standard of Islam in Arabia, Egypt, Al-Maghreb, France, and Spain; who had bravely defended the tomb of the Prophet at Medina, and had confronted with equal resolution the mail-clad squadrons of Charles upon the banks of the Rhone; who had twice administered in troublous times the affairs of the Peninsula; and who now, long past that age when men seek retirement from the cares of public life, still active and vigorous, was sacrificed, through his own imprudence, to the irreconcilable hatred of tribal antagonism. An act of such atrocity, without considering the prominence of the victim, the nationality of the participants, or the degree of provocation, was, independent of its moral aspect, highly impolitic and most prejudicial to the interests of the revolutionists. The Syrians became practically isolated in a foreign country. The sons of Abd-al-Melik, who held important commands in the North, assembled a great army. Reinforcements were furnished by the governor of Narbonne, and the fickle Berbers joined in considerable numbers the ranks of their former adversaries. At a little village called Aqua-Portera, not far from Cordova, the Arabs and Berbers attacked the foreigners, who had enlisted as their auxiliaries a number of criminals and outlaws. In the battle which followed the latter were victorious, but lost their general Balj, who fell in a single combat with the governor of Narbonne. The Syrians, whose choice was immediately confirmed by the Khalif, elected as his successor, Thalaba-Ibn-Salamah, a monster whose name was afterwards stained with acts of incredible infamy. His inhumanity was proverbial. His troops gave no quarter. The wives and children of his opponents, whose liberty even the most violent of his party had respected, were enslaved. Other victims he had previously exposed at auction before the gates of Cordova, under circumstances of the grossest cruelty and humiliation. The most illustrious of these were nobles of the party of Medina. By an exquisite refinement of insult he caused them to be disposed of to the lowest, instead of the highest, bidder, and even bartered publicly for impure and filthy animals the descendants of the friends of Mohammed, members of the proudest families of the aristocracy of Arabia. But the atrocities of Thalaba had already alienated many of the adherents of his own party as well as terrified those of the opposite faction, who had no mercy to expect at the hands of a leader who neither observed the laws of war nor respected the faith of treaties. Upon the application of these citizens, most of them men of high rank and influential character, the Viceroy of Africa sent Abu-al-Khattar to supersede the sanguinary Thalaba. He arrived just in time to rescue the unhappy Berbers, many of them Moslems, who were already ranged in order for systematic massacre. His power was soon felt; and by banishing the leaders of the insurgents; by granting