rld.

Not only were there ports in abundance for the shelter of galleys, but
the land behind was all that could be desired. River indeed there was
none capable of navigation, but the very shortness of the watershed
which precluded the possibility of great streams brought with it a
counterbalancing advantage; for the mountains rise so steep and high
near the coast that the Corsairs' look-out could sight the vessels to
be attacked a long way out to sea, and thus give notice of a prize or
warning of an enemy. Moreover the land produced all that was needed to
content the heart of man. Below the mountains where the Berbers dwelt
and the steppes where Arab shepherds roamed, fertile valleys spread to
the seashore. Jerba was a perfect garden of corn and fruit, vines,
olives, almonds, apricots, and figs; Tunis stood in the midst of green
fields, and deserved the title of "the White, the Odoriferous, the
Flowery Bride of the West,"--though, indeed, the second epithet,
according to its inhabitants, was derived from the odour of the lake
which received the drainage of the city, to which they ascribed its
peculiar salubrity.

What more could be required in a land which was, now to become a nest
of pirates? Yet, as though this were not sufficient, one more virtue
was added. The coast was visited by terrible gales, which, while
avoidable by those who had experience and knew where to run, were
fatal to the unwary, and foiled many an attack of the avenging enemy.

It remains to explain how it was that the Corsairs were able to
possess themselves of this convenient territory, which was neither
devoid of inhabitants nor without settled governments.

North Africa--the only Africa known to the ancients--had seen many
rulers come and go since the Arabs under Okba first overran its plains
and valleys. Dynasty had succeeded dynasty; the Arab governors under
the Khalifs of Damascus and Baghd[=a]d had made room for the Houses of
Idr[=i]s (A.D. 788) and Aghlab (800); these in turn had given way to
the F[=a]tim[=i] Khalifs (909); and when these schismatics removed
their seat of power from their newly founded capital of Mahd[=i]ya to
their final metropolis of Cairo (968), their western empire speedily
split up into the several princedoms of the Zeyr[=i]s of Tunis, the
Ben[=i] Hamm[=a]d of Tilims[=a]n, and other minor governments. At the
close of the eleventh century, the Mur[=a]bits or Almoravides, a
Berber dynasty, imposed their authority over