Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/510

364 364 WAR OF GRANADA. PART I. Their disas- trous situa- tion. The one winding along the sea-shore, wide and level, but circuitous, and swept through the whole range of its narrow entrance by the fortress of Malaga. This determined them unhappily to pre- fer the other route, being that by which they had penetrated the Axarquia, or rather a shorter cut, by which the adalides undertook to conduct them through its mazes. ^^ The little army commenced its retrograde move- ment with undiminished spirit. But it was now embarrassed with the transportation of its plunder, and by the increasing difficulties of the sierra, which, as they ascended its sides, was matted over with impenetrable thickets, and broken up by for- midable ravines or channels, cut deep into the soil by the mountain torrents. The Moors were now seen mustering in considerable numbers along the heights, and, as they were expert marksmen, being trained by early and assiduous practice, the shots from their arquebuses and cross-bows frequently found some assailable point in the harness of the Spanish men-at-arms. At length, the army, through the treachery or ignorance of the guides, was sud- denly brought to a halt by arriving in a deep glen or enclosure, whose rocky sides rose with such boldness as to be scarcely practicable for infantry, much less for horse. To add to their distresses, daylight, without which they could scarcely hope to extricate themselves, was fast fading away. ^^ 24 Mariana, Hist, de Espafla, 25 Pulaar, Reyes Catolicos, p. torn. ii. pp. 552, 553. — Pulgar, 205. — Garibay, Compendio, torn. Reyes Catolicos, p. 205. — Zurita, ii. p. G36. Analcs, torn. iv. fol. 321.