Seaman continued:--So when I escaped drowning and reached the
island which afforded me fruit to eat and water to drink, I
returned thanks to the Most High and glorified Him; after which I
sat till nightfall, hearing no voice and seeing none inhabitant.
Then I lay down, well-nigh dead for travail and trouble and
terror, and slept without surcease till morning, when I arose and
walked about under the trees, till I came to the channel of a
draw-well fed by a spring of running water, by which well sat an
old man of venerable aspect, girt about with a waist-cloth[FN#60]
made of the fibre of palm-fronds.[FN#61] Quoth I to myself,
"Haply this Shaykh is one of those who were wrecked in the ship
and hath made his way to this island." So I drew near to him and
saluted him, and he returned my salam by signs, but spoke not;
and I said to him, "O nuncle mine, what causeth thee to sit
here?" He shook his head and moaned and signed to me with his
hands as who should say, "Take me on thy shoulders and carry me
to the other side of the well-channel." And quoth I in my mind,
"I will deal kindly with him and do what he desireth; it may be I
shall win me a reward in Heaven for he may be a paralytic." So I
took him on my back and carrying him to the place whereat he
pointed, said to him, "Dismount at thy leisure." But he would not
get off my back and wound his legs about my neck. I looked at
them and seeing that they were like a buffalo's hide for
blackness and roughness,[FN#62] was affrighted and would have
cast him off; but he clung to me and gripped my neck with his
legs, till I was well-nigh choked, the world grew black in my
sight and I fell senseless to the ground like one dead. But he
still kept his seat and raising his legs drummed with his heels
and beat harder than palm-rods my back and shoulders, till he
forced me to rise for excess of pain. Then he signed to me with