Chapter XXI: The Last War with Granada (3)

The victory of Lucena more than counteracted the effect of the disaster in the Ajarquia. The Moorish army was practically annihilated; of nine thousand seven hundred scarcely two hundred escaped. The list of killed and missing included the names of the most eminent nobles and citizens of Granada. A thousand horses, nine hundred mules, twenty-two standards, the sumptuous tents and furniture of the royal household, and all the spoil taken in the fertile plains of Lucena and Aguilar were the fruits of the victory. Thus the varying fortune of war, like the vibration of a pendulum, again swung towards the side of the Christians; but in the future its impetus was to be retarded, and finally repelled forever from the cause of the Moors, whose complete disorganization had long portended irretrievable disaster.

The news of the defeat and capture of Boabdil terrified the capital. The absence of the King and his most powerful adherents made it impossible for the faction of Ayesha to resist the advance of Muley Hassan, who, without delay, resumed possession of his throne. With no apparent difficulty, he re-established his authority; but, with an infatuation not easy to explain, he permitted the deposed sultana to retire with her treasures to the citadel of the Alcazaba, an act of singular imprudence, considering her vindictive character, her political influence, and her well-known talent for intrigue.

The identity of Boabdil having been ascertained through the respectful homage paid him by Moorish captives accidentally taken into his presence, he was removed by order of Ferdinand to the castle of Porcuna. With his usual caution, the Spanish king determined, before deciding what disposition to make of his prisoner, to weaken his remaining power as much as possible by an extensive foray into his dominions. By this design he not only contemplated the destruction of the ripening harvests cultivated to replenish the granaries of the capital, but also the aggravation of factional hostility, which would be intensified by indiscriminate devastation, and thus still further impair the allegiance of the people to rulers either incapable of sympathy or indisposed to defence.

The expedition was organized on a tremendous scale. All the provinces of the kingdom were laid under contribution. A body of Swiss adventurers, whose arms and accoutrements were regarded with curiosity by the Spaniards, few of whom had ever heard of their country, brought to the aid of the Catholic sovereigns their Helvetian obstinacy and thorough discipline. The army proper was composed of ten thousand cavalry and twenty thousand foot. A body of thirty thousand men, whose sole duty was to destroy, was provided with axes, saws, and fagots. In addition to these was a host of non-combatants, muleteers, servants, traders, and camp-followers. A train of eighty thousand beasts of burden was required to transport supplies and munitions of war for this great force. In the face of such a power, Granada, at the time of its greatest prosperity, would have found resistance difficult. As it was,--with one of its princes a captive and the other infirm and detested, its population divided by faction and weakened by discontent and misfortune,--there was no military organization capable of even seriously harassing the invaders. The latter, therefore, pursued their relentless course without hindrance. For a distance of many leagues, and in full view of Granada, the country was swept bare of vegetation. The orchards were destroyed. The vines were dug up. The harvests were burnt. Not a tree or a shrub remained in what had so recently been a paradise. In a single district three hundred farm-houses and towers were committed to the flames. The net-work of silver rivulets, hitherto concealed by myrtle hedges and pomegranate and almond groves, now sparkled amidst a scene of sombre desolation; where the monotonous level was only relieved by charred and smoking heaps of what had been, but the day before, the picturesque, flower-embowered homes of a prosperous and happy people. The numbers of the enemy, and the organized system of destruction which he employed, enabled him in a few hours to eradicate every trace of that agricultural skill which had required centuries to develop and carry to perfection. Many towns were taken by storm and abandoned to spoliation. From the walls of such as offered a successful resistance, the dismayed inhabitants saw nothing as far as the eye could reach but a desert. Having accomplished the object of the expedition, Ferdinand disbanded his army and returned to Cordova. The moral and physical effect of this inhuman policy upon the Moors was more decisive than those of a dozen successful campaigns. Their means of subsistence were gone. Their military spirit was broken. Continually exposed to a repetition of such misfortunes, no incentive for recuperation could exist. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that great numbers of the Moslems, abandoned to despair, should seriously contemplate a transfer of their allegiance to those sovereigns who had hitherto been their ruthless enemies and oppressors.

A council composed of the principal personages of the realm was now assembled at Cordova to decide what should be done with the Moorish king. After much altercation and argument, it was decided to release him, it being recognized that his captivity, by removing an element of discord from the councils of the Moslems, would have a tendency to reconcile the jarring factions and prolong the war. Two embassies from Granada appeared before the assembled nobles,--one from Ayesha, whom the blind folly of Muley Hassan permitted to plot treason under the very shadow of his palace, and which was ready to make any concessions to obtain the deliverance of the royal captive; the other from his father, offering a magnificent reward for the delivery of his rebellious son into his hands. The envoys of the Sultana alone received an attentive hearing. Boabdil was to render homage to the Spanish monarchs and pay an annual tribute of twelve thousand doubloons of gold; to liberate four hundred captives, three-fourths of them to be named by his master; and to permit unmolested passage through his dominions to the Christian armies, and furnish them with provisions whenever they were at war with Muley Hassan or his brother Abdallah-al-Zagal. As a security for the performance of these obligations, the son of the King and a number of the nobles of Granada were to be delivered as hostages. Boabdil consented without remonstrance or hesitation to the humiliating terms which insured his freedom, and the convention was signed. A truce of two years’ duration was agreed upon; and the illustrious captive, conducted to Cordova, did homage to his suzerain surrounded by all the pomp of the Spanish court. Then, provided with a numerous and splendid escort, he returned to his kingdom, to receive the hollow congratulations of his partisans, to encounter the contempt of his enemies, and to be the target for the maledictions of the fickle and infuriated populace, which, not unjustly, ascribed to his effeminacy and want of resolution the larger share of the public distress.

The wisdom which advised the release of the Moslem king was not long in obtaining confirmation. Whether he hesitated, even in a desperate emergency, to proceed to extremities against his own flesh and blood, or whether the vigilance which never slept amidst the operations of a campaign faltered under circumstances of domestic peril, Muley Hassan, although fully aware of the liberation of his son, made no attempt to intercept him; and Boabdil, easily avoiding the sentinels and patrols of the outposts, entered the Albaycin in the dead of night. Without an hour’s delay his energetic mother called her adherents to arms. At dawn, the signal for conflict once more resounded throughout the city. Again the streets streamed with the best blood of the kingdom; again the savage tribesmen of Africa renewed in the most polished capital of Europe the fierce hostility which, generations before, had originated in the depths of the Libyan Desert; again the undiscerning fury of partisan discord dissipated those resources of wealth and martial energy that might have saved an empire; disorders which promoted more rapidly and effectually than a series of victories the designs of the mortal foes of the Mussulmans of Granada. Considerations of political expediency, reluctance to longer witness the shedding of blood which must eventually terminate in the extirpation of the fighting men of the kingdom, and the consciousness that their countrymen were involuntarily rendering substantial aid to the Christian cause, induced the more respectable class of citizens, the doctors of the law, and the ministers of religion,--in short, those persons in the community whose opinions were most entitled to respect,--to propose an armistice. This suggestion having been agreed to with less hesitation than might have been expected, and the timorous nature of Boabdil prevailing, to a certain extent, over his ambition, he decided to relinquish for the time his claims on the capital and remove his court and his following to Almeria.

Muley Hassan, while thus temporarily delivered from the presence of his rival, did not fail to realize the precarious character of his tenure, or the dangers--all the more to be apprehended by reason of the secrecy that enveloped them--which threatened the existence of his authority. To counteract these perils and divert the minds of the disaffected from sedition, he knew well that there was no expedient so effective as the popular and glorious exercise of war. Amidst the general demoralization and disgrace, his military reputation, acquired in fifty campaigns, remained unimpaired and untarnished. Among his adherents were to be found the ablest and most distinguished commanders in the Moorish service. Hamet-al-Zegri, Alcalde of Ronda, and Bejer, Governor of Malaga, had in the entire kingdom no equals in the arts of investment and ambuscade, no superiors in enterprise and courage. Twelve hundred picked horsemen and a large body of foot, under these experienced leaders, were ordered to assemble at Ronda, and, proceeding from this rendezvous, to overrun and ravage the rich plains of the province of Seville. Unfortunately for the success of the expedition, the movements of so many detachments of armed men converging to one point aroused the suspicions of some Christian spies who were lurking in the mountains near the former city. The destination of the force was soon ascertained. The Andalusian chieftains lost no time in summoning their vassals; and when the Moorish cavalry reached the vicinity of Utrera they found the country under arms. In the manœuvres which followed, the Christians employed their own tactics against the Moors with signal success. The Moslem infantry had remained encamped in the hills to hold the pass. Farther down, on the banks of the Lopera, a squadron of cavalry had been stationed to be ready for any unforeseen emergency. To a third division, comprising the flower of the army, was assigned the duty of securing the plunder which their companions were expected to guard during the retreat. The position of the enemy was well known to the Castilians, whose scouts promptly advised them of every movement. Leaving a small body of knights to engage the attention of the marauding parties on the plain, the main body of the Spaniards surprised and cut to pieces the division lying in ambush on the Lopera. The noise of the conflict attracted the Berbers from below, but they arrived too late, and were themselves routed and dispersed. Learning of the defeat of their comrades, the infantry, who numbered several thousand, but who in a contest with mail-clad knights were no better than cowherds or muleteers, fled in confusion without striking a blow. One fugitive band under Hamet-al-Zegri, guided by a Christian renegade, reached the Serrania de Ronda in safety. Another, under the Alcalde of Borje, whose followers had been present at the massacre of the Ajarquia and wore the armor of the unfortunate cavaliers who had been killed or taken in that engagement, was pursued, and almost destroyed by the Marquis of Cadiz. In several instances the Spanish knights recognized and recovered the arms and harnesses of which they had been despoiled on that bloody day.

The defeat of Lopera added another disaster to those which announced the declining fortunes of the Moslem power. The bravest defenders of the throne of Muley Hassan had been swept away. His prestige was seriously weakened. Only two hundred Moorish cavaliers returned from this ill-fated expedition. The governor of Velez was killed; those of Malaga, Marbella, Coin, Alora, and Comares remained in the hands of the enemy. The credit for this victory, which reflected so much lustre on the Spanish arms, was due to Don Luis Portocarrero, who had been the first Christian governor of Alhama.

About this time the Marquis of Cadiz, ever alert to take advantage of the negligence of the enemy, learned through his scouts that Zahara, whose capture had signalized the opening of hostilities, might be surprised. Making a feigned attack on the town with the main body of his troops, a scaling-party ascended the walls of the citadel unobserved, and but a few hours were necessary to regain possession of the place without the loss of a single life.

Appreciating the necessity for continuous action as well as the paramount importance of depriving the Moors of the capacity for resistance by the systematic devastation of their country, Ferdinand and Isabella now formulated the plan of a more extensive campaign than had yet been attempted. It embraced the conquest of many towns of note which had hitherto escaped, to a certain extent, the misfortunes of war; the desolation of every accessible locality which still preserved uninjured its crops, its orchards, and its plantations; the indiscriminate burning of farm-houses, mills, and magazines; and, finally, the capture of the great mountain fortress of Ronda, whose remarkable site had caused it to be deemed impregnable, leaving out of consideration the warlike and ferocious character of the mountaineers and the African soldiery by whom it was inhabited and garrisoned.

A numerous army was collected at Cordova during the first days of June, 1484. The train of artillery which was to accompany it was the most complete and powerful that the imperfect knowledge of ordnance possessed by that age was capable of providing. Experience had taught the Spaniards that the most substantial masonry could not stand against the ponderous projectiles of the clumsy, ill-aimed lombards. The principal difficulty to be encountered in the prosecution of military operations was in the transportation of these heavy pieces. The use of wheels for cannon was unknown, and they had to be painfully dragged by long teams of oxen or by the combined efforts of hundreds of men. In Andalusia the highways were none of the best; in the mountainous regions, where the cannon were required, it was necessary to clear away obstacles and to build roads to allow their passage. The time was favorable for an invasion by the Christians. The truce secured the neutrality and, if demanded, the active co-operation of Boabdil. Muley Hassan, old and broken by infirmity, blind and helpless, lay inert in the Alhambra. Universal depression and apathy, aroused only by the apprehension of more serious disasters and the dismal foreboding of impending ruin, hung over the land. The bravest champions of the monarchy had been slain in the bloody scenes of internecine strife or in the skirmishes of unsuccessful expeditions. The superior prowess of the odious infidel began to be reluctantly acknowledged; famine, in a region of proverbial fertility, grew imminent; and the hostile partisans, eager to cast upon each other the blame of which all were equally culpable, indulged in the most bitter recriminations.

The campaign was opened by the siege of Alora, whose walls were soon demolished by the fire of the Spanish artillery, and many neighboring places of inferior importance surrendered without a blow. The capitulation of Setenil followed, and the Christians, emboldened by success and confident of impunity, carried their ravages to the very environs of the three great cities which represented the royal dignity of Muley Hassan, and where had long been concentrated the wealth, the culture, the commerce, and the valor which had exalted the civilization and maintained the existence of the few remaining provinces of the Moorish empire.

The invading army, with banners displayed and ready for action, advanced to a point one mile from the capital. The beautiful suburbs of that city, already described in these pages, were now ruthlessly sacrificed to the stern necessities of war. Not only was every tree levelled with the ground, but every sign of vegetation was obliterated, not even a leaf or a blade of grass escaped. An area of more than a hundred square miles was burned. The threshing-floors were torn up and great stores of grain consumed by fire. The mosques, the villas, and the towers scattered through the Vega underwent a similar fate. For a distance of two leagues in all directions from Granada every evidence of human occupation was blotted out, and the landscape assumed the aspect of a charred and blackened wilderness. While the Spanish king was thus employed in the vicinity of the Moorish capital, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia and the Count of Cabra had wasted with fire and sword the districts of Loja and Jimena. In the short space of forty days greater and more permanent injury was inflicted on the country than during any corresponding period for eight centuries, diversified as they had been by the struggles of mighty nations for supremacy, by the inroads of Mauritanian savages, by the sanguinary ambition of adventurous usurpers, and by the prolonged and ruthless atrocities of many successive revolutions. Nor did even temporary relief result from the withdrawal of the invading force. The governors of the captured towns were ordered to pursue the enemy with unremitting hostility. In vain did the despairing Moors offer vast sums of gold, the release of all captives, the delivery of hostages, if their homes and their remaining means of subsistence might only be spared. In vain did the once haughty King, who, from the very palace where he now lay oppressed with old age and blindness, had returned a message of mortal defiance when summoned to pay tribute--now a pathetic example of the uncertainty of human aspirations and the instability of earthly grandeur--descend to the humiliation of requesting as a favor what he had formerly indignantly rejected as an insult in terms of hatred and menace. In vain did the infuriated peasantry, rendered desperate by the prospect of starvation and beggary and by the failure to propitiate their relentless foes, attempt a resistance which might formerly have arrested the tide of destruction, but now only aggravated their misery. Conscious of their superiority, the Catholic sovereigns refused even the slightest concession to an adversary whom they considered already in their power.

Meanwhile, the cause of Boabdil, who maintained at Almeria the shadow of royalty and the empty ceremonial of a court, was daily losing ground. His close relations with the national enemy, who constantly provided him with money and with the supplies which the abhorrence of his subjects withheld, his absolute want of filial affection, and the fact that his unnatural revolt had been the immediate cause of all the evils which afflicted the monarchy, so impaired his influence that his orders were reluctantly obeyed in the very apartments of his palace. A correspondence was opened between some disaffected faquis of Almeria and Abdallah-al-Zagal, who was de facto regent of the kingdom, then resident at Malaga. That redoubtable warrior, with his African guards, was secretly introduced into the city at night. A tumult arose; the governor was killed in the confusion which ensued; and the partisans of Muley Hassan, almost without resistance, added to his dominions the rich and populous seaport of Almeria. The seizure of the city was not the sole object of the intrepid old warrior. Sword in hand, and followed by his escort, he entered the palace and sought the apartments of Boabdil. He found them empty; but continuing his search he encountered the young Abul-Haxig, brother of the King, and the fearless Ayesha, who overwhelmed him with abuse and reproaches. Infuriated by the failure to secure his nephew, who, awakened by the noise, had become alarmed and fled, he wreaked his vengeance upon the youthful prince, whom he cut down with his scimetar; Ayesha was placed in close confinement; and every Abencerrage prominent in rank or distinguished by reputation who fell into his hands was unceremoniously put to death.

Accompanied by a handful of attendants, Boabdil escaped to the frontier, and sought the protection of the Christian court. The supplications of the exile were heard with sympathy, but they scarcely accelerated the preparations for the campaign already determined upon. With a force of twenty-nine thousand men, Ferdinand laid siege to Coin. The fortifications had been already shaken by the artillery fire when Hamet-al-Zegri, Alcalde of Ronda, at the head of a squadron of African cavalry, cut his way through the lines and entered the city. Encouraged by this reinforcement, the inhabitants redoubled their efforts. A strong party led by Pedro Ruiz de Alarcon, which had become entangled in the narrow streets, was annihilated. But personal valor and heroism could avail nothing against the huge balls of stone that, fired from the lombards, crushed into shapeless ruin every obstacle they encountered. Favorable terms of capitulation were asked for and readily granted. The citizens deserted their homes and sought the hospitality of their kinsmen; and the valiant Hamet-al-Zegri, at the head of his veteran troop of Mauritanian horsemen, grimly and in silence traversed the enemy’s lines and repaired to the seat of his government in the castle of Ronda.

To that city the attention of Ferdinand and Isabella was now directed. The difficulties which must attend its siege were apparently insuperable. It was everywhere recognized as the strongest fortress in the Peninsula. Built upon a rocky eminence, one-half of its circumference was protected by an abyss two hundred feet wide and three hundred and fifty in depth, whose walls, overhanging or perpendicular, defied all efforts to ascend them; the other was enclosed by fortifications of gigantic dimensions and apparently impenetrable solidity. A great citadel, commanding all, towered far above the roofs of the surrounding buildings. Without artillery the place was impregnable, and the transportation of ordnance through a range of mountains of proverbial ruggedness was a task sufficient to tax to the utmost the resources of the Spanish engineers. Roads must be constructed, forests levelled, paths cut through the rock, frightful ravines bridged, before the lombards could be trained upon the mighty defences of the city.

The greatest reliance of Ronda was not so much upon the peculiar advantages of its situation as upon the character of its defenders. It furnished the best cross-bowmen in the Moslem armies. Even the boys were expert marksmen, having been familiar with the use of that formidable arm from early childhood. The inhabitants of the Sierra were noted for their activity, their courage, and their indomitable ferocity. The peasantry, who ordinarily adopted the avocation of shepherds, were hardened by daily exposure and the constant presence of danger to the endurance of every privation. The famous Hamet-al-Zegri, who had, with unshaken loyalty and distinguished courage, long upheld the cause of Muley Hassan, was, as previously stated, the governor of the city; and a numerous band of Gomeres--those African warriors so conspicuous in the closing scenes of the Reconquest, and whose prowess had already been so often exhibited in the present war--composed the garrison.

Uncertain at first whether it would be more advantageous to attack Ronda or Malaga, Ferdinand, having again advanced into the mountains, made a reconnoissance in force near the latter city. The warmth of his reception and the multitude of armed men who appeared on the ramparts and took part in the skirmishes convinced him that the siege of Malaga at that time would be too hazardous, and might fail of success. Information of the approach of the Christians had attracted for the distance of leagues thousands of fighting mountaineers. Among them were many from the vicinity of Ronda, including the governor himself and most of his command, and a number of citizens who little suspected that their own homes would soon be in danger. With characteristic astuteness, Ferdinand concealed the plan of the campaign from all but a few of his commanders. It was generally supposed in the army that the destination of the expedition was Loja. An advance guard of eleven thousand men under the Marquis of Cadiz was despatched by forced marches to blockade the city of Ronda, and prevent its being reinforced or supplied with provisions. On the arrival of the main body the lines were permanently intrenched, ditches were excavated, and the approaches to the camp of the besiegers fortified by the carts used for the transportation of supplies. On the eighth of May, batteries stationed at three different points opened fire on the fortifications. The one belonging to the division of the Marquis of Cadiz, whose gunners were directed by Moorish renegades, demolished the bottom of the cliff, which concealed from observation the secret gallery by means of which the inhabitants were furnished with water. This passage, which resembled the one at Alhama, was descended by an angular stairway of a hundred and thirty steps hewn by Christian slaves in the solid rock. The approach to the stream, commanded by the missiles of the enemy, could now only be made at the peril of death. Four days afterwards a breach was made in the walls, the city was entered by storm, and the castle, to which the garrison had retired, closely invested. It required but a few discharges from the lombards to demonstrate the hopelessness of further resistance. A deputation of the principal citizens implored with success the clemency of the besiegers, and the inhabitants were permitted to depart unmolested, bearing with them their personal effects, to seek a precarious asylum in cities soon to be shaken, in their turn, by the Christian cannon, and to be exposed to the fate of places abandoned to the fierce passions of an exasperated soldiery. The Alcalde of Setenil and the Alguacil of Ronda, with more than a hundred families, desiring to adopt the condition of Mudejares, or tributary Moors, and thereby to retain their religion and their customs under the protection of the Spanish Crown, were permitted to settle near Seville, where, in after-years, their wealth and the heresy of their detested belief furnished abundant profit and occupation to the familiars of the Inquisition.

From the dungeons of Ronda, on the day of the surrender, issued four hundred Christian captives. Their forlorn appearance, their clothes in rags, and many of them almost naked, their hair and beards long and tangled, their emaciated forms tottering with the weakness of famine and confinement, their limbs laden with ponderous fetters, excited the profound compassion of all who saw them. In the wretched procession were many victims of the Ajarquia disaster, and a number of noble youths who, with a devotion rare even in the days of chivalrous self-sacrifice, had voluntarily delivered themselves into the hands of the enemy to insure the freedom and safety of their fathers.

The signal-fires announcing the danger which threatened Ronda had called together from far and near the warlike peasantry of the mountains. The beacons on the lofty summits of the Serrania were answered by others forty miles away. At their appearance the redoubtable Hamet-al-Zegri returned, followed by the bravest soldiers of Malaga, but his desperate charges upon the Christian lines were fruitless, and the duration of the siege was so short that no time remained for more organized effort, either by assault or stratagem. The amazing rapidity and apparent ease with which one of the most strongly fortified cities in Europe was driven to extremity created a profound impression upon the already disheartened Moslems. From almost every mountain town and settlement as far as Cartama and Marbella messengers bearing offers of submission hastened to the Christian camp. In less than a week, fifty places of more or less importance, and the large extent of territory controlled by them, were added to the Spanish monarchy. The terms upon which the Mudejares were received as tributary subjects were exceedingly favorable, and dictated both by clerical dissimulation and political expediency. On condition of swearing allegiance to the sovereigns, through their chief’s and magistrates, of promising to obey the laws, and of paying the same tribute and taxes which they had formerly been accustomed to render to their own monarchs, they were permitted to practise unmolested their religious rites, to possess their own mosques, to be judged by their kadis, and to transmit and receive by inheritance every species of property, real and personal. It did not take many years to disclose the insincere and perfidious motives by which these apparently humane and generous concessions were dictated. The pathetic history of the Mudejares, subsequently known as Moriscoes, is one of the bloodiest chapters in the annals of the Inquisition.

From the very beginning of the war, the policy of the Catholic sovereigns had been directed even more to depriving their enemies of the means of sustaining hostilities than to the winning of battles, the storming of cities, or the occupation of provinces. Every precaution had been taken to prevent the emirs of Morocco, connected with the dynasty of Granada by ties of blood, community of religious belief, and bonds of friendship and sympathy, from assisting their brethren in their extremity. The traditions of centuries united the reigning families of Granada and Fez; and, while their intimacy had been frequently interrupted by invasion and territorial disputes, the general tenor of their intercourse had been far from inimical, and the African sultans had rarely turned a deaf ear to the supplications of their kinsmen oppressed or insulted by the menacing encroachments of the Christian power. Thoroughly alive to the importance of depriving their antagonists of this formidable resource, the Spaniards had early established a vigilant patrol of armed vessels along the southern coast of the Mediterranean. This patrol was maintained with such rigor that, while nominally instituted to prevent the conveyance of men and supplies to Granada, it practically amounted to a strict blockade of every Mauritanian port, and practically involved the confiscation of all vessels trading to that part of the coast of Africa. Without the possession of a naval power adequate to resist the Spanish fleet, the Emir of Fez, cut off from the commerce of the Mediterranean, had suffered seriously in his revenues, as well as from the deprivation of those articles of foreign luxury essential to the pleasures of an elegant and voluptuous court. Actuated by the powerful motives of self-interest, the African prince despatched a splendid embassy to Cordova deploring the condition to which the maritime interests of his kingdom had been reduced by the unmerited harshness of the Christian monarchs, soliciting an alliance, and requesting, in the most respectful terms, the withdrawal of the fleet. As a proof of the good-will of his master, the Moorish envoy brought with him many beautiful and costly gifts. The embassy was received with every mark of distinction by the Spanish sovereigns; assurances of friendship and consideration were transmitted with all the pomp and formality of Castilian etiquette to the Sultan of Fez; but the alliance was declined; and while the strictness of the blockade was somewhat relaxed, so far as the intercourse of neutrals was concerned, the scrutiny of the ports, and the visitation of outgoing vessels suspected of hostile designs, were continued with all their vexatious severity.

With the desertion of their African brethren the cause of the Spanish Moslems became indeed desperate. The only hope of foreign succor lost, abandoned to their own resources, incessantly torn by faction, their bravest warriors sacrificed to tribal enmity, with division in the council, treason in the camp, and incompetency and cowardice in the field, it is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of their hopeless struggle that it could have been so long maintained in the face of an enemy growing stronger with every battle, of great numerical superiority, furnished with every improved means of aggressive warfare, and supplied with provisions by a territory ten times larger and vastly more populous than their own.

With the keen discernment born of natural shrewdness and the strategical experience acquired in repeated campaigns, some of them attended with serious disaster, Ferdinand and Isabella resolved hereafter to use every resource for the reduction of the principal remaining Moorish cities, well aware that the acquisition of any place of importance would be immediately followed by the submission of a large extent of contiguous and dependent territory. The most wealthy and best fortified stronghold still held by the Moslems was Malaga. To reduce it would require not only a numerous fleet and a powerful army, but the subjugation of every town in the vicinity which could either aid the garrison or obstruct the progress of the besiegers. Of these, Marbella, from whose walls Gibraltar and Ceuta were plainly visible, and the situation of whose harbor offered a convenient refuge to any vessels that might escape the vigilance of the Spanish cruisers, was the next point towards which the efforts of the Catholic monarchs were directed. A letter was sent to the city, and a submissive response received. But the tenor of this epistle, while apparently ingenuous, to the Spanish mind, familiar with the crafty stratagems of infidel duplicity, conveyed the impression that it had been framed merely for the purpose of gaining time. As the importance of the object to be obtained was paramount, it was determined to move the entire army from Ronda to Marbella, a distance of only eight leagues, but through a region never before traversed by so numerous a force, and whose natural difficulties were unequalled by those of any other portion of the Peninsula. As soon as the Spaniards arrived, Marbella was evacuated; Montemayor and twelve other towns of the district tendered their allegiance; and the King, advancing, pitched his tent within a league of Malaga.

The hardships endured by the troops upon this march exceeded any to which they had hitherto been subjected, except those resulting from the defeat of the Ajarquia. Aside from the tremendous and unintermitting exertions required for the transportation of artillery and munitions of war along steep paths and over almost inaccessible mountains, the defective commissary arrangements produced a famine. For days both men and horses were compelled to subsist on herbs and palmettoes; and at Marbella the suffering was still intense, as the ships laden with supplies, detained by contrary winds, were prevented from reaching the harbor. The Moors, informed by their scouts of the enfeebled condition of the soldiers, made a furious attack upon the baggage-train while it was entangled in a narrow pass between the mountains and the sea. The muleteers and their escort, separated from their comrades, and, by the nature of the ground, rendered incapable of successful defence, were instantly thrown into confusion. The Grand Master of Alcantara, who commanded the rear-guard, by dint of hard fighting finally extricated himself from his perilous situation, where, had the Moors exhibited a little more perseverance, a catastrophe might have ensued that would have jeopardized the safety of the entire Christian army.

The appearance of the King of Spain with a force of imposing numbers, and part of the siege-train which had levelled with such ease the formidable walls of Ronda, struck with consternation the inhabitants of Malaga, unprepared as they were for the contest which was finally to determine the fate of their lives and fortunes. But it soon became evident that their foes were in no condition to sustain the labors of a siege. The privations of a long and arduous campaign could not have reduced an army to greater distress than that now afflicting the soldiers of Ferdinand. They tottered with weakness as they marched, some even dropped fainting in the ranks. It was with difficulty that the stragglers could be collected--such was the laxity of discipline--or the sick and the exhausted be rescued from the scouting parties of the enemy that constantly hung upon their flanks, and whose tender mercies were slavery and death. The famishing horses, unable to bear the weight of their riders, were led by the bridle, and many of them were abandoned. The pack-saddles and the carts used for the commissariat were empty. In this forlorn plight the army, after some days, succeeded in reaching Antequera, where an opportunity was afforded for thorough recuperation preparatory to the resumption of hostilities.

No circumstance in the history of the Reconquest more clearly demonstrates the decline of Moslem intrepidity and spirit than this unmolested retreat of the Christians. In expectation of a siege, all the available forces of the kingdom had been concentrated at Malaga. They were commanded by the famous Al-Zagal, one of the greatest captains of his time, a veteran versed in every stratagem of war, the idol of his soldiers, the hero of many a successful expedition. The country through which the exhausted and disorganized force must pass was of such a character that in many localities a handful of determined men might easily withstand a host. The condition of the Spaniards, who were scarcely able to walk, precluded the possibility of a formidable resistance. And yet, with every advantage on their side, with the enemy impeded by an invaluable artillery train which could not be defended from a bold attack, with the fascinating prospect of a royal capture to excite the emulation of the daring, with the certainty of valuable spoil and martial glory to inflame the ambitious, the Moors dared not seize what was almost within their grasp.

Of the numerous governors who had, in succession, been placed in charge of the important fortress of Alhama, Don Gutierre de Padilla, an official of high rank in the military order of Calatrava, now enjoyed that responsible and perilous distinction. The absence of the cavalry of Granada, summoned to the defence of Malaga, afforded an opportunity for booty which the rapacious instincts of that officer were unable to resist. A foray was made, which swept from the very suburbs of the capital a large number of cattle and sheep and a few unfortunate captives. During their return the Christians unexpectedly encountered Al-Zagal with the flower of the Moslem troops. In the engagement which followed, the Christians were utterly routed, and the few who escaped were pursued to the gates of Alhama.

His energy, his reputation for knowledge of war, and his executive ability, had, a short time before, gained for that old warrior the precarious and barren honor of the crown. The people of Granada, awed and irritated by the capture of Ronda, demanded with one voice the recognition of Al-Zagal as king. His recent successful exploit greatly increased his popularity. Oppressed with his growing infirmities, Muley Hassan readily consented to abdicate, and to surrender to his brother the shadow, as he had long enjoyed the substance, of power. While the streets were ringing with the shouts of the people, who hailed with enthusiasm the accession of a new and warlike sovereign, Muley Hassan, conducted by his slaves to a litter, left for the last time the city which had been the scene of so many victories and so many calamities during his long and diversified career. Almuñecar was selected as his temporary residence, its strong position rendering it easy to be defended by land, while its proximity to the sea left open, in case of necessity, a way of escape to the coast of Africa. His abdication, although recognized as a political necessity by the aged King, was too much for his proud and sensitive spirit, broken by disease and filial ingratitude. A few months afterwards he expired, unattended save by his immediate family, at Mondujar, in the valley of Lecrin.

It was the request of the dying monarch that his body should be interred, not with those of his ancestors, whose reigns had been immortalized by the glories of arms, of arts, of letters, in the noble pantheon of the Alhambra, but, as became his misfortunes and his sorrows, in some solitude, far from the haunts of men. In accordance with his wishes, the summit of the Sierra Nevada was chosen as the place of sepulture, and there, covered with eternal snows, rest the bones of the fierce warrior whose name was once the terror of the frontier, while the peak of Muley Hassan forms a far more noble and enduring monument than the splendid tombs of silver and alabaster, long since broken and scattered to the winds, which once enclosed the remains of the members of his royal line.

The accession of Al-Zagal was signalized by a brilliant achievement which confirmed the wisdom of the popular movement which had raised him to the throne. Ferdinand had formed the project of besieging Moclin, whose proximity to Granada made it a point of great advantage, and which, according to information furnished by treacherous spies, was negligently guarded. With a view to cutting off reinforcements, the Count of Cabra, with ten thousand men, was sent forward to surround the city at night. Al-Zagal, duly apprised of this design, anticipated the arrival of the Christians, and with a force of twenty thousand soldiers strengthened the garrison, and placed an ambuscade in a narrow defile through which the path of the invaders lay. The Spaniards, bent on plunder and scattered in confusion, were suddenly encompassed by a host of enemies. Surprised themselves when they had hoped to strike the enemy unawares, and demoralized by the sudden attack in the darkness, they were slaughtered almost without resistance, and the Count of Cabra, severely wounded, experienced great difficulty in avoiding capture. The pursuit extended for a league; the terrified fugitives were pierced, as they fled, with the Moslem lances; and Al-Zagal, with a long train of prisoners and the horses and arms secured in the skirmish, again entered the Alhambra in triumph. As a result of this reverse the siege of Moclin was for the time abandoned; and the arms of Ferdinand were turned against the double fortress of Cambil and Al-Rabal near Jaen, which region had for years been annoyed by the Moorish freebooters that infested it, and at every opportunity swooped down upon the fertile plains around that city, bearing away to their inaccessible stronghold everything within their reach. The fortress resisted but a few hours after having been subjected to the fire of the Spanish cannon; and this success, added to the surprise of Zalea, an outpost castle near Alhama, by the governor of the latter city, to some extent compensated for the disaster of Moclin.

The death of Muley Hassan, so far from having a tendency to reconcile the clashing interests of faction, seemed to threaten the inauguration of scenes of even greater atrocity than had hitherto disgraced the civil wars of the kingdom. The restless and malignant Ayesha urged her son, inert at Cordova, to again assert his claim to the throne. At her instigation, it was publicly asserted that Muley Hassan had been poisoned by Al-Zagal, whose following soon became seriously diminished by the corrupt and seditious efforts of her enterprising partisans. Another bloody struggle, that would have soon exhausted the remaining strength of the distracted monarchy and precipitated the disaster, which, though imminent and inevitable, was still regarded as remote, was averted by the plausible but impolitic suggestion of an influential faqui, who proposed a division of territory between the two contending princes. Nothing but the desperate nature of the contest and the universal apprehension of impending ruin could have reconciled the minds of the people to the adoption of such an extraordinary and suicidal measure. To accept it might prolong for a time the independence of a nation whose existence was already precarious; its rejection was certain to speedily entail the most fatal consequences. No one endowed with the smallest measure of ordinary discernment could imagine that two claimants to the crown, each accustomed to consider the other as an usurper and an enemy, could reconcile their adverse interests or even long maintain a suspicious neutrality by a partition of dominion dictated by mutual fears and apparent necessity. The complacency with which the proposition was received by both discloses to what degradation the descendants of the royal line of the Alhamares had fallen. With equal facility the conditions relating to the several divisions of and jurisdiction over the different provinces were adjusted. To Al-Zagal was allotted the territory from the limits of the district of Almeria to the bridge of Tablate, including the Alpujarras and the cities of Malaga, Almeria, Velez, and Almuñecar; all of the remainder was to belong to his nephew. Granada was to be the common residence of both sovereigns,--to Boabdil was assigned the Alcazaba, of old the political focus of his party; the residence of Al-Zagal was established in the Alhambra.

This unwise arrangement made by Boabdil with an implacable enemy of his suzerain placed him in an ambiguous and compromising position. He had received his crown under the implied condition of defending it. By a previous treaty, concluded with the most solemn ceremonies and ratified under oath, he had voluntarily declared himself a vassal and tributary of the Spanish sovereigns. If he failed in his duty as the protector of his subjects, he was liable to be murdered, and certain to be deposed. His voluntary surrender of half of the dominions he claimed by the right of inheritance and now held as a fief to a prince whom his recent negotiations had devoted to perpetual hostility, made him subject, under feudal law, to the penalties of treason. To add to his embarrassment, he had no sooner reached Granada than he received from Ferdinand a stern communication reproaching him with duplicity, asserting that his compromise with Al-Zagal was an act of treachery and a breach of his obligations as vassal; that he had forfeited all right to the consideration or protection of his lords, who would hereafter hold him responsible for the public distress which must result from the renewal of hostilities consequent on the violation of his allegiance. The rising fame of Ferdinand and his daily increase of power convinced him that he could now dispense with the royal puppet, with whose pretensions he had distracted the attention of the Moors from the preservation of that unity of national feeling and singleness of purpose which alone could render them formidable. The denunciation of the Castilian King had followed a submissive epistle of Boabdil reiterating his protestations of obedience, which the indignation of Ferdinand led him to declare was violated without excuse. Nothing remained now for the discredited vassal, the ungrateful son, and the vacillating monarch, who had obtained a crown at the expense of his country’s prosperity and freedom, and which, in a few years, he must have legally acquired in the course of nature, but to attempt, by a determined resistance, to atone in some measure for the misery he had inflicted and the lives he had sacrificed.

There are few royal personages in history so impotent and contemptible as Boabdil, and who at the same time have been endowed with such a capacity for mischief. With singular propriety was he termed by his countrymen Al-Zogoibi, The Unfortunate. Born in the purple, he fought and negotiated for a throne which he eventually lost under circumstances of the deepest humiliation. Indisputably brave, he never won a battle. During his entire career the most inauspicious prognostics foretold, to a people deeply versed in the science of omen and augury, the disastrous result of every martial enterprise. In Spain he unconsciously contributed to the enthralment of his subjects by their most vindictive and uncompromising enemy; in Africa, whither he was driven by relentless fate, he fell, by the hands of barbarians, in defence of a stranger prince, who, alone among sovereigns, was willing to accord to a royal exile the rites of hospitality.