[Footnote +: Two hundred and fifty dollars.]

The "Life of Columbus" was followed in 1831 by the "Voyages of the
Companions of Columbus." In the following year Irving returned to the
United States after an absence of seventeen years.

He was no longer an idle young man unable to fix his mind on any
serious work; he had become the most famous of American men of
letters. When he reached New York his countrymen hastened to heap
honors upon him, and almost overwhelmed him with public attentions.



CHAPTER XIII


"THE ALHAMBRA"


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