- _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.

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