The capture of Seville terminates an important epoch of the Reconquest. The narrative of the events relating to the condition and conduct of the subjugated Moors during the long period which intervened between the reigns of Ferdinand the Saint and Ferdinand the Catholic presents a melancholy and repulsive picture of unblushing extortion and successful treason, of violated pledges and sanguinary revenge. Oppressed by the exactions and cruelty of their lords, the unhappy sectaries of Islam more than once sought relief in hopeless rebellion. The Moslem population of Valencia, numbering three hundred thousand, made a desperate but ineffectual attempt to regain their independence. As a penalty for this, their expulsion was resolved upon by the King of Aragon,—a measure suggested and promoted by the clergy. The nobles, unwilling to sacrifice their revenues, encouraged the resistance of their vassals; and such was the influence of the aristocracy that a monarch, in order to punish treason, was forced to purchase the concurrence of his too powerful subjects by the donation of large sums of money. The train of exiles filled the highway for a distance of five leagues, and the great sum of a hundred thousand pieces of gold was collected as toll from those alone who obtained the expensive privilege of crossing the Castilian frontier.

Seventy thousand others, resolved to try the fortune of the sword, contended for three years with heroic but unavailing courage against the entire resources of the Aragonese monarchy. At length they were overpowered and compelled to evacuate the kingdom; many of their vacant lands were seized by the Crown; the most desirable estates were absorbed by the Church; the chapel replaced the mosque, the begging friar the laborer; agriculture was neglected; mechanical industry declined, and the vagrants and outlaws of every contiguous state, whose descendants now enjoy a reputation for ferocity, vindictiveness, and treachery, which has spread to the remotest corners of Europe, hastened to occupy the abandoned habitations of what had been appropriately designated a terrestrial paradise.

The Moslem tributaries of the various Christian princes participated in the endless conflicts of every disputed succession, always to their disadvantage, often to their ruin. During this age of political transition, where the lines separating the great powers of the country were so faintly drawn as to be sometimes undiscernible, and where the oldest ties of kindred were constantly broken in the gratification of vengeance or the pursuit of empire, a condition of chaotic disorder prevailed in every kingdom, state, and city of the Spanish Peninsula.

The brilliant campaigns of Ferdinand III. had extended far beyond its original limits the once insignificant realm of the Castilian monarchy. His exploits had confirmed the faith and inflamed the enthusiasm of his subjects. The trophies won from the Moslem, the almost unbroken series of triumphs, the vast and ever-increasing acquisition of territory indicated to the devout the special and indulgent protection of God. In the mind of a populace dominated by the pride of victory and the hope of conquest, there was no room for the gentle and prosaic avocations of peace. The humanizing benefits of commerce were considered beneath the dignity of a nation devoted to the profession of arms, and its practice was abandoned to the states of the Adriatic, at once despised and envied for their intelligence, their acuteness, and their prosperity. The universal prevalence of ecclesiastical legends, whose authenticity was proclaimed from every pulpit, had destroyed all taste for historical composition. The story of earthly heroes, the recital of the rise and fall of great empires and kingdoms, the progress of the arts, the triumphs of civilization were contemptuously cast aside for the miracles of fictitious saints and the absurd prodigies of superstition.

With increasing numbers, enormous revenues, and political influence, which not infrequently controlled the decrees of kings and councils, the Church, in the Peninsula as elsewhere, had long since discarded its primitive simplicity of faith and worship. The manners of its prelates were more arrogant than those of the greatest sovereigns. The most fertile lands of every province were apportioned among its servants. Its edifices occupied the most commanding and picturesque locations. From the contributions of wealthy proselytes, from the spoils of vanquished infidels, from the scruples of the pious, and from the apprehensions of the dying, immense sums were annually deposited in its treasury. The heads of the religious houses, by royal charter or papal usurpation, possessed and exercised without interference the privilege of life and death over their vassals. Some of them yielded in precedence and prerogative to the king alone. The power and opulence enjoyed by these establishments are little understood at the present day. The convent of Las Huelgas, founded by Alfonso VIII., near Burgos, is but one example of many which might be adduced. Its buildings exhibited the highest degree of architectural magnificence of which the age was capable. Three hundred towns and villages acknowledged the authority of the abbess, who was a princess palatine. The rental of its estates amounted to a fabulous sum, which often, in times of public disorder, far exceeded the revenues of the crown. The fortunes bestowed by its inmates, all of whom were required to be of noble birth, formed no inconsiderable proportion of its great and constantly increasing wealth. In its chapel were the mausoleums of kings and princes exquisitely carved in marble and alabaster. Before its altar had been knighted many personages, among them Edward I. of England. The reverence with which this convent was regarded corresponded with the luxury which invested its surroundings, and the authority of the haughty dignitary who presided over its destinies and governed her retainers and dependents with autocratic sway. Such was one of the innumerable ecclesiastical foundations which covered the Peninsula, soliciting the gifts of the pious, tempting the sacrifice of the superstitious, and awakening the awe and veneration of the ignorant and credulous multitude.

The relations between the religious, political, and military orders were then more intimate in Spain than in any other country in the world. Bishops went forth to battle in complete steel, followed by trains of armed vassals, and it was found in the hour of trial that the prowess of these belligerent soldiers of the Church was not inferior to that of their ruder companions, inured by the experience of a lifetime to the hardships and perils of war. In the short and infrequent intervals of peace, the aspiring ecclesiastic indulged his restless spirit in the dangerous and exciting diversion of political intrigue. Not an assassination was planned, not a conspiracy was projected, but the crosier and the crucifix were found side by side with the sword and the poniard. With such associations, it is not strange that the vices of the camps and the unrelenting ferocity which distinguished the mercenary crusader should have found a lodgement in the quiet abodes of religious seclusion. The choice of the female captives was reserved for the episcopal voluptuary. The subterranean vaults of the monastery were provided with the most improved instruments of torture. The richest spoils were appropriated for the benefit of the cathedral and the abbey. The wealth of the latter was incredible. The combined revenues of the Archiepiscopal See of Toledo, in the fourteenth century, were two hundred and sixty thousand ducats, or four and a half million dollars; those of the three great military orders were a hundred and forty-five thousand ducats, or upwards of two million. The state of morals prevalent among the clergy was disclosed by an edict of Alfonso X., by which he granted to the priesthood, devoted by their vows and by the canons of the Church to a condition of poverty and celibacy, the privilege of bequeathing their wealth to the offspring of their concubines. In the reign of Henry III., a mistress of the King was appointed the superior of a convent for the avowed purpose of reforming its inmates! The immorality of the religious teachers, whose behavior, so at variance with their professions, scarcely excited comment, insensibly reacted upon the people. The licentiousness of the Castilian, from the king to the beggar, was proverbial. The illegitimate offspring of the monarch often took precedence of the legal heirs to the throne. The nobles imitated with eagerness the example of royalty, and the life of the lower orders was incredibly profligate. Political honor and private integrity were practically extinct. The obligations of loyalty, the performance of contracts, the solemn engagements which united in mutual dependence the lord and the vassal, were habitually violated. The commission of crime, often instigated by the authorities appointed to punish it, went on unchecked. The highways swarmed with outlaws. The fields lay waste and whole districts were depopulated, for the industrious peasantry were unwilling to labor when their oppressors reaped the harvest. The turbulent aristocracy, when not engaged in prosecuting hereditary feuds, without concealment or apology plundered the domains and appropriated the revenues of the crown. The king was frequently compelled to pawn the insignia of his office in order to obtain the necessaries of life. The priesthood and the nobles engrossed the wealth of the realm. Debasement of the coinage, that fruitful source of so many evils, was frequently resorted to. In many parts of the country agriculture was practically abandoned; trade was paralyzed, and the pestilence, the companion of filth, neglect, and starvation, swept populous communities entirely away. The expenses of incessant warfare imposed new burdens upon a suffering and despairing people. In a single year, in Aragon, the sums expended for the ransom of prisoners amounted to four hundred thousand florins. Amidst this thorough demoralization of society, from which no class and comparatively few individuals were exempt, in the army alone was preserved the faint semblance of honor and virtue. The Castilian soldier, ever brave and generous, despite the superstition which often tarnished his character, while bowing with reverence before the altar, reserved his secret homage for the God of War. When not exercised against the infidel, now restricted to a corner of the Peninsula, his weapons were turned against his neighbor. His imagination was dazzled by the story of his ancestors; his courage was animated by the hope that he might equal or even surpass their almost superhuman exploits. A military career was the surest avenue to the enjoyment of fame, to the acquirement of wealth, to the applause of the multitude, to the smiles of beauty, to all those advantages regarded by mankind as most desirable in this life, and for which every superstitious age has with singular inconsistency been willing to barter the prospect of future happiness and eternal glory in the life to come. The pompous splendor of medieval array appealed strongly to every sentiment which could impress or influence the mind of the courtly noble or the unlettered peasant. Silks and cloth of gold; glittering armor curiously inlaid with precious metals; sparkling gems; gorgeously caparisoned horses; tabards embroidered with royal devices and suggestive mottoes; jewelled weapons whose weight and dimensions indicated that corporeal strength and manual dexterity were the most useful qualities of a soldier who prided himself quite as much upon his courtesy as his valor,—these were the attractions which with irresistible force impelled members of every rank of society to the most fascinating and lucrative of all professions,—the trade of arms.

Until the reign of Alfonso X. the pursuit of letters, abandoned to the monks, had been practised solely in the cloister. The more or less intimate relations maintained at different periods between the courts of Castile and Granada, the great universities and colleges of the Moorish kingdom, the precious literary remains which had survived the ruin of the Western Khalifate, the traditions of a civilization more elegant and polished than the world had heretofore known, made no perceptible impression upon those savage warriors who had borne in triumph the standard of the Cross from the defiles of the Asturias to the banks of the Guadalquivir. The mosques of the conquered Moslems had been deformed by incongruous additions and blackened with the smoke of incense. The exquisite labors of the Arab and Byzantine artists were plastered over with lime. Scientific instruments, almost universally viewed with mingled dread and suspicion as infernal apparatus for the prosecution of magic and the invocation of demons, were broken to pieces. Every copy of the Koran that could be found was destroyed. Such works in the Arabic tongue as came into the hands of the ecclesiastics were at once committed to the flames as of diabolical import. The beautiful palaces and villas of the Moorish princes were suffered to fall into decay. When, in after years, it was desired to partially restore their delicate ornamentation, no one could be found who understood the process,—it had been entirely lost. The lovely plantations of Andalusia, traversed by a thousand rivulets, enriched with bountiful harvests, fragrant with the blossoms of rare exotics, provided with every plant subservient to the comfort or the gratification of man, were turned into a vast and dreary solitude.

No qualities or tastes of the infidel were considered by the knight worthy of emulation save his polygamous habits and his courage and dexterity in battle,—a courage and dexterity which, alas! were insufficient to arrest, and scarcely able to retard, the stubborn and relentless march of Spanish conquest.

The social, political, and religious conditions of the Castilian monarchy sketched in the preceding pages become most important when the causes of the prolongation of the Moorish domination in Spain are considered. The kingdom of Granada, like that of Castile, was rent by internal dissensions. Surrounded by powerful and hostile states, it maintained its existence chiefly through the incessant quarrels of its neighbors. In its court and capital treason and crime were rampant. Emir after emir, whose titles were derived from the murder of their kinsmen, succeeded one another on the throne. A great and tumultuous population, which had fled before the invincible squadrons of the conqueror, crowded its provinces. The mixed character of the latter and the seditious elements of which it was composed rendered it ever ready for revolt. The numerous offspring of the royal harem was also an endless and menacing source of danger and discord. Under such circumstances, threatened with certain destruction, with the banners of Castile often in sight of the towers of the Alhambra, its midnight sky illumined with the light of burning villages, its frontiers contracting with almost every Christian foray, the Moorish kingdom maintained, from the death of Ferdinand III. to the accession of the Catholic sovereigns, a period of two hundred and twenty-two years, a turbulent and precarious existence. The monotony of that long and dreary period was unbroken by any great event, and diversified only by predatory inroads, by occasional sieges of fortified towns,—some of which, Algeziras, Tarifa, Gibraltar, were lost forever to the Moslem empire,—and by those calamities incident to the decadence of a nation whose’ parts had lost their cohesive power, and whose resources were exhausted in treasonable enterprises and civil war rather than employed in counteracting and repelling the efforts of the common enemy.

Mohammed I., as soon as he learned of the death of King Ferdinand, hastened to manifest his respect for his former lord by despatching a hundred Moorish nobles to Seville, where, clad in the deepest mourning and bearing lighted tapers, they followed the body of the monarch to the grave. Through policy or esteem, the alliance between the courts of Granada and Castile was renewed; the Emir, in token of dependence, did homage to Alfonso as his suzerain; and this condition of vassalage, more nominal than real, and rather indicative of friendship than subjection, served materially to protract the term of life of the Moslem kingdom, in the course of natural events inevitably destined to destruction. Summoned by the King of Castile to attend him in his expeditions against the Moors of Eastern Andalusia, Mohammed, bound by the obligations he had assumed, was compelled to draw his sword upon his fellow-sectaries in the interest and for the exclusive benefit of the hereditary enemies of his religion and his race. Arcos, Medina-Sidonia, Xerez, Lebrija, Niebla, and many places of inferior note fell into the hands of the Christians. With bitter mortification the Saracens beheld the subjugation of strongholds whose defences had been constructed by the soldiers of the greatest khalif’s, aware that their aid had contributed in no small degree to victories which must in the end affect the integrity of their own dominion.

The unfortunate results of this alliance did not fail to produce upon the sagacious and penetrating mind of Mohammed-al-Ahmar a deep and abiding impression. Foreseeing the certain recurrence of hostilities with the Christians, he employed every resource at his command to strengthen the defences of his kingdom and to place his army in readiness for aggressive operations. The flying squadrons of cavalry, which had always been the strongest arm of the Moorish service, were reorganized and placed under the command of skilful and experienced captains. Great quantities of provisions and munitions of war were collected and stored in magazines in every part of the country. New castles and watch-towers were erected on the frontiers. Secret emissaries were despatched to foment treason and disorder in those cities which had recently been added by conquest to the Castilian territory, and whose population, largely Moorish, cherished an implacable aversion to their new masters. The fortresses of the South, and especially Gibraltar, were strengthened and their garrisons increased. Negotiations were entered into with the Emir of Morocco, who was induced to abandon his sectarian prejudices and his personal resentment to further a meritorious and pious enterprise,—resistance against the menacing encroachments of the Christian power. When all was ready, an embassy from the towns of Medina-Sidonia, Murcia, Xerez, and Arcos solicited the aid of Mohammed, promising as a reward for his interference the annexation of their provinces to the kingdom of Granada. With secret assurances of support, which indeed had already awakened the hope of success, the tributary Moslems of the South, from Valencia to the borders of Portugal, rose simultaneously in rebellion. The Christians, ignorant or heedless of impending danger, were ruthlessly slaughtered. The soldiery fared no better than the unarmed citizens, only obtaining a somewhat longer respite by the exertion of their superior valor and skill. The garrison of Xerez, commanded by Count Gomez, after a defence memorable even in those days of knightly heroism, perished to the last man. The women and children of the massacred Castilians passed into the harems of the infidel; many were sent to Granada, some were sold in Africa. The city of Murcia was taken by a detachment of cavalry, secretly despatched by Mohammed. A conspiracy, which had for its object the liberation of Seville and Cordova from the Christian yoke, was discovered and frustrated by the merest accident; and the attempt to recover the great mosque of Abd-al-Rahman,—in the eyes of Mohammedans one of the most sacred edifices in the world, and still, despite its degradation to a temple of idolatrous worship, an object of the deepest reverence to millions of the votaries of Islam,—though unsuccessful, failed to remove from the minds of the fanatic believer the conviction that the shrine, enriched and embellished by the munificence and devotion of the khalifs, was destined at some future time to be restored to the possession of its original owners and its endless aisles once more to resound with the truths committed by the Spirit of Almighty Wisdom to the inspired interpretation of the Prophet of God.

Notwithstanding the secret and hostile machinations of Mohammed, already more than suspected by King Alfonso, the crafty Moor still maintained in his intercourse with the latter the appearance of alliance and friendship. But his temporizing conduct, when requested to assist in the subjugation of the rebels, soon resolved suspicion into certainty; the seriousness of the danger became manifest, and Alfonso, finally convinced of the dissimulation of his vassal, prepared to defend not only the ancient heritage of his fathers, but the recently acquired possessions of the crown.

A formidable band of Africans, sent by the Emir of Morocco, crossed the strait and joined the Moslem army, and a bloody but indecisive battle, in which the advantage remained with the Moslems, was fought near Alcalá-la-Real. The country on the borders of both kingdoms was constantly ravaged by bands of marauders. The Moors of the revolted provinces, secure in the defences of the fortified towns, defied the irregular and ill-concerted efforts to dislodge them, and the rancor of religious hatred, intensified by centuries of enmity, which intervals of truce and mutual professions of service had not sufficed to even palliate, broke forth with redoubled fury in every hamlet and city of Southern Andalusia. In the presence of an exhausted treasury, a dissatisfied and disloyal nobility, and an active foe who commanded at once the resources of his own kingdom and those of his allies in Africa, Alfonso began to realize how desperate was his situation. But while the territory acquired by the valor of Ferdinand III. seemed about to be wrenched from the feeble grasp of his son, the proverbial inconstancy of the Arab character, consistent in nothing save the gratification of private revenge, solved forever, at a critical moment, the problem of Moslem domination or servitude. The African allies, to whom the credit of the victory of Alcalá-la-Real was justly due, had in consequence been treated with distinguished consideration by the grateful Mohammed. But in the eyes of the Andalusian Moors the Africans were heretics, and the peculiar bias of narrow minds which regards a hostile sectary as infinitely more detestable than a foe in arms, aided by national and provincial jealousy, subverted a great and well-planned revolution. Forgetful of their services, a cry of indignant protest was raised by the bigoted Andalusian populace against the favors bestowed upon the African auxiliaries; the faquis, the ecclesiastical demagogues of the time, fanned the flame of religious animosity, and the spirit of theological discord, ever so prominent in the Moorish annals of the Peninsula, once more preferred the triumph of misdirected zeal to the welfare of country or the preservation of empire. The walis of Guadix, Malaga, and Comares, voicing the sentiments of the communities they governed, and perhaps influenced by aspirations to ultimate independence, offered to render homage to the King of Castile, with the understanding that he was to protect them from the consequences of rebellion. Alfonso received with joy the news of this unexpected accession of strength, and he embraced with eagerness the proffered alliance. The forces of the walis at once descended with irresistible fury upon the Vega, and the revolted cities, abandoned by the Emir, whose capital was menaced by the active squadrons of Malaga, were in a few months compelled to solicit the mercy of the conqueror. The larger portion of the Moorish inhabitants fled to Granada to add to the constantly growing resources and population of that kingdom, still destined for many generations to represent the culture, the science, the intelligence, and the politeness of Western Europe.

In the mean time, Jaime of Aragon, solicited by Alfonso, had occupied the city and territory of Murcia. His well-known probity, combined with his military reputation, induced the Moors to receive him rather as a mediator than an enemy. His wise and humane policy reconciled the vassals to their suzerain; and Alfonso, with a bad faith conspicuous in an age of broken treaties and repudiated obligations, agreed not only to desert his allies, the walis, but to assist in their subjugation, if Mohammed would forever renounce all sovereignty over the province of Murcia. Upon these conditions a truce was agreed to, which, however, was immediately violated by Alfonso, who, besides refusing his aid, ordered Mohammed to acknowledge the independence of the cities of Guadix, Comares, and Malaga, whose geographical position and impregnable fortifications caused them to be regarded as the keys of the kingdom. The resumption of negotiations produced more enduring and satisfactory results, and the walls, to whose timely defection the Castilian king owed the restoration of the most valuable part of his recently acquired dominions, were abandoned to the vengeance of the exasperated Emir, who purchased of the Christians temporary immunity from further hostilities by an annual tribute of two hundred and fifty thousand maravedis of gold.

Not long afterwards, while Alfonso was deliberating whether he should not again betray his vassal Mohammed by countenancing his rebellious subjects, he was recalled to Castile by a conspiracy of the nobles, headed by the Count de Lara and Don Philip, the brother of the King. The fatal indecision of his character was never more strikingly displayed than in his treatment of the conspirators, who defied the royal authority with impunity in the Cortes and the palace alike, and who finally, to the number of several thousand, including their retainers, renouncing their suzerainty, as permitted by feudal law, took refuge at the court of Granada, plundering and ravaging their own country on the way and sparing neither the rich possessions of the crown nor the sacred edifices of the Church. Mohammed welcomed this seasonable reinforcement to his prestige and power with more than regal hospitality; his distinguished guests were quartered in magnificent palaces, the most attractive national spectacles were arranged for their amusement; they received assurances of the substantial support of the Emir in the disputes with their sovereign; while, in the mean time, the shrewd and enterprising Moslem secured without difficulty the promise of their aid in the impending and doubtful contest with his defiant vassals. An expedition was organized for that purpose; the Christian knights mingled with the train of the Moslem sovereign, and a gallant array issued from the gates of Granada. But before the allied army had advanced far from the capital a sudden illness seized the Emir, and he expired in his tent within sight of the city which he had done so much to adorn.

The founder of a famous dynasty, Mohammed was one of the most talented of those princes who enjoyed the distinction of maintaining through many troubled generations the defence of the Moslem worship and the glory of the Moslem arms. At once bold and crafty, his duplicity arose rather from the character of the adversaries with whom he was forced to contend than from a cunning and ignoble nature. The doctrine that it is pardonable and, under certain circumstances, even meritorious, to disregard the most solemn engagements contracted with an infidel, subsequently carried to such atrocious consequences among the Indian population of the New World, had begun to be, as already stated, a generally admitted maxim of Catholic casuistry. Throughout the Middle Ages the law of nations, the construction of treaties, the courtesies of martial gallantry, the conditions of honorable peace, were imperfectly understood, negligently practised, and often deliberately violated. Many of the defects of this great prince were therefrom traceable to the lax morality of the age. His acts of homage to his mortal foes were mere incidents of a deep-laid policy, entered into to secure the establishment and consolidation of his power. His monarchy, oppressed by the progress of incessant conquest, became insensibly stronger and more easy to defend as its frontiers were contracted. With the Castilian occupation of every city, a crowd of industrious exiles, bearing their household goods, was added to the already numerous population of Granada; accessions which brought with them no inconsiderable wealth and many qualities more valuable than wealth to a declining empire,—habits of industry and thrift, a capacity to adapt themselves to new conditions, the memory of former injuries, the melancholy experiences of persecution, the hope of retribution, and an unconquerable hatred of the Christian name. It was the political incorporation of this banished and oppressed people, aided by the mountain barriers of its last refuge, that contributed to preserve for future glory and unparalleled disaster the flourishing kingdom of Granada.

The founding of the Alhambra has perhaps done more to perpetuate the glory of Mohammed I. than any of the political or military achievements of his career. During its construction he mingled with the workmen, encouraging their efforts, directing their labors, rewarding their diligence. But a small portion of the palace was completed in his lifetime; and it was reserved for his distant successors, under more fortunate circumstances and in a more polished age, to bring to perfection the fairy edifice which his taste and genius had projected. During the reign of this great prince every art and every industry received substantial encouragement; agriculture, which, under the khalifs, had reached such an extraordinary development, again became the favorite pursuit of a laborious peasantry; the shipping of every maritime nation brought the products of the East and West to the Moorish ports of the Mediterranean; the warehouses were filled with those articles of use and luxury which minister to the necessities and the tastes of the noble and the opulent; the mining resources of the sierras, long neglected through internal commotions and foreign war, were again developed; the quarries of jasper and marble once more contributed their treasures for the adornment of palace and mosque; public baths and hospitals furnished with every convenience and appliance known to medicine and surgery in a country which, in its acquaintance with and adaptation of those sciences, surpassed every other in Europe, rose in the principal cities of the kingdom; and the universal thrift and contentment exhibited in the appearance of the people afforded conclusive testimony of the wisdom, the justice, and the vigilance with which they were governed. Nor was the solicitude of the monarch confined to the material wants of his subjects. Schools, colleges, and other institutions of learning were multiplied beyond the example of any preceding age in that quarter of the Peninsula. The libraries, upon whose shelves were still to be found some of those volumes which had survived the wreck and the dispersion of the magnificent collection of Al-Hakem II., were the delight and the recreation of every intelligent scholar. In the embellishment of the mosques were exhibited the first examples of that art whose unrivalled beauty, in after times, found its climax upon the walls of the Alhambra in a splendor of ornamentation which modern skill has in vain attempted to approach.

In the dispensation of justice Mohammed followed the patriarchal example of his Arab ancestors. He gave audience twice a week at the gate of his palace; the humblest suitor was certain of an attentive hearing, and no person was too insignificant to be restored to his rights or too powerful to escape the consequences of insolent oppression or violated law. The public works and institutions were the especial objects of the care of this wise and politic ruler; he personally inspected the baths, the hospitals, the schools, the mosques, the highways, the aqueducts; the fidelity of the teacher and the diligence of the pupil were stimulated by judicious rewards; and his administration, surrounded by every evidence of prosperity and refinement, indicated that the genius of Moslem progress and civilization had entered upon a new and glorious existence on the banks of the Darro and the Genil. What a contrast was all this to the moral, intellectual, and social condition of Europe, and especially of Spain, in the middle of the thirteenth century! What had the boorish Castilian crusader to offer in exchange for it; what benefit could accrue to mankind from its suppression?

Mohammed-al-Ahmar was succeeded by his son Mohammed II., whose genius, taste, and learning proved him to be eminently worthy of his inheritance. An accomplished linguist, his leisure moments were employed in familiar conversation with the scholars and philosophers of distant countries, attracted to his court by his reputation for wisdom, his encouragement of letters, his protection of the arts, and his profuse but discerning liberality. His first act was an edict continuing in their official positions the ministers of his father, whose capacity had been proved by many years of faithful service; his second, the overthrow of the rebel walis, who sustained an overwhelming defeat near Antequera, by which the authority of the new emir was re-established over the territory recently in revolt, and his talents as a general became known to the Castilians, destined erelong to receive fresh evidences of his activity and courage. The recalcitrant Christian nobles, whose valor had contributed to the victory of Antequera, received magnificent rewards of horses, arms, money, and slaves. Sumptuous palaces, furnished with all the refinements of Moorish luxury, were allotted to their use or even constructed in their honor in the suburbs of the most beautiful and romantic capital in Europe.

Sentiments of mutual respect, accompanied perhaps with some apprehension of the results of a conflict where the forces of both parties were so evenly balanced, induced the rival monarchs to consent to a conference with a view to the establishment of peace. In the city of Seville, at that time the seat of the Castilian court, the notable assembly was held. In the old Moorish Alcazar, as yet intact, King Alfonso received the Emir of Granada with the barbaric magnificence which characterized the Spanish chivalry of that age. The handsome features, grave demeanor, and elegant manners of the Moslem sovereign surprised and charmed the ignorant Castilians, accustomed to consider their infidel foes as savages in appearance and demons in character. The splendid arms and costumes of the Moorish nobles dazzled the eyes of the people, while their martial bearing evoked the admiration of the Christian champions, who had experienced the prowess of their guests in many a bloody and stoutly contested encounter. The polished helmets and damascened armor of the recreant knights appeared side by side with the white turbans and silken robes which distinguished the followers of the Prophet. Every courtesy was shown to the Emir and his retinue; the day was passed in tournaments and spectacles, the night in concerts, theatrical displays, and banquets. Political negotiations, for a time subordinated to royal hospitality and chivalric amusements, were finally entered upon, and in the end completed with little honor or credit to the Castilian king. The demands of the Infante Don Philip and his adherents were granted; they were restored to their estates and resumed their precarious allegiance; a truce was arranged between the rival sovereigns, and a numerous escort of nobles, who represented the pride and luxury of the Spanish court, accompanied the Moslems to the frontier of the kingdom.

Mohammed II., humiliated by the dependent position he was compelled to assume at his accession and seeing no advantages to be derived from the perfidious friendship of the Castilians, adopted at once the astute and crooked policy of his father. Influenced by his representations, Ibn-Yusuf, Emir of Morocco, invaded the Peninsula at the head of an army of fifty thousand men. He was at once joined by the King of Granada, and the Moslems of every community of Andalusia hastened to his standard, eager to try once more the alluring but uncertain fortunes of war. The two Moslem princes marched in parallel lines, within supporting distance of each other. The country, which had for a quarter of a century experienced a respite from the ravages of a hostile army, was visited with a severity which equalled that of the most destructive of former campaigns. Not a house, not a tree, not a field of grass or grain remained standing in the blackened track of the invader. Great numbers of Christians perished; a long train of captives followed the Moslem armies; and the days of African dominion seemed about to be renewed. At the Castilian frontier the Sultan of Morocco encountered Nuño de Lara, commandant of that military district, and after a furious battle the bodies of the Spanish general and eight thousand of his followers which strewed the plain bore witness to the prowess of the Berber soldiery.

The division of Mohammed II. moved through the territory of Jaen, where Sancho, Primate of Spain,—who, the son of Jaime, King of Aragon, had inherited the martial instincts of his father, in a warlike age rather an incentive than an impediment to the duties of the clerical profession,—had assumed command. The distinguished prelate, relying more upon the miraculous intervention of Heaven than upon the numerical strength of his squadrons, did not hesitate to attack with a few thousand knights the entire Moorish army. His followers were slaughtered, and he himself, surrounded and disarmed, became the prisoner of a score of Moslems, who, judging from his dress and appearance that he must be a personage of unusual consequence, contended angrily for the honor of the capture and the hope of a heavy ransom. Both African and Andalusian were interested in the result; the old factional prejudices were revived, and an appeal to arms seemed imminent, when a venerable Andalusian sheik, riding up, transfixed the unhappy cause of the dispute between the shoulders with his lance, exclaiming, “God forbid that so many good Mussulmans should shed their blood for the sake of a Christian dog!” The head and the right hand of the Archbishop, embalmed with camphor, were preserved as revolting but significant trophies of victory; the episcopal crosier and the ring of investiture, sanctified by the blessing of the Holy Father himself, became the treasured spoil of the infidel, and the Christians, depressed by the triumphs of the enemy and by the loss of their general, were unable to retrieve the disaster, whose report carried sorrow into every Catholic community in Europe.

Every circumstance seemed at this time favorable to the success of the Moslem arms. The infante, Don Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Castilian crown, died suddenly while marching southward to engage the enemy. His death encouraged the agitation of quarrels and intrigues between the princes of the blood and the nobility. The Christians, warned by past reverses, hesitated to meet their formidable adversaries in the field. The harsh policy originally adopted by the Castilian conquerors now demonstrated its wisdom. The Moors had been driven from the great cities. In every place of importance the Christian population predominated. The invaders could make no impression upon fortified towns, and their sympathizing countrymen, who remained within their walls, dared not afford them the least information or assistance. The campaign ended in ignominious failure. The Africans, having retired to Algeziras, soon experienced the tortures of famine. A Castilian squadron, cruising along the coast, prevented an inglorious retreat, and an enterprise which seemed at first to offer a not improbable prospect of the restoration of Moslem supremacy was frustrated by the indecision and discord of rival commanders. The weakness of one party and the necessities of the other promoted a mutual desire for peace, and a treaty, from whose benefits the Moslem princes of Andalusia, to whose representations was to be attributed the renewal of hostilities which had so seriously affected the Christian power, were tacitly excluded, was negotiated between Alfonso and the Sultan. The Africans were then permitted to retire, and the Andalusians hastened to renew an allegiance solely based upon considerations of present expediency, assumed and renounced with equal facility and unconcern. From time to time, during the reign of Alfonso X., the peace of the kingdom of Castile was disturbed by the determined enmity of the Emir of Granada. The efforts of that prince were, however, mainly confined to the temporary and local injuries incident to the operations of guerilla warfare.

The siege of Algeziras, which, with Tarifa, had been ceded by Mohammed II. to the Sultan of Morocco, was undertaken by the Castilians, who, through the negligence of the authorities and the demoralization consequent on a lamentable want of discipline, were compelled to abandon their position with the loss of their ships and the capture of their admiral. The arms of the Christians were then turned against the Moslems of Granada. The general result of the campaign was favorable to the latter, but the devastation of the rich plantations of the Vega more than counterbalanced the brilliant but costly honors of military success, and hostilities were suspended by common consent, only to be renewed at a more advantageous opportunity. The declining years of Alfonso were harassed by the ambition and disobedience of his son. The aid of the Sultan, moved by the wretchedness of his former adversary, was solicited and granted; but a few indecisive encounters, followed by the sudden withdrawal of the Africans, were the only fruits of this precarious and impolitic alliance, regarded with horror by the clergy and with suspicion and disfavor by even the most ardent partisans of the Castilian king.

The reign of Alfonso X., whose well-known title EL Sabio, The Learned, would have rendered him illustrious even in a more intelligent and a less warlike age, is a shining landmark amidst the intellectual desolation of the thirteenth century. His education, his associations, his tastes, and his habits had preserved him, in a great degree, from the contaminating and degrading influences which warped the intellect and perverted the impulses of the greatest statesmen and warriors of the time. Excelling in every art save that of war, which, unfortunately for him, was at that epoch the only title to popular respect and honorable distinction, his career presents a remarkable contrast to that of his father, St. Ferdinand, whose acquirements were confined to the military profession, whose life was an incessant struggle with the infidel, and whose devotion to the interests of the Church has been rewarded by his exaltation to the more than regal dignity of intercessor for the prostrate suppliant at the Throne of God. The age of ignorance in which the lot of Alfonso X. was cast could not appreciate or comprehend the necessity for, or the advantages of, literary or scientific attainments. The ecclesiastic did the thinking for the multitude. His knowledge seldom extended beyond the contents of his breviary. In his narrow mind association with infidels was the blackest of crimes, only to be expiated by arduous penance and liberal contributions. The whole career of this prince disclosed his political incapacity and his disinclination to adapt his conduct to the circumstances which environed him. He received from his father the heritage of a great but unformed empire. Insulted by the nobles, distrusted by the multitude, maligned by the clergy, and despoiled by his sons, he died without the possession and almost without the semblance of royal power. His naturally pacific disposition brought upon him the censure of a nation whose traditions for centuries had been derived from crusade and conquest. His enmity to the Emir of Granada was never sufficiently intense to exclude from his society the Moslem philosophers, physicians, and astronomers who shared his friendship and enjoyed his bounty. The scowling priest eyed askance the swarthy faces and flowing robes of the infidel strangers, who, protected by royal authority, frequented without molestation the observatories of Cordova and the libraries of Seville and Toledo. In the minds of the superstitious ecclesiastics they were magicians, who, in league with evil spirits, performed in the secret recesses of the palace infernal rites and diabolical sacrifices. The intimacy of the King with these accomplished scholars was considered a reproach, an act to be condemned by every devout and zealous Christian. The orthodoxy of Alfonso received a final blow when he required the clergy, who monopolized the most profitable sources of revenue of the kingdom, to contribute to the support of the government and to the expenses incurred during the Moorish wars.

In all the literary productions of the reign of Alfonso X. is to be readily discerned the influence of his enlightened neighbors, the Moslems of Granada. His astronomical tables—a prodigy of scientific knowledge and accuracy, considering the era in which they were compiled—were the work of fifty astronomers, the majority of whom were Moors and Jews; the time occupied in their arrangement and calculation extended over several years, and their cost aroused the pharisaical indignation of the clergy, who saw the revenues of the crown diverted for sacrilegious purposes from the control of the orthodox to the profit of the infidel and the heretic. This monument of erudition, still regarded with wonder and respect by the learned, would alone have been sufficient to establish the fame of its royal promoter; but numerous other works of scarcely less importance survive to attest his patronage of letters. The Coronica General de España, composed by his own hand; the Cantigas, poems in honor of the Virgin; the Siete Partidas, a comprehensive code of laws which has been extensively used in the classification and compilation of subsequent systems of jurisprudence; the Del Tesoro, a book on the transmutation of metals,—all demonstrate the extent of his information, the tirelessness of his industry, and the fertility of his genius. Perhaps the greatest of his achievements was the legal adoption of a provincial dialect in public documents, which time and practice developed into the musical and sonorous Castilian language. His devotion to literature was only exceeded by the admiration he entertained for its professors. He endowed with rich estates many chairs in the University of Salamanca. He elevated judges eminent for legal attainments to aristocratic rank. Ever ready to recognize his obligations to his early instructors and his recent friends, he bestowed honor, wealth, distinction upon all scholars, irrespective of nationality or creed. The Moors were always the objects of his especial favor. To their inspiration he was indebted for the noble impulse and example which had first directed his attention to learning; through their teachings he had imbibed the maxims of justice and wisdom; from their labors he was to derive, in coming centuries, the greatest credit and most enduring glory of his reign. The Moorish financier was not infrequently intrusted with the collection and expenditure of the revenues; the Moorish physician was a prominent figure at the Castilian court, where even the luxurious prelate, abominating the meagre fare of the cloister, did not hesitate to intrust his sacred person to his care; the Moorish professor domiciled in the palaces of the aristocracy directed the education of the most illustrious of the Castilian youth. Well was it for King Alfonso that the Church had not yet attained that position of security and power which justified the exertion of force for the maintenance and extension of its rule. But even in the subordinate relation it sustained to the state, in comparison with the prestige attaching to military success, its influence was well to be dreaded. It was the intrigues of the clergy appealing to the hereditary and martial pride of the nobles and inflaming the discontent of the people that promoted the unworthy ambition of Don Sancho, thus weakening the regal authority, anticipating the succession, and degrading the dignity of the throne. The implacable spirit of religious hatred was not yet strong enough to send its victims to the stake, confiscate their property, and brand their names with infamy; but it was able to interfere successfully in political affairs, and to humiliate a sovereign whose chief offences were that he had patronized profane learning, lived in intimacy with infidels, and, worst of all, extorted from the Church a portion of its wealth for the defence of his kingdom and the preservation of public security.

The news of the death of Alfonso X. was received with every manifestation of sorrow and regret throughout the Moorish dominions. The Emirs of Granada and Morocco hastened to send embassies to his successor, Sancho el Bravo, to tender condolence and solicit the continuance of peace and national friendship. To the compliments and sympathy of the former he returned a courteous but ambiguous answer, but the envoys of the Emir of Morocco were insulted with a message of defiance. Justly incensed by this treatment, the Emir Abu-Yusuf prepared for war. A considerable body of troops under his son Yakub was despatched across the strait, and Xerez was besieged. The approach of a great Castilian army caused the retreat of the invaders, and a truce for three years was agreed upon, for which the African prince paid two million maravedis of gold.

The new king was the moral antipodes of his father. His title, El Bravo, gained in battle while prince, indicated his claim to the respect and admiration of his subjects. Ignorant, bigoted, and cruel, he represented in every respect the spirit and aspirations of the age in which he lived. His dominating impulse was the love of war. He drove from the court the Moorish savants whose relations with Alfonso X. had brought suspicion on his orthodoxy and scandal on his name. The clergy, partly on account of the aid they had contributed to the faction of Sancho, but principally because they alone, of the different orders of the state, possessed the requisite knowledge and ability, were intrusted with the collection of tribute and the management of the royal treasury. But while the King favored the ecclesiastic, he jealously guarded the privileges of the nobility and the prerogatives of the crown. The highest rewards were reserved for military prowess. The pursuits of literature were discouraged and neglected. The intellectual development of the nation, begun under such happy auspices by Alfonso X., was arrested, never again to be revived, and soon to be absolutely crushed by theological intolerance and inquisitorial tyranny.

The enterprising genius of Sancho, occupied by internal disturbances, was not exerted against his African enemy until seven years had elapsed after the signing of the truce. Then a quarrel between Yusuf-Abu-Yakub and Mohammed II., again the ally of Castile, afforded a pretext for interference. The city of Tarifa, inferior only in strategical importance to Algeziras and Gibraltar, was taken from the Africans. Its defences were repaired, and it was garrisoned by a strong force commanded by Alfonso Perez de Guzman, a soldier of fortune, who had amassed great wealth in the service of the Emir of Morocco, and to whom the modern princely house of Medina-Sidonia owes its origin and much of its renown. A year afterwards the Infante Don Juan, brother of the King, after an unsuccessful attempt to seize the throne, fled to the court of the Emir of Morocco. Received with honor and intrusted with a force of five thousand African cavalry, he undertook to reduce Tarifa. The governor treated with defiance the demand of surrender. His son, a youth of tender years, had been captured by the enemy, and, with the expectation that paternal tenderness would prove stronger than loyalty to his country, the Infante sent word to the Castilian commander that unless he immediately evacuated the city the boy’s life would be sacrificed. The intrepid governor, in reply, cast a sword from the battlements; the unfortunate youth was decapitated, and his head shot into the town from a catapult. This inhuman action committed by a Christian prince, which indicates the barbarous character of the warfare pursued in those times, was as unwise as it was unpardonable; far from being intimidated, the garrison was impelled by horror and resentment to resist more vigorously, and the siege was soon raised by the approach of an army of Castilians and Moors.

The precarious alliance between Christian and Moslem, whose conditions were almost always unfavorable to the latter, not long afterwards sustained another rupture. Involved in a serious controversy with the nobles, who, rendered more arrogant by the increased importance they had acquired in the beginning of the present reign, menaced the security of the throne, Sancho, unable to protect his frontiers, saw them desolated with impunity by the cavalry of Mohammed, who had taken advantage of the embarrassment of his enemy to again inaugurate hostilities. Appeasing by timely concessions the discontent of his vassals, the King of Castile marched into Granada; stormed Quesada and Alcaudete, whose inhabitants he massacred without pity; spread devastation over the surrounding country, and, with a long train of captives and much booty, returned to his dominions. This exploit was the final one of his career. Consumed by a lingering and painful disease, he died, leaving to his infant heir an inheritance of domestic trouble and an unstable throne, which even monarchs of mature age and great experience had found it a difficult task to defend.

The minority of an infant prince, the difficulties of a disputed regency, the feuds of a jealous aristocracy, the intrigues of rival pretenders, and the murmurs of a discontented populace—always the victims of the quarrels, the triumphs, or the misfortunes of their superiors—afforded a tempting opportunity to the Emir of Granada, of which he was not slow to take advantage. His preparations completed, he first recaptured the towns lost in the last expedition, and retaliated on the unfortunate garrisons the treatment which his own subjects had received.

Flushed with success, he overran almost the whole of Andalusia, burnt the suburbs of many cities, stormed the castle of Belmar, and threatened Jaen and Tarifa. The unprofitable experience of the Emir of Morocco with his dependencies in Spain induced him to offer to Mohammed the fortress of Algeziras, for which he received a hundred thousand mithcals of gold.

Mohammed II. did not long survive his last and greatest foray. He is said to have died while in the performance of his devotions; his reign of thirty years is one of the most important of the time, and his kingdom, consolidated alike by his victories and the reverses sustained by his neighbors, who by tens of thousands settled in his dominions, descended to his son Mohammed III., a prince whose character and accomplishments were not inferior to his distinguished lineage. His administration—a series of disasters, conspiracies, and assassinations—he made illustrious by his love of erudition, his encouragement of the arts, and the embellishment of his capital. His industry was so great that he prolonged far into the night the unfinished business of the day. He displayed great vigor in crushing the rebellious spirit of the wali of Guadix, who refused to recognize his authority. By the capture of Ceuta he obtained a great treasure, which he worthily expended in the improvement of his kingdom. Among the buildings constructed by its aid were numbered the Great Mosque and the principal public bath of the city. The mosque, upon whose site now stands the cathedral of Granada, was famous for its magnificent columns of marble and jasper, its ornamentation of fretted silver, and its brilliant and intricate mosaics. An additional tax for the support of the bath, which scarcely yielded to the mosque in expense of materials and beauty of design, was levied upon the Jews and Christians, who were thus compelled to contribute to the revenues of an institution connected with the worship of their infidel masters, and one to which the latter sect had always exhibited a decided and unconquerable aversion.

In 1305, Suleyman-Ibn-Rabich, wali of Almeria, instigated by the Aragonese, aspired to independence. Seized before his plans were matured, he escaped with difficulty to the court of Barcelona. An understanding having been perfected between the Kings of Castile and Aragon, simultaneous attacks were made upon the Moorish dominions. A powerful Aragonese fleet and army appeared before Almeria and invested it by land and sea. At the same time the forces of Castile laid siege to Algeziras, which Mohammed endeavored to relieve, but was prevented by a succession of destructive tempests and floods.

Informed of the weak condition of Gibraltar, a body of troops was detached from the army besieging Algeziras to surprise it. The attempt was successful; by the aid of cannon a breach was opened; the defences were stormed, and the famous fortress whose Moslem occupation dated from the invasion of Tarik passed for the time from the hands of the Saracens, by whom it was commonly regarded as the key of the Peninsula.

The siege of Algeziras was now pushed with increased vigor, and Mohammed, apprehensive of the results of the Aragonese invasion as well as of a conspiracy formed by malcontents in his own capital, offered proposals for peace. His overtures were heard with attention, but important and degrading concessions were demanded by the victorious enemy, who, well aware of the extremity to which the garrison was reduced, determined to exact an enormous compensation for raising the siege. No alternative but acceptance remained for the unfortunate Emir. The frontier towns of Quesada, Bedmar, Quadros were surrendered as an equivalent for the continued possession of Algeziras, and the Moorish inhabitants retired. Their houses were occupied by Christian colonists, the fruits of the last victorious campaign of Mohammed II. were lost, and the humiliated sovereign returned to his capital amidst the whispered murmurs of the nobility and the public execration of an exasperated populace. He had now to confront a new peril, more to be feared than the weapons of an enterprising and courageous enemy.

The court had long been distracted by the intrigues of the rival viziers, Abu-Sultan-Aziz, who had been the trusted councillor of Mohammed II., and Abd-al-Rahman-al-Ramedy, the favorite of the present emir, who had profited by his opportunities to amass a great fortune, enabling him to display an ostentation offensive to the pride of the nobles and arousing the envy of the people. The growing unpopularity of Mohammed III., his failing eyesight,—the result of immoderate sensuality,—his enforced surrender of the territory acquired by the talents of his father, and the universal hatred of his arrogant minister culminated in an attack upon the throne. His uncle, Al-Nazer, was proclaimed by the mob of Granada, which, suddenly rising in arms, pillaged the palace of the detested vizier and murdered him in the presence of his master. In the midst of the tumult, the Emir was confronted by the leaders of the revolt, who offered him the alternative of abdication or death. Forced to divest himself of the insignia of royal authority, the deposed sovereign was imprisoned in the fortress of Almuñecar, where for five years he languished in solitude and wretchedness.

The Moorish chroniclers paint in the most glowing colors the virtues, the talents, the accomplishments of Al-Nazer. In him the fortuitous advantages of birth and comeliness were far surpassed by noble and brilliant qualities of mind. His courteous condescension and the charming affability of his manners endeared him to his subjects, while his erudition and taste for scientific pursuits made him the welcome associate of the learned and philosophical society of the capital. His opinions had been formed and his education conducted under the most famous professors of the age. An excellent mathematician, an experienced astronomer, he had calculated and drawn up astronomical tables not inferior in accuracy to those executed by the chosen scholars acting under the directions of Alfonso X. With a special bent for mechanics, he designed and constructed a curious clock, whose complex and perfect mechanism surprised and delighted even those familiar with the capabilities of his inventive genius. Under his liberal and discerning protection, literature and the elegant arts received a new and enduring importance; institutions of learning were multiplied, innumerable philosophical and scientific works were issued, the physicians and pharmacists of Granada, already famous in Europe for their skill, acquired new laurels in the distant empires of Africa and Asia, and the public and private edifices of the capital began to assume that distinctive character of architectural symmetry and elegance which subsequently enabled it to attain to an unrivalled eminence among the cities of the mediæval world.

On learning of the revolution by which Mohammed had been deposed, Ferdinand IV. marched against the usurper, and sent reinforcements to Jaime II., who, separated from his base of supplies, harassed by an active and vigilant enemy, and drenched by storms and inundations, still obstinately maintained his ground before the walls of Almeria. In the mean time, the troubles incident to a title acquired by sedition and violence afflicted the new emir. His nephew, born and bred amidst insurrection, tried unsuccessfully to seize the crown, and, having fled to Malaga, was protected by his father, wali of that city, himself not destitute of royal aspirations. A sudden attack of illness having given rise to a rumor of the death of Al-Nazer, the partisans of Mohammed III. assembled, rescued him from his prison in Almuñecar, and escorted him with every token of ostentatious loyalty to the capital. On their arrival, they perceived with surprise that the city was illuminated, the streets were full of people in holiday garb, the shops were closed, the houses decorated with flowers, and everything bore the appearance of a public festival. An inquiry revealed the fact that the illness of the Emir had in reality been but trifling and temporary, and that these manifestations of popular satisfaction were caused by his unexpected recovery. It required all the astuteness and ingenuity of the banished prince to frame an excuse for his sudden appearance at the head of a royal escort, but the wily Mohammed did not shrink from the responsibility. After proffering his congratulations, he announced that he had merely come to inquire after the health of his uncle—an explanation which was received by Al-Nazer with outward respect and secret indignation. Dissembling his resentment, he ordered the crestfallen Mohammed to be taken back to his prison, where the enthusiastic partisans who had prematurely espoused his cause were forced to share his captivity.

The sudden death of Ferdinand IV., which took place during an expedition into the province of Jaen, left the destinies of the Castilian monarchy in the hands of an infant of thirteen months, who afterwards became king under the name of Alfonso XI., offered new temptations to rival aspirants to the regency, removed the salutary restraints of law, and abandoned whole districts to anarchy. Civil war raged between the numerous factions into which the nobility was divided—the weaker being often exterminated and their possessions confiscated by the victors; cavaliers of noble birth and distinguished ancestry embraced the profession of robbery; to travel without an armed escort was to invite certain destruction; the roads were encumbered with naked and festering corpses; unfortified towns were deserted, and the castles were occupied by aristocratic highwaymen, who, at the head of bands of adventurers of merciless character and desperate fortunes, swept into their inaccessible strongholds the merchandise of the trader, the effects of the traveller, and the harvests, the flocks, and the children of the shepherd and the husbandman. Existence was impossible without the protection of some powerful noble, whose livery was to one faction an object of respect and to all others a symbol of irreconcilable enmity.

Nor was the spirit of discord which infected every class of society more considerate of the rights and authority of the sovereign. The ministers of justice were ridiculed and defied, and the will of the most powerful chieftain in the locality where he was obeyed was practically the law of the land. Superstitious awe and the venerable traditions of the Church, for the most part, preserved intact her princely possessions, but during the disastrous turbulence of the period the defenceless ecclesiastic not infrequently paid tribute to the outlaw, and the mitre fared sometimes even worse than the crown.

A country abandoned to violence must necessarily soon be depopulated. Once fertile and highly cultivated regions became a desert, forests sprang up on the sites of deserted hamlets, the commerce of great cities disappeared, intercommunication of adjoining provinces was entirely suspended, heirs of magnificent estates renounced their patrimony, and the sense of public insecurity was so universal that thousands of families in every part of the kingdom sought refuge from their countrymen in the more peaceful states of Portugal and Aragon. Such were the conditions which afforded another respite to the Emirate of Granada, whose existence was thus continually prolonged by the dissensions and the weakness of its barbarous neighbors.

The manifestations of disloyalty and turbulence which thus afflicted the kingdom of Castile were repeated in Granada, without, however, producing the same destructive and permanent effects upon the authority of the government or the welfare of the nation. The successful usurpation of Al-Nazer, demonstrating the weakness of hereditary attachments and the facility with which an unpopular sovereign might be deposed, was an example not lost upon the adventurous and aspiring Moorish nobles. The death of Mohammed III., which occurred a few months after his return to Almuñecar, relieved Al-Nazer from all apprehensions of a rival, who, if not formidable through his talents and influence, had at least a legitimate claim upon the throne and a share of the public sympathy, which is always aroused by the sight of royal humiliation and of greatness in distress. But there soon arose a far more dangerous enemy of the peace of Al-Nazer. Secure from Christian interference,—for he had concluded a truce with the regents of Castile,—he was employing his leisure in the elegant amusements of the court, when his nephew Abu-al-Walid, also called Ismail by the Moslem historians, fomented a second insurrection, this time with greater success. The avarice of an unpopular vizier was again made the pretext for sedition. The populace was instigated by the emissaries and corrupted by the gold of Abu-al-Walid, the promised dismissal of the obnoxious minister was deferred, and, supported by a formidable army, the young prince advanced on Granada. The numbers of his force increased as he approached the city, when his adherents rose and drove the Emir into the Alhambra, where he was at once besieged. In his extremity, the latter implored the aid of the Castilian regents, the Infantes Don Pedro and Don Juan; but, before they could assemble their troops, the defection of his partisans induced him to abdicate and to accept, in return for this concession, the government of the insignificant principality of Guadix. An attempt to revive the fallen fortunes of Al-Nazer, projected by the regents of Castile, resulted in a fatal disaster to the Christian arms. The invaders, encompassed by a multitude of Moslems, were cut to pieces on the slope of the Sierra Elvira, where the flower of the Spanish chivalry, who had joined the enterprise, animated by religious enthusiasm and the expectation of booty and renown, was annihilated. After the battle the bodies of the two princes were found under heaps of fallen enemies, and the condition of the Castilian monarchy, deprived at one blow of its legal protectors, became more desperate than ever. This great victory was not less remarkable for its political results than for the spoil obtained by the Moors. Forty-three thousand pounds of gold, fourteen hundred of silver, and seven thousand prisoners fell into their hands. The skin of Don Pedro, stuffed with cotton, was suspended before the principal gate of Granada, where it remained for many years. Twenty-five princes of the blood—heads of the most noble houses of the Peninsula—were killed in the action. The prestige of Ismail was greatly increased by this important victory. His military ambition was inflamed by success. He surprised some isolated castles and took others by assault, the spoils of the frontier were swept away by sudden incursions, and the borders of Aragon, long exempt from the dreaded visitations of the Arab horsemen, experienced once more the ruinous effects of their audacity and valor.

Through detailed information furnished by spies and merchants, the feuds and intrigues of the Castilian court, distracted by the weakness of the crown and the unprincipled ambition of the nobles, were as well known at Granada as in the council chambers of Toledo and Seville. Successful in his marauding expeditions, Ismail now directed his attention to projects of greater importance, whose accomplishment was certain to produce a substantial and permanent accession to the territory and wealth of his kingdom. Provided with every appliance at that time known to warfare, he laid siege to the important and well-fortified city of Baza, June 23, 13824. Its situation, strong by nature, had been rendered doubly formidable by art. The genius of the Moor, whose confidence was placed in the swift and unexpected movements of his cavalry, had hitherto not exhibited the patience and endurance necessary for the successful prosecution of besieging operations. But under the skilful dispositions of Ismail, the investment of Baza was made with all the thoroughness and deliberation which characterize the movements of the accomplished military engineer. A ditch was excavated, a rampart was thrown up, and all intercourse with the surrounding country intercepted. The inhabitants, confident in the security of their massive fortifications, viewed with curiosity rather than apprehension the mounting of a number of strange but apparently harmless machines before the walls. These appeared to consist of segmented bars of iron united by heavy hoops of the same metal. Dragged from place to place by means of ropes, their immense weight was indicated by the number of men it took to move them; they evidently contained no apparatus for missiles like the familiar balista or catapult, and their use was a mystery to the unconcerned inhabitants. But suddenly from the mouths of these apparently innocuous engines issued great bursts of flame and smoke, accompanied by a roar that rivalled that of the thunderbolt, and ponderous balls of stone and of iron, hurled into the city, crushing and splintering everything in their path, announced what has been erroneously stated as the first use of artillery in the wars of Europe. Against the force of these projectiles, whose novelty increased the terror their destruction inspired, the boasted strength of the defences and the courage of the garrison availed nothing. Great breaches soon appeared in the walls, and with the towers crumbling over their heads and many of their houses in flames, the panic-stricken citizens of Baza, by a timely surrender, succeeded in saving their city from pillage.

During the following year Martos experienced a similar fate, but its resistance was more obstinate, and the exasperated Moslems, entering the town by storm, massacred the inhabitants to a man. The prayers enjoined by the Koran were offered by the victors kneeling upon pavements reeking with the blood of the slain; the peasants, for a distance of many miles, were driven away into captivity; innumerable flocks and herds attested the activity of the Arab cavalry; and Ismail retraced his steps to his capital, which he entered with all the pomp of a conqueror. It was long since Granada had witnessed such a scene or extended such a welcome at the return of a victorious army. The streets were carpeted with flowers. Tapestries and hangings of silk and cloth-of-gold were suspended from the balconies. The air was fragrant with perfumes wafted from hundreds of censers. The beautiful city, given over to a holiday, had sent forth its entire population to celebrate the triumph of its sovereign. The acclamations of the people, rising in a prolonged and deafening roar, were heard beyond the walls. Vast throngs in holiday dress blocked the narrow thoroughfares. Peasants in the picturesque costumes of the Vega, sturdy mountaineers from the Sierra Nevada and the Alpujarras, the taciturn Jew in the distinctive yellow gaberdine of his sect, the pilgrim of Mecca clad in green, the cavalier in helmet and cuirass inlaid with gold, the ladies in gaudy silks and gleaming jewels, whose splendor contributed little to the native charms of their voluptuous beauty, enhanced the variety and charm of the spectacle.

But a threatening cloud, the more dangerous because unseen, hung over this gorgeous festival, which seemed to promise a long life of honor and renown to the recipient of a nation’s applause and gratitude. Three days after his triumph Ismail lay a corpse in the palace of the Alhambra.

Among the captives taken in the campaign of Martos was a girl of dazzling beauty. Her possession was disputed by several soldiers, whose hands, bloody with the carnage of a city taken by storm, were about to sacrifice her, when she was rescued by Mohammed-Ibn-Ismail, a cousin of the Emir. No sooner had the latter learned of the occurrence and of the extraordinary charms of the captive than he despatched the eunuchs to conduct her to the royal harem. The just remonstrances of Mohammed were treated with contempt. Not satisfied with the injury he had inflicted, Ismail ordered his cousin to leave the precincts of the court, and curtly informed him that his proper place was with the enemies of his sovereign. The exasperated prince, who had already signalized his valor in many a campaign, whose blood had been shed in defence of his country, whose birth exalted him to a level with the throne itself, and whose sense of justice revolted at the unprovoked outrage he had endured, had no inconsiderable following among the dignitaries of the palace and the officers of the army.