A Short History of Spain

cities in Andalusia, and the turbaned army had marched through the stubborn north as far as the Spanish border. As Musa, intoxicated with success, stood at last upon

step, the Moslems pressed up into Gaul,

artel,-then Maire du Palais, and virtually King of France, instead of the feeble Lothair,-led his Franks into what was to be on

rles dealt such ponderous blows that the Moslems broke in confusion, and this sa

invincible. Their vaulting ambition did not again try to overleap the Pyrene

church militant. It was conquest which saved the faith of the Prophet. In its home in Asia the Empire of Mahommed was composed of hostile tribes and clans, and as it moved westward it gathered up Syrians, Egyptians, an

forth, and the first fifty years of Moorish rule in Spain was a period of internal strife and disorder-Arabs and Moors were j

ally less heavily than had the old Gothic rule. Jews and Christians alike were free to worship whom or what they pleased; but, at the same time, great benefits were bestowed upon those who would accept the religion of the Prophet. The slave class, which was very large a

d required centuries; while only a few years sufficed to make of the vanquished in the southern provinces, a contented and almost happy people;

d have been so wisely and so skillfully handled would be incomprehensible if this had been really, what it

ted the brute force, which was

ion which had been ripening for centuries under Oriental skies,-rich in wisdom, learning, culture, sci

into a civilization richer than any Spain had yet known, and, more than that, to hold up a torch of learning and enlightenment which should illumine Europe in the days of darkness which were at hand. Although this difference between Arab

s-of-somebody")-proudly intrenched themselves in an attitude of defiance, making in time a clearly defined Christian north and Moslem south, with a mountain range (the Sierra Guadarrama) and a river (the Ebro) as the natural boundary line of the two territories. The Moor was a child of the sun. If the stubborn Goth chose to sulk, up among the chilly heights and

cian name for the North African tr