slavery the populations of entire communities; the Christians, harassed by the enemy and encumbered with their prisoners, frequently put these defenceless victims of their hostility to the sword; in the heat of battle quarter was neither asked nor given, and the struggle assumed more than ever the character of a war of extermination. The country devastated by these incessant and destructive inroads never recovered its prosperity. The once beautiful regions of the Ebro and the Pisuerga now present to the eye the sombre and monotonous aspect of a desert, and portions of the valley of the Guadalquivir, which under Moorish rule were clothed with extensive orchards and luxuriant harvests, have lapsed into primeval desolation. The ruthlessness with which these wars were prosecuted bears ample testimony to the savage inhumanity of that age. Considerations of mercy seldom influenced the conduct of the victor. Engagements contracted under circumstances of peculiar solemnity were violated without provocation and without excuse. In the perpetration of these enormities the Christians, encouraged and absolved by their spiritual advisers, far surpassed their antagonists. No attention was paid to the pitiful appeals of enemies stricken in the heat of battle. The heads of rebellious princes were fixed on the battlements of cities; their limbs, embalmed with campher, were exhibited as trophies in the palace of the conqueror. When a place was taken by storm, neither age, nor sex, nor infirmity were regarded by the infuriated assailants. The discovery of hidden gold by the application of torture was a favorite amusement of the Christian soldiery. If the number of captives became inconveniently large, the least valuable were butchered. The licentious passions of the Castilians were exercised without restraint upon the weak and the defenceless. Women were violated before the eyes of their husbands and fathers. The mansions of Christian nobles rivalled in their treasures of Moorish beauty the harems of the most voluptuous Andalusian princes. In the alluring diversions of sensuality, unsanctioned by law and prohibited by religion, the dignitaries of the Church were as ever pre-eminently conspicuous; and their lovely concubines, attired with a magnificence only to be procured by the use of ecclesiastical wealth, appeared at court with their lords, equally careless of unfavorable comment or of public scandal.