still remain, we are enabled to form a grand but inadequate idea of the structures created by imperial munificence and Grecian taste which have perished by the neglect and the violence of thirteen centuries. After the Roman came the Goth, and then the Arab, himself at first but a marauder. By degrees, however, his nobler instincts obtained the mastery over his love of rapine; his predatory strongholds were transformed into centres of trade; and with the habits and religion of the Orient were introduced all the benefits and all the vices of its voluptuous existence. The Moorish principality of Narbonne was subject to the Western Emirate only forty years; yet, during that short period, the impressions produced by Moorish occupancy were so deeply stamped upon the mental and physical characteristics of the population that no subsequent revolutions have ever been able to entirely efface them. The practical genius of the Arab, which considered utility as the first and most valuable of all the objects of civilization, was again exhibited in the improvements applied to all the arts and avocations of life which sprang up in the track of his victorious armies. The Oriental principles of agriculture, with its painstaking tillage of the soil, its perfect irrigating system, its introduction of foreign plants, were applied with wonderful success to the delightful region watered by the Rhone and the Garonne. Many varieties of grain, including the buckwheat, originally brought from Persia, and which at that time obtained its significant name of sarrasin, were imported from Spain. The bark of the cork-tree, still one of the greatest sources of wealth to Catalonia and Provence, was then first made known to Europe. The boundless evergreen forests on the slopes of the Pyrenees were utilized for the manufacture of pitch and rosin. In every district, the breed of horses was improved by crosses with the best blood of Arabia. Innumerable articles of luxury preserved in museums and private collections--beautiful objects of silver, ivory, and crystal, damascened armor, and silken robes--attest the variety and excellence of the Moorish manufactures. The popular dances and other amusements of Southern France are also striking reminiscences of the Moslem ascendency. While Arabic literature must have exercised an important influence upon the public mind of Provence and Languedoc, no historical information has been transmitted to us relative to its character, and even its existence during this period is largely a matter of conjecture. There is no doubt, however, concerning the effects subsequently produced by familiarity with Moorish civilization, established by conquest and perpetuated by the aid of merchants and travellers. The learning, the elegance, the refinement, and the infidelity of the court of Cordova were carried beyond the Pyrenees. The writings of Averroes and other Arabian philosophers were studied with pleasure by the scholars of Southern France.