"A rapid current carries the ship along with it, and we shall all perish in less than a quarter of an hour. Pray to God to deliver us from this peril. We cannot escape, if He do not take pity on us." At these words he ordered the sails to be lowered; but all the ropes broke, and the ship was carried by the current to the foot of an inaccessible mountain, where she struck and went to pieces; yet in such a manner that we saved our lives, our provisions, and the best of our goods. The mountain at the foot of which we were was covered with wrecks, with a vast number of human bones, and with an incredible quantity of goods and riches of all kinds, These objects served only to augment our despair. In all other places it is usual for rivers to run from their channels into the sea; but here a river of fresh water[62] runs from the sea into a dark cavern, whose entrance is very high and spacious. What is most remarkable in this place is that the stones of the mountain are of crystal, rubies, or other precious stones. Here is also a sort of fountain of pitch or bitumen,[63] that runs into the sea, which the fish swallow, and evacuate soon afterward, turned into ambergris[64]; and this the waves throw up on the beach in great quantities. Trees also grow here, most of which are of wood of aloes,[65] equal in goodness to those of Comari. [Footnote 62: Mr. Ives mentions wells of fresh water under the sea in the Persian Gulf, near the island of Barien.--Hole.] [Footnote 63: "Such fountains are not unfrequent in India and in Ceylon; and the Mohammedan travelers speak of ambergris swallowed by whales, who are made sick and regorge it."--Hole.] [Footnote 64: "Ambergris--a substance of animal origin, found principally in warm climates floating on the sea, or thrown on the coast. The best comes from Madagascar, Surinam, and Java. When it is heated or rubbed, it exhales an agreeable odor."--Knight's _English Cyclopaedia_, Vol. I, p. 142.] [Footnote 65: "Camphor is the produce of certain trees in Borneo, Sumatra, and Japan. The camphor lies in perpendicular veins near the center of the tree, or in its knots, and the same tree exudes a fluid termed oil of camphor. The Venetians, and subsequently the Dutch, monopolized the sale of camphor."--_Encyclopaedia Metropolitana_, Vol. III, p. 195. Gibbons, in his notes to the _Decline and Fall_, says: "From the remote islands of the Indian Ocean a large provision of camphor had been imported, which is employed, with a mixture of wax, to illuminate the palaces of the East."]