sand captives, and enriched with their spoils
the bold adventurers of Syria and Egypt.[146] But the title of conqueror
of Africa is more justly due to his successor Akbah. He marched from
Damascus at the head of ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the
genuine force of the Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and
conversion of many thousand Barbarians. It would be difficult, nor is
it necessary, to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah. The
interior regions have been peopled by the Orientals with fictitious
armies and imaginary citadels. In the warlike province of Zab or
Numidia, fourscore thousand of the natives might assemble in arms; but
the number of three hundred and sixty towns is incompatible with the
ignorance or decay of husbandry;[147] and a circumference of three
leagues will not be justified by the ruins of Erbe or Lambesa, the
ancient metropolis of that inland country. As we approach the seacoast,
the well-known titles of Bugia,[148] and Tangier[149] define the more
certain limits of the Saracen victories. A remnant of trade still
adheres to the commodious harbour of Bugia, which, in a more prosperous
age, is said to have contained about twenty thousand houses; and the
plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might have
supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence. The remote
position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier, have been
decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the figurative
expressions of the latter, that the walls were constructed of brass, and
that the roofs were covered with gold and silver, may be interpreted as
the emblems of strength and opulence.

[Footnote 146: Theophanes (in Chronograph. p. 293.) inserts the vague
rumours that might reach Constantinople, of the western conquests of the
Arabs; and I learn from Paul Warnefrid, deacon of Aquileia (de Gestis
Langobard. 1. v. c. 13), that at this time they sent a fleet from
Alexandria into the Sicilian and African seas.]

[Footnote 147: See Novairi (apud Otter, p. 118), Leo Africanus (fol.
81, verso), who reckoned only cinque citta e infinite casal, Marmol
(Description de l'Afrique, tom. iii. p. 33,) and Shaw (Travels, p. 57,
65-68)]

[Footnote 148: Leo African. fol. 58, verso, 59, recto. Marmol, tom. ii.
p. 415. Shaw, p. 43]

[Footnote 149: Leo African. fol. 52. Marmol, tom. ii. p. 228.]

The province of Mauritania Tingitana,[150] which assumed the name of the
capital had been