CALIPHS OF SPAIN. 57 



hood of Malaga and Carthacrena, were among the 

 most valuable and lucrative articles of exportation. 

 These facts, attested by native authors, v^ill throw 

 light on the hitherto unexplained magnificence of 

 the Western caliphs. Commerce was the true 

 foundation of their greatness — the secret spring 

 that filled the treasures of Spain, and fed the wealth 

 and industry of her inhabitants. At length the fleets 

 of the Christians, as well as of the kings of Arragon 

 and Portugal, gradually defeated the maritime forces 

 of the I\Ioors, until they were totally annihilated 

 after the conquest of Algesiras, Seville, and Al- 

 meria. 



In all their actions by sea and land, the Arabs re- 

 tained their characteristic mode of warfare; they 

 sustained with patient firmness the fury of attack, 

 and seldom advanced to the charge until the enemy 

 were thrown off their guard or overcome with fa- 

 tigue. But if they were broken and repulsed, they 

 knew not how to rally or renew the combat ; and 

 their dismay was always heightened by a super- 

 stitious presentiment that they were abandoned of 

 Heaven. The decline and fall of the caliphs coun- 

 tenanced the fearful opinion that God had declared 

 himself on the side of the foe ; nor were there want- 

 ing, both among Mohammedans and Christians, some 

 obscure oracles which predicted their alternate de- 

 feats. In their various encounters with the Arabs, 

 the princes, both of Asia and Europe, too often felt 

 that these barbarians had nothing barbarous in their 

 discipline. If their ships, engines, and fortifications 

 were of a less skilful construction, they had the 

 vanity to think it was a defect of nature rather than 

 any fault of their own ; for they readily acknow- 

 ledged that the same God who had given a tongue 

 to the Arabians had more nicely fashioned the hands 

 of the Chinese and the heads of the Greeks. 



Since the reduction of Sicily by the Moslems, the 

 Greeks had been anxious to regain that valuable 



