52 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY whom he divided into companies according to their tribes," and made himself Sultan. Al Mansur became one of the great Caliphs, and established a splendid dominion in Western Africa. But the fact that he was a usurper held in power by African tribes introduced a dangerous element of disruption into the body-politic of the Caliphate in Spain. The Berbers of Africa began to recognise their power. The descendants of the original Berbers who, with the Arabs, had effected the conquest of Spain, were growing soft with the pleasures and the luxury of a high civilisation. Their ruder brothers in Africa had kept their vigour, and began to realise the possibilities which it opened to them. A great African revolt was organised, the result of which was that Al Mansur gave Fez in sovereignty to the Berber chiefs of the Zenatah tribes, together with a good bit of Western Africa, including the southern province of what we now call Morocco. Side by side with the dominion of the Caliphs, local sovereignties in Africa acquired importance, and the ambitions thus partially gratified were not long limited to Africa.

Al Mansur died in 1002, and Arab historians are in practical agreement that from this time the Mohammedan Empire in Spain began to show signs of decay. Perpetual claimants of the throne of the Caliphs employed African troops in Spain. Between 1020 and 1030 the whole of Andalusia submitted with revolts and civil wars to the Berbers. It became the habit of the reigning Caliph to employ a black bodyguard drawn from Negroland, and, instead of maintaining the old attitude of united hostility to the Christians on their northern borders, each faction in turn called in Christian help.

It was not long before the Christian armies dominated the situation. The limits of the Arab Empire became narrower, and the power of the Caliphs was broken. Cordova, Granada, Malaga, Seville, became separate principalities. Here is a view of the situation as presented by an Arab historian of the sixteenth century : '* In Africa as well as in Andalusia the possessions of the