Sinbad the Sailor: The Second Voyage

After my first voyage I meant to live quietly in Bagdad, but an idle life soon felt dull and I ached to feel a deck under my feet again. I chose merchandise fit for the ports I meant to visit and sailed a second time with trustworthy trading partners. Island after island we touched, often striking fine bargains, until we went ashore on a green place full of fruit and fresh springs yet empty of houses or voices. My friends strolled off to pick flowers and fruit. I settled in the shade, ate and drank from my own bundle, and dozed off to the sound of a clear stream.

I cannot say how long I slept. When I opened my eyes the ship had vanished. I scrambled up a tall tree and spotted her under full sail, already too far for any cry of mine to reach. Shouting until my throat hurt did nothing. Alone and frightened, I walked the shore and inland until I found an enormous white dome lying on the ground. I paced around it looking for a door or crack and found none; the circuit was at least fifty paces. As the sun sank, darkness fell early: a shape like a huge black cloud rushed overhead—a bird vast beyond belief. Sailors’ stories of the roc came back to me, and I knew the white dome must be its egg.

The bird settled on the egg, covering it with its wings. I crouched so that one of its feet, thick as a tree trunk, stood just before me. I unbound my turban, tied myself firmly to that foot, and hoped that when the roc flew at dawn it would carry me off the desolate island. So it did. At first light it rose, lifting me until the earth vanished; then it dropped so fast I nearly fainted. When I came to myself I was in a deep narrow valley ringed by cloud-high mountains too steep to climb. The ground glittered with diamonds, some of astonishing size—but also with horrible snakes so large that the smallest could have swallowed an elephant. By day they hid in rock caverns; by night they came out, probably fearing the roc.

All day I wandered. At dusk I crept into a little cave, blocked the mouth with a stone, ate a little of my store, and tried to sleep while serpents hissed outside. At morning silence I ventured out again, kicking diamonds aside as useless to a trapped man. Weariness made me sit on a rock—and something thudded down beside me: a huge piece of fresh meat. More pieces rolled over the cliffs. Then I understood the sailors’ stories of the diamond valley. Merchants came when eagles had hatched young, threw meat into the valley so that diamonds stuck to it, and when the eagles carried the meat to their nests the men scared the birds off and took the stones.

Hope returned. I filled my leather wallet with the largest diamonds and tied it to my belt. I bound the most suitable lump of meat to my back with my turban, lay face down, and waited. Soon wings beat above; an eagle seized the meat—and me—and rose toward its nest. Merchants on watch raised their usual outcry and scared the bird away. Their amazement at finding a man turned to anger; they accused me of stealing their profit. I told the most aggrieved among them what I had suffered and opened my wallet: I had diamonds enough for him and all his company. They crowded round, wondered at my escape, and said they had never seen stones to match mine for size and beauty.

Each merchant watched a particular nest. I offered the owner of mine as much treasure as he wished; he took one stone, not the largest, saying that gem alone made his fortune. I stayed with the merchants several days, sharing their camp, and when they turned toward home I gladly went with them. Our road crossed high mountains haunted by frightful serpents; we had the luck to pass without meeting them and came at last to the sea. From there we sailed to the isle of Rohat, where camphor trees grow so large that a hundred men could shelter under a single trunk. People cut the bark high up, hang a vessel to catch the sap, and let it harden into camphor—though the wounded tree withers and dies. On that same island we saw the rhinoceros, smaller than an elephant and larger than a buffalo, bearing one solid horn about a cubit long, furrowed from base to tip, with the white outline of a man traced upon it. Travellers say the beast fights the elephant, lifts him on that horn, then falls blinded by blood, and the roc seizes both carcasses to feed its young. Whether every sailor’s detail is exact I leave for those who visit Rohat; I pass over many other marvels we saw there so as not to weary you.

Before we left I traded one diamond for merchandise that paid well on the voyage home. At last we reached Balsora; I hurried to Bagdad, gave largely to the poor, and settled down to enjoy the riches won with so much toil.

So Sindbad finished his second voyage. Once more he gave Hindbad a hundred sequins and asked him to come back the next day to hear about the third. The porter, whose old life of hard labour already seemed like a bad dream, returned with the other guests at the same hour, and after the feast Sindbad began again.

Where this story comes from

This voyage is part of “The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor” in Andrew Lang’s The Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898). Lang’s preface says the book was translated from the French of Antoine Galland, who first made the Nights known in France and England in the early 1700s. The story belongs to the Arabian Nights, not to Indian folklore.

Sindbad tells it himself, as the second day’s story for his guest Hindbad the porter. The giant roc bird he meets here appears in more than one Sindbad voyage, and Lang’s preface counts rocs among the wonders that delighted Galland’s first readers.

Read the original: Andrew Lang, The Arabian Nights Entertainments (Project Gutenberg #128, The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor: Second Voyage)

Suggested for ages 6–8 with an adult: includes abandonment, fear of giant snakes and dangerous flights with birds in a fantasy adventure.

A fortune that cannot buy a way out

At the bottom of the valley, diamonds are obstacles to kick aside: Sinbad needs an exit, not riches. Once he understands the meat-and-eagle method, the same stones become portable wealth and a means of settling the merchants’ suspicion. Their value changes with his situation.

The merchant who takes only one stone contrasts with the enormous treasure around them. Enough, rather than the largest possible share, ends the dispute and makes cooperation possible.

Give the objects different values

Rank a turban, a diamond and a piece of meat for usefulness on the island, in the valley and at the nest. Explain why the order changes. The giant birds, enormous snakes and marvellous rhinoceros are features of Sinbad’s fantastic account, not reliable descriptions of wildlife or safe escape methods.

Talk about it

• How did Sindbad get off the desert island?
• Explain the merchants’ trick for getting diamonds out of the valley.
• Sindbad gets out of trouble by thinking fast. Which of his ideas did you think was the cleverest, and why?

Related stories

• Sinbad the Sailor: The First Voyage — Sindbad’s first voyage, when a green island turns out to be a whale
• Sinbad the Sailor: The Third Voyage — Sindbad’s next voyage, with hairy dwarfs and a one-eyed giant
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves — an Arabian Nights tale of a poor man, a treasure cave and danger