Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada | Page 6

been somewhat of a detriment to it. Fray Antonio Agapida was
found to be an imaginary personage, and this threw a doubt over the
credibility of his Chronicle, which was increased by a vein of irony
indulged here and there, and by the occasional heightening of some of
the incidents and the romantic coloring of some of the scenes. A word
or two explanatory may therefore be of service.*
*Many of the observations in this note have already appeared in an
explanatory article which at Mr. Murray's request, the author furnished
to the London Quarterly Review.
The idea of the work was suggested while I was occupied at Madrid in
writing the Life of Columbus. In searching for traces of his early life I
was led among the scenes of the war of Granada, he having followed
the Spanish sovereigns in some of their campaigns, and been present at
the surrender of the Moorish capital. I actually wove some of these
scenes into the biography, but found they occupied an undue space, and
stood out in romantic relief not in unison with the general course of the
narrative. My mind, however, had become so excited by the stirring
events and romantic achievements of this war that I could not return
with composure to the sober biography I had in hand. The idea then
occurred, as a means of allaying the excitement, to throw off a rough
draught of the history of this war, to be revised and completed at future
leisure. It appeared to me that its true course and character had never
been fully illustrated. The world had received a strangely perverted idea
of it through Florian's romance of "Gonsalvo of Cordova," or through

the legend, equally fabulous, entitled "The Civil Wars of Granada," by
Ginez Perez de la Hita, the pretended work of an Arabian contemporary,
but in reality a Spanish fabrication. It had been woven over with
love-tales and scenes of sentimental gallantry totally opposite to its real
character; for it was, in truth, one of the sternest of those iron conflicts
sanctified by the title of "holy wars." In fact, the genuine nature of the
war placed it far above the need of any amatory embellishments. It
possessed sufficient interest in the striking contrast presented by the
combatants of Oriental and European creeds, costumes, and manners,
and in the hardy and harebrained enterprises, the romantic adventures,
the picturesque forays through mountain regions, the daring assaults
and surprisals of cliff-built castles and cragged fortresses, which
succeeded each other with a variety and brilliancy beyond the scope of
mere invention.
The time of the contest also contributed to heighten the interest. It was
not long after the invention of gunpowder, when firearms and artillery
mingled the flash and smoke and thunder of modern warfare with the
steely splendor of ancient chivalry, and gave an awful magnificence
and terrible sublimity to battle, and when the old Moorish towers and
castles, that for ages had frowned defiance to the battering-rams and
catapults of classic tactics, were toppled down by the lombards of the
Spanish engineers. It was one of the cases in which history rises
superior to fiction.
The more I thought about the subject, the more I was tempted to
undertake it, and the facilities at hand at length determined me. In the
libraries of Madrid and in the private library of the American consul,
Mr. Rich, I had access to various chronicles and other works, both
printed and in manuscript, written at the time by eyewitnesses, and in
some instances by persons who had actually mingled in the scenes
recorded and gave descriptions of them from different points of view
and with different details. These works were often diffuse and tedious,
and occasionally discolored by the bigotry, superstition, and fierce
intolerance of the age; but their pages were illumined at times with
scenes of high emprise, of romantic generosity, and heroic valor, which
flashed upon the reader with additional splendor from the surrounding

darkness. I collated these various works, some of which have never
appeared in print, drew from each facts relative to the different
enterprises, arranged them in as clear and lucid order as I could
command, and endeavored to give them somewhat of a graphic effect
by connecting them with the manners and customs of the age in which
they occurred. The rough draught being completed, I laid the
manuscript aside and proceeded with the Life of Columbus. After this
was finished and sent to the press I made a tour in Andalusia, visited
the ruins of the Moorish towns, fortresses, and castles, and the wild
mountain- passes and defiles which had been the scenes of the most
remarkable events of the war, and passed some time in the ancient
palace of the Alhambra, the once favorite abode