An account of the crushing defeat of Poitiers having been communicated to the Viceroy of Africa, he appointed Abd-al-Melik-Ibn-Kattan, an officer of the African army, Emir of Spain, and, presenting him with his commission, urgently exhorted him to avenge the reverse which had befallen the Moslem arms. The martial spirit of this commander, in whom the lapse of fourscore and ten years had not sensibly impaired the vigor of his mind or the activity of his body, was roused to enthusiasm by the prospect of an encounter with the idolaters of the North. Detained for a time in Cordova by the disturbances resulting from the disorganization of all branches of the government, he attempted, at the head of the remains of the defeated army and a reinforcement which had accompanied him from Africa, to thread the dangerous passes of the Pyrenees. But the time was ill-chosen; the rainy season was at hand; and the Saracens, hemmed in by impassable torrents, fell an easy prey to the missiles of an enterprising enemy. The march became a series of harassing skirmishes; and it was with the greatest difficulty that the Emir was enabled to extricate the remainder of his troops from the snare into which his want of caution had conducted them. Disgusted with the miscarriage of the expedition from whose results so much had been expected, Obeydallah, Viceroy of Africa, promptly deposed Abd-al-Melik, and nominated his own brother, Okbah-Ibn-al-Hejaj, to the vacant position. A martinet in severity and routine, Okbah enjoyed also a well-founded reputation for justice and integrity. He soon became the terror of the corrupt and tyrannical officials who infested the administration. He removed such as had been prominent for cruelty, fraud, or incompetency. To all who were guilty of peculation, or of even indirectly reflecting upon the honor and dignity of the Khalif, he was inexorable. With a view to insuring the safety of the highways, he formed a mounted police, the Kaschefs, in which may be traced the germ of the Hermandad of the fifteenth century and the modern Gendarmes and Civil Guards of France and Spain. From this institution, extended to the frontiers of Moslem territory as far as the Rhone, was derived the military organization of the Ribat--the prototype of the knightly orders of Calatrava, Alcantara, and Santiago, which played so conspicuous a part in the Reconquest. Okbah established a court in every village, so that all honest citizens might enjoy the protection of the law. His fostering care also provided each community with a school sustained by a special tax levied for that purpose. Devout to an almost fanatical degree, he erected a mosque whenever the necessities of the people seemed to demand it, and, thoroughly alive to the advantages of a religious education, he attached to every place of worship a minister who might instruct the ignorant in the doctrines of the Koran and the duties of a faithful Mussulman. He repressed with