Note 449 — APPENDIX.

The Arabic accounts, which are much to be relied on, because they are contemporary, give a shocking picture of the Christians at the North in the eighth century. “Viven como fieras, que nunca lavan sus cuerpos ni vestidos, que no se las mudan, y los llevan puestas hasta que se les caen despedezados en andrajos,” etc. (Conde, Dominacion, etc., Parte II. c. 18.) The romantic and uncertain accounts, in the beginning of the third part of the Crónica General, and the more formal narrative of Mariana, (book seventh,) leave little doubt that such descriptions must be near the truth.