familiars who laid up my goods in my warehouses. When my people who, reckoning the period of my absence on this my seventh voyage, had found it to be seven and twenty years, and had given up all hope of me, heard of my return, they came to welcome me and to give me joy of my safety; and I related to them all that had befallen me; whereat they marvelled with exceeding marvel. Then I forswore travel and vowed to Allah the Most High I would venture no more by land or sea, for that this seventh and last voyage had surfeited me of travel and adventure; and I thanked the Lord (be He praised and glorified!), and blessed Him for having restored me to my kith and kin and country and home. “Consider, therefore, O Sindbad, O Landsman,” continued Sindbad the Seaman, “what sufferings I have undergone and what perils and hardships I have endured before coming to my present state.” “Allah upon thee, O my Lord!” answered Sindbad the Landsman, “pardon me the wrong I did thee.”[FN#96] “And they ceased not from friendship and fellowship, abiding in all cheer and pleasures and solace of life till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and the Sunderer of Societies, and the Shatterer of palaces and the Caterer for Cemeteries to wit, the Cup of Death, and glory be to the Living One who dieth not!”[FN#97] A Translation of The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman according to the version of the Calcutta Edition which differs in essential form from the preceding tale Know, O my brothers and friends and companions all, that when I left voyaging and commercing, I said in myself, “Sufficeth me that hath befallen me;” and I spent my time in solace and pleasure. One day as I sat at home there came a knock at the door, and when the porter opened a page entered and said, “The Caliph biddeth thee to him.” I went with him to the King’s majesty and kissed ground and saluted him; whereupon he welcomed me and entreated me with honour and said, “O Sindbad, I have an occasion for thee: wilt thou do it?” So I kissed his hand and asked him, saying, “O my lord, what occasion hath the master for the slave?”; whereto he answered me, “I am minded that thou travel to the King of Sarandib and carry to him our writ and our gift, for that he hath sent to us a present and a letter.” I trembled at these words and rejoined, “By Allah the Omnipotent, O my lord, I have taken a loathing to wayfare, and when I hear the words ‘Voyage’ or ‘Travel,’ my limbs tremble for what hath befallen me of hardships and horrors. Indeed I have no desire whatever for this; more by token as I have bound myself by oath not to quit Baghdad.” Then I informed the Caliph of all I had passed through from first to last, and he marvelled with exceeding marvel and said, “By the Almighty, O Sindbad, from ages of old such mishaps as happened to thee were never known to happen to any, and thou dost only right never even to talk of travel. For our sake, however,