Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 16.djvu/297

 were weakened by a colic occasioned by the sea. After this, we remained a short period, and all my associates and companions died, one after another, and each of them who died we buried. Then I was alone on that island, and there remained with me but little of the provisions, after there had been much. So I wept for myself, and said, Would that I had died before my companions, and that they had washed me and buried me! There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great!And I remained a short time longer; after which I arose and dug for myself a deep grave on the shore of the island, and said within myself, When I fall sick, and know that death hath come to me, I will lie down in this grave, and die in it, and the wind will blow the sand upon me, and cover me; so I shall become buried in it. I blamed myself for my little sense, and my going forth from my country and my city, and my voyaging to foreign countries, after what I had suffered in the first instance, and the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth; and when I had not performed one of my voyages without suffering in it horrors and distresses more troublesome and more difficult than the horrors preceding. I believed not that I could escape and save myself, and repented of undertaking sea voyages, and of my returning to this life when I was not in want of wealth, but had abundance, so that I could not consume what I had, nor spend half of it during the rest of my life; having enough for me, and more than enough. Then I meditated in my mind, and said, This river must have a beginning and an end, and it must have a place of egress into an inhabited country. The right plan in my opinion will be for me to construct for myself a small raft, of sufficient size for me to sit upon it, and I will go down and cast it upon this river, and depart on it. If I find safety, I am safe, and escape, by permission of God (whose name be exalted!); and if I find no way of saving myself, it will be better for me to die in this river than in this placeAnd I sighed for myself. Then I arose and went and collected pieces of wood that were upon that island, of Sanfi and Kamari aloes-wood, and bound them upon the shore of the sea with some of the ropes of the ships that had been wrecked; and I brought some straight planks, of the planks of the ships, and placed them upon those pieces of wood. I made the raft to suit the width of the river, less wide than