Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

THE WELL OF THE WATER OF LIFE. 263
gave unto all his soldiers and troops' until they
and their beasts were satisfied. And he said unto
them, "Are ye filled?" and they answered him,
saying, "Yea, O king." Then the Two-horned
said unto them, "Behold, ye have eaten of the Alexander
"bread of angels, even as the prophet David saith scripture,
"in the seventy-seventh Psalm,"" "Man did eat the
"bread of His angels."
Now there was among Alexander's friends a
certain man who was a general, and who was set
over many men, and he was called El-khidr;^ andEi-kWdr.
he was a trusted man. And when the sages who
were skilled in the lore of books had been gathered
together by him he spake unto them, saying,
"Have ye not read in your writings, that to God
"belongeth a place of darkness in the earth, wherein
"is a secret place, the knowledge of which is hidden,
"and that the Well, which is called the 'Well of Life',
^ Read (Dh^bf!/^'}? • ' Psalm Ixxviii. 25.
"3 Some say that El-khidr was the son of Malkan, son of
Fala', son of 'Abir, son of ShaUh, son of Arphaxad, son of
Shem, son of Noah, and others identify him with Khidrun
who was descended from Abraham, and say that he lived in
the time of Moses. Tradition says that he found out the
Water of Life, and that having drunk therefrom he became
immortal, and that this name El-khidr j.^isnjl was given to
him to indicate his flourishing and continual youth. See Mas-
udi, tom. i. p. 92; D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient-, Art. Khedher.
On El-khidr-Moses see the Arabic text published by Lidz-
barski in Bezold's Zeitschrift, Bd. viii. p. 286 ff. On the
famous cave of El-khidr at Serendib see Ibn-Batuta, ed.
Defremery, tom. iv. pp. iSi, 182.