s in its
eastern. In the third century B.C. it was invaded by the
Carthaginians, who conquered and held a large part of it, but were
afterwards supplanted by the Romans, who ruled it more or less
completely for 700 years. It was invaded in the fifth century A.D.
by a succession of German tribes, and was finally completely overrun
by the Visigoths, who ruled it for more than 200 years. Then came
the invasion of the Moors, who rapidly conquered the whole of the
Peninsula up to the mountains of Asturias, where the Goths still held
their own, and whence they issued from time to time and ultimately
recovered the country. The present population consists of the
remnants of one or more tribes of ancient Iberians, of the still
more ancient Basques, and of relics of all the invaders who have
just been named. There is, besides, a notable proportion of Gypsies
and not a few Jews.

This is obviously a most heterogeneous mixture, but to fully
appreciate the diversity of its origin the several elements should
be traced farther back towards their sources. Thus, the Moors are
principally descendants of Arabs, who flooded the northern provinces
of Africa in successive waves of emigration eastwards, both before
and after the Hegira, partly combining with the Berbers as they went,
and partly displacing them from the littoral districts and driving
them to the oases of the Sahara, whence they in their turn displaced
the Negro population, whom they drove down to the Soudan. The Gypsies,
according to Sir Henry Rawlinson,[16] came from the Indo-Scythic
tribes who inhabited the mouths of the Indus, and began to migrate
northward, from the fourth century onward. They settled in the
Chaldean marshes, assumed independence and defied the caliph. In A.D.
831 the grandson of Haroun al-Raschid sent a large expedition
against them, which, after slaughtering ten thousand, deported the
whole of the remainder first to Baghdad and thence onwards to Persia.
They continued unmanageable in their new home, and were finally
transplanted to the Cilician frontier in Asia Minor, and established
there as a military colony to guard the passes of the Taurus. In A.D.
962 the Greeks, having obtained some temporary successes, drove the
Gypsies back more into the interior, whence they gradually moved
towards the Hellespont under the pressure of the advancing Seljukians,
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They then crossed over
to Europe and gradually oversprea