aracens had become totally regardless of European opposition--they
were wholly taken up with their domestic quarrels. Ockley says with
truth, in his history: "The Saracens had scarce a deputy lieutenant or
general that would not have thought it the greatest affront, and such
as ought to stigmatize him with indelible disgrace, if he should have
suffered himself to have been insulted by the united forces of all
Europe. And if any one asks why the Greeks did not exert themselves
more, in order to the extirpation of these insolent invaders, it is a
sufficient answer to any person that is acquainted with the characters
of those men to say that Amrou kept his residence at Alexandria, and
Moawyah at Damascus."

As to their contempt, this instance may suffice: Nicephorus, the Roman
emperor, had sent to the Khalif Haroun-al-Raschid a threatening
letter, and this was the reply: "In the name of the most merciful God,
Haroun-al-Raschid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman
dog! I have read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving mother. Thou
shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply!" It was written in letters
of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia.

POLITICAL EFFECT OF POLYGAMY. A nation may recover the confiscation
of its provinces, the confiscation of its wealth; it may survive the
imposition of enormous war-fines; but it never can recover from that
most frightful of all war-acts, the confiscation of its women. When
Abou Obeidah sent to Omar news of his capture of Antioch, Omar gently
upbraided him that he had not let the troops have the women. "If they
want to marry in Syria, let them; and let them have as many female
slaves as they have occasion for." It was the institution of polygamy,
based upon the confiscation of the women in the vanquished countries,
that secured forever the Mohammedan rule. The children of these unions
gloried in their descent from their conquering fathers. No better proof
can be given of the efficacy of this policy than that which is furnished
by North Africa. The irresistible effect of polygamy in consolidating
the new order of things was very striking. In little more than a single
generation, the Khalif was informed by his officers that the tribute
must cease, for all the children born in that region were Mohammedans,
and all spoke Arabic.

MOHAMMEDANISM. Mohammedanism, as left by its founder, was an
anthropomorphic religion. Its God was only a gigantic man, its heaven
a mansio