from the Fortunate-Islands, and 39 Degrees and 50 Minutes
of Northern Latitude. A pleasant place, and full of good Buildings,
having without the City a great many Fields and Gardens,
round about which there is a great Wall of XII Parasangæ, or
36 Miles long, which encompasses both the Fields and the City_
Abulphed. Golius _'s Notes upon_ Alferganus. _Thus much concerning
the Place of his Nativity; he was born in the Year of
the_ Hegira 370, _which is about the 980 Year of Christ. He was
indeed a prodigious Scholar; he had learn'd the_ Alcoran, _and
was well initiated into Human Learning before he was Ten years
old; then he studied Logick and Arithmetick, and read over Euclid
without any help, only his Master show'd him how to demonstrate
the first five or six Propositions; Then he read_ Ptolemy's Almagest,
_and afterwards a great many Medicinal Books; and all
this before be was sixteen years old. He was not only a great Philosopher
and Physician, but an excellent Philologer and Poet. Amongst
other of his Learned Works, he wrote an Arabick Lexicon;
but it is lost. Besides all this, he was a Vizier, and met with
a great many Troubles, which nevertheless did not abate his indefatigable
Industry. The Soldiers once mutiny'd, and broke open
his House, and carry'd him to Prison, and would fain have persuaded the
Sultan_ Shemfoddaulah _to have put him to Death,
which he refusing, was forc'd to Banish him. After a Life spent
in Study and Troubles, having written more Learned Books than he
liv'd Years, he died, Aged 58 Years_.]

[Footnote 6: _Subhhéni_--Praise be to me. _Which is an expression never
us'd but when they speak of God_.]

[Footnote 7: I am Truth--_or_, I am the True God. _For the Arabick