When not engaged in war, she went to and fro in her own kingdom, reforming abuses, founding convents and churches, and enforcing the laws, fallen into much disuse during the riotous reign of her brother; in all assisted by her great minister, Cardinal Ximenes, her friend and secretary, Peter Martyr, Cardinal Mendoza, Garcilaso de la Vega, and, alas! be it added, by her fanatic confessor, Cardinal Torquemada, whose influence brought about the creation of the tribunal of the Inquisition, “To unite more firmly,” it was said, “Church and State, and to discover and extirpate all heresies, Jews, and unbelievers from the kingdom” (1480). * * * * * Two such sovereigns could not long leave the Moors in undisturbed possession of the third of Spain. The north of Africa (Barbary) was theirs, with Sicily and, afterwards, Naples. Ferdinand loved conquest for itself, and, to the pious mind of Isabel, the conversion of the Moslem was a duty direct from God. But as they, with a dogmatism equal to her own, despised the Castilians as unlettered boors, and ridiculed their religion, nothing could solve the difficulty but a cruel war. Nor was a pretext wanting. The tribute of twelve thousand golden ducats, paid by the Moors from the time of San Fernando for permission to inhabit the land of Spain, was refused; and the brave knight, Don Juan de Vega, was despatched from Cordoba to demand the cause (1478). And this leads us to the poetic city of Granada, successor in learning and civilisation to Cordoba of the Almoravides, vermilion-walled and rich in running waters, snowy _patios_, domes, peristyles, and filigree porticoes glowing with rainbow tints, where Moslem knights waylaid pearl-crowned sultanas, and turbaned sheikhs clasped jewelled fingers. Granada, a name of infinite suggestion in all ages. The Moslem capital and the heart of Moorish Spain. The fastness of the Alhambra rearing its ruddy buttresses aloft over the land. The plaza of the Bivarrambla, the centre of tilt and tourney, the pillared bazar of the Alcayceria, gay with eastern wares, the narrow Zacatin strewed with the ducats of Oriental wealth, the walled-in fortress of the Albaycin commanding the frowning gorge of the Darro, the two gardens of the Alamedas, each with its dashing rivers, backed by the eternal snows of the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.