. "Every where they were seized and put to death
without mercy; and few escaped the search made by the emissaries of
As-Seffah, (_the bloodshedder_, the surname of the first Abbaside
khalif,) in every province of the empire."

[11] The tribe of Fehr hold a conspicuous place in the Spanish
annals, and one of them was the leader of the last attempt to
shake off the yoke of Castile, after the capture of Granada.

Among the few survivors of the general doom, was a youth named
Abdurrahman Ibn Muawiyah, a grandson of the Khalif Hisham. In his
infancy his granduncle Moslemah, the leader of the first Saracen host
sent against Constantinople, had indicated him, from certain marks, as
the destined restorer of the fallen fortunes of his race; and he was
preserved, by a timely warning from a client of his house, from the
fatal banquet, in which ninety of the Beni-Umeyyah were treacherously
massacred. Yet so hot was the pursuit, that his younger brother was
taken and slain before his eyes, while swimming the Euphrates with him
in their flight. But Abdurrahman, after numberless perils and
adventures, at length reached Africa, which was ruled by the _wali_
or viceroy Abdurrahman Ibn Habib, the father of Yusuf Al-Fehri, who
had been a personal retainer of his family. But he soon found that he
had erred in trusting to the faith of Ibn Habib; and, after narrowly
escaping the search made for him by the emissaries of the governor,
lay concealed for several years, a fugitive and outlaw, among the
tribes of Northern Africa. In this extremity, he at length cast his
eyes on Spain, where the Abbasides had never been recognized, and
where his own clansmen of the Koreysh, with their _maulis_, (freedmen
or clients,) were numerous and powerful. The overtures of the royal
adventurer were eagerly listened to by the Yemenis, who burned to
revenge their late defeat on the Beni-Modhar; and Abdurrahman, landing
at Al-munecar in the autumn of 755, found himself instantly at the
head of 700 horse, and was speedily joined by the chieftain of the
Yemenis, who admitted him into Seville. During the march the want of a
banner was remarked, "and a long spear was produced, on the point of
which a turban was to be placed; but as it would have been necessary
to incline the head of the spear, which was supposed to be of
extremely bad omen, it was held erect between two olive trees, and a
man, ascending one of them, was enabled to fasten the turban to th