Thus was the Eastern empire of the Arabs eventually destroyed: the descendants of Ishmael returned to the country from which they had originally sprung, and gradually reverted to nearly the same condition as that in which they existed when the Prophet arose among them. {51} These events, from the founding of the dynasty of the Abbassides, have been anticipated in point of time in the relation, because henceforth the history of Spain is no longer intermingled with that of the East. After having dwelt briefly upon an event intimately connected as well with the establishment of the Abbassides upon the Moslem throne as with the history of Spain, we will enter continuously upon the main subject of our work. To return, then, for a moment, to the downfall of the Ommiade caliphs. When the cruel Abdalla had placed his nephew, Aboul-Abbas, on the throne of the Caliphs of Damascus, he formed the horrible design of exterminating the Ommiades. These princes were very numerous. With the Arabs, among whom polygamy is permitted, and where numerous offspring are regarded as the peculiar gift of Heaven, it is not unusual to find several thousand individuals belonging to the same family. Abdalla, despairing of effecting the destruction of the race of his enemies, dispersed as they were by terror, published a general amnesty to all the Ommiades who should present themselves before him on a certain day. Those ill-fated {52} people, confiding in the fulfilment of his solemn promises, hastened to seek safety at the feet of Abdalla. The monster, when they were all assembled, caused his soldiers to surround them, and then commanded them all to be butchered in his presence. After this frightful massacre, Abdalla ordered the bloody bodies to be ranged side by side in close order, and then to be covered with boards spread with Persian carpets. Upon this horrible table he caused a magnificent feast to be served to his officers. One shudders at the perusal of such details, but they serve to portray the character of this Oriental conqueror. A solitary Ommiade escaped the miserable fate of his brethren; a prince named Abderamus. A fugitive wanderer, he reached Egypt, and concealed himself in the solitary recesses of its inhospitable deserts. The Moors of Spain, faithful to the Ommiades, though their governor Joseph had recognised the authority of the Abbassides, had no sooner learned that there existed in Egypt a scion of the illustrious family to which they still retained their attachment, than they secretly sent deputies to offer him their crown. Abderamus foresaw the {53} obstacles with which he would be compelled to struggle, but, guided by the impulses of a soul whose native greatness had been strengthened and purified by adversity, he did not hesitate to accept the proposal of the Moors.