northern provinces, where the descendants of the old
Visigoths--the Hidalgos ("sons-of-somebody")--proudly intrenched
themselves in an attitude of defiance, making in time a clearly
defined Christian north and Moslem south, with a mountain range (the
Sierra Guadarrama) and a river (the Ebro) as the natural boundary
line of the two territories. The Moor was a child of the sun. If the
stubborn Goth chose to sulk, up among the chilly heights and on the
bleak plains of the north, he might do so, and it was little matter
if one Alfonso called himself "King of the Asturians," in that
mountain-defended and sea-girt province. The fertile plains of
Andalusia, and the banks of the Tagus and Guadalquivir, were all of
Spain the Moor wanted for the wonderful kingdom which was to be the
marvel of the Middle Ages.

[Footnote A: The old Phenician name for the North African tribes,
derived from the word Iberi.]

CHAPTER X.

But, at the early period we are considering, the "Christian kingdom"
was composed of a handful of men and women who had fled from the
Moslems to the mountains of the Asturias. Its one stronghold was the
cave of Covadonga, where Pelagius, or Pelayo, had gathered thirty men
and ten women. Here, in the dark recesses of this cave,--which was
approached through a long and narrow mountain pass, and entered by
a ladder of ninety steps,--was the germ of the future kingdoms of
Castile and Aragon, and also of the downfall of the Moor. An Arab
historian said later: "Would to God the Moslems had extinguished
that spark which was destined to consume the dominion of Islam in the
north" and, he might have added, "_in Spain._"

When Alfonso of Cantabria married the daughter of Pelayo in 751, the
cave of Covadonga no longer held the insurgent band. He roused all the
northern provinces against the Moors and gathered an army which drove
them step by step further south, until he had pushed the Christian
frontier as far as the great Sierra, so that the one-time Visigoth
capital of Toledo marked the line of the Moslem border fortresses.
Too scanty in numbers and too poor in purse to occupy the territory,
Alfonso and his army then retreated to their mountains, there to enjoy
the empty satisfaction of their conquest.

But the Moors in Andalusia had too many troubles of their own at that
time to give much heed to Alfonso I. and his rebellious band hiding
in the mountains. The Berbers and the Arabs on the African coast
were jea