The last act in the protracted drama began with the accession of Mulai Hasan in the year 1465. With his famous reply to the Castilian ambassadors who demanded tribute, "Here we manufacture only iron spear-heads for our enemies," the final campaign began. Every incident of that war has been made familiar to us Anglo-Saxons by the pen of Prescott. In his pages long ago most of us read of the taking of Zahara by the Moors and of the brilliant surprise of the fortress of Alhama by the gallant Marquis of Cadiz. We have not forgotten the wailing of the Moors, "Ay de mi, Alhama!" nor the domestic revolution that followed when the old sultan was hurled from his throne by his son Boabdil. Poor Boabdil, on whom the blame of all his country's disasters has been laid by historians, Christian and Arab! Weak or foolhardy, the "Little King" fought like a Trojan against Ferdinand and Isabella for his country, and against his father and his uncle for his crown, at one and the same time. He was taken prisoner by Ferdinand and is said to have signed a treaty surrendering his dominions to the Catholic Sovereigns. This is rendered improbable by his comparatively generous treatment at the end of the war, when he had resisted the Spaniards to the uttermost, and fought them many times after his release from captivity. Desperate deeds of valour were done on both sides, though the strategy of the Spanish commanders does not appear to have been of a very high order, since, with the whole of Spain at their back, it took them eleven years to conquer a small kingdom distracted by three rival rulers. The old sultan retired from the contest, as finally did his brother, the brave Zaghal. When the Christians were preparing a final assault on the doomed city, Boabdil rode out from the Alhambra, for the last time, on the morning of the memorable 2nd of January, 1492. Ferdinand with a brilliant cavalcade awaited him on the banks of the Genil. The keys were handed over, a hurried exchange of formal courtesies, and the last ruler of the Spanish Moors passed away into exile and obscurity. The rays of the wintry sun glinted on the great silver cross which was hoisted on the Torre de la Vela in token that the reign of Mohammed was for ever at an end in Spain. [Illustration: GRANADA--VILLA ON THE DARRO] Yes, at an end. On that morning, Ferdinand and Isabella accomplished the task begun by Pelayo at Covadonga, seven hundred and seventy-four years before. The Moorish dominion in Spain had endured little short of eight centuries. It was as if the descendants of Harold Godwin were to arise and overthrow the existing English monarchy. But what is most remarkable is that the petty State of Granada had survived the break-up of the great Moorish empire in the west by two hundred and fifty years. Such a race deserved a manlier if not a more beautiful monument than the Alhambra.