the whole of Spain.

It should be observed, that these Moors, whom several historians have
represented as bloodthirsty barbarians, did not deprive the people whom
they had subjugated either of their faith, their churches, or the
administrators of their laws. They exacted from the Spaniards only the
tribute they had been accustomed to pay their kings. One cannot but
question the existence of the ferocity that is ascribed to them, when
it is remembered that the greater part of the Spanish cities submitted
to the invaders {36} without making the least attempt at resistance;
that the Christians readily united themselves with the Moors; that the
inhabitants of Toledo desired to assume the name of _Musarabs_; and
that Queen Egilona, the widow of Roderick, the last of the Gothic
sovereigns, publicly espoused, with the united consent of the two
nations, Abdelazis the son of Moussa.

Moussa, whom the success of Tarik had greatly exasperated, wishing to
remove a lieutenant whose achievements eclipsed his own, preferred an
accusation against him to the caliph. Valid recalled them both, but
refused to adjudge their difference, and suffered them to die at court
from chagrin at seeing themselves forgotten.

Abdelazis, the husband of Egilona, became governor of Spain A.D. 718,
Heg. 100, but did not long survive his elevation. Alahor, who
succeeded him, carried his arms into Gaul, subdued the Warbonnais, and
was preparing to push his conquests still farther, when he learned that
Pelagius, a prince of the blood-royal of the Visigoths, had taken
refuge in the mountains of Asturia with a handful of devoted followers;
that with them he dared to brave the conquerors of Spain, and had
formed the bold design of {37} attempting to rid himself of their yoke.
Alahor sent some troops against him. Pelagius, intrenched with his
little army in the mountain gorges, twice gave battle to the
Mussulmans, seized upon several castles, and, reanimating the spirits
of the Christians, whose courage had been almost extinguished by so
long a succession of reverses, taught the astonished Spaniards that the
Moors were not invincible.

The insurrection of Pelagius occasioned the recall of Alahor by the
Caliph Omar II. Elzemah, his successor, was of opinion that the most
certain means of repressing revolts among a people is to render them
prosperous and contented. He therefore devoted himself to the wise and
humane government of Spain; to the regulation