THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME V SLICE I
Calhoun to Camoens

Articles in This Slice

CALHOUN, JOHN CALDWELL (1782-1850), American statesman and parliamentarian, was born, of Scottish-Irish descent, in Abbeville District, South Carolina, on the 18th of March 1782. His father, Patrick Calhoun, is said to have been born in Donegal, in North Ireland, but to have left Ireland when a mere child. The family seems to have emigrated first to Pennsylvania, whence they removed, after Braddock’s defeat, to Western Virginia. From Virginia they removed in 1756 to South Carolina and settled on Long Cane Creek, in Granville (now Abbeville) county. Patrick Calhoun attained some prominence in the colony, serving in the colonial legislature, and afterwards in the state legislature, and taking part in the War of Independence. In 1770 he had married Martha Caldwell, the daughter of another Scottish-Irish settler.

The opportunities for obtaining a liberal education in the remote districts of South Carolina at that time were scanty. Fortunately, young Calhoun had the opportunity, although late, of studying under his brother-in-law, the Rev. Moses Waddell (1770-1840), a Presbyterian minister, who afterwards, from 1819 to 1829, was president of the University of Georgia. In 1802 Calhoun entered the junior class in Yale College, and graduated with distinction in 1804. He then studied first at the famous law school in Litchfield, Conn., and afterwards in a law office in Charleston, S.C., and in 1807 was admitted to the bar. He began practice in his native Abbeville District, and soon took a leading place in his profession. In 1808 and 1809 he was a member of the South Carolina legislature, and from 1811 to 1817 was a member of the national House of Representatives.

When he entered the latter body the strained relations between Great Britain and the United States formed the most important question for the deliberation of Congress. Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House, being eager for war and knowing Calhoun’s hostility to Great Britain, gave him the second place on the committee of foreign affairs, of which he soon became the actual head. In less than three weeks the committee reported resolutions, evidently written by Calhoun, recommending preparations for a struggle with Great Britain; and in the following June Calhoun submitted a second report urging a formal declaration of war. Both sets of resolutions the House adopted. Clay and Calhoun did more, probably, than any other two men in Congress to force the reluctant president into beginning hostilities.

In 1816 Calhoun delivered in favour of a protective tariff a speech that was ever after held up by his opponents as evidence of his inconsistency in the tariff controversy. The embargo and the war had crippled American commerce, but had stimulated manufactures. With the end of the Napoleonic wars in Europe the industries of the old world revived, and Americans began to feel their competition. In the consequent distress in the new industrial centres there arose a cry for protection. Calhoun, believing that there was a natural tendency in the United States towards the development of manufactures, supported the Tariff Bill of 1816, which laid on certain foreign commodities duties higher than were necessary for the purposes of revenue. He believed that the South would share in the general industrial development, not having perceived as yet that slavery was an insuperable obstacle. His opposition to protection in later years resulted from an honest change of convictions. He always denied that in supporting this bill he had been inconsistent, and insisted that it was one for revenue.

From 1817 to 1825 Calhoun was secretary of war under President Monroe. To him is due the fostering and the reformation of the National Military Academy at West Point, which he found in disorder, but left in a most efficient state. Calhoun was vice-president of the United States from 1825 to 1832, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, and during most of the first administration of Andrew Jackson. This period was for Calhoun a time of reflection. His faith in a strong nationalistic policy was gradually undermined, and he finally became the foremost champion of particularism and the recognized leader of what is generally known as the “States Rights” or “Strict Construction” party.

In 1824 there was a very large increase in protective duties. In 1828 a still higher tariff act, the so-called “Bill of Abominations,” was passed, avowedly for the purpose of protection. The passage of these acts caused great discontent, especially among the Southern states, which were strictly agricultural. They felt that the great burden of this increased tariff fell on them, as they consumed, but did not produce, manufactured articles. Under such conditions the Southern states questioned the constitutionality of the imposition. Calhoun himself now perceived that the North and the South represented diverse tendencies. The North was outstripping the South in population and wealth, and already by the tariff acts was, as he believed, selfishly levying taxes for its sole benefit. The minority must, he insisted, be protected from “the tyranny of the majority.” In his first important political essay, “The South Carolina Exposition,” prepared by him in the summer of 1828, he showed how this should be done. To him it was clear that the Federal Constitution was a limited instrument, by which the sovereign states had delegated to the Federal government certain general powers. The states could not, without violating the constitutional compact, interfere with the activities of the Federal government so long as the government confined itself to its proper sphere; but the attempt of Congress, or any other department of the Federal government, to exercise any power which might alter the nature of the instrument would be an act of usurpation. The right of judging such an infraction belonged to the state, being an attribute of sovereignty of which the state could not be deprived without being reduced to a wholly subordinate condition. As a remedy for such a breach of compact the state might resort to nullification (q.v.), or, as a last resort, to secession from the Union. Such doctrines were not original with Calhoun, but had been held in various parts of the Union from time to time. It remained for him, however, to submit them to a rigid analysis and reduce them to a logical form.

Meantime the friendship between Calhoun and Jackson had come to an end. While a member of President Monroe’s cabinet, Calhoun had favoured the reprimanding of General Jackson (q.v.) for his high-handed course in Florida in 1818, during the first Seminole War. In 1831 W.H. Crawford, who had been a member of this cabinet, desiring to ruin Calhoun politically by turning Jackson’s hostility against him, revealed to Jackson what had taken place thirteen years before. Jackson could brook no criticism from one whom he had considered a friend; Calhoun, moreover, angered the president still further by his evident sanction of the social proscription of Mrs Eaton (q.v.); the political views of the two men, furthermore, were becoming more and more divergent, and the rupture between the two became complete.

The failure of the Jackson administration to reduce the Tariff of 1828 drew from Calhoun his “Address to the People of South Carolina” in 1831, in which he elaborated his views of the nature of the Union as given in the “Exposition.” In 1832 a new tariff act was passed, which removed the “abominations” of 1828 but left the principle of protection intact. The people of South Carolina were not satisfied, and Calhoun in a third political tract, in the form of a letter to Governor James Hamilton (1786-1857) of South Carolina, gave his doctrines their final form, but without altering the fundamental principles that have already been stated.

In 1832 South Carolina, acting in substantial accordance with Calhoun’s theories, “nullified” the tariff acts passed by Congress in 1828 and 1832 (see [Nullification]; [South Carolina]; and [United States]). On the 28th of December 1832 Calhoun resigned as vice-president, and on the 4th of January 1833 took his seat in the Senate. President Jackson had, in a special message, taken strong ground against the action of South Carolina, and a bill was introduced to extend the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States and clothe the president with additional powers, with the avowed object of meeting the situation in South Carolina. Calhoun, in turn, introduced resolutions upholding the doctrine held by South Carolina, and it was in the debate on the first-named measure, termed the “Force Bill,” and on these resolutions, that the first intellectual duel took place between Daniel Webster and Calhoun. Webster declared that the Federal government through the Supreme Court was the ultimate expounder and interpreter of its own powers, while Calhoun championed the rights of the individual state under a written contract which reserved to each state its sovereignty.

The practical result of the conflict over the tariff was a compromise. Congress passed an act gradually reducing the duties to a revenue basis, and South Carolina repealed her nullification measures. As the result of the conflict, Calhoun was greatly strengthened in his position as the leader of his party in the South. Southern leaders generally were now beginning to perceive, as Calhoun had already seen, that there was a permanent conflict between the North and the South, not only a divergence of interests between manufacturing and agricultural sections, but an inevitable struggle between free and slave labour. Should enough free states be admitted into the Union to destroy the balance of power, the North would naturally gain a preponderance in the Senate, as it had in the House, and might, within constitutional limits, legislate as it pleased. The Southern minority recognized, therefore, that they must henceforth direct the policy of the government in all questions affecting their peculiar interests, or their section would undergo a social and economic revolution. The Constitution, if strictly interpreted according to Calhoun’s views, would secure this control to the minority, and prevent an industrial upheaval.

An element of bitterness was now injected into the struggle. The Northern Abolitionists, to whom no contract or agreement was sacred that involved the continuance of slavery, regarded the clauses in the Federal Constitution which maintained the property rights of the slave-owners as treaties with evil, binding on no one, and bitterly attacked the slave-holders and the South generally. Their attacks may be said to have destroyed the moderate party in that section. Any criticism of their peculiar institution now came to be highly offensive to Southern leaders, and Calhoun, who always took the most advanced stand in behalf of Southern rights, urged (but in vain) that the Senate refuse to receive abolitionist petitions. He also advocated the exclusion of abolitionist literature from the mails.

Indeed from 1832 until his death Calhoun may be said to have devoted his life to the protection of Southern interests. He became the exponent, the very embodiment, of an idea. It is a mistake, however, to characterize him as an enemy to the Union. His contention was that its preservation depended on the recognition of the rights guaranteed to the states by the Constitution, and that aggression by one section could only end in disruption. Secession, he contended, was the only final remedy left to the weaker. Calhoun was re-elected to the Senate in 1834 and in 1840, serving until 1843. From 1832 to 1837 he was a man without a party. He attacked the “spoils system” inaugurated by President Jackson, opposed the removal of the government deposits from the Bank of the United States, and in general was a severe critic of Jackson’s administration. In this period he usually voted with the Whigs, but in 1837 he went over to the Democrats and supported the “independent treasury” scheme of President Van Buren. He was spoken of for the presidency in 1844, but declined to become a candidate, and was appointed as secretary of state in the cabinet of President Tyler, serving from the 1st of April 1844, throughout the remainder of the term, until the 10th of March 1845. While holding this office he devoted his energies chiefly to the acquisition of Texas, in order to preserve the equilibrium between the South and the constantly growing North. One of his last acts as secretary of state was to send a despatch, on the 3rd of March 1845, inviting Texas to accept the terms proposed by Congress. Calhoun was once more elected to the Senate in 1845. The period of his subsequent service covered the settlement of the Oregon dispute with Great Britain and the Mexican War. On the 19th of February 1847 he introduced in the Senate a series of resolutions concerning the territory about to be acquired from Mexico, which marked the most advanced stand as yet taken by the pro-slavery party. The purport of these resolutions was to deny to Congress the power to prohibit slavery in the territories and to declare all previous enactments to this effect unconstitutional.

In 1850 the Union seemed in imminent danger of dissolution. California was applying for admission to the Union as a state under a constitution which did not permit slavery. Her admission with two Senators would have placed the slave-holding states in the minority. In the midst of the debate on this application Calhoun died, on the 31st of March 1850, in Washington.

Calhoun is most often compared with Webster and Clay. The three constitute the trio upon whom the attention of students at this period naturally rests. Calhoun possessed neither Webster’s brilliant rhetoric nor his easy versatility, but he surpassed him in the ordered method and logical sequence of his mind. He never equalled Clay in the latter’s magnetism of impulse and inspiration of affection, but he far surpassed him in clearness and directness and in tenacity of will. He surpassed them both in the distinctness with which he saw results, and in the boldness with which he formulated and followed his conclusions.

Calhoun in person was tall and slender, and in his later years was emaciated. His features were angular and somewhat harsh, but with a striking face and very fine eyes of a brilliant dark blue. To his slaves he was just and kind. He lived the modest, unassuming life of a country planter when at his home, and at Washington lived as unostentatiously as possible, consistent with his public duties and position. His character in other respects was always of stainless integrity.

Bibliography.—A collected edition of Calhoun’s Works (6 vols., New York, 1853-1855) has been edited by Richard K. Crallé. The most important speeches and papers are:—The South Carolina Exposition (1828); Speech on the Force Bill (1833); Reply to Webster (1833); Speech on the Reception of Abolitionist Petitions (1836), and on the Veto Power (1842); a Disquisition on Government, and a Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States (1849-1850)—the last two, written a short time before his death, defend with great ability the rights of a minority under a government such as that of the United States. Calhoun’s Correspondence, edited by J. Franklin Jameson, has been published by the American Historical Association (see Report for 1899, vol. ii.). The biography of Calhoun by Dr Hermann von Holst in the “American Statesmen Series” (Boston, 1882) is a condensed study of the political questions of Calhoun’s time. Gustavus M. Pinckney’s Life of John C. Calhoun (Charleston, 1903) gives a sympathetic Southern view. Gaillard Hunt’s John C. Calhoun (Philadelphia, 1908) is a valuable work.

(H. A. M. S.)

CALI, an inland town of the department of Cauca, Colombia, South America, about 180 m. S.W. of Bogotá and 50 m. S.E. of the port of Buenaventura, on the Rio Cali, a small branch of the Cauca. Pop. (1906 estimate) 16,000. Cali stands 3327 ft. above sea-level on the western side of the Cauca valley, one of the healthiest regions of Colombia. The land-locked character of this region greatly restricts the city’s trade and development; but it is considered the most important town in the department. It has a bridge across the Cali, and a number of religious and public edifices. A railway from Buenaventura will give Cali and the valley behind it, with which it is connected by over 200 m. of river navigation, a good outlet on the Pacific coast. Coal deposits exist in the immediate vicinity of the town.

CALIBRATION, a term primarily signifying the determination of the “calibre” or bore of a gun. The word calibre was introduced through the French from the Italian calibro, together with other terms of gunnery and warfare, about the 16th century. The origin of the Italian equivalent appears to be uncertain. It will readily be understood that the calibre of a gun requires accurate adjustment to the standard size, and further, that the bore must be straight and of uniform diameter throughout. The term was subsequently applied to the accurate measurement and testing of the bore of any kind of tube, especially those of thermometers.

In modern scientific language, by a natural process of transition, the term “calibration” has come to denote the accurate comparison of any measuring instrument with a standard, and more particularly the determination of the errors of its scale. It is seldom possible in the process of manufacture to make an instrument so perfect that no error can be discovered by the most delicate tests, and it would rarely be worth while to attempt to do so even if it were possible. The cost of manufacture would in many cases be greatly increased without adding materially to the utility of the apparatus. The scientific method, in all cases which admit of the subsequent determination and correction of errors, is to economize time and labour in production by taking pains in the subsequent verification or calibration. This process of calibration is particularly important in laboratory research, where the observer has frequently to make his own apparatus, and cannot afford the time or outlay required to make special tools for fine work, but is already provided with apparatus and methods of accurate testing. For non-scientific purposes it is generally possible to construct instruments to measure with sufficient precision without further correction. The present article will therefore be restricted to the scientific use and application of methods of accurate testing.

General Methods and Principles.—The process of calibration of any measuring instrument is frequently divisible into two parts, which differ greatly in importance in different cases, and of which one or the other may often be omitted. (1) The determination of the value of the unit to which the measurements are referred by comparison with a standard unit of the same kind. This is often described as the Standardization of the instrument, or the determination of the Reduction factor. (2) The verification of the accuracy of the subdivision of the scale of the instrument. This may be termed calibration of the scale, and does not necessarily involve the comparison of the instrument with any independent standard, but merely the verification of the accuracy of the relative values of its indications. In many cases the process of calibration adopted consists in the comparison of the instrument to be tested with a standard over the whole range of its indications, the relative values of the subdivisions of the standard itself having been previously tested. In this case the distinction of two parts in the process is unnecessary, and the term calibration is for this reason frequently employed to include both. In some cases it is employed to denote the first part only, but for greater clearness and convenience of description we shall restrict the term as far as possible to the second meaning.

The methods of standardization or calibration employed have much in common even in the cases that appear most diverse. They are all founded on the axiom that “things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another.” Whether it is a question of comparing a scale with a standard, or of testing the equality of two parts of the same scale, the process is essentially one of interchanging or substituting one for the other, the two things to be compared. In addition to the things to be tested there is usually required some form of balance, or comparator, or gauge, by which the equality may be tested. The simplest of such comparators is the instrument known as the callipers, from the same root as calibre, which is in constant use in the workshop for testing equality of linear dimensions, or uniformity of diameter of tubes or rods. The more complicated forms of optical comparators or measuring machines with scales and screw adjustments are essentially similar in principle, being finely adjustable gauges to which the things to be compared can be successively fitted. A still simpler and more accurate comparison is that of volume or capacity, using a given mass of liquid as the gauge or test of equality, which is the basis of many of the most accurate and most important methods of calibration. The common balance for testing equality of mass or weight is so delicate and so easily tested that the process of calibration may frequently with advantage be reduced to a series of weighings, as for instance in the calibration of a burette or measure-glass by weighing the quantities of mercury required to fill it to different marks. The balance may, however, be regarded more broadly as the type of a general method capable of the widest application in accurate testing. It is possible, for instance, to balance two electromotive forces or two electrical resistances against each other, or to measure the refractivity of a gas by balancing it against a column of air adjusted to produce the same retardation in a beam of light. These “equilibrium,” or “null,” or “balance” methods of comparison afford the most accurate measurements, and are generally selected if possible as the basis of any process of calibration. In spite of the great diversity in the nature of things to be compared, the fundamental principles of the methods employed are so essentially similar that it is possible, for instance, to describe the testing of a set of weights, or the calibration of an electrical resistance-box, in almost the same terms, and to represent the calibration correction of a mercury thermometer or of an ammeter by precisely similar curves.

Method of Substitution.—In comparing two units of the same kind and of nearly equal magnitude, some variety of the general method of substitution is invariably adopted. The same method in a more elaborate form is employed in the calibration of a series of multiples or submultiples of any unit. The details of the method depend on the system of subdivision adopted, which is to some extent a matter of taste. The simplest method of subdivision is that on the binary scale, proceeding by multiples of 2. With a pair of submultiples of the smallest denomination and one of each of the rest, thus 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, &c., each weight or multiple is equal to the sum of all the smaller weights, which may be substituted for it, and the small difference, if any, observed. If we call the weights A, B, C, &c., where each is approximately double the following weight, and if we write a for observed excess of A over the rest of the weights, b for that of B over C + D + &c., and so on, the observations by the method of substitution give the series of equations,

A − rest = a, B − rest = b, C − rest = c, &c.   (1)

Subtracting the second from the first, the third from the second, and so on, we obtain at once the value of each weight in terms of the preceding, so that all may be expressed in terms of the largest, which is most conveniently taken as the standard

B = A/2 + (b − a)/2, C = B/2 + (c − b)2, &c.   (2)

The advantages of this method of subdivision and comparison, in addition to its extreme simplicity, are (1) that there is only one possible combination to represent any given weight within the range of the series; (2) that the least possible number of weights is required to cover any given range; (3) that the smallest number of substitutions is required for the complete calibration. These advantages are important in cases where the accuracy of calibration is limited by the constancy of the conditions of observation, as in the case of an electrical resistance-box, but the reverse may be the case when it is a question of accuracy of estimation by an observer.

In the majority of cases the ease of numeration afforded by familiarity with the decimal system is the most important consideration. The most convenient arrangement on the decimal system for purposes of calibration is to have the units, tens, hundreds, &c., arranged in groups of four adjusted in the proportion of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4. The relative values of the weights in each group of four can then be determined by substitution independently of the others, and the total of each group of four, making ten times the unit of the group, can be compared with the smallest weight in the group above. This gives a sufficient number of equations to determine the errors of all the weights by the method of substitution in a very simple manner. A number of other equations can be obtained by combining the different groups in other ways, and the whole system of equations may then be solved by the method of least squares; but the equations so obtained are not all of equal value, and it may be doubted whether any real advantage is gained in many cases by the multiplication of comparisons, since it is not possible in this manner to eliminate constant errors or personal equation, which are generally aggravated by prolonging the observations. A common arrangement of the weights in each group on the decimal system is 5, 2, 1, 1, or 5, 2, 2, 1. These do not admit of the independent calibration of each group by substitution. The arrangement 5, 2, 1, 1, 1, or 5, 2, 2, 1, 1, permits independent calibration, but involves a larger number of weights and observations than the 1, 2, 3, 4, grouping. The arrangement of ten equal weights in each group, which is adopted in “dial” resistance-boxes, and in some forms of chemical balances where the weights are mechanically applied by turning a handle, presents great advantages in point of quickness of manipulation and ease of numeration, but the complete calibration of such an arrangement is tedious, and in the case of a resistance-box it is difficult to make the necessary connexions. In all cases where the same total can be made up in a variety of ways, it is necessary in accurate work to make sure that the same weights are always used for a given combination, or else to record the actual weights used on each occasion. In many investigations where time enters as one of the factors, this is a serious drawback, and it is better to avoid the more complicated arrangements. The accurate adjustment of a set of weights is so simple a matter that it is often possible to neglect the errors of a well-made set, and no calibration is of any value without the most scrupulous attention to details of manipulation, and particularly to the correction for the air displaced in comparing weights of different materials. Electrical resistances are much more difficult to adjust owing to the change of resistance with temperature, and the calibration of a resistance-box can seldom be neglected on account of the changes of resistance which are liable to occur after adjustment from imperfect annealing. It is also necessary to remember that the order of accuracy required, and the actual values of the smaller resistances, depend to some extent on the method of connexion, and that the box must be calibrated with due regard to the conditions under which it is to be used. Otherwise the method of procedure is much the same as in the case of a box of weights, but it is necessary to pay more attention to the constancy and uniformity of the temperature conditions of the observing-room.

Method of Equal Steps.—In calibrating a continuous scale divided into a number of divisions of equal length, such as a metre scale divided in millimetres, or a thermometer tube divided in degrees of temperature, or an electrical slide-wire, it is usual to proceed by a method of equal steps. The simplest method is that known as the method of Gay Lussac in the calibration of mercurial thermometers or tubes of small bore. It is essentially a method of substitution employing a column of mercury of constant volume as the gauge for comparing the capacities of different parts of the tube. A precisely similar method, employing a pair of microscopes at a fixed distance apart as a standard of length, is applicable to the calibration of a divided scale. The interval to be calibrated is divided into a whole number of equal steps or sections, the points of division at which the corrections are to be determined are called points of calibration.

Calibration of a Mercury Thermometer.—To facilitate description, we will take the case of a fine-bore tube, such as that of a thermometer, to be calibrated with a thread of mercury. The bore of such a tube will generally vary considerably even in the best standard instruments, the tubes of which have been specially drawn and selected. The correction for inequality of bore may amount to a quarter or half a degree, and is seldom less than a tenth. In ordinary chemical thermometers it is usual to make allowance for variations of bore in graduating the scale, but such instruments present discontinuities of division, and cannot be used for accurate work, in which a finely-divided scale of equal parts is essential. The calibration of a mercury thermometer intended for work of precision is best effected after it has been sealed. A thread of mercury of the desired length is separated from the column. The exact adjustment of the length of the thread requires a little manipulation. The thermometer is inverted and tapped to make the mercury run down to the top of the tube, thus collecting a trace of residual gas at the end of the bulb. By quickly reversing the thermometer the bubble passes to the neck of the bulb. If the instrument is again inverted and tapped, the thread will probably break off at the neck of the bulb, which should be previously cooled or warmed so as to obtain in this manner, if possible, a thread of the desired length. If the thread so obtained is too long or not accurate enough, it is removed to the other end of the tube, and the bulb further warmed till the mercury reaches some easily recognized division. At this point the broken thread is rejoined to the mercury column from the bulb, and a microscopic bubble of gas is condensed which generally suffices to determine the subsequent breaking of the mercury column at the same point of the tube. The bulb is then allowed to cool till the length of the thread above the point of separation is equal to the desired length, when a slight tap suffices to separate the thread. This method is difficult to work with short threads owing to deficient inertia, especially if the tube is very perfectly evacuated. A thread can always be separated by local heating with a small flame, but this is dangerous to the thermometer, it is difficult to adjust the thread exactly to the required length, and the mercury does not run easily past a point of the tube which has been locally heated in this manner.

Having separated a thread of the required length, the thermometer is mounted in a horizontal position on a suitable support, preferably with a screw adjustment in the direction of its length. By tilting or tapping the instrument the thread is brought into position corresponding to the steps of the calibration successively, and its length in each position is carefully observed with a pair of reading microscopes fixed at a suitable distance apart. Assuming that the temperature remains constant, the variations of length of the thread are inversely as the variations of cross-section of the tube. If the length of the thread is very nearly equal to one step, and if the tube is nearly uniform, the average of the observed lengths of the thread, taking all the steps throughout the interval, is equal to the length which the thread should have occupied in each position had the bore been uniform throughout and all the divisions equal. The error of each step is therefore found by subtracting the average length from the observed length in each position. Assuming that the ends of the interval itself are correct, the correction to be applied at any point of calibration to reduce the readings to a uniform tube and scale, is found by taking the sum of the errors of the steps up to the point considered with the sign reversed.

Table I.—Calibration by Method of Gay Lussac.

In the preceding example of the method an interval of ten degrees is taken, divided into ten steps of 1° each. The distances of the ends of the thread from the nearest degree divisions are estimated by the aid of micrometers to the thousandth of a degree. The error of any one of these readings probably does not exceed half a thousandth, but they are given to the nearest thousandth only. The excess length of the thread in each position over the corresponding degree is obtained by subtracting the second reading from the first. Taking the average of the numbers in this line, the mean excess-length is -10.4 thousandths. The error of each step is found by subtracting this mean from each of the numbers in the previous line. Finally, the corrections at each degree are obtained by adding up the errors of the steps and changing the sign. The errors and corrections are given in thousandths of 1°.

Complete Calibration.—The simple method of Gay Lussac does very well for short intervals when the number of steps is not excessive, but it would not be satisfactory for a large range owing to the accumulation of small errors of estimation, and the variation of the personal equation. The observer might, for instance, consistently over-estimate the length of the thread in one half of the tube, and under-estimate it in the other. The errors near the middle of the range would probably be large. It is evident that the correction at the middle point of the interval could be much more accurately determined by using a thread equal to half the length of the interval. To minimize the effect of these errors of estimation, it is usual to employ threads of different lengths in calibrating the same interval, and to divide up the fundamental interval of the thermometer into a number of subsidiary sections for the purpose of calibration, each of these sections being treated as a step in the calibration of the fundamental interval. The most symmetrical method of calibrating a section, called by C.E. Guillaume a “Complete Calibration,” is to use threads of all possible lengths which are integral multiples of the calibration step. In the example already given nine different threads were used, and the length of each was observed in as many positions as possible. Proceeding in this manner the following numbers were obtained for the excess-length of each thread in thousandths of a degree in different positions, starting in each case with the beginning of the thread at 0°, and moving it on by steps of 1°. The observations in the first column are the excess-lengths of the thread of 1° already given in illustration of the method of Gay Lussac. The other columns give the corresponding observations with the longer threads. The simplest and most symmetrical method of solving these observations, so as to find the errors of each step in terms of the whole interval, is to obtain the differences of the steps in pairs by subtracting each observation from the one above it. This method eliminates the unknown lengths of the threads, and gives each observation approximately its due weight. Subtracting the observations in the second line from those in the first, we obtain a series of numbers, entered in column 1 of the next table, representing the excess of step (1) over each of the other steps. The sum of these differences is ten times the error of the first step, since by hypothesis the sum of the errors of all the steps is zero in terms of the whole interval. The numbers in the second column of Table III. are similarly obtained by subtracting the third line from the second in Table II., each difference being inserted in its appropriate place in the table. Proceeding in this way we find the excess of each interval over those which follow it. The table is completed by a diagonal row of zeros representing the difference of each step from itself, and by repeating the numbers already found in symmetrical positions with their signs changed, since the excess of any step, say 6 over 3, is evidently equal to that of 3 over 6 with the sign changed. The errors of each step having been found by adding the columns, and dividing by 10, the corrections at each point of the calibration are deduced as before.

Table II.—Complete Calibration of Interval of 10° in 10 Steps.

Table III.—Solution of Complete Calibration.

The advantages of this method are the simplicity and symmetry of the work of reduction, and the accuracy of the result, which exceeds that of the Gay Lussac method in consequence of the much larger number of independent observations. It may be noticed, for instance, that the correction at point 5 is 27.1 thousandths by the complete calibration, which is 2 thousandths less than the value 29 obtained by the Gay Lussac method, but agrees well with the value 27 thousandths obtained by taking only the first and last observations with the thread of 5°. The disadvantage of the method lies in the great number of observations required, and in the labour of adjusting so many different threads to suitable lengths. It is probable that sufficiently good results may be obtained with much less trouble by using fewer threads, especially if more care is taken in the micrometric determination of their errors.

The method adopted for dividing up the fundamental interval of any thermometer into sections and steps for calibration may be widely varied, and is necessarily modified in cases where auxiliary bulbs or “ampoules” are employed. The Paris mercury-standards, which read continuously from 0° to 100° C., without intermediate ampoules, were calibrated by Chappuis in five sections of 20° each, to determine the corrections at the points 20°, 40°, 60°, 80°, which may be called the “principal points” of the calibration, in terms of the fundamental interval. Each section of 20° was subsequently calibrated in steps of 2°, the corrections being at first referred, as in the example already given, to the mean degree of the section itself, and being afterwards expressed, by a simple transformation, in terms of the fundamental interval, by means of the corrections already found for the ends of the section. Supposing, for instance, that the corrections at the points 0° and 10° of Table III. are not zero, but C° and C′ respectively, the correction Cn at any intermediate point n will evidently be given by the formula,

Cn = C° + cn + (C′ − C°)n/10  (3)

where cn is the correction already given in the table.

If the corrections are required to the thousandth of a degree, it is necessary to tabulate the results of the calibration at much more frequent intervals than 2°, since the correction, even of a good thermometer, may change by as much as 20 or 30 thousandths in 2°. To save the labour and difficulty of calibrating with shorter threads, the corrections at intermediate points are usually calculated by a formula of interpolation. This leaves much to be desired, as the section of a tube often changes very suddenly and capriciously. It is probable that the graphic method gives equally good results with less labour.

Slide-Wire.—The calibration of an electrical slide-wire into parts of equal resistance is precisely analogous to that of a capillary tube into parts of equal volume. The Carey Foster method, employing short steps of equal resistance, effected by transferring a suitable small resistance from one side of the slide-wire to the other, is exactly analogous to the Gay Lussac method, and suffers from the same defect of the accumulation of small errors unless steps of several different lengths are used. The calibration of a slide-wire, however, is much less troublesome than that of a thermometer tube for several reasons. It is easy to obtain a wire uniform to one part in 500 or even less, and the section is not liable to capricious variations. In all work of precision the slide-wire is supplemented by auxiliary resistances by which the scale may be indefinitely extended. In accurate electrical thermometry, for example, the slide-wire itself would correspond to only 1°, or less, of the whole scale, which is less than a single step in the calibration of a mercury thermometer, so that an accuracy of a thousandth of a degree can generally be obtained without any calibration of the slide-wire. In the rare cases in which it is necessary to employ a long slide-wire, such as the cylinder potentiometer of Latimer Clark, the calibration is best effected by comparison with a standard, such as a Thomson-Varley slide-box.

Graphic Representation of Results.—The results of a calibration are often best represented by means of a correction curve, such as that illustrated in the diagram, which is plotted to represent the corrections found in Table III. The abscissa of such a curve is the reading of the instrument to be corrected. The ordinate is the correction to be added to the observed reading to reduce to a uniform scale. The corrections are plotted in the figure in terms of the whole section, taking the correction to be zero at the beginning and end. As a matter of fact the corrections at these points in terms of the fundamental interval were found to be −29 and −9 thousandths respectively. The correction curve is transformed to give corrections in terms of the fundamental interval by ruling a straight line joining the points +29 and +9 respectively, and reckoning the ordinates from this line instead of from the base-line. Or the curve may be replotted with the new ordinates thus obtained. In drawing the curve from the corrections obtained at the points of calibration, the exact form of the curve is to some extent a matter of taste, but the curve should generally be drawn as smoothly as possible on the assumption that the changes are gradual and continuous.

The ruling of the straight line across the curve to express the corrections in terms of the fundamental interval, corresponds to the first part of the process of calibration mentioned above under the term “Standardization.” It effects the reduction of the readings to a common standard, and may be neglected if relative values only are required. A precisely analogous correction occurs in the case of electrical instruments. A potentiometer, for instance, if correctly graduated or calibrated in parts of equal resistance, will give correct relative values of any differences of potential within its range if connected to a constant cell to supply the steady current through the slide-wire. But to determine at any time the actual value of its readings in volts, it is necessary to standardize it, or determine its scale-value or reduction-factor, by comparison with a standard cell.

A very neat use of the calibration curve has been made by Professor W.A. Rogers in the automatic correction of screws of dividing machines or lathes. It is possible by the process of grinding, as applied by Rowland, to make a screw which is practically perfect in point of uniformity, but even in this case errors may be introduced by the method of mounting. In the production of divided scales, and more particularly in the case of optical gratings, it is most important that the errors should be as small as possible, and should be automatically corrected during the process of ruling. With this object a scale is ruled on the machine, and the errors of the uncorrected screw are determined by calibrating the scale. A metal template may then be cut out in the form of the calibration-correction curve on a suitable scale. A lever projecting from the nut which feeds the carriage or the slide-rest is made to follow the contour of the template, and to apply the appropriate correction at each point of the travel, by turning the nut through a small angle on the screw. A small periodic error of the screw, recurring regularly at each revolution, may be similarly corrected by means of a suitable cam or eccentric revolving with the screw and actuating the template. This kind of error is important in optical gratings, but is difficult to determine and correct.

Calibration by Comparison with a Standard.—The commonest and most generally useful process of calibration is the direct comparison of the instrument with a standard over the whole range of its scale. It is necessary that the standard itself should have been already calibrated, or else that the law of its indications should be known. A continuous current ammeter, for instance, can be calibrated, so far as the relative values of its readings are concerned, by comparison with a tangent galvanometer, since it is known that the current in this instrument is proportional to the tangent of the angle of deflection. Similarly an alternating current ammeter can be calibrated by comparison with an electrodynamometer, the reading of which varies as the square of the current. But in either case it is neccessary, in order to obtain the readings in amperes, to standardize the instrument for some particular value of the current by comparison with a voltameter, or in some equivalent manner. Whenever possible, ammeters and voltmeters are calibrated by comparison of their readings with those of a potentiometer, the calibration of which can be reduced to the comparison and adjustment of resistances, which is the most accurate of electrical measurements. The commoner kinds of mercury thermometers are generally calibrated and graduated by comparison with a standard. In many cases this is the most convenient or even the only possible method. A mercury thermometer of limited scale reading between 250° and 400° C., with gas under high pressure to prevent the separation of the mercury column, cannot be calibrated on itself, or by comparison with a mercury standard possessing a fundamental interval, on account of difficulties of stem exposure and scale. The only practical method is to compare its readings every few degrees with those of a platinum thermometer under the conditions for which it is to be used. This method has the advantage of combining all the corrections for fundamental interval, &c., with the calibration correction in a single curve, except the correction for variation of zero which must be tested occasionally at some point of the scale.

Authorities.—Mercurial Thermometers: Guillaume, Thermométrie de Précision (Paris, 1889), gives several examples and references to original memoirs. The best examples of comparison and testing of standards are generally to be found in publications of Standards Offices, such as those of the Bureau International des Poids et Mésures at Paris. Dial Resistance-Box: Griffiths, Phil. Trans. A, 1893; Platinum Thermometry-Box: J.A. Harker and P. Chappuis, Phil. Trans. A, 1900; Thomson-Varley Potentiometer and Binary Scale Box: Callendar and Barnes, Phil. Trans. A, 1901.

(H. L. C.)

CALICO, a general name given to plain cotton cloth. The word was spelt in various forms, including “calicut,” which shows its derivation from the Indian city of Calicut or Kolikod, a seaport in the presidency of Madras, and one of the chief ports of intercourse with Europe in the 16th century, where cotton cloths were made. The name seems to have been applied to all kinds of cotton cloths imported from the East. In England it is now applied particularly to grey or bleached cotton cloth used for domestic purposes, and, generally, to any fairly heavy cotton cloth without a pattern. In the United States there is a special application to printed cloth “of a coarser quality than muslin.” In England “printed calico” is a comprehensive term.

CALICUT, a city of British India, in the Malabar district of Madras; on the coast, 6 m. N. of Beypur. In 1901 the population was 76,981, showing an increase of 14% in the decade. The weaving of cotton, for which the place was at one time so famous that its name became identified with its calico, is no longer of any importance. Calicut is of considerable antiquity; and about the 7th century it had its population largely increased by the immigration of the Moplahs, a fanatical race of Mahommedans from Arabia, who entered enthusiastically into commercial life. The Portuguese traveller Pero de Covilham (q.v.) visited Calicut in 1487 and described its possibilities for European trade; and in May 1498 Vasco da Gama, the first European navigator to reach India, arrived at Calicut. At that time it was a very flourishing city, and contained several stately buildings, among which was especially mentioned a Brahminical temple, not inferior to the largest monastery in Portugal. Vasco da Gama tried to establish a factory, but he met with persistent hostility from the local chief (zamorin), and a similar attempt made by Cabral two years later ended in the destruction of the factory by the Moplahs. In revenge the Portuguese bombarded the town, but no further attempt was made for some years to establish a trading settlement there. In 1509 the marshal Don Fernando Coutinho made an unsuccessful attack on the city; and in the following year it was again assailed by Albuquerque with 3000 troops. On this occasion the palace was plundered and the town burnt; but the Portuguese were finally repulsed, and fled to their ships after heavy loss. In the following year they concluded a peace with the zamorin and were allowed to build a fortified factory on the north bank of the Kallayi river, which was however again, and finally, abandoned in 1525. In 1615 the town was visited by an English expedition under Captain Keeling, who concluded a treaty with the zamorin; but it was not until 1664 that an English trading settlement was established by the East India Company. The French settlement, which still exists, was founded in 1698. The town was taken in 1765 by Hyder Ali, who expelled all the merchants and factors, and destroyed the cocoa-nut trees, sandal-wood and pepper vines, that the country reduced to ruin might present no temptation to the cupidity of Europeans. In 1782 the troops of Hyder were driven from Calicut by the British; but in 1788 it was taken and destroyed by his son Tippoo, who carried off the inhabitants to Beypur and treated them with great cruelty. In the latter part of 1790 the country was occupied by the British; and under the treaty concluded in 1792, whereby Tippoo was deprived of half his dominions, Calicut fell to the British. After this event the inhabitants returned and rebuilt the town, which in 1800 consisted of 5000 houses.

As the administrative headquarters of the district, Calicut maintains its historical importance. It is served by the Madras railway, and is the chief seaport on the Malabar coast, and the principal exports are coffee, timber and coco-nut products. There are factories for coffee-cleaning, employing several hundred hands; for coir-pressing and timber-cutting. The town has a cotton-mill, a saw-mill, and tile, coffee and oil works. A detachment of European troops is generally stationed here to overawe the fanatical Moplahs.

CALIFORNIA, one of the Pacific Coast states of the United States of America, physically one of the most remarkable, economically one of the more independent, and in history and social life one of the most interesting of the Union. It is bounded N. by Oregon, E. by Nevada and Arizona, from which last it is separated by the Colorado river, and S. by the Mexican province of Lower California. The length of its medial line N. and S. is about 780 m., its breadth varies from 150 to 350 m., and its total area is 158,207 sq. m., of which 2205 are water surface. In size it ranks second among the states of the Union. The coast is bold and rugged and with very few good harbours; San Diego and San Francisco bays being exceptions. The coast line is more than 1000 m. long. There are eight coast islands, all of inconsiderable size, and none of them as yet in any way important.

Physiography.—The physiography of the state is simple; its main features are few and bold: a mountain fringe along the ocean, another mountain system along the east border, between them—closed in at both ends by their junction—a splendid valley of imperial extent, and outside all this a great area of barren, arid lands, belonging partly to the Great Basin and partly to the Open Basin region.

Along the Pacific, and some 20-40 m. in width, runs the mass of the Coast Range, made up of numerous indistinct chains—most of which have localized individual names—that are broken down into innumerable ridges and spurs, and small valleys drained by short streams of rapid fall. The range is cut by numerous fault lines, some of which betray evidence of recent activity; it is probable that movements along these faults cause the earthquake tremors to which the region is subject, all of which seem to be tectonic. The altitudes of the Coast Range vary from about 2000 to 8000 ft.; in the neighbourhood of San Francisco Bay the culminating peaks are about 4000 ft. in height (Mount Diablo, 3856 ft.; Mount St Helena, 4343 ft.), and to the north and south the elevation of the ranges increases. In the east part of the state is the magnificent Sierra Nevada, a great block of the earth’s crust, faulted along its eastern side and tilted up so as to have a gentle back slope to the west and a steep fault escarpment facing east, the finest mountain system of the United States. The Sierra proper, from Lassen’s Peak to Tehachapi Pass in Kern county, is about 430 m. long (from Mt. Shasta in Siskiyou county to Mt. San Jacinto in Riverside county, more than 600 m.). It narrows to the north and the altitude declines in the same direction. Far higher and grander than the Coast Range, the Sierra is much less complicated, being indeed essentially one chain of great simplicity of structure. It is only here and there that a double line of principal summits exists. The slope is everywhere long and gradual on the west, averaging about 200 ft. to the mile. Precipitous gorges or canyons often from 2000 to 5000 ft. in depth become a more and more marked feature of the range as one proceeds northward; over great portions of it they average probably not more than 20 m. apart. Where the volcanic formations were spread uniformly over the flanks of the mountains, the contrast between the canyons and the plain-like region of gentle slope in which they have been excavated is especially marked and characteristic. The eastern slope is very precipitous, due to a great fault which drops the rocks of the Great Basin region abruptly downward several thousand feet. Rare passes cross the chain, opening at the foot of the mountains on the east and the west high on their flanks, 7000-10,000 ft. above the sea. Between 36° 20′ and 38° the lowest gap of any kind is above 9000 ft., and the average height of those actually used is probably not less than 11,000 ft. The Kearsarge, most used of all, is still higher. Very few in the entire Sierra are passable by vehicles. Some forty peaks are catalogued between 5000 and 8000 ft., and there are eleven above 14,000. The highest portion of the system is between the parallels of 36° 30′ and 37° 30′; here the passes are about 12,000 ft. in elevation, and the peaks range from 13,000 ft. upward, Mount Whitney, 14,502 ft., being the highest summit of the United States, excluding Alaska. From this peak northward there is a gradual decline, until at the point where the Central Pacific crosses in lat. 39° 20′ the elevation is only 7000 ft.

Of the mountain scenery the granite pinnacles and domes of the highest Sierra opposite Owen’s Lake, where there is a drop eastward into the valley of about 10,000 ft. in 10 m.; the snowy volcanic cone of Mt Shasta, rising 10,000 ft. above the adjacent plains; and the lovely valleys of the Coast Range, and the south fork of the King river—all these have their charms; but most beautiful of all is the unique scenery of the Yosemite Valley (q.v.). Much of the ruggedness and beauty of the mountains is due to the erosive action of many alpine glaciers that once existed on the higher summits, and which have left behind their evidences in valleys and amphitheatres with towering walls, polished rock-expanses, glacial lakes and meadows and tumbling waterfalls. Remnants of these glaciers are still to be seen,—as notably on Mt. Shasta,—though shrunk to small dimensions. Glacial action may be studied well as far south as 36°. The canyons are largely the work of rivers, modified by glaciers that ran through them after the rivers had formed them. All of the Sierra lakes and ponds are of glacial origin and there are some thousands of them. The lower lake line is about 8000 ft.; it is lower to the north than to the south, owing to the different climate, and the different period of glacial retrogression. Of these lakes some are fresh, and some—as those of the north-east counties—alkali. The finest of all is Tahoe, 6225 ft. above the sea, lying between the true Sierras and the Basin Ranges, with peaks on several sides rising 4000-5000 ft. above it. It is 1500 ft. deep and its waters are of extraordinary purity (containing only three grains of solid matter to the gallon). Clear Lake, in the Coast Range, is another beautiful sheet of water. It is estimated by John Muir that on an average “perhaps more than a mile” of degradation took place in the last glacial period; but with regard to the whole subject of glacial action in California as in other fields, there is considerable difference of opinion. The same authority counted 65 small residual glaciers between 36° 30′ and 39°; two-thirds of them lie between 37° and 38°, on some of the highest peaks in the district of the San Joaquin, Merced, Tuolumne and Owen’s rivers. They do not descend, on an average, below 11,000 ft.; the largest of all, on Mt. Shasta, descends to 9500 ft. above the sea.

Volcanic action has likewise left abundant traces, especially in the northern half of the range, whereas the evidences of glacial action are most perfect (though not most abundant) in the south. Lava covers most of the northern half of the range, and there are many craters and ash-cones, some recent and of perfect form. Of these the most remarkable is Mt. Shasta. In Owen’s Valley is a fine group of extinct or dormant volcanoes.

Among the other indications of great geological disturbances on the Pacific Coast may also be mentioned the earthquakes to which California like the rest of the coast is liable. From 1850 to 1887 almost 800 were catalogued by Professor E.H. Holden for California, Oregon and Washington. They occur in all seasons, scores of slight tremors being recorded every year by the Weather Bureau; but they are of no importance, and even of these the number affecting any particular locality is small. From 1769 to 1887 there were 10 “destructive” and 24 other “extremely severe” shocks according to the Rossi Forel nomenclatural scale of intensity. In 1812 great destruction was wrought by an earthquake that affected all the southern part of the state; in 1865 the region about San Francisco was violently disturbed; in 1872 the whole Sierra and the state of Nevada were violently shaken; and in 1906 San Francisco (q.v.) was in large part destroyed by a shock that caused great damage elsewhere in the state.

North of 40° N. lat. the Coast Range and Sierra systems unite, forming a country extremely rough. The eastern half of this area is covered chiefly with volcanic plains, very dry and barren, lying between precipitous, although not very lofty, ranges; the western half is magnificently timbered, and toward the coast excessively wet. Between 35° and 36° N. lat. the Sierra at its southern end turns westward toward the coast as the Tehachapi Range. The valley is thus closed to the north and south, and is surrounded by a mountain wall, which is broken down in but a single place, the gap behind the Golden Gate at San Francisco. Through this passes the entire drainage of the interior. The length of the valley is about 450 m., its breadth averages about 40 m. if the lower foothills be included, so that the entire area is about 18,000 sq. m. The drainage basin measured from the water-partings of the enclosing mountains is some three times as great. From the mouth of the Sacramento to Redding, at the northern head of the valley, the rise is 552 ft. in 192 m., and from the mouth of the San Joaquin southward to Kern lake it is 282 ft. in 260 m.

Two great rivers drain this central basin,—the San Joaquin, whose valley comprises more than three-fifths of the entire basin, and the Sacramento, whose valley comprises the remainder. The San Joaquin is a very crooked stream flowing through a low mud-plain, with tule banks; the Sacramento is much less meandering, and its immediate basin, which is of sandy loam, is higher and more attractive than that of the San Joaquin. The eastward flanks of the Coast Range are very scantily forested, and they furnish not a single stream permanent enough to reach either the Sacramento or San Joaquin throughout the dry season. On the eastern side of both rivers are various important tributaries, fed by the more abundant rains and melting snows of the western flank of the Sierra; but these streams also shrink greatly in the dry season. The Feather, emptying into the Sacramento river about 20 m. N. of the city of Sacramento, is the most important tributary of the Sacramento river. A striking feature of the Sacramento system is that for 200 m. north of the Feather it does not receive a single tributary of any importance, though walled in by high mountains. Another peculiar and very general feature of the drainage system of the state is the presence of numerous so-called river “sinks,” where the waters disappear, either directly by evaporation or (as in Death Valley) after flowing for a time beneath the surface. These “sinks” are therefore not the true sinks of limestone regions. The popular name is applied to Owen’s lake, at the end of Owen’s river; to Mono lake, into which flow various streams rising in the Sierra between Mount Dana and Castle Peak; and to Death Valley, which contains the “sink” of the Amargosa river, and evidently was once an extensive lake, although now only a mud-flat in ordinary winters, and a dry, alkaline, desert plain in summer. All these lakes, and the other mountain lakes before referred to, show by the terraces about them that the water stood during the glacial period much higher than it does now. Tulare lake, which with Buena Vista lake and Kern lake receives the drainage of the southern Sierra, shows extreme local variations of shore-line, and is generally believed to have shrunk extremely since 1850, though of this no adequate proof yet exists. In 1900 it was about 200 sq. m. in area. In wet seasons it overflows its banks and becomes greatly extended in area, discharging its surplus waters into the San Joaquin; but in dry seasons the evaporation is so great that there is no such discharge. The drainage of Lassen, Siskiyou and Modoc counties has no outlet to the sea and is collected in a number of great alkaline lakes.

Finally along the sea below Pt. Conception are fertile coastal plains of considerable extent, separated from the interior deserts by various mountain ranges from 5000 to 7000 ft. high, and with peaks much higher (San Bernardino, 11,600; San Jacinto, 10,800; San Antonio, 10,140). Unlike the northern Sierra, the ranges of Southern California are broken down in a number of places. It is over these passes—Soledad, 2822 ft., Cajon, San Gorgonio, 2560 ft.—that the railways cross to the coast. That part of California which lies to the south and east of the southern inosculation of the Coast Range and the Sierra comprises an area of fully 50,000 sq. m., and belongs to the Basin Range region. For the most part it is excessively dry and barren. The Mohave desert—embracing Kern, Los Angeles and San Bernardino, as also a large part of San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties—belong to the “Great Basin,” while a narrow strip along the Colorado river is in the “Open Basin Region.” They have no drainage to the sea, save fitfully for slight areas through the Colorado river. The Mohave desert is about 2000 ft. above the sea in general altitude. The southern part of the Great Basin region is vaguely designated the Colorado desert. In San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties a number of creeks or so-called rivers, with beds that are normally dry, flow centrally toward the desert of Salton Sink or “Sea”; this is the lowest part of a large area that is depressed below the level of the sea,—at Salton 263 ft., and 287 ft. at the lowest point. In 1900 the Colorado river (q.v.) was tapped south of the Mexican boundary for water wherewith to irrigate land in the Imperial Valley along the Southern Pacific railway, adjoining Salton Sea. The river enlarged the canal, and finding a steeper gradient than that to its mouth, was diverted into the Colorado desert, flooding Salton Sea;[1] and when the break in this river was closed for the second time in February 1907, though much of its water still escaped through minor channels and by seepage, a lake more than 400 sq. m. in area was left. A permanent 60 ft. masonry dam was completed in July 1907. The region to the east of the Sierra, likewise in the Great Basin province, between the crest of that range and the Nevada boundary, is very mountainous. Owen’s river runs through it from north to south for some 180 m. Near Owen’s lake the scenery is extremely grand. The valley here is very narrow, and on either side the mountains rise from 7000 to 10,000 ft. above the lake and river. The Inyo range, on the east, is quite bare of timber, and its summits are only occasionally whitened with snow for a few days during the winter, as almost all precipitation is cut off by the higher ranges to the westward. Still further to the east some 40 m. from the lake is Death Valley (including Lost or Mesquite Valley)—the name a reminder of the fate of a party of “forty-niners” who perished here, by thirst or by starvation and exposure. Death Valley, some 50 m. long and on an average 20-25 m. broad from the crests of the inclosing mountain ranges (or 5-10 m. at their base), constitutes an independent drainage basin. It is below sea level (about 276 ft. according to recent surveys), and altogether is one of the most remarkable physical features of California. The mountains about it are high and bare and brilliant with varied colours. The Amargosa river, entering the valley from Nevada, disappears in the salty basin. Enormous quantities of borax, already exploited, and of nitrate of soda, are known to be present in the surrounding country, the former as almost pure borate of lime in Tertiary lake sediments.

The physiography of the state is the evident determinant of its climate, fauna and flora. California has the highest land and the lowest land of the United States, the greatest variety of temperature and rainfall, and of products of the soil.

[(Click to enlarge top section.)]
[(Click to enlarge bottom section.)]

Climate.—The climate is very different from that of the Atlantic coast; and indeed very different from that of any part of the country save that bordering California. Amid great variations of local weather there are some peculiar features that obtain all over the state. In the first place, the climate of the entire Pacific Coast is milder and more uniform in temperature than that of the states in corresponding latitude east of the mountains. Thus we have to go north as far as Sitka in 57° N. lat. to find the same mean yearly temperature as that of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in latitude 44° 39′. And going south along the coast, we find the mean temperature of San Diego 6° or 7° less than that of Vicksburg, Miss., or Charleston, S.C. The quantity of total annual heat supply at Puget Sound exceeds that at Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cleveland or Omaha, all more than 500 m. farther south; Cape Flattery, exposed the year round to cold ocean fogs, receives more heat than Eastport, Maine, which is 3° farther south and has a warmer summer. In the second place, the means of winter and summer are much nearer the mean of the year in California than in the east. This condition of things is not so marked as one goes inward from the coast; yet everywhere save in the high mountains the winters are comparatively mild. In the third place, the division of the year into two seasons—a wet one and a dry (and extremely dusty) one—marks this portion of the Pacific Coast in the most decided manner, and this natural climatic area coincides almost exactly in its extension with that of California; being truly characteristic neither of Lower California nor of the greater part of Oregon, though more so of Nevada and Arizona. And finally, in the fourth place, except on the coast the disagreeableness of the heat of summer is greatly lessened by the dryness of the air and the consequent rapidity of evaporation. Among the peculiarities of Californian climate it is not one of the least striking that as one leaves the Sacramento or San Joaquin plains and travels into the mountains it becomes warmer, at least for the first 2000 or 3000 ft. of ascent.

Along both the Coast Range and the Sierra considerable rainfall is certain, although, owing to the slight snow accumulations of the former, its streams are decidedly variable. A heavy rain-belt, with a normal fall of more than 40 in., covers all the northern half of the Sierra and the north-west counties; shading off from this is the region of 10-20 in. fall, which covers all the rest of the state save Inyo, Kern and San Bernardino counties, Imperial county and the eastern portion of Riverside county; the precipitation of this belt is from 0 to 10 in. In excessively dry years the limits of this last division may include all of the state below Fresno and the entire Central Valley as well. In the mountains the precipitation increases with the altitude; above 6000 or 7000 ft. it is almost wholly in the form of snow; and this snow, melting in summer, is of immense importance to the state, supplying water once for placer mining and now for irrigation. The north-west counties are extremely wet; many localities here have normal rainfalls of 60-70 in. and even higher annually, while in extreme seasons as much as 125 in. falls. Along the entire Pacific Coast, but particularly N. of San Francisco, there is a night fog from May to September. It extends but a few miles inland, but within this belt is virtually a prolongation of the rainy season and has a marked effect on vegetation. Below San Francisco the precipitation decreases along the coast, until at San Diego it is only about 10 in. The south-east counties are the driest portions of the United States. At Ogilby, Volcano, Indio and other stations on the Southern Pacific line the normal annual precipitation is from 1.5 to 2.5 in.; and there are localities near Owen’s lake, even on its very edge, that are almost dry. For days in succession when it storms along the Southern California coasts and dense rain clouds blow landwards to the mountains, leaving snow or rain on their summits, it has been observed that within a few miles beyond the ridge the contact of the desert air dissipates the remaining moisture of the clouds into light misty masses, like a steam escape in cold air. The extreme heat of the south-east is tempered by the extremely low humidity characteristic of the Great Basin, which in the interior of the two southernmost counties is very low. The humidity of places such as Fresno, Sacramento and Red Bluff in the valley varies from 48 to 58. Many places in northern, southern, central, mountain and southern coastal California normally have more than 200 perfectly clear days in a year; and many in the mountains and in the south, even on the coast, have more than 250. The extreme variability in the amount of rainfall is remarkable.[2] The effects of a season of drought on the dry portions of the state need not be adverted to; and as there is no rain or snow of any consequence on the mountains during summer, a succession of dry seasons may almost bare the ranges of the accumulated stock of previous winter snows, thus making worse what is already bad.

The Colorado desert (together with the lower Gila Valley of Arizona) is the hottest part of the United States. Along the line of the Southern Pacific the yearly extreme is frequently from 124° to 129° F. (i.e. in the shade, which is almost if not quite the greatest heat ever actually recorded in any part of the world). At the other extreme, temperatures of -20° to -36° are recorded yearly on the Central (Southern) Pacific line near Lake Tahoe. The normal annual means of the coldest localities of the state are from 37° to 44° F.; the monthly means from 20° to 65° F. The normal annual means on Indio, Mammoth Tanks, Salton and Volcano Springs are from 73.9° to 78.4 F.; the monthly means from 52.8° to 101.3° (frequently 95° to 98°). The normal trend of the annual isotherms of the state is very simple: a low line of about 40° circles the angle in the Nevada boundary line; 50° normally follows the northern Sierra across the Oregon border; lines of higher temperature enclose the Great Valley; and lines of still higher temperature—usually 60° to 70°, in hotter years 60° to 75°—run transversely across the southern quarter of the state.

Another weather factor is the winds, which are extremely regular in their movements. There are brisk diurnal sea-breezes, and seasonal trades and counter-trades. Along the coast an on-shore breeze blows every summer day; in the evening it is replaced by a night-fog, and the cooler air draws down the mountain sides in opposition to its movement during the day. In the upper air a dry off-shore wind from the Rocky Mountain plateau prevails throughout the summer; and in winter an on-shore rain wind. The last is the counter-trade, the all-year wind of Alaska and Oregon; it prevails in winter even off Southern California.

There is the widest and most startling variety of local climates. At Truckee, for example, lying about 5800 ft. above the sea near Lake Tahoe, the lowest temperature of the year may be -25° F. or colder, when 70 m. westward at Rocklin, which lies in the foothills about 250 ft. above the sea, the mercury does not fall below 28°. Snow never falls at Rocklin, but falls in large quantity at Truckee; ice is the crop of the one, oranges of the other, at the same time. There are points in Southern California where one may actually look from sea to desert and from snow to orange groves. Distance from the ocean, situation with reference to the mountain ranges, and altitude are all important determinants of these climatic differences; but of these the last seems to be most important. At any rate it may be said that generally speaking the maximum, minimum and mean temperatures of points of approximately equal altitude are respectively but slightly different in northern or southern California.[3]

Death Valley surpasses for combined heat and aridity any meteorological stations on earth where regular observations are taken, although for extremes of heat it is exceeded by places in the Colorado desert. The minimum daily temperature in summer is rarely below 70° F. and often above 90° F. (in the shade), while the maximum may for days in succession be as high as 120° F. A record of 6 months (1891) showed an average daily relative humidity of 30.6 in the morning and 15.6 in the evening, and the humidity sometimes falls to 5. Yet the surrounding country is not devoid of vegetation. The hills are very fertile when irrigated, and the wet season develops a variety of perennial herbs, shrubs and annuals.

Fauna.—California embraces areas of every life-zone of North America: of the boreal, the Hudsonian and Canadian subzones; of the transition, the humid Pacific subzone; of the upper austral, the arid or upper Sonoran subzone; of the lower austral, the arid or lower Sonoran; of the tropical, the “dilute arid” subzone. As will be inferred from the above account of temperature, summer is longer in the north, and localities in the Valley have more hours of heat than do those of south California. Hence that climatic characteristic of the entire Pacific Coast—already referred to and which is of extreme importance in determining the life-zones of California—the great amount of total annual heat supply at comparatively high latitudes. A low summer temperature enables northern species to push far southward, while the high heat total of the year enables southern species to push far north. The resultant intermingling of forms is very marked and characteristic of the Pacific Coast states. The distribution of life-zones is primarily a matter of altitude and corresponds to that of the isotherms. The mountain goat and mountain sheep live in the Sierran upper-land, though long ago well-nigh exterminated. The Douglas red squirrel is ubiquitous in the Sierran forests and their most conspicuous inhabitant. White-tailed deer and especially black-tails are found on the high Sierra; the mule deer, too, although its habitat is now mainly east of the range, on the plateau, is also met with. Grizzly, black, cinnamon and brown bears are all Californian species once common and to-day rare. When Americans began to rule in California elk and antelope herded in great numbers in the Great Valley; the former may to-day sometimes be seen, possibly, in the northern forests, and the latter occasionally cross into the state from Nevada. The sage-hen is abundant on the eastern flank of the Sierra. Grouse, quail, crows and woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) furnish species characteristic of the state. There are various species of ground-squirrels and gophers, which are very abundant. Noteworthy in the animal life of the lower Sonoran and tropic region are a variety of snakes and lizards, desert rats and mice; and, among birds, the cactus wren, desert thrasher, desert sparrow, Texas night-hawk, mocking-bird and ground cuckoo or road runner (Geococcyx Californianus). The California vulture, the largest flying bird in North America and fully as large as the Andean condor, is not limited to California but is fairly common there. In the zoology and botany of California as of the rest of the Pacific Coast, the distinctions between the upper austral and humid transition zones are largely obliterated; and as one passes southward into the arid lands, life forms of both these zones intermingle with those of the arid transition.

Fish are abundant. The United States fish commission, and an active state commission established in 1869, have done much to preserve and increase this source of food. In 1904 the yield of the fisheries of the three Pacific Coast states was 168,600,000 lbs, valued at $6,681,000,—nearly half that of the New England states, more than one-third that of the Middle Atlantic states and more than that of the South Atlantic and Gulf states combined. Of the total, California yielded between a quarter and a third. A third of her fish comes from the Sacramento river. Some 230—more or less—marine food fishes are to be found in the market at San Francisco. The exports of fish from that port from 1892-1899 were valued at from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000 annually. Native oysters are small and of peculiar flavour; eastern varieties also are fattened, but not bred in California waters. Shrimp are abundant; the shrimp fishers are Chinese and four-fifths of the catch is exported to China. Sturgeon were once the cheapest fish after salmon; to-day, despite all efforts to increase the supply, they are the dearest. Salmon, once threatened with extinction, have been saved, maintained in good supply, and indeed have probably regained their pristine abundance. Shad and striped bass are both very abundant and cheap. Black bass, flounders, terrapin, sea-turtles, perch, turbot, sole and catfish are also common. Great herds of seals once lay like toll-gatherers off the Golden Gate and other bays of the coast, taking a large share of the salmon and other fish; but they are no longer common. The sea-lions sometimes raid the rivers for 100 m. inland. They have greatly increased since hunting them for their hides and oil ceased to be profitable, and thousands sometimes gather on the Farallones, off the Golden Gate.

Flora.—Inclusiveness of range in the distribution of vegetable life is perhaps more suggestive than the distribution of animal species. The variation is from dwarf mountain pine to giant cactus and dates. The humid transition belt is the habitat of California’s magnificent forests. Nut pine, juniper and true sage-brush (Artemisia tridentata) characterize the upper Sonoran,—although the latter grows equally in the transition zone. Cereals, orchard fruits and alfalfa are of primary importance in the upper and of secondary importance in the lower Sonoran. In the arid portions of this and the tropic areas the indigenous plants are creosote, mesquite and alfileria bushes, desert acacias, paloverdes, alkali-heath, salt grass, agaves, yuccas (especially the Spanish-bayonet and Joshua tree) and cactuses. Among exotics the Australian saltbush spreads successfully over the worst alkali land. The introduction of other exotics into these zones,—made humid by irrigation, which converts them, the one into true austro-riparian the other into true humid tropical,—has revolutionized the agricultural, and indeed the whole, economy of California. At the two ends of Cajon Pass, only four or five kilometres apart, are the two utterly distinct floras of the Mohave desert and the San Bernardino valley. Despite the presence of the pass, plants do not spread, so great is the difference of climatic conditions. On the desert the same plant will vary in different years from 4 in. to 10 ft. in height when equally mature, according to the rainfall and other conditions of growth. Many mature plants are not taller than 0.4 to 0.8 in. The tree yucca often attains a height of 20 to 25 ft., and a diameter of 1.5 ft. About 600 species of plants were catalogued in desert California in 1891 by a government botanical party. The flora of the coast islands of California is very interesting. On Santa Cruz Professor Joseph Le Conte found 248 species, nearly all of which are distinctively Californian, 48 being peculiar to the surrounding islands and 28 peculiar to Southern California. Various other things indicate a separation of the islands from the mainland in quaternary times; since which, owing to the later southward movement on the continent of northern forms in glacial times, there has been a struggle for existence on the mainland from which the islands have largely escaped.

Forests.—The forests and agricultural crops of the state demand particular notice. In 1900 the woodland was estimated by the United States census at 22% of the state’s area, and the total stand at 200,000 million ft. of timber. The variety of forest trees is not great, but some of the California trees are unique, and the forests of the state are, with those of Oregon and Washington, perhaps the most magnificent of the world. At least the coniferous forests which make up nine-tenths of California’s woodland surpass all others known in number of species and in the size and beauty of the trees. Forty-six species occur, namely, 32 species of pitch trees (18 pines), 12 species of the cypresses and their allies (2 sequoia), and 2 species of yews or their allies. Peculiar to California are the two species of sequoia (q.v.),—the redwood (S. sempervirens), and the big-tree (S. gigantea), remnants of an earlier age when they were common in other parts of the world. The redwood grows only in a narrow strip on the Coast Range from Southern Oregon (where there are not more than 1000 acres) down nearly to the Golden Gate, in a habitat of heavy rains and heavy fogs. They cover an area of about 2000 sq. m. almost unmixed with other species. One fine grove stands S. of San Francisco near Santa Cruz. These noble trees attain very often a height of more than 300 ft., frequently of 350 and even more, and a butt diameter of more than 15 to 20 ft., with clean, straight fluted trunks rising 200 ft. below the lowest branches. They grow in a very dense timber stand; single acres have yielded 1,500,000 ft. B.M. of lumber, and single trees have cut as high as 100,000 ft. The total stand in 1900 was estimated by the United States census as 75,000,000,000 ft., and the ordinary stand per acre varies from 25,000 to 150,000 ft., averaging probably 60,000 ft. The redwood is being rapidly used for lumber. There is nowhere any considerable young growth from seed, although this mode of reproduction is not (as often stated) unknown; the tree will reproduce itself more than once from the stump (hence its name). In thirty years a tree has been known to grow to a height of 80 ft. and a diameter of 16 in. The wood contains no pitch and much water, and in a green condition will not burn. To this fact it owes its immunity from the forest fires which wreak frightful havoc among the surrounding forests. As the redwood is limited to the Coast Range, so the big tree is limited wholly to the Sierra Nevada. Unlike the redwood the big tree occurs in scattered groves (ten in all) among other species. Its habitat extends some 200 m., from latitude 36° to 39°, nowhere descending much below an altitude of 5000 ft., nor rising above 8000 ft. The most northerly grove and the nearest to San Francisco is the Calaveras Grove near Stockton; the Mariposa Grove just south of the Yosemite National Park, is a state reservation and easily accessible to tourists. The noblest groves are near Visalia, and are held as a national park. The average height is about 275 ft., and the diameter near the ground 20 ft.; various individuals stand over 300 ft., and a diameter of 25 ft. is not rare. One tree measures 35.7 ft. inside the bark 4 ft. above the ground, 10 ft. at 200 ft. above the ground, and is 325 ft. tall. Specimens have been cut down that were estimated to be 1300 and even 2200 years old; many trees standing are presumably 2500 years old. It is the opinion of John Muir that the big tree would normally live 5000 years or more; that the California groves are still in their prime; that, contrary to general ideas, the big tree was never more widely distributed than now, at least not within the past 8000 or 10,000 years; that it is not a decaying species, but that on the contrary “no tree of all the forest is more enduringly established in concord with climate and soil,” growing like the mountain pine even on granite, and in little danger save from the greed of the lumberman; but other excellent authorities consider it as hardly holding its own, especially in the north. Three main wood belts cover the flanks of the Sierra: the lower or main pine belt, the silver fir belt, and the upper pine belt. The sugar pine, the yellow or silver pine and the Douglas spruce (considerably smaller than in Oregon and Washington), are rivals in stature and nobility, all attaining 200 ft. or more when full grown; and the incense cedar reaches a height of 150 ft. In this belt and the following one of firs the big tree also grows. The white silver fir (abies concolor) and the silver or red fir (ab. magnifica), standing 200 to 250 ft., make up almost wholly the main forest belt from 5000 to 9000 ft. for some 450 m. Above the firs come the tamarack, constituting the bulk of the lower Alpine forest; the hardy long-lived mountain pine; the red cedar or juniper, growing even on the baldest rocks; the beautiful hemlock spruce; the still higher white pine, nut pine, needle pine; and finally, at 10,000 to 12,000 ft., the dwarf pine, which grows in a tangle on the earth over which one walks, and may not show for a century’s growth more than a foot of height or an inch of girth. The Nevada slope of the mountains below 7500 ft. is covered with the nut pine down to the sage plains. Its nuts are gathered in enormous amounts by the Indians for food; and it is estimated that the yearly harvest of these nuts exceeds in bulk that of all the cereals of California (John Muir). On the Sierra the underbrush is characterized by the pungent manzanita, the California buckeye and the chamiso; the last two growing equally abundantly on the Coast Range. The chamiso and the manzanita, with a variety of shrubby oaks and thorny plants, often grow together in a dense and sometimes quite impenetrable undergrowth, forming what is known as “chaparral”; if the chamiso occurs alone the thicket is a “chamisal.” The elm, the hickory, the beech, the chestnut, and many others of the most characteristic and useful trees of the eastern states were originally entirely wanting in California. Oaks are abundant; they are especially characteristic of the Great Valley, where they grow in magnificent groves. Up to 1910 national forest reserves amounted to 27,968,510 acres. In 1909 Congress created a national forest to include the big tree groves in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties. One of the noblest redwood areas (that of Santa Cruz county) is a state reservation (created in 1901). Even within reservations almost all the merchantable timber is owned by private individuals. In addition to native trees many others—especially ornamental species—have been successfully introduced from various parts of the world.

Soil.—Sand and loams in great variety, grading from mere sand to adobe, make up the soils of the state. The plains of the north-east counties are volcanic, and those of the south-east sandy. It is impossible to say with accuracy what part of the state may properly be classed as tillable. The total farm acreage in 1900 was 28,828,951 acres, of which 41.5% were improved; since 1880 the absolute amount of improved land has remained practically constant, despite the extraordinary progress of the state in these years. Much land is too rough, too elevated or too arid ever to be made agriculturally available; but irrigation, and the work of the state and national agricultural bureaus in introducing new plants and promoting scientific farming, have accomplished much that once seemed impossible. The peculiarities of the climate, especially its division into two seasons, make Californian (and Southern Arizona) agriculture very different from that of the rest of the country. During the winter no shelter is necessary for live-stock, nor, during summer, for the grains that are harvested in June and July, and may lie for weeks or months in the field. The mild, wet winter is the season of planting and growth, and so throughout the year there is a succession of crops. The dangers of drought in the long dry seasons particularly increase the uncertainties of agriculture in regions naturally arid. Irrigation was introduced in Southern California before 1780, but its use was desultory and its spread slow till after 1850. In 1900 almost 1,500,000 acres were irrigated—an increase of 46% since 1890. About half of this total was in San Joaquin Valley. California has the greatest area of irrigated land of any state in the Union, and offers the most complete utilization of resources. In the south artesian wells, and in the Great Valley the rivers of the Sierra slope, are the main source of water-supply. On nearly all lands irrigated some crops will grow in ordinary seasons without irrigation, but it is this that makes possible selection of crops; practically indispensable for all field and orchard culture in the south, save for a few moist coastal areas, it everywhere increases the yield of all crops and is practised generally all over the state. Of the acreage devoted to alfalfa in 1899, 76.2% was irrigated; of that devoted to subtropical fruits, 71.7%. Small fruits, orchard fruits, hay, garden products and grains are decreasingly dependent on irrigation; wheat, which was once California’s great staple, is (for good, but not for best results) comparatively independent of it,—hence its early predominance in Californian agriculture, due to this success on arid lands since taken over for more remunerative irrigated crops.

Agriculture.—The spread of irrigation and of intensive cultivation, and the increase of small farms during the last quarter of the 19th century, have made California what it is to-day. Agriculture had its beginning in wheat-raising on great ranches, from 50,000 even to several hundred thousand acres in extent. A few of these, particularly in the Great Valley, are still worked, but only a few. The average size of farms in 1850 (when the large Mexican grants were almost the only farms, and these unbroken) was 4466 acres; in 1860 it was 466.4, and in 1900 only 397.4 acres. Stock ranches, tobacco plantations, and hay and grain farms, average from 800 to 530 acres, and counteract the tendency of dairy farms, beet plantations, orchards, vegetable gardens and nurseries to lower the size of the farm unit still further. The renting of large holdings prevails to a greater extent than in any other state except Texas. From 1880 to 1900 the number of farms above 500 and below 1000 acres doubled; half of the total in 1900 were smaller than 100 acres. The most remunerative and most characteristic farming to-day is diversified and intensive and on small holdings. The essential character of California’s economic life has been determined by the successive predominance of grass, gold, grain and fruits. Omitting the second it may be truly said that the order of agricultural development has been mainly one of blind experiment or fortuitous circumstances. Staple products have changed with increasing knowledge of climatic conditions, of life-zones and of the fitness of crops; first hides and tallow, then wool, wheat, grapes (which in the early eighteen-nineties were the leading fruit), deciduous orchard fruits, and semi-tropical citrus fruits successively. Prunes were introduced in 1854, but their possibilities were only slightly appreciated for some thirty years. Of various other crops much the same is true. Of late years progress has been very intelligent; in earlier years it was gained through a multitude of experiments and failures, and great pecuniary loss, and progress was a testimonial chiefly to courage and perseverance. The possibilities of the lower Sonoran and tropical areas are still imperfectly known. Nature has been niggard of rain but lavish in soil and sun. Irrigation has shown that with water, arid and barren plains, veritable deserts may be made to bloom with immense wealth of semi-tropical fruits; and irrigation in the tropical area along the Colorado river, which is so arid that it naturally bears only desert vegetation, has made it a true humid-tropical region like Southern Florida, growing true tropical fruits.

In 1900 California ranked eleventh among the states in total value of farm property ($796,527,955) and in 1899 fourteenth in the value of farm products ($131,690,606). The growth of the former from 1890 to 1900 was only 2.5%, one of the smallest increases among all the states.

The pastoral period extended from 1769 to 1848. The live-stock industry was introduced by the Franciscans and flourished exceedingly. In 1834, when the missions had already passed their best days, there were some 486,000 cattle, horses, mules and asses on the ranges, and 325,000 small animals, principally sheep. Throughout the pre-American period stock-raising was the leading industry; it built up the prosperity of the missions, largely supported the government and almost exclusively sustained foreign commerce. Hides and tallow were the sum and substance of Californian economy. Horses were slaughtered wholesale at times to make way for cattle on the ranges. There was almost no dairying; olive oil took the place of butter, and wine of milk, at the missions; and in general indeed the Mexicans were content with water. In the development of the state under the American regime the live-stock industry has been subordinate. A fearful drought in 1862-1864 greatly depressed it, and especially discouraged cattle ranching. Sheep then became of primary importance, until the increase of the flocks threatened ranges and forests with destruction. As late as 1876 there were some 7,000,000 sheep, in 1900 only 2,581,000, and in 1906 only 1,750,000. In the total value of all live stock (5,402,297 head) in 1900 ($65,000,000) the rank of the state was 15th in the Union, and in value of dairy products in 1899 (12.84 million dollars) 12th. The live-stock industry showed a tendency to decline after 1890, and the dairy industry also, despite various things—notably irrigation and alfalfa culture—that have favoured them.

Cereals replaced hides and tallow in importance after 1848. Wheat was long California’s greatest crop. Its production steadily increased till about 1884, the production in 1880, the banner year, being more than 54 million bushels (32,537,360 centals). Since 1884 its production has markedly fallen off; in 1905 the wheat crop was 17,542,013 bushels, and in 1906, 26,883,662 bushels (valued at $20,162,746). There has been a general parallelism between the amount of rain and the amount of wheat produced; but as yet irrigation is little used for this crop. In the eighth decade of the 19th century, the value of the wheat product had come to exceed that of the annual output of gold. Barley has always been very important. The acreage given to it in 1899 was one-fourth the total cereal acreage, and San Francisco in 1902-1904 was the shipping point of the larger part of American exported barley, of (roughly) three-quarters in 1902, seven-eighths in 1903 and four-fifths in 1904. In 1906 California produced 38,760,000 bushels of barley, valued at $20,930,400. The great increase in the acreage of barley, which was 22.5% of the country’s barley acreage in 1906, and 24.2% in 1905, is one reason for the decreased production of wheat. The level nature of the great grain farms of the valley led to the utilization of machinery of remarkable character. Combined harvesters (which enter a field of standing grain and leave this grain piled in sacks ready for shipment), steam gang-ploughs, and other farm machinery are of truly extraordinary size and efficiency. In 1899 cereals represented more than a third of the total crop acreage and crop product ($93,641,334) of the state. Wheat and other cereals are in part cut for hay, and the hay crop of 1906 was 1,133,465 tons, valued at $12,751,481. California is one of the leading hop-producing states of the Union, the average annual production since 1901 being more than 10,000,000 lb. The product of sugar beets increased between 1888 and 1902 from 1910 to 73,761 tons (according to the state board of trade), and in 1909 (according to the department of agriculture) it was 882,084 tons, from which 254,544,000 lb of sugar was manufactured. In this industry California in 1909 ranked second to Colorado. Truck gardening for export is an assured industry, especially in the north. Great quantities of vegetables, fresh and canned, are shipped yearly, and the same is true on a far larger scale of fruit. Vegetable exports more than doubled between 1894 and 1903. In 1899 hay and grain represented slightly more than a third of the farm acreage and capital and also of the value of all farm products; live-stock and dairy farms represented slightly more than half the acreage, and slightly under 30% of the capital and produce; fruit farms absorbed 6.2% of the acreage and 27% of the capital, and returned 22.5% of the value of farm produce.

Fruit-growing.—Horticulture is now the principal industry, and in this field California has no rival in the United States, although ranking after Florida in the growth of some tropical or semi-tropical fruits,—pineapples, guava, limes, pomeloes or grape-fruit and Japanese persimmons. In 1899 California’s output of fruit was more than a fifth of that of the whole Union. The supremacy of the state is established in the growth of oranges, lemons, citrons, olives, figs, almonds, Persian (or English) walnuts, plums and prunes, grapes and raisins, nectarines, apricots and pomegranates; it also leads in pears, and peaches, but here its primacy is not so assured. Southern California by no means monopolizes the warm-zone fruits. Oranges, lemons and walnuts come chiefly from that section, but citrus fruits grow splendidly in the Sierra foothills of the Sacramento Valley, and indeed ripen earlier there than in the southern district. Almonds, as well as peaches, pears, plums, cherries and apricots, come mainly from the north. Over half of the prune crop comes from Santa Clara county, and the bulk of the raisin output from Fresno county. Olives thrive as far north as the head of the Great Valley, growing in all the valleys and foothills up to 1500 or 2000 ft. They were introduced by the Franciscans (as were various other subtropical fruits, pears and grapes), but their scientific betterment and commercial importance date from about 1885. They grow very abundantly and of the finest quality; for many years poor methods of preparation prejudiced the market against the Californian product, but this has ceased to be the case. The modern orange industry practically began with the introduction into Southern California in 1873 of two seedless orange trees from Brazil; from their stock have been developed by budding millions of trees bearing a seedless fruit known as the “Washington navel,” which now holds first rank in American markets; other varieties, mainly seedlings, are of great but secondary importance. Shipments continue the year round. There has been more than one horticultural excitement in California, but especially in orange culture, which was for a time almost as epidemic a fever as gold seeking once was. By reason of the co-operative effort demanded for the large problems of irrigation, packing and marketing, the citrus industry has done much for the permanent development of the state, and its extraordinary growth made it, towards the close of the 19th century, the most striking and most potent single influence in the growth of agriculture. State legislation has advanced the fruit interest in all possible ways. Between 1872 and 1903 exports of canned fruits increased from 91 to 94,205 short tons; between 1880 and 1903 the increase of dried fruit exports was from 295 to 149,531 tons; of fresh deciduous fruits, from 2590 to 101,199; of raisins, from 400 to 39,963; of citrus fruits, from 458 to 299,623; of wines and brandies between 1891 and 1903, from 47,651 to 97,332 tons. Of the shipments in 1903 some 44% were from Southern California,—i.e. from the seven southernmost counties.

Grape culture has a great future in California. Vines were first introduced by the Franciscans in 1771 from Spain, and until after 1860 “Mission” grapes were practically the only stock in California. Afterwards many hundreds of European varieties were introduced with great success. “The state has such a variety of soil, slope, elevation, temperature and climatic conditions as to reproduce, somewhere within its borders, any wine now manufactured” (United States Census, 1900); but experience has not as yet divided the state into districts of specialized produce, nor determined just how far indigenous American vines may profitably be used, either as base or graftings, with European varieties. Grapes are grown very largely over the state. Raisins do well as far north as Yolo county, but do best in Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and San Diego counties. The product is more than sufficient for the markets of the United States. Dry wine grapes do best in the counties around San Francisco Bay, on unirrigated lands; while sweet wine stocks do best in Yolo, San Joaquin and the counties of the raisin grape, and on irrigated lands. In 1900 California produced about three-fifths in value ($3,937,871) and in 1905 the same proportion ($6,688,620) of the wine output of the United States. The value of product more than sextupled from 1880 to 1900. In quantity the product was more than four times the combined product of all other states. The better California wines are largely sold under French labels. Brandies are an important product. They are made chiefly from grapes, and are used to fortify wines. It was officially estimated that in the spring of 1904 there were some 227,000 acres of vineyards in the state, of which exactly five-tenths were in wine grapes and four-tenths in raisin grapes.

Gold.—Between the pastoral period and the era of wheat was the golden epoch of Californian history. The existence of gold had long been suspected, and possibly known, in California before 1848, and there had been desultory washings in parts where there was very little to reward prospectors. The first perfectly authenticated discovery was made near Los Angeles in 1842. The discovery of real historical importance was made in January 1848 (the 24th is the correct date) at John A. Sutter’s mill, on the south fork of the American river near Coloma, by a workman, James W. Marshall (1810-1885). His monument now marks the spot. From 1848 to the 1st of January 1903, according to the state mining bureau, California produced $1,379,275,408 in gold. There were two periods of intense excitement. The first ended in 1854, at which time there was a decided reaction throughout the United States in regard to mining matters. The Californian discoveries had given rise to a general search for metalliferous deposits in the Atlantic states, and this bad been followed by wild speculations. At the time of their greatest productiveness, from 1850 to 1853, the highest yield of the washings was probably not less than $65,000,000 a year; according to the state mining bureau the average production from 1851-1854 was $73,570,087 ($81,294,270 in 1852, the banner year), and from 1850-1861 $55,882,861, never falling below $50,000,000. The estimates of other competent authorities differ considerably, and generally are somewhat less generous than these figures.

At first the diggings were chiefly along the rivers. These were “flumed,”—that is, the water was diverted by wooden flumes from the natural channel and the sand and gravel in the bed were washed. All the “gulches” or ravines leading down into the canyons were also worked over, with or without water. These were the richest “placers,” but in them the gold was very unequally distributed. Those who first got possession of the rich bars on the American, Yuba, Feather, Stanislaus and the other smaller streams in the heart of the gold region, made sometimes from $1000 to $5000 a day; but after one rich spot was worked out it might be days or weeks before another was found. In 1848 $500-700 a day was not unusual luck; but, on the other hand, the income of the great majority of miners was certainly far less than that of men who seriously devoted themselves to trade or even to common labour. Many extraordinary nuggets were found, varying from $1000 to $20,000 in value. The economic stimulus given by such times may be imagined. For several years gold-dust was a regular circulating medium in the cities as well as in the mining districts of the state. An ounce of dust in 1848 frequently went for $4 instead of $17; for a number of years traders in dust were sure of a margin of several dollars, as for example in private coinage, mints for which were common by 1851. From the record of actual exports and a comparison of the most authoritative estimates of total production, it may be said that from 1848 to 1856 the yield was almost certainly not less than $450,000,000, and that about 1870 the billion dollar mark had been passed. Just at this time came the highest point and the sudden fall of the second great mining fever of the state. This was a stock speculation based on the remarkable output ($300,000,000 in 20 years) of the silver “bonanzas” of the Comstock lode at Virginia City, Nevada, which were opened and financed by San Francisco capitalists. The craze pervaded all classes. Shares that at first represented so many dollars per foot in a tangible mine were multiplied and remultiplied until they came to represent paper thicknesses or almost nothing, yet still their prices mounted upward. In April 1872 came the revulsion; there was a shrinkage of $60,000,000 in ten days; then in 1873 a tremendous advance, and in 1875 a final and disastrous collapse; in ten years thereafter the stock of the Comstock lode shrank from $3,000,000 to $2,000,000. This Comstock fever belongs to Californian rather than to Nevadan history, and is one of the most extraordinary in mining annals.

First the “rocker,” then the “tom,” the “flume,” and the hydraulic stream were the tools of the miner. Into the “rocker” and the “tom” the miner shovelled dirt, rocking it as he poured in water, catching the gold on riffles set across the bottom of his box; thus imitating in a wooden box the work of nature in the rivers. The “flume” enabled him to dry the bed of a stream while he worked over its gravels. The hydraulic stream came into use as early as 1852 (or 1853) when prospecting of the higher ground made it certain that the “deep” or “high” gravels—i.e. the detrital deposits of tertiary age—contained gold, though in too small quantities to be profitably worked in the ordinary way. The hydraulic process received an immense development through successive improvements of method and machinery. In this method tremendous blasts of powder, sometimes twenty-five or even fifty tons, were used to loosen the gravel, which was then acted on by the jet of water thrown from the “pipes.” To give an idea of the force of the agent thus employed it may be stated that when an eight-inch nozzle is used under a heavy head, more than 3000 ft. may be discharged in a minute with a velocity of 150 ft. per second. The water as it thus issues from the nozzle feels to the touch like metal, and the strongest man cannot sensibly affect it with a crowbar. A gravel bank acted on by such tremendous force crumbled rapidly, and the disintegrated material could be run readily through sluices to the “dumps.” Hydraulic mining is no longer practised on the scale of early days. The results were wonderful but disastrous, for the “dumps” were usually river-beds. From 1870-1879 the bed of Bear river was raised in places in its lower course 97 ft. by the detritus wash of the hydraulic mines, and that of Sleepy Hollow Creek 136 ft. The total filling up to that time on the streams in this vicinity had been from 100 to 250 ft., and many thousand acres of fine farming land were buried under gravel,—some 16,000 on the lower Yuba alone. For many years the mining interests were supreme, and agriculture, even after it had become of great importance, was invariably worsted when the two clashed; but in 1884 the long and bitter “anti-débris” or “anti-slickins” fight ended in favour of the farmers. In 1893 the United States government created a California Débris Commission, which has acted in unison with the state authorities. Permits for hydraulic mining are granted by the commission only when all gravel is satisfactorily impounded and no harm is done to the streams; and the improvement of these, which was impossible so long as limits were not set to hydraulic mining, can now be effectively advanced. Quartz mining began as early as 1851. In 1908 about five-eighths of the gold output was from such mines. Quartz veins are very often as good at a depth of 3000 ft. as at the surface. A remarkable feature of recent years (especially since 1900) is gold “dredging.” Thousands of acres even of orchard, vineyard and farming land have been thus treated in recent years. Gold was being produced in 1906 in more than thirty counties. The annual output since 1875 has been about $15,000,000 to $17,000,000; in 1905, according to the Mines Report, it was $18,898,545. Colorado now excels California as a gold producer.

Mineral Products.—California produces more than forty mineral substances that are of commercial significance. Gold, petroleum, copper, borax and its products, clays, quicksilver and silver lead, in order of importance, representing some four-fifths of the total. From 1894 to 1902 the aggregate production increased from 20.2 to 35.1 million dollars; in 1908 it was $65,137,636. Metallic products long represented three-fourths of the total, but the feature of recent years has been the rising importance of hydrocarbons and gases, and of structural materials, and indeed of non-metallic products generally. The production of crude petroleum has grown very rapidly since about 1895. Oil is found from north to south over some 600 m., but especially in Southern California. The high cost of coal, which has always been a hindrance to the development of manufactures, makes the petroleum deposits of peculiar value. Their total output increased from 4,250,000 to 44,854,737 barrels between 1900 and 1908, and the value of the product in 1908 was $23,433,502. The Kern river field is the most important in the state and one of the greatest in the world. Those of Coalinga, Santa Maria and Lompoc, and Los Angeles are next in importance. Both in 1900 and in 1905 California ranked fifth among the states of the United States in the petroleum refining industry. Copper has risen in importance in very recent years; it is mined mainly in Shasta county; the value of the state’s total product in 1908 was $5,232,986. Gold mining still centres in the mountainous counties north of Tuolumne. This is the region of quartz mining. In borax (of which California’s output in 1904 was 45,647 tons) and structural materials San Bernardino has a long lead. More than nine-tenths of the borax product of the country comes from about Death Valley. San Bernardino marbles have a very high repute. California was the fourth state of the Union in 1908 in the production of granite. It furnishes about two-fifths of the quicksilver of the world. This has been mined since 1824; the output was greatest from 1875-1883, when it averaged about 43,000,000 pounds. The New Almaden mine (opened in 1824) in Santa Clara county produced from 1850 to 1896 some 73,000,000 pounds. The centre of production is north and south of San Francisco Bay. Californian coal is almost wholly inferior brown lignite, together with a small quantity of bituminous coals of poor quality; the state does not produce a tenth part of the coal it consumes. Of growing importance are the gems found in California: a few diamonds in Butte county; rock crystal in Calaveras county; and tourmalines, kunzite, the rare pink beryl and bright blue topazes in San Diego county. Chrysoprase, mined near Porterville and near Visalia (Tulare county), is used partly for gems, but more largely (like the vesuvianite found near Exeter, in the same county) for mosaic work; and there are ledges of fine rose quartz in the Coahuila mountains of Riverside county and near Lemon Cove, Tulare county.

A vivid realization of the industrial revolution in the state is to be gained from the reflection that in 1875 California was pre-eminent only for gold and sheep; that the aggregate mineral output thirty years later was more than a third greater than then, and that nevertheless the value of farm produce at the opening of the 20th century exceeded by more than $100,000,000 the value of mineral produce, and exceeded by $50,000,000 the most generous estimate of the largest annual gold output in the annals of the state.

Manufactures.—Previous to 1860 almost every manufactured article used in the state was imported from the east or from Europe. Dairy products, for example, for whose production good facilities always existed, were long greatly neglected, and not for two decades at least after 1848 was the state independent in this respect. The high cost of coal, the speculative attractions of mining, and the high wages of labour, handicapped the development of manufactures in early years. The first continued to be a drag on such industries, until after 1895 the increasing use of crude petroleum obviated the difficulty. Several remarkable electric power and lighting plants utilize the water power of the mountains.[4] Geographic isolation has somewhat fostered state industries. The value of gross manufactured products increased 41.9% from 1890 to 1900. In the latter year California ranked 12th among the states in the gross value of all manufactures ($302,874,761); the per-capita value of manufactured and agricultural products being $293,—$89 of the latter, $204 of the former. Of the wage-earners 61% were engaged in manufacturing. Fourteen industries represented from 41% to 45% of the employees, wages, capital and product of the aggregate manufacturers of the state. The leading ones in order of importance and the value of product in millions of dollars were: the manufacture of railway, foundry, and machine shop products (19.6 million dollars), lumber and timber industries (18.57), sugar and molasses refining (15.91), beef slaughtering (15.72), canning and preserving (13.08), flour and grist milling (13.10), the manufacture of malt, vinous and distilled liquors (9.26), leather industries (7.40), printing and publishing (6.86). In the second, third and fifth of these industries the state ranked respectively fifth, fourth and first in the Union.[5] The canning and preserving of fruits and vegetables is in the main an industry of the northern and central counties. In 1890 the state board of forestry estimated that the redwood forests were in danger of exhaustion by 1930. The redwood is a general utility lumber second only to the common white pine, and the drain on the woods has been continuous since 1850. The wood has a fine, straight and even grain; and though light and soft, is firm and extremely durable, lying, it is authoritatively asserted, for centuries in the forest without appreciable decay. It takes a beautiful polish. The colour varies from cedar colour to mahogany. A small southern belt in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties is not being commercially exploited. The annual lumber cut from 1898-1903 averaged more than 663,348,000 ft.; of the 852,638,000 ft. cut in 1903, 465,460,000 were of redwood, and 264,890,000 of yellow pine; fir and sugar pines contributing another 104,600,000, and spruce and cedar 17,670,000 ft. In 1900 California ranked 16th among the states in value of product ($13,764,647, out of a total of $566,852,984). The total cut was under ½ of 1% of the estimated stand. In Humboldt county, in the redwood belt near Eureka, are probably the most modern and remarkable lumber mills of the world. In 1900 it was estimated that lumbermen controlled somewhat less than a fifth of the timber of the state, and the same part of the redwood. After 1890 important shipyards were established near San Francisco. The most important naval station of the United States on the Pacific coast is at Mare Island at the northern end of San Francisco Bay, and the private Union Iron Works, on the peninsula near San Francisco, is one of the largest shipyards of the country. In 1905 more than one-half of the factory product was the output of four cities: San Francisco ($137,788,233), Los Angeles ($34,814,475), Sacramento ($10,319,416) and Fresno ($9,849,001); next ranked Oakland, Stockton, and San José.

The transportation facilities in California increased rapidly after 1870. The building of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines are among the romances of American railway history. They joined tracks near Ogden, Utah, in May 1869. The New Orleans line of the Southern Pacific was opened in January 1883; the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé completed its line to San Diego in 1885, and to San Francisco Bay in 1900. The San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake, with trans-continental connexions at the eastern terminus, was chartered in 1901 and fully opened in March 1903. Railway mileage increased 137.3% from 1870 to 1880, and 154.6% from 1880 to 1900. At the close of 1908 the total mileage was 7039.36 m., practically all of which is either owned or controlled by the two great trans-continental systems of the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé. From 1869 to 1875 registered mail exchanges were opened with China, Japan, Hawaii and Australia. There are now frequent mail connexions from San Francisco with Hawaii, Australasia, and eastern Asia, as well as with American ports north and south. The commerce of San Francisco amounts to some $80,000,000 or $90,000,000 yearly, about equally divided between imports and exports, until after 1905—in 1907 the imports were valued at $54,207,011, and the exports at $30,378,355 (less than any year since 1896). San Diego has a very good harbour, and the harbours of San Pedro (Los Angeles) and Eureka are fairly good and of growing importance. Grains, lumber, fish, fruits and fruit products, petroleum, vegetables and sugar are the leading items in the commerce of San Francisco. Other ports are of very secondary importance. Navigation on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers was very important in early days, but is to-day of relatively slight importance in comparison with railway traffic.

Population.—The population of California increased in successive decades from 1850 to 1910 respectively by 310.3, 47.3, 54.3, 40.3, 22.4 and 60.1%. (The percentage of increase in 1900-1910 was exceeded in Washington, Oklahoma, Idaho, Nevada, North Dakota and Oregon.) In 1910 the total population was 2,377,549, or 15.2 per sq. m. In 1900 there were 116 incorporated towns and cities; and of the total population 43.3% was urban,—i.e. resident in cities (11 in number) of 8000 or more inhabitants. These 11 cities were: San Francisco (pop. 342,782), Los Angeles (102,479), Oakland (66,960), Alameda (16,464), Berkeley (13,214),—the last three being suburbs of San Francisco, and the last the seat of the state university,—Sacramento, the state capital (29,282), San José (21,500), San Diego (17,700), Stockton (17,506), Fresno (12,470), and Pasadena (9117). Eight other cities had populations of more than 5000—Riverside City (7973), Vallejo (7965), Eureka (7327), Santa Rosa (6673), Santa Barbara (6587), San Bernardino (6156), Santa Cruz (5659), and Pomona (5526).

Of the entire population in 1900 persons of foreign birth or parentage (one or both parents being foreign) constituted 54.2 and those of native birth were 75.3%. Of the latter six-tenths were born in California. The foreign element included 45,753 Chinese (a falling off of 25,313 since 1890), and 10,151 Japanese (an increase of 9004 in the same decade). Twenty-two foreign countries contributed over 1000 residents each, the leading ones being the United Kingdom (91,638), Germany (72,449), Canada (29,618; 27,408 being English Canadians), Italy (22,777), Sweden (14,549), France (12,256), Portugal (12,068), Switzerland (10,974), Japan, Denmark, and Mexico, in the order named. Persons of negro descent numbered 11,045. Almost all the Indians of the state are taxed as citizens. In 1906 of 611,464 members of religious denominations 354,408 were Roman Catholics, 64,528 Methodist Episcopalians, 37,682 Presbyterians, 26,390 Congregationalists, 24,801 Baptists, 21,317 Protestant Episcopalians, 11,371 Lutherans, and 9,110 members of Eastern Orthodox churches. A peculiar feature in the population statistics of California is the predominance of males, which in 1900 was 156,009; the Asiatic element accounts for a third of this number. Since 1885 the eight counties south of the Tehachapi Range, which are known collectively and specifically as Southern California have greatly advanced in population. In 1880 their population was 7.3, in 1890 17.2, and in 1900 20.1% of the total population of the state. The initial impulse to this increase was the beginning of the “fruit epoch” in these counties, combined with a railway “rate-war” following the completion to the coast in 1885 of the Santa Fe, and an extraordinary land boom prevailing from 1886 to 1888. The conjuncture of circumstances, and the immigration it induced, were unusual. The growth of the South, as of the rest of the state, has been continuous and steady.

The Indians were prominent in early Californian history, but their progress toward their present insignificance began far back in the Spanish period. It proceeded much more rapidly after the restraining influence of the missions was removed, leaving them free to revert to savagery; and the downward progress of the race was fearfully accelerated during the mining period, when they were abused, depraved, and in large numbers killed. There have been no Indian wars in California’s annals, but many butcheries. The natives have declined exceedingly in number since 1830, in 1900 numbering 15,377. They have always been mild-tempered, low, and unintelligent, and are to-day a poor and miserable race. They are all called “Digger Indians” indiscriminately, although divided by a multiplicity of tongues.

Government and Institutions.—In the matter of constitution-making California has been conservative, having had only two between 1849 and 1910. The first was framed by a convention at Monterey in 1849, and ratified by the people and proclaimed by the United States military governor in the same year. The present constitution, framed by a convention in 1878-1879, came into full effect in 1880, and was subsequently amended. It was the work of the labour party, passed at a time of high discontent, and goes at great length into the details of government, as was demanded by the state of public opinion. The qualifications required for the suffrage are in no way different from those common throughout the Union, except that by a constitutional amendment of 1894 it is necessary for a voter to be able to read the state constitution and write his name. As compared with the earlier constitution it showed many radical advances toward popular control, the power of the legislature being everywhere curtailed. The power of legislation was taken from it by specific inhibition in thirty-one subjects before within its power; its control of the public domain, its powers in taxation, and its use of the state credit were carefully safe-guarded. “Lobbying” was made a felony; provisions were inserted against lotteries and stock-exchange gambling, to tax and control common carriers and great corporations, and to regulate telegraph, telephone, storage and wharfage charges. The powers of the executive department were also somewhat curtailed. For the judiciary, provisions were made for expediting trials and decisions. Notable was the innovation that agreement by three-fourths of a jury should be sufficient in civil cases and that a jury might be waived in minor criminal cases, a provision which of course was based on experience under the Mexican law. All these changes in the organic law reflect bitter experience after 1850; and, read with the history of those years as a commentary, few American constitutions are more instructive. The constitution of 1879 corresponds very closely to the ordinary state constitution of to-day. The incorporation of banks issuing circulating notes is forbidden. Marriage is not only declared a civil contract, but the laws expressly recognize that the mere consent of the parties is adequate to constitute a binding marriage. The union of whites with persons of African descent is forbidden. Felons twice convicted may not be pardoned except on the recommendation of a majority of the judges of the supreme court. Judges and state executive officers are elected for terms longer than is usual in the different states (supreme judges 12 years, executive officers 4 years). These few provisions are mentioned, not as of particular importance in themselves, but as exceptions of some moment to the usual type of state Constitutions (see [United States]). The Australian ballot was introduced in 1891. In local government there are no deviations from the usual types that demand notice. In the matter of liquor-laws there is local option, and a considerable proportion of the towns and smaller cities, particularly in the south, adopt prohibition. In most of the rest high licence is more or less strictly enforced.

The total assessed valuation of property grew from $666,399,985 in 1880 to $1,217,648,683 in 1900 and $1,879,728,763 in 1907. In 1904, when the U.S. Census Report showed California to be the twenty-first state of the Union in population but the sixth in wealth, the total estimated true value of all property was $4,115,491,106, of which $2,664,472,025 was the value of real property and improvements thereon. The per capita wealth of the state was then reported as $2582.32, being exceeded only by the three sparsely settled states of Montana, Wyoming and Nevada. In 1898 California had the largest savings-bank deposit per depositor ($637.75) of any state in the Union; the per caput deposit was $110 in 1902, and about one person in seven was a depositor. The state bonded debt in 1907 amounted to three and a half million dollars, of which all but $767,529.03 was represented by bonds purchased by the state and held for the school and university funds; for the common school fund on the 1st of July 1907 there were held bonds for $4,890,950, and $800,000 in cash available for investment; for the university fund there were held $751,000 in state bonds, and a large amount in other securities. The total bonded county indebtedness was $4,879,600 in 1906 (not including that of San Francisco, a consolidated city and county, which was $4,568,600). A homestead, entered upon record and limited to a value of $5000 if held by the head of a family and to a value of $1000 if held by one not the head of a family, is exempt from liability for debts, except for a mortgage, a lien before it was claimed as a homestead or a lien afterward for improvements. A homestead held by a married man cannot be mortgaged without consent of his wife.

Under an act approved on the 25th of March 1903 a state board of charities and corrections,—consisting of six members, not more than three being of the same political party, appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the senate, and holding office for twelve years, two retiring at the end of each quadrennium,—investigates, examines, and makes “reports upon the charitable, correctional and penal institutions of the state,” excepting the Veterans’ Home at Yountville, Napa county, and the Woman’s Relief Corps Home at Evergreen, Santa Clara county. There are state prisons with convicts working under the public account system, at San Quentin, Marin county, and Folsom, Sacramento county. The Preston (Sonoma county) School of Industry, for older boys, and the Whittier (Los Angeles county) State School, for girls and for boys under sixteen, are the state reformatories, each having good industrial and manual training departments. There are state hospitals for the insane at Agnew, Santa Clara county; at Stockton, San Joaquin county; at Napa, Napa county; at Patton, San Bernardino county; and, with a colony of tubercular patients, at Ukiah, Mendocino county. In 1906 the ratio of insane confined to institutions, to the total population, was 1 to every 270. Also under state control are the home for care and training of feeble-minded children, at Eldridge, Sonoma county; the institution for the deaf and the blind at Berkeley, and the home of mechanical trades for the adult blind at Oakland. A Juvenile Court Law was enacted in 1903 and modified in 1905.

The educational system of California is one of the best in the country. The state board of education is composed of the governor of the state, who is its president; the superintendent of public instruction, who is its secretary; the presidents of the five normal schools and of the University of California, and the professor of pedagogy in the university. Sessions are long in primary schools, and attendance was made compulsory in 1874 (and must not be less than two-thirds of all school days). The state controlled the actual preparation and sale of text-books for the common schools from 1885 to 1903, when the Perry amendment to the constitution (ratified by popular vote in 1884) was declared to mean that such text-books must be manufactured within the state, but that the texts need not be prepared in California. The experiment of state-prepared text-books was expensive, and its effect was bad on the public school system, as such text-books were almost without exception poorly written and poorly printed. After 1903 copyrights were leased by the state. Secondary schools are closely affiliated with, and closely inspected by, the state university. All schools are generously supported, salaries are unusually good, and pension funds in all cities are authorized by state laws. The value of school property in 1900 was $19,135,722, and the expenditure for the public schools $6,195,000; in 1906 the value of school property was $29,013,150, and the expenditure for public schools $10,815,857. The average school attendance for all minors of school age (5-20 years) was 59.9%; of those native-born 61.5, of those foreign-born 34.6; of coloured children, including Asiatics and Indians, 35.8, and of white, 60.8%. In 1900, 6.2% of the males of voting age, and 2.4% of the native-born males of voting age, were illiterate (could not write). Some 3% of the total population could not speak English; Chinese and Japanese constituting almost half of the number, foreign-born whites somewhat less, and Indians and native-born whites of foreign parentage together less than a tenth of the total. Of the higher educational institutions of the state the most important are the state university at Berkeley and Leland Stanford Jr. University at Palo Alto. The former is supported with very great liberality by the state; and the latter, the endowment of which is private (the state, however, exempting it from taxation), is one of the richest educational institutions of America. In 1906 there were also five state normal schools (at Chico, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and San José), and a considerable number of denominational colleges. There is also a state polytechnic school at San Luis Obispo (1903).

History.—The name “California” was taken from Ordoñez de Montalvo’s romance of chivalry Las Sergas de Esplandian (Madrid, 1510), in which is told of black Amazons ruling an island of this name “to the right of the Indies, very near the quarter of the terrestrial paradise.” The name was given to the unknown north-west before 1540. It does not show that the namers were prophets or wise judges, for the Spaniards really knew California not at all for more than two centuries, and then only as a genial but rather barren land; but it shows that the conquistadores mixed poetry with business and illustrates the glamour thrown about the “Northern Mystery.” Necessarily the name had for a long time no definite geographical meaning. The lower Colorado river was discovered in 1540, but the explorers did not penetrate California; in 1542-1543 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explored at least the southern coast; in 1579 Sir Francis Drake repaired his ships in some Californian port (almost certainly not San Francisco Bay), and named the land New Albion; two Philippine ships visited the coast in 1584 and 1595, and in 1602 and 1603 Sebastian Vizcaino discovered the sites of San Diego and Monterey. There was apparently no increase of knowledge thereafter for 150 years. Most of this time California was generally supposed to be an island or a group of islands. Jesuit missionaries entered Lower California as early as 1697, maintaining themselves there until Charles III.’s expulsion in 1767 of all Jesuits from his dominions; but not until Russian explorations in Alaska from 1745-1765 did the Spanish government show interest in Upper California. Because of these explorations, and also the long-felt need of a refitting point on the California coast for the galleons from Manila, San Diego was occupied in 1769 and Monterey in 1770 as a result of urgent orders from Charles III. San Francisco Bay was discovered in the former year. Meanwhile the Jesuit property in the Peninsula had been turned over to Franciscan monks, but in 1772 the Dominicans took over the missions, and the Franciscans not unwillingly withdrew to Upper California, where they were to thrive remarkably for some fifty years.

This is the mission period—or from an economic standpoint, the pastoral period—of Californian history. In all, twenty-one missions were established between 1769 and 1823. The The rule of the missions. leader in this movement was a really remarkable man, Miguel José Serra (known as Junipero Serra, 1713-1784), a friar of very great ability, purest piety, and tireless zeal. He possessed great influence in Mexico and Madrid. “The theory of the mission system,” says H.H. Bancroft, “was to make the savages work out their own salvation and that of the priests also.” The last phrase scarcely does justice to the truly humane and devout intentions of the missionaries; but in truth the mission system was a complete failure save in the accumulation of material wealth. Economically the missions were the blood and life of the province. At them the neophytes worked up wool, tanned hides, prepared tallow, cultivated hemp and wheat, raised a few oranges, made soap, some iron and leather articles, mission furniture, and a very little wine and olive oil. Such as it was, this was about the only manufacturing or handicraft in California. Besides, the hides and tallow yielded by the great herds of cattle at the missions were the support of foreign trade and did much toward paying the expenses of the government. The Franciscans had no sympathy for profane knowledge, even among the Mexicans,—sometimes publicly burning quantities of books of a scientific or miscellaneous nature; and the reading of Fénelon’s Télémaque brought excommunication on a layman. As for the intellectual development of the neophytes the mission system accomplished nothing; save the care of their souls they received no instruction, they were virtually slaves, and were trained into a fatal dependence, so that once coercion was removed they relapsed at once into barbarism. It cannot be said, however, that Anglo-Americans have done much better for them.

The political upheavals in Spain and Mexico following 1808 made little stir in this far-off province. Joseph was never recognized, and allegiance was sworn to Ferdinand (1809). When revolution broke out in Mexico (1811), California remained loyal, suffering much by the cessation of supplies from Mexico, the resulting deficits falling as an added burden upon the missions. The occupation of Monterey for a few hours by a Buenos Aires privateer (1818) was the only incident of actual war that California saw in all these years; and it, in truth, was a ridiculous episode, fit introduction to the bloodless play-wars, soon to be inaugurated in Californian politics. In 1820 the Spanish constitution was duly sworn to in California, and in 1822 allegiance was given to Mexico. Under the Mexican Federal constitution of 1824 Upper California, first alone (it was made a distinct province in 1804) and then with Lower California, received representation in the Mexican congress.

The following years before American occupation may be divided into two periods of quite distinct interest. From about 1840 to 1848 foreign relations are the centre of interest. From 1824 to 1840 there is a complicated and not uninteresting movement of local politics and a preparation for the future,—the missions fall, republicanism grows, the sentiment of local patriotism becomes a political force, there is a succession of sectional controversies and personal struggles among provincial chiefs, an increase of foreign commerce, of foreign immigration and of foreign influence.

The Franciscans were mostly Spaniards in blood and in sympathies. They viewed with displeasure and foreboding the fall of Iturbide’s empire and the creation of the republic. They were not treasonable, but talked much, refusing allegiance to the new government; and as they controlled the resources of the colony and the good will of the Indians, they felt their strength against the local authority; besides, they were its constant benefactors. But secularization was in harmony with the growth of republican ideas. There was talk in California of the rights of man and neophytes, and of the sins of friars. The missions were never intended to be permanent. The missionaries were only the field workers sent out to convert and civilize the Indians, who were to be turned over then to the regular clergy, the monks pushing further onward into new fields. This was the well-established policy of Spain. In 1813 the Spanish Cortes ordered the secularization of all missions in America that were ten years old, but this decree was not published in California until 1821. After that secularization was the burning question in Californian politics. In 1826 a beginning toward it was made in partially emancipating the neophytes, but active and thorough secularization of the missions did not begin until 1834; by 1835 it was consummated at sixteen missions out of twenty-one, and by 1840 at all. At some of the missions the monks acted later as temporary curates for the civil authorities, until in 1845-1846 all the missions were sold by the government. Unfortunately the manner of carrying it out discredited a policy neither unjust nor bad in itself, increasing its importance in the political struggles of the time. The friars were in no way mistreated: Californians did not share Mexican resentments against Spaniards, and the national laws directed against these were in the main quietly ignored in the province. In 1831 the mission question led to a rising against the reactionary clerical rule of Governor Manuel Victoria. He was driven out of the province.

This was the first of the opéra bouffe wars. The causes underlying them were serious enough. In the first place, there was a growing dissatisfaction with Mexican rule, which accomplished nothing tangible for good in California,—although its plans were as excellent as could be asked had there only been peace and means to realize them; however, it made the mistake of sending convicts as soldiers. Californians were enthusiastic republicans, but found the benefits of republicanism slow in coming. The resentment of the Franciscans, the presence of these and other reactionaries and of Spaniards, the attitude of foreign residents, and the ambitions of leading Californian families united to foment and propagate discontent. The feeling against Mexicans—those “de la otra banda” as they were significantly termed—invaded political and even social life. In the second place, there was growing jealousy between northern towns and southern towns, northern families and southern families. These entered into disputes over the location of the capital and the custom-house, in the Franciscan question also (because the friars came some from a northern and some from a southern college), and in the question of the distribution of commands in the army and offices in the civil government. Then there was the mission question; this became acuter about 1833 when the friars began to destroy, or sell and realize on, the mission property. The next decade was one of plunder and ruin in mission history. Finally there was a real growth of republicanism, and some rulers—notably Victoria—were wholly out of sympathy with anything but personal, military rule. From all these causes sprang much unrest and considerable agitation.

In 1828-1829 there was a revolution of unpaid soldiers aided by natives, against alleged but not serious abuses, that really aimed at the establishment of an independent native government. In 1831 Governor Victoria was deposed; in 1836 Governor Mariano Chico was frightened out of the province; in 1836 Governor Nicolas Gutierrez and in 1844-1845 Governor Manuel Micheltorena were driven out of office. The leading natives headed this last rising. There was talk of independence, but sectional and personal jealousies could not be overcome. In all these wars there was not enough blood shed to discolour a sword. The rising of 1836 against Gutierrez seems to-day most interesting, for it was in part a protest against the growth of federalism in Mexico. California was even deferred to as (declared to be seems much too strong a statement) an Estado Libre y Soberano; and from 1836 to 1838, when the revolutionary governor, Juan B. Alvarado, was recognized by the Mexican government, which had again inclined to federalism and, besides, did not take the matter very seriously, the local government rested simply on local sentiment. The satisfaction of this ended all difficulties.

By this time foreign influence was showing itself of importance. Foreign commerce, which of course was contraband, being contrary to all Spanish laws, was active by the beginning of the 19th century. It was greatly stimulated American immigration. during the Spanish-American revolutions (the Lima and Panama trade dating from about 1813), for, as the Californian authorities practically ignored the law, smuggling was unnecessary; this was, indeed, much greater after 1822 under the high duties (in 1836-1840 generally about 100%) of the Mexican tariffs. In the early ’forties some three-fourths of the imports, even at Monterey itself, are said to have paid no duties, being landed by agreement with the officials. Wholesale and retail trade flourished all along the coast in defiance of prohibitory laws. American trade was by far most important. The Boston traders—whose direct trade began in 1822, but the indirect ventures long before that—were men of decided influence in California. The trade supplied almost all the clothing, merchandise and manufactures used in the province; hides and furs were given in exchange. If foreign trade was not to be received, still less were foreign travellers, under the Spanish laws. However, the Russians came in 1805, and in 1812 founded on Bodega Bay a post they held till 1841, whence they traded and hunted (even in San Francisco Bay) for furs. From the day of the earliest foreign commerce sailors and traders of divers nationalities began to settle in the province. In 1826 American hunters first crossed to the coast; in 1830 the Hudson’s Bay Company began operations in northern California. By this time the foreign element was considerable in number, and it doubled in the next six years, although the true overland immigration from the United States began only about 1840. As a class foreigners were respected, and they were influential beyond proportion to their numbers. They controlled commerce, and were more energetic, generally, than were the natives; many were naturalized, held generous grants of land, and had married into Californian families, not excluding the most select and influential. Most prominent of Americans in the interior was John A. Sutter (1803-1880), who held a grant of eleven square leagues around the present site of Sacramento, whereon he built a fort. His position as a Mexican official, and the location of his fortified post on the border, commanding the interior country and lying on the route of the overland immigrants, made him of great importance in the years preceding and immediately following American occupation; although he was a man of slight abilities and wasted his great opportunities. Other settlers in the coast towns were also of high standing and importance. In short, Americans were hospitably received and very well treated by the government and the people; despite some formalities and ostensible surveillance there was no oppression whatever. There was, however, some jealousy of the ease with which Americans secured land grants, and an entirely just dislike of “bad” Americans. The sources from which all the immigrants were recruited made inevitable an element of lawlessness and truculence. The Americans happened to predominate. Along with a full share of border individuality and restlessness they had the usual boisterous boastfulness and a racial contempt, which was arrogantly proclaimed, for Mexicans,—often too for Mexican legal formalities. The early comers were a conservative American and European intriques. force in politics, but many of the later comers wanted to make California a second Texas. As early as 1805 (at the time of James Monroe’s negotiations for Florida), there are traces of Spain’s fear of American ambitions even in this far-away province. It was a fear she felt for all her American possessions. Spain’s fears passed on to Mexico, the Russians being feared only less than Americans. An offer was made by President Jackson in 1835 to buy the northern part of California, including San Francisco Bay, but was refused. In 1836 and 1844 Americans were prominent in the incidents of revolution; divided in opinion in both years they were neutral in the actual “hostilities” of the latter, but some gave active support to the governor in 1836. From 1836 on, foreign interference was much talked about. Americans supposed that Great Britain wished to exchange Mexican bonds for California; France also was thought to be watching for an opening for gratifying supposed ambitions; and all parties saw that even without overt act by the United States the progress of American settlement seemed likely to gain them the province, whose connexion with Mexico had long been a notoriously loose one. A considerable literature written by travellers of all the countries named had before this discussed all interests. In 1840 for too active interest in politics some Americans and Englishmen were temporarily expelled.

In 1842 Commodore T.A.C. Jones (1789-1858) of the United States navy, believing that war had broken out between his country and Mexico and that a British force was about to seize California, raised the American flag over Monterey (October 21st), but finding that he had acted on misinformation he lowered the flag next day with due ceremony and warm apology. In California this incident served only to open up agreeable personal relations and social courtesies, but it did not tend to clarify the diplomatic atmosphere. It showed the ease of seizing the country, the indifference of the natives, and the resolution of the United States government. Mexico sought to prevent American immigration, but the local authorities would not enforce such orders, however positive. Between 1843 and 1845, Great Britain, the United States, and France opened consulates. By 1845 there was certainly an agreement in opinion among all American residents (then not 700 in number) as regards the future of the country. The policy of France and Great Britain in these years is unknown. That of the United States is fully known. In 1845 the American consul at Monterey, Thomas O. Larkin (1802-1858), was instructed to work for the secession of California from Mexico, without overt aid from the United States, but with their good-will and sympathy. He very soon gained from leading officers assurances of such a movement before 1848. At the same time American naval officers were instructed to occupy the ports in case of war with Mexico, but first and last to work for the good-will of the natives. In 1845 Captain J.C. Frémont,—whose doings in California in the next two years were among the main assets in a life-long reputation and an unsuccessful presidential campaign,—while engaged in a government surveying expedition, aroused the apprehensions of the Californian authorities by suspicious and very possibly intentionally provocative movements, and there was a show of military force by both parties. Frémont had information beyond that of ordinary men that made him believe early hostilities between the United States and Mexico to be inevitable; he was also officially informed of Larkin’s secret task and in no way authorized to hamper it. Resentment, however, incited him to personal revenge on the Californian government, and an ambition that clearly saw the gravity of the crisis prompted him to improve it The “Bear Flag.” unscrupulously for his own advancement, leaving his government to support or disavow him according as war should come or not. In violation therefore of international amities, and practically in disobedience of orders, he broke the peace, caused a band of Mexican cavalry mounts to be seized, and prompted some American settlers to occupy Sonoma (14th June 1846). This episode is known as the “Bear Flag War,” inasmuch as there was short-lived talk of making California an independent state, and a flag with a bear as an emblem (California is still popularly known as the Bear Flag State) flew for a few days at Sonoma. It was a very small, very disingenuous, inevitably an anomalous, and in the vanity of proclamations and other concomitant incidents rather a ridiculous affair; and fortunately for the dignity of history—and for Frémont—it was quickly merged in a larger question, when Commodore John Drake Sloat (1780-1867) on the 7th of July raised the flag of the United States over Monterey, proclaiming California a part of the United States. The opening hostilities of the Mexican War had occurred on the Rio Grande. The excuses and explanations later given by Frémont—military preparations by the Californian authorities, the imminence of their attack, ripening British schemes for the seizure of the province, etc.—made up the stock account of historians until the whole truth came out in 1886 (in Royce’s California). Californians had been very friendly to Americans, but Larkin’s intimates thought they had been tricked, and the people resented the stealthy and unprovoked breaking of peace, and unfortunately the Americans did not known how to treat them except inconsiderately and somewhat contemptuously. The result was a feeble rising in the south. The country was fully pacified by January 1847. The aftermath of Frémont’s filibustering acts, followed as they were by wholly needless hostilities and by some injustice then and later in the attitude of Americans toward the natives, was a growing misunderstanding and estrangement, regrettable in Californian history. Thus there was an end to the “lotos-land society” of California. Another society, less hospitable, less happy, less contented, but also less mild, better tempered for building states, and more “progressive,” took the place of the old.

By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 Mexico ceded California to the United States. It was just at this time that gold was discovered, and the new territory took on great national importance. The discussion as to what California ceded to the United States. should be done with it began in Congress in 1846, immediately involving the question of slavery. A furious conflict developed, so that nothing was accomplished in two successive sessions; even at the end of a third, in March 1849, the only progress made toward creating a government for the territory was that the national revenue laws had been extended over it and San Francisco had been made a port of entry. Meanwhile conditions grew intolerable for the inhabitants. Before the end of the war Mexican laws not incompatible with United States laws were by international law supposed to be in force; but nobody knew what they were, and the uncertainties of vague and variable alcalde jurisdictions were increased when Americans began to be alcaldes and grafted English common-law principles, like the jury, on Californian practice. Never was a population more in need of clear laws than the motley Californian people of 1848-1849, yet they had none when, with peace, military rule and Mexican law technically ended. There was a curious extra-legal fusion of laws, a half-breed legal system, and no definite basis for either law or government. Even the acts and theories of the officials were very inconsistent. Early in 1849 temporary local governments were set up in various towns, and in September a convention framed a free-state constitution and applied for admission to the Union. On the 7th of September 1850 a bill finally passed Congress admitting California as a free state. This was one of the bargains in the “Compromise Measures of 1850” that were intended to dispose of the question of slavery in the Territories. Meanwhile the gold discoveries culminated and surpassed “three centuries of wild talk about gold in California.” For three months there was little excitement, then a wild rush. Settlements were completely deserted; homes, farms and stores abandoned. Ships deserted by their sailors crowded the bay at San Francisco—there were 500 of them in July 1850; soldiers deserted wholesale, churches were emptied, town councils ceased to sit, merchants, clerks, lawyers and judges and criminals, everybody, flocked to the foothills. Soon, from Hawaii, Oregon and Sonora, from the Eastern states, the South Seas, Australia, South America The rush for gold. and China came an extraordinary flow of the hopeful and adventurous. In the winter of ’48 the rush began from the states to Panama, and in the spring across the plains. It is estimated that 80,000 men reached the coast in 1849, about half of them coming overland; three-fourths were Americans. Rapid settlement, excessive prices, reckless waste of money, and wild commercial ventures that glutted San Francisco with all objects usable and unusable made the following years astounding from an economic point of view; but not less bizarre was the social development, nor less extraordinary the problems of state-building in a society “morally and socially tried as no other American community ever has been tried” (Royce). There was of course no home life in early California. In 1850 women numbered 8% of the population, but only 2% in the mining counties. The miners were an energetic, covetous, wandering, abnormally excitable body of men. Occasionally a kind of frenzy even would seem to seize on them, and lured by the hope of new deposits of unheard-of richness thousands would flock on unfounded rumours to new and perhaps distant localities, where many might perish from disease and starvation, the rest returning in poverty and rags. Such were the Kern River fever of 1855 and the greater “Fraser River rush” of 1858, the latter, which took perhaps 20,000 men out of the state, causing a terrible amount of suffering. Many interior towns lost half their population and some virtually all their population as a result of this emigration; and it precipitated a real estate crash in San Francisco that threatened temporary ruin. Mining times in California brought out some of the most ignoble and some of the best traits of American character. Professor Josiah Royce has pictured the social-moral process by which society finally impressed its “claims on wayward and blind individuals” who “sought wealth and not a social order,” and so long as possible shirked all social obligations. Through varied instruments—lynch law, popular courts, vigilance committees—order was, however, enforced, better as times went on, until there was a stable condition of things. In the economic life and social character of California to-day the legacies of 1848 are plain.

The slavery question was not settled for California in 1850. Until the Civil War the division between the Whig and Democratic parties, whose organization in California preceded statehood, was essentially based on slavery. The struggle fused with the personal contests of two men, rivals for the United States Senate, William McKendree Gwin (1805-85, U.S. senator, 1850-55 and 1857-61), the leader of the pro-slavery party, and David Colbreth Broderick (1819-1859), formerly a leader of Tammany in New York, and after 1857 a member from California of the United States Senate, the champion of free labour, who declared in 1860 for the policy of the Republican party. Broderick’s undoing was resolved upon by the slavery party, and he was killed in a duel. The Gwin party hoped to divide California into two states and hand the southern over to slavery; on the eve of the Civil War it considered the scheme of a Pacific coast republic. The decade 1850-1860 was also marked by the activity of filibusters against Sonora and Central America. Two of these—a French adventurer, one Gaston Raoux, comte de Raousset-Boulbon (1817-1854), and William Walker, had very picturesque careers. The state was thoroughly loyal when war came. The later ’fifties are characterized by H.H. Bancroft as a period of “moral, political and financial night.” National politics were put first, to the complete ignoring of excessive taxation, financial extravagance, ignorant legislation and corruption in California. The public was exploited for many years with impunity for the benefit of private interests. One Disputed land grants. legacy that ought to be briefly noted here is that of disputed land grants. Under the Mexican régime such grants were generous and common, and the complicated formalities theoretically essential to their validity were very often, if not usually, only in part attended to. Titles thus gained would never have been questioned under continued Mexican government, but Americans were unaccustomed to such riches in land and to such laxity. From the very first hundreds “squatted” on large claims, contesting the title. Instead of confirming all claims existing when the country passed to the United States, and so ensuring an immediate settlement of the matter, which was really the most important thing for the peace and purse of the community, the United States government undertook through a land commission and courts to sift the valid from the fraudulent. Claims of enormous aggregate value were thus considered and a large part of those dating from the last years of Mexican dominion (many probably artfully concocted and fraudulently antedated after the commission was at work) were finally rejected. This litigation filled the state and federal courts for many years. The high value of realty in San Francisco naturally offered extraordinary inducements to fraud, and the largest part of the city was for years involved in fraudulent claims, and its peace broken by “squatter”-troubles. Twenty or thirty years of the state’s life were disturbed by these controversies. Land monopoly is an evil of large proportions in California to-day, but it is due to the laxness of the United States government in enabling speculators to accumulate holdings and not to the original extent of Mexican grants.

In state gubernatorial elections after the Civil War the Democrats won in 1867, 1875, 1882, 1886, 1894; the Republicans in 1871, 1879, 1890, 1898, 1902, 1906, 1910. Features of political life and of legislation after 1876 were a strong labour agitation, the struggle for the exclusion of the Chinese, for the control of hydraulic mining, irrigation, and the advancement by state-aid of the fruit interests; the last three of which have already been referred to above. Labour conditions were peculiar in the decade following 1870. Mining, war times and the building of the Central Pacific had up to then inflated prices and prosperity. Then there came a slump; probably the truth was rather that money was becoming less unnaturally abundant than that there was any over-supply of labour. The turning off of some 15,000 Chinese (principally in 1869-1870) from the Central Pacific lines who flocked to San Francisco, augmented the discontent of incompetents, of disappointed late immigrants, and the reaction from flush times. Labour unions became strong and demonstrative. In 1877-1878 Denis Kearney (1847-1907), an Irish drayman and demagogue of considerable force and daring, headed the discontented. This is called the “sand-lots agitation” from the favourite meeting-place (in San Francisco) of the agitators.

The outcome of these years was the Constitution of 1879, already described, and the exclusion of Chinese by national law. In 1879 California voted against further immigration of Chinese by 154,638 to 883. Congress re-enacted exclusion legislation in 1902. All authorities agree that the Chinese in early years were often abused in the mining country and their rights most unjustly neglected by the law and its officers. Men among the most respected in California (Joaquin Miller, H.H. Bancroft and others) have said most in praise and defence of the Chinaman. From railroad making to cooking he has proved his abilities and trustworthiness. He is found to-day in the mines and fisheries, in various lines of manufacture, in small farming, and in all branches of domestic service. The question of the economic development of the state, and of trade to the Orient, the views of the mercenary labour-contractor and of the philanthropist, the factor of “upper-race” repugnance, the “economic-leech” argument, the “rat-rice-filth-and-opium” argument, have all entered into the problem. Certain it is that though the unprejudiced must admit that exclusion has not been at all an unmixed blessing, yet the consensus of opinion is that a large population, non-citizen and non-assimilable, sending—it is said—most of their earnings to China, living in the main meanly at best, and practically without wives, children or homes, is socially and economically a menace outweighing the undoubted convenience of cheaper (and frequently more trustworthy) menial labour than the other population affords. The exclusion had much to do with making the huge single crop ranches unprofitable and in leading to their replacement by small farms and varied crops. Many of the Chinese now in the state are wealthy. Race feeling against them has become much less marked.

One outcome of early mission history, the “Pious Fund of the Californias,” claimed in 1902 the attention of the Hague Tribunal. (See [Arbitration], [International], Hague cases section.) In 1906-1907 there was throughout the state a remarkable anti-Japanese agitation, centring in San Francisco (q.v.) and affecting international relations and national politics.

Governors of California (State)[6]

The mark * before the name of one of the Spanish governors indicates that he acted only ad interim, and, in the case of governors since 1849, that the officer named was elected as lieutenant-governor and succeeded to the office of governor.

Bibliography.—For list of works on California, see University of California Library Bulletin, No. 9, 1887, “List of Printed Maps of California”; catalogue of state official publications by State Library (Sacramento, 1894). The following may be cited here on different aspects:—

Topography.—J. Muir, Mountains of California (New York, 1894); H. Gannett, “Dictionary of Elevations” (1898), and “River Profiles,” publications of United States Geological Survey; G.W. James, The Wonders of the Colorado Desert (2 vols., Boston, 1906).

Climate, &c.—U.S. Department of Agriculture, California Climate and Crop Service, monthly reports; E.S. Holden, Recorded, Earthquakes in California, Lower California, Oregon, and Washington Territory (California State University, 1887); United States Department Agriculture, Weather Bureau, Bulletins, Alexander G. McAdie, “Climatology of California” (Washington, 1903). There is a great mass of general descriptive literature, especially on Southern California, such as Charles Dudley Warner, Our Italy (New York, 1891); Kate Sanborn, A Truthful Woman in Southern California (New York, 1893); W. Lindley and J.P. Widney, California of the South (New York, 1896); J.W. Hanson, American Italy (Chicago, 1896); T.S. Van Dyke, Southern California (New York, 1886), &c.

Fauna, Flora.—Muir, op. cit.; United States Geological Survey, 19th Annual Report, pt. v., H. Gannett, “Forests of the United States”; idem, 20th Annual Report, pt. v., “United States Forest Reserves”; United States Division of Forestry, Bulletin No. 28, “A Short Account of the Big Trees of California” (1900), No. 38, “The Redwood” (a volume, 1903), also Professional Papers, e.g. No. 8, J.B. Leiberg, “Forest Conditions in the Northern Sierra Nevada” (1902); California Board of Forestry, Reports (1885-  ); United States Censuses, reports on forests; United States Biological Survey, North American Fauna, No. 16, 1899, C.H. Merriam, “Biological Survey of Mt. Shasta”; United States Department Agriculture, Contributions from United States National Herbarium, iv., 1893, F.V. Coville, “Botany of Death Valley Expedition”; State Board of Fish Commissioners, Reports, from 1877; United States Fish Commissioners, Annual Reports, from 1871, and Bulletins from 1882; J. le Conte, “Flora of the Coast Islands” (1887), being Bulletin No. 8 of California Academy of Sciences; consult also its Proceedings, Memoirs, and Occasional Papers; G.J. Peirce, Studies on the Coast Redwood (publication of Leland Stanford jr. University, 1901).

Agriculture.—California Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletins from 1884; Reports of the State Dairy Bureau, from 1898; State Board of Horticulture, Reports, 1889-1894; United States Censuses, 1890 and 1900, reports on irrigation.

Industries.—J.S. Hittell, Resources of California (7th ed., San Francisco, 1879); J.S. Hittell, Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast (San Francisco, 1882); T.F. Cronise, Natural Wealth of California (San Francisco, 1868); E.W. Maslin, Resources of California, prepared by order of Governor H.H. Markham (Sacramento, 1893); United States Treasury, Bureau of Statistics, report by T.J. Vivian on “Commercial, Industrial, Agricultural, Transportation and Other Industries of California” (Washington 1890, valuable for whole period before 1890); United States Censuses, 1890 and 1900, reports on agriculture, manufactures, mines and fisheries; California State Board of Trade (San Francisco), Annual Report from 1890. On Mineral Industries:—J.R. Browne, Report on “Mineral Resources of the States and Territories west of the Rocky Mountains” (United States Treasury, 2 vols., Washington, 1867-1868); United States Geological Survey, Annual Reports, Mineral Resources; consult also the bibliographies of publications of the Survey, issued as Bulletins; California State Mining Bureau, Bulletins from 1888, note especially No. 30, 1904, by A.W. Vodges, “Bibliography relating to the Geology, Palaeontology and Mineral Resources of California” (2nd ed., the 1st being Bulletin No. 10, 1896); California Débris Commission, Reports (in Annual Reports Chief of Engineers, United States Army, from 1893).

Government.—E.F. Treadwell, The Constitution of the State of California ... Annotated (San Francisco, 1902); Johns Hopkins University, Studies in History and Political Science, xiii., R.D. Hunt, “Genesis of California’s First Constitution”; Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, xii., R.D. Hunt, “Legal Status of California, 1846-1849”; Reports of the various officers, departments and administrative boards of the state government (Sacramento), and also the Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly, which contains, especially in the earlier decades of the state’s history, many of these state official reports along with valuable legislative reports of varied character.

History.—Accounts of the valuable archives in Bancroft, and by Z.E. Eldridge in California Genealogical Society (1901); elaborate bibliographies in Bancroft with analyses and appreciations of many works. Of general scope and fundamental importance is the work of two men, Hubert H. Bancroft and Theodore H. Hittell. The former has published a History of California, 1542-1890 (7 vols., San Francisco, 1884-1890), also California Pastoral, 1769-1848 (San Francisco, 1888), California Inter-Pocula, 1848-1856 (San Francisco, 1888), and Popular Tribunals (2 vols., San Francisco, 1887). These volumes were largely written under Mr. Bancroft’s direction and control by an office staff, and are of very unequal value; they are a vast storehouse of detailed material which is of great usefulness, although their judgments of men are often inadequate and prejudiced. As regards events the histories are of substantial accuracy and adequacy. Written by one hand and more uniform in treatment and good judgment, is T.H. Hittell’s History of California (4 vols., San Francisco, 1885-1897). The older historian of the state was Francisco Palou, a Franciscan, the friend and biographer of Serra; his “Noticias de la Nueva California” (Mexico, 1857, in the Doc. Hist. Mex., ser. iv., tom, vi.-viii.; also San Francisco, 1874, 4 vols.) is no longer of importance save for its historical interest. Of the contemporary material on the period of Mexican domination the best is afforded by R.H. Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast (New York, 1840, many later and foreign editions); also A. Robinson, Life in California (New York, 1846); and Alexander Forbes, California: A History of Upper and Lower California from their First Discovery to the Present Time (London, 1839); see also F.W. Blackmar, “Spanish Institutions of the Southwest” (Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1891). A beautiful, vivid and reputedly very accurate picture of the old society is given in Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel, Ramona (New York, 1884). There is no really scientific separate account of mission history; there are books by Father Z. Engelhart, The Franciscans in California (Harbor Springs, Michigan, 1899), written entirely from a Franciscan standpoint; C.F. Carter, Missions of Nueva California (San Francisco, 1900); Bryan J. Clinch, California and its Missions: Their History to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (2 vols., San Francisco, 1904); Francisco Palou, Relacion Historica de la Vida ... del Fray Junipero Serra (Mexico, 1787), the standard contemporary source; the Craftsman (Syracuse, N.Y., vol. v.), a series of articles on “Mission Buildings,” by G.W. James. On the case of the Pious Fund of the missions see J.F. Doyle, History of the Pious Fund (San Francisco, 1887); United States Department of State, “United States v. Mexico. Report of J.H. Ralston, agent of the United States and of counsel in the matter of the Pious Fund of the Californias” (Washington, 1902). On the “flush” mining years the best books of the time are J.Q. Thornton’s Oregon and California (2 vols., New York, 1849); Edward Bryant’s What I Saw in California (New York, 1848); W. Shaw’s Golden Dreams (London, 1851); Bayard Taylor’s Eldorado (2 vols., New York, 1850); W. Colton’s Three Years in California (New York, 1850); E.G. Buffum’s Six Months in the Gold Mines; from a Journal of Three Years’ Residence in Upper and Lower California (London, 1850); J.T. Brooks’ Four Months among the Gold Finders (London, 1849); G.G. Foster, Gold Regions of California (New York, 1884). On this same period consult Bancroft’s Popular Tribunals; D.Y. Thomas, “A History of Military Government in Newly Acquired Territory of the United States,” in vol. xx. No. 2 (New York, 1904) of Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law; C.H. Shinn’s Mining Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government (New York, 1885); J. Royce, California ... A Study of American Character, 1846-1856 (Boston, 1886); and, for varied pictures of mining and frontier life, the novels and sketches and poems of Bret Harte. See also P.H. Burnet, Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer (New York, 1880); S.J. Field, Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California (privately published, copyright 1893).

[1] In December 1904 Salton Sea was dry; in February 1906 it was occupied by a lake 60 m. long.

[2] During the interval from 1850 to 1872 the yearly rainfall at San Francisco ranged from 11.37 to 49.27 in.; from 1850 to 1904 the average was 22.74, and the probable annual variation 4 in.

[3] The means for Los Angeles and Red Bluff, of Redding and Fresno, of San Diego and Sacramento, of San Francisco or Monterey and Independence, are respectively about the same; and all of them lie between 56° and 63° F. The places mentioned are scattered over 3½° of longitude and 6½° of latitude.

[4] Small masses of water made to fall great distances and the use of turbines are important features of such plants. One on the North Yuba river at Colgate, where there is a 700 ft. fall, serves Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco, at high pressure yielding in San Francisco (220 m. away) 75% of its power. Other plants are one at Electra (154 m. from San Francisco), and one on the San Joaquin, which delivers to Fresno 62 m. distant.

[5] The 1905 census of manufactures deals only with establishments under the factory system; its figures for 1905 and the figures for 1900 reduced to the same limits are as follows:—total value of products, 1905, $367,218,494; 1900, $257,385,521, an increase of 42.7%; leading industries, with value of product in millions of dollars—canning and preserving, first in 1905 with 23.8 millions, third in 1900 with 13.4 millions; slaughtering and meat-packing, second in 1905 with 21.79 millions, first in 1900 with 15.71 millions; flour and grist mill products, third in 1905 with 20.2 millions, fourth in 1900 with 13.04 millions; lumber and timber, fourth in 1905 with 18.27 millions, second in 1900 with 13.71 millions; printing and publishing, fifth in 1905 with 17.4 millions, sixth in 1900 with 9.6 millions; foundry and machine shop products, sixdth in 1905 with 15.7 millions, fifth in 1900 with 12.04 millions; planing mill products, seventh in 1905 with 13.9 millions, twelfth in 1900 with 4.8 millions; bread and other bakery products, eighth in 1905 with 10.6 millions, eleventh in 1900 with 4.87 millions.

[6] As months and even years often elapsed between the date when early governors were appointed and the beginning of their actual service, the date of commission is disregarded, and the date of service given. Sometimes this is to be regarded as beginning at Monterey, sometimes elsewhere in California, sometimes at Loreto in Lower California. All the Spanish and Mexican governors were appointed by the national government, except in the case of the semi-revolutionary rulers of 1831-1832 and 1836 (Alvarado), whose title rested on revolution, or on local choice under a national statute regarding gubernatorial vacancies.

[7] Acting political chief, revolutionary title.

[8] Briefly recognized in South.

[9] Revolutionary title, 1836-1838.

[10] Appointed 1837, never recognized in the North.

CALIFORNIA, LOWER (Baja California), a long narrow peninsula between the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean, forming a territory of the republic of Mexico. Pop. (1895), 42,245; (1900) 47,624. Lower California is a southward extension of the State of California, United States, and is touched by only one of the Mexican states, that of Sonora on the E. The peninsula is about 760 m. long and from 30 to 150 m. wide, and has an area of 58,328 sq. m. It is traversed throughout its entire length by an irregular range of barren mountains, which slopes toward the Pacific in a succession of low hills, but breaks down abruptly toward the Gulf. The coast has two or three good sheltered bays, that of La Paz on the Gulf side and of Magdalena on the Pacific side being best known. The coast is bordered by numerous islands, especially on the eastern side. The general appearance of the surface is arid and desolate, partly because of the volcanic remains, and partly because of the scanty rainfall, which is insufficient to support vegetation other than that of the desert except in the deeper mountain valleys. The northern part is hot and dry, like southern California, but the southern part receives more rain and has some fertile tracts, with a mild and pleasant climate. The principal natural product in this region is orchil, or Spanish moss, but by means of irrigation the soil produces a considerable variety of products, including sugar cane, cotton, cassava, cereals, tobacco and grapes. Horses, sheep and cattle are raised in the fertile valleys, but only to a limited extent. The territory is rich in minerals, among which are gold, silver, copper, lead, gypsum, coal and salt. The silver mines near La Paz were worked by the Jesuits as early as 1700. There are also extensive pearl fisheries in the Gulf, La Paz being the headquarters of the industry, and whale fisheries on the W. coast in the vicinity of Magdalena Bay. The development of mining and other industries in the territory has led to an extension of the California railway system southward into the peninsula, with the Mexican government’s permission, the first section of 37 m. from the northern frontier being completed and opened to traffic in 1907. The territory is divided into two districts, the northern having its capital at the insignificant little village of La Ensenada, on Todos Santos Bay, and the southern having its capital at La Paz, at the head of a deep bay opening into the Gulf. La Paz is a port of call for steamships running between Mazatlan and San Francisco, and had a population of 5056 in 1900. La Ensenada (pop. in 1906, about 1500), 65 m. by sea S. of San Diego, Cal., is the only port for the northern part of the territory, and supplies a district extending 250 m. along the coast and 60 m. inland, including the mining camps of the north; it manufactures and exports flour and leather.

By orders of Cortés the coast of Lower California was explored in 1539 by Francisco de Ulloa, but no settlement resulted. It was called California, the name (according to E.E. Hale) being derived from a popular Spanish romance of that time, entitled Sergas de Esplandian, in which an island named California was mentioned and situated “on the right hand of the Indies, very near the terrestrial paradise.” The name must have been given derisively, as the barren coasts of Lower California could not have suggested the proximity of a “terrestrial paradise.” The exploration of the coast did not extend above the peninsula until 1842. The name California was at first applied exclusively to the peninsula; later, on the supposition that a strait connected the Pacific with the head of the Gulf of California, the name Islas Californias was frequently used. This erroneous theory was held as late as 1721. The first settlement was made in 1597, but was abandoned. From 1633 to 1683 five unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a settlement at La Paz. Finally the Jesuits succeeded in founding a mission at Loreto on the Gulf coast, in about 26° N. lat., in 1697, and at La Paz in 1720. At the time of their expulsion (1767) they had sixteen missions which were either self-supporting or were maintained by funds invested for that special purpose. The settlement of Upper California began in 1769, after which the two provinces were distinguished as California Baja or Antigua, and California Alta, the seat of government remaining in the former for a short time. The two provinces were separated in 1804, were united under one governor residing in California Alta in 1825, and were then reunited in a single department through the political changes of 1836, which lasted no later than 1847. Lower California was only slightly disturbed by the struggle for independence among the Spanish-American colonies, but in 1822 Admiral Lord Cochrane, who was in the service of the Chilean revolutionists, appeared on the coast and plundered San José del Cabo, Todos Santos and Loreto. In the war between Mexico and the United States La Paz and other coast towns were occupied by small detachments from California. In 1853 a filibustering expedition against Sonora under William Walker took possession of La Paz and proclaimed a republic consisting of Sonora and the peninsula. Fearing an attack from the mainland, the filibusters first withdrew to La Ensenada, near the American frontier, and then in the following year broke up altogether during an attempt to invade Sonora by land. A revolution under the leadership of Marquez de Leon in 1879 met with some temporary success, but died for want of material support in 1880. The development of mining and other industries since that time, together with vigorous efforts to found colonies in the more favoured localities, have greatly improved the situation in the territory.

See the two volumes of H.H. Bancroft’s North Mexican States and Texas, lettered vols. 15 and 16 of his Works; also Arthur Walbridge North, The Mother of California (San Francisco, 1908).

CALIFORNIA, UNIVERSITY OF, one of the largest and most important of state universities in America, situated at Berkeley, California, on the E. shore of San Francisco Bay. It took the place of the College of California (founded in 1855), received California’s portion of the Federal land grant of 1862, was chartered as a state institution by the legislature in 1868, and opened its doors in 1869 at Oakland. In 1873 it was removed to its present site. In the revised state constitution of 1879 provision is made for it as the head of the state’s educational system. The grounds at Berkeley cover 270 acres on the lower slopes (299-900 ft.) of the Berkeley Hills, which rise 1000 ft. or more above the university; the view over the bay to San Francisco and the Golden Gate is superb. In recent years new and better buildings have gradually been provided. In 1896 an international architectural competition was opened at the expense of Mrs Phoebe R. Hearst (made a regent of the university in 1898) for plans for a group of buildings harmonizing with the university’s beautiful site, and ignoring all buildings already existing. The first prize was awarded in 1899 to Emile Bénard, of Paris. The first building begun under the new plans was that for the college of mines (the gift of Mrs Hearst), completed in 1907, providing worthily for the important school of mining, from 1885 directed by Prof. S.B. Christy (b. 1853); California Hall, built by state appropriation, had been completed in 1906. The Greek theatre (1903), an open-air auditorium seating 7500 spectators, on a hill-side in a grove of towering eucalypts, was the gift of William Randolph Hearst; this has been used regularly for concerts by the university’s symphony orchestra, under the professor of music, John Frederick Wolle (b. 1863), who originated the Bach Festivals at Bethlehem, Pa.; free public concerts are given on Sunday afternoons; and there have been some remarkable dramatic performances here, notably Sudraka’s Mricchakattika in English, and Aeschylus’s Eumenides in Greek, in April 1907. There are no dormitories. Student self-government works through the “Undergraduate Students’ Affairs Committee” of the Associated Students. The faculty of the university has its own social club, with a handsome building on the grounds. At Berkeley is carried on the work in the colleges of letters, social sciences, natural sciences, commerce, agriculture, mechanical, mining and civil engineering, and chemistry, and the first two years’ course of the college of medicine—the Toland Medical College having been absorbed by the university in 1873; at Mount Hamilton, the work of the Lick astronomical department; and in San Francisco, that of dentistry (1888), pharmacy, law, art, and the concluding (post graduate or clinical) years of the medical course—the San Francisco Polyclinic having become a part of the university in 1892. Three of the San Francisco departments occupy a group of three handsome buildings in the western part of the city, overlooking Golden Gate Park. The Lick astronomical department (Lick Observatory) on Mount Hamilton, near San José, occupies a site covering 2777 acres. It was founded in 1875 by James Lick of San Francisco, and was endowed by him with $700,000, $610,000 of this being used for the original buildings and equipments, which were formally transferred to the university in 1888. The art department (San Francisco Institute of art) was until 1906 housed in the former home of Mark Hopkins, a San Francisco “railroad king”; it dated from 1893, under the name “Mark Hopkins Institute of Art.” The building was destroyed in the San Francisco conflagration of 1906; but under its present name the department resumed work in 1907 on the old site. At the university farm, of nearly 750 acres, at Davisville, Yolo county, instruction is given in practical agriculture, horticulture, dairying, &c.; courses in irrigation are given at Berkeley; a laboratory of plant pathology, established in 1907 at Whittier, Riverside county, and an experiment station on 20 acres of land near Riverside, are for the study of plant and tree diseases and pests and of their remedies. A marine biological laboratory is maintained at La Jolla, near San Diego, and another, the Hertzstein Research Laboratory, at New Monterey; the Rudolph Spreckels Physiological Laboratory is in Berkeley. The university has excellent anthropological and archaeological collections, mostly made by university expeditions, endowed by Mrs Hearst, to Peru and to Egypt. In 1907 the university library contained 160,000 volumes, ranking, after the destruction of most of the San Francisco libraries in 1906, as the largest collection in the vicinity. The building of the Doe library (given by the will of Charles Franklin Doe), for the housing of the university library, was begun in 1907. The university has also the valuable Bancroft collection of 50,000 volumes and countless pamphlets and manuscripts, dealing principally with the history of the Pacific Coast from Alaska through Central America, and of the Rocky Mountain region, including Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Western Texas. This collection (that of the historian Hubert Howe Bancroft) was acquired in 1905 for $250,000 (of which Mr Bancroft contributed $100,000), and was entrusted (1907) to the newly organized Academy of Pacific Coast History. The library of Karl Weinhold (1823-1901) of Berlin, which is especially rich in Germanic linguistics and “culture history,” was presented to the university in 1903 by John D. Spreckels. The university publishes The University of California Chronicle, an official record; and there are important departmental publications, especially those in American archaeology and ethnology, edited by Frederic Ward Putnam (b. 1839), including the reports of various expeditions, maintained by Mrs Hearst; in physiology, edited by Jacques Loeb (b. 1859); in botany, edited by William Albert Setchell (b. 1864); in zoology, edited by William Emerson Ritter (b. 1859); and in astronomy, the publications of the Lick Observatory, edited by William Wallace Campbell (b. 1862). In 1902, under the direction of Henry Morse Stephens (b. 1857), who then became professor of history, a department of university extension was organized; lecture courses, especially on history and literature, were delivered in 1906-1907 at fifteen extension “centres,” at most of which classes of study were formed. Annexes to the university, but having no corporate connexion with it, are the Berkeley Bible Seminary (Disciples of Christ), the Pacific Theological Seminary (Congregational), the Pacific Coast Baptist Seminary and a Unitarian school.

The growth of the university has been extremely rapid. From 1890 to 1900 the number of students increased fourfold. In the latter year the university of California was second to Harvard only in the number of academic graduate and undergraduate students, and fifth among the educational institutions of the country in total enrolment. In July 1907 there were 519 officers in the faculties and 2987 students, of whom 226 were in the professional schools in San Francisco. In addition there were 707 students in the 1906 summer session, the total for 1906-1907 thus being 3684; of this number 1506 were women. The university conferred 482 degrees in 1907, 546 in 1906, 470 in 1905. The affairs of the university are administered by a board of twenty-three regents, seven state officials and heads of educational institutions, being members ex officio, and sixteen other members being appointed by the governor and senate of the state; its instruction is governed by the faculties of the different colleges, and an academic senate in which these are joined. The gross income from all sources for 1905-1906 was $1,564,190, of which about $800,000 was income from investments, state and government grants, fees, &c., and the remainder was gifts and endowments. There is a permanent endowment of more than $3,000,000, partly from munificent private gifts, especially from Mrs Hearst and from Miss Cora Jean Flood. The financial support of the state has always been generous. No tuition fee is charged in the academic colleges to students resident in the state, and only $10.00 annually to students from without the state. The university maintains about 90 undergraduate scholarships, and 10 graduate scholarships and fellowships. All able-bodied male students are required to take the courses in military science, under instruction by an officer of the United States army detailed for the purpose. Physical culture and hygiene are prescribed for all men and women. A state law forbids the sale of liquor within one mile of the university grounds. To realize the ideal of the university as the head of the educational system of the state, a system of inspection of high schools has been developed, whereby schools reaching the prescribed standard are entitled to recommend their graduates for admission to the university without examination. It was anticipated at one time that the foundation of the Leland Stanford Junior University at Palo Alto would injure the state institution at Berkeley; but in practice this was not found to be the case; on the contrary, the competition resulted in giving new vigour and enterprise to the older university. Joseph Le Conte (professor from 1872 to 1901) and Daniel C. Oilman (president in 1872-1875) deserve mention among those formerly connected with the university. In 1899 Benjamin Ide Wheeler (b. 1854) became president. He had been a graduate (1875) of Brown University, and was professor first of comparative philology and then of Greek at Cornell University; his chief publications are Der griechische Nominalaccent (1885); Analogy, and the Scope of its Application in Language (1887); Principles of Language Growth (1891); The Organization of Higher Education in the United States (1897); Dionysos and Immortality (1899); and Life of Alexander the Great (1900).

CALIPASH and CALIPEE (possibly connected with carapace, the upper shell of a turtle), the gelatinous substances in the upper and lower shells, respectively, of the turtle, the calipash being of a dull greenish and the calipee of a light yellow colour.

CALIPH, Calif, or Khalif (Arab, khălīfa; the lengthening of the a is strictly incorrect), literally “successor,” “representative,” a title borne originally by Abu Bekr, who, on the death of Mahomet, became the civil and religious head of the Mahommedan state. In the same sense the term is used in the Koran of both Adam and David as the vicegerents of God. Abu Bekr and his three (or four) immediate successors are known as the “perfect” caliphs; after them the title was borne by the thirteen Omayyad caliphs of Damascus, and subsequently by the thirty-seven Abbasid caliphs of Bagdad whose dynasty fell before the Turks in 1258. By some rigid Moslems these rulers were regarded as only amirs, not caliphs. There were titular caliphs of Abbasid descent in Egypt from that date till 1517 when the last caliph was captured by Selim I. On the fall of the Omayyad dynasty at Damascus, the title was assumed by the Spanish branch of the family who ruled in Spain at Cordova (755-1031), and the Fatimite rulers of Egypt, who pretended to descent from Ali, and Fatima, Mahomet’s daughter, also assumed the name (see [Fatimites]).

According to the Shi‘ite Moslems, who call the office the “imamate” or leadership, no caliph is legitimate unless he is a lineal descendant of the Prophet. The Sunnites insist that the office belongs to the tribe of Koreish (Quraish) to which Mahomet himself belonged, but this condition would vitiate the claim of the Turkish sultans, who have held the office since its transference by the last caliph to Selim I. According to a tradition falsely ascribed to Mahomet, there can be but one caliph at a time; should a second be set up, he must be killed, for he “is a rebel.” (See [Mahommedan Institutions].)

CALIPHATE.[1] The history of the Mahommedan rulers in the East who bore the title of caliph (q.v.) falls naturally into three main divisions:—(a) The first four caliphs, the immediate successors of Mahomet; (b) The Omayyad caliphs; (c) The Abbasid caliphs. To these three groups the present article is confined; for the Western caliphs, see [Spain]: History (and minor articles such as [Almohades], [Almoravides]); for the Egyptian caliphs see [Egypt]: History (§ Mahommedan) and [Fatimites]. The history of Arabia proper will be found under [Arabia]: History.

A.—The First Four Caliphs

After the death of Mahomet the question arose who was to be his “representative.” The choice lay with the community of Medina; so much was understood; but whom were they to choose? The natives of Medina believed themselves to be now once more masters in their own house, and wished to promote one of themselves. But the Emigrants (see [Mahomet]) asserted their opposing claims, and with success, having brought into the town a considerable number of outside Moslems, so as to terrorize the men of Medina, who besides were still divided into two parties. The Emigrants’ leading spirit was Omar; he did not, however, cause homage to be paid to himself, but to Abu Bekr, the friend and father-in-law of the Prophet.

The affair would not have gone on so smoothly, had not the opportune defection of the Arabians put a stop to the inward schism which threatened. Islam suddenly found itself once more limited to the community of Medina; only Mecca and Tāif (Tāyef) remained true. The Bedouins were willing enough to pray, indeed, but less willing to pay taxes; their defection, as might have been expected, was a political movement.[2] None the less was it a revolt from Islam, for here the political society and the religious are identical. A peculiar compliment to Mahomet was involved in the fact that the leaders of the rebellion in the various districts did not pose as princes and kings, but as prophets; in this appeared to lie the secret of Islam’s success.

1. Reign of Abu Bekr.—Abu Bekr proved himself quite equal to the perilous situation. In the first place, he allowed the expedition against the Greeks, already arranged by Mahomet, quietly to set out, limiting himself for the time to the defence of Medina. On the return of the army he proceeded to attack the rebels. The holy spirit of Islam kept the men of Medina together, and inspired in them an all-absorbing zeal for the faith; the Arabs as a whole had no other bond of union and no better source of inspiration than individual interest. As was to be expected, they were worsted; eleven small flying columns of the Moslems, sent out in various directions, sufficed to quell the revolt. Those who submitted were forthwith received back into favour; those who persevered in rebellion were punished with death. The majority accordingly converted, the obstinate were extirpated. In Yamama (Yemama) only was there a severe struggle; the Banū Hanīfa under their prophet Mosailima fought bravely, but here also Islam triumphed.

The internal consolidation of Islam in Arabia was, strange to say, brought about by its diffusion abroad. The holy war against the border countries which Mahomet had already inaugurated, was the best means for making the new religion popular among the Arabs, for opportunity was at the same time afforded for gaining rich booty. The movement was organized by Islam, but the masses were induced to join it by quite other than religious motives. Nor was this by any means the first occasion on which the Arabian cauldron had overflowed; once and again in former times emigrant swarms of Bedouins had settled on the borders of the wilderness. This had last happened in consequence of the events which destroyed the prosperity of the old Sabaean kingdom. At that time the small Arabian kingdoms of Ghassān and Hira had arisen in the western and eastern borderlands of cultivation; these now presented to Moslem conquest its nearest and natural goal. But inasmuch as Hira was subject to the Persians, and Eastern Palestine to the Greeks, the annexation of the Arabians involved the extension of the war beyond the limits of Arabia to a struggle with the two great powers (see further [Arabia]: History).

After the subjugation of middle and north-eastern Arabia, Khālid b. al-Walīd proceeded by order of the caliph to the conquest of the districts on the lower Euphrates. Thence he was summoned to Syria, where hostilities had also broken out. Damascus fell late in the summer of 635, and on the 20th of August 636 was fought the great decisive battle on the Hieromax (Yarmuk), which caused the emperor Heraclius (q.v.) finally to abandon Syria.[3] Left to themselves, the Christians henceforward defended themselves only in isolated cases in the fortified cities; for the most part they witnessed the disappearance of the Byzantine power without regret. Meanwhile the war was also carried on against the Persians in Irak, unsuccessfully at first, until the tide turned at the battle of Kadisiya (Kadessia, Qādisīya) (end of 637). In consequence of the defeat which they here sustained, the Persians were forced to abandon the western portion of their empire and limit themselves to Iran proper. The Moslems made themselves masters of Ctesiphon (Madāin), the residence of the Sassanids on the Tigris, and conquered in the immediately following years the country of the two rivers. In 639 the armies of Syria and Irak were face to face in Mesopotamia. In a short time they had taken from the Aryans all the principal old Semitic lands—Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria and Babylonia. To these was soon added Egypt, which was overrun with little difficulty by ‘Amr ibn-el-Ass (q.v.) in 640. (See [Egypt]: History, § Mahommedan.) This completed the circle of the lands bordering on the wilderness of Arabia; within these limits annexation was practicable and natural, a repetition indeed of what had often previously occurred. The kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira, advanced posts hitherto, now became the headquarters of the Arabs; the new empire had its centres on the one hand at Damascus, on the other hand at Kufa and Baṣra, the two newly-founded cities in the region of old Babylonia. The capital of Islam continued indeed for a while to be Medina, but soon the Hejaz (Hijaz) and the whole of Arabia proper lay quite on the outskirt of affairs.

The ease with which the native populations of the conquered districts, exclusively or prevailingly Christian, adapted themselves to the new rule is very striking. Their nationality had been broken long ago, but intrinsically it was more closely allied to the Arabian than to the Greek or Persian. Their religious sympathy with the West was seriously impaired by dogmatic controversies; from Islam they might at any rate hope for toleration, even though their views were not in accordance with the theology of the emperor of the day. The lapse of the masses from Christianity to Islam, however, which took place during the first century after the conquest, is to be accounted for only by the fact that in reality they had no inward relation to the gospel at all. They changed their creed merely to acquire the rights and privileges of Moslem citizens. In no case were they compelled to do so; indeed the Omayyad caliphs saw with displeasure the diminishing proceeds of the poll-tax derived from their Christian subjects (see [Mahommedan Institutions]).

It would have been a great advantage for the solidity of the Arabian empire if it had confined itself within the limits of those old Semitic lands, with perhaps the addition of Egypt. But the Persians were not so ready as the Greeks to give up the contest; they did not rest until the Moslems had subjugated the whole of the Sassanid empire. The most important event in the protracted war which led to the conquest of Iran, was the battle of Nehāwend in 641;[4] the most obstinate resistance was offered by Persis proper, and especially by the capital, Istakhr (Persepolis). In the end, all the numerous and partly autonomous provinces of the Sassanid empire fell, one after the other, into the hands of the Moslems, and the young king, Yazdegerd III. (q.v.), was compelled to retire to the farthest corner of his realm, where he came to a miserable end.[5] But it was long before the Iranians learned to accept the situation. Unlike the Christians of western Asia, they had a vigorous feeling of national pride, based upon glorious memories and especially upon a church having a connexion of the closest kind with the state. Internal disturbances of a religious and political character and external disasters had long ago shattered the empire of the Sassanids indeed, but the Iranians had not yet lost their patriotism. They were fighting, in fact, against the despised and hated Arabs, in defence of their holiest possessions, their nationality and their faith. Their subjection was only external, nor did Islam ever succeed in assimilating them as the Syrian Christians were assimilated. Even when in process of time they did accept the religion of the prophet, they leavened it thoroughly with their own peculiar leaven, and, especially, deprived it of the practical political and national character which it had assumed after the flight to Medina. To the Arabian state they were always a thorn in the flesh; it was they who helped most to break up its internal order, and it was from them also that it at last received its outward death-blow. The fall of the Omayyads was their work, and with the Omayyads fell the Arabian empire.

2. Reign of Omar.—Abu Bekr died after a short reign on the 22nd of August 634, and as a matter of course was succeeded by Omar. To Omar’s ten years’ Caliphate belong for the most part the great conquests. He himself did not take the field, but remained in Medina with the exception of his visit to Syria in 638; he never, however, suffered the reins to slip from his grasp, so powerful was the influence of his personality and the Moslem community of feeling. His political insight is shown by the fact that he endeavoured to limit the indefinite extension of Moslem conquest, to maintain and strengthen the national Arabian character of the commonwealth of Islam,[6] and especially to promote law and order in its internal affairs. The saying with which he began his reign will never grow antiquated: “by Allah, he that is weakest among you shall be in my sight the strongest, until I have vindicated for him his rights; but him that is strongest will I treat as the weakest, until he complies with the laws.” After the administration of justice he directed his organizing activity, as the circumstances demanded, chiefly towards financial questions—the incidence of taxation in the conquered territories,[7] and the application of the vast resources which poured into the treasury at Medina. It must not be brought against him as a personal reproach, that in dealing with these he acted on the principle that the Moslems were the chartered plunderers of all the rest of the world. But he had to atone by his death for the fault of his system. In the mosque at Medina he was stabbed by a Kufan workman and died in November 644.

3. Reign of Othman.—Before his death Omar had nominated six of the leading Mohajir (Emigrants) who should choose the caliph from among themselves—Othman, Ali, Zobair, Ṭalḥa, Sa‘d b. Abi Waqqāṣ, and Abdarraḥmān b. Auf. The last-named declined to be a candidate, and decided the election in favour of Othman. Under this weak sovereign the government of Islam fell entirely into the hands of the Koreish nobility. We have already seen that Mahomet himself prepared the way for this transference; Abu Bekr and Omar likewise helped it; the Emigrants were unanimous among themselves in thinking that the precedence and leadership belonged to them as of right. Thanks to the energy of Omar, they were successful in appropriating to themselves the succession to the Prophet. They indeed rested their claims on the undeniable priority of their services to the faith, but they also appealed to their blood relationship with the Prophet as a corroboration of their right to the inheritance; and the ties of blood connected them with the Koreish in general. In point of fact they felt a closer connexion with these than, for example, with the natives of Medina; nature had not been expelled by faith.[8] The supremacy of the Emigrants naturally furnished the means of transition to the supremacy of the Meccan aristocracy. Othman did all in his power to press forward this development of affairs. He belonged to the foremost family of Mecca, the Omayyads, and that he should favour his relations and the Koreish as a whole, in every possible way, seemed to him a matter of course. Every position of influence and emolument was assigned to them; they themselves boastingly called the important province of Irak the garden of Koreish. In truth, the entire empire had become that garden. Nor was it unreasonable that from the secularization of Islam the chief advantage should be reaped by those who best knew the world. Such were beyond all doubt the patricians of Mecca, and after them those of Tāif, people like Khālid b. al-Walīd, Amr-ibn-el-Ass, ‘Abdallāh b. abī Sarḥ, Moghīra b. Sho’ba, and, above all, old Abu Sofiān with his son Moawiya.

Against the rising tide of worldliness an opposition, however, now began to appear. It was led by what may be called the spiritual noblesse of Islam, which, as distinguished from the hereditary nobility of Mecca, might also be designated as the nobility of merit, consisting of the “Defenders” (Ansar), and especially of the Emigrants who had lent themselves to the elevation of the Koreish, but by no means with the intention of allowing themselves thereby to be effaced. The opposition was headed by Ali, Zobair, Ṭalḥa, both as leading men among the Emigrants and as disappointed candidates for the Caliphate. Their motives were purely selfish; not God’s cause but their own, not religion but power and preferment, were what they sought.[9] Their party was a mixed one. To it belonged the men of real piety, who saw with displeasure the promotion to the first places in the commonwealth of the great lords who had actually done nothing for Islam, and had joined themselves to it only at the last moment. But the majority were merely a band of men without views, whose aim was a change not of system, but of persons in their own interest. Everywhere in the provinces there was agitation against the caliph and his governors, except in Syria, where Othman’s cousin, Moawiya, son of Abu Sofiān (see below), carried on a wise and strong administration. The movement was most energetic in Irak and in Egypt. Its ultimate aim was the deposition of Othman in favour of Ali, whose own services as well as his close relationship to the Prophet seemed to give him the best claim to the Caliphate. Even then there were enthusiasts who held him to be a sort of Messiah.

The malcontents sought to gain their end by force. In bands they came from the provinces to Medina to wring concessions from Othman, who, though his armies were spreading terror from the Indus and Oxus to the Atlantic, had no troops at hand in Medina. He propitiated the mutineers by concessions, but as soon as they had gone, he let matters resume their old course. Thus things went on from bad to worse. In the following year (656) the leaders of the rebels came once more from Egypt and Irak to Medina with a more numerous following; and the caliph again tried the plan of making promises which he did not intend to keep. But the rebels caught him in a flagrant breach of his word,[10] and now demanded his abdication, besieging him in his own house, where he was defended by a few faithful subjects. As he would not yield, they at last took the building by storm and put him to death, an old man of eighty. His death in the act of maintaining his rights was of the greatest service to his house and of corresponding disadvantage to the enemy.

4. Reign of Ali.—Controversy as to the inheritance at once arose among the leaders of the opposition. The mass of the mutineers summoned Ali to the Caliphate, and compelled even Ṭalḥa and Zobair to do him homage. But soon these two, along with Ayesha, the mother of the faithful, who had an old grudge against Ali, succeeded in making their escape to Irak, where at Baṣra they raised the standard of rebellion. Ali in point of fact had no real right to the succession, and moreover was apparently actuated not by piety but by ambition and the desire of power, so that men of penetration, even although they condemned Othman’s method of government, yet refused to recognize his successor. The new caliph, however, found means of disposing of their opposition, and at the battle of the Camel, fought at Baṣra in November 656, Ṭalḥa and Zobair were slain, and Ayesha was taken prisoner.

But even so Ali had not secured peace. With the murder of Othman the dynastic principle gained the twofold advantage of a legitimate cry—that of vengeance for the blood of the grey-haired caliph and a distinguished champion, the governor Moawiya, whose position in Syria was impregnable. The kernel of his subjects consisted of genuine Arabs, not only recent immigrants along with Islam, but also old settlers who, through contact with the Roman empire and the Christian church, had become to some extent civilized. Through the Ghassanids these latter had become habituated to monarchical government and loyal obedience, and for a long time much better order had prevailed amongst them than elsewhere in Arabia. Syria was the proper soil for the rise of an Arabian kingdom, and Moawiya was just the man to make use of the situation. He exhibited Othman’s blood-stained garment in the mosque at Damascus, and incited his Syrians to vengeance.

Ali’s position in Kufa was much less advantageous. The population of Irak was already mixed up with Persian elements; it fluctuated greatly, and was largely composed of fresh immigrants. Islam had its headquarters here; Kufa and Baṣra were the home of the pious and of the adventurer, the centres of religious and political movement. This movement it was that had raised Ali to the Caliphate, but yet it did not really take any personal interest in him. Religion proved for him a less trustworthy and more dangerous support than did the conservative and secular feeling of Syria for the Omayyads. Moawiya could either act or refrain from acting as he chose, secure in either case of the obedience of his subjects. Ali, on the other hand, was unable to convert enthusiasm for the principle inscribed on his banner into enthusiasm for his person. It was necessary that he should accommodate himself to the wishes of his supporters, which, however, were inconsistent. They compelled him suddenly to break off the battle of Siffin, which he was apparently on the point of gaining over Moawiya, because the Syrians fastened copies of the Koran to their lances to denote that not the sword, but the word of God should decide the contest (see further below, B.1; also [Ali]). But in yielding to the will of the majority he excited the displeasure of the minority, the genuine zealots, who in Moawiya were opposing the enemy of Islam, and regarded Ali’s entering into negotiations with him as a denial of the faith. When the negotiations failed and war was resumed, the Kharijites refused to follow Ali’s army, and he had to turn his armies in the first instance against them. He succeeded in disposing of them without difficulty at the battle of Nahrawān, but in his success he lost the soul of his following. For they were the true champions of the theocratic principle; through their elimination it became clear that the struggle had in no sense anything to do with the cause of God. Ali’s defeat was a foregone conclusion, once religious enthusiasm had failed him; the secular resources at the disposal of his adversaries were far superior. Fortunately for him he was murdered (end of January 661), thereby posthumously attaining an importance in the eyes of a large part of the Mahommedan world (Shī‘a) which he had never possessed during his life.

B.—The Omayyad Dynasty

Summary of Preceding Movements.—The conquest of Mecca had been of the greatest importance to the Prophet, not only because Islam thus obtained possession of this important city with its famous sanctuary, but above all because his late adversaries were at last compelled to acknowledge him as the Envoy of God. Among these there were many men of great ability and influence, and he was so eager to conciliate them or, as the Arabic expression has it, “to mellow their hearts” by concessions and gifts, that his loyal helpers (Ansar) at Medina became dissatisfied and could only with difficulty be brought to acquiesce in it. Mahomet was a practical man; he realized that the growing state needed skilful administrators, and that such were found in much greater number among the antagonists of yesterday than among the honest citizens of Medina. The most important positions, such as the governorships of Mecca and Yemen, were entrusted to men of the Omayyad house, or that of the Makhzūm and other Koreishite families. Abu Bekr followed the Prophet’s example. In the great revolt of the Arabic tribes after the death of Mahomet, and in the invasion of Irak and Syria by the Moslems, the principal generals belonged to them. Omar did not deviate from that line of conduct. It was he who appointed Yazīd, the son of Abu Sofiān, and after his death, his brother Moawiya as governor of Syria, and assigned the province of Egypt to Amr-ibn-el-Ass (‘Amr b. Āṣ). It is even surprising to find among the leading men so few of the house of Hāshim, the nearest family of the Prophet. The puzzled Moslem doctors explain this fact on the ground that the Hashimites were regarded as too noble to hold ordinary administrative offices, and that they could not be spared at Medina, where their counsel was required in all important affairs. There is, however, a tradition in which Ali himself calls the Omayyads born rulers. As long as Omar lived opposition was silent. But Othman had not the strong personality of his predecessor, and, although he practically adhered to the policy of Omar, he was accused of favouring the members of his own family—the caliph belonged himself to the house of Omayya—at the expense of the Hashimites and the Ansar. The jealousy of the latter two was prompted by the fact that the governorship and military commands had become not only much more important, but also much more lucrative, while power and money again procured many adherents. The truly devout Moslems on the other hand were scandalized by the growing luxury which relaxed the austere morals of the first Moslems, and this also was imputed to Othman.

We thus see how the power of the house of Omayya developed itself, and how there arose against it an opposition, which led in the first place to the murder of Othman and the Caliphate of Ali, and furthermore, during the whole period of the Omayyad caliphs, repeatedly to dangerous outbreaks, culminating in the great catastrophe which placed the Abbasids on the throne. The elements of this opposition were of very various kinds:—(1) The old-fashioned Moslems, sons of the Ansar and Mohājir, who had been Mahomet’s first companions and supporters, and could not bear the thought that the sons of the old enemies of the Prophet in Mecca, whom they nicknamed ṭolaqā (freedmen), should be in control of the imamate, which carried with it the management of affairs both civil and religious. This party was in the foreground, chiefly in the first period. (2) The partisans of Ali, the Shi‘a (Shi‘ites), who in proportion as their influence with the Arabs declined, contrived to strengthen it by obtaining the support of the non-Arabic Moslems, aided thereto, especially in the latter period, by the Abbasids, who at the decisive moment succeeded in seizing the supreme power for themselves. (3) The Kharijites, who, in spite of the heavy losses they sustained at the hands of Ali, maintained their power by gaining new adherents from among those austere Moslems, who held both Omayyads and Alids as usurpers, and have often been called, not unjustly, the Puritans of Islam. (4) The non-Arabic Moslems, who on their conversion to Islam, had put themselves under the patronage of Arabic families, and were therefore called maula’s (clients). These were not only the most numerous, but also, in virtue of the persistency of their hostility, the most dangerous. The largest and strongest group of these were the Persians, who, before the conquest of Irak by the Moslems, were the ruling class of that country, so that Persian was the dominant language. With them all malcontents, in particular the Shi‘ites, found support; by them the dynasty of the Omayyads and the supremacy of the Arabs was finally overthrown. To these elements of discord we must add:—(1) That the Arabs, notwithstanding the bond of Islam that united them, maintained their old tribal institutions, and therewith their old feuds and factions; (2) that the old antagonism between Ma‘adites[11] (original northern tribes) and Yemenites (original southern tribes), accentuated by the jealousy between the Meccans, who belonged to the former, and the Medinians, who belonged to the latter division, gave rise to perpetual conflicts; (3) that more than one dangerous pretender—some of them of the reigning family itself—contended with the caliph for the sovereignty, and must be crushed coûte que coûte. It is only by the detailed enumeration of these opposing forces that we can form an idea of the heavy task that lay before the Prince of the Believers, and of the amount of tact and ability which his position demanded.

The description of the reign of the Omayyads is extremely difficult. Never perhaps has the system of undermining authority by continual slandering been applied on such a scale as by the Alids and the Abbasids. The Omayyads were accused by their numerous missionaries of every imaginable vice; in their hands Islam was not safe; it would be a godly work to extirpate them from the earth. When the Abbasids had occupied the throne, they pursued this policy to its logical conclusion. But not content with having exterminated the hated rulers themselves, they carried their hostility to a further point. The official history of the Omayyads, as it has been handed down to us, is coloured by Abbasid feeling to such an extent that we can scarcely distinguish the true from the false. An example of this occurs at the outset in the assertion that Moawiya deliberately refrained from marching to the help of Othman, and indeed that it was with secret joy that he heard of the fatal result of the plot. The facts seem to contradict this view. When, ten weeks before the murder, some hundreds of men came to Medina from Egypt and Irak, pretending that they were on their pilgrimage to Mecca, but wanted to bring before the caliph their complaints against his vicegerents, nobody could have the slightest suspicion that the life of the caliph was in danger; indeed it was only during the few days that Othman was besieged in his house that the danger became obvious. If the caliph then, as the chroniclers tell, sent a message to Moawiya for help, his messenger could not have accomplished half the journey to Damascus when the catastrophe took place. There is no real reason to doubt that the painful news fell on Moawiya unexpectedly, and that he, as mightiest representative of the Omayyad house, regarded as his own the duty of avenging the crime. He could not but view Ali in the light of an accomplice, because if, as he protested, he did not abet the murderers, yet he took them under his protection. An acknowledgment of Ali as caliph by Moawiya before he had cleared himself from suspicion was therefore quite impossible.

1. The Reign of Moawiya.—Moawiya, son of the well-known Meccan chief Abu Sofiān, embraced Islam together with his father and his brother Yazid, when the Prophet conquered Mecca, and was, like them, treated with the greatest distinction. He was even chosen to be one of the secretaries of Mahomet. When Abu Bekr sent his troops for the conquest of Syria, Yazid, the eldest son of Abu Sofiān, held one of the chief commands, with Moawiya as his lieutenant. In the year 639 Omar named him governor of Damascus and Palestine; Othman added to this province the north of Syria and Mesopotamia. To him was committed the conduct of the war against the Byzantine emperor, which he continued with energy, at first only on land, but later, when the caliph had at last given in to his urgent representations, at sea also. In the year 34 (a.d. 655) was fought off the coast of Lycia the great naval battle, which because of the great number of masts has been called “the mast fight,” in which the Greek[12] fleet, commanded by the emperor Constans II. in person, was utterly defeated. Moawiya himself was not present, as he was conducting an attack (the result of which we do not know) on Caesarea in Cappadocia. The Arabic historians are so entirely preoccupied with the internal events that they have no eye for the war at the frontier. The contention which Moawiya had with Ali checked his progress in the north.

Moawiya was a born ruler, and Syria was, as we have seen, the best administered province of the whole empire. He was so loved and honoured by his Syrians that, when he invited them to avenge the blood of Othman, they replied unanimously, “It is your part to command, ours to obey.” Ali was a valiant man, but had no great talent as a ruler. His army numbered a great many enthusiastic partisans, but among them not a few wise-acres; there were also others of doubtful loyalty. The battle at Siffin (657), near the Euphrates, which lasted two months and consisted principally in, sometimes bloody, skirmishes, with alternate success, ended by the well-known appeal to the decision of the Koran on the part of Moawiya. This appeal has been called by a European scholar “one of the unworthiest comedies of the whole world’s history,” accepting the report of very partial Arabic writers that it happened when the Syrians were on the point of losing the battle. He forgot that Ali himself, before the Battle of the Camel, appealed likewise to the decision of the Koran, and began the fight only when this had been rejected. There is in reality no room for suspecting Moawiya of not having been in earnest when making this appeal; he might well regret that internecine strife should drain the forces which were so much wanted for the spread of Islam. That the Book of God could give a solution, even of this arduous case, was doubtless the firm belief of both parties. But even if the appeal to the Koran had been a stratagem, as Ali himself thought, it would have been perfectly legitimate, according to the general views of that time, which had been also those of the Prophet. It is not unlikely that the chief leader of the Yemenites in Ali’s army, Ash‘ath b. Qais, knew beforehand that this appeal would be made. Certainty is not to be obtained in the whole matter.

On each side an umpire was appointed, Abu Mūsāa al-Ash‘arī, the candidate of Ash‘ath, on that of Ali, Amr-ibn-el-Ass (q.v.) on that of Moawiya. The arbitrators met in the year 37 (a.d. 658) at Adhroh, in the south-east of Syria, where are the ruins of the Roman Castra described by Brünnow and Domaszewsky (Die Provincio Arabia, i. 433-463). Instead of this place, the historians generally put Dūmat-al-Jandal, the biblical Duma, now called Jauf, but this rests on feeble authority. The various accounts about what happened in this interview are without exception untrustworthy. J. Wellhausen, in his excellent book Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz, has made it very probable that the decision of the umpires was that the choice of Ali as caliph should be cancelled, and that the task of nominating a successor to Othman should be referred to the council of notable men (shūrā), as representing the whole community. Ali refusing to submit to this decision, Moawiya became the champion of the law, and thereby gained at once considerable support for the conquest of Egypt, to which above all he directed his efforts. As soon as Amr returned from Adhroh, Moawiya sent him with an army of four or five thousand men against Egypt. About the same time the constitutional party rose against Ali’s vicegerent Mahommed, son of Abu Bekr, who had been the leader of the murderous attack on Othman. Mahommed was beaten, taken in his flight, and, according to some reports, sewn in the skin of an ass and burned.

Moawiya, realizing that Ali would take all possible means to crush him, took his measures accordingly. He concluded with the Greeks a treaty, by which he pledged himself to pay a large sum of money annually on condition that the emperor should give him hostages as a pledge for the maintenance of peace. Ali, however, had first to deal with the insurrection of the Kharijites, who condemned the arbitration which followed the battle of Siffin as a deed of infidelity, and demanded that Ali should break the compact (see above, A.4). Freed from this difficulty, Ali prepared to direct his march against Moawiya, but his soldiers declined to move. One of his men, Khirrīt b. Rāshid, renounced him altogether, because he had not submitted to the decision of the umpires, and persuaded many others to refuse the payment of the poor-rate. Ali was obliged to subdue him, a task which he effected not without difficulty. Not a few of his former partisans went over to Moawiya, as already had happened before the days of Siffin, amongst others Ali’s own brother ‘Aqīl. Lastly, there were in Kufa, and still more in Basra, many Othmaniya or legitimists, on whose co-operation he could not rely. Moawiya from his side made incessant raids into Ali’s dominion, and by his agents caused a very serious revolt in Basra. The statement that a treaty was concluded between Moawiya and Ali to maintain the status quo, in the beginning of the year 40 (a.d. 660), is not very probable, for it is pretty certain that just then Ali had raised an army of 40,000 men against the Syrians, and also that in the second or third month of that year Moawiya was proclaimed caliph at Jerusalem. At the same time Bosr b. Abi Artāt made his expedition against Medina and Mecca, whose inhabitants were compelled to acknowledge the caliphate of Moawiya. On the murder of Ali in 661, his son Hasan was chosen caliph, but he recoiled before the prospect of a war with Moawiya, having neither the ambition nor the energy of Ali. Moawiya stood then with a large army in Maskin, a rich district lying to the north of the later West Bagdad, watered by the Dojail, or Little Tigris, a channel from the Euphrates to the Tigris. The army of Trak was near Madāin, the ancient Ctesiphon. The reports about what occurred are confused and contradictory; but it seems probable that Abdallah b. Abbas, the vicegerent of Ali at Basra and ancestor of the future Abbasid dynasty, was in command. No battle was fought. Hasan and Ibn Abbas opened, each for himself, negotiations with Moawiya. The latter made it a condition of surrender that he should have the free disposal of the funds in the treasury of Basra. Some say that he had already before the death of Ali rendered himself master of it. Notwithstanding the protest of the Basrians, he transported this booty safely to Mecca. When his descendants had ascended the throne and he had become a demi-saint, the historians did their best to excuse his conduct. Hasan demanded, in exchange for the power which he resigned, the contents of the treasury at Kufa, which amounted to five millions of dirhems, together with the revenues of the Persian province of Darābjird (Darab). When these negotiations became known, a mutiny broke out in Hasan’s camp. Hasan himself was wounded and retired to Medina, where he died eight or nine years afterwards. The legend that he was poisoned by order of Moawiya is without the least foundation. It seems that he never received the revenues of Darābjird, the Basrians to whom they belonged refusing to cede them.

Moawiya now made his entry into Kufa in the summer of a.h. 41 (a.d. 661) and received the oath of allegiance as Prince of the Believers. This year is called the year of union (jamā‘a). Moghīra b. Sho’ba was appointed governor of Kufa. Homrān b. Abān had previously assumed the government of Basra. This is represented commonly as a revolt, but as Homran was a client of Othman, and remained in favour with the Omayyads, it is almost certain that he took the management of affairs only to maintain order.

One strong antagonist to Moawiya remained, in the person of Ziyād. This remarkable man was said to be a bastard of Abu Sofiān, the father of Moawiya, and was, by his mother, the brother of Abu Bakra, a man of great wealth and position at Basra. He thus belonged to the tribe of Thaqīf at Tāif, which produced many very prominent men. At the age of fourteen years Ziyād was charged with the financial administration of the Basrian army. He had won the affection of Omar, by his knowledge of the Koran and the Sunna of the Prophet, and by the fact that he had employed the first money he earned to purchase the freedom of his mother Somayya. He was a faithful servant of Ali and put down for him the revolt excited by Moawiya’s partisans in Basra. Thence he marched into Fārs and Kirman, where he maintained peace and kept the inhabitants in their allegiance to Ali. After Ali’s death he fortified himself in his castle near Istakhr and refused to submit. Moawiya, therefore, sent Bosr b. Abi Artāt to Basra, with orders to capture Ziyād’s three sons, and to force Ziyād into submission by threatening to kill them. Ziyād was obdurate; and it was due to his brother Abu Bakra, who persuaded Moawiya to cancel the order, that the threat was not executed. On his return to Damascus, Moawiya charged Moghīra b. Sho’ba to bring his countryman to reason. Abdallah b. ‘Āmir was made governor of Basra.

As soon as Moawiya had his hands free, he directed all his forces against the Greeks. Immediately after the submission of Irak, he had denounced the existing treaty, and as early as 662 had sent his troops against the Alans and the Greeks. Since then, no year passed without a campaign. Twice he made a serious effort to conquer Constantinople, in 669 when he besieged it for three months, and in 674. On the second occasion his fleet occupied Cyzicus, which it held till shortly after his death in 680, when a treaty was signed. In Africa also the extension of Mahommedan power was pursued energetically. In 670 took place the famous march of ‘Okba (‘Oqba) b. Nāfi’ and the foundation of Kairawan, where the great mosque still bears his name. Our information about these events, though very full, is untrustworthy, while of the events in Asia Minor the accounts are scarce and short. The Arabic historians are still absorbed by the events in Irak and Khorasan.

The talented prefect of Kufa, Moghīra b. Sho’ba, eventually broke down the resistance of Ziyād, who came to Damascus to render an account of his administration, which the caliph ratified. Moawiya seems also to have acknowledged him as the son of Abu Sofiān, and thus as his brother; in 664 this recognition was openly declared.[13] In the next year Ziyād was appointed governor of Basra and the eastern provinces belonging to it. As the austere champion of the precepts of Islam, he soon restored order in the whole district. Outwardly, this was the case in Kufa also. A rising of Kharijites in the year 663 had ended in the death of their chief. But the Shi‘ites were dissatisfied and even dared to give public utterance to their hostility. Moghīra contented himself with a warning. He was already aged and had no mind to enter on a conflict. He died about the year 670, and his province also was entrusted to Ziyād, who appointed ‘Amr b. Horaith as his vicegerent. At a Friday service in the great mosque ‘Amr was insulted and pelted with pebbles. Ziyād then came himself, arrested the leader of the Shi‘ites, and sent fourteen rebels to Damascus, among them several men of consideration. Seven of them who refused to pledge themselves to obedience were put to death; the Shi‘ites considered them as martyrs and accused Moawiya of committing a great crime. But in Kufa peace was restored, and this not by military force, but by the headmen of the tribes. We must not forget that Kufa and Basra were military colonies, and that each tribe had its own quarter of the city. A wholesome diversion was provided by the serious resumption of the policy of eastern expansion, which had been interrupted by the civil war. For this purpose Irak had to furnish the largest contingent. The first army sent by Ziyād into Khorasan recaptured Merv, Herat and Balkh, conquered Tokhāristān and advanced as far as the Oxus. In 673 ‘Obaidallah, the son of Ziyād, crossed the river, occupied Bokhara, and returned laden with booty taken from the wandering Turkish tribes of Transoxiana. He brought 2000 Turkish archers with him to Basra, the first Turkish slaves to enter the Moslem empire. Sa‘īd, son of the caliph Othman, whom Moawiya made governor of Khorasan, in 674 marched against Samarkand. Other generals penetrated as far as the Indus and conquered Kabul, Sijistan, Makrān and Kandahar.

Ziyād governed Irak with the greatest vigour, but as long as discontent did not issue in action, he let men alone. At his death (672-673), order was so generally restored that “nobody had any more to fear for life or estate, and even the unprotected woman was safe in her house without having her door bolted.”

Moawiya was a typical Arab sayyid (gentleman). He governed, not by force, but by his superior intelligence, his self-control, his mildness and magnanimity. The following anecdote may illustrate this. One of Moawiya’s estates bordered on that of Abdallah b. Zobair, who complained in a somewhat truculent letter that Moawiya’s slaves had been guilty of trespassing. Moawiya, disregarding his son Yazid’s advice that he should exact condign punishment for Zobair’s disrespect, replied in flattering terms, regretting the trespass and resigning both slaves and estate to Zobair. In reply Zobair protested his loyalty to Moawiya, who thereupon pointed a moral for the instruction of Yazid.

Moawiya has been accused of having poisoned more than one of his adversaries, among them Malik Ashtar, Abdarrahmān the son of the great captain Khālid b. Walīd, and Hasan b. Ali. As for the latter, European scholars have long been agreed that the imputation is groundless. As to Abdarrahmān the story is in the highest degree improbable. Madāinī says that Moawiya was prompted to it, because when he consulted the Syrians about the choice of his son Yazid as his successor, they had proposed Abdarrahmān. The absurdity of this is obvious, for Abdarrahmān died in the year 666.[14] Others say[15] that Moawiya was afraid lest Abdarrahmān should become too popular. Now, Abdarrahmān had not only been a faithful ally of Moawiya in the wars with Ali, but after the peace devoted all his energy to the Greek war. It is almost incredible that Moawiya out of petty jealousy would have deprived himself of one of his best men. The probability is that Abdarrahmān was ill when returning from the frontier, that Moawiya sent him his own medical man, the Christian doctor Ibn Othāl, and that the rumour arose that the doctor had poisoned him. It is remarkable withal that this rumour circulated, not in Homs (Emesa), where Abdarrahmān died, but in Medina. There a young relation of Abdarrahmān was so roused by the taunt that the death of his kinsman was unavenged, that he killed Ibn Othal near the mosque of Damascus. Moawiya imprisoned him and let him pay a high ransom, the law not permitting the talio against a Moslem for having killed a Christian. The story that this relative was Khālid, the son of Abdarrahmān, is absurd inasmuch as Moawiya made this Khālid commander against the Greeks in succession to his father. In the third case—that of Malik Ashtar—the evidence is equally inadequate. In fact, since Moawiya did not turn the weapon of assassination against such men as Abdallah b. Zobair and Hosain b. Ali, it is unlikely that he used it against less dangerous persons. These two men were the chief obstacles to Moawiya’s plan for securing the Caliphate for his son Yazid. The leadership with the Arabic tribes was as a rule hereditary, the son succeeding his father, but only if he was personally fit for the position, and was acknowledged as such by the principal men of the tribe. The hereditary principle had not been recognized by Islam in the cases of Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman; it had had some influence upon the choice of Ali, the husband of Fatima and the cousin of the Prophet. But it had been adopted entirely for the election of Hasan. The example of Abu Bekr proved that the caliph had the right to appoint his successor. But this appointment must be sanctioned by the principal men, as representing the community. Moawiya seems to have done his best to gain that approbation, but the details given by the historians are altogether unconvincing. This only seems to be certain, that the succession of Yazid was generally acknowledged before the death of his father, except in Medina. (See [Mahommedan Institutions].)

Moawiya died in the month of Rajab 60 (a.d. 680). His last words are said to have been: “Fear ye God, the Elevated and Mighty, for God, Praise be to Him, protects the man that fears Him; he who does not fear God, has no protection.” Moawiya was, in fact, a religious man and a strict disciple of the precepts of Islam. We can scarcely, therefore, credit the charges made by the adversaries of his chosen successor Yazid, that he was a drinker of wine, fond of pleasure, careless about religion. All the evidence shows that, during the reign of the Omayyads, life in Damascus and the rest of Syria was austere and in striking contrast to the dissolute manners which prevailed in Medina.

2. Rule of Yazid.—When Moawiya died, the opposition had already been organized. On his accession Yazid sent a circular to all his prefects, officially announcing his father’s death, and ordering them to administer the oath of allegiance to their subjects. In that sent to Walīd b. ‘Otba, the governor of Medina, he enclosed a private note charging him in particular to administer the oath to Hosain, Abdallah b. Omar and Abdallah b. Zobair, if necessary, by force. Walid sent a messenger inviting them to a conference, thus giving them time to assemble their followers and to escape to Mecca, where the prefect Omar b. Sa‘īd could do nothing against them. In the month Ramadan this Omar was made governor of Medina and sent an army against Ibn Zobair. This army was defeated, and from that time Ibn Zobair was supreme at Mecca.

On the news of Yazid’s accession, the numerous partisans of the family of Ali in Kufa sent addresses to Hosain, inviting him to take refuge with them, and promising to have him proclaimed caliph in Irak. Hosain, having learned that the majority of the inhabitants were apparently ready to support him strenuously, prepared to take action. Meanwhile Yazid, having been informed of the riotous behaviour of the Shi‘ites in Kufa, sent Obaidallah, son of the famous Ziyād and governor of Basra, to restore order. Using the same tactics as his father had used before, Obaidallah summoned the chiefs of the tribes and made them responsible for the conduct of their men. On the 8th of Dhu’l-Hijja Hosain set out from Mecca with all his family, expecting to be received with enthusiasm by the citizens of Kufa, but on his arrival at Kerbela west of the Euphrates, he was confronted by an army sent by Obaidallah under the command of Omar, son of the famous Sa‘d b. Abi Waqqās, the founder of Kufa. Hosain gave battle, vainly relying on the promised aid from Kufa, and fell with almost all his followers on the 10th of Muharram 61 (10th of October 680).

No other issue of this rash expedition could have been expected. But, as it involved the grandson of the Prophet, the son of Ali, and so many members of his family, Hosain’s devout partisans at Kufa, who by their overtures had been the principal cause of the disaster, regarded it as a tragedy, and the facts gradually acquired a wholly romantic colouring. Omar b. Sa‘d and his officers, Obaidallah and even Yazid came to be regarded as murderers, and their names have ever since been held accursed by all Shi‘ites. They observe the 10th of Muharram, the day of ‘Ashūra, as a day of public mourning. Among the Persians, stages are erected on that day in public places, and plays are acted, representing the misfortunes of the family of Ali.[16] “Revenge for Hosain” became the watchword of all Shi‘ites, and the Meshed Hosain (Tomb of the martyr Hosain) at Kerbela is to them the holiest place in the world (see [Kerbela]). Obaidallah sent the head of Hosain to Damascus, together with the women and children and Ali b. Hosain, who, being ill, had not taken part in the fight. Yazid was very sorry for the issue, and sent the prisoners under safe-conduct to Medina. Ali remained faithful to the caliph, taking no share in the revolt of the Medinians, and openly condemning the risings of the Shi‘ites.

Ibn Zobair profited greatly by the distress caused by Hosain’s death. Though he named himself publicly a refugee of the House of God, he had himself secretly addressed as caliph, and many of the citizens of Medina acknowledged him as such. Yazid, when informed of this, swore in his anger to have him imprisoned. But remembering the wisdom of his father, he sent messengers with a chain made of silver coins, and bearing honourable proposals. At the same time he received a number of the chief men of Medina, sent by the prefect, with great honour and loaded them with gifts and presents. But Ibn Zobair refused, and the Medinians, of whom the majority probably had never before seen a prince’s court, however simple, were only confirmed in their rancour against Yazid, and told many horrible tales about his profligacy, that he hunted and held wild orgies with Bedouin sheikhs, and had no religion. A characteristically Arabic ceremony took place in the mosque of Medina. “I cast off the oath of allegiance to Yazid, as I cast off my turban,” exclaimed the first, and all others followed, casting off one of their garments, till a heap of turbans and sandals lay on the floor. Ibn Ḥanẓala was made commander. The Omayyads, though they with their clients counted more than 1000 men, were not able to maintain themselves, and were allowed to depart only on condition of strict neutrality.

At last the patience of Yazid was exhausted. An army—the accounts about the number vary from 4000 to 20,000—was equipped in all haste and put under the command of Moslim b. ‘Oqba, with orders first to exact submission from the Medinians, if necessary by force, and then to march against Ibn Zobair. Moslim, having met the expelled Omayyads at Wādi ‘l-Qorā, encamped near the city (August 683) and gave the inhabitants three days in which to return to obedience, wishing to spare the city of the Prophet and to prevent the shedding of blood. When, however, after the lapse of three days, a final earnest appeal had been answered insultingly, he began the battle. The Medinians fought valiantly, but could not hold out against the well-disciplined Syrians. Moreover, they were betrayed by the Medinian family of the Banū Ḥāritha, who introduced Syrian soldiers into the town. Medina lies between two volcanic hills, called harra. After one of these the battle has been named “The Day of Harra.” For three days the city was given up to plunder. It is said that a thousand bastards (the “children of the Harra”) were born in consequence of these days. The remaining citizens were compelled to take the oath of allegiance to Yazid in a humiliating form; the few who refused were killed. Ali b. Hosain, who had refused to have anything to do with the revolt, was treated with all honour. Mahommed b. al-Hanafiya, the son of Ali, and Abdallah b. Omar had likewise abstained, but they had left Medina for Mecca.

Moslim then proceeded towards Mecca. He was already ill, and died about midway between the two cities, after having given the command, according to the orders of the caliph, to Hosain b. Nomair. It is quite natural that the man who delivered up the city of the Prophet to plunder, and at whose hands so many prominent Moslems fell, should have been an object of detestation to the devout. Even some European scholars have drawn a false picture of his personality, as has been clearly shown by Wellhausen. About Medina also false statements have been made. The city recovered very soon from the disaster, and remained the seat not only of holy tradition and jurisdiction, but also of the Arabic aristocracy. In no city of the empire, during the reign of the Omayyads, lived more singers and musicians than in Medina.

Hosain b. Nomair arrived before Mecca in September 683 and found Ibn Zobair ready to defend it. A number of the citizens of Medina had come to the aid of the Holy City, as well as many Kharijites from Yamāma under Najda b. ‘Ämir. The siege had lasted 65—others say 40—days, when the news came of the death of Yazid, which took place presumably on the 14th of Rabia I, 64 (12th November 683). Eleven days before a fire, caused by imprudence, had consumed all the woodwork of the Ka’ba and burst the black stone in three places. The evidence is quite conclusive; yet the fire has been imputed to the Syrians, and a tale was invented about ballistas which hurled against the House of God enormous stones and vessels full of bitumen. In fact, the siege had been confined to enclosure and skirmishes. It is said that on the news of the death of Yazid a conference took place between Hosain and Ibn Zobair, and that the former offered to proclaim the latter as caliph provided he would accompany him to Syria and proclaim a general amnesty. Ibn Zobair refused haughtily, and Hosain, with a contemptuous criticism of his folly, ordered his army to break up for Syria.

Hitherto Ibn Zobair had confined himself to an appeal to the Moslems to renounce Yazid and to have a caliph elected by the council (shūrā) of the principal leading men. He now openly assumed the title of caliph and invited men to take the oath of allegiance. He was soon acknowledged throughout Arabia, in Egypt and in Irak. The Omayyads, who had returned to Medina, were again expelled.

Yazid is described in the Continuatio Isidori Byz. §27, as “iucundissimus et cunctis nationibus regni eius subditis vir gratissime habitus, qui nullam unquam, ut omnibus moris est, sibi regalis fastigii causa gloriam appetivit, sed communis[17] cum omnibus civiliter vixit.” This is confirmed by the fact that Moawiya II. is said to have been a mild ruler, like his father, and goes far to outweigh the prejudiced account given by his opponents and coloured still further by tradition. Against the accusation of being a drinker of wine he himself protested in verses which he recited when he sent the army against Ibn Zobair. Decisive is also the testimony of Ibn al-Hanafiya, who declared that all the accusations brought by the Medinians were false. It may be true that he was fond of hunting, but he was a peace-loving, generous prince. It is uncertain at what age he died. Accounts vary between 33 and 39. The latter finds confirmation in the statement that he was born in a.h. 25, though another account places his birth in 22. As his son Moawiya who succeeded him was certainly adult (the accounts vary between 17 and 23), the latter date seems to be preferable.

3. Moawiya II. had reigned a very short time—how long is again wholly uncertain—when he fell sick and died. Then commenced a period of the greatest confusion. The mother of Yazid, Maisūn, belonged to the most powerful tribe in Syria, the Kalb, and it seems that this and the cognate tribes of Qodā‘a (Yemenites) had enjoyed certain prerogatives, which had aroused the jealousy of the Qais and the cognate tribes of Modar. Immediately after the death of Yazid, Zofar b. Ḥārith, who had already fought with Ibn Zobair against Yazid, had induced northern Syria and Mesopotamia to declare for Ibn Zobair. In Homs (Emesa) the governor No‘mān b. Bashīr had pledged himself to the same cause. The prefect of Damascus, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Qais, seemed to be wavering in his loyalty. Khālid, the brother of Moawiya II., was still a youth and appears to have had no strength of character. There was, however, a much more dangerous candidate, viz. Merwān b. Ḥakam, of another branch of the Omayyads, who had been Othman’s right-hand man. He had pledged himself after some hesitation to Yazid, but now his turn had come. The amir of the Kalb, Ibn Baḥdal, persuaded probably by Obaidallah b. Ziyād, conceived that only a man of distinction could win the contest, and proclaimed Merwan caliph, on condition that his successor should be Khālid b. Yazid, and after him ‘Amr b. Sa‘īd al-Ashdaq, who belonged to the third branch of the Omayyads. Meanwhile Ḍaḥḥāk had declared himself openly for Ibn Zobair. A furious battle (a.d. 684) ensued at Merj Rāhiṭ, near Damascus, in which Ḍaḥḥāk and Zofar, though they had the majority of troops, were utterly defeated. This battle became the subject of a great many poems and had pernicious consequences, especially as regards the antagonism between the Qais-Moḍar and Kalb-Yemenite tribes.

4. Reign of Merwan I.—Merwan strengthened his position according to the old oriental fashion by marrying the widow of Yazid, and soon felt himself strong enough to substitute his own son Abdalmalik for Khālid b. Yazid as successor-designate. Khālid contented himself with protesting; he was neither a politician nor a soldier, but a student of alchemy and astronomy; translations of Greek books have been ascribed to him (Jāḥiz, Bayān, i. p. 126). In the year a.h. 435 there was still in Egypt a brazen globe attributed to Ptolemy which had belonged to Khālid (Ibn Qiftī, p. 440, 1.15). He was also consulted about future events. There were, however, not a few who deplored the fact that the throne had passed from the descendants of Abu Sofiān. This feeling gave rise to the prophecy that there should appear later a Sofianī on the throne, who would reign with might and wisdom. ‘Amr Ashdaq made no opposition till the death of Merwan. After the victory at Merj Rāhiṭ, Merwan conquered Egypt, and installed as governor his second son Abdalazīz. An army sent to the rescue by Ibn Zobair under the command of his brother Muṣ‘ab was beaten in Palestine by ‘Amr Ashdaq. But a division sent by Merwan to the Hejaz was cut to pieces. Obaidallah b. Ziyād set out with the purpose of subduing Mesopotamia and marching thence against Irak. But he was detained a whole year in the former country, by a rising of the Shi‘ites in Kufa, who were still in mourning for Hosain and had formed an army which called itself “the army of the penitent.” They were routed at Ras ‘Ain, but Obaidallah had still to fight Zofar.

Meanwhile Mokhtār (son of that Abu ‘Obaid the Thaqifite who had commanded the Arabs against the Persians in the unfortunate battle of the Bridge), a man of great talents and still greater ambition, after having supported Ibn Zobair in the siege of Mecca, had gone to Kufa, where he joined the Shi‘ites, mostly Persians, and acquired great power. He claimed that he was commissioned by Ali’s son, Mahommed ibn al-Hanafiya, who after the death of Hosain was recognized by the Shi‘ites as their Mahdi. A vague message from Mahommed, that it was the duty of every good Moslem to take part with the family of the Prophet, was interpreted in favour of Mokhtār, and thenceforward all the Shi‘ites, among them the powerful Ibrāhīm, son of Ali’s right hand Malik Ashtar, followed him blindly as their chief. Afterwards Ibn al-Hanafiya seems to have acknowledged him distinctly as his vicegerent. Ibn Zobair’s representative in Kufa was compelled to flee, and all those who had participated in the battle of Kerbela were put to death. An army despatched against Obaidallah under Ibrāhīm routed the Syrians near Mosul (battle of Khāzir); Obaidallah and Hosain b. Nomair were slain. Mokhtār was now at the zenith of power, but Ibn Zobair, determined to get rid at all costs of so dangerous an enemy, named his brother Muṣ‘ab governor of Basra and ordered him to march against Kufa. Basra was at that time full of fugitives from Kufa, Arabian chiefs who resented the arrogance of Mokhtār’s adherents, and desired eagerly to regain their former position in Kufa. The troops of Basra had been, since the death of Yazid, at war with the Kharijites, who had supported Ibn Zobair during the siege of Mecca, but had deserted him later. Their caliph, Nāfi’ b. Azraq, after whom they were called also Azraqites, threatened even the city itself, when Mohallab b. Abi Ṣofra, a very able general, compelled them to retire. Mohallab then marched with Muṣ‘ab against Kufa. Mokhtār fell, and with him the ephemeral dominion of the Persian Shi‘ites. This had been their first attempt to dispute the authority of their Arabian conquerors, but it was not to be the last. Ibrāhīm b. Ashtar, Mokhtar’s governor of Mesopotamia, submitted and acknowledged the Caliphate of Ibn Zobair.

5. Reign of Abdalmalik.—Merwan died on the 27th of Ramadan 65 (7th May 685); according to tradition, he was suffocated by his wife, because he had insulted her son Khālid and herself. The accession of Abdalmalik was attended with no difficulty, but the first years of his reign were occupied by troubles in northern Syria, where, instigated by the Greeks, the Mardaites of the Amanus, called Jarājima by the Arabs, penetrated into the Lebanon. He was obliged to conclude an unfavourable treaty first with them, later with the emperor of Constantinople. Moreover, in the year 68 (a.d. 687-688) Syria was afflicted by a serious famine. Ibn Zobair, however, was occupied at Mecca with the rebuilding of the Ka’ba, and Muṣ‘ab was harassed not only by the Kharijites, but also by a noble freebooter, Obaidallah b. Ḥorr, who had created for himself a principality in the vicinity of Madāin (Ctesiphon).

The period of the pilgrimage caused a momentary truce to all these struggles, and in Dhu ‘l-hijja, a.h. 68 (January 688), was seen the curious spectacle of four different standards planted near Mecca, belonging respectively to four chiefs, each of whom was a pretender to the empire; the standard of Abdallah b. Zobair, caliph of Mecca; that of the caliph of Damascus, Abdalmalik; that of Ali’s son Mahommed b. al-Hanafiya, Mahdi of the Shi‘ites; and that of the Kharijites, who were at that time under the command of Najda b. ‘Āmir. Such, however, was the respect inspired by the holy places, that no disorders resulted.

When, in the year (69 a.h.) 689 Abdalmalik had at last encamped at Boṭān Ḥabīb in the vicinity of Kinnesrin (Qinnasrīn),[18] with the purpose of marching against Muṣ‘ab, his cousin ‘Amr Ashdaq, to whom by the treaty of Jābia, before the battle of Merj Rāhit, the succession to Merwan had been promised, took advantage of his absence to lay claim to the supreme power, and to have himself proclaimed caliph by his partisans. Abdalmalik was obliged to retrace his steps and to lay siege to his own capital. The garrison of Damascus took fright, and deserted their posts, so that ‘Amr Ashdaq was compelled to surrender. The caliph Abdalmalik summoned him to his palace and slew him with his own hand. Abdalmalik has every claim to our esteem as one of the ablest monarchs that ever reigned, but this murder remains a lasting blot on his career.

Abdalmalik could now give his whole attention to the projected expedition against Irak. Muṣ‘ab was encamped at Bājomairā in the neighbourhood of Takrīt. But Abdalmalik’s first task was to subdue Zofar and his Qaisites at Kerkesia (Qarqīsia), and the rest of the partisans of Mokhtār at Nisibis. Meanwhile, Muṣ‘ab had to curb a violent revolt in Basra, brought about by agents of Abdalmalik, and called after a place in the city the revolt of the Jofrites. About the middle of a.d. 691 Abdalmalik at last encamped at Dair al-Jathalīq (the monastery of the Catholicus) between Maskin, not far from the site of Bagdad, and Bājomairā. Muṣ‘ab’s best troops were fighting under Mohallab against the Kharijites; many Basrians were secretly favourable to the Omayyads, nor were the Kufian soldiers to be trusted. The people of Irak had never been accustomed to discipline, and no improvement had taken place during the troubles of the last years. Abdalmalik, therefore, wrote secretly to the chiefs of Muṣ‘ab’s army, and persuaded them to desert to him, with the exception of Ibrāhīm b. Ashtar, the brave son of a brave father, who, after the fall of Mokhtār, had become a faithful supporter of Ibn Zobair. His death, in the beginning of the battle, decided the fate of Muṣ‘ab, who was slain sword in hand by a Shi‘ite of Kufa.

This victory opened the gates of Kufa to Abdalmalik, and all Irak received him with acclamation. Thence, a few days later, he sent Hajjāj b. Yusuf at the head of 2000 Syrians against Ibn Zobair in Mecca, and despatched a messenger to Tāriq b.‘Amr, who was encamped at Wādi ‘l-Qorā with 5000 men, to make himself master of Medina and thence to rejoin Hajjāj. Before the arrival of this reinforcement, Hajjāj confined himself to skirmishes, in which his soldiers always had the advantage. Then, in Dhu ‘l Qa‘da 72 (March 25th, 692) Mecca was invested. The blockade lasted more than six months, during which the city was a prey to all the horrors of siege and famine. Hajjāj had set up a balista on the hill of Abu Qobais, whence he poured on the city a hail of stones, which was suspended only in the days of the pilgrimage. Ibn Zobair employed against him Abyssinians armed with Greek-fire-tubes, who, however, quitted him soon under the pressure of famine. This at length triumphed over his last adherents. Ten thousand fighting men, and even two of the sons of the pretender (it is said, on his own advice), left the city and surrendered. Mecca being thus left without defenders, Ibn Zobair saw that ruin was inevitable. Hajjāj having promised him amnesty if he would surrender, he went to his mother Asmā, the daughter of Abu Bekr, who had reached the age of a hundred years, and asked her counsel. She answered that, if he was confident in the justice of his cause, he must die sword in hand. In embracing him for the last time, she felt the cuirass he wore and exclaimed that such a precaution was unworthy of a man resolved to die. He, therefore, took off the cuirass, and, when the Omayyad troops made their way into the city, attacked them furiously, notwithstanding his advanced age, and was slain. His head was cut off, and sent by Hajjāj to Damascus.

With Ibn Zobair perished the influence which the early companions of Mahomet had exercised over Islam. Medina and Mecca, though they continued to be the holy cities, had no longer their old political importance, which had already been shaken to its foundations by the murder of Othman and the subsequent troubles. Henceforward we shall find temporal interests, represented by Damascus, predominating over those of religion, and the centre of Islam, now permanently removed beyond the limits of Arabia, more susceptible to foreign influence, and assimilating more readily their civilizing elements. Damascus, Kufa and Basra will attract the flower of all the Moslem provinces, and thus that great intellectual, literary and scientific movement, which reached its apogee under the first Abbasid Caliphs at Bagdad, steadily becomes more marked.

After the burning of the Ka’ba during the siege of Mecca by Hosain b. Nomair, Ibn Zobair had rebuilt and enlarged the house of God. It is said that he thus carried out a design of the Prophet, which he had not ventured to undertake for fear of offending the newly converted Koreishites. Hajjāj pulled down the enlargements and restored the Ka‘ba to its old state. Meanwhile, the caliph committed to him the government of the Hejaz. The Medinians, whose loyalty was suspected, were treated by him with severity; not a few maulas (clients) were obliged to wear a leaden badge on their neck (Tabarī, ii. p. 854 seq.).

Thus the protracted war against Ibn Zobair was brought to an end; hence this year (71) also is called the “year of union” (jamā‘a). But the storms in Irak and Mesopotamia had not yet altogether subsided. The Qais could not leave unavenged the blood shed at Merj Rāhit. For about ten years the Syrian and Mesopotamian deserts were the scene of a series of raids, often marked by great cruelty, and which have been the subject of a great many poems. Abdalmalik had need of all his tact and energy to pacify ultimately the zealous sectaries, but the antagonism between Yemenites (Kalb and Azd) and Moḍarites (Qais and Tamīm) had been increased by these struggles, and even in the far east and the far west had fatal consequences.

When Abdalmalik, after a stay of forty days, returned from Irak to Syria, he left two Omayyad princes as his vicegerents in Kufa and Basra. Mohallab, who at the time of the battle of Bājomairā was in the field against the Azraqītes (Kharijites), and had put himself at the disposal of the caliph, had orders to carry on the war. But the two princes proved unequal to their task and did not support Mohallab sufficiently, so that the Kharijites gained more than one victory. Abdalmalik in alarm made Hajjāj governor of Irak with the most extensive powers. The troops of Kufa, who accompanied Mohallab in an expedition against the Kharijites, had abandoned their general and dispersed to their homes, and nothing could induce them to return to their duty. Then, in the year 75 (a.d. 694), at the moment when the people were assembled in the mosque for morning prayers, an unknown young man of insignificant appearance, with a veil over his face, ascended the pulpit. It seemed at first that he could not find his words. One of the audience, with a contemptuous remark, took a handful of pebbles to pelt him with. But he let them fall when Hajjāj lifted his veil and began to speak.

“Men of Kufa,” he said, “I see before me heads ripe for the sickle, and the reaper—I am he. It seems to me, as if I saw already the blood between your turbans and your shoulders. I am not one of those who can be frightened by inflated bags of skin, nor need any one think to squeeze me like a fig. The Prince of the Believers has spread before him the arrows of his quiver, and has tried every one of them by biting its wood. It is my wood that he has found the hardest and strongest, and I am the arrow which he shoots against you.”

At the end of this address he ordered his clerk to read the letter of the caliph. He began: “From the servant of God, Abdalmalik, Prince of the Believers, to the Moslems that are in Kufa, peace be with you.” As nobody uttered a word in reply, Hajjāj said: “Stop, boy,” and exclaimed: “The Prince of the Believers salutes you, and you do not answer his greeting! You have been but poorly taught. I will teach you afresh, unless you behave better. Read again the letter of the Prince of the Believers.” Then, as soon as he had read: “peace upon ye,” there remained not a single man in the mosque who did not respond, “and upon the Prince of the Believers be peace.” Thereupon Hajjāj ordered that every man capable of bearing arms should immediately join Mohallab in Khūzistān (Susiana), and swore that all who should be found in the town after the third day should be beheaded. This threat had its effect, and Hajjāj proceeded to Baṣra, where his presence was followed by the same results. Mohallab, reinforced by the army of Irak, at last succeeded, after a struggle of eighteen months, in subjugating the Kharijites and their caliph Qatara b. Fojā‘a, and was able at the beginning of the year 78 (a.d. 697) to return to Hajjāj at Baṣra. The latter loaded him with honours and made him governor of Khorasan, whence he directed several expeditions into Transoxiana. In the meantime Hajjāj himself had, in 695 and 696, with great difficulty suppressed Shabīb b. Yazīd at the head of the powerful tribe of Shaibān, who, himself a Kharijite, had assumed the title of Prince of the Believers, and had even succeeded in occupying Kufa. In the east the realm of Islam had been very much extended under the reign of Moawiya, when Ziyād was governor of Irak and Khorasan. Balkh and Tokhāristān, Bokhara, Samarkand and Khwarizm (modern Khiva), even Kabul and Kandahar had been subdued; but in the time of the civil war a great deal had been lost again. Now at last the task of recovering the lost districts could be resumed. When, in 697, Hajjāj gave the government of Khorasan to Mohallab, he committed that of Sijistān (Seistan) to Obaidallah b. Abi Bakra, a cousin of Ziyād. This prefect allowed himself to be enticed by Zanbīl, prince of Zabulistan, to penetrate into the country far from his base, and escaped narrowly, not without severe losses. The command over Sijistān was now given to Abdarrahman b. Ash‘ath, a descendant of the old royal family of Kinda, and a numerous army was entrusted to him, so magnificently equipped that it was called “the peacock army.” Not long after his arrival in Sijistān, Ibn Ash‘ath, exasperated by the masterful tone of Hajjāj, the plebeian, towards himself, the high-born, decided to revolt. The soldiers of Irak, who did not love the governor, and disliked the prospect of a long and difficult war far from home, eagerly accepted the proposition of returning to Irak, and even proclaimed the dethronement of Abdalmalik, in favour of Ibn Ash‘ath. The new pretender entered Fārs and Ahwāz (Susiana), and it was in this last province near Tostar (Shuster) that Hajjāj came up with him, after receiving from Syria the reinforcements which he had demanded in all haste from the caliph. Ibn Ash‘ath drove him back to Baṣra, entered the city, and then turned his arms against Kufa, of which he took possession with aid from within. Hajjāj, afraid lest his communications with Syria should be cut off, pitched his camp at Dair Qorra, eighteen miles west from Kufa towards the desert, where Mahommed, the brother of the caliph, and Abdallah, his son, brought him fresh troops. Ibn Ash‘ath encamped not far from him at Dair al-Jamājim with a far more numerous army. In great alarm Abdalmalik endeavoured to stifle the revolt by offering to dismiss Hajjāj from his post. The insurgents rejected this offer, and hostilities recommenced. At the end of three months and a half, in July 702, a decisive action took place. Victory declared for Hajjāj. Ibn Ash‘ath fled to Baṣra, where he managed to collect fresh troops; but having been again beaten in a furious battle that took place at Maskin near the Dojail, he took refuge at Ahwāz, from which he was soon driven by the troops of Hajjāj under ‘Omāra b. Tamīm. The rebel then retired to Sijistān, and afterwards sought an asylum with the king of Kabul. His partisans fled before ‘Omāra’s army and penetrated into Khorasan, where they were isarmed by the governor Yazīd, son of the celebrated Mohallab, who had died in the year 701. The pretender was betrayed by the king of Kabul and killed himself. His head was sent to Hajjāj and then to Damascus. This happened in the year 703 or 704. Yazid b. Mohallab was soon after deprived of the government of Khorasan, Hajjāj accusing him of partiality towards the rebels of Yemenite extraction. He appointed in his stead first his brother Mofaḍḍal b. Mohallab, and nine months after Qotaiba b. Moslim, who was destined in a later period to extend the sway of Islam in the east as far as China.

The struggle of Ibn Ash‘ath was primarily a contest for hegemony between Irak and Syria. The proud Arabic lords could not acquiesce in paying to a plebeian like Hajjāj, invested with absolute power by the caliph, the strict obedience he required. They considered it further as an injustice that the Syrian soldiers received higher pay than those of Irak. This is apparent from the fact that one of the conditions of peace proposed by Abdalmalik before the battle of Dair al-Jamājim had been that henceforth the Irakian troops should be paid equally with the Syrian. Moreover, Hajjāj, in order to maintain the regular revenue from taxation, had been obliged to introduce stringent regulations, and had compelled a great many villagers who had migrated to the cities to return to their villages. Several of these were faqīhs, students of Koranic science and law, and all these seconded Ibn Ash‘ath with all their might. But, as Wellhausen has shown, it is not correct to consider the contest as a reaction of the maula’s (Persian Moslems) against the Arabic supremacy.

Immediately after the victories of Dair al-Jamājim and Maskin, in 702, Hajjāj, built a new residence on the Tigris, between Baṣra and Kufa, which he called Wāsit (“Middle”). There his Syrian soldiers were not in contact with the turbulent citizens of the two capitals, and were at any moment ready to suppress any fresh outburst.

At the beginning of his reign Abdalmalik had replaced the humble mosque built by Omar on the site of the temple at Jerusalem by a magnificent dome, which was completed in the year 691. Eutychius and others pretend that he desired to substitute Jerusalem for Mecca, because Ibn Zobair had occupied the latter place, and thus the pilgrimage to the Ka‘ba had become difficult for the Syrians. This is quite improbable. Abdalmalik was born and educated in Islam, and distinguished himself in his youth by piety and continence. He regarded himself as the champion of Islam and of the communion of the believers, and had among his intimates men of acknowledged devoutness such as Rajā b. Ḥaywa. The idea of interfering with the pilgrimage to the House of God at Mecca, which would have alienated from him all religious men, and thus from a political point of view would have been suicidal, cannot have entered his mind for a moment. But the glorification of Jerusalem, holy alike for Moslems, Christians and Jews, could not but exalt the glory of Islam and its rulers within and without.

As soon as the expedition to Irak against Muṣ‘ab had terminated, the holy war against the Greeks was renewed. The operations in Asia Minor and Armenia were entrusted to Mahommed b. Merwan, the caliph’s brother, who was appointed governor of Mesopotamia and Armenia, and in 692 beat the army of Justinian II. near Sebaste in Cilicia. From this time forth the Moslems made yearly raids, the chief advantage of which was that they kept the Syrian and Mesopotamian Arabs in continual military exercise. After the victorious march of Okba (Oqba) b. Nāfi’ through north Africa and the foundation of Kairawan, his successor Qais b. Zohair had been obliged to retreat to Barca (Cyrenaica). In the year 696 Abdalmalik sent Hassān b. No‘mān into Africa at the head of a numerous army. He retook Kairawan, swept the coast as far as Carthage, which he sacked, expelling the Greek garrisons from all the fortified places; he then turned his arms against the Berbers, who, commanded by the Kāhina (Diviner), as the Arabs called their queen, beat him so completely that he was compelled to retreat to Barca. Five years later he renewed the war, defeated and killed the Kāhina, and subdued the Berbers, who henceforward remained faithful to the Arabs. Hassān continued to be governor of Kairawan till after the death of Abdalmalik.

In the meantime Abdalmalik reconstituted the administration of the empire on Arabic principles. Up to the year 693 the Moslems had no special coinage of their own, and chiefly used Byzantine and Persian money, either imported or struck by themselves. Moawiya, indeed, had struck dinars and dirhems with a Moslem inscription, but his subjects would not accept them as there was no cross upon them. Abdalmalik instituted a purely Islamitic coinage. If we may believe Theophanes, who says that Justinian II. refused to receive these coins in payment of the tribute and therefore declared the treaty at an end, we must put the beginning of the coinage at least two years earlier. Hajjāj coined silver dirhems at Kufa in 694. A still greater innovation was that Arabic became the official language of the state. In the conquered countries till then, not only had the Greek and Persian administration been preserved, but Greek remained the official language in the western, Persian in the eastern provinces. All officials were now compelled to know Arabic and to conduct their administration in that language. To this change was due in great measure the predominance of Arabic throughout the empire. Lastly, a regular post service was instituted from Damascus to the provincial capitals, especially destined for governmental despatches. The postmasters were charged with the task of informing the caliph of all important news in their respective countries.

All the great rivals of Abdalmalik having now disappeared, he was no longer like his predecessors primus inter pares, but dominus. Under his rule the members of the Omayyad house enjoyed a greater amount of administrative control than had formerly been the case, but high office was given only to competent men. He succeeded in reconciling the sons of ‘Amr Ashdaq, and also Khālid b. Yazid, to whom he gave his own daughter in marriage. He himself had married ‘Ātika, a daughter of Yazid, a union which was in all respects a happy one. He took great care in the education of his sons, whom he destined as his successors. His brother Abdalazīz, governor of Egypt, whom Merwan had marked out as his successor, died in the year 703 or 704, and Abdalmalik chose as heirs to the empire first his son Walīd, and after him his second son Suleimān. He himself died on the 14th Shawwāl 86 (9th October 705) at the age of about sixty. His reign was one of the most stormy in the annals of Islam, but also one of the most glorious. Abdalmalik not only brought triumph to the cause of the Omayyads, but also extended and strengthened the Moslem power as a whole. He was well versed in old Arabic tradition and in the doctrine of Islam, and was passionately fond of poetry. His court was crowded with poets, whom he loaded with favours, even if they were Christians like Akhtal. In his reign flourished also the two celebrated rivals of Akhtal, Jarīr and Farazdaq.

6. Reign of Walid I.—This is the most glorious epoch in the history of Islam. In Asia Minor and Armenia, Maslama, brother of the caliph, and his generals obtained numerous successes against the Greeks. Tyana was conquered after a long siege, and a great expedition against Constantinople was in preparation. In Armenia Maslama advanced even as far as the Caucasus. In Africa, Mūsā b. Noṣair, who succeeded Hassān b. No‘mān as governor, in a short time carried his conquests as far as Fez, Tangier and Ceuta, and one of his captains even made a descent on Sicily and plundered Syracuse. When he returned from the west to Kairawan, he made his client Ṭāriq (or Tarik) governor of Tangier and of the whole western part of Africa. Under him the chiefs who had submitted to the Moslem arms retained their authority. One of them was the Greek exarch of Tangier, Julian, who, supported by the powerful Berber tribe of Ghomēra, had long resisted and even asked for aid from Spain, but had been compelled to surrender and was left governor of Ceuta. Meanwhile in Spain, after the death of the Gothic king Witiza in the year 90 (708-709), anarchy arose, which was terminated by the council of noblemen at Toledo electing Roderic, the powerful duke of Baetica, to be his successor in the fifth year of Walid. The eldest son of Witiza then applied to Julian, and asked the aid of the Arabs for the recovery of his father’s throne. Ṭāriq forwarded the embassy to Kairawan, and Mūsā asked the caliph’s permission to send an expedition into Spain. Authorized by Mūsā, Ṭāriq now sent, in Ramadan 91 (July 710), 500 Berbers under the command of Ṭārif to reconnoitre the country. This expedition, seconded by partisans of Witiza, was successful. In the beginning of a.d. 711 Roderic had been summoned to the north on account of an invasion of Navarra by the Franks, caused, it is said, by the conspirators. Ṭāriq, thus certain of meeting no serious opposition to his landing, passed into Spain himself with an army composed mainly of Berbers of the Ghomēra tribe under the guidance of Julian. The spot where he landed thence acquired the name of Jebel Ṭāriq, “Mountain of Ṭāriq,” afterwards corrupted into Gibraltar. Having made himself master of Algeçiras and thereby secured his communication with Africa, Ṭāriq set out at once in the direction of Cordova. At the news of the invasion Roderic hastened back and led a numerous army against the combined forces of Ṭāriq and the partisans of Witiza. A fierce battle took place in the plain of Barbata on the little river of Guadaleta (north of Medina Sidonia), in which Roderic was completely routed. The spoils of the victors were immense, especially in horses, but the king himself had disappeared. Fearing lest he should have escaped to Toledo and should there fit out another army, the partisans of Witiza insisted that Ṭāriq should march immediately against the capital. Ṭāriq complied with their wishes, notwithstanding the express command of Mūsā b. Nosair that he should not venture too far into the country, and the protests of Julian. Having made himself master of Ecija and having despatched a detachment under Moghīth against Cordova, Ṭāriq took Mentesa (Villanueva de la Fuente) and marched upon Toledo, which he soon conquered. At the same time Moghīth took Cordova. But, notwithstanding these successes, Ṭāriq knew that his situation was most critical. King Roderic, who had escaped to Lusitania, and the noble Goths, who had fled from Toledo, would certainly not be slow in making efforts to regain what they had lost. He therefore sent a message in all haste to Mūsā, entreating him to come speedily. Mūsā, though angered by the disobedience of Ṭāriq, hastened to the rescue and embarked in April 712 with 18,000 men, among them many noble Arabs, and began, advised by Julian, a methodical campaign, with the purpose of establishing and securing a line of communication between the sea and Toledo. After having taken Seville, Carmona and Merida, he marched from the latter place by the Via Romana to Salamanca, after having ordered Ṭāriq to rejoin him in order to encounter king Roderic. Not far from Tamames the king was defeated and killed. King Alphonso the Great found his tombstone at Viseo with the inscription, “Hic requiescit Rodericus rex Gothorum.” After this battle Mūsā reconquered Toledo, which, after the departure of Ṭāriq, had recovered its independence, and entered the capital in triumph. Already, before the expedition to Salamanca, he had perceived that the sons of Witiza had neither military nor political ability. He therefore proclaimed the caliph of Damascus as sole ruler of the whole peninsula. The Gothic princes must content themselves with honours and apanages, in which they readily acquiesced. In the same year 93 (a.d. 712) Mūsā struck Moslem coins with Latin inscriptions. Mūsā then continued the subjugation of Spain, till Walid recalled him to Damascus. He obeyed after having appointed his son Abdalazīz governor of Andalos (Andalusia), as the Arabs named the peninsula, and assigned Seville as his residence. Abdalazīz consolidated his power by marrying the widow of the late king Roderic. Mūsā left Spain about August 714, and reached Damascus shortly before the death of Walid. Notwithstanding the immense booty he brought, he did not receive his due reward. Accused of peculation, he was threatened with imprisonment unless he paid a fine of 100,000 pieces of gold. The old man—he was born in the year 640—was released by Yazid b. Mohallab, the then mighty favourite of the caliph Suleiman, but died in the same year 716 on his way to Mecca. His son Abdalazīz was an excellent ruler, who did much for the consolidation of the new conquests, but he reigned only one year and eleven months, when he was murdered. His death has been falsely imputed by some historians to the caliph Suleiman.[19]

In the East the Moslem armies gained the most astonishing successes. In the course of a few years Qotaiba b. Moslim conquered Paikend, Bokhara, Samarkand, Khwarizm (mod. Khiva), Ferghana and Shāsh (Tashkent), and even Kashgar on the frontiers of China. Meanwhile Mahommed b. Qāsim invaded Makran, took Daibol, passed the Indus, and marched, after having beaten the Indian king Daher, through Sind upon Multān, which he conquered and whence he carried off an immense booty.

Walid was the first caliph, born and trained as prince, who felt the majesty of the imamate and wished it to be felt by his subjects. He desired to augment the splendours of Islam and its sovereign, as Abdalmalik had already done by building the dome of Jerusalem. In the time of the conquest of Damascus, one half of the great church had been made a mosque, while the remaining half had been left to the Christians. Walid annexed this part, indemnifying the Christians elsewhere, and restored the whole building sumptuously and magnificently. In his time many fine palaces and beautiful villas were built in Syria, and Becker’s conjecture seems not altogether improbable, that from this period dates the palace of Mashetta, the façade of which is now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin, as perhaps also the country houses discovered by Musil in the land of Moab. Walid also caused the mosque of Medina to be enlarged. For this purpose, the apartments of the Prophet and his wives were demolished, which at first caused much discontent in Medina, some crying out that thereby a verse of the Book of God (S. 49, v. 4) was cancelled. With this exception, the citizens of Medina had nothing to complain of. The vicegerent of Abdalmalik had treated them harshly. Walid immediately on his accession appointed as governor of Hejaz his cousin Omar b. Abdalazīz, who was received there with joy, his devoutness and gentle character being well known. But the reputation of Omar attracted to the two holy cities a great number of the inhabitants of Irak, who had been deeply involved in the rebellion of Ibn Ash‘ath. Hajjāj, however, was not the man to allow the formation of a fresh nucleus of sedition, and persuaded the caliph to dismiss Omar in the year 712, and appoint Othman b. Ḥayyān at Medina and Khālid al-Qasrī at Mecca. These two prefects compelled the refugees to return to Irak, where many of them were severely treated and even put to death by Hajjāj.

Few people have been so slandered as this great viceroy of the Orient. In reality he was a man of extraordinary ability, and accomplished the task committed to him with vigour and energy. To his unflagging constancy was due the suppression of the dangerous rebellion of Ibn Ash‘ath. After the restoration of peace his capacity for organization was displayed in all directions. The draining and tilling of submerged or uncultivated land on a large scale, the promotion of agriculture in every way, in particular by the digging of channels, and the regulation of the system of taxation, were carried out on his initiative. He showed the utmost wisdom in the selection of his lieutenants. The fear of his name was so great that even in the desert there was security for life and property, and his brilliant military successes were unquestionably due in a great measure to the care which he bestowed on equipment and commissariat. The heavy expenses entailed thereby were largely met by the booty which he won. Hajjāj was a sincere Moslem; this, however, did not prevent him from attacking Ibn Zobair in the Holy City, nor again from punishing rebels, though they bore the name of holy men. He enjoyed the entire confidence of Abdalmalīk with Walid, but Suleiman, the appointed successor, regarded him with disfavour. Yazid b. Mohallab, whom he had recalled from Khorasan, and imprisoned, had escaped and put himself under the protection of Suleiman, who made himself surety for the fine to which Yazid had been condemned. Hajjāj foreboded evil, and prayed eagerly that he might die before Walid. His death took place about the end of Ramadan 95 (June or July 714).

7. Reign of Suleiman (Solaiman).—Suleiman had early missed the throne. Walid wished to have his son Abdalazīz chosen as his successor, and had offered Suleiman a large sum of money to induce him to surrender his rights. Walid went still further and sent letters to the governors of all the provinces, calling on them to take the oath of allegiance to his son. None, except Hajjāj and his two generals Qotaiba b. Moslim and Mahommed b. Qàsim, consented thus to set at naught the order of succession established by Abdalmalik; and Suleiman succeeded without difficulty on the death of his brother Jomāda II. 96 (February 715). We can easily conceive the hatred felt by Suleiman for Hajjāj and for all that belonged to him. Hajjāj himself was dead; but Suleiman poured out his wrath on his family and his officers. The governors of Medina and Mecca were dismissed; Mahommed b. Qasim, the conqueror of India, cousin of Hajjāj, was dismissed from his post and outlawed. Qotaiba b. Moslim, the powerful governor of Khorasan, tried to anticipate the caliph by a revolt, but a conspiracy was formed against him, which ended in his murder. Some historians say that he was falsely accused of rebellion.

Yazid b. Mohallab, the enemy of Hajjāj, was made governor of Irak. His arrival was hailed with joy, especially by the Azd, to whom his family belonged, and the other Yemenite tribes. Yazid discovered soon that the system of taxation as regulated by Hajjāj could not be altered without serious danger to the finances of the empire, and that he could not afford the expenses which his prodigal manner of life involved. He therefore asked the caliph to give him the governorship of Khorasan also, and took his residence in Merv, where he was free from control. On his return to Khorasan he set on foot a series of new expeditions against Jorjān and Tabaristān, with only partial success. He sent, however, to the caliph an exaggerated account of his victories and the booty he had made. He had cause to repent this later.

Walid had, in the last years of his reign, made preparations for a great expedition against Constantinople. Suleiman carried them on with energy, and as early as the autumn of a.d. 715 Maslama invaded Asia Minor at the head of a numerous army, whilst a well-equipped fleet under Omar b. Hobaira sailed out to second him. It is said that Suleiman was firmly persuaded that Constantinople would be conquered during his reign, in accordance with a Sibylline prophecy which said that the city would be subdued by a caliph bearing the name of a prophet, he himself being the first to fulfil this condition.[20] Moreover, the Byzantine empire was in these years disturbed by internal troubles. The first year of the expedition was not unsuccessful. The siege of Amorium in Phrygia was broken up, but Pergamum and Sardis were taken. On the 25th of August 716 the blockade of Constantinople began from the land side, and two weeks later from the sea side. A few months before, Leo the Isaurian had ascended the throne and prepared the city for the siege. This lasted about a year. The besieged were hard pressed, but the besiegers suffered by the severe winter, and were at last obliged to raise the siege. Maslama brought back the rest of his army in a pitiful state, while the fleet, on its return, was partly destroyed by a violent tempest. The Moslems regard this failure as one of the great evils that have befallen the human race, and one which retarded the progress of the world for ages,[21] the other calamity being the defeat in the battle of Tours by Charles Martel.

Maslama was still on his way back when Suleiman died at Dābiq in northern Syria, which was the base of the expeditions into Asia Minor. He seems not to have had the firmness of character nor the frugality of Walid; but he was very severe against the looseness of manners that reigned at Medina, and was highly religious. Rajā b. Haywa, renowned for his piety, whose influence began under Abdalmalik and increased under Walid, was his constant adviser and even determined him to designate as his successor his devout cousin Omar b. Abdalazīz. Suleiman was kind towards the Alids and was visited by several of them, amongst others by Abu Hāshim, the son of Mahommed b. al Ḥanafīya, who after his father’s death had become the secret Imam (head) of the Shi‘ites. On his way back to Hejaz this man visited the family of Abdallah b. ‘Abbās, which resided at Ḥomaima, a place situated in the vicinity of ‘Ammān, and died there, after having imparted to Mahommed b. Ali b. Abdallah b. Abbas the names of the chiefs of the Shi‘a in Irak and Khorasan, and disclosed his way of corresponding with them. From that time the Abbasids began their machinations against the Omayyads in the name of the family of the Prophet, avoiding all that could cause suspicion to the Shi‘ites, but holding the strings firmly in their own hands.

8. Reign of Omar II.—Omar b. Abdalazīz did his best to imitate his grandfather Omar in all things, and especially in maintaining the simple manner of life of the early Moslems. He was, however, born in the midst of wealth; thus frugality became asceticism, and in so far as he demanded the same rigour from his relatives, he grew unjust and caused uneasiness and discontent. By paying the highest regard to integrity in the choice of his officers, and not to ability, he did not advance the interests of his subjects, as he earnestly wished to do. In the matter of taxes, though actuated by the most noble designs, he did harm to the public revenues. The principle of Islam was, that no Moslem, whatever might be his nationality, should pay any tax other than the zakāt or poor-rate (see [Mahommedan INSTITUTIONS]). In practice, this privilege was confined to the Arabic Moslems. Omar wished to maintain the principle. The original inhabitants had been left on the conquered lands as agriculturists, on condition of paying a fixed sum yearly for each district. If one of these adopted Islam, Omar permitted him to leave his place, which had been strictly forbidden by Hajjāj in Irak and the eastern provinces, because by it many hands were withdrawn from the tilling of the ground, and those who remained were unable to pay the allotted amount. Omar’s system not only diminished the actual revenue, but largely increased in the cities the numbers of the maula’s (clients), mainly Persians, who were weary of their dependency on their Arabic lords, and demanded equal rights for themselves. Their short dominion in Kufa under Mokhtār had been suppressed, but the discontent continued. In North Africa particularly, and in Khorasan the effect of Omar’s proclamation was that a great multitude embraced Islam. When it became necessary to impose a tribute upon the new converts, great discontent arose, which largely increased the number of those who followed the Shi‘ite preachers of revolt. Conversion to Islam was promoted by the severe regulations which Omar introduced for the non-believers, such as Christians and Jews. It was he who issued those humiliating rescripts, which are commonly but unjustly attributed to Omar I. But he forbade extortion and suppressed more than one illegal impost. He endeavoured above all to procure justice for all his subjects. Complaints against oppression found in him a ready listener, and many unlawfully acquired possessions were restored to the legal owners, for instance, to the descendants of Ali and Talḥa. Even to the Kharijites he contrived to give satisfaction, as far as possible. In all these matters he followed the guidance of divines and devotees, in whose congenial company he delighted. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that these men saw in Omar the ideal of a prince, and that in Moslem history he has acquired the reputation of a saint.

After the failure of the siege of Constantinople, the advanced posts in Asia Minor were withdrawn, but the raids were continued regularly. It has been said that it was Omar’s intention to give up his Spanish conquests, but the facts argue the contrary. The governor, named by Omar, Samḥ b. Abdallah, even crossed the Pyrenees and took possession of Narbonne; but he was beaten and killed at Toulouse in July 720. But Omar did all he could to prevent the degradation of the Holy War, which, instead of being the ultimate expedient for the propagation of Islam, if all other means had failed, had often degenerated into mere pillaging expeditions against peaceful nations.

9. Reign of Yazid II.—Omar’s reign was as short as that of his predecessor. He died on the 24th of Rajab 101 (a.d. 9th February 720). Yazid II., son of Abdalmalik and, by his mother ‘Ātika, grandson of Yazid I., ascended the throne without opposition. He had at once, however, to put down a dangerous rebellion. Yazid b. Mohallab had returned to Irak, after the conquest of Jorjān, when Suleiman was still alive. Shortly after, Adī b. Artāt, whom Omar II. had appointed governor, arrived, arrested Yazid, and sent him to Omar, who called him to account for the money he had mentioned in his letter to Suleiman, and imprisoned him when he pretended not to be able to pay the amount. Yazid II. had personal grounds for ill-will to Yazid b. Mohallab. One of the wives of the new caliph, the same who gave birth to that son of Yazid II. who afterwards reigned as Walid II., was niece to the celebrated Ḥajjāj, whose family had been ill-treated by the son of Mohallab, when he was governor of Irak under Suleiman. Aware that Yazid b. Abdalmalik, on ascending the throne, would spare neither him nor his family, Yazid b. Mohallab had succeeded in escaping to Basra, the home of his family, where his own tribe the Azd was predominant. Meanwhile ‘Adī b. Artāt had all the brothers of Yazid and other members of the family of Mohallab arrested, and tried to prevent Yazid from entering the city. But ‘Adi was too scrupulous to employ the public money for raising the pay of his soldiers, whilst Yazid promised mountains of gold. Yazid stormed the castle and took ‘Adī prisoner, the public treasury fell into his hands, and he employed the money to pay his troops largely and to raise fresh ones. A pardon obtained for him from the caliph came too late; he had already gone too far. He now proclaimed a Holy War against the Syrians, whom he declared to be worse enemies of Islam than even the Turks and the Dailam. Notwithstanding the warnings of the aged Hasan al-Basrī, the friend of Omar II., the religious people, took the part of Yazid, and were followed by the maulas. Though the number of his adherents thus increased enormously, their military value was small. Ahwāz (Khūzistān), Fārs and Kirman were easily subdued, but in Khorasan the Azd could not prevail over the Tamīm, who were loyal to the caliph. As the rebellion threatened to spread far and wide, Yazid II. was obliged to appeal to his brother, the celebrated Maslama. With the approach of the Syrians, Yazid b. Mohallab tried to forestall them at Kufa. He took his way over Wāsit, which he mastered—the Syrian garrison seems to have been withdrawn in the days of Omar II.—but, before he could get hold of Kufa, the Syrian troops arrived. The meeting took place at ‘Aqr in the vicinity of Babel, and Yazid was completely defeated and fell in the battle. His brothers and sons fled to Basra; thence they went by sea to Kirman and then to Kandabīl in India; but they were pursued relentlessly and slain with only two exceptions by the officers of Maslama. The possessions of the Mohallabites were confiscated.

Maslama was rewarded with the governorship of Irak and Khorasan, but was soon replaced by Omar b. Hobaira, who under Omar II. had been governor of Mesopotamia. He belonged to the tribe of Qais, and was very severe against the Azd and other Yemenite tribes, who had more or less favoured the part of Yazid b. Mohallab. In these years the antagonism between Qais (Moḍar) and Yemenites became more and more acute, especially in Khorasan. The real cause of the dismissal of Maslama was, that he did not send the revenue-quota to Damascus. Omar b. Hobaira, to supply the deficiency, ordered the prefect of Khorasan, Sa‘īd-al-Ḥarashī, to take tribute from the Sogdians in Transoxiana, who had embraced Islam on the promise of Omar II. The Sogdians raised a revolt in Ferghana, but were subdued by Sa‘īd and obliged to pay. A still more questionable measure of Ibn Hobaira was his ordering the successor of Sa‘īd Harashī to extort large sums of money from several of the most respectable Khorasanians. The discontent roused thereby became one of the principal causes of the fall of the Omayyads.

In Africa serious troubles arose from the same cause. Yazid b. Abi Moslim, who had been at the head of the financial department in Irak under Ḥajjāj, and had been made governor of Africa by Yazid II., issued orders that the villagers who, having adopted Islam, were freed from tribute according to the promise of Omar II., and had left their villages for the towns, should return to their domiciles and pay the same tribute as before their conversion. The Berbers rose in revolt, slaughtered the unfortunate governor, and put in his place the former governor Mahommed b. Yazid. The caliph at first ratified this choice, but soon after dismissed Mahommed from his post, and replaced him by Bishr b. Ṣafwān, who under Hisham made an expedition against Sicily.

Yazid II. was by natural disposition the opposite of his predecessor. He did not feel that anxiety for the spiritual welfare of his subjects which had animated Omar II. Poetry and music, not beloved by Suleiman and condemned by Omar, were held by him in great honour. Two court-singers, Sallāma and Ḥabāba, exercised great influence, tempered only by the austerity of manners that prevailed in Syria. He was so deeply affected by the death of Ḥabāba, that Maslama entreated him not to exhibit his sorrow to the eyes of the public. He died a few days later, on the 26th of January 724, according to the chroniclers from grief for her loss. As his successor he had appointed in the first place his brother Hisham, and after him his own son Walid.

10. Reign of Hisham.—Hisham was a wise and able prince and an enemy of luxury, not an idealist like Omar II., nor a worldling like Yazid II., but more like his father Abdalmalik, devoting all his energy to the pacification of the interior, and to extending and consolidating the empire of Islam. But the discontent, which had been sown under his predecessors, had now developed to such an extent that he could not suppress it in detail. His first care was to put an end to the tyrannical rule of the Qaisites (Moḍarites) in Irak and Khorasan by dismissing Omar b. Hobaira and appointing in his place Khālid al-Qasrī. This very able man, who under Hajjāj had been prefect of Mecca, belonged properly neither to the Qaisites nor to the Yemenites, but as he took the place of Ibn Hobaira and dismissed his partisans from their posts, the former considered him as their adversary, the latter as their benefactor. After his death, in particular, the Yemenites celebrated him as their chief, and assigned as the reason for their revolt the injuries which he suffered. Khālid himself assuredly did not intend it. He was a loyal servant of the dynasty, and remained such even after receiving very harsh treatment from them. For fifteen years Khālid governed the eastern half of the empire, and continued to maintain peace with only few exceptions throughout. He did much for the reclaiming and improving of lands in Irak, in which the caliph himself and several princes took an active part. The great revenues obtained thereby naturally caused much jealousy. Khālid lived on a very rich scale and was extraordinarily liberal, and he was charged with having carried out all his improvements for his own interests, and upbraided for selling the corn of his estates only when the prices were high. To these charges were added the accusation that he was too tolerant to Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. As his mother professed the Christian religion, he was accused of infidelity. At last a conspiracy, into which the principal engineer of Khālid, Hassān the Nabataean, had been drawn, succeeded in inciting Hisham against Khālid. They told him that Khālid had used disrespectful terms in speaking of the caliph, and that he had appropriated revenues belonging to the state. The latter imputation especially influenced Hisham, who was very parsimonious. When the dismissal of Khālid had been resolved upon, Yūsuf b. Omar, his appointed successor, was sent secretly to Kufa, where he seized on Khālid unawares. For eighteen months Khālid remained in prison. But when he declined even under torture to confess that he had been guilty of extensive peculation, he was finally released. He settled at Damascus and made a noble return for his injuries by taking an active part in the war against the Greeks. In the summer of a.d. 740, while he was in Asia Minor, a great fire broke out in Damascus, the guilt of which was attributed to Khālid. Though it soon appeared that the imputation was false, Khālid, on his return, was furious, and uttered very offensive words against the caliph. Hisham, however, would not again punish his old servant; on the contrary, he seems to have regarded his indignation as a proof of innocence.

The successor of Khālid in Irak had not long been in office when Zaid b. Ali, grandson of Hosain b. Ali, who had come to Kufa for a lawsuit, was persuaded by the chiefs of the Shi‘a to organize a revolt. He succeeded in so far that 15,000 Kufians swore to fight with him for the maintenance of the commandments of the Book of God and the Sunna (orthodox tradition) of his Prophet, the discomfiture of the tyrants, the redress of injury, and last, not least, the vindication of the family of the Prophet as the rightful caliphs. The revolt broke out on the 6th of January 740. Unfortunately for Zaid he had to do with the same Kufians whose fickleness had already been fatal to his family. He was deserted by his troops and slain. His body was crucified in Kufa, his head sent to Damascus and thence to Medina. His son Yahyā, still a youth, fled to Balkh in Khorasan, but was discovered at last and hunted down, till he fell sword in hand under Walid II. Abu Moslim, the founder of the Abbasid dynasty, proclaimed himself his avenger, and on that occasion adopted the black garments, which remained the distinctive colour of the dynasty.

In Khorasan also there were very serious disturbances. The Sogdians, though subdued by Sa‘īd al Ḥarashī, were not appeased, but implored the assistance of the Turks, who had long been contending earnestly against the Arabs for the dominion of Transoxiana. They found besides a most valuable ally in Ḥārith b. Soraij, a distinguished captain of the Arabic tribe of Tamīm, who, with many pious Moslems, was scandalized by the government’s perfidy in regard to the new converts. Ḥārith put himself at the head of all the malcontents, and raised the black flag, in compliance with a Sibylline prophecy, holding that the man with the black flag (the Prophet’s flag) would put an end to the tyranny, and be the precursor of the Mahdi.[22] The government troops suffered more than one defeat, but in the last month of the year 118 (a.d. 736) the governor Asad al-Qasrī, the brother of Khālid, after having defeated Ḥārith, gained a brilliant victory over the Turks, which finally caused them to retreat. Asad died almost simultaneously with the dismissal of Khālid. Hisham then separated Khorasan from Irak and chose as governor of the former Naṣr b. Sayyār, a valiant soldier who had grown grey in war, and who, besides all his other capacities, was an excellent poet. Naṣr instituted a system of taxation, which, if it had been introduced earlier, would perhaps have saved the Arabic domination. It was that which later on was generally adopted, viz. that all possessors of conquered lands (i.e. nearly the whole empire except Arabia), whether Moslems or not, should pay a fixed tax, the latter in addition to pay a poll-tax, from which they were relieved on conversion to Islam. During the reign of Hisham, Naṣr made a successful expedition against Ḥārith and the Turks. The propaganda of the Shi‘a by the Abbasids was continued in these years with great zeal.

In India several provinces which had been converted to Islam under the Caliphate of Omar II. declared themselves independent, because the promise of equal rights for all Moslems was not kept under the reign of his successors. This led to the evacuation of the eastern part of India (called Hind by the Arabs, Sind being the name of the western part), and to the founding of the strong cities of Maḥfūẓa and Manṣūra for the purpose of controlling the land.

In the north and north-west of the empire there were no internal disorders, but the Moslems had hard work to maintain themselves against the Alans and the Khazars. In the year 112 (a.d. 730) they suffered a severe defeat, in which the general Jarrāh perished. But the illustrious Maslama b. Abdalmalik, and Merwan b. Mahommed (afterwards caliph), governor of Armenia and Azerbaijan (Adherbaijan), succeeded in repelling the Khazars, imposing peace on the petty princes of the eastern Caucasus, and consolidating the Arab power in that quarter. The war against the Byzantines was continued with energy during the whole of Hisham’s reign. Moawiya, the son of Hisham, whose descendants reigned later in Spain, was in command till 118 (a.d. 736), when he met his death accidentally in Asia Minor by a fall from his horse. After his death, Suleiman, another son of the caliph, had the supreme command. Both were eager and valiant warriors. But the hero of all the battles was Abdallah b. Hosain, surnamed al-Battāl (the brave). He has been the subject of many romantic tales. Tabarī tells how he took the emperor Constantine prisoner in the year 114 (a.d. 732; but Constantine V. Copronymus only began to reign in 740 or 741 a.d.); another Arabic author places this event in the year 122, adding that al-Battāl, having defeated the Greeks, was attacked and slain in returning with his captives. The Greek historians say nothing about Constantine having been made prisoner. It is probable that the Arabs took another Greek soldier for the prince.[23] The victories of the Moslems had no lasting results. During the troubles that began in the reign of Walid II., the Greeks reconquered Marash (Germanicia), Malatia (Malatiyeh) and Erzerum (Theodosiopolis).

In Spain the attention of the Moslems was principally turned to avenge the defeat of Samḥ beyond the Pyrenees. As early as the second year of the reign of Hisham, ‘Anbasa, the governor of Spain, crossed the Pyrenees, and pushed on military operations vigorously. Carcassonne and Nîmes were taken, Autun sacked. The death of ‘Anbasa in a.d. 725 and internal troubles put a stop to further hostilities. The Berbers were the chief contingent of the Moslem troops, but were treated by their Arab masters as inferior people. They began to resent this, and one of their chiefs, Munisa (Munuza), made himself independent in the north and allied himself with Odo, king of Aquitaine, who gave him his daughter in marriage. In the year 113 Abdarrahman b. Abdallah subdued Munisa, crossed the mountains and penetrated into Gascony by the valley of Roncesvalles. The Moslems beat Odo, gained possession of Bordeaux, and overran the whole of southern Gaul nearly as far as the Loire. But in October 732 their march was checked between Tours and Poitiers by Charles Martel and after some days of skirmishing a fierce but indecisive battle was fought. Abdarrahman was among the slain and the Moslems retreated hastily in the night, leaving their camp to the Franks. They were, however, not yet discouraged. In 739 the new governor of Spain, Oqba (Aucupa) b. Hajjāj, a man of high qualities, re-entered Gaul and pushed forward his raids as far as Lyons, but the Franks again drove back the Arabs as far as Narbonne. Thenceforth the continual revolts of the Berbers in Africa, and the internal troubles which disturbed Spain until the reign of Abdarrahman I., effectually checked the ambition of the Moslems.

In Africa the hand of government pressed heavily. The Berbers, though they had pledged themselves to Islam and had furnished the latest contingents for the Holy War, were treated as tributary serfs, notwithstanding the promises given by Omar II. The Kharijites, of whom a great many had emigrated to Africa, found them eager listeners. Still, they could not believe that it was according to the will of the caliph that they were thus treated, until a certain number of their chiefs went as a deputation to Hisham, but failed to obtain an audience. Thereupon a fierce insurrection broke out, against which the governor of Africa was powerless. Hisham at once sent an army of more than 30,000 men, under the command of Kolthum al-Qoshairī, and Balj b. Bishr. Not far from the river Sabu in Algeria,[24] the meeting with the army of the insurgents took place (a.d. 740). Kolthūm was beaten and killed; Balj b. Bishr led the rest of the Syrian army to Ceuta, and thence, near the end of 741, to Spain, where they aided in the suppression of the dangerous revolt of the peninsular Berbers. Balj died in 742. A year later the governor, Abu’l-Khaṭṭār, assigned to his troops for settlement divers countries belonging to the public domain.[25] An effort of the African Berbers to make themselves masters of Kairawan failed, their army being utterly defeated by the governor Ḥanẓala.

Hisham died in February 743, after a reign of twenty years. He had not been wanting in energy and ability, and kept the reins of the government in his own hands. He was a correct Moslem and tolerant towards Christians and Jews. His financial administration was sound and he guarded against any misuse of the revenues of the state. But he was not popular. His residence was at Roṣāfa on the border of the desert, and he rarely admitted visitors into his presence; as a rule they were received by his chamberlain Abrash. Hisham tried to keep himself free from and above the rival parties, but as his vicegerents were inexorable in the exaction of tribute, the Qaisites against the Yemenites, the Yemenites against the Qaisites, both parties alternately had reason to complain, whilst the non-Arabic Moslems suffered under the pressure and were dissatisfied. He caused a large extent of land to be brought into cultivation, and many public works to be executed, and he was accused of overburdening his subjects for these purposes. Therefore, Yazid III. (as also the Abbasids) on taking office undertook to abstain from spending money on building and digging. The principle that a well-filled treasury is the basis of a prosperous government was pushed by him too far. Notwithstanding his activity and his devotion to the management of affairs, the Moslem power declined rather than advanced, and signs of the decay of the Omayyad dynasty began to show themselves. The history of his four successors, Walid II., Yazid III., Ibrahim and Merwan II., is but the history of the fall of the Omayyads.

11. Reign of Walid II.—Walid II. was a handsome man, possessed of extraordinary physical strength, and a distinguished poet. But Hisham, to whom he was successor-designate, foolishly kept him in the background, and even made earnest efforts to get his own son Maslama acknowledged as his successor. Walid therefore retired to the country, and passed his time there in hunting, cultivating poetry, music and the like, waiting with impatience for the death of Hisham and planning vengeance on all those whom he suspected of having opposed him. His first public action was to increase the pay of all soldiers by 10 dirhems, that of the Syrians by 20. The Omayyads who came to pay their respects to him received large donations. Many philanthropic institutions were founded. As to the family of his predecessor, he contented himself with confiscating their possessions, with the single exception of Suleiman b. Hisham, whom he had whipped and put in prison. But the Makhzūmites, who were related to Hisham by his mother, he deprived of all their power and had them tortured to death. The vicegerents of Hisham were replaced by Qaisites; Yusuf b. Omar, the governor of Irak, being a Qaisite, was not only confirmed in his office, but received with it the supreme command of Khorasan. He made use of it immediately by ordering Naṣr b. Sayyār to collect a rich present of horses, falcons, musical instruments, golden and silver vessels and to offer it to the caliph in person, but before the present was ready the news came that Walid had been murdered.

It is not certain that Walid also suspected Khālid al-Qasrī of having intrigued against him. But Yusuf b. Omar did not rest until he had his old enemy in his power. It is said that he guaranteed Walid a large sum of money, which he hoped to extort from Khālid. This unfortunate man died under torture, which he bore with fortitude, in Muharram 126 (November 743).

Walid designated his two sons as heirs to the Caliphate. These were still under age and were not the children of a freeborn, noble mother. Both circumstances, according to the then prevailing notions, made them unfit for the imamate. Moreover, it was an affront, in particular, for the sons of Walid I., who already had considered the nomination of Yazid II. as a slight to themselves. A conspiracy arose, headed by Yazid b. Walid I., and joined by the majority of the Merwanid princes and many Kalbites and other Yemenites who regarded the ill-treatment of Khālid al-Qasrī as an insult to themselves. Various stories were circulated about the looseness of Walid’s manner of life; Yazid accused him of irreligion, and, by representing himself as a devout and God-fearing man, won over the pious Moslems. The conspirators met with slight opposition. A great many troops had been detached by Hisham to Africa and other provinces, the caliph himself was in one of his country places; the prefect of Damascus also was absent. Without difficulty, Yazid made himself master of Damascus, and immediately sent his cousin Abdalazīz with 2000 men against Walid, who had not more than 200 fighting men about him. A few men hastened to the rescue, among others ‘Abbās b. Walid with his sons and followers. Abdalazīz interrupted his march, took him prisoner and compelled him to take the oath of allegiance to his brother Yazid. Walid’s small body of soldiers was soon overpowered. After a valiant combat, the caliph retired to one of his apartments and sat with the Koran on his knee, in order to die just as Othman had died. He was killed on the 17th of April 744. His head was taken to Damascus and carried about the city at the end of a spear.

On the news of the murder of the caliph, the citizens of Ḥoms (Emesa) put at their head Abu Mahommed as-Sofiānī, a grandson of Yazid I., and marched against Damascus. They were beaten by Suleimān b. Hishām at a place called Solaimānīa, 12 m. from the capital. Abu Mahommed was taken prisoner and shut up with several of his brethren and cousins in the Khadrā, the old palace of Moawiya, together with the two sons of Walid II. One or two risings in Palestine were easily suppressed. But the reigning family had committed suicide. Their unity was broken. The holiness of their Caliphate, their legitimate authority, had been trifled with; the hatred of the days of Merj Rāhiṭ had been revived. The orthodox faith also, whose strong representative and defender had hitherto been the caliph, was shaken by the fact that Yazid III. belonged to the sect of the Qadaris who rejected the doctrine of predestination. The disorganization of the empire was at hand.

12. Reign of Yazid III.—Yazid III., on his accession, made a fine speech, in which he promised to do all that could be expected from a good and wise ruler, even offering to make place immediately for the man whom his subjects should find better qualified for the Caliphate than himself. He cancelled, however, the increase of the pay granted by Walid and thus earned the nickname of the Nāqiṣ (diminisher). As he owed his position to the aid of the Kalbites, he chose his officers from among them. The governorship of Irak was confided to a Kalbite, Manṣūr b. Jomhūr, a hot-headed and unscrupulous man. Yūsuf b. Omar was unable to offer resistance, and was ultimately taken and confined in the Khadrā. Manṣūr had hardly been three months in office when Yazid replaced him by Abdallah, son of Omar II. The distant provinces, with the exception of Sind and Sijistan, renounced the authority of the new caliph. In Africa Abdarrahman b. Habīb, a descendant of the famous ‘Oqba b. Nāfī’, was almost independent. In Spain every amir tried to free himself from a suzerainty which appeared to him only nominal. Naṣr b. Sayyār, the governor of Khorasan, had not yet decided whether he ought to take the oath of allegiance when Yazid died, after a reign of only five months and a half, on the 12th of Dhu’l-Ḥijja a.h. 126 (25th September a.d. 744).

13. Yazid III. left his brother Ibrāhīm as his successor. He was acknowledged as caliph only in a part of Syria, and reigned no longer than two months, when he was obliged to abdicate and to submit to the authority of Merwan II.

14. Merwan II., the son of Mahommed b. Merwan and cousin of Maslama, was a man of energy, and might have revived the strength of the Omayyad dynasty, but for the general disorder which pervaded the whole empire. In 732 Hisham had entrusted to him the government of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which he held with great success till the death of Walid II. He had great military capacity and introduced important reforms. On the murder of Walid he prepared to dispute the supreme power with the new caliph, and invaded Mesopotamia. Yazid III., in alarm, offered him as the price of peace the government of this province together with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Merwan resolved to accept those conditions, and sent a deputation to Damascus, which, however, had just reached Manbij (Hierapolis) when Yazid died. Leaving his son Abdalmalik with 40,000 men in Rakka, Merwan entered Syria with 80,000 men. Suleimān b. Hishām, at the head of 120,000 men, was defeated at ‘Ain al-Jarr, between Baalbek and Damascus. Merwan made many prisoners, whom he treated with the greatest mildness, granting them freedom on condition that they should take the oath of allegiance to the sons of Walid II. He then marched upon Damascus. But Suleimān b. Hishām, Yazid, the son of Khālid al-Qasri, and other chiefs, hastened to the Khadrā and killed the two princes, together with Yūsuf b. Omar. Suleiman then made himself master of the treasury and fled with the caliph Ibrāhīm to Tadmor (Palmyra). Only Abu Mahommed as-Sofiānī escaped the murderers. When Merwan entered Damascus this man testified that the sons of Walid II., who had just become adult, had named Merwan successor to the Caliphate, and was the first to greet him as Prince of the Believers. All the generals and officers followed his example and took the oath of allegiance (7th December a.d. 744). Merwan did all he could to pacify Syria, permitting the Arabs of the four provinces to choose their own prefects, and even acquiescing in the selection as prefect of Palestine of Thābit b. No‘aim, who had behaved very treacherously towards him before, but whom he had forgiven. He did not, however, wish to reside in Damascus, but transplanted the seat of government to his own town, Harran in Mesopotamia. Suleiman b. Hisham and Ibrahim tendered their submission and were pardoned.

But the pacification was only on the surface. Many Omayyad princes considered Merwan as an upstart, his mother being a slave-girl; the Damascenes were angry because he had chosen Harran for his residence; the Kalbites felt themselves slighted, as the Qaisites predominated. Thābit b. No‘aim revolted in Palestine, Emesa (Homs) and Tadmor were turbulent, Damascus was besieged by Yazid b. Khālid al Qasrī. Merwan, who wanted to march against Irak, was obliged to return to Syria, where he put an end to the troubles. This time Thābit b. No‘aim had to pay for his perfidy with his life. After this new pacification, Merwan caused the Syrians to acknowledge his two sons as heirs to the Caliphate, and married them to two daughters of Hishām. All the Omayyad princes were invited to the wedding, Merwan hoping still to conciliate them. He then equipped 10,000 Syrians, and ordered them to rejoin the army of 20,000 men from Kinnesrin (Qinnasrīn) and Mesopotamia, who, under Yazid b. Omar b. Hobaira, were already on the march towards Irak. When these Syrians came to Roṣāfa (Rusafa), Suleimān b. Hishām persuaded them to proclaim himself caliph, and made himself master of Kinnesrin. From all sides Syrians flocked to his aid till he had 70,000 men under his orders. Merwan immediately ordered Ibn Hobaira to stop his march and to wait for him at Dūrīn, and marched with the main force against Suleimān, whom he utterly defeated at Khosāf in the district of Kinnesrin. Suleiman fled to Homs and thence to Tadmor and on to Kufa, leaving his brother Sa‘id in Homs. The siege of this place by Merwan lasted nearly five months. After the victory the walls were demolished, and likewise those of Baalbek, Damascus, Jerusalem and other towns. Syria was utterly crushed, and therewith the bulwark of the dynasty was destroyed. Not until the summer of 128 (a.d. 746) could Merwan resume his campaign against Irak.

The governor of this province, Abdallah, the son of Omar II., was a man of small energy, whose principal care was his personal ease and comfort. An ambitious man, Abdallah b. Moawiya, a great-grandson of Ali’s brother Ja‘far, put himself at the head of a band of Shi‘ites and maulas, made himself master of Kufa and marched upon Hira, where, since Yūsuf b. Omar, the governor and the Syrian troops had resided. The rebels were defeated, and Kufa surrendered (October 744) under condition of amnesty for the insurgents and freedom for Abdallah b. Moawiya. This adventurer now went into Media (Jabal), where a great number of maulas and Shi‘ites, even members of the reigning dynasty and of the Abbasid family, such as the future caliph Mansur, rejoined him. With their help he became master of a vast empire, which, however, lasted scarcely three years.

Ibn Omar did not acknowledge Merwan as caliph. For the moment Merwan could do no more than send a new governor, Ibn Sa‘īd al Ḥarashī. This officer was supported only by the Qaisite troops, the Kalbites, who were numerically superior, maintaining Ibn Omar in his residence at Hira. There were many skirmishes between them, but a common danger soon forced them to suspend their hostilities. The general disorder after the death of Hisham had given to the Khawarij an opportunity of asserting their claims such as they had never had before. They belonged for the greater part to the Rabī‘a, who always stood more or less aloof from the other Arabs, and had a particular grudge against the Moḍar. Their leading tribe, the Shaibān, possessed the lands on the Tigris in the province of Mosul, and here, after the murder of Walid II., their chief proclaimed himself caliph. Reinforced by many Kharijites out of the northern provinces, he marched against Kufa. Ibn Omar and Ibn Sa‘iđ al Ḥarashī tried to defend their province, but were completely defeated. Ḥarashī fled to Merwan, Ibn Omar to Hira, which, after a siege of two months, he was obliged to surrender in Shawwāl 127 (August a.d. 745). Manṣuř b. Jomhūr was the first to pass over to the Khawarij; then Ibn Omar himself took the oath of allegiance. That a noble Koreishite, a prince of the reigning house, should pledge himself to follow Ḍaḥḥāk the Shaibānite as his Imam, was an event of which the Khawarij were very proud. Ibn Omar was rewarded with the government of eastern Irak, Khūzistān and Fārs.

Whilst Merwan besieged Homs, Ḍaḥḥāk returned to Mesopotamia and took Mosul, whence he threatened Nisibis, where Abdallah, the son of Merwan, maintained himself with difficulty. Suleimān b. Hishām also had gone over to the Khawarij, who now numbered 120,000 men. Mesopotamia itself was in danger, when Merwan at last was able to march against the enemy. In a furious battle at Kafartūtha (September a.d. 746) the Khawarij were defeated; Ḍaḥḥāk and his successor Khaibarī perished; the survivors were obliged to retire to Mosul, where they crossed the Tigris. Merwan followed them and encamped on the western bank. Immediately after the battle of Kafartūtha, Yazid b. Omar b. Hobaira directed his troops towards Irak. He beat the Kharijites repeatedly and entered Kufa in May or June 747. Ibn Omar was taken prisoner; Manṣūr b. Jomhūr fled to Ibn Moawiya. Ibn Hobaira was at last free to send Ibn Ḍobāra with an army to Mesopotamia. At his approach the Kharijites left their camp and fled to Abdallah b. Moawiya, who was now at the height of his power. But it was not destined to last. The two generals of Ibn Hobaira, Ibn Ḍobāra and Nobāta b. Ḥanẓala defeated his army; Ibn Moawiya fled to Khorasan, where he met his death; the chief of the Kharijites, Shaibān Yashkori went to eastern Arabia; Suleimān b. Hishām and Manṣūr b. Johmūr escaped to India. Thus, at last, the western and south-eastern parts of the empire lay at the feet of Merwan. But in the north-east, in Khorasan, meanwhile a storm had arisen, against which his resources and his wisdom were alike of no avail.

When the news of the murder of Walid II. reached Khorasan, Naṣr b. Sayyār did not at once acknowledge the Caliphate of Yazid III., but induced the Arab chiefs to accept himself as amir of Khorasan, until a caliph should be universally acknowledged. Not many months later (Shawwāl 126) he was confirmed in his post by Yusuf b. Omar, the governor of Irak. But Naṣr had a personal enemy, the chief of the Azd (Yemenites) Jodai’ al-Kirmānī, a very ambitious man. A quarrel arose, and in a short time the Azd under Kirmānī, supported by the Rabī‘a, who always were ready to join the opposition, were in insurrection, which Naṣr tried in vain to put down by concessions.

So stood matters when Ḥārith b. Soraij, seconded by Yazid III., reappeared on the scene, crossed the Oxus and came to Merv. Naṣr received him with the greatest honour, hoping to get his aid against Kirmānī, but Ḥārith, to whom 3000 men of his tribe, the Tamīm, had gone over, demanded Naṣr’s abdication and tried to make himself master of Merv. Having failed in this, he allied himself with Kirmānī. Naṣr could hold Merv no longer, and retired to Nishapur. But the Tamīm of Ḥārith could not endure the supremacy of the Azd. In a moment the allies were divided into two camps; a battle ensued, in which Ḥārith was defeated and killed. Originally, Ḥārith seems to have had the highest aims, but in reality he did more than any one else to weaken the Arabic dominion. He brought the Turks into the field against them; he incited the native population of Transoxiana against their Arab lords, and stirred up discord between the Arabs themselves. Being a Tamīmite, he belonged to the Moḍar, on whom the government in Khorasan depended; but he aided the Yemenites to gain the upper hand of them. Thus he paved the way for Abu Moslim.

Since the days of Ali there had been two tendencies among the Shi‘ites. The moderate party distinguished itself from the other Moslems only by their doctrine that the imamate belonged legally to a man of the house of the Prophet. The other party, that of the ultra-Shi‘ites, named Hāshimīya after Abu Hāshim the son of Mahommed b. al-Ḥanafīya, preached the equality of all Moslems, Arabs or non-Arabs, and taught that the same divine spirit that had animated the Prophet, incorporated itself again in his heirs (see [Shi'ites]). After the death of Hosain, they chose for their Imam Mahommed b. al-Ḥanafīya, and at his decease his son Abu Hāshim, from whom Mahommed b. Ali, the grandson of Abdallah b. Abbas, who resided at Ḥomaima in the south-east of Syria, obtained the secrets of the party and took the lead (a.h. 98, see above). This Mahommed, the father of the two first Abbasid caliphs, was a man of unusual ability and great ambition. He directed his energies primarily to Khorasan. The missionaries were charged with the task of undermining the authority of the Omayyads, by drawing attention to all the injustices that took place under their reign, and to all the luxury and wantonness of the court, as contrasted with the misery of many of their subjects. God would not suffer it any longer. As soon as the time was ripe that time could not be far off—He would send a saviour—and out of the house of the Prophet, the Mahdi, who would restore Islam to its original purity. All who desired to co-operate in this holy purpose must pledge themselves to unlimited obedience to the Imam, and place their lives and property at his disposal. As a proof of their sincerity they were required at once to pay a fixed sum for the Imam. The missionaries had great success, especially among the non-Arabic inhabitants of Khorasan and Transoxiana.

Mahommed b. Ali died a.h. 126 (a.d. 743-744), and his son Ibrahīm, the Imam, took his place. Ibrahīm had a confidant about whose antecedents one fact alone seems certain, that he was a maula (client) of Persian origin. This man, Abu Moslim by name, was a man of real ability and devoted to his master’s cause. To him, in 745-746, the management of affairs in Khorasan was entrusted, with instructions to consult in all weighty matters the head of the mission, the Arab Suleimān b. Kathīr. At first the chiefs of the mission were by no means prepared to recognize Abu Moslim as the plenipotentiary of the heir of the Prophet. In the year 129 he judged that the time for open manifestation had arrived. His partisans were ordered to assemble from all sides on a fixed day at Sīqadenj in the province of Merv. Then, on the 1st Shawwāl (15th June 747), the first solemn meeting took place and the black flags were unfolded. On that occasion Suleimān b. Kathīr was still leader, but by the end of the year Abu Moslim, whom the majority believed to belong himself to the family of the Prophet, was the acknowledged head of a strong army. Meantime, Naṣr had moved from Nishapur to Merv, and here the two Arabic armies confronted each other. Then, at last, the true significance of Abu Moslim’s work was recognized. Naṣr warned the Arabs against their common enemy, “who preaches a religion that does not come from the Envoy of God, and whose chief aim is the extirpation of the Arabs.” In vain he had entreated Merwan and Ibn Hobaira to send him troops before it should be too late. When at last it was possible to them to fulfil his wish, it was in fact too late. For a moment it seemed as though the rival Arab factions, realizing their common peril, would turn their combined forces against the Shi‘ites. But Abu Moslim contrived to re-awaken their mutual distrust and jealousy, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, made himself master of Merv, in Rabia II. a.h. 130 (December 747). Naṣr escaped only by a headlong flight to Nishapur. This was the end of the Arabic dominion in the East. Many Arab chiefs were killed, partly by order of Abu Moslim, partly by their clients. The latter, however, was strictly forbidden by Abu Moslim. So severe indeed was the discipline he exercised, that one of the chief missionaries, who by a secret warning had rendered possible the escape of Naṣr from Merv, paid for it with his life.

As soon as Abu Moslim had consolidated his authority, he sent his chief general Qaḥṭaba against Nishapur. Naṣr’s son Tamīm was vanquished and killed, and Naṣr retreated to Kumis (Qūmis) on the boundary of Jorjān, whither also advanced from the other side Nobāta at the head of an army sent by Merwan. Qaḥṭaba detached his son Ḥasan against Naṣr and went himself to meet Nobāta, whom he beat on the 1st of Dhu’l-ḥijja 130 (6th August 748). Naṣr could not further resist. He reached Sāwā in the vicinity of Hamadan, where he died quite exhausted, at the age of eighty-five years. Rei and Hamadan were taken without serious difficulty. Near Nehawend, Ibn Ḍobāra, at the head of a large army, encountered Qaḥṭaba, but was defeated and killed. In the month of Dhu’l-qa‘da 131 (June 749) Nehawend (Nehavend) surrendered, and thereby the way to Irak lay open to Qaḥṭaba. Ibn Hobaira was overtaken and compelled to retire to Wāsit. Qaḥṭaba himself perished in the combat, but his son Ḥasan entered Kufa without any resistance on the 2nd of September 740.

Merwan had at last discovered who was the real chief of the movement in Khorasan, and had seized upon Ibrahīm the Imam and imprisoned him at Harran. There he died, probably from the plague, though Merwan was accused of having killed him. When the other Abbasids left Ḥomaima is not certain. But they arrived at Kufa in the latter half of September 749, where in the meantime the head of the propaganda, Abu Salama, called the wazir of the family of Mahomet, had previously undertaken the government. This Abu Salama seems to have had scruples against recognizing Abu’l-Abbas as the successor of his brother Ibrahīm, and to have expected that the Mahdi, whom he looked for from Medina, would not be slow in making his appearance, little thinking that an Abbasid would present himself as such. But Abu Jahm, on the instructions of Abu Moslim, declared to the chief officers of the Khorasanian army that the Mahdi was in their midst, and brought them to Abu’l-Abbas, to whom they swore allegiance. Abu Salama also was constrained to take the oath. On Friday, the 12th Rabia II. a.h. 132 (28th November 749) Abu’l-Abbas was solemnly proclaimed caliph in the principal mosque of Kufa. The trick had been carried out admirably. On the point of gathering the ripe fruit, the Alids were suddenly pushed aside, and the fruit was snatched away by the Abbasids. The latter gained the throne and they took good care never to be deprived of it.

After the conquest of Nehawend, Qaḥṭaba had detached one of his captains, Abu ‘Aun, to Shahrazūr, where he defeated the Syrian army which was stationed there. Thereupon Abu ‘Aun occupied the land of Mosul, where he obtained reinforcements from Kufa, headed by Abdallah b. Ali, an uncle of Abu’l-Abbas, who was to have the supreme command. Merwan advanced to meet him, and was completely defeated near the Greater Zab, an affluent of the Tigris, in a battle which lasted eleven days. Merwan retreated to Harran, thence to Damascus, and finally to Egypt, where he fell in a last struggle towards the end of 132 (August 750). His head was cut off and sent to Kufa.[26] Abu Aun, who had been the real leader of the campaign against Merwan, remained in Egypt as its governor. Ibn Hobaira, who had been besieged in Wasit for eleven months, then consented to a capitulation, which was sanctioned by Abu’l-Abbas. Immediately after the surrender, Ibn Hobaira and his principal officers were treacherously murdered. In Syria, the Omayyads were persecuted with the utmost rigour. Even their graves were violated, and the bodies crucified and destroyed. In order that no members of the family should escape, Abdallah b. Ali pretended to grant an amnesty to all Omayyads who should come in to him at Abu Fotros (Antipatris) and acknowledge the new caliph, and even promised them the restitution of all their property. Ninety men allowed themselves to be entrapped, and Abdallah invited them to a banquet. When they were all collected, a body of executioners rushed into the hall and slew them with clubs. He then ordered leathern covers to be thrown upon the dying men, and had the banquet served upon them. In Medina and Mecca Da’ud b. Ali, another uncle of Abu’l-Abbas, conducted the persecution; in Baṣra, Suleiman b. Ali. Abu’l-Abbas himself killed those he could lay his hands on in Hira and Kufa, amongst them Suleimān b. Hishām, who had been the bitterest enemy of Merwan. Only a few Omayyads escaped the massacre, several of whom were murdered later. A grandson of Hisham, Abdarrahmān, son of his most beloved son Moawiya, reached Africa and founded in Spain the Omayyad dynasty of Cordova.

With the dynasty of the Omayyads the hegemony passes finally from Syria to Irak. At the same time the supremacy of the Arabs came to an end. Thenceforth it is not the contingents of the Arabic tribes which compose the army, and on whom the government depends; the new dynasty relies on a standing army, consisting for the greater part of non-Arabic soldiers. The barrier that separated the Arabs from the conquered nations begins to crumble away. Only the Arabic religion, the Arabic language and the Arabic civilization maintain themselves, and spread more and more over the whole empire.

C.—The Abbasids

We now enter upon the history of the new dynasty, under which the power of Islam reached its highest point.

1. Abu’l-Abbas inaugurated his Caliphate by a harangue in which he announced the era of concord and happiness which was to begin now that the House of the Prophet had been restored to its right. He asserted that the Abbasids were the real heirs of the Prophet, as the descendants of his oldest uncle Abbas. Addressing the Kufians, he said, “Inhabitants of Kufa, ye are those whose affection towards us has ever been constant and true; ye have never changed your mind, nor swerved from it, notwithstanding all the pressure of the unjust upon you. At last our time has come, and God has brought you the new era. Ye are the happiest of men through us, and the dearest to us. I increase your pensions with 100 dirhems; make now your preparations, for I am the lavish shedder of blood[27] and the avenger of blood.”

Notwithstanding these fine words, Abu’l-Abbas did not trust the Kufians. He resided outside the town with the Khorasanian troops, and with them went first to Hira, then to Hāshimīya, which he caused to be built in the neighbourhood of Anbar. For their real sympathies, he knew, were with the house of Ali, and Abu Salama their leader, who had reluctantly taken the oath of allegiance, did not conceal his disappointment. Abu Jahm, the vizier (q.v.; also [Mahommedan Institutions]), or “helper,” of Abu Moslim, advised that Abu Ja‘far, the caliph’s brother, should be sent to Khorasan to consult Abu Moslim. The result was that Abu Salama was assassinated, and at the same time Suleimān b. Kathīr, who had been the head of the propaganda in Khorasan, and had also expected that the Mahdi would belong to the house of Ali. It is said that Abu Ja‘far, whilst in Khorasan, was so impressed by the unlimited power of Abu Moslim, and saw so clearly that, though he called his brother and himself his masters, he considered them as his creatures, that he vowed his death at the first opportunity.

The ruin of the Omayyad empire and the rise of the new dynasty did not take place without mighty convulsions. In Bathanīya and the Ḥaurān, in the north of Syria, in Mesopotamia and Irak Khorasan insurrections had to be put down with fire and sword. The new caliph then distributed the provinces among the principal members of his family and his generals. To his brother Abu Ja‘far he gave Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan and Armenia; to his uncle Abdallah b. Ali, Syria; to his uncle Da’ud, Hejaz, Yemen and Yamāma (Yemama); to his cousin ‘Īsā b. Mūsā, the province of Kufa. Another uncle, Suleimān b. Ali, received the government of Baṣra with Bahrein and Oman; Ismā ‘īl b. Ali that of Ahwāz; Abu Moslim, Khorasan and Transoxiana; Mahommed b. Ash‘ath, Fārs; Abu ‘Aun, Egypt. In Sind the Omayyad governor, Manṣūr b. Jomhūr, had succeeded in maintaining himself, but was defeated by an army sent against him under Mūsā b. Ka‘b, and the black standard of the Abbasids was raised over the city of Manṣūra. Africa and Spain are omitted from this catalogue, because the Abbasids never gained any real footing in Spain, while Africa remained, at least in the first years, in only nominal subjection to the new dynasty. In 754 Abu Moslim came to Irak to visit Abu’l-Abbas and to ask his permission to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was received with great honour, but the caliph said that he was sorry not to be able to give him the leadership of the pilgrimage, which he had already purposely entrusted to his brother, Abu Ja‘far.

Abu’l-Abbas died on the 13th of Dhu‘l-ḥijja 136 (5th June 754). He seems to have been a man of limited capacity, and had very little share in the achievements accomplished in his name. He initiated practically nothing without the consent of Abu Jahm, who was thus the real ruler. In the few cases where he had to decide, he acted under the influence of his brother Abu Ja‘far.

2. Reign of Mansur.—Abu‘l-Abbas had designated as his successors first Abu Ja‘far, surnamed al-Manṣūr (the victorious), and after him his cousin ‘Īsā b. Mūsā. Abu Ja‘far was, according to the historians, older than Abu‘l-Abbas, but while the mother of the latter belonged to the powerful Yemenite tribe of al-Ḥārith b. Ka‘b, the mother of Abu Ja‘far was a Berber slave-girl. But he was a son of Mahommed b. Ali, and was therefore preferred by Abu Moslim to his uncles and cousins. Abu‘l-Abbas, however, had promised the succession to his uncle Abdallah b. Ali, when he marched against Merwan. When the news of the death of Abu‘l-Abbas reached Abdallah, who at the head of a numerous army was on the point of renewing the Byzantine war, he came to Harran, furious at his exclusion, and proclaimed himself caliph. Abu Moslim marched against him, and the two armies met at Nisibis, where, after a number of skirmishes, a decisive engagement took place (28th November 754). Abdallah was defeated and escaped to Baṣra, where he found a refuge with his brother Suleimān. A year later he asked for pardon, and took the oath of allegiance to Mansur. The caliph spared his life for a time, but he did not forget. In 764 Abdallah met his death by the collapse of his house, which had been deliberately undermined.

The first care of Mansur was now to get rid of the powerful Abu Moslim, who had thus by another brilliant service strengthened his great reputation. On pretence of conferring with him on important business of state, Mansur induced him, in spite of the warnings of his best general, Abu Naṣr, to come to Madāin (Ctesiphon), and in the most perfidious manner caused him to be murdered by his guards. Thus miserably perished the real founder of the Abbasid dynasty, the Ṣāḥib addaula, as he is commonly called, the Amīn (trustee) of the House of the Prophet. A witty man, being asked his opinion about Abu Ja‘far (Mansur) and Abu Moslim, said, alluding to the Koran 21, verse 22, “if there were two Gods, the universe would be ruined.” The Khorasanian chiefs were bribed into submission, and order was at last re-established by Mansur’s general Khāzim b. Khozaima in Mesopotamia, and by Abu Dā’ūd, the governor of Khorasan in the east.

About the same time Africa[28] and Spain escaped from the dominion of the eastern Caliphate; the former for a season, the latter permanently. The cause of the revolt of Africa was as follows. Mansur had written to Abdarrahmān, announcing the death of Abu‘l-Abbas, and requiring him to take the oath of allegiance. Abdarrahmān sent in his adhesion, together with a few presents of little value. The caliph replied by a threatening letter which angered Abdarrahmān. He called the people together at the hour of prayer, publicly cursed Mansur from the pulpit and declared him deposed. He next caused a circular letter, commanding all Maghribins to refuse obedience to the caliph, to be read from the pulpit throughout the whole extent of the Maghrib (western North Africa). A brother of Abdarrahmān, Ilyās, saw in this revolt an opportunity of obtaining the government of Africa for himself. Seconded by many of the inhabitants of Kairawan, who had remained faithful to the cause of the Abbasids, he attacked his brother, slew him, and proclaimed himself governor in his stead. This revolution in favour of the Abbasids was, however, not of long duration. Ḥabīb, the eldest son of Abdarrahmān, who had fled in the night of his father’s murder, was captured, but the vessel which was to convey him to Spain having been detained by stress of weather, his partisans took arms and rescued him. Ilyās was marching against them, when the idea occurred to Ḥabīb of challenging him to single combat. Ilyās hesitated, but his own soldiers compelled him to accept the challenge. He measured arms with Ḥabīb, and was slain. The party of independence thus triumphed, but in the year 144 (761) Mahommed b. Ash‘ath, the Abbasid general, entered Kairawan and regained possession of Africa in the name of the eastern caliph. From the year 800, it must be added, Africa only nominally belonged to the Abbasids; for, under the reign of Harun al-Rashid, Ibrahīm b. al-Aghlab, who was invested with the government of Africa, founded in that province a distinct dynasty, that of the Aghlabites.

At the same time as the revolt in Africa, the independent Caliphate of the western Omayyads was founded in Spain. The long dissensions which had preceded the fall of that dynasty in the East had already prepared the way for the independence of a province so distant from the centre of the empire. Every petty amir then tried to seize sovereign power for himself, and the people groaned under the consequent anarchy. Weary of these commotions, the Arabs of Spain at last came to an understanding among themselves for the election of a caliph, and their choice fell upon one of the last survivors of the Omayyads, Abdarrahmān b. Moawiya, grandson of the caliph Hishām. This prince was wandering in the deserts of Africa, pursued by his implacable enemies, but everywhere protected and concealed by the desert tribes, who pitied his misfortunes and respected his illustrious origin. A deputation from Spain sought him out in Africa and offered him the Caliphate, which he accepted with joy. On the 1st Rabia I. 138 (14th August 755) Abdarrahmān landed in the Iberian peninsula, where he was universally welcomed, and speedily founded at Cordova the Western Omayyad Caliphate (see [Spain]: History).

While Mansur was thus losing Africa and Spain, he was trying to redeem the losses the empire had sustained on the northern frontier by the Byzantines. In 750-751 the emperor Constantine V. (Copronymus) had unsuccessfully blockaded Malatia; but five years later he took it by force and razed its wall to the ground. Mansur now sent in 757 an army of 70,000 men under the command of his cousin Abdalwahhāb, the son of Ibrāhīm the Imam, whom he had made governor of Mesopotamia, the real chief being Hasan b. Qaḥṭaba. They rebuilt all that the emperor had destroyed, and made this key of Asia Minor stronger than ever before. The Moslems then made a raid by the pass of Ḥadath (Adata) and invaded the land of the Byzantines. Two aunts of the caliph took part in this expedition, having made a vow that if the dominion of the Omayyads were ended they would wage war in the path of God. Constantine advanced with a numerous army, but was afraid of attacking the invaders. The Moslems also rebuilt Mopsuestia. But from 758 till 763 Mansur was so occupied with his own affairs that he could not think of further raids.

In 758 (others say in 753 or 754) a body of 600 sectaries, called Rāwendīs (q.v.), went to Hāshimīya, the residence of the caliph, not far from Kufa. They believed that the caliph was their lord, to whom they owed their daily bread, and came to pay him divine honours. They began by marching in solemn procession round the palace, as if it had been the Ka‘ba. Mansur being told of it said: “I would rather they went to hell in obedience to us, than to heaven in disobedience.” But as they grew tumultuous, and he saw that this impious homage gave offence to his men, he caused the principal leaders to be seized and thrown into prison. The Rāwendīs immediately rose in revolt, broke the prison doors, rescued their chiefs, and returned to the palace. The unfortunate fanatics were hunted down and massacred to the last man, and thereby the ties that bound the Abbasids to the ultra-Shi‘ites were severed. From that time forward the Abbasid caliphs became the maintainers of orthodox Islam, just as the Omayyads had been. The name of Hāshimīya, which the reigning family still retained, was henceforward derived not from Abu Hāshim, but from Hāshim, the grandfather of Abbas, the great-grandfather of the Prophet.

A much greater danger now threatened Mansur. In the last days of the Omayyads, the Shi‘ites had chosen as caliph, Mahommed b. Abdallah b. Hasan, whom they called the Mahdi and the “pure soul,” and Mansur had been among those who pledged themselves to him by oath. Not unnaturally, the Alids in Medina were indignant at being supplanted by the Abbasids, and Mansur’s chief concern was to get Mahommed into his power. Immediately after his occupying the throne, he named Ziyād b. Obaidallah governor of Medina, with orders to lay hands on Mahommed and his brother Ibrāhīm, who, warned betimes, took refuge in flight. In 758 Mansur, informed that a revolt was in preparation, came himself to Medina and ordered Abdallah to tell him where his sons were. As he could not or would not tell, he together with all his brothers and some other relatives were seized and transported to Irak, where Abdallah and his brother Ali were beheaded and the others imprisoned. Notwithstanding all these precautions, a vast conspiracy was formed. On the same day Mahommed was to raise the standard of revolt in Medina, Ibrāhīm in Baṣra. But the Alids, though not devoid of personal courage, never excelled in politics or in tactics. In a.d. 762 Mahommed took Medina and had himself proclaimed caliph. The governor of Kufa, ‘Isā b. Mūsā, received orders to march against him, entered Arabia, and captured Medina, which, fortified by Mahommed by the same means as the Prophet had employed against the besieging Meccans, could not hold out against the well-trained Khorasanians. Mahommed was defeated and slain. His head was cut off and sent to Mansur. When on the point of death, Mahommed gave the famous sword of the Prophet called Dhu‘l-Fiqār to a merchant to whom he owed 400 dinars. It came later into the possession of Harun al-Rashid. In the meanwhile Ibrāhīm had not only gained possession of Baṣra, Ahwāz and Fārs, but had even occupied Wāsit. The empire of the Abbasids was in great jeopardy. For fifty days Mansur stayed in his room, neither changing his clothes nor allowing himself a moment’s repose. The greater part of his troops were in Rei with his son al-Mahdi, who had conquered Tabaristan, in Africa, with Mahommed b. Ash‘ath, and in Arabia with ‘Īsā b. Mūsā. Had Ibrāhīm marched at once against Kufa he might have crushed Mansur, but he let slip the opportunity. A terrible conflict took place at Bā-Khamra, 48 m. from Kufa. Ḥomaid b. Qaḥṭaba, the commander of Mansur’s army, was defeated, only a small division under ‘Īsā b. Mūsā holding its ground. At that moment Salm, the son of the famous Qotaiba b. Moslim, came to the rescue by attacking the rear of Ibrāhīm. Ḥomaid rallied his troops, and Ibrāhīm was overpowered. At last he fell, pierced by an arrow, and, in spite of the desperate efforts of his followers, his body remained in the hands of the enemy. His head was cut off and brought to Mansur.

Mansur could now give his mind to the founding of the new capital. When the tumult of the Rāwendīs took place he saw clearly that his personal safety was not assured in Hāshimīya,[29] where a riot of the populace could be very dangerous, and his troops were continually exposed to the perverting influence of the fickle and disloyal citizens of Kufa. He had just made choice of the admirable site of the old market-town of Bagdad when the tidings came of the rising of Mahommed in Medina. In those days he saw that he had been very imprudent to denude himself of troops, and decided to keep henceforth always with him a body of 30,000 soldiers. So Bagdad, or properly “the round city” of Mansur, on the western bank of the Tigris, was built as the capital. Strictly it was a huge citadel, in the centre of which was the palace of the caliph and the great mosque. But around this nucleus there soon grew up the great metropolis which was to be the centre of the civilized world as long as the Caliphate lasted.[30] The building lasted three years and was completed in the year 149 (a.d. 766). That year is really the beginning of the new era. “The Omayyads,” says the Spanish writer Ibn Ḥazm, “were an Arabic dynasty; they had no fortified residence, nor citadel; each of them dwelt in his villa, where he lived before becoming caliph; they did not desire that the Moslems should speak to them as slaves to their master, nor kiss the ground before them or their feet; they only gave their care to the appointment of able governors in the provinces of the empire. The Abbasids, on the contrary, were a Persian dynasty, under which the Arab tribal system, as regulated by Omar, fell to pieces; the Persians of Khorasan were the real rulers, and the government became despotic as in the days of Chrosroes.” The reign of Abu‘l-Abbas and the first part of that of Mansur had been almost a continuation of the former period. But now his equals in birth and rank, the Omayyads and the Alids, had been crushed; the principal actors in the great struggle, the leaders of the propaganda and Abu Moslim were out of the way; the caliph stood far above all his subjects; and his only possible antagonists were the members of his own family.

‘Īsā b. Mūsā had been designated, as we have seen, by Abu‘l-Abbas as successor to Mansur. The latter having vainly tried to compel ‘Īsā to renounce his right of succession, in favour of Mansur’s son Mahommed al-Mahdi, produced false witnesses who swore that he had done so. However unwillingly, ‘Īsā was obliged at last to yield, but it was understood that, in case of Mahommed’s death, the succession should return to ‘Īsā. One of the false witnesses was, it is asserted, Khālid b. Barmak, the head of that celebrated family the Barmecides (q.v.), which played so important a part in the reign of Harun al-Rashid. This Khālid, who was descended from an old sacerdotal family in Balkh, and had been one of the trusty supporters of Abu Moslim, Mansur appointed as minister of finance.

A son of Mahommed the Alid had escaped to India, where, with the connivance of the governor Omar b. Hafs Hazarmerd, he had found refuge with an Indian king. Mansur discovered his abode, and caused him to be killed. His infant son was sent to Medina and delivered to his family. Omar Hazarmerd lost his government and received a command in Africa, where he died in 770.

In a.h. 158 (a.d. 775) Mansur undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca, but succumbed to dysentery at the last station on the route. He was about sixty-five years of age, and had reigned for twenty-two years. He was buried at Mecca. He was a man of rare energy and strength of mind. His ambition was boundless and no means, however perfidious, were despised by him. But he was a great statesman and knew how to choose able officers for all places. He was thrifty and anxious to leave to his son a full treasury. He seems to have cherished the ideal that this son, called Mahommed b. Abdallah, after the Prophet, should fulfil the promises of peace and happiness that had been tendered to the believers, and therefore to have called him al-Mahdi. For that purpose it was necessary that he should have the means not only to meet all state expenses, but also to be bounteous. But from the report of the historian Haitham b. ‘Adī[31] about the last discourse which father and son had together, we gather that the former had misgivings in regard to the fulfilment of his wishes.

Khalid b. Barmak took the greatest care of the revenues, but contrived at the same time to consult his own interests. Mansur discovered this in the same year in which he died, and threatened him with death unless he should pay to the treasury three millions of dirhems within three days. Khalid already had so many friends that the sum was brought together with the exception of 30,000 dirhems. At that moment tidings came about a rising in the province of Mosul, and a friend of Khalid said to the caliph that Khalid was the only man capable of putting it down. Thereupon Mansur overlooked the deficiency and gave Khalid the government of Mosul. “And,” said a citizen of that town, “we had such an awe and reverence for Khalid, that he appeased the disorders, almost without punishing anybody.”

3. Reign of Mahdi.—As soon as Mansur was dead, Rabi’, his client and chamberlain, induced all the princes and generals who accompanied the caliph, to take the oath of allegiance to his son Mahommed al-Mahdi, who was then at Bagdad. Isa b. Musa hesitated, but was compelled to give in. In 776 Mahdi constrained him for a large bribe to renounce his right of succession in favour of his sons, Musa and Harun. Mansur wrote in his testament to his son that he had brought together so much money that, even if no revenue should come in for ten years, it would suffice for all the wants of the state. Mahdi, therefore, could afford to be munificent, and in order to make his accession doubly welcome to his subjects, he began by granting a general amnesty to political prisoners. Among these was a certain Ya’qub b. Da’ud, who, having insinuated himself into the confidence of the caliph, especially by discovering the hiding places of certain Alids, was afterwards (in 778) made prime minister. The provincial governors in whom his father had placed confidence, Mahdi superseded by creatures of his own.

In Khorasan many people were discontented. The promises made to them during the war against the Omayyads had not been fulfilled, and the new Mahdi did not answer at all to their ideal. A revolt in 160 under the leadership of a certain Yusuf b. Ibrahïm, surnamed al-Barm, was suppressed by Yazid b. Mazyad, who, after a desperate struggle, defeated Yusuf, took him prisoner and brought him in triumph to Bagdad, where he with several of his officers was killed and crucified. In the following year, Mahdi was menaced by a far more dangerous revolt, led by a sectary, known generally as Mokanna (q.v.), or “the veiled one,” because he always appeared in public wearing a mask. He took up his abode in the Transoxianian province of Kish and Nakhshab, where he gathered around him a great number of adherents. After some successes, the pretender was ultimately cornered at the castle of Sanam near Kish, and took poison together with all the members of his family. His head was cut off and sent to Mahdi in the year 163.

Mahdi had been scarcely a year on the throne when he resolved to accomplish the pilgrimage to Mecca. The chroniclers relate that on this occasion for the first time camels loaded with ice for the use of the caliph came to Mecca. Immediately on his arrival in the Holy City he applied himself, at the request of the inhabitants, to the renewal of the curtains which covered the exterior walls of the Ka‘ba. For a very long time no care had been taken to remove the old covering when a new one was put on; and the accumulated weight caused uneasiness respecting the stability of the walls. Mahdi caused the house to be entirely stripped and anointed with perfumes, and covered the walls again with a single cloth of great richness. The temple itself was enlarged and restored. On this occasion he distributed considerable largesses among the Meccans. From Mecca Mahdi went to Medina, where he caused the mosque to be enlarged, and where a similar distribution of gifts took place. During his stay in that city he formed for himself a guard of honour, composed of 500 descendants of the Ansār,[32] to whom he assigned a quarter in Bagdad, named after them the Qatī‘a (Fief) of the Ansār. Struck by the difficulties of every kind which had to be encountered by poor pilgrims to Mecca from Bagdad and its neighbourhood, he ordered Yaqtīn, his freedman, to renew the milestones, to repair the old reservoirs, and to dig wells and construct cisterns at every station of the road where they were missing. He also had new inns built and decayed ones repaired. Yaqtīn remained inspector of the road till 767.

During the reign of Mansur the annual raids against the Byzantines had taken place almost without intermission, but the only feat of importance had been the conquest of Laodicea, called “the burnt” (ἡ κατακεκαυμένη), by Ma‘yūf b. Yahyā in the year 770. At first the armies of Mahdi were not successful. The Greeks even conquered Marash (Germanicia) and annihilated the Moslem army sent from Dābiq. In 778, however, Hasan b. Qaḥṭaba made a victorious raid as far as Adhrūliya (Dorylaeum); it was on his proposition that Mahdi resolved on building the frontier town called Ḥadath (Adata), which became an outpost. In 779 the caliph decided on leading his army in person. He assembled his army in the plains of Baradān north of Bagdad and began his march in the early spring of 780, taking with him his second son Hārūn, and leaving his elder son Mūsā as his lieutenant in Bagdad. Traversing Mesopotamia and Syria, he entered Cilicia, and established himself on the banks of the Jihan (Pyramus). Thence he despatched an expeditionary force, nominally under the command of Hārūn, but in reality under that of his tutor, the Barmecide Yahyā b. Khālid. Hārūn captured the fortress Samālu after a siege of thirty-eight days, the inhabitants surrendering on condition that they should not be killed or separated from one another. The caliph kept faith with them, and settled them in Bagdad, where they built a monastery called after their native place. In consequence of this feat, Mahdi made Hārūn governor of the whole western part of the empire, including Azerbaijan and Armenia. Two years later war broke out afresh between the Moslems and the Greeks. Leo IV., the East Roman emperor, had recently died, leaving the crown to Constantine VI. This prince being only ten years old, his mother Irene acted as regent and assumed the title Augusta. By her orders an army of 90,000 men, under the command of Michael Lachanodrakon, entered Asia Minor. The Moslems, on their side, invaded Cilicia under the orders of Abdalkabīr who, being afraid of encountering the enemy, retired with his troops. Irritated by this failure, the caliph in 781 sent Hārūn, accompanied by his chamberlain Rabī’, with an army of nearly 100,000 men, with orders to carry the war to the very gates of Constantinople. The patrician Nicetas, count of Opsikion, who sought to oppose his march, was defeated by Hārūn’s general, Yazid b. Mazyad, and put to flight. Hārūn then marched against Nicomedia, where he vanquished the domesticus, the chief commander of the Greek forces, and pitched his camp on the shores of the Bosporus. Irene took alarm, sued for peace, and obtained a truce for three years, but only on the humiliating terms of paying an annual tribute of 90,000 denarii, and supplying the Moslems with guides and markets on their way home. This brilliant success so increased Mahdi’s affection for Hārūn that he appointed him successor-designate after Mūsā and named him al-Rashīd (“the follower of the right cause”). Three years later, he resolved even to give to him the precedence in the succession instead of Mūsā, yielding to the importunity of Khaizorān, the mother of the two princes, and to his own predilection. It was necessary first to obtain from Mūsā a renunciation of his rights; and for that purpose he was recalled from Jorjān, where he was engaged on an expedition against the rebels of Tabaristān. Mūsā, informed of his father’s intentions, refused to obey this order, and Mahdi determined to march in person against him. But, after his arrival at Māsabadhān, a place in Jabal (Media, the later Persian Irak), he died suddenly, at the age of only forty-three. Some attribute his death to an accident met with in hunting; others believe him to have been poisoned. Some European scholars have suspected Mūsā of having been concerned in it, but of this we have no proof whatever.

The reign of Mahdi was a time of great prosperity. Much was done for the organization of the huge empire; agriculture and commerce flourished; the revenues were increasing, whilst the people fared well. The power of the state was acknowledged even in the far east: the emperor of China, the king of Tibet, and many Indian princes concluded treaties with the caliph. He was an ardent champion of the orthodox faith, repudiating all the extravagant doctrine preached by the Abbasid missionaries and formerly professed by his father. In particular he persecuted mercilessly the Manichaeans and all kinds of freethinkers.

4. Reign of Hādī.—On the death of Mahdi, Hārūn, following the advice of Yahyā. b. Khālid, sent the insignia of the Caliphate, with letters of condolence and congratulation, to Mūsā in Jorjān, and brought the army which had accompanied Mahdi peacefully back from Media to Bagdad. Mūsā returned in all haste to the capital, and assumed the title of al-Hādī (“he who directs”). The accession of a new caliph doubtless appeared to the partisans of the house of Ali a favourable opportunity for a rising. Hosain b. Ali b. Hasan III. raised an insurrection at Medina with the support of numerous adherents, and proclaimed himself caliph. Thence he went to Mecca, where on the promise of freedom many slaves flocked to him, and many pilgrims also acknowledged him. Suleimān b. Mansur, the caliph’s representative in the pilgrimage of that year, was entrusted with the command against him. Hosain was attacked at Fakh, 3 m. from Mecca, and perished in the combat with many other Alids. His maternal uncle, Idrīs b. Abdallah, a brother of Mahommed and Ibrāhīm, the rivals of Mansur, succeeded in escaping, and fled to Egypt, whence by the help of the postmaster, himself a secret partisan of the Shi‘ites, he passed into West Africa, where at a later period his son founded the Idrisite dynasty in Fez (see [Morocco]).

Hādī, who had never been able to forget that he had narrowly escaped being supplanted by his brother, formed a plan for excluding him from the Caliphate and transmitting the succession to his own son Ja‘far. To this he obtained the assent of his ministers and the principal chiefs of his army, with the exception of Yahyā b. Khālid, Hārūn’s former tutor, who showed such firmness and boldness that Hādī cast him into prison and resolved on his death. Some historians say that he had already given orders for his execution, when he himself was killed (September 14th, 786) by his mother Khaizorān, who had systematically and successfully intrigued against him with the object of gaining the real power for herself. Hādī, indignant at the fact that she was generally regarded as the real source of authority, had attempted to poison her, and Khaizorān, hoping to find a more submissive instrument of her will in her second and favourite son, caused Hādī to be smothered with cushions by two young slaves whom she had presented to him. She herself died three years later.

5. Reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd.—We have now reached the most celebrated name among the Arabian caliphs, celebrated not only in the East, but in the West as well, where the stories of the Thousand and One Nights have made us familiar with that world which the narrators represent in such brilliant colours. Hārūn ascended the throne without opposition. His first act was to choose as prime minister his former tutor, the faithful Yahyā b. Khālid, and to confide important posts to the two sons of Yahyā, Faḍl and Ja‘far, of whom the former was his own foster-brother, the latter his intimate friend. The Barmecide family were endowed in the highest degree with those qualities of generosity and liberality which the Arabs prized so highly, and the chronicles never weary in their praises. Loaded with all the burdens of government, Yahyā brought the most distinguished abilities to the exercise of his office. He put the frontiers in a good state of defence; he filled the public treasury, and carried the splendour of the throne to the highest point. His sons, especially Faḍl, were worthy of their father.

Although the administration of Hãrūn’s states was committed to skilful hands, yet the first years of his long reign were not free from troubles. Towards the year 176 (a.d. 792-793) a man of the house of Ali, named Yahyā b. Abdallah, another brother of Mahommed and Ibrāhīm, who had taken refuge in the land of Dailam on the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea, succeeded in forming a powerful party, and publicly claimed the Caliphate. Hãrūn immediately sent against him an army of 50,000 men, under the command of Faḍl, whom he made governor of all the Caspian provinces. Reluctant, however, to fight against a descendant of the Prophet, Faḍl first attempted to induce him to submit by promising him safety and a brilliant position at the court of Bagdad. Yahyāaccepted the proposal, but required that the caliph should send him letters of pardon countersigned by the highest legal authorities and the principal personages of the empire. Hārūn consented and Yahyā went to Bagdad, where he met with a splendid reception. At the end of some months, however, he was calumniously accused of conspiracy, and the caliph, seizing the opportunity of ridding himself of a possible rival, threw him into prison, where he died, according to the majority of the historians, of starvation. Others say that Ja‘far b. Yahyā b. Khālid, to whose care he had been entrusted, suffered him to escape, and that this was the real cause of Hārūn’s anger against the Barmecides (q.v.). Dreading fresh insurrections of the Alids, Hārūn secured the person of another descendant of Ali, Mūsā b. Ja‘far, surnamed al-Kāzim, who enjoyed great consideration at Medina, and had already been arrested and released again by Mahdi. The unfortunate man was brought by the caliph himself to Bagdad, and there died, apparently by poison.

Meanwhile Hārūn did not forget the hereditary enemy of Islam. In the first year of his reign all the strong places of Kinnesrin and Mesopotamia were formed into a special province, which received the name of al-‘Awāṣim (“the defending fortresses”), with Manbij (Hierapolis) as its capital. The building of the fortress of Hadath having been completed, Hārūn committed to Faraj the Turk the task of rebuilding and fortifying the city of Tarsus. Thanks to these and similar measures, the Moslem armies were able to advance boldly into Asia Minor. Almost every year successful raids were made, in the year 797 under the command of the caliph himself, so that Irene was compelled to sue for peace. An attack by the Khazars called the caliph’s attention from his successes in Asia Minor. This people had made an irruption into Armenia, and their attack had been so sudden that the Moslems and Christians were unable to defend themselves, and 100,000 had been reduced to captivity. Two valiant generals, Khozaima b. Khāzīm and Yazīd b. Mazyad, marched against the Khazars and drove them out of Armenia.

In the midst of the cares of war, Hārūn was assiduous in his religious duties, and few years passed without his making the pilgrimage. Having determined to fix the order of succession in so formal a manner as to take away all pretext for future contentions, he executed a deed by which he appointed his eldest son Mahommed his immediate heir, and after him the second, Abdallah, and after Abdallah the third, Qāsim. Mahommed received the surname of al-Amīn (“the Sure”), Abdallah that of al-Ma‘mūn (“he in whom men trust”), and Qāsim that of al-Mo’tamin billāh (“he who trusts in God”). Hārūn further stipulated that Mamun should have as his share during the lifetime of his brother the government of the eastern part of the empire. Each of the parties concerned swore to observe faithfully every part of this deed, which the caliph caused to be hung up in the Ka‘ba, imagining that it would be thus guaranteed against all violation on the part of men, a precaution which was to be rendered vain by the perfidy of Amīm.

It was in the beginning of the following year, at the very moment when the Barmecides thought their position most secure, that Hārūn brought sudden ruin upon them. The causes of their disgrace have been differently stated by the annalists (see BARMECIDES). The principal cause appears to have been that they abused the sovereign power which they exercised. Not a few were jealous of their greatness and sought for opportunities of instilling distrust against them into the mind of Hārūn, and of making him feel that he was caliph only in name. The secret dissatisfaction thus aroused was increased, according to some apparently well-informed authorities, by the releasing of the Alid Yahyā b. Abdallah, already mentioned. Finally Hārūn resolved on their destruction, and Ja‘far b. Yahyā, who had just taken leave of him after a day’s hunting, was arrested, taken to the castle of Hārūn, and beheaded. The following day, his father Yahyā, his brother Fadl, and all the other Barmecides were arrested and imprisoned; all their property was confiscated. The only Barmecide who remained unmolested with his family was Mahommed the brother of Yahyā, who had been the chamberlain of the caliph till 795, when Fadl b. Rabi’ got his place. This latter had henceforward the greatest influence at court.

In the same year a revolution at Constantinople overthrew the empress Irene. The new emperor Nicephorus, thinking himself strong enough to refuse the payment of tribute, wrote an insulting letter to Hārūn, who contented himself with replying: “Thou shall not hear, but see, my answer.” He entered Asia Minor and took Heraclea, plundering and burning along his whole line of march, till Nicephorus, in alarm, sued for peace. Scarcely had the caliph returned into winter quarters when Nicephorus broke the treaty. When the news came to Rakka, where Hārūn was residing, not one of the ministers ventured to tell him, until at last a poet introduced it in a poem which pleased the monarch. Notwithstanding the rigour of the season, Hārūn retraced his steps, and Nicephorus was compelled to observe his engagements. In 805 the first great ransoming of Moslem prisoners took place on the banks of the little river Lamus in Cilicia. But Nicephorus, profiting by serious disturbances in Khorasan, broke the treaty again, and overran the country as far as Anazarba and Kanīsat as-saudā (“the black church”) on the frontier, where he took many prisoners, who were, however, recovered by the garrison of Mopsuestia. Thus Hārūn was obliged to take the field again. He entered Asia Minor with an army of 135,000 regulars, beside volunteers and camp followers. Heraclea was taken, together with many other places, and Tyana was made a military station. At the same time his admiral, Homaid b. Ma‘yūf, conquered Cyprus, which had broken the treaty, and took 16,000 of its people captive. Nicephorus was now so completely beaten that he was compelled to submit to very harsh conditions. In the year 808 the second ransoming between the Moslems and the Greeks took place near the river Lamus.

The disturbances in Khorasan were caused by the malversations of the governor of that province, Ali b. ‘Īsā b. Māhān. The caliph went in person to Merv, in order to judge of the reality of the complaints which had reached him. Ali b. ‘Īsā hastened to meet the caliph on his arrival at Rai (Rhagae), near the modern Teheran, with a great quantity of costly presents, which he distributed with such profusion among the princes and courtiers that no one was anxious to accuse him. Hārūn confirmed him in his post, and, after having received the chiefs of Tabaristān who came to tender their submission, returned through Bagdad to Rakka on the Euphrates, which city was his habitual residence. In the following year Rāfi’ b. Laith, a grandson of Nasr b. Sayyār, raised the standard of revolt in Samarkand, and, at the head of a numerous army, defeated the son of Ali b. ‘Īsā. Thereupon Ali fled from Balkh, leaving the treasury, which was plundered by the populace after his departure. The caliph on learning that the revolt was due to Ali’s tyranny, sent Harthama b. A‘yan with stringent orders to seize Ali and confiscate his possessions. This order was carried out, and it is recorded that 1500 camels were required to transport the confiscated treasures. The caliph’s hope that Rāfi’ would submit on condition of receiving a free pardon was not fulfilled, and he resolved to set out himself to Khorasan, taking with him his second son Mamun. On the journey he was attacked by an internal malady, which carried him off, ten months after his departure from Bagdad, a.h. 193 (March 809), just on his arrival at the city of Tūs. Hārūn was only forty-five years of age. He was far from having the high qualifications of his grandfather Mansur; indeed he did not even possess the qualities of his father and his brother. When the latter asked him to renounce his right of succession, he was willing to consent, saying that a quiet life with his beloved wife, the princess Zobaida, was his highest wish, but he obeyed his mother and Yahyā b. Khālid. As long as the Barmecides were in office, he acted only on their direction. After their disgrace he was led into many impolitic actions by his violent and often cruel propensities. But the empire was, especially in the earlier part of his reign, in a very prosperous state, and was respected widely by foreign powers. Embassies passed between Charlemagne and Hārūn in the years 180 (a.d. 797) and 184 (a.d. 801), by which the former obtained facilities for the pilgrims to the Holy Land, the latter probably concessions for the trade on the Mediterranean ports. The ambassadors brought presents with them; on one of these occasions the first elephant reached the land of the Franks.