Chapter VI: The Emirate (2)

The several walis had been ordered to assemble with their forces at a designated rendezvous on the northern border of the Peninsula. This district, which included the mountain passes and the fortresses defending them, was then under the command of Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa, a native of Africa, who had, for a few months, enjoyed and abused the power of the emirate, and whom the generous policy of Abd-al-Rahman had retained in this important post, bestowed upon the African chieftain after his deposition. A man of violent passions and without principle, Othman was, however, not deficient in those talents which confer distinction upon soldiers of fortune. Of obscure birth and low associations, he had, by sheer force of character and daring, won the confidence of the Viceroy of Africa, who had conferred upon him the government of Spain; a position from which he was barred by the unwritten law of the Conquest, which discouraged the aspirations of individuals of his nationality. Deeply chagrined that he had not been reinstated in the office whose delights he had scarcely tasted, and devoured by envy, whose bitterness was increased by the antipathies of a party of which he was the acknowledged head, Othman determined to revenge his fancied wrongs, and to secure for himself the advantages of independent sovereignty. His influence extended even to the Ebro, to the north and east of which stream the Berbers, who were devoted to him, had established themselves in great numbers. At that time the condition of the redoubtable Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine, had become desperate. He had long waged a doubtful war with the Franks, whose superior strength rendered his ultimate subjection certain. Upon the south, he was menaced by the encroachments of the marauding Arabs, whose expeditions kept his dominions in perpetual turmoil. Thus placed between two fires, he readily hearkened to the overtures of Othman, who proposed an alliance to be cemented by the marriage of the wali with the daughter of the Gothic noble. A treaty was made and ratified; the damsel--who was not compelled to renounce her faith--was delivered to her father’s new ally; and the latter returned to his government, resolving to baffle by diplomacy the design of his master, and, if that were found impossible, confident that the strength of his mountain defences was sufficient to defy all the power of the emirate. To the orders of Abd-al-Rahman to attend him with his troops he returned evasive replies, pleading the engagement he had entered into, and his obligation to observe it. His repeated commands being ignored, and the patience of the army to advance growing uncontrollable, Abd-al-Rahman secretly despatched a squadron of light horsemen, under Gedhi-Ibn-Zeyan, a Syrian officer, with directions to bring in the refractory wali dead or alive. Pressing forward with the utmost diligence, the troopers came suddenly upon Othman, at Castrum Liviæ, before he was even aware of the intentions of the Emir. He had barely time to take refuge with a few attendants and his bride in the neighboring mountains, before his enemies entered the town and, without halting, spurred on through the rugged defiles in hot pursuit. Overtaken near a brook where the party had stopped from fatigue, the rebel escort was killed or put to flight; the Gothic princess was taken; and Othman paid the forfeit of his treason with his life. The enterprising Gedhi cast at the feet of Abd-al-Rahman the head of the traitor as the proof of his success; and the captive, whose wondrous beauty charmed the eyes of all who saw her, was sent to grace the royal harem at Damascus.

And now, the gateways of the Pyrenees being open, the mighty host of Moslems poured through, like an inundation, upon the sunny fields of France. No reliable basis is available by which we can even approach to an accurate estimate of its numbers. Considering the publicity given to the crusade, the different sources whence the foreign recruits were drawn, the regular army of the Emir, and the bodies of cavalry furnished by the Viceroys of Africa and Egypt, it would seem that the invading army must have amounted to at least a hundred thousand men. Assembled without order, and wholly intolerant of discipline, the mutual jealousy and haughty independence of its unruly elements greatly impaired its efficiency. The members of each tribe mustered around their chieftain, who enjoyed but a precarious authority; while the obedience which all professed to the representative of the majesty of the Khalif was observed only so long as his commands did not clash with their wishes or run counter to the indulgence of their passions and inherited prejudices.

Meanwhile, the rumor of the approaching peril, exaggerated by distance, had spread consternation through every Christian community. It recalled the disastrous times of barbarian conquest, when the ferocious hordes of Goths and Huns swept with ruin and death the fairest provinces of the Roman Empire. Throughout the Orient, in the lands which acknowledged the supremacy of the Successor of Mohammed, the pious Moslem awaited, with confidence not unmingled with a feeling of exultation, tidings of the anticipated triumph of his brethren. The eyes of the entire world were turned in expectancy to the spot where must speedily be tested the respective prowess of the North and South; to the struggle which would forever determine the future of Europe, and decide without appeal the fate of Christianity. Onward, resistlessly, pitilessly, rolled the devastating flood of invasion. The Duke of Aquitaine had bravely met his enemies on the very slopes of the mountain barrier, but all his efforts were powerless to stay their progress. Cities were reduced to ashes and their inhabitants driven into slavery. The pastures were swept clean of their flocks; the blooming hill-sides and fertile valleys of the Garonne were transformed into scenes of desolation. Bordeaux, the populous and wealthy emporium of Aquitaine, paid for a short and ineffectual resistance with the plunder of its treasures, the massacre of its citizens, and its total destruction by fire. The Moorish army, encumbered with thousands of captives and the booty of an entire province, crossed the Garonne with difficulty, and resumed its slow and straggling march towards the interior. Upon the banks of the Dordogne Eudes had marshalled his followers to contest its passage. A fierce battle ensued; the Christians, overwhelmed by numbers, were surrounded and cut to pieces; and the carnage was so horrible as to excite the pity of the rude historians of an age prolific in violence and bloodshed. The conquest of Aquitaine achieved, the Emir moved on to Poitiers, and after ravaging the suburbs of that city, where stood the famous Church of St. Hilary, which was utterly destroyed, planted the white standard of the Ommeyades before its walls. That country, whose hostile factions were subsequently reconciled and consolidated by the genius of Charlemagne, and which is known to us as France, was, during the seventh century, in a state of frightful anarchy. In the South, the important province of Septimania had formerly acknowledged the supremacy of the Visigoths, and after the overthrow of their empire had enjoyed a nominal independence. Aquitaine was subject to its dukes, who maintained an unequal contest with the growing powers of the North and the insatiable ambition of the Saracens. Towards the East, the petty lord of Austrasia was involved in perpetual intrigues and hostilities with his turbulent neighbors, the princes of Neustria and Burgundy. In the year 638, with the death of the renowned Dagobert, whose dominions extended to the Danube, disappeared the last vestige of independence and authority possessed by the monarchs of the Merovingian dynasty. Henceforth the regal power was vested in, and practically exercised by, the bold and able mayors of the palace, the prime ministers of the _rois fainéants_, who, through indifference or compulsion, were apparently contented with the titles and glittering baubles of royalty. The superior talents of the priest were industriously employed in enriching his church or his abbey, and the zeal and fears of the devout co-operating with the avarice of the clergy, the sacred edifices became depositories of treasures which dazzled the eyes of the greedy freebooters of Abd-al-Rahman with their magnificence and value. No sovereign in Europe could boast of such wealth as had been accumulated through the lavish generosity of pilgrims and penitents by the shrines of St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours. The ecclesiastics habitually represented themselves as the treasurers of heaven, the chosen intermediaries with the saints; and the most costly gift was scarcely considered an equivalent for a hasty blessing or a relic of more than doubtful authenticity, graciously bestowed upon the humble and delighted contributor to clerical rapacity and monkish imposture.

The manly vigor inherited from a barbarian ancestry, developed and strengthened by military exercises, had formed of the Franks a nation of heroes. Their gigantic forms, encased in mail, enabled them to resist assaults which must have overwhelmed mortals of less ponderous build. A phlegmatic temperament, joined to a devotion to their lords which never questioned the justice of their commands, imparted to them steadiness and inflexible constancy in the field. Their naturally ferocious aspect was increased by grotesque helmets of towering height, and by the skins of wild beasts which draped their massive shoulders, while their weapons were of a size and weight that the demigods of old alone might wield. Such were the warriors to whose valor were now committed the destinies of the Christian world. The throne of the Franks was then occupied by Thierry IV., one of a series of royal phantoms, who had been exalted to this nominal dignity by a certain mayor of the palace named Charles, the natural son of Pepin d’Heristal, Duke of Austrasia. It was the policy of these officials, necessarily men of talent, whose abilities had raised them to prominence, and who controlled the empire of the state, to bestow the crown upon princely youths purposely familiarized with vice, that every noble aspiration might be stifled and every patriotic impulse repressed in the indulgence of the most wanton and effeminate luxury. The profligate habits of these sovereigns, which shortened their reigns, account for their number and rapid succession in the annals of France.

The chroniclers of the eighth and ninth centuries, garrulous upon the martyrdom of saints and the performance of miracles, have scarcely mentioned the achievements of the most remarkable personage of his time. Their well-known enmity to his name, associated with the appropriation of church property, although employed for the preservation of Christendom, has had, no doubt, much to do with this contemptuous silence. Pepin, using the privilege sanctioned by the depraved manners of the age, lived in concubinage with Alpäide, the mother of Charles, whose social position was yet so little inferior to that of a matrimonial alliance that she is often spoken of as a second wife. An austere prelate, Lambert by name, who occupied the See of Maestricht, with a boldness and zeal unusual in the complaisant churchmen of the eighth century, saw fit to publicly rebuke Pepin for this unlawful connection, and, with studied insult, rejected the hospitality which the kindness of the Mayor of the Palace had tendered him. Offended by this exhibition of ill-breeding and independence, the brother of the lady procured the murder of the bishop, who was forthwith canonized, and is still prominent among the most efficient intercessors of the Roman Catholic calendar. The murderers, careless alike of the anathemas of the Church and of the process of the law, remained unpunished; while the populace of Liege, where the bishop was a favorite, erected a chapel to the memory of the fearless ecclesiastic. The whole occurrence affords a curious and striking commentary on the immorality, lawlessness, and peculiar domestic habits of the Middle Ages in France.

Tradition has ascribed to Charles the assassination of his brother Grimwald, with whom he was to have shared his paternal inheritance; and the absence of any other known motive, the avowed hostility of his father, who imprisoned him, as well as the significant silence of the historians--evidently trembling under the stern rule of the Mayor of the Palace--give considerable probability to this hypothesis. Although disinherited, the attachment of the people was such that he was, immediately after the death of Pepin, rescued from a dungeon and raised to the dukedom. Succeeding events justified the wisdom of this measure. The address of Charles allayed the civil dissensions of the Franks; his valor and military genius awed and restrained the restless barbarians of Germany. Although unquestionably the preserver of Christianity, he is more than suspected of having been an idolater, his title, Martel, having been traced by antiquaries to the hammer of Thor, the emblem of the war-god of Scandinavia. He had no reverence for the Church, no belief in its doctrines, no consideration for its possessions, no regard for its ministers. He seized reliquaries and sacred vessels destined for communion with God, and coined them into money to pay the expenses of his campaigns. He despoiled the clergy of their lands and partitioned them among his followers. The most eminent of his captains he invested with the offices of bishops, after expelling the rightful incumbents in order to the better retain control of their confiscated estates. This sacrilegious policy, while it exasperated the priesthood, endeared him to his soldiers who were the recipients of his bounty; but the wrath of the ecclesiastical order was not appeased even by his inestimable services to its cause. Anathematized by popes and councils, legends inspired by monkish credulity and hatred have solemnly asserted that his soul had been repeatedly seen by holy men surrounded by demons in the depths of hell.

Of the personal characteristics, habits, and domestic life of Charles Martel we know absolutely nothing. Equally silent is history as to the regulations of his capital, the constitution of his court, the rules of his military tactics, the principles of his government, the names of his councillors. The bitterness of ecclesiastical prejudice while it has cursed his memory has not been able to tarnish his renown. Historical justice has given him the full measure of credit due to his exploits, whose importance was not appreciated by his contemporaries, and has accorded him a high rank among the great military commanders of the world. Accustomed to arms from childhood, Charles had passed the greater portion of his life in camps. He had conquered Neustria, intimidated Burgundy, and had, in many successful expeditions against the formidable barbarians of the Rhine, left bloody evidences of his prowess as far as the banks of the Elbe and the Danube. He had laid claim to the suzerainty of Aquitaine in the name of the royal figure-head under whose authority he prosecuted his conquests; and Eudes had hitherto regarded his demonstrations with even greater fear and aversion than the periodical forays of the Saracens. Now, however, the crestfallen Duke of Aquitaine sought the presence of his ancient foe, did homage to him, and implored his aid. The practised eye and keen intellect of Charles discerned at once the serious nature of the impending danger, and with characteristic promptitude sought to avert it. His soldiers, living only in camps and always under arms, were ready to march at a moment’s notice. Soon a great army was assembled, and, amidst the deafening shouts of the soldiery, the general of the Franks, confident of the superiority of his followers in endurance and discipline, advanced to meet the enemy. The latter, discouraged by the bold front presented by the inhabitants of Poitiers, who had been nerved to desperation by the memorable example of Bordeaux, had, in the mean time, raised the siege, and were marching towards Tours, attracted by the fame of the vast wealth of the Church and Abbey of St. Martin. Upon an immense plain between the two cities the rival hosts confronted each other. This same region, the centre of France, still cherished the remembrance of a former contest in which, centuries before, the Goths and Burgundians under command of Ætius had avenged the wrongs of Europe upon the innumerable hordes of Attila. Of good augury and a harbinger of success was this former victory regarded by the stalwart warriors of the North, now summoned a second time to check the progress of the barbarian flood of the Orient. Widely different in race, in language, in personal appearance, in religion, in military evolutions and in arms, each secretly dreading the result of the inevitable conflict and each unwilling to retire, for seven days the two armies remained without engaging, but constantly drawn up in battle array. Finally, unable to longer restrain the impetuosity of the Arabs, Abd-al-Rahman gave orders for the attack. With loud cries the light squadrons of Moorish cavalry, followed pell-mell by the vast mob of foot soldiers, hurled themselves upon the solid, steel-clad files of the Franks. But the latter stood firm--like a “wall of ice,” in the quaint language of the ancient chronicler--the darts and arrows of the Saracens struck harmlessly upon helmet and cuirass, while the heavy swords and maces of the men-at-arms of Charles made frightful havoc among the half-naked bodies of their assailants. Night put an end to the battle, and the Franks, for the moment relieved from an ordeal which they had sustained with a courage worthy of their reputation, invoking the aid of their saints, yet not without misgivings for the morrow, slept upon their arms. At dawn the conflict was renewed with equal ardor and varying success until the afternoon, when a division of cavalry under the Duke of Aquitaine succeeded in turning the flank of the enemy, and began to pillage his camp. As the tidings of this misfortune spread through the ranks of the Moslems, large numbers deserted their standards and turned back to recover their booty, far more valuable in their estimation than even their own safety or the triumph of their cause. Great confusion resulted; the retreat became general; the Franks redoubled their efforts; and Abd-al-Rahman, endeavoring to rally his disheartened followers, fell pierced with a hundred wounds. That night, aided by the darkness, the Saracens silently withdrew, leaving their tents and heavy baggage behind. Charles, fearful of ambuscades, and having acquired great respect for the prowess of his adversaries, whose overwhelming numbers, enabling them to attack him in both front and rear, had seriously thinned his ranks, declined the pursuit, and with the spoils abandoned by the Saracens returned to his capital.

The Arabs have left us no account of the losses sustained in this battle. The mendacious monks, however, to whom by reason of their knowledge of letters was necessarily entrusted the task of recording the events of the time, have computed the loss of the invaders at three hundred and seventy-five thousand, probably thrice the number of all the combatants engaged; while that of the Franks is regarded as too insignificant to be mentioned. The very fact that Charles was disinclined to take advantage of the condition of his enemies loaded with plunder, deprived of their commander, and dejected by defeat, shows of itself that his army must have greatly suffered. The principal accounts that we possess of this battle, whose transcendent importance is recognized by every student of history, bear unmistakable evidence of the ecclesiastical partiality under whose influence they were composed. Monkish writers have exhausted their prolific imagination in recounting the miraculous intervention of the saints and the prowess of the champions of the Cross, which insured the preservation of Christianity. The Arabs, however, usually accurate and minute even in the relation of their misfortunes, have not paid the attention to this great event which its effect upon their fortunes would seem to warrant. Many ignore it altogether. Others pass it by with a few words. Some refer to it, not as a stubbornly contested engagement, but as a rout provoked by the disorders of an unwieldy multitude, inflamed with fanaticism, divided by faction, impatient of discipline. From such meagre and discordant materials must be constructed the narrative of one of the most momentous occurrences in the history of the world.

An account of the crushing defeat of Poitiers having been communicated to the Viceroy of Africa, he appointed Abd-al-Melik-Ibn-Kattan, an officer of the African army, Emir of Spain, and, presenting him with his commission, urgently exhorted him to avenge the reverse which had befallen the Moslem arms. The martial spirit of this commander, in whom the lapse of fourscore and ten years had not sensibly impaired the vigor of his mind or the activity of his body, was roused to enthusiasm by the prospect of an encounter with the idolaters of the North. Detained for a time in Cordova by the disturbances resulting from the disorganization of all branches of the government, he attempted, at the head of the remains of the defeated army and a reinforcement which had accompanied him from Africa, to thread the dangerous passes of the Pyrenees. But the time was ill-chosen; the rainy season was at hand; and the Saracens, hemmed in by impassable torrents, fell an easy prey to the missiles of an enterprising enemy. The march became a series of harassing skirmishes; and it was with the greatest difficulty that the Emir was enabled to extricate the remainder of his troops from the snare into which his want of caution had conducted them. Disgusted with the miscarriage of the expedition from whose results so much had been expected, Obeydallah, Viceroy of Africa, promptly deposed Abd-al-Melik, and nominated his own brother, Okbah-Ibn-al-Hejaj, to the vacant position. A martinet in severity and routine, Okbah enjoyed also a well-founded reputation for justice and integrity. He soon became the terror of the corrupt and tyrannical officials who infested the administration. He removed such as had been prominent for cruelty, fraud, or incompetency. To all who were guilty of peculation, or of even indirectly reflecting upon the honor and dignity of the Khalif, he was inexorable. With a view to insuring the safety of the highways, he formed a mounted police, the Kaschefs, in which may be traced the germ of the Hermandad of the fifteenth century and the modern Gendarmes and Civil Guards of France and Spain. From this institution, extended to the frontiers of Moslem territory as far as the Rhone, was derived the military organization of the Ribat--the prototype of the knightly orders of Calatrava, Alcantara, and Santiago, which played so conspicuous a part in the Reconquest. Okbah established a court in every village, so that all honest citizens might enjoy the protection of the law. His fostering care also provided each community with a school sustained by a special tax levied for that purpose. Devout to an almost fanatical degree, he erected a mosque whenever the necessities of the people seemed to demand it, and, thoroughly alive to the advantages of a religious education, he attached to every place of worship a minister who might instruct the ignorant in the doctrines of the Koran and the duties of a faithful Mussulman. He repressed with an iron hand the ferocious spirit of the vagrant tribes of Berbers, whose kinsmen in Africa had, in many battles, formerly experienced the effects of his valor and discipline. By equalizing the taxation borne by different communities, he secured the gratitude of districts which had hitherto been oppressed by grievous impositions, rendered still more intolerable by the rapacity of unprincipled governors. No period in the history of the emirate was distinguished by such important and radical reforms as that included in the administration of Okbah-Ibn-al-Hejaj.

The Berbers, having engaged in one of their periodical revolts in Africa, Obeydallah, unable to make headway against them, sent a despatch requiring the immediate attendance of Okbah. The latter, at the head of a body of cavalry, crossed the strait, and, after a decisive battle, put the rebels to flight. His services were found so indispensable by the Viceroy that he kept him near his person in the capacity of councillor for four years, while he still enjoyed the title and emoluments of governor of Spain. In the meantime, the greatest disorders prevailed in the Peninsula. The salutary reforms which had employed the leisure and exercised the abilities of the prudent Viceroy were swept away; the old order of things was renewed; and the provinces of the emirate were disgraced by the revival of feuds, by the oppression of the weak, by the neglect of agriculture, by unchecked indulgence in peculation, and by the universal prevalence of anarchy and bloodshed.

The dread of Charles Martel and the ruthless barbarians under his command was wide-spread throughout the provinces of Southern France. Their excesses appeared the more horrible when contrasted with the tolerant and equitable rule of the Saracens who garrisoned the towns of Septimania. The Provençal, whose voluptuous habits led him to avoid the hardships of the camp, and whose religious ideas, little infected with bigotry, saw nothing repulsive in the law of Islam, determined to seek the aid of his swarthy neighbors of the South. As Charles had already ravaged the estates of Maurontius, Duke of Marseilles, only desisting when recalled by a revolt of the Saxons, that powerful noble, whose authority extended over the greater part of Provence, in anticipation of his return, entered into negotiations with Yusuf-Ibn-Abd-al-Rahman, wali of Narbonne; a treaty was concluded, by the terms of which the Arabs were invited to assume the suzerainty of Provence, many towns were ceded to them, and the counts rendered homage to the Moslem governor, who, in order to discharge his portion of the obligation and afford protection to his new subjects, assembled his forces upon the line of the northern frontier. It was at this time that Okbah was summoned to quell the rebellion of the Berbers just as he was upon the point of advancing to secure, by a powerful reinforcement, this valuable addition to his dominions.

Early in the year 737, Charles, having intimidated his enemies and secured a temporary peace, made preparations for an active campaign in Provence. Driving the Arabs out of Lyons, he advanced to the city of Avignon, whose natural position was recognized by both Franks and Saracens not only as a place of extraordinary strength but as the key of the valley of the Rhone. Experience and contact with their more civilized neighbors, the Italians, had instructed the Franks in the use of military engines; and, notwithstanding the desperate resistance of the Arab garrison, ably seconded by the inhabitants, Avignon was taken by storm. The population was butchered without mercy, and Charles, having completely glutted his vengeance by burning the city, left it a heap of smoking ruins.

Having been delayed by the stubborn opposition of Avignon, and urged by the clamors of his followers who thirsted for the rich spoils of Septimania, the Frankish general, leaving the fortified town of Arles in his rear, marched directly upon Narbonne. Thoroughly appreciating the political and military importance of this stronghold, the capital of their possessions in France, the Arabs had spared neither labor nor expense to render it impregnable. The city was invested and the siege pressed with vigor, but the fortifications defied the efforts of the besiegers and little progress was made towards its reduction. An expedition sent to reinforce it, making the approach by sea and attempting to ascend the river Aude, was foiled by the vigilance of Charles; the boats were stopped by palisades planted in the bed of the stream; the Saracens, harassed by the enemy’s archers, were despatched with arrows or drowned in the swamps; and, of a considerable force, a small detachment alone succeeded in cutting its way through the lines of the besiegers and entering the city. The temper of the Franks was not proof, however, against the undaunted resolution of the Arab garrison. Unable to restrain the growing impatience of his undisciplined levies, Charles reluctantly abandoned the siege and endeavored to indemnify himself for his disappointment by the infliction of all the unspeakable atrocities of barbarian warfare upon the territory accessible to his arms. Over the beautiful plains of Provence and Languedoc, adorned with structures which recalled the palmiest days of Athenian and Roman genius, and whose population was the most polished of Western Europe, swept the fierce cavalry of the Alps and the Rhine. Agde, Maguelonne, and Béziers were sacked. The city of Nîmes, whose marvellous relics of antiquity are still the delight of the student and the antiquary, provoked the indignation of the invader by these marks of her intellectual superiority and former greatness. Her walls were razed; her churches plundered; her most eminent citizens carried away as hostages; her most splendid architectural monuments delivered to the flames. The massive arches of the Roman amphitheatre defied, however, the puny efforts of the enraged barbarian; but their blackened stones still exhibit the traces of fire, an enduring seal of the impotent malice of Charles Martel impressed in the middle of the eighth century.

In this memorable invasion the Arab colonists do not seem to have suffered so much as the indigenous population, which had long before incurred the enmity of the Franks. The ecclesiastical order met with scant courtesy at the hands of the idolaters. Despising the terrors of anathema and excommunication, Charles did not hesitate to appropriate the wealth of the Church wherever he could find it. Having inflicted all the damage possible upon the subjects and allies of the Khalif in Provence, the Franks, loaded with booty and driving before them a vast multitude of captives chained together in couples, returned in triumph to their homes.

This occupation of the Franks proved to be but temporary. The garrisons left in the towns whose walls were intact were insufficient to overawe the populace exasperated by the outrages it had just sustained. The Duke of Marseilles, seconded by the wali of Arles, easily regained control of the country around Avignon. But the return of Charles during the following year with his ally Liutprand, King of the Lombards, and a large army, not only recovered the lost territory but took Arles, hitherto exempt from capture, and drove the Saracens beyond the Rhone, which river for the future became their eastern boundary, a limit they were destined never again to pass.

The absence of Okbah encouraged the spirit of rebellion, ever rife in the Peninsula. He had hardly returned before the arts of intrigue and the discontent of the populace raised up a formidable rival to his authority. Abd-al-Melik-Ibn-Kattan, who had formerly been Emir, now usurped that office. In the civil war which followed, the fortunes of Abd-al-Melik soon received a powerful impulse by the death of his competitor at Carcassonne.

We now turn to the coast of Africa, a region which from first to last has exerted an extraordinary and always sinister influence over the destinies of the Mohammedan empire in Europe. The intractable character of the Berbers, and their aversion to the restraints of law and the habits of civilized life, had defied the efforts of the ablest soldiers and negotiators to control them. In consequence, the dominant Arab element was not disposed to conciliate savages who recognized no authority but that of force, and imposed upon them the most oppressive exactions, prompted partly by avarice and partly by tribal hatred. The impetus of Berber insurrection was communicated by contact and sympathy to the settlements of their kindred in Spain, where the spirit of insubordination under a less severe government made its outbreaks more secure, and, at the same time, more formidable. Obeydallah, the present Viceroy, was influenced by these feelings of scorn even more than a majority of his countrymen. A true Arab, educated in the best schools of Syria, of energetic character and bigoted impulses, he regarded the untamable tribesmen of Africa as below the rank of slaves. While collector of the revenue in Egypt he had provoked a rebellion of the Copts on account of an arbitrary increase of taxes, levied solely because the tributaries were infidels. Under his rule the lot of the Berbers became harder than ever. Their flocks, which constituted their principal wealth, were wantonly slaughtered to provide wool for the couches of the luxurious nobility of Damascus. Their women were seized, to be exposed in the slave-markets of Cairo and Antioch. Their tributes were doubled at the caprice of the governor, in whose eyes the life of a misbeliever was of no more consideration than that of a wild beast, for, being enjoyed under protest, it could be forfeited at the will of his superior. Day by day the grievances of the Berbers became more unendurable, and the thirst for liberty and vengeance kept pace with the ever-increasing abuses which had provoked it. At first the tribes, while professedly Mussulman, in reality remained idolaters, fetich-worshippers, the pliant tools of conjurers and charlatans. Over the whole nation a priesthood--by snake-charming, by the interpretation of omens, by spurious miracles, by the arts of sorcery--had acquired unbounded influence; and the names of these impostors, canonized after death, were believed to have more power to avert misfortune than the invocation of the Almighty. In time, however, the zealous labors of exiled Medinese and Persian non-conformists had supplanted the grosser forms of this superstition by a religion whose fervor was hardly equalled by that displayed by the most fanatical Companion of Mohammed. The scoffing and polished Arabs of Syria, of whom the Viceroy was a prominent example, Pagan by birth and infidel in belief and practice, were sedulously represented as the enemies of Heaven and the hereditary revilers of the Prophet, whom it was a duty to destroy. These revolutionary sentiments, received in Africa with applause, were diffused through Spain by the tide of immigration, in which country, as elsewhere, they were destined soon to produce the most important political results. The Berbers, wrought up to a pitch of ungovernable fury, now only awaited a suitable opportunity to inaugurate the most formidable revolt which had ever menaced the Mohammedan government of Africa. In the year 740 an increased contribution was demanded of the inhabitants of Tangier, whose relations with the savages of the neighboring mountains had prevented the conversion of the former to Islam. A division of the army was absent in Sicily, and the Berbers, perceiving their advantage, rose everywhere against their oppressors. They stormed Tangier, expelled the garrisons of the sea-coast cities, elected a sovereign, and defeated in rapid succession every force sent against them. The pride and resentment of the Khalif Hischem at last impelled him to despatch a great army against his rebellious subjects. It numbered seventy thousand, and was commanded by a distinguished Syrian officer, Balj-Ibn-Beshr, who was ordered to put to death without mercy every rebel who might fall into his hands and to indulge the troops in all the license of indiscriminate pillage. Marching towards the west, the Syrian general encountered the Berbers on the plain of Mulwiyah. The naked bodies and inferior weapons of the insurgents provoked the contempt of the soldiers of the Khalif, who expected an easy victory; but the resistless impulse of the barbarians supplied the want of arms and discipline, and the Syrians were routed with the loss of two-thirds of their number. Some ten thousand horsemen, under command of Balj, cut their way through the enemy and took refuge in Ceuta. The Berbers, aware of the impossibility of reducing that place, ravaged the neighborhood for miles around, and, having blockaded the town on all sides, the Syrians, unable to escape or to obtain provisions, were threatened with a lingering death by famine.

Abd-al-Melik, Emir of Spain, was a native of Medina. Half a century before he had been prominent in the Arab army at the battle of Harra, the bloody prelude to the sack of the Holy City and the enslavement and exile of its citizens. To him, in vain, did the Syrian general apply for vessels in which to cross the strait. The Arab chieftain, bearing upon his body many scars inflicted by the spears of Yezid’s troopers and who had seen his family and his neighbors massacred before his face, now exulted in the prospect of an unhoped-for revenge; and, for the complete accomplishment of his purpose, he issued stringent orders against supplying the unfortunate Syrians with supplies. The sympathy of Zeyad-Ibn-Amru, a wealthy resident of Cordova, was aroused by the account of their sufferings, and he imprudently fitted out two vessels for their relief; which act of insubordination having been communicated to the Emir, he ordered Zeyad to be imprisoned, and, having put out his eyes, impaled him, in company with a dog, a mark of ignominy inflicted only on the worst of criminals.

The news of the decisive victory obtained by the Berbers over the army of the Khalif was received with pride and rejoicing by all of their countrymen in Spain. The efforts of the missionaries, aided by the fiery zeal of their proselytes, had infused into the population of the North, composed largely of African colonists, a spirit of fanaticism which threatened to carry everything before it. In a moment the Berbers of Aragon, Galicia, and Estremadura sprang to arms. Uniting their forces they elected officers; then, organized in three divisions, they prepared to dispute the authority of the Emir in the strongholds of his power. One body marched upon Cordova, another invested Toledo, and the third directed its course towards Algeziras, with designs upon the fleet, by whose aid they expected to massacre the Syrians in Ceuta and to collect a body of colonists sufficient to destroy the haughty Arab aristocracy of the Peninsula and found an independent kingdom, Berber in nationality, schismatic and precisian in religion.

And now were again exhibited the singular inconsistencies and remarkable effects of the fatal antagonism of race. The critical condition of Abd-al-Melik compelled him to implore the support of his Syrian foes, whom he hated with far more bitterness than he did his rebellious subjects, and who were also thoroughly cognizant of his feelings towards them as well as of the political necessity which prompted his advances. A treaty was executed, by whose terms the Syrians were to be transported into Spain and pledged their assistance to crush the rebellion, and, after this had been accomplished, the Emir agreed to land them in Africa upon a territory which acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Khalif. Hostages selected from their principal officers were delivered by the half-famished refugees, and they embarked for Andalusia, where the policy of the government and the sympathy of the people supplied them with food, clothing, and arms, and their drooping spirits soon revived. These experienced soldiers, united with the forces of Abd-al-Melik, attacked and routed with ease, one after another, the three Berber armies. All of the plunder which the latter had collected fell into their hands, in addition to that secured by expeditions into the now undefended country of their enemies. His apprehensions concerning the Berbers having been removed, Abd-al-Melik now became anxious to relieve his dominions of the presence of allies whose success rendered them formidable. But the allurements of soil and climate had made the Syrians reluctant to abandon the beautiful land of Andaluz,--the region where they had accumulated so much wealth, the scene where their efforts had been crowned with so much glory. Disputes arose between their leader and the Emir concerning the interpretation of the treaty; the Syrian general, conscious of his power, lost no opportunity to provoke the fiery temper of Abd-al-Melik; and, at last, taking advantage of a favorable occasion, he expelled the latter from his capital. Balj, elected to the viceroyalty by his command, proceeded at once to extend and confirm his newly acquired authority. The hostages confined near Algeziras were released, and their accounts of harsh treatment enraged their companions, who recalled their own sufferings and the inhumanity of Abd-al-Melik during their blockade in Ceuta. With loud cries they demanded the death of the Emir. The efforts of their officers to stem the torrent were futile; a mob dragged the venerable prince from his palace, and, taking him to the bridge outside the city of Cordova, crucified him between a dog and a hog, animals whose contact is suggestive of horrible impurity to a Mussulman and whose very names are epithets of vileness and contempt. Thus perished ignominiously this stout old soldier, who could boast of the purest blood of the Koreish; who had witnessed the wonderful changes of three eventful generations; who had seen service under the standard of Islam in Arabia, Egypt, Al-Maghreb, France, and Spain; who had bravely defended the tomb of the Prophet at Medina, and had confronted with equal resolution the mail-clad squadrons of Charles upon the banks of the Rhone; who had twice administered in troublous times the affairs of the Peninsula; and who now, long past that age when men seek retirement from the cares of public life, still active and vigorous, was sacrificed, through his own imprudence, to the irreconcilable hatred of tribal antagonism. An act of such atrocity, without considering the prominence of the victim, the nationality of the participants, or the degree of provocation, was, independent of its moral aspect, highly impolitic and most prejudicial to the interests of the revolutionists. The Syrians became practically isolated in a foreign country. The sons of Abd-al-Melik, who held important commands in the North, assembled a great army. Reinforcements were furnished by the governor of Narbonne, and the fickle Berbers joined in considerable numbers the ranks of their former adversaries.

At a little village called Aqua-Portera, not far from Cordova, the Arabs and Berbers attacked the foreigners, who had enlisted as their auxiliaries a number of criminals and outlaws. In the battle which followed the latter were victorious, but lost their general Balj, who fell in a single combat with the governor of Narbonne. The Syrians, whose choice was immediately confirmed by the Khalif, elected as his successor, Thalaba-Ibn-Salamah, a monster whose name was afterwards stained with acts of incredible infamy. His inhumanity was proverbial. His troops gave no quarter. The wives and children of his opponents, whose liberty even the most violent of his party had respected, were enslaved. Other victims he had previously exposed at auction before the gates of Cordova, under circumstances of the grossest cruelty and humiliation. The most illustrious of these were nobles of the party of Medina. By an exquisite refinement of insult he caused them to be disposed of to the lowest, instead of the highest, bidder, and even bartered publicly for impure and filthy animals the descendants of the friends of Mohammed, members of the proudest families of the aristocracy of Arabia. But the atrocities of Thalaba had already alienated many of the adherents of his own party as well as terrified those of the opposite faction, who had no mercy to expect at the hands of a leader who neither observed the laws of war nor respected the faith of treaties. Upon the application of these citizens, most of them men of high rank and influential character, the Viceroy of Africa sent Abu-al-Khattar to supersede the sanguinary Thalaba. He arrived just in time to rescue the unhappy Berbers, many of them Moslems, who were already ranged in order for systematic massacre. His power was soon felt; and by banishing the leaders of the insurgents; by granting a general amnesty; by an ample distribution of unsettled territory; and by conferring upon the truculent strangers a portion of the public revenues, an unusual degree of peace and security was soon assured to the entire Peninsula. In accordance with a policy adopted many years before, the various colonists were assigned to districts which bore some resemblance, in their general features, to the land of their nativity, a plan which offered the additional advantage of separating these turbulent spirits from each other, thus rendering mutual co-operation difficult, if not impossible, in any enterprise affecting the safety or permanence of the central power.

The first months of the administration of Abu-al-Khattar were distinguished by a degree of forbearance and charity unusual amidst the disorder which now prevailed in every province of the Moslem empire. But his partisans had wrongs to avenge, and the Emir had not the moral courage to resist the importunate demands of his kindred. An unjust judicial decision provoked reproach; insult led to bloodshed; the fiery Maadites rushed to arms; and once more the Peninsula assumed its ordinary aspect of political convulsion and civil war. Al-Samil and Thalaba, two captains of distinction, obtained the supremacy; the Emir was imprisoned, then rescued, and, after several ineffectual attempts to regain his authority, put to death. Having overpowered its adversary, the triumphant Maadite faction gratified its revengeful impulses to the utmost by plunder, torture, and assassination. At length the condition of affairs becoming intolerable, and no prospect existing of relief from the East, where the candidates of rival tribes contended for the tempting prize of the khalifate, a council of officers was convoked, and Yusuf-Abd-al-Rahman-al-Fehri was unanimously chosen governor of Spain.

This commander had, by many years of faithful service in France, by strict impartiality in his decisions, and by a bravery remarkable among a people with whom the slightest sign of cowardice was an indelible disgrace, won the respect and admiration of his contemporaries. His lineage was high, his person attractive, his manners dignified and courteous. He had defended Narbonne against the power of Charles Martel, whose army, flushed with victory and animated by the presence of the great Mayor of the Palace himself, had been unable to shake his confidence or disturb his equanimity. But his eminent qualifications for the position to which he was now called did not depend upon his former services and his personal merit so much as upon the absence which had kept him from all the entanglements and intrigues of faction. Thus it was that the fiercest partisans hailed his election as a harbinger of peace and concord; a wise stroke of policy that might reconcile the antagonistic pretensions of the nobles of Damascus and Medina; curb the lawlessness of the Berbers; and restore the Emirate of the West to that tranquillity and prosperity it had at long intervals enjoyed, and of which the memory, like a half-forgotten tradition, alone remained. This illegal act of the officers was without hesitation sanctioned by the Khalif Merwan, who prudently overlooked the spirit of independence implied by its exercise on account of its evident wisdom and the imperative necessity which had dictated it.

The disorders of the unhappy Peninsula had, however, become incurable under the present conditions of government. All the skill and experience of Yusuf were exhausted in fruitless attempts at the adjustment of territorial disputes and the pacification of feuds which a generation of internecine conflict had engendered. An insurrection broke out in Septimania, a province hitherto exempt from similar disturbances. Ahmed-Ibn-Amru, wali of Seville, whom Yusuf had removed from the command of the fleet, a chief of the Koreish, whose vast estates enabled him to surpass the magnificence of the Emir himself, and an aspirant for supreme power, organized and headed a formidable conspiracy. His name was associated with the early triumphs of Islam, for he was the great-grandson of the ensign who had borne the standard of Mohammed at the battle of Bedr. Prompted by unusual audacity, which was confirmed by the possession of wealth, ability, and power, he asserted that he had received the commission of the Abbasides as Viceroy of Spain. The Asturians, emboldened by the quarrels of their foes, leaving their mountain fastnesses, began to push their incursions far to the southward. The entire country was engaged in hostilities. Every occupation but that of warfare was suspended. The herdsman was robbed of his flocks. The fertile fields were transformed into a barren waste. On all sides were the mournful tokens of misery and want; from palace and hut rose the moan of the famishing or the wail for the dead. Intercourse between the neighboring cities, alienated by hostility or fearful of marauders, ceased. The doubtful tenure of authority, dependent upon the incessant changes of administration, made it impossible for the Christians to ascertain to whom tribute was rightfully due. and this confusion of interests often subjected them to the injustice of double, and even treble, taxation. At no time in the history of Spain, since the irruption of the Goths, had such a condition of anarchy and social wretchedness prevailed; when the inspiration of a few Syrian chieftains brought the existing chaos to an end, by the introduction of a new ruler and the re-establishment of a dynasty whose princes, the tyrants of Damascus, had hitherto reflected little more than odium and derision on the Moslem name.