CHAPTER LXXI

Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

by Washington Irving

CHAPTER LXXI, CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA by Washington Irving

THE BATTLE OF THE GARDENS BEFORE BAZA.


When the reply of the Moorish commanders was brought to King
Ferdinand, he prepared to press the siege with the utmost vigor.
Finding the camp too far from the city, and that the intervening
orchards afforded shelter for the sallies of the Moors, he determined
to advance it beyond the gardens, in the space between them and
the suburbs, where his batteries would have full play upon the city
walls. A detachment was sent in advance to take possession of the
gardens and keep a check upon the suburbs, opposing any sally
while the encampment should be formed and fortified. The various
commanders entered the orchards at different points. The young
cavaliers marched fearlessly forward, but the experienced veterans
foresaw infinite peril in the mazes of this verdant labyrinth. The
master of St. Jago, as he led his troops into the centre of the
gardens, exhorted them to keep by one another, and to press
forward in defiance of all difficulty or danger, assuring them that
God would give them the victory if they attacked hardily and
persisted resolutely.

Scarce had they entered the verge of the orchards when a din of
drums and trumpets, mingled with war-cries, was heard from the
suburbs, and a legion of Moorish warriors on foot poured forth. They
were led on by the prince Cid Hiaya. He saw the imminent danger of
the city should the Christians gain possession of the orchards.
"Soldiers," he cried, "we fight for life and liberty, for our families, our
country, our religion;* nothing is left for us to depend upon but the
strength of our hands, the courage of our hearts, and the almighty
protection of Allah." The Moors answered him with shouts of war
and rushed to the encounter. The two hosts met in the midst of the
gardens. A chance-medley combat ensued with lances, arquebuses,
crossbows, and scimetars; the perplexed nature of the ground, cut
up and intersected by canals and streams, the closeness of the trees,
the multiplicity of towers and petty edifices, gave greater advantages
to the Moors, who were on foot, than to the Christians, who were on
horseback. The Moors, too, knew the ground, with all its alleys and
passes, and were thus enabled to lurk, to sally forth, attack, and
retreat almost without injury.

*"Illi (Mauri) pro fortunis, pro libertate, pro laribus patriis, pro
vita denique certabant."--Pietro Martyr, "Epist. 70."


The Christian commanders, seeing this, ordered many of the horsemen
to dismount and fight on foot. The battle then became fierce and
deadly, each disregarding his own life, provided he could slay his
enemy. It was not so much a general battle as a multitude of petty
actions, for every orchard and garden had its distinct contest. No
one could see farther than the little scene of fury and bloodshed
around him, nor know how the general battle fared. In vain the
captains exerted their voices, in vain the trumpets brayed forth
signals and commands: all was confounded and unheard in the
universal din and uproar. No one kept to his standard, but fought as
his own fury or fear dictated. In some places the Christians had the
advantage, in others the Moors; often a victorious party, pursuing
the vanquished, came upon a superior and triumphant force of the
enemy, and the fugitives turned back upon them in an overwhelming
wave. Some broken remnants, in their terror and confusion, fled from
their own countrymen and sought refuge among their enemies, not
knowing friend from foe in the obscurity of the groves. The Moors
were more adroit in these wild skirmishings from their flexibility,
lightness, and agility, and the rapidity with which they would
disperse, rally, and return again to the charge.*

*Mariana, lib. 25, cap. 13.


The hardest fighting was about the small garden-towers and
pavilions, which served as so many petty fortresses. Each party
by turns gained them, defended them fiercely, and were driven out;
many of the towers were set on fire, and increased the horrors of
the fight by the wreaths of smoke and flame in which they wrapped
the groves and by the shrieks of those who were burning.

Several of the Christian cavaliers, bewildered by the uproar and
confusion and shocked at the carnage which prevailed, would have
led their men out of the action, but they were entangled in a labyrinth
and knew not which way to retreat. While in this perplexity Juan
Perea, the standard-bearer of one of the squadrons of the grand
cardinal, had his arm carried off by a cannon-ball; the standard was
wellnigh falling into the hands of the enemy, when Rodrigo de
Mendoza, an intrepid youth, natural son of the grand cardinal,
rushed to its rescue through a shower of balls, lances, and arrows,
and, bearing it aloft, dashed forward with it into the hottest of
the combat, followed by his shouting soldiery.

King Ferdinand, who remained in the skirts of the orchard, was in
extreme anxiety. It was impossible to see much of the action for the
multiplicity of trees and towers and the wreaths of smoke, and those
who were driven out defeated or came out wounded and exhausted
gave different accounts, according to the fate of the partial conflicts
in which they had been engaged. Ferdinand exerted himself to the
utmost to animate and encourage his troops to this blind encounter,
sending reinforcements of horse and foot to those points where the
battle was most sanguinary and doubtful.

Among those who were brought forth mortally wounded was Don
Juan de Luna, a youth of uncommon merit, greatly prized by the king,
beloved by the army, and recently married to Dona Catalina de Urrea,
a young lady of distinguished beauty.* They laid him at the foot of
a tree, and endeavored to stanch and bind up his wounds with a
scarf which his bride had wrought for him; but his life-blood flowed
too profusely, and while a holy friar was yet administering to him the
last sacred offices of the Church, he expired, almost at the feet of
his sovereign.

*Mariana, P. Martyr, Zurita.


On the other hand, the veteran alcayde Mohammed Ibn Hassan,
surrounded by a little band of chieftains, kept an anxious eye upon
the scene of combat from the walls of the city. For nearly twelve
hours the battle raged without intermission. The thickness of the
foliage hid all the particulars from their sight, but they could see
the flash of swords and glance of helmets among the trees. Columns
of smoke rose in every direction, while the clash of arms, the
thundering of ribadoquines and arquebuses, the shouts and cries of
the combatants, and the groans and supplications of the wounded
bespoke the deadly conflict waging in the bosom of the groves. They
were harassed, too, by the shrieks and lamentations of the Moorish
women and children as their wounded relatives were brought bleeding
from the scene of action, and were stunned by a general outcry of
woe on the part of the inhabitants as the body of Reduan Zafarjal,
a renegado Christian and one of the bravest of their generals, was
borne breathless into the city.

At length the din of battle approached nearer to the skirts of the
orchards. They beheld their warriors driven out from among the
groves by fresh squadrons of the enemy, and, after disputing the
ground inch by inch, obliged to retire to a place between the
orchards and the suburbs which was fortified with palisadoes.

The Christians immediately planted opposing palisadoes, and
established strong outposts near to the retreat of the Moors, while
at the same time King Ferdinand ordered that his encampment
should be pitched within the hard-won orchards.

Mohammed Ibn Hassan sallied forth to the aid of the prince Cid
Hiaya, and made a desperate attempt to dislodge the enemy from
this formidable position, but the night had closed, and the darkness
rendered it impossible to make any impression. The Moors, however,
kept up constant assaults and alarms throughout the night, and the
weary Christians, exhausted by the toils and sufferings of the day,
were not allowed a moment of repose.*

*Pulgar, part 3, cap. 106, 107; Cura de los Palacios, cap. 92;
Zurita, lib. 20, cap 31.