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Guerin next visited Jerusalem, paid his devotions at the holy sepulchre, and thence passed on a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. From the Holy Land he penetrated into Ethiopia, and arrived at the states of Prester John. This ecclesiastical emperor was at war with a savage people, who had a giant at their head. Guerin assumed the command of Prester's army, and was eminently successful,

In his subsequent progress through Africa, Guerin converted many infidel kings to Christianity, and in one region he possessed himself of the whole country, except the dominions of King Validor. Against this pagan he prepared to take strenuous measures, but his trouble was much abridged by means of the sister of that monarch. This African princess had become enamoured of Guerin, from the account she had received of his beauty, valour, and strength. She therefore sent a messenger to offer him the head and kingdom of her brother, provided he would consent to espouse her; or, at least, conduct himself as her husband. Some of Guerin's retinue received this embassy, and, apprehensive of the over scrupu lous conscience of their master, returned in his name a favourable answer. The lady performed

her promise in the following manner: she intoxicated her brother, and as he became very enterprising in consequence, she cut off his head in an assumed fit of resentment. The gates of the capital were then opened to Guerin; but, when the princess came to demand from him the recompense of her treachery, she was repulsed with the utmost contempt and indignation, being very ugly, and also red-haired,-a singular defect in an Afri

can.

After this, Guerin having heard that in the mountains of Calabria there lived a sibyl, who had predicted the birth of our Saviour, he resolved to interrogate her concerning his parents. When he arrived in her neighbourhood, he was informed that he had undertaken a very dangerous expedition, since the sibyl, though twelve hundred years old, still formed designs on the hearts of those who came to consult her, and that it was most perilous to yield to her seductions: but Guerin, who seems to have held in contempt the fascinations of a sibyl twelve hundred years old, was not deterred from his enterprise. In passing the mountains he met with a hermit, who pointed out to him a hollow in the rocks, which led to her abode. Having reached the end of this cavern, he came to a broad river, which he crossed on the back of

a hideous serpent, who was in waiting, and who informed him during the passage, that he had formerly been a gentleman, and had undergone this unpleasant transformation by the charms of the sibyl. Guerin now entered the palace of the prophetess, who appeared surrounded by beautiful attendants, and was as fresh as if she had been eleven hundred and eighty years younger than she was in reality. A splendid supper was served up, and she informed Guerin in the course of the conversation which arose after the repast, that she enjoyed the benefits of long life and unfading beauty, in consequence of having predicted the birth of our Saviour; nevertheless, she confessed that she was not a Christian, but remained firmly attached to Apollo, whose priestess she had been at Delphos, and to whom she was indebted for the gift of prophecy; her last abode had been at Cumae, whence she had retired to the palace which she now inhabited.

Hitherto the conversation of the sibyl had not been such as was expected from her endowments. It had been more retrospective than premonitory; and, however communicative as to her personal history, she had been extremely reserved on the subject of her guest's. At length, however, she informed him of the names of his parents, and all

the circumstances of his birth. She farther promised to acquaint him, on some other occasion, with the place of their residence, and to give him some insight into his future destiny.

At night the sibyl conducted Guerin to the chamber prepared for his repose, and he soon perceived that she was determined to give him considerable disturbance, as she began to ogle him, and then proceeded to the narrowest scrutiny. The wood of the cross, however, which he had received from the Greek empress, and an occasional prayer, procured his present manumission from the sibyl, who was obliged to postpone her designs till the morrow, and thence to defer them for the five following days, owing to the repulsive influence of the same relic.

The prophetess, who seems in her old age to have changed the conduct which procured from Virgil the appellation of Casta Sibylla, still refrained from informing her guest of the residence of his parents, in order that, by detaining him in her palace, she might grasp an opportunity of finally accomplishing her intentions. One Saturday she unluckily could not prevent the knight from being witness to an unfortunate and inevitable metamorphose. Fairies, it seems, and those connected with fairies, are on that day invariably

converted into hideous animals, and remain in this guise till the ensuing Monday. Guerin, who had hitherto seen the palace inhabited only by fine ladies and gentlemen, was surprised to find himself in the midst of a menagerie, and to behold the sibyl herself contorted into a snake. When she had recovered her charms, Guerin upbraided her with the spiral form into which she had been lately wreathed. He now positively demanded his leave, which having obtained, he forthwith repaired to Rome, and though he had extricated himself from the den in the most Christian manner, he deemed it necessary to demand the indulgence of the holy father, for having consulted a sibyl who was at once a sorceress, a pagan, and a serpent. The pope imposed on him, as a penance, that he should visit the shrine of St James in Galicia, and afterwards the purgatory of St Patrick in Ireland, at the same time giving him hopes that in the latter place he might hear intelligence of his parents.

Guerin met with nothing remarkable during the first part of his expiatory pilgrimage. The account, however, of Saint Patrick's purgatory is full of wonders. When Saint Patrick went to preach in Ireland, the honest Hibernians refused to believe the articles of his creed, unless they re

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