racca and two
galliots received a number of faithful adherents, amounting, it is said,
to eleven hundred and thirty, who followed their prince into exile.

A crowd of his former subjects witnessed his embarkation. As the sails
were unfurled and swelled to the breeze, and the vessel bearing Boabdil
parted from the land, the spectators would fain have given him a
farewell cheering; but the humbled state of their once proud sovereign
forced itself upon their minds, and the ominous surname of his youth
rose involuntarily to their tongues: "Farewell, Boabdil! Allah preserve
thee, 'El Zogoybi!'" burst spontaneously from their lips. The unlucky
appellation sank into the heart of the expatriated monarch, and tears
dimmed his eyes as the snowy summits of the mountains of Granada
gradually faded from his view.

He was received with welcome at the court of his relative, Muley Ahmed,
caliph of Fez, the same who had treated El Zagal with such cruelty in
his exile. For thirty-four years he resided in this court, treated with
great consideration, and built a palace or alcazar at Fez, in which,
it is said, he endeavored to emulate the beauties and delights of the
Alhambra.

The last we find recorded of him is in the year 1536, when he followed
the caliph to the field to repel the invasion of two brothers of the
famous line of the Xerifes, who at the head of Berber troops had taken
the city of Morocco and threatened Fez. The armies came in sight of each
other on the banks of the Guadal Hawit, or river of slaves, at the ford
of Balcuba. The river was deep, the banks were high and broken, and
the ford could only be passed in single file; for three days the armies
remained firing at each other across the stream, neither venturing to
attempt the dangerous ford. At length the caliph divided his army into
three battalions: the command of the first he gave to his brother-in-law
and to Aliatar, son of the old alcayde of Loxa; another division he
commanded himself; and the third, composed of his best marksmen, he
put under the command of his son, the prince of Fez, and Boabdil, now
a gray-haired veteran. The last mentioned column took the lead, dashed
boldly across the ford, scrambled up the opposite bank, and attempted to
keep the enemy employed until the other battalions should have time to
cross. The rebel army, however, attacked them with such fury that the
son of the king of Fez and several of the bravest alcaydes were slain
upon the spo