gave herself out for the son of Nynus, ruled in his name, and ordered that style of dress to be generally followed. She then ordered warlike armaments, and invaded India and conquered it... In India she clandestinely gave birth to a daughter, whom she made when grown up Queen of the finest island in the world, SABA1 by name. In that island women always, or for the most part, have held the government in preference to men. And in the palace there I have seen historical pictures representing women seated on the throne, with. men on bended knees adoring before them. And so also I saw that actually in that country the women sat in the chariots or on the elephant-chairs, whilst the men drove the oxen or the elephants.
The only points worth noticing in his next chapter Concerning Abraham, are his derivation, often repeated, of Saracen from Sarah ; and the remark regarding the Dead Sea, that it can be seen from the dormitory of the Minor Friars on Mount Zion.
The following chapter headed Concerning the Kingdom of the Argives, ends with a discussion whether tithes are obligatory on Christians, and this leads to an anecdote :
As long as the Church and its ministers are provided for in some other way, it may be doubted whether the law of tithe should be imposed ; as it certainly was not by the Apostles or by the Fathers for many a day after their time.
Respecting Saba, see Introductory Notices. In this odd story of Semiramis and her daughter the Queen of Saba, we may perhaps trace the Arab traditions about the birth of Belkis (as they call her) Queen of Sheba or Saba in the time of Solomon. Her mother was said to be a daughter of the jinns, called Umeira, who falling in love with the Wazir of the tyrant King of Saba, carried him to the island where she lived, and married him. Within a year's time she bore him Belkis, with whom the Wazir eventually returned to Saba, and the tyrant father being slain for his misdeeds, Belkis became the wise and glorious Queen who visited Solomon (Weil's Biblical Legends, pp. 195-197). Is it accidental that this story of Marignolli's associates Semiramis with the Queen of Sheba, the Belkis of the Arabs, whilst from modern researches Beltis the chief female deity of the Assyrians, appearing sometimes as the wife of Nin, becomes identifiedwith the ancient stories of Semiramis ? (see Rawlinson's Herodotus, i, 4S4, 495, 513).
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