might be transported over the Nile, and scattered through the Libyan desert; and I am not ignorant that five of the Moorish tribes still retain their barbarous idiom, with the appellation and character of white Africans. 163

V. In the progress of conquest from the north and south the Goths and the Saracens encountered each other on the confines of Europe and Africa. In the opinion of the latter, the difference of religion is a reasonable ground of enmity and warfare.164

As early as the time of Othman,165 their piratical squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia; 166 nor had they forgotten the relief of Carthage by the Gothic succors. In that age, as well as in the present, the kings of Spain were possessed of the fortress of Ceuta; one of the columns of Hercules, which is divided by a narrow strait from the opposite pillar or point of Europe. A small portion of Mauritania was still wanting to the African conquest; but Musa, in the pride of victory, was repulsed from the walls of Ceuta, by the vigilance and courage of Count Julian, the general of the Goths. From his disappointment and perplexity, Musa was relieved by an unexpected message of the Christian chief, who offered his place, his person, and his sword, to the successors of Mahomet, and solicited the disgraceful honor of introducing their arms into the heart of Spain. 167 If we

163 The first book of Leo Africanus, and the observations of Dr. Shaw, (p. 220, 223, 227, 247, &c.,) will throw some light on the roving tribes of Barbary, of Arabian or Moorish descent. But Shaw had seen these savages with distant terror; and Leo, a captive in the Vatican, appears to have lost more of his Arabic, than he could acquire of Greek or Roman, learning. Many of his gross mistakes might be detected in the first period of the Mahometan history.

164 In a conference with a prince of the Greeks, Amrou observed, that their religion was different; upon which score it was lawful for brothers to quarrel. Ockley's History of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 328. 165 Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. p. 78, vers. Reiske.

166 The name of Andalusia is applied by the Arabs not only to the modern province, but to the whole peninsula of Spain, (Geograph. Nub. p. 151. D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 114, 115.) The etymology has been most inprobably deduced from Vandalusia, country of the Vandals, (D'Anville, Etats de l'Europe, p. 146, 147, &c.) But the Handalusia of Casiri, which signifies, in Arabic, the region of the evening, of the West, in a word, the Hesperia of the Greeks, is perfectly apposite, (Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327, &c.)

7 The fall and resurrection of the Gothic monarchy are related sy Mariana, (tom. i. p. 238-260, 1. vi. c. 19-26, 1. vii. c. 1, 2.) Thut

Inquire into the cause of his treachery, the Spaniards wil repeat the popular story of his daughter Cava; 168 of a virgin who was seduced, or ravished, by her sovereign; of a father who sacrificed his religion and country to the thirst of revenge. The passions of princes have often been licentious and destructive; but this well-known tale, romantic in itself, is indifferently supported by external evidence; and the his tory of Spain will suggest some motives of interest and policy more congenial to the breast of a veteran statesman. 169 After the decease or deposition of Witiza, his two sons were supplanted by the ambition of Roderic, a noble Goth, whose father, the duke or governor of a province, had fallen a victim to the preceding tyranny. The monarchy was still elective; but the sons of Witiza, educated on the steps of the throne, were impatient of a private station. Their resentment was the more dangerous, as it was varnished with the dissimulation of courts: their followers were excited by the remembrance of favors and the promise of a revolution; and their

historian has infused into his noble work (Historia de Rebus Hispaniæ, libri xxx. Hage Comitum, 1733, in four volumes in folio, with the Continuation of Miniana) the style and spirit of a Roman classic; and after the xiith century, his knowledge and judgment may be safely trusted. But the Jesuit is not exempt from the prejudices of his order; he adopts and adorns, like his rival Buchanan, the most absurd of the national legends; he is too careless of criticism and chronology, and supplies, froin a lively fancy, the chasms of historical evidence. These chasms are large and frequent; Roderic, archbishop of Toledo, the father of the Spanish history, lived five hundred years after the conquest of the Arabs, and the more early accounts are comprised in some meagre lines of the blind chronicles of Isidore of Badajoz, (Pacensis,) and of Alphonso III., king of Leon, which I have seen only in the annals of Pagi.

168 Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile à faire qu'à prouver. Des Evêques se roient ils ligués pour une fille? (Hist. Générale, c. xxvi.) His argument is not logically conclusive.

189 In the story of Cava, Mariana (1. vi. c. 21, p. 241, 242) seems to vie with the Lucrecia of Livy. Like the ancients, he seldom quotes; and the oldest testimony of Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 713, No. 19,) that of Lucas Tudensis, a Gallician deacon of the xiiith century. only says, Cava, quam pro concubinà utebatur.

But, says M. Condé, the name of La Cava, that of Alifa assigned to her attendant, and all the circumstances with which the tale is embellished, distinctly prove that this anecdote is nothing more than an Arabian fiction, founded on some of the popular poetic romances of the country. De Marles, (the abbreviator of Condé,) Hist. des Arabes en Espagne, vol. i. p. 63. M.

uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo and Seville, was the first person in the church, and the second in the state. It is probable that Julian was involved in the disgrace of the unsuccessful faction; that he had little to hope and much to fear from the new reign; and that the imprudent king could not forget or forgive the injuries which Roderic and his family had sustained. The merit and influence of the count rendered him a useful or formidable subject: his estates were ample, his followers bold and numerous; and it was too fatally shown, that, by his Andalusian and Mauritanian commands, he held in his hand the keys of the Spanish monarchy. Too feeble, however, to meet his sovereign in arms, he sought the aid of a foreign power; and his rash invitation of the Moors and Arabs produced the calamities of eight hundred years. In his epistles, or in a personal interview, he revealed the wealth and nakedness of his country; the weakness of an unpopular prince; the degeneracy of an effeminate people. The Goths were no longer the victorious Barbarians, who had humbled the pride of Rome, despoiled the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenæan mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long peace the walls of the cities were mouldered into dust: the youth had abandoned the exercise of arms; and the presumption of their ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by the ease and importance of the attempt; but the execution was delayed till he had consulted the commander of the faithful; and his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and caution, continued his correspondence and hastened his preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond the sea that separates Africa from Europe.170

170 The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagius, Abulfeda, pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single word. The text of Novairi and the other Arabian writers is represented, though with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne, (Hist. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols. ir 12mo. tom. i. p 55-114,) and more concisely by M. de Guignes

Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to the raitors and infidels of a foreign land, he made a less dargerous trial of their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs, and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four vessels, froin Tangier or Ceuta: the place of their descent on the opposite snore of the strait is marked by the name of Tarif their chief; ard the date of this memorable event 171 is fixed to the month of Ramadan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the ronth of July, seven hundred and forty-eight years from the Spanish æra of Cæsar, 172 seven hundred and ten after the birth of Christ. From their first station, they marched eighteen miles through a hilly country to the castle and town of Julian : 173 on which (it is still called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green Island, from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their hospitable entertainment, the Christians who joined their standard, their inroad into a fertile and unguarded

(Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 347-350.) The librarian of the Escuria) has not satisfied my hopes: yet he appears to have searched with. diligence his broken materials; and the history of the conquest it illustrated by some valuable fragments of the genuine Razis, (whe wrote at Corduba, A. H. 300,) of Ben Hazil, &c. See Bibliot. ArabicoHispana, tom. ii. p. 32, 105, 106, 182, 252, 319-332. On this occa sion, the industry of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the Abbé de Longuerue, and to their joint labors I am deeply indebted.

171 A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has determined Baro. nius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish historians, to place the first invasion in the year 713, and the battle of Xeres in November, 714. This anachronism of three years has been detected by the more correct industry of modern chronologists, above all, of Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 169, 171-174,) who have restored the genuine date of the revolution. At the present time, an Arabian scholar, like Cardonne, who adopts the ancient error, (tom. i. p. 75,) is inexcusably ignorant or careless.

172 The Era of Cæsar, which in Spain was in legal and popular use till the xivth century, begins thirty-eight years before the birth of Christ. I would refer the origin to the general peace by sea and land, which confirmed the power and partition of the Triumvirs, (Dion Cassius, 1. xlviii. p. 547, 553. Appian, de Bell. Civil. 1. v. p. 1034, edit. fol.) Spain was a province of Cæsar Octavian; and Tarragona, which raised the first temple to Augustus, (Tacit. Annal. i. 78,) might borrow from the Orientals this mode of flattery.

173 The road, the country, the old castle of Count Julian, and the superstitious belief of the Spaniards of hidden treasures, &c., are described by Père Labat (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, tom. : D. 20-217, with his usual pleasantry.

province, the richness of their spoil, and the safety of their return, announced to their brethren the most favorable omens of victory. In the ensuing spring, five thousand veterans and volunteers were embarked under the command of Tarik, a dauntless and skilful soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his chief; and the necessary transports were provided by the industry of their too faithful ally. The Saracens landed 174 at the pillar or point of Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel al Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the intrenchments of his camp were the first outline of those fortifications, which, in the hands of our countrymen, have resisted the art and power of the house of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed the court of Toledo of the descent and progress of the Arabs; and the defeat of his lieutenant Edeco, who had been commanded to seize and bind the presumptuous strangers, admonished Roderic of the magnitude of the danger. At the royasummons, the dukes and counts, the bishops and nobles of the Gothic monarchy, assembled at the head of their followers; and the title of King of the Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may be excused by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners, between the nations of Spain. His army consisted of ninety or a hundred thousand men; a formidable power, if their fidelity and discipline had been adequate to their numbers. The troops of Tarik had been augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the Christian malecontents were attracted by the influence of Julian, and a crowd of Africans most greedily tasted the temporal blessings of the Koran. In the neighborhood of Cadiz, the town of Xeres 175 has been illustrated by the encounter which determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of the Guadalete, which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and marked the advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and bloody days. On the fourth day, the two armies joined a more serious and decisive issue; but Alaric would

174 The Nubian Geographer (p. 154) explains the topography of the war; but it is highly incredible that the lieutenant of Musa should execute the desperate and useless measure of burning his ships.

175 Xeres (the Roman colony of Asta Regia) is only two leagues trom Cadiz. In the xvith century it was a granary of corn; and the wine of Xeres is familiar to the nations of Europe, (Lud. Nonii Hispania, c. 13, p. 54–56, a work of correct and concise knowledge, D'Anville, Fats de l'Europe, &c. p. 154.)