Here, according to
tradition, Boabdil surrendered the keys of Granada to King
Ferdinand. I rode slowly thence across the Vega to a village where the
family and household of the unhappy king awaited him, for he had
sent them forward on the preceding night from the Alhambra, that his
mother and wife might not participate in his personal humiliation,
or be exposed to the gaze of the conquerors. Following on in the route
of the melancholy band of royal exiles, I arrived at the foot of a
chain of barren and dreary heights, forming the skirt of the Alpuxarra
mountains. From the summit of one of these the unfortunate Boabdil
took his last look at Granada; it bears a name expressive of his
sorrows, la Cuesta de las Lagrimas (the Hill of Tears). Beyond it, a
sandy road winds across a rugged cheerless waste, doubly dismal to the
unhappy monarch, as it led to exile.
I spurred my horse to the summit of a rock, where Boabdil uttered
his last sorrowful exclamation, as he turned his eyes from taking
their farewell gaze; it is still denominated el ultimo suspiro del
Moro (the last sigh of the Moor). Who can wonder at his anguish at
being expelled from such a kingdom and such an abode? With the
Alhambra he seemed to be yielding up all the honors of his line, and
all the glories and delights of life.
It was here, too, that his affliction was embittered by the reproach
of his mother, Ayxa, who had so often assisted him in times of
peril, and had vainly sought to instil into him her own resolute
spirit.
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