In the train of Musa had followed hundreds of the former inhabitants of Medina, who carried with them bitter memories of ruined homes and slaughtered kinsmen. The impression made by these enthusiastic devotees--defenders of the sepulchre of the Prophet, and eloquent with the traditions of the Holy City--upon the savage tribes of Africa was far more deep and permanent than that of the homilies of Musa delivered under the shadow of the scimetar. Their bearing was more affable, their treatment of the conquered more lenient, their popularity far more decided, than that of the haughty descendants of the Koreish. With the memory of inexpiable wrong was cherished an implacable spirit of vengeance. The name of Syrian, associated with infidelity, sacrilege, lust, and massacre, was odious to the pious believer of the Hedjaz. His soul revolted at the tales of ungodly revels which disgraced the polished and voluptuous court of Damascus. The riotous banquets, the lascivious dances, the silken vestments, the midnight orgies, and above all the blasphemous jests of satirical poets, struck with horror the abstemious and scrupulous precisians of Medina and Aden. The Ommeyade noble was looked upon by them as worse than an apostate; a being whose status was inferior to that of either Pagan, Jew, or Christian. The feelings of the descendants of the proud aristocracy of Mecca towards their adversaries were scarcely less bitter. They remembered with contempt the obscure origin and plebeian avocations of the first adherents of the Prophet. Their minds were inflamed with rage when they recalled the murder of the inoffensive Othman, whose blood-stained garments, mute but potent witnesses of his sufferings, had hung for many months in the Great Mosque of Damascus. With indignation was repeated the story of the cowardly attempt against the life of Muavia, and of the poisoned thrust which brought him to an untimely end. With but few exceptions, the Emirs of Spain were stanch adherents of the line of the Ommeyades, and never failed to discriminate against the obnoxious Medinese and their posterity. The latter retaliated by secret treachery; by open rebellion; by defeating vast schemes of policy before they were matured; by encouraging the dangerous encroachments of the Asturian mountaineers. This sectional strife early disclosed itself in the face of the enemy by fomenting the quarrel between Tarik and Musa. It thwarted the plans of the great Arab general, whose enterprising genius and towering ambition aimed at the subjugation and conversion of Europe. It armed the hands which struck down in the sanctuary the wise and capable Abd-al-Aziz. It retarded the progress of Abd-al-Rahman, filled his camp with brawls and confusion, increased the insubordination of his troops, and gave time for the recall of the barbarian hosts of Charles Martel from the confines of Gaul and Germany. In the Arabian population the Yemenite