text:  On the first line of the _Inwan_ or introduction was written 'Constantine and Romanin (Romanus ) believers in the Messiah kings of the Greeks;' and in the next 'To the great and exalted in dignity and power as he most deserves the noble in descent Abdurrahman the khalif who rules over the Arabs of Andalus: may God preserve his life!'" The conclusion of this splendid ceremony was however less imposing than the commencement; for a learned _Faquih_ who had been appointed to harangue the envoys in a set speech was so overawed by the grandeur around him that "his tongue clove to his mouth he could not aticulate a single word and fell senseless to the ground" Nor did his successor "who was reputed to be a prince in rhetoric and an ocean of language " fare much better; for though he began fluently "all of a sudden he stopped for want of a word which did not occur to him and thus put an end to his peroration