Today my wife will be buried and I shall be buried with her in the same grave. It is the custom here that, when a wife dies, her husband is buried alive with her, while if the husband dies it is the wife who suffers this fate, so that neither partner may enjoy life after the death of the other.’ ‘By God,’ I exclaimed, ‘what a dreadful custom! This is unbearable!’

While we were talking, a group comprising the bulk of the citizens of the town arrived and started to pay condolences to my friend on the loss of his wife and on his own fate. They began to lay out the corpse in their usual way, fetching a coffin in which they carried it, accompanied by the husband. They took it out of the city to a place on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea. When they got there, they lifted up a huge stone, under which could be seen a rocky cleft like the shaft of a well.
They threw the woman’s body down this, into what I could see was a great underground pit. Then they brought my friend, tied a rope round his waist and lowered him into the pit, providing him with a large jug of fresh water and seven loaves by way of provisions. When he had been lowered down, he freed himself from the rope, which they pulled up before putting the stone back in its place and going away, leaving my friend with his wife in the pit.

I said to myself: ‘By God, this death is even more frightful than the previous one,’ and I went to the king and asked him how it was that in his country they buried the living with the dead. He said: ‘This is our custom here. When the husband dies we bury his wife with him, and when the wife dies we bury her husband alive so that they may not be parted either in life or in death. This is a tradition handed down from our ancestors.’ I asked him: ‘O king of the age, in the case of a foreigner like me, if his wife dies here, would you treat him as you treated my friend?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘we would bury him with her just as you have seen.’

When I heard this, I was so concerned and distressed for myself that my gall bladder almost split and in my dismay I began to fear that my wife might die before me and that I would be buried alive with her. Then I tried to console myself, telling myself that it might be I who died first, for no one knows who will be first and who second. I tried to amuse myself in various ways, but within a short time my wife fell ill and a few days later she was dead. Most of the townsfolk came to pay their condolences to me and her family, and among those who came in accordance with their custom was the king. They fetched professionals who washed her corpse and dressed her in the most splendid of her clothes together with the best of her jewellery, necklaces and precious gems before placing her in her coffin. They then carried her off to the mountain, removed the stone from the mouth of the pit and threw her into it. My friends and my wife’s family came up to take a last farewell of me. I was calling out: ‘I’m a foreigner! I don’t have to put up with your customs,’ but they did not listen or pay any attention to me. Instead they seized me and used force to tie me up, attaching the seven loaves and the jug of fresh water that their custom required, before lowering me into the pit, which turned out to be a vast cavern under the mountain. ‘Loose yourself from the rope!’ they shouted, but I wasn’t willing to do that and so they threw the rest of it down on top of me before replacing the huge stone that covered the entrance and going away.

In the pit I came across very many corpses together with a foul stink of putrefaction and I blamed myself for my own actions, telling myself that I deserved everything that had happened to me. While I was there I could not distinguish night from day and I began by putting myself on short rations, not eating until I was half-dead with hunger and drinking only when I was violently thirsty, because I was afraid of exhausting my food and my water. I recited the formula: ‘There is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent,’ adding: ‘Why did I have the misfortune to marry in this city? Every time I say to myself that I have escaped from one disaster, I fall into another that is worse. By God, this is a terrible death. I wish that I had been drowned at sea or had died on the mountains, for that would have been better than this miserable end.’

I went on like this, blaming myself, sleeping on the bones of the dead and calling on Almighty God to aid me. I longed for death, but, in spite of my plight, death would not come and this continued until I was consumed by hunger and parched by thirst. I sat down and felt for my bread, after which I ate a little and drank a little before getting up and walking round the cavern. This was wide with some empty hollows, but the surface was covered with bodies as well as old dry bones. I made a place for myself at the side of it, far away from the recent corpses, and there I slept. I now had very little food left and I would only take one mouthful and one sip of water each day or at even longer intervals for fear of using up both food and water before my death. Things went on like this until one day, as I was sitting thinking about what I would do when my provisions were exhausted, the stone was suddenly moved and light shone down on me. While I was wondering what was happening, I saw people standing at the head of the shaft. They lowered a dead man and a live woman, who was weeping and screaming, and with her they sent down a large quantity of food and water. I watched her but she didn’t see me, and when the stone had been replaced and the people had gone, I stood up with the shin bone of a dead man in my hand and, going up to her, I struck her on the middle of her head. She fell unconscious on the ground and I struck her a second and a third time, so killing her. I took her bread and what else she had, for I noticed she had with her a large quantity of ornaments, robes, necklaces, jewels and precious stones. When I had removed her food and water, I sat down to sleep in my place by the side of the cavern. Later I began to eat as little of the food as was needed to keep me alive lest it be used up too soon, leaving me to die of hunger and thirst.

I stayed down there for some time, killing all those who were buried alive with the dead and taking their food and water in order to survive. Then, one day, I woke from sleep to hear something making a noise at the side of the cavern. I asked myself what it could be, and so I got up and went towards whatever it was, carrying with me a dead man’s shin bone. When the thing that was making the noise heard me, it fled away and I could see that it was an animal. I followed it to the upper part of the cave and there coming through a little hole I could see a ray of light like a star, appearing and then disappearing. At the sight of this, I made my way towards it, and the nearer I got, the broader the beam of light became, leaving me certain that there was an opening in the cave leading to the outer world. ‘There must be some reason for this,’ I said to myself. ‘Either it is another opening, like the one through which I was lowered, or it is a crack leading out of here.’ I thought the matter over for a while and then went towards the light. Here I discovered that there was a tunnel dug by wild beasts from the surface of the mountain to allow them to get in, eat their fill of the corpses and then get out again. On seeing this I calmed down, regained my composure and relaxed, being certain that, after my brush with death, I would manage to stay alive.

Like a man in a dream, I struggled through the tunnel to find myself overlooking the sea coast on a high and impassable mountain promontory that cut off the island and its city from the seas that met there. In my delight, I gave praise and thanks to God, and then, taking heart, I went back through the tunnel to the cave and removed all the food and water that I had saved. I took some clothes from the dead to put on in place of my own, and I also collected a quantity of what they were wearing in the way of necklaces, gems, strings of pearls and jewellery of silver and gold, studded with precious stones of all kinds, together with other rare items. I fastened the clothes of the dead to my own and went through the tunnel to stand by the seashore. Every day I would go back down to inspect the cave, and whenever there was a burial I would kill the survivor, whether it was a man or a woman, and take the food and the water. Then I would go out of the tunnel and sit by the shore, waiting for Almighty God to send me relief in the form of a passing ship. I started to remove all the jewellery that I could see from the cave, tying it up in dead men’s clothes.

Things went on like this for some time until one day, while I was sitting by the shore, I saw a passing ship out at sea in the middle of the waves. I took something white from the clothes of the dead, fastened it to a stick and ran along with it, parallel to the shore, waving it towards the ship, until the crew turned and caught sight of me as I stood on a high point. They put in towards me until they could hear my voice, and then they sent me a boat manned by some of their crew. As they came close they said: ‘Who are you and why are you sitting there? How did you get to this mountain? Never in our lives have we seen anyone who managed to reach it.’ I told them: ‘I’m a merchant whose ship was sunk. I got on a plank together with my belongings, and by God’s aid I was able to come up on shore here, bringing them with me, but only after I had exerted myself and used all my skill in a hard struggle.’

The sailors took me with them in the boat, carrying what I had fetched from the cave tied up in clothes and shrouds. They brought me to the ship, together with all of these things, and took me to the master, who asked: ‘Man, how did you get here? This is a huge mountain with a great city on the other side of it, but although I have spent my life sailing this sea and passing by it, I have never seen anything on it except beasts and birds.’ ‘I’m a merchant,’ I told him, ‘but the large ship on which I was sailing broke up and sank. All these goods of mine, and the clothes that you see, were plunged into the water, but I managed to load them on to a large beam from the ship and fate helped me to come to shore by this mountain, after which I waited for someone to pass by and take me off.’ I said nothing about what had happened to me in the city or in the cave, for fear that someone on board might be from the city. Then I took a quantity of my goods to the master of the ship and said: ‘Sir, it is thanks to you that I have escaped from this mountain, so please take these things in return for the kindness you have shown me.’ The master did not accept, insisting: ‘We take no gifts from anyone, and if we see a shipwrecked man on the coast or on an island we take him with us and give him food and water. If he is naked we clothe him, and when we reach a safe haven we give him a present from what we have with us as an act of generosity for the sake of Almighty God.’ On hearing that, I prayed God to grant him a long life.

We then sailed on from island to island and from sea to sea. I was hopeful that I would escape my difficulties, but although I was full of joy that I had been saved, whenever I thought of how I had sat in the cave with my wife I would almost go out of my mind. Through the power of God we came safely to Basra, where I landed and spent a few days before going on to Baghdad. There I went to my own district and, when I had entered my house, I met my family and friends and asked them how they were. They were delighted by my safe return and congratulated me. I then stored all the goods that I had with me in my warehouses and distributed alms and gifts, providing clothes for the widows and orphans. I was filled with joy and delight and renewed old ties with friends and companions, enjoying amusements and entertainments.

These, then, were the most remarkable things that happened to me on my fourth voyage, but, my brother, dine with me this evening, take your usual present of gold, come back tomorrow and I shall tell you of my experiences on my fifth voyage, as these were stranger and more wonderful than anything that happened before.

Sindbad the sailor then ordered that Sindbad the porter be given a hundred mithqals of gold. Tables were set and the company dined, before dispersing in a state of astonishment, as each story was more surprising than the last. Sindbad the porter went home and spent the night filled with happiness and contentedness as well as with amazement. The next day, when dawn broke, he got up, performed the morning prayer and walked to the house of Sindbad the sailor, whom he greeted. His host welcomed him and told him to sit with him until the rest of his companions arrived, after which they ate, drank and enjoyed themselves, chatting to one another. Then Sindbad the sailor began to speak. HE SAID:

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