bulas, p. 232-234.) Among the older historians who are
quoted by Navairi we may distinguish the original narrative of a soldier
who led the van of the Moslems.]

[Footnote 139: See the history of Abdallah, in Abulfeda (Vit. Mohammed.
p. 108) and Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. 45-48.)]

[Footnote 140: The province and city of Tripoli are described by Leo
Africanus (in Navigatione et Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. Venetia, 1550,
fol. 76, verso) and Marmol, (Description de l'Afrique, tom. ii. p. 562.)
The first of these writers was a Moor, a scholar, and a traveller, who
composed or translated his African geography in a state of captivity
at Rome, where he had assumed the name and religion of Pope Leo X. In
a similar captivity among the Moors, the Spaniard Marmol, a soldier
of Charles V., compiled his Description of Africa, translated by
D'Ablancourt into French, (Paris, 1667, 3 vols. in 4to.) Marmol had read
and seen, but he is destitute of the curious and extensive observation
which abounds in the original work of Leo the African.]

[Footnote 141: Theophanes, who mentions the defeat, rather than the
death, of Gregory. He brands the praefect with the name: he had probably
assumed the purple, (Chronograph. p. 285.)]

A noble Arabian, who afterwards became the adversary of Ali, and the
father of a caliph, had signalized his valor in Egypt, and Zobeir
[142] was the first who planted the scaling-ladder against the walls
of Babylon. In the African war he was detached from the standard of
Abdallah. On the news of the battle, Zobeir, with twelve companions, cut
his way through the camp of the Greeks, and pressed forwards, without
tasting either food or repose, to partake of the dangers of his
brethren. He cast his eyes round the field: "Where," said he, "is our
general?" "In his tent." "Is the tent a station for the general of the
Moslems?" Abdallah represented with a blush the importance of his own
life, and the temptation that was held forth by the Roman praefect.
"Retort," said Zobeir, "on the infidels their ungenerous attempt.
Proclaim through the ranks that the head of Gregory shall be repaid with
his captive daughter, and the equal sum of one hundred thousand pieces
of gold." To the courage and discretion of Zobeir the lieutenant of the
caliph intrusted the execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the
long-disputed balance in favor of the Saracens. Supplying by activity
and artifice the deficiency of numbers, a p