half-concealed robbery. Thoughtful persons viewed with dismay the wild disorder that reigned in every province and in every town; heard with apprehension of the approach of the two great powers from the North and the South, whose proximity boded ill to the interests of civilization; and, sunk into despair, awaited in silent terror the final destruction of the empire. The various changes which were constantly affecting the political complexion and mutual relations of the Moslem states of the Peninsula had finally concentrated the Arab supremacy in the three kingdoms of Granada, Toledo, and Seville. The encroachments of their formidable neighbors, and the consciousness of their own weakness, had merged the smaller principalities and cities, which had, for a brief and stormy period, enjoyed the appearance of independent states, into the domain of potentates who possessed the means as well as the inclination to uphold their pretensions to sovereignty. Of these, Granada, protected by her comparative isolation from the designs of her rivals, pursued her career of aggrandizement disturbed only by occasional internal commotions. Toledo, under the enlightened rule of the Beni-Dhinun, eclipsed in the splendor of its court and the genius of its monarch the reputation of all the other principalities. The enterprise of the Toledan prince had recently acquired for his dominions a large accession of valuable territory. A close alliance existed between him and Alfonso VI., and numbers of Christian cavaliers served gallantly under the Moslem standards. Valencia and its rich plantations fell without resistance into the hands of Mamun. The provinces of Murcia and Orihuela, teeming with exotic vegetation and abundant and multiple harvests, after an invasion of a few weeks, yielded to the prowess of the warriors of the North, and the garden of Eastern Spain was added to the domain of the flourishing kingdom of Toledo. These easy and profitable triumphs were far from satisfying the ambition of the aggressive Mamun. His eyes were constantly fixed upon the venerated capital of the khalifs, which, although deprived of its honors, its wealth, and its magnificence, still retained a diminished portion of the prestige it had formerly enjoyed, while its weakness tempted attack and annexation.