Our voyage was very successful for forty days together; but on the forty-first night the wind became contrary, and withal so boisterous that we were like to have been lost in the storm.  About break of day the wind grew calm, the clouds were dispersed, and the sun having brought back fair weather, we came close to an island, where we remained two days to take in fresh provisions; this being done, we put off again to sea.  After ten days sail, we were in hopes of seeing land, for the tempests we had gone through had so much abated my curiosity, that I gave orders to steer back to my own coast; but I perceived at the same time that my pilot knew not where we were.  Upon the tenth day, a seaman being sent to look out for land from the mast-head, he gave notice that on starboard and larboard he could see nothing but the sky and the sea which bounded the horizon, but just before us, upon the stern, he saw a great blackness.

The pilot changed colour at the relation and throwing his turban on the deck with one hand, and beating his breast with the other, cried, O, sir, we are all lost; not one of us will escape; and, with all my skill, it is not in my power to prevent it!  Having spoken thus, he fell a-crying like a man who foresaw unavoidable ruin; his despair put the whole ship’s crew into a terror.  I asked him what reason he had thus to despair?  He told me, the tempest which we had outlived had brought us so far out of our course that to-morrow about noon we should come near to that black place, which is nothing else but the black mountain, that is, a mine of adamant, which at this very minute draws all your fleet towards it, by virtue of the iron nails that are in your ships; and when we come to-morrow, at a certain distance, the strength of the adamant will have such a force, that all the nails will be drawn out of the sides and bottoms of the ships, and fastened to the mountain, so that your vessel will fall to pieces, and sink to the bottom; and as the adamant has a virtue to draw all iron to it, whereby its attraction becomes stronger, this mountain on the side of the sea is all covered over with nails, drawn out of an infinite number of vessels that have perished by it; and this preserves and augments its virtue at the same time.

This mountain, continues the pilot, is very rugged.  On the top of it there is a dome of fine brass, supported by pillars of the same, and upon the top of that dome there stands a horse of the same metal, with a rider on his back, who has a plate of lead fixed to his breast, upon which some talismantical characters are engraved.  Sir, the tradition is, that this statue is the chief cause that so many ships and men have been lost and sunk in this place, and that it will ever continue to be fatal to all who have the misfortune to come near it, until such time as it shall be thrown down.

The pilot, having ended his discourse, began to weep afresh, and this made all the rest of the ship’s company to do the like.  I myself had no other thoughts but that my days were there to have an end.  In the mean time every one began to provide for his own safety, and to that end took all imaginable precautions; and, being uncertain of the event, they all made one another their heirs, by virtue of a will, for the benefit of those that should happen to be saved.