t; multitudes were driven back into the river, which was
already crowded with passing troops. A dreadful confusion took place;
the horse trampled upon the foot; the enemy pressed on them with fearful
slaughter; those who escaped the sword perished by the stream; the river
was choked by the dead bodies of men and horses and by the scattered
baggage of the army. In this scene of horrible carnage fell Boabdil,
truly called El Zogoybi, or the Unlucky--an instance, says the ancient
chronicler, of the scornful caprice of fortune, dying in defence of the
kingdom of another after wanting spirit to die in defence of his own.*

* Marmol, Descrip. de Africa, p. 1, 1. 2, c. 40; idem, Hist. Reb. de
los Moros, lib. 1, c. 21.

The aspersion of the chronicler is more caustic than correct. Boabdil
never showed a want of courage in the defence of Granada, but he wanted
firmness and decision: he was beset from the first by perplexities, and
ultimately by the artifices of Ferdinand and the treachery of those in
whom he most confided.*

* In revising this account of the ultimate fortunes of Boabdil the
author has availed himself of facts recently brought out in Alcantara's
History of Granada, which throw strong lights on certain parts of the
subject hitherto covered with obscurity.

ZORAYA, THE STAR OF THE MORNING.

Notwithstanding the deadly rivalship of this youthful sultana with Ayxa
la Horra, the virtuous mother of Boabdil, and the disasters to which her
ambitious intrigues gave rise, the placable spirit of Boabdil bore her
no lasting enmity. After the death of his father he treated her with
respect and kindness, and evinced a brotherly feeling toward her sons
Cad and Nazar. In the capitulations for the surrender of Granada he took
care of her interests, and the possessions which he obtained for her
were in his neighborhood in the valleys of the Alpuxarras. Zoraya,
however, under the influence of Queen Isabella, returned to the
Christian faith, the religion of her infancy, and resumed her Spanish
name of Isabella. Her two sons, Cad and Nazar, were baptized under the
names of Don Fernando and Don Juan de Granada, and were permitted to
take the titles of infantas or princes. They intermarried with noble
Spanish families, and the dukes of Granada, resident in Valladolid, are
descendants of Don Juan (once Nazar), and preserve to the present day
the blazon of their royal ancestor, Muley Abul Hassan, and his motto, Le
G