barrancas and ramblas, of vast depth, and shagged with rocks and
precipices. It was impossible to maintain the order of march; the horses
had no room for action, and were scarcely manageable, having to scramble
from rock to rock, and up and down frightful declivities, where there
was scarce footing for a mountain goat. Passing by a burning village,
the light of the flames revealed their perplexed situation. The Moors,
who had taken refuge in a watch-tower on an impending height, shouted
with exultation when they looked down upon these glistening cavaliers,
struggling and stumbling among the rocks. Sallying forth from their
tower, they took possession of the cliffs which overhung the ravine, and
hurled darts and stones upon the enemy.
"In this extremity the Master of Santiago despatched messengers in
search of succour. The Marquess of Cadiz, like a loyal
companion-in-arms, hastened to his aid with his cavalry. His approach
checked the assaults of the enemy, and the master was at length enabled
to extricate his troops from the defile....
"The Adalides, or guides, were ordered to lead the way out of this place
of carnage. These, thinking to conduct them by the most secure route,
led them by a steep and rocky pass, difficult for the foot soldiers, but
almost impracticable to the cavalry. It was overhung with precipices,
from whence showers of stones and arrows were poured upon them,
accompanied by savage yells, which appalled the stoutest heart. In some
places they could pass but one at a time, and were often transpierced,
horse and rider, by the Moorish darts, impeding the progress of their
comrades by their dying struggles. The surrounding precipices were lit
up by a thousand alarm fires; every crag and cliff had its flames, by
the light of which they beheld their foes bounding from rock to rock,
and looking more like fiends than mortal men. Either through terror and
confusion, or through real ignorance of the country, their guides,
instead of conducting them out of the mountains, led them deeper into
their fatal recesses. The morning dawned upon them in a narrow rambla;
its bottom formed of broken rocks, where once had raved along the
mountain torrent; while above them beetled huge arid cliffs, over the
brows of which they beheld the turbaned heads of their fierce and
exulting foes....
"All day they made ineffectual attempts to extricate themselves from the
mountains. Columns of smoke rose from the heights where, in the
preceding night, had blazed the alarm fire. The mountaineers assembled
from every direction: they swarmed at every pass, getting in the advance
of the Christians, and garrisoning the cliffs, like so many towers and
battlements.
"Night closed again upon the Christians, when they were shut up in a
narrow valley traversed by a deep stream, and surrounded by precipices
which seemed to reach the sky, and on which the alarm fires blazed and
flared. Suddenly a new cry was heard resounding along the valley.
Ez-Zagel! Ez-Zagel! echoed from cliff to cliff. 'What cry is that?' said
the master of Santiago. 'It is the war-cry of Ez-Zagel, the Moorish
general,' said an old Castilian soldier; 'he must be coming in person
with the troops of Malaga.'
"The worthy Master turned to his knights: 'Let us die,' said he, 'making
a road with our hearts, since we cannot with our swords. Let us scale
the mountains, and sell our lives dearly, instead of staying here to be
tamely butchered.'
"So saying, he turned his steed against the mountain, and spurred him up
its flinty side. Horse and foot followed his example, eager, if they
could not escape, to have at least a dying blow at the enemy. As they
struggled up the height, a tremendous storm of darts and stones was
showered upon them by the Moors. Sometimes a fragment of rock came
bounding and thundering down, ploughing its way through the centre of
their host. The foot soldiers, faint with weariness and hunger, or
crippled by wounds, held by the tails and manes of their horses, to aid
them in their ascent, while the horses, losing their footing among the
loose stones, or receiving some sudden wound, tumbled down the steep
declivity, steed, rider, and soldier rolling from crag to crag, until
they were dashed to pieces in the valley. In this desperate struggle the
Alferez, or standard-bearer of the Master, with his standard was lost,
as were many of his relations and dearest friends. At length he
succeeded in attaining the crest of the mountain; but it was only to be
plunged in new difficulties. A wilderness of rocks and rugged dells lay
before him, beset by cruel foes. Having neither banner nor trumpet, by
which to rally his troops, they wandered apart, each intent upon saving
himself from the precipices of the mountains and the darts of the enemy.
When the pious Master of Santiago beheld the scattered fragments of his
late gallant force he could not restrain his grief, 'O God!' exclaimed
he, 'great is Thy anger this day against Thy servants! Thou hast
converted the cowardice of these infidels into desperate valour, and
hast made peasants and boors victorious over armed men of battle!'
"He would fain have kept his foot soldiers and gathered them together,
and have made head against the enemy; but those around him entreated him
to think only of his personal safety. To remain was to perish without
striking a blow; to escape was to preserve a life that might be devoted
to vengeance on the Moors. The Master reluctantly yielded to their
advice. 'O Lord of Hosts,' exclaimed he again, 'from Thy wrath do I fly,
not from these infidels. They are but instruments in Thy hands to
chastise us for our sins!' So saying, he sent the guides in advance,
and, putting spurs to his horse, dashed through a defile of the mountain
before the Moors could intercept him. The moment the Master put his
horse to speed, his troops scattered in all directions: some endeavoured
to follow his traces, but were confounded among the intricacies of the
mountain. They fled hither and thither, many perishing among the
precipices, others being slain by the Moors, and others taken
prisoners."
The horrors of that night among the mountains of Malaga were not
speedily forgotten by the Christians. They burned for vengeance; and
when "Boabdil" (properly Abu-Abdallah), the King of Granada, who had
temporarily ousted his father from the sovereignty, sallied forth on a
sweeping raid into the lands of the Christians, they took a signal
revenge. Boabdil marched secretly by night; but his movements were not
long undetected. Beacon fires blazed from the hill-tops, and the Count
of Cabra, aroused by their flames, sounded the alarm, and assembled the
chiefs of the district. They fell upon the Moors near Lucena, and, aided
by the cover of the woods, made so skilful an attack, that the enemy
turned. "Remember the mountains of Malaga!" was the ominous cry, as the
Christian knights set spurs to their horses in pursuit of the Moslems:
with shouts of St. James they dashed upon them, and the retreat became
an utter rout. When the fugitives entered the gates of Granada a great
wave of lamentation passed through the city: "Beautiful Granada, how is
thy glory faded! The flower of thy chivalry lies low in the land of the
stranger; no longer does the Bivarambla echo to the tramp of steed and
sound of trumpet; no longer is it crowded with thy youthful nobles,
gloriously arrayed for the tilt and tourney. Beautiful Granada! the soft
note of the lute no longer floats through thy moonlit streets; the
serenade is no more heard beneath thy balconies; the lively castanet is
silent upon thy hills; the graceful dance of the Zambra is no more
seen beneath thy bowers. Beautiful Granada! why is the Alhambra so
forlorn and desolate? The orange and myrtle still breathe their perfumes
into its silken chambers; the nightingale still sings within its groves;
its marble halls are still refreshed with the plash of fountains and the
gush of limpid rills! Alas! the countenance of the king no longer shines
within those halls. The light of the Alhambra is set for ever!"
[Illustration: A WINDOW IN THE ALHAMBRA.]
Boabdil, indeed, had been made prisoner and was now a captive on his way
to Cordova, while Ferdinand ravaged the Vega, and old Muley Abu-l-Hasan,
who now returned to his kingdom, ground his teeth in impotent rage
behind his stout ramparts.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XIII.
THE FALL OF GRANADA.
The capture of Boabdil by the Christian sovereigns was a fatal blow to
the Moorish power. The loss of the prince himself was the smallest part
of the misfortune. Boabdil, though he could show true Moorish courage in
the battle-field, was a weak and vacillating man, and was perpetually
oppressed by the conviction that destiny was against him. He was known
as Ez-Zogoiby, "the Unlucky;" and he was ever lamenting his evil star,
against which he felt it was useless to struggle. "Verily," he would
exclaim, after every reverse, "it was written in the book of fate that I
should be unlucky, and that the kingdom should come to an end under my
rule!" Boabdil could easily be spared; but innocuous as he was in
himself, he might become dangerous in the hands of a clever adversary;
and events showed that Boabdil's subjection to Ferdinand contributed as
much as any other cause to the overthrow of the Moorish power in
Andalusia. The Catholic sovereigns received him with honour at Cordova,
and, by friendly persuasion and arguments drawn from his own desperate
situation and the strongly contrasted successes of the Christians, they
induced him to become their instrument and vassal.
As soon as they felt that they had completely mastered their tool, the
politic king and queen suffered him to return to Granada, where his
father, Abu-l-Hasan, once more held the fortress of the Alhambra.
Favoured by his old supporters in the Albaycin quarter of the city,
Boabdil managed to effect an entrance, and to seize the citadel or keep
called Alcazaba, whence he carried on a guerilla warfare with his father
in the opposite fort. The quarrel was further embittered by the rivalry
between the wives of Abu-l-Hasan. Ayesha, the mother of Boabdil, was
intensely jealous of a Christian lady, Zoraya, whom Abu-l-Hasan loved
far beyond his other wives; and the chief courtiers took up the cause of
either queen. Thus arose the celebrated antagonism between the Zegris, a
Berber tribe from Aragon, who supported Ayesha, and the Abencerrages, or
Beny-Serr[=a]j, an old Cordovan family, which ended in the celebrated
massacre of the Abencerrages in the Palace of Alhambra, though whether
Boabdil was the author of this butchery is still matter of doubt.
Supported by the Zegris, Boabdil for some time held his ground in the
citadel. Old Abu-l-Hasan was too strong for him, however, and the son
was soon compelled to take refuge at Almeria. Henceforward there were
always two kings of Granada: Boabdil, on the one hand, always unlucky,
whether in policy or battle, and despised by good Moors as the vassal of
the common enemy; on the other, Abu-l-Hasan, or rather his brother
Ez-Zaghal, "the Valiant," for the old king did not long survive the
misfortunes which his son's rebellion had brought upon the kingdom. He
lost his sight, and soon afterwards died, not without suspicion of foul
play.
In Ez-Zaghal we see the last great Moorish King of Andalusia. He was a
gallant warrior, a firm ruler, and a resolute opponent of the
Christians. Had he been untrammelled by his nephew, Granada might have
remained in the hands of the Moors during his life, though nothing could
have prevented the final triumph of the Christians. Instead of delaying
that victory, however, the kings of Granada did their best to further
and promote it by their internal disputes. _Quem Deus vult perdere,
prius dementat_: when the gods have decreed that a king must fall, they
fill him first with folly. Such a suicidal mania now invaded the minds
of the rulers of Granada; at a time when every man they could gather
together was needed to repel the invasion of the Christians, they wasted
their strength in ruinous struggles with each other, and one would even
intercept the other's army when it was on the march against the common
enemy. The people of Granada, divided into various factions, aided and
abetted the jealousy of their sovereigns: always fickle and prone to any
change, good or bad, the Granadinos loved nothing better than to set up
and put down kings. So long as a ruler was fortunate in war, and brought
back rich spoils from the territories of the "infidels," they were well
pleased to submit to his sway; but the moment he failed, they shut the
gates in his face and shouted, Long live the other!--who might be
Boabdil or Ez-Zaghal, or any one else who happened for the moment to
possess Granada's changeable affections.
[Illustration: MOSQUE LAMP FROM GRANADA.]
While Boabdil the Unlucky was doing his best to foil the efforts of
his brave uncle Ez-Zaghal, the Christians were gradually narrowing the
circle that they had drawn round the doomed kingdom. City after city
fell into their hands. Alora and other forts were taken in 1484, with
the aid of Ferdinand's heavy "lombards"--a new and destructive form of
artillery. Coin, Cartama, Ronda, followed in the next year, not without
some vigorous reprisals on the part of Ez-Zaghal, who caught the knights
of Calatrava in an ambush, and effected a terrible slaughter. Still the
course of Christian conquest steadily continued. Loxa fell in 1486, when
an English Earl, Lord Scales, with a company of English archers, led the
attack. Illora and Moclin succumbed; "the right eye of Granada is
extinguished," cried the Moors in consternation; "the Catholic
sovereigns have clipped the right wing of the Moorish vulture," was the
Christian comment. The western part of the kingdom had, indeed, been
absorbed by Ferdinand and his intrepid consort. The pomegranate
(_granada_) was being devoured grain by grain. Ez-Zaghal became
unpopular with the people, who could not brook disappointment, and they
received Boabdil once more into their city. He found it hard work to
maintain his foothold there against his uncle; but with the help of some
troops furnished by the Christians he contrived to stand awhile at bay.
Just then Ferdinand was laying siege to Velez, near Malaga, and the news
roused the strongest feeling of indignation in Granada; for Malaga was
the second city of the kingdom. Its site, shut in by mountains and the
sea, its vineyards and orchards, gardens and pastures, and its fine
defensive works, made it the right hand of the Moslem kingdom. If
Malaga fell, then the Alhambra must also pass into the hands of the
"eaters of swineflesh." Moved by the general emotion, and ever ready to
break lance with the invader, Ez-Zaghal boldly led his troops to the
relief of Velez. He knew that his treacherous nephew was in Granada,
ready to take advantage of his absence to recover his old supremacy; but
Ez-Zaghal was rightly called the Valiant; he put aside all thoughts of
self, and set out to save Malaga. But he had to deal with a shrewd
opponent; and while he took his measures for a combined attack from the
besieged and the relieving army, Ferdinand intercepted his messages and
countermined his plans. One night the people of Velez saw the hosts of
Ez-Zaghal gathered in long array upon the neighbouring heights; the next
morning not a soul remained; the night attack had failed, and the
relieving army had melted like the mist before the resolute onslaught of
the Marquess of Cadiz. When the dejected stragglers began to steal sadly
into the gates of Granada, the populace easily threw off their old
allegiance, and breaking into furious indignation against Ez-Zaghal,
denounced him as a traitor, and proclaimed Boabdil king in his stead. As
Ez-Zaghal drew near to the gates of Granada with the remnant of his
army, he found them closed in his face, and looking up he saw the
standard of Boabdil floating above the towers of the Alhambra. His city,
always intolerant of failure, had shut its heart against him in his day
of trouble, so he turned away and established his court at Guadix.
The siege of Malaga itself was now begun, but the strength of its
defences rendered it a formidable obstacle. It was surrounded by
mountains, defended by stout walls, overshadowed by the citadel and the
still loftier Gibralfaro, or "Hill of the Beacon," whence its garrison
could pour down missiles upon the Christians in the plain. Moreover, the
defence was led by Ez-Zegry, an heroic Moor, who had been Alcayde of
Ronda and could not forgive the Christians for wrenching that famous
rocky fortress from him, and who now inspired the citizens and his
following of African troops with a spirit of daring and endurance which
the Catholic sovereigns in vain tried to subdue. Commanding the
Gibralfaro, he was able to defend the city in spite of the peaceful
inclinations of its trading classes. When the king attempted to bribe
him, he dismissed the messenger with courteous disdain; and when the
city was summoned to surrender, and the merchants eagerly acquiesced,
Ez-Zegry said: "I was set here not to surrender but to defend."
Ferdinand concentrated his attack upon the Gibralfaro; his terrible
cannon, known as the "Seven Sisters of Ximenes," wrapped the castle in
smoke and flame; night and day the artillery blazed to and fro. The
Christians attempted to take the place by assault, but Ez-Zegry and his
undaunted followers poured boiling pitch and rosin upon the assailants,
hurled huge stones upon their heads as they climbed the ladders, and
transfixed them with well-aimed arrows from the tower above, till the
storming party were compelled to retire with heavy loss. Mines were
tried with better success, and some of the fortifications were blown up
with gunpowder, for the first time in Spanish history; but still the
garrison held out. The chivalry of Spain was now gathered about the
walls of Malaga; Queen Isabella herself came, and her presence infused a
fresh spirit of enthusiasm into her knights and soldiers. Wooden towers
were brought to bear upon the battlements; a _testudo_ of shields was
used as cover for the men who undermined the walls; but Ez-Zegry was
still unsubdued. At last there appeared a worse enemy than cannon and
gunpowder: famine began to distress the people of Malaga, and they were
more inclined now to listen to the pacific policy of the traders than to
the bold counsels of the commander. Help from without was not to be
expected. Ez-Zaghal had, indeed, once more made an effort to save the
besieged city. He had gathered together what was left of his army and
gone forth from Guadix to succour Malaga; but his ill-starred nephew
again proved his title to the name "Unlucky," for in a fit of insensate
jealousy he ordered out the troops of Granada, intercepted Ez-Zaghal's
small force as it was on its way to Malaga, and dispersed it. Ez-Zegry's
last sally was repulsed with terrible slaughter; the people were
starving, and mothers cast their infants before the governor's horse,
lamenting that they had no more food and could not bear to hear their
children's cries. The city at last surrendered, and Ez-Zegry, who still
held out in the Gibralfaro, was forced by his soldiers to open the
gates, and was rewarded for his heroism by being cast into a dungeon,
never to be heard of again.
[Illustration: MALAGA.]
The long siege was over; the famished people fought with one another
to buy food from the Christians. The African garrison, who still kept
their proud look, though worn and enfeebled with their long struggle and
privations, were condemned to slavery; the rest of the inhabitants were
permitted to ransom themselves, but on these insidious terms--that all
their goods should at once be paid over to the king as part payment, and
that if after eight months the rest were not forthcoming, they should
all be made slaves. They were numbered and searched, and then sent
forth. "Then might be seen old men and helpless women and tender
maidens, some of high birth and gentle condition, passing through the
streets, heavily burdened, towards the Alcazaba. As they left their
homes they smote their breasts, and wrung their hands, and raised their
weeping eyes to heaven in anguish; and this is recorded as their plaint:
O Malaga! city so renowned and beautiful, where now is the strength of
thy castle, where the grandeur of thy towers? Of what avail have been
thy mighty walls for the protection of thy children?... They will bewail
each other in foreign lands; but their lamentations will be the scoff of
the stranger." The poor people were sent to Seville, where they were
kept in servitude till the eight months had expired, and then, since
they had no money to pay the remainder of their ransoms, they were one
and all condemned to perpetual slavery, to the number of fifteen
thousand souls. Ferdinand's ungenerous ingenuity was thus rewarded.
The western part of the kingdom of Granada was now entirely in the hands
of the Christians. The famous Moorish fortresses of the Serrania de
Ronda and the beautiful city of Malaga held Christian garrisons. Granada
itself was in the hands of Boabdil, who hastened to congratulate his
liege lord and lady upon their triumph over Malaga. But in the east old
Ez-Zaghal still turned a bold front to the invader, and gathered around
his standard all that remained of patriotism among the disheartened
Moors. From Jaen in the north, to Almeria, the chief port of Andalusia
on the Mediterranean coast, his sway was undisputed; he held the
important cities of Guadix and Baza; and within his dominion the rugged
ridges of the Alpuxarras mountains, the cradle of a hardy and warlike
race of mountaineers, sheltered countless valleys, fed with cool waters
from the Sierra Nevada's snowy peaks, where flocks and herds, vines,
oranges, pomegranates, citrons, and mulberry trees provided wealth for a
whole province.
In 1488 Ferdinand turned his victorious arms towards this undisturbed
portion of the Moorish dominion. Assembling his troops at Murcia, he
marched westwards into Ez-Zaghal's territory, and attacked Baza. Here
his advance was sternly checked; Ez-Zaghal's hand had not lost its
ancient cunning, and he drove the Christians back from the walls of
Baza, and began to retaliate by making raids into their own country. In
the following year Ferdinand, nothing disheartened, renewed his attack
on Baza; but instead of sacrificing his troops in vain assaults, he laid
waste the fertile country round about, and so starved the city into
submission. It took six months, and the Christians lost twenty thousand
men from disease and exposure, joined to the accidents of war; but in
December, 1489, Baza finally submitted, and with the loss of this chief
city Ez-Zaghal's power was broken. The castles that dominated the
fastnesses of the Alpuxarras yielded one by one to Ferdinand's prestige
or gold. Ez-Zaghal perceived that the rule of the Moors was doomed:
reluctantly he gave in his submission to Ferdinand, and surrendered the
city of Almeria. He was allotted a small territory in the Alpuxarras,
with the title of King of Andarax. He did not long remain in the land of
his lost glory and present shame; he sold his lands and went to Africa,
where he was cruelly blinded by the Sultan of Fez, and passed the
remainder of his days in misery and destitution, a wandering
outcast,--pitied by those who could recognize the hero in a mendicant's
rags, or read the badge which he wore, whereon was written in the Arabic
character, "This is the hapless King of Andalusia."