Week 6 Reading Notes: Voyages of Sindbad, Part B

 

"Sixth Voyage" Source

Sixth Voyage:

    Sindbad, who has already been through five shipwrecks to this point, set out on his sixth voyage after his friends and family urged him to stay. He set out with a captain who was planning on going on a long journey anyway. The ship was met with many storms which drove them off course to where even the captain did not know where they were. Once the captain figured out where they were he notified Sindbad that they were on course to be in the most dangerous waters in the sea. The ship was soon met by a mountain that appeared out of nowhere and the ship was torn to bits. The crew made it to shore with their possessions. The captain had no faith that they would make it back alive so the crew became weary. 

    The mountain for which they crashed into had debris from thousands of other ships and bones of unfortunate past crew members with their treasures laying close to them. Sindbad noticed a stream of water coming out of the mountain and instead of flowing to the sea like most rivers would it disappeared into an archway of rocks. After closer examination, there were diamonds and other priceless gems inside this archway. 

    The captain divided the remaining rations of food between the crew members so that they would have an equal amount of time left to live. Sindbad was able to survive off of less food than his companions and lived longer than them and was the one to bury them. He had little food left and was sure to die soon, so Sindbad thought that he might as well give it one last-ditch effort to survive. he had the idea to build a raft and follow the river which disappeared into the cavern. He packaged up his remaining food and some of the gems in the cavern and set off down the river. 

Bibliography: "The Arabian Nights' Entertainment" by Andrew Lang.