ion with all
who had read or heard of his virtues and achievements. In the year
1810, however, the chapel was sacked by the French, its altars were
overturned, and the sepulchres of the family of the Ponces shattered to
pieces. The present duchess of Benevente, the worthy descendant of this
illustrious and heroic line, has since piously collected the ashes
of her ancestors, restored the altar, and repaired the chapel. The
sepulchres, however, were utterly destroyed: an inscription in gold
letters on the wall of the chapel to the right of the altar is all that
denotes the place of sepulture of the brave Ponce de Leon.

THE LEGEND OF THE DEATH OF DON ALONSO DE AGUILAR.

To such as feel an interest in the fortune of the valiant Don Alonso
de Aguilar, the chosen friend and companion-in-arms of Ponce de Leon,
marques of Cadiz, and one of the most distinguished heroes of the war
of Granada, a few particulars of his remarkable fate will not be
unacceptable.

For several years after the conquest of Granada the country remained
feverish and unquiet. The zealous efforts of the Catholic clergy to
effect the conversion of the infidels, and the coercion used for that
purpose by government, exasperated the stubborn Moors of the mountains.
Several missionaries were maltreated, and in the town of Dayrin two of
them were seized and exhorted, with many menaces, to embrace the Moslem
faith; on their resolutely refusing they were killed with staves and
stones by the Moorish women and children, and their bodies burnt to
ashes.*

* Cura de los Palacios, c. 165.

Upon this event a body of Christian cavaliers assembled in Andalusia to
the number of eight hundred, and, without waiting for orders from the
king, revenged the death of these martyrs by plundering and laying waste
the Moorish towns and villages. The Moors fled to the mountains, and
their cause was espoused by many of their nation who inhabited those
rugged regions. The storm of rebellion began to gather and mutter its
thunders in the Alpuxarras. They were echoed from the Serrania of Ronda,
ever ready for rebellion, but the strongest hold of the insurgents was
in the Sierra (12) Bermeja, or chain of Red Mountains, which lie near
the sea, the savage rocks and precipices of which may be seen from
Gibraltar.

When King Ferdinand heard of these tumults he issued a proclamation
ordering all the Moors of the insurgent regions to leave them within ten
days and repair to C