islands, which I desired, for my amusement, to visit; I therefore
embarked with a fleet of ten ships, and took with me provisions
sufficient for a whole month. I proceeded twenty days, after which there
arose against us a contrary wind; but at daybreak it ceased, and the sea
became calm, and we arrived at an island, where we landed, and cooked
some provisions and ate; after which we remained there two days. We then
continued our voyage; and when twenty days more had passed, we found
ourselves in strange waters, unknown to the captain, and desired the
watch to look out from the mast head: so he went aloft, and when he had
come down he said to the captain: "I saw, on my right hand, fish
floating upon the surface of the water; and looking toward the midst of
the sea, I perceived something looming in the distance, sometimes black,
and sometimes white."

When the captain heard this report of the watch, he threw his turban on
the deck, and plucked his beard, and said to those who were with him:
"Receive warning of our destruction, which will befall all of us: not
one will escape!" So saying, he began to weep; and all of us in like
manner bewailed our lot. I desired him to inform us of that which the
watch had seen. "O my lord," he replied, "know that we have wandered
from our course since the commencement of the contrary wind that was
followed in the morning by a calm, in consequence of which we remained
stationary two days: from that period we have deviated from our course
for twenty-one days, and we have no wind to carry us back from the fate
which awaits us after this day. To-morrow we shall arrive at a mountain
of black stone, called loadstone: the current is now bearing us
violently toward it, and the ships will fall in pieces, and every nail
in them will fly to the mountain, and adhere to it; for God hath given
to the loadstone a secret property by virtue of which everything of iron
is attracted toward it. On that mountain is such a quantity of iron as
no one knoweth but God, whose name be exalted; for from times of old
great numbers of ships have been destroyed by the influence of that
mountain. There is, upon the summit of the mountain, a cupola of brass
supported by ten columns, and upon the top of this is a horseman upon a
horse of brass, having in his hand a brazen spear, and upon his breast
suspended a tablet of lead, upon which are engraved mysterious names and
talismans: and as long, O King, as this horseman re