Musa endeavored to retrieve the fortune of the field.  He threw himself before the retreating infantry, calling upon them to turn and fight for their homes, their families, for everything that was sacred and dear to them.  It was all in vain—­they were totally broken and dismayed, and fled tumultuously for the gates.  Slowly and reluctantly Musa retreated to the city, and he vowed nevermore to sally forth with foot soldiers to the field.  In the mean time the artillery thundered from the walls and checked all further advances of the Christians.  King Ferdinand, therefore, called off his troops, and returned in triumph to the ruins of his camp, leaving the beautiful city of Granada wrapped in the smoke of her fields and gardens and surrounded by the bodies of her slaughtered children.  Such was the last sally made by the Moors in defence of their favorite city.

They now shut themselves up gloomily within their walls; there were no longer any daring sallies from their gates.  For a time they flattered themselves with hopes that the late conflagration of the camp would discourage the besiegers; that, as in former years, their invasion would end with the summer, and that they would again withdraw before the autumnal rains.  The measures of Ferdinand and Isabella soon crushed these hopes.  They gave orders to build a regular city upon the site of their camp, to convince the Moors that the siege was to endure until the surrender of Granada.  Nine of the principal cities of Spain were charged with the stupendous undertaking; and they emulated each other with a zeal worthy of the cause.  To this city it was proposed to give the name of Isabella, so dear to the army and the nation; but that pious Princess, calling to mind the holy cause in which it was erected, gave it the name of Santa Fe, or the “City of the Holy Faith,” and it remains to this day a monument of the piety and glory of the Catholic sovereigns.

In the mean time the besieged city began to suffer the distress of famine.  Its supplies were all cut off; a cavalcade of flocks and herds, and mules laden with money, coming to the relief of the city from the mountains of the Alpujarras[2], was taken by the Marquis of Cadiz and led in triumph to the camp, in sight of the suffering Moors.  Autumn arrived, but the harvests had been swept from the face of the country; a rigorous winter was approaching, and the city was almost destitute of provisions.  The people sank into deep despondency.  They called to mind all that had been predicted by astrologers at the birth of their ill-starred sovereign, and all that had been foretold of the fate of Granada at the time of the capture of Zahara.