incident to the catastrophe which had befallen the nation, answered the call to arms with equal alacrity. The army which placed itself at the disposal of the new general did not probably number two thousand men. The majority were clad in skins. But few wore armor,--antiquated suits of mail which had rusted under the pacific rule of the successors of Wamba and had survived the disasters of Merida and the Guadalete. The Iberian javelin, the sling, and the short and heavy knife of the Cantabrian peasant composed their offensive weapons. Not one in ten had ever seen a battle. Not one in a hundred could understand or appreciate the necessity for the uncomplaining patience and implicit obedience indispensable to the soldier. Yet the soaring ambition, the patriotic pride, the belief in the special protection of heaven--feelings equal to the conquest of a world--rose high in the bosoms of these savage mountaineers. Their courage was unquestionable. Their native endurance, strengthened by simple food and habitual exposure to the tempests of a severe climate and the incessant exertions of a pastoral life, was far greater than that of their enemies. To invest the cause with a religious character, and to rouse to the highest pitch the fanaticism of the soldiery, a number of priests attended, with censer and crucifix and all the sacred emblems of ecclesiastical dignity. Of such materials was composed the army whose posterity was led to victory by such captains as Gonzalvo, Cortes, and Alva, and whose penniless and exiled commander was destined to be the progenitor of a long line of illustrious sovereigns. The original realm of Pelayus afforded no indication of the enormous dimensions to which it was destined to expand. It embraced a territory five miles long by three miles wide. Its population could not have exceeded fifteen hundred souls. Its fighting men were not more than five hundred in number. The bulk of the army was composed of Basques and Galicians, attracted by the hope of spoil, held together for the moment only by the sense of common danger; impatient of restraint; scarcely recognizing the authority of popular assemblies of their own creation; valiant in action; brutal in victory; selfish and cowardly in defeat. They were without organization, officers, suitable arms, or commissariat. Of the art of war, as practised by even semi-barbarians, they knew nothing. Their military operations were controlled by the usual stratagems of savages, the nocturnal attack, the sudden surprise, the ambuscade.