This important post was built on the crest of a rocky mountain, with a strong castle perched above it upon a cliff, so high that it was said to be above the flight of birds or drift of clouds.

The streets and many of the houses were mere excavations wrought out of the living rock.

The town had but one gate, opening to the west and defended by towers and bulwarks.

The only ascent to this cragged fortress was by roads cut in the rock, so rugged in many places as to resemble broken stairs.

In a word, the impregnable security of Zahara had become so proverbial throughout Spain that a woman of forbidding and inaccessible virtue was called a Zaharena.