the brave Moorish king of Granada, who said, when
threatened with invasion, "Our mint no longer coins gold, but steel!" In
this last great chivalrous war, a war for race and creed and country,
all honor is due to the vanquished, who poured out their blood like
water for their homes and their religion. The details of this heroic
death-struggle belong to history rather than to biography. Yet Isabella
was the great animating spirit of the war. Her tent was side by side
with that of Ferdinand, and her counsel was ever wise and practical.

And near the royal tents were others which she erected, where the
wounded in the fray might have medical aid and tender nursing. Thus our
"Warrior Queen," with a woman's heart, provided the first Army Hospital
on record. The tents were burned down, but a substantial city arose, as
if by magic, to take their place. The knights would have called it
"Isabella," but she named it "Santa Fe," the city of Holy Faith. And
this city helped to bring the war to a close. The Moors knew by it that
Isabella had come to stay until she had added Granada to the crown of
Castile.

Another form rises before us as we look back four hundred years across
the vega of Granada to the city of Sante Fe. We forget for a time the
Christians and the Moors, we see only the great queen and the great
discoverer. The man of science, Christoforo Colombo, had been lately
dismissed from the court at Sante Fe. The sovereigns had no time for
adventurers seeking aid to discover unknown lands when the reconquest of
their own was just within their grasp. Cast down, but not discouraged,
Columbus, all alone, was retracing his steps across the vega, en route
for a port from whence to sail for England, when the queen sent a royal
summons for him to return, and he reached Sante Fe just in time to be
present at the surrender of Granada. Let me add that while the Moors as
a nation fell with Granada, they were not as individuals banished from
Spain until the reign of Philip II., the great-grandson of Isabella.

[Illustration: Ferdinand and Isabella. The surrender of Granada.]

We all know the story of Columbus. At this time he was but a penniless
mendicant travelling on foot from court to court, seeking patronage to
enable him to prove the truth which his great mind had grasped, the
rotundity of the earth. The subject had given him no rest for eighteen
years. He had discussed it before wise men in council assembled; he had
pleaded with