through hunger.

The town was given up to plunder, and the booty was immense.
There were found prodigious quantities of gold and silver, and
jewels and rich silks and costly stuffs of all kinds, together with
horses and beeves, and abundance of grain and oil and honey,
and all other productions of this fruitful kingdom; for in Alhama
were collected the royal rents and tributes of the surrounding
country: it was the richest town in the Moorish territory, and from
its great strength and its peculiar situation was called the key to
Granada.

Great waste and devastation were committed by the Spanish soldiery;
for, thinking it would be impossible to keep possession of the place,
they began to destroy whatever they could not take away. Immense
jars of oil were broken, costly furniture shattered to pieces, and
magazines of grain broken open and their contents scattered to the
winds. Many Christian captives who had been taken at Zahara were
found buried in a Moorish dungeon, and were triumphantly restored to
light and liberty; and a renegado Spaniard, who had often served as
guide to the Moors in their incursions into the Christian territories,
was hanged on the highest part of the battlements for the edification
of the army.



CHAPTER VI.

HOW THE PEOPLE OF GRANADA WERE AFFECTED ON HEARING
OF THE CAPTURE OF ALHAMA, AND HOW THE MOORISH KING