I could not moderate my joy, when I found myself delivered from
the danger I have mentioned; I thought myself to be in a dream,
and could scarcely believe myself to be out of danger. The
merchants had thrown their pieces of meat into the valley for
several days; and each of them being satisfied with the diamonds
that had fallen to his lot, we left the place next morning all
together, and travelled near high mountains, where there were
serpents of a prodigious length, which we had the good fortune to
escape. We took the first port, and came to the isle of Ropha,
where trees grow that yield camphire. This tree is so large, and
its branches so thick, that a hundred men may easily sit under
its shade. The juice, of which the camphire is made, runs out
from a hole bored in the upper part of the tree, is received in a
vessel, where it grows to a consistency, and becomes what we call
camphire; and the juice being thus drawn out, the tree withers
and dies. There is here also the rhinoceros, a creature less than
the elephant, but greater than the buffalo: it has a horn upon
its nose about a cubit long; which is solid, and cleft in the
middle from one end to the other, and there are upon it white
draughts, representing the figure of a man. The rhinoceros fights
with the elephant, runs his horn into his belly, and carries him
off upon his head; but the blood and the fat of the elephant
running into his eyes, and making him blind, he falls to the
ground; and, what is astonishing, the roc comes and carries them
both away in her claws, to be meat for her young ones.
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