THE capture of Boabdil by the Christian sovereigns
was a fatal blow to the Moorish power. The loss of
the prince himself was the smallest part of the mis-
fortune. Boabdil, though he could show true Moorish
courage in the battle-field, was a weak and vacillating
man, and was perpetually oppressed by the conviction
that destiny was against him. He was known as
Ez-Zogoiby, "the Unlucky;" and he was ever
lamenting his evil star, against which he felt it was
useless to struggle. "Verily," he would exclaim,
after every reverse, "it was written in the book of
fate that I should be unlucky, and that the kingdom
should come to an end under my rule!" Boabdil
could easily be spared; but innocuous as he was in
himself, he might become dangerous in the hands of
a clever adversary; and events showed that Boabdil's
subjection to Ferdinand contributed as much as any
other cause to the overthrow of the Moorish power in
Andalusia. The Catholic sovereigns received him
with honour at Cordova, and, by friendly persuasion
and arguments drawn from his own desperate situa-
tion and the strongly contrasted successes of the
Christians, they induced him to become their instru-
ment and vassal.

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