Elsewhere, in Syria and in Asia and in Spain, the Mohammedans failed to extirpate Christianity, and were able for some centuries to enjoy the craftsmanship and the sense of order which their European subjects could lend them. It was only here, in Africa, that their victory was complete. Therefore it is only here, in Africa, that you see what such a victory meant, and how, when it was final, all power of creation disappeared. The works which have rendered Islam a sort of lure for Europe were works that could not have been achieved save by European hands. The Roman towns did not decay; they were immediately abandoned. Gradually the wells filled; the forests were felled in bulk; none were replanted. Of the Olive Gardens, the stone presses alone remain. One may find them still beneath the sand, recalling the fat of oil. But there, to-day, not a spear of grass will grow, and the Sahara has already crept in. The olives long ago were cut down for waste, or for building or for burning. There was not in any other province of the empire so complete an oblivion, nor is there any better example of all that “scientific” history denies: for it is an example of the cataclysmic—of the complete and rapid changes by which history alone is explicable: of the folly of accepting language as a test of origin: of the might and rapidity of religion (which is like a fire): of its mastery over race (which is like the mastery of fire over the vessels it fuses or anneals): of the hierarchic nature of conquest: of the easy destruction of more complex by simpler forms.... * * * * * [Sidenote: The Atlas] If one is to understand this surprising history of Barbary, and to know both what the Romans did in it and what the Arabs did, and to grasp what the reconquest has done or is attempting to do, it is necessary to examine the physical nature of this land. [Sidenote: The Relief of Barbary]