and priesteraft, discernible throughout this great enterprise, and the mis taken zeal and self-delusion of many of its most gallant and generous champions. The romantic coloring seemed to belong to the nature of the subject, and was in harmony with what I had seen in my tour through the poetical and romantic regions in which the events had taken place. With all these deductions the work, in all its essential points, was faithful to historical fact, and built upon substantial documents. It was a great satisfaction to me, therefore, after the doubts that had been expressed of the authenticity of my chronicle, to find it repeatedly and largely used by Don Miguel Lafuente Alcántara, of Granada, in his recent learned and elaborate history of his native city; he having had ample opportunity, in his varied and indefatigable researches, of judging how far it accorded with documentary authority.

I have still more satisfaction in citing the following testimonial of Mr. Prescott, whose researches for his admirable history of Ferdinand and Isabella took him over the same ground I had trodden. His testimonial is written in the liberal and courteous spirit characteristic of him; but with a degree of eulogium which would make me shrink from quoting it, did I not feel the importance of his voucher for the substantial accuracy of my work.

"Mr. Irving's late publication, the 'Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada,' has superseded all further necessity for poetry, and, unfortunately for me, for history. He has fully availed himself of all the picturesque and animating movement of this romantic era; and the reader who will take the trouble to compare his chronicle with the present more prosaic and literal narrative, will see how little he has been seduced from historic accuracy by the poetical aspect of his subject. The fictitious and romantic dress of his work has enabled him to make it the medium of reflecting more vividly the floating opinions and chimerical fancies of the age, while he has illuminated the picture with the dra matic brilliancy of coloring denied to sober history."

In the present edition I have endeavored to render the work more worthy of the generous encomium of Mr. Prescott. Though I still

Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii.. c. 15.

retain the fiction of the monkish author Agapida, I have brought my narrative more strictly within historical bounds, have corrected and enriched it in various parts with facts recently brought to light by the researches of Alcántara and others; and have sought to render it a faithful and characteristic picture of the romantic portion of history to which it relates.

SUNNYSIDE, 1850.

W. I.

A CHRONICLE

OF THE

CONQUEST OF GRANADA.

CHAPTER I.

Of the Kingdom of Granada, and the tribute which it paid to the Castiliar.

crown.

THE history of those bloody and disastrous wars, which have caused the downfall of mighty empires, (observes Fray Antonio Agapida,) has ever been considered a study highly delectable, and full of precious edification. What then must be the history of a pious crusade, waged by the most Catholic of sovereigns, to rescue from the power of the Infidels one of the most beautiful but benighted regions of the globe? Listen then, while, from the solitude of my cell, I relate the events of the conquest of Granada, where Christian knight and turbaned Infidel disputed, inch by inch, the fair land of Andalusia, until the crescent, that symbol of heathenish abomination, was cast down, and the blessed cross, the tree of our redemption, erected in its stead.

Nearly eight hundred years were past and gone, since the Arabian invaders had sealed the perdition of Spain, by the defeat

of Don Roderick, the last of her Gothic kings. Since that dis astrous event, one portion after another of the peninsula had been gradually recovered by the Christian princes, until the single, but powerful and warlike territory of Granada, alone remained under the domination of the Moors.

This renowned kingdom, situated in the southern part of Spain, and washed on one side by the Mediterranean sea, was traversed in every direction by Sierras or chains of lofty and rugged mountains, naked, rocky, and precipitous, rendering it almost impregnable, but locking up within their sterile embraces deep, rich, and verdant valleys of prodigal fertility.

In the centre of the kingdom lay its capital, the beautiful city of Granada, sheltered, as it were, in the lap of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountains. Its houses seventy thousand in number, covered two lofty hills with their declivities, and a deep valley between them, through which flowed the Darro. The streets were narrow, as is usual in Moorish and Arab cities, but there were occasionally small squares and open places. The houses had gardens and interior courts, set out with orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, and refreshed by fourtains, so that as the edifices ranged above each other up the sides of the hills. they presented a delightful appearance of mingled grove and city. One of the hills was surmounted by the Alcazaba, a strong for tress, commanding all that part of the city; the other by the Alhambra, a royal palace and warrior castle, capable of contain ing within its alcazar and towers a garrison of forty thousand men; but possessing also its harem, the voluptuous abode of th Moorish monarchs, laid out with courts and gardens, fountain and baths, and stately halls, decorated in the most costly style of oriental luxury. According to Moorish tradition, the king whe built this mighty and magnificent pile, was skilled in the occult sciences and furnished himself with the necessary funds by means