NIGHT 538
THE TALE OF SINDBAD THE SAILOR, VOYAGE 1
Scheherazade patted her belly and let the words flow.
ather, friends, as I tell of my first voyage,” said Sindbad the Sailor. To Sindbad the Porter’s surprise, the servants gathered. This man called his servants friends! The porter moved closer.
MY FATHER DIED WHEN I WAS SMALL, LEAVING A GRAND INHERITANCE. When I became a man, I was greedy; I squandered everything on fancy clothes and high living. Everything except one property. I sold that. With the money I bought provisions for trading. I took a job on a ship sailing from the town of Basra.
Ah, the open sea. We sailed from island to island, growing rich. Each time the ship docked, I ran over the landing plank eager for adventure.
One day, as I was cooking stew on a small island, shouts came. “Run!” It was the captain, calling from the ship. “This is no island,” he yelled as he pulled up anchor. “It’s the back of a giant fish. Winds dropped sand on it, birds dropped seeds, trees grew. When you lit that cooking fire, the fish got hot. It will dive into deep waters now. Run!”
Instantly the island sank. Waves crashed over it. We swam after the ship, but the sails whisked it away. One by one, the cries around me ceased. A washtub from the ship floated past and I grabbed hold. The waves carried the tub through the night and just when I felt I could hold on no more, the tub bumped against a branch. I climbed onto it and found myself on an island.
Basra is in the southeast of what is now Iraq. It sits on the river Shatt al-Arab, where the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, merge. It empties into the Persian Gulf. There are marshlands on both sides of the river, with dozens of islands, many inhabited until recent times. Some “Marsh Arabs” lived on artificial islands made of reeds. They must have been easily destroyed in storms. Perhaps that is the source of the fantastic idea that an “island” could really be the back of a sleeping fish.
I had been there several days when I saw a mare tethered to a tree. A man came up out of the ground, clasped my hand, and pulled me down into an underground vault. He fed me fine food and told me he was a groom of King Mihrajan. Each month the grooms brought mares to the shore and tethered them at intervals, then hid to watch.
I soon learned why. We stayed at the mouth of the vault, our eyes on the mare. Suddenly a huge seahorse emerged from the water and mated with the mare. He bit at the tether so he could take the mare into the sea, but it held firm. The groom burst forth, banging his sword against his buckler. The seahorse plunged back into the sea.
“Our mares’ foals will be worth a fortune,” said the groom.
Many grooms gathered then, leading pregnant mares. “Come with us,” they said. We galloped to the city of King Mihrajan. The king declared that the Almighty had saved me for a good purpose. He put me in charge of port trading. I worked hard and made him wealthier. But homesickness for Baghdad grew within me.
A large ship came into port one day and I traded with the captain. He told me, “We’re returning to Basra, so I’ll sell you the goods of a sailor who drowned and I’ll keep the money for his family, who lives in Baghdad.”
My heart beat fast. “What was the man’s name?”
I held him by the shoulders. “My captain! I am Sindbad the Sailor!”
The captain pulled back. “Scoundrel! How dare you claim the goods of a drowned man.”
“But I am who I am.” I listed my goods in his hull. I described what happened on the ship before it stranded me. The listening crew cheered. I sold my goods, bade the king farewell, and journeyed home via Basra. With my earnings, I built this house.
Dawn warmed Scheherazade’s cheeks. “Sindbad the Sailor needed rescue,” said Dinarzad. What a delightful sister, thought Scheherazade. Shah Rayar’s eyes told how much he had enjoyed that adventure. Scheherazade sighed in relief. 
When the fish that seemed to be an island dove, Sindbad the Sailor was stranded in a sea full of magic seahorses that could come out on land and mate with regular horses.