I PASS over another hundred and fifty years of for-
gotten feuds, to a time when the kingdom of Leon
and Castile has spread well to the south of the river
Douro and includes the ancient cities of Salamanca
and Segovia, and when the little Christian kingdoms
of Navarre and of Aragon, also the county of Bar-
celona, are well established along the southern slopes
of the Pyrenees. In the Moslem territories the
dynasty of the Omayyads has come to an end, and
their subject states have fallen apart, as if a cord
that bound a bundle of faggots had been cut. Here
was an opportunity for Christian gentlemen adven-
turers; and we find Ruy (or Rodrigo) Diaz de Bivar,
el mio Cid Campeador, rising to the height of the occa-
sion. Cid is an Arabic title meaning "lord," given
to Ruy Diaz by the Moors, and Campeador signifies
"champion." This hero has a double personality.
One was a man of flesh and blood, a condottiere of
fortune, who led a troop of sharked-up adventurers
to fight on either side, for or against Moslems or
Christians, whether for hire or booty, wherever money
was to be got; who broke treaties, cheated Jews,
sacked churches, mocked all notions of loyalty, and
did whatever primitive covetousness might suggest.
Happily this groveling kind of history did not exist
in those days; it was left to be dug up by the curi-

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