f Castillo de las
Guardias. Five leagues beyond are the mines of the "Inky River"--Rio
Tinto--a name sufficiently expressive and appropriate, for it issues
from the mountain-side impregnated with copper, and is consequently
corrosive. The Moors seem to have followed the Romans in their
workings on the north side of the hill. Further on are more mines,
still proclaiming the use the Moors made of them by their present name
Almadin--"the Mine"--a name which has almost become Spanish; it is
still so generally used. Five leagues from Rio Tinto, at Aracena, is
another Moorish castle, commanding a fine panorama, and the belfry of
the church hard by is Arabesque.

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 Seville 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 Seville on the Granada road, at
Gandul, lies another of these castles, picturesquely situated amid
palms and orange groves; four leagues beyond, the name Arahal
(er-rahalah--"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, raodah, "the cemetery." Riding into Jaen on the top of the
diligence from Granada, 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
Granada. Other remnants are another Moorish tower in the Calle del
Puente Vi