“I, Ibraha, by the grace of God and Jesus Christ our Saviour, king of Yemen, taking counsel and advice of the good Gregentius, bishop of Dhafar, and having completed the building of the cathedral to the glory of God and in memory of our victory over the idolaters, do now and hereby proclaim that all the Arab tribes who annually visit the heathen shrine at Mecca, are expected to cease going thither and to come with their caravans of merchandise to worship the true God, on a shorter and more convenient journey to our magnificent church at Sana, the capital, on penalty of a levy to be put by me on all caravans of tribes that refuse to obey this proclamation. And be it furthermore known to all the tribes of Koreish....” The reader was rudely interrupted by a party of Bedouin who drove their dromedaries right through the gate and up the street with such fury that some of the crowd barely escaped being run over. “It is a troop of those accursed Kenanehs,” said Ibn Choza to his companion. “They were born without manners—wild asses of the desert.” “Yes,” answered the other; “and who insult our good king with their nickname of El Ashram,—the split nosed,—because of the scar that remains since his encounter with the heathen Aryat.” “If such as these, Abood, do not obey this latest order from our Christian king, we’ll try the spears of my Modarites, and then woe betide their caravans of semn and their fertile palms. Not all the three hundred gods of the Kaabeh could save them from the righteous wrath of Abraha.” The new cathedral, whose ruined foundations yet testify as to its size and solidity, had been completed for some months, and on the morrow the good bishop was expected from Dhafar to preach to the crowds that thronged Yemen’s capital at the feast. This year more strangers than ever before crowded the markets; many were come, in obedience to the proclamation, even from distant Yathrib and from beyond Nejran, to engage in commerce and religion at once,—the universal custom of the Arabs. The autumn rains were over and a fresh breeze from Jebel Nokum increased the cold, felt by such strangers especially, as came for the first time from the hot coast to an elevation of 9,000 feet.