Among the most remarkable institutions of the Arabs of Spain was the Ribat, or station on the frontier of the enemy, which formed the model of the orders of military monks of the Middle Ages. These establishments were strongly fortified castles, garrisoned by devout soldiers, who expected the recompense promised by the Koran for constant service against the infidel. The leisure time of their occupants was spent in religious exercises. Many pious volunteers sought glory and holiness in the dangerous life which the exposed position of these outposts afforded. The latter guarded the passes of every hostile country; they were found on the borders of Italy, Languedoc, Castile, Aragon, Portugal. Their rules of discipline, their vows, and their penances presented a striking analogy to those of the orders of Santiago, Alcantara, and Calatrava, whose organization they evidently suggested. Their foundation preceded those of the Hospital and the Temple by more than two hundred and fifty years.

The coinage of the Ommeyades of Spain was the purest, the most artistic in design, the most elegant in execution, which had to that time been known in Europe. It was composed of the dinar, of gold, equal to two dollars; the dirhem, of silver, equal to twelve cents; and various small pieces of copper of fluctuating value.

The balance, whose value to the merchant would not be fully apparent unless he were deprived of it, is also an invention of the Arabs. The Moorish unit of linear measure was represented by a horsehair. Six of these placed together were equal to a grain of barley; six grains of barley made a finger-breadth; four fingers a palm; six palms a cubit. Of modern weights in ordinary use, the grain, represented by a barley-corn, and the carat, adapted from the seed of the pea, have descended without alteration from the Arabs to our goldsmiths and jewellers.

The political, religious, and domestic institutions of the Arabs, which account in a measure for the amazing rapidity of their progress in Europe as elsewhere, were also largely responsible for the downfall of their power. Their government, derived from the patriarchal organization of the Desert and confirmed by the revered precepts of Islam, placed absolutely unlimited authority in the hands of the sovereign. The khalif, as the word implies, was the Successor of the Prophet. Fortune was long eminently propitious to the Ommeyade dynasty in providing it with a line of kings even more distinguished in the arts of peace than in the arduous and uncertain achievements of conquest. But these talents for administration and war, it is obvious, could not be indefinitely transmitted. With the first appearance of royal incapacity, the sceptre passed into the hands of ambitious statesmen, ready to sacrifice the claims of religion and hereditary descent to considerations of private emolument and distinction. The epoch included in the reign of Hischem II. is the most glorious in Moslem annals. But that renown was achieved not by the Khalif in person, nor even under his direction, but by Al-Mansur, his Prime Minister, who, although of obscure birth, guided, as did the Frankish Mayors of the Palace, by his transcendent and unaided genius the destinies of the empire. The example of his success and the attempt to bequeath to his son the power which he alone was able to wield were fatal to the Moslem domination, and contributed with other causes of equal gravity to its ultimate overthrow.

In the civil and military organization of the government the patriarchal traditions of the Bedouin were preserved, under circumstances little suggestive of his origin and highly incongruous and inexpedient, amidst the results of an advanced civilization. The authority and office of the sheik were reproduced under other names, which, even to the ignorant foreigner, did not serve to disguise their identity. Founded equally upon the legislation of the Koran, the administrations of the Sultans of Bagdad and the Khalifs of Cordova differed only in the most trifling details. Under both, the prince was daily accessible to the complaints, and redressed in person the grievances of his subjects. Under both, the kadi, whose office was invested with a certain degree of sanctity as well as of secular power, dispensed justice at the portals of the mosque. His position was rather sacerdotal than judicial. He was one of the interpreters of the Koran, the original source of all Moslem jurisprudence. In his appointment the greatest care was exercised. Only individuals conspicuous for learning, experience, and integrity were considered eligible to such a responsible employment. Even the Khalif obeyed his summons. The Chief Kadi, who had supervision over all the others, was the most powerful dignitary of the empire.

The Arabs left no extensive code of laws like that of the Visigoths, wherein the rights of persons and the penalties of crimes are systematically enumerated and defined. As their government was presumed to be theocratic, its principles were necessarily unalterable. Of legislation, in the modern understanding of the term, they knew nothing. The decrees of the khalifs, based upon the construction of the Koran and the traditionary opinions of the Prophet embodied in the Sunnah, formed the entire body of legal principles and precedents available for the instruction and guidance of magistrates.

Among the other officials of the administration were the Hajib, or Prime Minister; the Viziers, who composed the Divan or Council; and the Katibs, or Secretaries. All of them were mere advisers of the sovereign, and their authority was, except under extraordinary circumstances, only nominal.

The most important subordinate office was that of the Mohtesib, or Supervisor of Markets, who held court at the gate of the mosque. His emissaries paid frequent visits to all provision merchants and druggists, prevented the use of false weights and measures, the sale of damaged food and adulterated medicines, the overcharging and cheating of purchasers. Their duties also extended to the protection of beasts of burden from the inhumanity of their drivers, and of children from cruel punishment by parents and school-masters. They dispersed street crowds. They prescribed sanitary regulations. The authority of the Mohtesib was enforced by fines and scourging, and, like most Arab judicial functionaries, from his decision there was no appeal.

In the demeanor of the Spanish khalifs there was little of that haughty reserve which we are accustomed to associate with the exercise of the imperial dignity. For generations no atmosphere of exclusion surrounded the monarch. As a rule, he was easy of access to the meanest of his subjects. With the patriarchal condescension of his forefathers, he frequently sat in judgment at the gate of his palace. He delighted in assuming disguises and in visiting by night the most humble precincts of his capital. He superintended in person the construction of great public works; in the erection of religious edifices, it was not unusual for him to labor, for a certain time each day, with his own hands. His charity, a duty enjoined by the faith of which he was the national representative, was boundless, and was greatly abused. In the execution of the laws, his sentence was often cruel even to ferocity; but an apt quotation or a well-turned couplet often turned aside the axe of the executioner. A fortunate event—the birth of an heir, a recovery from illness, the tidings of an important victory—afforded an occasion for a noble exhibition of gratitude and mercy, the pardon of criminals, the liberation of Christian captives, the lavish distribution of alms. The high and generous qualities which distinguished the princes of the Ommeyade line—qualities confirmed and developed by a learned education—-prevented the exercise of those acts of tyranny which often spring from the possession of unlimited and irresponsible power. But with all their greatness, their clemency, their generosity, the khalifs were universally hated. The obsequious submission exacted by their office was highly repugnant to the native independence of the Arab, whose cherished traditions required obedience only to the chieftain of his tribe. The doctors of the law, who regarded all learning inconsistent with the Koran as heretical or suspicious, had no admiration for a sovereign who collected great libraries, translated the infidel works of antiquity, and patronized studies whose results savored of magic and sorcery. Among the aristocracy the spirit of insubordination, always strong, was intensified by the vigilance and severity with which it was suppressed, by the memory of past renown, and by the hope of future revolution that might open an avenue to the throne. The incongruous elements composing the masses, held together solely by fear, incapable of fusion, detesting each other with unquenchable hatred, yet joining in the universal execration of their rulers, were ready for any emergency which might afford an opportunity for bloodshed and rapine. It was the intolerant faquis who were responsible for the deluge of African barbarians that overwhelmed the empire. It was the populace which renounced its allegiance to the government in the hour of national peril. The ambition of rival nobles established the score of petty kingdoms whose dissensions and weakness made possible the success of the common enemy.

Nor were the characters of the khalifs always such as inspire respect. Considerations of political expediency, if not of unquestioning religious belief, enforced their strict observance of the ceremonies of public worship. But with this concession to popular prejudice, the apparent devotional obligations of the Successors of the Prophet not infrequently terminated. Some, indeed, were men of eminent piety and zeal. Others, however, were considered of suspicious orthodoxy. The preferment of Jews and infidels to posts of high responsibility was looked upon as inconsistent with the professions of a devout Mussulman. The pursuit of philosophy, the mysterious studies of the laboratory, the toleration of pantheistic doctrines, were regarded with equal distrust and disfavor. It was known that thousands of works in the libraries of the empire treated of prohibited subjects. It was more than suspected that certain Commanders of the Faithful were addicted to the habitual use of wine, and sometimes surpassed the limits of moderation in its indulgence. There were other Koranic admonitions of even graver importance flagrantly defied. It is evident, from the unmistakable allusions of Arab historians, that many of the wisest and most distinguished princes of Mohammedan Spain were given to the practice of unspeakable vices of Oriental origin, and that these crimes against decency were of such frequent occurrence as scarcely to elicit a passing notice. The greatest tyrants among them were slaves to the foolish vagaries of women. A single instance will suffice to show this fond subserviency to feminine caprice. Romequia, wife of Motamid, Prince of Seville, who was famed for his learning and wisdom, having one day from her windows seen some children wading in the mud, expressed a desire to divert herself in the same manner. Thereupon Motamid caused the floor of the principal court of the palace to be thickly covered with a paste of musk, camphor, ambergris, and spices, mixed with rose-water; and the favorite with her attendants disported themselves for a few hours in this precious mud, at an expense of tens of thousands of pieces of gold.

Guarded in his public utterances, sentiments expressed by the khalif in the privacy of the palace, and which conveyed no exalted idea of his sincerity as the venerated head of a great religious system, often reached the outside world. Music, reprobated by the Koran as an incentive to idleness and vice, was one of the most popular amusements of the imperial court. The licentious dances of the East, which had rendered Spain infamous from the days of the Phœnicians, were daily performed in the presence of aristocratic assemblies. The palace swarmed with catamites and buffoons. Astrology and divination, especially condemned by Mohammed as reminiscences of Paganism and offensive to God, were practised everywhere, almost without concealment. While these violations of Moslem law by its representative horrified the devout, it afforded a pernicious example to the people, ever ready to profit by the foibles of their superiors. Under the later khalifs, Moorish society in the Peninsula became frightfully corrupt. The secret contempt for religion was only accentuated by the apparent regard manifested for its outward observances. Infidelity was rife among all classes. The people, from the noble to the beggar, indulged in brutalizing sensuality. In their excesses they once more demonstrated the truth of the principle that the highest civilization as well as the most degraded ignorance are equally unfavorable to the development of principles of morality; that the hardships endured by races the least removed from the brute creation and the profligacy engendered by the splendors of the most polished societies are alike destructive of the noblest instincts of mankind; or, in the language of the great Dutch historian, “that a singular analogy exists between the vices of decadence and the vices of barbarism.” The heartless, cynical, and debauched atmosphere which enveloped the court of Hischem II., and whose evil effects upon the nation the great abilities of Al-Mansur were not sufficient to redeem, offered no suggestion of the pious spirit under whose influence the khalifate was founded. The enormous wealth of the country permitted a display of license and luxury of which the annals of degenerate Rome alone can furnish a parallel. The markets were crowded with female slaves collected from such distant regions as Finland, Ethiopia, Hindustan, and the Caucasus. Of these the harem of the Khalif absorbed a large proportion; that of Al-Nassir contained nearly seven thousand. In an age when intellectual accomplishments were valued almost as highly as the charms of person and manner, it was no unusual circumstance for an educated slave to bring four thousand pieces of gold. The dress of even the ordinary female servitors of the harem exceeded in richness the attire of wealthy ladies of to-day; that of the favorites of the prince displayed the prodigal magnificence of the most opulent and powerful of empires.

In the celebration of public festivals the pomp of the nobles and merchants—the gorgeous appointments of their households, their imposing array of slaves and eunuchs, the beauties of their seraglio, the glittering damascened armor, the silks embroidered with gold, the sheen of priceless gems—awakened the astonishment of the stranger and provoked the sullen and impotent anger of the populace. In the homes of the wealthy, the rarest perfumes—essences of rose, jasmine, and orange, the incense of musk and ambergris—diffused through the palatial apartments the odors so grateful to the senses of the voluptuous Arab. The bath, at once a religious necessity, a hygienic institution, and an instrument of luxurious pleasure, vied in the splendor of its equipment and furniture with the most sumptuous establishments of imperial Rome. The public baths were used—as they still are in all Moslem countries—not alone for the purposes of rest and ablution, but for gossip, entertainment, and intrigue. It was usual for women to pass many hours within their precincts attended by their slaves, to be regaled with delicate confections, and to be soothed by the music of itinerant musicians. The pernicious effects of the presence of evil genii, who, according to an ancient superstition, were believed to haunt these localities, were averted by the repetition of pious texts and by the wearing of amulets. Mohammedan prejudice, not without cause, regarded the public bath with suspicion as a convenient means of moral corruption; and those whose circumstances permitted it, surrounded this institution of personal enjoyment and religious necessity with the privacy of domestic life. In the abodes of the rich it was invested with all the splendor which the command of unlimited means could provide. The tessellated floor was composed of the rarest marbles. The walls were encrusted with mosaic. Through curiously wrought windows of colored glass the tempered light broke into a thousand variegated hues. The pipes were of massy silver, the vessels not infrequently of gold. In the outer apartments the floors were covered with silken carpets, and tapers, from which emanated the most exquisite and costly perfumes, burned slowly in glittering lustres of rock-crystal and alabaster. The luxury of the Moslem culminated in the bath. The latter, borrowed from the Romans, was invested with a magnificence unknown even to the sumptuous thermæ of the Cæsars. The ancients, with all their civilization, were unacquainted with soap, which is an invention of the Arabs. An indispensable appendage to the worship of Islam, the first building erected in a city occupied by the Mussulman arms, was one designed for purposes of public ablution. In some respects it even took precedence of the mosque, for a Christian church could be purified and consecrated to religious service, but no corresponding substitution of the bath was possible among infidels, who regarded evidences of filthy habits as an infallible criterion of orthodoxy; and without complete lustration on Fridays no Mohammedan was fit to enter the temple of God. So important was this duty considered, that it was not unusual for persons in the humblest walks of life to sacrifice even their physical wants for the sake of cleanliness and to spend their last dirhem for soap, preferring rather to endure the pangs of hunger than to incur the reproach incident to personal neglect.

With the frequent use of the bath was also introduced the practice of wearing underclothing, which, often changed, is so conducive to physical purity. The domestication of the cotton plant in the Peninsula, which cheapened the soft and delicate fabrics woven from its fibre, promoted the adoption of this custom even among Christians; and the name of the now indispensable undergarment worn next the skin by both sexes in every civilized country has passed almost unaltered into the principal languages of Europe. In most of its details the dress of the Spanish Arabs was borrowed from the Orient. Their flowing robes were generally white, the peculiar color of the reigning family, as well as that best adapted to the temperature of a southern climate. The turban was considered the appropriate badge of the learned professions, whose members would have regarded its assumption by persons of another calling as an unpardonable breach of privilege. Individuals of the middle class wore caps of green or red; in later times the Jews, as a distinguishing mark of their race, were restricted to yellow. The common people went bareheaded or bound a silken scarf about their temples, as is still to be seen in many parts of Andalusia. All who could afford it displayed a profusion of rings, many of them talismans; there were few, however poor, without a signet of some description.

The maxims of philosophy, the enjoyment of unequalled educational privileges, the enlargement of the mental faculties obtained by travel, were alike unable to divest the Spanish Arabs of puerile superstitions. The tenacity with which human nature clings to these legacies of ignorance was well understood by Mohammed, who incorporated many of them into his religion. The ordinary Moor of the epoch of Al-Hakem II. was as sincere a believer in the importance of dreams, in the significance of omens, in the occult virtues of amulets, as the Bedouin who roamed over the Desert five hundred years before the Hegira. Even the most wise and philosophical of the khalifs entertained diviners and astrologers. It will require but an instant’s reflection to recall to the mind of the reader events in his own experience which demonstrate the ineradicable character of similar superstitions, a weakness incident to humanity from which no race, age, or civilization seems to be entirely free. There were many kinds of magic and enchantment for the counteraction of whose effects various ceremonies were prescribed. The most dreaded of these was the evil-eye, a belief in whose influence, for centuries prevalent among Orientals, was recognized by Mohammed himself. Of sovereign efficacy in averting its consequences were the ejaculation of well-known texts and the possession of certain talismans. The hand, which represented symbolically the five cardinal principles of Islam, was one of the most popular forms of the latter. Long before the invasion of Tarik, it had been the most generally adopted emblem for protection against malign influence used in the Moslem world. It was probably of Pagan origin, like many of the ancient symbols of Islam. The Romans may have received it from the Arabs, for it appears in the centre of a laurel wreath on an imperial standard upon the column of Trajan. Kings sculptured it on the keystones of their palaces. Peasants painted it over the doorways of their hovels. It was one of the devices of the khalifs. Carved in jet, carnelian, or agate, it was prized by women more highly than the costliest gem. At the time of the Conquest of Granada it was so frequently worn that the suppression of its use claimed the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities, and severe penalties were denounced against all in whose possession it was found. In defiance of these obstacles, however, the custom survived, and the talismanic hand—along with the crucifix, the Agnus Dei, the rosary, and other accessories of Christian superstition—is still to be met with among the mountain peasantry of Spain.

The fertile mind of the Arab, whose early existence had been passed amidst the impressive solitude of the Desert, delighted to people with imaginary beings the limitless domain of the invisible world. The learned society of Cordova was far from renouncing a belief sanctioned by the religion of the state and entertained for centuries by the aristocracy of Arabia. The mysteries of demonology exerted an uncontrollable fascination over the multitude. An infinite gradation of power and malignity characterized the vast array of spirits, from the hideous ghoul that haunted the charnel-house and the cemetery to the majestic genii that stood in the presence of the celestial throne, whose armor blazing with light and jewels recalls the panoply of Milton’s angels; whose gigantic forms assumed at will the shapes of seraphs or pillars of vapor; and whose martial hosts, invested with a strange reality, appeared to the excitable Arab an army of sentient beings rather than the gorgeous phantoms of an enchanted vision.

The civil organization of the Spanish Khalifate was one of the prodigies of the age. Order was enforced by regulations whose effects were experienced equally in the capital and in the extreme frontier outpost of the empire. Justice was administered quickly, wisely, impartially. Taxes were regularly apportioned, and the laborer was always sure of the enjoyment of the product of his toil. By means of watch-towers and beacons, information could be transmitted over great distances in a short time. In a few hours the approach of an enemy was known throughout all Andalusia. As early as the reign of Abd-al-Rahman II. an extensive system of posts was established. The stations, where relays of swift horses were kept for the service of the government, were each under charge of an officer whose duty it was to correspond directly with the khalif, and to inform him of all that transpired in the vicinity which might come to his knowledge. Where more rapid communication was necessary, carrier-pigeons were employed for the transmission of important despatches, a custom introduced from Sicily. Six hundred years after this there was no postal system in any country of Europe. The highways were protected by barracks, from which patrols were regularly detailed to watch over the safety of travellers and to keep order in the surrounding country. All officials, without exception, were directly responsible to the sovereign, and held their places during his pleasure. An army of spies in every foreign court and in the council and household of every provincial governor kept the court informed not only of matters which affected the policy of great kingdoms, but of the most trivial circumstances growing out of the intercourse of daily life. When a new province was conquered, it was the first duty of the imperial secretaries to prepare schedules of its agricultural and mineral resources, its commerce, its wealth, and its population.

The character of the Mussulmans of Spain was defiled by all the vices which follow in the train of prodigal luxury and boundless wealth. Among these drunkenness was one of the most common. Personages of the highest rank were not ashamed to appear in public while intoxicated. Wine was often served at the royal table. Al-Mansur indulged in its use habitually. His son, Abd-al-Rahman, was a confirmed drunkard. Once when the muezzin announced the hour of prayer, this young reprobate exclaimed, “Were he to say ‘Come to drink!’ it would sound much better.” Many of the rulers of the Moorish principalities were notorious for their excesses. Some Moslems drank white wine, as they declared that the prohibition of the Prophet only applied to red. Hypocrites used vessels of metal for their libations, so that their shortcomings might not be detected by their neighbors.

In Arabian Spain, which inherited many of the diabolical arts of Asia, poisoning was a most popular mode of revenge. Deadly substances were conveyed or administered to the victim by methods against which no precautions could avail,—in robes of honor, in golden caskets, in suits of armor, in perfumed gloves, in flowers, in delicious sweetmeats. They were often enclosed under the jewels of rings for use in sudden emergency. The barbarous practice of using poisoned weapons long prevailed. The mountaineers of Granada during the Conquest dipped their arrow-heads in aconite and hellebore, and the wounds which they inflicted generally ended in torture the life of the stricken enemy.

The people of the different cities of Andalusia had each their peculiarities, few of which elicited complimentary notices from strangers. The inhabitants of Cordova were famous for their lawlessness and their hypocrisy, their pomp and their epicureanism; in those of Seville voluptuousness, indolence, and frivolity were predominant traits; those of Granada were proverbial for vindictiveness and turbulence; those of Xeres for politeness and elegance of manners. National degeneracy early indicated the approaching and inevitable dissolution of the empire. The posterity of the conquerors, who in three years had marched from Gibraltar to the centre of France, became in the course of a few generations cowardly, effeminate, corrupt. The geographer Ibn-Haukal, who visited Spain in the tenth century, described the people of the Peninsula as feeble in body and light and vacillating in character. Ibn-Said, who wrote in the eleventh, expresses surprise that the Castilians had not long before expelled them from the land. Even in an age of decadence, however, the influence of former traditions was not easily obliterated. Despite revolution, conflagration, and African barbarity, Cordova in the twelfth century was still the intellectual centre of Spain. The difference between the two great cities of Andalusia was from the beginning indicated by the fact that when a scholar died his books were sent to Cordova to be sold; but the instruments of a musician were always disposed of to the best advantage at Seville.

With the Spanish Moors a plurality of names was considered an indication of social importance, an opinion which has been transmitted to the Spaniards. The beard, also, from remote antiquity regarded as a sign of dignity and wisdom among Orientals and often reaching to the girdle, was, according to universal custom among learned Moslems of the Peninsula, restricted in length to a palm. Only the faquis and the doctors of the law wore long hair. No one except slaves was shaven. To seize a person by the beard was an unpardonable outrage, and even to touch a woman’s hair was an insult which might have cost the offender his life at the hands of the mob. The khalifs and all personages of rank dyed their beards red with henna to distinguish themselves from the Christians and the Jews, who were never permitted to use it.

No characteristic of the Arabs of Spain was more marked than their passionate love of jewels and perfumes. According to their belief and traditions every precious stone had its peculiar virtue. The emerald banished evil spirits; the ruby possessed the property of magnifying objects; the turquoise afforded immunity from misfortune. The cat’s-eye was supposed to render the wearer invisible. Mohammed had declared that the carnelian conferred happiness upon its possessor. The sapphire banished melancholy. The diamond was beneficial in insanity; the opal cured sore eyes; the red-bezoar was a safeguard against poison. The talismanic qualities presumed to be inherent in many gems were partly attributed to the astral influence supposed to affect inanimate objects as well as living organisms, and partly ascribed to the Divine Essence believed to pervade all matter. To be efficacious, it was indispensable that the cutting or engraving of a stone should be done while certain constellations were in the ascendant. The Moorish lapidaries were experts in their art. With the aid of the bow, copper wheels, and emery, they produced work little inferior to that of the most skilful diamond-cutter of to-day. Even in the seal, an indispensable mark of consequence with the Moslem, the shape had ordinarily an important significance. Those of the khalifs were usually round or polygonal; those of diplomatists square; those of financiers oval.

Love of flowers was a veritable passion among the Spanish Moslems. As they were the greatest botanists in the world, so no other nation approached them in the perfection of their floriculture and the ardor with which they pursued it. The profusion and variety of blossoms of every description were marvellous and enchanting; each had a meaning, by whose aid tender sentiments could be conveyed without the instrumentality of speech; they were associated with every public ceremony and with the most prosaic occurrences of domestic life; they dispensed their fragrance from the priceless vase of the palace; they covered the cottage of the laborer; they formed the daily decoration of the luxuriant tresses of the princess and the peasant; their garlands were the common playthings of the infant; on the marble column which marked the sepulchre of a virgin was sculptured a single rose.

The social life of the Moors of Spain and Sicily presents us with a picture at once lively, sensual, intellectual,—where the highest physical enjoyment, divested of every feature of coarseness, was varied by the constant exhibition of wit and learning. To a considerable extent,—yet far less than at the present day in Mohammedan lands,—it was, as a necessary result of their domestic regulations, bounded by the walls of the harem. A feverish activity, such as pervades the atmosphere of our modern cities and which shows no abatement after sunset, was unknown to the Moslem residents of Cordova and Palermo. The streets of those great capitals, almost impassable by day, were at night deserted save by the guardians of the peace. In the court-yards of private mansions, on the other hand, all was mirth and gayety. Lamps of colored glass were suspended from the balconies. The air was laden with the grateful odors of countless blossoms. From the terrace which crowned every Moorish dwelling could be traced the silvery Guadalquivir, as it wound its tortuous way through endless olive and pomegranate plantations, and the glimmering rows of lights belonging to the suburban villas which extended to the distant slopes of the Sierra Morena. From the deep shadows of the palm- and orange-trees came the harmonious strains of lute and mandolin mingled with the gentle murmur of the fountains. In one gallery of the arcade women of exquisite grace and beauty executed the voluptuous dances which had charmed the people of Tyre and Carthage fifteen centuries before; in another, the professional story-teller recounted tales of wonder with their fascinating accessories of astrologers, genii, magicians, fairies, and enchanters. During the holy festival of Ramadhan, when the Moslem indemnified himself at night for the abstinence and privations of the day, Andalusian life in the gay capital of the khalifate was seen to its highest advantage. The city was illuminated. The mosques were never closed. The baths were crowded. In the seclusion of domestic privacy there were feasting, dissipation, often unseemly orgies, until dawn. Buffoons and jugglers entertained with indelicate jests and antics the groups of hilarious loungers in the parks and on the corners. Itinerant minstrels, progenitors of the troubadour, chanted in monotonous accents romantic ballads of love and chivalry. Gilded litters, guarded by eunuchs with drawn scimetars, traversed the streets. On the Guadalquivir, lighted by the brilliant radiance of the moon and perfumed with the odors of a thousand gardens, floated innumerable boats hung with many-colored lanterns and garlanded with flowers. Among the graver part of the population, the gratification of the senses was discarded for the more profitable diversions of the intellect,—for philosophical experiments, learned discussions, literary contests. In the library, the scholar collated the historians of Greece and Egypt. In the caravansary, the man of leisure played chess and backgammon or watched the swaying movements of the half-nude dancing-girls. On all sides resounded the clapping of hands,—the Oriental call for servants,—still heard to-day in every public place in Southern Spain. The women donned their richest apparel. Their forms were enveloped in chemises of the finest linen; their trousers, which reached to the knee, were blue, green, yellow, or scarlet; their tunic, of two colors, was richly embroidered with gold. Leggings in many folds imparted to their lower limbs a singularly clumsy and awkward appearance. Their feet were enclosed in slippers. An ample garment which could be used for both a cloak and a veil effectually concealed the identity of the owner in the moving crowds. To a comb placed at the back of the head was attached a scarf of elegant material and gauzy texture, the prototype of the Spanish mantilla. The material of the costume common to every class was ordinarily of silk. For ornaments, the rich displayed a profusion of dazzling gems; the poor were forced to be content with jingling coins and amulets. All, without exception, like the Moslem females of to-day, heightened the lustre of their eyes with antimony and stained their finger-tips with henna. Their nomenclature was suggestive of the romantic character which invested their beautiful country. Such names as Saida, “Happy;” Sobeiha, “Aurora;” Safia, “Pure;” Romman, “Pomegranate;” Lonilion, “Pearl;” Zahrâ, “Flower,” were common among the Saracens of Spain.

Under the Spanish Arabs, women enjoyed privileges from which they were rigidly excluded in other Mohammedan countries. They appeared everywhere unveiled. As mentioned in a previous chapter, public opinion not only permitted, but openly encouraged, their participation in the national and provincial contests for the palm of literary excellence. The rare educational facilities of the khalifate were at their disposal. Many—proficient in poetry, philosophy, grammar, and rhetoric—excited universal admiration by the scope and variety of their mental accomplishments. Some even became the political advisers of great sovereigns. These circumstances, so favorable to the development and exaltation of the female character, eventually procured for the sex a consideration elsewhere denied. As Mohammedanism was the first of creeds to spontaneously recognize the right of woman to an amelioration of her social condition, so in the Peninsula the Hispano-Arab invested her personality with a dignity and an importance heretofore not conceded to her merits by members of any race or religion. From such novel doctrines were evolved those chivalrous sentiments which, imparted to Europe, effected such a salutary reformation in the intercourse and social usages of mediæval society. Mohammedan Spain presents the only instance, in ancient or modern history, of a country under whose laws and customs woman did not exist in a state of tutelage. The quality of infant or chattel has, to a greater or less extent, always seemed inseparable from her condition. Among races highest in the scale of civilization, her inferiority appeared the more striking, partly from actual legal disabilities, partly from contrast. It is true that among the Greeks, when Athens was at the summit of her renown, there were females of polished education, of extensive knowledge, gifted with talents of the highest order, able to cope in every intellectual exercise with the most distinguished scholars, philosophers, and statesmen. But these were few in number, and belonged to a class which modern prejudice has branded as infamous; the Athenian wife of the time of Pericles was little better than a slave. Charlemagne is generally conceded to have been the most enlightened Christian sovereign of his epoch. The civilization of his dominions offers a vivid contrast to the darkness which enveloped contemporaneous states and kingdoms. He professed at least a nominal respect for the precepts of Christianity. He publicly avowed himself the champion of the Holy See. To the policy inherited by his successors is largely due the subsequent increase of authority which rescued the Papacy from contempt and made the Bishop of Rome for centuries the dictator of Europe. The learning of his court, modified and in a measure directed by Arabic influence, was far from mediocre. And yet the old chronicles inform us that this great prince in the presence of his courtiers engaged with his sister in a personal encounter, whose result was doubtful until the vigorous use of his steel gauntlet, which knocked out several teeth of his amazonian adversary, gave him the advantage. If such was the treatment accorded to ladies of the highest rank in the Middle Ages, the degradation of women belonging to the remaining orders of society can scarcely be conceived. Nor were these conditions materially improved for centuries. Even so late as 1750, the laws of England permitted women to be treated with a severity almost barbarous; nor have the humiliating restrictions born of masculine superiority been in our age entirely removed. During the reign of Charles II. illiteracy was almost universal; learning in the sex was decried as pedantry or worse; it was rarely that a housewife could write her name; and even the princesses of the royal blood were unable to speak or spell grammatically. This condition, born of ecclesiastical precept derived from the customs of a remote and barbarous age and confirmed by national depravity whose tendency was to depreciate and ridicule female virtue, is an unfailing sign of moral perversity and intellectual decadence. Eight hundred years before, women of Cordova had established an enviable reputation for their proficiency in all the arts which contribute to the culture of nations; for the skill which they exhibited in every department of scientific research; for their profound acquaintance with the models of classic antiquity; for their originality in poetical composition; for the signal success they achieved in the literary congresses, wherein they were forced to compete with the assembled genius and learning of the empire. They were treated with the dignified respect and courtesy which were due to high mental attainments, as well as dictated by the regulations of chivalry which governed the conduct of every Moorish cavalier. These demonstrations of gallantry never degenerated, however, into the fulsome adulation and the worship, half mystical, half sensual, and expressed in terms of florid hyperbole, that prevailed in the social life of the Limousin and Provençal courts, whose development marked an age unique for its extravagance, its epicureanism, its licentiousness; an age of ostentatious asceticism and secret indulgence; an age when ballad-singers moralized and bishops abandoned the crosier for the lute; an age of arduous pilgrimage and romantic exploit; the age of Jongleur, Knight-errant, Crusader, and Troubadour.

In spite of the distinguished consideration they evinced for woman, the Moslems of Spain were unable to divest themselves of the prejudice regarding the fickleness of the sex, which, from immemorial antiquity, had been accepted as one of its prominent characteristics. The position she occupied in the social polity was anomalous. Her features were exposed to the public gaze; she was permitted to attend the lectures of the University; she participated in academical exhibitions. But the liberty she enjoyed was only apparent. Her steps were constantly guarded by eunuchs. Her lord was not less suspicious than his Oriental brethren, and she, if the literature of the time is to be credited, probably for fear of disappointing him, not infrequently gave abundant cause for jealousy. Nothing discloses the general sentiment of a people upon any given subject so comprehensively as its proverbs and epigrams. The estimation in which the Spanish Arabs held the feminine character is indicated by the following saying, often quoted by them, and which is as old as the Pharaohs, “Never trust in women, nor rely upon their vows, for their pleasure and displeasure depend upon their passions. They offer a false affection, while perfidy lurks within their garments. By the tale of Joseph be admonished, and guard against their stratagems.”

The question of polygamy is one which is almost universally viewed through a false medium. Its existence in the torrid climates of the East from a period of unknown antiquity would seem to demonstrate at least the practical usefulness, if not the supreme physiological necessity, of a system which has endured for so many ages. It is eminently unfair for us to condemn a practice sanctioned by Holy Writ and recognized by the patriarchs, without an accurate knowledge of the ethnological conditions under which it is perpetuated. What public opinion, custom, and long experience have found to be beneficial and have pronounced not inconsistent with morality, is very often not a question of ethics, but merely a matter of expediency. Institutions which nations inhabiting the tropics defend as necessary could not be adopted without injury by the sluggish races of the North; and of their propriety, we at a distance of eight thousand miles are incompetent, not to say prejudiced, judges. The women who rose to such distinction under the khalifate were, without exception, members of polygamous households, a circumstance which would seem to effectually contradict the prevalent idea that the system of the harem inevitably tends to intellectual debasement. The standard of morals under the Hispano-Arab domination was probably much superior to that which now obtains in the great capitals of Europe. The deplorable condition of modern society, even among the highly cultivated, where monogamy nominally exists, is disclosed by the frequency of divorce cases and the significant revelations of criminal statistics. It demonstrates that the primitive impulse which among barbarians leads to communal marriage—the original social state of man—is not only not extinct, but even generally prevails, although decorously concealed, and, however repugnant to every principle of morality, must be recognized as a powerful and retarding element of our boasted civilization.

The chivalrous courtesy born of intellectual culture and refined surroundings which distinguished the Spanish Moslems in all the phases of their social life was, as above stated, eminently conspicuous in their treatment of females. The latter were, for the most part, highly educated. Even to-day, in the harems of Constantinople, it is not unusual to see women fine musicians, excellent conversationalists, familiar with the principles of art, able to express themselves fluently in three or four languages. Such accomplishments are still sufficiently rare to confer distinction upon their possessors in London, Paris, and New York. Under the khalifs of the House of Ommeyah, the mental faculties of the sex were cultivated to a marked degree; no field of literature was closed to those who aspired to eminence. They were everywhere received with great respect. They were never insulted in public. They traversed districts in revolt without molestation. The laws protected them against the excesses of marital jealousy. If divorced, the wife was certain of maintenance. It was she who, at marriage, received the dowry. Public opinion denounced as infamous the husband who permitted his spouse to labor in order that he might profit by her earnings. In case of his death she was entitled to a share of his estate. All things considered, the legal status of woman under the khalifate appears to advantage when compared with that to which she is restricted by modern legislation. If polygamy entailed the unhappiness which foreign prejudice is accustomed to attribute to it, the practice would long since have been abolished. It is but a natural result of climatic and physiological conditions, an apparently indispensable factor in the maintenance of Oriental life.

Slavery in Europe under the Moslems brought with it the numerous privileges and indulgent treatment enjoined by the Prophet. The Mohammedan slave was rarely abused or persecuted. His acceptance of the faith of Islam rendered his manumission easy. No stigma attached to his condition. He could aspire to the most noble matrimonial alliance. He was eligible to the most important political employments. While his master was entitled to exercise despotic authority over him, the patriarchal customs of the Orient discouraged all exhibitions of unmerited severity, and designated the slave rather as a companion than a dependent in the household. It was contrary to law to put him in chains. His personality was never sacrificed to the convenience of trade; his classification as a chattel would have been abhorrent to all Mussulman ideas of justice and humanity; and in this respect the laws of the Koran are immeasurably superior to the provisions of Roman and Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. An obligation, whose force the lapse of time could never diminish, was imposed upon the descendants of a freedman to assist and protect at the risk of their lives all members of the family which had liberated their ancestor from bondage. The dignity of human nature was never outraged by the infliction of torture upon those whom fate had condemned to a state of helpless subjection; on the contrary, the slave was usually educated by his master; he became his secretary, his agent, his counsellor; he superintended the affairs of his family; he executed with diligence and fidelity important commissions in distant lands.

The cheapness of slaves indicates their abundance; their price was within reach of the humblest laborer. After the battle of Zallaca, an ordinary captive could be obtained for a dirhem. Many inmates of the harems came from the East. Circassian and Georgian girls, purchased in the markets of Constantinople, were imported into Spain as early as the ninth century. In Mussulman law a distinction existed between slaves bought for service and prisoners taken in battle. The latter shared few of the privileges of the ordinary bondman, and, strictly speaking, could never be liberated or ransomed.

The amusements of the Spanish Arabs were derived from the East. There was nothing in Roman tradition or Visigothic inheritance which appealed to their imagination like the diversions of the idle and sensuous races that inhabited the tropics, and which, with other congenial customs, they had appropriated. They felt but a languid interest in the chase of ferocious beasts. They shrank with horror from the gladiatorial contests of the arena and their scenes of blood and butchery. Exhibitions of strength, where muscular superiority carried off the palm, were scarcely less distasteful to a people accustomed to rely for success on fertility of resource and personal agility. While active exercise was not neglected, those pastimes were in highest favor which required the least physical exertion. Among these, the principal one was the game of chess. Of unknown but high antiquity, it had been brought by Arabic merchants from India. In that country it had long been used as an instrument of divination, and, in time of war, the movements of its pieces frequently directed the evolutions of armies on the march and in battle. A part of the sacred furniture of every Hindu temple, the board had also a cabalistic and astrological significance. Long before the appearance of Mohammed, this game was the solace of the vagrant sheiks of the Desert and the delight of the wealthy traders of Yemen. It followed everywhere in the train of the Moslem armies. In Spain it was universally popular. The chessmen of the khalifs were not inferior in richness to the other accessories of royal luxury,—the arms, the plate, the furniture of the palace. Some were made of the precious metals; others were curiously carved of ivory; most of them were incrusted with gems. The boards were of ebony and sandalwood inlaid with gold. In this instance, also, as in many others, the prohibition of the Koran relating to the representation of animal forms was disregarded. The Spanish Moslems were passionately fond of chess. It became one of the favorite diversions of the court; and it was no unusual occurrence for players to pass the entire day engrossed by its fascinations and entirely oblivious of their surroundings. The story, already related, of the prince who pleaded for time to finish his game after his death-warrant had been read to him, is an example of the absorbing interest excited by this scientific pastime in the mind of the Moor. Cards were known to the Arabs long before the Hegira. Naipe, the Spanish name for them, is from the Arabic word naib, “viceroy,” whence comes the English “nabob.” Introduced into Italy by the Saracens, they were at first called The Game of the Kings. They were not generally used in Europe until the latter part of the fourteenth century. Backgammon and draughts were also familiar to the Moors of Spain. The genius of Mohammed recognized the hidden danger which beset his followers when he forbade indulgence in all games of chance. To such a temptation the ardent and romantic nature of the Oriental is peculiarly susceptible. No information, in this respect, is now obtainable concerning the Mohammedan population of the Peninsula, but the copious accounts of the prevalence of other vices under the domination of the emirs and the khalifs would seem to indicate, from the general silence on this point, that gaming was not commonly practised.

The feats of jugglers were a source of popular amusement in mediæval Cordova. These mountebanks were intimately associated with itinerant minstrels and extemporaneous rhymers, whose coarse effusions, while they could scarcely be dignified by the name of poetry, yet often contributed to the diversion of the court, and whose calling and example produced the troubadour, such an important agent in the civilization of Europe. The lascivious contortions of the dancers of ancient Gades, immortalized in the epigrams of Martial, and which have been transmitted with probably trifling changes through the Phœnician, Carthaginian, Roman, Gothic, and Mussulman dominations to the Spanish gypsies of our day, were constantly exhibited, in all their suggestive indecency, before the appreciative audiences of Moorish Spain. Nothing can indicate more positively the general relaxation of manners than the popularity of such an amusement. Even the indulgent and profligate spirit of Roman society eyed it with marked disfavor. The poets lampooned those who patronized or encouraged it. Moralists and legislators condemned it as a prolific source of corruption. Mohammed forbade it to his followers as a relic of Paganism and an incentive to immorality. Under no circumstances did men participate in it, or, indeed, in any of the terpsichorean exercises practised by Orientals. The dance, as we understand it, was unknown to the Moslems. Among them the practice was abandoned to female professionals, who constituted a caste, who were distinguished by a peculiar costume, and whose calling was infamous. This prejudice, descended from a remote antiquity, exists in full force in all Eastern countries to-day. The degradation of Herodias was far more reprobated by the Hebrews than her inhumanity. The character of the bayadere of India, of the ghawazee of Egypt, of the Jewess of Tunis, of the gypsy of Spain, inheritors of the lewd Phœnician positions and gestures, is familiar to all travellers.

In the dances of Mohammedan Spain, as in those still practised at Cairo, the lower limbs were stationary, and all movements were performed with the body and the arms. Their impropriety generally consisted rather in their suggestiveness than in any flagrant personal exposure. Rarely were they performed in a condition of nudity; as a rule, the form was completely enveloped in graceful folds of silk and linen. The dancers kept time with castanets, which were originally small copper cymbals, and every motion was made in perfect cadence with the music. The extraordinary effect of these exhibitions upon the imagination, even when represented by women not adepts in the art, can be understood only by those who have witnessed them.

The taste for improvisation pervaded the music of the Hispano-Arabs as it did their poetry. Although to foreign ears it might appear wholly destitute of measure and harmony, the monotonous execution of the performer impressed the feelings of his audience to an extent incomprehensible to nations of northern blood. The profoundly emotional nature of the Moor, readily susceptible to every kind of mental excitement and passionately devoted to rhyme, at one time roused him to frenzy, at another deprived him of consciousness. No race has ever enjoyed to an equal degree with the Arabs the faculty of investing fiction with the semblance of truth, of transforming images created by an inexhaustible fancy into the realities of life, of giving