Mecca to Jerusalem, on a mysterious animal
one place to another was as quick as that of lightning, and from thence it is that he had the name of Alborak, that word signifying lightning in the Arabic tongue. As soon as Mahomet appeared at the door, the angel Gabriel most kindly embracing him, did with a very sweet and pleasing countenance salute him in the name of God, and told him that he was sent to bring him unto God into heaven, where he should see strange mysteries, which were not lawful to be seen by any other man, and then bid him get upon the Alborak. But the beast, it seems, having long lain idle from the time of Christ till Mahomet (there having been no prophet in all that interval to employ him) was grown so resty and skittish, that he would not stand still for Mahomet to get up upon him, till at length he was forced to bribe him to it, by promising him a place in Paradise; whereon having quietly taken him on his back, the angel Gabriel leading the way with the bridle of the beast in his hand, he carried him from Mecca to Jerusalem in the twinkling of an eye. On his coming thither, all the prophets and saints departed, appeared at the gate of the Temple to salute him, and from thence attending him into the chief oratory, desired him to pray for them, and then departed. Whereupon Mahomet with the angel Gabriel going out of the Temple, found there a ladder of light ready fixed for them, which they immediately ascended, leaving the Alborak there tied to a rock till their return. On their arrival at the first heaven, the angel Gabriel knocked at the gate, and having informed the porter who he was, and that he brought Mahomet, the friend of God, with him by the Divine command, the gates were immediately opened, which he describes to be of a prodigious largeness. This first heaven, he tells us, was all of
