S. P. Scott

“ The Iberian javelin, the sling, and the short and heavy knife of the Cantabrian peasant composed their offensive weapons. Not one in ten had ever seen a battle. Not one in a hundred could understand or appreciate the necessity for the uncomplaining patience and implicit obedience indispensable to the soldier. Yet the soaring ambition, the patriotic pride, the belief in the special protection of heaven—feelings equal to the conquest of a world—rose high in the bosoms of these savage mountaineers. ”

“ This pre-eminent distinction; the unbroken triumph of more than fifty campaigns; the humiliation of its enemies in their formerly impregnable strongholds; the desecration and plunder of their most sacred shrines; the devastation and impoverishment of their territory; their regular payment of tribute and acknowledgment of vassalage,—all of these results are to be attributed to the talents of the hajib, Al-Mansur, the most consummate political and military genius that ever guided the destinies of any portion of the vast and opulent empire conquered and ruled by the sectaries of Mohammed. ”

“ In the East the chiefs of desperate factions were struggling for the throne of the khalifate. Africa was the scene of perpetual insurrection, provoked and maintained by the indomitable spirit of the Berbers. The Emirs of Spain, between the intervals of civil discord, were nursing extravagant dreams of ambition,—visions of the propagation of their faith, of the acquisition of new territories, of the subjugation of infidels, of the extension of empire. The glance of the viceroys was directed beyond the bleak Asturias towards the fertile plains of Southern France. ”

“ This famous city, which had preserved, amidst unparalleled disaster, the prestige and the traditions of its former greatness, was still the capital of Africa and the seat of the imperial prefect. The power of Phœnicia, almost omnipotent in the maritime world of the ancients, founded upon boundless wealth, upon extensive acquaintance with distant lands and peoples, upon scientific secrets, whose importance was exaggerated by mystery, and upon the undisputed dominion of the seas, had been transmitted to Carthage, her favorite and most important colony. ”

“ They had a common admiration for courage as the greatest of virtues; a common appreciation of the noble qualities of personal liberty, of private honor, of generous hospitality. Their habits were slothful, their existence precarious. Their jealousy of power forbade their acknowledgment of royal authority. They considered all industrial employments as beneath the dignity of manhood. Their worship was tainted with the most objectionable features of idolatry,—the adoration of stones, the practice of fetichism, the horrors of human sacrifice. ”

“ The castle of Ceuta was the key of Europe. Impregnable to all the resources of military engineering in an age when gunpowder was unknown, its value as an obstacle to foreign invasion was not understood by the Visigoths. The immunity of centuries; the contempt for barbarians; the ignorance of the mighty and unexampled power of Islam; the inertia produced partly by the influence of climate, but principally by an abuse of all the pleasures of unbridled luxury, had disposed the sovereigns of Toledo to consider their kingdom inaccessible to attack, and their empire eternal. ”

“ Damascus, under the rule of the Ommeyades, presented a picture of licentiousness and luxury unequalled, before or since, by that or any other community of the Moslem world. The importance of its commerce, the opulence of its citizens, the beauty of its suburbs, the sanctity of its traditions, and the prestige of its name gained for the most venerable city of antiquity the admiration and the reverence of every traveller. Its temples were embellished with all the magnificent creations of Oriental art. Its palaces were encrusted with porphyry, verde-antique, lapis lazuli, and alabaster. ”

“ Generous, brave, patient of suffering, prodigal of hospitality, reverential to the aged, loyal to their kindred, impatient of restraint, merciless in revenge, their character was an epitome of the rugged virtues and cruel vices of the roving barbarian. The fighting qualities of this people, joined to the inaccessible nature of their haunts, and, in no small degree, aided by their poverty, had always secured for them immunity from conquest. Political reverses had never been able to efface their national peculiarities. ”

“ Under these manifold disadvantages were now to be laid the foundations of an empire destined to embrace the richest portions of two great continents; to extend its language, its ideas, its policy, its religion, its authority, to the extreme limits of a world as yet unknown; to humble the pride of the most renowned sovereigns of Europe; to perfect the most formidable engine for the suppression of free thought and [341] individual liberty which the malignity of superstition has ever devised; to perform achievements and accomplish results unparalleled in the most fantastic creations of romance ”

“ Two occupied the opposite bank of the river; the others encircled the Moorish capital with a girdle of dazzling white villas, interspersed with groves of palms rising amidst a wealth of tropical verdure. For miles in every direction were orange orchards, whose sweetness impregnated the air for many a league. Rivulets and fountains diffused through street and garden a delicious coolness. Blossoms of gaudy hue and overpowering fragrance grew in profusion along the avenues. ”

“ Most religions have, in fact, been established or maintained by force. When we recall the overthrow of Paganism, the successive attempts to recover the Holy Sepulchre, the reconquest of Spain, the Inquisition, the atrocities attending the subjugation of the New World, the utter devastation of Provence and Languedoc, the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we should certainly not subject to invidious scrutiny the polity of Mohammed, whose history is free from the reproach of persecution, and whose supremacy was only partially established by arms. ”

“ If of sufficient importance to excite apprehension when a fugitive, how much more was to be feared from his ambition and revenge as a rival; the sovereign of a mighty kingdom, the claimant of the honors and dignity of the khalifate! Resolved to crush, if possible, the growing power of the Ommeyades before it became too strong to be successfully assailed, the Abbaside Khalif, Abu-Giafar-al-Mansur, ordered Ala-Ibn-Mugayth wali of Kairoan, to attempt the subjection of Spain. ”

“ A general rendezvous was appointed at Seville, now designated as the capital of the kingdom, by reason of its proximity to the sea, and its ease of access to the Moslem settlements of Africa. There were assembled the spoil of palaces, the sacrilegious plunder of churches, the booty of many a battle-field, the throngs of noble captives, the insignia of fallen royalty. Ponderous vehicles were constructed for the conveyance of this treasure, whose value for once exceeded the wildest estimates of Oriental exaggeration. ”

“ I now turn to that splendid period wherein was displayed the glory of the line of the Ommeyades, an epoch forever memorable for its achievements in science and practical philosophy; forever illustrious in the history of intellectual progress as well as for the development of those useful arts which diminish the toil and increase the happiness of every individual, irrespective of rank, whose influence and avocations insensibly contribute their share to the amelioration or degradation of humanity. ”

“ When the loyalty of the nobles and the obsequious devotion of the multitude were not sufficient to enable him to attain the desired end, the Khalif did not hesitate to use bribery, threats, and even assassination, to perpetuate the coveted dignity in his family. From the monarch this natural principle—a species of hero-worship, so common as to be almost universal, and exhibiting its tendencies even in the administration of the greatest of modern republics—descended to the prominent officials of the empire and to their subordinates the walis, the governors of provinces and cities. ”

“ Not the least of the sources of gain to the people of Mecca were the valuable offerings left by pilgrims and merchants in their temples. For a distance of leagues the ground was holy, and all who trod upon it could claim the right of sanctuary. The blood of neither man nor beast could be shed within these sacred precincts without incurring the imputation of sacrilege and the punishment of death. There was no traveller, from whatever country he came, who could not find, among the innumerable idols of the Kaaba, a familiar divinity upon whom to bestow the tribute of his devotion or gratitude. ”

“ The Moorish general, after performing the rites of his faith, addressed his soldiers in a few stirring and well-chosen words. With consummate skill, he availed himself of the strongest passions which control humanity,—avarice, military glory, the love of woman, the priceless rewards of religious constancy. He revealed to them a dream, in which the Prophet had announced that the issue of the conflict would be favorable to the adherents of Islam, and which portended the confusion of the infidel. ”

“ For perversity of disposition, for shameless effrontery, for perfidious disregard of faith and contempt of honor, and for brazen immodesty, the most debauched communities of the East and West, by universal consent, conferred upon the population of Carthage the unenviable distinction of unapproachable infamy. The Vandals had plundered its treasures and enslaved its people, but had spared its noble buildings, and exempted its walls from the destruction which had usually befallen those of other towns conquered by these barbarians. ”

“ Every material advantage which could attract the attention of man, which could stimulate his ambition, increase his wealth, insure his comfort, supply his necessities, and minister to his happiness, was hers. The balmy air of her southern provinces—whose skies for months were unobscured by a single cloud—was tempered by the breezes of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The varied landscape of hill and plain, seamed with a net-work of artificial rivulets, was covered with a mantle of perpetual verdure. ”

“ The light Moorish cavalry swept like a hurricane along the frontier of Navarre. The comparative poverty of the inhabitants presented few attractions to the invaders, who were forced to content themselves with flocks and the produce of the fields instead of the more tempting booty offered by the opulence and luxury of more civilized nations. The accumulation of provisions was so great in the Arab camp that they could not be removed, and a vast quantity of wheat was given to the flames to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. ”

“ The gardens which had been the pride of the capital had been trampled under the hoofs of the Gothic cavalry. Here and there, amidst a heap of blackened ruins, arose a crumbling wall or a group of tottering columns, which alone remained to mark the site of a once magnificent shrine of Venus or Apollo. The repression of general intelligence and individual ambition among the masses had always [72] been a leading maxim of imperial policy. No system of education was provided. All exertion was discouraged. The populace was for generations provided with food and amusement by the government. ”

“ The centre of all this wonderful civilization was the famous city of Cordova. The capital of the empire, of itself, it possessed all the requisites of a mighty state, a vast population, commercial wealth, religious prestige, political power. Eight cities of the first rank and three thousand smaller towns were subject to its jurisdiction. Each year the sum of three million pieces of gold—sixty million dollars—was paid into its treasury. No community of ancient or mediæval times could compare with it in proficiency in the arts, in scientific attainments, in intellectual culture. ”

“ The Berbers, beholding with wonder the apparently invincible character of their enemy, equally fortunate in plain and mountain fastness, defeating with ease their bravest squadrons, and scaling, despite all obstacles, the all-but impregnable defences of their strongholds, clothed him with the attributes of divinity, and, submitting to his dominion, recognized the power of the Khalif, while at the same time, abjuring their idolatry, they confessed the unity and majesty of God. The advance of Okbah was the triumphant progress of a conqueror. ”