The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad: Escape from the Cannibals

After my third voyage I was rich and comfortable, yet I could not sit still. Trade and strange sights still pulled me. I put my house in order, sent goods ahead into the Persian provinces I meant to visit, and at a far harbour took ship. Fair weather held for a stretch; then a hurricane wrecked us despite the captain’s skill, and many drowned. A few of us washed up on wreckage near an island and dragged ourselves above the surf to wait for dawn.

In the morning we walked inland toward huts. Villagers poured out, ringed us, and split us among their households. Five others and I were pushed into one hut, seated on the ground, and offered herbs. Our hosts did not eat any; that warned me, so I only pretended. My starving companions swallowed theirs and soon went mad, babbling nonsense and ignoring me. Next came bowls of rice cooked in cocoanut oil. They ate without fear; I took almost nothing, for I saw we were being fattened for the pot. In time the fat ones were killed and eaten. I grew thin on purpose and from dread, so they lost interest and let me roam. When the village left on a raid and only an old guard remained, I bolted into the forest and outran his shouts.

Seven days I fled through brush and shadow, sleeping only when night forced me, living on cocoanuts for both food and drink. My clothes tore; my feet bled; still I would not turn back toward the fattening-pens. On the eighth morning I reached the coast and found men picking pepper from bushes that grew thick along the shore. They spoke Arabic; relief flooded me so hard I nearly wept. I told of the wreck, the village, and the man-eaters. They asked how I alone had lived while others were eaten; I explained how I only pretended to swallow the herbs, stayed lean on purpose, and fled when the guard was old and alone. Astonished, they kept me until their sacks were full, then took me aboard to their own country and led me before their king, who fed me, clothed me, and treated me with honour after hearing the whole tale.

The island thrived; markets bustled; royal favour made townsfolk kind. One habit startled me: nobody used bridle or stirrups. When I asked the king why, he said he had never heard of such gear. I saw my chance. Under my eye a craftsman shaped a saddle-tree; I padded it with soft stuffing, covered it with choice leather, and worked the skirts with gold embroidery. A smith forged bit and spurs from patterns I drew for him. When the set was finished I offered it to the king, saddled one of his horses myself, and showed him how to sit, turn, and ride with the new gear. He cantered about the court delighted with the novelty and paid me richly for the gift. Soon every chief officer wanted a saddle; their gifts made me wealthy and well known in the capital. I kept rooms near the palace; merchants sought my friendship; for a while court ease almost made me forget the sea. Still, whenever ships were mentioned, I thought of Bagdad.

Then the king asked a favour that was really a command: stay for good, marry a rich beauty he would choose, and forget Bagdad. I could not refuse. I took the bride and lived well with her, still hoping someday to slip away home. Prosperity held until a neighbour’s wife fell sick and died. I went to comfort the husband and found him preparing for death himself. He said the island’s ancient law buried the living spouse with the dead—husband with wife, wife with husband—as the fathers had done, without change. Friends and relations gathered. She was laid out in rich robes and jewels on an open bier; he followed in a black mantle that covered him from head to foot. The procession wound to a high mountain outside the city. They lowered her into a deep pit just as she was. Then he bade farewell, stretched himself on another bier with seven small loaves and a jug of water, and was let down—down—into the same horrible cavern. A stone sealed the mouth, and the mourners walked back to town as if nothing strange had happened.

I left shocked and told the king such a custom was the cruellest I had met in all my travels. He answered that it bound everyone—even himself, if the queen died first—and foreigners married in the land were not excused. From that hour I fretted at every ache of my wife’s. Before long she truly fell ill and died within days.

Horror filled me; the vault seemed worse than the cannibals’ cook-pots, but refusal was impossible. They dressed her in her finest and every jewel. I walked behind the bier with the king and nobles to that seaside mountain. My pleas won nothing. Down I went with the seven loaves and the pitcher; the stone closed overhead. When I could look, I saw a huge cavern littered with bones and corpses, and thought I heard the last breaths of the newly sealed. I rationed the bread and water to the last crumb, sitting in the dark among strangers’ bones until thirst and hunger returned. Afterward, desperate, I groped among the dead until another funeral sounded above: stone scraped, light stabbed down, and a woman was lowered with her husband and a fresh store of loaves and water. I waited with a great bone in my fist; one blow killed her, and I took the food that bought me more days. I told myself I was shortening a death that would otherwise be slow, although I was taking her food for myself. Each new burial became the same cruel chance, and I repeated that grim theft whenever the vault opened. Between those horrors I searched every wall for a way out.

One day I heard breathing nearby and saw a shadowy form flee through a crack in the wall. I followed it along a narrow passage, forcing my way between the rocks until a glimmer of light grew into an opening onto the shore. The animal had shown me an exit I had not found myself. The cliffs were too sheer for any road from the city. Safe from chase, I went back into the dark again and again, hauling into daylight the gold, gems, and rich stuff I had stripped from the vault in my wanderings among the dead. At last a ship passed along the coast; I waved my arms and yelled until a boat put off, took me and my heavy bundles aboard, and pulled for the vessel. I told the sailors that I had been shipwrecked two days earlier and had brought my bundles ashore. They believed this false account. The captain, busy with the difficulties of the voyage, asked little more and welcomed me aboard. I sold and traded at our ports and came at last to Balsora and Bagdad with a great fortune. Again I gave large sums to the poor and to the mosques of the city, and passed my time feasting and making merry with my friends and relations.

Here Sindbad ended the story of his fourth voyage. Hindbad received a hundred sequins like the others before, and everyone was asked back the next day; when they had eaten and drunk, Sindbad began the tale of his fifth voyage.

Where this story comes from

The fourth of Sindbad’s seven voyages comes from Andrew Lang’s The Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898), translated from the French version of Antoine Galland. It is one of the Arabian Nights, not an Indian folktale.

Sindbad tells it to his guests and to Hindbad the porter, who say it pleased them more than any voyage so far. It is the darkest of the voyages: islanders who fatten strangers to eat them, and a kingdom where a living husband or wife is buried with a dead spouse.

Lang includes Sinbad killing other prisoners for food, following an animal to escape, and misleading his rescuers. Those disturbing events remain here. The imagined island customs are features of a fantastic narrative, not evidence about the behaviour of a real people.

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

For older readers: includes cannibalism, coerced marriage, live burial and repeated killing of other prisoners.

A survivor’s account asks for scrutiny

Sinbad condemns the burial custom, yet kills other victims of that same custom to obtain their food. His claim that he shortens their suffering is a justification he gives himself, not proof that they consent or that his act is merciful. Returning for jewels after finding the exit makes survival and profit separate motives.

He also gives the rescuers a false account of his situation. The listener hears more than the captain does, which creates a gap between the welcome he receives and what the voyage has involved.

Compare the audiences

List what Sinbad tells his dinner guests about the cave and what he tells the sailors on the beach. What is omitted in the second account? Explain how that difference affects your reading of his final generosity, without denying the danger and coercion he endured.

Talk about it

• How did Sindbad avoid the fate of his companions on the cannibals’ island?
• Sindbad taught the king’s people to use saddles and was rewarded. Why do you think the gift mattered so much to them?
• Sindbad did terrible things to survive in the cave. Can you understand why, even if you think it was wrong?

Related stories

• Sinbad the Sailor: The Third Voyage — Sindbad’s earlier voyage, when a one-eyed giant eats his shipmates
• The Seven Voyages of Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage — Sindbad’s next voyage, with a roc’s egg and the Old Man of the Sea
• The Tale of Prince Agib — another Arabian Nights shipwreck, told by the prince who survived it