I have mentioned. I thought myself in a dream, and could
scarcely believe myself out of danger.

The merchants had thrown their pieces of meat into the valley for
several days; and each of them being satisfied with the diamonds that
had fallen to his lot, we left the place the next morning, and
traveled near high mountains, where there were serpents of a
prodigious length, which we had the good fortune to escape. We took
shipping at the first port we reached, and touched at the isle of
Roha, where the trees grow that yield camphor. This tree is so large,
and its branches so thick, that one hundred men may easily sit under
its shade. The juice, of which the camphor is made, exudes from a hole
bored in the upper part of the tree, and is received in a vessel,
where it thickens to a consistency, and becomes what we call camphor.
After the juice is thus drawn out, the tree withers and dies.

In this island is also found the rhinoceros, an animal less than the
elephant but larger than the buffalo. It has a horn upon its nose,
about a cubit in length; this horn is solid, and cleft through the
middle. The rhinoceros fights with the elephant, runs his horn into
his belly,[53] and carries him off upon his head; but the blood and
the fat of the elephant running into his eyes and making him blind, he
falls to the ground; and then, strange to relate, the roc comes and
carries them both away in her claws, for food for her young ones.

I pass over many other things peculiar to this island, lest I should
weary you. Here I exchanged some of my diamonds for merchandise. From
hence we went to other islands, and at last, having touched at several
trading towns of the continent, we landed at Bussorah, from whence I
proceeded to Bagdad. There I immediately gave large presents to the
poor, and lived honorably upon the vast riches I had brought, and
gained with so much fatigue.

[Footnote 53: Captain Marryat, in his _Bushboys_, gives an account of
this contest, in which the rhinoceros came off victorious. He also
gives, in the same amusing volume, an account of a bird taking up a
serpent into the air. The scene of the adventures of the _Bushboys_ is
South Africa.]

Thus Sindbad ended the relation of the second voyage, gave Hindbad
another hundred sequins, and invited him to come the next day to hear
the account of the third.

THE THIRD VOYAGE OF SINDBAD THE SAILOR

I soon again grew weary of living a life of idleness, and hardening