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his make is monstrous;[1] wherefore be thou ware and again, I say, beware lest thou speak aught, for that he will incontinent drown us; and know that this place appertaineth to the King of the Jinn and that all thou seest is their handiwork.” Then[2] they came to the lake and behold, a little boat with planks of sandal and Comorin aloes-wood and in it a boatman, whose head was [as] the head of an elephant and the rest of his body [as that of] a wild beast.[3] When he drew near them, he wrapped his trunk about them both and taking them with him into the boat, rowed out with them to the midst of the lake, then fared on with them[4] till he brought them to the other shore, where they landed and walking on, saw there trees of ambergris[5] and aloes and sandal-wood and cloves
- ↑ Lit “inverted” (mecloubeh). Burton, “the reverse of man’s.”
- ↑ Night DIII.
- ↑ Wehsh. Burton, “a lion.”
- ↑ Lit. “then they passed on till” (thumma fatou ila [an]).
- ↑ Sic (ashjar anber); though what the Arabic author meant by “trees of ambergris” is more than I can say. The word anber (pronounced amber) signifies also “saffron”; but the obbligato juxtaposition of aloes and sandal-wood tends to show that what is meant is the well-known product of the sperm-whale. It is possible that the mention of this latter may be an interpolation by some ignorant copyist, who, seeing two only of the three favourite Oriental scents named, took upon himself to complete the odoriferous trinity, so dear to Arab writers, by the addition of ambergris.
Arabic kewarib, plural of carib, a small boat. The common form of the word is caribji. Burton reads it, “Kewariji, one who uses the paddle.”
