The western part of the kingdom of Granada was now entirely in the hands of the Christians. The famous Moorish fortresses of the Serrania de Ronda and the beautiful city of Malaga held Christian garrisons. Granada itself was in the hands of Boabdil, who hastened to congratulate his liege lord and lady upon their triumph over Malaga. But in the east old Ez-Zaghal still turned a bold front to the invader, and gathered around his standard all that remained of patriotism among the disheartened Moors. From Jaen in the north, to Almeria, the chief port of Andalusia on the Mediterranean coast, his sway was undisputed; he held the important cities of Guadix and Baza; and within his dominion the rugged ridges of the Alpuxarras mountains, the cradle of a hardy and warlike race of mountaineers, sheltered countless valleys, fed with cool waters from the Sierra Nevada's snowy peaks, where flocks and herds, vines, oranges, pomegranates, citrons, and mulberry trees provided wealth for a whole province. In 1488 Ferdinand turned his victorious arms towards this undisturbed portion of the Moorish dominion. Assembling his troops at Murcia, he marched westwards into Ez-Zaghal's territory, and attacked Baza. Here his advance was sternly checked; Ez-Zaghal's hand had not lost its ancient cunning, and he drove the Christians back from the walls of Baza, and began to retaliate by making raids into their own country. In the following year Ferdinand, nothing disheartened, renewed his attack on Baza; but instead of sacrificing his troops in vain assaults, he laid waste the fertile country round about, and so starved the city into submission. It took six months, and the Christians lost twenty thousand men from disease and exposure, joined to the accidents of war; but in December, 1489, Baza finally submitted, and with the loss of this chief city Ez-Zaghal's power was broken. The castles that dominated the fastnesses of the Alpuxarras yielded one by one to Ferdinand's prestige or gold. Ez-Zaghal perceived that the rule of the Moors was doomed: reluctantly he gave in his submission to Ferdinand, and surrendered the city of Almeria. He was allotted a small territory in the Alpuxarras, with the title of King of Andarax. He did not long remain in the land of his lost glory and present shame; he sold his lands and went to Africa, where he was cruelly blinded by the Sultan of Fez, and passed the remainder of his days in misery and destitution, a wandering outcast,--pitied by those who could recognize the hero in a mendicant's rags, or read the badge which he wore, whereon was written in the Arabic character, "This is the hapless King of Andalusia."