estimation in the commercial world. Its bazaars were well furnished with every commodity which could satisfy the simple requirements of the poor or the pampered luxury of the rich. The political commotions which had for so long disturbed the Peninsula, while impairing the prosperity of the kingdom, had by no means checked the enterprise or materially damaged the resources of its population. The Jew always stood on neutral ground. The victorious faction often applied to him for advice and loans; the unsuccessful one was ever ready to pledge its valuables with him on the hazard of a new revolution. The elevation of one of his sect to the honorable dignity of vizier had been of incalculable advantage to his social and mercantile interests. It had afforded protection and respectability to his avocations; it had enabled him to project and mature colossal financial enterprises. Thus he plundered both sides and prospered. Citizens, proscribed for political offences, and Christians, for whom ecclesiastical denunciation had no terrors, transacted their affairs through his agency. His ships were to be found in every harbor; his factors were established in every seaport; his wares were exposed for sale in every capital of the Mediterranean and its adjacent seas. At the period of the occupation of Granada by the Almoravides, its commerce, in wealth and volume, probably exceeded that of all the other states of the Peninsula, Christian and Moslem, combined. No one of ordinary intelligence could still be ignorant of the intentions of Yusuf, yet the Andalusian princes, with obsequious servility, felicitated him in the most flattering terms on his success. The Sultan felt that it was now time to throw off his disguise. He habitually treated his royal sycophants with marked discourtesy. The capture of Granada was followed by that of Malaga. Then it was, when too late, that the Moorish emirs took the alarm. They agreed among themselves to withdraw their support from the Almoravides and to suspend all intercourse with them. In their perplexity and despair they adopted the fatal plan of soliciting a defensive union with the Christians, an expedient which had invariably proved fatal to their interests. The King of Castile readily consented to an alliance which, whatever might be its result, must necessarily increase his power by fostering the mutual enmity of the contending Moslems. Aware of the profound importance of confirming his operations by the sanction of judicial and ecclesiastical authority, Yusuf now demanded of the kadis and the muftis an opinion on the legality of seizing the kingdoms of his allies, which they had proved unable to either govern or to defend. The opinion, when prepared, was all that the most scrupulous casuist could desire. Its authors assumed responsibility for the future acts of Yusuf, and declared it was not only his right but his duty to dethrone and plunder his degenerate allies, who fortunately