Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to the raitors ad infidels of a foreign land, he made a less dangerous 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 opposito Suore of the strait is marked by the name of Tarif their chief; and the date of this memorable event 171 is fixed to the month of Ramadan, of the ninety-first year of the Hegira, to the month of July, seven hundred and forty-eight years from the Spanish æra of Cæsar,1 ,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 Escurial 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, (who 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 Æra, has determined Baronius, 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. p. 20-217, with his usual pleasantry.

province, the richness of their spoil, and the safety of thetr 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 Deen augmented to twelve thousand Saracens; but the Chr tian 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 from Cadiz. In the xvith century it was a granary of corn; and the wine of Xercs 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 e l'Europe, &c. p. 154.)

have blushed at the sight of his unworthy successor, sustaining on his head a diadem of pearls, encumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken embroidery, and reclining on a litter or car of ivory drawn by two white mules. Notwithstanding the valor of the Saracens, they fainted under the weight of multitudes, and the plain of Xeres was overspread with sixteen thousand of their dead bodies. "My brethren," said Tarik to his surviving companions, "the enemy is before you, the sea is behind; whither would ye fly? Follow your gen eral: I am resolved either to lose my life, or to trample on the prostrate king of the Romans." Besides the resource of despair, he confided in the secret correspondence and nocturnal interviews of Count Julian with the sons and the brother of Witiza. The two princes and the archbishop of Toledo occupied the most important post: their well-timed defection broke the ranks of the Christians; each warrior was prompted by fear or suspicion to consult his personal safety; and the remains of the Gothic army were scattered or destroyed in the flight and pursuit of the three following days. Amidst the general disorder, Roderic started from his car, and mounted Orelia, the fleetest of his horses; but he escaped from a sol dier's death to perish more ignobly in the waters of the Bætis or Guadalquivir. His diadem, his robes, and his courser, were found on the bank; but as the body of the Gothic prince was lost in the waves, the pride and ignorance of the caliph must have been gratified with some meaner head, which was exposed in triumph before the palace of Damascus. "And such," continues a valiant historian of the Arabs, "is the fate of those kings who withdraw themselves from a field of battle." 176

Count Julian had plunged so deep into guilt and infamy that his only hope was in the ruin of his country. After the battle of Xeres, he recommended the most effectual measures to the victorious Saracen. "The king of the Goths is slain; their princes have fled before you, the army is routed, the nation is astonished. Secure with sufficient detachments the

176 Id sane infortunii regibus pedem ex acie referentibus sæpe contingit, (Ben Hazil of Grenada, in Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 327.) Scme credulous Spaniards believe that King Roderic, or Rodrigo, escaped to a hermit's cell; and others, that he was cast alive into a tub full of serpents, from whence he exclaimed, with a famentable voice, "They devour the part with which I have so grievous.y sinned.' (Don Quixote, part ii. 1. iii. c. i.)

cities of Botica, but in person, and without delay, march to the royal city of Toledo, and allow not the distracted Chris tians either time or tranquillity for the election of a new monarch." Tarik listened to his advice. A Roman captivo and proselyte, who had been enfranchised by the caliph him self, assaulted Cordova with seven hundred horse: he swam the river, surprised the town, and drove the Christians into the great church, where they defended themselves above three months. Another detachment reduced the sea-coast of Boetica, which in the last period of the Moorish power has comprised in a narrow space the populous kingdom of Grenada. The march of Tarik from the Bætis to the Tagus 177 was directed through the Sierra Morena, that separates Andalusia and Castille, till he appeared in arms under the walls of Toledo.178 The most zealous of the Catholics had escaped with the relics of their saints; and if the gates were shut, it was only till the victor had subscribed a fair and reasonable capitulation. The voluntary exiles were allowed to depart with their effects; seven churches were appropriated to the Christian worship; the archbishop and his clergy were at liberty to exercise their functions, the monks to practise or neglect their penance; and the Goths and Romans were left in all civil and criminal cases to the subordinate jurisdiction of their own laws and magistrates. But if the justice of Tarik protected the Christians, his gratitude and policy rewarded the Jews, to whose secret or open aid he was indebted for his most important acquisitions. Persecuted by the kings and synods of Spain, who had often pressed the alternative of banishment or baptism, that outcast nation embraced the moment of revenge: the comparison of their past and present state was the pledge of their fidelity; and the alliance between the disciples of Moses and of Mahomet was maintained till the final æra of their common expulsion. From

177 The direct road from Corduba to Toledo was measured by Mr. Swinburne's mules in 72 hours; but a larger computation must be adopted for the slow and devious marches of an army. The Arabs traversed the province of La Mancha, which the pen of Cervantes has transformed into classic ground to the readers of every nation.

178 The antiquities of Toledo, Urbs Parea in the Punic wars, Urba Regia in the vith century, are briefly described by Nonius, (Hispania, c. 59, p. 181-186.) He borrows from Roderic the fatale palatium of Moorish portraits; but modestly insinuates that it was no more than ■ Roman amphitheatre.

the royal seat of Toledo, the Arabian leader spread his conquests to the north, over the modern realms of Castille and Leon but it is needless to enumerate the cities that yielded on his approach, or again to describe the table of emerald, 179 transported from the East by the Romans, acquired by the Goths among the spoils of Rome, and presented by the Arabs to the throne of Damascus. Beyond the Asturian mountains, the maritime town of Gijon was the term 180 of the lieutenant of Musa, who had performed, with the speed of a traveller, his victorious march, of seven hundred miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the Bay of Biscay. The failure of land compelled him to retreat; and he was recalled to Toledo, to excuse his presumption of subduing a kingdom in the absence of his general. Spain, which, in a more sav age and disorderly state, had resisted, two hundred years, the arms of the Romans, was overrun in a few months by those of the Saracens; and such was the eagerness of submission and treaty, that the governor of Cordova is recorded as the only chief who fell, without conditions, a prisoner into their hands. The cause of the Goths had been irrevocably judged in the field of Xeres; and, in the national dismay, each part of the monarchy declined a contest with the antagonist who had vanquished the united strength of the whole.181 That strength had been wasted by two successive seasons of fam ine and pestilence; and the governors, who were impatient to surrender, might exaggerate the difficulty of collecting the

179 In the Historia Arabum, (c. 9, p. 17, ad calcem Elmacin,) Roderic of Toledo describes the emerald tables, and inserts the name of Medinat Almeyda, in Arabic words and letters. He appears to be conversant with the Mahometan writers; but I cannot agree with M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 350,) that he had read and transcribed Novairi; because he was dead a hundred years before Novairi composed his history. This mistake is founded on a still grosser error. M. de Guignes confounds the historian Roderic Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo in the xiiith century, with Cardinal Ximenes, who governed Spain in the beginning of the xvith, and was the subject, not the author, of historical compositions.

180 Tarik might have inscribed on the last rock, the boast of Reg. nard and his companions in their Lapland journey,

"Hic tandem stetimus, nobis ubi defuit orbis,”

181 Such was the argument of the traitor Oppas, and every chief to whom it was addressed did not answer with the spirit of Pelagius: Umnis Hispania dudum sub uno regimine Gothorum, omnis exerci. us Hispaniæ in uno congregatus Ismaelitarum non valuit sustinere umpetum, (Chror. Alphonsi Regis, apud Pagi, tom. iii. p. 177.)