Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/169

145 EXPULSION OF THE JEWS. 145 garments or the linings of their saddles. These chapter did not escape the avaricious eyes of their spoilers, _. who are even said to have ripped open the bodies of their victims, in search of gold, which they were supposed to have swallowed. The lawless barba- rians, mingling lust with avarice, abandoned them- selves to still more frightful excesses, violating the wives and daughters of the unresisting Jews, or massacring in cold blood such as offered resistance. But without pursuing these loathsome details fur- ther, it need only be added, that the miserable ex- iles endured such extremity of famine, that they were glad to force a nourishment from the grass which grew scantily among the sands of the desert ; until at length great numbers of them, wasted by disease, and broken in spirit, retraced their steps to Ercilla, and consented to be baptized, in the hope of being permitted to revisit their native land. The number, indeed, was so considerable, that the priest who officiated was obliged to make use of the mop, or hyssop, with which the Roman catholic missionaries were wont to scatter the holy drops, whose mystic virtue could cleanse the soul in a mo- ment from the foulest stains of infidelity. " Thus," says a Castilian historian, " the calamities of these poor blind creatures proved in the end an excellent remedy, that God made use of to unseal their eyes, which they now opened to the vain promises of the Rabbins ; so that, renouncing their ancient heresies, they became faithful followers of the Cross ! " ^^ 11 Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, torn. viii. p. 133. — Bemaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 113. VOL. II. 19