spy, but a true Mahometan, and his devoted slave.  The sultan then commanded me to say Leila illala Mahumet resullah, which words I could never well pronounce, either that it so pleased God, or because I durst not, from some fear or scruple of conscience.  Wherefore, seeing me silent, the sultan committed me again to prison, commanding that I should be carefully watched by sixteen men of the city, every day four in their turns.  After this, for the space of three months, I never enjoyed the sight of the heavens, being every day allowed a loaf of millet bread, so very small that seven of them would hardly have satisfied my hunger for one day, yet I would have thought myself happy if I could have had my fill of water.

[Footnote 49:  According to the monk Picade, Christians are found in all regions except Arabia and Egypt, where they are most hated.—­Eden.]

Three days after I was committed to prison, the sultan marched with his army to besiege the city of Sanaa, having, as I said before, 30,000 footmen, besides 3000 horsemen, born of Christian parents, who were black like the Ethiopians, and had been brought while young from the kingdom of Prester John, called in Latin Presbyter Johannes, or rather Preciosus Johannes.  These Christian Ethiopians are also called Abyssinians, and are brought up in the discipline of war like the Mamelukes and Janisaries of the Turks, and are held in high estimation by this sultan for the guard of his own person.  They have high pay, and are in number four-score thousand[50].  Their only dress is a sindon or cloak, out of which they put forth one arm.  In war they use round targets of buffaloe hide, strengthened with some light bars of iron, having a wooden handle, and short broad-swords.  At other times they use vestures of linen of divers colours, also of gossampine or xylon, otherwise named bomasine[51].  In war every man carries a sling, whence he casts stones, after having whirled them frequently round his head.  When they come to forty or fifty years of age, they wreath their hair into the form of horns like those of goats.  When the army proceeds to the wars, it is followed by 5000 camels, all laden with ropes of bombasine[52].

[Footnote 50:  This is a ridiculous exaggeration, or blunder in transcription, and may more readily be limited to four thousand.—­E.]

[Footnote 51:  These terms unquestionably refer to cotton cloth.  Perhaps we ought to read gossamopine of Xylon, meaning cotton cloth from Ceylon.—­E.]

[Footnote 52:  The use of this enormous quantity of cotton ropes is unintelligible.  Perhaps the author only meant to express that the packs or bales on the camels were secured by such ropes.—­E.]