enjoyed life as it came to him, without the slightest leaning towards asceticism. Such a character was wholly objectionable to the bigoted doctors of theology. They spoke of the Sultan with pious horror, publicly prayed for his conversion, and even reviled and insulted him to his face. Finding him incurable in his levity, they plotted to set up another member of his family on the throne. The conspiracy failed, and many of the leading nobles, who had joined in the plot, together with a number of fanatical doctors, were crucified. Undeterred by this, in 806 the people, stirred up by the bigots, rose again, only to be as summarily repressed as before. Even the terrible fate of the nobles of Toledo,--who had rebelled, as was their wont, and were at this time treacherously inveigled into the hands of the Crown Prince and massacred to a man,--did not deter the Cordovans from another revolt. For seven years, indeed, the memory of the "Day of the Foss," as the massacre at Toledo was called, kept the fanatics of Cordova within bounds; but as the recollection of that fearful hole into which the murdered bodies of all the nobility of Toledo had been cast, grew fainter, there were symptoms of a fresh insurrection at the capital. Popular feeling ran very high, not only against the Sultan, because he would not wear sackcloth and ashes or pretend to be an ascetic, but still more against his large body-guard of "Mutes," so called because, being negroes and the like, they could not speak Arabic. The Mutes dared not venture in the streets of Cordova except in numbers; a single soldier was sure to be mobbed, and might be murdered. One day a wanton blow struck by a member of the guard roused the whole people. They rushed with one accord to the palace, led by the thousands of theological students who inhabited the southern suburb of the city, and seemed bent on carrying it by assault in spite of its fortifications and garrison. The Sultan Hakam looked forth over the sea of faces, and watched with consternation the devoted mob repulsing the charge of his tried cavalry; but even in this hour of desperate peril he did not lose the _sang-froid_ which is the birthright of great men. Retiring to his hall, he told his page Hyacinth to bring him a bottle of civet, with which he proceeded calmly to perfume his hair and beard. The page could not repress his astonishment at such an occupation, when the cruel mob was even then battering at the gates; but Hakam, who was fully aware of his danger, replied: "Silence, rascal! How do you suppose the rebels would be able to find out my head among the rest, if it were not distinguished by its sweet odour?" He then summoned his officers, and took his measures for the defence. These were simple enough; but they proved effectual. He despatched his cousin with a force of cavalry, by a roundabout way, to the southern suburb, which he set in flames, and when the people turned back in terror from the besieged palace to rescue