Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/466

320 320 WAR OF GRANADA. PART to refresh themselves with its delicious waters, so I. that Alhama became embellished with all the mag- nificence of a royal residence. The place was still further enriched by its being the depot of the public taxes on land, which constituted a principal branch of the revenue, and by its various manufactures of cloth, for which its inhabitants were celebrated throughout the kingdom of Granada ^ Diego de Merlo, although struck with the ad- vantages of this conquest, was not insensible to the difficulties with which it would be attended ; since Alhama was sheltered under the very wings of Granada, from which it lay scarcely eight leagues distant, and could be reached only by traversing the most populous portion of the Moorish territory, or by surmounting a precipitous sierra, or chain of mountains, which screened it on the north. With- out delay, however, he communicated the informa- tion which he had received to Don Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, marquis of Cadiz, as the person best fitted by his capacity and courage for such an TheMwqjis enterprise. This nobleman, who had succeeded of Cadiz. '■ ' his father, the count of Arcos, in 1469, as head of the great house of Ponce de Leon, was at this period about thirty-nine years of age. Although a younger and illegitimate son, he had been pre- ferred to the succession in consequence of the extraordinary promise which his early youth ex- hibited. When scarcely seventeen years old, he 3 Estrada, Poblacion de Espana, 222, nota. — Pulear, Rpves Catoli- tom. ii. pp. 247, 248. — El Nubi- cos. p. 181. — Marmol," Kcbelion cii.sc, Descripcion de Espafia, p. de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 12.