In the clash of Spanish individualities, in the rude assertion of municipal prerogatives, in the democratic developments which are so hostile to any hierarchy, an African or Semitic patriotism is revealed, which converts history into a bloody tragedy. In the arid Castilian plain, confined by its glaring horizons, under its burning sun, we see the spectacle of a proud people defending absolute principles with aggressive faith. Religion is dry and fiery as the desert. Señor de Unamuno, writing of Spain,[4] calls her "a nation fanatical rather than superstitious, to {41} whom the Semitic monotheism is better adapted than the Aryan polytheism." Jews and Moors are expelled from the Peninsula in the name of simple and rigid ideals, by an intolerance at once religious and political. Thus the spiritual integrity of Spain is achieved; but industry decays, poverty increases, decadence appears, and in a Spain drained of its blood by _autodafés_ and emigrations a solitary cross is raised, the symbol of an African Christianity, to which the love of mankind is a stranger. Spain is African, even from the prehistoric ages. The Iberian is like the men of the Atlas; like them, he is brown and dolicocephalous. The Kabyle _douar_ and the Spanish village present remarkable analogies. An early geological change separates, by a narrow strait, two similar countries; two successive invasions spread an infusion of African blood throughout the Peninsula. Phoenicians and Carthaginians found colonies in maritime Spain; in 711 seven thousand Berbers establish themselves in the south; and the invasion of the Almohades in 1145 still further unites Iberians and Africans. During the long centuries of conflict between Christians and Arabs the two races intermingle under the cultivated tolerance of the Khalifs. The Gothic kings seek the aid of Arab chieftains in their quarrels; the Cid is a condottiere who fights alternately in the Mussulman and Christian armies, serving, with his troop of heroes, under the highest bidder. The Spanish monarchs in turn intervene in the quarrels of the Khalifs, and Alfonso VI., in 1185, allies himself with the Moorish king of Seville in order to conquer Toledo. The Arabs study under the masters of the Spanish capitals, while the Spaniards study Arabic, and are initiated into Oriental science. The language still preserves traces of the commerce between the two races. The Arabs, sceptical and refined, overlords already enervated by the grace {42} and luxury of Andalusia, rule without fanaticism; they leave the vanquished their religion and their usages, their laws, authorities, and judges; they free such Christian slaves as are converted to Islam. The Mozarabs, Christians who live in the Mussulman States, without renouncing their faith and customs, pave the way for the fusion of the hostile races. In spite of a continual warfare, under the indifferent and alien rule of the Arab both