56 CALIPHS OF SPAIN. 



Saracens she boasted of eighty great cities — 300 

 of the second and third order ; besides smaller 

 towns and villages innumerable. Most of these 

 were planted with nurseries of art and industry, 

 which gave an unexampled activity to trade and 

 manufactures. There was scarcely a country in 

 the civihzed world to w^hich their traffic did not ex- 

 tend. Throughout Africa, arms and accoutrements, 

 silks and woollen cloths of various colours, were in 

 great demand. With Egypt and the Grecian states 

 they bartered their different exports, to a still greater 

 amount, for such commodities as were in popular 

 request in Spain. Their drugs and dies were ex- 

 changed for oriental perfumes ; and the luxuries of 

 India were brought ^rom Alexandria to Malaga to 

 supply the wants of the court. The manufactories 

 of Spain were the arsenals from which France and 

 England drew their best military accoutrements — 

 such as helmets, lances, swordblades, and coats-of- 

 mail, which had reached a perfection in that coun- 

 try unknown to the rest of Europe. The profits de- 

 rived from these successful speculations must have 

 been incalculable ; and, while abundantly renmner- 

 ating the merchant, they afforded a prodigious 

 source of revenue to the sovereign. 



In the fourteenth century the Arabs had an im- 

 mense marine ; the woods and forests of Spain fur- 

 nished them with timber, and they are said to have 

 possessed a fleet of more than 1000 merchant ves- 

 sels. From an Arabian writer on commerce, of the 

 tenth century, it appears that the balance of trade 

 was decidedly in favour of the Moors, whom Crtsiri, 

 from their maritime traffic and the distant voyages 

 they undertook by sea, compares to the ancient 

 Phenicians and Carthaginians. Gold, silver, cop- 

 per, raw and wrought silks, sugar, cochineal, quick- 

 silver, iron, olives, oil, myrrh, corals fished on t!ie 

 coast of Andalusia, pearls on that of Cata! jnia, 

 rubies and amethysts from mines in the neighbour- 



