European creeds, costumes, and manners, and in the hardy and
harebrained enterprises, the romantic adventures, the picturesque
forays through mountain regions, the daring assaults and surprisals
of cliff-built castles and cragged fortresses, which succeeded each
other with a variety and brilliancy beyond the scope of mere
invention.

The time of the contest also contributed to heighten the interest.
It was not long after the invention of gunpowder, when firearms and
artillery mingled the flash and smoke and thunder of modern warfare
with the steely splendor of ancient chivalry, and gave an awful
magnificence and terrible sublimity to battle, and when the old
Moorish towers and castles, that for ages had frowned defiance to
the battering-rams and catapults of classic tactics, were toppled
down by the lombards of the Spanish engineers. It was one of the
cases in which history rises superior to fiction.

The more I thought about the subject, the more I was tempted to
undertake it, and the facilities at hand at length determined me.
In the libraries of Madrid and in the private library of the
American consul, Mr. Rich, I had access to various chronicles and
other works, both printed and in manuscript, written at the time by
eyewitnesses, and in some instances by persons who had actually
mingled in the scenes recorded and gave descriptions of them from
different points of view and with different details. These works
were often diffuse and tedious, and occasionally discolored by the
bigotry, superstition, and fierce intolerance of the age; but their
pages were illumined at times with scenes of high emprise, of
romantic generosity, and heroic valor, which flashed upon the reader
with additional splendor from the surrounding darkness. I collated