the enforcement of the edicts. He was a descendant of the prophet himself, and was proclaimed by the Moriscos King of Granada. The Moorish force was organised in the almost inaccessible mountains, whilst envoys sped from the new king to his co-religionists at Constantinople and on the other side of the Straits of Gibraltar; but the Turk was busy organising an expedition against the Venetians, and the Barbary Moors were split up into independent tribes which could furnish no considerable combined force, so the Spanish Moriscos were left nearly unaided, although many isolated companies of Barbary Moors responded to the call and crossed to Spain. On December 26, 1568, a small body of 180 Moriscos, under Aben Farax, a dyer of Granada, came down from the mountains through the driving snow and forced their way into the city of Granada. The Morisco townspeople, terrified at the risk they ran in joining so small a force, turned a deaf ear to the exhortations of the chief. Through the sleeping city the little body of Moors rushed on, desecrating the Christian temples, cursing the Christian gods, and killing such few Spaniards as resisted them. And then when a call to arms from the citadel sounded, Aben Farax and his little force withdrew once more to the mountains. The large Morisco population of Granada had made no move, or the city would have been taken, and the Governor Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, took counsel with their head men for resisting further attack, and urged them to stand loyal to the king against the mountain marauders.