Liberia <^ 



(the Roman Septa ^) to Mogador. By the middle of the 

 fifteenth century the Portuguese were masters of the northern 

 horn of Morocco, that peninsular projection towards Europe 

 which extends from Tangier and Ceuta, on the north, to the 

 River Aulkus on the south. This intrusion of the Portuguese 

 was singularly disconcerting to the Arabised Moors of Morocco, 

 who, reinforced from time to time by fresh bands of Arabs 

 coming right across Northern Africa from Egypt, or by some 

 northward rush of Muhammadan Berbers from the Niger, had 

 renewed over and over again the invasion of Spain, if not 

 of Portugal,^ This solid block of Portuguese dominion, there- 

 fore, in the northern promontory of Morocco threatened to be 

 a wedge which would completely separate the Moors (not then 

 a bold seafaring people) from the Moorish kingdom of Granada 

 across the Straits of Gibraltar. Consequently the Moorish hosts 

 threw themselves with fanaticism again and again on the barrier 

 of Portuguese fortresses and armies. 



The intrusion of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century 

 had assisted to break up the Moorish dynasty of the Beni- 

 Marln. Moorish opinion was in disarray. That portion of it 

 which was founded on the less fanatical coast population de- 

 scended from the Romans, Spaniards, Goths, Byzantines, and 

 Christian Berbers, was half inclined to waver in its allegiance 

 to the Crescent, and join the Empire of the Cross under Portugal. 

 This reactionary feeling provoked another Mahdi in one of 

 the Sharifs of Sijilmassa in Southern Morocco. This man 

 finally led the Moorish armies against the Portuguese. The 

 young King Sebastia?) had just succeeded to the crown of 



' The Portuguese generally pronounced this name Septa or Sevta, and spelt 

 it Cepta ; it was the Spaniards that turned v into u, and made it Ceuta. The 

 Moors call it Sebta. 



^ The Moors had been finally expelled from their last foothold on Portuguese 

 soil (Algarve) about 1254. 



46 



