APPENDIX 279

watching for some one who would set forth on a voyage
from that city, that I might go with him. And while
I was so doing, lo, a company of men in the city desired
to perform a voyage, but found not for themselves a
ship; wherefore they bought wood, and made for them a
great ship; and I engaged for a passage with them, and
paid them the whole of the hire. I then embarked my
wife, and all that we had, in the ship; and, leaving the
other possessions and the estates, we proceeded, and
ceased not in our course over the sea from island to
island, and from sea to sea; and the wind and the
voyage were pleasant to us until we arrived in safety at
the city of El-Basrah. I sojourned not there; but
engaged for a passage in another vessel, to which I
transferred all that I had with me, and I went on to the
city of Baghdad. Then I entered my quarter and came
to my house, met my family and companions and friends,
and stowed all the goods that I had with me in my
magazines; and my family calculated the period of my
absence from them during the seventh voyage, and found
it to be seven and twenty years, so that they had given
up all hope of my return.

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.
Edinburgh and London