SINDBAD, THE SAILOR. 153

vent your returuing to your native country.” As I did not dare
to refuse the king’s offer, he married me to a lady of his court,
who was noble, beautiful, rich, and accomplished. After the
ceremony of the nuptials, I took up my abode in the house of my
wife, and lived with her for some time in perfect harmony.
Nevertheless, I was discontented with my situation, and designed
to make my escape the first convenient opportunity, and return
to Bagdad, which the splendid establishment I was then in pos-
session of could not obliterate from my mind.

These were my sentiments, when the wife of one of my neigh-
bours, with whom I was very intimate, fell sick and died. 1

. went to console him, and finding him in the deepest affliction,
“May Heaven preserve you,” said I to him, “and grant you a
long. life.” “ Alas,” replied he, “how can I obtain what you
wish me? I have only one hour to live. This day I shall be
buried with my wife. Sach is the custom which our ancestors
have established in this island, and which is still inviolably ob-
served ; the husband is interred alive with his deceased wife,
the wife with the husband, in the same way. nothing can save
me, and every one submits to this law.”

Whilst he was relating to me this singular species of barbarity,
his relations, friends, and neighbours arrived to be present at
the funeral. They dressed the corpse of the woman in the rich-
est attire, as on the day of her nuptials, and decorated her with
all her jewels. They then placed her uncovered on a bier, and
the procession set out. The husband, dressed in mourning,
went immediately after the body of his wife, and the rest fol-
lowed. They bent their course towards a high mountain, and
when they were arrived, a large stone, which covered a deep pit,
was raised, and the body let down into it, without taking off any
of the ornaments. After that, the husband took his leave of his
relations and friends, and without making any resistance, suf-
fered himself to be placed on a bier, with a jug of water and
seven small loaves by his side ; he was then let down, as his
wife had been. This mountain extended a great way, and
served as a boundary to the ocean, and the pit was very deep.
When the ceremony was completed, the stone was replaced, and
the company retired.

I returned home thoughtful and sad. The fear that my wife
might die first, and that I must be interred with her, was a re-