reas Don
Alonzo's did not exceed 13,000. Miracles must also be added. Alonzo,
they tell us, being in great perplexity, sat down to comfort his mind by
the perusal of the Holy Scriptures. Having read the story of Gideon, he
sunk into a deep sleep, in which he saw a very old man in a remarkable
dress come into his tent, and assure him of victory. His chamberlain
coming in, awoke him, and told him there was an old man very importunate
to speak with him. Don Alonzo ordered him to be brought in, and no
sooner saw him than he knew him to be the old man whom he had seen in
his dream. This venerable person acquainted him that he was a fisherman,
and had led a life of penance for sixty years on an adjacent rock, where
it had been revealed to him, that if the count marched his army the next
morning, as soon as he heard a certain bell ring, he should receive the
strongest assurance of victory. Accordingly, at the ringing of the bell,
the count put his army in motion, and suddenly beheld in the eastern sky
the figure of the cross, and Christ upon it, who promised him a complete
victory, and commanded him to accept the title of king, if it were
offered him by the army. The same writers add, that as a standing
memorial of this miraculous event, Don Alonzo changed the arms which his
father had given, of a cross azure in a field argent, for five
escutcheons, each charged with five bezants, in memory of the wounds of
Christ. Others assert, that he gave, in a field argent, five escutcheons
azure in the form of a cross, each charged with five bezants argent,
placed saltierwise, with a point sable, in memory of five wounds he
himself received, and of five Moorish kings slain in the battle. There
is an old record, said to be written by Don Alonzo, in which the story
of the vision is related upon his majesty's oath. The Spanish critics,
however, have discovered many inconsistencies in it. They find the
language intermixed with phrases not then in use: and it bears the date
of the year of our Lord, at a time when that era had not been introduced
into Spain.

[217] Troy.

[218] The tradition, that Lisbon was built by Ulysses, and thence called
_Olyssipolis_, is as common as, and of equal authority with, that which
says, that Brute landed a colony of Trojans in England, and gave the
name of Britannia to the island.

[219] The conquest of Lisbon was of the utmost importance to the infant
monarchy. It is one of the finest ports in the world, a