throughout them all, from the Pyrenees to the Oxus, the name of Mahomet
was invoked in prayer and the _Koran_ revered as the book of the law.

It was under one of their ablest and most renowned commanders, with a
veteran army, and with every apparent advantage of time, place, and
circumstance, that the Arabs made their great effort at the conquest of
Europe north of the Pyrenees. The victorious Moslem soldiery in Spain,

"A countless multitude,
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and Tartar, in one bond
Of erring faith conjoined--strong in the youth
And heat of zeal--a dreadful brotherhood,"

were eager for the plunder of more Christian cities and shrines, and
full of fanatic confidence in the invincibility of their arms.

"Nor were the chiefs
Of victory less assured, by long success
Elate, and proud of that o'erwhelming strength
Which, surely they believed, as it had rolled
Thus far unchecked, would roll victorious on,
Till, like the Orient, the subjected West
Should bow in reverence at Mahomet's name;
And pilgrims from remotest arctic shores
Tread with religious feet the burning sands
Of Araby and Mecca's stony soil."

--_Southey's Roderick_,

It is not only by the modern Christian poet, but by the old Arabian
chroniclers also, that these feelings of ambition and arrogance are
attributed to the Moslems who had overthrown the Visigoth power in
Spain. And their eager expectations of new wars were excited to the
utmost on the reappointment by the Caliph of Abderrahman Ibn Abdillah
Alghafeki to the government of that country, A.D. 729, which restored
them a general who had signalized his skill and prowess during the
conquests of Africa and Spain, whose ready valor and generosity had made
him the idol of the troops, who had already been engaged in several
expeditions into Gaul, so as to be well acquainted with the national
character and tactics of the Franks, and who was known to thirst, like a
good Moslem, for revenge for the slaughter of some detachments of the
"true believers," which had been cut off on the north of the Pyrenees.

In addition to his cardinal military virtues Abderrahman is described by
the Arab writers as a model of integrity and justice. The first two
years of his second administration in Spain were occupied in severe
reforms of the abuses which under his predecessor