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I beseech that Your Majesty be pleased to order good protection placed on the coast of Andalusia for the ships coming from the Indies; for now all the French, flushed as they are, desire to take positions whence they may commit mischief. Let it be an armament that can act offensively, and which will not flee, but seek out the enemy.
In preparing for the siege of this formidable place Ferdinand called upon all the cities and towns of Andalusia and Estramadura, and the domains of the orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara, and of the priory of San Juan, and the kingdom of Toledo, and beyond to the cities of Salamanca, Toro, and Valladolid, to furnish, according to their repartimientos or allotments, a certain quantity of bread, wine, and cattle to be delivered at the royal camp before Loxa, one half at the end of June and one half in July.
According to Hume, "this practice had taken such a firm hold of the people of the south of Spain that traces of it remain to the present day in Andalusia, where the women of the poorer classes constantly cover the lower part of the face with the corner of a shawl. Yet it was this firmly rooted habit that the Christians tried to destroy!
In the mean time, Don Christopher Columbus departed privately from Portugal in 1484 for Andalusia, knowing that the king of Portugal was sensible that his scheme was well grounded, and was satisfied the people of the caravel had not done their duty, so that he still inclined to consult farther respecting the enterprize.
El Zagal dragged out a wretched existence of many years in the city of Velez. He wandered about blind and disconsolate, an object of mingled scorn and pity, and bearing above his raiment a parchment on which was written in Arabic, "This is the unfortunate king of Andalusia."* * Marmol, De Rebelione Maur., lib. 1, cap. 16; Padraza, Hist. Granad., part 3, c. 4; Suarez, Hist.
"That I cannot tell you either," said the servant, "for I have not seen her face all the way: I have indeed heard her sigh many times and utter such groans that she seems to be giving up the ghost every time; but it is no wonder if we do not know more than we have told you, as my comrade and I have only been in their company two days, for having met us on the road they begged and persuaded us to accompany them to Andalusia, promising to pay us well."
At the time when M. Bonpland and myself visited the provinces of New Andalusia, New Barcelona, and Caracas, it was generally believed that the most eastern parts of those coasts were especially exposed to the destructive effects of earthquakes.
An expedition to Andalusia in the following year was most successful; Hasdrubal Barcas was beset and surrounded, and escaped a capitulation only by ignoble stratagem and open perfidy. But Nero was not the right general for the Spanish war.
While the northern part of Andalusia was thus on the alert, one of the scouts had hastened southward to the city of Xeres, and given the alarm to the valiant marques of Cadiz.
High or low, they all wore the kind of hat which abounds everywhere in Andalusia and is called a Cordovese: flat, stiff, squat in crown and wide in brim, and of every shade of gray, brown, and black.
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