He now built Sunnyside on the Hudson, the home that he loved so dearly, and which will ever be famous as the abode of America's first great writer. His principal works following the Spanish histories were _Astoria_, the history of the fur-trading company in Oregon, founded by the head of the Astor family; _Captain Bonneville_, the adventures of a hunter in the far West; the _Life of Goldsmith_; and the lives of _Mohammed and his Successors_. He returned to Spain as ambassador in 1842, and remained four years. In the _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_ Irving tells the story of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, as related in the old Spanish and Moorish chronicles. The whole story is a brilliant, living picture of that romantic age. The Spanish king goes to battle wearing robes of gold brocade, sandals embroidered with gold and diamonds, and a crown studded with the costliest jewels of Spain. He rides in a chariot of ivory, and a thousand cavaliers knighted by his own hand surround him, while tens of thousands of his brave soldiers follow him, guarding the sacred banners emblazoned with the cross. The Moorish vanguard, riding the famous horses of Arabia, advance to the sound of trumpet and cymbal, their gay robes and snowy turbans, and their arms of burnished gold and steel glittering in the sunshine which reflects in every direction the sacred crescent, the symbol of their faith. The surroundings are equally picturesque and romantic. The famous plain of Granada, adorned with groves and gardens and winding streams, and guarded by the famous Mountains of the Sun and Air, forms the foreground to the picture, while in the distance we see the gloomy mountain passes, the fortified rocks and castles, and the great walled cities, through which the Moors passed, always victorious, and never pausing until their banners floated from every cliff and tower. 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. [Illustration: IRVING LISTENING TO THE OLD TALES OF THE MOORS.] 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 on 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 daydream which he had cherished since the time when, in earliest boyhood on the banks of the Hudson, he had pored over the story of the Granada.