ligion as well as the authority of their tyrants. The first
lieutenant of Moawiyah acquired a just renown, subdued an important
city, defeated an army of thirty thousand Greeks, swept away fourscore
thousand captives, and enriched with their spoils the bold adventures of
Syria and Egypt. But the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly
due to his successor Akbah. He marched from Damascus at the head of ten
thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the Moslems was
enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many thousand Barbarians.
It would be difficult, nor is it necessary, to trace the accurate line
of the progress of Akbah. The interior regions have been peopled by the
Orientals with fictitious armies and imaginary citadels. In the warlike
province of Zab, or Numidia, fourscore thousand of the natives might
assemble in arms; but the number of three hundred and sixty towns
is incompatible with the ignorance or decay of husbandry; and a
circumference of three leagues will not be justified by the ruins of
Erbe or Lambesa, the ancient metropolis of that inland country. As we
approach the seacoast, the well-known cities of Bugia and Tangier define
the more certain limits of the Saracen victories. A remnant of trade
still adheres to the commodious harbor of Bugia which, in a more
prosperous age, is said to have contained about twenty thousand houses;
and the plenty of iron which is dug from the adjacent mountains might
have supplied a braver people with the instruments of defence. The
remote position and venerable antiquity of Tingi, or Tangier, have
been decorated by the Greek and Arabian fables; but the figurative
expressions of the latter, that the walls were constructed of brass, and
that the roofs were covered with gold and silver, may be interpreted
as the emblems of strength and opulence. The provinces of Mauritania
Tingitana, which assumed the name of the capital, had been imperfectly
discovered and settled by the Romans; the five colonies were confined to
a narrow pale, and the more southern parts were seldom explored except
by the agents of luxury, who searched the forests for ivory and the
citron-wood, and the shores of the ocean for the purple shell-fish.
The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the country, traversed the
wilderness in which his successors erected the splendid capitals of Fez
and Morocco, and at length penetrated to the verge of the Atlantic and
the great desert. The river