Just before Irving’s return to the United States in 1832, he prepared for publication some sketches which he had made three or four years before while living for a few months in the ruins of the Alhambra, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings when they ruled the kingdom of Granada.  Next to the stories of “Rip Van Winkle” and the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” nothing that Irving has written has proved more popular than this volume of “The Alhambra;” and it has made the ancient ruin a place of pilgrimage for tourists in Europe ever since.

In this volume Irving not only describes in his own peculiarly charming manner his experiences in the halls of the Alhambra itself, but he gives many of the stories and legends of the place, most of which were told to him by Mateo Ximenes, a “son of the Alhambra,” who acted as his guide.  This is the way he came to secure Mateo’s services: 

“At the gate were two or three ragged, super-annuated soldiers, dozing on a stone bench, the successors of the Zegris and the Abencerrages; while a tall, meagre valet, whose rusty-brown cloak was evidently intended to conceal the ragged state of his nether garments, was lounging in the sunshine and gossipping with the ancient sentinel on duty.  He joined us as we entered the gate, and offered his services to show us the fortress.

“I have a traveler’s dislike to officious ciceroni, and did not altogether like the garb of the applicant.

“‘You are well acquainted with the place, I presume?’

“‘Nobody better; in fact, sir, I am a son of the Alhambra.’

“’The common Spaniards have certainly a most poetical way of expressing themselves.  ‘A son of the Alhambra!’ the appellation caught me at once; the very tattered garb of my new acquaintance assumed a dignity in my eyes.  It was emblematic of the fortunes of the place, and befitted the progeny of a ruin.”

Accompanied by Mateo, the travelers pass on to “the great vestibule, or porch of the gate,” which “is formed by an immense Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of the tower.  On the keystone of this arch, is engraven a gigantic hand.  Within the vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is sculptured, in like manner, a gigantic key,” emblems, say the learned, of Moorish superstition and religious belief.

“A different explanation of these emblems, however, was given by the legitimate son of Alhambra, and one more in unison with the notions of the common people, who attach something of mystery and magic to everything Moorish, and have all kinds of superstitions connected with this old Moslem fortress.  According to Mateo, it was a tradition handed down from the oldest inhabitants, and which he had from his father and grandfather, that the hand and key were magical devices on which the fate of the Alhambra depended.  The Moorish king who built it was a great magician, or, as some believed, had sold himself to the devil, and had laid