as to the governor of Egypt. From the last named came friendly assurances and many gifts of value and beauty. Among the gifts was a beautiful Coptic maiden named Mariyah on whom the prophet cast an anxious eye. It was in his mind to make her a concubine at once, but he was deterred by the revelation found in the seventeenth chapter of the Koran, against the sin of adultery. Nor was there any satisfactory outcome until, by the greatest good fortune, a new revelation was given, by means of which intercourse with a handmaiden was permitted in the case of the chosen one of Allah alone. So all went well.
To finally free these pages of the matrimonial experinces of the prophet, let it be said that Mahomet took to himself another wife on his first trip to Mecca under the truce. This time the chosen one was a widow named Maimuna, fifty-one years of age. It was a marriage of policy, and because of it, new converts were gained from the tribe of the wife.
It is perfectly obvious that, in spite of truces and treaties, by no human possibilty could an attempt upon the holy city of Mecca be avoided. Mecca had to become a Moslem town sooner or later. The crash came in the eighth year of the Hegira (and 630 A. D.) when Mahomet, at the head of an army of ten thousand, marched out to take the inevitable step. The attack was a complete surprise and Mecca fell, almost without bloodshed. Then came the heyday of Mahomet. Converts to the new faith came by tens of thousands, expeditions
