tion whether Musa ever passed the Pyrenees.]

[Footnote 185: Four hundred years after Theodemir, his territories of
Murcia and Carthagena retain in the Nubian geographer Edrisi (p, 154,
161) the name of Tadmir, (D'Anville, Etats de l'Europe, p. 156. Pagi,
tom. iii. p. 174.) In the present decay of Spanish agriculture, Mr.
Swinburne (Travels into Spain, p. 119) surveyed with pleasure the
delicious valley from Murcia to Orihuela, four leagues and a half of the
finest corn pulse, lucerne, oranges, &c.]

[Footnote 1851: Gibbon has made eight cities: in Conde's translation
Bigera does not appear.--M.]

[Footnote 186: See the treaty in Arabic and Latin, in the Bibliotheca
Arabico-Hispana, tom. ii. p. 105, 106. It is signed the 4th of the month
of Regeb, A. H. 94, the 5th of April, A.D. 713; a date which seems to
prolong the resistance of Theodemir, and the government of Musa.]

[Footnote 187: From the history of Sandoval, p. 87. Fleury (Hist.
Eccles. tom. ix. p. 261) has given the substance of another treaty
concluded A Ae. C. 782, A.D. 734, between an Arabian chief and the Goths
and Romans, of the territory of Conimbra in Portugal. The tax of the
churches is fixed at twenty-five pounds of gold; of the monasteries,
fifty; of the cathedrals, one hundred; the Christians are judged by
their count, but in capital cases he must consult the alcaide. The
church doors must be shut, and they must respect the name of Mahomet.
I have not the original before me; it would confirm or destroy a dark
suspicion, that the piece has been forged to introduce the immunity of a
neighboring convent.]

The exploits of Musa were performed in the evening of life, though he
affected to disguise his age by coloring with a red powder the whiteness
of his beard. But in the love of action and glory, his breast was
still fired with the ardor of youth; and the possession of Spain was
considered only as the first step to the monarchy of Europe. With
a powerful armament by sea and land, he was preparing to repass the
Pyrenees, to extinguish in Gaul and Italy the declining kingdoms of the
Franks and Lombards, and to preach the unity of God on the altar of the
Vatican. From thence, subduing the Barbarians of Germany, he proposed
to follow the course of the Danube from its source to the Euxine Sea,
to overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople, and returning
from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions with Antioch and
the provinces of Syria