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Updated: June 21, 2025
While these events were taking place on the northern frontier of the kingdom of Granada the important fortress of Alhama was neglected, and its commander, Don Gutiere de Padilla, clavero of Calatrava, reduced to great perplexity.
"And tra-la-la, and castanets, and my Cid! my Cid! and the Alhambra, the Sierra Nevada, and ay di me, Alhama; and Boabdil el Chico and el Zagal and Fray Antonio Agapida!" She flung out the rattle, yawning, with her arms up and her head back, in the posture of a woman wounded.
'How! you will say, 'are soldiers to be paid with scraps of paper? Even so, I answer, and well paid too, as I will presently make manifest, for the good count issued a proclamation ordering the inhabitants of Alhama to take these morsels of paper for the full amount thereon inscribed, promising to redeem them at a future time with silver and gold, and threatening severe punishment to all who should refuse.
Their footsteps through the city were in a manner printed in blood, and they were tracked by the bodies of those they had killed and wounded. They had attained the gate; most of the guard had fallen beneath their scimetars; a moment more and Alhama would have been thrown open to the enemy. * Zurita, lib. 20, c. 43.
Many of the knights took refuge in Alhama and other towns: many wandered about the mountains for eight days, living on roots and herbs, hiding themselves during the day and sallying forth at night. So enfeebled and disheartened were they that they offered no resistance if attacked.
They arrived close to Alhama about two hours before daybreak. Here the army remained in ambush, while three hundred men were despatched to scale the walls and get possession of the castle. They were picked men, many of them alcaydes and officers, men who preferred death to dishonor. This gallant band was guided by the escalador Ortega de Prado at the head of thirty men with scaling-ladders.
While Alhama was thus blockaded by a roving force of Moorish cavalry, the inhabitants were awakened one night by a tremendous crash that shook the fortress to its foundations. The garrison flew to arms, supposing it some assault of the enemy.
The rock, in some places, quite overhung the bed of the Marchan, which half-girdles its base. The close scrutiny to which I was subjected by the crowd in the plaza called to mind all I had heard of Spanish spies and robbers. At the venta, I was well treated, but received such an exorbitant bill in the morning that I was ready to exclaim, with King Boabdil, "Woe is me, Alhama!"
Muley Abul Hassan now abandoned all hope of carrying the place by assault, and attempted to distress it into terms by turning the channel of the river which runs by its walls. On this stream the inhabitants depended for their supply of water, the place being destitute of fountains and cisterns, from which circumstance it is called Alhama "la seca," or "the dry."
The loss of Alhama was a terrible blow to the kingdom of Granada. Terror filled the citizens of the capital when the news reached that city. Sighs and lamentations came from all sides, the mournful ejaculation, "Woe is me, Alhama!" was in every mouth, and this afterwards became the burden of a plaintive ballad, "Ay de mi, Alhama," which remains among the gems of Spanish poetry.
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