SIEGE OF BAZA-COURAGE AND DEVOTION OF THE

N

WOMEN.

OTWITHSTANDING the vigour with which the siege was pressed, Baza made no demonstration of submission. The garrison was, indeed, greatly reduced in number; the ammunition was nearly expended; yet there still remained abundant supplies of provisions in the town, and no signs of despondency appeared among the people. Even the women of the place, with a spirit emulating that of the dames of ancient Carthage, freely gave up their jewels, bracelets, necklaces, and other personal ornaments, of which the Moorish ladies were exceedingly fond, in order to defray the charges of the mercenaries.

The camp of the besiegers, in the meanwhile, was also greatly wasted both by sickness and the sword. Many, desponding under perils and fatigues, which seemed to have no end, would even at this late hour have abandoned the siege; and they earnestly solicited the queen's appearance in the camp, in the hope that she would herself countenance this measure on witnessing their sufferings. Others, and by far the larger part, anxiously desired the queen's visit, as likely to quicken the operations of the siege, and bring it to a favourable issue. There seemed to be a virtue in her presence, which, on some account or other, made it earnestly desired by all.-W. Irving.

Livy, xxv. c. 26. xxi. c. 18. xxviii. c. 22, 23.

FLORUS, ii. c. 12,

THE

OBSTINATE DEFENCE OF THE moors.

HE Moors, unshaken by the fury of this assault, received the assailants with brisk and well-directed volleys of shot and arrows; while the women and children, thronging the roofs and balconies of the houses, discharged on their heads boiling oil, pitch, and missiles of every description. But the weapons of the Moors glanced comparatively harmless from the mailed armour of the Spaniards; while their own bodies, loosely arrayed in such habili

ments as they could throw over them in the confusion of the night, presented a fatal mark to their enemies. Still they continued to maintain a stout resistance, checking the progress of the Spaniards by barricades of timber hastily thrown across the streets; and, as their entrenchments were forced one after another, they disputed every inch of ground with the desperation of men who fought for life, fortune, liberty,—all that was most dear to them. The contest hardly slackened till the close of the day, while the kennels literally ran with blood, and every avenue was choked up with the bodies of the slain. At length, however, Spanish valour proved triumphant in every quarter, except where a small and desperate remnant of the Moors, having gathered their wives and children. around them, retreated as a last resort into a large mosque near the walls of the city, from which they kept up a galling fire on the close ranks of the Christians. The latter, after enduring some loss, succeeded in sheltering themselves so effectually under a roof or canopy constructed of their own shields, in the manner practised in war previous to the exclusive use of fire-arms, that they were enabled to approach so near the mosque as to set fire to its doors; when its tenants, menaced with suffocation, made a desperate sally, in which many perished, and the remainder surrendered at discretion.

LIVY, xxi. c. 8, 11.

TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 29, 30, 71.
CESAR, Bell. Gall. v. c. 43.

SURPRISE AND STORMING OF ZAHARA.

N the midst of the night an uproar arose within the walls of

IN

Zahara, more awful than the raging of the storm. A fearful alarm-cry, "The Moor! the Moor!" resounded through the streets, mingled with the clash of arms, the shriek of anguish, and the shout of victory. Muley Aben Hassan, at the head of a powerful force, had hurried from Granada, and passed unobserved through the mountains in the obscurity of the tempest. When the storm pelted the sentinel from his post, and howled round tower and

battlement, the Moors had planted their scaling ladders, and mounted securely into both town and castle. The garrison was unsuspicious of danger until battle and massacre burst forth within its very walls. It seemed to the affrighted inhabitants, as if the fiends of the air had come upon the wings of the wind, and possessed themselves of tower and turret. The war-cry resounded on every side, shout answering shout, above, below, on the battlements of the castle, in the streets of the town; the foe was in all parts, wrapped in obscurity, but acting in concert by the aid of preconcerted signals.-W. Irving.

TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 29.

LIVY, xxiii. c. 35, ad fin. v. c. 39, sqq. xxi. c. 58. xxiv. c. 46.

STORMING OF THE BREACH AT BADAJOS.

OW a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by

NOW

a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of swordblades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets; and each musket in addition to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of leaden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged.

Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the sword-blades, immoveable and impassable, stopped their charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few,

ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again.-Napier.

LIVY, xxxviii. c. 5-7.

xxiv. c. 46. XXV. c. 9, 10.

CESAR, Bell. Gall. v. c. 42, 43.

TACITUS, Hist. iii. c. 29, 71.

IT

BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-MAURICE OF NASSAU
ENCOURAGES HIS TROOPS.

T was a bright warm midsummer day. The waves of the German Ocean came lazily rolling in upon the crisp yellow sand, the surf breaking at the very feet of the armies. A gentle south-west wind was blowing, just filling the sails of more than a thousand ships in the offing, which moved languidly along the sparkling sea. It was an atmosphere better befitting a tranquil holiday than the scene of carnage which seemed approaching. Maurice of Nassau, in complete armour, sword in hand, with the orange plumes waving from his helmet, and the orange scarf across his breast, rode through the lines, briefly addressing his soldiers with martial energy. Pointing to the harbour behind them, now again impassable with the flood, to the ocean on the left where rode the fleet, carrying with it all hope of escape by sea, and to the army of the Archduke in front, almost within cannon range, he simply observed that they had no choice between victory or death. They must either utterly overthrow the Spanish army, he said, or drink all the waters of the sea. Either drowning or butchery was their doom if they were conquered, for no quarter was to be expected from their insolent foe. He was there to share their fate, to conquer or to perish with them, and from their tried valour and from the God of battles he hoped a more magnificent victory than had ever before been achieved in this almost perpetual war.

The troops replied with a shout that they were ready to live or die with their chieftain, and eagerly demanded to be led upon the Whether from hope or from desperation they were con

enemy.

fident and cheerful.-Motley.

TACITUS, Ann. ii. c. 15.

LIVY, xxi. c. 43. xxii. c. 5. xxxiv. c. 14. xli. c. 2.

BUT

BOADICEA ATTACKS THE romans.

UT flushed with victory, impatient for the slaughter, animated with desperate resolution to die or conquer, the Britons cast no thought or look behind them. Boadicea herself drove from rank to rank, from nation to nation, with her daughters beside her, attesting the outrage she had endured, the vengeance she had already taken, proclaiming the gallant deeds of the queens before her, under whom British warriors had so often triumphed, denouncing as intolerable the yoke of Roman insolence, and declaring that whatever the men might determine, the women would now be free, or perish. The harangue of Suetonius, on the other hand, was blunt and sarcastic. He told his men not to mind the multitudes before them, nor the noise they made; there were more women among them than men as for their own numbers, let them remember that in all battles a few good swordsmen really did the work; the half-armed and dastardly crowds before them would break and fly when they saw again the prowess of the Roman soldiery. Thus encouraged, the legionaries could with difficulty be restrained to await the onset; and as soon as the assailants had exhausted their missiles, bore down upon them in the wedgeshaped column which had so often broken Greeks, Gauls, and Carthaginians. The auxiliaries followed with no less impetuosity. The horsemen, lance in hand, pierced through the ranks which still kept their ground. But a single charge was enough. The Britons were in a moment shattered and routed.-Merivale.

TACITUS, Ann. xiv. c. 35, 36.