[Footnote 123: Neither the author of the Saxon Chronicle
(A.D. 833) not William of Malmesbury (de Gestis Regum
Angliae, l. ii. c. 4, p. 44) were capable, in the twelfth
century, of inventing this extraordinary fact; they are
incapable of explaining the motives and measures of Alfred;
and their hasty notice serves only to provoke our curiosity.
William of Malmesbury feels the difficulty of the
enterprise, quod quivis in hoc saeculo miretur; and I almost
suspect that the English ambassadors collected their cargo
and legend in Egypt. The royal author has not enriched his
Orosius (see Barrington's Miscellanies) with an Indian, as
well as a Scandinavian, voyage.]