Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

250
THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
"His seat upon His throne of glory. Then He
"commanded one of His angels' to bring unto Him
"dust from [all] the four corners of the world, and
"out of it He created a man, that is^ to say, thy
"father Adam. And He made for him a garden,
Creation of"and pkccd him in it to dwell on the borders of it
"and He created for him a woman out of a bone
"from his side that she might be a helpmeet [for
"him]. And He gave him commandments, but he
"disobeyed [them], and He drove him out of
"Paradise and made him to dwell in a strano-e
k O
Adam dwelt "land, the name of which was Alexandria; novv it
dria.
^''^"'
"was a land which shook and quaked by reason
"of the great quantity of water which was therein.^
"And it came to pass that God saw this, and when
"the angels, too, looked at the land [and saw]
"that it shook and quaked, they spake unto Him,
' Gabriel and Michael were first sent to bring clay from
the earth with which God might fashion manj but when the
earth appealed to God for help they returned empty. At
length the angel of Death went, and being deaf to the earth's
entreaties, brought back to God red, black, and white earths,
of which the Almighty made the ancestors of the races of
different colours. See Mas'udi, torn i. p. 52; Budge, Book of
the Bee, p. 16; Bezold, Schaizhohle, pp. 3, 4.
^ Read HO>-h'|i :
3 The allusion here seems to be to the statement that
when Alexander came to the site where he afterwards built
his city he found all the canals and watercourses leading to
the sea choked, except two; all the streets and open spaces
of the city were thus destroyed. See Miiller, p. 32, note
14; Budge, Alexander, p. 39.