And if I perish, I shall be at peace and shall rest from
toil and moil." So I rose up and gathered together great store of
pieces of wood from the trees (which were all of the finest
sandalwood, whose like is not albe' I knew it not), and made shift
to twist creepers and tree twigs into a kind of rope, with which I
bound the billets together and so contrived a raft. Then saying, "An I
be saved, 'tis of God's grace," I embarked thereon and committed
myself to the current, and it bore me on for the first day and the
second and the third after leaving the island whilst I lay in the
raft, eating not and drinking, when I was athirst, of the water of the
river, till I was weak and giddy as a chicken for stress of fatigue
and famine and fear.
At the end of this time I came to a high mountain, whereunder ran
the river, which when I saw, I feared for my life by reason of the
straitness I had suffered in my former journey, and I would fain
have stayed the raft and landed on the mountainside. But the current
overpowered me and drew it into the subterranean passage like an
archway, whereupon I gave myself up for lost and said, "There is no
Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!"
However, after a little the raft glided into open air and I saw before
me a wide valley, whereinto the river fell with a noise like the
rolling of thunder and a swiftness as the rushing of the wind.
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