a negative induction from their
being neither Moslems, Jews, nor Christians.

The simplicity which the first Abdurrahman had uniformly preserved in
his dress and habits of life, was soon exchanged by his successors for
royal magnificence, rivaling that of the Abbaside court at Bagdad. It
was Abdurrahman II. who, in a love quarrel with a beautiful inmate of
his harem, caused the door of her chamber to be blocked up with bags
of silver coin, to be removed on her relenting--"and she threw herself
on her knees and kissed his feet; but," naively adds the Arab
historian, "the money she kept, and no portion of it ever returned to
the treasury." The same prince testified his esteem for the fine arts,
by riding forth in state from his capital, to welcome the arrival of
Zaryab, a far-famed musician, whom the jealousy of a rival had driven
from Bagdad, and who founded in Spain a famous school of music; and in
his convivial habits, and the freedom which he allowed to the
companions of his festive hours, his character accords with that
assigned in the _Thousand and One Nights_, though not in the page of
history, to Haroon-Al-Rasheed. He died in 852, leaving the crown to
his son Mohammed, whose reign, as well as those of his two sons
Almundhir and Abdullah, who filled the throne in succession, is but
briefly noticed by Al-Makkari, though Senor de Gayangos has supplied
some valuable additional matter in his notes. The never-ceasing
contest with the Christians was waged year by year; and the Princes
of Oviedo, though often defeated in the plain and driven back into
their mountains, when the forces of Andalus were gathered against
them; yet surely, though slowly, gained ground against the provincial
_walis_ or viceroys. At the death of "Ordhun Ibn Adefunsh," (Ordono
I.) in 866, their territory extended from the Atlantic and the Bay of
Biscay to Salamanca; and the Moslem power was diverted by the rising
strength of Navarre, where the Basques had shaken off the divided
allegiance paid alternately to the court of Cordova and the
Carlovingian rulers of France, and conferred on Garcia-Ramirez, in
857, an independent regal title. But these distant hostilities, as
yet, little affected the tranquillity of the seat of government, which
was more nearly interested in the frequent revolts of the provinces
under its rule,[15] and particularly by the rebellion of the
_Muwallads_, (or descendants of Christian converts to Islam;) which,
though th