new ardor in the bosoms of all true Christian knights, and so zealously
did they respond to the summons of the sovereigns that an army of
twenty thousand cavalry and fifty thousand foot, the flower of Spanish
warriors, led by the bravest of Spanish cavaliers, thronged the
renowned city of Cordova at the appointed time.

On the night before this mighty host set forth upon its march an
earthquake shook the city. The inhabitants, awakened by the shaking
of the walls and rocking of the towers, fled to the courts and
squares, fearing to be overwhelmed by the ruins of their dwellings.
The earthquake was most violent in the quarter of the royal residence,
the site of the ancient palace of the Moorish kings. Many looked upon
this as an omen of some impending evil; but Fray Antonio Agapida, in
that infallible spirit of divination which succeeds an event, plainly
reads in it a presage that the empire of the Moors was about to be
shaken to its centre.

It was on Saturday, the eve of the Sunday of Palms (says a worthy
and loyal chronicler of the time), that the most Catholic monarch
departed with his army to render service to Heaven and make war
upon the Moors.* Heavy rains had swelled all the streams and
rendered the roads deep and difficult. The king, therefore, divided
his host into two bodies. In one he put all the artillery, guarded
by a strong body of horse, and commanded by the master of Alcantara
and Martin Alonso, senior of Montemayor. This division was to proceed
by the road through the valleys, where pasturage abounded for the
oxen which drew the ordnance.

*Pulgar, Cronica de los Reyes Catholicos.