The wary and calculating merchants accustomed to supply the army shrank from engaging at their own risk in so hazardous an undertaking. The queen therefore hired fourteen thousand beasts of burden, and ordered all the wheat and barley to be brought up in Andalusia and in the domains of the knights of Santiago and Calatrava. She entrusted the administration of these supplies to able and confidential persons. Some were employed to collect the grain; others to take it to the mills; others to superintend the grinding and delivery; and others to convey it to the camp. To every two hundred animals a muleteer was allotted to take charge of them on the route. Thus great lines of convoys were in constant movement, traversing to and fro, guarded by large bodies of troops to defend them from hovering parties of the Moors. Not a single day’s intermission was allowed, for the army depended upon the constant arrival of the supplies for daily food. The grain when brought into the camp was deposited in an immense granary, and sold to the army at a fixed price, which was never either raised or lowered. Incredible were the expenses incurred in these supplies, but the queen had ghostly advisers thoroughly versed in the art of getting at the resources of the country. Many worthy prelates opened the deep purses of the Church, and furnished loans from the revenues of their dioceses and convents, and their pious contributions were eventually rewarded by Providence a hundred-fold. Merchants and other wealthy individuals, confident of the punctual faith of the queen, advanced large sums on the security of her word; many noble families lent their plate without waiting to be asked. The queen also sold certain annual rents in inheritance at great sacrifices, assigning the revenues of towns and cities for the payment. Finding all this insufficient to satisfy the enormous expenditure, she sent her gold and plate and all her jewels to the cities of Valencia and Barcelona, where they were pledged for a great amount of money, which was immediately appropriated to keep up the supplies of the army.