courtesy, but in whose hearts smouldered the inextinguishable fires of mutual hatred, kindled by unpardonable wrong and baffled enmity. With united forces, eager for glory, they invaded Aragon. Each horseman was provided with a small copper pot, a leathern bag for provisions, and a bottle for water; the infantry carried nothing but their arms. The camp equipage was loaded on trains of pack-mules. Military and political considerations required and enforced the observance of the strictest discipline. Non-combatants were unmolested. Pillage was forbidden under pain of death, save in actual battle and during the storming of cities. The religious prejudices of the people were respected, and no property was destroyed except when resistance or violence was offered the troops. The province was overrun, and its capital, Saragossa, taken and settled by adventurers from Africa. Upon the inhabitants of this city Musa imposed a fine new in the annals of Islam, denominated the Contribution of Blood, which was exacted before the army entered the gates and exempted the conquered from annoyance. The Valley of the Ebro pleased the colonists, who intermarried with the people, and the governor, Hanash-Ibn-Ali, signalized his administration by the erection of a splendid mosque, vestiges of which still remain. Catalonia and Valencia next submitted to the common fate, and then the two generals, reversing their course, marched to the wild region of the West where, among the mist-enshrouded sierras of Galicia and the Asturias, the remnant of the Visigothic nation, led by its honored prelates and indomitable chieftains, had borne its venerated relics and its household gods; to lay under such unpromising auspices the foundations of a far grander and more powerful empire, destined in after years to command the admiration and the terror of the world.