Many more of these ruined kasbahs are to be seen upon the heights of Andalucia, and even much further north; but the majority must go unmentioned. One, in an equally fine position, is to be seen eleven leagues along the road from Sevílle to Badajos, above Santa Olalla--a name essentially Moorish, denoting the resting-place of some female Mohammedan saint, whose name has been lost sight of. (Lallah, or "Lady," is the term always prefixed to the names of canonized ladies in Morocco.) Three leagues from Sevílle on the Granáda road, at Gandul, lies another of these castles, picturesquely situated amid palms and orange groves; four leagues beyond, the name Arahal (er-rahálah--"the day's journey") reminds the Arabicist that it is time to encamp; a dozen leagues further on the name of Roda recalls its origin, raôdah, "the cemetery." Riding into Jaen on the top of the diligence from Granáda, I was struck with the familiar appearance of two brown tabia fortresses above the town, giving the hillside the appearance of one of the lower slopes of the Atlas. This was a place after the Moors' own heart, for abundant springs gush everywhere from the rocks. In their days it was for a time the capital of an independent kingdom.
At Ronda, a town originally built by the Moors--for Old Ronda is two leagues away to the north,--their once extensive remains have been all but destroyed. Its tortuous streets and small houses, however, testify as to its origin, and its Moorish castle still appears to guard the narrow ascent by which alone it can be reached from the land, for it crowns a river-girt rock. Down below, this river, the Guadalvin, still turns the same rude class of corn-mills that we have seen at Fez and Granáda. Other remnants are another Moorish tower in the Calle del Puente Viejo, and the "House of the Moorish King" in Calle San Pedro, dating from about 1042. Descending to the river's edge by a flight of stairs cut in the solid rock, there is a grotto dug by Christian slaves three centuries later. Some five leagues on the road thence to Granáda are the remains of the ancient Teba, at the siege of which in 1328, when it was taken from the Moors, Lord James Douglas fought in obedience to the dying wish of the Bruce his master, whose heart he wore in a silver case hung from his neck, throwing it among the enemy as he rushed in and fell.