458 VARIOUS LETTERS cultivators of the country), and over the Berebbers (who are the aborigines of the country), or inhabitants of the mountains of Atlas, which terminate this sovereignty on the south, and divide Algiers from Bled-al-Jereed. The first principle of this barbarous and sanguinary government, according to an African adage, is to " Maintain the arm ofpower by making streams of bloodflow, without intermission, around the throne /" This country, — the government ofwhich reflects disgrace on Christendom, which has been, during many ages the scourge of Christian mariners, and of all who navigate the Mediterranean Sea, — has often been conquered. The Romans reduced Numidia and Mauritania into Roman provinces. This beautiful garden of the world was afterwards conquered by the Vandals ; then by the Greeks, during the reign of Justinian, under Belisarius ; and, finally, three times by the Arabs, viz. in the 647th year of Christ, by Abdallah and Zobeer; in the year 667, by Ak'bah for the Kalif Moawiah ; and in the year 692, by Hassan, the governor of Egypt, for the Kalif Abd Elmelik. Not one of the armies of these warriors ever exceeded 50,000 men.

After these general conquests, the partial conquests of the Portuguese and Spaniards, about the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, were effected by a mere handful of men ; and, in 1509, the latter rendered the kingdom of Algiers tributary to them : but, afterwards, they lost it by the ferocity of their