I had looked about me I
began to doubt if I had gained anything by quitting the desolate island.

The valley in which I found myself was deep and narrow, and surrounded
by mountains which towered into the clouds, and were so steep and rocky
that there was no way of climbing up their sides. As I wandered about,
seeking anxiously for some means of escaping from this trap, I observed
that the ground was strewed with diamonds, some of them of an
astonishing size. This sight gave me great pleasure, but my delight
was speedily damped when I saw also numbers of horrible snakes so long
and so large that the smallest of them could have swallowed an elephant
with ease. Fortunately for me they seemed to hide in caverns of the
rocks by day, and only came out by night, probably because of their
enemy the roc.

All day long I wandered up and down the valley, and when it grew dusk I
crept into a little cave, and having blocked up the entrance to it with
a stone, I ate part of my little store of food and lay down to sleep,
but all through the night the serpents crawled to and fro, hissing
horribly, so that I could scarcely close my eyes for terror. I was
thankful when the morning light appeared, and when I judged by the
silence that the serpents had retreated to their dens I came
tremblingly out of my cave and wandered up and down the valley once
more, kicking the diamonds contemptuously out of my path, for I felt
that they were indeed vain things to a man in my situation. At last,
overcome with weariness, I sat down upon a rock, but I had hardly
closed my eyes when I was startled by something which fell to the
ground with a thud close beside me.

It was a huge piece of fresh meat, and as I stared at it several more
pieces rolled over the cliffs in different places. I had always
thought that the stories the sailors told of the famous valley of
diamonds, and of the cunning way which some merchants had devised for
getting at the precious stones, were mere travellers' tales invented to
give pleasure to the hearers, but now I perceived that they were surely
true. These merchants came to the valley at the time when the eagles,
which keep their eyries in the rocks, had hatched their young. The
merchants then threw great lumps of meat into the valley. These,
falling with so much force upon the diamonds, were sure to take up some
of the precious stones with them, when the eagles pounced upon the meat
and carried it off to their ne