Recitation by an able follower.

Be informed, high official:

look, we have reached home.

The mallet has been taken, the mooring-post has been hit,

and the prow-rope is set on land.

Praise has been given, and thanks,

and every man is embracing the other.

Our crew has returned safe,

with no loss of our expedition.

We have reached Wawat's wake,

we have gone by Bigga.

So, look, we have returned in peace;

our land, we have reached it.

So, listen to me, high official:

I am free of excess.

Wash yourself, put water on your fingers:

then you can answer when you are addressed.

You can speak to the king with your wits about you;

you can answer without stuttering.

For the mouth of a man saves him;

for his speech makes leniency for him.

But you act as you have in mind;

speaking to you is wearisome.

Nonetheless, let me relate to you something similar

that happened to me myself,

when I went to the mining country for the sire.

I went down to the sea in a boat

of a hundred twenty cubits in length

and forty cubits in width,

a hundred twenty sailors in it

of the choice of Egypt.

Whether they saw sky or saw land,

their mind was more observant than lions.

They could predict a gale before it came,

a thunderstorm before it happened.

A gale came up while we were at sea,

before we could touch land,

the wind lifted repeatedly,

with a swell of eight cubits from it.

The mast was what broke it for me.

Then the boat died,

and of those who were in it, not one survived.

Then I was put on an island

by a wave of the sea.

I spent three days alone,

my mind as my only companion,

lying inside a thicket,

having embraced the shade.

Then I stretched my legs

to learn what I might put in my mouth.

I found figs and grapes there,

and all (kinds of) fine vegetables.

Green and ripe sycamore figs were there,

and melons as if cultivated.

Fish were there, and birds:

there was nothing that was not inside it.

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