y to
the number of four-score thousand persons. [15] But his own dexterity,
and the discontents of Africa, soon fortified the Vandal powers, by the
accession of numerous and active allies. The parts of Mauritania which
border on the Great Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, were filled with
a fierce and untractable race of men, whose savage temper had been
exasperated, rather than reclaimed, by their dread of the Roman arms.
The wandering Moors, [16] as they gradually ventured to approach the
seashore, and the camp of the Vandals, must have viewed with terror and
astonishment the dress, the armor, the martial pride and discipline
of the unknown strangers who had landed on their coast; and the fair
complexions of the blue-eyed warriors of Germany formed a very singular
contrast with the swarthy or olive hue which is derived from the
neighborhood of the torrid zone. After the first difficulties had in
some measure been removed, which arose from the mutual ignorance
of their respective language, the Moors, regardless of any future
consequence, embraced the alliance of the enemies of Rome; and a crowd
of naked savages rushed from the woods and valleys of Mount Atlas,
to satiate their revenge on the polished tyrants, who had injuriously
expelled them from the native sovereignty of the land.

[Footnote 15: Compare Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p. 190)
and Victor Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandal. l. i. c. 1, p. 3, edit.
Ruinart.) We are assured by Idatius, that Genseric evacuated Spain, cum
Vandalis omnibus eorumque familiis; and Possidius (in Vit. Augustin. c.
28, apud Ruinart, p. 427) describes his army as manus ingens immanium
gentium Vandalorum et Alanorum, commixtam secum babens Gothorum gentem,
aliarumque diversarum personas.]

[Footnote 16: For the manners of the Moors, see Procopius, (de Bell.
Vandal. l. ii. c. 6, p. 249;) for their figure and complexion, M.
de Buffon, (Histoire Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 430.) Procopius says in
general, that the Moors had joined the Vandals before the death of
Valentinian, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p. 190;) and it is probable
that the independent tribes did not embrace any uniform system of
policy.]

The persecution of the Donatists [17] was an event not less favorable to
the designs of Genseric. Seventeen years before he landed in Africa, a
public conference was held at Carthage, by the order of the magistrate.
The Catholics were satisfied, that, after the invincible reason