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91-3-1 -
The Third Voyage of Sindbaad of the Sea:
Sindbaad in the Mountain of Apes
See also "The
Fifth Voyage of Sindbaad of the Sea" about his confrontation with apes.
On
the 546th Night contd ...
Shaharzaad continued the story of Sindbaad - "Sindbaad
started the story of his third voyage - "This story is more wonderful
than the previous ones. When I returned from my second voyage, I was very
happy and I lived in Bagadaad for a considerable time. Then my soul again
longed for another voyage. So I again bought abundant of goods suited for
a sea voyage and departed to Basaraa. There I saw a large vessel, so I
embarked that vessel with the expectation of good fortune and safety. We
proceeded from sea to sea, from city to city, from place to place, buying
and selling wherever we touched the land; until
one day, in the midst of the roaring sea, the Master of the vessel looked
at another quarter of the sea and slapped his face. He cast his anchors,
plucked his beard, took off his clothes and uttered a great cry.
We
asked him what was the matter. He said - "God preserve us. Winds were
against us and they have driven us out of our course, and Destiny
has cast us towards the Mountain of Apes. No one has ever arrived at this
place and escaped. I am sure of destruction of us all." And the
words of the Master were not ended yet, that the apes had started coming to us and
surrounded our vessel. They were numerous as locusts in number, around the vessel and
on the shore. We feared that if we will kill any one of them, the others
will kill us all. We feared for our goods also. No one understood their
language also. Their hair and faces were black, eyes were yellow, and height was only four
spans (approximately 36"). They climbed up the cables and severed
them with their teeth, they severed the ropes, so the vessel depended
solely on wind. And thus the vessel stopped at their mountain. They seized
all the merchants and passengers and their luggage and took the vessel
with the whole of its contents.
They
left us on the island, took our vessel and we did not know where did they
go with it. So we went here and there to look for food. We ate fruits and
drank water, that we saw a house in the midst of the island. It seemed to
us inhabited so we drew
nearer to it as fast we could. We found that it was a castle with high walls, with folding
doors made of ebony and were open at that time. We entered the castle
and found it wide open. There was a high and large stone bench. There were
utensils also for cooking and many bones were lying around them. But there was no person
around.
We sat
there in an open space for some time, then we slept. We slept until sunset
that we woke up when the earth trembled beneath us and we heard a strange
sound in the sky. A person of enormous size, like a palm tree, with black
complexion descended on us from the summit of the pavilion. His eyes were
like a blazing fire, his mouth was like a mouth of a well, his lips were
like a camel's lips hanging down upon his chest. Seeing such a man we
became as dead men."
On
the 547th Night
Shaharzaad resumed her story - "Sindbaad continued the account of his
third voyage - "We were like dead men seeing that huge man. He sat on the
stone bench for a while. He
then arose and came to me, seized me by my hands and lifted me up. I was
like a morsel in his hand. He continued to feel me like a butcher feels
the sheep before slaughtering it. Then he dropped me down thinking me lean
and thin and took another
man. He dropped that other man also. Thus he did with many men; in the last
he lifted the Master of our ship who was a fat and stout man. He threw him
on the ground, put his foot on his neck. Then he lighted a fire and put it
on the chest of the Master. When his flash was thoroughly roasted he ate
him, part by part, limb by limb, until he ate him all. He threw the
remaining bones on one side. He sat down again on the bench and after a while he slept. Next morning
he went his ways.
As
soon as we made sure that he had gone far enough to hear us, we talked among ourselves that it
would have been better if we had drowned in the sea, or apes had eaten us away, for it was better than the
roasting of a man upon burning coals. There seemed no escape from this
place. Then we went around the island to look for a safe place to hide but
we could not find it. The evening fell so we came back to the castle and
slept there only. At
midnight the same man came again and did the same as he did the last
evening. Today he did not sleep, rather made noise the whole night. When the day came he
went away.
We talked again about to escape from this situation. One of us said -
"We should make a plan to kill him." I said to them - "If
we have to kill him, we must transport this wood and remove some of this
firewood from here and make ourselves some rafts, each to bear at least three men, then we
should kill him and embark on the rafts and go wherever God takes
us. OR we will remain here until a ship passes by. If we will not be able
to kill him we will embark on our rafts and if we be drowned, we are saved
from being roasted over the fire; and if we escape, we escape." So
all cried - "This is a right option." So we moved the wood from
there and
started making rafts.
When
it was evening, the earth trembled again with us and that black man came again
to us. Like before he ate one of us and slept upon the bench. Then we
rose, took two iron rods, put them in fire until they were red hot, then
we thrust them into his eyes, all of us pressing them into his eyes with our united strength,
so his eyes were destroyed and he uttered a great cry. In fury he rose
from the bench and started looking for us, but we ran away from him in
different directions, so he could not find us. Otherwise also he could not
see us. He continued to cry and because of his cries the earth was
shaking beneath us.
After
a while he returned with a female, bigger than himself. We were in utmost
fear seeing her. As soon the female saw us we loosened our rafts, embarked
upon them and pushed them forth in the sea. Those two blacks had a mass of
rock, they threw it on us while we were going away, so many of us died
because of those rocks. Only three persons among us remained alive and the raft
conveyed us to another island.
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