Thus the gulf which separated the two races grew wider and wider every day. The Moriscoes hated the Spaniards for the wrongs which they had received from them. The Spaniards hated the Moriscoes the more, that they had themselves inflicted these wrongs. Their hatred was further embittered by the feeling of jealousy caused by the successful competition of their rivals in the various pursuits of gain,--a circumstance which forms a fruitful theme of complaint in the petition of the Cortes above noticed.[288] The feeling of hate became in time mingled with that of fear, as the Moriscoes increased in opulence and numbers; and men are not apt to be over scrupulous in their policy towards those whom they both hate and fear.
With these evil passions rankling in their bosoms, the Spaniards were gradually prepared for the consummation of their long train of persecutions by that last act, reserved for the reign of the imbecile Philip the Third,--the expulsion of the Moriscoes from the Peninsula,--an act which deprived Spain of the most industrious and ingenious portion of her population, and which must be regarded as one of the principal causes of the subsequent decline of the monarchy.
An historian less renowned than Mendoza, but of more importance to one who would acquaint himself with the story of the Morisco rebellion, is Luis del Marmol Carbajal. Little is known of him but what is to be gathered from brief notices of himself in his works. He was a native of Granada, but we are not informed of the date of his birth. He was of a good family, and followed the profession of arms. When a mere youth, as he tells us, he was present at the famous siege of Tunis, in 1535. He continued in the imperial service two-and-twenty years. Seven years he was a captive, and followed the victorious banner of Mohammed, Scherif of Morocco, in his campaigns in the west of Africa. His various fortunes and his long residence in different parts of the African continent, especially in Barbary and Egypt, supplied him with abundant information in respect to the subjects of his historical inquiries; and, as he knew the Arabic, he made himself acquainted with such facts as were to be gleaned from books in that language. The fruits of his study and observation he gave to the world in his "_Descripcion General de Africa_," a work in three volumes folio, the first part of which appeared at Granada in 1573. The remainder was not published till the close of the century.