All things considered, it is a matter for surprise that these two peoples, so unlike in race, habits, prejudices, and religion, lived so comparatively quietly side by side in spite of a perpetual state of warfare between the Arabs and the Christians in the North, which tended to keep alive the animosities of the two races in that part of Spain which was under Mohammedan rule.[1] Moreover, the pride of race was very strong in the pure-blooded Arabs. Thus the poet Said ibn Djoud, in a poem called the "battle of the town" (Polei), boasts that the conquerors are of the pure race of Adnan and Kahtan, without any foreign admixture; while he calls the defeated Spaniards miscreants, followers of a false faith,[2] sons of the pale-faces. The haughty Arabs, in fact, were too prone to look upon all the Spaniards, both renegades and Christians, as mere canaille.[3] But, in spite of this, the races to a certain extent amalgamated; and Eulogius endeavours to prove that, but for the outbreak of fanaticism in the middle of the ninth century, this amalgamation would have had serious results for Christianity in Spain.[4] The Arabs did not disdain to seek the alliance of the free Christian States, nor were the latter averse from doing the same, when political occasion demanded it. As early as 798 the Walis of the frontier cities sought to make themselves independent by what the Arab writer describes as "vile policy and unworthy acts," _i.e._, by seeking the friendship of the Christian kings;[5] and there are many instances of these kings asking aid, even servilely, from Arab princes.[6] [1] Dozy, ii. 108, puts the distinction between the races very forcibly:--"Ce peuple qui joignait à une gaité franche et vive une sensualité raffinée devait inspirer aux prêtres, qui aimaient les retraites éternelles et profondes, les grands renoncéments et les terribles expiations, une répugnance extrême et invincible." [2] Dozy, ii. 223. [3] "C'était leur terme consacrée." Dozy, ii. 211. [4] "Heu pro dolor! quia esse sub Gentibus delicias computamus, iugumque cum infidelibus ducere non renitimur. Et inde ex cotidiano usu illorum sacrilegiis plerumque utimur et magis ipsorum contubernia affectamus."--Eul., "Doc. Martyr," sec. 18. [5] Conde, i. 244: "Chron. Alb.," vi. sec. 58: "Chron. Lib.," sec. 30. [6] Al Makkari, ii. 161, Ordono the Bad and Hakem II.