of Damascus, scions of the ancient persecutors of Mohammed, were caused by equally base, selfish, and unpatriotic motives. And the people of Medina, without whose timely aid--induced, it is not to be forgotten, by this perpetual feud between Kahtanite and Maadite---Islam could never have survived, were doomed henceforth to a career of uninterrupted misfortune. Their city, which had sheltered the Prophet in his adversity, and had received his blessing, was sacked and laid waste; and in the sacred mosque which covered his remains were stabled the horses of the Syrian cavalry. The unhappy exiles, pursued in every land by the impositions and cruelty of the tyrants of Syria, were, despite their frequent efforts to throw off the yoke, finally cowed into submission. In the long series of rulers, from Sad-Ibn-Obada, surnamed The Perfect, the champion of Medina, whose election as the first of the Khalifs the overbearing insolence of the Koreish was scarcely able to prevent, to the effeminate Boabdil, his lineal descendant, the conduct of the Defenders of the Prophet is marked by errors of judgment, by want of tact, by defiance of law, and by ill-timed enterprises prolific of disaster. No city, however, has placed a deeper impress upon the history of nations and the cause of civilization, since the immortal age of Athens, than Medina. Its influence, although often of a negative character, while it was the support of Islam in its period of weakness, was a serious impediment in its day of power. The benefits it conferred upon a handful of struggling proselytes were more than counterbalanced by the discord it promoted in the camps and councils of Irac, Syria, Africa, and Spain.