still called Algezire) they bestowed the name of the Green Island,
from a verdant cape that advances into the sea. Their hospitable
entertainment, the Christians who joined their standard, their inroad
into a fertile and unguarded province, the richness of their spoil
and the safety of their return, announced to their brethren the most
favourable omens of victory. In the ensuing spring, five thousand
veterans and volunteers were embarked under the command of Tarik, a
dauntless and skilful soldier, who surpassed the expectation of his
chief; and the necessary transports were provided by the industry of
their too faithful ally. The Saracens landed[174] at the pillar or point
of Europe; the corrupt and familiar appellation of Gibraltar (Gebel el
Tarik) describes the mountain of Tarik; and the intrenchments of his
camp were the first outline of those fortifications, which, in the
hands of our countrymen, have resisted the art and power of the house
of Bourbon. The adjacent governors informed the court of Toledo of the
descent and progress of the Arabs; and the defeat of his lieutenant
Edeco, who had been commanded to seize and bind the presumptuous
strangers, admonished Roderic of the magnitude of the danger. At the
royal summons, the dukes and counts, the bishops and nobles of the
Gothic monarchy assembled at the head of their followers; and the title
of king of the Romans, which is employed by an Arabic historian, may
be excused by the close affinity of language, religion, and manners,
between the nations of Spain. His army consisted of ninety or a hundred
thousand men: a formidable power, if their fidelity and discipline had
been adequate to their numbers. The troops of Tarik had been augmented
to twelve thousand Saracens; but the Christian malecontents were
attracted by the influence of Julian, and a crowd of Africans
most greedily tasted the temporal blessings of the Koran. In the
neighbourhood of Cadiz, the town of Xeres[175] has been illustrated by
the encounter which determined the fate of the kingdom; the stream of
the Guadalete, which falls into the bay, divided the two camps, and
marked the advancing and retreating skirmishes of three successive and
bloody days.

[Footnote 171: A mistake of Roderic of Toledo, in comparing the lunar
years of the Hegira with the Julian years of the Era, has determined
Baronius, Mariana, and the crowd of Spanish historians, to place the
first invasion in the year 713, and the battl