iasm, he forced his horse into the waves, and, drawing his sabre,
cried, "God of Mohammed, thou beholdest that, but for the element which
arrests me, I would have proceeded in search of unknown nations, whom I
would have forced to adore thy name!"

Until this epoch, the Moors, under the successive dominion of the
Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, and the Greeks, had taken but
little interest in the affairs of their different masters.

Wandering in the deserts, they occupied themselves chiefly with the
care of their flocks; paid the arbitrary imposts levied upon them,
sometimes passively enduring the oppression of their rulers, and
sometimes essaying to break their chains; taking refuge, after each
defeat of their efforts, in the Atlas Mountains, or in the interior of
their country.

Their religion was a mixture of Christianity and idolatry; their
manners those of the enslaved Nomades: rude, ignorant, and wretched,
{32} their condition was the prototype of what it now is under the
tyrants of Morocco.

But the presence of the Arabs rapidly produced a great change among
these people. A common origin with that of their new masters, together
with similarity of language and temperament, contributed to bind the
conquered to their conquerors.

The announcement of a religion which had been preached by a descendant
of Ishmael, whom the Moors regarded as their father; the rapid
conquests of the Mussulmans, who were already masters of half of Asia
and a large portion of Africa, and who threatened to enslave the world,
aroused the excitable imaginations of the Moors, and restored to their
national character all its passionate energy. They embraced the dogmas
of Mohammed with transport; they united with the Arabs, volunteered to
serve under the Moslem banners, and suddenly became simultaneously
enamoured with Islamism and with glory.

This reunion, which doubled the military strength of the two united
nations, was disturbed for some time by the revolt of the Bereberes,
who never yielded their liberty under any circumstances.

{33}

The reigning caliph, Valid the First, despatched into Egypt
Moussa-ben-Nazir, a judicious and valiant commander, at the head of a
hundred thousand men, A.D. 708, Heg. 89.

Moussa defeated the Bereberes, restored quiet in Mauritania, and seized
upon Tangier, which belonged to the Goths of Spain.

Master of an immense region of country, of a redoubtable army, and of a
people who consider