thrown down his piece of meat. And as I went off with them I told
them my whole story, how I had suffered hardships at sea and the
fashion of my reaching the valley. But I gave the owner of the
meat a number of the stones I had by me, so they all wished me
joy of my escape, saying, "By Allah a new life hath been decreed
to thee, for none ever reached yonder valley and came off thence
alive before thee; but praised be Allah for thy safety!" We
passed the night together in a safe and pleasant place, beyond
measure rejoiced at my deliverance from the Valley of Serpents
and my arrival in an inhabited land; and on the morrow we set out
and journeyed over the mighty range of mountains, seeing many
serpents in the valley, till we came to a fair great island,
wherein was a garden of huge camphor trees under each of which an
hundred men might take shelter. When the folk have a mind to get
camphor, they bore into the upper part of the bole with a long
iron; whereupon the liquid camphor, which is the sap of the tree,
floweth out and they catch it in vessels, where it concreteth
like gum; but, after this, the tree dieth and becometh
firewood.[FN#24] Moreover, there is in this island a kind of wild
beast, called "Rhinoceros,"[FN#25] that pastureth as do steers
and buffalos with us; but it is a huge brute, bigger of body than
the camel and like it feedeth upon the leaves and twigs of trees.
It is a remarkable animal with a great and thick horn, ten cubits
long, amiddleward its head; wherein, when cleft in twain, is the
likeness of a man. Voyagers and pilgrims and travellers declare
that this beast called "Karkadan" will carry off a great elephant
on its horn and graze about the island and the sea-coast
therewith and take no heed of it, till the elephant dieth and its
fat, melting in the sun, runneth down into the rhinoceros's eyes
and blindeth him, so that he lieth down on the shore. Then comes