indifference to the attractions of Andalusia; but they came, and it was easy to see that they meant to stay. When the Almoravides first came over like a cloud of locusts to devour the country thus offered to their appetite, they found the way perfectly open. The mass of the people of Andalusia rejoiced to see once more a strong arm coming to repress the disorder which had destroyed their well-being ever since the death of the great Almanzor; the petty tyrants either had invited them or could not resist them, and were, at all events, glad to see the Castilians successfully repelled. The Almoravide king, Yūsuf, the son of Teshfīn, after appropriating Algeciras, as a harbour and necessary basis of operations, marched unopposed through the provinces, and met Alfonso at Zallāka, or, as the Spaniards call it, Sacralias, near Badajoz, October 23, 1086. Alfonso, as he looked upon his own splendid army, exclaimed, "With men like these I would fight devils, angels, and ghosts!" Nevertheless he resorted to a ruse to score a surprise over the joint forces of the Berbers and Andalusian; but Yūsuf was not easily disconcerted. He took the Castilian army skilfully in front and rear, and, thus placed between two fires, in spite of the obstinate resistance which the tried warriors of Castile knew well how to offer, he crushed them utterly. Alfonso barely escaped with some five hundred horsemen. Many thousands of the best sword-arms in Castile lay stiff and nerveless on that fatal field. After the victory, Yūsuf the Almoravide returned to Africa, leaving three thousand of his Berbers to help the Andalusians. He had promised to make no annexations, and, except in retaining the harbour of Algeciras, he had so far kept his word. The Andalusians were delighted with him; they praised his valour and exulted over the saving of the land; they admired his simple piety, which let him do nothing without the advice of his priests, and which had induced him to abolish all taxes in Spain except those few authorized by the Khalif Omar in the earliest days of Islam. The upper classes, indeed, ridiculed his ignorance and rough manners; he could speak but little Arabic, and when the poets recited their charming verses in his honour he generally missed the point of the compliment--no slight offence to the polished and elegant Andalusians, who never forgot their poetry even when they were up to their knees in blood. Yūsuf was to them a mere barbarian. But their contempt for his education did not greatly matter; they could not do without his sword, and the vast mass of the people, thinking rather of comfort than culture, were ready to receive him joyfully as sovereign of Andalusia. In 1090 the King of Seville again prayed the Almoravide to come over and help him against the Christians, who were as bold as ever, and carried on a perpetual guerilla warfare from their stronghold of Aledo. He acceded, with assumed unwillingness, and this time he directed