communications with the neighboring country. The place, however, was well
victualled, and the garrison prepared to maintain it to the last.[36]

Nothing tries more severely the patience and discipline of the soldier,
than a life of sluggish inaction, unenlivened, as in the present instance,
by any of the rencontres, or feats of arms, which keep up military
excitement, and gratify the cupidity or ambition of the warrior. The
Spanish troops, cooped up within their intrenchments, and disgusted with
the languid monotony of their life, cast many a wistful glance to the
stirring scenes of war in the centre of Italy, where Caesar Borgia held
out magnificent promises of pay and plunder to all who embarked in his
adventurous enterprises. He courted the aid, in particular, of the Spanish
veterans, whose worth he well understood, for they had often served under
his banner, in his feuds with the Italian princes. In consequence of these
inducements, some of Gonsalvo's men were found to desert every day; while
those who remained were becoming hourly more discontented, from the large
arrears due from the government; for Ferdinand, as already remarked,
conducted his operations with a stinted economy, very different from the
prompt and liberal expenditure of the queen, always competent to its
object. [37]

A trivial incident, at this time, swelled the popular discontent into
mutiny. The French fleet, after the capture of Naples, was ordered to the
Levant to assist the Venetians against the Turks. Ravenstein, ambitious of
eclipsing the exploits of the Great Captain, turned his arms against
Mitilene, with the design of recovering it for the republic. He totally
failed in the attack, and his fleet was soon after scattered by a tempest,
and his own ship wrecked on the isle of Cerigo. He subsequently found his
way, with several of his principal officers, to the shores of Calabria,
where he landed in the most forlorn and desperate plight. Gonsalvo,