rrupt courtiers. The
instinct of the Christian nationality revolting against the invaders,
and the gathering together of the whole soul of Spain on the rocky
heights of Covadonga to fall once more upon their conquerors, was all
a lie. The Spain of those days gratefully welcomed the people from
Africa and submitted without resistance. A squadron of Arab horsemen
was sufficient to make a town open its gates. It was a civilising
expedition more than a conquest, and a continual current of
immigration was established over the Straits. Over them came that
young and vigorous culture, of such rapid and astonishing growth,
which seemed to conquer though it was scarcely born: that civilisation
created by the religious enthusiasm of the Prophet, who had
assimilated all that was best in Judaism and in Byzantine
civilisation, carrying along with it also the great Indian traditions,
fragments from Persia and much from mysterious China. It was the
Orient entering into Europe, not as the Assyrian monarchs into Greece,
which repelled them seeing her liberties in danger, but the exact
opposite, into Spain, the slave of theological kings and warlike
bishops, which received the invaders with open arms. In two years they
became masters of what it took seven centuries to dispossess them. It
was not an invasion contested by arms, but a youthful civilisation
that threw out roots in every part. The principle of religious liberty
which cements all great nationalities came in with them, and in the
conquered towns they accepted the Church of the Christians and the
synagogues of the Jews. The Mosque did not fear the temples it found
in the country, it respected them, placing itself among them without
jealousy or desire of domination. From the eighth to the fifteenth
century the most elevated and opulent civilisation of the Middle Ages
in Europe was formed and flourished. While the people of the north
were decimating each other in religious wars, and living in tribal
barbarity, the population of Spain rose to thirty millions, gathering
to herself all races and all beliefs in infinite variety, like the
modern American people. Christians and Mussulmans, pure Arabs,
Syrians, Egyptians, Jews of Spanish extraction, and Jews from the East
all lived peaceably together, hence the various crossings and mixtures
of Muzarabes, Mudejares, Muladies and Hebrews. In this prolific
amalgamation of peoples and races all the habits, ideas, and
discoveries known up to