Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/459

433 into the sierra. DEATH OF ALONSO DE AGUILAR. 433 to the principal chiefs and cities of Andalusia, to chapter VII. muster their forces with all possible despatch, and '- — concentrate them on Ronda. The summons was obeyed with such alacrity, that, in the course of a very few weeks, the streets of that busy city were thronged with a shining array of warriors drawn from all the principal towns of Andalusia. Seville sent three hundred horse and two thousand foot. The principal leaders of the expedition were the count of Cifuentes, who, as assistant of Seville, com- manded the troops of that city; the count of Urena; and Alonso de Aguilar, elder brother of the Great Captain, and distinguished like him for the highest qualities of mind and person. It was determined by the chiefs to strike at once Expedition into the heart of the Sierra Vermeja, or Red Sierra, as it was called from the color of its rocks, rising to the east of Ronda, and the principal theatre of in- surrection. On the 18th of March, 1501, the little army encamped before Monarda, on the skirts of a mountain, where the Moors were understood to have assembled in considerable force. They had not been long in these quarters before parties of the enemy were seen hovering along the slopes of the mountain, from which the Christian camp was di- vided by a narrow river, — the Rio Verde, probably, which has gained such mournful celebrity in Span- ish song. ^^ Aguilar's troops, who occupied the van, 13 " Rio Verde, Rio Verde, river," from the awkwardness, he Tintovaensangreviva;"— gays, of the literal translation of Percy, in his well-known version "verdant river." He was not of one of these agreeable romances, aware, it appears, that the Spanish adopts the tanne epithet of " gentle was a proper name. (See Reliques VOL. II. 55