But it was not his last sigh by any means, for he lived for years thereafter: lived to see the dismemberment of his empire, the scattering of his people, and finally to die in a foreign land, in the service of the King of Morocco. In the capitulation it was stipulated that Boabdil and his subjects should do homage to the Castilian sovereigns, that they should be protected in their religious exercises, be governed by their own _cadis_, be exempt from tribute for three years, and within that period all who wished to emigrate to Africa should be furnished with free transportation thither. Boabdil was granted lands in the Alpuxarras Mountains, and at first lived peacefully in a secluded valley; but eventually, through the treachery or mistaken zeal of his vizier, he parted with his possessions in Spain for a sum of money, and went over to Africa, where travellers may see what is alleged to be his tomb, in the city of Tlemcen in Algiers. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII. A MEMORABLE REIGN. The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella has been called the most celebrated, and the year 1492 the most eventful, in Spanish history. Not the fall of Granada alone made that year notable; not the culmination of a long series of wars, extending through centuries, and conducing to the final triumph of Christian arms, made the year 1492 memorable—for the youth of this age scarcely need be told that it was, in a sense, the birth year of America! A sad and preoccupied witness of the Christian triumph at Granada, one who saw the tumultuous entrance into the Alhambra of the Spanish army, the unfurling of the Castilian banner on the tower of _La Vela_, the departure of the broken–hearted Moors—one Christopher Columbus was attendant through it all. Possessed with his grand idea of reaching the Indies by sailing directly westward—a thing hitherto unheard of, at least unattempted—after his rebuffs at the court of Portugal he had come to Spain as early as the year 1482, and was sent by the Duke of Medina Celi to Isabella at Cordova. He followed her court to Salamanca in 1486, there had audience with the queen, and the next year appeared before the famous Council in the Dominican convent. Nothing came of that except discouragement; but he returned to Cordova the same year, whence he was summoned by Isabella to the military camp at Malaga. We have no continuous itinerary of his travels, but in 1489 he was with the army before the walls of Baza, where he probably saw and conversed with two holy men who had come from Jerusalem to enlist the aid of Spain against the infidels in the Orient.