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THE VIZIER OF THE TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER

BY

FRANK R. STOCKTON


1899


PREFATORY NOTE

The story told in this book is based upon legendary history, and the
statements on which it is founded appear in the chronicles of Abou-djafar
Mohammed Tabari. This historian was the first Mussulman to write a general
history of the world. He was born in the year 244 of the Hejira
(838-839 A.D.), and passed a great part of his life in Bagdad, where he
studied and taught theology and jurisprudence. His chronicles embrace the
history of the world, according to his lights, from the creation to the
year 302 of the Hejira.

In these chronicles Tabari relates some of the startling experiences of
El Khoudr, or El Kroudhr, then Vizier of that great monarch, the
Two-Horned Alexander, and these experiences furnish the motive for
those subsequent adventures which are now related in this book.

Some writers have confounded the Two-Horned Alexander with Alexander the
Great, but this is an inexcusable error. References in ancient histories
to the Two-Horned Alexander describe him as a great and powerful
potentate, and place him in the time of Abraham. Mr. S. Baring-Gould, in
his "Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets," states that, after a careful
examination, he has come to the conclusion that some of the most generally
known legends which have come down to us through the ages are based on
incidents which occurred in the reign of this monarch.

The hero of this story now deems it safe to speak out plainly without
fear of evil consequences to himself, and his confidence in our high
civilization is a compliment to the age.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I lent large sums to the noble knights

"Don't you do it"

