When Hastings arrived off the coast, he divided his fleet into two squadrons. One ascended the Somme, set fire to the towns which lay on its banks, and murdered the inhabitants. The other proceeded to the mouth of the Loire, and committed the same depredations on its banks. Nantes was taken, and all who had sought refuge in the cathedral were put to death. Churches, monasteries, towns, hamlets,—everything which lay in the passage of the invaders, was destroyed. Proceeding to the south, they ravaged the coasts of Galicia, but were defeated by the king of Leon. This check forced them from Spain; but they spread their wild hordes over the south of France, from Thoulouse to the Pyrenees. As they had established a kind of wooden fortress on the Loire, they now erected one on the Garonne. But they were not satisfied with the failure of their arms against Spain; they were determined, by future successes, to blot out the memory of this disgrace; and, with a larger fleet, they returned to that peninsula. Lisbon, then an inconsiderable town, was plundered; passing to the south and east, the armament ascended the Guadalquivir, and assailed the important city of Seville, then in the power of the Mohammedans. Strange was the chance which thus brought the robbers of Scandinavia and those of the Arabian deserts into collision with each other. But the followers of Odin had the advantage over those of Mohammed; doubtless because the latter were few in number, and unprepared for the attack. From this city they made some predatory excursions into the neighbouring country; but the Arabs, by surprising a part of their fleet, counter-balanced the advantage they had just gained.[283] [Sidenote: 845 to 859.]