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were engaged in continual feuds with one another. 

 Thus the Christians were enabled to invade the Moslem 

 territory with success. At first they made only plun- 

 dering forays; next they took castles by surprise or 

 by storm and garrisoned them strongly ; and then they 

 began slowly to advance upon the land. By the 

 middle of the ninth century they had reached the 

 Douro and the Ebro. By the close of the eleventh 

 they had reach the Tagus under the banner of the 

 Cid. In the thirteenth century the kingdom of 

 Granada alone was left. But that kingdom lasted two 

 hundred years. Its existence was preserved by causes 

 similar to those which had given the Christians their 

 success. Portugal, Arragon, Leon, and Castile, were 

 more jealous of one another than of the Moorish 

 kingdom. Granada was unaggressive ; and at the 

 same time it belonged to the European family. There 

 was a difference in language, religion, and domestic 

 institutions between Moslem and Christian Spain ; yet 

 the manners and mode of thought in both countries 

 were the same. The cavaliers of Granada were acknow- 

 ledged by the Spaniards to be "gentlemen, though 

 Moors." The Moslem knight cultivated the sciences of 

 courtesy and music, fought only with the foe on equal 

 terms, esteemed it a duty to side with the weak and 

 to succour the distressed, mingled the name of his 

 mistress with his Allah Ahbar ! as the Christians 

 cried, Ma Dame et mon Dieu ! wore in her remem- 

 brance an embroidered scarf or some other gage of 

 love, mingled with her in the graceful dance of the 

 Zambra, serenaded her by moonlight as she looked 

 down from the balcony. Granada was defended by a 

 cavalry of gallant knights, and by an infantry of sturdy 

 mountaineers. But it came to its end at last. The 



