Thus, gathered in their little hamlets among the mountains, the people of the Alpujarras maintained the same sort of rugged independence which belonged to the ancient Goth when he had taken shelter from the Saracen invader in the fastnesses of the Asturias. Here the Moriscoes, formed into communities which preserved their national associations, still cherished the traditions of their fathers, and perpetuated those usages and domestic institutions that kept alive the memory of ancient days. It was from the Alpujarras that, in former times, the kings of Granada had drawn the brave soldiery who enabled them for so many years to bid defiance to their enemies. The trade of war was now at an end. But the hardy life of the mountaineer gave robustness to his frame, and saved him from the effeminacy and sloth which corrupted the inhabitants of the capital. Secluded among his native hills, he cherished those sentiments of independence which ill suited a conquered race; and, in default of a country which he could call his own, he had that strong attachment to the soil which is akin to patriotism, and which is most powerful among the inhabitants of a mountain region. The products of the husbandman furnished the staples of a gainful commerce with the nations on the Mediterranean, and especially with the kindred people on the Barbary shores. The treaty of Granada secured certain commercial advantages to the Moors, beyond what were enjoyed by the Spaniards.[9] This, it may be well believed, was looked upon with no friendly eye by the latter, who had some ground, moreover, for distrusting the policy of an intercourse between the Moslems of Spain and those of Africa, bound together as they were by so many ties--above all, by a common hatred of the Christians. With the feelings of political distrust were mingled those of cupidity and envy, as the Spaniard saw the fairest provinces of the south still in the hands of the accursed race of Ishmael, while he was condemned to earn a scanty subsistence from the comparatively ungenial soil of the north. In this state of things, with the two races not merely dissimilar, but essentially hostile to one another, it will readily be understood how difficult it must have been to devise any system of legislation by which they could be brought to act in harmony as members of the same political body. That the endeavours of the Spanish government were not crowned with success would hardly surprise us, even had its measures been more uniformly wise and considerate. [Sidenote: THEIR TREATMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT.]