was called the night
of snarling. Price, p. 114.--M.]

[Footnote 2012: According to Malcolm's authorities, only three thousand;
but he adds "This is the report of Mahomedan historians, who have a
great disposition of the wonderful, in relating the first actions of the
faithful" Vol. i. p. 39.--M.]

[Footnote 21: Atrox, contumax, plus semel renovatum, are the well-chosen
expressions of the translator of Abulfeda, (Reiske, p. 69.)]

[Footnote 22: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 297, 348.]

[Footnote 23: The reader may satisfy himself on the subject of Bassora
by consulting the following writers: Geograph, Nubiens. p. 121.
D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 192. D'Anville, l'Euphrate et
le Tigre, p. 130, 133, 145. Raynal, Hist. Philosophique des deux
Indes, tom. ii. p. 92-100. Voyages di Pietro della Valle, tom. iv. p.
370-391. De Tavernier, tom. i. p. 240-247. De Thevenot, tom. ii.
p. 545-584. D Otter, tom. ii. p. 45-78. De Niebuhr, tom. ii. p.
172-199.]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.--Part II.

After the defeat of Cadesia, a country intersected by rivers and canals
might have opposed an insuperable barrier to the victorious cavalry; and
the walls of Ctesiphon or Madayn, which had resisted the battering-rams
of the Romans, would not have yielded to the darts of the Saracens. But
the flying Persians were overcome by the belief, that the last day
of their religion and empire was at hand; the strongest posts were
abandoned by treachery or cowardice; and the king, with a part of his
family and treasures, escaped to Holwan at the foot of the Median hills.

In the third month after the battle, Said, the lieutenant of Omar,
passed the Tigris without opposition; the capital was taken by assault;
and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a keener edge to the
sabres of the Moslems, who shouted with religious transport, "This is
the white palace of Chosroes; this is the promise of the apostle of
God!" The naked robbers of the desert were suddenly enriched beyond the
measure of their hope or knowledge. Each chamber revealed a new treasure
secreted with art, or ostentatiously displayed; the gold and silver, the
various wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed (says Abulfeda) the
estimate of fancy or numbers; and another historian defines the untold
and almost infinite mass, by the fabulous computation of three thousands
of thousands of thousands of pieces of gold. [24] Some minute though
curio