Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/425

THE SPANISH ARABS. 281 belonged to the crown, a conspicuous part of their chapter VIII, income. 16 Before the discovery of America, Spain was to Mineral •^ ' _ ■■■ ^ wealth cf the rest of Europe, what her colonies have since ^p"'"- become, the great source of mineral wealth. The Carthaginians, and the Romans afterwards, regu- larly drew from her large masses of the precious metals. Pliny, who resided some time in the country, relates that three of her provinces were said to have annually yielded the incredible quan- tity of sixty thousand pounds of gold. ■'^ The Arabs with their usual activity penetrated into these arcana of wealth. Abundant traces of their labors are still to be met with along the barren ridge of mountains that covers the north of Anda- lusia ; and the diligent Bowles has enumerated no less, than five thousand of their excavations in the kingdom or district of Jaen. ^^ But the best mine of the caliphs was in the nusbanary ■'■ and manu- industry and sobriety of their subjects. The Ara- fa^ures bian colonies have been properly classed among the agricultural. Their acquaintance with the science of husbandry is shown in their voluminous treatises 16 Conde, Dominacion de los ately repeated by historians, if any Arabes, torn. i. pp. 214, 228, 270, argument were necessary to prove 611. — Masdeu, Historia Critica, it, becomes sufficiently manifest torn. xiii. p. 118. — Cardonne, from the fact, that the instrument Hist. d'Afrique et d'Espagne, is dated in the 142d year of the He- tom. i. pp. 338-^343. — Casiri gira, being a little more than fifty qnotes from an Arabic historian years after the conquest. See the conditions on which Abderrah- Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Es- man I. proffered his alliance to the curialensis, (Matriti, 1760,) torn. Christian princes of Spain, viz. ii. p. 104. the annual tribute of 10,000 ounces l Hist. Naturahs, lib. 33, cap. 4. of gold, 10,000 pounds of silver, ^^ Introduction a I'Histoire Na- 10,000 horses, &c. &c. The ab- turelle de TEspagne, traduite par surdity of this story, inconsider- Flavigny, (Paris, 1776,) p. 411. VOL. I. 36