assault a
place so admirably fortified. After having laid waste the environs,
therefore, he waited patiently until famine should deliver the city
into his hands. Satisfied with battering the ramparts and repelling
the frequent sorties of the Moors, he never engaged in any decisive
action, but daily hemmed in more closely the chafed lion that could not
now escape his toils.

Accident one night set fire to the pavilion of Isabella, and the
spreading conflagration consumed every tent in the camp. But Boabdil
derived no advantage from this disaster. The queen directed that a
city should supply the place of the ruined camp, to convince the
enemies of the cross that the siege would never be raised until Grenada
should come into possession of the conquering Spaniards. This great
and {194} extraordinary design, so worthy the genius of Isabella, was
executed in eighty days. The Christian camp thus became a walled city;
and Santa Fe still exists as a monument of the piety and perseverance
of the heroic Queen of Castile.

At last, oppressed by famine, less frequently successful than at first
in the partial engagements that were constantly taking place under the
walls, and abandoned by Africa, from which there were no attempts made
to relieve them, the Moors now felt the necessity of a surrender.

Gonzalvo of Cordova was empowered by the conquerors to arrange the
articles of capitulation. These provided that the people of Grenada
should recognise Ferdinand and Isabella, and their royal successors, as
their rightful sovereigns; that all their Christian captives should be
released without ransom; that the Moors should continue to be governed
by their own laws; should retain their national customs, their judges,
half the number of their mosques, and the free exercise of their faith;
that they should be permitted either to keep or sell their property,
and to retire to Africa, or to any other country they might choose,
while, at the same time, they should not be compelled to leave their
{195} native land. It was also agreed that Boabdil should have
assigned to him a rich and ample domain in the Alpuxares, of which he
should possess the entire command.

Such were the terms of capitulation, and but ill were they observed by
the Spaniards. Boabdil fulfilled his part of the stipulations some
days before the time specified, in consequence of being informed that
his people, roused by the representations of the imans, wished to br