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with my friends and companions of my own age, thinking this way of life would last for ever. Thus did I a great while, till, at last, when I returned to my senses and awoke from my heedlessness, I found my wealth wasted and my case changed, and gone was all I had. At this I was stricken with dismay and confusion and bethought me of a saying of our lord Solomon, son of David (on whom be peace), which I had heard aforetime from my father, “Three things are better than other three; the day of death is better than the day of birth, a live dog than a dead lion and the grave than poverty.” Then I sold the remains of my property and got together three thousand dirhems, with which I resolved to travel to foreign countries, remembering the saying of the poet:
By sheer endeavour, one winneth to fortune’s height, And he who craveth advancement must watch anight.
In midmost ocean the seeker of pearls must plunge And so attaineth to wealth and lordship and might;
And he sans travail who seeketh eminence His life in the quest of vanity wasteth quite.
So I bought me merchandise and what not else was needed for a sea-voyage and embarked, with a company of merchants, on board a ship bound for Bassora. There we took ship again and putting out to sea, sailed days and nights and passed from island to island and ocean to ocean and place to place, buying and selling and bartering everywhere, till we came to an island as it were one of the pleasaunces of Paradise. Here the captain cast anchor and making fast to the shore, put out the landing-stage. So all on board landed and made furnaces[1] and lighting fires therein, busied themselves in various ways, some cooking and some washing, whilst other some walked about the island for their pleasure and the rest fell to eating
- ↑ The ordinary Eastern furnace is a great jar or pot sunk in the earth, in which a fire of wood is lighted.
