If any of his flock eluded the search of the tax-collector, the bishop, more faithful to the power to which he owed his authority than to the interests of the congregation over which he presided, stood ready to furnish the desired information from the registers of the diocese, and to assist in the punishment of the delinquents. When a prelate disregarded the summons to a council, the vacancy was filled by the appointment of a Mussulman or a Jew. Such circumstances as these were not propitious to either sacerdotal welfare or successful proselytism. Nor were abuses of power confined to the ecclesiastical system. The dignity of count, the most eminent office of the Christian magistracy, was also a subject of negotiation and barter. The opportunities it afforded for extortion and peculation made it one of the most lucrative employments in the gift of the khalif. It was ordinarily bestowed upon a member of the Visigothic nobility, but the rapacity of the eunuchs looked rather to the means than to the birth of the aspirant; and persons of base origin and doubtful integrity not infrequently received the coveted distinction, which was utilized largely for the benefit of their patrons,--the fiscal officers and the degraded servitors of the harem. Count Servandus, the son of a slave, who lived during the reign of the Khalif Mohammed, has been handed down to the execration of all good Christians as one of the most cruel and infamous of oppressors. On a single occasion, he extorted from his unhappy vassals the enormous sum of a hundred thousand solidi, equal in our time to more than half a million dollars.