Christians, he divided among the immigrants--who now, in larger numbers than ever before, poured into Spain from Africa and the East--the lands which were unoccupied, and had hitherto served as pastures to the nomadic Berbers, whose traditions and habits discouraged the selection of any permanent habitation. While inflexibly just to the loyal and obedient, Anbasah punished all attempts at insurrection with a rigor akin to ferocity. Some districts in the province of Tarragona having revolted on account of real or fancied grievances, the Emir razed their fortifications, crucified the leaders, and imposed upon the inhabitants a double tax, both as a punishment and a warning. In order to keep alive the respect for the Moslem name, he sent frequent expeditions into Gaul, whose operations, conducted upon a limited scale, were mainly confined to the destruction of property and the seizure of captives. The Jewish population of the Peninsula, relieved from the vexatious laws of the Goths and greatly increased in wealth and numbers by foreign accessions, had already risen to exalted rank in the social and political scale under the favorable auspices of Mohammedan rule. It enjoyed the highest consideration with the Arabs, whose success had been so largely due to its friendly co-operation. This community, endowed with the hereditary thrift of the race, rich beyond all former experience, still ardently devoted to a religion endeared by centuries of persecution, and by the deeply grounded hope of future spiritual and temporal sovereignty, was now startled by the report that the Messiah, whose advent they had so long and so patiently awaited, had appeared in the East. The highly imaginative temperament of the Oriental, and the phenomenal success of the founders of religious systems in that quarter of the world, had been productive of the rise of many designing fanatics, all claiming the gifts of prophecy and miracle, and all secure of a numerous following in an age fertile in impostors. In this instance, the Hebrew prophet, whose name was Zonaria, had established his abode in Syria; and thither in multitudes the Spanish Jews, abandoning their homes and carrying only their valuables, journeyed, without questioning the genuineness of their information or reflecting upon the results of their blind credulity. No sooner were the pilgrims across the strait, than the crafty Emir, declaring their estates forfeited by abandonment, confiscated the latter, which included some of the finest mansions and most productive lands in the Peninsula. This fanatical contagion extended even into Gaul, and the Jewish colonists of that region hastened to join their Spanish brethren in their pilgrimage of folly, only to realize, when too late, that they had lost their worldly possessions without the compensating advantage of a celestial inheritance.