The proverbial instability of the tribes of Northern Africa, habitually dominated by the most abject superstition, the prey of successive generations of religious impostors, incapable of systematized civil organization, of moral consistency, of personal loyalty, was now to be again demonstrated by a revolution that, in the principal circumstances of its origin and progress, was almost the counterpart of the one preceding it, which had made the polished and intellectual population of Spain—justly proud of the traditions of the khalifate—tributary subjects of a foreign and barbaric potentate. As with every race brought suddenly in contact with the highest civilization without passing through the intermediate phases incident to the regular and predestined development of nations, the corruption and degeneracy of the Berbers advanced with amazing rapidity. Amidst the hitherto unknown allurements of luxury and vice, the primitive virtues of generosity, courage, and hospitality disappeared. The fetichism of the Desert was replaced by a spurious and absurd Mohammedan belief, which retained, as essential parts of its doctrine, the most objectionable and offensive principles of Paganism. The religious teachers of the people, more deeply contaminated than their disciples and closely allied with the Jews, whose worship and whose dogmas they held up to reprobation in public and connived at in secret, had become monsters of extortion, profligacy, and injustice. The martial tastes of Yusuf had not descended to his son, who daily exhibited, to the delight of the clergy and the astonishment of the people, the abasement of a devotee, an example sufficiently edifying in a saint but strangely unbecoming in a sovereign whose throne was sustained by arms, and whose subjects were accustomed to subsist by conquest and rapine. No faqui desirous of obtaining a reputation for piety prayed and fasted with more persistent regularity than Ali. The greater part of his time was passed in the mosque, and the administration, meanwhile, was usurped by the clergy and the ladies of the court. The direct intervention of women in public affairs was a practice heretofore unknown to the Moslem constitution. During the reign of Ali, however, the wives and concubines of great officials virtually controlled, by favor and purchase, the policy of the government, trafficked in appointments of the civil and military service, capriciously deposed high dignitaries, and pardoned brigands and other malefactors condemned for atrocious crimes. The contradictory mandates, and the uncertain execution of the laws resulting from the conflicting interests and the indecision of ambitious and corrupt females, produced inextricable confusion, and provoked the scorn and resentment of the people. In Spain, far removed from the capital of the empire, the prevalent disorder and oppression reached its culmination; and even constant familiarity with military abuses could not reconcile the citizens of the Andalusian capitals to the intolerable insolence of the Almoravide soldiery.

About this time there appeared in the African dominions of Ali a new reformer, half enthusiast, half charlatan, whose austerities and denunciations of the prevalent luxury and impiety of the age at once attracted the attention and inspired the reverence of the masses. His name was Abu-Abdallah; his origin—designated by an appellation referring to the calling of his father, a lamplighter in the mosque of his native village—was most humble; but nature had endowed him with talents which early marked him as a leader of men. His education, acquired in the famous schools of Cordova, Bagdad, and Cairo, was far superior to his rank, and, by assiduous study and extensive travel in foreign countries, he had amassed a vast fund of knowledge, and had obtained, even in the centres of Moslem learning, the reputation of an accomplished controversialist and theologian. A pupil of the great Al-Ghazzali, he had embraced with eagerness the doctrines of that renowned philosopher, whose work, branded as heterodox and impious by the clergy of Cordova, had been publicly consigned to the flames, and its possession made a cause of relentless persecution by the bigoted religious counsellors of Ali. The subsequent conduct of the reformer might suggest to an observant and unfriendly critic that this unfavorable reception of the dogmas of one of the most famous teachers of Islam had not a little influence in forming the opinions and determining the career of the ambitious young Berber student. His education completed, Abu-Abdallah returned to his home among the tribesmen of Masmoudah in the country of Sus. His travels and his studies, directed by a keen and vigorous intellect, had given him a profound insight into human nature, while the superiority of his literary attainments obtained for him the greatest respect from the simple and ignorant shepherds among whom his lot was cast. From the day of his return, he affected an air of mystery well calculated to impose upon a credulous and highly imaginative people. He assumed the title of Al-Mahdi, or The Leader, a word synonymous with Messiah, a personage whose advent has been predicted by the founders of almost every sect of Oriental origin. He declaimed with audacity and eloquence against the sins of the degenerate Moslems. In common with all reformers whose success demands a real or apparent exhibition of sanctity, his life afforded an edifying example of self-denial and of the practice of the most austere virtue. His garments were scanty and of the coarsest materials. His sole possessions consisted of a staff and a leathern bottle. Subsisting upon alms, and sleeping in the court-yards of the mosques, where, during the day, with impassioned oratory, he exhorted the wayward to repentance, he did not remain long in solitude. Crowds gathered to participate in his devotions and to enjoy the benefit of his prayers. The erratic genius of the Berber, impressed with an exhibition so congenial with its nature and actuated by the love of novelty, soon recognized in the holy man a guide whose inspiration was directly derived from heaven. Among the first of his disciples was a youth of distinguished lineage and unusual personal attractions, named Abd-al-Mumen, whom the Mahdi, as he was now universally called, selected as his councillor, and whose talents for war and executive ability, as soon became evident, were superior to those of any individual of his time. Accompanied by a small band of followers, the Mahdi advanced by easy stages to Morocco, the depravity of whose citizens he constantly represented as worthy of the severest punishment that could be inflicted by the wrath of an outraged Deity. It was not without reason that he denounced the vices of the great Almoravide capital. Although so recently founded, it already ranked with the most opulent, the most splendid, the most dissolute of the cities of the Mohammedan world. Its population had been gathered from three continents; its commerce extended from the frozen zone to countries far south of the equator; its profligate diversions equalled in their shamelessness and monstrous variety the proverbial abominations of ancient Carthage.

The first public act of the Mahdi after his arrival was one whose unparalleled audacity was admirably calculated to establish the sacredness of his pretended mission as far as the most distant frontiers of the empire. On one of the Fridays of the festival of Ramadhan, a great concourse had assembled in the principal mosque of the capital to await the coming of the Sultan. Before the royal cortége appeared, an emaciated figure, meanly clad and intoning in deep and solemn accents verses from the Koran, strode through the assemblage and seated itself, without ceremony, on the throne. The remonstrances of the attendants of the mosque produced no effect on the intruder, and even at the approach of Ali himself he retained his seat, while the entire congregation rose and stood reverently in the presence of their monarch. In the minds of devout Moslems, mental eccentricity and insanity are not infrequently considered evidences of divine inspiration; the most outrageous denunciations are received with humility by the greatest potentates; and, encouraged by impunity, the dervish and the santon, sure of the toleration of the sovereign and the applause of the multitude, do not hesitate to violate every feeling of decency and reverence in the prosecution of their schemes of imposture. The existence of this superstitious prejudice prevented the molestation of the Mahdi, whose reputation had preceded him, but whose person was as yet unknown to the inhabitants of Morocco. Not content with usurping his place, the audacious reformer even ventured, in scathing terms, to reprove the Sultan in the presence of the assembly, and warned him that if he did not correct the faults of his government and the vices of his subjects he would be speedily called upon to render an account of his neglect to God. The amazement and consternation of the Prince were only exceeded by the apprehensions of the people, who awaited, with equal anxiety, the accomplishment of a miracle or the outbreak of a revolution.

From that day the religious authority of the Mahdi was established throughout the African dominions of Ali. His audiences were numbered by thousands. Proselytes in vast multitudes assented to his doctrines, and his movements began to seriously occupy the attention of the government, whose officials saw with unconcealed dread his fast-increasing popularity and the effect which his harangues and his ostentatious asceticism were producing upon the capricious and easily deluded masses. He was examined by the ministers, some of whom advised his immediate execution, but, as he had hitherto confined himself to religious exhortations and had asserted no pretensions to the exercise of temporal sovereignty, the impolitic clemency of Ali, unmindful of the similar circumstances which had attended the elevation of his own family to power, dismissed, unharmed, the most dangerous enemy of his life and his throne. The lesson he had just been taught was not lost on the wary impostor, who, of all distinctions, coveted least the honors of martyrdom. He left the capital and repaired to Fez, where for a considerable period he kept himself in seclusion, but, through his devoted emissaries, still retaining and indeed increasing his influence over the ignorant populace, deeply impressed with the mystery that surrounded his movements as well as with the oracular messages with which he nourished the curiosity and stimulated the expectations of his followers. At length, without warning, he reappeared in the streets of Morocco. The enthusiastic welcome he received made it apparent that his popularity had been in no respect diminished during his absence. His insolence and his extravagance now became more offensive than ever. He denounced, in epithets conveying the greatest opprobrium, the public and private conduct of the monarch and his court. Assisted by his disciples, he seized the wine vessels in the bazaars and emptied their contents into the streets. The sight of a musical instrument roused him to fury and was the signal for its instant destruction, as well as for the maltreatment of the owner. His piety could not tolerate even the songs of mirth, and those who presumed to enjoy this harmless amusement in his hearing were speedily silenced with a shower of blows. The climax of impudence and outrage was attained when the Mahdi, having one day encountered in one of the public thoroughfares of the capital the sister of Ali, who, in compliance with the prevalent custom of the Moorish ladies of Africa and Spain, had discarded the veil, roundly abused her for this violation of the injunctions of the Prophet, and ended by precipitating her from her saddle into the gutter, to the horror and consternation of her numerous retinue. An offence of this flagrant character committed by any one unprotected by the influence of the grossest superstition would, under Oriental law, have been instantly punishable with death. But the reverence entertained for the sacred profession of the culprit, the general suspicion of his want of responsibility, and a fatal indifference to his rapidly increasing power suggested the imposition of an insignificant penalty, and the bold and reckless innovator was banished from the city. In obedience to the letter, if not to the spirit of his sentence, he betook himself to a neighboring cemetery, erected there a miserable hovel, and, surrounded by the significant memorials of the dead, began anew his prophesies of impending evil and his declamations against the vice and corruption of the dignitaries of the empire. The leniency with which his offences had been treated by the authorities was distorted by fear and fanaticism into persecution and injustice, and the violator of law was at once exalted into a martyr. The passions of the ignorant were then artfully aroused by representations that the life of their leader was threatened, and a bodyguard of fifteen hundred well-armed soldiers was organized to watch constantly over the safety of the self-styled Messenger of God. The Sultan now began to realize, when too late, the effects of his ill-timed indulgence. He sent a peremptory order for the Mahdi to leave the vicinity of the capital. The latter, alleging that he had already complied with the directions of his sovereign as indicated by the sentence of banishment, and feeling secure in the midst of his devoted adherents, at first declined to abandon his position; but, on learning that measures were already taken for his assassination, he fled in haste to the distant town of Tinamal, where he had disclosed his pretended mission. There, in the mosque, he first openly announced his claim to temporal power. A sympathetic audience was excited to frenzy by his mysterious predictions and his fervid eloquence; his claim to universal dominion as the Champion of the Faith and the restorer of the purity of Islam was received with vociferous applause by the multitude, and in the midst of the turmoil Abd-al-Mumen and ten of his companions, rising and drawing their swords, swore eternal fealty to their leader. Their example was followed by the entire congregation; and thus, a second time, in the centre of the Sahara was inaugurated a Mohammedan reformation the precursor of a gigantic but unsubstantial and impermanent empire. This decisive step had no sooner been taken than the Mahdi proceeded to organize his government by the appointment of civil and military officials. Abd-al-Mumen was made vizier; the ten proselytes who had sworn allegiance in the mosque were united in a Supreme Council; and the two subordinate bodies, composed respectively of fifty and seventy disciples, were charged with the management of affairs of inferior moment; the result of their deliberations being subject to the approval or rejection of the Mahdi himself. The revolutionists, whose numbers, daily recruited by accessions from the martial tribes of the Desert, had now become formidable, assumed the name of Almohades, or Unitarians, not only to distinguish them from the Christians, whose trinitarian dogma and adoration of images caused them to be designated by all Moslems as idolaters, but to indicate as well a return to the original simplicity of Islam, long corrupted by the heterodox practices and dissolute manners of their Almoravide rivals. A strange and mysterious fatality seemed to attach to the fortunes of the latter in every field where they encountered the armies of the newly arisen Prophet. In four successive engagements the soldiers of Ali, seized with a panic in the presence of the enemy, yielded almost without resistance to the attack of the Berber cavalry; their standards and baggage were taken, and thousands of fugitives, butchered in headlong flight, expiated with the loss of life and honor their effeminacy and their cowardice.

The opinion generally prevalent in the minds of the illiterate, that military success is an infallible criterion of religious truth, began to produce its effect on the Almoravides. The terror experienced by them at the sight of the enemy—really due to relaxation of discipline and apprehension of the miraculous powers of an audacious charlatan—was universally attributed to supernatural influence. The mission of the Mahdi required no further demonstration of its divine origin. Henceforth his utterances were received by both friend and enemy as the oracles of God. His credit daily increased among the credulous and passionate inhabitants of the Desert. The Almoravide soldiers shrank from an encounter with a foe whose white standard seemed to be invested with the mystic qualities of a talisman. The Mahdi, renouncing in a measure his character of affected humility, now assumed the pomp of a sovereign. He surrounded himself with a splendidly appointed bodyguard. His throne was approached by suppliants for favor with the debasing and complicated ceremonial of Oriental despotism. He demanded, in arrogant and menacing language, submission and tribute from Ali, who, dejected by repeated misfortune, began to share with his ignorant subjects the awe which enveloped the person and the attributes of his triumphant and formidable adversary. The plans of the latter had heretofore been accomplished without an established base of operations, the camps of the Almohades being moved from place to place over the drifting sands of the Desert; but now, the direction of an army of twenty thousand men, the subsistence and shelter of a vast multitude of non-combatants, and the dignity and power of a new and growing political organization urgently demanded a settled habitation and a recognized centre of authority. Among the lofty crags of a mountain spur extending from the range of Tlemcen to the Atlantic stood the village of Tinamal. Its retired situation, its natural defences, its proximity to both the rich cities of the coast and the fertile regions of the interior, the character of its people, who were to a man ardent believers in the mission of the Mahdi, made it an admirable point either for the inauguration of a conquest or the institution of an harassing system of predatory warfare. It was approached by narrow and tortuous paths which, winding along the mountain side, disclosed, on the one hand, an inaccessible cliff, on the other, an abyss whose depths were shrouded in perpetual gloom. From its battlements, almost hidden in the clouds, the progress of a hostile party could be watched for miles as, with slow and uncertain steps, it pursued its hazardous way. In this mountain fastness the Mahdi fixed his residence and established his capital. The natural impediments in the path of an invader were greatly multiplied by the artificial resources of engineering skill. Towers and fortresses were raised at points commanding the various approaches to the mountain stronghold. Drawbridges were thrown across roaring torrents. Walls and gateways obstructed the passage, where an insignificant force might with ease check the progress of a numerous army. The village of Tinamal soon became a city, whose inhabitants, subsisting by the plunder of their neighbors, became the scourge and the terror of the peaceable and defenceless subjects of Ali. After a long sojourn in his seat of power, the Mahdi, about to succumb to a fatal disease, determined to signalize his closing days by an enterprise worthy of the pretensions he had assumed and of the success which had hitherto favored his undertakings. An army of forty thousand men was assembled for the capture of Morocco. In a desperate conflict under the walls of that city, the Almoravides, who outnumbered their opponents two to one, were put to flight and pursued with terrible carnage to its gates. But the fortunes of the Almohades, heretofore invincible, were now destined to receive a serious blow. Unaccustomed to the conduct of a siege, the soldiers of Abd-al-Mumen habitually neglected the precautions which, in the presence of an enemy, are indispensable to the security of a camp. Within the immense circuit of the capital were marshalled for a final struggle the collected resources of the empire. Thousands of fugitives from the recent disastrous battle had found an asylum behind its walls. Reinforcements had been drawn from every African province as well as from the diminished Andalusian armies, their own strength already sorely taxed by repeated incursions of the Christian foe. The constructing and handling of military engines were confided to a body of Byzantine and Sicilian engineers enlisted for that purpose. The soldiery was animated by the presence and the example of the Sultan, who had for the time abandoned the Koran for the sword, and stood ready to perform the part of a valiant and resolute commander. The citizens, moved to desperation by the approach of an enemy whose relentless character had been established by the massacre of fugitives and prisoners, and from whose ferocity, aggravated by prolonged opposition, they could expect no indulgence, co-operated manfully with the garrison in the defence of their homes, their families, their property, and their king. The first sallies of the Almoravides, conducted by leaders trained to partisan encounters in the wars of Spain, were signally disastrous to the besiegers. The latter, suddenly checked in an uninterrupted career of victory, were disconcerted and dismayed, and their confidence was shaken in proportion as the spirits of their adversaries rose. Encouraged by success, the attacks of the latter became more vigorous and determined; a general engagement followed, the Almohades were routed with terrific slaughter, and it was only by the exertion of strenuous effort that Abd-al-Mumen and a handful of survivors were enabled to escape the lances of the Almoravide cavalry. The depression caused by a single disaster was more potent in its effect on the minds of the disciples of the Mahdi than the prestige derived from a score of victories. The influence which had exercised its mysterious sway over the imagination of all who had presumed to dispute the claims of the impostor was perceptibly impaired. The fickle tribesmen deserted his standard by thousands. But in the course of a few years his eloquence and tact were able to repair the losses he had sustained; another army commanded by Abd-al-Mumen issued from the mountains, and a brilliant victory obtained over the followers of Ali retrieved the honor and credit of the Almohade cause. The Mahdi did not long survive his triumph. Overcome with the excitement occasioned by the return of his soldiers with their array of spoil and captives, he died, after having committed to the faithful Abd-al-Mumen the accomplishment of the task of conquest and reformation which he had so successfully begun.

Of all the prophets and reformers, the progenitors of dynasties, the conquerors of kingdoms, the restorers of the Faith, which from its origin have appeared in the domain of Islam, none possess a greater claim to distinction than Abu-Abdallah, surnamed the Mahdi, the founder of the sect of the Almohades. Without the commanding genius and originality of Mohammed, he equalled that remarkable personage in keenness of perception and energy of character, and far surpassed him in education, in eloquence, in practical acquaintance with the foibles and the prejudices of humanity. The suggestive examples of his predecessors, who had attained to supreme power through pretensions to inspiration and martial achievements, incited him to establish for himself a political and religious empire. With more of the charlatan and less of the soldier in his mental composition than had characterized many reformers, he retained to the last his retiring asceticism, but in case of emergency he did not hesitate to boldly risk his life on the field of battle. No scholar was better versed than he in the literature and science of his age. His sagacity was proof against the insinuating arts of the most accomplished negotiator. In the prosecution of his ambitious projects he never considered the comfort or the safety of his followers; in the exaction of his vengeance every sentiment of pity and indulgence was ruthlessly cast aside. His influence over his disciples was maintained by appeals to superstition and by arts of imposture congenial with the temperament of the ignorant and the credulous. To conceal these frauds, the wretched instruments by whom they had been effected were promptly put to death. Such persons as were so unfortunate as to incur the enmity of the false Prophet were buried alive. Such was the extent of his power over the masses, that the crimes perpetrated by his orders or with his sanction were regarded in the light of virtues; that his spurious claims to divinity were accepted by entire nations who revered him even more than his great prototype Mohammed, and who demonstrated their enduring faith in his mission by raising his friend and successor, to whom his authority had descended, to an equality with the greatest potentates of the age.

While the victories of the Almohades in Africa were undermining the already crumbling empire of Ali, his Spanish dominions were overrun and wasted by Aragonese and Castilian armies. The supremacy of the clergy which followed the rise of the Almoravide dynasty was the signal for Christian persecution. In Andalusia, and especially throughout the principality of Granada, where the Mozarabes abounded, the Moslem theologians exercised with unrestricted severity the congenial privilege of oppression. Churches and monasteries were confiscated or destroyed under pretext of their construction since the Conquest, acts of encroachment which, although in contravention of the stipulations of Musa, had been tacitly ignored for centuries. Taxes far in excess of those prescribed by Mussulman law were imposed on the Christian tributaries. Under the most frivolous accusations their property was seized. Every indignity which popular envy or religious hatred could contrive was inflicted upon them. Their endurance exhausted, the Mozarabes of Granada, who, through the medium of Jewish merchants, had long held secret communication with their Castilian brethren, an intercourse which had suggested and promoted many a predatory expedition, now began to meditate permanent freedom from conditions scarcely less intolerable than those of servitude. The serious difficulties in which the Almoravide empire was involved; the contemptuous indifference of its ruler to the complaints of his subjects; the succession of Almohade victories; the withdrawal to Africa of the flower of the Andalusian troops for the defence of Morocco; the advance of the Castilian outposts, in the face of whose encroachments the frontier was continually receding; the reconquest of Saragossa, the last important Moslem bulwark in the North, all encouraged the hope that the Christian domination and the Christian faith might now be easily re-established from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean. Excited by ill-timed dreams of liberty, the Mozarabes brought to bear every resource of solicitation and argument to tempt an invasion by the Christian princes. They despatched secret envoys to the court of Castile. They sent to Alfonso I., King of Aragon, topographical descriptions of the country, enumerations of its armies, information of the locations of its magazines and of the relative position and respective strength of its fortresses, its castles, and its arsenals. They promised their services as guides and pioneers. They pledged the support of the Christian tributaries of Granada, who, through the favor they had enjoyed under Hebrew ministers, exceeded in numbers and wealth those of any other province of the empire. To assurances of success, the Mozarabes enlarged upon the attractions which characterized the most fertile and beautiful valley in Andalusia. It was not strange that the cupidity of the Aragonese cavaliers should have been excited by such a picture, or their sovereign tempted by a prospect so flattering to his ambition. An expedition was hastily organized, and at the head of twelve thousand cavalry Alfonso entered the country of the enemy. But the enterprise which promised such magnificent results terminated in inaction, which was even more discreditable than defeat. The Mozarabes, faithful to their engagements, joined the invader in multitudes. They conducted his forces by unfrequented paths through the perilous defiles of the mountains. They furnished their allies with money, provisions, horses, and beasts of burden. Forty thousand volunteers swelled the ranks of the Aragonese army. But for some inexplicable reason this great force accomplished nothing. The King, whose resolution seemed to have failed him before the bold provincials of Granada, retired discomfited from the walls of Valencia, Xucar, Denia. The citizens of Baeza, whose city was unprovided with defences, repulsed with severe loss the formidable chivalry of the North, fighting under the eye of a sovereign accustomed from boyhood to the perils and the stratagems of war. The time lost by the Christians, who seemed incapable of appreciating the advantages of surprise and attack, was diligently improved by their adversaries. Temim, the brother of the Sultan and the governor of Granada, collected reinforcements from every district of the Peninsula held by the Almoravides. The troops which had been sent to Africa were recalled. The fortifications of the capital, which at that time were far from possessing the finished and impregnable character subsequently imparted to them by the military genius and profuse expenditures of the Alhamares, were improved and perfected as far as time and circumstances would permit. The Mozarabes were placed under rigorous espionage. The most obnoxious were imprisoned. Others were expelled from the city. A large force was encamped on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, but the proximity of the Christians, whose outposts could be distinctly seen from the battlements of the citadel, and the presence of thousands of secret and implacable enemies, raised the most gloomy apprehensions in the minds of the Moslems. In hourly expectation of an assault, crowds assembled in the mosques, where the imams offered the supplications prescribed by the Koran for seasons of extremity. Although the numbers of the Christian army reached fifty thousand, the great majority of which was composed of Mozarabe rebels, not ignorant of warfare and nerved to despair by the remembrance of recent persecution and the hopelessness of future immunity, it remained idly in its intrenchments. Familiarity with the enemy gradually removed from the minds of the Moors the fears which had been excited by overwhelming odds. The flying Arab cavalry swept the plain of subsistence and forage. Small parties of Christians were cut off. The rainy season arrived; the streams overflowed; the dry ravines became impassable torrents, and disease and want began to invade the hostile camp. Then Alfonso determined to retreat. One way alone was open, for the mountains which separated him from his kingdom were already white with snow, and the active Moslems, anticipating a favorable turn of affairs, had long since occupied the passes in his rear. Abandoning his allies, who had sacrificed honor, allegiance, and liberty in obedience to his summons, the King of Aragon marched southward. Threading the perilous defiles of the Alpujarras, the Christians emerged at length upon the tropical coast of Velez-Malaga. The cavaliers of the inhospitable North were enchanted with the delightful prospect presented by the plantations of cotton and sugar, the groves of oranges and palms, and the profusion of odoriferous shrubs and flowers whose blossoms filled the air with their fragrance. But the pleasures of this paradise could not be long enjoyed by the invaders. Behind them the entire country was in arms. All the forces available for that purpose had been collected throughout the Moslem dominions to intercept their retreat. It was certain death for a straggler to venture beyond the limits of the camp. Provisions could be obtained with the greatest difficulty, owing to the fears of the Mozarabes and the vigilance of the enemy. To add to the embarrassment of the King, his following had been increased by the undesirable presence of a great number of non-combatants, who consumed the supplies while hampering the movements and diminishing the security of the army. Ten thousand Mozarabes, many of whom were accompanied by their families, preferring the doubtful issue of a military campaign and the hardships of a long and tedious march to the certain severities of Moorish vengeance, impeded the march of the Christians. It was hardly consistent with the dictates of humanity to desert these refugees, connected with his race by the double ties of blood and religion; and Alfonso was forced, much against his will, to tolerate their presence and assure them of his protection. After a few days’ sojourn at Velez-Malaga, the army began its homeward march through the mountains of Guadix. From that moment until the boundary of Aragon was reached, its progress was marked by incessant battle. The country swarmed with Moorish horsemen. The camp was repeatedly stormed. The noonday halt, the passage of a stream, the approach to a mountain defile, was certain to provoke a bloody encounter. Hundreds of exhausted women and children, unable to bear the fatigue of the march, were, with the wounded, daily abandoned to the rage of a vindictive enemy. When Alfonso entered his capital, it would have been difficult to recognize in his emaciated and dejected followers, whose ragged garments and battered armor bore evidence of many a hotly contested skirmish, the splendid array of knights which almost a year before had with exultant confidence set forth, as upon a holiday excursion, to capture the city of Granada. No enterprise in the wars of the Peninsula was inaugurated under more brilliant auspices and was more unproductive of results. The indecision with which its operations were conducted was itself a precursor of disaster. The valor of the Aragonese chivalry was expended in a series of fruitless and inglorious contests with Andalusian mountaineers. The accomplishment of the main object of the expedition was never seriously attempted. No victory contributed its lustre to the waning reputation of the Christians. Not a foot of territory had been added to the realms of the invader. No spoil consoled him for the loss of glory, no prisoners swelled his train. Cities unprotected by fortifications had successfully resisted the assaults of his bravest soldiers. No substantial benefit could be derived from indecisive engagements, protracted sieges, difficult marches through a hostile country, forays unrewarded with either captives or plunder. It was true that the Moorish states of Andalusia had been traversed from end to end; that a portion of their territory had been desolated; that the emblem of Christian faith had been displayed, for the second time since the rout of the Guadalete, on the shores of the Mediterranean. These, however, were but evidences of a barren triumph. The vulnerability of the Moslem empire, since the fall of the khalifate, had been repeatedly demonstrated. Predatory expeditions undertaken without the prestige of royalty had often inflicted far more damage on the enemy than that which had accompanied an invasion by picked troops of the Aragonese kingdom. The only real advantage remained with the Moslems of Granada, who were made acquainted with the disaffection of their Mozarabe subjects, and were enabled to provide against future outbreaks by the permanent suppression and removal of a treacherous population, which had long been a menace to public security. The Mozarabes expiated by poverty and chains, by exile and death, their ill-timed effort to escape the vexations of Moslem rule. Their lands were forcibly occupied by their Arab neighbors. Their effects were seized and sold at auction. Hundreds expired amidst the noxious vapors of subterranean dungeons. Such as had openly joined the Christian army were, with their families, condemned to slavery, and were purchased by Jewish traders to be again disposed of in the markets of Asia. The majority of the others, by order of the Sultan, were banished to Africa, where, in the vicinity of Mequinez and Salé, many of them eventually perished by disease and famine. After the lapse of eleven years a final deportation of these troublesome subjects, who seem to have given renewed cause for offence, was effected; and the kingdom of Granada, which formerly possessed the largest number of tributary Christians in the empire, was now almost entirely deprived of this element of its population. The places of the exiles were supplied by African colonists, whose modern descendants, in their swarthy complexions, their curling locks, and their general mental characteristics, have preserved unmistakable tokens of their Mauritanian ancestry.

In the midst of his foreign and domestic tribulations, the death of Temim, the Viceroy of Spain, brought fresh perplexity and sorrow to the heart of Ali. A worthy successor of that able warrior was found, however, in Tashfin, the promising heir of the Almoravide throne. The youth of that prince proved rather an inducement than an objection to his appointment to a responsible command. He gained several victories over the Christians, ravaged the valley of the Tagus as far as the gates of Toledo, and in a few short campaigns added to the possessions of his father more than thirty fortresses and castles. Aragon, long involved in hostilities with Castile, had recently obtained an important accession of territory and power. Saif-al-Daulat, the son of the last Emir of Saragossa, unable to hold the remaining cities of his principality, harassed by Christian and Moslem alike, surrendered them to Alfonso. The latter, desiring communication with the South,—still closed by Moslem occupation,—pushed his advance along the valley of the Ebro. Mequinenza was taken after a short resistance and its garrison massacred. Then the Christian army invested Fraga. This fortress, situated on a lofty and isolated mountain, was considered one of the most impregnable places in the Peninsula, and, commanding the navigation of the Ebro, was the key of Southern Aragon. The Moors, recognizing its value, had removed all persons unable to bear arms; had provided its magazines with provisions sufficient for a long siege, and had manned its fortifications with a force of several thousand veterans, who, warned by the fate of their brethren at Mequinenza, were nerved to an obstinate defence. The siege was signalized by a series of desperate encounters, in which both parties utilized every resource of military stratagem and personal prowess. At the first appearance of the Christians before the principal bulwark of the now contracted Mussulman frontier, a general alarm had been sounded in all the cities of Spain and Africa. The Emir, relieved for the time from apprehensions of the Almohades, despatched a powerful army for the relief of Fraga. With its ranks largely reinforced by Andalusian levies, the Berber host, whose supplies were transported upon hundreds of camels, advanced rapidly along the Ebro until it came in sight of the besiegers’ camp. Contrary to custom, but with a design whose wisdom soon became fatally apparent, the convoy with the baggage preceded the main body on the march. The soldiers of Alfonso, presuming that the camels were loaded with provisions for the garrison, and deceived by the feeble escort which protected them, rushed forward in tumultuous disorder and attacked the guard. The latter retreated, and the Christians, unwarily drawn into the mountain ravines, were surrounded. Almost helpless in their confined situation, with enemies swarming on every side and the air darkened with clouds of missiles, their army was soon annihilated. The situation, which forbade alike successful defence or orderly retreat; the bewildering sensations produced by the unexpected apparition of myriads of ferocious warriors; the repeated charges which by sheer force of numbers overpowered at once the foremost ranks of the Aragonese; the countless stones and arrows which poured down from crag and hillside, soon decided the bloody and unequal contest. Scarcely an hour elapsed before the Christians succumbed to the superior numbers and equal valor of their foes. One after another the bravest knights of Aragon, together with the flower of the French and English chivalry, whom crusading ambition and the love of adventure had allured to the standard of Alfonso, were killed while protecting their king and their commanders. With them were not a few of the highest dignitaries of the church, who, exchanging the mitre for the helmet and the crosier for the sword, had been accustomed, since the Visigothic domination, to share the fortunes of the most arduous campaigns, and to unite in the field and in the camp the duties of their peaceful profession with the stern and merciless demands of war. These martial prelates nobly sustained upon this occasion the reputation for courage which had for centuries distinguished their order above that of any other country in Europe. The bishops of Rosas, of Jaca, and of Urgel fell side by side, sword in hand. The King, supported by fifty devoted followers, resisted with desperate courage and hopeless firmness the assaults of the Moslems, exasperated by the valor of a handful of determined men. His fate, like that of Roderick the Goth, is unknown. The ecclesiastical legends of the time have celebrated, as the most glorious events of his life, his abandonment of the throne and his retirement to the cloisters of a monastery in expiation of the sins for which his defeat was assumed to be a token of divine displeasure. But the monkish annals of the Middle Ages are notoriously unreliable; the minds of their authors were clouded with ignorance and warped by prejudice; the critical faculty, so indispensable to the correctness of historical narration, was unfamiliar to them; and, to accomplish the degradation of an enemy or the exaltation of a friend, they were capable of the most disreputable inventions and the most extravagant perversions of the truth.

From the character and the life of Alfonso, it is probable that he perished with his attendants, and that his body, stripped and unrecognized, was confounded with the thousands of other corpses which encumbered the field of battle. The King of Aragon, who had won the proud appellation of El Batallador, was not the man to retire in the face of the enemy, even had it been possible. Still less would he have been willing to surrender, that the captivity of the most formidable of Christian champions should contribute to the glory of a Moslem triumph. The temper of the age was pre-eminently favorable to the exercise of imposture; an escape, procured through the miraculous intervention of saints and angels, was perfectly congenial with the superstitious ideas of the masses; and the selection of a religious house as a place of refuge and voluntary penance by an humiliated and contrite monarch could not fail to enhance the importance and extend the influence of the ecclesiastical order, already becoming intolerable for its arrogance and power. But, whatever may have been the ultimate fate of Alfonso, it is certain that his disappearance dates from the battle of Fraga. The most exhaustive historical research has failed to establish his existence subsequent to that melancholy and eventful day. His loss was a great but not an irreparable misfortune to the cause of the Reconquest. Although at the time of his death he was the most conspicuous figure in the Christian armies, others were soon found capable of prosecuting the work he had so gallantly begun, and of carrying to a successful issue the fierce and relentless crusade which only ended under the walls of the Alhambra.

As in former ages the progress of the Moslems was retarded and the stability of their empire endangered and finally undermined by intestine quarrels, so now, on the other hand, the jealousies and contentions of the rival kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were destined to prolong for centuries their struggle for national and religious supremacy. The intrigues of hostile chieftains, the greed and ambition of the clergy, the passions of dissolute and unprincipled women, the unnatural aversion of two nations identical in origin, proud of the same traditions, professing the same theological dogmas; the prejudices of the fanatical masses, absolutely controlled by a despotic and ignorant priesthood, were all-important factors in determining the policy of the as yet unorganized Christian states of the Peninsula. The mutual hostility of the kingdoms subsequently united under Ferdinand and Isabella insured the continuance of Moorish dominion far more effectually than the levying of contributions, the forming of alliances, the enlistment of armies. Bodies of Moslem mercenaries served alternately with the troops of both contending parties, and those who fought side by side to-day might meet as enemies to-morrow. Not infrequently impoverished and unscrupulous vassals of the Christian monarchs were induced to revolt before a projected invasion by the judicious employment of Moorish gold. Thus arrayed against each other, with treachery in their camps and foes in their rear, the Spanish princes were constantly hampered in the execution of their plans of conquest. Other causes contributed to their want of success. The Christian generals could often win, but were seldom disposed to improve a victory. Feudal independence, now first interposed as a disturbing force, was implacably hostile to discipline; the vassal obeyed his suzerain; but the noble whose origin was often as illustrious as that of his king was only too ready to question, or even to defy, the regal authority. The incapacity to appreciate the resultant advantages of military success was also a characteristic of the Moors. A great battle usually ended a campaign. But the enemy was rarely pursued beyond the field; his camp was overrun by a disorganized mob in search of plunder; his baggage was ransacked; his seraglio appropriated; his wounded massacred. The dispersed remnants of his army were afforded abundant time to reorganize and to again become formidable. The ability of the Moslems to profit by the discomfiture of an adversary disappeared with the great soldier Al-Mansur. Generations were to elapse before the Spanish commanders, recognizing untiring energy as an indispensable requisite of permanent success, were enabled to plant their banners on the towers of Cordova and Seville. In no great contest described in history were such fierce battles fought, such bodies of men dispersed, such losses of life sustained, and such paltry results accomplished. On more than one occasion a sovereign, the moral effect of whose capture would have been almost equivalent to a great victory, was suffered to escape from the very hands of the enemy. In a few weeks a force which had been apparently destroyed confronted the victor as defiantly as ever. The defenceless condition of the Moslem states had been thoroughly established. Their territory had been penetrated in every direction by squadrons of Christian cavalry, whose numbers, when compared with the inhabitants of the provinces they despoiled, were insignificant. The invaders dispersed with ease large bodies of the effeminate Andalusian horsemen. They encamped with impunity in the vicinity of populous cities. But these expeditions accomplished but little more than the destruction of a few harvests and the burning of a few villages. The campaigns on both sides were ordinarily distinguished by fraternal discord, military incapacity, and fatal indecision.

The correctness of these observations may be established by recurring to the consequences of the battle of Fraga. The rout of the Christians and the death of their king would certainly seem to have demanded a vigorous prosecution of hostilities by the victors before the popular demoralization resulting from such a catastrophe subsided. But nothing of the kind took place. The few survivors of the defeat which had wrecked the hopes of a nation spread dismay through the realms of the Christians. In Aragon, part of whose territory had recently been ceded by a degenerate prince to his hereditary enemies, and none of which was in sympathy with the usurpation of their detested masters, the people expected, with eager but fallacious hopes, the appearance of the deliverer. The merchants lounged idly in their shops. The peasantry, with sullen patience, submitted to the extortions of the Jewish farmers of the revenue. Saragossa was still, in all but name and government, a Moslem city. The muezzin still announced from her minarets the hour of prayer. The imam still read the Koran from the pulpits of her mosques. Her occupation by the Aragonese had only served to intensify the hatred entertained by her citizens against those who had profited by their betrayal. The noble recalled with mingled sorrow and exultation the military fame and intellectual pursuits of the royal House of Ibn-Hud; the husbandman viewed with unconcealed resentment the encroachments of the Church and the Crown upon his small but valuable inheritance. The valley of the Ebro still possessed many fortresses defended by natural impediments and Moslem valor. All these considerations invited the intervention of the victors, but the Moorish commander, satisfied with the barren laurels acquired at Fraga, neglected an opportunity which might have restored to the Almoravide Sultan one of the most important provinces of his empire. For several years the frontier was wasted by implacable partisan warfare; the Moslems carried into slavery the populations of entire communities; the Christians, harassed by the enemy and encumbered with their prisoners, frequently put these defenceless victims of their hostility to the sword; in the heat of battle quarter was neither asked nor given, and the struggle assumed more than ever the character of a war of extermination. The country devastated by these incessant and destructive inroads never recovered its prosperity. The once beautiful regions of the Ebro and the Pisuerga now present to the eye the sombre and monotonous aspect of a desert, and portions of the valley of the Guadalquivir, which under Moorish rule were clothed with extensive orchards and luxuriant harvests, have lapsed into primeval desolation. The ruthlessness with which these wars were prosecuted bears ample testimony to the savage inhumanity of that age. Considerations of mercy seldom influenced the conduct of the victor. Engagements contracted under circumstances of peculiar solemnity were violated without provocation and without excuse. In the perpetration of these enormities the Christians, encouraged and absolved by their spiritual advisers, far surpassed their antagonists. No attention was paid to the pitiful appeals of enemies stricken in the heat of battle. The heads of rebellious princes were fixed on the battlements of cities; their limbs, embalmed with campher, were exhibited as trophies in the palace of the conqueror. When a place was taken by storm, neither age, nor sex, nor infirmity were regarded by the infuriated assailants. The discovery of hidden gold by the application of torture was a favorite amusement of the Christian soldiery. If the number of captives became inconveniently large, the least valuable were butchered. The licentious passions of the Castilians were exercised without restraint upon the weak and the defenceless. Women were violated before the eyes of their husbands and fathers. The mansions of Christian nobles rivalled in their treasures of Moorish beauty the harems of the most voluptuous Andalusian princes. In the alluring diversions of sensuality, unsanctioned by law and prohibited by religion, the dignitaries of the Church were as ever pre-eminently conspicuous; and their lovely concubines, attired with a magnificence only to be procured by the use of ecclesiastical wealth, appeared at court with their lords, equally careless of unfavorable comment or of public scandal.

In Africa the movements of Abd-al-Mumen, who had been the general of the Almohades and was now their sovereign, began to excite the alarm of Ali. The successor of the Mahdi began his reign with an expedition whose destructive course extended to the city of Morocco. Tashfin, the ablest of the Almoravide captains, was recalled from Spain; but, despite his reputation and the skilful disposition of his forces, the battalions of Ali, dominated by a craven and superstitious fear, instinctively recoiled from the presence of the enemy. All the experience and resolution of the youthful prince, who had redeemed the Moslem cause in the Peninsula, were insufficient to counteract the evil influence emanating from religious fraud, which, by the force of a distempered imagination, could transform a bold and courageous people into a race of poltroons and slaves. His continual reverses preyed upon the mind of Ali, and his moments were distracted by the signs of the imminent and apparently inevitable collapse of his power. The memory of his early grandeur offered a distressing contrast to the misfortunes of his declining years; and, overcome with mortification and sorrow, he passed from life, bequeathing to his son Tashfin a disheartened army, an exhausted treasury, and a royal inheritance of diminished jurisdiction and doubtful value.

The ill-fortune of Tashfin followed him upon the throne. Defeated by Abd-al-Mumen, he collected all his resources for a supreme and final effort. Such of the Desert tribes as had held aloof from the Mahdi were enlisted. Every available soldier in Africa was called to arms. The garrisons of Andalusia were almost denuded of troops. With the Moorish squadrons of Spain came also a body of four thousand Mozarabes, who, accustomed to long service under Moslem standards, had almost forgotten their ancestry, their traditions, and their faith. These auxiliaries, amenable to discipline and experienced in border warfare, were far more formidable than their scanty numbers would denote.

On the plains of Tlemcen the two armies whose valor was to decide the fate of an empire faced each other. The Almoravides far outnumbered their foes, but the mystic spell of superstition more than compensated for numerical superiority; the soldiers of Tashfin were terrified by imaginary apparitions and supernatural voices, and after a brief but sanguinary contest Abd-al-Mumen remained master of the field. Tashfin was soon afterwards killed in the vicinity of Oran by a fall from a precipice, and with his death vanished the last hope of the Almoravide monarchy.

During the year 1145 a famous landmark of the Mediterranean, of unknown antiquity, but most probably of Phœnician origin, was destroyed. Near the city of Cadiz, and built in the waters of the bay, had long stood a structure composed of a series of columns, rising above each other to the height of one hundred and eighty feet and surmounted by a colossal statue of bronze. The latter represented a man with his right arm extended towards the Strait of Gibraltar and grasping in his hand a key. The entire statue was heavily plated with gold, and was a conspicuous object for a distance of many leagues. Its origin was not less mysterious than the reason for its preservation for nearly four centuries and a half after the Moslem conquest. The well-known iconoclastic propensities of the followers of Mohammed were indulged with every opportunity and against every symbol of idolatrous worship. There was probably no souvenir of Pagan antiquity in Africa or Spain so prominent and so well known as the effigy which, for a period unrecorded even by tradition, indicated to the mariner the gateway of the Mediterranean. The Romans and the Goths, confounding it with the two historic promontories of Europe and Africa, called the imposing structure that supported it the Pillars of Hercules. But it certainly had no connection with that divinity. His temple stood some miles away upon an island, and it was the distinctive peculiarity of his worship among the Phœnicians that he was never represented under a physical form. To the Arabs the statue was known as “The Idol of Cadiz.” A singular fatality had preserved it from the zeal and fury of early sectaries of Islam. It had, no doubt, often awakened the pious horror of devout pilgrims on their way to the shrine of the western Mecca. It had stimulated the curiosity of the antiquary during the scientific period of the khalifate. It had pointed the way to many an invading squadron. It had witnessed the success or the failure of many revolutions. The truculent Norman pirates had viewed its gigantic dimensions with superstitious terror. In the sagas of Scandinavia is preserved the tradition that St. Olaf and his freebooters were, during the eleventh century, deterred from further prosecution of their ravages on the coast of the Peninsula by a vision which its presence inspired. Its immunity from the effects of fanaticism is not less remarkable than its long exemption from the violence of rapacious marauders. A great treasure was said to be concealed beneath the foundations of the tower. It was also the general belief—not confined to the Peninsula, but prevalent throughout Europe—that this famous statue was of solid gold. Its brilliancy, which had remained untarnished by exposure for so many centuries, tended to confirm, if not to absolutely establish, this opinion.

At last, in the twelfth century, the Admiral Ibn-Mamun, having revolted against the Almoravides, caused the statue to be overthrown and broken to pieces. The material was then discovered to be bronze, but the gold with which it was covered brought twelve thousand dinars, a sum now equal to a hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars.

Relieved of all apprehensions from his most dangerous adversary, Abd-al-Mumen attacked and captured in succession the great cities of Africa. Fez offered a desperate resistance, but was taken by damming the river by which it was traversed, until the pent-up waters, bursting their bounds, swept away a large portion of the walls. Mequinez, Aghmat, Salé capitulated. Then the siege of Morocco was begun. To convince the inhabitants of his inflexible purpose, the Almohade general caused a permanent encampment, which resembled, in the regular and substantial character of its edifices, a handsome and well-built city, to be constructed before its walls. The enterprise was prosecuted with unusual pertinacity and vigor. In a sally a large detachment of the Almoravides was decoyed into an ambuscade and cut to pieces, and, with numbers sensibly reduced by this catastrophe, the garrison confined itself for the future to repelling the scaling parties of the enemy. The complete investment of the city was soon followed by famine. The dead lay everywhere in ghastly heaps. The living drew lots to decide who should be sacrificed to provide a horrible repast for his perishing companions. Such was the awful mortality that two hundred thousand persons died of starvation and disease. Aware of the inevitable consequences of surrendering to barbarians without faith or mercy, the garrison contended bravely against hope and fortune. Finally, some Mozarabe soldiers entered into communication with Abd-al-Mumen, and it was agreed that a gate should be opened during the disorder attending a general attack. At daybreak the Almohades, eager for revenge and booty, swarmed into the city. The scimetar and the lance completed the work which famine had not had time to finish. Seventy thousand defenceless persons were massacred. Even this frightful sacrifice did not satiate the besiegers’ desire for blood. For three days such scenes were enacted as could only be tolerated among men insensible to motives of humanity and ignorant of the laws of war. Abd-al-Mumen decapitated with his own hand Abu-Ishak, the son and successor of Tashfin. The command then went forth that not one of the hated sect should be spared. Great numbers of women and children were slaughtered by the savage conquerors and the survivors sold into slavery. Every mosque was levelled with the ground as the only way to purify the houses of God from the abominations of the heretical Almoravides. Preparations were immediately made to erect upon their sites others more extensive and magnificent, and Abd-al-Mumen, who all the while had remained outside the gates, marched away to other scenes of conquest.

A century had elapsed since Abdallah-Ibn-Jahsim had announced to the tribesmen of Lamtounah his mission as the apostle of political integrity and religious reformation. Based upon his teachings, and supported by his military genius and the prowess of his followers, a mighty empire had arisen. With incredible rapidity it had combined in apparently indissoluble union contending nationalities, hostile dogmas, antagonistic temporal interests. It had subjugated a great part of the continent of Africa. It had reconciled the discordant social and political elements which for generations had disturbed the peace and diminished the power of the Moslem states of Spain. It had checked the progress of Christian conquest. By its sweeping victories it had revived the memory of the splendid achievements of the Western Khalifate. The largest armies that had ever trodden the soil of the Peninsula had marched under its banners. Its chiefs were, without exception, men of signal ability. Some, it is true, were destitute of experience in the art of government, but endowed with rare executive talents; others were warriors of established renown; all had exhibited in the exalted post to which they had been called by fortune the qualities of great generals, diplomatists, legislators. The genius of the last of that princely race, had his designs not been frustrated by the Almohade revolution, promised the eventual restoration of Moorish rule over much, if not all, of the territory included in the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. The rise and progress of no dynasty to boundless power had been so rapid; the decline of none had been more decided or its extinction more destructive and fatal. Mohammedan Spain, still the most civilized and polished of countries, whose court had once dictated the policy of Western Europe; whose alliance had been assiduously courted by Christian kings and emperors; whose armies marched each year to victory; whose fleets monopolized the trade of the seas; whose capital was the literary centre of the world, had been degraded to a dependency of the most ignorant, the most superstitious, the most brutal of nations. The hazardous experiment of establishing a peaceable union between such incongruous and inimical populations must have resulted in failure. Still less could such an undertaking have succeeded when attempted by force. The ethnical elements of Spain and Africa could never have coalesced into a single people. Their enmity was irreconcilable. Their tastes were dissimilar. The Hispano-Arab was a scholar, a philosopher, a gentleman. In spite of the evils which afflicted his country, his colleges and academies were still largely attended by the ambitious youth of distant, often of hostile, nations. He still had access to the fragmentary remains of the great libraries of the khalifs. The architectural monuments of his ancestors still graced, in all their splendor and beauty, the esplanades and thoroughfares of his capitals. Pilgrims still admired with astonishment and rapture the most magnificent temple of Islam. The sacred volume ascribed to the martyred Othman, enshrined in its embossed and jewel-studded casket, still received, amidst the lavish sculpture and sparkling enamels of the Mihrab, the reverential homage of the Faithful. The diminished but not unimportant commerce of his seaports; the manufacturing establishments, whose products were largely exported to foreign countries; the contracted but marvellously fertile area of his agricultural territory, daily reminded the Spanish Moslem of the wisdom and the enterprise developed by the subjects of that glorious empire whose institutions, whose traditions, whose refined tastes, whose intellectual pre-eminence he had inherited.

Far different was it with the conqueror who had appropriated and abused the inestimable remains of all this greatness. From first to last his movements seemed to have been inspired by the genius of disorganization and ruin. The noble attributes of piety and magnanimity were absolutely foreign to his nature. He spared no foe. He forgave no injury. The essential doctrines of the religion he nominally professed were in reality unknown to him. He was wholly ignorant of letters. In the gratification of his savage passions the shedding of blood took precedence of the grovelling instinct of avarice or the more gentle allurements of licentious pleasures. His stolid nature could not appreciate the charms of art, the benefits of science, the delights and the consolations of literature, the advantages of philosophy. All that did not contribute to sensual enjoyment he turned from with disdain. Descended from a race of brigands, who had from time immemorial exercised on the caravans of the Desert the stratagems and the violence of their nefarious calling, he considered the menial and sedentary occupations of agricultural and manufacturing industry as only fit for the hireling and the slave. Ever accustomed to individual freedom, he obeyed only the orders of his sheik, who owed his promotion to the suffrage of the tribe, and who was often elected or deposed with equal haste and facility. The monarch was frequently as unlettered as his meanest subject. Yusuf could neither read nor write, and understood but imperfectly the copious and polished idiom spoken in many provinces of his dominions. Ali was less intelligent than many a youth in the primary schools of Cordova. This wide-spread and deplorable contempt for learning virtually placed the power of the state in the hands of a class least qualified to wield it; and the intrigues and exactions of the Mohammedan clergy, supplemented with African barbarism and rapacity, contributed more than domestic convulsions or Christian valor to finally subvert the unstable but still majestic fabric of the Saracen power.

The Moslem factions of the Peninsula joined in precarious union under the sceptre of the Almoravides beheld with dismal forebodings the successive and crushing misfortunes which preceded the extinction of that dynasty. Neither religious accord nor political necessity would have reconciled them to the domination of a race between whose members and themselves there existed an irreconcilable antipathy. But on many points of theological controversy the liberal views of the most learned Moorish doctors shocked the strict disciplinarians of Islam. These accomplished polemical scholars had imbibed in the Universities of Seville and Cordova ideas highly offensive to the severely orthodox; they had indulged their wit at the expense of hypocrisy and ignorance in the intellectual atmosphere of the court, and the vengeance of those who were recently the objects of their satire had now descended with redoubled force upon the thoughtless aggressors. All books except the Koran and the Sunnah fell under the royal displeasure. The study of philosophy, although prohibited in the schools, was, as is usual under such circumstances, diligently pursued in secret. The intellectual habits of centuries were not to be abolished by an imperial edict, and the reprobation of a band of hypocrites and zealots who preached self-denial and abstemiousness, and were notoriously guilty of the grossest offences against morality, was unable to entirely suppress the accumulation and the diffusion of knowledge. No country in Europe, however, was more exclusively and disastrously controlled by ecclesiastical influence than was Moorish Spain under the rule of the Almoravides.

Aside from theological considerations, as has been previously stated, universal dissatisfaction with the dominant race existed. The Africans were regarded as foreigners, invaders, oppressors. They had, even in their moments of leisure, contributed nothing to the material wealth of the country. They were unacquainted with the simplest principles of engineering or the adaptation of the mechanical arts to the ordinary concerns of life. No structure worthy of notice had risen under their auspices. Their native ferocity remained unmitigated in the midst of the humanizing influences of civilization. They discouraged manual labor and despised the occupations by which that labor was employed and maintained. Thus harassed by theological intolerance and barbarian tyranny, every sect and party in the Peninsula, except the one in power, received with secret exultation intelligence of the serious disasters to the Almoravide cause. Public feeling was already aroused to a point which almost defied restraint, when news arrived of the defeat and death of Tashfin, whose well-known abilities and courage had heretofore alone prevented a revolt. It was then that the long suppressed and furious passions of an outraged people found expression. In every Moslem community the mob rose against their African tyrants. Ibn-Gamia, the lieutenant of Tashfin, fled to the Balearic Isles. Complete anarchy prevailed. Governors of provinces and commanders of fortresses aspired to independence. Each city became the capital of a miniature kingdom, each castle the seat of a principality. Forgetting the imminent peril in which they stood, environed as they were by powerful enemies, these petty sovereigns immediately turned against each other. Civil war of the most sanguinary and vindictive character was inaugurated. Cordova deposed her governor, installed another, and, after eight days, recalled the first to power. At Granada the Almoravide garrison was besieged for months in the citadel. In some provinces the inconstant temper of the multitude, which selected and murdered their rulers with equal alacrity, made the promotion to supreme authority, usually so coveted by ambitious men, a distinction of the most doubtful and invidious character. The Kadi of Cordova, whose office retained to a considerable extent the dignity and importance with which it was invested under the khalifs as the first judicial employment in the empire, was assassinated while at prayer in the mosque. The appearance of an African in the streets of any Andalusian city immediately provoked a riot. The obligations of hospitality were forgotten in the gratification of vengeance. Obnoxious ministers were poisoned amidst the festivities of the banquet. Military officers whose loyalty interposed obstacles to the ambition of obscure and unprincipled adventurers were murdered while asleep. The dangerous aid of the Christian princes, only too willing to contribute to the mutual embarrassment and enmity of their Mussulman neighbors, was invoked. Ibn-Gamia had succeeded in organizing a considerable party of adherents, and had obtained from Alfonso VII., King of Castile, a body of troops on condition of the acknowledgment of the latter as suzerain. Baeza was the first place to submit to Ibn-Gamia, and its surrender was immediately followed by the siege of Cordova. In this singular warfare, Moslems and Christians, although their efforts were directed against a common enemy, fought and encamped apart, serving independently under their respective commanders. The Castilians, conscious of their power, treated their allies with undisguised contempt, and haughtily ascribed to Christian valor alone the achievement of every successful enterprise. The venerable capital, incapable of prolonged resistance, soon opened its gates to the besiegers. The entry of the Christians was rendered memorable by the commission of a sacrilege in comparison with which the profanations of former conquerors were trivial. The Great Mosque of Abd-al-Rahman, one of the holy places of Islam, which since its foundation had never been profaned by the presence of an infidel, was invaded by the rude Castilian soldiery. They rode through its court, fragrant with the odors of innumerable orange blossoms. They tethered their war-horses in its arcades. They bathed in the basins whose waters had hitherto been sacred to the ablutions of the Moslem ceremonial. Inside the edifice raised by the tribute of Christian cities and the spoils of a hundred victorious campaigns, they sauntered through the colonnades and gazed with wonder upon the Mihrab blazing with all the gorgeous magnificence of the East. The religious sentiments and prejudices of their allies received no consideration at the hands of these scoffing mercenaries. Despite the remonstrances of the Moslems, they desecrated the precincts of the sanctuary. Some mounted the pulpit and derided with indecent mockery the postures and genuflexions of the Mussulman worship. Their eyes glared with unrestrained cupidity upon the casket of sandal-wood and ebony enriched with gems which contained the Koran of Othman. With flippant and sneering comments they examined that volume, venerated by the Moslems of every age and nation with all the superstitious reverence of idolatry. They removed it from its receptacle, turned over its leaves, and gazed with incredulity and contempt on the mysterious stains which tradition and faith attributed to the blood of the murdered Khalif. In their intercourse with the citizens their overbearing demeanor and insatiable rapacity caused the encroachments of Moslem tyranny to be almost forgotten. Their leaders, assuming all the credit of a conquest in which they had figured in a subordinate capacity, demanded that Cordova be added to the realms of Castile. This proposition, repugnant to every sense of justice, was promptly rejected by the Moslems. A serious altercation followed; the rival captains mutually refused to yield, and a collision seemed imminent, when through the adoption of prudent counsels matters were adjusted by the cession of Baeza, which was immediately occupied by a detachment of Christian troops.

The subjection of Africa by the Almohades had scarcely been effected when Abd-al-Mumen began to take measures for the establishment of his power in the Peninsula. An army of thirty thousand soldiers, commanded by Abu-Amrah-Musa, landed at Algeziras. The march of this formidable army resembled a triumphal progress rather than the cautious movements of a hostile force. The people, with characteristic inconstancy, welcomed the savage invaders as the deliverers of their country. Algeziras, with its ample port and well-provided magazines and arsenals; Tarifa, with its impregnable defences; Xeres, with its wealth of orange groves and vineyards, opened their gates to the enemy. Then Abu-Amrah, flushed with success, pushed on to Seville. On the march his ranks were swelled by numerous accessions from the peasantry, actuated by the prospect of plunder and the hope of retribution. To these undisciplined but serviceable recruits was added a considerable and well-equipped reinforcement from the province of Badajoz. Seville had remained nominally loyal to the Almoravides; but her population was divided by faction, and thousands of citizens cherished in secret implacable resentment against their cruel and avaricious masters. Warning was conveyed to the garrison of the treasonable intentions of the populace, which had promised to deliver the city to the Africans, and it escaped to Carmona before the appearance of the enemy. Seville was no sooner occupied than Malaga, always susceptible to African influence, and whose inhabitants had probably long been cognizant of the projected invasion, voluntarily submitted to the Almohades and added another to their list of bloodless but decisive triumphs.

The memory of the exploits of the Almoravide generals, and the appearance of a new and victorious enemy in the South, had reconciled the quarrels of the Christian states far more effectually than all the concessions of diplomacy or the exhortations and anathemas of the Church. Envoys from the Italian republics of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa had recently visited the Castilian court and represented to the King the important service he could confer upon Christendom by the suppression of the pirates who, from their stronghold at Almeria, threatened the destruction of commerce on the Mediterranean. The depredations of these adventurous rovers carried terror into every part of Southern Europe. Their vessels swept the coast from Bayonne to Constantinople, defied the combined navies of Italy and the Empire of the East, and had already materially reduced the wealth and disturbed the trade of many populous and important cities. It seems extraordinary that under such circumstances application for relief should have been made to the remote kingdom of Castile. It was separated from Almeria by the entire length of the Spanish Peninsula. Vast tracts of barren lands, provinces swarming with a hostile and warlike population, were interposed between its plains and the tropical coast of Andalusia. A formidable enemy had just established himself in the most fertile districts of the South. The port of Malaga, in close proximity to the destination of the expedition, was in his power. It is true that the republics of Italy, united by a common faith and sympathizers in a common cause, had long been allies of the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain. But something more than hatred of the Moslem and devotion to the interests of the Church must have impelled Alfonso VII. to undertake an enterprise of certain difficulty and of doubtful success. A foe that had vanquished a dynasty whose armies had repeatedly desolated his kingdom and insulted his capital already menaced his borders. It is highly probable that the Pope, influenced by temporal far more than by spiritual considerations, may have proposed or even dictated the terms of this alliance. It was no unusual thing for the Holy Father, whose vow of poverty, like many other moral obligations, gave him little concern, to share in the profits of commerce. The private revenues of His Holiness, often inadequate to the prodigal expenditures required for the pomp and luxury of the Vatican, could easily be increased by mercantile speculations, and the Moorish corsair in his indiscriminate depredations would certainly not respect the property of the highest dignitary of a hostile faith. The character of Eugenius III. gives color to this hypothesis. His court, under the threadbare cloak of asceticism, was shockingly corrupt. The institution of begging friars, the imposition of frequent penances, the observation of fasts, the performance of pilgrimage, could not conceal from the eyes of the least discerning the universal and notorious profligacy which infected every profession and every class of society in Rome. The avarice of the Pope himself was proverbial. Blessings, indulgences, and absolutions, whose prices were regulated by an established tariff, were sold by the clergy, and wealthy or repentant sinners in multitudes availed themselves of the facilities for wickedness or of the immunity from ecclesiastical censure afforded by traffic in this spiritual merchandise. The mercenary and grasping disposition of Eugenius was also subsequently confirmed by his sale of Portugal to Alfonso Henriquez, in flagrant contravention of the rights of the King of Castile. These circumstances serve to explain the unprofitable siege of a distant seaport by a power having no immediate interest in its subjugation, when a vigorous campaign by the united Christians would in all probability have prevented the renewed calamities of African invasion and have materially accelerated the progress of the Reconquest.