d England, there to disseminate
the seeds of a higher culture and intelligence which they had imbibed
from contact with the Moors, who had treated them with such uniform
tolerance and gentleness.

The kingdom of Granada was now at the height of its splendor. Its
capital city was larger and richer than any city in Spain. Its army
was the best equipped of any in Europe. The Moorish king, a man of
fiery temper, thought the time had come when he might defy his enemy
by refusing to pay an annual tribute to which his father had ten years
before consented. When Ferdinand's messenger, in 1476, came to demand
the accustomed tribute, he said, "Go tell your master the kings
who pay tribute in Granada are all dead. Our mints coin nothing but
sword-blades now."

The cool and crafty Ferdinand prepared his own answer to this
challenge. The infatuated King Abdul-Hassan followed up his insult by
capturing the Christian fortress of Zahara. His temper was not at the
best at this time on account of a war raging in his own household. His
wife Ayesha was fiercely jealous of a Christian captive whom he had
also made his wife. She had become his favorite Sultana, and was
conspiring to have her own son supplant Boabdil, the son of Ayesha,
the heir to the throne. In his championship of Zoraya and her son,
Abdul-Hassan imprisoned Ayesha and Boabdil, whom he threatened to
disinherit. We are shown to-day the window in the Alhambra from which
Ayesha lowered Boabdil in a basket, telling him to come back with an
army and assert his rights. Suddenly, while absorbed by this smaller
war, news came that Alhama, their most impregnable fortress, only six
leagues from the city of Granada, had been captured by Ferdinand's
army. It was the key to Granada. Despair was in every soul. The air
was filled with wailing and lamentation. "Woe, woe is me, Alhama!"
"Ay de mi, Alhama!" Indignant with their old king, who had brought
destruction upon them, when Boabdil came with his army of followers,
they flocked about him--"El Rey Chico!" (the boy king) as they called
him. Abdul Hassan was forced to fly, and Boabdil reigned over the
expiring kingdom. It was a brief and troubled reign.

In the famous "Court of the Lions" in the Alhambra, visitors are
shown to-day the blood-stains left by the celebrated massacre of the
"Abencerrages." The Abencerrages had supported the claim of Ayesha's
rival, Zoraya; and it is said that Boabdil invited the Princes of this
clan, some t