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 474 THE DECLINE AND FALL the queen of nations, and penetrated from the Danube to the Atlantic ocean. Secluded from the world by the Pyrenaean mountains, the successors of Alaric had slumbered in a long peace ; the walls of the cities were mouldered into dust ; the youth had abandoned the exercise of arms ; and the presump- tion of their ancient renown would expose them in a field of battle to the first assault of the invaders. The ambitious Saracen was fired by the ease and importance of the attempt ; but the execution was delayed till he had consulted the com- mander of the faithful ; and his messenger returned with the permission of Walid to annex the unknown kingdoms of the West to the religion and throne of the caliphs. In his residence of Tangier, Musa, with secrecy and caution, continued his corre- spondence and hastened his preparations. But the remorse of the conspirators was soothed by the fallacious assurance that he should content himself with the glory and spoil, without aspiring to establish the Moslems beyond the sea that separates Africa from Europe.-"' The first Before Musa would trust an army of the faithful to the traitors the Arabs, and iufidels of a foreign land, he made a less dangerous trial of July ' their strength and veracity. One hundred Arabs,-^^ and four hundred Africans, passed over, in four vessels, from Tangier or Ceuta ; the place of their descent on the opposite shore of the [Abuzora Strait is marked by the name of Tarif their chief; and the ^'^"^ date of this memorable event ^"^ is fixed to the month of Ra- 201 The Orientals, Elmacin, Abulpharagius, Abulfeda, pass over the conquest of Spain in silence, or with a single word. The text of Novairi and the other Arabian writers is represented, though with some foreign alloy, by M. de Cardonne (Hist, de r.Afrique et de I'Espagne sous la Domination des Arabes, Paris, 1765, 3 vols, in i2mo, torn. i. p. 55-114) and more concisely by M. de Guignes (Hist, des Huns, torn. i. p. 347-350). [Novairi's account — in which he follows the older historian Ibn al-.thir — will be found in Slane's translation in Journ. Asiat., 1841, p. 564 si/(/.] The librarian of the Escurial has not satisfied my hopes ; yet he appears to have searched with diligence his broken materials; and the history of the con- quest is illustrated by some valuable fragments of the genuine Razis (who WTOte at Corduba, a.h. 300), of Ben Hazil, &c. See Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana. torn. ii. p. 32, 105, 106, 182, 252, 319-332. On this occasion, the industry of Pagi has been aided by the Arabic learning of his friend the Abbe de Longuerue, and to their joint labours I am deeply indebted. [See Dozy, Histoire des Musulmans d'Espagne (1861), vol. 2 ; Recherches sur I'histoireet la litt^rature de I'Espagne (i860). Lem- bke's Geschichte Spaniens, Burke's History of Spain, and S. Lane- Poole's sketch of the " Moors in Spain," contain accounts of the conquest. A translation of a large part of a voluminous work of Al Makkari, by P. de Gayangos, with very valuable notes, appeared in 1840 (2 vols.). The Arabic te.xt has been critically edited by W. Wright. As Al Makkari lived in the seventeenth century his com- pilation has no independent authority.] soirxhat is, horses.] -"3 A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the lunar years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the .^ra, has determined Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd