sovereign tempted by a prospect so flattering to his ambition. An expedition was hastily organized, and at the head of twelve thousand cavalry Alfonso entered the country of the enemy. But the enterprise which promised such magnificent results terminated in inaction, which was even more discreditable than defeat. The Mozarabes, faithful to their engagements, joined the invader in multitudes. They conducted his forces by unfrequented paths through the perilous defiles of the mountains. They furnished their allies with money, provisions, horses, and beasts of burden. Forty thousand volunteers swelled the ranks of the Aragonese army. But for some inexplicable reason this great force accomplished nothing. The King, whose resolution seemed to have failed him before the bold provincials of Granada, retired discomfited from the walls of Valencia, Xucar, Denia. The citizens of Baeza, whose city was unprovided with defences, repulsed with severe loss the formidable chivalry of the North, fighting under the eye of a sovereign accustomed from boyhood to the perils and the stratagems of war. The time lost by the Christians, who seemed incapable of appreciating the advantages of surprise and attack, was diligently improved by their adversaries. Temim, the brother of the Sultan and the governor of Granada, collected reinforcements from every district of the Peninsula held by the Almoravides. The troops which had been sent to Africa were recalled. The fortifications of the capital, which at that time were far from possessing the finished and impregnable character subsequently imparted to them by the military genius and profuse expenditures of the Alhamares, were improved and perfected as far as time and circumstances would permit. The Mozarabes were placed under rigorous espionage. The most obnoxious were imprisoned. Others were expelled from the city. A large force was encamped on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, but the proximity of the Christians, whose outposts could be distinctly seen from the battlements of the citadel, and the presence of thousands of secret and implacable enemies, raised the most gloomy apprehensions in the minds of the Moslems. In hourly expectation of an assault, crowds assembled in the mosques, where the imams offered the supplications prescribed by the Koran for seasons of extremity. Although the numbers of the Christian army reached fifty thousand, the great majority of which was composed of Mozarabe rebels, not ignorant of warfare and nerved to despair by the remembrance of recent persecution and the hopelessness of future immunity, it remained idly in its intrenchments. Familiarity with the enemy gradually removed from the minds of the Moors the fears which had been excited by overwhelming odds. The flying Arab cavalry swept the plain of subsistence and forage. Small parties of Christians were cut off. The rainy season arrived; the streams overflowed; the dry ravines became impassable torrents,