OF THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA, AND THE TRIBUTE WHICH IT
PAID TO THE CASTILIAN CROWN.


The history of those bloody and disastrous wars which have caused
the downfall of mighty empires (observes Fray Antonio Agapida) has
ever been considered a study highly delectable and full of precious
edification. What, then, must be the history of a pious crusade
waged by the most Catholic of sovereigns to rescue from the power
of the infidels one of the most beautiful but benighted regions of
the globe? Listen, then, while from the solitude of my cell I relate
the events of the conquest of Granada, where Christian knight and
turbaned infidel disputed, inch by inch, the fair land of Andalusia,
until the Crescent, that symbol of heathenish abomination, was cast
down, and the blessed Cross, the tree of our redemption, erected in
its stead.

Nearly eight hundred years were past and gone since the Arabian
invaders had sealed the perdition of Spain by the defeat of Don
Roderick, the last of her Gothic kings. Since that disastrous event
one portion after another of the Peninsula had been gradually
recovered by the Christian princes, until the single but powerful
and warlike territory of Granada alone remained under the domination
of the Moors.

This renowned kingdom, situated in the southern part of Spain and
washed on one side by the Mediterranean Sea, was traversed in every
direction by sierras or chains of lofty and rugged mountains, naked,
rocky, and precipitous, rendering it almost impregnable, but locking