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dants, who took me and established me in a goodly lodging, and the king assigned me a daily allowance and pages to wait on me. And every day I used to go in to him and he entertained me and entreated me friendly and delighted in my converse; and as often as our assembly broke up, I went out and walked about the town and the island, diverting myself by viewing them.
Now this island is under the Equinoctial line; its night is still twelve hours and its day the like. Its length is fourscore parasangs and its breadth thirty, and it is a great island, stretching between a lofty mountain and a deep valley. This mountain is visible at a distance of three days’ journey and therein are various kinds of jacinths and other precious stones and metals of all kinds and all manner spice-trees, and its soil is of emery, wherewith jewels are wrought. In its streams are diamonds, and pearls are in its rivers.[1] I ascended to its summit and diverted myself
- ↑ Audiyeh (plural of wadi, a valley). The use of the word in this sense points to an African origin of this version of the story. The Moors of Africa and Spain commonly called a river “a valley,” by a natural figure of metonymy substituting the container for the contained; e.g. Guadalquiver (Wadi el Kebir, the Great River), Guadiana, etc.
