mer, Francisco
Garcia, who in showing the house to the writer refused all compensation
with true Spanish pride, offering, on the contrary, the hospitalities
of his mansion. His children are versed in the old Spanish ballads about
the exploits of Hernan Perez del Pulgar and Garcilasso de la Vega.

CHAPTER XCIV.

THE LAST RAVAGE BEFORE GRANADA.

The ravages of war had as yet spared a little portion of the Vega of
Granada. A green belt of gardens and orchards still flourished round
the city, extending along the banks of the Xenil and the Darro. They had
been the solace and delight of the inhabitants in their happier days,
and contributed to their sustenance in this time of scarcity. Ferdinand
determined to make a final and exterminating ravage to the very walls of
the city, so that there should not remain a single green thing for the
sustenance of man or beast. The eighth of July was the day appointed
for this act of desolation. Boabdil was informed by his spies of the
intention of the Christian king, and prepared to make a desperate
defence. Hernando de Baeza, a Christian who resided with the royal
family in the Alhambra as interpreter, gives in a manuscript memoir an
account of the parting of Boabdil from his family as he went forth to
battle. At an early hour on the appointed day, the eighth of July, he
bathed and perfumed himself, as the Moors of high rank were accustomed
to do when they went forth to peril their lives. Arrayed in complete
armor, he took leave of his mother, his wife, and his sister in the
antechamber of the Tower of Comares. Ayxa la Horra, with her usual
dignity, bestowed on him her benediction and gave him her hand to kiss.
It was a harder parting with his son and his daughter, who hung round
him with sobs and tears: the duenas and doncellas too of the
royal household made the halls of the Alhambra resound with their
lamentations. He then mounted his horse and put himself in front of his
squadrons.*

* Hernando de Baeza, as cited by Alcantara, Hist. Gran., t. 4, c. 18.

The Christian army approached close to the city, and were laying waste
the gardens and orchards when Boabdil sallied forth, surrounded by all
that was left of the flower and chivalry of Granada. There is one place
where even the coward becomes brave--that sacred spot called home.
What, then, must have been the valor of the Moors, a people always of
chivalrous spirit, when the war was thus brought to their threshold