The first efforts of Abul-Kasim were directed to the establishment of a military force. For the first time since the Conquest, Seville was left absolutely destitute of the ordinary means of defence. With the expulsion of the Berbers, the last individual trained in the profession of arms had disappeared. The arsenal was well provided with military supplies, but neither the magistrate nor the people had the least practical knowledge of the equipment or the discipline indispensable for the effective organization of an army. The genius of Abul-Kasim was, however, not daunted by even apparently insuperable obstacles. He established recruiting stations in every settlement which acknowledged the jurisdiction of Seville. The tempting inducements offered--pay greatly exceeding that usually allowed the soldiers of the khalif and the assurance of unrestricted pillage--soon lured to his standard crowds of needy and rapacious adventurers. The exigencies of the occasion forbade a critical scrutiny of the nationality or the antecedents of these volunteers. Arabs, Berbers, Christians, and foreigners were enlisted without hesitation. In accordance with a well-established precedent, the slave-markets were ransacked and the warlike natives of Nubia and the Soudan purchased, and marshalled side by side with political refugees, escaped criminals, and the dregs of the Sevillian populace. The excesses of military license, long practised with impunity, had rendered the profession of a soldier highly unpopular and even disreputable, and few citizens of honorable connections and irreproachable character could now be induced to voluntarily incur the odium attaching to a class universally regarded as the scourge of society. By untiring diligence and lavish expenditure, Abul-Kasim finally succeeded in collecting a force of a few hundred men. No more significant indication of the decadence of the Moslem empire could be adduced than the fact that among a people renowned for martial ardor and long accustomed to warfare an army of sufficient strength to defend the most populous city of the Peninsula could not be raised even by bounties, by the hope of plunder, or by purchase.