CONQUEST OF AFRICA AND SPAIN. 391 



the Nile and scattered their tents over the sandy- 

 plains of Libya. Though a few of the IMoorish 

 tribes still retained their peculiar idiom, with the 

 appellation and character of White Africans, yet 

 such has been the influence of time and intercourse 

 in softening down national distinctions, that one and 

 the same people seem to have diffused themselves 

 over the vast regions between the Euphrates and the 

 Atlantic. 



During the fifth century Africa had been the 

 theatre of religious war. The hostile fury of Moors, 

 Vandals, and Donatists had overturned 500 epis- 

 copal churches ; the people languished without dis- 

 cipline or knowledge. The doctrines of Cyprian and 

 Augustine were no longer studied ; Christianity 

 itself, driven before the tide of invasion, finally 

 abandoned the southern coasts of the Mediterra- 

 nean ; the onlv land in which the light of the Gospel, 

 after a long and perfect establishment, has been to- 

 tally extinfruished. 



From Africa the transition to Spain was easy, 

 nor was it altogether untried; for the Moslems, 

 under Abdallah, had visited the shores of Andalusia 

 as early as the time of Othman. This countn,% after 

 witnessing the triumphs, and becoming tributary 

 to the power of the Carthaginians and Romans in 

 succession, had submitted, early in the fifth century, 

 to the government of the Goths, the most formida- 

 ble of the northern invaders. But these impetuous 

 conquerors no longer resembled the fierce sol- 

 diers of Alaric, who had marched victorious over 

 the wide dominions of the Cesars, from the borders 

 of Scandinavia to those of the Atlantic. Without 

 divesting themselves of their primitive rudeness, 

 they had adopted all the false refinements of the 

 vanquished nations, and passed by rapid steps from 

 the extreme of ignorance and poverty to that of 

 luxury and vice. 



After the decease or deposition of Witiza, his two 



