faction largely preponderated, especially in Eastern and Western Spain, which were almost exclusively settled by its adherents. In consequence of their numerical superiority and political importance, they claimed, certainly with some appearance of justice, the right to be governed by an emir whose views and sympathies were in accordance with their own. The court of Damascus, thoroughly cognizant of the uncertain hold it maintained upon a distant and wealthy province, inhabited by a turbulent rabble whose animosity towards the family of the Ommeyades was thinly disguised by lukewarm professions of loyalty and occasional remittances of tribute, had the sagacity to humor its prejudices, and to appoint to the Spanish Emirate governors of the dominant party. In the course of forty years, but three of the rulers of Spain out of twenty traced their origin to the detested posterity of Maad. This politic course preserved in its allegiance the wealthy provinces of the Peninsula, until the influence of the Yemenites and the Berbers was hopelessly weakened by the civil wars preceding the foundation of the Western Khalifate. The effects of the latter, by the serious disturbances they promoted and the consequent injury inflicted upon the integrity of the Mohammedan empire, had awakened the hopes and revived the faltering courage of the terrified nations of Christendom. There is perhaps no recorded instance of a feud so obscure in its origin, so anomalous in its conditions, so momentous in its consequences, as this rancorous antagonism of the two divisions of the Arabian people. It illustrates more clearly than an entire commentary could do, the inflexibility of purpose, a trait conspicuous in the Bedouin, which could sacrifice all the advantages and pleasures of life, all the hopes of eternity, to the destruction of an hereditary foe. For centuries, in an isolated and arid country of Asia, certain hordes of barbarians, ignorant of the arts, careless of luxury, proud, intrepid, and independent, had pursued each other with unrelenting hostility. With the advent of a Prophet bringing a new revelation, the most potent influences which can affect humanity are brought to bear upon the nation. A whole people emigrates; is in time united with many conquered races; appreciates and accepts the priceless benefits of civilization; becomes pre-eminent in science, in letters, in all the arts of war and government, in all the happy and beneficent pursuits of peace. But amidst this prosperity and grandeur the hereditary feuds of the Desert remained unreconciled. Neither the denunciations of the Koran nor the fear of future punishment were able to more than temporarily arrest this fatal enmity. Islam was in a few generations filled with dangerous schismatics, whose tribal prejudice was, more than devotion to any dogma, the secret of their menacing attitude towards the khalifate. The mockery and sacrilege of the princes