The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights

by vol 02 (tr Malcolm C

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and fifty-seventh night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that when Sindbad escaped drowning and reached the island, he ate from its fruits and drank from its streams, giving thanks and praise to Almighty God. HE SAID:

  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.

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and fifty-eighth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that Sindbad threw the devil from his shoulders. HE SAID:

  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 select
ed 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.

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and fifty-ninth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that Sindbad left the City of the Apes and went on board the ship, taking with him his coconuts and his other belongings, and paying the captain for a passage. HE SAID:

  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 TELL THEM THE STORY OF HIS SIXTH VOYAGE:

  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.

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and sixtieth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that Sindbad prepared his bales and loaded them on a ship at Basra before setting out on his voyage. SINDBAD SAID:

  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 stru
ck 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.