t seemed, he
relates, as if he had been transported into the past and was living in
an enchanted realm.

Irving remained some months in the Alhambra, living over again the
scenes of Moorish story, and so catching the spirit of the lost
grandeur of the old palace, that his descriptions read like a bit of
genuine Arabian chronicle, which had been kept safe until then in the
grim guardianship of the past.

The chapters of the _Alhambra_ are also full of delightful legends,
the fairy tales which time had woven around the beautiful ruin, and
which the custodians of the place related gravely to Irving as genuine
history. It calls up a pleasant picture to think of Irving sitting
in the stately hall or in his balcony, listening to one of these old
tales from the lips of his tattered but devoted domestic, while the
twilight was gathering and the nightingale singing in the groves and
gardens beneath.

He himself said that it was the realization of a day-dream which he
had cherished since the time when, in earliest boyhood on the banks of
the Hudson, he had pored over the story of Granada.

In his work, _The Conquest of Granada_, Irving relates the story of
the retaking of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, during a war which
lasted ten years and which held nothing but disaster for the Moors.
Ferdinand and Isabella took the field with an army composed of
the nobles of Spain and their followers, and which represented the
chivalry of Europe, for all Christendom hastened to espouse the
holy cause of driving the infidel from the land. The Spanish camps
glittered with the burnished armor and gold-embroidered banners of
foreign knights; and whether on the march, in the field, or in camp,
the whole pageant of the war as depicted by Irving passes before our
eyes like a brilliant panorama. We see the Moorish king looking
down from the towers of the Alhambra upon the plains once green
and blooming but now desolate with fire and sword by the hand of
Ferdinand. We follow the Moors as they rush from their walls in one of
their splendid but hopeless sallies, to return discomfited, and hear
the wail of the women and old men--"Woe! woe! to Granada, for its
strong men shall fall by the sword and its maidens be led into
captivity." We watch the Spaniards, tireless in endeavor, building the
fortified city of Santa Fe, the city of holy faith, to take the place
of the camp destroyed by fire, and which has remained famous as the
place where Colum