happy if a deceptive image of affluence and security. ‘The Sicilian Mohammedans, while the vicissitudes and calamities of their history presented in miniature a general resemblance to those experienced by their brethren of the Spanish Peninsula, were never subjected to such repeated and overwhelming disasters as fell to the lot of the subjects of the Ommeyade dynasty and of the principalities which inherited its enmities, and the shattered fragments of its once vast and populous but cumbersome empire. The Norman acquisition of Sicily, unlike the Spanish Reconquest, was accomplished with surprising ease and rapidity. In the former instance there was but little of that indiscriminate ferocity which was characteristic of the conflicts of the Middle Ages, and especially of these where religious interests were directly involved. The experience of the conquerors--obtained in many lands--enabled them to appreciate the value of the monuments of a highly developed civilization, whose promoters were soon to pass under their sceptre. For this reason there was no ruthless spoliation of cities, no indiscriminate devastation of a fertile country which had been reclaimed by infinite toil and perseverance from an unpromising prospect of marsh, ravine, and precipice. The tangible results of three hundred years of national progress and culture were transmitted, with but little impairment, to the victorious foreigner. These advantages were at once grasped and appropriated with an avidity absolutely phenomenal in a people whose career had been dictated by the predatory instincts of the bandit, and whose manners had been formed amidst the license of the camp, the superstition of the cloister, and the carnage of the field.