Chapter X: Reign of Abd-Al-Rahman Ii.; Reign of Mohammed (2)

The careless Abd-al-Rahman, whose condition had not warranted any expectation of his untimely end, had neglected to officially designate his successor to the throne. His choice, however, was well known to have been fixed upon his eldest son, Mohammed, a cold, sordid, narrow-minded, but able prince; penurious to a degree unprecedented among youths of royal lineage, but of large experience in the arts of war and government, and of unquestioned orthodoxy. Abdallah, on the other hand, was a devotee of pleasure. His palace was nightly the scene of boisterous revels, that were protracted until long after sunrise. He shunned all serious occupations. His intimate friends were debauchees and parasites, whose conversation was seasoned with licentious jests which did not spare either the officials of state or the ministers of religion. Rarely was he seen to enter the door of the mosque, or to assist at the ceremonies of public worship. Despised by the populace and abhorred by the devout, his pre-eminent unfitness for the responsibilities of empire was also recognized by the eunuchs, whom nothing but the prodigality of his mother could ever have induced to espouse his cause. Abu-al-Mofrih, one of the former, who possessed great influence among his fellows, determined, with the proverbial inconstancy of his kind, to gratify his malice and provide for the future by the commission of a double treason. The heterodox opinions of Abdallah afforded a plausible excuse for the perfecting of his scheme. By constant insinuations of the dangers to which the emirate would be exposed if he were raised to power, and by descanting with pious horror upon the sacrilegious life of that profligate prince, he excited apprehensions in the minds of the eunuchs that their own interests might be seriously endangered by a ruler whose previous career had been directed by unbelievers and by persons who had frequently evinced marked contempt for their order. The harshness and notorious parsimony of Mohammed were at first declared by the eunuchs to render him ineligible; serious impediments to success, indeed, in a court governed to a great extent by the soft influences of the seraglio and by the unsparing use of gold. The objections were soon answered by the wily Abu-al-Mofrih, whose experience and reputation gave him a right to take the lead in a project demanding courage and tact, and it was quietly understood that Mohammed was the candidate for whom the empire was reserved. The death of Abd-al-Rahman occurred after midnight. According to Oriental custom, the gates of the palace--which was walled and moated like a castle--were closed, and no one was permitted to leave or enter without satisfactory explanation of his errand and proof of his identity. By a time-honored practice that prescriptive usage had confirmed as legal, the prince who first after the monarch’s death obtained possession of the royal residence was considered to have the presumptive right to the crown. Sadun, a eunuch, who had reluctantly assented to the rejection of Abdallah, but who had lately become a firm partisan of his brother, was selected to inform Mohammed of his good fortune. The villa of the latter was on the opposite bank of the Guadalquivir, and the eunuch, providing himself with the keys of the city gate, which opened upon the bridge, traversed the silent streets until he reached the palace of Abdallah, in front of which he was forced to pass. The halls were aglow with light and the noise of drunken revelry rang upon the air, as the muffled figure of the eunuch glided stealthily by the portals on its mysterious errand. Mohammed, summoned from the bath, received the message with surprise and incredulity. Even the production of his father’s signet, which Sadun exhibited as a token of good faith, was not sufficient to convince him. Regarding the eunuch as an executioner sent by Abdallah to take away his life, he abjectly implored the mercy of the messenger, who, so far from intending injury, had been deputed to tender him a crown. The protestations of Sadun finally prevailed, and the steward of Mohammed’s household was called to assist in devising means to enter the royal palace, an indispensable preliminary to success. His suggestion to apply to the governor of the city was adopted, but that cautious functionary declined to compromise himself by countenancing an enterprise whose issue was so hazardous. The night was fast passing away, and it was evident that something must be done quickly, as dawn would bring discovery, and perhaps death, to all concerned. Again the fertile invention of the steward, Ibn-Musa, came to the aid of his master in his deep perplexity. “Thou knowest, O my Lord,” said he, “that I have often conducted thy daughter to the royal palace. Disguise thyself at once in her garments, and God willing we shall pass the guards.” The advice being approved, Mohammed was speedily enveloped in the veil and flowing robes of the inmates of the harem and mounted upon an ass. The animal was led by the steward, Sadun marching in front; the sentinels were passed without difficulty; but the wary eunuch, fearful of being followed, directed Ibn-Musa to remain near Abdallah’s mansion, while he conducted the prince alone. Arriving at the palace, the knock of Sadun was answered by the porter, an old man who had long served the emirs in that responsible capacity. Peering cautiously through the postern and recognizing the eunuch, he exclaimed, “Whom have you there, O Sadun?” The latter responded, “The daughter of our prince Mohammed; make haste and admit us!” Smiling, as he suspiciously examined the lofty stature and ample proportions of the supposed damsel, the porter rejoined, “Verily, O Sadun, the lady has grown to almost twice her size since she was here a few days since; let her raise her veil that I may see her face.” The eunuch demurred; but the porter threatening to withdraw, Mohammed himself lifted the veil, and disclosed to the astonished gaze of the porter the well-known features of the eldest son of Abd-al-Rahman. “My father is dead,” said the prince, “and I have come to take possession of the palace.” “I do not doubt thy word,” replied the porter, “but mine own eyes must convince me of the truth of thy statement before I can admit thee.” “Then come at once,” exclaimed Sadun, and, leaving Mohammed in the street, the eunuch led the way to the death-chamber of the Emir. “I am satisfied,” said the faithful servitor, bursting into tears, and returning, he opened the gate and kissed the hand of the prince with every protestation of loyalty and obedience. The household was aroused; the officials of state were summoned in haste to the palace, and required to swear allegiance to the new sovereign; and thus, through the address of a handful of eunuchs, who dispensed with equal alacrity the penalties of hatred and the offices of friendship, a serious revolution was averted, and a turn given to national affairs that permanently influenced the future of the Saracen empire.

The first acts of Mohammed after his accession gave undoubted proof of his zeal, and elicited the enthusiastic applause of the theologians, who henceforth became his most devoted subjects. Every official and every public servant who was even suspected of a leaning towards Christianity was discharged without ceremony, and their places were filled with Mussulmans of the most pronounced orthodoxy. The law which forbade the erection or the enlargement of churches--a fundamental article of the convention of Musa--had been to a great extent ignored by the emirs, even under the aggravation of treason and conspiracy; and, as a consequence of this indulgence, new places of worship had arisen in those localities where an increasing Christian population required greater facilities for the services of its religion. By a sweeping edict, Mohammed directed every church and chapel built since the invasion of Tarik to be razed to the ground. The officers who were charged with the execution of this order, more zealous for their faith than solicitous for the honor of their sovereign, waged indiscriminate destruction against all edifices set apart by the Christians for sacred uses, regardless of the sanctity of their traditions or the date of their foundation. A persecution, encouraged by the faquis, was also inaugurated against the obstinate sectaries, who continued to solicit with so much ardor the crown of martyrdom, in comparison with which the severity of Abd-al-Rahman assumed the appearance of moderation. The evidence of the Fathers of the Church, so suspicious in regard to all that reflects upon the credit of their profession or decries the triumphs of their enemies, may perhaps be received to confirm the statement of the Arabs that an immense number of Christians, alarmed by the tortures inflicted upon their fellow communicants, yielded to temptation and apostatized.

But it was not among the infidels alone that it was found necessary to invoke the intervention of the sovereign authority. In the bosom of Islam, a serious dispute had arisen concerning the interpretation of the Koran and the settlement of certain controverted points of doctrine that, in their theological importance and general relation to the Faith, bore no proportion whatever to the virulent animosity exhibited by their several advocates. As the Ommeyades of Spain had early arrogated to themselves, without exception, the functions and privileges of the exalted office of khalif, in which were united the most despotic powers of Church and State, Mohammed, whose discrimination showed him the necessity of deciding this religious controversy before its champions appealed to arms, asserted his prerogative by ordering the rival doctors to respectively plead their cause in his presence. The arguments were heard, and the Malikites, whose prosperity under the former reign had greatly increased their pride and insolence, sustained a signal defeat in their attempt to refute the doctrines of the Hanbalites, their adversaries. With a liberality not to be expected in a ruler whom posterity, perhaps not without injustice, has agreed to stigmatize with the name of bigot, Mohammed decided that the objections urged against the creed of the Hanbalites as preached by Al-Baki, the leader of that sect, were frivolous, and that its tenets were neither based upon misinterpretation of the texts of the Koran nor antagonistic to the generally received tradition.

With the double object of diverting the minds of his subjects from theological disputes and projects of sedition and to repress the encroaching spirit of the Christian princes of the North, whose conquests were making serious inroads on the Moslem territory, Mohammed proclaimed the Holy War, the forces destined for this purpose being placed under the command of the walis of Merida and Saragossa. The Gothic March once more underwent the frightful evils of invasion, and the Saracen army again penetrated the enemy’s country to the very walls of Narbonne. The wali of Saragossa, Musa-Ibn-Zeyad, entrusted with the conduct of the campaign against the King of the Asturias, after some unimportant successes in Galicia, was defeated with great loss at Albeyda, which town, having been taken by King Ordoño, and the Arab garrison massacred, was abandoned to the tender mercies of the barbarous soldiery.

The populace of Toledo, whose implacable hatred of its Saracen masters no exhibition of clemency could diminish and no example of severity intimidate, having learned of the persecution of their Christian brethren at Cordova, and apprehensive lest the zealous efforts of the faquis--whose influence at that time dominated the policy of the government--might be extended to their own city, organized a revolt, seized the Arab governor, and demanded of the Emir in exchange for that official the hostages whom they had given to Abd-al-Rahman II. as security for their loyalty and good behavior. With a weakness that formed no part of his character, and for which no historical account affords an explanation, Mohammed acquiesced. The fierce Toledans then began to carry on war in earnest. Accustomed from childhood to the use of arms and the exposure of a military life, they repeatedly proved more than a match for the disciplined veterans of the emirate. They drove out the garrison of Calatrava and demolished its walls. Then, suddenly traversing the passes of the Sierra Morena, they surprised at Andujar a detachment of the royal forces sent to attack them, captured its baggage, and plundered its camp. Never before in the history of Toledan rebellions had the insurgents ventured so near the capital. The Emir keenly felt the insult to his dignity, and, at the head of all the troops he could collect in such an emergency, advanced to punish the rebels. The latter retired, and their leader, Sindola, whose name indicates his Gothic descent, sent an envoy to the King of the Asturias for aid. The Christian prince, perceiving at a glance the extraordinary benefits which would result from an alliance with a powerful faction in the heart of the Moslem dominions, responded at once to the appeal with a strong body of veterans, who succeeded in entering the city before the arrival of Mohammed.

The strength of the walls and the prowess of the garrison forbade the hope of a successful assault, and induced Mohammed to have recourse to a stratagem worthy of the cunning and astuteness of an Arab. Concealing his troops in the ravine traversed by the Guadacelete, he appeared before Toledo with a squadron of cavalry and made preparations to encamp. The rebels, seeing what was apparently an excellent opportunity to cut off this vanguard before the arrival of the main body, made a sally, and, before they were aware of their danger, were drawn into the trap laid for them and surrounded. Dreadful carnage followed; but few escaped, and a ghastly heap of eight thousand heads, collected in the field of battle, attested the animosity of the victors and the misfortune of the vanquished. These sinister trophies, ranged along the battlements of Cordova and other Andalusian cities, were long an admonition to traitors of the terrible lesson that the Toledans and their infidel allies had received on the banks of the Guadacelete. The great loss sustained by the insurgents,--amounting to twenty thousand, for only the Christians and such Mussulman leaders as were killed or taken prisoners were decapitated,--so far from crushing the obstinate spirit of the inhabitants of the imperial city of the Visigoths, only served to increase their fury and confirm their resolution. Their offensive operations were, however, effectually checked. The garrison, reduced to less than one-third of its number, was forced to remain inactive behind the fortifications. It was with mingled feelings of rage and despair that the industrious as well as the wealthy part of the population, whose possessions had hitherto been respected in the hope of timely submission, beheld the desolation of their gardens, the uprooting of their vineyards, the burning of their villas,--those evidences of prosperity and luxury that embellished for many a mile the banks of the famous Tagus. Their thoughts were further embittered by the consciousness that these ravages were not inflicted through any fault of theirs, but through the turbulence and ill-directed ambition of Jews and renegades, whose numbers were swelled by a crowd of vagabonds and criminals attracted by the evil reputation of the city, the worst elements of a lawless population, the refuse of a score of great communities. An additional advantage gained by the troops of Mohammed served to still further depress the spirits of the Toledans, although no disaster seemed sufficient to impel them to a voluntary return to their allegiance. The principal bridge that gave access to the city was secretly mined. An attack was then made on one of the gates; the assailants retired in apparent disorder; the besieged pursued; and, at the proper instant, the wooden supports were removed from the piers, and the whole structure, crowded with the soldiers of the enemy, was precipitated into the waters of the Tagus. Not an individual escaped, for such as were able to save themselves from the rapid current of the river were shot by the archers of the Emir, stationed on the banks for that purpose. These repeated misfortunes impressed the Toledans with the necessity of peace. Their valor and their constancy under the most discouraging circumstances, although exhibited in an evil cause, cannot but excite the admiration of every reader. For the long period of twenty years Mohammed made incessant but vain attempts to subdue them. They defied the utmost efforts of his power. They menaced him in his very capital. They routed his armies, often commanded by princes of the blood. They dismantled his strongholds. The most overwhelming reverses only nerved them to greater exertions. Great losses in the field, the tortures of famine, the murmurs of their disaffected townsmen, could not shake their determination or excite their fears. The attempts to storm their fortifications were repulsed with heroic courage. Their decimated ranks were recruited from the sturdy mountaineers of Leon and the Asturias. It is in vain that the modern historian searches for the motives that inspired and sustained this sentiment of independence, this habitual defiance of authority. The ancient Gothic spirit was not sufficient to account for such an anomalous condition of affairs, although the Christians greatly outnumbered the members of all other sects. There existed no unity of religious feeling which might actuate zealots to deeds of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. The population of Toledo is represented by all writers as a remarkably heterogeneous one. The Christians mention it freely with contempt. The Moslems, without exception, allude to it as a faithless and turbulent rabble. The reason for the suicidal policy that neglected to demolish the fortifications of this centre of sedition, and did not resort to the drastic measure of wholesale expatriation when milder means had repeatedly failed, also remains a mystery. It required no great degree of statesmanship to perceive the inevitable consequences of the irrepressible spirit of rebellion encouraged, as it was, by the ill-timed clemency and indulgence of the sovereign. At length, emboldened by their alliance with the Christians of the North, and taking advantage of the embarrassments of their antagonist, harassed by enemies at home and abroad, they extorted from the Emir a treaty which virtually conceded their independence. It allowed them to select their own magistrates, including the governor, and to regulate without interference their municipal and ecclesiastical affairs. Toledo, by the payment of an annual tribute, was thus placed upon the same political footing as that of a province recently subjected to the arms of Islam, and must henceforth, for many years, cease to be regarded as an integral part of the Moorish empire.

In the meantime, the example of Toledo had been followed by other cities, whose inhabitants, exasperated by their grievances and instigated by the ambition of daring chieftains, kept the country in continued disorder and exercised to the utmost the energy and abilities of Mohammed. The evil consequences of that pernicious system, peculiar to the Arabs, of entrusting important commands to renegades without previous satisfactory tests of their fidelity, were once more demonstrated. Musa-Ibn-Zeyad, who traced his descent from the branch of the Visigothic nobility known to the Arabs as the Beni-Kasi, and whom we have seen defeated at Albeyda, was soon afterwards, through the intrigues of fanatical courtiers who accused him of treason, removed from his post of wali of Saragossa and disgraced. This officer, whose military talents and political capacity were far above the average, seeing all avenues for promotion under the emirate closed, and keenly feeling the injustice of the treatment he had received, proceeded at once to organize an insurrection, an easy matter among the adventurers of the frontier naturally prone to inconstancy and insubordination. Popular among his subjects, almost the entire province of which Saragossa was the capital declared for his cause. Tudela, Huesca, Toledo, solicited his alliance. Having baffled the efforts of the Emir to crush him, he transmitted his authority to his son Musa. The latter, securing the friendship and support of the Navarrese, crossed the Pyrenees, and carried fire and sword into Southern France. His success was so remarkable, and the resources of the French monarchy were so inadequate to resist the progress of this enterprising partisan, that Charles the Bald not only condescended to treat with him on equal terms, but purchased immunity from future inroads by the payment of a large sum of money and the bestowal of magnificent gifts. The distinction acquired by Musa from the results of this expedition indirectly produced great accessions to his power. His son Lope became one of the magistrates of Toledo. The restless population of the border flocked to his standard by thousands. His army was further augmented by numbers of Christians,--Mozarabes as well as Gascons and Navarrese,--whose former habits and experience made them valuable soldiers. The martial spirit of Musa was displayed indiscriminately against Christian and Moslem; his prowess was respected and his independence reluctantly acknowledged alike by the courts of Cordova, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Oviedo. With a pardonable vanity, justified by actual power and the possession of territory, he assumed the title of Third King of Spain. His death in 862 was followed by a partial dismemberment of his dominions, which enabled Mohammed to recover Saragossa, Tudela, and a few other places of minor importance; but only a few years elapsed before the family of Musa, endeared to the people by the exploits of its founders, regained its former ascendency, and once more expelled the forces of the emirate. Although nothing is said of the religious belief of the Beni-Kasi, it may be inferred that they had returned to the Christian communion, as Alfonso III., their close ally, entrusted to these distinguished princes the education of his son Ordoño, heir to the crown of the Asturias and Leon.

The Norman pirates, familiar to the reader of Arab chronicles as Magioges,--a name derived from the fabulous Gog and Magog, whose descendants they were, according to the doubtful authority of mediæval tradition,--seven years after Mohammed ascended the throne made a second descent upon the shores of the Peninsula. The spoil which they had collected in their first excursion and the facility with which they had penetrated into the heart of France and Spain excited their insatiable cupidity, and inspired them with the hope of even more profitable adventures. But these expectations were defeated by the valor of the Galicians and by the prudence of Abd-al-Rahman II., who, as already related, had established a coast-guard, and disposed the naval forces of the emirate to intercept the landing and chastise the audacity of these intrepid and mysterious rovers of the seas. The fame of their former success had increased their numbers, and, after an ineffectual and disastrous attempt to plunder the seaport towns of Galicia, seventy well-manned vessels of their fleet appeared off the coast of Andalusia. Disembarking at various points, the Normans effected considerable damage, but, not venturing inland, their booty bore no comparison in quantity or value to that obtained by their former visitation, and meeting with a resistance entirely unexpected, they retired to try their fortunes on the coast of Africa. In that country many settlements suffered the dreadful evils consequent upon such attacks, and, after destroying whatever they could not carry away, they ravaged the Balearic Isles, and, steering eastward, swept along the shores of the Mediterranean as far as Sicily and Malta. The unprotected regions of Italy and Greece again experienced the dire effects of barbarian malevolence, this time unmitigated by the sympathy of a common religious belief; the instinctive antipathy of the savages of the North to all that bore the stamp of civilization was gratified without restraint; and, laden with plunder of incalculable value and for once satiated with blood and havoc, the pirates directed their course homeward through the Strait of Gibraltar.

The incessant hostilities maintained by Ordoño with the kingdom of Cordova were, in general, favorable to the Christian arms. Encouraged by the victory he had obtained at Albeyda, the Asturian monarch extended his operations far to the south of the Douro. The knowledge of the growing weakness of their enemies, and the consciousness of their own valor and resources, impelled the mountaineers to still greater exertions. The expeditions which had been at first but mere predatory incursions, now assumed the character of enterprises looking towards a permanent occupation of the country. Every advantageous post beyond the border which it was thought possible to retain was thoroughly fortified and garrisoned immediately after its capture. The walls of dismantled Moorish fortresses were repaired. In those towns where the Arab inhabitants preponderated, the latter were replaced by Galician and Asturian colonists. In all cases where a place was taken by storm, the male population was exterminated, and the women and children led into slavery. Many important cities, including, among others, Coria and Salamanca, fell into the hands of the Christians. The effects of this vigorous policy began to be felt so seriously at Cordova that the government summoned all its energies in an endeavor to counteract it, and a powerful army was assembled under the orders of Al-Mondhir, heir presumptive to the crown. That warlike and experienced prince met the forces of the enemy on the banks of the Douro; the Christians sustained a disastrous defeat; the larger part of the lost territory was recovered; and Al-Mondhir, relieved of further care in this quarter, turned his attention to Alava and Navarre. The victorious banners of the Moslems were next displayed before Pampeluna. The environs of that city were devastated; some castles throughout the province which had sheltered formidable bands of marauders were taken and dismantled; and Al-Mondhir, after a campaign unattended by a single disaster, returned in triumph to Cordova.

These reverses, while not sufficient to deter the indomitable mountaineers from repeating their forays, had at least the effect of changing their direction and limiting their extent. Lusitania, formerly invaded with impunity, was again selected as the object of their attack. The fields and vineyards of Lisbon were trampled down by the Christian squadrons; the town of Cintra was burned, and every hamlet accessible to the fury of a pitiless enemy was depopulated and destroyed. But the salutary lesson the Asturians had been recently taught was not lost upon them, and, without waiting for the army that Mohammed despatched in all haste to intercept their retreat, they retired with the same celerity which had marked their appearance.

Unable to arrest these inroads by ordinary means, Mohammed determined to have recourse to his navy, and disembark a force in the centre of the enemy’s country. The fleet reached the western coast in safety, but before a landing could be effected was destroyed by a hurricane. The more rigid Moslems, whose strict ideas had been shocked by the braving of an element of which the Prophet had stood in wholesome dread, regarded this catastrophe as a well-merited chastisement from heaven for disobedience to the Koran.

The revolt of Toledo had, from time to time, been followed by the defection of other cities, whose disorders, while important in the aggregate, were singly of little moment in their effects upon the affairs of the Peninsula. One, however, in some respects greatly resembling that by which the old capital of the Visigoths had secured its independence, deserves to be related, as it demonstrates, more thoroughly than an entire chronicle could do, the deplorable helplessness into which the empire founded by Abd-al-Rahman had fallen. Ibn-Merwan, a renegade prominent in former rebellions, and whom the foolish policy of the Moslems has again entrusted with a position of responsibility, aggrieved by some petty insult, deserted, and, accompanied by a few of his retainers, seized the castle of Alanje, near Merida. Besieged before he had time to collect supplies, he nevertheless held out for three months, when he surrendered on condition of his retirement to Bagdad. No sooner was he free, however, than he proclaimed himself the apostle of a new religion, whose doctrines were borrowed from those of both Christianity and Islamism; increased his following by the enlistment of bandits and outlaws; and, imitating the example of the Toledans, strengthened his cause by an alliance with the King of the Asturias. His depredations became so annoying that an army under Haschim, Mohammed’s favorite vizier, was despatched against him. The wily partisan found little trouble in decoying the vizier into an ambuscade; his command was annihilated; and he himself was sent as a trophy to the court of Alfonso. When the Emir made proposals for the ransom of Haschim, the Christian king demanded the immense sum of a hundred thousand pieces of gold. Much as he desired the release of his minister, the parsimony of Mohammed, which had increased with years, deterred him from so profuse an expenditure. For many months Haschim remained in captivity, but at length the entreaties of his family overcame the reluctance of the Emir, and he consented to send a portion of the ransom. The balance was secured by the delivery of hostages, and the vizier was finally liberated.

On his return to Cordova, Haschim found that his ancient enemy, with whom even Mohammed himself was unable to cope, had, during his absence, attained to the dignity of an independent prince. The Emir, intimidated by the menaces of Ibn-Merwan, had been compelled to conclude a peace with that chieftain; to cede to him the strong city of Badajoz; to release him from the payment of tribute; and to accede to such conditions as virtually dispensed with the duties of the subject, as well as abrogated the authority of the sovereign.

The effect of this pusillanimous conduct upon the malcontents and fanatics who infested every community of the emirate--a society the amalgamation of whose elements seemed utterly impracticable; destitute of religious unity; without the slightest idea of political virtue or patriotism; and acknowledging no incentive to subordination but that suggested by the employment of military force--may readily be imagined. Few cities preserved even the appearance of order. Every lawless passion raged without control. Feuds were prosecuted without interference. The functions of the magistrate, the obligations of the people, were suspended. The empire, shattered in every part, seemed on the verge of dissolution. Neither proximity to the seat of government, the prospect of royal favor, nor fear of the consequences of treason sufficed to retain the states in their allegiance. Andalusia alone sustained with apparent fidelity the cause of Islam and the dignity and fortunes of the monarch; but even this province was now destined to be the seat of an insurrection whose consequences threatened to involve the civilization of the West and the dynasty of the Ommeyades in sudden and irretrievable ruin.

From the time of the Cæsars, that picturesque chain of mountains now known as the Serrania de Ronda, which traverses the southern part of the Peninsula, has been the scene of insurrection and of lawless deeds which no government has ever been able to thoroughly suppress. The proverbial reluctance of the mountaineer to conform to established laws was, in this region especially, encouraged by the savage character of the country, which, to all unacquainted with its intricate paths and gloomy fastnesses, offered an aspect as forbidding as it was pregnant with danger. The population of these mountains, in love of freedom, in strength of body, in military prowess, was the counterpart of that of the Asturias, while in graceful bearing, in beauty of form and feature, and, above all, in intelligence, it far excelled the uncouth barbarians of the North. It united the various qualities of Roman courage, Punic shrewdness, and Arab temperance and agility. The difficulty of enforcing obedience to the constituted authority was vastly increased by the close relations maintained by even the most remote settlements, leagued together in a confederacy which was, in all but name and acknowledged leadership, an independent republic. The brigand who swooped down upon the flocks of the Roman shepherd, or pillaged the hut of the Visigothic peasant, has his worthy counterparts to-day in the smuggler and highwayman. It has not been many decades since the robber chieftain of the Serrania de Ronda levied blackmail on the posts and convoys of the Spanish government; and the contraband traffic of that region at present exceeds in importance the legitimate trade of any other district of equal area and wealth in the Peninsula.

On the slope of this mountain range, not far from Malaga, lived in the reign of Mohammed a youth of fiery temper and dissolute habits, named Omar-Ibn-Hafsun. His father, descended from a distinguished Gothic family, like many others, had renounced his faith rather with a view to future advantage than from belief in the doctrines of Islam. His son, concerned in frequent broils with the hot-headed peasantry of the neighborhood, had, while but a child, obtained a most unenviable reputation for cruelty and violence. At length, in an encounter with one of his most redoubtable antagonists, the latter paid the penalty of his rashness with his life. Ibn-Hafsun fled to the sierra and joined a gang of banditti, but was eventually seized by the authorities and scourged into insensibility. Escaping from the clutches of the law, he sought the presence of his father, who disowned him and drove him from his home. Knowing that he could not for a great while longer elude the search of the officers who were scouring the country in all directions, he embarked for Tahort in Africa, where he found refuge in the house of a tailor who knew of his family but was ignorant of his recent history, and who willingly accepted him as an apprentice. Here he was soon after recognized by an acquaintance, and, apprehensive of being denounced as a fugitive from justice and surrendered for execution, he left his benefactor and secretly returned to Andalusia. Impelled, perforce, to the profession of an outlaw, he assembled a number of adventurous spirits, repaired an old Roman fort on the summit of Mount Bobastro, and entered upon a life of rapine. The great plain stretching from the foot of the sierra to the capital was soon at his mercy. His band increased with the fame of his exploits; the cities of Andalusia trembled at his name; the governor of the province, who had ventured to attack him with a strong body of regular troops, was reduced to the humiliation of seeing his soldiers routed and his camp pillaged by a handful of daring marauders. This official, whose incompetency was presumed to be the cause of his misfortune, was removed, but his successor, an experienced veteran, fared no better. After a time, the rebel was surrounded by a strong force under the vizier Haschim, and compelled to surrender. His bravery and talents had so excited admiration of the latter that he induced the Emir to offer him an important command in the army. Between the acceptance of this unexpected favor and confinement in a dungeon there could be no hesitation in making a choice, and the former brigand was duly commissioned an officer of the emirate. In many engagements with the insurgents and mountaineers of the North, he bore himself with a self-respecting dignity little to be expected from his former lawless behavior. Admired by his general, respected by his comrades, and feared by his enemies, there seemed to unfold before him the flattering prospect of speedy promotion and all the honors and wealth incident to a distinguished military career. But the petty jealousies of rival courtiers could not brook the sudden elevation and rising prosperity of this new favorite of Haschim. The party opposed to the vizier employed every means to annoy and humiliate the haughty renegade. The governor of the city, under various pretexts, compelled him to constantly move his quarters. The purveyors of the army, instigated by the enemies of his patron, regularly furnished him with rations unfit for consumption. His complaints were ineffectual; even his patron told him that he must avenge his own wrongs. Exasperated by such treatment, above all as it was in no wise deserved, and unwilling to longer submit to the insults that every day became less endurable, Ibn-Hafsun deserted, and again sought the protecting solitudes of the Serrania de Ronda. His band was soon reassembled; the fortress of Bobastro, which the prudence of Mohammed had greatly strengthened, was surprised; and the daring partisan, in the space of a few weeks, became once more the idol of the mountaineers and the terror of the peasantry of Andalusia. But his service in the army of the Emir had wrought a remarkable change in the sentiments and conduct of the outlaw. He proclaimed himself the champion of freedom, the avenger of all who had suffered from the extortions and injustice of the reigning family. In this capacity he was recognized as the representative of the renegades, the Christians, and the Berbers, who thus formed an incongruous, but, for a time, an effective alliance against the dominant Arab aristocracy. By assuming the character of a defender of the oppressed, he invested his cause with a national importance, and relieved it, to a great extent, from the disgraceful imputation of brigandage. The members of his band were subjected to the most severe restraint. Robbery and insubordination were punished with instant death. The entire mountain district was gradually included within his jurisdiction, and security of property and life, such as that region never knew before, existed. It became a common saying among the Andalusians that a woman loaded with silver might cross any portion of the Serrania de Ronda without the least danger of molestation. Such a demonstration of security would have been elsewhere impracticable, even in the populous districts of the emirate patrolled by a vigilant police, and its attempt would have invited certain death in the distant and unprotected provinces of the empire.

In the control of his soldiers, Ibn-Hafsun adopted all those politic expedients which raise commanders to popularity and renown,--inexorable justice, unstinted liberality, prompt recognition of efficient service, merciless punishment of serious infractions of discipline. His increasing power invited the adherence of malcontents who held responsible posts under the government, among them not a few renegades, those pests of every administration whose credulous weakness heeded their protestations or trusted their loyalty. In the year 886, Ibn-Hafsun was assisting one of these traitors in the defence of Alhama against the prince Al-Mondhir. The bandit chieftain had been wounded in a sally, and the garrison was about to surrender, when news reached the prince of the death of his father, and necessitated his immediate return. This unhoped-for change in his fortunes offered an opportunity which the wily Ibn-Hafsun was not slow to appreciate. By plausible representations he induced many towns to submit to his authority, and the accession of Al-Mondhir found him at once confronted with a powerful enemy, whose military genius and fertility of resource promised a long and doubtful struggle for supremacy.

The death of Mohammed was sudden and peaceful. His reign of thirty-four years was the most stormy and unfortunate of any hitherto directed by the Ommeyade monarchs. In addition to manifold political calamities, it was afflicted with a drought severe beyond all hitherto mentioned in the annals of Spain, with famine and pestilence, and with earthquakes that increased the mortality to an appalling degree.

This epoch is conspicuous for the shameful degradation of the Ommeyade dynasty of Spain. In its general features, it also presents an epitome of the evils which afflicted the Hispano-Arab domination under every ruler and in every age. The inherent vices of the Moslem system; the irreconcilable character of the constituents of Moslem society--their turbulence, malignity, and faithlessness--were discernible alike under the administration of Abd-al-Aziz, the first of the emirs, and of Boabdil, the last of the kings. The condition of Mohammed at times seemed desperate. The majority of his subjects were in rebellion. Twenty years of warfare had failed to subdue Toledo, which, with the extensive territory subject to it, was now practically independent. The power of the Christians was increasing daily. Their boundaries were steadily advancing southward. Their banners had even been seen from the walls of the capital. The Franks had obtained a permanent foothold in the Gothic March, forever lost to the jurisdiction and the faith of Islam. The mighty kingdom which had once reached from the banks of the Garonne to the Mediterranean had shrunk to the dimensions of an insignificant principality. Septimania, Leon, Aragon, Catalonia, and a large portion of Castile were in the hands of the enemy. In the North, the walis of the scattered fortresses which still preserved a nominal allegiance to the Emir were secretly leagued with the infidel. In the West, the audacious Ibn-Merwan plundered at will the rich settlements of Estremadura and Lusitania. Valencia and Murcia, the nurseries of many a serious revolt, exhibited unconcealed signs of disaffection, caused by the imposition of excessive taxes and the uncontrolled rapacity of their governors. In the South, the daring Ibn-Hafsun, the representative of the prejudices and the aspirations of a numerous and growing faction, exercised despotic rule over the greater part of Andalusia. Brigands swarmed on the highways. Travel was impossible, except under the protection of a strong escort. Communication between the great cities of the Peninsula was as difficult as if they had been separated by vast continents or seas. At one time, for eight years, intercourse was entirely suspended between Saragossa and Cordova. In every community an ill-defined but universal presentiment of impending evil prevailed. Society was distracted by the quarrels of theologians, frivolous in their nature, but often serious in their consequences. In the history of Islam, a dispute concerning a religious formula or the authenticity of a tradition had, more than once, led to a bloody proscription, or involved entire nations in war. While the majority of the Christian tributaries acquiesced in the conditions imposed by the Moslem laws, numbers of deluded fanatics, resorting to every species of outrage and blasphemy, courted the tortures and the fame of martyrdom. Much of the country was depopulated. Where the inhabitants remained, agricultural and commercial operations greatly declined, and in some districts were absolutely suspended. The public revenues were diminished to such an extent that even the penuriousness of the Emir, aided by the extortions of his merciless officials, could with difficulty provide for the necessary expenses of the royal household. At the death of Mohammed, scarcely one-fourth of the territorial area over which he claimed sovereign jurisdiction acknowledged the legitimacy of his title or contributed to the maintenance of his power.

The evidences of national decadence are only too perceptible in the disappearance of public spirit and military virtue; in the incessant prosecution of intestine warfare; in the almost unresisted encroachments of the Christian arms; in the habitual treachery of officers entrusted with high commands; in the jealousies of courtiers and the intrigues of fanatics; in the feigned enthusiasm of crusades inaugurated in obedience to the principles of Islam, sometimes crowned with partial success, but often terminating in disgrace and disaster.

The character of Mohammed was principally remarkable for irresolution and parsimony. He surrendered whole provinces and degraded his dignity by humiliating concessions extorted by the threats of insolent chiefs of banditti. Such was his meanness that, in a transaction involving the payment of more than a hundred thousand dinars, he defrauded the treasury officials of a few pieces of copper. He reduced the pay of his soldiers. He condescended to share the salaries of government employees, whom he appointed conditionally upon the division of their earnings. Yet, with these serious faults, he was the patron of science, the friend of the learned, a graceful poet and orator, and one of the most accomplished calligraphists of his time. The lack of effective organization; the secret and implacable hostility that pervaded every branch of the body politic; the boldness and tenacity of the Asturians, aided by the sympathy of an innumerable body of Christian ecclesiastics domiciled in every city and village of the empire; and the unavoidable catastrophes of nature, render it extremely problematical whether, under similar circumstances, a prince possessed of greater ability than Mohammed could have better sustained the declining fortunes of the emirate.