On the appointed day the magistrates of the principal tribunals, with the corregidor of Granada at their head, went in solemn procession to the Albaicin, the quarter occupied by the Moriscoes. They marched to the sound of kettle-drums, trumpets, and other instruments; and the inhabitants, attracted by the noise, and fond of novelty, came running from their houses to swell the ranks of the procession on its way to the great square of _Bab el Bonat_. This was an open space, of large extent, where the people of Granada, in ancient times, used to assemble to celebrate the coronation of a new sovereign; and the towers were still standing from which the Moslem banners waved, on those days, over the heads of the shouting multitude. As the people now gathered tumultuously around these ancient buildings, the public crier, from an elevated place, read, in audible tones and in the Arabic language, the royal ordinance. One may imagine the emotions of shame, sorrow, and indignation with which the vast assembly, consisting of both sexes, listened to the words of an instrument, every sentence of which seemed to convey a personal indignity to the hearers--an outrage on all those ideas of decorum and decency in which they had been nurtured from infancy; which rudely rent asunder all the fond ties of country and kindred; which violated the privacy of domestic life, deprived them of the use of their own speech, and reduced them to a state of utter humiliation unknown to the meanest of their slaves. Some of the weaker sort gave way to piteous and passionate exclamations, wringing their hands in an agony of grief. Others, of sterner temper, broke forth into menaces and fierce invective, accompanied with the most furious gesticulations. Others, again, listened with that dogged, determined air which showed that the mood was not the less dangerous that it was a silent one. The whole multitude was in a state of such agitation that an accident might have readily produced an explosion which would have shaken Granada to its foundations. Fortunately there were a few discreet persons in the assembly, older and more temperate than the rest, who had sufficient authority over their countrymen to prevent a tumult. They reminded them that in their fathers' time the emperor Charles the Fifth had consented to suspend the execution of a similar ordinance. At all events, it was better to try first what could be done by argument and persuasion. When these failed, it would be time enough to think of vengeance.[21] [Sidenote: THEIR INEFFECTUAL REMONSTRANCE.]