Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/451

425 VII. CHAPTER VII. RISING IN THE ALPUXARRAS. — DEATH OF ALONSO DE AGUILAR. — EDICT AGAINST THE MOORS. 1500—1502. Rising in the Alpuxarras. — Expedition to the Sierra Vermeja. — Alonso de Agailar. — His noble Character, and Death. — Bloody Rout of the Spaniards. — Final Submission to Ferdinand. — Cruel Policy of the Victors. — Commemorative Ballads. — Edict against the Moors. — Causes of Intolerance. — Last Notice of the Moors under the present Reign. While affairs went forward so triumphantly in chapter the capital of Granada, they excited general dis- content in other parts of that kingdom, especially the wild regions of the Alpuxarras. This range of maritime Alps, which stretches to the distance of seventeen leagues in a southeasterly direction from the Moorish capital, sending out its sierras like so many broad arms towards the Mediterranean, was thickly sprinkled with Moorish villages, cresting the bald summits of the mountains, or chequering the green slopes and valleys which lay between them. Its simple inhabitants, locked up within the lonely recesses of their hills, and accustomed to a life of penury and toil, had escaped the corruptions, as well as refinements, of civilization. In ancient times they had afforded a hardy militia for the VOL. II. 54 The Alpu- xarras,