Spain has been rightly described as ‘one of the most cut up portions of the earth’s surface’. A glance at her map will show the numerous mountain ranges that pierce into the heart of the country, dividing her into districts utterly unlike both in climate and soil. Even rivers that elsewhere in Europe, as in the case of the Rhine and the Danube, act as roads of friendship and commerce, are in Spain for the most part unnavigable, running in wild torrents between precipitous banks so as to form an additional hindrance to intercourse. Geography thus came to play a very great part in the history of mediaeval Spain, deciding that though overrun by Romans, Vandals, Visigoths, and Saracens, no conquest should be ever quite complete, since the invaded could always find inaccessible refuges amongst the mountains. A spirit of provincial independence was also fostered, as in Italy[30]--men learning to say first not ‘I am a Spaniard,’ but ‘I am of Burgos,’ or ‘of Andalusia,’ or of ‘Barcelona,’ according to their neighbourhood. When the Saracens defeated King Rodrigo and his Christian army at the battle of Guadalete,[31] we have seen that they found the subjugation of southern and central Spain an easy matter. Rich towns and districts passed into their hands almost without a blow: the Gothic nobles and their families who should have defended them, weakened by tribal dissensions, fled away northwards to the mountains of Leon and Asturias, while the downtrodden masses that they left behind soon welcomed their new masters. It was the policy of the Moors to grant a slave his freedom on his open acknowledgement of Allah as the one God and Mahomet as his Prophet, while they allowed those Christians and Jews who refused to surrender their faith to live in peace on the payment of a poll-tax not required from Moslems. [Illustration: The SPANISH KINGDOMS 1263-1492] [Sidenote: The Caliphate of Cordova] The capital of the Saracen kingdom, or ‘Caliphate’, that was destined to survive practically unmolested for some three hundred years, was the town of Cordova, whose capture the Moors believed had been divinely inspired by Allah, since as their army under cover of the darkness swept up to the walls, a terrific hail-storm descended that deadened the clatter of approaching hoofs. From a treacherous shepherd one of the captains learned of a part of the fortifications easy to scale; and, climbing up undetected by means of a fig-tree, he let down his long turban to assist his fellows until a sufficient number had mounted to overpower the guards and open the gates to the main army.