Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/363

347 them were like unto buffaloes, others to oxen and others to dogs and yet others unto human beings; but all to which they drew near fled, whenas they saw the fisherman, who said to the merman, ‘O my brother, how is it that I see all the fish, to which we draw near, flee from us?’ ‘Because they fear thee,’ answered the other; ‘for all things that God hath made fear the son of Adam.’

The fisherman ceased not to gaze upon the marvels of the sea, till they came to a high mountain and fared on beside it. Presently, he heard a great cry and turning, sowsaw [sic] some black thing, the bigness of a camel or bigger, coming down upon him from the mountain and crying out. So he said to his friend, ‘What is this, O my brother?’ ‘This is the dendan,’ answered the merman. ‘It cometh down in quest of me, seeking to devour me; so cry thou out at it, O my brother, ere it win to us; else will it snatch me up and devour me.’ So Abdallah cried out at it and it fell down dead; which when he saw, he said, ‘Extolled be the perfection of God and His praise! I smote it not with sword nor knife; how comes it, then, that, for all the vastness of the creature’s bulk, it could not endure my cry, but died?’ ‘Marvel not,’ replied the merman; ‘for, by Allah, O my brother, were there a thousand or two thousand of these creatures, yet could they not endure the cry of a son of Adam.’

Then they fared on, till they came to a city, whose inhabitants the fisherman saw to be all women, there being no male among them; so he said to his companion, ‘O my brother, what city is this and what are these women?’ ‘This is the city of women,’ answered the merman, ‘for its inhabitants are of the women of the sea.’ ‘Are there any males among them?’ asked the fisherman; and the merman said, ‘No.’ ‘Then how,’ said Abdallah, ‘do they conceive and bear young, without males?’ Quoth the other, ‘The king of the sea banishes them hither and