"You will treat me," replied I, "with more civility when you know me
better. Do not be uneasy; I have diamonds enough for you and myself,
more than all the other merchants together. Whatever they have they
owe to chance; but I selected for myself, in the bottom of the valley,
those which you see in this bag."
I had scarcely done speaking, when the other merchants came crowding
about us, much astonished to see me; but they were much more surprised
when I told them my story.
They conducted me to their encampment; and there, having opened my
bag, they were surprised at the largeness of my diamonds, and
confessed that they had never seen any of such size and perfection. I
prayed the merchant who owned the nest to which I had been carried
(for every merchant had his own) to take as many for his share as he
pleased. He contented himself with one, and that, too, the least of
them; and when I pressed him to take more, without fear of doing me
any injury, "No," said he, "I am very well satisfied with this, which
is valuable enough to save me the trouble of making any more voyages,
and will raise as great a fortune as I desire."
I spent the night with the merchants, to whom I related my story a
second time, for the satisfaction of those who had not heard it. I
could not moderate my joy when I found myself delivered from the
danger I have mentioned. I thought myself in a dream, and could
scarcely believe myself out of danger.
The merchants had thrown their pieces of meat into the valley for
several days; and each of them being satisfied with the diamonds that
had fallen to his lot, we left the place the next morning, and
traveled near high mountains, where there were serpents of a
prodigious length, which we had the good fortune to escape. We took
shipping at the first port we reached, and touched at the isle of
Roha, where the trees grow that yield camphor. This tree is so large,
and its branches so thick, that one hundred men may easily sit under
its shade. The juice, of which the camphor is made, exudes from a hole
bored in the upper part of the tree, and is received in a vessel,
where it thickens to a consistency, and becomes what we call camphor.
After the juice is thus drawn out, the tree withers and dies.
In this island is also found the rhinoceros, an animal less than the
elephant but larger than the buffalo. It has a horn upon its nose,
about a cubit in length; this horn is solid, and cleft through the
middle. The rhinoceros fights with the elephant, runs his horn into
his belly,[53] and carries him off upon his head; but the blood and
the fat of the elephant running into his eyes and making him blind, he
falls to the ground; and then, strange to relate, the roc comes and
carries them both away in her claws, for food for her young ones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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