Travels in Morocco, Volume 2. by James Richardson
page 71 of 181 (39%)
page 71 of 181 (39%)
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coast. The population amounts to about one thousand, including a number
of miserable Jews. The walls of Saffee are massy and high. The Portuguese captured this city in 1508, voluntarily abandoning it in 1641. The country around is not much cultivated, and presents melancholy deserts; but there is still a quantity of corn grown. About forty miles distant, S.E., is a large salt lake. Saffee is one and a half day's journey from Mogador. Equidistant between Mazagran and Saffee is the small town of El-Waladia, situate on an extensive plain. Persons report that near this spot is a spacious harbour, or lagune, sufficiently capacious to contain four or five hundred sail of the line; but, unfortunately, the entrance is obstructed by some rocks, which, however, it is added, might easily be blown up. The lagune is also exposed to winds direct for the ocean. The town, enclosed within a square wall, and containing very few inhabitants, is supposed to have been built in the middle of the seventeenth century by the Sultan Waleed. after whom it was named. This brings us to Mogador, which, with Aghadir, have already been described. CHAPTER V. Description of the Imperial Cities or Capitals of the Empire.-- El-Kesar.--Mequinez.--Fez.--Morocco.--The province of Tafilett, the birth-place of the present dynasty of the Shereefs. |
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