must be a marvel to you how, after having five times met with
shipwreck and unheard of perils, I could again tempt fortune and risk
fresh trouble. I am even surprised myself when I look back, but
evidently it was my fate to rove, and after a year of repose I prepared
to make a sixth voyage, regardless of the entreaties of my friends and
relations, who did all they could to keep me at home. Instead of going
by the Persian Gulf, I travelled a considerable way overland, and
finally embarked from a distant Indian port with a captain who meant to
make a long voyage. And truly he did so, for we fell in with stormy
weather which drove us completely out of our course, so that for many
days neither captain nor pilot knew where we were, nor where we were
going. When they did at last discover our position we had small ground
for rejoicing, for the captain, casting his turban upon the deck and
tearing his beard, declared that we were in the most dangerous spot
upon the whole wide sea, and had been caught by a current which was at
that minute sweeping us to destruction. It was too true! In spite of
all the sailors could do we were driven with frightful rapidity towards
the foot of a mountain, which rose sheer out of the sea, and our vessel
was dashed to pieces upon the rocks at its base, not, however, until we
had managed to scramble on shore, carrying with us the most precious of
our possessions. When we had done this the captain said to us:

"Now we are here we may as well begin to dig our graves at once, since
from this fatal spot no shipwrecked mariner has ever returned."

This speech discouraged us much, and we began to lament over our sad
fate.

The mountain formed the seaward boundary of a large island, and the
narrow strip of rocky shore upon which we stood was strewn with the
wreckage of a thousand gallant ships, while the bones of the luckless
mariners shone white in the sunshine, and we shuddered to think how
soon our own would be added to the heap. All around, too, lay vast
quantities of the costliest merchandise, and treasures were heaped in
every cranny of the rocks, but all these things only added to the
desolation of the scene. It struck me as a very strange thing that a
river of clear fresh water, which gushed out from the mountain not far
from where we stood, instead of flowing into the sea as rivers
generally do, turned off sharply, and flowed out of sight under a
natural archway of rock, and when I we