Anecdota Oxoniensia. Semitic series.

260 CHURCHES AN.D zl10.NASTERIES OF EGYP:T.

It is said that the limbs of this body were not separated from it, but
that it was found entire, and without any change. It is commonly
reported among men that the body of this martyr is at the town of
Lydda1 in Syria. Some say, however, that the head is there. but that
Fol. 94 a the body was brought to this country [of Egypt], because the governor
of Egypt and the governor of Syria were two brothers, and, as Syria was
filled with troops and marauders, the governor of that country feared that
some outrage might be committed on the body; and so the trunk,
without the head, was brought to the Oases, because they are free
from the incursions of troops and depredators; and the proof of this
is that the pilgrims who went to Syria to visit Lydda, that they might
receive a blessing from the body of the martyr Saint George, said that
they saw the head without the body; and this was during the Fast
of the year 890 of the Righteous Martyrs (A.D. 1174).
The monastery of the Leper is in the Oasis.
Nubia.
At Bujaras, the capital of the province of Al-Maris2, which is a wellpopulated city, there is the dwelling-place of Jausar, who wore the
turban and the two horns and the golden bracelet. A certain traveller
came to [the caliph] Al-'Aziz bi'llah and informed him that he had
1 The church of St. George at Lydda was restored by our own king Richard 1.
For an account of the relics of the saint and all information with regard to him
see Acta SS. at April 23.
2 This passage with the following account of Nubia is to be found translated
in substance in Quatremere, Me'm. ii. p. 3 iff. Mars (t.u&pHC, 'the South') was
the most northern province of Nubia, bordering upon Egypt. The south wind
was likewise called Marisi. Yakft names Marisah 'an island in Nubia from which
slaves are exported.' See Yakft, Geogr. Wort. iv. p. o o; Al-Malkrizl, Khztat,
i. p. I; 'Abd al-Latif, p. 12. Al-Mas'fidi gives, as the chief divisions of Nubia;
Dunkulah (Dongola), Mukurrah, 'Alwah, and Marls; see Muruj adh-Dhahab
(ed. Barbier), iii. p. 32. It is well known that the northern extremity of Nubia
between Syene (Aswan) and Pselcis (Dakkah), and later up to Hiera-Sycominos
(Muharrakah), was a dependency of Egypt under the Ptolemies and the Roman
Empire, and was called Dodecaschoenus.