Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/458

432 432 RISING IN THE ALPUXARRAS. PART II. Rendezvous at Ronda. their countrymen exasperated them to such a de- gree, that they at length broke out in the most atrocious acts of violence ; murdering the Christian missionaries, and kidnapping, if report be true, many Spaniards of both sexes, whom they sold as slaves in Africa. They were accused, with far more probability, of entering into a secret corre- spondence with their brethren on the opposite shore, in order to secure their support in the meditated revolt. ^^ The government displayed its usual promptness and energy on this occasion. Orders were issued 12 Bernaldez, Reyes Catohcos, MS., cap. 165. — Bleda, Cor6nica, lib. 5, cap. 25. — Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 221. The complaints of the Spanish and African Moors to the Sultan of Egypt, or of Babylon, as he was then usually styled, had drawn from that prince sharp remonstrances to the Catholic sovereigns against their persecutions of the Moskms, accompanied by menaces of strict retaliation on the Christians in his dominions. In order to avert such calamitous consequences, Peter Martyr was sent as ambassador to Egypt. He left Granada in Au- gust, 1501, proceeded to Venice, and embarked there for Alexandria, which place he reached in Decem- ber. Though cautioned on his arriv- al, that his mission, in the present exasperated state of feeling at the court, might cost him his head, the dauntless envoy sailed up the Nile under a Mameluke guard to Grand Cairo. Far from experiencing any outrage, however, he was cour- teously received by the Sultan ; although the ambassador declined compromising the dignity of the court he represented, by paying the usual humiliating mark of obei- sance, in prostrating himself on the ground in the royal presence ; an independent bearing highly satis- factory to the Castilian historians. (See Garibay, Compendio, torn. ii. lib. 19, cap. 12.) He had three audiences, in which he succeeded so completely in effacing the unfa- vorable impressions of the Moslem prince,, that the latter not only dis- missed him with liberal presents, but granted, at his request, several important privileges to the Chris- tian residents, and the pilgrims to the Holy Land, which lay within his dominions. Martyr's account of this interesting visit, which gave him ample opportunity for studying the manners of a nation, and see- ing the stupendous monuments of ancient art, then little familiar to Europeans, was published in Latin, under the title of " De Legatione Babylonica," in three books, ap- pended to his more celebrated " Decades de Rebus Oceanicis ct Novo Orbe." Mazzuchelli, (Scrit- tori d' Italia, voce Anghiera,) noti- ces an edition which he had seen published separately, without date or name of the printer.