to our faith and to our law, when people that are without law shall reprove us of our sins. And they that should be converted to Christ and to the law of Jesus by our good examples and by our acceptable life to God, and so converted to the law of Jesus Christ, are through our wickedness and evil living, far from us, and strangers from the holy and true belief shall thus accuse us and hold us for wicked livers and accursed. And indeed they say truth. For the Saracens are good and faithful, and keep entirely the commandment of the holy book Alkoran, which God sent them by his messenger Mohammed; to whom, as they say, St. Gabriel the angel often told the will of God. And you shall understand that Mohammed was born in Arabia, and was first a poor boy that kept camels which went with merchants for merchandise; and so it happened that he went with the merchants into Egypt. And in the deserts of Arabia he went into a chapel where a hermit dwelt; and when he entered into the chapel, which was but little and low, and had a small low door, then the entrance became so great, and so large, and so high, as though it had been of a great minster, or the gate of a palace. And this was the first miracle, the Saracens say, that Mohammed did in his youth. Then he began to wax wise and rich; and he was a great astronomer; and afterwards he was governor and prince of the land of Cozrodane, which he governed full wisely; in such manner that, when the prince was dead, he took his lady, named Gadrige, to wife. And Mohammed fell often in the great sickness called the falling evil, wherefore the lady was sorry that ever she took him to husband. But Mohammed made her believe that when he fell so Gabriel the angel came to speak with him, and for the great brightness of the angel he might not help falling. And therefore the Saracens say that Gabriel came often to speak with him. This Mohammed reigned in Arabia in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 610; and was of the generation of Ishmael, who was Abraham's son, by Agar, his chambermaid. And, therefore, there are Saracens that are called Ishmaelites; and some are called Agarenes, of Agar; and others are called Saracens, of Sarah; and some are called Moabites, and some Ammonites, from the two sons of Lot, Moab and Ammon, whom he begat on his daughters, and who were afterwards great earthly princes. And also Mohammed loved well a good hermit, who dwelt in the desert a mile from Mount Sinai, in the way from Arabia towards Chaldea and towards India, one day's journey from the sea, where the merchants of Venice come often for merchandise. And so often went Mohammed to this hermit that all his men were angry; for he would gladly hear this hermit preach, and make his men wait all night, and therefore his men thought to put the hermit to death: and so it befel upon a night that Mohammed was drunk with good wine, and he fell asleep; and his men took Mohammed's sword out of his