In some respects a striking parallel, in others a decided contrast existed between Goth and Arab, representatives of the Aryan and Semitic branches of the human family, who crossed swords in Europe for the first time in history, on the plains of the Spanish Peninsula. Between these two great ethnographical divisions, a spirit of irreconcilable enmity has always prevailed. No fusion between them has ever been effected. Where one has obtained ascendency in any part of the world, the other has either preserved its special traits or gradually become extinct. Considerations of political expediency, the claims of divine revelation, the benefits of trade, the ultimate prospect of national union and social equality, have not been sufficient to counteract the influence of an antagonism which anticipates all human records in its antiquity. The customs of nomadic peoples are proverbially persistent; their occupation frequently survives the change of residence, the accidents of migration, and the influence of new and radically different associations. Both the Goths and the Arabs placed their principal dependence upon their flocks and herds, but neither ever hesitated to exchange the crook of the shepherd for the spear of the robber. The love of war and violence was the predominating characteristic of both. They had a common admiration for courage as the greatest of virtues; a common appreciation of the noble qualities of personal liberty, of private honor, of generous hospitality. Their habits were slothful, their existence precarious. Their jealousy of power forbade their acknowledgment of royal authority. They considered all industrial employments as beneath the dignity of manhood. Their worship was tainted with the most objectionable features of idolatry,--the adoration of stones, the practice of fetichism, the horrors of human sacrifice. Alike were they drunkards and desperate gamesters, who eagerly placed their liberty at stake, whose revels resounded with brawling, and whose disputes were settled with the sword. They recognized no permanent ownership in the soil, possessed little portable wealth, were ignorant of the arts and without the knowledge of letters. Like all barbarians, they believed disease and insanity to be caused by demoniacal possession. With both, love of poetry was a passion, and the personality of the bard the object of almost idolatrous reverence. Such were the traits common to two nations, separated by a distance of eighteen hundred miles, ignorant of each other’s existence, and living under entirely dissimilar climatic conditions. The atmosphere of the Baltic was perpetually cold and damp, that of Arabia dry and torrid almost beyond endurance. Eastern Europe was covered with dense forests, traversed by noble rivers, and dotted with impassable swamps. In the Desert nothing was so rare as a tree or rivulet. The physical conformation of the Goth and the Arab respectively was controlled by his environment to an even greater