their heads,
and draped in their white clothes like the women of the time of Abraham,
or of the young master of Nazareth. Camels with their long necks and
loaded with merchandise left the town for Nimes, Beziers, Toulouse or
Marseilles. The caravans passed on these journeys, along the fields, a
great variety of settlements--mud hovels thatched with straw and
inhabited by Gallic peasants, who were successively the slaves of the
Visigoths and of the Musselmen; tents of a Barbary tribe, Arabian
mountaineers who had descended to the plains from the peak of Mt. Atlas,
and who preserved in Gaul the nomad habits of their old home, warriors,
ever ready to mount their tireless and swift horses in answer to the
first call of battle from the emir of the province; finally, and at long
distances apart, on the crests of the mountains, high towers where,
during war, the Saracens lighted fires for the purpose of signaling the
approach of the enemy to one another.

In the almost Musselman town of Narbonne, the same as in all the other
towns of Gaul under the sway of the Franks and the bishops, there were,
sad to say, public market-places where slaves were set up for sale. But
that which imparted a peculiar character to the market of Narbonne was
the diversity of the races of the captives that were offered to
purchasers. There were seen negroes and negresses in large numbers, as
well as Ethiopians of ebony blackness; copper-colored mestizos; handsome
young Greek girls and boys brought from Athens, Crete or Samos and taken
prisoner on some of the frequent maritime raids made by the Arabs. A
skilful politician, Mahomet, their prophet, had incited in his
sectarians a passion for maritime expeditions. "The believer who dies on
land feels a pain that is hardly comparable with the bite of an ant,"
says the Koran, "but the believer who dies at sea, feels on the contrary
the delicious sensation of a man, who, a prey to burning thirst, is
offered iced water mixed with citron and honey." Around the slave market
stood numerous Arabian shops filled with merchandise mainly manufactured
at Cordova or Granada, centers, at the time, of Saracen art and
civilization: brilliant arms inlaid in arabesques with gold and silver,
coffers of chiseled ivory, crystal cups, rich silk fabrics, embroidered
hose, precious collars and bracelets. Around the shops pressed a crowd
of as various races as costumes: aboriginal Gauls in their wide hose, an
article that gave