Meanwhile, by every means of cruelty and oppression Christianity had been pushed forward; but at length a bishop was appointed at Zafar, whose name is to-day included in the calendar of saints as St Gregentius, who persuaded Abrahá to adopt more lenient measures than those of his predecessor; and even the Arab authors acknowledge him to have been a just and compassionate prince. That he was, however, a fanatic is certain; for the church at Sanaa having been defiled by an Arab from Mecca, where for centuries the Kaabah had been a place of pilgrimage, he vowed to destroy that place, and at the head of a great army marched into the Hejaz. Approaching Mecca, the inhabitants fled; but Abrahá, mounted upon his famous white elephant Mahmoud, failed,—for it is said not only did the huge pachyderm refuse to turn toward the city, but that a miraculous flight of birds dropped pebbles upon the heads of the invading army, killing both men and elephants. This miracle is generally explained as an epidemic of smallpox: however, be it what it may, it ended in the total rout and flight of the Abyssinian troops, who in a miserable plight resought the Yemen, where shortly afterwards Abrahá died. This “battle of the elephant,” as the Arab historians called it, is doubly famous, as it happened in the year of the birth of Mahammed. But the Abyssinian rule was soon to end. Acts of tyranny and cruelty hurried on its termination, and Jaskum, the last sovereign, died in 575 A.D., when the ancestors of the Himyaric dynasty, certain of being unable to regain the throne for themselves, and having failed to persuade the Romans to take up their cause, implored the aid of the Persian monarch Kesra, who after many delays fitted out an expedition, formed for the most part of convicts from the prisons, which reached Aden, under the personal conduct of a descendant of Himyar, Maadi Karib, and a Persian general of the name of Wahraz. A battle ensued with the Abyssinians, in which their monarch—for the Viceroys had by this time taken imperial rights—was killed. Sanaa was reached, and the gates broken down to allow the Persian conqueror to enter with uplifted banners, and Maadi Karib was proclaimed viceroy, paying tribute and owning allegiance to the Persian sovereign. The event of the return of a descendant of Himyar to power is celebrated by many an Arab historian and poet.