CHAP. X. 



MIDDLE AGES. 283 



It is then possible that, by such means as they 

 possessed, the Roman and the Arab chiefs were 

 able to extract by washing the sand a greater 

 portion of gold than can now be obtained by the 

 more mild and better regulated governments of 

 modern Europe. 



We find, accordingly l , that in 938 the Ara- 

 bian viceroy Abdoulrahman sent a present to 

 the caliph which, among other valuables, con- 

 sisted of four hundred pounds of virgin gold, 

 and the value of four hundred and twenty thou- 

 sand sequins (about twenty-one thousand pounds 

 sterling) in silver. But the viceroy had ruled 

 Spain twenty years at that time, and in such a 

 period it must, with the number of Christian 

 slaves he could command, have been easy to 

 have collected such a quantity. 



No notices in ancient writings have been dis- 

 covered of mines of the precious metals in Por- 

 tugal distinct from those of Spain. Both the 

 Romans and Moors considered Portugal, under 

 the name of Lusitania, as a province of Spain, and 

 the productions of the two countries are blended 

 together. No modern writer has noticed mines 

 of silver, and only one has made mention of 

 gold. It is at a place called Adissa, in the di- 

 strict of St. Ubes. We have no accounts of its 

 origin or past condition, but recently it has been 



1 Cardonne, vol. i. p. 320. 



