ground prevented a hand-to-hand engagement, which the inferior strength of the Christians naturally prompted them to avoid. Unable to endure the storm of missiles which was rapidly depleting their ranks, the Saracens attempted to retrace their steps. The first intimation of a desire to retreat was the signal for redoubled activity on the part of the Asturians. Pelayus and his band, issuing from the cave, fell upon the rear of the enemy. The detachments upon the flanks closed in, and the unfortunate Moslems, surrounded and almost helpless, resigned themselves to their fate. The battle became a massacre. To add to the discomfiture of the invaders, a fearful tempest, which, in a latitude whose air is always charged with moisture, often comes without warning, burst upon the valley. In a few moments the little brook had swollen into a roaring torrent. A section of the mountain-side, undermined and already tottering and crowded with terror-stricken Saracens, gave way, carrying with it hundreds of victims to be engulfed in the rushing waters. A trifling number of fugitives, aided by the darkness and the storm, succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the mountaineers, but the great majority of those composing the detachment, including all of its officers, perished. The estimated loss of the Moslems varies, according to the nationality of the annalist, from three thousand to one hundred and twenty-four thousand. In this, as in all other instances where the statements of the Arab and Christian writers of that age conflict, the preference should be given to the assertions of the former. The valley of Covadonga is so restricted in extent, especially where the battle took place, that it would with difficulty afford standing room for twenty thousand combatants. The vainglorious character of the northern Spaniard, who possesses not a little of the braggadocio of his cousin, the Gascon, has incited him to grossly magnify the importance of an exploit which requires no exaggeration; and his fabulous accounts have been recorded, with extravagant additions, by the ecclesiastical historians of the Dark Ages, with whom mendacity was the rule and accuracy the exception. Absolutely controlled by the prejudices of their profession, they studiously embellished every tale which could have a tendency to promote its interests and as carefully suppressed all hostile testimony. The monkish writers, whose credulity kept pace with their love of the marvellous, conceived that the glory of the Church was in a direct ratio to the number of infidels exterminated by her champions. To this motive are to be attributed the absurd statements concerning the losses of the enemy in every victory won by the Christian arms, a pernicious habit which was confirmed by the improbability of subsequent detection arising from the universal illiteracy of the age. The thorough unreliability of these old chroniclers in this and other particulars which might