tack. It proved successful, and he
delivered Carthage to the flames.

Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage, three out of the five great Christian
capitals, were lost. The fall of Constantinople was only a question of
time. After its fall, Rome alone remained.

In the development of Christianity, Carthage had played no insignificant
part. It had given to Europe its Latin form of faith, and some of its
greatest theologians. It was the home of St. Augustine.

Never in the history of the world had there been so rapid and extensive
a propagation of any religion as Mohammedanism. It was now dominating
from the Altai Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, from the centre of Asia
to the western verge of Africa.

CONQUEST OF SPAIN. The Khalif Alwalid next authorized the invasion of
Europe, the conquest of Andalusia, or the Region of the Evening.
Musa, his general, found, as had so often been the case elsewhere, two
effective allies sectarianism and treason--the Archbishop of Toledo and
Count Julian the Gothic general. Under their lead, in the very crisis
of the battle of Xeres, a large portion of the army went over to the
invaders; the Spanish king was compelled to flee from the field, and in
the pursuit he was drowned in the waters of the Guadalquivir.

With great rapidity Tarik, the lieutenant of Musa, pushed forward from
the battle-field to Toledo, and thence northward. On the arrival of Musa
the reduction of the Spanish peninsula was completed, and the wreck of
the Gothic army driven beyond the Pyrenees into France. Considering the
conquest of Spain as only the first step in his victories, he announced
his intention of forcing his way into Italy, and preaching the unity of
God in the Vatican. Thence he would march to Constantinople, and, having
put all end to the Roman Empire and Christianity, would pass into Asia
and lay his victorious sword on the footstool of the khalif at Damascus.

But this was not to be. Musa, envious of his lieutenant, Tarik, had
treated him with great indignity. The friends of Tarik at the court of
the khalif found means of retaliation. An envoy from Damascus arrested
Musa in his camp; he was carried before his sovereign, disgraced by a
public whipping, and died of a broken heart.

INVASION OF FRANCE. Under other leaders, however, the Saracen conquest
of France was attempted. In a preliminary campaign the country from the
mouth of the Garonne to that of the Loire was secured. Then Abderahman,
the Saracen