8 Unexplored Spain 



beyond that, be allowed to interpolate a remark or two in 

 elucidation of what sometimes appear popular misconcejDtions on 

 these and subsequent events. Thus, during the period denomin- 

 ated " domination," the Arab conquerors enjoyed no peaceful or 

 undisputed possession. During all those centuries there continued 

 one long succession of wars — intermittent attempts, successful 

 and the reverse, at reconquest by the Christian powder. Here a 

 patch of ground, a city, or a province was regained ; presently, 

 perhaps, to be lost a second or a third time. Never for long 

 was there a final acceptance of the major force. But during the 

 interludes, the periods of rest between struggles, the two con- 

 tending races lived in more or less friendly intercourse, exchanging 

 courtesies and even maintaining a stout rivalry in those warlike 

 forms of sport which in mediaeval times formed but a substitute 

 for w^ar. It was thence that the custom of bull-fighting took its 

 rise. If not fighting Arabs, fight bulls, and so prepare for the 

 more strenuous contest. Such conditions could not but have 

 tended towards greater coherence among the various elements on 

 the Christian side, except for the incessant internecine rivalries 

 between the Christians themselves. A Spanish knight or kinglet 

 would invoke the aid of his nation's foe to consolidate or establish 

 his own petty estate. Christians with Moslem auxiliaries fought 

 Moslems reinforced by Christian renegades. 



The Moorish invader had to fight for his possession — every 

 yard of it. Yet despite that, this energetic race found time to 

 colonise, to develop and enrich the subjugated region with a 

 thoroughness the evidence of which faces us to-day. We do not 

 refer to their cities or to such monuments in stone as the Mezquita 

 or Alhambra, but to their introduction into rural Spain of much 

 of what to-day constitutes chief sources of the country's wealth, 

 and which might have been enormously increased had Moorish 

 methods been followed up. The Koran expressly ordains and 

 directs the introduction of all available fruits or plants suitable 

 to soil that came, or comes, under Moslem dominion. " The man 

 who plants or sows the seed of anything which, with the fruit 

 thereof, gives sustenance to man, bird or beast does an action as 

 commendable as charity " — so wrote one of their philosophers. 

 " He who builds a house and plants trees and who oppresses no 

 one, nor lacks justice, will receive abundant reward from the 

 Almighty." There you have the religion both of the good man 



