The San Francisco call., 1910-04-05
"SINBAD THE SAILOR"
WAS A REAL EXPLORER
Arabian Nights Hero Really
Sailed the Sea

When the list of great explorers who
have discovered almost everything be-
tween the poles is now brought up to
date, so as to include Shackleton. Cook
and Peary, 1t is a surprise to find that
the name of Sinbad the Sailor in in
cluded in II by reliable authorities. says
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. AS his
voyages belong to the Arabian Nights
he is immortal at his own expense.
In fact he was one of the great navi-
gators Of his day. Baron Walckenaier
locates him about the middle of the
ninth century, when, before the begin
ming of modern civilization in northern
Europe, the Arabs were the most
learned people left in the world Their
great navigators, Sulaiman and Sinbad,
wished to discover the unknown world
by sailing through the Indian ocean to
solve mysteries now plain to all who
visit Java, the Philippines, Japan and
China.
How Sinbad comes to be remembered
when the even more successful Sulai-
man is forgotten may be easily ex-
planned. Probably he had the gift Of
literary establishment" That is,
without being a liar, he may have re-
ported his voyages in the general style
of a modern magazine article using
word pictures instead of photo engrav-
ings. If he wrote a book we may yet
find the original manuscript in some
out of the way place. now that every
thing in Asia is being pried into by ex-
petitions from our colleges AS his
voyages are part of the ARABIAN
Nights" they prove nothing more than
that in some way he caught the fancy
of professional story tellers, who i'm
mortalized him in the same class with
Baron Munchausen, but above any
other traveller for artistic incredibility.
Among the Arabs the professional
story teller is still in business. as he
was in Sinbad's time. He stands in
the market place, with a crowd around
him. and he tells stories, as marvellous
as he can make them, by borrowing all
he can from books or other story tell
ers, and adding to it as much as he
can. Because OF this habit in MANY
countries, such stories as those of Sin
bad are studied seriously. By study
ing large number of them, a good
view is got of how every fiction begins
in facts of some kind.
AS a fact, Sinbad is now connecting
not only with north polar discovery, but
with airships. The Arabs of his time
wanted nothing else so much as they
did to sail the air, to find out all the
mysteries of the earth. Accordingly
their professional story tellers invented
flying horses and ''rocs." The roc in
Sinbad and other stories was a bird
large enough TO carry off an elephant.
In the earliest successes of aerial navi.
cation roc with a seat swung between
his legs by silken cords easily passed
the best Zeppelin records for speed and
dirigibility.
The old Greek inventors of what was
then thought the impossible invented
the flying man, with wings of his own
The Arab imagination demanded some
means of riding through the air II
reached out for such airships as we
are now getting. IT is hard to find in
the oldest fiction anything the fmaSi-
nation can invent in answer to strong
demand which the mind does not keen
working at through centuries until it
gets it as a fact