Mohammed-Ibn-Yezid, Emir of Africa, was ordered to deprive of office all members of the tribe of Lakhm, to which Musa had belonged, and Al-Horr-Ibn-Abd-al-Rahman was invested with the precarious dignity of Viceroy of the Peninsula. Four hundred representatives of the proudest of the Arabian nobility, whom zeal for the faith, the love of adventure, or the hope of renown had attracted to the shores of Africa, accompanied him; warriors, many of whose descendants were destined to attain to distinction in every rank of civil and military life--even to the royal dignity itself--and to become the most prominent members of the Moslem aristocracy of Spain. From the beginning, the arbitrary measures of the Emir carried distress and anxiety into every town and hamlet of the country. His rapacity knew no bounds. Under pretext of a deficiency in the collection of tribute, the officials charged with that duty were imprisoned and put to the torture. In the infliction of punishment no distinction of religious belief was recognized; Moslem and Christian alike felt the heavy hand of the tyrant; and even the oldest and most renowned officers of the army, veterans who had served in Syria and Africa, the companions of Tarik and Musa, were not exempt from the exactions of his insatiable avarice. So intolerable did these oppressions become, that the cause of Islam was seriously endangered; proselytism ceased; no official, however high in rank, was secure in the possession of liberty, property, and life; and the unfortunate Jews and Christians were exposed to all the evils of the most cruel persecution. As the Emir of Africa evinced a remarkable apathy when the removal of Al-Horr was demanded by the outraged people of Spain, application was made to the Khalif Omar in person, who at once deposed the offensive governor, and appointed as his successor Al-Samh, the general commanding the army of the northern frontier. This appointment did credit to the discernment of the Khalif, for it proved eminently wise and judicious. The first efforts of Al-Samh were directed to the correction of irregularities in the administration of the revenue. Formerly the large cities, where was naturally collected the most of the wealth of the kingdom and hence the bulk of property liable to taxation, had been required to contribute only one-tenth of their income towards the expenses of government, while the villages and the cultivated lands had been assessed at one-fifth. This inequality was due originally to a desire to favor the Jews, whose love of traffic had induced them to establish themselves in the principal towns, offering, as the latter did, better facilities for the encouragement of commerce and the rapid accumulation of property. In addition to this much-needed reform, the able viceroy collected the bands of Moors and Berbers,--whose nomadic habits and predatory instincts, inherited from a long line of ancestors, had resisted former attempts at colonization,--settled them