These baskets contained four pyramids of most splendid fruit; there were Sicily pine-apples, pomegranates from Malaga, oranges from the
Balearic Isles, peaches from France, and dates from Tunis.
The Saracens captured and pillaged Genoa nine hundred years ago, but during the following century Genoa and Pisa entered into an offensive and defensive alliance and besieged the Saracen colonies in Sardinia and the
Balearic Isles with an obstinacy that maintained its pristine vigor and held to its purpose for forty long years.