He then, not waiting for the words of consolation which the king was
about to utter, rode on to offer the same acts of submission and homage
to Queen Isabella. In the mean time the Castilian army, winding slowly
up the hill and around the walls, entered the city by the gate of Los
Molinos. The large silver cross which Ferdinand had ever borne with him
in his crusade against the Moors was now elevated upon the Alhambra,
while the banners of the conqueror were proudly unfurled from its
towers. “It was the signal for the whole army to fall upon its knees
in recognition of that providence which had granted them so great a
victory. The solemn strains of the _Te Deum_, performed by the choir of
the royal chapel, then swelled majestically over the prostrate host.
The Spanish grandees now gathered around Isabella, and kneeling, kissed
her hand, in recognition of her sovereignty as queen of Granada.”
Abdallah, however, did not remain as a sad witness of these scenes.
With a small band he took his way to the mountains. From one of the
rocky eminences he sorrowfully gazed upon the beautiful realms over
which his ancestors had reigned for more than seven hundred years. With
eyes filled with tears he exclaimed, “Alas! when were woes ever equal
to mine!”
Whereupon his mother cruelly replied, “You do well to weep as a woman
for what you could not defend like a man!”
Thus “The Last Sigh of the Moor,” and the cruel yet Spartan-like
heroism of the Moorish queen-mother, have passed into the romantic
annals of history.
While Ferdinand and Isabella were at Santa Fé, Columbus arrived at
their camp. We have not space to give here a history of Christopher
Columbus. We can but note a few important incidents. The Atlantic Ocean
was then unexplored. Columbus, who was employed in the construction
of maps and charts, became convinced that countries existed upon the
other side of the globe. He was laughed at as an enthusiast, and when
he declared that the world was round, one of the sages of the fifteenth
century replied, “Can any one be so foolish as to believe that the
world is round, and that there are people on the side opposite to ours
who walk with their heels upward and their heads hanging down, like
flies clinging to the ceiling? that there is a part of the world where
trees grow with their branches hanging downwards, and where it rains,
hails, and snows upwards?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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