The harsh intolerance which came with the Spanish Counter-Reformation manifested itself oftentimes in acts of cruelty and oppression which are almost beyond belief. So eager were the zealots for the triumph of pure and unadulterated Catholicism, that no consideration whatever was shown for the Moriscoes, or Spanish Moors, whose form of belief was Catholic, but tinged with Moslem usages, and even women and children were made to suffer the unreasoning persecution of the Christians. One offensive measure after another was adopted for the discomfiture of the thrifty sons of the Prophet, and finally, with the purpose of wiping out all distinctions of any kind which might lead to a retention of national characteristics, it was decreed in 1567 that no woman should walk abroad with a covered face. Such a measure was certainly short-sighted. For hundreds of years this Oriental custom had been common in southern Spain; it was significant of much of their idea of social order and decency, and any attempt to abolish it with a single stroke of a Catholic pen was both unwise and imprudent. According to Hume, "this practice had taken such a firm hold of the people of the south of Spain that traces of it remain to the present day in Andalusia, where the women of the poorer classes constantly cover the lower part of the face with the corner of a shawl. In Peru and Chili (originally colonized by the Spanish) the custom is even more universal." Yet it was this firmly rooted habit that the Christians tried to destroy! As the result of this order, the majority of the Spanish women showed themselves in public as rarely as possible, and then they tried to evade the law whenever they could. Other measures, equally severe and equally impossible, which were enacted at the same time, ended finally, as might have been expected, in a desperate revolt. A horde of Moslem fanatics, goaded to desperation, swept down upon the Christians of Granada, and there was a terrible massacre. This was all that was necessary to start the Spaniards upon a campaign which was still more cruel than any which had preceded it, for now the avowed object was revenge and not war. Six thousand helpless women and children were slaughtered in a single day by the Marquis de los Velez, and this is but a single instance of the bloodthirsty spirit which was rampant at the time.