Another story is of a calender, a sort of Mahometan monk, with one eye,
who had originally been a prince. He had contracted a taste for
navigation and naval discoveries; and, in one of his voyages, having
been driven by stress of weather into unknown seas, he suddenly finds
himself attracted towards a vast mountain of loadstone, which first,
by virtue of the iron and nails in the ship, draws the vessel towards
itself, and then, by its own intrinsic force, extracts the nails, so
that the ship tumbles to pieces, and every one on board is drowned.
The mountain, on the side towards the sea, is all covered with nails,
which had been drawn from vessels that previously suffered the same
calamity; and these nails at once preserve and augment the fatal power
of the mountain. The prince only escapes; and he finds himself in a
desolate island, with a dome of brass, supported by brazen pillars,
and on the top of it a horse of brass, and a rider of the same metal.
This rider the prince is fated to throw down, by means of an enchanted
arrow, and thus to dissolve the charm which had been fatal to
thousands. From the desolate island he embarked on board a boat, with
a single rower, a man of metal, and would have been safely conveyed to
his native country, had he not inadvertently pronounced the name of
God, that he had been warned not to do, and which injunction he had
observed many days. On this the boat immediately sunk; but the prince
was preserved, who comes into a desolate island, where he finds but
one inhabitant, a youth of fifteen. This youth is hid in a cavern, it
having been predicted of him that he should be killed after fifty days,
by the man that threw down the horse of brass and his rider. A great
friendship is struck up between the unsuspecting youth and the prince,
who nevertheless fulfils the prediction, having by a pure accident
killed the youth on the fiftieth day. He next arrives at a province of
the main land, where he visits a castle, inhabited by ten very
agreeable young men, each blind of the right eye. He dwells with them
for a month, and finds, after a day of pleasant entertainment, that
each evening they do penance in squalidness and ashes. His curiosity
is greatly excited to obtain an explanation of what he saw, but this
they refuse, telling him at the same time, that he may, if he pleases,
pass through the same adventure as they have done, and, if he does,
wishing it may be attended with a more favourable issue. He determines
to make the experiment; and by their direction, after certain
preparations, is flown away with through the air by a roc, a stupendous
bird, that is capable in the same manner of carrying off an elephant.
By this means he is brought to a castle of the most extraordinary
magnificence, inhabited by forty ladies of exquisite beauty. With
these ladies he lives for eleven months in a perpetual succession of
delights. But in the twelfth month they tell him, that they are
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