Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/42

18 I. WAR OF GRANADA. PART and the principal citizens of the place, on condition of immediate surrender. The sturdy chief, how- ever, rejected the proposal with disdain, replying, that he had been commissioned by his master to defend the place to the last extremity, and that the Christian king could not offer a bribe large enough to make him betray his trust. Ferdinand, finding little prospect of operating on this Spartan temper, broke up his camp before Velez, on the 7th of May, and advanced with his whole army as far as Bezmillana, a place on the sea-board about two leagues distant from Malaga.'^ The line of march now lay through a valley com- manded at the extremity nearest the city by two eminences ; the one on the sea- coast, the other fa- cing the fortress of the Gebalfaro, and forming part of the wild sierra which overshadowed Malaga on the north. The enemy occupied both these impor- tant positions. A corps of Galicians were sent for- ward to dislodge them from the eminence towards the sea. But it failed in the assault, and, notwith- standing it was led up a second time by the com- mander of Leon and the brave Garcilasso de la Vega,^ was again repulsed by the intrepid foe. 7 Bernaldez, Reyes Cal61icos, puted to him a chivalrous rencontre MS., cap. 82. — Vedmar, Antigua- with a Saracen, which is record- dad de Velez, fol. 154. — Pulgar, ed of an ancestor, in the ancient Reyes Catolicos, cap. 74. Chronicle of Alonso XI. » This cavalier, who took a con- ., o„,cibso de la Vojia spicuous part both in the military desde aiii se im imitulado, and civil transactions of this reifrn, pornne en la Vega liiciem was descended from one of the campo con aquei pagano." most ancient and honorable houses Oviedo, however, with good rea- in Castile. Hyta, f Guerras Civiles son, distrusts the etymology and de Granada, tom. i. p. 399.) with the story, as he traces both the more clTroiiicry than usual, has im- cognomen and the peculiar device