Not satisfied with their conquest of the Goths, they decided to enter France, but were kept out by Emperor Charlemagne who thought differently, and stopped them. It was due to this conflict that the great epic _La Chanson de Roland_ (The Song of Roland) was written. Then came the Crusades, the expeditions which went on for many years to wrest the shrine of the Saviour from the hand of the Mussulman. These wars continued so long, that nearly every European group of people came in contact with the Arab, and in so doing, learned much from him. The Arab was a courageous, loyal person, proud and ready to die for his own ideas; he was courtly, yet careful in all business dealings and many of his traits were passed on to his descendants. Very rapidly the rough warrior of the desert was transformed into a luxury-loving, cultured man. The Arabians seemed to be great musical blotters; because they blotted up or absorbed music wherever they went and made it theirs! But they were unlike blotters for loving it; they made a science of it and passed it on to other nations and thence to us. So much of the Persian music was absorbed by the Arab that it would be difficult to separate them in our story. The Arabs took the very loosely-put-together music of Persia and made it over into better form. Even before the Mohammedan conquests (700–800 A.D.), Arab music was well planned, and as they spread later to North Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Greece, Italy, and Spain, they left some traces of their own music and took something of the music of the natives. Furthermore, they adopted many of the instruments that they found and they became the ancestors of some of our own. The ancient Arabs did not write down their music, but handed it on from musician to musician, gaining and losing very little from the many hands through which it passed. They have none of what we call harmony or accompaniment, as in their orchestras all the instruments except the drums play the same tune; the drums mark the time and often play very complicated rhythms. This makes their music sound confused to us, but by hearing it often you learn in what an orderly way it is done, and you will see why many people like it. The caliphs (rulers) had court musicians and probably more music was played and more scientific treatises on music were written by these people than by any other mediæval or ancient race. THE ARAB SCALES