of the soil.
The Grenadian dominions suffered so much during the reign of Ismael
II., that the king was compelled to cause immense forests to be cleared
for the support of his capital, which then drew scarcely any supplies
from the vast and fertile _vega_ which had been so often desolated by
the Spaniards.

Ismael II. left the crown to his son Mulei-Hassem, a young and highly
courageous prince, who, profiting by the disastrous condition of
Castile under the deplorable reign of Henry IV. the {181} Impotent,
carried his arms into the centre of Andalusia. The success that marked
the commencement of the reign of this sovereign, together with his
talents and warlike ardour, tempted the Moors to believe that they
might yet recover their former greatness. But the occurrence at this
juncture of a great and unlooked-for event, arrested the victorious
progress of Mulei-Hassam, and prepared the way for the total ruin of
his kingdom.

Isabella of Castile, the sister of Henry the Impotent, notwithstanding
the opposition of her brother and the intervention of almost
insurmountable obstacles, espoused Ferdinand the Catholic, the king of
Sicily, and heir presumptive of the kingdom of Aragon.[18] This
marriage, by uniting the two most powerful monarchs of Spain, gave a
fatal blow to the prosperity of the Moors, which they had been able to
maintain, even in the degree in which it now existed, only through the
divisions which had hitherto perpetually prevailed among their
Christian opponents.

Either of the two enemies, now unitedly arrayed against them, had been
singly sufficient {182} to overwhelm the Mussulmans. Ferdinand was
alike politic, able, and adroit. He was pliant, and, at the same time,
firm; cautious to a degree sometimes amounting to pusillanimity;
cunning even to falsehood, and endowed in an extraordinary degree with
the power of discerning at a single glance all the various means of
attaining a particular end. Isabella was of a prouder and more noble
nature; endowed with heroic courage and the most unyielding constancy
of purpose, she was admirably qualified for the pursuit and
accomplishment of any enterprise to which she might direct the energies
of her powerful mind. The exalted endowments of one of these royal
personages have been employed to ennoble the character of the other.
Ferdinand often played the part of a weak, perfidious woman,
negotiating only to deceive; whereas Isabella was always the
high-sou