Page:History of Sindbad the sailor.pdf/11

11 The Third Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor.

The pleasures of the life which I then led, soon made me forget the risks I had run in my two former voyages; but being then in the flower of my age, I grew weary of living without business, and hardening myself against the thought of any danger I might incur, I went from Bagdad with the richest commodities of the country of Balsora. There I embarked again with other merchants. We made a long navigation, and touched at several ports, with which we drove a considerable commerce. One day being out in the main ocean, we were attacked by a horrible tempest, which made us lose our course.

The tempest continued several days, and brouhgtbrought [sic] us before the port of an island where the captain was very unwilling to enter, but we were obliged to cast anchor there. When we had furled out sails, the captain told us, that his and some other neighbouring islands, were inhabited by hairy savages who would speedily attack us and, though they were but dwarfs, yet our misfortune was such, that we must make no resistance, for they were more in number than the locusts; and if we happened to kill one of them, they would all fall upon us and destroy us.

This discourse of the captain put the whole equipage into great consternation, and we found soon to our cost, that what he had told us was but too true. An innumerable multitude of frightful savages, covered all over with red hair, and about two feet high, came swimming toward us and encompassed our ship in a little time. They spoke to us as they came near, but we understood not their language; they climbed up the sides of the ship with surprising agility. We beheld all this