XII. REIGN OF ABD-AL-RAHMAN III…

XII. REIGN OF ABD-AL-RAHMAN III

912–961

Eminent Qualities of the New Ruler--His Firmness--Rapid Subjection of the Rebel Territory--Dissensions of the Christians--Defeat of Ibn-Abi-Abda--Death of Ibn-Hafsun--Impaired Power of the Arab Nobles--War with the Fatimites of Africa--Rout of Junquera--Abd-al-Rahman assumes the Title of Khalif--Its Significance--Invasion of Castile--Reverse of Alhandega--Civil Wars of the Christians--The Princes of Leon and Navarre visit the Moslem Court--Abd-al-Rahman dies at the Age of Seventy Years--His Remarkable Achievements--The Greek and German Embassies--The Saracens in France and Italy--The Slaves and their Influence--Plot of Abdallah--Condition of the Country under Abd-al-Rahman III.--Cordova--Its Wealth and Magnificence--The Royal Villas--The City and Palace of Medina-al-Zahrâ--Melancholy Reflections of the Greatest of the Khalifs.

The sceptre of the emirate had, by the choice of Abdallah, been bequeathed to Abd-al-Rahman, his grandson, to the prejudice of his second son, Al-Modhaffer, who stood next in the order of succession. Mohammed, the heir to the throne, accused of treason, had perished in a dungeon, the victim of the jealousy or the justice of his unfeeling father. The circumstances attending this tragedy, as well as the events which provoked it, are alike involved in uncertainty. That the heir apparent should have allied himself with the Christians, have served under the banner of Ibn-Hafsun, the implacable enemy of his race, and have attempted to overturn the very government which it was his duty as well as his interest to support, seems highly improbable. Yet this is what we are led to infer from the obscure statements of such chronicles as condescend to mention, even with meagre details, this episode of the reign of Abdallah. That the deed was not entirely without justification may be presumed from the fact that the latter has not received, on this account, the denunciation of posterity. Reverence for the greatest sovereign of the Western Empire has silenced the voice of criticism, which might otherwise have arraigned the treachery and ingratitude of a father. These motives have combined to invest with an air of mystery an occurrence whose consequences were so momentous in their subsequent influence on the history of the Peninsula.

The character of the young prince was conspicuous for every excellence which could either be inherited or conferred by education. His person was attractive, his manners affable and urbane, his talents conspicuous in a court renowned for its wit, its learning, and its eloquence. His skill in chivalrous exercises evoked the acclamations of the soldiery. His knowledge of affairs, and his capacity to carry to a successful issue the most delicate transactions of diplomacy, had long been the admiration of venerable and distinguished statesmen. The fond partiality of his grandfather, who was constantly haunted by the memory of a crime induced by political necessity, had caused the youthful heir to the throne to be instructed in all the knowledge to be acquired in the most accomplished and enlightened society of Europe. The fortunate object of this solicitude early demonstrated his eminent fitness for the responsibilities of his exalted destiny. A thirst for knowledge, combined with a precocious sedateness of demeanor tempered by a sprightliness, which, while it had nothing in common with frivolity, yet enlivened the discussion of the most serious and prosaic questions of philosophical research, procured for him the love of the scholars of Cordova; whose opinions were respected by even the barbarian nations of Christendom. The general satisfaction with which the accession of Abd-al-Rahman was received demonstrated not only the propriety of the selection but also the great popularity of the prince. Nothing occurred to disturb the public tranquillity. The members of the royal family, who, with color of right and encouraged by precedent, might have disputed the succession, were the first to attest their loyalty to the new sovereign. A feeling of confidence seemed to pervade all ranks of society, as the result of an event which promised the reconciliation of long-existing enmities; the submission of rebellious vassals; the encouragement of commerce; the security of agriculture; the return of that long-banished and most priceless of blessings, domestic peace. With the natural expectation of these benefits were mingled not unreasonable visions of romantic crusade and foreign conquest. The martial spirit of the nation had been perverted rather than discouraged by the incessant religious and political seditions of nearly half a century. There was scarcely a family in which was not included at least one soldier whose scars gave proof of his acquaintance with the perils and accidents of the field of battle. The people were weary of intestine turmoil. The time was most opportune for the exercise of the talents of a ruler whose tact was equal to his courage, and whose magnanimity rose superior to the mean and selfish gratifications of persecution and revenge. A fortunate combination of circumstances prepared the way for the longest and most brilliant reign of the Ommeyade Khalifate. The spirit of rebellion was broken. Repeated reverses and an impolitic apostasy had impaired the prestige and weakened the once invincible following of the great partisan leader, Ibn-Hafsun. The few surviving heads of the Arab aristocracy had lost the greater part of their influence. Weary of strife, their families decimated, their possessions diminished, the tribesmen of the Koreish began to seriously question the expediency of incessant revolution, whose risks and privations offered such a marked and unfavorable contrast to the undisturbed and luxurious enjoyment of Andalusian civilization. The universal diffusion of knowledge, the free discussion of scientific problems, the numerous schools, the acknowledged supremacy of intellectual acquirements over blind and unreasoning credulity, had perceptibly weakened the power of Islam. The imams saw with dismay the portentous increase of skepticism, which threatened alike the emoluments of their office and the foundations of their faith. The congregations were as numerous, the donations as liberal, the prayers to all appearances as fervent as formerly, but the destructive poison of infidelity permeated and was fast corrupting the entire mass of society. The Christians of the North, who had maintained their independence through the dissensions of their neighbors, were now themselves harassed by disastrous revolutions fomented by aspiring princes who, regardless of the danger which constantly menaced their territory, never hesitated to sacrifice the welfare of the nation for the uncertain dignity of royal power. The ancient realm of the Asturias had spread far beyond the limits of the sierras whose craggy solitudes had protected its infancy, and had expanded into the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre, whose petty monarchs wasted in attacks upon each other the energy and the treasure which would have been more profitably employed in thwarting the ambitious designs of the infidel.

The crafty and vacillating policy of Abdallah, who was ignorant of the art of either conciliating or punishing his enemies, and whose crimes excited the abhorrence of his rebellious subjects while they failed to arouse their apprehensions, was repugnant to the open and fearless nature of Abd-al-Rahman. The former had contented himself with the doubtful evidence of vassalage implied by the payment of tribute. But the lofty spirit of his grandson was not to be satisfied with this ambiguous concession to sovereignty. No sooner had he ascended the throne than he issued a proclamation requiring the unconditional submission of his subjects, regardless of previous affiliations of race or religion. To such as properly acknowledged his title he extended his clemency; but those who persisted in defiance of the law and in resistance to the constituted authority, he declared should be removed beyond the pale of indulgence or mercy. This firmness, which, in view of recent events and the power exercised by rebel chieftains, seemed to partake of imprudence, not to say of audacity, soon justified the wisdom and foresight of the prince who adopted it. The large cities, whose population was most affected by the evils of anarchy, were the first to return to their allegiance. Ecija, Jaen, Archidona, and Elvira, whose seditions had long vexed the peace of the empire, were the first places of importance to open their gates to the new sovereign. The provinces of which the cities of Jaen and Elvira were the capitals, dotted with countless strongholds and infested with partisans leagued with Ibn-Hafsun, still, however, refused to abandon their habits of rapine; and Abd-al-Rahman prepared, in person, to reduce to subjection these turbulent vassals, whose habits of independence, confirmed by almost unbroken success, had induced them to regard their arms as invincible. But the bandit chieftains of the Sierra Nevada and the Serrania de Ronda had not taken into consideration the changes which had occurred in the rude society to which they themselves belonged. The strong personality and remarkable achievements of Ibn-Hafsun had hitherto kept united the lawless elements, which, collected from every province of Africa and Spain, had found a secure refuge in the mountains of Andalusia. Now, however, the apostasy of their leader had diminished the confidence and relaxed the enthusiasm of his followers. His summons to arms was unheeded, or obeyed with ill-concealed marks of disaffection. The depleted ranks of his army forced him to the employment of Berber mercenaries, barbarians wholly destitute of attachment to the cause they served, and who were always liable in the crisis of a battle to desert to the enemy under the promise of higher pay. The knowledge that they might, in the future, be enrolled in the ranks of their present adversaries, thus hampered their efforts, and induced them to inflict the least possible damage upon their tribesmen who fought under the standard of the Emir. From furious battles, in which were often exhibited feats of prowess worthy of a more chivalrous age, the conflicts with the brigands of the sierras had become noisy and harmless encounters, without spirit and without bloodshed. A feeling of mutual distrust, which needed little provocation to ripen into acts of open hostility, was engendered between Ibn-Hafsun and his subjects. A growing sense of insecurity had, years before, caused the rebel leader to swear allegiance to Obeydallah, the Schiite prince of Africa. Exasperated by this confession of weakness, the officers of the army were further alienated by the gifts and honors lavished upon the Pagan mercenaries, who had supplanted in the favor of their commander the tried veterans of many campaigns.

For thirty years the Spanish and Berber elements had exhausted every resource in futile attempts to shake off the Arab yoke. No decisive victory had ever attended their arms. The struggle never rose above a merciless guerilla warfare. A large part of the province of Andalusia was depopulated. Peasants were massacred by thousands. Harvests were wantonly destroyed. Whenever a town was surprised or taken by storm, the entire population was butchered. And yet, despite all their efforts, the savage outlaws, who posed as the deliverers of the Peninsula, seemed no nearer the attainment of their professed object than at the beginning. In fact, with all his courage, activity, and address, Ibn-Hafsun was deficient in the qualities indispensable to leaders who aspire to organize revolutions and found great dynasties. His chieftains were often guilty of flagrant insubordination. Some, confiding in the impregnable situation of their castles, even proclaimed their independence. The great body of the peasantry--whose fathers had sympathized with the cause of rebellion and had been plundered and murdered by their nominal protectors--regarded the mountain robbers with unspeakable dread and abhorrence. To them the disadvantages attending the exercise of despotic power were trifling in comparison with the evils by which they were constantly menaced. Similar sentiments had begun of late to be secretly entertained by quite a respectable number of the brigands themselves. The disaffection of the latter was increased by fears of the ultimate restoration of Christianity.

Like all apostates, Ibn-Hafsun hastened to signalize his conversion and confirm his sincerity by conspicuous acts of oppression. Renunciation of Islamism was encouraged by promises of military honors and high employments. Moslem officers of distinguished merit were neglected or regarded with disfavor. To the horror of the disciples of Mohammed, costly churches rose upon the sites of mosques which had existed since the Conquest. The court of Ibn-Hafsun became the resort of ascetics, who from conviction or policy aspired to martyrdom, and openly performed, to the disgust of the orthodox beholder, the revolting severities of monastic discipline. The daughter of the rebel chief herself retired to a cloister, whence she was, years afterwards, dragged forth to pay the penalty of apostasy, a fate eagerly welcomed as the fulfilment of a prophecy pronounced by a vagrant monk. The cause which popular enthusiasm had once invested with a national character, supported by the traditions of Iberian, Roman, and Gothic dominion, and which held out delusive hopes of national independence, had disappeared in the atrocities of the worst of all struggles, a religious war conducted by renegades. Another powerful element, once allied in sympathy with the party of Ibn-Hafsun, was now with unbroken unanimity arrayed against him. The Conquest had brought relief and liberty to many thousands of families that for generations had groaned under the oppressions of slavery and serfdom. The remembrance of their sufferings had been bequeathed to their descendants, and the knowledge that the restoration of the Christian religion would certainly be accompanied with the enactment of laws depriving them of the freedom they enjoyed, confirmed the loyalty of the latter, which had been temporarily shaken by the disorders of the emirate. With feelings of mingled apprehension and gratitude, they compared their present condition with the degradation and miseries of their ancestors, whose most tyrannical masters had been found in the ranks of the ecclesiastical order, now seeking by every art of intrigue the re-establishment of the supremacy of their Church, the recovery of their confiscated lands, and the restoration of their ancient and irresponsible privileges. The bold front presented by the rebel forces was formidable only in appearance. The disintegration of the faction which had more than once threatened the Moslem capital and the throne of the West was complete. It needed but the presence of the sovereign to expose the hopeless condition of an already abandoned cause. Such was the state of society in the disaffected territory of the emirate, and such the character of the adversaries with whom the youthful Abd-al-Rahman was now called upon to contend.

The appearance of the royal standard was the signal for the voluntary surrender of the greater part of the provinces of Jaen and Elvira. The castles which had long been the seat of outlawry and brigandage were razed. As soon as the open country had been secured, Abd-al-Rahman pushed forward without hesitation into the heart of the sierra. At first he met with stubborn opposition, but the capture of the strong town of Finana was followed by the submission of every chieftain whose proximity to the scene of action led him to fear the exemplary vengeance of an exasperated master. In less than three months not a single castle in the Sierra Nevada remained in possession of the insurgents. Instructed by the experience of his predecessors, Abd-al-Rahman adopted the most prudent and effective means for retaining his conquests. The governors and their families were removed to Cordova. The rebel garrisons were replaced by veterans whose fidelity was unquestioned. Pardon was granted to all, excepting such as had rendered themselves undeserving of clemency by the commission of atrocious crimes. The dignity of the crown was further secured by the re-establishment of judicial tribunals and the appointment of magistrates whose reputation and experience were a guaranty of the faithful discharge of their duties. The moral effect of these politic measures, the amiable character of Abd-al-Rahman, and the reputation he enjoyed for justice accomplished as much for the pacification of the hostile territory as the fear inspired by his arms. His first important act after assuming the regal office was the remission of taxes, which, imposed by the necessities or the avarice of his predecessors, weighed heavily upon a distracted and impoverished people. The general amnesty which he had proclaimed; his solicitude for the welfare of his subjects; his firmness in dealing with those who disputed his authority; the spirit he manifested by appearing at the head of his troops, who for years had not seen the face of their sovereign; the physical attributes with which nature had adorned a noble and majestic presence, all conspired to captivate the imagination and inspire the respect of both the civilians and the soldiery. A confidence mingled with enthusiasm and reverence was awakened at his approach, and the useful members of every community, disheartened by years of turmoil and misfortune, welcomed each bloodless and decisive victory of the youthful monarch as an additional harbinger of a peaceful and prosperous reign.

The city of Seville, now governed by the powerful family of the Beni-Hadjadj, while a nominal dependency of the emirate, was, in all respects save this dubious mark of subordination, the seat of an independent principality. The authority of the Emir was not recognized within its walls. The Divan had no voice in the appointment of the officers charged with its government. The levying of troops for service under the royal banners rested entirely upon the caprice or discretion of the Arab princes, who had wrested from an enfeebled dynasty the richest province of the empire. Even the collection of the annual tax was considered a mere act of condescension and courtesy, a privilege liable to be revoked at the pleasure of the haughty tributary. But discord, arising from the ambitious and irreconcilable pretensions of the Arab aristocracy, had invaded the councils of the Beni-Hadjadj. The order of succession had been broken, and, through fortune or by superior abilities, a collateral branch of the Koreishite family which claimed the sovereignty had been elevated to power. The unsuccessful competitor, Mohammed, sought the camp of the Emir, promising his homage in consideration of assistance. The dignity of Abd-al-Rahman not permitting him to countenance the equality of a rebellious subject, the offer was rejected, but the Arab noble was graciously permitted to enlist as a volunteer. A formidable army besieged Seville, and Ibn-Maslama, the ruling prince of the House of Hadjadj, saw with concern his newly acquired dignity menaced with destruction. In his extremity he applied to Ibn-Hafsun. An attempt by the latter to raise the siege resulted in the annihilation of his army, and the insurgent leader, whose name had lost its terrors, fled with a handful of followers to the fortress of Bobastro. Not long after this event, abandoned by his allies and already feeling the pangs of famine, Ibn-Maslama capitulated. Encouraged by his success, with no enemy in his rear and the vast resources of the South at his command, the way was now open to the Emir to carry the war into the Serrania de Ronda, and to retaliate upon Ibn-Hafsun those calamities which he had so long and so ruthlessly inflicted upon the defenceless peasantry of Andalusia. His preparations were made with all the prudence and sagacity of an experienced general. The bulk of the population of the sierra was attached by interest or conviction to the dogmas of the Christian faith, and the natural courage of the mountaineer was animated by assurances of divine aid and a burning desire for martyrdom. From the moment when he penetrated into the defiles that traversed the domain of Ibn-Hafsun, the Emir experienced a determined resistance. His foraging parties were ambushed and cut off. His convoys were intercepted. Having formed the siege of Tolox, where Ibn-Hafsun commanded in person, a sudden sally of the garrison was planned with such boldness and success that a panic seized the army, and a great disaster was narrowly averted. But the genius and perseverance of Abd-al-Rahman eventually triumphed over all obstacles. Tolox was taken. Castle after castle was stormed and demolished. The supplies of the insurgents were exhausted, and they were compelled to have recourse to the granaries of Africa. The foresight of the Emir had, however, anticipated this measure of the enemy. The vigilance of his cruisers blasted the hopes of the famishing rebels, and the captured ships were added to the navy patrolling the Mediterranean, while the provisions were conveyed to the royal camp. In time a considerable extent of mountain territory was conquered; the cities of Orihuela and Niebla, whose alluvial regions boasted an almost perennial harvest, were again added to the dominions of the crown; the tradesmen and the peasantry, alike weary of the contributions levied by relentless brigandage, zealously co-operated with the imperial magistrates in the restoration of order; and Abd-al-Rahman, satisfied with the result of his first campaign and secure against any attempt upon the capital, now began to meditate an expedition into the Christian provinces of the North.

The truce negotiated between Abdallah and Alfonso III. was long preserved by the political necessities which had originally dictated its provisions. The Emir was fully occupied in a desperate attempt to retain his crown amidst the commotions of almost universal rebellion and anarchy. The Christian monarchs were unable to take advantage of the helpless position of their adversary, on account of the plots and crimes of princes of the royal house, the intrigues of the clergy, and the insubordination of ambitious vassals. Alfonso III., compelled by the unnatural cruelty and ingratitude of his sons to anticipate the course of nature by resigning the supreme dignity, had descended into the grave, broken rather by domestic sorrows than by the infirmities of age. His efforts, when forced to an untimely abdication, had been directed with many forebodings of evil to an equitable partition of his dominions. His three eldest sons shared between them the principalities of the royal patrimony. Garcia received Leon, to Ordoño was allotted Galicia, Fruela remained at Oviedo. From this epoch dates the origin of the kingdom of Leon, which, by its proximity to the frontier and its more advantageous situation, soon absorbed and eventually eclipsed the dignity and importance of its rivals. The short reign of Garcia was occupied by a succession of expeditions into the enemy’s country, which seem to have been attended with no decisive results. Dying, after three years, without issue, his brother Ordoño received the votes of the council, and was raised to the vacant throne amidst the acclamations of the people. Thus the State of Galicia was merged into that of Leon, and the two, henceforth existing under the name of the latter, became in time an integral portion of the Spanish monarchy. Ordoño was already renowned for his valor in an age of military heroism and romantic enterprise. His accession was signalized by a foray which laid waste the flourishing province of Merida. Pursuing the savage policy inaugurated by Alfonso, he massacred all taken in arms, and enslaved the non-combatants who were so unfortunate as to fall into his hands. His retreat was purchased by the inhabitants of Badajoz, who, collecting an immense treasure--to which the members of the ecclesiastical order were unwilling but important contributors--induced him to retire. Upon his return to the capital, he devoted a considerable portion of the booty to the foundation of a church, dedicated to the Virgin in acknowledgment of her influence and protection, to which he attributed the auspicious commencement of his reign.

Although the territory which had suffered from the recent incursion of the Christians formed part of that region which still refused to acknowledge his authority, Abd-al-Rahman was not slow to perceive the advantages which must accrue to him from assuming the championship of those who were nominally his enemies. The cause was one of vital importance to all professing the religion of Mohammed. The dignity of the emirate had been insulted by a troop of marauding barbarians, whom the polished Arabs of Cordova with justice considered their inferiors even in feats of martial prowess, and who, if secure of immunity, would not only extend their ravages further, but also contract a profound contempt for the inactive and pusillanimous character of their adversaries. The fickle attachment of the insurgents of the West might be regained, or at least their gratitude aroused, by a demonstration in their favor; and the moral effect upon the enemies as well as upon the partisans of the crown could not fail to be of great and permanent value. An army was equipped and despatched under Ibn-Abi-Abda to lay waste the plains of Leon. For fifteen years the Moslem standards had not been seen on Christian soil, and the swarthy battalions of Abd-al-Rahman, scarcely known except by fame to the subjects of Ordoño, were the source of almost as much terror to the superstitious peasantry as were their ancestors who served under the banner of the redoubtable Tarik. The venture of the Emir was rewarded with abundant booty; the avarice of the soldiery was at once aroused and gratified; and, in the ensuing year, another expedition, organized on a much larger scale, under pretext of avenging the wrongs of the oppressed people of the border, but in reality assembled for purposes of rapine, entered the dominions of the Christian king. Unfortunately for its success, the bulk of the army was composed of Berber mercenaries--adepts in the arts of robbery and murder, but deficient in the constancy and courage requisite for the maintenance of a protracted conflict--and of refugees not inferior in insubordination and poltroonery to their companions in arms. This mob soon proved unequal to sustain the determined assaults of the Leonese cavalry; the Arabs were attacked in their camp before San Estevan, and a fearful defeat, with the loss of his general, announced to the Emir the fatal policy of employing a herd of truculent barbarians, without experience, discipline, or courage, to re-establish the credit and assert the power of the Moslem arms.

The discouraging effects of this reverse were, to some extent, counterbalanced by the intelligence of the death of Ibn-Hafsun, whose operations had harassed, and whose ambition had menaced, the reigns of three Moslem sovereigns. With the disappearance of their most implacable enemy, the inhabitants of Andalusia flattered themselves that they could hereafter pursue their avocations unmolested and enjoy the results of their industry, hitherto subject to the extortions and depredations of unrestricted brigandage. But the fallacy of these hopes was soon demonstrated. The sons of the renowned partisan leader, Giafar, Abd-al-Rahman, Suleyman, and Hafs, who inherited all his audacity and no small share of his military genius, sustained for ten years longer the unequal and hopeless struggle. The wretched peasantry were again compelled to acknowledge the weakness of the government and the uncertain tenure by which they held their property and their lives. Gradually, however, the resources of the emirate, directed by a firm and skilful hand, began to prevail in the Serrania. Three of the sons of Ibn-Hafsun were removed by voluntary retirement, by death in battle, by murder provoked by a double apostasy. The survivor Hafs, reduced to extremity by the siege of Bobastro, submitted, and, having become a loyal subject, served afterwards with distinction in the imperial army. The fanatics who followed in the train of the Emir, actuated by all the malignity of their kind, caused the tombs of Ibn-Hafsun and Giafar to be opened; and Abd-al-Rahman, having learned that the bodies had been interred according to the customs of the infidel, ordered them to be nailed to stakes before the principal gate of Cordova. The surrender of Bobastro was soon followed by the submission of the entire Serrania. In the mean time, the insurgent chieftains of the mountains of Priego, of Alicante, and other cities of the opulent provinces of Tadmir, Merida, Santarem, Beja, and finally of Badajoz, made humble professions of fealty and obedience to the conqueror.

The rebel territory, which, not many years before, had extended almost to the walls of the capital, was now limited to the narrow area inclosed by the fortifications of Toledo. Anxious to avoid bloodshed, the Emir attempted to open negotiations for the surrender of the city without resorting to force. But his overtures were rejected; the Toledans, whose natural inclination to turbulence had been encouraged by long impunity, and whose taste for a lawless independence had been strengthened by its enjoyment, dismissed the royal envoys with haughty disdain. Abd-al-Rahman at once proceeded to invest the city. The suburbs were devastated. All supplies were intercepted by a close blockade. The sallies of the besieged were repulsed at every point. Their last hope vanished with the defeat of a Christian army sent by the King of Leon to assist them, and the distressed city, after an obstinate resistance lasting two years, capitulated.

The fierce and bloody struggle which had decimated communities, destroyed the accumulations of industry, and retarded national progress for nearly half a century was finally at an end. From the confines of the County of Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic, from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean, the authority of Abd-al-Rahman was now acknowledged as supreme. The danger of successful rebellion had disappeared with the name and fortunes of Ibn-Hafsun. Since the time of Sertorius, no leader had so ably defended the cause of the Spanish people. The effect of the protracted contest in which the latter had participated had been to raise them from the position of outcasts to an equality with their ancient oppressors. The brigand chief of the sierras had been, in a measure, the peculiar champion of their rights. Though long a Moslem, his following had consisted largely of Christians, and he had finally been received into their communion. His sagacity and generous confidence had entrusted them with important civil offices, with the conduct of delicate negotiations, with embassies to Africa, with the command of armies. Experience in warfare had brought with it the civilizing influences which develop, even in the midst of destruction, increased intelligence, a more tolerant spirit, a higher sense of personal dignity and honor. Accustomed from the earliest times to an arbitrary government, while nominally fighting for liberty, they yet saw nothing repugnant in the despotism of the emirate. But it was different with the Koreishite nobles, whose arrogant pretensions had provoked and precipitated the long series of calamities now happily terminated. The licentious freedom of the Desert was their ideal, the salutary restraints of authority their aversion. The haughty pride engendered and transmitted through countless generations of chieftains in whose veins coursed the purest blood of Arabia, and whose achievements were recounted in the passionate strains of famous poets, induced them to regard with ineffable disdain, and to subject to every indignity, all who were not members of their exclusive caste. The day of these insolent lords was now over. Of all the parties whose quarrels had distracted society theirs had fared the worst. Never strong in numbers, their ranks had been thinned by the ordinary casualties of war; by the evils inseparable from poverty; by summary executions for treason. Their power had been so effectually destroyed that they appear no more as a disturbing element in the annals of the Peninsula. Submitting, although with reluctance, to the force of necessity, they by degrees contracted alliances with the faction once the object of their scorn, and lent their unwilling aid to the noble project of Abd-al-Rahman, which aimed at a complete fusion of races and the obliteration of hereditary feuds and ancient prejudices. The last important constituent of the population, the Berbers, preserved, under apparent conformity to custom, their character of mercenary and idolatrous barbarians, who, not amenable to the benefits of peace, were destined erelong to demonstrate the suicidal policy which had introduced such perfidious allies into the heart of the empire.

The pacification of the dominions of Abd-al-Rahman had not been perfected a moment too soon. An enemy more dangerous than any that had yet menaced the throne of the Ommeyades had appeared on the coast of Africa. The Ismailians, a branch of the Schiite sect reformed by a shrewd and ambitious charlatan in Persia, had, through its missionaries, supplanted the dynasty of the Aghlabites, and now ruled, with a splendor heretofore unknown in that country, the opulent and fertile strip of territory extending from Mauritania to Egypt. The same motives, the same aspirations to supreme power disguised under professions of religious reformation which had prevailed in Spain, inspired the leaders of this moral and political revolution. The tyranny and pride of the Arab nobles had caused the formation of secret societies, organized ostensibly for the purification of the faith and the benefit of the oppressed, but in reality to further the treasonable designs of able and daring conspirators. The hypocrisy of the latter, who in secret scoffed at all religion, may be gathered from the following saying current among them: “Prophets are nothing but impostors, whose real object is to obtain pre-eminence over other men.”

The Fatimite dynasty in Africa had risen to power with a rapidity astonishing even to an age accustomed to the ever-varying phenomena of Moslem revolution. Its head, Obeydallah, who traced a fictitious descent from Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet, assumed the sacred name and character of Madhi,--the inspired and holy personage whose coming had been announced by Mohammed. The cruelties perpetrated by the Fatimites upon their enemies are incredible. No torture was too severe, no persecution too sanguinary, for those who dared to resist their demands. The world stood aghast at the horrors of the African conquest. The prestige derived from a pretended origin gave the fanatics encouragement to assert the Schiite pretensions to infallibility, and, by the right of inheritance, to claim the dominion of the world. They were thoroughly familiar with the politics, intrigues, and military resources of the Peninsula. Their spies were to be found in every walk of life. Merchants, travellers, soldiers, dervishes--many of them men of great intelligence and observation--were in their pay, and regularly transmitted reports of the condition of trade, the location of treasure, the prospect of order, or the progress of revolution to their employers at Kairoan. The famous geographer, Ibn-Haukal, was one of these Fatimite emissaries, and his work contains many of the results of his experience which are not complimentary to the general condition of Mohammedan Spain, the capacity of its rulers, or the humanity of his own intolerant sect. There is reason to believe that a considerable party favorable to the reformers, and consisting largely of the better classes, existed in that country; and it is certain that the Berbers, whose sympathies were readily enlisted in favor of everything African, would have deserted by thousands to serve under their banners. This alarming state of affairs had been promoted by an obscure prediction sedulously propagated by the agents of the Fatimites, which announced that an African sovereign was one day to rule over the Peninsula, and all who believed it confidently asserted that the time of its realization was at hand.

Fully cognizant of the dangers attending the victorious progress of the Ismailians, who were now engaged in the conquest of Mauritania, Abd-al-Rahman heard with joy the appeal for assistance of the exiled princes of Necour, whose family for more than a century had been connected with his own by the closest ties of affection and gratitude. The distinguished refugees who had with difficulty escaped the vengeance of the tyrant of Kairoan were furnished with ships and munitions of war, and, by the policy of their benefactor, soon regained possession of their lost inheritance. Aware of the impossibility of permanently holding an isolated province against the overwhelming forces of the enemy, the Prince of Necour at once proclaimed the authority of the Ommeyades throughout his dominions; and the prudent generosity of Abd-al-Rahman was rewarded by the addition of a new state--which embraced the larger part of Mauritania--to the already extensive territory of his empire. Thus, by the interposition of a tributary province between the frontiers of Eastern Africa and Spain, the destructive advance of the Fatimites was stayed, and the permanence of the Ommeyade dynasty assured for two centuries longer.

The dangerous ambition of the African fanatics having been checked, Abd-al-Rahman was at liberty to turn his attention to the only foe who now dared to make war upon him,--the Christians of the North. A great victory was won by the minister Bedr at Mutonia; and the Leonese, thoroughly humiliated and convinced of the mutability of fortune, retired sullenly within the walls of their castles. Impatient of the monotonous life of his capital and ambitious of military distinction, Abd-al-Rahman now resumed command in person, and, entering the enemy’s country, left in his wake the dreary evidence of rapine and desolation. Osma, Clunia, and San Estevan--over whose gate the head of the unfortunate general, Ibn-Abi-Abda, had been nailed--were stormed and destroyed. Navarre was invaded; its king, Sancho, beaten in a pitched battle and driven into the forests of the Pyrenees. The latter then effected a junction with Ordoño, and the two monarchs offered battle in the Valley of Junquera. Accustomed to ambuscade and to the protection of their native rocks and defiles, the mountaineers proved no match for the Moorish horsemen in the field. A more signal catastrophe than that of Junquera had never afflicted the Christian cause. The slaughter was appalling. The country for leagues was strewn with the bodies of the slain. A great number of prisoners fell into the hands of the Moslems, not the least important of whom were the militant bishops, Dulcidius of Salamanca, and Hermogius of Tuy, who, following a custom ante-dating the Battle of the Guadalete, were taken, sheathed in armor, and fighting bravely in the front of battle.

After this victory, no serious resistance was offered to the Moslem advance. The light Moorish cavalry swept like a hurricane along the frontier of Navarre. The comparative poverty of the inhabitants presented few attractions to the invaders, who were forced to content themselves with flocks and the produce of the fields instead of the more tempting booty offered by the opulence and luxury of more civilized nations. The accumulation of provisions was so great in the Arab camp that they could not be removed, and a vast quantity of wheat was given to the flames to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. This campaign was characterized by all the ruthless barbarity of the time. The women and children of the mountaineers were enslaved. The unsuccessful resistance of a garrison was followed by its extermination. The savage instincts of the Berbers were indulged by tortures and all the arts of the most exquisite cruelty. Whenever these barbarians encountered a monastery not one of the holy fathers was left alive. There was now visited upon the Christians a severe retaliation for the unspeakable horrors which they had been in the habit of inflicting upon their infidel adversaries in the name of the Gospel of Peace.

It is a striking peculiarity of the warfare so long waged between Moslem and Christian in Spain that disasters of the greatest apparent severity, no matter by whom endured, were productive of no substantial advantage to the conqueror. Many causes conspired to produce this anomalous result. The immense resources of the emirs were insufficient to protect their extended frontier. The numerous castles erected by the Kings of Leon and the Counts of Castile to retard the advance of the Arab squadrons failed to intimidate the bold riders of Andalusia. Thus the armies of either nation penetrated with trifling difficulty into the heart of the other’s dominions. The extraordinary recuperative power of the Christians was manifested during the following year by an expedition of Ordoño, which carried the standard of Leon to a point but one day’s journey from Cordova. Other evidences of the indomitable character of his enemies--who continued to capture his towns and carry off his subjects--having impressed Abd-al-Rahman with the necessity for future reprisals, he entered Navarre with an irresistible force. Pampeluna was taken, and its cathedral and many of its houses destroyed. The attacks of the King of Navarre, whose efforts were restricted to the feeble devices of guerilla warfare, were invariably repulsed. The death of Ordoño, and the quarrels resulting from a disputed succession which followed that event, paralyzed for a time the efforts of the Christians, and enabled Abd-al-Rahman to take an important and long meditated step for the increase of his greatness and the consolidation of his power.

It had hitherto been a legal maxim promulgated by the jurists, and unanimously recognized by the potentates, of the Moslem world that the title of Khalif, or Successor of the Prophet, was the peculiar attribute of that monarch whose dominions included the cities of Medina and Mecca. The control of the territory of the Hedjaz was thus considered to carry with it a degree of distinction and sanctity corresponding to that now conferred upon the successors of St. Peter by the choice of the conclave and the ceremonies of investiture which attend the accession of the spiritual sovereigns of Rome. The princes of the Abbaside dynasty had preserved their title, even after they had been deprived of the greater part of their empire; but now, descended to a state of tutelage to powerful vassals, and restricted in jurisdiction to the walls of their capital, they appeared to all true believers unworthy of an appellation which implied so much responsibility and had been the incentive to so much renown. Considerations of respect for ancestral greatness, the claims of religious prejudice and established custom, so revered by the Oriental, no longer existing in their former intensity, the Ommeyade Sultan did not hesitate to appropriate, in the character of the most opulent and distinguished of Moslem rulers, a title that had been virtually abandoned by a dynasty whose degenerate princes had demonstrated their incapacity to defend it, or even to appreciate the proud and holy distinction which its possession implied. Conscious of his merits, and believing that the past achievements of his reign had earned for him an honor which the imbecility and dependence of the monarchs of Bagdad had forfeited, Abd-al-Rahman issued an edict in which he assumed the titles of Amir-al-Mumenin, Commander of Believers, and Al-Nassir-al-Din-Allah, Defender of the Faith.

For three years the disorders which agitated the kingdom of Leon suspended hostilities between the Christians of the North and the khalifate. After many months of anarchy, defiled by horrible crimes,--crimes which recall the worst scenes that disgraced the revolutions of the Visigothic empire, assassinations, tortures, the blinding of some royal captives, the poisoning and starvation of others,--Ramiro II., a prince of great address and experience, ascended the throne. Through his intrigues with the governor of Saragossa, of the powerful family of the Beni-Haschim, he obtained the support, and at length received the allegiance, of the latter. Garcia, King of Navarre, was also induced to join the confederacy, which, thus including all the provinces of the North, both Christian and Moslem, offered an unbroken and formidable front to the power of the Khalif.

Once more the intrepid Abd-al-Rahman prepared for war. The issue of the campaign was everywhere favorable to his arms. Ramiro was worsted in a series of battles. Mohammed, the insurgent chief of the Beni-Haschim, was besieged in his capital, and either the fears or the clemency of his sovereign restored to him the trust he had so flagrantly betrayed. The monarch of Navarre and his mother, whose ambition had taken advantage of the youth and inexperience of her son, were compelled to sue for pardon at the feet of the Khalif, and to receive from his hands, as suzerain, the government of those states which had formerly been transmitted by Sancho the Great as an independent kingdom.

Elated beyond measure by his triumphs, Abd-al-Rahman conceived the idea of a grand expedition that might conquer the infidel states of the North and exterminate, or expel forever, those obstinate and dangerous enemies whose enterprise was a constant reproach to the zeal of the Mohammedans and a menace to the prosperity and safety of the khalifate. In accordance with this resolution the Djihad was proclaimed. A hundred thousand men rushed to arms. Volunteers came from Egypt, Syria, Mauritania, and the Libyan Desert to be present at the humiliation of the infidel, and to share in the plunder of his fields, his churches, his palaces. Great magazines of provisions and munitions of war were collected in suitable localities. Pack-trains composed of thousands of beasts of burden were assembled. No precaution was neglected to insure success. Surrounded by his splendid body-guard, the Khalif appeared in person at the head of this immense host, but, with a want of tact which did little credit to his knowledge of human nature, he bestowed the command upon Nadja, a Slave, to the exclusion of the nobles, who saw with inexpressible indignation their hereditary pretensions to command subordinated to the favor enjoyed by an officer of inferior rank and of more than plebeian extraction. The Moslems came upon the allied army of Leon and Navarre at the village of Alhandega, not far from Salamanca. Undaunted by the superior numbers of the enemy the Christians bravely sustained the attack. The treachery of the Arab officers, invested with important commands, aided the intrepidity of the Leonese; the aristocratic chieftains, preferring the gratification of their resentment and defeat at the hands of the infidel to victory under a general of base and ignoble lineage, withdrew, and the Moslems underwent a terrible defeat. The commander-in-chief was killed. Whole divisions were destroyed; many distinguished soldiers were dragged away to the dungeons of Leon and Pampeluna; and the Khalif himself, with only forty-nine survivors of his numerous escort, succeeded with the greatest difficulty in escaping the swords of the Christian cavalry. The imminent peril he had incurred, the sudden disappearance of his magnificent army, and, perhaps, the consciousness of the impolicy of his conduct or fear that fortune had averted her face from him, so affected Abd-al-Rahman that he never again exposed his person in the field of battle.

But the results of a victory which promised to be so advantageous to the cause of Christendom was, as usual, nullified by the personal quarrels and revolutionary proceedings of the conquerors. The County of Castile, a dependency of the Asturian crown, grown powerful through the signal abilities and eminent services of its present ruler, Ferdinand Gonzalez, a personage famous in mediæval history and fable, aspired to the name and privileges of an independent kingdom. Its governor was a vassal whose fief was hereditary, but who held his office at the pleasure of the monarch, and, so far as the scanty annals of the age afford information, no province of the Peninsula was more inclined to turbulence and sedition. To distract the attention and divert the aims of this dangerous population, the Kings of Leon subdivided the province into four portions; but the counts who subsequently ruled it found no difficulty in reconciling their pretensions when resistance to the central authority was involved. A new plan was then devised by Ordoño II. The four counts were decoyed, upon a specious pretext, to a conference at Tejiare, on the borders of Castile and Leon, and put to death. The county now remained without a recognized leader until the rise of Ferdinand, whom the admiring gratitude of the Spaniards has exalted to the station of a demigod, and to whose prowess is to be justly attributed the foundation of the famous monarchy of Castile.

The claims of Ferdinand Gonzalez to the affection and confidence of his people had been established by many gallant deeds in war and by noble acts of private munificence in peace. In the numerous campaigns of Ramiro II. his voice had always been heard in the thickest of the fray. The spoil he collected from the enemies of Christ he bestowed in the erection of religious houses, in whose charters the name of the founder’s suzerain was ostentatiously omitted. His influence was so great that the sovereign was forced to overlook these insults to his dignity, and to even seek to gain the support or secure the neutrality of his formidable vassal by the marriage of his own daughter to the son of Ferdinand. The attention of the count had been, of late, engrossed by the expeditions of the Moslems which ravaged his territory, but the rout of Alhandega gave him an advantage; and, formally revoking his allegiance, he declared war against the King of Leon. Ramiro, however, soon proved too strong for his rebellious vassal. Ferdinand was thrown into prison, his estates were confiscated, and the government of his dominions transferred to a stranger. But neither the promises nor the threats of the sovereign could shake the fidelity of the Castilians. In public acts and proclamations they defiantly effaced the name of Ramiro and inserted that of Ferdinand. Their devotion carried them to the verge of idolatry. They made a statue, arrayed in the habiliments of the illustrious exile, and, on bended knee, proffered to the senseless marble their unfaltering and reverent homage. Finally, their enthusiasm impelled them to march in a great body to the capital and demand the release of their lord, a request which the King of Leon saw proper to grant, but only under conditions that deprived the Count of Castile of much of his political influence and power.

The death of Ramiro was the signal for a bitter contest between his sons, Ordoño and Sancho, for the possession of the throne of Leon. The assistance of Ferdinand Gonzalez was invoked by the younger son Sancho, and the Count of Castile, perceiving the advantages that he would enjoy in the rôle of king-maker and which must eventually lead to his entire independence, seized without hesitation the golden opportunity. A bloody civil war ensued, in which Navarre also became involved, and hatred of the infidel was forgotten in the furious encounters of domestic strife. In the meantime, the armies of Abd-al-Rahman ravaged at will the Christian frontier. Raid followed raid with the assurance derived from constant impunity. The market-places of the Andalusian cities were heaped up with the significant trophies of victory,--crosses and crucifixes, embroidered vestments and jewelled censers, side by side with ghastly pyramids of heads, the number of the latter in one instance reaching five thousand. Distracted by the double peril of Castilian revolt and Moslem invasion, Ordoño III. sent ambassadors to Cordova to solicit peace. A treaty was drawn up by which the Leonese King agreed to surrender a number of the castles which protected the frontier; but before this condition could be fulfilled Ordoño died, and his brother Sancho, who succeeded him, peremptorily refused to execute the treaty. Hostilities were thereupon renewed; an Arab force invaded Leon; and a decisive victory gained by the general of the Khalif, Abu-Ibn-Yila, taught the imprudent Sancho the folly of resisting, without adequate resources and preparation, the growing power of the Moorish sovereign.

Sancho appears to have been a prince of ability and resolution, but his ideas of the royal prerogative were too decided for his age. Ambitious to enjoy the arbitrary rights which had been conferred by the ancient Visigothic system, he bent all his efforts to the suppression of the aristocracy, and, what was more dangerous still, neglected to conciliate the ecclesiastical order, whose wealth, and the veneration with which it was regarded, would have made it a dangerous antagonist for any monarch. The experiment, always a hazardous one, was doubly so in the case of Sancho, to whom fortune had denied those personal characteristics which elicit the applause or captivate the attention of mankind. An excessive and increasing obesity rendered him incapable of locomotion without assistance, and he had long since found it impossible to mount a horse. Among an active and athletic people whose trade was war, whose pastimes were found in the chase and the field, and with whom all martial exercises were at once a pleasure and a necessity, the spectacle of a helpless monarch, like Sancho the Fat, was one calculated to excite only sentiments of the deepest contempt. But when to this physical disadvantage were added an arrogant and despotic bearing and an ill-concealed intention to retrench the privileges of the nobility, whose members considered themselves, by reason of the theoretically elective character of the crown, almost equal in dignity, as many of them were superior in prowess, to the princes of the reigning house, the disdain of the subjects of Sancho was changed into apprehension lest the unwieldy monarch who excited their ridicule might ultimately develop into a merciless tyrant. A plot, to which Ferdinand Gonzalez, the professional agitator of the time, was a party, was formed; Sancho was compelled to take refuge in Navarre; and Ordoño IV., a hunchback, whose base and servile nature corresponded with the deformity of his person, was raised to the Leonese throne. Received with every demonstration of sympathy by his grandmother, the martial Tota,--the virtual ruler of Navarre who, for thirty years, had tried with various success the fortune of war with the emirs of Cordova,--Sancho experienced little difficulty in obtaining the promise of her aid in the recovery of his crown. But Navarre, a mountainous and thinly peopled region, was now exhausted by continued hostilities, and, indeed, had never been strong enough to cope unaided with the more extensive kingdom of Leon. An alliance with some foreign power was therefore an indispensable requisite for the successful prosecution of the design. In the formation of this alliance no choice was possible. One monarch alone, the Ommeyade Khalif, whose resources were sufficient to accomplish the desired end, could be approached, and that monarch was separated from the Navarrese queen by the remembrance of all the outrages of incessant warfare, of the enslavement and decapitation of thousands of her subjects, as well as by the barrier of a hostile faith, whose ill-comprehended and purposely distorted tenets were the abomination of every Christian. Other considerations rendered the present concession to the demands of a detested adversary even more galling. The warlike princess had commanded the Navarrese at the rout of Alhandega. She had seen the pride of the Ommeyades abased. She had trailed their banner in the dust. Multitudes of captives and incalculable spoil had attested the prowess of her subjects. The greatest of the Moslem sovereigns had fled before her arms. The emergency, however, admitted of no alternative, and demanded the sacrifice of pride and the oblivion of past injuries, which, in the eyes of Tota, were eclipsed by the present outrage upon her family. Another motive impelled her to have recourse to Abd-al-Rahman. The infirmity of Sancho was certainly not constitutional, and perhaps was not incurable. The reputation of the Jewish and Arab physicians for learning and skill was unequalled in the world, and the most eminent practitioners of that calling were residents of Cordova. It was evident from the experience of Sancho that the recovery of his health was an indispensable condition of his restoration to power. Sacrificing her prejudices to imperative necessity, and with a reluctance she could ill conceal, Tota despatched a formal embassy to the capital of the khalifate.

Abd-al-Rahman received the envoys of the Queen of Navarre with distinguished courtesy, and directed them to announce to their royal mistress that he would at once send an ambassador to her court, who would prescribe the conditions under which he would accede to her requests.

The Jew Hasdai was the agent designated by the Khalif to discharge the duties incident to this important mission. One of the most adroit and experienced negotiators of the time, the versatile genius of Hasdai had enabled him to attain to almost as exalted a rank in the profession of medicine as he had reached in the arts of diplomacy. He was further qualified for the post by his enjoyment of the confidence of his sovereign; by his thorough acquaintance with foreign tongues, including the idiom of the Christians; and by his vast erudition and elegant manners, which fascinated all with whom he came in contact. The occasion was one that required an emissary of more than ordinary ability. The instructions of Hasdai included a demand for the cession of ten fortresses in the territory of Leon, to be made as soon as the usurper had been expelled; and that Sancho himself, his uncle Garcia,--the nominal King of Navarre, in whose name Tota exercised the royal authority,--and the Queen should come in person to Cordova and sign the treaty. While no material objection was interposed to the first condition, in the discussion of the second it required all the address of Hasdai to overcome the repugnance of Tota to the humiliation that such a step implied. Finally, however, the eloquence and craft of the envoy prevailed, and, attended by a numerous company of ecclesiastics and nobles, the three Christian monarchs began their tedious journey. Their passage through the Moslem dominions was attended with every manifestation of public curiosity that such an extraordinary circumstance could excite. Immense crowds lined the highways. Cities and villages were emptied of their population, whose dense masses often seriously interfered with the progress of the escort. The arrival of the sovereigns at Cordova was signalized by a magnificent reception, more appropriate to victorious allies than to petitioners for the recovery of a throne. But the tact of the Khalif led him to disguise, as far as possible, the humiliating character he had compelled his guests to assume; and his dignity was at the same time enhanced by the exhibition of that opulence and grandeur which the occasion enabled him to display. The treaty was duly signed, and it was concerted between the parties that the power of the khalifate should be directed against Leon, while the forces of Navarre made simultaneously a diversion towards Castile, to prevent the co-operation of Count Ferdinand with the enemy.

No event of his long and brilliant reign did more to increase the prestige and strengthen the authority of the famous Moslem ruler than this stroke of profound policy. The enthusiasm of the people was unbounded. The feuds of centuries were, for the moment, forgotten in the indulgence of the feelings of national pride and exultation. The Jewish and Moslem poets contended with each other in celebrating a triumph without parallel in the annals of Islam, and lauded the fortune and the glory of a prince whose achievements had humbled the pride of the common enemy of their respective sects.

Meanwhile, the medical skill of the accomplished Hasdai had perceptibly reduced the enormous bulk which had virtually cost the unfortunate Sancho his crown, and, by the time the Moslem army was ready to march, he had fully recovered his former lightness and activity. The campaign was of short duration. City after city was taken; the entire kingdom renounced the usurper, and Ordoño was driven into the Asturias. The expedition of the Navarrese was attended with equal success. Ferdinand’s army was beaten, and he himself taken prisoner. The mountaineers now refused to shelter any longer a dethroned monarch whose personal character rendered him unworthy of their sympathy, and Ordoño was compelled to flee into Castile.

This decisive campaign was the last of the warlike enterprises of the great Abd-al-Rahman. An imprudent exposure brought on an attack of pulmonary disease, which defied the skill of the ablest physicians, and, after an illness of several months, the most renowned sovereign who had occupied the Ommeyade throne of the West expired at the age of seventy years.

His reign lacked but a few weeks of reaching the extraordinary length of half a century. His deeds, however well authenticated, seem almost to pass the bounds of human credulity. When he received the sceptre, the regal authority was scarcely recognized within the narrow circuit of the walls of the capital. When that sceptre fell from his palsied grasp, the haughty descendants of the Visigoths, the champions of the Christian faith, the hitherto invincible mountaineers whose pride and bigotry exceeded even their valor, were his devoted vassals and tributaries. The most formidable rebellion that had ever afflicted the Peninsula--a rebellion of thirty years’ standing--was crushed. The physical traces of that long and disastrous struggle were removed; the hatred which sprang from it, more implacable than even the aversion of sect to sect, was allayed. A foreign invasion which threatened not only the destruction of his race, but the extirpation of all knowledge and all civilization, was checked, and a long respite given to the cause of science and the avocations of peace. His predecessor bequeathed to him an uncertain revenue drawn from a precarious tribute; his own genius, besides providing for the enormous expenses of government, for the construction of great public improvements, and for the demands of a luxury without precedent in its extravagance, was still enabled to leave in the public treasury a sum equal to a hundred million dollars.

A powerful navy assured the safety of the coast from foreign attack, and permitted the development of a commerce whose agents had already established themselves in every province of Europe, Africa, and Asia. As a result of this extensive trade, the bazaars of the Andalusian cities abounded with objects of luxury, whose existence had hitherto been unsuspected by the isolated population of the Peninsula. The effects of this intimate and constant intercourse with many nations were, moreover, disclosed by a marked refinement of manners, by an increased degree of mental activity, by a high appreciation of the benefits conferred by the possession of learning, and by the emancipation of the human mind from those theological prejudices which, in every age, have been at once the cause and the evidence of a condition of abject intellectual servitude.

The fame of Abd-al-Rahman had penetrated the most remote and barbarous regions of the globe. Princes of every rank in friendly rivalry endeavored, by every resource of munificence and adulation, to secure his friendship and promote his interests. Splendid embassies, bearing rare and priceless gifts, were frequently seen in the streets of the capital. The most remarkable of these was one despatched by Constantine Porphryogenitus, the Byzantine emperor, whose pride made him ambitious to surpass, in the superb appointments and pompous ceremonial of his representatives, the reputed magnificence of his distant ally. But exhibiting, as it did, all the evidences of the opulence and grandeur of the master of the Eastern Empire, the embassy of Constantine was eclipsed by the gorgeous blaze of the Ommeyade Court. Its reception recalled the extravagant tales of Oriental romance. The approaches to the palace were lined with the guards of the Khalif, whose gay uniforms, burnished armor, and jewel-hilted scimetars glittered in the dazzling rays of an Andalusian sun. Beautiful awnings of silk were suspended over court-yard and archway. The halls of the Alcazar were hung with cloth of gold and silver, and with tapestry whose folds exhibited intricate patterns of the most exquisite arabesques. Through gardens of aromatic plants, through colonnades of many-colored marble, over floors of polished mosaic, the envoys were conducted to the audience chamber. Here were seated the Khalif and the members of his family, while ranged around them stood the great civil and military dignitaries of the empire, the chiefs of the eunuchs, the officials of the royal household. After a profound obeisance, the ambassadors presented the letter of their sovereign. It was of sky-blue parchment, inscribed with letters of gold. The seal was also of the same precious metal; it bore on one side the effigy of the Saviour, and on the other the medallions of Constantine and his son. The letter was enclosed in a golden box carved with wondrous skill, and it, in turn, was placed in a case enveloped in tissue of silk and gold. On the lid of this case was a mosaic portrait of the Greek emperor.

In order to impress the ambassadors with the talents and literary acquirements of his courtiers, as well as to do them honor, the Khalif had appointed a famous orator and poet to pronounce an address of welcome, which should, at the same time, exalt the glories of his reign and the grandeur of his empire. But the august presence in which he found himself, and the consciousness of his inability to do justice to his subject, so affected the impressible nature of the chosen exponent of the eloquence of Cordova that he was unable to utter a single word. Then the Khalif called upon one after another of the wise men at his side, whose skill in improvisation had heretofore never failed them, to greet the Grecian embassy, but they also were silent. At last, unsolicited, a Persian, named Mondhir-Ibn-Said, a recent arrival at the court, arose, and repeated some appropriate and extemporaneous verses, full of the glowing images and extravagant metaphors which are the delight of the passionate Oriental. When he concluded, neither the presence of royalty, nor the stately and dignified etiquette of the court, could repress the applause of the delighted audience, and the Khalif recompensed the fortunate poet with a purse of gold, and at once appointed him--for he was learned in the law--Chief Kadi of Cordova. The envoys, having received every attention in the power of their generous host, were dismissed, accompanied by a vizier charged to offer, in the name of the Khalif, a number of splendid horses, arms, and coats of mail to the Byzantine emperor.

The account of another embassy of an entirely different character which arrived some time afterwards is instructive, as affording a curious picture of the manners of the time. The Khalif having formed, from the accounts of mendacious travellers, an exaggerated idea of the extent and resources of Germany, and desirous of opening diplomatic relations with that power, sent to Otho, the son of Henry the Fowler, a letter, accompanied with the usual presents. The chief of the embassy, a Mozarabic bishop, perished on the journey, and the missive was delivered by his companions, who were ignorant of its contents. The pride of Abd-al-Rahman had permitted him to incorporate into his letter expressions which were not complimentary to the Trinitarian belief, or, as the chronicle suggestively remarks, “in it the German emperor was much better treated than the God of the Christians,” trusting to the tact of the bishop to soothe any irritation that might arise from its perusal. Otho, having read it, in the absence of all explanation, naturally construed the language of the Moslem as a deliberate insult to his religion, treated the envoys with marked indignity, removed them from the precincts of the court, and for three years wholly ignored their presence, except to restrain them of their liberty.

Then he determined to retaliate in kind. A letter was drawn up by the Archbishop of Cologne, in which the vocabularies of profane and ecclesiastical abuse were exhausted in search of epithets to be heaped upon Mohammed. A messenger was now sought to convey this scurrilous epistle, for, while many could be found who were willing to write it, few were inclined to run the risk attending its delivery; for it was well known that among the Moslems vituperation of the Prophet was inexorably punished with death. Finally, John de Gorza, a fanatic monk, whose austere life had obtained for him a reputation for unusual piety, voluntarily offered himself as a candidate for the perilous duty which almost necessarily involved the penalty of martyrdom. His services were accepted in default of those of an ambassador of superior dignity, and three ecclesiastics of equal rank were selected to accompany him, and to share the doubtful fortunes of the enterprise. All arrangements having been completed, this singular embassy set forth from the court of Otho with but slight probability of its return. Arrived without accident at Cordova, the monks were detained in one of the suburbs pending the negotiation which Abd-al-Rahman deemed it proper to enter into with them touching the offensive letter of the emperor, whose contents were no secret at the Mussulman court. The Khalif found himself placed in an unpleasant dilemma. The law was severely explicit concerning the treatment of such as blasphemed the name of Mohammed. Should the envoys deliver the letter of Otho, responsibility would attach to their act as the representatives of their sovereign, and yet their execution would be, in the eyes of the world, a serious violation of the law of nations. Every effort was made to induce John de Gorza to retain the letter and present only the gifts which accompanied it. The services of the shrewdest diplomatists of the court were enlisted for this purpose. But the stubborn fanatic, in whom the splendors of the Moslem empire aroused only a feeling of disdain, was not to be convinced by the insinuating arts nor intimidated by the menaces of the emissaries of the Khalif. The difficulty was at length adjusted by John de Gorza consenting to apply to his royal master for another letter to be substituted for the objectionable one in his possession. This was done, and, after a delay of eighteen months, preparations were made for the reception of the embassy. Now, however, a fresh obstacle was interposed by the obstinacy of monkish prejudice. The rigorous etiquette, as well as the elegance and decorum of the Moslem court, were insulted by the coarse and tattered garments and uncleanly appearance of the German envoy. Attributing his condition to poverty, the Khalif sent him a large sum of money to be expended in procuring suitable clothing. True to his profession, the unselfish anchorite at once bestowed the whole amount in alms upon the poor. The Khalif, unable to repress his admiration for the consistent and uncompromising character of the bold ecclesiastic, exclaimed, “By Allah! were he only clothed with a bag, I will see him.”

Introduced with every form of ceremonious courtesy into the presence of the most brilliant court in Europe, John de Gorza, unawed by the majesty of the monarch and apparently unimpressed by the new and dazzling scenes that met his eye, bore himself with a calm dignity and self-possession little to be expected from his previous conduct; and Abd-al-Rahman, greatly pleased with his candor and humility, accorded him before his departure the unusual distinction of a private audience, and finally dismissed him with every token of honor and esteem.

This period is remarkable for the success of a handful of adventurers, who, in the closing years of the preceding century, had established themselves on the coast of France, and whose enterprise, had they received substantial aid from the government of Cordova, might have affected, in no small degree, the ultimate fate of Christian Europe.

In the year 889, a band of twenty Moorish pirates were driven by a tempest into the Gulf of Grimaud, which washes the shores of Lower Provence. Their predatory habits tempted them to explore the adjacent country; a village was surprised and plundered; and further investigation convinced them of the advantages which chance had thrown in their way for the foundation of a permanent colony. It was indeed an ideal spot for a robber stronghold. The commerce of the Northern Mediterranean was within easy reach. The harbor was retired and capacious. Lofty mountains covered with dense forests surrounded it. From their summits could be discerned the highly-cultivated plains of France, for generations free from the inroads of the marauder, whose inhabitants, ruled by a succession of incapable princes, were wholly destitute of the martial spirit which supplies the neglect of royal protection in a hardy peasantry, and who had been long unaccustomed to the use of arms. Near at hand were the Alps, through whose unguarded passes access was obtainable to the smiling valleys and rich cities of Italy, a country which has been the goal of every military adventurer of Western Europe in both ancient and modern times.

The Moslem freebooters lost no time in apprising their friends and comrades of their discovery. Recruits from Spain, Sicily, and Africa daily swelled their ranks. It was not long before a score of castles--each the seat of a marauding chieftain--crowned the heights overlooking the Gulf of Grimaud and the Forest of Fraxinet. With profound sagacity, these enterprising bandits sold their support to the feudal barons, whose quarrels perpetually vexed the petty states of Provence, always choosing the weakest for their allies. Thus they held the balance of power, and, enriched by the plunder of civil war, acquired each year a larger measure of influence and importance. Their relentless cruelty gave them a weight out of all proportion to their numbers or their valor. Their excesses were the terror of the peasantry. By the end of the ninth century, they had crossed the Alps, threatened Turin, destroyed many monasteries, and laid waste the plains of Montferrat and Piedmont. They established themselves on the Po. In 935 they had advanced to the borders of Liguria. Their depredations extended as far as the city of Genoa. The passes of Mount Cenis and Mount St. Bernard were in their hands. From their strongholds in the Alps they stopped all traffic and levied contributions on every traveller. They carried their arms into Switzerland, and penetrated to the shores of Lake Constance. They burned churches and abbeys under the walls of Marseilles. The city of Nice still bears, in the name of one of its quarters, a souvenir of Saracen occupation.

In France, by reason of its proximity to their colony and the greater facilities it offered to their movements, their incursions were more frequent and disastrous. Much of the level country was depopulated. In the strongest cities alone was security to be found. Almost the entire territory of Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphiné was at one time subject to the visitations of this awful scourge. So strongly had these daring banditti intrenched themselves in the mountains of Southwestern Europe, that the princes in whose dominions they were found were unable to dislodge them. It is hinted by Liutprand that the embassy of John de Gorza had for its principal object the cessation of their ravages, through the intervention of the Khalif, a statement by no means improbable.

Be this as it may, it was not long after that event that the power of the Moslem colonists began to decline. For a time the influx of recruits, the appropriation of women, and the institution of polygamous households threatened a superiority in numbers as well as in arms, and a permanency of occupation, conditions whose danger had been exemplified by the Arab conquests in the South. These fears, however, proved without foundation. The Christians gradually recovered their ground. Castle after castle fell before their assaults. Dependent upon their own efforts, the Moslem pirates could not sustain the combined attack made upon them from every side, and, before the death of Abd-al-Rahman, they had lost their influence as a disturbing force in those countries which they had for three-quarters of a century made the scene of their depredations.

The operations of these chieftains were never divested of the character of brigandage. Except in time of common danger, they acted independently of each other. The permanent success which is derived from a union of forces and concerted political action never attended their arms. Yet, without organization and deprived of the support of any foreign government, they maintained their footing in a hostile territory for nearly a hundred years. Their only resources were the plunder they obtained from their neighbors. Their only recruits were adventurers like themselves, attracted by the hope of booty. Their harems were filled by their forays, and their race propagated at the expense of the enemy. No chronicle, Christian or Arab, explicitly states that they were even countenanced, still less assisted, by the Khalifate of Cordova. Yet no opportunity so favorable to the extension of the Faith and the conquest of Europe was ever offered to the Spanish Moslems. The strategic importance of these piratical strongholds was far greater than that of the exposed settlements of Septimania. They were easily accessible by sea. With trifling labor they might have been rendered impregnable. They controlled the passes of the Alps. They menaced the great cities of Marseilles, Arles, and Narbonne. As a point of concentration for an invading army their value was indisputable. Difficult of approach, they commanded the rich plains of Provence and Languedoc, of Piedmont and Lombardy. The facility with which their marauding and undisciplined garrisons overran the adjacent provinces as far as Genoa and Grenoble is suggestive of the results which might have been accomplished by the systematic operations of a great military power like that of Abd-al-Rahman III., supported by the resources of the most opulent and warlike nation of the age.

The domestic policy of Abd-al-Rahman gave indications of the same genius that directed his military campaigns and diplomatic negotiations. The exact administration of justice, the vigilance of a numerous and well-appointed police, the supervision of an incorruptible magistracy, guaranteed to every class of society the full enjoyment of the rights of person and property. The prevalence of order and the suppression of crime were no less evident in regions far remote from the seat of government than in the immediate precincts of the capital.

The love of pomp and the prodigal display of luxury kept even pace with the increasing wealth and multiplied resources of the empire. The temples were enriched with the spoils and decorated with the trophies of the churches and monasteries of the infidel. The Great Mosque of the capital was enlarged, its court enclosed with a graceful arcade and cooled by delicious fountains. The palaces and gardens of Cordova surpassed in extent and equalled in magnificence the famous ones of Bagdad and Damascus. In the charming and luxurious retreat of Medina-al-Zahrâ, the Khalif transacted the daily routine of business; received foreign ambassadors; heard and decided contests for literary precedence; determined questions of civil and ecclesiastical law. Entertaining, not without reason, a profound distrust of the Arab element, which composed the most intelligent portion of his subjects, he committed the principal offices of government and entrusted the care of his person to the Mamlouks, or Slaves, a class of servile origin, whose numbers--through royal favor, the possession of marked capacity for affairs, and the habit of implicit obedience--soon rose to extraordinary power and influence in the state. This term was applied at first to captives taken in war by the Arabs themselves, or sold to them by the barbarian nations of Germany. But by degrees the name acquired a more extensive significance, and came to include all persons of foreign birth or base extraction employed in the civil and military service of the khalifate. Almost every nation and tribe from the shores of the Caspian to the western extremities of Lusitania were represented in this important class, the alien birth and dependent character of whose constituents divested them of sympathy with the other subjects of the empire, and assured their unwavering devotion to the interests of their master. From the earliest days of the emirate, an enormous traffic had been carried on in slaves with Christian countries, principally with France and Italy. Its profits, originally monopolized by Jews, were, in time, shared by Christian ecclesiastics; and it has been established by incontrovertible evidence that at least one pope did not disdain to replenish the coffers of the Church by an expedient so prejudicial to the interests of religion and humanity. The monasteries of the South of France were largely devoted to the manufacture of eunuchs; those on the Meuse were also especially celebrated on this account, the unfortunate subjects for mutilation being procured by the monks through the purchase of children from the peasantry. The Slave caste, while it included a considerable proportion of eunuchs, was by no means, however, limited to individuals of that unfortunate class.

Although condemned by adverse fortune to a subordinate and frequently to a humiliating position in the scale of society, the inferiority of the Slave, in this respect, was more than compensated by the authority he exercised, by the wealth he was enabled to accumulate, and by the consideration he enjoyed as the chosen agent of the Khalif in posts of responsibility and confidence. The highest employments were entrusted to these strangers, to the prejudice of the ancient aristocracy whose lineage could be traced to the Pagan guardians of the Kaaba and the Companions of the Prophet. The royal body-guard was entirely composed of Slaves. Introduced into the country at an age when youth is most susceptible to outward impressions, they imbibed, through intimate association, through the influence of example, through religious instruction, and through considerations of personal interest, the habits, the prejudices, and the faith of the Moslems. Some amassed large fortunes in trade. Others rose to important commands in the army. Many maintained establishments which surpassed those of the nobility in pomp and extravagance, and themselves owned multitudes of slaves. Not a few were noted for their scholarly attainments; possessed extensive libraries; participated with credit in the public debates which amused the leisure of the court; and acquired no inconsiderable reputation in the pursuits of literature.

This epoch of Moorish dominion, agitated by foreign war and intestine disturbance, was likewise oppressed by the calamities of nature and the grievous machinations of domestic treason. In the year 915, the Peninsula was visited by a famine of unparalleled severity. A long-continued drought, which defied the skill of the hydraulic engineers and the resources of an irrigating system that was the admiration of Europe, wasted the land. A pestilence followed, as usual, in the wake of the famine. Deprived of all means of subsistence and consumed by disease, the unhappy peasantry perished by thousands. The streets and highways were obstructed with the dying and the dead. The mosques were crowded day and night with suppliants, who implored the pity of a God who seemed to have turned His face in anger from His children. Such was the mortality that the survivors were unable to afford to the deceased the rites of burial. Every effort was exerted by the government to alleviate the public misery, but the distress was so general that the liberality of the Khalif was unable to produce any great improvement in the lamentable condition of his subjects, whose violent measures to obtain the necessaries of life not infrequently required the intervention of military force. The measure of national misfortune was filled by the ruin wrought by a terrible hurricane that swept the coasts of Africa and Andalusia, and by a conflagration that destroyed the larger portion of the capital.

Abd-al-Rahman had two sons, named respectively Al-Hakem and Abdallah. Of these, the first was the heir apparent, who, though greatly esteemed and respected for his noble character and princely virtues, was still generally considered as inferior to his brother in literary ability as well as in those showy qualities and accomplishments which dazzle the eyes of the populace. In an evil hour, the ambitious Abdallah, incited by his friend the theologian Ibn-Abd-al-Barr, was induced to agree to the assassination of Al-Hakem, and a plot was hatched with that end in view. Unhappily for their success, a spy had introduced himself into the councils of the conspirators, and they were secretly arrested. Some were impaled. Ibn-Abd-al-Barr anticipated the executioner by suicide; and Abdallah, in spite of the magnanimous intercession of the injured Al-Hakem, was strangled in prison. The happiness of the Khalif was deeply and permanently affected by a deed in which paternal affection was sacrificed to a sense of public duty; and to the day of his death the memory of the untimely fate of his son constantly haunted his thoughts and imparted to his character a melancholy which no diversion could charm away, and no triumph, however glorious, could entirely efface.

The greatness of the Moslem power in Spain under Abd-al-Rahman III. is to be attributed to the extraordinary administrative capacity of that renowned monarch. The glory in fact is exclusively his own. The attention he paid to the minute details of government was not less marked than the skill with which he directed to a successful issue enterprises of the greatest magnitude and importance. He was the impersonation of imperial despotism. No sovereign of his race had hitherto centred in his person, to the exclusion of all other sources of authority, the prestige, the honor, the dignity of empire. He possessed in a remarkable degree those talents which facilitate the subordination and amalgamation of hostile elements of society long accustomed to anarchy, a task far more difficult than the conquest of great nations. The discernment he exhibited in abolishing all taxes not authorized by the traditional law of Islam acquired for him the public confidence at the very beginning of his reign. The history of that period exhibits a picture of religious toleration in vivid contrast to the revolting crimes perpetrated by the Sees of Constantinople and Rome. So little was this great prince influenced by sectarian prejudice, or even by ordinary considerations of policy, that he was with infinite difficulty dissuaded from appointing to the highest judicial office of the realm a renegade, whose father and mother still belonged to the Christian communion. The assumption of the title of khalif, attended by the alteration in the coinage and the modification of the public prayers in the mosques--acts that confirmed to him the attributes of his new and well-merited dignity--gave him great prominence in the Mohammedan world. The achievements of a quarter of a century certainly entitled him to a distinction which his pride and wisdom now induced him to appropriate, and which was destined to contribute a new and powerful impulse to the civilization of Western Europe. His popularity called forth such multitudes of volunteers. when the Holy War was proclaimed that care had to be taken lest the shops be left without clerks and the fields without laborers.

The reign of Abd-al-Rahman III. is coincident with the greatest wealth, grandeur, and prosperity of the Hispano-Arab domination, as those of his son and grandson indicate respectively the climax of its intellectual supremacy and its military glory. During this, the most flourishing era of the Saracen empire, the Peninsula presented the aspect of a highly cultivated and extraordinarily productive garden. The graceful and delicious plants of the Orient grew everywhere side by side with the indigenous flora of less favored Europe. The semi-tropical region embraced by the provinces of Valencia and Murcia, thickly settled as they are, then supported a far more numerous population than now clusters in their fertile valleys. The treeless and proverbially barren steppes of Old Castile were diversified with forests and dotted with picturesque villages. Endless fields of ripening grain met the eye on the plains of La Mancha, where to-day a sparse and straggling vegetation affords precarious sustenance to the flock of the shepherd. The nature of the soil, its peculiar adaptability to certain agricultural products, the rotation of crops, the fertilizing qualities of all varieties of manures, the systematic distribution and economy of water, were thoroughly understood, and the principles of scientific husbandry applied with phenomenal success. Not a foot of ground was wasted. The rocky hill-sides were, with infinite labor, cut into terraces, covered with mould, and planted with vineyards. Where even a single citron, carob, or olive-tree would grow, a triangular enclosure was constructed of stones filled with earth and tended with assiduous care. The yield of the harvests was often a hundred-fold. It was not unusual, in many districts, for the same ground to produce four crops of different kinds in the course of a year. In the South, where the warm and genial climate assisted the natural productiveness of the soil, the country was not inaptly termed a terrestrial paradise. The suburbs of Cordova, Granada, and Murcia were proverbial for their beauty, and their luxuriant vegetation was rather suggestive of the rural surroundings of provincial hamlets than of the vicinity of great capitals. The olive orchards of Seville were the most extensive in the world. The banks of the Guadalquivir, near that city, were lined with fruit-trees, and, for a distance of thirty miles, one could travel through a succession of farm-houses, castles, and stately villas embowered in perennial verdure. A net-work of canals, subject to and regulated by an equitable code of laws interpreted by rustic magistrates chosen by the people, traversed in all directions the tillable land of every province. Gigantic aqueducts spanned valleys and hill-sides, bearing to the parched and thirsty soil of the distant plains the refreshing waters of the mountain springs. The experience of the Moor enabled him to detect the presence of the precious fluid in the most unpromising localities; and subterranean channels, hundreds of yards in length, hewn in the living rock, still attest his dauntless energy and perseverance.

The incessant wars and domestic feuds of the Abbasides and the Fatimites, which consumed their resources and interrupted their commerce, presented opportunities to the Ommeyades of Spain by which they were ever ready to profit. The isolated situation of the latter, and the peaceful condition of their empire for extended periods of time, were eminently propitious to the development of foreign trade, while the possession of a large merchant marine facilitated transportation to points that national hostility and religious prejudice often rendered inaccessible by land. Although the great entrepôt of Alexandria was closed to the subjects of the Khalifs of the West, they were amply indemnified by the hospitable reception and official courtesies which they habitually received from the people of Constantinople. It was a judicious and enlightened policy, and one whose important influence on every branch of art and learning cannot be estimated by the material prosperity, however great, which its institution conferred, that dictated the alliance, and preserved the close relations long existing between the princes of Moorish Spain and the sovereigns of Byzantium. During its most prosperous era, the merchant vessels of the khalifate numbered more than a thousand. Permanent agencies for the purchase and sale of merchandise were established in the most distant regions of the East,--in Ceylon, in Sogdiana, in China. There were few bodies of water accessible to maritime traffic where the flag of the Ommeyades was not known.

The vaunted glories of the Abbaside dynasty were surpassed, in many respects, by the civilization of the Hispano-Arab empire. In the extent of its public works, in the magnificence of its palaces, in the embellishment of its temples, the superiority of the latter can hardly be questioned. Its thorough and systematic cultivation of the soil was not inferior in its results to the methods pursued in the most productive fields of Mesopotamia, the Garden of Asia. No comparison exists between the trade of Damascus and Bagdad, largely dependent on caravans, and that of Moorish Spain, which, in addition to this resource, employed great fleets of merchantmen.

The best indications of the prosperity of the Western Khalifate are to be derived from its population and its public revenues. It has been estimated by competent authorities that the subjects of Abd-al-Rahman III. numbered at least thirty million. Great as was the extent of the metropolis, incredible as was her wealth, superb as were her environs, many of the other cities of the empire, while they could not rival her power and grandeur, shared the enormously profitable benefits of a civilization in which Cordova enjoyed a well-deserved pre-eminence. The dominions of the Khalif included eighty municipalities of the first rank and three hundred of the second; the smaller towns were almost innumerable. Along the banks of the Guadalquivir alone stood twelve thousand villages. So thickly was the country settled that the traveller usually passed, in the space of a single day’s journey, no less than three large cities in the midst of an unbroken succession of towns and hamlets. Nothing comparable with the opulence and splendor of the great provincial capitals was to be seen outside of the Peninsula. Seville contained five hundred thousand inhabitants; Almeria an equal number; Granada four hundred and twenty-five thousand; Malaga three hundred thousand; Valencia two hundred and fifty thousand; Toledo two hundred thousand.

The sanitary regulations maintained in these large communities were almost perfect. The streets were paved and lighted. A thorough system of drainage prevailed. Some of the sewers under the city of Valencia were large enough to admit a cart with ease, and the smallest could be traversed by a loaded beast of burden. Order was preserved by means of a numerous and well-organized police, who patrolled the thoroughfares day and night.

From the best information to be obtained concerning the revenues of Spain under the Arabs during the reigns of different monarchs, the conclusion is indisputable that they exceeded in amount those of all the other sovereigns of Europe combined. The data we possess, while much less copious and explicit than could be desired, are, as far as they go, undoubtedly correct, although some critics have questioned their accuracy. A single instance may suffice to convey an idea of the wealth of the khalifs under the most flourishing conditions of their empire. The revenue of Abd-al-Rahman III. was twelve million nine hundred and forty-five thousand dinars, equivalent to thirty-three million six hundred thousand dollars. The immensity of the pecuniary resources of the khalifate may well excite the wonder, if not the incredulity, of the scholar when it is remembered that the ratio of the respective monetary values of the tenth and twentieth centuries is ten to one. The fact that such a sum could be contributed for the support of government by a nation occupying a limited territorial area like that of Spain, without being considered onerous or in any way impairing its commercial prosperity, is a more reliable indication of the affluence of the Western Khalifate than a whole library of statistics. The principal tax levied was one-tenth of the yield of the mines, crops, mercantile investments, and industrial occupations. In addition to this was the regular contribution, yielding fourteen million dollars, paid by Christians and Jews as a consideration for the enjoyment of their laws and the practice of their religion; certain taxes on shops and on the sale of property, and duties on imports, none of which were at all excessive. One of the most important sources of revenue, in a warlike age, was the fifth of the booty obtained in battle, which, after division, was deposited in the royal treasury. No approximate computation can be made of its amount, which necessarily varied with each campaign, and no appraisement was taken of its actual value after its first distribution, which was, in most instances, hastily made and inaccurate. The exigencies of warfare, and the expenses arising from the construction of important public works, often demanded the imposition of additional and extraordinary burdens, which, while not countenanced by law, were usually paid without remonstrance, as required for the propagation of the Faith and for the completion of noble architectural monuments representing the glory and piety of the monarch and the opulence of the state. The dignitaries of the empire maintained the pomp and state of princes. Their palaces, their courts, their retinues, were inferior only to those of their royal master. No Christian potentate could vie with them in magnificence. Their wealth, accumulated by every legal expedient, by every device of extortion, was bestowed with lavish hand. A present made by the Vizier, Ibn-Shobeyd, to Abd-al-Rahman III., and celebrated by the Arab writers of the age as an instance of prodigal generosity, bears witness of the vast treasures which must have been possessed by imperial officials of the highest rank. It included an estate whose forests contained twenty thousand trees; sixty slaves, male and female, selected for their accomplishments and beauty; one hundred horses and mules; eight hundred suits of armor; a large number of costly weapons, tents, and trappings; carpets, cushions, and silks; rare sables and cloaks of brocade; quantities of camphor, aloes, musk, and amber. The most important item of this magnificent gift was coin and virgin gold to the amount of five hundred and fifty thousand dinars. Its whole value may be estimated at more than five million dollars.

The political sagacity of the Moorish princes neglected no precaution which might contribute to the consolidation of their authority or the security of their dominions. The navy of Abd-al-Rahman III. was the most powerful in the Mediterranean. The irregular troops at his command were practically unlimited in number; those regularly enrolled amounted to more than a hundred and fifty thousand. The body-guard of the Khalif was famous for the splendor of its arms and the perfection of its discipline. It was composed of twelve thousand veterans, of whom eight thousand were cavalry. The accoutrements of the members of this select corps were the most costly and perfect that the military science of the time could provide. Their uniform was of the finest silk. The caparisons of their horses were unequalled in magnificence. The hilts of their scimetars were jewelled; their belts and scabbards were of solid gold.

Facilities for rapid and secure communication with the frontiers of the empire were afforded by substantial causeways, which, radiating from the capital, were equally available for the passage of troops and the transportation of merchandise. The safety of the traveller was assured by patrols and sentinels lodged in barracks distributed at regular intervals. A system of posts transmitted intelligence by means of couriers and relays of horses with a rapidity that to the mind of the astonished foreigner seemed almost magical. Innumerable watch-towers, still known to the Spaniards by their Arab name, atalayas, rose upon every promontory of the long extended line of coast, and from their summits beacons flashed timely notice of the movements of friendly cruisers and hostile squadrons.

Vast sums were repeatedly appropriated from the treasury for structures designed for public utility, solely with the object of affording employment to the industrious artisan and laborer. Abd-al-Rahman II. caused proclamation to be made throughout his dominions that no man, able and willing to work, should suffer because of enforced idleness. Thus was established by implication the salutary principle that the accumulated wealth of the state was the property of the people, and to its general application is to be attributed the extraordinary number of castles, mosques, bridges, and aqueducts which cover every part of the Peninsula once subject to Mussulman rule.

The sick and the unfortunate were housed and cared for in public institutions erected for that purpose. Orphans were maintained and educated from the private purse of the Khalif, five hundred being enrolled in a single school at Cordova, a noble example of patriarchal solicitude and royal generosity.

Equally unlike their predecessors the Barbarians and their own conquerors the Castilians, the Spanish Arabs did not take pleasure in the destruction of the proud memorials of Roman greatness. It is true that where a structure was hopelessly ruined, they appropriated the materials for their own edifices. Wanton injury of the relics of classic antiquity was, however, always discountenanced by the liberal spirit of the Spanish Moslem. Even from the earliest epoch of their occupation, the grandeur of these works, which have immortalized the power and majesty of the Cæsars, filled their untutored but not unappreciative minds with awe and wonder. Bridges and fortifications which had survived since the reign of the first emperors were rebuilt. The highways, which formed such an important feature of the military policy of the empire, were thoroughly repaired and extended. Such objects of Greek or Roman art as came into possession of the Saracens--with the exception of statuary, which, as representing the human form, partook of the abomination of idolatrous worship--were carefully preserved. In every act and sentiment was disclosed a feeling of reverence and admiration for the imposing and graceful monuments bequeathed to posterity by the former masters of the world.

The centre of all this wonderful civilization was the famous city of Cordova. The capital of the empire, of itself, it possessed all the requisites of a mighty state, a vast population, commercial wealth, religious prestige, political power. Eight cities of the first rank and three thousand smaller towns were subject to its jurisdiction. Each year the sum of three million pieces of gold--sixty million dollars--was paid into its treasury. No community of ancient or mediæval times could compare with it in proficiency in the arts, in scientific attainments, in intellectual culture. Its inhabitants could not have numbered less than a million. Their dwellings, generally built of stone, exhibited the unpretending exterior peculiar to Oriental architecture, but within they were adorned with mosaics and arabesques, with blooming parterres and marble fountains. The streets, adapted to the scorching climate, were narrow, but solidly paved, perfectly drained, and, subject to constant supervision, were kept in a state of cleanliness unknown to the best-regulated municipalities of modern Europe. In summer, a grateful coolness was obtained by awnings, which, stretched from one building to another, excluded the rays of the sun, facilitating the purposes of traffic and the intercourse of the people. The houses--exclusive of the palaces of the nobles and public officials, which were very numerous--amounted to the extraordinary figure of one hundred and thirteen thousand. There were eighty thousand four hundred shops, seven hundred mosques, nine hundred baths, and four thousand three hundred markets, where were constantly to be seen the costumes and the treasures of every country known to commerce in that age.

For ten miles in a direct line on the darkest night the pedestrian could walk securely through the city and its environs by the light of innumerable lamps. The total area of the capital included a space of twenty-four miles in length by six in width along the classic Bætis, which--the only stream of Andalusia that is said to bear a strictly Arab name--had been designated by the Saracens The Great River. The circumference of the city proper, enclosed by fortified walls, was fourteen miles. In the size and number of its bazaars and in the variety of the merchandise with which its warehouses were filled, Cordova enjoyed an undisputed pre-eminence over the most luxurious cities of Asia, and west of the Bosphorus had no rival, with the single exception of Constantinople.

The rarest and most expensive luxuries of the table and the harem were to be procured in the shops of the gigantic capital. Beautiful slaves from Greece, Italy, and Abyssinia; white eunuchs, whose emasculation had rather enhanced than diminished their elegance of form and regularity of feature; blacks, whose repulsive hideousness and colossal stature were qualifications for the retinue of the Khalif; books and manuscripts in every tongue; the choicest spices and perfumes of the Orient; priceless jewels, whose sheen enhances to such a degree the charms of female loveliness; robes of every hue and texture, woven with texts and mottoes in threads of silver and gold,--all of these, and many other wares, objects of the cupidity and the passions of man--were daily exhibited to the covetous and admiring glance of the passer-by. Great caravansaries afforded shelter to multitudes of merchants, travellers, and pilgrims, who, allured by avarice, curiosity, or devotion, daily resorted to the renowned Metropolis of the West. Inns, where food, lodging, and alms were gratuitously distributed to the worthy but impecunious scholar, whose means were inadequate to the gratification of his literary aspirations, established by the government and maintained from the funds of the public treasury, formed a peculiar and striking feature of the varied life of the city. From the rivulets of the distant Sierra, a lofty aqueduct, two leagues and a half in length--and whose vermilion hue, derived from the cinnabar in its cement, presenting a vivid contrast to the green of the surrounding landscape, rendered it a most conspicuous object--furnished the inhabitants with a never-failing supply of water. Fountains threw up their glittering spray in every square, before every palace, in the court-yard of every mosque. In some instances, the stream poured in noisy volume from the mouth of a lion or a crocodile of gilded bronze, grotesque and terrible in appearance; in others, the drops rippled gently over the edges of exquisitely carved basins of porphyry and alabaster. The air was heavy with the mingled aroma of myriads of blossoms, as from orchard and garden were wafted the odors of many a delicious exotic, which filled the streets with their intoxicating fragrance.

Seven ponderous gates, covered with scales of brass, gave access to the five different quarters, or wards, into which the city was divided, each of which was isolated from the rest by walls and towers, as a means of security against the turbulent populace, whose insubordination was proverbial and whose loyalty was uncertain even under the iron hand of the most powerful ruler. To one of these wards the Christians, to another the Jews, were restricted, and, from their precincts, after sunset, no individual could emerge without incurring the penalty of death. From every gate a broad and well-paved highway led to the frontier cities of the empire,--Malaga, Badajoz, Astorga, Talavera, Toledo, Saragossa, Merida. The alcazar of the khalifs, built upon the site of the palace of the Visigothic kings, was of great size and impregnable strength. It probably included one of the wards above referred to, and contained the citadel, the official residence of the principal dignitaries of the court, and the barracks of the royal body-guard, as well as the quarters of an innumerable retinue of dependents and slaves. Near it was the gate leading to the bridge over the Guadalquivir, the scene of more than one historical event which changed the fortunes of the reigning dynasty in eras of revolution and disaster. That bridge was one of the grandest works ever designed by Roman genius. It was twelve hundred feet in length by thirty in breadth, and stood ninety feet above the water. It was defended by nineteen turrets. Built during the reign of Augustus, and in good repair to-day, it has served the purposes of war and commerce for sixty generations.

The inexhaustible fertility of the soil of Andalusia yielded, in the greatest profusion, the most delicious products of every clime. The necessaries of life were to be procured for a trifle. Every description of food was offered for sale in the markets, and luscious fruits and vegetables, classed as expensive luxuries or unattainable in the capitals of Christian Europe, were enjoyed in Cordova by persons in the most moderate circumstances. The attire of the humblest citizen indicated an unusual degree of personal comfort; professional mendicancy, that curse of Oriental communities, was discouraged and practically unknown; the worthy sufferer found a ready welcome in the public hospital, while the impostor was scourged into unwonted activity by the officers of justice.

The suburbs of Cordova, exclusive of the royal residence of Medina-al-Zahrâ, which was superior to the others in extent and beauty, were twenty-one in number. They bore romantic names suggested by their charming situations, and the admiring homage they received from the people, such as “The Vale of Paradise,” “The Beautiful Valley,” “The Path of Roses,” “The Garden of Wonders.” While subject to the jurisdiction of the central municipal power, they, in other respects, presented the aspect of a series of independent communities, provided with every necessity and luxury required by a numerous and thriving population,--shops, baths, inns, warehouses, markets, and mosques. Two occupied the opposite bank of the river; the others encircled the Moorish capital with a girdle of dazzling white villas, interspersed with groves of palms rising amidst a wealth of tropical verdure. For miles in every direction were orange orchards, whose sweetness impregnated the air for many a league. Rivulets and fountains diffused through street and garden a delicious coolness. Blossoms of gaudy hue and overpowering fragrance grew in profusion along the avenues. The columns in the court-yards were entwined with roses. Along the stone causeways radiating in every direction from the city trooped caravans of plodding camels, laden with products of the art and industry of Europe, Africa, and Asia; or, riding swift Andalusian horses, sped the royal couriers with despatches for the governors of the distant states of the empire. The majestic bridge across the Guadalquivir was, from sunrise to sunset, crowded to its utmost capacity with traders, servants, soldiers, mounted cavaliers, and beasts of burden.

The pampered tastes of the khalifs found their utmost gratification in the comparative seclusion of the ten villas which the latter possessed in the environs of their capital. Here were provided means of sensual enjoyment that far eclipsed, in extent and elegance, the voluptuous attractions and wanton extravagance of Capri, Sybaris, and Antioch. These abodes of pleasure, contrived with all the skill of the Saracen architect, were surrounded by grounds that exhibited to perfection the peculiar and surprising effects of the horticulture of Asia. Airy galleries, sustained by columns of polished marble, were brilliant with the beautiful stuccoes of Damascus. The mural decoration, imitated from the textile fabrics of India, partook of all the richness of silk brocade interwoven with threads of gold. The sparkling mosaics of Constantinople, lavished in gay profusion upon arch and alcove, contributed their share towards the embellishment of these enchanting retreats. Curious lattices of alabaster admitted a subdued and uncertain light. Sentences from the works of famous poets--most of them of an irreverent and bacchanalian character--met the eye upon cornice, architrave, and capital. The basins, wherein dashed, with musical tinkle, the jets of countless fountains, were of massy silver. The furniture was of aloe, sandal-wood, ebony, and ivory, delicately carved and inlaid. Lovely female slaves of every nationality, accomplished in the arts of poetry and music, and educated under the supervision of famous instructors, ministered to the wants of the Commander of the Faithful, entertained his leisure with animated and intellectual discourse, or relieved his care with their endearments and with the charms of song. Vast numbers of white and black eunuchs--the former selected for their beauty, the latter prized for their lofty stature and transcendent ugliness--glided mysteriously through the shadowy apartments, or, armed with jewelled weapons, guarded the forbidden portals of the harem.

In the gardens, the fertile imagination of the Oriental artist rioted in its marvellous creations. The walks, paved with colored pebbles, formed arabesques of quaint and varied patterns. The hedges were fashioned into imitations of fortified walls, with battlement, tower, and barbican. From concealed sources, fountains cast at regular intervals their waters high into the air. Labyrinths, from whose intricate paths escape was impossible without a guide, beset the way of the incautious guest. The scene was diversified with lakes, upon whose crystal surface floated swans and other water-fowl of silver; by grottos, whose cool recesses were suggestive of luxurious repose; by arcades of glossy evergreen; by plants of variegated foliage whose tints, at a distance, resembled a surface of rich enamel; by enchanting vistas, where clumps of odoriferous shrubs and colored grasses, interspersed with beds of brilliant flowers arranged in sentences expressing wishes for the happiness of the monarch and the glorification of Allah, covered the landscape like a piece of tapestry, more gorgeous than the most exquisite creations of the weaver that ever issued from the looms of Persia or Flanders.

The oldest and one of the most famous of these villas was Rusafah, the favorite resort of Abd-al-Rahman I. It was not merely a place of relaxation and enjoyment, for in its garden was first attempted the scientific cultivation of the botanical treasures of the East. Ever devoted to the romantic traditions of his Syrian home, the exiled prince had named his palace after one possessed by his ancestors in the vicinity of Damascus.

The other suburban residences of the khalifs were each distinguished by some peculiarity of location, structure, or ornament. One was famous for its innumerable fountains. In another were exhibited, in their greatest variety and beauty, the charming effects of floral decoration. A third, from the magnificent view it afforded, was called “The Abode of the Fortunate.” A profusion of mosaics and enamels had acquired for the most ornate of all the significant and appropriate name of “The Palace of the Diadem.”

To the northwest of Cordova, at the base of the picturesque Sierra Morena, three miles from the city, yet connected with it by a succession of mansions and gardens, was the palace and suburb of Medina-al-Zahrâ. Its traditional origin partakes of the romance which so frequently embellishes the history of the Orient. It is related by the Moorish historians that a wealthy concubine of Abd-al-Rahman III., being on her death-bed and desirous that her last act should be the fulfilment of one of the noblest obligations of her religion, requested that the wealth she owed to the generosity of her royal lover be expended in the ransom of Moslem captives. Anxious to comply with this pious request, the Khalif sent messengers to the Christian states of the North, but, even with the diligent co-operation of their princes, who were his allies or tributaries, he was unable to find a single slave to be redeemed from bondage. Then, at the suggestion of another concubine, the favorite of his harem, whose name, Al-Zahrâ, in the poetic nomenclature of the Arabs means The Blossom, he determined to use the treasure in building a palace whose unparalleled splendor might form a fitting climax to the glories of his reign. A third of the public revenues, a sum which, without including those derived from the taxes of Jews and Christians and the fifth of the spoils of battle, amounted annually to more than two million pieces of gold, was also devoted to the work by the enthusiastic monarch. Ten thousand laborers and twenty-eight thousand beasts of burden were daily employed. The minuteness and prolixity with which are described the quantity of materials used and their value, the nationalities of the artisans and their remuneration, as detailed by the Arab chroniclers, are instructive though tedious, and impart an air of veracity to a narrative which would otherwise almost transcend belief. The plans were drawn by the most eminent architects of Constantinople. The walls, substantially built of stone, measured seventeen hundred by twenty-seven hundred cubits, and were provided with all the outworks and defences of a formidable castle. As was the case with the Great Mosque, the materials of the edifice were collected largely from foreign sources and were put together under the supervision of Byzantine artificers, aided by the most skilful native workmen. Its construction was supervised by the Khalif in person, who, in his devotion to the undertaking, having absented himself for three successive Fridays from the services of the Mosque, was publicly rebuked by the kadi for this flagrant neglect of duty.

The quarries of Numidia, Greece, and Andalusia contributed supplies of the finest marble and alabaster. Capitals of Roman origin were furnished by the ruined temples of Narbonne, Tarragona, Utica, and Carthage. The Byzantine emperor sent as a present to his ally a number of columns, whose beautiful tints of green and rose called forth the admiration of all who beheld them.

The palace was divided into three distinct sections. On the slope of the mountain rose the magnificent alcazar, within whose apartments were lodged the monarch and the members of his seraglio, composed of sixty-three hundred women, with their slaves and attendants. The number of the latter was, all told, seventeen thousand.

Lower down, towards the city, were the quarters of the body-guard, the eunuchs, and the pages of the court, for whose accommodation four hundred houses were required. Next in order came the gardens, filled with choice plants and delicious fruits, and diversified with artificial cascades and lakes abounding in goldfish. Within the precincts of this horticultural paradise were to be encountered every specimen of the extensive flora--both native and foreign--known to the accomplished botanists of Andalusia. Hedges of myrtle, box, and laurel, trimmed in fantastic designs, separated the broad and winding walks of rustic mosaic. Summer-houses and shady bowers invited to the siesta after exposure to the glare and heat of a semi-tropical sun. The prolific ingenuity of the hydraulic engineer had exhausted itself in the wonderful distribution of streams of water--in the varying play of a thousand fountains; in miniature rivulets, whose tiny channels were chiselled in the balustrades of marble staircases; in fairy grottos, over whose roofs of painted glass the spray from revolving jets shone with kaleidoscopic effect; in roaring cascades, from whose sombre depths were constantly visible the iridescent hues of the rainbow. Some of the fountains were masterpieces of the sculptor’s art. Two of them are mentioned as being especially remarkable. The larger was of gilded bronze with human figures elegantly carved in relief, and came from Constantinople. The basin of the other, of green marble, was of Syrian workmanship, and disposed about its rim were twelve grotesque representations of animals and birds, cast in gold, and glittering with jewels. From the mouths of these curious monsters jets of water were projected into the basin below.

Over the main portal of the edifice, carved in alabaster with consummate skill, stood the effigy of the lovely slave whose suggestion had evoked this palace of the genii, and from whom it had received its name.

The portion of the gorgeous edifice upon which the Moorish chronicler most delights to dwell was the central pavilion. Elevated on a terrace of white marble, in both its exterior and interior it afforded a dazzling example of the wealth of its owner and of the exquisite taste of its architect.

Circular in form, its dome was supported by columns of precious marble and rock-crystal, whose capitals were inlaid with pearls and rubies. The walls and dome were of translucent onyx; the roof of gold and silver tiles, placed in alternate rows. The spandrels and the inscriptions of the frieze exhibited the imperishable tints and jewelled play of Byzantine mosaic. Doors of odoriferous woods inlaid with ivory, ebony, and gold, enriched with gems of great value, gave access to this magnificent apartment. Under the centre of the dome stood a movable basin of porphyry filled with quicksilver. In some manner, probably by the use of mirrors, the rays of the sun could be concentrated upon the metal and the basin caused to rotate rapidly by hidden mechanism, casting blinding flashes of light in every direction; dazzling the beholders with the intolerable glare, and striking with amazement and terror the ambassadors of foreign powers, for whose benefit this ingenious contrivance, which would seem rather to belong to the stage than to the audience-chamber of a powerful monarch, was repeatedly exhibited.

The hall of this pavilion was the scene of many of the most imposing ceremonies and remarkable events in the history of the khalifate. Here, the heir to the crown was publicly acknowledged and invested with his dignity. Here, the princes of the blood, the magnates of the realm, the heads of departments, the governors of provinces, assembled after the death of the sovereign to swear allegiance to his successor. Here, also, the envoys of the monarchies of Europe and the East were granted an audience under circumstances far exceeding in splendor the boasted pomp of Constantinople, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Bagdad. Under this translucent and glittering dome were received the Kings of Leon and Navarre, suppliants for the favor and alliance of the hereditary enemy of their people and their faith. On these occasions was displayed all the ostentatious magnificence of which the most brilliant court in Europe was capable. The decorations of the audience-chamber--already unparalleled in richness--were heightened with silken carpets and hangings of cloth of silver. The Khalif, seated on a throne blazing with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, was surrounded by his family and his courtiers attired in their robes of state. About the pavilion and around the terrace was marshalled the royal guard, unrivalled in the elegance of its appointments by any similar body of soldiers in the world. The white robes of the eunuchs and slaves formed an appropriate background to the gorgeous picture, which imparted to the bewildered barbarians of the German forests and the Pyrenean mountains a startling impression of the civilization and resources of the detested infidel.

The mosque of Medina-al-Zahrâ corresponded in its general details with the palace, for the convenience of whose occupants it was erected. In some respects, it surpassed in the elegance of its ornamentation the great temple of the capital, after whose plan it was modelled. It contained five aisles; its gilding and mosaics exhibited the finished labors of the Asiatic artist; its sanctuary and pulpit were marvels of Oriental taste and skill. A minaret of polished stone, ten cubits square and forty in height and covered with arabesques in relief, surmounted the graceful edifice. The court was paved with wine-colored marble, and provided with a fountain elaborately carved and gilded.

From a royal villa, Medina-al-Zahrâ insensibly expanded into a miniature city. Around the palace clustered the luxurious dwellings of the courtiers, the merchants, and the officers of the army. The avenues were lined with trees, whose foliage formed a continuous arch. Not a house could be seen that was not embosomed in gardens abounding with gushing waters and rare exotics. Even the sides of the Sierra had been stripped of the sombre growth of evergreens which had originally covered them, and, planted with fig- and almond-trees, appeared in all the beauty of luxuriant foliage and fragrant blossoms. Not far away, extensive plantations of the sweetest of flowers gave to the locality the name of Gebal-al-Wardat, The Mountain of the Rose.

Three hundred baths, exclusive of those appropriated to the use of the imperial household, contributed to the health and the ceremonial purity of the inhabitants. The favorite residence of the khalifs, Medina-al-Zahrâ became the seat of the muses, the home of the arts, the centre of the intellectual society of the empire. Institutions of learning sprang up within its borders. The literary contests which constituted an unique and prominent feature of the Andalusian court were celebrated there in the presence of the monarch and the companions of his greatness and his leisure. Forty years were required for its construction, twenty-five under Abd-al-Rahman and fifteen under his son Al-Hakem. Its cost represents, at a modern valuation, the enormous sum of one hundred and fifty million dollars. Experienced travellers of every nation pronounced, without a dissenting voice, that the world did not possess, in point of picturesque situation, royal magnificence, and architectural beauty, a rival of the incomparable city and palace of Medina-al-Zahrâ.

It is difficult to conceive, from their present forlorn and deserted condition, of the aspect once presented by the environs of imperial Cordova. Independent of its populous suburbs, the commercial tributaries of the capital represented vast mercantile interests, and furnished support to multitudes of industrious artisans. Five thousand mills lined the banks of the rapid Guadalquivir. Encouraged by the profit derived from a regular and extensive trade with foreign nations, manufacturing establishments had sprung up in every city of importance. Each of these towns had its mosques and its imams, who, in addition to their ecclesiastical duties, discharged the functions of magistrates and reported regularly to the authorities of the capital.

In the patronage of letters, Abd-al-Rahman III. was in no respect inferior to any of his most liberal predecessors. He himself excelled in improvisation, that talent so highly prized by his countrymen. His fame and his munificence allured to the court of Cordova the most accomplished scholars from every region of the world. The capital abounded with colleges, academies, lyceums, and other educational foundations. The medical profession had attained to a high standard of excellence, and the Jewish surgeons of Cordova were universally recognized as unrivalled in the extent and variety of their knowledge. Many physicians held important employments under the government, deserved tributes to their skill; but such was their charity that the doors of even the most distinguished of them were always open to the poor, and their gratuitous ministrations at the service of the most humble sufferer. The sciences of astronomy and chemistry, based upon observations at Bagdad and experiments at Cairo and Damascus, had made an unprecedented advance. In the royal alcazar, in the palaces of princes, in the mansions of the rich, in the homes of the learned, the mind of the seeker after knowledge was daily exercised by the discussion of subjects of universal interest, by the prosecution of scientific inquiry, by lectures, by improvisations, by the spirited contests of poets for literary supremacy. In every calling and profession, in every position of life, the useful and the ornamental arts, the noble and elegant pursuits of literature were cultivated by both sexes with an ardor akin to enthusiasm.

The name of Abd-al-Rahman III., glorious in the annals of Moorish Spain, has not, however, escaped the condemnation of history. His great deeds; his triumphs in war and diplomacy; his skill in the reconciliation of adverse factions; his generous clemency; his encouragement of letters, may well be the subject of extravagant eulogy. But the sensual passions of his nature bordered upon insanity; and his character was defiled by that nameless and unnatural vice which, practised and even defended by one of the most famous of the Greek philosophers, has from the earliest times been the blemish and the reproach of Oriental civilization.

The infirmities of age and the irksomeness of satiety embittered the declining years of the Khalif. He virtually abandoned the administration of the empire to his heir, Al-Hakem. Renouncing the gay frivolities of the court, he attached himself to a fanatic named Abu-Ayub, whose ascetic manners and ostentatious poverty were received by the vulgar as evidences of extraordinary sanctity. In the society of this singular companion he passed much of his time in fasting, in prayer, in the distribution of alms. After his death, in a journal which recorded his most secret thoughts, were found the following significant reflections on the disappointments of life and the delusive attractions of human greatness and imperial ambition. “I have reigned fifty years in peace and in glory, beloved by my people, feared by my enemies, respected by my allies. My friendship has been sought by the great kings of the earth. I have wanted nothing that the heart of man could desire,--neither renown, nor power, nor pleasure. During this long life, I have counted the days when I have enjoyed complete happiness--and they amount to only fourteen! Praise be to Him who alone possesses eternal glory and omnipotence, there is no other God than He!”

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XIII. REIGN OF AL-HAKEM II

961–976

Splendid Ceremonial at the Accession of Al-Hakem II.--His Wise and Prudent Measures--Ordoño seeks an Audience--His Baseness--Successful Expedition against the Christians--Disturbances in Africa--Army of the Khalif Defeated--The Berber Chieftains are corrupted, and their Forces disband--Importance of Cordova as a Religious Centre--Description of the Great Mosque--Death of Al-Hakem--His Literary Attainments--His Patronage of Letters--The Library--Institutions of Learning--General Prevalence of Education--Public Improvements--The Khalif the Exemplar of the Highest Culture of his Age--Prosperity of the Empire.

At the death of Abd-al-Rahman III. the Hispano-Arab empire seemed, to all unfamiliar with the defects of the Moslem constitution, invulnerable to the attacks of foreign or domestic enemies. The wise dispositions of that accomplished ruler had, for a time, reconciled the differences arising from tribal antipathy and religious discord. The employment of mercenaries, constituting an army which could not be corrupted, and whose isolation from the seditious populace was the most effectual guaranty of its fidelity, apparently assured the perpetuity of a system which a profound and statesmanlike policy had established. The administration was directed by capable and experienced ministers. The public revenues far exceeded in amount those of the wealthiest contemporaneous nations. Obedient to the law of political attraction, which like gravity in the material world draws the weaker to the stronger power, neighboring kingdoms, although separated from the khalifate by the most powerful motives that can influence humanity--by the antagonism of race, by the prejudices of religion, by the memory of generations of incessant warfare, by hostile traditions which involved the loss of an empire and the subjection of its people--had acknowledged the supremacy of the Ommeyade princes. In the humiliating character of suppliants for the favor of an hereditary foe, the sovereigns of Leon and Navarre had implored the aid of the infidel, and the former of these had regained possession of his dominions under a treaty which implied, if it did not actually express, conditions of vassalage reflecting little credit upon the successor of the haughty Visigoths. Every consideration which contributes to inspire the respect and admiration of mankind lent its assistance to exalt the fame and greatness of the court of Cordova. The most distinguished monarchs solicited the friendship of the Khalif. His capital was the literary centre of the Western world. The intellectual activity there displayed had never been equalled since the glorious days when Grecian genius immortalized the schools of Ionia and Attica. The Moslem fleets controlled the Mediterranean. The mechanical arts, the science of agriculture, the various branches of foreign commerce and domestic traffic, had, under a well-grounded feeling of public security, received a prodigious and unexampled impulse. It was, therefore, under the most happy auspices that Al-Hakem, at the age of forty-eight, with a character long considered the embodiment of all princely virtues, assumed the supreme direction of affairs.

On the day following the death of Abd-al-Rahman, the accession of his son was celebrated with greater splendor than had yet distinguished this important function since the foundation of the Western empire. Magnificently attired, the great officers of the khalifate attended to swear allegiance to the new sovereign. After the members of the royal family, the chief officials, the ministers of, state, the kadis, and the chamberlains had taken the oath, they administered it, in turn, to the host of retainers and subordinates of the royal household. The pomp displayed on this occasion was worthy of the most powerful, the most opulent, and the most luxurious monarchy in Europe. The ceremony was held under the central pavilion of the palace of Medina-al-Zahrâ, whose decorations, sparkling in the sunlight, seemed to realize the gorgeous dreams of Oriental enchantment. The eight brothers of Al-Hakem were escorted to the palace with all the honors due to their rank; but it could not escape the notice of those princes that the strong guard which surrounded them, and lined the entrance of their apartments, was less a manifestation of respect than a menacing precaution against treason. The viziers, invested with their robes and insignia of office, and the nobles took up their positions behind the members of the Khalif’s family, who stood on either side of the throne. Beyond them, crowding the ample space of the rotunda and even filling the adjacent apartments, were the imperial magistrates, the generals of the army, the provincial governors, and the vast crowd of public functionaries summoned from the capital as well as from the neighboring cities of Andalusia to render homage to and assist at the inauguration of the Commander of the Faithful. The eunuchs, that class of monsters which has always sought indemnity for its degradation by the acquisition of power and wealth, which has never failed to revenge itself upon society by the ruin of the government which tolerated its institution, and whose preponderance in the political system of the khalifate had become portentous and appalling, were present by thousands. They were marshalled according to nationality, rank, and the nature of the service to which they were assigned. Most of them were clad in white tunics embroidered with gold, white being at the same time the distinctive color and the badge of mourning of the Ommeyades. The servitors of the harem were drawn up in the hall leading to the audience-chamber; they were both white and black; all were sheathed in shining armor inlaid with gold and silver, and the hilts and scabbards of their scimetars sparkled with costly gems. The marble terrace by which the pavilion was approached was guarded by Sclavonians splendidly mounted, whose arms and equipments were not inferior in richness to those of the magnificent array within. Outside, and reaching to the gate of the capital, were ranged, in exact and motionless order, the royal archers, the slaves, and the various divisions of the garrison.

The imposing ceremonial concluded, the remains of Abd-al-Rahman were committed to the tomb. The active mind of Al-Hakem was at once applied to the consideration of the details which concerned the administration of every department of his empire. The ministers of his father were confirmed, without exception. Officials were despatched to exact the allegiance of the walis of distant provinces. The troops were reviewed, and a general inspection of the army ordered. A hajib, or prime minister, was appointed, for the tastes of Al-Hakem were inclined rather to the quiet and refining pursuits of literature than to official drudgery and the responsibilities incident to the administration of a great and turbulent monarchy. In this respect he ignored the oft-repeated counsels of his father, who, conscious of the vast power wielded by a hajib, and which, in the hands of an ambitious and unscrupulous statesman, might be attended with disastrous consequences, had endeavored to impress upon his heir the policy, and even the necessity, of retaining unimpaired the authority conferred by the exalted office of Commander of Believers. The individual selected for this important post was Giafar-al-Asklabi, a Slave, whose caste and nationality seemed to Al-Hakem a sufficient warrant for his good behavior, an opinion subsequently justified by the wisdom and tact he displayed in the discharge of his official duties. His appointment was followed, according to the custom of the court, by the delivery of a magnificent present to the Khalif, consisting, in this instance, of richly apparelled slaves, and arms and armor inlaid with gold.

The news of the death of Abd-al-Rahman had been received with pretended grief and secret delight by the sovereigns of Leon and Navarre. The prestige of the former Khalif, and his ability to enforce his demands, had been repeatedly demonstrated by the eventful transactions of his long and glorious reign. The blackened fields and dismantled castles of the frontier, the heaps of bones bleaching on many a battle-field, bore silent but conclusive testimony to his ruthless hostility and to the prowess of his armies. But the character of his successor was, as yet, undeveloped. A life already advanced beyond middle age had been distinguished by none of those martial deeds which elicit the applause of a subject and awaken the respect and the apprehensions of an enemy. The predilections of the new Khalif for a sedentary life, and his intimate relations with the learned, were viewed with contempt by the barbarous Christians, who considered war as the peculiar calling of a man of spirit, and the acquisition of knowledge as only fit for monks, an order whose pacific occupations did not, nevertheless, exclude even its members from the profession of arms. In those early times, while not as yet expressly sanctioned by the authority of the Papacy, the violation of an engagement made with the enemies of the Church was already considered a meritorious action, to be governed rather by motives of expediency than by any considerations of morality and national honor. The treaty, by which Sancho had stipulated to deliver to the Khalif a certain number of fortresses in return for the restoration of his crown, had not been carried out by the King of Leon. The temptation to violate it, or at least to elude its performance, now became irresistible. To the demands of Al-Hakem, Sancho returned evasive and temporizing answers. The King of Navarre, doubtless acting in collusion with his neighbor, was even less tractable. Ferdinand Gonzalez, who had fallen into the hands of the latter, was held a close prisoner at Pampeluna, and the Khalif, who was anxious, at all hazards, to obtain possession of the person of this formidable adversary, promised to abate a portion of his demands in case Garcia would agree to send his illustrious captive to Cordova. The King of Navarre not only refused, but actually liberated the Count of Castile, with the understanding that he should expel his son-in-law, Ordoño IV., who had sought a refuge at Burgos, and should at once declare war against the Khalif. Ferdinand promptly fulfilled his engagements. The unfortunate Ordoño was torn from his family and ignominiously driven across the border; at his summons to arms the old warriors of the Count flocked to his standard, and the settlements of Estremadura and Andalusia, long accustomed to peace, once more experienced the deplorable evils of partisan hostility. Accompanied by only a score of retainers, who, of all his numerous retinue, were all that were willing to share his uncertain fortunes, Ordoño, journeying through the enemy’s country, reached the city of Medina-Celi. Here, as in all the empire, the streets resounded with the din of arms, for Al-Hakem, convinced that the respect of the Christians could only be preserved by a display of force, was everywhere making active preparations for war. The spirit of the royal fugitive rose at the inspiring sight, and, hoping that by proper management the military successes of Al-Hakem might be made to enure to his own advantage, he requested of the governor of the city a safe-conduct to Cordova and permission to place himself under the protection of the Khalif. His wish was readily acceded to, and a troop of cavalry was detailed to escort him to the capital. The route passing near the royal cemetery, Ordoño asked to be shown the tomb of Abd-al-Rahman III. This having been done, he dismounted, uncovered his head, and, kneeling by the grave of the monarch who in life had been his most inveterate enemy, he prayed long and fervently for the repose and welfare of his soul. A few days afterwards he was received by the Khalif in the palace of Medina-al-Zahrâ. As a token of respect and an evidence of vassalage, he was required to assume the white robes of the Ommeyades. Obeydallah-Ibn-Kasim, Archbishop of Toledo, and Walid-Ibn-Khaizoran, Judge of the Christians of Cordova, whose Arabic names seem strangely at variance with the offices they administered, escorted him to the audience-chamber; their presence being necessary, both as interpreters and to afford information on points of etiquette rigorously exacted by the punctilious court of Cordova, and concerning which it was justly conjectured the former associations of a barbarian ruler had left him entirely unacquainted.

The introduction of the Christian prince was attended with the pomp ordinarily displayed at the reception of the greatest kings and their ambassadors. The body-guard of the Khalif was drawn up in all the panoply of gleaming weapons and costly armor. The officials were present in their robes of state. Around the throne were ranged the princes and the officers of the royal household. An innumerable army of subordinates filled the halls and lined the terraces. Through the gilded lattices of the harem, which overlooked the hall of audience, the sheen of jewels and the sparkle of bright eyes occasionally revealed the presence of the beauties whom Oriental jealousy only on rare occasions permitted to lend the lustre of their charms to an important ceremony.

The Leonese nobles and their king moved with downcast heads through the grim and lowering ranks of the soldiery, whose fierce looks so terrified them that they endeavored to fortify themselves by the recitation of prayers and frequent repetitions of the sign of the cross. After numerous genuflexions Ordoño approached the Khalif, who gave him his hand to kiss. He was conducted to a seat at some distance from the throne, and received from Al-Hakem the flattering assurance that even more favors than he desired would be accorded to him. It was then that the unspeakable baseness of Ordoño’s character disclosed itself. He had frequently since his entrance into the Moorish dominions given evidence of a lack of royal dignity and of a total absence of those manly qualities which elicit sympathy for greatness in misfortune. He had courted the favor of the commander of the escort which had accompanied him to the capital, by flattery, by gifts, by the most ignoble concessions. With an hypocrisy that did not impose upon the keen-witted Andalusians, he had bowed in well-feigned grief before the tomb of Abd-al-Rahman. With a sycophancy that disgusted the objects of it, he had fawned upon the officials of the court. But the time was now come when these disgraceful exhibitions of voluntary self-abasement were to be eclipsed, and the depth of his degradation attained. As soon as the speech of Al-Hakem had been translated to him, without making allowance for the courtly exaggeration it implied, he arose and said: “I am the slave of the Commander of the Faithful; I trust in his magnanimity; I seek my support in his lofty virtues; I give him full power over me and mine!” He then, in language worthy only of the meanest vassal, begged the aid of the Khalif in the recovery of his throne, and, in conclusion, contrasted his own voluntary submission with the conduct of his cousin Sancho, who had been compelled by Abd-al-Rahman to render him homage as a condition of the treaty. Al-Hakem listened with ill-concealed contempt to his harangue, promised that all his wishes should be fulfilled, and that he should be guaranteed. against molestation from his enemies. The interview terminated, the eunuchs escorted the Leonese from the pavilion. Ordoño displayed little less servility towards the Vizier Giafar than he had shown to his master, and was with difficulty prevented from kissing the hand of that dignitary. Having perceived in an antechamber a seat which he was informed was sometimes used by the Khalif, he grovelled before it with as much apparent reverence as if it had been a sacred reliquary of the most undoubted virtue.

A splendid palace was assigned as a residence to the King and his suite; they were all clothed with robes of honor,--a mark of the highest distinction among Orientals,--and a number of valuable presents sent from the court further assured them of the generous sympathy of their benefactor. In a few days a treaty was concluded, by which Ordoño pledged himself to maintain peace with Al-Hakem and perpetual war with the Count of Castile. The flower of the Moorish troops, commanded by Ghalib, the ablest of the imperial generals, was ordered to make the campaign, and the Archbishop of Toledo and the Bishop and the Judge of Cordova were designated to accompany the army, not so much to assist the pusillanimous monarch by their counsels as to carefully note his behavior, and see that he was guilty of nothing that could contribute to the injury of the Khalif, or even remotely affect in an unfavorable manner the objects of his ambition.

In the mean time Sancho had taken the alarm. When he learned of the success of Ordoño, he realized that he had presumed too much upon the peaceful disposition and epicurean tastes of Al-Hakem. It was no secret that a powerful army was mustering to invade his dominions. By the artifices of the enemy, its numbers were purposely multiplied. His popularity had never been great, and his restoration had been accomplished by means abhorrent to a large number of his subjects. Many of his vassals could not be depended upon. The great province of Galicia, a fief of the crown of Leon, refused to acknowledge his title, and its count held language that indicated that he only sought a favorable opportunity to declare himself independent. Under the circumstances but one course was open to Sancho, and he sent an embassy to Cordova to state that he was willing to perform, without delay, the conditions of the treaty he had concluded with Abd-al-Rahman.

The duplicity of Al-Hakem, a defect happily rare in the annals of his race and which reflects such discredit upon his name, now became apparent. He violated, without compunction, the compact he had made with Ordoño. The latter, overcome with disappointment and mortification at the failure of his hopes, gave himself up to melancholy, and died the victim of his own abasement and credulity in the gilded prison which had been set apart as his abode in the environs of the Moslem capital.

His rival removed, and the alliance of Ferdinand Gonzalez assured, Sancho concluded that the occasion was most opportune for a further repudiation of his engagements. He accordingly defied the Khalif, and the latter at once proclaimed the Holy War. The army of invasion was commanded by Ghalib. The Count of Castile was defeated in a great battle. The governor of Saragossa, Yahya-Ibn-Mohammed, easily worsted the King of Navarre. The important fortresses of San Estevan de Gormaz and Calahorra, which had been stormed and destroyed, were rebuilt, provided with Moorish garrisons, and added to the dominions of the khalifate. The Arab army wasted the borders of Catalonia with fire and sword; for two counts of that principality, Miron and Borel, endowed with more hardihood than discretion, had been prevailed upon by the King of Navarre to join the confederacy, and were now condemned to expiate their breach of faith by the pillage of their cities and the misery of their subjects. Everywhere the arms of the Moslems were triumphant. The enemies who had confidently reckoned on the incapacity and inertness supposed to attach to a literary life, and the well-known aversion of Al-Hakem to the military profession, were compelled to acknowledge the wisdom of his dispositions and the energy with which he carried them into execution. One after another sued for peace. Even from distant Galicia came an embassy, headed by a noble matron, the mother of a count, who was entertained with the distinguished courtesy for which the court of Cordova was famous, and was dismissed with gifts whose splendor dazzled the eyes of a barbarian princess born and bred amidst the barren slopes and poverty-stricken hamlets of the Pyrenees.

This successful campaign closed the military operations of Al-Hakem in the North. He had taught his perfidious adversaries a severe but salutary lesson. Whatever inclination to renew hostilities they might have entertained, their own dissensions precluded its indulgence. War soon broke out between Galicia and Leon. The rebellious province, which aspired to independence, was in a fair way to be conquered, when a resort to treachery accomplished an end unattainable by the expedients of honorable warfare. Poison was administered to Sancho at a conference on the banks of the Douro. The King of Leon died after some days in excruciating agony; his son Ramiro, who succeeded him, was a child of five years, and the martial aristocracy declined to recognize the authority of an infant, controlled by his aunt, the nun Elvira, whose doubtful qualifications for the government of a kingdom had been acquired in the solitude of a cloister. Elsewhere, also, in the North, matters were propitious to the security and prosperity of the khalifate. A great army of Danes, who had served under the standard of the Duke of Normandy, poured down upon and devastated the plains and valleys of Galicia. Finally, the death of Ferdinand Gonzalez freed Al-Hakem from his most dangerous enemy, and during the remainder of his life the inroads of the Christians ceased to excite the alarm of his subjects or to disturb the peace of his empire.

While permanent safety had been secured in the North, on the side of Africa the danger was constant and menacing. The wild tribes of the Desert had never forgotten with what facility their forefathers had traversed the strait and subjugated a populous and extensive monarchy. The covetous eye of the half-naked Mauritanian robber, whose prowess had at times prevailed over the discipline of the Roman legions, was ever turned towards the beautiful cities of Andalusia, with their teeming bazaars, their prodigious wealth, their palaces furnished with every appliance of luxury, their lovely and fascinating women. The instinct of conquest, the presentiment that one day the exploit of Tarik would be repeated, were inspired by hope and encouraged by tradition. It was not the masses alone who cherished these ominous aspirations. The princes of the various dynasties who, at different periods of its history, swayed the destinies of Al-Maghreb, had, without exception, regarded the riches of the Peninsula as lawful spoil, if not actually as a part of their patrimony. Its condition--political, social, religious, commercial--was as familiar to them as the domestic polity of their own dominions. Their spies were to be found in the great emporiums of trade, in the most sequestered hamlets, in the ranks of the army, in the corridors of the palace, even in the bed-chamber of the khalif. Unknown and often unsuspected, their influence had been felt in many a bloody insurrection, in the decisive moment of many an eventful day. Never for a moment did they abandon the long-nourished project of conquest; never did they renounce the ambition--destined unhappily to be realized--of planting their victorious banners and erecting their throne on the banks of the famous Guadalquivir. Since the assumption of the suzerainty of the African provinces bordering on the Mediterranean by Abd-al-Rahman, the maintenance of that dignity had caused no inconsiderable drain on the treasury of the khalifate. Immense sums were annually transmitted to maintain troops, to support the pretensions of feeble vassals, and to bribe barbarian chieftains to refrain from ravaging the lands of their neighbors. No compensation was offered for the expense incurred except the negative and uncertain one implied by the temporary restraint of Berber invasion.

The attention of the Fatimites had been some years before directed towards the East, and, after a short and victorious struggle, the princes of that dynasty were enabled to remove the seat of their empire from the sandy plains of Mauritania to the inexhaustible Valley of the Nile. A great danger to the Ommeyade Empire of Spain was therefore apparently removed. At this time, Hassan-Ibn-Kenun, the last survivor of the Edrisites, exercised a precarious sovereignty over that portion of the African coast of which Tangier was the capital. A nominal vassal of Al-Hakem, his loyalty was largely dependent upon the fears excited by the encroachments of his neighbors, and when Abu-al-Fotuh, the representative of the Fatimites, invaded his dominions, the allegiance of Ibn-Kenun was, without hesitation, transferred to the Khalif of Egypt.

The revolt of Ibn-Kenun, and the alarming progress made by the Fatimite viceroy, impressed upon Al-Hakem the necessity for immediate and decisive action. With his customary diligence, he issued orders for the departure of a strong military and naval force to punish the treason of his vassal and overawe the fickle and perfidious chieftains of Africa. The object of the expedition was Tangier, the seat of the court and the residence of Ibn-Kenun. The Ommeyade fleet blockaded the harbor, and the troops, having encountered the enemy near the city, after a sharp engagement gained a decisive victory. But this success was of short duration. In the land of Al-Maghreb, swarming with active and warlike barbarians, the recruiting of an army was a matter of trifling difficulty. The Desert hordes, allured by the expectation of plunder and the excitement of arms, crowded to the camp of the Edrisite prince, who soon found himself once more able to tempt the fortunes of war. Another battle was fought; the troops of the Khalif sustained a demoralizing defeat; their general, Ibn-Tomlos, was left dead on the field, and the survivors who escaped the spears of the Mauritanian cavalry sought security behind the battlements of Tangier. The effect produced by this victory on the venal and inconstant people of Africa was serious. The reputation and the power of Ibn-Kenun received an extraordinary impulse. The petty vassals who for years had enjoyed the bounty of the Khalif hastened to renounce their allegiance. From far and near, along the sandy highways towards the camp of Ibn-Kenun, trooped the ferocious tribesmen whom no prince had yet been able to conciliate, and no government been able to civilize. No territory, except that occupied by a few fortified towns, remained loyal to Al-Hakem; even these places were in a state of siege; and it was evident that, unless energetic measures were taken to retrieve the disaster, the war-cry of the Berbers would soon be heard on the plains of Andalusia.

The Khalif was not unconscious of his danger. From every province of his dominions he summoned his bravest troops and his most experienced generals. The supreme command was entrusted to Ghalib, whose skill and valor had been signalized in the recent campaign against the Christians, and who was solemnly admonished, on peril of his life, to return victorious. It was not, however, to the uncertain event of battle that the Khalif unreservedly committed the destinies of his empire. The mercenary character of the Berber sheiks, always the partisans of him who bribed them most liberally, or who bribed them last, was what Al-Hakem depended upon, far more than upon either the tactics of his general or the courage of his soldiers. A great treasure was placed at the disposal of Ghalib, and he was instructed to spare no pains to detach from the army of Ibn-Kenun every chief of influence, without regard to the numbers of his following or the extravagance of his demands. In case he succeeded, he was ordered to conduct the family of Ibn-Kenun to Cordova. Having landed in safety, Ghalib studiously avoided a general engagement. His advance was impeded by the flying squadrons of Ibn-Kenun, who used every artifice to bring on a battle; but the cautious Ommeyade general, knowing that the fate of his sovereign, as well as his own life, depended on the issue of a conflict, had decided to trust to the secret and more certain means of corruption. Through the medium of trusty messengers, magnificent weapons, costly garments, and heaps of gold were clandestinely displayed before the greedy eyes of the Berber chieftains. Their constancy was not proof against this exhibition of wealth. They even competed for the infamous distinction of first deserting the standard of their commander; and, in a few days, Ibn-Kenun, abandoned by all but a handful of his old retainers, saw himself compelled to take refuge in a strong castle built on the summit of an isolated mountain called the Eagle’s Rock, where he had, in prudent anticipation of a reverse of fortune, already conveyed his harem and his treasures.

The drafts of Ghalib on the royal treasury excited the astonishment and consternation of the Khalif. Such enormous expenses had never before been incurred in the conduct of a campaign; and Al-Hakem, suspecting that all of the public money had not been used to corrupt the Berbers, and that much of it had been diverted into private hands, determined, for the purpose of investigation, to send an officer experienced in matters of finance and clothed with almost despotic authority, who should not be confined to the mere duties of treasurer, but should also exercise the high and responsible functions of a general and a councillor of state. The individual selected for this delicate mission was Ibn-abi-Amir, a name of both glorious and sinister associations, which now appears for the first time in the annals of the Hispano-Arab domination. He was accompanied by a select body of troops commanded by Yahya-Ibn-Mohammed, Viceroy of the Northern Frontier, whom Al-Hakem, still fearful of the issue of the African campaign, had sent to reinforce the army of Ghalib.

The siege of the rebel fortress was pushed with energy, but its defences were so formidable that four months elapsed before the garrison could be brought to terms. Then the most favorable conditions were granted; the personal safety of the soldiers was guaranteed and their property kept inviolate; and the main article of the instructions of Al-Hakem, touching the conveyance of the Edrisites to Cordova, was acceded to, though not without manifest reluctance, which, however, was of little moment under circumstances where protest and resistance were equally unavailing. With the capture of the Eagle’s Rock terminated the campaign in Africa. The remaining Edrisite princes, who had seen with dismay the sudden disappearance of the host of Ibn-Kenun, lost no time in making terms with the representatives of the Khalif. The entire region of Mauritania enjoyed a profound but delusive peace. The Berbers had retired to their solitudes to enjoy the reward of their treason, and to watch for another opportunity to dispose of their services to the highest bidder. The Fatimites, content with their recent acquisitions, left the administration of their African possessions to a viceroy, and, fascinated with the attractions of their new home on the Nile, did not seem, for the moment, desirous of prosecuting any further schemes of imperial aggrandizement.

Ghalib, escorting his illustrious prisoners, more than seventy in number, now returned to Cordova. From the hour of his landing at Algeziras, his march assumed the appearance of a military triumph. The line of march was obstructed by the throngs that, attracted by the novelty of the spectacle, had assembled from far and near. Every town and hamlet through which the cavalcade passed rang with the exultant shouts of a vast and excited multitude. The rich attire of the captives; their noble and dignified bearing; the romance attaching to the story of the foundation of their house; their descent from the family of the Prophet, certainly remote and probably fictitious, provoked the curiosity, if it did not excite the sympathy, of the elated populace, who only saw in their humiliation another addition to the glory of their sovereign. When the capital was approached, the Khalif came forth to meet the guard and their prisoners. As soon as his presence was known, Ibn-Kenun dismounted, knelt before him, and kissed his hand. Ghalib and his officers were received with all the honors due to men who under arduous circumstances have achieved success; the princes were conducted to a fortified palace in the city, and their attendants distributed in different localities, where their safe-keeping could be assured; the body-guard of the chief, consisting of seven hundred warriors of approved valor, was incorporated into a division of the army, and Al-Hakem could now congratulate himself that his decision and energy had compelled the respect of his enemies and had procured for his dominions the benefits of universal peace.

The inconstancy of fortune did not, however, permit the Khalif long to enjoy the leisure and the satisfaction to be derived from the indulgence of his literary tastes and the triumph of his arms. His health, impaired by intense and constant application to study, broke down. An attack of apoplexy admonished him that he must renounce the cares of state, and the conduct of the government was henceforth committed to his vizier Moshafi. The latter, a veteran and accomplished statesman, signalized his advent to uncontrolled power by the institution of many radical and greatly needed reforms. The department of finance, which had become the seat of corruption, was reorganized and administered with prudence and economy. The discipline of the army was improved. The former viceroy of the northern frontier, the gallant Yahya-Ibn-Mohammed, was recalled from command in Africa and reinstated in his former office, a measure that insured the tranquillity of the Christian states, which had recently developed symptoms of agitation, in several instances culminating in acts of open and destructive hostility. The interests of the Khalif in Mauritania were confirmed by the appointment of two native princes whose fidelity could be depended upon; and, by this stroke of policy, the vizier was enabled to remove all the Arab troops, except the garrisons of a few cities, to points where their services would be far more advantageous to the government, and, at the same time, less expensive to the treasury. The entertainment of the Edrisites, who maintained a pomp little inferior to that of the royal family itself, was a source of constant perplexity and annoyance to the economical minister. At length, profiting by the discontent induced by a sedentary life and a vigilant espionage ill-disguised under an appearance of liberty, he succeeded in persuading Ibn-Kenun to allow himself and his followers to be transported to Tunis, with the understanding that they should never again set foot on the soil of Mauritania. When the preparations for departure had been completed, the thrifty vizier partially indemnified the treasury for the expense caused by the involuntary guests of the Khalif by unceremoniously appropriating a large piece of ambergris, of immense value, which Ibn-Kenun considered the most precious object of all his possessions. After landing at Tunis, the exiles proceeded to Alexandria, where for many years they enjoyed the hospitality and protection of the Fatimite Khalif. From this time the princes of the Edrisite family are no longer prominent in the revolutions of Northern Africa.

While Cordova was, by far, the most populous and magnificent city of Moorish Spain, it was indebted, in no small degree, for its superiority to the prestige derived from its position as a place of pilgrimage and the religious centre of the khalifate. Even in the eyes of the most implacable enemies of the Ommeyade dynasty, a sacred character invested the Western metropolis as the seat of one of the most famous shrines of Islam. Far more intense was the feeling of reverence in the minds of the devoted adherents of that dynasty. There was the throne of the Commander of the Faithful, in whose person the pious believer recognized not only the representative of a line of princes whose genius had added vast provinces to the Moslem empire, but also the venerated successor of the Arabian Prophet. From its gates had gone forth armies which had traversed the natural boundaries of the Peninsula, had occupied the fairest portion of France, and had repeatedly abased the pride of the scoffing infidel. Everywhere were visible significant tokens of Mussulman triumph and Christian humiliation. Its warehouses were filled with the plunder of churches. The inmates of monasteries were exposed by hundreds for sale in its markets. Its mosques had been raised by the labor of Christian captives. From the ceiling of the Djalma, the pride of all true believers, were suspended the bells of the Cathedral of Santiago, which even the vaunted power of the patron saint of the Asturias had been unable to save from the sacrilegious hand of the Moslem. No capital in Africa or Asia enjoyed a larger measure of military glory. No city in all the wide realm of Islam was so renowned for the munificence of its rulers, the wealth of its religious foundations, the learning and eloquence of its theologians, and the pomp of its worship.

On the right bank of the Guadalquivir stood the Great Mosque, in the eyes of the Mohammedans of Africa and Spain superior in sanctity to all other temples, save only the Kaaba. Founded by the first Abd-al-Rahman, fully as much from political motives as through religious zeal, it had been embellished by the wealth, the taste, the rivalry, and the enthusiasm of nine generations of sovereigns, having at their command the resources of one of the richest and most flourishing countries of the globe. By its erection, the power of the Western Khalifate had been established upon a firm and enduring basis, and the permanent independence of its dynasty assured. The more or less intimate relations hitherto maintained with the Moslem empires of Asia were severed; the nominal allegiance due to the monarchs of Damascus and Bagdad, persistently asserted by peremptory edicts and occasionally conceded by the rendition of a precarious tribute, was forever renounced. The aims of the founder, dictated by a political sagacity savoring of almost superhuman wisdom, were finally realized; and among the subjects and tributaries of the House of Ommeyah, proscribed by the rulers of Arabia, the sanctuary of the Mosque of his capital usurped the place once occupied by the temple of Mecca, the scene of the humiliations, the perils, and the triumphs of the Prophet. Thus, by a masterstroke of policy, which appealed alike to the worldly ambition and the religious pride of the people, was consolidated the authority of a new and progressive race of kings. Its associations especially struck the imagination of the pious Mohammedan. It occupied the site of the principal church of Gothic Cordova, which, in its turn, had been built upon the ruins of a Pagan temple. The stones of its foundation had been transported from Narbonne. The earth in which they were embedded had been stained with infidel blood. Christian prisoners, chained together, had painfully borne these materials for a distance of two hundred leagues, and others had for generations labored upon its walls. The spoil of many a successful campaign had contributed to enrich its interior. On all sides, golden inscriptions and trophies of conquest attested the glory of the princes of Islam and the invincible prowess of their armies. The Great Mosque is not merely an epitome of architecture, wherein are disclosed adaptations of the artistic ideas of many widely separated nations,--the manifestations of a spirit which could appropriate and combine in exquisite harmony the columns of the Roman, the capitals of the African, the arch of the Syrian, the mosaic of the Byzantine, the battlements of the Persian,--it is an eloquent testimonial to the genius which could enlist the ordinarily baneful influence of superstition in the cultivation of literature and the diffusion of knowledge. For this splendid temple played no unimportant part in the intellectual advancement of Mohammedan Spain, as well as in the civilization of barbarian Europe.

The multitudes of pilgrims and scholars who resorted to Cordova hastened, without delay, to pay their devotions at its shrine. The Arab recognized in the sweep of its arches, the graceful curves of the palm groves of Nejd and Yemen, mementos of the Desert immortalized by the conceptions of the architect, ever mindful of the life and habits of his Bedouin ancestry. The polished Syrian viewed with admiring rapture the rich stuccoes, whose complex and gorgeous patterns surpassed in beauty the brocades of Damascus and the decorations which covered the palaces of the monarchs of Asia. In the carvings of its lattices was to be traced the peculiar form of the Indian cross, a symbol whose origin is unknown to the most ancient tradition, and which appears sculptured upon the venerable altars of Ceylon and Hindustan. Even the emblem of a sect most obnoxious to Islam was appropriated, and, by a singular inconsistency, compelled to assist in the adornment of the most gorgeous mosque of the Moslem world. The cresting of the walls, originally painted scarlet, is typical of flame, and, brought from Persia, symbolized the faith of the Ghebers, the detested worshippers of fire. Thus were concentrated in this unique structure the ideas, the materials, the devices, the ornamentation of many epochs and of many races. Each visit to its hallowed precincts imparted fresh inspiration to the theologian, to the artist, to the poet, to the student, to the antiquary. The reverence it claimed as a seat of pilgrimage invested its shrine with attributes possessed by none of the famous oracles of antiquity, and shared by few of the fanes of any contemporaneous religious faith. It was, moreover, justly regarded as the peculiar creation of a people whom its erection had greatly contributed to form and amalgamate, and who were entitled to credit for the admiration which its magnificence and its beauty elicited. Every city and province of the empire had contributed to the pious undertaking. Cordova paid the army of laborers employed. Merida furnished columns and other materials, ready for the mason, from the temples and the amphitheatre which had embellished the seat of Roman power in ancient Lusitania. From the quarries of Almeria and Granada came great quantities of jasper, marble, and alabaster. From the forests of the Sierras was obtained the larch for the ceiling, whose remarkable preservation in buildings not subjected to the destructive consequences of ecclesiastical avarice attest its extraordinary exemption from the attacks of insects and the ravages of decay. The princes of Mauritania and the Byzantine vassals or allies of the khalifs, prompted by feelings of piety or friendship, bestowed upon the rising temple the most valuable relics of ancient art to be found in their dominions. A fifth of the spoils of battle--in a single instance amounting to the sum of forty-five thousand pieces of gold--was appropriated to defray the enormous expense which, notwithstanding the drafts on the treasury and the generous donations of the people, was constantly increasing. In the successive enlargements of the building demanded by the growing population, the owners of adjacent property, the purchase of which became indispensable, were rewarded for the sacrifice of their homes with unstinted generosity. Arab estimates have placed the entire cost of the Djalma--whose construction and alterations embraced, from first to last, a period of more than two centuries, under nine princes of the House of Ommeyah--at fifteen million pieces of gold. The Mosque, as completed, comprised an area of six hundred and twenty by four hundred and forty feet, running with the cardinal points of the compass. About one-third of this enclosure was occupied by a spacious court surrounded by arcades, planted with oranges, pomegranates, and palms, and refreshed with the spray of many fountains. The walls, thirty feet high on the northern side, increased in altitude with the approach to the river--the land rapidly descending in that direction--until they rose to the commanding height of seventy feet above the banks of the Guadalquivir. The roof was protected by plates of lead nearly an inch in thickness, whose sale in subsequent times yielded a magnificent sum to priestly depredators. The building, massive and imposing in its exterior, presented a strong resemblance to a fortress, a resemblance not inappropriate when the martial traditions of the religion to which it was dedicated are recalled. Immense buttresses, necessitated by the weight of the walls and the pressure of the arcades, were placed at frequent intervals, like flanking towers in the defences of a citadel. The summits of wall and tower were fringed with battlements. Access was obtained to the interior by means of twenty-one horseshoe archways, three of which opened into the court-yard, and nine on the east and west sides respectively, three, in all, being reserved for the especial use of women. These archways were decorated with terra-cotta mosaics in red and yellow, relieved by inscriptions in gold on a ground of blue and scarlet. The doors were covered with plates of burnished brass, and provided with rings and knockers of huge dimensions and curious workmanship.

No church in Christendom could offer to the eyes of the worshipper such a scene of beauty as that enjoyed by the Moslem as he passed from the thronged and dusty streets of the city into the spacious Court of the Oranges. The latter bore the fascinating and voluptuous aspect of a tropical garden. The atmosphere was fragrant with the perfume of orange, rose, and jasmine. The foliage of the palm, recalling the famous groves of Medina and transporting the pilgrim in imagination to scenes in the distant Orient, rose majestically above the smaller but not less attractive orange-trees, with their glossy leaves, golden fruit, and snowy blossoms. Exquisite flowers, arranged in beds of fantastic patterns, bloomed along the borders of the arcades. Four great basins, each a monolith, supplied the water for the ceremonial lustration enjoined by the law of Islam. From the fountains the vast throng, clad in white robes, moved silently towards the temple and into the doors, which, looking upon the court, were closed by curtains of stamped and gilded leather. Within, the eye was bewildered by the forest of columns,--more than fourteen hundred in number,--stretching far away to an apparently interminable distance. They were destitute of bases, and their capitals were entirely covered with gold. Above, tiers of double arches, in red and white, sustained the ceiling glittering with arabesques entwined with texts from the Koran. The divisions of the latter were formed by medallions oval, hexagonal, and circular, bearing a general resemblance to each other, yet widely differing in distribution of colors and details of ornamentation. The floor was composed of many-colored marble, arranged in designs of simple but pleasing character. Lattices of alabaster, carved in patterns no two of which were identical, admitted in mellowed radiance the diminished splendor of a tropical sun. At the southern extremity was the Kiblah, or point facing Mecca, towards which every devout Moslem turns five times a day in prayer. It was designated by the Mihrab, a diminutive chapel corresponding in some respects to the Holy of Holies of the synagogue, and facing the principal nave of the Mosque. Constructed by Al-Hakem II., the richness of its decoration was unparalleled, and the tracery of its design unique. Engrailed, interlacing arches of peculiar form supported the dome of the vestibule. The entrance to the Mihrab or sanctuary--a marble chamber octagonal in form, and fifteen feet in diameter as well as in height--was flanked by two similar doorways leading into apartments of smaller dimensions. Four slender columns of verde-antique and lapis-lazuli sustained the sweeping horseshoe arch of entrance. The slabs of marble which lined the Mihrab were carved and gilded. The ceiling was composed of a single block, which the skill of the sculptor had fashioned into the exact representation of a gigantic shell. In the vestibule, over portal and wall, upon spandrel and dome, sparkled elaborate and fantastic creations in Byzantine mosaic, wrought by the most cunning artificers of Constantinople. It was a condition of the treaty between Constantine and Abd-al-Rahman that the latter should be furnished with all the mosaic he required for his buildings. In a single vessel despatched from the Bosphorus, under direction of the Emperor, during the reign of Al-Hakem, were sixteen tons of this precious material.

The legends in the Cufic character, whose forms so readily lend themselves to mural decoration, were always of gold. The groundwork was of different colors,--scarlet, black, blue, green, and crimson,--disposed in harmonious combinations most agreeable to the eye. The elegant curves of the arabesques formed a charming contrast with the angular letters of the inscriptions. Composed of minute cubes of glass, scores of which were necessary to cover a square inch of surface, the patience and skill required for a work of such magnitude and delicacy can scarcely be even imagined. Years were employed in its completion, and its durability was such that, where the mosaics have escaped the destructive touch of the Christian vandal, their solidity and lustre remain to-day unimpaired, after the changes, the neglect, and the depredations of more than eleven centuries.

Within the enclosure of the Mihrab was kept the pulpit built under the direction of Al-Hakem II., and destined for the use of the sovereign, when, in the capacity of Successor of the Prophet, he addressed the multitude congregated in the Mosque. It was made of minute pieces of costly woods combined with ivory, tortoise-shell, and mother of pearl, put together with gold and silver nails. Seven years were consumed in the production of this admirable specimen of the joiner’s art. The carvings with which it was covered were of the most exquisite character. Its intrinsic value was greatly enhanced by the jewels with which it was enriched, and the precious metals used in its construction. Inside of this pulpit, and enclosed in a case of cloth of gold studded with rubies and pearls, was preserved the famous Koran of the Khalif Othman, which he was reading at the time of his assassination, and whose leaves were said to have been discolored with his blood. A memento of the relentless persecution of the Ommeyades, no relic, even of the Prophet himself, was regarded by the adherents of the Abbaside and Fatimite dynasties with greater veneration than was this precious souvenir by the princes and the people of the Andalusian empire. It was at once the talisman of their security, the glory of their ritual, the emblem of imperial and theocratical power. Deposited upon a lectern of aloe wood profusely inlaid with gold, it was borne in state on Fridays to the tribune, where the customary service was read from its pages. Four men were required to carry the ponderous volume and its accessories. The cortege was preceded by the imam and his assistants, and accompanied with the pomp of lamps and incense. The magnificent processions of the Roman Catholic Church, during the period of its greatest ecclesiastical and temporal grandeur, could boast no spectacle more impressive than this ceremonial, celebrated every week in the presence of twelve thousand worshippers.

Directly in front of the Mihrab was the Maksurah, an enclosure reserved for the Khalif, the princes of the blood, and the higher ministers of the Mohammedan religion. It occupied a portion of the seven central naves, and was terminated on the south by the vestibule of the Mihrab. It measured one hundred and twelve by thirty-three feet, and was formed by a lofty screen or lattice elaborately carved, composed, for the most part, of odoriferous woods enriched with beautiful ornaments. Despite the numerous interstices with which it was provided, the interior was not visible to those outside, and its resemblance to a wall was increased by its towering height of fifty feet, as well as by the gilded battlements with which it was crowned. The pavement was of silver tiles, and the central door, destined for the passage of the Khalif, was heavily plated with gold. During his attendance at the services of the Mosque, the Commander of the Faithful was rarely seen by his subjects. From the adjoining palace he crossed the street by a covered bridge, and, traversing a secret passage contrived in the southern wall of the Mosque, entered the vestibule of the Mihrab, and thence proceeded to his post in the elevated tribune of the Maksurah. This passage contained eight doors, at each of which a sentinel was posted. These opened alternately towards the east and west, thus, in case of treachery, precluding the possibility of concert among the guards, one of whom, if faithful, could, unaided, readily defend the passage against the combined efforts of the remaining seven. The entrance of the Khalif was the occasion of a magnificent display. A silken carpet, interwoven with silver, was spread from the palace gate to the Maksurah. Black and white eunuchs in splendid costumes preceded and followed the royal party. The body-guard of the sovereign was composed of members of his family, carrying drawn scimetars, and sheathed in shining mail. These precautions were considered necessary on account of the melancholy experience of former Successors of the Prophet. The sacred character investing Omar, Othman, Ali, and Muavia had not preserved them from the assassin’s dagger; and the populace of Cordova, notorious for its daring criminals and fanatics, excited well-grounded fears in the mind of a monarch whose formidable army was sometimes insufficient to restrain its revolutionary spirit, fostered by turbulent adventurers collected from every nation subject to the code of Islam. On the western side of the temple, and facing the royal palace, was the Chamber of Alms, where the charity of the Khalif was daily dispensed in accordance with the injunctions of his faith.

The interior of the Mosque, by reason of its vast extent and its comparatively low ceiling, was more or less obscure, even at noon-day, and lamps were kept constantly burning in its aisles. Two hundred and eighty chandeliers of brass and silver were suspended from its arches, the oil used in them being perfumed with costly essences. The largest of these contained fourteen hundred and fifty-four lamps, and measured thirty-eight feet in circumference. Its reflector contained thirty-six thousand pieces of silver fastened with rivets of gold. Its beauty was enhanced by the gems with which it was studded, and, by the combined effect of the mirrors, the light was increased to nine times its original intensity. During the entire month of Ramadhan the Mosque was illuminated with twenty thousand lights. An enormous taper, weighing sixty pounds, was placed in the Maksurah. Its dimensions were calculated with such accuracy that the wax was completely consumed during the last hour of the last day of the festival.

A deep and mysterious significance has always attached to the celebration of the feast of Ramadhan in the Mohammedan world, but nowhere were its rules observed with such solemnity, and its ceremonies performed with such splendor, as in the capital of Mohammedan Spain. It corresponded in many respects to the Lent of the Christian Church. From dawn to dark not a mouthful of food, not a drop of water, could pass the lips of the consistent believer. After sunset he was, in a measure, recompensed for his privations during the day. Lamps were hung from tower and minaret. The tinkle of the mandolin and the mellow notes of the lute were heard from latticed balconies. The sounds of boisterous revelry rose faintly on the midnight air from retired court-yards and the distant apartments of majestic palaces. Crowds in the most picturesque of costumes swept through the streets. Dancing-girls and story-tellers, surrounded by appreciative audiences, plied their several vocations in the squares, under the glistening foliage of lemon- and orange-trees. The Koranic prohibition of indulgence in wine was too often forgotten, and the indignation of the abstemious Moslem was frequently aroused by the sight of transgressors in every stage of intoxication. On all sides were the evidences of joy, carelessness, and festivity.

Inside the Mosque a far different scene presented itself to the eye of the delighted spectator. From the lofty gallery of the minaret,--whose centre was veiled in obscurity, but whose gilded crest glittered with the magical play of a hundred colored lanterns,--the piercing voice of the muezzin was calling the people to prayer. Through every doorway an endless living stream poured into the temple. Among the worshippers, but keeping aloof from the surging mass, were numbers of strangely muffled figures, accompanied by gigantic blacks attired in robes of silk and gold. These were the ladies of the harems, whom the liberal ideas of Andalusian society usually permitted to dispense with the veil, but which, assumed on this occasion from choice, became a convenient disguise and an invaluable aid to intrigue. The interior suggested a vision of enchantment. Myriads of lights illumined every corner of the vast edifice, rivalling in their intolerable brilliancy the blinding glare of the meridian sun. Their rays were reflected and multiplied by the gleaming walls; by the ceiling, with its broad inscriptions and its bewildering arabesques; by the metallic foliage of a thousand capitals; by the portal of the Maksurah with its scales of polished gold. The air was heavy with the smoke of amber, aloes, and ambergris. Far away through long vistas of columns, the beautiful Mihrab, whose vitreous surface sparkled with the radiance of countless jewels of every conceivable hue, pointed out to the believer the location of the Kiblah. Following the example of the imam, visible from his lofty station in the mimbar, the innumerable multitude, as if actuated by a single impulse, raised its voice in prayer, and moved in unison through the repeated prostrations prescribed by the Mohammedan ritual. Of such a fascinating character was the sight to be witnessed during every night of the festival, in the most sumptuous temple of Islam, enriched by the munificence and the piety of the most enlightened sovereigns of the age, whose appointments surpassed, in their incredible magnificence, alike the boasted decorations of Pagan antiquity and the luxurious creations inspired by the wild imagination of the Orient; where gold and silver, where rare woods and precious gems were employed, like the commonest materials, in lavish profusion; where trophies of victory, ostentatiously displayed, reminded the zealot of the triumphs of the Faith; where the excited senses of the worshipper were soothed by the costliest odors from jewelled censers; and where, disposed in silver chandeliers and candelabras, rows upon rows of perfumed tapers diffused through the endless colonnades their lustre and their fragrance.

On the north side of the Court of the Oranges stood the stately minaret erected during the reign of Abd-al-Rahman III. A master-piece of architecture, and, in every respect, appropriate to the sumptuous building for whose use it was intended, it was universally conceded to be without a rival in the world. It was twenty-seven feet square and one hundred and eight feet high. Constructed of polished freestone brought from Africa, its sides were carved in elegant tracery, whose gilded patterns were projected upon a ground of ultramarine and vermilion. It was lighted by windows forming graceful arches, supported by diminutive columns of red and white jasper. Half of the windows had two openings, and the remainder, three, and disposed alternately amidst the maze of varied and brilliant decorative designs, they produced a charming effect. The interior contained two stairways, so contrived that a person ascending or descending either was invisible to any one upon the other. A gallery, eighty-one feet from the ground, was used by the muezzin for the duties of his sacred office. Another and a smaller structure, corresponding in style with the one upon which it was superimposed, rose to the additional height of twelve feet, and was furnished with battlements similar to those of the Mosque. Its summit was adorned with three huge balls, two of gold and one of silver, encircled by lilies of the latter metal, crowned with a pomegranate of burnished gold. Three hundred persons of all ranks--many of whom, like the servitors of the Kaaba, were eunuchs--were employed in the various offices of the Great Mosque, the menials being lodged within its walls. A guard was constantly maintained, day and night, in the vicinity of the Maksurah, under whose floor were vaults for the custody of the candlesticks and the various sacred vessels used in the ceremonies of festivals.

Such was the superb temple of Cordova, once the pride of Islam, and one of the noblest monuments of superstition and policy ever conceived by human genius or erected by human power. Its completion made possible the grand achievements of the Ommeyade dynasty, whose influence, acting indirectly upon Christian nations, greatly facilitated the emancipation of the human intellect, long confined by the galling bonds of ecclesiastical intolerance and heathen tradition. The inspiration of its architects was derived from many sources; in its plan it exhibited the conformation of the synagogue and the tabernacle; in its decoration were displayed the luxurious adornments of the Greek cathedral; its tapers and its incense recalled the Latin ceremonial, in its turn borrowed from the pompous ritual of Pagan sacrifice. Even in its present dilapidated state, the original purposes of its institution are apparent at every step; and nothing short of its entire destruction could eradicate the enthusiastic impressions excited by the first view of its singular interior, with its forest of columns, and its tarnished and mutilated vestiges of Oriental splendor. It is eminently typical of the civilization of a vanished race, whose deeds are written in something more enduring than brass or marble, and serves to indicate to posterity the sublimity of the spirit that could contrive, and the skill and resources that could execute, an undertaking of such grandeur and magnificence.

The health of Al-Hakem growing steadily worse, he made preparations to avoid, as far as possible, the evils incident to a disputed succession. He had only one son, Hischem, then fourteen years of age; but the history of his house abounded with instances of the unscrupulous ambition of royal claimants belonging to the collateral branches who had aspired to establish their pretensions by arms. Without declaring his object, a grand council of nobles, governors of provinces, generals of the army, and ministers of state was convened at Cordova. With bowed head and faltering gait, the feeble monarch ascended for the last time the steps of his throne. Through the vizier, he explained to the assembled officials the reason why he had called them together, and made the request--which was understood as a command--that all should attach their signatures to an instrument declaring Hischem the sole heir to the crown of the khalifate. This having been done, similar documents were despatched without delay into all the provinces of the empire, to be signed by the inferior officials of the government and even by the people, in order to secure, by every practical expedient, the permanence of the dynasty and the integrity of its succession, which had at last come to be recognized as dependent upon the law of primogeniture. We shall see, in the sequel, how far these elaborate and well-contrived precautions were successful.

The few months which remained to Al-Hakem after the investiture of his son with royal power were occupied in the performance of good works. His worldly affairs and the future of his empire had been committed to the hands of others. The condition of his mind and his failing eye-sight precluded him from the enjoyments and the consolations of literature. Conscious of his increasing infirmities, and admonished daily of his approaching end, he endeavored to employ his entire time in the fulfilment of the duties of a devout Mussulman. His life had been disgraced by no excesses, disfigured by no persecutions, stained with no crimes. He had ever been distinguished for the exercise of a broad and unostentatious charity. Calumny itself could neither accuse him of fanaticism nor impute to him even the suspicion of infidelity. The most precise and orthodox interpreters of the law and the boldest freethinkers had been equally welcome at his court, and had daily encountered each other in the great libraries of his capital. The absolute intellectual liberty which there existed was, indeed, considered a reproach by ignorant Moslems of less enlightened lands, who could not understand the association with heretics and the toleration of infidels; but in Spain, where a system of universal education had been established, and was enforced as well by law as by the influence of public opinion, this inestimable privilege was thoroughly appreciated.

Thus, although the Khalif had no grave offences against morality to reproach himself with, he felt, like every truly conscientious man, that he had failed to comply with many of the injunctions of his creed. To atone, in a measure, for these deficiencies was now his only care. He dispensed great sums in charity. He diminished the taxes imposed upon the provinces of the empire by one-sixth, a measure most grateful to his subjects, and, at the same time, without detriment to the treasury, the country being at peace, and the revenues increasing under the wise and economical administration of the Vizier Moshafi. He emancipated and provided for large numbers of slaves. He directed that the rent of that quarter of the bazaar of the capital occupied by the saddlers--which was one of the perquisites of the crown--should hereafter, for all time, be set apart for the benefit of the schools maintained at public expense for the children of the poor. And, finally, knowing how much the happiness of a people is dependent on the character of their ruler, he constantly inculcated, and impressed by argument and parental authority upon the mind of his son, Prince Hischem, the duties and the grave responsibilities of a sovereign; the evils of war; the destructive consequences of ambition; the enduring benefits of peace; the necessity of a pure administration of justice; the value of continence; the pleasures to be derived from the acquisition of knowledge; the consolations arising from the observance of the precepts of virtue, and the practice of an enlightened morality.

At last, this great monarch, whose titles to distinction are derived from far more noble sources than those whence emanates the fame attaching to the sanguinary achievements of the conqueror, was gathered to his fathers. His son, whose gentle disposition inspired the hope that he would profit by the wise counsels and the pious example he had enjoyed, recited the burial-service, and the body of Al-Hakem was committed to the sepulchre. The bier was followed by a mighty concourse, whose tears and lamentations manifested their grief, and whose apprehensions of impending misfortune were betrayed by the cry, “Our Father is dead, and with him dies the sword of Islam, the support of the weak and the terror of the proud!”

The prominent features of the character of Al-Hakem were his love of learning, his profuse but always judicious liberality, and his profound reverence for the doctrines of the Koran and the laws of the empire. The few military operations he was called upon to direct showed no want of vigor, and suggested that in a less peaceful age he might have obtained the laurels of a successful general. His devotion to literature amounted to a passion. No monarch of whom history makes mention has equalled him in the extent of his knowledge or the number and diversity of his literary accomplishments. In every country of the world, in the foci of civilization, in the great capitals and commercial emporiums of the East, at Bagdad, Cairo, Damascus, Alexandria, Constantinople, his agents were stationed to secure books for his libraries. No price was too extravagant to pay, no difficulty was too arduous to surmount, in the acquisition of a work whose character made it a desirable addition to the vast collection of the palace of Cordova. The rarity of a volume was a special inducement to its purchase. Where the owner refused to part with a manuscript, he was, as a rule, easily prevailed upon to allow it to be copied, and his courtesy was always munificently rewarded. In the extensive libraries of the princes of the Orient, whose collections, however valuable, could not vie with the superb one of Al-Hakem, were constantly occupied the expert scribes and copyists of that accomplished, untiring monarch; investigators whose labors were never terminated, whose pens were never idle. A premium was offered to every writer of note whose productions should be first submitted to the Khalif, and the knowledge of this fact often procured for him the inspection of manuscripts long before they were made public in the country where they were composed. The emulation and the aspirations of distinguished authors caused their works to be transmitted to Cordova from the most distant lands, from Al-Maghreb, Egypt, Byzantium, Syria, and Persia, and the reward for a composition of unusual merit not infrequently reached the enormous figure of a thousand pieces of gold.

Under the influence of such potent agencies, it is not remarkable that great popularity was communicated to the study of every branch of human knowledge. Treatises replete with the stores of ancient wisdom were brought forth from dusty corners where they had lain neglected for centuries; the sages of Greece were translated into Arabic; and the philosophy of Aristotle and the problems of Euclid were publicly expounded for the benefit of the multitude. In a society where intellectual pre-eminence was a certain passport to official distinction, the study of letters soon became not only a popular and absorbing pursuit, but one of the most desirable of professions. The accumulation of books was the first employment of an aspirant to public consideration and political fame. In the house of almost every prosperous citizen a collection of volumes, not exhibited to display the wealth or pedantry of the owner, but with whose contents he was more or less familiar, was preserved. For the benefit of those whose means were too limited for the possession of such luxuries, as well as to afford every facility for the promotion of intelligence and the advancement of science, public libraries were founded in all the great cities of the Peninsula. With the growing demand for manuscripts, their value not only increased in the markets of the world, but, through the enormous prices they commanded, literary industry was stimulated to their search and reproduction. It was a well-known fact that no gift was so acceptable to the Khalif as a rare manuscript, or the first copy of a new work by an author of established reputation. The library of Al-Hakem II. was undoubtedly the greatest repository of learning which had up to that time existed in Europe. As a significant token of the estimation in which its volumes were held, the appointments and furniture of the building where they were deposited exhibited all the magnificence of a palace. The floor was of rare and costly marble, the walls and ceiling of alabaster and mosaic, the columns of jasper and verde-antique. The cases were of polished woods, some selected for their rarity, others for the delightful fragrance they exhaled. Inscriptions in characters of gold indicated the contents of the shelves, or inspired the student, by the repetition of the maxims of famous writers, to emulate the example of the wise and virtuous scholars of antiquity. The manuscripts in time became so numerous that the halls of the library, extensive as they were, could not contain them. In the scriptorium an army of binders and calligraphists was employed, and the finest books were gilded and illuminated with a taste and elegance that have never been equalled. The number of volumes in the collection of the Khalif is variously stated at from four hundred thousand to six hundred thousand. Forty-four volumes were required for the catalogue alone. With the contents of most of these works Al-Hakem is said to have been familiar, and, indeed, many of them were enriched with notes and comments written by his own hand. The title-page of each volume bore not only the name of the author but also his genealogy, as well as the dates of his birth and his death, all collected and preserved by the indefatigable industry of the royal scholar. His prodigious memory; his powers of acquisition; his critical acumen; his talents for composition; and the capacity which could abstract from the administration of the public affairs of a great monarchy sufficient time for literary undertakings that, under ordinary circumstances, could hardly be accomplished in a lifetime of constant study, are marvellous and incredible. For Al-Hakem was an historian of approved merit, as well as an impartial critic and a voluminous commentator. He wrote a history of Spain, now unhappily lost, which was considered a high authority in its time, and whose reputation was universally admitted to be independent of the prestige which it would naturally derive from the name and rank of the author. Such was his erudition that in knowledge on obscure points of genealogy and biography he was without a rival, even in the learned court of Cordova; and his fund of historical information was so profound, and his judgment so accurate, that his opinions were respected and unquestioned by the most accomplished scholars of the Mohammedan world. As may be conjectured, a prodigious impulse was imparted to education by this extraordinary patronage of letters. The accumulated wisdom of Africa, Asia, and Europe was to be found at Cordova. Reports of the munificence of Al-Hakem, and the fame of his splendid court, where literary attainments were a recommendation to royal favor, had been transmitted along the highways of commerce to the most isolated quarters of the globe. It was the ambition of every scholar to complete his studies in a society which offered such unrivalled advantages. A multitude of students of every nationality constantly thronged the streets of the capital. Education was reduced to a system, whose regulations were enforced with military precision. To invest the cause of instruction with additional prestige, the influence of royalty was invoked, and Al-Mondhir, the brother of the Khalif, was charged with the general supervision of the institutions of learning. The charity of Al-Hakem had founded at Cordova no less than twenty-seven schools, where the children of the poor received an education not inferior in thoroughness to that conferred by the best colleges of the empire.

The intellectual progress of the nation was greatly assisted by the freedom of thought which was universally prevalent. The study of philosophy was encouraged, and the promulgation of the most heretical opinions was neither prohibited by public sentiment, nor allowed to be interfered with by the fanaticism of the orthodox sects. By the incessant collision of opinions, by the comparison of authorities, and by the examination of antagonistic doctrines a general spirit of inquiry sprang up; and, in consequence of its dissemination, even the professors of the University were not wrongfully suspected of a leaning towards atheism.

The efforts of Al-Hakem had been early directed to the reformation of manners, an invidious task which might well exhaust the resolution and tact of the most politic and courageous sovereign. The example of the Orient, the possession of wealth, and the influence of luxury had introduced and promoted the demoralizing vice of drunkenness. The wines of Andalusia were then, as now, famous for their palatable as well as for their exhilarating qualities. The country was covered with vineyards, and the products of the wine-press formed no inconsiderable item of the commercial statistics of the Peninsula. Debauchery, at first carried on in secret, had grown bold with the open countenance of high officials and the increasing impunity with which it was practised; and it was hinted that even the ministers of religion did not hesitate to indulge in a vice so severely reprobated by the Koran. The prohibited beverages were not confined to wines, for inebriating liquors distilled from figs, dates, and other fruits were also consumed in large quantities. This pernicious habit was not confined to the wealthier class, but was almost universal; and the scenes of revelry, in which persons of both sexes participated at banquets and other festivities, rivalled, if they did not surpass, the scandalous orgies which had in the day of their splendor and their infamy disgraced the court and capital of Damascus. The Moslem casuists attempted to excuse these breaches of the law by alleging that the use of wine was necessary to the soldier, as it inspired him with courage and increased his powers of endurance, and that this indulgence should be at least conceded to those who habitually exposed themselves to the weapons of the enemy. Such sophistry, however, failed to impose upon the discerning mind of Al-Hakem. Determined to remove, if possible, the means of intoxication, he issued a peremptory order that all the vines in the Peninsula should be torn up and destroyed. His counsellors, however, having represented that such a sweeping measure would be productive of great financial loss and consequent suffering, and that intoxicating beverages could be, and were, even then, made from other fruits, he consented to withdraw the order, which had already caused wide-spread alarm among his subjects. But his sense of duty did not permit him to leave the evil unchecked. The imams were directed to declare from the pulpits of the mosques that the use of wine was forbidden at all social assemblies and public festivities; and the kadis were especially admonished that the penalties prescribed by the law for drunkenness must be enforced, regardless of the wealth, rank, or official station of the offender. The vice was, however, too deeply rooted to be abolished by the denunciations of theologians or the impotent threats of magistrates, themselves suspected of secret participation in the offences they affected publicly to condemn. The society of Cordova, and with it that of the entire khalifate, in a minor degree, had, in fact, become thoroughly epicurean. The philosopher, while observing a decent reverence for the national religion whose rites he openly practised in the character of a good citizen and privately ridiculed in the company of his friends, was deeply tinctured with the ancient pantheistic doctrines of India. Even the populace had ceased to exhibit the fanaticism which is the inseparable companion of ignorance. The system of universal education had gradually and insensibly removed many of those prejudices on whose perpetuity depend the importance and the power of the ministers of superstition. The example of their superiors was not lost on the multitude. The attendance at the mosques was not perceptibly diminished, but it became rather a matter of custom than an observance dictated by conscientious belief and a sense of religious duty. A skepticism pervaded the masses which surprised and alarmed the devout pilgrim from a far-distant country who visited the shrine of Cordova, in his eyes, second in holiness only to the temple of Mecca. Enjoyment of the present, indifference to the future, were the principles which guided the conduct and influenced the lives of the pleasure-loving subjects of Al-Hakem. Under such circumstances, the correction of public immorality, and the repression of a popular and prevalent vice was a difficult, if not a hopeless, undertaking. The edict of the Khalif against drunkenness was publicly observed and secretly disregarded. The epicurean tendency of the age was too general and too well established to be seriously affected by the proclamations or the example of princes.

In the prosecution of enterprises of public improvement and general utility, Al-Hakem exhibited no less taste and spirit than the most renowned of his predecessors. The largest cities and the most sequestered hamlets of the empire alike acknowledged the benefits of his discriminating liberality. He repaired the highways; furnished them with fountains at convenient intervals; and, in obedience to the law of the Koran, which inculcates the duties of hospitality, established, at the end of each day’s journey, a caravansary for the entertainment of travellers. Schools, almshouses, hospitals, rose in every town, a great portion of the funds required for the construction and endowment of these institutions being derived from the private purse of the Khalif. His devotion and family pride caused him to emulate the example of his ancestors by making additions to the Great Mosque of the capital. He largely increased the capacity of the building. He erected the Maksurah, where the Commander of the Faithful could enter, unperceived by the congregation, and perform his devotions apart from the other worshippers, in accordance with that practice of Oriental seclusion which from motives of prudence or mystery had, for three generations, been adopted by the Ommeyades of Spain. Before the reign of Al-Hakem, the basin where every devout Mussulman performed the ablution, symbolical of purification, incumbent on him before entering the Mosque, was small and inadequate to the necessities of the multitudes that daily frequented the second in renown and sanctity of the fanes of Islam. This receptacle was rude and primitive; the water frequently became stagnant; and the supply was, from time to time, renewed from a neighboring well by means of vessels borne by beasts of burden. The inconvenience and incongruity of this arrangement, amidst all the splendors that surrounded it, forcibly impressed itself upon the mind of the Khalif. At vast expense and with infinite labor, he caused four basins of stone to be constructed at the angles of the court of the Mosque, two for the use of men and two for the use of women. In the centre was a great monolithic reservoir of marble, from which rose a fountain that diffused its refreshing spray over the tropical vegetation with which the court was adorned. The blocks for these basins were quarried in the mountains, miles from Cordova, and the largest required the power of seventy oxen and an army of laborers to transport it to its destination. This gigantic undertaking consumed twelve days. An abundant supply of water was conveyed from the springs and rivulets of the sierra through the aqueduct, and the overflow passed by means of pipes into immense cisterns under the pavement of the court, available in case of siege and an ever-ready protection against fire. The aqueduct also supplied many other fountains throughout the city, which were increased in number and convenience by the provident care of the Khalif. The hydraulic works of Al-Hakem are almost intact to-day, after the vicissitudes of many eventful ages and the constant wear of more than nine hundred years. The marble reservoirs, where were once performed the lustrations of Moslem zealots from every land, now furnish with water the populace of Christian Cordova, whose squalid and repulsive appearance, whose brutal physical characteristics, whose profound ignorance of the history of the cleanly, intellectual, and polished race to which these splendid memorials of art and industry are to be ascribed, offer striking evidence of the instability of the highest civilization and of the constant tendency of man to retrograde to the condition of the savage; of his incapacity to appreciate or profit by the experience and the wisdom of the conquered when the latter belong to another creed or another sect; and of the stupendous power for evil that can be exerted by a hierarchy whose established policy is founded on the systematic debasement of the intellectual faculties of its slaves.

A pleasing story is related of Al-Hakem which strikingly illustrates his equanimity and his genial manners as well as that reverence for learning and its professors which was characteristic both of the man and the monarch. The imperious demands of despotic power, as we are accustomed to regard them, admit of no hesitation or compromise in their obedience. Yet such was the mild and forbearing disposition of this great sovereign that his subjects could venture, on occasions that seemed to justify it, to postpone for their own convenience compliance with orders that were peremptory. While the faqui Abu-Ibrahim, one of the greatest of the authorities on Mohammedan law whose talents adorned the University of Cordova, was lecturing one day to a large class of students in one of the mosques, he received, through a eunuch, a summons from the Khalif to attend him instantly at the palace.

“I hear with profound respect the order of the Commander of the Faithful,” replied Abu-Ibrahim. “Return to him, and say that thou hast found me in the House of God, surrounded by my pupils, whom I am instructing in the traditions relating to the Prophet. Tell him that the moment I have finished my lecture on this holy subject, by which my audience will fail to profit if I am interrupted, I will repair to him.” The eunuch, confounded by this reply, returned to the palace, and reported the result of the interview. In a short time he came back, and addressed Abu-Ibrahim as follows: “O Faqui, I have delivered thy answer to the Sultan, who applauds thy piety and appreciates the importance of the labors thou art daily performing for the benefit of our holy religion; he will await thy pleasure, and has directed me to remain until thy lecture is finished, that I may escort thee to his presence.” Not only did the complaisance of Al-Hakem, on this occasion as on many others, yield to the claims of learning, but it was also indulgent to the age and weakness of his friend. He caused the gate which was nearest the palace to be opened to accommodate the venerable professor, who walked with difficulty and whose infirmities prevented him from mounting on horseback; and when he arrived at the entrance he found a great number of officials and domestics assembled to do him honor, and waiting to conduct him, with the ceremony due to his reputation and the esteem in which he was held by his royal master, into the hall of audience. Thus could the placid and magnanimous nature of Al-Hakem subordinate the prerogatives of royalty to the demands of knowledge, and sacrifice for the benefit of the votaries of science that implicit obedience whose neglect is an evidence of treason, and whose instantaneous observance is one of the inseparable rights of arbitrary power. His greatness even rose superior to the paltry prejudices of rank and the requirements of custom; the intimacy in which he lived with the learned, the respectful familiarity which he encouraged from his favorites, offer a surprising contrast to the tyranny and impatience usually associated with the possession of despotic authority.

There have existed few examples of a ruler so perfectly identified with the spirit of his age and the genius of his people as was Al-Hakem, whose name most appropriately signifies The Wise. Nature had not bestowed upon him the consummate talents for organization, and the prophetic sagacity with which she had gifted the founder of his dynasty, Abd-al-Rahman I. He did not possess either the political tact or the military capacity of Abd-al-Rahman III. But in all the substantial acquirements of useful knowledge; in the appreciation of the works of genius, and the disposition to reward them; in the encouragement of every art which promotes happiness and alleviates suffering; in the practice of those virtues which reflect dignity on a subject and shine with still greater lustre when included in the attributes of royalty, he was certainly without a rival among all the Spanish Mohammedan princes. He was the worthy representative of the advanced culture, the scientific attainments, the poesy and the art of Hispano-Arab civilization, as contrasted with the intellectual darkness, the disgusting immorality, the revolting filth, the abject superstition, which characterized the contemporaneous society of Europe. His tireless industry and prodigious erudition were the marvel of his time. His devotion to literature was imitated by his subjects, who embraced with enthusiasm pursuits which both diminished the privations of the poor and contributed to the enjoyment of the favorites of fortune. The highest and most lucrative positions were the rewards of those who had attained to distinguished eminence in literary pursuits, without regard to their political antecedents, their nationality, or their ancestry.

The example of the Khalif, who often, with his own hands, cultivated his gardens, was followed by the kadis, the walis, the muftis, the nobles of the empire. He utilized to the utmost the natural resources of the Peninsula. Agriculture was brought to such excellence as seemed to make any further improvement impossible. The ships of Cadiz, Seville, Almeria, and Valencia boldly traversed the most dangerous seas. The merino sheep, whose migrations over the plains of Estremadura and Castile were made subject to laws which have been adopted by and are still in force among the Spaniards, amounted to millions. Valuable deposits of ore were opened and developed for the benefit of commerce and the arts. In short, the reign of Al-Hakem represents the golden age of Moslem history,--an age that with singular felicity had appropriated the wisdom and the experience of antiquity; whose wonderful progress in every branch of industry, in every department of knowledge, was the admiration of all nations, Christian and infidel; and whose inspiring genius was, in reality, the last, as he was the most accomplished, of a famous race of kings.

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