It was these excessive tributes [1] that enabled the strange facility the Mohammedans found in their conquests. Instead of that continual succession of extortions which the subtle avarice of the emperors had thought up, those peoples found themselves subjected to a simple tribute, easily paid and similarly received, being better off obeying a barbarian nation than a corrupt government under which they were suffering all the disadvantages of a liberty they no longer had along with all the horrors of a present servitude.