Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

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 up within their sterile embraces deep, rich, and verdant valleys of prodigal fertility.

In the centre of the kingdom lay its capital, the beautiful city of Granada, sheltered, as it were, in the lap of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountains. Its houses, seventy thousand in number, covered two lofty hills with their declivities and a deep valley between them, through which flowed the Darro. The streets were narrow, as is usual in Moorish and Arab cities, but there were