y own territories; to which
end I caused ten ships to be fitted out, embarked, and set sail.

Our voyage was very pleasant for forty days successively; but on the
forty-first night the wind became contrary, and so boisterous that we
were nearly lost. I gave orders to steer back to my own coast; but I
perceived at the same time that my pilot knew not where we were. Upon
the tenth day a seaman, being sent to look out for land from the
masthead, gave notice that he could see nothing but sky and sea, but
that right ahead he perceived a great blackness.

The pilot changed color at this account, and throwing his turban on
the deck with one hand, and beating his breast with the other, cried,
"O sir, we are all lost; not one of us can escape; and with all my
skill it is not in my power to effect our deliverance."

I asked him what reason he had thus to despair.

He exclaimed, "The tempest has brought us so far out of our course
that to-morrow about noon we shall be near the black mountain, or mine
of adamant, which at this very minute draws all your fleet toward it
by virtue of the iron in your ships; and when we approach within a
certain distance the attraction of the adamant will have such force
that all the nails will be drawn out of the sides and bottoms of the
ships, and fasten to the mountain, so that your vessels will fall to
pieces and sink. This mountain," continued the pilot, "is
inaccessible. On the summit there is a dome of fine brass, supported
by pillars of the same metal, and on the top of that dome stands a
horse, likewise of brass, with a rider on his back, who has a plate of
lead fixed to his breast, upon which some talismanic characters are
engraved. Sir, the tradition is, that this statue is the chief cause
why so many ships and men have been lost and sunk in this place, and
that it will ever continue to be fatal to all those who have the
misfortune to approach, until it shall be thrown down."

The pilot having finished his discourse, began to weep afresh, and all
the rest of the ship's company did the same, and they took farewell of
each other.

The next morning we distinctly perceived the black mountain. About
noon we were so near that we found what the pilot had foretold to be
true; for all the nails and iron in the ships flew toward the
mountain, where they fixed, by the violence of the attraction, with a
horrible noise; the ships split asunder, and their cargoes sank into
the sea.

All my peopl