46 THE SECOND VOYAGE OF

since it is better than this desert place; for in
the island are found, among various fruits, what
I might have eaten, and I might have drunk
of its rivers; but in this place are neither trees
nor fruits nor rivers: and there is no strength
nor power but in God, the High, the Great!
Verily every time that I escape from a calamity,
I fall into another that is greater and more
severe!” Then I arose, and. emboldened my-
self, and walked in that valley; and I beheld
its ground to be composed of diamonds, with
which they perforate minerals and jewels, and
with which also they perforate porcelain and
the onyx; and it is a stone so hard that neither
iron nor rock have any effect upon it, nor can
any one cut off aught from it, or break it, un-
less by means of the lead-stone. All that valley
was likewise occupied by serpents and venomous
snakes, every one of them like a palm-tree ; and
by reason of its enormous size, if an elephant
came to it, it would swallow it. Those serpents
appeared in the night, and hid themselves in
the day, fearing lest the rukh’ and the vulture
should carry them off, and after that tear them
in pieces; and the cause of that I know not.
I remained in that valley, repenting of what
IT had done, and said within myself, ‘By Allah,