^ THE ^
o LIBRARIES r;
'fy Of
GENERAL
LIBRARY
WORKS ISSUED BY
Uhc Ibaklu^t Society.
-o-
THE
HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA
OF
LEO AFRICANUS.
VOL. II.
No XCIII.
THE HISTORY
AND
DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA
AN 11
OF THE NOTABLE THINGS THEREIN CONTAINED,
WRITTEN HY
AL-HASSAN IBN-MOHAMMED AL-WEZAZ AL-FASI,
A MOOR, BAPTISED AS GIOVANNI LEONE, RUT BETTER KNOWN AS
LEO AFRICANUS.
DONE INTO ENGLISH IN THE YEAR 1600,
BY
JOHN PORY,
^iitr noto iilritrir, toitl^ an Jntroiiurtion aiilr flotrs,
P.V
Dr. ROBERT BROWN.
IN THREE VOLUMES.— VOL. II.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY,
4, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C.
M.rccc.xxvi.
LONDON :
PRINTED AT THE BEDFORD I'RESS, 20 AND 21, nEDFORDBURY, W.C.
CO
to
en
cm
COUNCIL
OF
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
Sir Clements R. Markham, K.C.B., F.R.S., Pres. R.G.S., President.
The Right Hon. The Lord Stanley of Alderley, Vice-President.
Sir a. Wollaston Franks, K.C.B., F.R.S., Vice-President.
C. Raymond Beazley, Esq., M.A.
Miller Christy, Esq.
Colonel G. Earl Church.
The Right Hon. George N. Curzon, M. P.
Albert Gray, Esq.
The Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury.
Edward Heawood, Esq., M.A.
Admiral Sir Anthony H. Hoskins, K.C. B.
Rear-Admiral Albert H. Markham.
A. P. Maudslay, Esq.
E. Delmar Morgan, Esq.
Captain Nathan, R.E.
Admiral Sir E. Ommanney, C.B. , F.R.S.
Cuthbert E. Peek, Esq.
E. G. Ravenstein, Esq.
CouTTS Trotter, Esq.
Rear-Admiral W. J. L. Wharton, C.B., R.N.
William Foster, Esq., Honorary Secretary.
CONTENTS.
VOLUME II.
The Second Book
Notes to Book 1 1
The Third Book
Notes to Book III
The Fourth Book
Notes to Book IV
PAGE
• 393
. 561
• 659
. 690
lOHN LEO HIS
SECOND BOOKE OF
the Historic of Africa, and
of the memorable things
contained therein.
Auing in my first booke made mention
of the cities, bounds, diuisions, and
some other notable and memorable
things contained in Africa ; we will
in this second part more fully,
particularly, largely, and distinctly
describe sundrie prouinces, townes,
mountaines, situations of places, lawes, rites, and customes,
of people. Insomuch that we will leaue nothing vntouched,
which may any way serue to the illustrating and perfecting
of this our present discourse. Beginning therefore at the
west part of Africa, we will in this our geographicall
historic proceede eastward, till we come to the borders
of Aegypt. And all this our narration following we will
diuide into seuen bookes ; whereunto (God willing) we
purpose to annexe the eighth, which shall intreat of riuers,
of liuing creatures, of trees, of plants, of fruits, of shrubs,
and of such other most delightfull matters.
Pv>^ QOOOOOOO *> ./^''Jjl
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p^KII
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Of the region of Hea lying vpon the west part of Africa.
HEa^ being one of the prouinces of Maroco is bounded
westward and northvvarde with the maine Ocean,
southwarde with the mountaines of Atlas, and eastward
226 THE SECONt) BOOlCE OF THE
with the riuer which they call Esfiualo.- This riuer
springeth out of the foresaide mountaine, discharging it
selfe at length into the riuer of Tensift, and diuiding Hea
from the prouince next adiacent.
T
Of the situation and description of Hea.
His region of Hea is an vneeuen and rough soile, full
of rockie mountaines, shadie woods, and chrystall-
streames in all places ; being woonderfully rich, and wel
stored with inhabitants. They haue in the said region
great abundance of goates and asses, but not such plentie
of sheepe, oxen and horses. All kinde of fruites are very
scarce among them, not that the ground is vncapable of
fruit, but because the people are so rude and ignorant in
this behalfe, that very few of them are skilfull in planting^
graffing, or pruning of trees. Whereof I was easily per-
swaded : for I remember that I founde among some
gardiners of Hea great abundance of fruits. Of graine
they haue not much plentie, except it be of barlie, mill, and
panick. They haue great abundance of honie, which they
vse in stead of ordinarie foode, but the waxe they cast away
little regarding it, because they know not the value thereof.
Likewise there are found in this region certaine thornie
trees bearing a grosse kinde of fruit, not vnlike vnto those
oliues which are brought vnto vs from Spaine : the said
The fruit fruit they call in their language Arga. Of this fruit they
make a kinde of oile, being of a fulsome and strong savour,
which they vse notwithstanding for sauce and for lampes.^
TJie manner of lining, and tlie foode of the people of Hea.
THis people for the most part eateth barlie-bread
vnleuened, which is like rather vnto a cake, then to
a loafe : this bread is baked in a kinde of earthen baking-
pan, somewhat like vnto that wherewith in Italic they vse
to couer iuncats'*and daintie dishes : neither shall you finde
called Ari^a.
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 22/
many in Hea which eate ouen-bread. They vsc also a
certaine vnsauourie and base kinde of meate, which in their
language is called ElJiafid^ and is made in manner follow- Eika/id.
ing : they cast barlie-meale into boiling water, continually
tempering and stirring the same about with a stickc, till
they perceiue it be sufficiently sodden. Then setting this
pap or hastie-pudding vpon the table, and powring in some
of their countrie-oile, all the whole familie stand round
about the platter, and eate the said pap not with spooncs,
but with their hands and fingers. Howbeit in the spring
and summer season they temper the said meale with milke,
and cast in butter instead of oile : and this kinde of meate
is not vsuall among them, but only at supper. For in
winter time they breake their fast with bread and honie ;
and in summer with milke, butter, and bread. Moreouer
sometimes they vse to eate sodden flesh, whereunto some
adde onions, other beanes, and some other, a kinde of
seasoning or sauce called by them Cuscusu.^ With them
tables and table-cloathes are quite out of vse, in stead
whereof they spread a certaine round mat vpon the ground,
which serueth among this rude people both for table,
cloth, and all.
The apparell and customes of tJie foresaid people of Hea.
THE greatest part of them are clad in a kinde of
cloath-garment made of wooll after the manner of a
couerlet, called in their language, Elc/use, and not vnlike
vnto those couerlets or blankets which the Italians lay
vpon their beds. In these kinde of mantles they wrap
themselues ; and then are they girt with a woollen girdle,
not about their waste, but about their hippes. They haue
also a certaine piece of cloath of ten handfuls in length and
two in bredth, wherewith they vse to adorne their heads :
these kinde of ornaments or head-tires they dye with the
iuice of walnut-tree-rootes, being so put vpon their heads,
P 2
228 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
that their crovvnes are alwaies bare J None of them weare
any cap, except it be an olde man, or a man of learning ;
albeit learned men are verie rare among them : which caps
of theirs are double and round, not much vnlike to the caps
of certaine Phisitians in Italy. You shall seldome finde
any linnen shirts or smockes among this people ; and that
(as I suppose) either because their soile will yecld no flaxe
nor hemp, or else for that they haue none skilfull in the
arte of weauing. Their seats whereon they sit, are nought
else but certaine mats made of hayre and rushes.^ For
beds they vse a certaine kinde of hairie flockbed or
mattresse f some of which beds are ten elles in length,
some more, and some lesse, yea some you shall finde of
twenty elles long, but none longer : one part of these
mattresses they lye vpon insteed of a couch, and with the
residue they couer their bodies as it were with blankets
and couerlets. In the Spring-time alwaies they lay the
hairie side next vnto their bodies, because it is somewhat
warmer ; but in Sommer-time not regarding that side, they
turne the smooth side vpwarde, and thereon they rest
themselues. Likewise of such base and harsh stuffe they
make their cushions •}'^ being much like vnto the stuffe
which is brought hither out of Albania and Turkic, to
serue for horse-cloathes : The women of Hea goe commonly
with their faces vncouered, vsing for their huswifery turned
vessels and cups of wood : their platters, dishes, and other
their kitchin-vessels be for the most part of earth. You
may easily discerne which of them is married, and who
is not : for an vnmarried man must alwaies keepe his
beard shauen, which, after hee be once married, hee
suffereth to grow at length. The saide region bringeth
foorth no great plentie of horses, but those that it
doth bring foorth, are so nimble and full of mettall, that
they will climbe like cats^^ ouer the steepe and craggie
mountaines. These horses are alwaies vnshod : and the
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 229
people of this region vse to till their ground with no other
cattell, but onely with horses and asses.^- You shall here
finde great store of deere, of wilde goats,^^ and of hares :
Howbeit the people are no whit delighted in hunting.
Which is the cause (as I thinke) why the said beasts do so
multipl}'. And it is somwhat strange, that so manyriuers
running through the countrey, they should haue such
scarcitie of water-mils : but the reason is, because euerie
houshold almost haue a woodden mill of their owne,^*
whereat their women vsually grinde with their hands. No
good learning nor Hberall artes are heere to be found ;
except it bee a little skill in the lawes, which some few
chalenge vnto themselues ; otherwise you shall finde not
so much as any shadow of vertue among them. They haue
neither Phisition nor Surgeon of any learning or account.
But if a disease or infirmitie befall any of them, they
presently seare or cauterize the sicke partie with red hot Cauterizing.
yrons, euen as the Italians vse their horses. Howbeit some
chirurgians there are among them, whose duty and occupa-
tion consisteth onely in circumcising of their male children.
They make no sope in all the countrey, but instead thereof
they vse to wash with lee made of ashes.^^ They are at
continuall warre, but it is ciuill and among themselues,
insomuch that they haue no leisure to fight against other
nations. Whosoeuer will trauell into a forren countrey
must take either a harlot, or a wife, or a religious man of
the contrarie part, to beare him companie.^*'' They haue no
regard at all of iustice, especially in those mountaines
which are destitute of gouernours or princes : yea euen the
principall men of this verie region of Hea, which dwell
within townes and cities, dare scarce prescribe any law or
good order vnto the people, so great is their insolencie in all
places. The cities of Hea are few in number, but they haue
great store of villages, townes, and most strong castles •}'
whereof (God willing) we will hereafter speake more at large.
230 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Of Tedncst one of the cities of Hea.
THE auncient citie of Tcdnest^"^ was built by the
Africans vpon a most beautiful and large plaine,
which they inuironed with a loftie wall built of bricke and
lime. Likewise a certaine riuer running foorth of the citie
serueth to fill vp the wall ditch. In this citie are certaine
merchants that sell cloath, wherein the people of the same
place are clad. Here is likewise vttered a kinde of cloth
which is brought thither out of Portugall : howbeit they
will admit no artificers, but taylors, botchers, carpenters,
and a few gold-smithes which are lewes. In this citie
there are no innes, stoues, nor wine-tauerns : so that
whatsoeuer merchant goes thither, must seeke out some of
his acquaintance to remaine withall : but if he hath no
friends nor acquaintance in the town, then the principall
JfVJ'h'rtahUncr inhabitants there cast lots who should entertaine the
^l;''j".?^''-s at strange merchant : insomuch that no stranger, be he neuer
SO meane, shall want friendly entertainment, but is alwaies
sumptuously and honourably accepted of But whosoeuer
is receiued as a guest, must at his departure bestow some
gift vpon his host in token of thankfulnes, to the ende he
may be more welcome at his next returne. Howbeit if the
saide stranger bee no merchant, he may chuse what great
mans house he will to lodge in, beeing bound at his
departure to no recompence nor gift. To be short, if any
begger or poore pilgrim passe the same way, he hath some
sustenance prouided for him in a certaine hospitall, which
was founded onely for the reliefe of poore people, and is
maintained at the common charge of the citie. In the
middest of the citie stands an auncient temple, beeing most
sumptuously built and of an huge bignes, which was
thought to bee founded at the verie same time when as the
King of Maroco bare rule in those places. This temple
hath a great cestern standing in the midst thereof, and it
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 23 I
hath many priests and such kinde of people which prJue
attendance thereunto, and store it with things necessarie.
In this citie Hkewise are diners other temples, which, albeit
they are but little, yet be they most cleanly and decently
kept. There are in this citie about an hundred families of
lewes, who pay no yeerely tribute at all, but only bestow
each of them some gratuitie vpon this or that nobleman,
whom they thinke to fauour them most, to the ende they
may enioy their fauour still : and the greatest part of the
said citie is inhabited with lewes. These lewes haue
certaine minting-houses wherein they stampe siluer coine,
of which 170. Aspers (as they call them) doe weigh one
ounce, beeing like vnto the common coine of Hungarie,
sauing that this Asper is square, and the Hungarian coine
is round. The inhabitants of Tednest are free from al
tributes & yeerely taxations : howbeit if any sum me of
money be wanting for the erection of a publique building,
or for any other common vse, the people is foorthwith
assembled, and each man must giue according to his abilitie.
This citie was left desolate in the yeere 918. of the Hegeira. Tednest h-ft
desjlate.
At what time all the citizens thereof fled vnto the moun-
taines, and from thence to Maroco. The reason they say
was, because the inhabitants were informed that their next
neighbours the Arabians ioyned in league with the Portugall
Captaines (who as then held the towne of Azaphi) and
promised to deliuer Tednest into the hands of the
Christians, which thing so danted the citizens, that they
presently sought to saue themselues by flight. My selfe
(I remember) sawe this citie vtterly ruined and defaced, the
walles thereof beeing laide euen with the ground, the houses
beeing destitute of inhabitants, and nothing at that time to
be there seene, but onely the nests of rauens and of other
birds. All this I saw in the 920. yeere of the Hegeira.
232 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Of Tecideth a toivne of Hea.
Pon the foote of an hill eipjhtccne miles
Eastwarde from Tednest stands a
towne called by the Africans Tecu-
leth, and containing about one thou-
sand householdes. Hard by this
towne runneth a certaine riuer, on
both sides whereof are most pleasant
gardens, and all kindes of trees. Within the walles of the
saide towne are many pits or wels, whereout they draw
most cleere and pleasant water. Here also is to be scene
a most stately and beautifull temple ; as likewise fower
hospitals and a monasterie of religious persons. The
inhabitants of this towne are farre wealthier then they of
Tednest ; for they haue a most famous port vpon the
Ocean sea, commonly called by merchants, Goz. They
haue likewise great abundance of corne and pulse, which
grow in the fruitfull fields adiacent. These also of Tecu-
leth send waxe into Portugall to be solde : and they are
verie curious in their apparell and about the furniture of
their horses. When I my selfe was at Teculeth, I found
there a certaine nobleman, who was the president or chiefe
of their senate : this noblemans duety was both to procure
tribute which was yeerely to be payed vnto the Arabians,
and also to make attonement and reconciliation betweene
them, when they were at ods. This man had gathered
great riches vnto himselfe, which he imployed rather to
purchase friends, then to fill his coffers : most liberal he
was vnto the poore, most bountifull and fauourable vnto
all his citizens ; insomuch that all men did reuerence and
honour vnto him, as vnto their father and best protectour.
Of whose curtesie I my selfe also made triall : and being
not meancly but vcric sumptuously entertained by him,
I remained with him for a certaine time, and read in his
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 233
house diuers histories of African matters. This good man
togither with his sonne was slaine in a skirmish against
the Portugals : which was done, according to our computa-
tion, in the yeere of the Hegeira 923. that is to say, in the
ycere of our Lord 1 5 14. After which misfortune ^QTcnaethdc-
■' -^ ^ stroyed by tlie
heard, that the citie was razed, that the people were part Portugals.
1514.
of them put to flight, part lead captiue, and the residue
slaine by the enimy : all of which particulars we haue
declared more at large in that Booke, which is now lately
printed and published concerning African affaires.-*'
Of HadeccJus a towne of Hca.
THE citie of Hadecchis-^ being situate vpon a plaine,
standeth eight miles Southward of Tcculeth : it
containeth seauen hundred families : and the wals,
churches, and houses throughout this whole citie are all
built of free stone. Through the midst of the towne runneth
a large and faire streame, hauing many vines & galleries
on both sides thereof. There be many lewes artificers
in this citie. The citizens here go somewhat decently
apparelled : their horses are good : most of them exercise
merchandize : also they stampe a kinde of coine ; and
they haue certaine yeerely faires or martes, whereunto the
nations adioining do vsually resort. Here is to be sold
great store of cattell, of butter, oyle, yron,^^ and cloath, ^^
i
and their said mart lasteth fifteene dayes. Their women
are very beautifull, white of colour, fat, comely, and trim.
But the men beare a most sauage minde, being so
extremely possessed with ielousie, that whomsoeuer they
finde but talking with their wiues, they presently goe
about to murther them. They haue no iudges nor learned
men among them, nor any which can assigne vnto the
citizens any functions and magistracies according to their
worthines : so that hce rules like a king that excelleth the
residue in wealth. For matters of religion, they haue
234 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
certaine Mahumetan priests to administer them. Who
neither pay tribute nor yeerely custome, euen as they
whom we last before mentioned. Heere I was entertained
by a certaine curteous and liberal! minded priest, who was
exceedingly delighted with Arabian Poetrie. Wherefore
being so louingly entertained, I read vnto him a certaine
briefe treatise as touching the same argument : which he
accepted so kindly at my hands, that he would not suffer
mee to depart without great and bountifull rewards.
From hence I trauelled vnto Maroco. And afterward I
Hadeechis heard that this towne also, in the yeere of the Hegeira
sacked by the
Portugais. 922. was sackcd by the Portugals, and that the inhabitants
1513.
were all fled into the next mountaines, and the verie same
yeere I returned home to visit my natiue countrey, which
was in the yeere of our Lord 1513.-^
T
Of IlcusugagJien a toivne of He a.
His towne-^ is situate upon the top of a certaine high
mountaine which is distant eight miles to the South
of Hadecchis : it consisteth of about two hundred families :
and by the foote of the hill runneth a small riuer. Heere
are no gardens at all, nor yet any trees which beare fruit :
the reason whereof is (as I suppose) because the inhabi-
tants are such slothfull and grosse people, that they regard
nothing but their barley and their oyle. They are at
continual 1 warre with their next neighbours, which is
performed with such monstrous bloodshed and man-
slaughter, that they deserve rather the name of beasts than
of men. They have neither iudges, priests, nor lawyers,
to prescribe any forme of lining among them, or to
gouerne their common-wealth : wherefore iustice and
honestie is quite banished out of their habitations. Those
mountaines are altogither destitute of fruits : howbeit they
abound greatly with honie, which serueth the inhabitants
both for food, and for merchandize to sell in the neighbour-
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 235
countries. And because they know not what seruice
to put their waxe vnto, they cast it foorth, togither with
the other excrements of honie. The saide towne of
Ileusugaghen hath a verie small and narrow chappell,
which will scarce containe a hundred persons, whither not-
withstanding the people doe so slowly resort, that they need
not to haue any greater ; so much do they neglect religion
and pietie. Whensoeuer they goe abroad, they carrie a
dagger or a iauelin about with them : and you shall often
heare of the slaughter of some one or other of their
citizens. No people vnder heauen can be more wicked,
trecherous, or lewdly addicted, then this people is.
I remember that I my selfe went once thither with a
Seriffo or Mahumetan priest, (who made challenge vnto
the gouernment of Hea,"'^) to the ende that we might
arbitrate certaine strifes and contentions : for it were
incredible to report, what cruel warres, partly for murthers,
and partly for robberies, were practised among them. But
because the Seriffo had brought no lawyers with him, nor
any iudges to decide controuersies, he would needes, that I
should take that office vpon me. Immediately the towns-
men come flocking about vs : one complaines that his
neighbour hath slaine eight of his kinred and family ; his
neighbour on the contrarie alleageth, that the former had
slaine ten of his familie; wherefore, according to the auncient
custome, he demaundeth to haue a summe of money giuen
him. For (saith he) there is some recompence due vnto
me, sithens ten of my people haue beene slaine, and but
eight of this my neighbours. Whereunto the other replied
that the saide ten persons were iustly slaine, because
they went about by violence to dispossesse him of a
certaine piece of ground which his father had left him by
inheritance ; but, that his eight were murthered onely for
vniust reuenge, against all equitie and lawe. With these
and such like friuolous allegations we spent that whole day.
236 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
neither could we decide any one controuersie. About
midnight we sawe a great throng of people n:ieet in the
market-place, who made there such a bloodie and horrible
conflict, that the fight thereof would haue affrighted any
man, were he neuer so hard harted. Wherefore the saide
Seriffo fearing least those lewd varlets would make some
trecherous conspiracie against him, and thinking it better
to depart thence immediately, then to expect the conclusion
of that fraye, wee tooke our iournej^ from that place to a
towne called Aghilinghighil.
Of the toivne of Teijetit in Hea.
MOreouer, the tower of Teijeut-*' standing vpon a plaine
ten miles Westward of Ileusugaghen, containeth
about three hundred housholdes. The houses and wall of
this towne are built of bricke. The townesmen exercise
husbandrie ; for their ground is most fertile for barley ;
albeit it will scarcely yeeld any other graine. They haue
pleasant and large gardens, stored with vines, fig-trees, and
peach-trees : also they haue great abundance of goates.
About this towne are many lyons, whereby the townesmen
are not a little endamaged : for they pray continually vpon
their goats and vpon other of their cattell. Certaine of vs
vpon time comming into these parts for want of a lodging
were costrained to repayre vnto a little cottage which we
escried, being so olde, that it was in clanger of falling :
hauing prouided our horses of prouender, we stopped vp all
the doores and passages of the said cottage with thornes
and wood, as circumspectly as possibly we could : these
things happened in the moneth of April 1, at what time they
haue extreme heat in the same countrey. Wherefore we
our selues got vp to the top of the house, to the end that in
our sleep we might be neere vnto the open ayer. About
midnight we espied two monstrous lyons, who were drawen
thither by the sent of our horses, and endeuored to breake
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 237
downe that fence of thornes which we had made. Where-
upon the horses being put in feare, kept such a neighing,
and such a stirre, that we misdoubted least the rotten
cottage would haue fallen, and least our selves should haue
become a pray vnto the lyons. But so soone as we per-
ceiued the day begin to breake, we foorthwith sadled our
horses, and hyed vs vnto that place, where we knew the
Prince and his armie lay. Not long after followed the
destruction of this towne. For the greater part of the Teijcut dc-
strayed by the
townesmen being slaine, the rest were taken by the Portugah.
Portugals, and were carried as captiues into Portugall.
This was done in the yeere of the Hegeira 920. and in the
yeere of our Lord 1 5 1 3.
Of Tesegdelt a toume of Hca.
THe towne of Tesegdelt being situate vpon the top of a
certaine high mountaine, and naturally enuironed
wiih an high rocke in steade of a wall, containeth more
than eight hundreth families. It is distant from. Teijeut
southward about twelue miles, and it hath a riuer running
by it, the name whereof I haue forgotten. About this
towne of Tesegdelt are most pleasant gardens and orchards,
replenished with all kinde of trees, and especially with
walnut-trees. The inhabitants are wealth ie, hauing great
abundance of horses, neither are they constrained to pay any
tribute vnto the Arabians. There are continuall warres
betweene the Arabians and them, and that with great
bloudshed and manslaughter on both parts. The villages
lying neere vnto Tesegdelt do vsually carry all their graine
thither, least they shoulde be depriued thereof by the
enimie, who maketh daily inrodes and inuasions vpon
them. The inhabitants of the foresaid towne are vci\xc\\ The curtesie of
addicted vnto curtesie and ciuilitie ; and for liberalitie and Tese^de/t^
bountie vnto strangers, they will suffer themselues to be ^^rmffgrs.
inferiour to none other. At euery gate of Tesegdelt stande
238 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
certaine watchmen or warders, which do most louingly
receiue all incommers, enquiring of them, whether they
haue any friends and acquaintaine in the towne, or no?
If they haue none, then are they conducted to one of the
best Innes of the towne, and hauing had entertainment
there, according to their degree and place, they are friendly
dismissed : and whatsoever his expences come to, the
stranger paies nought at all, but his charges are defraied
out of the common purse. This people of Tesegdelt are
subiect also vnto iealousie ; howbeit they are most faithfull
keepers of their promise. In the very middest of the towne
standes a most beautifull and stately temple, whereunto
belong a certaine number of Mahumetan priests. And to
the ende that iustice may be most duly administred among
them, they haue a very learned iudge, who decideth all
m.atters in the common wealth, except criminall causes
onely. Their fieldes where they vse to sowe their corne,
are, for the greater part vpon the mountaines. Vnto this
verie towne I trauelled with the foresaide Seriffo in the
yeere of the Hegeira 919. that is to say, in the yeere of our
Lord 1 5 10.
A description of the citie of Tagtess.
THE most ancient citie of Tagtess-^ is built rounde,
and standeth vpon the toppe of an hill : on the
sides whereof are certaine winding steps hewen out of the
hard rocke. It is about foureteene miles distant from
Tesegdelt. By the foote of the saide hill runnes a riuer,
whereout the women of Tagtess draw their water, neither
haue the citizens any other drinke : and although this
riuer be almost sixe miles from Tagtess, yet a man would
thinke, looking downe from the citie vpon it, that it were
but halfe a mile distant. The way leading vnto the said
riuer being cut out of the rocke, in forme of a payre
of stayres, is verie narrow. The citizens of Tagtess are
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 239
addicted vnto theft and robberie, and are at continuall
warre with their neighbours. They haue no corne-fields,
nor any cattell, but onely vpon the said mountaine : they
haue great store of bores ; but such scarcitie of horses,
that there is not one ahuost to bee found in the whole
citie. The way through their region is so difficult, that
they will suffer none to passe by without a publique
testimonial!.-'' While I was in that countrey, there came
such a swarme of Locusts, that they deuoured the greatest Lomsts
part of their cornes which were as then ripe : insomuch
that all the vpper part of the ground was couered with
Locusts. Which was in the yeere of the Hegeira 919.
that is, in the yeere of our Lord 15 10.
The towne of Eitdeuet.
FIfteene miles Southward from Tagtess stands another
towne called Eitdeuet,^^ being built vpon a plaine, and
yet vpon the higher ground thereof It containeth to the
number of seuen hundred families ; and hath in the midst
thereof most cleere and coole fountaines. This towne is
enuironed on all sides wath rockes and mightie woods. In
the said towne are lewes of all occupations : and some
there are which affirme, that the first inhabitants of this
towne came by naturall descent from King Dauid : but so
soone as the Mahumetan religion had infected that place,
their owne lawe and religion ceased. Heere are great
store of most cunning lawyers, which are perfectly well
scene in the lawes and constitutions of that nation : for I
remember that I my selfe sawe a very aged man, who
could most readily repeate a whole volume written in their
language, called by them Elniudevuana, that is to say, the
body of the whole lawe. The said volume is diuided into
three tomes, wherein all difficult questions are dissolued :
together with certaine counsels or commentaries of a
famous author, which they call Melic. They haue a kinde
240 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
of tribunall or iudgement-hall, wherein all contentions
happening betweene the citizens of this place, and their
neighbour-cities, are presently decided and set through.
Neither doe the said lawyers deale onely in common-
wealth matters, but also in cases pertaining to religion :
albeit in criminall cases the people doe not so greatly
credit them, for indeede their learning little serueth them
for that purpose. Being amongst them, it was my hap
to soiourne in the house of a certaine great lawyer, who
was a man of great learning. This lawyer, to the end he
might giue me more solemne entertainmet, would needs
inuite diuers learned men of his owne profession to beare
vs companie at supper. After supper, we had many
questions propounded : and amongst the residue this was
one ; namely. Whether any man might iustly sell that
person for a bondslaue, who is nourished by any
commoditie of the people. There was in companie at the
same time a certaine aged Sire, hauing a graue beard and
a reuerend countenance, vnto whom each one of them
ascribed much honour ; him they called in their owne
language Hegaszare. Which name, when I had heard
thrice or fower times repeated, I demanded of some that
were in presence, what was the true signification thereof.
They told me that it signified a butcher : for (say they) as
a butcher knoweth right well the true anatomy of euery
part of a beast ; euen so can this aged Sire most learnedly
dissolue all difficult questions & doubts of lawe. This
people leadeth a most miserable and distressed life : their
foode is barlie bread, oile arganicke, and goates-flesh.
They know no vse of any other graine but barlie.^^ Their
women are very beautifull and of a louely hue : their men
be strong and lustie, hauing haire growing vpon their
brestes, and being very liberall and exceeding iealous.
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 24 1
Of CiilciJiat Elmnridht, that is to say, TJic rockc of
disciples ; a castle of Hea.
THis Culcihat Elmuridiir^"' is a castle built vpon the top
of a ccrtaine high mountaine, hauing round about it
diuers other mountaines of a like heighth, which are
enuironed with craggie rocks and huge woods. There is
no passage vnto this castle, but onely a certaine narrow
path vpon one side of the mountaine. By the one side
thereof stands a rocke, and vpon the other side the
mountaine of Tesegdelt is within halfe a mile ; and it is
distant from Eitdeuet almost eighteene miles. This castle
was built euen in our time by a certaine apostata or
renouncer of the Mahumetan religion, called by them
Homar Seyef; who being first a Mahumetan Y>^-e.'Ac\\QV A pestiferous
, Mahumetaji
vnto the people, propounded vnto a great number oi preacher.
disciples and sectaries, whom he had drawen to be of his
opinion, certaine new points of religion. This fellow
seeing that he preuailed so with his disciples, that they
esteemed him for some petie-god, became of a false preacher
a most cruell tyrant, and his gouernment lasted for twelue
yeeres. He was the chiefe cause of the destruction and
ruine of the whole prouince. At length he was slaine
by his owne wife, because he had vnlawfully lien with her
daughter which she had by her former husband. And
then was his peruerse and lewd dealing laide open vnto all
men ; for he is reported to haue beene vtterly ignorant of
the lawes, and of all good knowledge. Wherefore not
long after his decease all the inhabitants of the region
gathering their forces togither, slew euerie one of his
disciples and false sectaries. Howbeit the nephew of the
said apostata was left aliue : who afterward in the same
castle endured a whole yeeres siege of his aduersaries, and
repelled them, insomuch that they were constrained to
depart. Yea euen vntil this day he molesteth the people
242
THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
of Hea, and those which inhabitie neere vnto him, with
continual! warre, liuing vpon robberie and spoile ; for which
purpose he hath certaine horsemen, which are appointed to
watch and to pursue trauellers, sometimes taking cattel,
and sometimes men captiues. He hath likewise certaine
gunners, who, although trauellers be a good distance off
(for the common high way standeth almost a mile from
the castle) will put them in great feare. Howbeit all
people doe so deadly hate him, that they will not suffer
him to till one foote of ground, or to beare any dominion
without the said mountaine. This man hath caused his
grandfathers^^ body to be honorably buried in his castle,
suffering him to be adored of his people, as if he were a
god. Passing by that way vpon a certain time, I escaped
their bullets very narrowly. The life, religion & manners
of the foresaid Homar Seyef I perfectly learned by a dis-
A treatise ciple of his, hauing at large declared the same in a certaine
written by John , . - • i • i t »
Leo concerning brieie treatise, which 1 haue written concerning the
tlie Mahumetan , , , i- •
religion. Mahumctan religion.
Of Igilingigil a towne of Hea.
Oreouer the Africans in olde time
built a certaine towne vpon an hill,
called by the inhabitants Igilingigil f^
being distant from Eitdeuet about
six miles southward, and containing
almost fower hundred families. In
this towne are sundry artificers,
employing themselues onely about things necessarie, to the
ende they may make their best gaine & aduantage thereby.
Their ground is most fertile for barlie ; as likewise they
haue great abundance of honie and of oile Arganicke.
The passage or way vnto this citie is very narrow, lying
onely vpon one side of the hill. And it is so hard and
difficult, that horses cannot without great labour and perill
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 243
goe vpon it. The inhabitants are most vaUant people and
wel exercised in armes, maintaining continuall warre
against the Arabians, and that for the most part with
very prosperous successe, by reason of the naturall and
strong situation of the tovvne. A more liberall people then
this, you shall hardly find. They generally exercise
themselues in making of earthen pots and vessels, which
(I thinke) none of their neighbours thereabout can doe.
Of Tefethne a port and most famous niart-
towne of Hea.
NEere vnto the Ocean sea standeth a citie, most strong
both for situation and building, commonly called
Tefethne, being westward of Ingilingigil about fortie miles.
They say that this towne was built by certaine Africans,
and that it containeth more than sixe hundred housholds.
Here ships of meane burthen may safely harbour them-
selues ; and hither the Portugall merchants resort to buy
goats-skins and waxe. Corne-fields they haue none, but
onely certaine hils, which yeeld great increase of barlie.
Neere vnto this towne runs a certaine riuer, whereinto the
ships put themselues in tempestuous weather. The towne-
wall is built of white hewen stone and of bricke. They gather
their yeerely customes and subsidies ; all the whole summe
whereof is equally distributed among such citizens as arc
meete for the warres. In this towne are great plentie of
Mahumetan priests and of iudges ; howbeit, for the inquirie
of murther and such like crimes these iudges haue no
authoritie. For if any kinsman of the slaine or wounded a punishment
, ,, .... , ,. , , r 1 • 1 of murther.
partie meeteth with him that did the fact, he is presently
without any iudgement to haue Legem talionis, that is, like
for like, inflicted vpon him : but if he escape that, he is
banished seuen yeeres out of the citie : at the end of which
seuen yeeres the malefactor hauing paid a certaine summe
of money to the friends of the wounded or slaine partie, is
(.) 2
244 THE SECOND bOOKE OF THE
afterward receiued into fauour, and accounted among the
number of citizens. All the inhabitants of Tefethne are of
a most white colour, being so addicted vnto friendship and
hospitalitie, that they fauour strangers more than their
owne citizens. They haue a most stately and rich hospitall ;
howbeit those which are there placed may for the most
part remaine in citizens houses. My selfe being in com-
panie with the Seriffo or Mahumetan prelate, continued
for the space of three dales among this people ; which three
dales seemed three yeeres vnto me, both for the incredible
number of fleas, and also for the most loathsome and
intolerable stench of pisse, and of goates dung. For each
citizen hath a flocke of goates, which they driue in the da}'-
time to pasture, and at night they house them at home in
their owne habitations, yea euen before their chamber-
doores.^^
Of the people called Ideuacal zvJio in habile the begiiming
of mount A tlas.
HAuing hitherto made report of al the cities of Hea,
which are worthie of memorie, I thought good in
this place (to the end that nothing should be wanting in
this our discourse, which might delight the reader) to
describe the inhabited mountaines also. Wherefore the
greatest part of the people of Hea dwelleth vpon moun-
taines, some whereof being called Ideuacal (for so are they
named) inhabitie vpon that part of Atlas, which stretcheth
it selfe from the Ocean sea eastward, as farre as Igilingigil ;
and this ridge of mountaines diuideth Hea from Sus. The
bredth of this mountaine is three dales iourney. For
Tefethne, whereat this mountaine beginneth from the
north, is distant from the towne of Messa, where it endeth
southward, as farre as I coulde conueniently ride in three
dales. Whosoeuer knoweth this region as well as my selfe,
can sufficiently beare me witnes, howe it is replenished
HTSTORIE OF AFRICA. 245
with inhabitants and countrey-villages. Their ordinary
food is barly, goates-flesh, and hony. Shirts they weare
none at all, nor yet any other garments which are sowen
togither ; for there is no man among them which knoweth
how to vse the needle : but such apparell as they haue,
hangeth by a knot vpon their shoulders. Their women
weare siluer rings vpon their eares, some three, and some
more. They haue siluer buttons of so great a scantling,
that each one weigheth an ounce, wherewith they fasten
their apparell vpon their shoulders, to the end it may not
fall off. The nobler and richer sort of people among them
weare siluer rings vpon their fingers and legs, but such as
are poore weare ringes onely of iron or of copper. There
are likewise certaine horses in this region, being so small of
stature and so swift, as it is woonderfull. Heere may you
finde great plentie of wilde goats, hares, and deere, and yet
none of the people are delighted in hunting. Many foun-
taines are heere to be founde, and great abundance of trees,
but especially of walnut-trees. The greater part of this
people liueth after the Arabians manner, often changing
their places of habitation. A kinde of daggers they vse
which are broad and crooked like a wood-knife ; and their
swords are as thicke as sithes, wherewith they mowe haie.
When they go to the warres they carrie three or fower
hunting toiles with them. In al the said mountaine are
neither iudges, priestes, nor temples to be founde. So
ignorant they are of learning, that not one among them
either loueth or embraceth the same. They are all most
lewd and wicked people, and applie their mindes vnto all
kinde of villanie. It was tolde the Seriffo in my presence,
that the foresaide mountaine was able to affoord twentie
thousand soldiers for a necde.^^
246 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Of the vioHJitmne called Devienfera.
^ '"T^His mountaine also is a part of Atlas, beginning from
\Jr 1 the mountaine last before mentioned, and extending
it selfe eastward for the space of about fiftie miles, as farre
as the mountaine of Nifif in the territorie of Maroco.
And it diuideth a good part of Hea from the region of
Sus before named. It aboundeth with inhabitants, which
are of a most barbarous and sauage disposition. Horses
they haue great plenty : they go to warre oftentimes with
the Arabians which border vpon them : neither will they
permit any of the saide Arabians to come within their
dominions. There are no townes nor castles vpon all this
mountaine : howbeit they haue certaine villages and
cottages, wherein the better sort do hide their heads.
Great store of noble men or gouernors they haue in all
places, vnto whom the residue are very obedient. Their
grounde yeeldeth barly and mill in abundance. They
haue euery where many fountaines, which being dispersed
ouer the whole prouince, do at length issue into that riuer,
which is called in their language Siffaia. Their apparel is
Pknticofyron, somewhat decent : also they possesse great quantitie of
iron, which is from thence transported into other places ;
and these people are well giuen to thrift and good hus-
bandry. Great numbers of lewes remaine in this region,
which Hue as stipendarie soldiers vnder diuers princes,
& are continually in armes ; and they are reputed and
called by other lewes in Africa Carraum, that is to say,
heretiques. They haue store of boxe, of mastick, and of
high vvalnut trees. Vnto their Argans (for so they call a
kinde of oliues which they haue) they put nuts ; out of
which two simples they expresse very bitter oile, vsing it
for a sauce to some of their meates, and powring it into
their lampes. I heard diuers of their principal! men
auouch, that they were able to bring into the field fiue and
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 247
twentie thousand most expert soldiers. In my returne
from Sus they did me exceedin_fy honour, in regard of
certaine letters, which I deliuered vnto them from my
Lord the Serififo : and to manifest their good will towardes
the said Seriffo, they dismissed me with most ample gifts
and gratuities. This was done in the 920. yeere of the
Hegeira, that is to say, in the yeere of our Lord, 1520.^''
Of the motintaine of Iron, covimonly called GebclclJiadih.
THis mountaine is not to be accounted any part of
Atlas : for it beginneth northward from the Ocean ;
and southward it extendeth to the riuer of Tensift ; and
diuideth Hea from Duccala and Maroco. The inhabitants
are called Regraga. Vpon this hill are waste deserts,
cleere fountaines, and abundance of hony, and of oyle
Arganick, but of corne and pulse great scarcitie, vnlesse
they make prouision thereof out of Duccala. Few rich
men are heere to be founde, but they are all most deuout
and religious after their manner. Vpon the toppe of this
mountaine are many Hermites, which Hue onely vpon the
fruits of certaine trees, and drinke water. They are a
most faithfull and peaceable nation. Whosoeuer among
them is apprehended for theft or any other crime, is
foorthwith banished the countrey for certaine yeeres. So
great is their simplicitie, that whatsoeuer they see the
Hermites do, they esteeme it as a miracle. They are
much oppressed with the often inuasions of their neigh-
bours the Arabians ; wherefore this quiet nation choose
rather to pay yeerely tribute, then to maintaine warre.
Against the saide Arabians Mahumet the King of Fez
directed his troupes : insomuch that they were constrained
to leaue their owne countrey and to flee into the moun-
taines. But the people of the mountaines being aided
with Mahumet his forces, vanquished the Arabians ; so
that three thousand of them were slaine, and fower-score
248 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
of their horses were brought vnto K. Mahumet. After
which prosperous battaile, the said mountainers remained
free from all tribute. I my selfe, while these things were
a dooing, serued the king. It was in the yeere of the
Hegeira 921. that is to say, in the yeere of our Lord 15 12.
When this people vndertake any warre, they bring
commonly into the fielde an armie of twelue thousand
men.^^
Of the region of Siis.
NOw comes the region of Sus to be considered of, being
situate beyond Atlas, ouer against the territorie of
Hea, that is to say, in the extreme part of Africa. West-
ward it beginneth from the Ocean sea, and southward
from the sandie deserts : on the north it is bounded with
the vtmost towne of Hea ; and on the east with that
mightie riuer whereof the whole region is named. Where-
fore beginning from the west, wee will describe all those
cities and places which shall seeme to be woorthy of
memorie.
Of t lie towne of Messa.
THree small townes were built by the ancient Africans
vpon the sea shoare (each being a mile distant from
other) in that very place where Atlas takes his beginning :
all which three are called by one onely name, to wit,
Messa, and are enuironed with a wall builte of white
stones. Through these three runneth a certaine great
riuer called Sus in their language : this riuer in sommer is
so destitute of water, that a man may easilie without
perill passe ouer it on foote ; but it is not so in the winter
time. They haue then certaine small barkes, which are
not meete to saile vpon this riuer. The place where the
foresaide three townes are situate, aboundeth greatly with
palmc trees, neither haue they in a manner any other
HISTORTF OF AFRICA. 249
wealth ; and yet their dates are but of small vvoorth, ^f^f/J'^^^J
because they will not last aboue one yeere. All the oneyecre.
inhabitants exercise husbandry, especially in the moneths
of September and Aprill ; what time their riuerencreaseth.
And in May their corne groweth to ripenes. But if in the
two foresaide moneths the riuer encreaseth not according
to the woonted manner, their haruest is then nothing woorth.
Cattell are very scarce among them. Not farre from the
sea side they haue a temple, which they greatly esteeme
and honour. Out of which, Historiographers say, that
the same prophet, of whom their great Mahumet foretold,
shoulde proceed. Yea, some there are which sticke not to
affirme, that the prophet lonas was cast foorth by the
whale vpon the shoare of Messa, when as he was sent to
preach vnto the Niniuites. The rafters and beames of the Great store of
1 rill A 1 • • Hi- lohali's.
saide temple are of whales bone. And it is a vsuall thing
amongst them, to see whales of an huge and monstrous
bignes cast vp dead vpon their shore, which by reason of
their hugenes and strange deformitie, may terrific and
astonish the beholders. The common people imagine,
that, by reason of a certaine secret power and vertue
infused from heauen by God vpon the saide temple, each
whale which woulde swim past it can by no meanes escape
death. Which opinion had almost perswaded me ;
especially when at my being there, I my selfe sawe a
mightie whale cast vp : vnless a certaine lewe had told me,
that it was no such strange matter : for (quoth he) there lie
certaine rockes two miles into the sea on either side ; and
as the sea mooues, so the whales mooue also ; and if they
chaunce to light vpon a rock, they are easily wounded to
death, and so are cast vpon the next shore. This reason
more preuailed with me then the opinion of the people.
My selfe (I remember), being in this region at the same
time when my Lord the Seriffo bare rule ouer it, was
inuited by a certaine gentleman, and was by him conducted
250 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
A whales rib {^^q ^ garden : where he shewed me a whales rib of so
of trie red I He °
grca/nes. great a size, that lying vpon the grounde with the conuexe
or bowing side vpwarde in manner of an arche, it resembled
a gate, the hollow or inwarde part whereof aloft we could
not touch with our heads, as we rode vpon our camels
backs : this rib (he said) had lien there aboue an hundred
yeeres, and was kept as a miracle. Here may you finde
vpon the sea-shore great store of amber, which the
Portugal, & Fessan merchats fetch from there for a very
meane price : for they scarcely pay a duckat for a whole
Amber. ouucc of most choise and excellent amber. Amber (as
some thinke) is made of whales dung, and (as others
suppose) of the Sperma or seede, which being consolidate
and hardened by the sea, is cast vpon the next shore.^^
T
Of Teyeut an ancient towne of Sus.
'Eijeut being (as the report goeth) built by the ancient
Africans in a most pleasant place, is diuided into
three partes, whereof each one is almost a mile distant
from another, and they all make a triangle or three-square.
This Teyeut containeth fower thousand families, and
standeth not farre from the riuer of Sus. The soile
adiacent is most fruitfull for graine, for barlie, and for all
store of sugar, kindc of pulsc. They haue here likewise a good quantitie
of sugar growing ; howbeit, because they know not how to
presse, boyle, and trim it, they cannot haue it but blackc
and unsauorie : wherefore so much as they can spare, they
sell vnto the merchants of Maroco, of Fez, and of the land
of Negros. Of dates likewise they haue plentie ; neither
vse they any money besides the gold which is digged out
of their owne natiue soile. The women weare vpon their
heads a peece of cloth woorth a duckat. Siluer they haue
none, but such as their women adorne themselues with.
The least iron-coine vsed amongst them, weigheth almost
an ounce. No fruites take plentifully vpon their soile, but
HTSTORIE OF AFRICA. 25 1
onely figs, grapes, peaches, and dates. Neither oile nor
oHues are here to be found, except such as are brought
from certaine mountaines of Maroco. A measure of oile
is sold at Sus for fifteene duckats ; which measure con-
taineth an hundred and fiftie pounds Italian waight.
Their pecces of golde (because they haue no certaine nor
proportionable money) doe weigh, seuen of them & one
third part, one ounce. Their ounce was all one with the
Italian ounce: but their pound containeth eighteene ounces,
and is called in their language Rethl; and an hundred
Rethl make one such measure of oile as is aforesaid.
For carrying of merchandize from place to place, their
custome is to pay for a camels load, that is, for 700. pounds
of Italia waight, 3. peeces of gold, especially in the spring
time : for in somer they pay somtimes 5. & somtimes
6. pieces of gold, as the time requireth. Here is that
excellent leather dressed, which is called leather of
Maroco ; twelue hides whereof are here sold for sixe Cordouan
leath'K of
duckats, and at Fez for eight. That part of this region Maroco.
which lieth toward Atlas hath many villages, townes, and
hamlets : but the south part thereof is vtterly destitute
of inhabitants, and subiect to the Arabians which border
vpon it. In the midst of this citie standeth a faire and
stately temple, which they call The greatest, and the
chiefest, through the very midst whereof they haue caused
a part of the foresaid riuer to runne. The inhabitants are
Sterne and vnciuill, being so continually exercised in warres,
that they haue not one day of quiet. Each part of the
citie hath a seuerall captaine and gouernour, who all of
them together doe rule the common-wealth : but their
authoritie continueth neuer aboue three moneths, which
being expired, three other are chosen in their roume.
Their apparell is somewhat like vnto that of the people of
Hea : sauing that some of them make their shirtes, and
other of their garments of a certaine kinde of white stuffe.
252 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
A Canna (which is a measure proper to this region, con-
taining two elles) of course cloth is solde for halfe a peece
ood sale for of gold : but fowcr and twentie elles of Portueall or
Neatherlandish cloth, if it be any thing fine, is vsually
sold there for fower peeces of their gold. Likewise in this
towne are many iudges and priests, which are conuersant
onely in matters of religion : but in ciuill matters, he that
hath most friends, obtaineth greatest fauour, Whensoeuer
any one is slaine, all the friends of the slaine partie doo
foorthwith conspire to kill the murtherer. Which if they
cannot bring to passe, then is the malefactor by open
proclamation banished out of the citie for seuen yeeres,
vnlesse he will in despight of all men continually defend
himselfe by maine force. They which returne from exile
before the time prefixed, are punished in such manner
as we will hereafter declare in place conuenient. But he
that returnes after the seuen yeeres are once expired,
maketh a feast vnto the Burghmasters, and so is restored
againe to his former libertie. In this citie dwell many
lewes, and many notable artificers, who are not compelled
to pay any yeerely tribute or taxation at all : except it be
some small gratuitie vnto the principall citizens.*"
Of Tarodant a toivne of Sus.
THE towne of Tarodant built by the ancient Africans,
containeth about three thousand housholds. It is
distant from Atlas Southward about fower miles, and fiue
and thirtie miles Eastward of Teyeut. For the fruitfulnes
of the soyle and manners of the people, it is all one with
Teyeut ; sauing that the towne is somewhat lesser, and the
people somewhat more ciuill. For when the family of Marin
gouerned at Fez, part of them also inhabited Sus, and in
those dales Sus was the seat of the King of Fez his
Vice-roy. There is to be scene euen at this present a
certaine rocke lying vpon the ground, which was there
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 253
placed by the foresaid king. But the said family of Marin
decaying, the inhabitants recouered their former estate.
Their garments are made partly of linnen, and partly of
woollen ; and they haue manie artificers of all sorts. All
authoritie is committed vnto their noble or principall men ;
who gouerne fower by fovver, sixe moneths onely. They
are wholy giuen to peace : neither doe I read, that euer
they endamaged any of their neighbours. Betweene this
towne and Atlas are many villages and hamlets : but to
the south of this towne lye the Arabians desert. The
townesmen pay large yeerely tribute, to the ende that
merchants may haue safe and secure passage to and fro.
This towne in our time waged warre against the Arabians :
which, that they might the more prosperously bring to
passe, they yeelded themse'ues vnto my Lord the Seriffo ;
in the yeere of the Hegeira 920. which was in the yeere of
our Lord 151 1.'*^
T
Of the castle Gartguesseiii.
HE castle of Gartguessem^"- is built vpon the lo^i^ oi Gartgucsscm
A 1 ■ - 111 -1 surprised by
Atlas m a most impregnable place, ouer agamst that the Portugais
part of the Ocean whereinto the riuer of Sus dischargeth
his streames : the soyle is most profitable and fruitfull.
This place about twentie yeeres sithens the Portugais
surprised ; which caused the inhabitants of Hea and Sus
foorthwith to arme themselues, to the end they might
recouer the castle by maine force, which was by force
taken from them. Wherfore leuying a mightie army as
wcl of home-bornes, as of strangers ; they chose for their
Captaine a certaine Mahumetan Seriffo, being a man
descended of the family of Mahumet ; and so besieged the
castle. But they had vnhappie successc in this their
enterprise ; for they which came to the siege, seeing that
they could not preuaile, and that so many of their com-
j.anie were slaine, lefi; the ca.'^tle, and returned home.
254 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Except some few which remained with the Seriffo, to the
end they might maintaine warre against the Christians,
euen till the last hower. The inhabitants of Sus not
being desirous to Hue in warfare, allowed the Seriffo money
for the maintenance of fiue hundred horses. Who hauing
with his money hyred a great number of souldiers, and
growing famous ouer all the region, at last vsurped the
gouernment thereof This I know for a certaintie, that
the Seriffo, when I came from his court, had aboue three
thousand horsemen ; and such numbers of footemen and
summes of money, as were almost innumerable.'*^
Of Tedsi a towne of Sus.
TEdsi being a very great towne, and built many yeeres
agoe in a most pleasant and fertile place by the
Africans, containeth moe then fower thousand families ; it
is distant from Tarodant Eastward thirtie miles, from the
Ocean sea sixtie miles, and from Atlas twentie. Heere
store of sugar growcth great abundance of corne, of sugar, and of wilde
ana oj woaa.
woad. You shall finde in this citie many merchants,
which come out of the lande of Negros for trafiques sake.
The citizens are great louers of peace & of all ciuilitie :
and they haue a flourishing common-wealth. The whole
citie is gouerned by sixe Magistrates which are chosen by
lots : howbeit their gouernment lasteth for sixteene
moneths onely. The riuer of Sus is distant three miles
from hence. Here dwell many lewes, which are most
cunning goldsmiths, carpenters, and such like artificers.
They haue a verie stately temple and many priests and
doctors of the lawe, which are maintained at the publike
charge. Euery munday great numbers of Arabians both
of the plaines and of the mountaines come hither to
market. In the yeere of the Hegeira 920. this citie of
their owne accord yeelded themselues into the hands of
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 255
the Seriffo : and here the common councell of the whole
region was estabHshed.'**
Of the citie of Tagaiiost.
IN all Sus there is no citie comparable vnto that which is
commonly called Tagauost : for it containeth aboue
ei^ht thousand housholdes : the wall thereof is builte of
rough stones. From the Ocean it is distant about three-
score miles, and about fiftie miles southward of Atlas : and
the report is, that the Africans built this citie. About
ten miles from this place lieth the riuer of Sus : here are
great store of artificers and of shops : and the people of
Tagauost are diuided into three parts. They haue con-
tinuall ciuill wars among themselues, and one part haue
the Arabians alwaies on their side ; who for better pay
will take parte sometime with one side, and sometime with
the contrarie. Of corne and cattell heere is great abund-
ance ; but their wooll is exceeding course. In this citie
are made certaine kindes of apparell, which are vsually
carried for merchandise once a yeere to Tombuto, to
Gualata, and to other places in the lande of Negros.
Their market is twise euery weeke : their attire is some-
what decent and comely : their women are beautifull ; but
their men are of a tawnie and swart colour, by reason they
are descended of blacke fathers and white mothers. In
this citie such carrie the greatest authoritie and credit, as
are accounted the richest and the mightiest. I my
selfe remained heere thirteene dales with the Seriffo
his principall chancellour, who went thither of purpose
to buie certaine slaues for his Lord, in the yeere of
the Hegeira 919. which was in the yeere of our Lord,
1510.^^
sllucr.
256 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Of the viountaine of HancJiisa.
THis mountaine beginneth westward from Atlas, and
from thence stretcheth almost fortie miles eastward.
At the foote of this mountaine standeth Messa, with the
residue of the region of Sus. The inhabitants of this
mountaine are such valiant footmen, that one of them will
encounter two horsemen. The soile will yeeld no corne at
all but barly ; howbeit hony there is in great abundance.
With snowe they are almost at all times troubled : but
how patiently and strongly they can endure the colde,
a man may easily gesse, for that the whole yeere through-
out they weare one single garment onely. This people
my Lord the Seriffo attempted often to bring vnder his
subiection : howbeit he hath not as yet preuailed against
them.*6
T'
Of the mountahie of Ilalcm.
'His mountaine beginneth westward from the moun-
taine aforesaid ; on the east it abutteth vpon the
region of Guzula, and southward vpon the plaines of Sus.
The inhabitants are valiant, hauing great store of horses.
They are at coutinuall warre among themselues, for
Mines of certaine siluer mines : so that those which haue the better
hande digge as much siluer as they can, and distribute to
euery man his portion, vntil such time as the}' be restrained
from digging by others.*^
The situation and estate of the region of Maroco.
THis region beginneth westward from the mountaine of
Nefisa, stretching eastward to the mountaine of
Hadimei, and northward euen to that place where the
most famous riuers of Tensift and Asfinual meete togither,
that is to say, vpon the east border of Hea. This region
is in a manner three square, being a most pleasant coun-
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 257
trey, and abounding with many drones and flockes of
cattell : it is greene euery where, and most fertile of all
things, which serue for foode, or which delight the senses
of smelling or seeing. It is altogither a plaine countrey,
not much vnlike to Lombardie. The mountaines in this
region are most colde and barren, insomuch that they will
bring foorth nought but barly. Wherefore (according to
our former order) beginning at the west part of this region,
we will proceed in our description eastward.
Of Elgihiimuha a toivnc of Maroco.
VPon that plaine which is about seuen miles distant from
Atlas, and not farre from the riuer of Sesseua,
standeth a towne called by the inhabitants Elgihumuha,
which was built, as they suppose, by the Africans. A while
after it was brought vnder the subiection of certaine
Arabians, about that verie time when the family of
Muachidin aforesaid began to reuolt from the kingdome.
And at this day the mines and rcliques of this towne can
scarce be seene. The Arabians which now dwel thereabout
do sow so much ground onely, as to supply their owne
necessities ; and the residue they let lye vntilled and fruitles.
Howbeit when the countrey thereabout was in flourishing
estate, the inhabitants payed yeerely vnto the Prince for
tribute looooo. ducates : and then this towne contained
aboue sixe thousand families. Trauelling that way I was
most friendly entertained by a certaine Arabian, and had
good experience of the peoples liberality : sauing that I
heard of some, that they were most trecherous and
deceitfull.^8
Of tJie castle of Iinegiagen.
THe castle of Imegiagen is built vpon the top of a
certaine hil of Atlas, being so fortified by naturall
situation, that it neither hath nor needeth any wall. It
R
258 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
standeth southward of Elgihumuha (as I take it) 25. miles.
This castle was in times past vnder the iurisdiction of the
noble men of that region, vntill such times as it was taken
by one Homar Essiief an apostata from the Mahumetan
T/u- crueiHe 0/ YQWaxon as wc will afterward declare. The said Homar
Uoiitar Essuef, °
vsed such monstrous tyrannic in that place, that neither
children, nor women big with childe could escape his
crueltie ; insomuch that he caused the vnborne infants to
bee ripped out of their mothers wombes, and to be
murthered. This was done in the yeere of the Hegeira 900,
and so that place remained destitute of inhabitants. In
the yeere 920. of the Hegeira the said region began to be
inhabited anew : howbeit now there can but one side of the
mountaine onely be tilled, for the plaine vnderneath is so
dangerous, both by reason of the daily incursions of the
Arabians, and also of the Portugals, that no man dare
trauell that way.'*^
Of the toivne of Tenessa.
VPon a certaine hill of Atlas named Ghedmin standeth a
towne, which was built (as some report) by the
ancient Africans, and called by the name of Tenessa, being
a most strong and defensible place, and being distant about
eight miles eastward from the riuer of Asifinuall. At the
foote of the said hill lieth a most excellent plaine, which,
were it not for the lewd theeuish Arabians, would yeeld an
incomparable crop. And because the inhabitants of
Tenessa are depriued of this notable commoditie, they till
onely that ground which is vpon the side of the mountaine,
and which lieth betweene the towne and the riuer. Neither
doe they enioy that gratis ; for they yeerely pay vnto the
Arabians for tribute the third part of their corne.^°
V
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 259
Of the Jietv toivne of DelgumuJia.
Pon the top of a certaine high mountaine was built in
our time a most large and impregnable forte, being
cnuironed on all sides with diuers other mountaines, and
called by the inhabitants New Delgumuha. Beneath the
said mountaine springeth Asifinuall, which word signifieth
in the African toong, the riuer of rumor, because that
breaking foorth by the side of the hill with a monstrous
noise, it maketh a most deepe gulfe, much like vnto that,
which the Italians call Inferno di Tivoli. The said forte
containeth almost a thousand families. It was sometime
gouerned by a certaine tyrant, which came thither out of
the king of Maroco his court. Here may you finde great
store of soldiers both for horsemen and footemen. They
gather yeerely tribute of the people bordering vpon Atlas,
to the summe of a thousand crownes. They haue alwaies
had great league and familiaritie with the Arabians, each
of whom haue accustomed to salute and gratifie the other
with mutuall gifts : for which cause they haue oftentimes
much prouoked the kings of Maroco against them. They
haue alwaies beene great louers of ciuilitie, and haue worne
neat and decent apparell ; neither shall you find any corner
in the whole towne which is not well peopled. In this
towne are plenty of artificers, for it is but fiftie miles from
the citie of Maroco. Vpon the said mountaine there are
great store of gardens and orchards ; which yeeld the
inhabitants abundance of fruit yeerely. They reape like-
wise barlie, hempe, and cotton ; and their goates are almost
innumerable. Likewise they haue many priests and
iudges : but as touching their mindes, they are ignorant,
froward, and exceedingly addicted to ielousie. In this
towne I aboad certaine dales with a kinsman of mine, who
while he dwelt at Fez being impouerished with extreme
studie of Alchimie, was constrained to flee vnto this towne,
R 2
26o THE SECOND BOOKE UE THE
where in processe of time he became Secretarie vnto the
gouernour.^^
v
Of the citie of Iniizmizi.
Ton a certaine part of Atlas standeth a citie called
Imizmizi.^- Westward it is distant from new
Delgumuha about fourteene miles: and this citie the
Arabians are reported to haue built. Neere vnto this citie
lieth the common high way to Guzula ouer the mountaines
of Atlas, being commonly called Burris, that is, A way
strowed with feathers : because snow falles often thereupon,
which a man would thinke rather to be feathers then snow.
Not far from this towne likewise there is a very faire and
large plainc, which extendeth for the space of thirtie miles,
euen to the territorie of Maroco. This most fertile plaine
yeeldeth such excellent corne, as (to my remembrance) I
neuer saw the like. Sauing that the Arabians and soldiers
of Maroco doe so much molest the said plaine countrie,
that the greater part thereof is destitute of inhabitants :
yea, I haue heard of many citizens that haue forsaken the
citie it selfe ; thinking it better to depart, then to be daily
oppressed with so many inconueniences. They haue very
little money, but the scarcitie thereof is recompenced by
their abundance of good ground, and their plentie of corne.
In the time of my aboad with them I went vnto a certaine
*Sidisigni- Hcrmite, which they called ^Sidi Canon: which famous
fictk a Saint in , , . i r • ii ^ ^ • l.
the Arabian and woorthic man gaue me such Inendly entertamment, as
toong, J (3a^i^j-)Qj- easily expresse.
Of the three townes of Tumelgast.
THese three townes called by the name of Tumelgast^^
are situate vpon a plaine, about thirtie miles from
Maroco, and fourteene miles northward of Atlas, being
replenished with palme-trees, vines, and all other trees that
beare fruit. Their fields are very large and fertill, were they
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 26l
not continually wasted by the lewd Arabians. So few are
the inhabitants of these three townes, that I thinke there
are not in all aboue fifteene families, all which are ioined
in afifinitie and kinred vnto the foresaid hermite : for which
cause they are permitted to till some part of the plaine,
without paying of any tribute vnto the Arabians. Sauc
onely, that they entertaine the Arabians when they trauell
that wa}^ Their lowly and base habitations a man would
take rather to be hogs-cotes, then dwelling places for men :
hence it is, that they are so continually vexed with fleas,
gnats, and other such vermine. Their water is exceedingly
salt. This prouince also I perused in the companie of my
deere friend Sidz lehie, who went thither to gather vp the
tribute of the countrie on the behalfe of the king of
Portugall. This Sidi was appointed gouernor ouer all that
circuit which is called by them Azafi.-'"^
Of tJie towne of Tesrast.
THis towne is situate vpon the banke of the riuer
Asifelmel. It standeth westward of Maroco fourteen
miles, & about twetie miles from Atlas. Round about this
towne they haue diuers gardens & enclosures abounding
with dates and corne ; and the chiefe part of the inhabitants
earne their lining with gardening. Howbeit sometimes the
increase of their riuer is so great, that it drowneth all their
gardens and corne-fields. And they are by so much the
more miserable, in regard that the Arabians all summer-
time doe possesse the whole region, deuouring all things
which the poore husbandmen by their great care and
Industrie had prouided. With these people I made no
longer tarrying but onely till I could haue well baited my
horse : howbeit in that short time I hardly escaped with
life and goods, from certain Arabian theeues.^^
262
THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
The frst
founder of
Alaroco.
Maroco in
times past con-
tained aboue
looooo. fami-
lies.
A most exact description of the great and famous citie
of Maroco.
His noble citie of Maroco in Africa is
accounted to be one of the greatest
cities in the whole world. It is built
vpon a most large field, being about
fourteene miles distant from Atlas,
One Joseph the sonne of Tesfin, and
king of the tribe or people called
Luntuna, is reported to haue beene the founder of this
citie, at that very time when he conducted his troupes into
the region of Maroco, and setled himselfe not farre from
the common high way, which stretcheth from Agmet ouer
the mountaines of Atlas, to those deserts where the foresaid
tribe or people doe vsually inhabite. Here may you
behold most stately and woonderfull workmanship : for all
their buildings are so cunningly and artificially contriued,
that a man cannot easily describe the same.^*^ This huge
and mightie citie, at such time as it was gouerned by Hali
the Sonne of king Joseph, contained moe then looooo.
families. It had fower and twenty gates belonging thereto,
and a wall of great strength and thicknes, which was built
of white stone and lime. From this citie the riuer of
Tensift lieth about sixe miles distant. Here may you
behold great abundance of temples, of colleges, of bath-
stoues, and of innes, all framed after the fashion and
custome of that region. Some were built by the king of
the tribe of Luntuna, and others by EbnuacJiidin his
successor : but the most curious and magnificent temple of
all, is that in the midst of the citie which was built by JJali
the first king of Maroco, and the son of Joseph aforesaid,
being commonly called the temple of JJali ben Joseph.
Howbeit one Abdtd-Mnincn which succeeded him, to the
ende he might vtterly abolish the name of JJali, and might
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 263
make himselfc onely famous with posteritie, caused this
stately temple of Maroco to be razed, and to bee reedified
somewhat more sumptuously than before. Howbeit he
lost not onely his expences, but failed of his purpose also :
for the common people euen till this day doe call the said
Temple by the first and auncientest name.^'^ Likewise in
this citie not farre from a certaine rocke was built a Temple
by him that was the seconde vsurper ouer the kingdome of
Maroco : after whose death his nephew Mansor enlarged ■^f'^"^'"' ""^
^ ° king of
the saide Temple fiftie cubites on all sides, and adorned Maroco.
the same with manye pillars, which he commanded to be
brought out of Spain for that purpose. Vnder this temple
he made a cesterne or vault as bigge as the temple it selfe :
the roofe of the saide temple he couered with lead : and at
euery corner he made leaden pipes to conueigh raine
water into the cesterne vnderneath the temple. The
turret or steeple is built of most hard and well framed
stone, like vnto Vespasian his Amphitheatrum at Rome,
containing in compasse moe then an hundreth elles,
and in height exceeding the steeple of Bononia. The
staires of the said turret or steeple are each of them nine
handfuls in bredth, the vtmost side of the wall is ten ; and
*the thicknes of the turret is fiue. ■ The saide turret hath * Ohicumm.
seauen lofts, vnto which the staires ascending are very
lightsome : for there are great store of windowes, which to
the ende they may giue more light, are made broader
within then without. Vpon the top of this turret is built
a certaine spire or pinnacle rising sharpe in forme of a
sugar-loafe, and containing fiue and twentie elles in com-
passe, but in height being not much more then two speares
length : the saide spire hath three lofts one aboue another,
vnto euery of which they ascend with woodden ladders.
Likewise on the top of this spire standeth a golden halfe
moone, vpon a barre of iron, with three spheares of golde
vnder it ; which golden spheares are so fastened vnto the
264 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
saide iron barre, that the greatest is lowest, and the least
highest. It woulde make a man giddie to looke downe
from the top of the turret ; for men walking on the
grounde, be they neuer so tall, seeme no bigger then a
childe of one yeere old. From hence likewise may you
plainly escrie the promontorie of Azaphi, which notwith-
standing is an hundreth and thirtie miles distant. But
mountaines (you will say) by reason of their huge bignes
may easily be scene a farre off: howbeit from this turret a
man may in cleere weather most easily see fiftie miles into
the plaine countries. The inner part of the saide temple,
is not very beautifull. But the roofe is most cunningly
and artificially vaulted, the timbers being framed and set
togither with singular workmanship, so that I have not
scene many fairer temples in all Italy. And albeit you
shall hardly finde any temple in the whole worlde greater
then this, yet is it very meanly frequented ; for the people
do neuer assemble there but onely vpon fridaies. Yea a
great part of this citie, especially about the foresaid temple
, lieth so desolate and void of inhabitants, that a man
cannot without great difficultie passe, by reason of the
ruines of many houses lying in the way. Vnder the porch
of this temple it is reported that in old time there were
Great store of almost an hundrcth shops of sale-bookes, and as many on
bookcs in olde , . . 1
time to he sold the Other Side ouer against them : but at this time I thinke
in Maroco. , . , , 11 • n 1 1 1 • •
there is not one booke-seller in all the whole citie to be
founde.^^ And scarcely is the third part of this citie
inhabited.^^ Within the wals of Maroco are vines, palme-
trees, great gardens, and most fruitefull corne-fields : for
without their wals they can till no ground, by reason of the
Arabians often inrodes. Know yee this for a certaintie,
that the saide citie is growen to vntimely decay and old
age : for scarcely fiue hundreth & sixe yeeres are past,
since the first building thereof, forasmuch as the founda-
tions thereof were laide in the time of losepli the son of
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 265
Tesfin, that is to say, in the 424. yeere of the Hegeira.
Which decay I can impute to none other cause, but to the
iniurie of continuall vvarres, and to the often alterations of
magistrates and of the common wealth. After king losepJi
succeeded his sonne Hali, and the sonne of Mali was
ordained gouernour after his fathers decease.*'*^ In whose
time sprung vp a factious crue, by the meanes of a certaine
Mahumetan preacher named Elniaheli, being a man both
borne & brought vp in the mountaines. The saide
Elmaheli hauing leuied a great army, waged warre against
Ah'aJiam his soueraigne Lord. Whereupon king Abraham
conducting another armie against him, had marueilous ill
successe : and after the battaile ended, his passage into the
citie of Maroco was so stopped and restrained, that he was
forced with a fewe soldiers, which remained yet aliue, to
flee eastward to the mountains of Atlas. But Elmaheli
not being satisfied with expelling his true soueraigne out
of his owne kingdome, commanded one of his captaines
called Abdul Mumen, with the one halfe of his armie to
pursue the distressed king, while himselfe with the other »
halfe laide siege to Maroco. The king with his followers
came at length vnto Oran, hoping there to haue reneued
his forces. But Abdul Alumen and his great armie pursued
the saide king so narrowly, that the citizens of Oran
told him in plaine termes, that they would not hazard
themselues for him. Wherefore this vnhappie king
beeing vtterly driuen to dispayre, set his Queene on
horsebacke behinde him, and so in the night time road
foorth of the citie. But perceiuing that he was descried
and knowen by his enimies, he fled foorthwith vnto a
certaine rocke standing vpon the sea-shore : where, setting The miserable
, 1 • 1 -11 , . ,^ , . death of Ahra-
spurs to his horse-side, he cast himselfe, his most (\qqxq hain king of
di • 1 1 1 11 , ... Maroco and of
his horse downe headlong, and was within a his Queene.
while after found slaine among the rockes and stones, by
certaine which dwelt neere vnto the place. Wherefore
266 THE SECOND ROOKE OE THE
Abdul Mumen hauing gotten the victorie, returned in
triumphant manner toward Maroco, where the foresaide
Ebnaheli was deceased before his comming, in whose place
Abdul wdiS chosen King and Mahumetan prelate ouer the
fortie disciples, and tooke tenne persons to be of his priuie
councell, which was a new inuention in the lawof Mahumet.
This Abdul Mumen hauing besieged the citie of Maroco
for the space of an whole yeere, at last ouercame it : and
killing Isaac the onely sonne of King Abraham with his
owne hand, he commanded all the soldiers, and a good
part of the citizens to be slaine.**^ This mans posteritie
raigncd from the fiue hundred sixteenth, to the sixe
hundred sixtie eight yeere of the Hegeira, and at length
they were dispossessed of the kingdome by a certaine king
of the Tribe called Marin. Now, attend (I beseech you)
and marke, what changes and alterations of estates befell
afterwards. The family of Marin after the said kings
decease bare rule till the yeere of the Hegeira 785. At
length the kingdome of Maroco decreasing da}-ly more
and more, was gouerned by kings which came out of
the next mountaine. Howbeit, neuer had Maroco any
gouernours which did so tyrannize ouer it, as they of the
family called Mari?i.^'^ The principall court of this family
was holden for the most part at Fez ; but ouer Maroco
were appointed Vice-royes and deputies : insomuch that
Fez was continually the head and Metropolitan citie of all
Mauritania, and of all the Western dominion : euen as
(God willing) we will declare more at large in our briefe
treatise concerning the law and religion of Mahumet.''^
But now hauing made a sufficient digression, let vs resume
the matter subiect where we left. In the said citie of
Maroco is a most impregnable castle, which, if you consider
the bignes, the walles, the towers, and the gates built all of
perfect marble, you may well thinke to be a citie rather
then a castle. Within this castle there is a stately temple,
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 26/
hauing a most loftic and high steeple, on the top whereof
standeth an halfe moone, and vnder the halfe inoone are
three golden spheares one bigger then another, which all
of them togither weigh 1 30000 ducates. Some kings there Jp,l^^^^f^^^"
were, who being allured with the value, went about to take
downe the saide golden sphears : but they had alwaies
some great misfortune or other, which hindered their
attempt : insomuch that the common people thinke it
verie dangerous, if a man doth but offer to touch the said
sphears with his hand. Some afifirme that they are there
placed by so forcible an influence of the planets, that they
cannot be remooued from thence by any cunning or deuice.
Some others report that a certaine spirite is adiured by
Arte-magique, to defend those sphears from al assaults
and iniuries whatsoeuer. In our time, the king of Maroco
neglecting the vulgar opinion, would haue taken down
the said sphears, to vse them for treasure against the
Portugals, who as then prepared themselues to battel 1
against him. Howbeit his counsellours would not suffer
him so to doe, for that they esteemed them as the principall
monuments of all Maroco. I remember that I read in a
certaine historiographer, that the wife of King Mansor, to
the ende she might be famous in time to come, caused
those three sphears to be made of the princely and pretious
iewels which her husband Mansor bestowed vpon her, and
to be placed vpon the temple which he built.^^ Likewise
the said castle containeth a most noble college, which hath A p-cat college.
thirtie hals belonging thereunto. In the midst whereof is
one hall of a maruellous greatnes, wherein publique lectures
were most solemnely read, while the studie of learning
flourished among them. Such as were admitted into this
college had their victuals and apparell freely giuen them.
Of their professours some were yeerely allowed an hundred,
and some two hundred ducates, according to the qualitie of
their profession : neither would they admit any to heare
268 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
them read, but such as perfectly vnderstood what belonged
to those Arts which they professed. The walks of this
beautifull hall are most stately adorned with painting
and earning, especially of that hall where lectures were
woont publiquely to be read. All their porches and
vaulted roofes are made of painted and glittering stones,
called in their language Ezzulleia^'^ such as are yet vsed in
Spaine. In the midst of the said building is a most
pleasant and cleare fountaine, the wall whereof is of white
and polished marble, albeit low-built, as in Africa for the
most part such wals are. I haue heard that in old time
here was great abundance of students, but at my beeing
there I found but fine in all ; and they haue now a most
sencelesse professour, and one that is quite voide of all
humanitie.'''^
In the time of mine abode at Maroco I grew into familiar
acquaintance with a certaine lewe, who albeit his skill in
the law was but meane, was notwithstanding exceeding
rich and well scene in histories. This lewe in regard of
many singular duties which he performed to his prince,
found the kings bountie and liberalitie extended vnto him.
All others which beare any publike office are (in mine
opinion) men of no high reach.*'''' Moreouer the foresaide
castell (as I remember) hath Iwelue courts most curiously
and artificially built by one Mansor. In the first lodged
about fiuc hundreth Christians, which carried crosse-bowes
before the king whither soeuer he went. Not farre from
thence is the lodging of the Lord Chancellour and of the
kings priuie counsell,^^ which house is called by them. The
house of affaires. The third is called The court of victorie ;
wherein all the armour and munition of the citie is laid up.
The fourth belongeth to the great Master of the kings
horse. Vpon this court three stables adioine, each one of
which stables will containe two hundreth horses. Likewise
there are two other ostleries, wherof one is for mules, and
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 269
the other for an hundreth of the kings horses onley. Next
vnto the stables were two barnes or garners adioining, in
two seuerall places, in the lower of which barnes was laide
straw, and barly in the other. There is also another most
large place to laye vp corne in, euerie roume whereof will
containe moe then three hundreth bushels. The couer of
the saide roume hath a certaine hole whereunto they ascend
by staires made of stone. Whither the beasts laden with
corne being come, they powre the saide corne into the hole.
And so when they woulde take any corne from thence,
they doe but open certaine holes below, suffring so much
corne to come foorth as may serue their turnes, and that
without any labour at all. There is likewise a certaine other
hall, where the kings sonne, and the sonnes of noble men
are instructed in learning. Then may you beholde a
certaine fower-square building, containing diuers galleries
with faire glasse windowes, in which galleries are many
histories most curiously painted : heere likewise the
glittering and gilt armour is to be scene. Next vnto this
building is another, wherein certaine of the kings guard
are lodged : then follows that wherein state-matters are
discussed : whereunto adioineth also another, which is
appointed for ambassadours to conferre with the kings
priuie counsell in. Likewise the kings concubines and
other ladies of honour haue a most conuenient place
assigned them : next vnto which standeth the lodging of
the kings sonnes. Not farre from the castel wall, on that
side which is next vnto the fields, may you behold a most
pleasant and large garden, containing almost all kinde of
trees that can be named. Moreouer, there is a sumptuous
and stately porch built of most excellent square marble :
in the midst whereof standeth a piller with a lion very
artificially made of marble, out of the mouth of which lion
issueth most cleere and christall water, falling into a
cesterne within the porch : at each corner of the saide porch
270 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Excellent spot- standeth the image of a leopard framed of white marble,
ted marble. which is naturally adorned with certaine black spots : this
kind of particoloured marble is no where to be founde but
onely in a certaine place of Atlas, which is about an
hundreth & fiftie miles distant from Maroco. Not farre
from the garden stands a certaine woode or parke walled
round about : And here I thinke no kinde of wilde beasts
are wanting : for heere you may behold elephants, lions,
stagges, roes, and such like : howbeit the lions are separated
in a certaine place from other beasts, which place eucn to
this day is called The lions den.*"^ Wherefore such monu-
ments of antiquity as are yet extant in Maroco, albeit they
are but few, do notwithstanding sufficiently argue, what a
This king uoblc citic it was in the time oi Mansor. At this present
called Mansor
washevnto al the courts and lodgings before described lie vtterly voide
ivhom Kasis
that famous and dcsolatc : except perhaps some of the kings ostlery
phisitian dedi- ... , 1 • 1 11 , 1 • • 1 1 • 1
cated his Booke. which tend his mules and horses do he m that court, which
we saide euen now was to lodge archers and crossebowe-
men : all the residue are left for the fowles of the aire to
nestle in. That garden which }'ou might haue named a
paradise in olde time, is now become a place where the
filth and dung of the whole citie is castfoorth. Where the
faire and stately librarie was of old, at this present there is
nothing else to be founde, but hens, dooues,''^ and other such
like foules, which builde their nests there. Certaine it is,
that the foresaid Mansor, whom we haue so often mentioned,
was a most puissant and mightie prince : for it is well
knowen that his dominion stretched from the towne of
Messa to the kingdome of Tripolis in Barbary, which is the
most excellent region of Africa, and so large, that a man
The huge do- can hardly trauell the length therof in fourescore & ten
iiiiiiionsofkint^
Mansor. ' daics, or the bredth in fifteene. This Mansor likewise was
in times past Lord of all the kingdome of Granada in
Spaine. Yea, his dominion in Spaine extended from
Tariffa to Aragon, & ouer a great part of Castilia and of
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 27I
Portugall. Neither did this lacob surnamed Mansor only
possesse the foresaid dominios, but also his grandfather
Abdul Munieu, his father Joseph, & his sonne Mahuniet
Efuifir^'^ who being vanquished in the kingdome of
Valencia, lost 60000. soldiers, horsemen & footemen : how-
beit himselfe escaped and returned to Maroco. The
Christians being encouraged with this victorie, refrained The chrisiimn
happie siicccsse
not from warre, till, within 30. yeeres space, they \\-a.^ ai;ai)ut the
Moorcs.
woon all the townes following, to wit, Valencia, Denia,
Alcauro, Murcia, Cartagena, Cordoua, Siuillia, laen, and
Vbeda. After which vnhappie warre succeeded the
decay of Maroco.'^"^ The said Mahumet deceasing, left
behinde him ten sonnes of a full and perfect age, who
contended much about the kingdome. Hereupon it came
to passe, while the brethren were at discord, and assailed
each other with mutuall warres, that the people of Fez
called Marini, and the inhabitants of other regions adiacent
began to vsurpe the gouernment. The people called
Habdulvad enioyed Tremizen, expelling the king of Tunis,
and ordaining some other, whom they pleased, in his
stead."^ Now haue you heard the end of Mansor his
progenie and successors. The kingdome therefore was
translated vnto one lacob the sonne of HabdidacJi, who was
the first king of the familie called Marin.'^* And at length
the famous citie of Maroco it selfe, by reason of the
Arabians continuall outrages, fell into most extreme
calamitie : so great is the inconstancie of all earthly things.
That which we haue here reported as touching Maroco,
partly we saw with our owne eies, partly we read in the
historie of one Ibnu Abdul Malich, a most exact chronicler it>nu Abdul
Malich.
of the affaires of Maroco, and partly we borrowed out of
that treatise, which our selues haue written concerning the
law of Mahumet.®^
2/2 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Of the toume of Agaiet.
THE towne of Agmet built of old by the Africans vpon
the top of a certaine hill which beginneth almost from
Atlas, is distant from Maroco about fower and twentie
miles. In times past, when Miischidin was prince thereof,
it contained moe then sixe thousand families : at what
time the people were very ciuill, and had such plentie and
magnificence of all things, that many would not sticke to
compare this towne with the citie of Maroco. It had on
all sides most pleasant gardens, and great store of vines,
whereof some grew vpon the mountaine it selfe, and others
on the valley. By the footc of this hill runneth a faire
riuer,. which springing foorth of Atlas, falleth at length into
Tensift. The field which lieth neere vnto this riuer is said
to be so fruitfull, that it yeeldeth euery yeere fiftie fold
encrease. The water of this riuer looketh alwaies white ;
albeit if a man stedfastly behold the said riuer, it may
seeme vnto him in colour to resemble the soile of Narnia,
or the riuer Niger of Vmbria in Italic. And some there
A riuer run- are wliicli affirmc, that the very same riuer runneth vnder
^'■'fund to" "^ ground to Maroco, and not to breake foorth of the earth,
Maroco. ^jjj jj. ^Qj-j^g j-q ^ certaine place very neere vnto the said
citie. Many princes in times past, being desirous to know
the hidden and intricate passages of the said riuer, sent
certaine persons into the hollow caue, who the better to
discerne the same, carried candles and torches with them.
But hauing proceeded a little way vnder ground, there met
them such a flaw of winde, that blew out their lights, and
perforce draue them backe to the great hazard of their
Hues, so that they said they neuer felt the like. They
affirme likewise, that, the riuer being full of rocks, which
the water driueth to and fro, and by reason of the manifold
chanels and streames, their passage was altogether hindred.
Wherefore that secret rcmaineth vnknowne euen till this
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 273
day, neither is there any man so hardie as to attempt the
same enterprise af^aine. I remember that I read in some
histories, that king losepJi which built Maroco, being fore-
warned by the coniccture of a certaine astrologer, that the
whole region should perpetually be vexed with warre,
prouided by arte-magique, that the passage of this riuer
should alwaies bee vnknowen : least, if any enimie should
afterward practice mischiefe, he might cut off the course
thereof from the saide citie. Neere vnto this riuer lies the
common high way, which crosseth ouer mount Atlas to
Guzula a region of Maroco. Howbeit the citie of Agmet, The desolation
qf Agmet.
which I haue now described vnto you, hath at this day no
other inhabitants but vvoolues, foxes, deere, and such other
wilde beasts. Except onely at my being there I found a
certaine Hermite, who was attended vpon by an hundred
persons of his owne sect : all of them were well-horsed, and
did their best endeuour to become gouernours and com-
manders, but their forces were insufficient^'^ With this
Hermite I .staide (as I remember) for the space of tenne
dales, and founde one amongst his followers, with whom I
had old acquaintance, and familiaritie : for we were certaine lokn Leo
. student at Fez.
yeeres icllow-students together at l^ez, where bemg of one
standing and seniority, we heard that booke of the
Mahumetan religion expounded, which is commonly called
the epistle of NenscJiP
Of the tozvne of Haiinimei.
VPon that side of Atlas which lieth towards the plaine
countrey, standeth a certaine towne called by the
inhabitants Hannimei, being about 40. miles eastward of
Maroco : by which towne, on the same side of Atlas, lieth
the direct way to Fez. From the said towne the riuer of
Agmet is almost fifteene miles distant : and the fielde
lying betweene the saide riuer and towne is a most fruitefull
soile, like vnto the fielde adioining vpon the citie of Agmet
s
2/4 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
before mentioned. All the region betvveene Maroco and
The captaine of W^Q foresaid riuer is in subiection vnto the gouernour of
Hamiimei.
Maroco, but from the riuer vnto Hannimei the townes-men
of Hannimei beare rule. This towne had a famous yoong
captaine, who maintained continuall vvarre against the
gouernor of Maroco, and somtimes against the Arabians
also. He had likewise a most ample dominion vpon the
mountaines of Atlas : by naturall disposition he was right
liberal & valiant, and hauing scarce attained to sixeteene
yeeres of age, he slue his owne vncle, and vsurped his
gouernment. Whereof so soone as the Arabians had
intelligence, ioining three hundreth Christian horsemen,
which came out of Portugale, vnto their great forces, they
marched on the sodaine euen to the very gates of the
towne. And the forsaide captaine with his armie contain-
ing scarce an hundreth horsemen, with a very fewe
footemen met the Arabians, and gaue them such a valiant
onset, that the greater part of them was slaine, and the
Christians were so discomfited, that (as I suppose) not one
of them returned home into Portugale : which (they say)
came to passe, both by reason that the Christians were
ignorant of the place, and vnskilfull of the Africans manner
of warfare. These things were done in the 920. yeere of
the Hegeira, and in the yeere of our Lorde 151 1. After-
ward being wearied by the king of Fez his warres (which
king demaunded tribute of the townes-men of Hannimei)
he was slaine with a bullet : whereupon the towne remained
tributarie to the king of Fez. Yea, the deceased captaines
wife deliuered as prisoners certaine burgesses of the towne
vnto the king himselfe. And the king so soone as he had
placed a lieutenant ouer Hannimei, departed from the same
towne in the 921. yeere of the Hegeira, and in the yeere of
our Lord 1 5 1 2.'^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA.
275
Of the momitaine of Nififa.
Auing before described all the cities and
townes of Maroco, it now remaineth
that we briefly declare the situation
and qualitie of the mountaines there-
Wherefore we will begin with the
mountaine of Nififa, from whence the
region of Maroco it selfe beginneth
westward, and is thereby diuided from the prouince of Hea.
The said mountaine hath great store of inhabitants : and
albeit the tops thereof are continually couered with snowe ;
yet doth it yeerely affoorde marueilous increase and
abundance of barley. The rude people there are so
destitute of all humanitie and ciuill behauiour, that they do
admire not onely all strangers, but also do euen gaze and
woonder at their apparell. I my selfe remained two dales
among them, in which space all the people of the towne
came flocking about me, greatly woondring at the white
garment which I wore (being such as the learned men of
our countrey are vsually clad in) so that euery one being
desirous to handle and view this garment of mine, in two
daies it was turned from white to blacke, and became all
greasie and filthie. Here one of the townes-men being
allured with the strangenes and noueltie of my sworde,
which I bought at Fez for halfe a ducate, woulde
neuer leaue intreating of me, till I had exchanged it
with him for an horse, which cost (as himselfe affirmed)
aboue ten ducates. The reason of which fonde and
childish behauiour I thinke to be, because they neuer
trauaile vnto Fez nor to any other cities. And were
they neuer so desirous to trauaile, yet dare they not
aduenture vpon the common high waies, in regard of
the great number of robbers and theeues. Of honie,
goates, and oile Arganick they haue woonderfull store :
S 2
5/6 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
for in this mountaine beginneth the saidc oilc to be put
in vse/'-*
Of the mountaine called Seinede.
AT the bounds of Nififa a certaine other mountaine
called by the inhabitants Semede taketh his originall :
and these two mountaines are separated by the riuer of
Sefsaua. Semede extendeth eastward almost 20. miles,
the inhabitants whereof are most base & witlesse people.
Great store of springs & fountaines are here to be found ;
the snowe is perpetuall ; all good lawes, ciuilitie, and
honestie are quite banished from hence, except perhaps
the people be mooued thereunto by the aduise of some
stranger, whom they finde to be of a modest and sober
disposition. Here being entertained by a certaine religious
man of the same place (who was had in great reputation
by the people) I was constrained to eate of such grosse
meats as the saide people are accustomed vnto, to wit, of
barlie meale mingled with water, and of goats-flesh, which
was extremely tough and hard by reason of the stalenes and
long continuance. After supper we had no other bed but
the bare ground to lie vpon. The next morning being ready
to take horse, and desirous to depart, fiftie of the people
came about me, laying open each man their causes and
suites vnto me, as our people vse to doe before a iudge.
Vnto whom I answered, that I had neuer in all my life
either knowen or heard of the manners and customes of
that region. Foorlhwith comes one of the chiefe men
amongst them, affirming that it was their custome neuer to
dismisse any stranger, till he had both heard and throughly
decided all the quarrels and controuersies of the inhabitants.
lohii Leo con- Which words he had no sooner vttered, but immediately
strained to play
'he indite. my liorse was taken from me. Wherefore I was con-
strained for nine daies, and so many nights, longer to abide
the penurie and miserie of that region. Moreouer my
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 277
trouble was the greater, for that, in such abundance of
suites and affaires, there was not one man present, which
could set downe so much as a word in writing : wherefore
1 my selfe was faine to play both the iudge and the notarie.
Vpon the eight day they all of them promised to bestowe
some great rewarde vpon me. Wherefore the night follow-
ing seemed vnto me a yeere long : for I was in good hope
the next morrow to haue receiued a masse of golde from
my clients. So soone as the next day began to dawne,
they placed me in a certaine church-porch : whither, after
an vsuall and short praier ended, each man full reuerently
presented his gift vnto me. Here some offered me a cocke,
others brought me nuts and onions, and some others
bestowed a handful! of garlicke vpon me. The principall
and head-men amongst them presented me v/ith a goat ;
and so by reason that there was no money in all the said
mountaine, they proffered me not one farthing for my
paines : wherefore all the said gifts I bequeathed vnto
mine oste for his woorthie entertaining of me. And this
was all the notable reward which I reaped in regarde of so
great and intolerable paines. All things being thus dis-
patched, they sent fiftie horsemen to accompanie and guard
me from theeues in that dangerous vvay.^*'
Of the mountaine called Seusaua.
THis mountaine of Seusaua taketh his beginning where
Semede endeth, out of which springeth a certaine
riuer, hauing one name with the said mountaine from
whence it proceedeth. Neuer were the tops of this moun-
taine scene destitute of snowe. The inhabitants leade a
brutish and sauage life, waging continual! warre with their
next neighours : for which purpose they vse neither swords,
iauelins, nor any other warlike instruments, but onely
certaine slings, out of which they discharge stones after a
strange and woonderfull manner. Their victuals consist of
2/8 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
barlie, honie, and goates-flesh. In the same mountainc
great multitudes of lewes exercising handy-craftes, doe
inhabite : likewise they make sope, yron-hookes, and
horse-shooes. Diuers masons are here to be found also.
They build their walles of no other matter but onely of
rough stone and lime, and the roofes of their houses they
vse to couer with thatch : neither haue they any other
kind of lime or bricks. They haue among them also
abundance of learned men & of skilful lawyers, whose
counsell they vse at all times. Among whom I found
some, who had heretofore beene my fellow-students at
Fez, and for our old acquaintance sake, gaue me most
courteous entertainment : and, to the end I might escape
the danger of theeues, they conducted me a good part of
my way.^^
Of the mountaine called Sesma.
VPon this most lofty and cold mountaine there is nothing
almost to be found, but continuall snowe and woods.
The inhabitants weare white caps : and the region in all
places is full of springs and fountaines. Out of the said
mountaine springeth a riuer, which in the discourse before-
going we called Asifinuall. All ouer this mountaine are
most deepe and hollow caues, wherein euerie yeere, for the
three cold moneths of Nouember, lanuarie, and Februaric
they vsually winter their cattell, laying vp so much fodder,
namely hay, and the leaues of certaine trees, as they thinke
will suffice them. Most of their victuals are brought vnto
them from the next mountaines, because their owne soyle
yeeldeth no corne at all : onely in the spring time and in
sommer, they haue good plentie of new cheese and butter.
Their old age they beare most lustily and stoutly, some-
time at ninetie, and sometime at an hundred yeeres. They
giue attendance to their cattell all their life long, neither
doe they at anytime, or seldome, see any strangers. They
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 279
wearc no shooes at all, but ccrtaine sandals only, to defend
the soles of their feete : and their legs they wrap in a
certaine piece of cloath or list insteed of an hose, to keepe
themselues from the iniurie of the snow.^^
Of tJie vioimtaine called Temnella.
^"T'His high and cold mountaine hath verie many inhabi-
A tants : vpon the top whereof standeth a towne which
is called by the name of the mountaine it selfe. In this
towne are great store of dwellers, and a most stately and
beautifull temple. It hath likewise a most pleasant and
cleere riuer. This towne is adorned with the monuments
of *Ebnahdi (who was in times past a most learned * OrEimainU.
Mahumetan priest) and of Abdul Mu7iien his disciple.
And albeit the inhabitants are accounted heretiques by
all other Mahumetans, yet is there no kinde of learning
which they will not arrogate vnto themselues : because
perhaps they are well read in the workes of Elinahdi, who
was notwithstanding the ringleader of all the saide here-
tiques : so that if any stranger come among them, they
presently chalenge him to dispute in matters of learning.
In their apparell they goe verie ragged and beggerly, by
reason that they haue no taylors in the whole towne.
Their common-wealth is gouerned after a wilde and sauage
manner, albeit they haue a certaine priest, which vseth all
the policie and meanes he can to bring it into good order.
Their victuals are barley-bread and oyle of oliues : likewise
they haue great store of nuts, and of pine-trees.^^
Of the mountaine called Gedmeua.
GEdmeua beginneth at the West frontier of the
foresaide mountaine of Semede, and stretcheth
Eastward almost fiue and twentie miles, extending vnto
the border of Mizmizi. AH the inhabitants are rude,
28o THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
miserable, and hunger-starued people, being subiect to
the Arabians, for that they border vpon those fields
which adioine vpon the mountaine of Temnella. This
hill of Gedmeua aboundeth with oliues, barley, wood, and
fountaines.^*
Of the mountame called Hanteta.
NEuer did I see (to my remembrance) an higher
mountaine, then that which the Africans call
Hanteta. Westward it beginneth from Gedmeua, and
stretcheth fiue and fortie miles Eastward, to the mountaine
of Adimmei beforenamed. The inhabitants are valiant
and rich, hauing great store of horses. Heere likewise
standeth a most strong and impregnable castle subiect
vnto a certaine nobleman, which is reported to be of
alliance vnto the prince of Maroco : howbeit they are at
continuall warre for certaine landes situate within their
dominions. Many levves exercising diuers handie-crafts
doe here inhabite, and do yeerely pay vnto the gouernour
of this mountaine great summes of money. As concerning
religion, they follow them especially which are called
Carrain. The top of this mountaine is continually couered
with snow. When I first beheld this mountaine, I thought
it had bin clouds ; so great is the height thereof The
sides of this mountaine being altogether destitute of herbes
and trees, are in many places stored with excellent white
marble, which the people might dig, and make a good
commoditie thereof, were they not so sluggish and so
ignorant in hewing and polishing of the same. In this
place are many pillars and arches which were most
artificially and sumptuously built by those mightie princes
whom we have often before made mention of: which
pillers they would haue vsed for the building of water-
conduits, had they not beene hindred by the violence of
warres. To be briefe, in the said mountaine I saw many
HLSTOKIE OF AFRICA. 28 1
notable things, whereof I will here make no discourse at
all, partly because they are out of my remembrance, and
partly for auoiding tediousnes to the reader ; because I
haue determined to passe ouer these small matters, and to
proceede vnto greater.*''''
Of the niountaine called Adimniei.
FRom Hanteta beginneth another huge and high
mountaine called by the inhabitants Adimmei,
extending eastward to the riuer of Teseut. Vpon this
mountaine standeth that citie, the prince whereof (as we
said before) was slaine in battell against the king of Fez.
This mountaine is well stored with inhabitants and
aboundeth with woods which bring foorth acornes, oHues,
and quinces. The people heere inhabiting are most
valiant, possessing beasts and cattell of all sorts, their
ayre being verie temperate, and their soile exceeding
fruitful 1. Springs they haue great plentie, and also two
riuers issuing foorth of the said mountaine, whereof in
due place we will discourse more at large. Wherefore
hauing described all the cities and mountaines of Maroco
bordering southward vpon Atlas, let vs now passe ouer
the said mountaine of Atlas, and take a view of the region
beyond it commonly called Guzzula.^''
Of the region of Giizzula?'^
THis region is exceeding populous : westward it
abutteth vpon Ilda a mountaine of Sus ; northward
it ioineth vnto Atlas, and eastward it stretcheth vnto the
region of Hea.^^ It is inhabited with sauage and fierce
people, beeing most needie of money, and yet abounding
greatly in cattell.^" Great store of copper and yron is here Vronandcrj
digged out of mines, and here are brazen vessels made
which are carried into other countries to be solde : and these
282 THE SECOND PJOOKE OF THE
vessels they exchange for h'nnen and woollen cloth, for
horses, and for other wares necessarie for the said region.
In all this whole region there is neither towne nor castle
enuironed with walles. Great villages they haue, which
contain, many of them, more then a thousand families a
peece. They haue neither king nor gouernour to prescribe
any lavves vnto them : but euerie one is his owne captaine
Continuaii and Commander : whereupon they are at continuall warres
wars 1)1 Citiz-
~i(ia. among themselues, neither haue they any truce at all, but
three dales onely euery weeke ; during which time euery
man may safely and freely bargaine with his enemie, and
may trauell whither he listeth. But these dales of truce
being past, the wretched people of this region do continually
commit most horrible slaughters. The foresaide daies of
truce a certaine Hermite appointed vnto them, whom they
honoured and reuerenced like a god. This Hermite with
one eie I my selfe saw, and found him to be a trustie,
sincere, courteous, and most liberall person. The common
attire of the people of Guzzula is a woollen iacket streight
to their bodies & without sleeues. They weare crooked,
broad, and two-edged daggers : and their swords are like
vnto the swords of Hea. Once euery yeere they haue a
faire of two moneths long : all which time (though the
Free entertain- number of merchants be neuer so great) they giue free
"chants! ""^ entertainment vnto all such as either bring wares with
them, or come thither to fetch away their wares. When
the time of their faire approcheth, they foorthwith make
truce, and each faction appointeth a captaine ouer an
hundred soldiers, to the end they may keepe themselues in
safetie, and may defend their said faire from the inuasion
and iniurie of all lewd persons. If any offence be com-
mitted, the captaines immediately giue sentence vpon the
guiltie person : and whosoeuer bee conuicted of theft, is
foorthwith slaine like a brute beast, and his theeues carcase
is throwne out to be deuourcd of dogs, wildc beastes, and
HISTORIE Ol' AFRICA. 283
rauenous foules. The saide faire is kept in a certainc
plaine or vallc}' betweene two hils. All the wares are
contained in tents and in certaine cottages made of
boughes, so that each particular kind of merchandize hath
a seuerall place to lie in by it selfe. They which sell
droues of cattell are remooued farre from the tents. And
euery tent hath a cottage made of boughes belonging
thereunto, for their principal and head men to repose
themselues in. And in the said cottages or bowers are
merchant strangers (as we noted before) freely entertained
and bourded. Also they haue certaine Caters & purueiers
among them, which make prouision of victuals, and take
vpon them the friendly and well entertaining of strangers.
And albeit an huge deale of money is spent for this behalfe,
yet make they a good gaine thereof: for thither doe resort
all the merchants of that region for traffiques sake, yea and
a great number out of the land of Negros, who bring with
them maruellous plentie of all kindes of wares. And
although they are men of a dull and grosse capacitie, yet
are they very industrious in gouerning and maintaining
the said faire : the beginning whereof is vpon the birth-day
of that great deceiuer Mahumet,^*' that is, vpon the twelfth
day of their moneth called Rabih, which is the third Haraba
of the yeere, according to their account. I my selfe was
present at this faire in the companie of my Lord the Seriffo
for the space of fifteene daies, in the yeere of the Hegeira
920. which was in the j^eere of our Lord 1511."^
A brief e description of the region of Duccala.
THis region beginneth westward from the riuer of
Tensift ; northward it is bounded with the Ocean
sea ; the south part thereof lieth vpon the riuer of Habid ;
and the east part abutteth vpon the riuer Ommirabih. It
is three daies iourney long, and about two daies iourney
broad. Very populous it is ; the inhabitants being a rude
284 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
people, and most ignorant of all ciuilitie and humanitie.
Walled cities it hath but a few, of all which we will in their
due places particularly discourse, neither vvil we (by Gods
helpe) omit any thing which may seeme woorthie of
memorie.^-
Of tlie toivne of AzapJii?'^
IT was built by the Africans, and standeth vpon the
shore of the Ocean sea, containing fower thousand
families : inhabitants there are great store, being for the
most part very vnciuill and barbarous. In times past there
dwelt many lewes in this towne, which exercised diuers
handy-crafts. Their soile is exceeding fertill ; but so
grosse is their owne vnskilfulnes and negligence, that they
know neither how to till their ground, to sow their corne^
or to plant vineyards : except perhaps some few of them
(who would seeme to be more prouident then the residue)
sow a quantitie of pot-herbes in their smal gardens. After
the kings of Maroco gaue ouer the gouerment of the saide
region, the citie of Azafi was vsurped by certaine which
were said to fetch their originall from Farchon.'''* Howbeit
in our daies the said citie was gouerned by a certaine
prince called Hebdurrahmam : this man for a greedy and
ambitious desire of raigning murthered his owne vncle :
after whose death he gouerned the towne for certaine
yeeres.^^ He had a daughter of most excellent beauty,
who falling in loue with a certaine courtier (whose name
was Hali, being sonne vnto one Goesinienf^ by the helpe
of her mother and her wayting maide enioyed oftentimes
the companie of her paramour. Which when her father
had intelligence of, hee rebuked his wife, threatening death
vnto her, if shee reformed not the manners of her daughter:
howbeit afterwarde hee dissembled his furie. But the
mother thoroughly knowing her husbandes intent, tolde
her daughters paramour that the prince was not to bee
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 285
trusted, and therefore aduised him to take hccdc vnto
himselfe. Whereupon Hali fearing least some mischiefe
might light vpon him, began to determine with himselfe
the princes death, and for his associate in this conspiracie The occasion of
the prince of
he tooke a trusty friend of his who had been most familiar Azafi. his
death.
with him from his childhoode, and was captaine ouer a
certaine band of footemen.^^ Wherefore both of them
being alike mischieuously bent against their prince, expected
nothing else but a fit place and oportunitie to put their
bloudie determination in practise. Contrariwise the king
seeking by all meanes an occasion to effect his purpose,
sent word vnto Hali vpon a certaine festiuall day, that
after their Mahumetan deuotions were finished he shoulde
come and walke with him ; appointing a place, where he
had laide a troupe of men in ambush to kill Hali at his
comming : which being done, he went to church. Hali
suspecting no harme at all, told his associate, that now was
the time wherein they might bring their purpose to effect.
And this intent of theirs they foorthwith declared vnto
ten other of their adherents : and to the end that the whole
mattermight go securelyand certainlyforward, they presently
assembled a great multitude of footemen (which they fained
that they woulde sende the next day vnto Azamor) that, if
they were constrained to flie, they might haue aide and
succour in a rcadines. All their complices being armed,
they came to church at the very same time when as the king
with all his traine was entring thereinto, and had placed
himselfe next vnto the Mahumetan preacher. The church
was full of auditors, and the king had his guard attending
vpon him, who bicause they knew the two foresaid yoong
gentlemen to be very familiar with the king, suspected
none euill, but suffered them to draw neere vnto his
person. Wherefore one of the saide yoong courtiers, as
though he would haue done obeizance vnto the king,
came before him, but Hali got in at his backe and stabd
scrmo?i.
286 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
The prince of him through With a dag-ger : and at the verie same instant
Azafi slaine, ^ ....
as he was luar- \.\\Q, other thrust him in with his sworde, and so this
iiii^ of a
.Viahumetaii vnhappy king, imbrued in his owne bloud, gaue vp the
ghost. The kings guarde went about to apprehend
the authors of this fact ; but being ouermatched by the
contrarie part, and suspecting, least the people were
authors of this conspiracie, they sought to saue them-
selues by flight. And after them followed all the rest
of the assemblie, till the authors of the saide murther
were left alone. They also immediately came foorth,
and perswadcd the people with many words, that they had
slaine the king for none other cause, but onely in regard
that he had attempted the vtter ouerthrow both of them-
selues and of the whole people. The citizens beeing to
too credulous, aduaunced the two foresaid conspiratours
to the gouernment of the kingdome ; howbeit they agreed
not long thereabout, but the common-wealth was diuersly
tossed hither and thither, sometime inclining to one, &
sometime to another. Wherefore the Portugall merchants
which vsually frequented that citie in great numbers,
wrote vnto their king to sende foorthwith an armie of
soldiers thither : for they were in good hope, that he
shoulde most easily and with small disaduantage winne
the saide citie. Howbeit the king being nothing mooued
with this message of theirs, would not send any forces at
al,til he was more certainly informed by his said merchants
touching the death of the king of Azaphi, & the dissension
betweene the two new gouernours. As also, that they
had made such a compact with a certaine captaine of the
contrary faction, that it was the easiest matter in the
world for him to coquer the towne. For they had built
them a verie strong castell vpon the sea-shore, wherein
their merchandize might safely be bestowed. For the
Portugals had perswaded the townes-men, that during
the great tumult about the kings death, they were all of
HISJORIE OF AFRICA. 287
them in danger to lose both their Hues and goods. Where-
fore into this castell, among their vessels of oile and other
wares, they cunningly conueied gunnes and all other kind
of warlike instruments : but the townes-men being ignorant
heereof, exacted nothing of the Portugals saue onely
custome due for their wares. Now after the Portugales
had sufficiently prouided themselves of all other kinde of
armour and warlike munitions, they sought by all meanes
an occasion to fight with the citizens. At length it came
to passe that a certaine Portugals seruant buying meat
in the citie, did so prouoke a butcher, that after much
quarrelling they fell to blowes, whereupon the seruant
feeling himselfe hurt, thrust the butcher with his sworde,
and laidc him along vpon the colde earth, and then fledde
speedily to the castell, wherein he knewe the merchants
to be. The people immediately rose vp in armes, and
ranne all of them with one consent vnto the castell, to the
end they might vtterly destroy it, & cut the throats of
all them which were therein. But the guns and crosse-
bowes which were there in a readines made such hauock
among the townes men, that it cannot be, but they were
greatly daunted. At this first encounter there were an
hudreth and fiftie citizens slaine outright; howbeit the
residue woulde not therefore giue ouer, but gaue the castle
daily assaults. At length the king of Portugall sent aide
vnto his subiects, to wit fiue thousand footemen, two
hundreth horsemen, with a great number of gunnes. Which
forces when the citizens sawe to approch, they presently
betooke themselues to their feete, and fled vnto the moun-
taine Benimegher : neither durst any man stale in the towne
but onely he that was the author of building the castle-
And so it came to passe that the Portugall forces woon Azafi tvoon by
, ., -11 11 o ri the Poriui;als.
the towne without any perill or labour, boone after the
generall of the whole armie sent the builder of the castle
vnto the king of Portugall. But the king sent him with a
288 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
certaine number of attendants backe againe to Azafi, and
appointed him gouernour of all the region adiacent. For
the Portugal 1 king was not acquainted with their customes,
nether did he sufficiently know how they gouerned their
common-wealth.^'^ Soone after ensued the miserable
desolation and ruine, not onely of the citie but of the
whole region thereabouts. In this discourse we haue
beene somewhat tedious, to the end we might shew of how
great euill a woman may be the instrument, and what
intollerable mischiefes are bred by dissension. These
things were a dooing (as I remember) when my selfe was
lohn Li-otcn \^y^<^ |-gj^ ycercs oldc -P and being fowerteene v^eeres of acre, I
yeeres old at the ■' ° ^ fc> '
wjninngof had somc Conference with the Portugall captaine aforesaide.
Azaji. ° '■
This captaine with an armie of fiue hundreth Portugals,
and more then twelue thousand Arabian horsemen giuing
battaile to the king of Maroco, conquered all the foresaid
prouince on the behalfe of his master the Portugall king,
in the yeere of the Hegeira 920. as in our briefe treatise
concerning the Mahumetan religion we will declare more at
large.
Of Conta a toivne in Duccala.
THis towne is situate from Azafi about 20. miles, & is
said to haue bin built by the Gothes at the verie
same time when they possessed the whole region of
Duccala : but now it is vtterly layde waste : howbeit the
field belonging thereto is in subiection vnto certaine
Arabians which dwell in the said prouince of Duccala.^*^^
Of Tit a citie in Duccala.
THis ancient citie of Tit built of olHc by the Africans
vpon the Ocean sea-shoare, is about twentie miles
distant from Azamur. It hath most large and fruitful!
fields belonging vnto it. The inhabitants are men of a
grosse conceit, who regard neither husbandrie nor ciuilitie.
HISTORIE OK AFRICA. 289
Their apparell indeed is somewhat decent, by reason that
they continually haue so great traffique with the Portugals.
At the same time when Azamur was subdued, this citie rfttribl/inc
also yeelded it selfe vnto the kings captaine, and for ^^^'^'://;;;^^^
certaine yeeres paied tribute vnto the king. In our time
the king of Fez attempted to set Duccala at libertie : how-
beit not speeding of his purpose, he caused a certaine
Christian (which was his owne treasurer) and a lewe, to be
hanged. And that companie which remained with him, he
brought vnto Fez, giuing them a certaine portion of
grounde to dwell vpon, which was destitute of inhabitants
being distant about twelue miles from Fez.^'^'^
Of tJic famous citie of Elniedina in Duccala.
ELmedina being in a manner the chiefe citie of the
whole region, is (according to the manner there)
enuironed with wals of no great force. The inhabitants
are homely as well in witte and behauiour, as in apparell :
wearing such cloth as is wouen in their owne countrie.
Their women weare certaine siluer ornaments : the men
are valiant, and haue great store of horses. They were all
of them banished by the king of Fez out of his dominions,
for that he suspected them to be friends to the Portugals.
For he had heard that a certaine gouernour of that region
had counselled his subjects to pay tribute vnto thePortugall
kine. This gouernour I sawe barfoote led so miserablie
captiue that I could scarce refraine from teares ; because
he did not ought vpon trecherie, but being constrained.
For, good man, he thought it much better to pay a little
tribute vnto the Portugals, then sodainly to lose both his
life and his goods. For the restoring of whom vnto his
former libertie, diuers noblemen greatly laboured : and so
at length for a great summe of money he was released.
But afterward the citie remained voide of inhabitants, Rimedina left
desolate.
about the yeere of the Hegeira 921.^^-
2gO THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
T
0/ the towne of Diiccala called Centum putei.
His towne is built vpon a rocke of excellent marble :
in the suburbes whereof are certaine caues, wherein
the inhabitants vse to lay vp their corne : which is there so
Come pre- woondcrfullv prcfcrued, that it will continue an hundreth
St rued loo. -' *^ '
veers. yccrcs without an)^ ill fauour or corruption. Of the
number of which caues resembling pits or wels, the towne
it selfe is called Centum putei. The inhabitants are of
small reckoning or account, hauing no artificers dwelling
among them but certaine lewes. When the king of Fez
had forced the inhabitants of Elmadin to come into his
dominions, he attempted also to bring thither the inhabi-
tants of this towne : but they refusing to go into a strange
place, chose rather to inhabite neere vnto the towne of
Azafi, then to forsake their owne natiue soile. Which
when the king vnderstoode, he presently caused the towne
to be sacked ; wherein nothing was found but corne, hony,
and other things of small value.^'^^
Of the towne of Subeit in the same region.
SVbeit is a small towne built vpon the south side of the
riuer of Ommirabih. It is distant from Elmadin
about fortie miles, and is said to be subiect vnto certaine
Arabians dwelling in Duccala. Honie and corne they
haue great abundance : but such is their vnskilfulnes and
ignorance, that they haue neither gardens nor vineyardes.
At the same time when Bulahuan was woon, the king of
Fez brought all the people of Subeit into his dominion,
and allotted vnto them a certaine peece of grounde neere
vnto Fez which was neuer before inhabited : so that Subeit
remained waste and void of inhabitants euen vntill this
day.io-i
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 29 1
Of the iowne of 1 enieracost.
ALso in Duccala neere vnto the riuer Ommirabih
standeth a certaine small tovvne, which was built by
the founder of Maroco, from whom the name thereof is
thought to be deriued. Inhabitants it hath great store,
and containeth more than fower hundreth families. It was
subiect in times past vnto the people of Azamur ; but
Azamur being spoiled by the Portugales, this towne also
came to nought, and the people heerof went to Elmadin.^^^^
Of the towne called Terga.
THis towne being distant about thirtie miles from
Azamur, is situate neere vnto the riuer Ommirabih :
it is well peopled, and containeth about three hundreth
families. In times past it was subiect vnto the inhabitants
of Duccala ; but after the sacking of Azafi, Hali which
fought against the Portugals, for certaine daies lay with
his armie in this towne. But afterward being repelled
thence by the king of Fez, the towne became so waste and
desolate, that from thencefoorth it was an habitation for
owles & bats.^*^^
Of the towne of Btilahuan.
THis towne likewise standeth vpon the banke of
Ommirabih, & containeth about fine hundreth
families : in times past it had most noble and woorthie
inhabitants, especially in that streete which lieth next vnto
the riuer, upon the high way to Maroco. In this towne
was a famous hospitall built, which had manie roomes and
mansions : wherein all strangers trauailing that way, were
sumptuously and freely entertained at the common charge
of the towne. The inhabitants are most rich both in
cattell & corne. Euery citizen almost hath an 100. yoke of
oxen, and some of them ycerly reape two thousand, some
T 2
2g2 THE SKCOND BOOKE OF THE
three thousand measures of corne : so that the Arabians
do Carrie graine from thence sufficient to serue them all
the yeere following. In the 919. yeere of the Hegeira, the
king of Fez sent his brother to gouerne and defende the
region of Duccala, who comming vnto this towne, was
informed that the captaine of Azemur approched thither
with a great armie, of purpose to destroy the towne and to
lead the people captiue. Whereupon the king of Fez his
brother sent immediately vnto the saide towne two captaines
with two thousand horsemen, and eight hundreth archers.
But at the very same time when they entred the towne,
they met there the Portugall soldiers accompanied with
two thousand Arabians : by whom, being fewer in number,
they were so miserablie slaine, that scarcely twelue archers
of all the eight hundreth could escape with the horsemen
vnto the next mountaines. Howbeit afterward the Arabians
renewed the skirmish, & 150. of the Portugall horsemen
being slaine, they put the enimie to flight. Whereupon
the king of Fez his brother passed on to Duccala, requiring
tribute of the people, and promising that as long as he liued
he would stand betweene them and their enemies. After-
ward being vanquished, he returned home to Fez vnto the
king his brother. But the inhabitants seeing that the
kings brother had receiued tribute of them and had stood
them in no stead, they presently forsooke the towne, and
fled vnto the mountaine of Tedles : for they feared least the
Portugals armie would come vpon them, and exacting a
greater summe, would lead them presently captiue which
could not disburse it. At all these accidents I my selfe
was present, and saw the foresaid slaughter of the archers :
for I stood about a mile distant from them, and was
mounted vpon a swift courser. At the same time I was
trauelling to Maroco, being sent by the king of Fez, to
declare vnto the king of Maroco, and vnto the Seriffo, that
the king of Fez his brother was presently to depart vnto
HISTOKIE OF AFRICA. 293
Duccala : for which cause they were requested to prouide
soldiers for the better resistance of the Portugals armie.^*^'
Of the citie of Azamur.
Zamur, a towne of Duccala, was built
by the Africans vpon that part of the
Ocea sea shore where the riuer of
*Ommirabih disemboqueth ; being * Or.iAzrArt.
distant from Elmadina southward
about thirtie miles. ^''^ Very large it
is, and well inhabited, and containeth
to the number of fiue thousand families.^*'^ Here doe the
Portugall merchants continually reside. The inhabitants
are very ciuill, and decently apparelled. And albeit they
are diuided into two parts, yet haue they continuall peace
among themselues. Pulse and corne they haue great
plentic ; though their gardens and orchards bring foorth
nought else but figs. They haue such plentie of fishes,
that they receiue yeerely for them sometime sixe thousand,
and sometime seuen thousand duckats. And their time of
fishing dureth from October to the end of Aprill. They
vse to frie fishes in a certaine pan with oile, whereby they
gather an incredible quantitie of trane : neither vse they
any other oile to put into their lampes. Once a yeere the
Portugals make a voiage hither, and doe carrie away so
great abundance of fish, that they onely doe disburse the
summe of duckats aforesaid. Hence it is, that the king of
Portugal, being allured for gaine, hath often sent most
warlike fleetes to surprise this towne : the first whereof, in
regarde of the Generals indiscretion, was the greatest part
dispersed and sunke vpon the sea.^^*' Afterward the king
sent another nauie of two hundred saile well furnished, at
the very sight whereof the citizens were so discomfited, that
they all betooke themselues to flight ; and the throng was
so great at their entrance of the gates, that moe then fower-
294 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
score citizens were slaine therein. Yea a certaine prince
which came to aide them, was, for his safetie constrained
to let himselfe downe by a rope on the farther side of the
citie. The inhabitants were presently dispersed hither and
thither ; some fleeing on horse-backe, and others on foote.
Neither could you (I know) haue refrained from teares,
had you scene the weake women, the silly old men, and
the tender children run away bare-footed and forlorne.^^^
But before the Christians gaue any assault, the lewes
(which shortly after compounded with the king of Portu-
Azamuru'oon g^]]^ ^q yccld the citic to him, on condition that they shoulde
>?"^^- sustaine no iniurie) with a generall consent, opened the
gates vnto them :^^"- and so the Christians obtained the
citie, and the people went to dwell part of them to Sala,
and part to Fez. Neither doe I thinke that God for any
other cause brought this calamitie vpon them, but onely
for the horrible vice of Sodomie, whereunto the greatest
part of the citizens were so notoriously addicted, that they
could scarce see any young stripling, who escaped their
lust.
Of the toivne called Meramei.
THis towne was built by the Gothes vpon a plaine,
almost fourteene miles distant from Azafi, and it
containeth to the number of fower hundred families : the
soile thereabout aboundeth greatly with oliues and corne.
It was gouerned in times past by the prince of Azafi ; but
afterward being surprised by the Portugals, and the inhabi-
tants being all put to flight, it remained well nigh one
whole }-eere destitute of people. Howbeit soone after
making a league with the Portugals, each man retired vnto
his owne home. And now I thinke it not amisse to report
as concerning the mountaines of Duccala those things
which may seeme woorthie of memorie,^^^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 295
Of the niountaim called Benimegher.
BEnimegher is distant from Azafi about twelue miles,
containing diuers artizans of all sortes, euery one of
which hath an house at Azafi. This mountaine is so
exceeding fruitful for oile and corne, that a man would
scarce beleeue it. It was once in subiection vnto the prince
of Azafi, but the inhabitants of Azafi being put to flight, as
hath beene aforesaid, had no other place for their refuge,
but onely this mountaine of Benimegher. Afterward they
paid tribute for certaine yeeres vnto the Portugals ; but
when the king of Fez came thither with his army, he caried
with him part of them vnto Fez, and the residue returned
to Azafi : for they were determined rather to indure any
iniurie, then to submit themselues to the Christians
gouernment.^^*
Of the greene mountaine.
THis mountaine is of an exceeding height, beginning
eastward from the riuer of Ommirabih, and extend-
ing westward to the hils called in their language Hafara,
and it diuideth Duccala from some part of Tedles.^^^
Likewise this mountaine is very rough and full of woods,
affoording great store of acornes and pine-apples, and a
certaine kinde of red fruit which the .Italians commonly
call Africano. Many Hermites also doe inhabite vpon The fruit
. called by the
this mountaine, liuing with no other kind o\ \\qX\xz\s>,\>\xX. Italians Frutto
such as the woods yeeld vnto them. For they are aboue
fiue and twenty miles distant from all townes and cities.
Here are great store of fountaines and of altars built after
the Mahumetan fashion, and many auncient houses also
erected by the Africans. At the foot of this mountaine
there is a notable lake, very like vnto the lake of Bolsena
in the Roman territorie. In which lake are found infinite
numbers of fishes, as namely eeles, pickrels, and of diuers
296 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
other sorts, which, to my remembrance, I neuer saw in
Itahe : but there is no man that goeth about to take any-
fish in this lake, no maruell therefore though the number
be so great. Vpon a certaine time when Mahumet the
king of Fez trauelled that way towards the kingdome of
Maroco, he encamped his armie eight days vpon the side of
Great p/en/ie of this lake. Some of his companie he licenced to fish the
fish.
same, amongst whom I saw certaine that tooke of their
shirts and coats, sowing vp their sleeues and collars, and
putting certaine hoops within them to keepe them from
closing together, and so vsed them in stead of nets, where-
with notwithstanding they caught many thousand fishes :
but others which had nets indeed, got more then they.
And all by reason that the fishes (as we will now declare)
were perforce driuen into the nets. For king Mahumet
being there accompanied with fourteene thousand Arabian
horsemen, which brought a great many more camels with
them ; and hauing fiue thousand horsemen vnder the
conduct of his brother, with an huge armie of footemen,
caused them all at once to enter the lake, insomuch that
there was scarce water ynough to satisfie the camels thirst :
wherefore it was no maruell though the fishes came so fast
into the nets. Vpon the banks of this lake are many trees
bearing leaues like vnto pine-leaues, among the boughes
whereof, such abundance of turtles doe nestle, that the
inhabitants reape woonderfull commoditie by them.
Mahumet hauing refreshed himselfe eight dales by the
foresaid lake, was then desirous to view The greene moun-
taine aforesaid : my selfe with a great number of courtiers
and learned men attending vpon him. So often as he saw
any altar, he would command his armie there to make a
stand, and lowly kneeling on his knees, would say these
words following : " Thou knowest (oh Lord my God) that
" I came hither for none other cause, but to release the
" people of Duccala from the Arabians and cruell Christians :
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 297
" which attempt of mine if thou thinkest to be vniu'st, let
" me onely feele the punishment of this offence : for these
" my followers are guiltlesse." And thus we ranged vp and
downe the greene hill one whole day : but at night we
returned vnto our tents.^^" The next day it was king
Mahumets pleasure to go on hunting and hauking, where-
upon his hounds and haukes (which he had in great
abundance) were brought foorth : howbeit that sport
yeelded nought but wilde geese, duckes, turtle-doues, and
other fowles. But the day following the king called for his
hounds, faulcons, and eagles : their game were hares, deere,
porcupikes, roe-deere, woolues, quailes and starlings : and
by reason that none had hunted or hawked there an
hundred yeeres before, they had very good pastime. And
after we had here staled certaine dales, the king with his
armie marching vnto the said Elmadin a towne of Duccala,
willed all his learned men and priestes which hee had
brought with him, to returne vnto Fez. But my selfe {d.s lohn Leo sent
_ ainbassadour
ambassadour) and a certaine number of soldiers he s&nt from the King
1 • 1 r 1 0/ Fez vnto
vnto Maroco : this was done m the 922. yeere of the Maroco.
Hegeira, and in the yeere of our Lord 1512.^^''
A description of the region of Hascora.
THis region is bounded northward with certaine moun-
tairies which adioine vpon Duccala ; westward with
a riuer running by the foote of mount Hadimmei, which
we called before Tensift ; and eastward by the riuer
Quadelhabid, that is, the riuer of seruants, which riuer
diuideth Hascora from Tedles. And so likewise the hils of
Duccala doe separate Hascora from the Ocean sea.^^^ The
inhabitants of this region are far more ciuil, then the people
of Duccala. This prouince yeeldeth great abundance of
oyle, of Marockin skinnes, and of goates, of whose haire
they make cloath and sadles. And hither do all the
bordering regions bring their goat-skins, whereof the
298 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
foresaid Marockin or Cordouan leather is made. This
people hath great traffique with the Portugals, with whom
they exchange the foresaid leather and sadles, for cloath.
Their coine is all one with the coine of Duccala. Also the
Arabians vsually buy oyle and other necessaries out of this
region. Now let vs in order describe all the townes and
cities of the said region.
Of Elniadin a towne in Hascora.
THis towne of Hascora being called by the inhabitants
Elmadin,^^^ is built vpon the side of mount Atlas,
and containeth moe than two thousand families. It
standeth almost fourescore and ten miles eastward of
Maroco, and about 60. miles from Duccala. Heere may
you finde many leather-dressers, and all other kinde of
artizans, with a great multitude of lewish merchants.
This towne is enuironed with a certaine wood, which is full
of oHue, and walnut-trees. The inhabitants are continually,
in a manner, oppressed with warres among themselues,and
against a certaine little towne beeing fower miles distant
from thence. Neither dare any come vpon the plaine
lying betweene these two townes, (saue women onely and
slaues) except he be well and strongly guarded. So that
euerie man is faine to maintaine an harquebusier or archer
for his defence, whom he monethly alloweth ten or twelue
pieces of gold, which are woorth sixeteene ducates Italian.
Likewise in Elmadin there are certaine men of great and
profound learning, which are appointed to be iudges and
notaries. Whatsoeuer tribute or custome strangers doe
pay, is deliuered vnto certaine treasurers and customers of
the towne ; which imploy it afterward for the publike
benefite. They are likewise constrained to pay certaine
tribute vnto the Arabians, for sundrie possessions which
they enioy in the foresaide valley ; but that money gaineth
them at the Arabians hand ten times so much, or more.
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 299
In my returne from Maroco I thought good to trauell by
this towne, where I was right sumptuously entertained by
one of Granada my countrey-man, who was exceeding rich,
hauing serued as an archer in this region for fifteene yeeres.
And albeit the towne of Elmadin had a stately hospitall,
wherein all merchants trauelling that way, were entertained
at the common charge : yet my countrey-man would not
suffer vs there to lodge, but for three dales together most
curteously welcommed my selfe, nine courtiers, and all the
seruants and retinue which we brought with vs : vnto which
companie of ours the townesmen presented, some of them
calues, some lambes, and some other brought hens. Seeing
vpon a time so many goates in the towne, I merily
demaunded of my countrey-man, why he gaue vs no kids-
flesh to eate : hee answered that that was accounted among
them of all others the most base and homely meate. Their
faire and beautifull women are so fonde of strangers that
if secret occasion be offered they will not refuse their
dishonest companie.
Of the citie of Alemdin.
NEere vnto the foresaide towne standeth another
commonly called Alemdin,^-^ being situate fower
miles to the west thereof in a valley, amidst fower most high
hils, whereupon the place is exceeding cold. The inhabi-
tants are merchants, artizans, and gentlemen, & families it
containeth to the number of one thousand. This towne
hath been at continuall war with the towne last before
mentioned : but in our time both of them were by the
meanes of a certaine merchant brought in subiection vnto
the King of Fez, as we will now declare. There was ^ Bywhat ineans
merchant of Fez which had a paramour in this towne, ^Eimadln aid
whom he determined foorthwith to marrie ; but when the '^^''"''^"f .'^'^:
' came suoiect
marriage day was come, this merchant was beguiled of his "^'"^^ '^^^ ^^"S
loue by the gouernour of the towne himselfe, which
300 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
disappointment grieued him full sore, albeit he dissembled
the matter as well as he could. Returning home to the
King of Fez, the said merchant presented vnto him most
rich and costly gifts, making humble suite vnto his maiestie
that hee would allow him an hundred principal! archers,
three hundred horsemen, and fower hundred footemen ;
saying, that himselfe would maintaine them all at his owne
costs and charges, and would winne the said towne of
Alemdin for the Kings behalfe, and would assure the King
seuen thousand ducates for yeerely tribute. This offer
pleased the King right well, and that he might declare his
princely liberalitie, he would not suffer the merchant to
giue wages vnto any, but onely to the archers. And so
with all expedition he commanded his gouernour of Tedles
to prouide the saide merchant so many horsemen and so
many footmen, and two captaines ouer the armie. At
length comming before Alemdin they besiged it sixe dales :
which being expired, the townesmen told their gouernour
in plaine terms, that they would not for his cause incur the
king of Fez his displeasure, nor suffer any inconuenience.
Whereupon he putting himselfe in a beggers weede,
attempted to escape away : but being knowen and appre-
hended, he was brought before the merchant, who committed
him to prison. And so the townesmen presently opening
their gates receiued the merchant with all his troops, &
yeelded themselues to him & to the king of Fez. The
parents of the foresaid maid protested vnto the merchant,
that the gouernour by maine force had depriued them of
his paramour. Howbeit she herselfe was big with childe
by the gouernour ; but after the merchant knew that she
was deliuered of her childe, he bore her affection againe,
and at length married her. And the wretched gouernour
was the same day by the iudges pronounced guiltie of
fornication, and was stoned to death. Well, the merchant
remained gouernour and Lord of both townes, establishing
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 301
most firme peace between them, & diiely paying vnto the
king of Fez all the yeerly tribute which he had promised.
I my selfe afterward comming to the foresaide towne grew
familiarly acquainted with this famous merchant. The
same yeere departing from Fez I tooke my iourney towards
Constantinople.
Of Tagodast a toivne in Hascora.
THis towne is built vpon the top of a certaine high
mountaine, hauing fower other high mountaines round
about it. Betweene which fower mountaines and the said
towne are diuers most large and beautifull gardens re-
plenished with all kinde of fruits : quinces here are of an
incredible bignes. Their vines dispersing themselves vpon
the boughes of trees doe make most pleasant bowers and
walkes : the grapes whereof being red, are for their
bignes, called in the language of that people, hennes egs. Grapes of vmr-
uelluus bisques.
Ihey haue here great abundance of oile and most ex-
cellent honie ; some of their honie being white, and some White honcv.
yellow. This towne hath many fountaines about it, which
ioyning into one streame, do serue for many water-mils
thereabouts. Here are likewise great store of artizans,
who exercise themselues onely about things necessarie.
The inhabitants are somewhat ciuill, their women are most
beautifull, being most gorgeously decked with siluer iewels.
Their oile they carrie vnto the next cities southward of
them on this side Atlas : but they send their leather vnto
Fez and Mecnasa. Their plaine is almost sixe miles long :
the soile being most fruitfull for corne : in regard whereof
the townes-men pay certaine yeerely tribute vnto the
Arabians. This towne hath iudges, priests, and a great
number of gentlemen. Vpon a time as I trauelled this
way, it was my hap to meete with a certaine ancient
gouernour of the same place, who was growne blinde with
extreme age. This aged sire (as by some I understood)
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was in his youth a most vah'ant and stout person, insomuch
that after many other noble exploits, he slew with his
owne hand fower captaines which were most deadly
enemies vnto the people of Tagodast. And afterward he
handled the matter so wisely, that he ioyned those in
perfect league which before time had waged continual
warre. Here no commonwealth-matter is concluded by
the magistrates of the towne without his speciall aduice
and authoritie. By this worthie Senatour my selfe with
fower-score horsemen were honorably entertained, and had
dainty meates euery day set before vs, of game which was
newly hunted. He recounted most familiarly vnto vs all
his labours which he had bestowed in concluding of the
foresaid league : neither had this good man any so entire
and hidden secrets, which he reuealed not vnto vs, as to
his louing friends. At my departure I offered him money
for my selfe and my companie : but he, like a liberall man,
would by no m.eanes accept of it ; saying, that albeit he
ought the king of Fez much dutie and good will, yet
did he not bestowe that liberaltie for his sake : but that
whatsoeuer wealth he enioied, his parents bequeathed vnto
him vpon this condition, that he should shew himselfe
kinde and bountifull vnto all his kinred, acquaintance, and
strangers trauelling that way : and although he were free
from that condition, yet his loue towards God, and the
liberaltie which God had planted in him, could require no
less at his hands. Yea, he said, that by Gods good
blessing and prouidence he had reaped the same yeere
seuen thousand bushels of corne ; insomuch, that himselfe
and all his neighbours were prouided for in abundance.
Moreouer, that he possessed of sheepe and goates moc
then an hundred thousand, the wooll whereof only, and
some small portion of butter, he reserued for himself, but
as for the cheese and milke, he gaue it all frankly vnto his
shepherds. In this towne there is none that selleth either
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 303
cheese, butter, milk, or any other such commoditie, though
each one hath great abundance of cattell. Howbeit their
hides, oile, and wooll they vtter in the prouinces there-
about. The reuerend sire added this moreouer : If it shall
please (saith he) the king of Fez to returne home from
Duccala through this my region, I will come foorth to
meete him, and will submit my selfe wholly vnto him, as
vnto my most liege soueraigne prince. Thus my selfe a
meere stranger being so honorably dismissed by this
woorthie Senatour, could not sufficiently commend his
courtesie and bounteous dealing towards strangers.^21
Of the citie of Elginmuha.
NEere vnto the foresaid towne, within fine miles,
standeth Elgiumuha.^^^ It was in our time built
vpon the top of an high mountaine, and containeth to the
number of five hundred families, besides so many families
comprised in the villages of that mountaine. Here are
innumerable springs and fountaines, and most pleasant
and fruitfull gardens in all places. Here are likewise
walnut-trees huge and tall. The little hils enuironing this
mountaine doe yeeld barlie and oliues in great abundance.
In the said towne are great numbers of artizans, as
smithes, leather-dressers, and such like. And because
they haue here notable yron-mines, they make plentie of
horseshooes. And whatsoeuer commoditie proceedeth of
their labour, they carrie it to forren regions where they
thinke it is wanting : from whence they bring home slaues,
woad, and the skins of certaine beastes, whereof they
make most defensiue and warlike shields : these shields
they transport vnto Fez, exchanging them there for
weapons, cloth, and other such things as they stand in
neede of. This towne standeth so neere vnto the high
way, that the boyes will stand gazing and woondering at
merchants as they come by, especially if they vveare any
304 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
strange attire. The residue of inhabitants vpon this
mountaine are all commanded and gouerned by them of
the towne. They say that the people of Tagodast afore-
said were the first founders of this towne : for so vpon a
time it befell, that whereas the principall men of Tagodast
grew to dissension among themselues, the common sort
fauouring neither faction, built Elgiumuha, and left Tago-
dast to be inhabited by their gouernours : hence it is, that
euen at this day they are here onely ignoble and base
people, whereas there they are all gentlemen.
Of Bso a towne in Hascora.
THE ancient towne of Bzo is built vpon an high hill
about twenty miles westward from the towne last
mentioned. Within three miles of Bzo runneth the
foresaid riuer of Guadelhabid. The townesmen are
honest people, exercising merchandize, and going decently
apparelled : To them which inhabite the deserts they
carie cloth, oile, and leather. Their mountaines abound
with oliues, corne, and all kinde of fruits : and of their
grapes they make euery yeere most excellent and sweete
raisins. Figs they haue great plentie : and their walnut-
trees are so high, that a puttocke may securely builde his
nest vpon the tops : for it is impossible for any man to
climbe vp. On each side of the way which leadeth from
hence to the riuer Guadelhabid there are most pleasant
and beautifull gardens. My selfe (I remember) was here
present when their oranges, figs, and other fruits were
growen to ripenes ; and was entertained by a certaine
priest, who dwelt not farre from a stately Mahumetan
temple, standing by that riuer which runneth through the
market-place of the towne.^-^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 305
Of the viountaine called Tenueues.
THis mountaine is situate ouer against Hascora vpon
that part of Atlas which trendeth south ward.^^'* It
hath many most vahant and warHke inhabitants both
horsemen and footemen ; and a great number of horses of
small stature. It yeeldeth abundance of woad and barhe :
but other graine they haue none at all, so that they haue
no other but barlie bread to eate. At all times of the
yeere you shal here see plenty of snow. Here are likewise
sundry nobleme & gentlemen, all which are subiect vnto
one prince. To this prince they pay great yeerely tribute
for the maintenance of his soldiers, for he wageth continuall
war with the inhabitants of mount Tensita. The said
prince hath welnigh looo. most valiant horsemen alwaies
in a readines : & so many likewise do the noblemen of this
mountaine continually keepe at their owne costs and
charges. Moreouer the prince hath an hundreth soldiers
part of them bowmen, and part harquebusiers, to guard and
attend vpon his person in all places. Comming my selfe
to see this mountaine, it was my chaunce to finde out the
saide prince, who was desirous exceedingly to be praised
of all men : but for liberalitie, curtesie, and ciuilitie, his
like I thinke was not to be founde. Vnto the Arabian
toong (albeit he were ignorant thereof) he bore a marueilous
affection : and was greatly delighted to heare any man
expound a sentence or verse, which was penned to his own
commendation. At the very same time when mine vncle Thevncie<f
. , [. ,,. r-i— 11' r John. Leo sent
was sent ambassadour irom the kmg ot ro-z to the knig 01 ambassadonr
Tombuto, I my selfe also trauailed in his company : we rombu/of
were no sooner entred the region of Dara (which is an
hundreth miles distant from the saide princes dominions)
but he hearing of my vncles fame (who was an excellent
Oratour, and a most wittie Poet) sent letters vnto the
prince of Dara, requesting him that he woulde perswade
U
306 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
mine vncle to trauaile vnto Tombuto by mount Tenueues :
for he had a great desire to see him, & to speake with him.
Howbeit my vncle answered, that it beseemed not a kings
ambassadour to visite any princes farre out of his way,
and so to deferre his masters waightie affaires. But, to
the end that he might in some sort satisfie the saide
prince, he promised to sende me his nephew vnto him,
which might in his name salute him and do him due
honour. Afterward he deliuered me certaine costlic gifts
to present the prince withall : as namely a curious paire of
stirrups double gilt and finely wrought in the Morisco
fashion, which cost (as I remember) fiue and twentie
ducates ; and a rich paire of spurs of fifteene ducates price.
Moreouer he sent two bands of silke artificially entwined
with gold, one whereof was tawnie, and the other blew.
He sent also a most excellent booke, containing the Hues
of certaine famous and deuout men of Africa, togither with
certaine verses in the commendation of the prince himselfe.
Thus being furnished with the things aforesaid, I set foorth
on my iourney, taking two horsemen to accompanie me
vnto the foresaid mountaine : and so as I road, I inuented
verses in the princes praise. At our first arriuall there,
the prince with a great traine of his nobilitie was ridden
foorth on hunting. Who being enformed of my comming,
caused me foorthwith to be sent for, and after salutations
had, he asked me how my vncle did : I answered that
he was in good health, and at his highnes disposition.
Then he commanded me to be carried vnto a stately
lodging, where, after my tedious journey, I might repose
my selfe, till he were returned from hunting. And so
within night returning from his game, he sent for me
immediately to come into his chamber of presence : where,
hauing first performed due obeisance vnto him, I presented
him with mine vncles gifts : which (as I suppose) were
most acceptable vnto him. At length I gaue him the
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 307
verses which mine vnclc had indited : which he presently
commanded one of his secretaries to read. And as he was
expounding each sentence and worde vnto the prince, it was
a woonder to see, what exceeding alacritie and ioy appeered
in his countenaunce. The verses being read, he sate downe
to supper, wilh'ng me not onely to be his guest, but also to
sit next vnto his person. His table was furnished with
mutton, veale rested and sodden, and with bread baked
like a cake. Diuers other dishes likewise were serued in,
but I remember not all the particulars. Supper being
ended, I greeted the prince in this wise : Your highnes (my
lord) hath receiued all those gifts, which your humble
seruant mine vncle (in token of his loiall disposition, and
that he might be had of your highnes in remembrance)
hath sent you : Now I being both his sisters sonne and his
scholler, haue nought else but a fewe wordes to present
your princelines withall : may it please you therefore to
accept of such homely stuffe as my witte could sodainly The excellent
'■■'■' -z ■wit lir" toward-
affoord in the time of my iourney. These words ended, I ^?""-"' ofiohn
Leo at 16. yeers
began to read my verses vnto him : and being as then but ^fage.
sixteene yeeres of age, the prince gaue right ioyfull and
diligent eare vnto me; and whatsoeuer he vnderstood not
sufficiently, he would cause it to be interpreted. Now
being wearie with his hunting, and perceiuing the night to
be farre spent, he wished all of vs to goe to bed. Early
the next morning I was sent for, to a stately breakefast,
after the conclusion whereof, he caused an hundreth ducates
to be deliuered me for a present vnto my vncle, togither
with three slaues, which should attend vpon him in his
iourney. But on me he bestoowed fiftie ducates and a
good horse ; and to each of my two seruants he gaue
ten ducates : giving mine vncle to vnderstand, that his
meane gift which he bestowed, was sent not in regard
of his woorthy presents, but for a recompence of his
excellent verses. For as touching mine vnclcs gifts,
U 2
308 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
he saide he would deferre the requital! thereof till his
returne from Tombuto, what time he would more fully
manifest his good will towards him. Then commanding
one of his secretaries to direct vs on our way, & most
courteously bidding vs farewell ; he told vs that the same
day he was going to make an assault vpon his enimies.
And so departing from him, I returned to mine vncle.
Thus much I thought good to set downe, for to shewe,
that euen Africa is not vtterly destitute of courteous and
bountifull persons.
Of the mountaine called Tensita.
TEnsita is a part of Atlas, beginning westward from
the mountaine last before mentioned, eastward
extending to mount Dedes, and southward bordering
vpon the desert of Dara.^-^ This mountaine is well stored
with inhabitants, hauing moe then fiftie castles about it,
the wals whereof are built of lime and rough stone : and
by reason of the southerly situation it is euer almost
destitute of raine. All the said castles stand not far from
the riuer of Dara, some being three, and some fower miles
distant there from. The greatest prince in all this region
hath vnder his command well nigh fifteene hundreth
horsemen, and about so many footemen as the prince of
Tenueues before named. And albeit these two princes
are most neerely conioined in bloud, yet can neither of
them refraine from most cruel wars against the other. It
is a woonder to see, what plentie of dates this mountaine
affoordeth : the inhabitants giue themselues partly to
husbandry, and partly to traffike. Barly they haue in
great abundance : but of other graine and of flesh their
scarcitie is incredible : for that region hath no flockes nor
droues at all. The prince of this mountaine commonly
receiueth for yeerly tribute twentie thousand peeces of
golde : euery of which peeces containeth not so much by
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 309
one third part, as an Italian ducate. There hath alwaies
beene so great amitie betweene the king of Fez and this
prince, that cither often sendeth rich gifts vnto other.
My selfe (I remember) once saw a most magnificent gift -4 ;wrf.fA7/i>/)'
■' ^ ^ t5 fc> and rich prc-
presented to the saide king in the name of this prince, to sent.
wit, fiftie men slaues, and fiftie women slaues brought out
of the land of Negros, tenne eunuches, twelue camels, one
Giraffa, sixteene ciuet-cats, one pound of ciuet, a pound of
amber, and almost sixe hundreth skins of a certaine beast
called by them Elamt, whereof they make their shieldes,^-''
euerie skin being woorth at Fez, eight ducates ; twentie
of the men slaues cost twentie ducates a peece, and so did
fifteene of the women slaues ; euery eunuch was valued at
fortie, euery camell at fiftie, and euery ciuet-cat at two
hundreth ducates : and a pound of ciuet and amber is
solde at Fez for threescore ducates. Besides these were
sent diuers other particulars, which for breuities sake I
omit. I my selfe was in presence when these gifts were
offred to the king : the princes ambassadour was a Negro
borne, being grosse and of a low stature, and for his
speech and behauiour most barbarous : this fellow de-
liuered a letter vnto the king, which was most absurdly and
rudely penned : but the Oration which he made in the
behalfe of his prince was well woorse : so that at the
pronouncing thereof the king and all that were in presence
could hardly refraine from laughter, but were faine to hold
their hands and garments before their faces, least they should
haue seemed too vnciuile. Howbeit his oration being
ended, the king caused him to be most honorablie enter-
tained by the priest of the chiefe temple ; with whom
himselfe and all his company hauing remained foureteene
daies, were at length by the kings liberalitie frankely and
freely dismissed.
310 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Of the vioiintaine called Gogideme.
NEere vnto the foresaid mountaine standeth another
called Gogideme.^-^ This mountaine is inhabited
only vpon the north part thereof: but the south side is
vtterly destitute of inhabitats : the reason whereof they
* Read of this affirme to be, because that when * AbraJiavi king of Maroco
Abraham be-
fore in the de- was vanquished and expelled out of his kingdome by his
script ion of the . t^ r i t • y n ^ ^ • • T-i
rifie of Maroco. disciple ElmaJuli, he fled vnto this mountaine. The
inhabitants mooued with the kings distresse endeuoured
(though to small purpose) all that they could, to succour
him : whereof his disciple ElumJicli was no sooner cn-
formed, but comming with an huge armie and with great
furie vpon them, he destroyed all their mansions and
villages, and the inhabitants he partly put to flight, and
partly to the sword.^^^ And those which now remaine
there are most base, beggerly and slauish people : Howbeit
they sell some quantitie of oyle and barley : neither indeed
will their soyle affoorde any other commodities. They
haue plentie of goates and mules ; but their mules and
horses are but of meane stature. The situation and
qualitie of this mountaine will not suffer the inhabitants to
be liberall.
Of the two mountaines called Teseuon.
TEseuon consisteth of two mountaines standing together,
beginning westward from Gogideme, & ending at
the mountaine of Tagodast. The inhabitants are oppressed
with extreme pouerty : for their ground will yeelde nothing
but barley and mill. Forth of this mountaine springeth a
certaine riuer, which runneth through most pleasant fields.
But because the mountainers neuer descend into the same
fields, hence it is that the Arabians onely enioy that riuer.^-^
To haue said thus much of these may suffice : now let vs
come vnto the description of Tedles.
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 3II
A description of the region of Tedles.
THE small region of Tcdlcs beginneth westward at the
riuer of Guadelhabid, and stretcheth to that part of
the great riuer Ommirabih where Guadelhabid taketh his
beginning ; southward it bordereth vpon Atlas, and north-
ward it extendeth vnto that place where Guadelhabid
falleth into Ommirabih. This region is in a manner three
square : for the said two riuers springing out of Atlas run
northward, till approching by little and little, they meet
all in one.^^*^
Of Tefza the principall toivne in Tedles.
TEfza the chiefe towne of all Tedles, was built by the
Africans vpon the side of mount Atlas, some fine
miles from the plaine. The towne wals are built of most
excellent marble, which is called in their language Tefza.^^^
and hereupon the towne was so called likewise. Heere doe
reside most rich merchants of all sorts : of lewes here are
two hundred families,, who exercise merchandise and diuers
other trades. And here you shall finde many outlandish
merchants which buy from hence certaine blacke mantles
with hoods, commonly called Ilbernns :^'^'^ of these \\\qx& iibcmus.
are great numbers both in Italy and Spaine. Neither are
there in Fez any kinde of wares, which are not heere to be
bought : if any merchant will exchange his wares for
other, hee may the sooner be dispatched : for the townes-
men are furnished with diuers kindes of merchandise, as
namely with slaues, horses, woad, leather, and such like :
whereas if ihe forreiners were desirous to sell their wares
for ready money, they should neuer attaine to the value of
them. They haue golden coine without any image or
superscription : their apparell is decent : and their women
are bcautifull and of good behauiour. In this towne are
diuers Mahumctan temples, and many priests and iudges,
312 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
Their commonwealth was woont ahvaies to be most
prosperous and well-gouerned ; but degenerating from
better to woorse, they were afterward so turmoyled with
dissensions and wars, that certaine being expelled hence,
came vnto the king of Fez, humbly beseeching him that
by force he would restore them to their natiue countrey,
conditionally that all matters wel succeeding on their side,
they should deliuer the towne vnto the king. This con-
dition was accepted, and the king hauing a thousand braue
horsemen readie to doe the feat, ioyned fiue hundred horse,
and two hundred gunners on horsebacke vnto them.
Moreouer he wrote vnto certaine Arabians (which are
commonly called Zuair}'^'^ and haue almost fower thousand
horsemen at commaund) that, if need so required, they
would come in, and ayde his troupes. Ouerthe saidearmie
the king appointed as captaine one EzzerangJii, a most
valiant and redoubted warriour. Who hauing pitched his
tents neere vnto the towne, began presently to give the
townesmen an assault. But when he had done his best,
the warlike citizens easily gaue him the repulse. Moreouer
the Arabians called Benigeber^^* were comming with fiue
thousand horsemen to succour the towne. Which so soone
as Captaine EzzerangJii was aduertised of, he raised his
siege, and went suddenly to meete with the foresaid
Arabians ; whom after he had discomfited in three dales,
he then safely returned to lay new siege. The citizens
seeing themselues cut off from all hope of the Arabians
ayde, began seriously to treat of peace with the enemie ;
which the easier to obtaine, they promised to defray all
the kings charges layde out in this expedition, and to pay
him for yeerly tribute, more then ten thousand ducates :
howbeit with this prouiso, that they for whose cause the
king had sent the said armie, if they entred the towne,
should bee secluded from all Magistracie and gouernment.
But they hearing of these conditions, spake vnto the
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 313
Captaine in manner following : Sir, if it shall please you
to restore vs vnto our former dignitie and state, we will
procure you aboue an hundreth thousand ducates. Neither
is there cause why any man should feare any iniurie or
violence ; for we protest vnto you that no man shall be a
farthing endamaged by vs : onely we will exact at our
aduersaries handes the reuenues of our possessions which
they haue these three yeeres vniustly detained from vs.
The summe whereof will amount vnto thirtie thousand
ducates, all which we are most willing to bestow vpon you,
in regard of those labours which you haue vndergone for
our sakes. Moreouer the reuenues of the whole region
shall bee yours, which will come to twentie thousand
ducates. And the lewes tribute shall yeeld you ten
thousand more. Vpon these speeches the Captaine re-
turned answere vnto the citizens, that his master the king
of Fez had most faithfully promised those which mooued
him vnto this warre, that he would neuer forsake them till
they had attained their harts desire : for which cause he
was more willing to haue them gouerne, then the townes-
men which were now in possession, and that for many
reasons : wherefore (saith he) if you be determined to
yeelde vnto the king, assure your selues, that no incon-
uenience shall light vpon you : but if you will to the ende
remaine peruerse and obstinate, be yee assured also, that
the king will deale most extremely with you. This message
was no sooner knowen vnto the people, but foorthwith
they began to be distracted into diuers factions : some
there were which stood for the king, and others chose
rather manfully to fight it out, then that the king should
be admitted : insomuch that the whole citie resounded with
brawlings, quarels, and contentions. This tumult came
at length by spies vnto the Captaines eare, who presently
caused halfe his forces to take armes ; and by their
meancs in three howers space he wan the citie with little
314 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
slaughter on his part. For those tovvnesmen that fauoured
the king, did what they could on the inside, to set open the
gates, and so did the assailants on the outside, neither did
any resist their attempts, by reason of the foresaid ciuill
dissensions. Whereupon Captaine Ezzeranghi entring the
citie, caused the kings colours to be aduanced in the
market-place, and vpon the vvals, charging his horsemen to
range about the citie, that no citizens might escape by
flight ; and last of all made a proclamation vnto all his
souldiers, that they should not vpon paine of death offer
any iuiurie vnto the townesmen. Then he caused all the
chieftaines of the contrarie faction to be brought prisoners
vnto him : to whom he threatned captiuitie and thraldome,
till they should disburse so much as the king had spent in
that expedition : the total 1 summe was twelue thousand
ducates, which the wiues and kinsfolkes of the captiues
presently payde. Neither could they yet obtaine their
libertie : for the exiles, for whose cause the king had sent
that armie, demaunded restitution of all their goods, which
the other had for certaine yeeres detained from them. The
captiues therfore were committed that night, & the next
morning lawyers & atturnies came to plead on both sides
before a iudge & the captaine. Howbeit after a great deale
of tedious fending and proouing, hauing concluded nothing
at all, the captaine was so weary, that he left them, and
went to supper. Afterward he caused the captiues to be
brought foorth, wishing them to pay the sums demaunded ;
for (saith he) If you come before the king of Fez he wil
make you to disburse more than twice the value. At which
words being terrified, they wrote vnto their wiues, if they
woulde euer see thern aliue, to procure them money by
some meanes^ Eight daies after, the women brought as
many golde rings, bracelets, and other such iewels, as were
valued at eight and twenty thousand ducates : for they had
rather bestowe these for the ransomc of their husbandes,
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 315
than to rcueale their great wealth ; bringing foorth all their
costly ornaments, as if their money had beene quite exhaust
When therefore the king and the exiles were fully satisfied,
insomuch that nothing seemed nowe to let the said captiues
from libertie, the captaine spake vnto them in this wise :
Sirs, I haue signified (though vnwillingly) vnto my master
the king all matters which haue here passed betweene vs :
for I dare by no meanes release you, till the kings letters
authorize me so to do : Howbeit, I wish you to be of good
cheere ; for sithens you haue honestly restored to euery
man his owne, there is no doubt but your selues shall
shortly be set at libertie. The same night the captaine
called a friend of his, whose counsell he founde oftentimes
to take good effect, and asked him by what meanes he
might without suspicion of guile or trechery, wring any
more sums of money from them. Whereunto his friend
replied : make them beleeue (quoth he) that you are willed A notable and
^ ^ \n / -? effectuall prac-
by the kings letters to put them all to death: howbeit, /"'^^'^ww/j^
7nore money out
that }'ou will not, for pitties sake, deale so extremely with of the towncs-
incHs purses.
mnocent persons : but that you will send them to Fez to
receiue punishment or pardon at the kings pleasure.
Heereupon the kings letters were counterfeited, which the
day following the captaine with a lametable voice published
vnto his two & forty prisoners. My friends (quoth he) so
it is, that the king hauing receiued some sinister and wrong
information, that you should go about to make a con-
spiracie : most firmely enioineth me by these his letters, to
put each one of you to death : which, though it be ful sore
against my wil, yet needs I must obey my prince, if I wil
not wittingly runne vpon mine owne destruction. And
then shedding some fained teares : sithens (quoth he) we
can vpon the sodaine deuise no better course, I thinke it
most conuenient to send you with a troupe of horsemen
vnto the king, whose wrath (perhaps) you may by some
meanes pacific. Whereupon the captiues growing farre
3i^ THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
more pensiue than before, recommended themselues vnto
God, and the captaines clemencie, requesting his good will
with many teares. And foorthwith there comes one in
among them, who aduised them to make vp some round
summe of money, & therewithal! to trie if they could
appease the king : and seemed likewise to intreat the
captaine, that he woulde by his letters stande their friend
to the king. Heereunto the captiues agreeing with one
voice, promised that they would giue the king a great
summe of golde, and woulde most liberally reward the
captaine. The captaine, as though forsooth this condition
much disliked him, asked at length how much golde they
ment to send the king : one saide that he woulde disburse
a thousand ducates, another, that he would giue fiue
hundreth, and the third, eight hundreth. But the captaine
making shew, that this was too little, saide that he was
loth to make signification of so small a summe vnto the
king : howbeit, better it were for you (quoth the captaine)
to goe your selues vnto the king, with whom perhaps you
shall make a more reasonable end than you are aware of.
But they fearing hard measure, if they should be caried
vnto the king, were far more importunate with the captaine
then before, that he would (to his power) be good vnto
them. Wherefore the captaine (as though at length he
had been mooued with their vehement petitions) spake
unto them in this wise : heere are of you (my masters)
two and fortie noble & rich persons ; if you vvil promise
two thousand ducates a man, I will signifie on your behalfe
so much vnto the king, and so I hope to perswade him :
but if this condition will not please him, then must I needs
send you to make answerefor your selues. This condition
they al of them yeelded vnto; howbeit with this prouizo,
that euery man should giue proportionablie to his wealth,
and that they might haue for the paiment fifteene daies of
farther respite. The twelfth day following the captaine
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 317
fained, that he had receiued letters from his king, signify-
ing that the king, for his sake, woulde shewe the captiues
more fauour. The fifteenth day he had paied vnto him
eightie fowre thousand ducates : neither coulde he sufficiently
woonder, how in so small a towne, among two and fortie
inhabitants onely, such huge sums of money could so readily
be found. Then wrote he vnto his king how all matters
had passed, demaunding what should be done with the
gold. And so the king foorthwith sent two of his
secretaries with an hundreth horsemen to fetch home the
saide golde vnto Fez. The captiues being restored to their
libertie, presented the saide captaine with horses, slaues,
ciuet, and such like gifts, to the value of two thousand
ducates : giuing him exceeding thankes for their libertie ;
and requesting him to take their presents in good woorth :
for, had not their treasure beene quite consumed, they saide,
they woulde haue bestowed farre greater vpon him. Where-
fore, from thence forward, that region was subject vnto the
king of Fez, and to the forsaide captaine Esseranghi, till he
was trecherously slaine by certaine Arabians. Moreouer
the king receiueth from that citie, euen at this present
twentie thousand ducats for yeerely tribute. I haue in this
narration beene indeede somewhat more large then neede
required ;^^'' howbeit perhaps I did it, bicause I my selfe
was present in al the expedition, and was an earnest
mediatour for the citizens release : neither saw I euer (to
my remembrance) a greater masse of golde, than was by
subtiltie drawne from them. Yea the king himselfe neuer
had so much golde in his coffers at one time : for albeit he
receiueth yeerely thirtie thousand ducates, yet neuer could
he store himselfe with so much at once, nor his father
before him. These things were done in the yeere of the
Hegeira 915. and in the yeere of our Lord 1506.1^*^ And
here I would haue the reader to consider, what mans
Industrie and wit may doe in getting of money. The King
3l8 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
maruelled much at this summe of crold ; but afterward he
had greater cause to woonder at the wealth of a certaine
lewe, who payed more out of his owne purse, than all the
forenamed captiues. And his riches were the cause, why
the King of Fez exacted fiftic thousand ducates from the
lewes, for that they were said to fauour his enimies. I my
selfe bare him companie, that went in the Kings name to
receiue the sayd summe of the lewes.
T
Of Efza a townc of Tcdlcs.
His towne standeth two miles from Tefza, and con-
taineth almost sixe hundred families, being built
vpon a little hill at the foote of mount Atlas. In
this towne are many Moores and lewes which make
* Or lUh-nius, *Bernussi. The naturall inhabitants are either artificers or
being a kitide of . . . ...... , ^
garment. husbandmcu, bemg m subjection to the gouernours oi
Tefza. Their women are excellent spinsters, whereby
they are saide to gaine more then the men of the towne.
Betweene this towne and Tefza runneth a certaine riuer
called by the inhabitants Derne, which springeth foorth of
Atlas, runneth through the plaines of that region, till at
length it falleth into Ommirabih. On both sides of this
riuer are most beautifull and large gardens replenished
with all kindes of fruits. The townesmen here are most
liberall and curteous people, and will permit merchants
trauelling that wa)' freely to come into their gardens, and
to take thence as much fruit as they will. No people are
slower then they for paying of debts : for albeit the
merchants lay downe readie money to receive Bernussi
within three moneths, yet are they sometime fainc to stay
an whole yeere. Myselfe was in this towne when the
kings armie lay in Tedles, and then they yeelded them-
selues to the king. The second time that the kings
generall of his armie came vnto them, they presented him
with fifteen horses, and as many slaues. Afterward they
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 3I9
gaue him fifteene kine, in token that they were the kings
loyall subjects.^^'^
Of Cithiteb.
THis towne was built by the Africans vpon an high
hill, almost tenne miles westward of Efza. Well
peopled it is with rich and noble inhabitants : and
because Bernussi be here made, it is alwaies frequented ubcmus.
with store of merchants. The top of the said high
mountaine is continually couered with snow. The fields
adioyning to the towne are full of vineyards and gardens,
which bring foorth fruits in such abundance, that they are
nought woorth to be sold in the markets. Their women
are beautifull, fat, and comely, being adorned with much
siluer : their eies and haire are of a browne colour. The
inhabitants are so stout and sullen, that when the other
cities of Tedles yeelded to the king, they alone stood out :
yea they assembled vnder a certaine captaine an armie of
a thousand horsemen, wherewith they so vexed the kings
forces, that he was often in danger to haue lost al that
which he had got. Afterward the king sent his brother
with a new supply of men to aide his lieutenant ; but he
also had hard successe. At length hauing maintained
warre for three whole yeeres, the king commanded a lew
to poyson their captaine. And so at last the king wan
this citie also, in the yeere of the Hegeira 92 1.^^*^
Of the towne of EitJiiad.
THis towne being built by the Africans vpon a certaine
hillocke of Atlas, containeth to the number of
three hundred families. It is walled onely towards the
mountaine ; for that side which respecteth the plaine, is
so fortified naturally with rocks, that it seemeth not to
need any wall. From Cithiteb it is about twelue miles
distant. The temple of this towne is little, but most
320 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
beautiful, round about which runneth a mote, in manner of
a riuer. The inhabitants are wealthie and noble : they
haue great store of merchants, as well townesmen as
forreiners. The lewes here inhabiting are partly artiiiccrs
and partly merchants. About this towne are abundance of
springs, which breaking through the rocks of the moun-
taine, doe fall into a certaine riuer vnder the towne. On
both sides of this riuer are diuers gardens woonderfully
replenished with grapes, figs, and walnuts. Likewise the
sides of the mountaine it selfe abound greatly with oliues.
Their women are no lesse beautifull then ciuil, being adorned
with much siluer, and wearing fine rings vpon their fingers
and armes. Their vallie is fruitfull for all kinde of graine,
but their hill is meete onely for barly, and for goates-
pasture. In my time one Raoman BenguiJiazzan vsurped
this towne, and enioied it to his dying day. My selfe was
once entertained by a priest of this place, in the yeere of
Hegeira 921.^^^
Of SeggJievic a mountaine of Tedles.
ALbeit this mountaine standeth much southerly, yet
is it to be accounted one of the mountaines of
Tedles. Westward it beginneth from the mountaine of
Tesauon, extending it selfe eastward to mount Magran,
from whence the famous riuer of Ommirabih is said to
take his beginning. The south part bordreth vpon mount
Dedes. The inhabitants arc said originally to bee
descended from the people of Zanaga : they are personable,
cheerefull, valiant, and warlike people. Their weapons
are dartes, Turkish swords, and daggers. They fling
stones likewise with great dexteritie and force. They are
at continuall war with the inhabitants of Tedles, insomuch
that no merchants can passe that way without publike
safe-conduct, and without great expense of mony. Their
houses are so homely built, that somtime three or fower
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 321
roomes are contained in one. Of goates they haue great
abundance, as likewise of mules scarcely so big as asses,
which range so farre into the forrest to seeke their foode,
that they are often deuoured of lions. They would neuer
submit themselues to any prince ; for their mountaine is so
rough and steepe, that it seemeth almost impregnable. In
my time the same captaine which had woon the townes of
Tedles went about to assaile them in like manner. Which
when the mountainers vnderstood, assembling a great
armie, they shrowded themselues in a certaine part of the
mountaine, neere which they knew their enemies would
passe. And so soone was as they saw all the enemies
horsemen ascended vp the hill, suddenly rushing foorth,
they gaue them the onset. The skirmish was not so long
as bloodie : for the captaines armie being too weake for
the mountainers, could neither march on, nor retire :
wherefore they were constrained to fight it out by hand-
blowes : many of them with their horses being throwen
headlong downe the rocks, were miserably crushed in
peeces : the residue were either taken or slaine, so that I
thinke scarce one man of them escaped. But of all others
the captiues were most miserable : for the mountainers
themselues would not slay them, but deliuered them ouer
to their wiues to be tormented, who, as if they had beene
she-tigres or lionesses, put them to a most horrible and
vile death. From thencefoorth they had no traffique nor
familiaritie with the people of Tedles, neither seemed they
greatly to stand in need of their friendship (for they haue
great store of barlie, of cattell, and of sweet fountaines)
vnlesse it bee for that they are excluded from all trade of
mcrchandize.^^°
X
322 THE SECOND BOOKE OF THE
S
Of the mountaine called Magr an.
Omuhat beyond the foresaid mountaine of Seggheme
standeth mount Magran. Southward it bordercth
vpon the region of Farcala, neere vnto the Lybian
desert: westward it beginneth at Seggheme, and extendeth
eastward to the foote of mount Dedes. It is continually
couered with snow. The inhabitants haue such abundance
of small and great cattell that they cannot long remaine in
one place together. They build their houses of the barke
of certaine trees, the rooffe whereof dependeth on slender
sparres, fashioned like vnto the hoops enuironing the lids
of such chests or trunks, as the women of Italic, when they
These people traucll, Carrie vpon their mules. So likewise these people
Hue like the ir r
Tartars. transport their whole houses vp and downe by the strength
of mules, till they haue found a fit place of aboad ; where,
so soone as they arriue, they plant their said houses,
remaining there with their whole families, so long as they
haue grasse sufficient to feed their cattell. Howbeit all the
spring time they settle themselues in one place, making
certaine low stable or cottages, & couering the with the
boughs of trees, which serue for their cattel to lie in a
nights : and to the end that the cold may not pinch them
ouermuch, they kindle certaine huge fires neere vnto their
said stables, wherupon sometimes the winde so violently
driueth the fire, that vnles the cattell escape by flight, they
are in great danger to be consumed : and as their houses
are destitute of walles, so are their stables. They are con-
tinually molested and haunted with lions and woolues. In
their apparell and customes they wholy agree with the
foresaid people of Seggheme, sauing that these haue
houses of bark and wood, and the other of stone. I my
selfe, in the 917. yecre of the Hegeira, was in this moun-
taine as I trauelled from Dara to Fez.^*^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 323
A description of mount Dedes.
THis high and cold mountaine greatly aboundeth with
fountaines and woods. Westward it bcginneth at
mount Magran, extending thence almost as far as the
mountaine of Adesan ; and southward it bordereth vpon
the plaines of Todga. The length thereof is almost fower-
scorc miles. Vpon the very top of this mountaine there
was a citie built in ancient time, whereof a iow ruinous
monuments are to be scene at this present ; namely
certaine walks of white stone, wherein are diuers letters and
wordes grauen, which the inhabitants themselues doe not
vnderstand. Many are of opinion, that this citie was built
long agoe by the Romans : howbeit I my selfe could
neuer finde so much affirmed by any African writer, nor
yet the citie it selfe mentioned. Sauing that Seriffo
Essacalli in a certaine storie of his maketh mention of
Tedsi, which he saith is neere vnto Segelmesse and Dara :
but he declareth not whether it bee built vpon mount
Dedes or no. Howbeit for mine owne part I thinke it to
be the very same : for there is no other citie in the whole
region. The inhabitants of Dedes are in very deede most
base people ; of whom the greater part dwell in caues
vnder the ground : their foode is barly and Elhasid, that
is to say, barly meale sodden with water, and salt, which
we mentioned before in our description of Hea : For heere
is nothing but barly to be had. Goates and asses they
haue in great abundance. The caues wherein their cattell
lodge are exceedingly full of *Nitre : so that I vzxWy '* Or zai'-pcter.
thinke if this mountaine were neere vnto Italy, the saide
Nitre woulde yeerely be woorth fine and twentie thousand
ducates. But such is their negligence and vnskilfulnes,
that they are vtterly ignorant to what purposes Nitre
serueth. Their garments are so rude, that they scarce
couer halfe their nakednes. Their houses are very loath-
X 2
324 HISTOKIE OF AFRICA.
some, being" annoicd with the stinking smell of their
goates. In all this mountaine you shall finde neither
castle nor walled towne : when they builde an house, they
pile one stone vpon another without any morter at all,
the roofe whereof they make of certainc rubbish, like as
they doe in some places of Sisa and Fabbriano : the
residue (as we haue saide) do inhabite in caues, neither sawe
I euer, to my remembrance, greater swarmes of fleas then
among these people. Moreouer they are trecherous and
strong theeues, so giuen to stealing and quarrelling, that
for one vnkinde worde they wil not onely contend, but
seeke also the destruction one of another. They haue
neither iudge, priest, nor any honest gouernour among
them. No merchants resort vnto them : for being giuen
to continuall idlenes, and not exercising any trades or
handie-crafts, they haue nothing meet for merchants to
buy. If any merchant bring any wares into their region,
vnlesse he be safe conducted by their captaine, he is in
danger to be robbed of altogither. And if the wares serue
not for their ovvne necessarie vses, they w^ill exact one
fourth part of them for custome. Their women are most
forlorne and sluttish, going more beggerly apparalled then
the men. So continual and slavish are the toiles of these
women, that for miserie, the life of asses is not comparable
to theirs. And, to be briefe, neuer was I so wearie of any
place in all Africa, as I was of this : howbeit in the yeere
of the Hegeira 918. being commanded by one, to whom I
was in dutic bound, to trauell vnto Scgelmessc, I could
not choose but come this way.^*'
NOTES TO BOOK II.
(i) Hea, modern province of Haha.
(2) Esifnual, in the original : Asif el Mel, Azif en Mul, or Acifelmal,
as the Arabic is variously transliterated, the lower part of which is
sometimes known as the Wad Bu el Gheras.
(3) Arga, the Argan tree {Argania Sideroxylon)^ one of the most
interesting products of Morocco, being peculiar to it, and almost
confined to the province of Haha, where most of the oil extracted from
its fruit is made. This is the first mention of the tree. — Hooker and
Ball, Tour in Morocco^ pp. 395-404. The mountains of Haha are
also notable for the forests of the famous kx^^x {Callitris quadrivahns),
the wood of which is prohibited from being exported. Its " gum
sandrac" is better known. Haha, also, in spite of what Leo says,
yields fine crops of almonds, grapes, citrons, pomegranates, oranges,
lemons, limes, pears, apricots, and other fruits, including monster
water melons.
(4) Torte.
(5) Elasid, El asid. This porridge is still much esteemed. After
being slightly salted it is boiled for about fifteen minutes, and is
allowed to set before adding the butter, which in summer is substituted
for oil.
(6) More correctly " Kes Ku", though, possibly owing to the influence
of Leo's orthography, usually pronounced " Kus Kus", or, more
frequently, " Kus Kussu", by Europeans. It is the one great national
dish of the Moors.
(7) El K'sa. This dye (Es-suak) is still a favourite one, though the
head covering described is not now common. Instead of this, a strip
of European cotton is more frequently used. Turbans are white even
in the plains of Morocco, being of imported cotton stuff. Green
turbans denoting descendants of the Prophet are not very often seen.
(8) Hasaira. (9) Tilis.
(io) Libda. "This bolster and pillow is a sort of woollen bag,
coarse and rough."
326 NOTES TO BOOK II.
(ii) A common expression among these people, especially when
wishing to sell you a horse. — Meakin.
(i2) Horses are nowadays more often shod with continuous iron
plates in stony districts, though not invariably. On the plains,
immediately after the first rains, when the ground gets soft enough for
ploughing, oxen, mules, asses — any domestic animal — are pressed into
the farmer's service, and cases are known in which a woman and a
donkey have been yoked into the one stilted plough of prehistoric
form.
(13) The " Audad", or wild sheep of the Atlas {Ovis tragelaphus)^ is
what is meant by '' wild goat". The hare is really the rabbit {Lcpiis
cicniculus), which has become considerably modified in the African
climate, though I am not aware whether, like those which have devoured
the herbage of Porto Santo, they refuse to breed with their European
kindred.
(14) " Ogni casa a dentro gli istromenti di macinare" — every
household being supplied with the implement for grinding. But the
"mill" is not "wooden" but stone, and is identical with the Celtic
" quern".
(15) Cauterization is still universally used, and one of the most
familiar personages in the markets and fairs of Morocco is the Doctor
selling charms, written on dirty scraps of paper, for the cure of internal
diseases, and with the " actual cautery" in the fire before him, ready
to apply it with equal readiness to man and beast. His pharmacopoeia,
where he pretends to higher skill than the ordinary cauterizer, might
have been selected from the stock-in-trade of Macbeth's witches.
They also use certain herbs in some places (such as "Ghassul",
a species oi Mescinbryanthcnium)^ though with poor results. In towns,
the Jews make soft soap of olive oil and wood ashes, etc., greatly to
the profit of these monopolists. — Meakin, Times of Morocco^ August 8th,
1891.
(16) "Ese ad alcun del popolo fa dibisogno di passar da un luoco
all' altro, conviene che egli prenda la scorta di qualche, o religioso o
donna, della parte avversa." That is, if anyone finds it necessary to
pass from one place to another, it is incumbent on him to go under the
escort {Anaia) of some saint or woman of the part traversed. Pory is
perhaps too severe on the character of the female escort, for though a
woman acting in this capacity to a solitary traveller in a Moslem
country is, inferentially, not of the highest reputation, the word
" Donna" does not necessarily imply the meaning given to it. "Wife"
is an addition, and naturally so, considering the intense jealousy of
NOTES TO BOOK II. 32/
the Arabs or Berbers (Shluhs) with whom this account of the Haha
people is mainly concerned. At one time the traveller received one
of the Chief's spears, which, being recognised, acted as a passport.
(17) Compared with the country north of it, Haha is remarkable for
the number of little walled stone-built towns, picturesquely situated in
strategic positions, each house with a tower on some place of vantage.
(18) For corrections of this account of Tednest, cf. Introduction.
During three centuries it was the capital of Haha, a province which in
Leo's and Marmol's day comprehended the present government of
Shiedma also. Leo seems to have visited it after the place had
been utterly ruined by the Portuguese. According to Marmol (t. ii,
pp. 8-9, 103-104), copying Leo, this happened in March 15 14
(A.H. 920), the same year in which the latter saw it, " abitate dalle
cornacchie e da si fatti ucelli". But Diego de Torres (pp. 46-49), a
better authority in this respect, fixes 15 16 as the date, which I am
inclined to accept as the correct one. The reason why Nuho
Fernandes d'Ataide (Governor of Saffi or Zafin), aided by the
renegade Yahia ben Tafuf, destroyed Tednest, was that, as the
residence of the Sheriff Mohammed ebn Ahmed and his two sons, it
had become a menace to Azamor and Saffi. But from the pillage
obtained, and the number of people slain, Leo would seem scarcely
accurate in saying that it was deserted two years before he visited
it. Moreover, if his visit was in 15 15, this could not have been
the case, since the Portuguese attack was not made until 15 16.
Accordingly, one of the two original authorities is in error. At all
events, the place seems to have been, if not large, of some importance.
Marmol, indeed, mentions that the Sheriff Mohammed ebn Ahmed
erected a sumptuous palace, so that at all events, when the place was
sacked and practically destroyed by the Portuguese and their
" Mezonars" — or renegade Moorish allies — it must in any case have
had a large garrison, with the usual following of a Moorish military
adventurer.
Less than four centuries ago none of the minor Moroccan cities
was better known. According to Marmol it was 22 leagues, or
close on 76 English statute miles, from Saffi. while Leo places it at
18 miles east of Taculet, or from 20 to 25 miles to the east or
south-east of the mouth of the Tensift River. Possibly Marmol
made it too far from Saffi, though the existence of a town of its
consequence could scarcely be a question for dispute. De Faria
y Sousa {Africa Poriugucsa, p. 115) refers to it as "una de las
mds antiguas en la Prouincia de Hea". Yet Tednest had vanished
soon after the event mentioned ; and the place drops out of history.
Indeed, had it not been rebuilt after its destruction by the Portuguese
328 NO'I'ES TO BOOK II.
in 1 516, it could scarcely have contained 3,000 inhabitants in Marmol's
day. Host inserts it on his map (1779) as " Todenst", on the route
from Mogador (or Mogadul, as he calls it) to Merakish, without
however mentioning it in the text. Nor is there any such place in that
part of Morocco. Of late it has disappeared from the maps. Renon
inserts it solely on Leo's and Marmol's authority, and though Graberg
gives it a prominent place, his description is simply an uncritical
condensation of Leo's. The last notice of it is a curious but not very
intelligible one. It is in Lord's A /g-iers, ivith Notices of the Ncighbour-
i)ig States of Bardary {iSt,^), vol. ii, p. 142 (a compilation of little
authority), in the shape of a letter " from Ur. Naudi to the Rev. C. S.
Hawtrey", dated Malta, Oct. 15th, 1816, though whence derived by
Lord is not mentioned. "A Jew from Tedvest, an ancient town in the
province of Hea, in the Morocco Empire, and with whom I am often
here, and to whom I gave some of the Gospels printed by your [Bible]
Society," the writer remarks, " assures me that Tedvest
contains about five hundred dwellings, and is the capital of the
Province [which it was not in 1816]. It was entirely destroyed about
the beginning of last century [?], and built again by the Jews, and now
(which is very particular) is inhabited only by this people. The
Tedvestine here with us" . . . etc. There cannot be any doubt about
Tedvest being the same as Tednest, which Uiego Torres calls
" Tendeste", on the Sheshawa, a tributary of the Tensift. There are
many ruins near this river, but none easily fixed upon as those of
Tedvest. Tehaset has been suggested as the place. But other
reasons apart, this little place is too far from Sheshawa, though
Graberg, while placing Tednest, " Sul fiume Scuisciava", in his text
(p. 59), on his map gives a locality far from that river. The latest map-
maker who has ventured to "locate" it is Mr. Weller in the map
affixed to RohWs A dventtires in Morocco (1874), but he places it still
nearer the coast, and not on a tributary of the Tensift, as does
Petermann, in the one which accompanies the German original.
One of the latest and best maps of Morocco, Paul Schnell's in
Petermann's Ccograpliische Mitieilie/ige/!, No. 103 (1890), does not
insert the name of this vanished town. Nor is it on that by the
R. G. S. (Supp. Papers^ vol. iii. Part III, 1893). — Host, Eftcrretninger
oiii Marokos og Fes, sainlede dcr Landcne frn Ao. 1760 /// 1768
(I779)-
(19) Teculet also is a vanished town. Marmol is perhaps right
in saying that it was built by the Musamadi Berbers, and was
destroyed by A'bd-el Mumen, the Almohade (1130-1162 A.D. ),
after which it lay for a long time in ruins without any inhabitants.
In 1 5 14 (a.h. 920, not 923) Nuno Fernandes d'Ataide found the
place again so flourishing that it was considered worth sacking, with
NOTES TO BOOK II. 329
such ruthlessness, that numbers of the inhabitants of both sexes were
despatched as slaves to Portugal. The Sheriffs, however, once more
revived and re-peopled the town, only for it again to be destroyed, so
that at present it is impossible to fix its site exactly among the name-
less ruins that litter the province of Haha, which for twelve centuries
has been one of the principal " cock-pits" of Morocco.
" Goz", mentioned by Leo, is a place which has likewise disappeared.
It is noted by El Bekri under the name of Rabat Kuz, or Guz— the
" sanctuary of Guz"— and in its time was the port of " Armat-Urika",
an unidentified Atlas town, 120 miles inland, and about half way to
Sheshawa (Chafchaun) situated on a river which bears that name.
The first point south of Saffi (Asfi) on the Catalan Chart, and other
maps of the earliest date, is Guz, Gus, or Gur, though the Tensift is
not marked, and a little later Guz is displaced by Gus. In Marmol's
day the town of Guz, or Aguz, as he indifferently writes it, defended
by an adjoining fort, was almost in ruins, and paying tribute to the
Portuguese rulers of Saffi. Since Leo's day, when, owing to the
patronage of the Sheriffs, it was a flourishing place, Goz must
have ceased to possess its old importance probably owing to the
destruction of Teculet, and the persistent hostility of the Portuguese.
Leo does not mention whether Goz is on a river or directly on the
coast ; but Marmol notes that it is at the mouth of a river of the same
name in the position assigned by Ptolemy "to the enbouchure of the
Diure". Ptolemy's " Diur" (A/oip iroTaimv ixlSoXai) is, however, not
very clearly, we venture to think, assigned by M. Tinot to Daia de
Walidya, the former port of Aiyer, the Vior of Pliny, which is only
another form of the same name given to a place in exactly the same
position. Phthuth (or Fut) — (t>6oud (/; &ovd) 7rora/j.ov sxfSoXai — must,
therefore, if we are to apportion the Ptolemaic names to modern
representatives— be attached to the Tensift or Thasift (the Berber
word asif, signifying river), and the Mvgoxdpag Xi/Jj/jv to Saffi. But as
Marmol distinctly says that during the 1514 [16] expedition against
Teculet the Portuguese were detained for three days on their march
by the river of Aguz swollen by the rain, and, as the Tensift runs
directly across this route, this is clearly the river meant. Marmol, as
is still common, calls a river by the principal town on its banks.
In Sanson's maps (1656) " Gozota" is placed far to the south of the
Tensift, which is made to flow under the walls of Saffi, showing,
notwithstanding the Portuguese occupation of the coast during the
preceding century, how little geography had gained by their military
escapades. The maps attached to the narratives of Mouette (1682), and
Braithwaite (1729), the latter being largely copied from its predecessor,
call the Tensift the " Goudit", which may perhaps be an echo of Guz,
and bring it into the Atlantic close to Saffi. Dapper (1686) entirely
ignores the name Tensift in favour of Rio Dagas (Da Guz, that is
330 NOTES TO BOOK II.
" River of Goz", the old name), and places Goza a little to the north of
the continuation of that river.
Then Goz begins to disappear from charts until Graberg, with
characteristic inaccuracy, shifts the " Porto di Goz" some forty-six
statute miles south of Mogador, and, to make all in unison, puts Tecu-
let near its shore. Quatremere even places Goz at the mouth of the
Vad Sus. The ruins of Goz were thought to have been identified by
Lieutenant Arlett on the seashore at a little distance from the right
bank of the Tensift. There are ruins there and in many other
places ; but I cannot learn that they have any claim to be those of Goz
or that any ancient legends cling to them. Kven the name has been
lost. These ruins seem to be the same which Jackson considered to
be those of "ihe Asa//ia of Ptolemy". But the Asama — the A/ia/cs
of Polybius — was not a town but a river ('Affa/xa Troraf^ov sx/So/.a/),
which was not the Tensift, but the Um-er-R'bia. More likely the
abandoned Kasbah or Castle of Ben Ami Dush on the left bank of
the ri\er, where there are still great cemented Silos {Mataiiioras) for
storing grain, battlements, and rooms, is either built on its site or
was the fort which defended the river. Gerhard Rohlfs mentions
that he failed to find Rabat El Kus or Guz, but saw the romantic ruin
of an old castle called Kasbah Hanmedah. Pellow, early in the last
century, refers to it as the " Castle of Allaber-Hanmedush", or
" Eleben Hamedush", and in Grdberg's map it is indicated as " Ben
Hamuda". The ruined Portuguese castle, which is situated close to
the sea to the north of the Tensift mouth, and called by the natives
" Soueira Kedima", is little known, as it lies on the route along the
coast. M. Humot, who is an old resident in Morocco, tells me that
" Gurzee" is applied to the fording-place on the Tensift — Renou,
Exp. scientifiqiie de PAlgcric, vol. viii, pp. 198-201, 203 ; Marmol,
L'Afrzqt/e (Perrot d'Ablancourt ed. is always quoted), vol. ii, pp.
14-15, 84, 86, 104, no; Vivien de St. Martin, L'Afriqi/c dans
ra)iiiqiiiti\ pp. 362-3 ; Tenot, RecJicrches sur la geograpJiic Coiitparce
dc la Maiiretaiiie Ttngiianc, pp. 102-5, 115, 117 ; Sanson, nAfriqiie
en pliisieiirs cartes, p. 9 ; Graberg di Hemso, Speechio geografico et
statcstico deir impero di Marocco (1834), p. 61 ; Rohlfs, Adventures
in Alorocco, pp. ^og- 10 ; Pellow, Adventi/n's, etc., edited by Robert
Brown, pp. 279, 290, 366 ; De Campou, C/n Empire qui croule,
p. 205 ; De Faria y Sousa, Africa Portuguesa (i68i), pp. 136-137 ;
Quatremere, Notice dun inanuscrit Arabe de la Bibliothcque du Roi
[Geography of El Bekri] (Notices et Extraits des manuscrits de la
Bib. du Roi, t. xiii, 1831) ; Arlett, Survey of some of the Canary
Islands and part of Western Coast of Africa in i8j^ {fourn. R. G. S.,
\o\. vi), and Admiralty Charts.
" Nobleman", in Pory's translation, is " genteluomo" in the Italian.
There are no nobility in Morocco or (beneath the Royal family) any
NOTES TO BOOK IT. 33 1
difterences of rank except what office gives ; and it is too precarious
for any man to claim social superiority l)y the mere holding of
it. A subject of His Shereffian Majesty may be a slave to-day and
governing a province to-morrow ; a wealthy Kaid when the sun rises,
and a beggar in prison before it sets.
" Senate" = consiglio, council.
" The yeere of the Hegira 923" is not a.d. 15 14, but 15 17.
(20) The passage is mistranslated, in so far that it intimates that
Leo published a book on African affairs. He might have written such
a volume, but there is nothing to show that he had, according to
Pory's gratuitous amplification. Leo's words are : " Sicome noi
habbiamo scritto nell." — Historic Modernc di Africa (Ramusio, vol. i,
P- 13)-
The passage about the Jews of Teculet and Hadecchis coin-
ing money is no doubt quite accurate ; for, until recently, before
the very debased Moorish coinage was struck in Paris by contract,
the Hebrews were the regular moneyers in the Fez and Merakish
mints. But we do not find the names of either of these two towns
marked on any of the Morocco coins in the British Museum. Possibly
the coins in question may be among the pieces without any indication of
where they were struck, or the capitals were substituted as the locality
of the mints, if Teculet and Haddechis are, as it seems likely, the
names by which these vanished towns were officially known. — Lane
Poole, The Coins of the Moors of Africa and Spain : and of the Kings
and Inidns of the Yemen : in the British Miiseuin^ Classes xiv U. xxvii
(1880).
(21) Hadeques of Marmol.
(22) "Gran multitudine d'animali, lana, butirro, olio di argan e
similmente ferri, e panni del paese" — a great many animals, wool,
butter, argan oil, also iron and country cloth. Marmol adds wax
among the articles sold at the annual fair of Haddechis, though, as a
rule, the Berbers made little use of the wild bees' wax, as Leo, indeed,
notes in his description of Ileusugaghen.
(23) Beyond mentioning that the place was captured by the
Portuguese and renegade Arabs under Nuno Fernandes d'Ataide and
Yahia ben Tafut in 15 14, and the number of beautiful slaves sent to
Portugal, Marmol adds little to Leo's account. The Sheriffs, he tells
us, re-peopled the place, and at the time when he wrote the inhabitants
were "very rich", mainly owing to their not inconveniencing the
Portuguese, since the latter had evacuated Saffi in 1641 ; a.h. 922 is
not .\.D. 1 5 13, but 1 5 16.
332 ■ NOTES TO BOOK II.
(24) II (or El) Eusugaghen, Eusaguen of Marmol, " situated three
leagues from the town of Hadequis", though it is evident he knew
nothing about it except what he plagiarised from Leo.
(25) "Serif, il quale si fa principe di Hea e vi \ehe per paceficare
insieme il popolo", "or Mahumetan priest", is an interpellation: a
Sheriff is a descendant of Mahonvmed.
(26) " Piccola terriciuola nel piano". It is the Techevit of Marmol.
The Portuguese captured it by order of D6m Joao de Meneses,
Governor of Azamor, in 15 14, in the same campaign which was
undertaken to harry the strongholds of Tednest, Teculet, and
Haddechis. It was afterwards repeopled, and, Saffi having been
abandoned, it was permitted to remain undisturbed. It does not,
however, appear again in history, and must at present, if it exists at
all, be a place of very small importance. In 1846, M. Delaporte,
French Consul at Mogador, informed M. Renou that " Tihout est un
lieu dont le nom est connu". But that is all, and possibly M. Delaporte
mistook for it " Tileut, a considerable place in the Atlas". " Takat" is
a district in the region Leo is describing to the south of the Tensift.
There is another Tejiut in Sus (^. ?'.) : A.H. 920 is 15 14.
(27) Tesegdelt is found in Edrisi under the name of Tarkdelt, the
name of a Berber tribe which occupied this strong hill town. Marmol
tells us that the place was notable for its little horses, surefooted as
goats among the rocks. The position of the place giving the inhabi-
tants an advantage in the assaults to which they were subjected by the
Arabs and Portuguese, they prospered by the sale of fruit, argan oil,
and barley. A place of such consequence could scarcely disappear.
Accordingly we find it under the old name, Tasgedlt, in the Mezgita
district of the Wad Dra Basin, with the Wad Tidili (the stream the
name of which Leo forgot) flowing at the base of the hill on which it
stands. De Foucauld visited it in 1 883, and has sketched the castle ruins,
evidently unaware — as seems to be the case very generally throughout
his valuable itineraries — of its having any history. The enceinte is nearly
sc[uare, and furnished with towers at regular distances. The walls
are thick, of masonry at the base and of clay (talia) higher up, but
they are rapidly crumbling away. On the south side they are better
preserved, though inside the enceinte little remains except heaps of
stones and rubbish, evidently the work of the treasure seekers. There
are many caverns below the castle, concerning which a thousand
legends are told in the neighbouring country. Among them is a story
about "three princesses", daughters of a Christian king, one of whom,
Dula bent Wad, lived in Tasgedlt. Another, Zelfa bent Wad, on the
Asif Marren, " near Teggaiout" (Teijeut ?), and a third, Stouka bent
NOTES TO BOOK II. 333
Wad, at Taskukt, on the Wad Imini, similar ruins being said to be
found in all three places. According to these legends — which were
affirmed to be written down in books — the princesses were continually
at war with the Moslems until the ladies were driven away. In the
JVad Nun there is also a tale about a Christian princess. De
Foucauld imagines that the three castles were built by the same
Sultan who also erected the bridge over the Wad Rdat. But this
can only be a pious belief. It is a pity that the French traveller —
now a Trappist monk—had not been better acquainted with Leo,
otherwise he might easily have ascertained the condition of Culeihat
Elmuridin, which must be close at hand, and other sites, though, no
doubt, Tasgedlt being known, the others may be allocated. Mr. Joseph
Thomson was also not very far from the spots mentioned, though not
nearer Tasgedlt than Teleut. Tasgedlt is now deserted, its ruin
possibly dating from the enmity of some Sultan. Yet the place
seems to have been rebuilt not very long before Leo visited it, no
doubt on the way from Marekest to Sus, or r^'ce versa. For in 1296,
Abu Yakub, acting on behalf of Othman I, the Hasside, ruined a place
of that name " on Mount Guedara", in revenge for the inhabitants
having helped his enemies, the Merimidis. — Ibn Khaldun, //«/. de
Berbers^ t. iii, pp. 374, et seq.; Roudh el Kartas (Beaumier's Ed.),
pp. 540, et seq.; Mercier, Hist, de Afriqne Sept., t. ii, p. 239 ;
De Yo\ic3.Vi\6..,Recon}tatssaiice au Maroc, pp. 93-94 (Atlas Map No. 8) :
A.H. 919 is not A.D. 1 5 10, but 1 513.
(28) Tagtezain the original, Tegteza of Marmol. It is said to have
been built by the Musamudi Berbers.
(29) A safe-conduct — " espressa licentiea e salvacodotto".
C30) Kit Devet is evidently the name of the Ait Diouit, or Ait Dasud,
a Berber tribe still existing in the basin of the Wad Um-er-R'bia,
though no such important town now exists on any plateau known to
geographers or to the European residents in the neighbouring town
of Mogadon There is also a Kubba, or domed tomb of Sidi Daoud,
outside a village on the Wad Dra (De Foucauld, Reconnaissance au
Maroc, pp. 262, 263, 280). The fact of certain tribes in Morocco being
composed of converted Jews has been already referred to : the lateGrand
Vizier, whose features were distinctly Jewish, was always affirmed by
the Moors to belong to an Atlas sept of this origin. In every Berber
village, and in many families, it is still quite common to see Jews
living under the protection of some influential individual, who finds
his interest in seeing that his protege is not wronged. By " Melic",
who wrote the "' Elmudevuana", which " the aged man" could repeat
by heart, Malek ben Amas, who compiled the collection of traditions
called Mo%vatta, or Beaten Path, is meant.
334 NOTES TO BOOK II.
(31) This is a loose translation. In the original the passage is : —
" Di formento non si fa mentione tra loro" — that is, of wheat they have
no knowledge whatever ; or, as " formento" is an antiquated form of
" fermento", and '' frumento" both, it may mean either wheat or leaven.
Temporal choses the former. Florianus at once gives the Latin
equivalent of formento as frinjienitiiii = com ; any kind of grain,
" Nullum nouerunt friiiiicitti vsum", an inaccuracy which Pory follows.
(32) Culeyhat Elmuhaydin of Marmol, who declares that it means
" the city of the prophets", though Leo is perhaps more correct in
translating it "the rock of the disciples" (la rocca di discepoli).
Its position on the other side of the mountain (Guarden ?), on which
Ileusugaghen is built, has never been determined. The " piccola
fortezza" mentioned by Leo, is certainly destroyed as might be predicted
from the habits of the people, and the hatred with which they were
regarded. " Homar Seyef " seems to be the same person who is referred
to by Mohammed Essegher ben Elhadj ben Abdallah Eloufrani as Omar
Elmeghiti Ecchiadhmi, "known under the name of Esseyyaf" (the
executioner, villain, or butcher), though I am not favoured with any
particulars regarding the traits which gave him that uncomplimentary
title (Houdas, Nozhet-Elhddi^ pp. 35, 36). According to Marmol,
Omar was a native of Tesegdelt {q. v.). Renou, who equally with the
present commentator failed to identify Caleihat Elmuridin, thinks that
the name easily resolves itself into " K'lia'tel-Mouah'h'edin, the
" fortress of Almohades". From Omar's nephew being ruler when
Leo passed, it is probable that the castle was not more than fifty years
old in 1 5 12, which must have been about the period of Leo's visit. It
may be added that either from actual knowledge or geographical
inference, " Culeihat" is marked on the summit of a hill, close to the
coast, about 28 miles south of Mogador, on "^ new Chart of the
Coast of Africa^ laid down chiefly from the observations of Monsr. de
Borda, who zaas sent in 1777 dy the French Government to explore that
Coasf', etc. (London : Laurie and Whittle, 12th May 1794). On the
same chart, " Tesegdelt" is marked as a village in a creek. But it
cannot be Leo's Tesegdelt, as suggested by his description, as it is
nearly nine miles from Culeihat.
(33) There is a contradiction here ; for while the ruler is {lit supra)
called the nephew {nipoto) of Omar, he is here his grandson.
(34) This Berber village — or " towne'"^ — the Egue Leguingil of
Marmol, means, according to M. Delaporte, if Irel-m-Guiguil is to be
accepted as the exact orthography, " the orphan's hill ", a not inappro-
priate name for a locality the inhabitants of which, in spite of the
friendship with which the Sheiiffs treated them, were continually at war
NOTES TO BOOK II. 335
with the Arabs in the low country, who were vassals of the Portuguese
King. Their wax and honey they sold to Christian merchants.
It must not be inferred, from the failure of geographers to identify
these places mentioned by Leo, that they were absolutely non-existent.
They may still survive in a decayed or ruined condition, or be known
under different names from those which he gives to them. Allowance
must also be made for Leo's treacherous memory — for which he more
than once apologises — and for the mistakes made by his editor,
Ramusio, in deciphering his handwriting, as well as for the errors of
Leo himself in translatmg from the Arabic into Italian. It must also
be held in recollection that the region of Haha is still only partially
explored, and, except near the coast, or on one or two beaten lines of
travel, has never been examined with even moderate care by any
intelligent visitor. On the other hand, it is extremely likely that the
conclusion most readily arrived at is well founded, for it is far from
probable that important towns such as those of Tednest, Teculeth,
Hadecchis, Ileusugaghen, Teijeut, Tagten, Eitdeuet, Culeihat El-
muriden, Igilingigil, &c. — even admitting that Leo made the most of
them — can exist without the Europeans on the coast hearing of them,
or doing business with them, directly or by agents. All over the
region of Morocco, described in the preceding pages, are scattered
ruins of what seem to have been large towns or villages, the desertion
or destruction of which is attributed to famines and epidemics, or to
the vengeance of Sultans, powerful chiefs, and the " Rume" or
Christians. Indeed, so impressed have the people been by the
masterful ways of the European masters of the coast, that any rum
which they do not know the history of — and their traditions are few
and inaccurate — are immediately attributed to the Portuguese. The
charts of less than a century ago were dotted with notes of ruined
towns all the way up from Tangiers to Agadir. Old Marmora, Anfi,
El lunes, Tit, Waladia, and Air or Eder, are among those which
appear on the maps of 1795, '^'''d, with one exception, their ruin is
now so complete that they have generally ceased to claim attention
from the most conscientious cartographer. But we know of other places
of which no remains — or remains of the most disputable description —
attest the fact of their having been, before and after Leo's day, busy
hives of traders and fanatics, and fighters, and robbers. They do
not rest upon a note in the chronicles of one or even two men, but
are familiar in the history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Yet where are Tul, and Targa, and Guz, and where is Tefethne, w hich
appears in Leo's Chronicle a little later ? If they have vanished in
from two to four centuries, need we be surprised at the others, the
exact positions of which were not defined, having so disappeared that
their very names have ceased to linger in popular tradition ? Nearly
all the "lost cities" are Berber strongholds, and to this hour the
33^ NOTES TO BOOK II.
Berber hill tribes seldom pay their taxes until remonstrated with
by the Sultan's guns. Every summer the Sultan travels about with
an army for no other purpose, and not a year passes without a re\olt
of the "hill men". Their hand is against every man in the places
which their little fortresses overlook, and, as a consequence, the
owners of the harried herds in villages and douars (tent villages)
have a hereditary feud with the races which twehe centuries of Islam
have not reconciled to owning the Prince of True Believers master in
things temporal, however they may admit his sanctity as the Prophet's
heir.
After the introduction of artillery such easily attacked places as
those near the coast, on hills, in the plains, or on spurs of the lower
Atlas, could not long hold out against the Sultan, or his Kaids either,
during the long civil wars — when, as Leo tells us, so many places
were desolated — or in the course of asserting his authority against
these rebellious owners. And to any one acquainted with the ruthless
manner in which an African victor treats the vanquished, it is scarcely
necessary to explain the speed with which not only a captured Berber
town but its inhabitants also disappear. The latter are mercilessly
slaughtered, and their heads taken by the camel-load to decorate the
gates of the capital, or of some other town suspected to stand in need
of such a gruesome hint of the fate of rebels. In former days, in
spite of what the Koran says against the practice, they were enslaved,
and we have seen that the Portuguese exported many of the Moorish
captives. The remnant who escaped joined some friendly tribe, or
took refuge in some other stronghold of their sept, so that all over
Morocco we find broken fragments of what seem to have been at one
time powerful tribes. Then, on the principle of destroying the nest of
the eagles so that they should not return, the sacked town is set on
fire, after everything destructible or unportable has been smashed,
pulled down, or blown up with gunpowder. And in a few years the
weather finishes what man has not been able to accomplish. If the
buildings are of "talia"or some flimsier material, the sun and rain
will soon crumble them into clay and sand. Every nomad will help
tlie work by overturning what has been left standing in search of
buried treasure, the chiefs house being the first to be subjected to this
process, as the walls and the floors formed his usual bank. On the
other hand, should the buildings have been of stone, the survivors will
in tmie carry them away to rear other dwellings, until the palmetto
scrub covers the few crumbling walls ; and as caravans have no
temptation to pass that way, the very name of the " Djin" haunted
spot may be forgotten. Perhaps, if a few wanderers are tempted to
make their homes there, the place gets a new name. But the chances
are that the tales of evil spirits, who have their abode among its
graves, effectually deter any one from such a venture, should the place
NOTES TO BOOK II. 337
have been long uninhabited. Possibly even, it is said to have been
one of the " Rumes" works, and that the Nazarene, who is measuring
it with a tape covered with cabalistic marks, and recording all so
gravely on paper, after again and again consulting a map, is in
possession of the very words which will enable him to recover the
ancient people's hidden wealth. But the only wealth he is in search
of — namely, the position where the towns of four centuries or more
ago were built— has hitherto eluded him. The Romans built little,
and though little remains of their cities, their architects have left
more solid monuments of their skill.
(35) Tefethne "citta di porto in Hea", Tafetana, Teftana or Tefetne,
according to Marmol, is one of those "most famous mart-townes"
which no longer exists. Even the map makers, who cling with amazing
fidelity to a name, have ceased to engrave its position on the coast
south of Cape Tefetneh. One of the latest recognitions of it is
in Graberg de Hemso's Carta del Moghrib-d-Acsa (1834), where
" Tafelane" is duly placed on the northern side of the " Iguzul", or
Tidsi River mouth, about thirty miles south of Mogadon But as
Culeihat appears on the same map as a town on the coast a little north
of it, and Tesegdelt a place a few miles inland from Ras Tegrivelt
or Cape Ossin, the authority for this curiosity in cartography is of the
smallest.
However, the African charts of a century ago never hesitate about
its position. Yet long before that date the port of Tefetne must have
ceased to have any existence, so far as shipping traders, and even
houses, were concerned. In the Catalan map of 1375, a town is men-
tioned under the name of Teftana, a name that under various disguises
appears on all the older maps subsequent to that date. Tefelneh is
the erroneous form it takes on the map of Arlett and Washington
{Journal R. G. S., vol. i, p. 123). Tefelane is that of De Borda (1780),
a variation in nomenclature which Graberg de Hemso compromises by
giving the first name to the cape, and the second to the town. The
etymology of the word is, according to Delaporte, from the Berber
term signifying a cauldron, a simile suggested by the hollow which
the little port occupies.
The Catalan chart places between Tefetna and Cape Irir (Agadir-
Igir) a port named Zebedech, evidently the Zebadet of Levaneur's
map of 1610, in which it is placed at the embouchure of a river. In
1625 Jean Dupont indicates the river as the Zebedet, and after a variety
of shapes Zabedecha appears on the Sanson map as half-way between
Tefetna and Cape Irir. On the map of De Testu, Zebedet is given
to Tafetenne, so that most probably it was at the mouth of the Wad
Tedsi, or possibly at that of the Wad Tamer. On Andrea Bianco's
map of 1456 we find a point called Gayulu at the embouchure of a
Y
^S^ NOTES TO BOOK II.
river a little south of " Obdec", which may reasonably enough be
accepted as Zebedech. After Bianco's day the cartographers in-
dulged in that wide variety of opinion which makes their handiwork
so extremely puzzling, most of them placing Gayulu north of the
point last named, and altering the name almost beyond recognition.
Thus Benincasa has it Gacj^ola, and Sanson Gazola, which he places
between Tefetna and Zebedech. Gazola is perhaps only one of the
many derivations of the Berber word Guezzula — which in Arabic
authors takes the shape of Gzula, Gdala, Tedala, Tezula, etc., and was
of old applied to the entire Berber population of Sus and Dra, Mersa-
Guezzula, and, of course, the " port of the Guezzulas".
But though it is now difficult without a special expedition, which as
the long official search of the old Spanish port of Santa Cruz di Mar
Pequeiia on the same coast amply proves, might have little result ; to
fix the exact position of " Tefethne", there cannot be any doubt that
it existed on the banks of a river near the Cape of the same name.
But no ships of even " meane burthen" come there now, so that there
is every likelihood that the river and port have been silted up, and the
town wall of hewn stone and brick (<■// pictre lavora/c e di inatioiu)
which protected the filthy houses of 3,000 people is now buried under
mounds of the sand which covered so much of the coast for miles
inland. The " stately hospital" {tin grande spedale), under which
pompous designation the " foudak" or caravan serai for sheltering
strangers is meant, was very requisite in a place visited by traders, if
indeed the hospitality of the citizens might not have been embarrassing
owing to their peculiar sanitary notions. Curiously enough neither
Leo nor Marmol has a word to say of Mogadon For though the
present town was begun by Sidi Mohammed about 1760, a native
village existed near the site long before that date. Possibly it was
Ptolemy's Tamusega, a name which lingers in Sufega or Surega on
various seventeenth-century maps. The Arab name for Mogador or
Mogadul — derived from the tomb of Sidi Mogdul — is S'oueh'a, "the
picture" ; but the Berbers knew it as Tasurt. Yet even in Leo's day
the place must have been well known, from the pilgrims resorting
to this shrine,
Domegador, which appears on Hondius' ma.\y of 1608 as the name of
Mogador Island, appears to have been familiar at that period. Indeed,
as early as 1604 John Smith, of Virginia, made a voyage to " Santa
Cruze {Agadtr), Cape Goa {Ghir)^ and Magadore", and in documents
of 1660 " Mogator" is repeatedly referred to as a place of trade. In
1644 the Touraine Capuchin Fathers mention that there was a port
on Mog^ador Island, and that sixteen years before that date Abdel
Malik II had intended employing the Christian slaves to erect fortifi-
cations around the bay. Charant {Lettrc ccriitc, etc., p. 202) calls it
" Mongador", which in the English translation (1671) becomes
NOTES TO BOOK II. 339
" Mogatoz". This so-called " Portuguese Fort" was, some local
scepticism notwithstanding, actually erected by the Portuguese, not to
hold the place, but to protect their traders who called in here, or to
keep up the communication between Safifi and Agadir. De Faria y
Sousa expressly mentions that the fort was erected by Diego de
Azambujo in 1505; " Este propio aiio con que vamos prosiguiendo,
mando el Rey levantar en frente de la Isla de Mogador el Castillo
que se llamo Real. Executolo Diego de Azambujo A pesar de mucha
resistencia de Mores que concurrieron para estorvar la prosecucion desta
fabrica." This passage has been strangely overlooked. At all events
the omission of any reference to Mogador in Leo's account is curious,
even though there was no European settlement there at the time he
wrote. — Renou, Exp. scimtifique de PAlgc'rie, t. viii, pp. 47-51 ;
Brown, Appendix to Pdloids Adventures^ pp. 366-368 ; Hist, de la
Mission dcs frcrcs capiicins de la proviitce de Touraine, au royaiiuie
de Maroc en Afrique (1644), pp. 222, 270 ; De Faria y Sousa, Africa
Portiigesa (1681), p. 76.
(36) Idevacal, in the original : the mountainous district of Berber
people called Idau Bakil, the Ida-ou-Baagil of Foucauld's Reconnais-
sance au Maroc, p. 342. This great tribe of the Idau Bakil, at one
time almost independent, was forced to submit to the Sultan Mulai el
Hasan, during his punitive expedition in 1882, and was placed with
several others under the Kaidate of Hadj Tahar, son of Sidi el Hosein,
the "Saint" of Tazerualt. They are rich in horses, and from the
number of picturesque little castles scattered over these mountains?
are still powerful for evil. They lead a sedentary life, and speak the
"Tamazul" dialect of the Shelluh division of Berbers. In manners*
dress, etc., Leo's description applies almost precisely to the present
day. The " Keshshaba" of " Khent", or blue cotton (imported from
England mostly, in imitation of a much better and dearer stuff from
the Sahara), supplies the place of a shirt. It is not stitched, the sheet
being knotted at the corners, and the sides remaining open. By wild
goats {capriuoli) the wild sheep or aoudad is meant : hares {Icpri)
are rabbits, and deer {cervi) Barbary stags, no longer common. The
walnut grows to great perfection, and is carefully protected by the
Berbers on the Atlas and its spurs.
(37) The Tenzera of Marmol. The only other mention of the
mountain by this name is in De Mairault's Rclatio7i de ce qui s'cst
passe dans le Royaunie de Maroc depuis Panne'e 1727 jusqu'en 1730
(1742), pp. 178, 183, in which it is told how the Sheriff 'Abd-Allah, in
the month of August 1730, defeated the revolted natives in the
province of Haha, five leagues from the " Mountain of Tenzera".
Even in Leo's day it seems to have been an unimportant locality
Y 2
340 NOTES TO BOOK II.
having no " Kasbahs" or fortified places. Still, in 1730, 'Abd Allah
and his black troops had no easy task in their attack upon what Ue
Mairault loosely terms " les Alarbes", and the wealth of the latter is
shown by the booty of 6,000 horses, 800 camels, 12,000 oxen, and a
great number of sheep, which the victors carried off or destroyed. In-
deed, from the manner in which Haha was at that date laid waste it is
not remarkable that so many places have now been effaced.
The statement that the streams from this mountain flow into the
Sheshawa (Siffaia), a tributary of the Tensift, at once shows that they
are in the basin of that Haha river, and flow from the western spur
of the Atlas which divides Sus from Haha, and reaches the sea at
Agadir.
It is, however, almost certain that people of that neighbourhood do
not nowadays know any mountain by that name near the Bibauan
pass, in the vicinity of which it must have been often crossed.
The statement that many Karaite Jews live among the people
of the mountain as mercenary soldiers is remarkable. In the Sus
country and in many parts of the Atlas (Teleut for example) and
other portions of the " Blad es siba" which does not recognise the
authority of the Sultan (as distinguished from " Blad el makhsen"
the region under his control), the Jews are permitted to ride horses
and to bear arms under the supervision of their Berber or Arab
" owners" or protectors. But in the list of localities inhabited by the
Morocco Jews drawn up by De Foucauld, there is no place in the
Tensift Basin at all like Demensera or Tenzera. However, the spot
where the Wad Tefnut arises in the Great Atlas is called Tenzer (the
Nostrils), and it is not unlikely that the two places are, if not identical,
of the same name, though Leo evidently takes Demensera to express
a large area.
"Nell' anno nove cento venti", the year of the Hegira being under-
stood. But the "yeere of our Lord 1520" is, as usual, an interpolation
of Florianus translated by Pory, and, as usual, is erroneous, a.d. 15 14
being the probable equivalent of a.h. 920, according to the month in
which it began. In some of the Italian editions these equivalents are
given, but they are all omitted in the 1837 reprint. In 1520 Leo was
captured by the pirates of Ujerba.
(38) " Gebeleadi", in the original Italian, Gebelethadih, a clump
of hills, still known as " the iron mountain", though really a range, the
few people who inhabit it being the Regraga or Rekrek Berbers, of
the Musnudi stock. It is in the Takat district, and is about 2,470 feet
in height, rising abruptly from the plain of Akkermut. There are
still plentiful traces of the hydrous oxide of iron from which the
mountain derives its name ; having been rudely mined by races who
lived possibly before the Arab invasion, though at present it pays
NOTES TO BOOK II. 34 T
better to buy metal from the European merchants. Even in Leo's
day the mines do not seem to have been worked. The summit is
crowned by a Kubba, or domed tomb, of Sidi Yakub, probably the
same which Arlett calls that of " Sidi-Wasman", and Renou, " retablie,
d'apres M. Delaporte en Sidi-'Otman". But the " Hermites" (roinifi),
like the population generally, are no longer in evidence. The people,
indeed, seem to have been driven away, killed in raids, or absorbed
into the races surrounding them. Mohammed Ebn-Said's campaign
of which Leo speaks was in 15 16, not in 15 12, which is an erroneous
addition to the text by Florianus and Pory. — Thomson, Tra^'els, etc.)
pp. 99-106 ; Hooker and Ball, Tour, etc., p. 313.
(39) Massa, or Messa, one of the oldest settlements in Morocco, is
still in existence in a condition between dormancy and death ; though
in reality consisting of nine contiguous villages, instead of three as in
Leo's day. The principal of these is Arbalu, or Aghbalu ; but the
river, near the mouth of which these villages are situated, is now
almost drifted up with sand, so that for ages no ships have visited the
place, and the fields and gardens, which under irrigation yield good
crops, are only kept from a similar fate by the thick thorn fences and
walls around them.
Leo, however, blundered in describing Messa as on the River Sus,
instead of between Agadir and Aglu, nearly twenty-five miles further
south on the north side of a smaller river, the Wad Ulrass, or more
correctly, Wad el-Ghas. This mistake of Leo's has, until very
recently, been perpetuated on a number of maps, with a variety of
forms of the river's name, for which the earlier copyists are responsible.
Thus in the Pizzigani map of 1367, the embouchure of the river is
indicated as the Alvet-Sus, a corruption, most probably, of the real
name, and on other maps it appears as Albetsus, Alberful, etc., until
altered beyond recognition, it began, after Leo's day, a fresh lease of life
as the Sus, though Sanson, while accepting Leo as his authority for
the course of the Sus, places it a little further north at a point which
he calls Albetsusa, a Latinisation of the Albetsus or Alvetsus of
the ancient maps. In 1781 the River " Suz" is placed in its true
position and under its right name on Borda's Chart, and Davidson
traced it for some distance through the district of " Stouka" (the
name of a tribe) described by Marmol as "Estuque", and in more
recent times by Venture and Riley, and Foucauld, as Chtouka.
Jackson (who visited " Shtuka"), was, however, the first to point
out (181 1) Leo's mistake, though he continues to call the river the
Messa, a practice followed, so far as the lower portion of it is con-
cerned, by Paul Schnell in his excellent though sometimes, so
far as discriminating between authorities is concerned, rather com-
promising map. Davidson obtained, in 1835, its true name, which he
342 NOTES TO BOOK II.
spells "wholgrass", thus correcting Bordas' further mistake of putting
"Macas"' on the "River Ana". Yet as late as i860 Beaudon's map
shows " Masse" on the south side of the Anaka— the Anaka being
further south. Renou, on Delaporte's information, speaks of the
" Quad Ouelras" (the " Oulghav" of Venture) as one of the principal
tributaries of the Messa. However, Edrisi refers to the Wad
Messa, and to the port of Meset, and Marmol mentions that
the place was sometimes known by its Berber name of Temest.
The same historian calls the " temple" (mosque) of Massa " Rabita",
diminutive of Rabat, a sanctuary or place of refuge. One of the
latest blunders is on the map of Graberg de Hemso, where " Guer-
tessen", a corruption of Garguenem, which is Santa Cruz, or Agadir,
is placed at the mouth of the Messa, though, in his text, the
author shows himself perfectly acquainted with the various names
apphed to the town in question. When Jackson visited Messa nearly
a century ago, he found, as at the present day, the cultivators irri-
gating their fields by canals from the river. But the river was no
longer navigable as in the period when the Portuguese had a settle-
ment here, a sand bar separating it at low tide entirely from the
ocean, though at high water it w^as not navigable. The river valley,
inhabited by the Massa or Mast tribe, a branch of the Ait Ulrass, is
very fruitful, though to this day, as Leo notes, their dates are held in
little esteem.
The belief that the Mosaic and Moslem Prophet Jonah (Yunas)
was vomited out of the whale near Messa, or, at all events, on the Sus
Coast, was current at the time of Jackson's visit, and is still repeated.
The Persians, however, declare that this event took place at Yunsi,
in the Desert of Khurasan, at that time covered with the sea. The
Koran has many passages on the miracle of Yunas (Goldsmid, Proc.
Roy. Geog. Soc, October 1890, p. 589). Until lately a pair of gigantic
lower jaw bones of a whale were erected at Messa in the form of an
arch, and pointed out as those of the identical " fish thrown on shore
with the man called Jonah in its belly". Spermaceti whales are
frequently stranded along this sandy coast, or cast up on it dead, and
large lumps of ambergris are picked up by the natives, and sold in
Mogador to the wealthy Moors, who are fond of flavouring their green
tea with it. It is called El Amber, and is held in esteem as an aphro-
disiac—Cf, The Voyage of FraiK^ois Leguat (Hakluyt Society),
vol. i, pp. 87-152.
X' The gold and silver mines which Jackson hints at as being in the
{ vicinity of Messa are doubtful. His etymology of Segelmessa as being
\ Sijn-Messa, " the prison of Messa", because the State prisoners of
Morocco were anciently sent to Segelmessa, is ingenious, as they are
still banished to Tafilet, which replaced it. But it is a trifle unintelli-
gible so far as Messa is concerned ; or it could never have been so
NOTES TO BOOK IT. 343
important a place as to have prisoners enough to send into the in-
terior, unless, indeed, the State prisoners were taken by sea to Messa,
and thence sent by a safer and shorter road to their destination. The
history of the Portuguese, indeed of any European connection with
Messa, is very obscure. The people still have traditions of " the
Christians leaving" : but as to what were their relations to the place,
or when they ceased to frequent or live in the place, the Portuguese
records afford little if any information. — Jackson, A?t Account of
Tinibuctoo and Housa, etc., pp. 145-146 ; An Accoujtt of Morocco,
pp. 9, 125 ; Renou, Expl. Scientifiqice de FAlgerie, vol. viii, pp. 58-
60 ; Erckmann, Le Maroc Moderne, p. 55.
Mr. R. L. Johnston, H.M. Vice-Consul in Mogador, visited Messa
in 1892, but does not seem to have been aware that it had in former
days been a port frequented by Europeans. He refers to a once
"populous settlement still partially inhabited" on the right of the
entrance into the river, and to many extensive villages now more or
less deserted. — Moorish Lotus Leaves, pp. 212-215.
(40) This place Renou imagines to be the same as that mentioned
as Teseut or Techeut by Marmol. Finding that a village on the Sus
River was reported to be called Tichout, he jumps to the conclusion
that the latter was identical with the former. He even speculates
whether it might not be the Tergunt of Marmol or the Tuet of
Diego de Torres. This is, however, impossible. For Tiguiut, of
which in De Atarde's time a Genoese renegade was Governor
(Marmol, L'Afrique, vol. i, p. 446), is in Haha, so that it is more
probably the Haha Teijut already discussed, while the Tuit of
Diego de Torres is even more problematical. But we now know
the course of the Sus tolerably minutely, and can say for certain that
if there is any " Tehout" near that river, it is a mere village of no
consequence. What Leo describes is Sus Teijut, then a considerable
commercial centre. Renou's identification must therefore be dis-
missed. Vivien de St. Martin is more ingenious. Finding that
Ptolemy names six towns (Antolala, Tagoena, Thuilath, Magura,
Ubrir, Tarzitha), he is inclined to believe that Thuilath may be Leo's
Teculet, Magura Amager, a former centre of the Masmudi, which
Marmol describes as existing between Mogador and Agadir (vol. ii,
p. 22), that Tarzitha is Tezekht, and that Tezekht is near the left
bank of the Sus, and that Atlahe is unquestionably the Teijut of
Leo (Ibn Khaldun, Hist, des Berbers, t. ii, pp. 256-277, etc., and
t. i, p. cxii ; Memoires de la Soc. de Geog. de Paris, t. vii, p. 221).
Finally, he ofTers the hypothesis whether Ajitolala has not some
connection with the old Antolales i^Le Nord de lAfrique dans fanti-
quite, p. 373).
I know of no place called " Tezekht" near the Sus River, or any-
344 NOTES TO BOOK II.
where else. But there is Tizuit south-east of Aglu, the furthest point
reached in Mulai El Hassan's hunting expedition in 1882. The
identification of it with the Sus Teijut is not very satisfactory. For it
is a comparatively small place in itself, and not in the position as-
signed to it by Leo, though one of several large villages, thus agreeing
with Leo's description. But the place was formerly fortified, and the
Sultan built a castle (Kasbah) to overawe the turbulent inhabitants,
whose character will readily enough bear out the reputation of the
old Teijutees.
Leo, it will be noticed, does not say that his Teijut is " on", but " not
far from" the Sus, and it must be remembered that he considered the
Wad Ulass, or Messa River, from which Tizuit is not fai', as a branch
of the Sus. Still it is not anything like so important a town
as Temdant, though all these places have, in the course of four
centuries, been greatly altered. But unless Tizuit is accepted, 1 do
not see any other claimant for the representation of Teijut which has
more in its support. In any case, Leo has either transliterated the
actual word wrongly, or his editor has made some mistake in
deciphering his cheirography, since the place in Haha and the one in
Sus cannot, for reasons already mentioned, have been spelt exactly
the same, and yet have borne different names.
By " Sus", where a measure of oil is sold for "quindici ducati il
cantaro", Leo must mean in the towns on the Sus river ; for Sus is a
province in which Teijut is situated.
" Morocco" leather is still made in great quantities from goat skins,
chiefly for slippers, and dyed pink, yellow, and other colours. But
though it is excellent in its softness, little is exported, the Morocco of
Europe being preferable for the purposes to which it is applied.
" Burghmasters" — geutiliiomini in the original Italian.
The valley of the Sus River is one of the great Jewish countries in
Morocco, but there are not many in the " Sahel", where Tizuit is
situated, though some seventy or eighty families still find a profit out
of the trade of Tizuit, Tazeruall, and the vicinity.
It is doubtful whether the Tehiiiern, or perhaps Teiutiiin or Teiutin
of Edrisi, a place situated in Sus al Aksa, is Leo's Teijeut (Hartmann,
Edrisi Africa^ pp. 140-42). But there is nothing inherently against
the suggestion.
(41) Tarudant is a well-known town, and one of the most ancient in
Morocco, though now so fanatical that it is perilous for an unprotected
European to visit it. But it enjoys little of its old prosperity, the
closing of Agadir, two days' journey distant, having almost put an end
to its commerce and industry. The walls, about 3I statute miles in
circuit, are now in a very dilapidated condition, and many of the
houses inside them are uninhabited. Altogether, according to Captain
NOTES TO HOOK If. 345
Erckmann, the chief of the French Mihtary Commission, who visited it
in 1882 with the Sus Expedition of Mulai el Hassan, it may have a
stationary population of six or seven thousand. Most of these are
Shillah Berbers, who swagger through the dirty lanes armed to the
teeth, staring at every stranger with a ferocious glare. Black barley
cakes is almost the only bread used, and the food supplies, if plentiful,
are not luxurious. The town is, however, environed with groves of
olives, oranges, dates, almonds, palms, and other fruits, and in some of
the little shops Morocco goods are for sale. In the small " Mellah", or
Jews' quarter there, most of the houses are falling into decay ; some
petty trade is done with the greatest care not to suggest wealth on the
part of the oppressed traders, and even the Kasbah palace is fast
falling into ruins. The Sultan is represented by a Kaid; but so slight
is his power, or desire to exercise it, that assassinations in full daylight
in the open street, are quite common, and are seldom, if the murderer
has friends or money, visited with any more immediate punishment
than the vengeance of the victim's relatives. From that there is no
escape, unless the murdered man happens to be an unprotected Jew,
or, it may be, a wandering Christian, whose king has not an arm long
enough to reach the feeble Lord of Maghreb al-Aksa. The Sus river
flows near the town, and it is said that rings can still be seen to which,
previous to the fourteenth century, ships which had navigated the
river for forty miles from the sea were moored. If so, this is no longer
possible : indeed, in summer, it is almost dry. Apart from the fact of
the water in it being drained off for irrigating purposes, the country
seems to be getting more arid, and the streams more choked up
by shallower silt. Near the town is the country of the Uled-el-halluf
(Children of the Wild Boar), so called from their untameable savagery.
Sugar cane (Lukseb;, which in the sixteenth century brought such
wealth to Tarudant, is not now cultivated, but it grows in places
spontaneously. Rich copper ores, gold and antimony, have been
brought from the vicinity of the town. Nickel, also, is said to be
plentiful in the neighbouring Atlas, and at Gondolfi (Gondafy?), not
far from the source of the Sus, is a rich vein of silver. The late Abdul
Kerim Grant (a Scotch renegade, and perhaps the last Briton who was)
succeeded in reaching it in 1877, and bringing back rich specimens.
His companion. Captain Robertson, was imprisoned, and died soon
after his return from the effects of poison. The mine is in the territory
of the Shaikh Hassan Amr, who is independent of the Sultan. —
Erckmann, Le Maroc, pp. 52-54 ; De Campon, Un Empire qui croule,
p. 250.
(42) Gartguessem seems to have been one of the names applied in
Leo's day to Agadir-Igir, which again received from the Portuguese
the title of Santa Cruz, a designation now almost forgotten. Agadir
34^ ■ NOTES TO BOOK TI.
is from a Berber word signifying the wall ; and is a common name in
Morocco. The original Agadir was, however, the miserable fishing
village of Fonte, on the sea-shore, the nucleus of the picturesque town
on the hill above being the wooden shelter which the Portuguese
merchant or " senhor" built towards the end of the fifteenth century
for the protection of the fishermen and traders. This building, named
Santa Cruz by the founders, was called Tiguimmi-Roummi (or the
Christian house) by the Berbers, and Dar-Roumiya by the Arabs,
which means exactly the same. Sometime later Manoel, the For-
tunate, King of Portugal, built a little port here, which kept the name
of Santa Cruz, or Santa Cruz de Barbaria. This is what Leo refers to
when he says that " about twentie yeeres sithens" (that is, from the
time he was there — say 1500) " the Portuguese surprised" the place.
Fonti, or Fonte, is a Portuguese word, but the Berber name is
Aguram, Fonte being evidently derived from the spray or fountain,
still protected by a domed building, on which are the Portuguese
arms.
The etymology of Garguessem is not clear. It was probably the
original name of the native village, and may be connected with the
Berber Gar, a place, or some derivation of Aguram. Most localities
in Morocco have more than one name : many half-a-dozen. Agadir-
n-Igir is the wall or strong place of " the elbow", that is, of the cape
— the cape in question being the Gher, Ghar, Guer, or Aguer, of
charts. But the Arab name is Ras-Afourni, which has got corrupted
into Aferni, Fernit, Feme, Ras-Aferne, Afarnie, etc., on different maps
(cf Renou, Expl. Scient. de VAlgerie, vol. viii, pp. 36-38).
This variety of names for Agadir has puzzled map makers, Santa
Cruz being put at one place and Garguessem (in endless variations) in
another. After acquiring possession of Santa Cruz, the King fortified
it so that the place was able to resist all attacks upon it until 1536. But
in that year the Sheriff Mulai Mohammed el Arrani, aided by a Genoese
renegade, named Numen, besieged it with an army of — it is recorded —
50,000 men, and, after a stout defence by the garrison, captured it
by mining the walls with gunpowder. Among the prisoners taken,
and either massacred or enslaved, was the Commandant, Gutierre de
Monroi, of whose beautiful daughter Mencia, the Sheriff became so
enamoured that, without, so it is said, requiring her to adjure Chris-
tianity, he married her. The lady and her child died about a year
later, being supposed, as Diego de Torres tells us, to have been
poisoned by some of the other jealous inmates of Mulai Mohammed's
harem. But so affectionately did her lord remember his Portuguese
wife, that he never permitted a day to pass without laying fresh flowers
on the tomb of the hapless Mencia de Monroi. — Diego de Torres,
Istoria de los Xarifes, pp. 109, 112, 142, 467.
After this the place, under the name of Agadir, remained in the
NOTES TO BOOK 11. 347
Sultan's hands, and for many years was the entrepot of an extensive
trade with Timbuctoo and the Sudan, the port being the best in
Morocco, and the natural outlet for the rich province of Sus. This
fact, however, aroused the jealousy of the Sultan. The people were
too wealthy, and obtained arms and ammunition too easily. Accord-
ingly Sidi Mohammed in 1773 resolved to close the port to foreign
trade — which meant all shipping — and after some trouble with a
refractory Governor (who declined to surrender the fortress) ordered
the European merchants to take up their quarters in the new
town of Mogadon This was done, and since then, with the exception
of a short time when the port was specially opened to the Dutch,
Agadir has sunk deeper and deeper into decay until at present
there are only a few hundred people in the place, who eke out a poor
livelihood by carrying freight to or from Mogador and Tarudant, by
catching the fish with which the bay swarms, or in smuggling. Over
the doorways may be seen inscriptions in Dutch and other languages,
indicating the European mercantile houses, and on two old Portu-
guese guns, which lumber the ramparts, may be read, " Maria et
Petrus III reges", with the Royal escutcheon and the date, 1782,
showing that they had been imported after the place passed into
Moorish hands. Above the entrance-gate of the town is cut the
emblem of the Sacred Heart, surmounted by a cross and the letters
" S. C". There is a good view of the place in Host's Efterretninger
(1779)5 tab. ii ; but the author is wrong in dating the close of the
Portuguese rule in 1580.
(43) Here a clause is omitted — " siccome nelle abbreviazione nostre
habbiamo detto" (as we have given in our Abbreviation), the "Abbrevia-
tion" meaning, no doubt, not that history of Mohammedan affairs to
which Leo so frequently refers, but to a summary which, if ever
written, has been lost.
(44) Tedsi has long been a snare to the map makers. Jackson,
finding a small river reaching the sea a few miles south of Tegrevelt
and Cape Ossim under the name of Tidsi, hastily concluded that this
was " where the ancient city of Tidsi formerly stood ", an impossibility
in so far that Leo expressly says it is 60 miles from the Atlantic.
Possibly, some vague recollection of Tafelane was running in Jackson's
mind. Graberg, indeed, places the vanished town on the north side
of the " Iguzal or Tidsi", though in his text (p. 63) he puts it near " un
ramo grosso del fiume Sus", in deliberate contradiction of what Leo
says about its distance from that river, and not being on any river at
all. In reality, the place is found exactly where Leo indicated it, in
the shape of three large villages, which are often the " cities" of Leo.
Tidsi, which gives the name to this district of the Sus Sahel, can
34^ NOTES TO BOOK II.
furnish 300 markets, and El Korba 200, while Umsediklit is 700 strong'.
The three villages lie close together, and might originally have been
quarters of one town. Tidsi is governed by a single Sheikh, who, at
the time of De Foucauld's visit, was a Marabout or " Saint" named
Sidi el Hanafi, though in a way it recognises the Sultan by the
hereditary Sheikh sending every year some tribute to Tarudant.
There are not now many Jews in this district, a sure test of the
decadence of this once flourishing centre. Nor is sugar any longer a
crop, a fact which may account for its desertion by the Israelites, the
extraction and refining of sugar being, in the palmy days of that
source of wealth, largely in their hands. JJut a market of great
Importance, the Khemis Tidsi, is still held in Tidsi, which is sometimes
called Ez Zauia, because it is the Zauia, or sanctuary, which is the
Sheikh's residence. The land is, however, fertile, wheat, barley,
maize, lentils, and olives being grown. There is no river in the
district, the soil being irrigated from the numerous springs which
arise from the foot-hills of the Atlas ; but the village lies on a plain,
and is inhabited almost entirely by Shillah Berbers, who speak the
Tamazirt dialect. In the sixteenth century it had for one of its rulers
the renegade Genoese Yahia, or Mohammed-el-Euldj. In a letter of
Mulai Mohammed, son of Mulai Zeidan {cir. 1620), Tidsi is referred
to as " one of the Ksors of the Wad Dra", so that before this period it
must have dropped out of notice. For in a.h. 918 (a.d. i 512-13) the
Sheriff had his abode there, and obtained the allegiance of the place
for his eldest son, Abd-el-Kebir {Noz/iet Elliddi, pp. 15, 32, 33).
(45) Tagavost is the Tagoast of Marmol, who calls it "the greatest
town of the province of Sus", from the termination of which it is
eight days' travel. M. Renou believed that he had re-discovered the
place in " Tarabust". But beyond M. Delaporte's notes, I am not
aware of any other mention of it. There is, however, a village on the
Sus basin called Tagoast, which may have been the remnants of what
was, in Leo's day, a large Berber town, though it is quite certain that
no place of the size described by Leo exists in the Sus valley nowadays.
Marmol's position and Leo's differ much. The continual civil wars
of the population no doubt account for the place being now broken up
into several villages. For 15 10 a.d. read 15 13, and the equivalent of
A.H. 919.
(46) This, if not a mistake of Leo or his editor, cannot now be
identified. For though the position is minutely given, I cannot
ascertain that, on the numerous spurs of the Atlas, there is any name
which corresponds to Hanchisa or Anchisa. Diego de Torres does
not mention it in his narrative of the Sheriffs exploits. Evidently
it must be looked for in the Tizen-Ibergagen, and the neighbouring
NOTES TO P.OOK If. 349
hills, inhabited by Uled lahia and other fierce tribes whom the
Sheriff's found it impossible to subdue.
(47) This refers to one of the strongholds of the Ilalem people, the
most numerous of all the Tamazirt-speaking Berbers, and who, under
various forms, have already been noticed. The reference to silver
mines is interesting. Jackson mentions silver in the vicinity of Messa,
though rather unintelligibly, and says that at Msegina, near Agadir,
there is a mine which was probably worked by the Portuguese. At
" Elala", and Shtuka in Sus, he also notes the existence of a rich silver
mine. " But being situated between two clans, they are continually
fighting about it, and by this means both parties are deprived of the
benefits it offers. I have purchased lumps of the silver, which has
been refined by the natives, and it was more pure than the silver of
Spanish dollars." The "Elela" is evidently the same as Leo's " Ilalem".
(48) Renou is convinced that " Elgiumuha citta della sopradetta
regione", on the River " Sesseua", Sheshawa, Sevsava, Cheiuchava,
Schouchaoua, Seinsciaua, or Chouchaoua, to give it a few of its various
orthographies, is only El Djama, the Mosque, though he does not
explain why he thinks so. " Muachidin" is Muahhedin, " believer
in the Unity of God'", corrupted into Almohades. But it is quite
different from Elgihumuha, the Gemaa-el-Carvar, z>., in more literary
Arabic, Jami (Djami)— K'aruach, the Berber village of 'Ain-Garuach
(Marmol, L'Afrique, vol. ii, p. 205). It lay on the caravan route from
Fez to Larach, and was destroyed in the wars of the Said. Leo's
" Elgihumuaha" on the Sheshawa, " a towne of Maroco", which in
his day was almost effaced, is, if El Guima, very problematical.
Possibly Sok Djama may be the site.
(49) Or Umegiaque. Perhaps Imagheren.
(50) This little Berber mountain town has not been identified. The
"river of Afifnuall" is the Wad-Arif-el-Mel. Is it not Tenin ez Za.^
(51) According to Leo, this town is called " New Delgumuha", having
perhaps been built to take the place of the other Gihumuha (Elgi-
humuha). If the name is put into Arabic, it is Gemaa-Jided (Djami'
Djedid), the new mosque. Delgumuha appears simply as a corruption
of this — possibly a misprint of the abbreviation — " Djo' gemaa".
There are, however, so many little places in Morocco named from
this mosque, that " Djama", as a name, has really little significance.
Thus there are Djama Amerri, Djama Amzou, Djama Tinzut, Djami
Tizeigat, Djama Huara, etc., all mere tribal hamlets or castellated
" Ksors" : they are like " church towns" in Cornwall. But from the
350 NOTES TO BOOK II.
Asif-el-mel (" boiling river") arising below the town, we are able to
determine Delgumuha approximately, if not actually, as the modern
Marossa, where, at a height of more than 3,000 feet, the river boils
along in a deep gorge or caiion. — Thomson, Travels^ p. 323.
(52) This is Amsmes or Amsmez (variously spelt Imzmizi, Amizimizi,
Imesimis, or Almishmish), a large village of about 2,000 people, a con-
siderable proportion of which are Jews, lying on the northern slope of
the Great Atlas at a height of more than 3,000 feet above the sea, and
at some elevation above the place which Leo mentions. The Wad
Amsmes issues from the mountains, in the shape of a torrent, just
below the town. Thomson {Travels, p. 282) has given a photograph
of Amsmes. Marniol calls the mountain on the eastern extremity of
which " Imesimis" is built, Guidimiva (Gedmeva). Cf. note 50.
Burris of Leo, Barrix of Marmol, is, perhaps, Bu-Rich, the
" Father of Feathers" (Renou, Expl. Scicntifiquc de PAlgcrie, t. viii,
P- 193)-
(53) The Tamdegort of Marmol (^LAfriqiie, t. ii, p. 50). The name
exists in Tamesloht, near the Wad Basha, between Agadir ben Selam
and Marakesh, though the actual remains of the three villages ought
to be sought near Fouga. In Leo's day the " townes", as he calls
the wretched villages not containing over 60 or ']o people, seem to
have paid tribute to Portugal, and, in spite of what Leo affirms, we have
the authority of Marmol for saying that at times they were so bled by
the Arabs and the " King of Fez", that they deserted their villages
until, under the protection of the Sheriffs, they returned.
(54) " My deer friend Sidi lehie" was a native chief who had the
Arabs and Berbers of the coast-lying country so completely at his
service that, it is said, he could bring 5,000 horsemen and 100,000 foot
into the field. He was a vassal of Portugal, a bitter enemy of the
Sheriffs, and a warm friend of Nuno Fernandez d'Ataide, the governor
of Safifi, for whom, and the Portuguese, Yahia performed splendid
services, penetrating with the expedition to Marakesh and sticking
his lance in its principal gate. Considering what Leo tells us of the
extent of the Portuguese power in that region, this audacity is not
remarkable. Ataide and Yahia failed, however, in their design on
Marakesh, being unable to force its defences, and were pursued by
the Sheriffs for a long distance from the walls.
Yahia, in spite of his services, was scurvily treated by Portugal.
After the death of Nuiio Fernandez d'Ataide, his successor, Nuiio de
Mascareiias, became jealous of Yahia in his new dignity of Captain-
General, and probably secured his assassination, in 15 17, by two Arabs
of the Ulad-'Omran. The Sheriffs, being the chief gainers by the
dastardly act, were suspected of employing the murderers.
NOTES TO BOOK II. 35 1
(55) Tesrast or Tazarot, on the Asif-el-Mel, cannot be satisfac-
torily identified with any modern place. In Leo's day it was so badly
placed by reason of floods and Arab marauders that most likely the
harassed Berbers deserted it soon after.
(56) " La gran citta di Marocco" — in the 1613 edition misprinted
"Marocoo": Marakesh, or Maraksh (spelt in various ways) is the
native name, and the one almost universally used by European
residents in Morocco. Most likely the French Maroc, the German
Marokko, the Spanish Marruecos, the Danish Marokos, and so forth
are all corruptions of Marakesh, which Leo does not mention as the
native name, but calls the city by the Italian Marocco ; though,
according to Burton {Arabian Nig/iis, Supp., vol. ii, p. 252), the
earliest form of it is " Marakiyah", mentioned in Al-Mas'udi (vol. iii,
p. 241), as applied to a district whither the Berbers emigrated. Some
recent authors insist that the English corruption of Motocco should be
displaced by Morocco. But the latter is not less a corruption than the
former. Morocco city was founded (a.h. 454, a.d. 1062-3) by the
Almoravide, Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, whose capital previous to this was
Aghmat. This date is sometimes given as 1072 a.d. His son,
Ali Ibn Yusuf, continued the building which his father had begun
by laying the foundation of a mosque, and a castle in which to
keep his treasures. Ali surrounded it with a stone wall, and it was
increased by his successors, but not completed until the reign of
Abu Yusuf Yakub (El Mansur), grandson of Abdu-1-Mumenu, in the
year A.H. 585 (a.d. 1189-90), when it became the capital.
In a MS. history of Morocco, quoted by Gayangos, and erroneously
ascribed to Ibn Batuta (the work being dated at a period when Ibn
Batuta was 92), the foundation is ascribed to Abu Bekr Ibn Omar, the
first of the Almoravides, and the father of Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, who
reigned from a.d. 1061 (a.h. 453)10 A.D. 1 106 (a.h. 500). This city
he called " Morekosh" (a form also used in the Karbas, and by Ibn
Khaldun), and says that the site of it was known from time immemorial
as the " Plain of Morekosh", and was in the hands of the Berber
tribe of Masmuda, from whom the ground was purchased.
Ptolemy knew the Plain of Morocco as Hvpphi Uib'iov, which Mannest
thinks means "the plain in flames", from the inhabitants being all
charcoal burners. In reality, the name in Arabic (Bahret el-Hamra)
means exactly what it does in Greek, viz., the grand, dry, reddish
plain, which stretches to the west of Morekesh, between the Atlas and
the Tensift. But there are no grounds for looking for a Roman city
anywhere in this quarter, far less for the Bocanum Hemerum as the
predecessors of the city of Yusuf Ibn Tashfin. The " very ancient
city named Ta Maroc", which Keating speaks of as on the Um-er-Rbia,
is not known to me, nor do I know his sources of information. —
352 NOTES TO BOOK II.
Gayangos, History of the Mohaiinncdan Dynasties of Spain (trans,
from Al-Makkari), vol. i, pp. 349 and App. L and ill ; Conde, Hist, de
la Dominacion de los Arabes en Espana, etc., vol. ii, pp. 384-409,
ct passim J Tissot ; Keating's Travels in Europe and Africa, vol. i,
pp. 239-280 ; Roudh el Kartas (Beaumier's ed.. pp. 194-5).
(57) '' Hali, son of Joseph", is .^.H Ibn Yusuf (a.d. 1106-1142-3,
A.H. 500-537). "The King of the Tribe of Lumtana" (Lemtuna) must
mean Yusuf Ibn Tashfin. " Elbnuachedin" is Abd-el-Mumenin, com-
monly called El-Movahhidi ; but he was not Yusuf's immediate suc-
cessor, but a sovereign of another (Almohade) dynasty (a.d. 1130).
The " temple of Hali ben Joseph" is still called the " Djami Sidi
Yusuf". " The second usurper over the kingdome of Moroco" was
'Abd-el-Mumen, as El-Mahdi is not usually counted, but Abu-Yusuf-
Yakub-el-Mansur was not his nephew (nipote), but his grandson.
De Slane (and Godard following him), make out El Mansur to be the
son of Abd-el-Mumen. But the Roudh el Kartas (IJeaumier's Ed.,
pp. 303-4) is positive that he was the grandson, " The Emir of the
Musulmen, servant of Allah. Yakub ben Yusuf ben 'Abd-el-Mumen,
surnamed El Mansur bi Fadhl Allah (the victorious by the grace of
God), was the son of a negress who had been given to his father, and
he was born in the house of his grandfather, 'Abd-el-Mumen, at
Morocco, in the year 555. He was also surnamed Abu Yusuf".
(58) The mosque which he enlarged and decorated is El Kutubia,
with a tower built like the one near Rabat, after the style of the
Giralda in Seville, now so utterly ruined by the "restorer". Indeed, all
three were begun and finished by Yakub-el-Mansur, and tradition has
it, from the designs of the same architect. This artist's name is said
by Antonio Pans to have been Guever, " a Christian", though the
style of the buildings, almost identical, does not favour the supposition.
From the summit of the Lantern Tower (Sami el Fanar), Leo tells us
that Cape Cantin ("the promontone of Azaphi"), 130 miles distant,
can be seen, a statement copied by Chenier and Jackson, though it is
doubtful if either was ever within or at the top of the tower. It is
about 270 feet in height, and the only mosque tower in the city which
is built of stone, and, like the entire building, is substantially and even
tastefully constructed.
" Vespascan his Amphitheatrum" (Vespascani amphitheatrum" of
Florianus) is " il coliseo di Roma" in the original.
"An hundred elles" — " cento braccia di Toscano" in the original.
"The steeple of Bomonea" ("turrim ipsam Bomoniersem" of Floria-
nus) is in the original " torre degli Asenelli di Bologna" — the refer-
ence being to the leaning tower of the Asinella (274 feet high) in
Bologna, the ancient Bomonea.
NOTES TO BOOK II. 353
The passage to which Pory has added the note "obscurum", is in
the original : — " La scala per cui s'ascende, e piana, e larga nove
pahne : la grossezza del muro di fuori dieci ; e il masso della torre
t; grosso cinque." Actually the walls of this square tower are four
feet thick, and the ascent is not by stairs, but by a gradually winding
terrace, composed of lime and small stones, so firmly cemented to-
gether as to be nearly as hard as iron. — Jackson, Morocco^ p. 6i.
Jackson intends it to be inferred that he saw the interior, though his
description, like that of Chenier, has a strong likeness to that of
Leo. Christians and Jews are not permitted to enter any mosque in
Morocco. Most probably his descriptions are from hearsay, or are
as old as Leo. The three " golden" balls on the tower are sometimes
described as the " spheares of gold", around which so many romantic
legends have gathered.
The illiterate character of Marakesh three hundred years ago is
even more true nowadays. There is not only not a book shop in the
city, but, perhaps, not even a scholar.
(59) It is difficult to believe that the population of Marakesh has
not been grossly exaggerated, notwithstanding the decrease in the
population of the empire. Chenier doubted if it had more than
30,000 permanent citizens. But Jackson, less than half-a-century
later, rated them as 270,000, while Graberg, on even less data, put the
people at 50,000, including 4,000 Shillahs and 5,000 Jews. Erckmann
estimates the fixed population at less than that of Fez, and puts it at
55,000. But he was there only when the Sultan was in residence.
Most likely 30,000 is nearest the mark, though when the Sultan is
there the mouths to feed will run up to double that number. Even
now half the city is in ruins, and from what we know of it in the
seventeenth century, it is utterly impossible that it could then have
contained five or six hundred thousand people (^Relation du royawne
lie Maroc et dcs villcs qui en di'peiiden/y a MS., No. 778 of the French
MSS. in the " Bibliotheque de roi" cited by Hoefer, Empire dti Maroc,
P- 307).
(60) The date given by Leo (a.h. 424) for the foundation of Mara-
kesh seems erroneous. The Roudli el Kartas give A.H. 454 as the
year after Yusuf Ibn Tashfin began to reign.
Ali Ibn Yusuf began to reign in A.D. 1106 (a.h. 500) and his son
Tashfin Ibn Ali in A.D. 1 146-7 (a.h. 541).
(61) "This certain Mahumetan preacher" was Mohammed Ibn
Tumart El Mahdi, founder of the Almohade dynasty in a.h. 522
(a.d. 1 128), already referred to.
Tashfin Ibn Ali was slain at Gran in the struggle against 'the
Z
35 4 NOTES TO BOOK II.
Almohades (a.d. 1146-47, a.h. 541). His brother Ibrahim succeeded,
but was deposed for his incapacity. Ishak, son of Ali Ibn Yusuf, was
then called to power : but in return for opening the gates of Marakesh
to Abd-el-Mumen, was, with his followers, massacred by that ferocious
chief who succeeded his master, the Mahdi, Mohammed Ibn Tumart
(a.d. 1 174, A.H. 541). Versions, however, differ considerably, one
making Ishak the sovereign who committed suicide in so romantic a
manner — Solvet's ed. of Abidfeda, p. 149 ; Roudk el Karias, pp. 242-
288, as well as Ibn Khaldun and others, tell the tale of Tashfin Ibn Ali.
The redai in which he took asylum from the Almohades stood near
where Saint Clotide, on the route from Oran to Mess-el-Kebir, is
built, and the place where tradition declares the tragic act to have
occurred is still called Salto di Cavallo.
(62) The Beni Merini, or El-Merini, who removed the seat of
government to Fez, ruled from the death of Idris IV, in A.D. 1269
(A.H. 668), to A.D. 1470 (a.h. 875), when the El-Wated branch of the
Merinides (as they are usually called) succeeded, and reigned till
A.D. 1550 (a.h. 957). The authorities for the dates of these dynasties
are rather contradictory. Leo, for instance, gives the Almohades
rule from A.H. 516 till A.H. 668 ; Novairi, A.H. 514 till A.H. 668 ; the
author oi Nighearistan, .\.H. 524 till A.H. 686, which date some put at
A.H. 672 (a.d. 1273). Leo gives too short a period for the Beni-
Merini dynasty. — Solvet's Abiilfeda, p. 150 ; Ue Slane, Catalogue dcs
Manuscrits Arabes de la Bibliothcqiie Nationale, Paris (1883- 1889),
No. 1575-77 ; Encyc. d'Al-No7tiari {''^ Hist, des Almohades d'Espagne
et d'Afrique et de la conquete de la ville de Maroc"), etc.
(63) This again refers to his " meno Abbreviamento da noi fatto
nelle croniche maumettane".
(64) For the history of these golden or, more likely, gilt balls, see my
notes to T/ie Adi'enttcres of Thomas Pcllo7U (1891, pp. 340-342).
There is little probability that they were of gold, or that if they were
even superstition would have permitted them to remain so long.
Several other mosques have gilded balls, but the Kutubia is generally
regarded as the one with " the golden spheares", though that of
Sidi Yusuf puts in a claim. The doors of one of the mosques — of
which there are many — are covered with overlapping plates of brass.
According to a not very trustworthy tradition, these doors are the
gates of Seville.
(65) " Ezzuleia", or glazed tiles, a very tasteful and common mode
of decoration in Morocco.
(66) Leo's sarcasms on the Professors of Marakesh University are
those of a graduate of the rival seminary at Fez. Yet at one time the
NOTES To BOOK It. 355
learned men of the southern capital could very well compare with
those of the north.
The Palace is like all Moorish residences, in no way beautiful
without, but it has many fine rooms with Arabescjue painting and
plaster work, and differently coloured marbles. The gardens are
also pretty, with an artificial lake and pavilion. But the entire city
is decaying, and could not bear an hour's cannonade with the lightest
piece of artillery. The best plans of Marakesh are to be found in
Marcet, Lc Maroc^ voyage d^une mission fran^aise a la Cour dii Sultan
(1885), p. 100; Thomson, Travels^ etc., p. 351 ; Erckmann, Z^ il/rtr<?£r
Moderne, p. 38.
(67) This reference to Jews holding office must seem strange to
those who know the contempt with which they are now regarded.
Yet at one time this race monopolised certain lucrative offices, for
which their business capacity rendered them better suited than the
Emperor's Moslem subjects. Thus a Jew was, for many years, the
trusted agent of Mulai Abderrahman, in Gibraltar, and to this day there
are Tangier'Jews who are enjoying certain financial privileges con-
ferred by former Sultans on their ancestors. Under Mulai Mohammed,
Mulai Suleman, and other Sultans, they were the Custom House
officers and the invariable intermediaries between the Government of
Morocco and the European Powers. No embassy thought of pro-
ceeding to Fez or Morocco without a Jewish interpreter, who did
not fail to profit by his position by asking something for himself
without always acquainting the Envoy with the manner in which he
had used his name. Indeed, until very recently, nearly all the
European Consuls were Jews — and a few of the Vice-Consuls and
Consular Agents are still. Jews coined the money, and generally
acted as " the Sultan's merchants", as his business representatives
at the ports were called not inappropriately, as many of the Sultans —
the late Mulai el Hassan among the number — were not above doing a
lucrative piece of trade in grain or other commodity. In still earlier
days Jew scholars and physicians enjoyed much favour, though
by a succession of the illiterate Sultans, beginning with the Sheriffs
of the Fileli dynasty, learning was neglected. Shrewd Mulai Ismail
employed them as tax-gatherers in the coast-lying regions. What
between recognised perquisites, peculation, and usury, when a victim
was squeezed almost dry, and nothing but a gaol or beggary faced
him, they must have found these offices extremely lucrative. Every
year, as a bribe towards the continuance of his goodwill, they pre-
sented the Sultan with a saddle, the trees of which were covered with
gold plates, and the buckles, stirrups, and bridle furniture were of the
same metal — the whole costing upwards of twelve hundred pounds.
In those days the Jews were more numerous than at any subsequent
Z 2
356 NOTES TO BOOK II.
period, and money also seems to have been more plentiful. As
tribute they paid a hen and twelve chickens in gold, the whole
skilfully wrought with the feathers in flakes and shaded in coloured
marble. It is questionable if in those times so much gold could be
collected in the " Mellahs" (" places of salting", the Jewish Quarter,
so called because the Jews had to salt the heads of criminals before
they were fixed over the town gates), and it is certain that the art
capable of fashioning such a gift is lost. It will be curious to know
if any specimen exists in the Imperial Treasury? The intricacies of
the palace are beyond penetrating. But inquiries which I was
enabled to make on this and other subjects did not encourage the
belief that art in so precious a metal long escaped the Sheriffian
necessities — or avarice. — Chenier, Recherches historiques sur Ics
Maiires et historie dc Pe/iipire du Maroc, vol. iii, p. 248.
Jews have, indeed, been virtual, if not actual. Viziers to the more
enlightened, or less fanatical. Sultans. Even yet, what between
European protection and Moorish stupidity, the astute Hebrew
manages to prosper a great deal better than might be imagined, from
the not always undeserved contumely with which he is treated.
(68) " The Chancellors [Viziers] and Secretaries" is the less fantastic
rendering of this passage. The "five hundred Christians" in Said
El-Uatas' service is only in keeping with a period when military
adventurers — soldiers of fortune and broken men generally — hired
themselves to do anybody's fighting. Long after this period. Captain
John Smith of Virginia came to Marakesh in 1604, Dugald Dalgetty-
like, to seek " a turn" of mercenary employment with Abd el Aziz,
"understanding of the warres in Barbarie" {True Travels and
Adventures, etc., p. 34). At that time several free Englishmen were
living in the city, well treated by the Sultan. The Almoravides had
large numbers of" Christian" soldiers in their employment. Many of
them were, no doubt, Mozarabes, or Christianized Spanish Arabs, but
a large portion may have been masterless men of all nationalities.
Ali Ibn Yusuf always had a Christian guard, just as European
sovereigns had Moors and other foreigners in their employment, and
not improbably for the same reason. He could trust them better than
natives. His mother, Romaica, was of a Christian family, and
perhaps, for her sake, the Emir put her co-religionists into various
high places about the Court. " Hali delixit eos (Christianos) super
omnes homines orientales gentes suiie. Nam ciuosdam fecit cubicu-
lareos secreti sui, quosdam vero millenareos et quingentafeos et
centareos, qui pra^erant militie regni sui" {C/iron. Adelfonsi Imp.,
p. 360).
When Mocquet visited Merakesh in 1606, he found there Del 'Isle,
agent for Henry IV, acting as physician to the Sultan, and in the
NOTES TO BOOK II. 357
Mellah, where he lived, there were some Christians, and numbers
engaged in the Custom Houses (Fflyai;;cs en Afriquc^ Asia, etc.,
p. 140). Nowadays, I know of only one European — who is a
native of Gibraltar — in Marakesh.
(69) The Sultan has a menagerie at Fez. But the only elephant
seen in Morocco, within living memory, was the Indian one presented
to the late Mulai el Hassan by the Queen of England. The sculptures
spoken of do not seem to be now in existence.
In the year A.H. looi (a.d. 1592-93) an elephant was sent from the
Sudan to Ahmed II. The day when it was brought to Marakesh was
quite an event in the annals of the city. The entire population of the
city, men, women, and children, young and old, turned out to meet it.
Seven years later it was brought to Fez. " Some authors", writes
Eloufrani, " pretend that there came into Maghrib with this animal
the smoking plant called tobacco, the negroes accompanying the
elephant having brought the tobacco with them, and affected to see
very great advantage in using it. This habit of smoking spread from
the Dra into Morocco, and thence all over the west. The Doctors of
the law {iholba) pronounced at that period very contradictory opinions
on the subject of tobacco. Some declared its use unlawful ; others
decided that it was sinful, while the third party refrained from offering
any views on the question. God only knows what it is necessary
to think in this respect." The advice of Mulai el Hassan seemed to
have been more decided, for a few years before his death he forbade
smoking and the sale or growth of tobacco in Morocco, only modifying
this decree as regards foreigners m the coast towns. The order,
though still unrepealed, is a dead letter. Tobacco is, however, less
used in Morocco than " Kef" or Indian hemp.
(70) " Colombi, cornacchie, civette, gufi " — pigeons, ravens, horned
owls, screech owls (hawks, perhaps, which nest in all old buildings in
Morocco).
Abd el Mumen, though he rebuilt much of what he destroyed,
was so incensed at the Almoravides that he declared he would sift
the dust of their palaces through a sieve. Even yet the city has not
quite recovered from the wars of the last few centuries. The city walls
are about thirty m.iles in circuit, the foundations of stone ; but the
upper part of tabia in many places, are dilapidated. That around
the outer Agadl, or park, is in a ruinous condition, and the whole
space nearly waste ; the rusty sugar-making machinery, put up by an
English engineer more than thirty years ago, and never used, being,
with some unhoused and unattended machinery for cartridge-making,
about the only occupants of this open ground. The red soil through
which the Tensift runs slightly tinges its waters, but the city is sup-
plied from the mountains twenty miles distant. The date palms near
358 NOTES TO BOOK II.
the city are not indigenous, but were introduced from Tafilet, which
produces famous dates.
.Sidi ben Abbas is the patron saint of the city. But it is really under
the tutelage of seven : hence it is often called Saban Rijkl, i.e., [the city
of] seven [holy] men. Like its sister capital of Fez, Marakesh has a
great reputation for sanctity, and a pious Moor will always cast a stone
on the large cairn, which has accumulated alongside the caravan roads.
At the Murstan is a kind of prison for lunatics, where they are chained
up, and in addition to the two regular prisons — one for murderers and
state prisoners, in the Kasbah, the other, in the Medina, or town
proper, for minor offenders — there is a lock-up for women. The
Murstan just mentioned is attached to the mosque of Sidi ben Abbas.
It is a charitable institution, where, in Ali Bey's day (1800) some 1800
people were supported by endowments and subscriptions. Finally, to
close these notes on Marakesh, there is a tradition that one of the
gates of the Sultan's palace was brought from Spain in pieces. — Times
of Morocco., December 15th, 1888.
(71) Here Leo gives El Mansur his correct relationship to Abd el
Mumen, and to Mohammed III en Nasir, who died in A.D. 12 13 (not
1 1 99, according to De Slane, as the date of the battle of Navas de
Tolosa prevents this).
(72) This battle was that of the Navas de Tolosa, to the north of
Jaen, fought i6th July 1212 (14 Safar, A.H. 609). It is computed that
on the Moor's side there were ranged 500,000 men, in four lines, the
Berbers, Moors (Arabs), Andalus (Spanish Moors), Almohade regulars
- — negroes and volunteers from all parts of the empire amounted to
160,000 horsemen. En Nasir died the year following (11 Shaban,
A.H. 610) of a debauch, or, as the Moorish historian hints, of
poison, leaving the throne to his young son, Yusuf el Muntaser. —
Roudh-el-Kartas, p. 343. It was in the reign of En Nasir that King
John of England is said to have offered to hold his crown as a vassal
of the Moslem Khalif in return for help against the Pope and the
King of France— a monkish tale which rests on mere legend.
{JT,) In the civil war following EI Muntaser's death, Abu Zekeria
declared himself independent, and founded the Hafside dynasty at
Tunis, Yahia raised a rebellion in Dra, Tafilet, and the Idraren-Dran
Atlas, and Abu Mussa, brother of the Emir El Mamum (son of El
Mansur), declared his independence at Ceuta.
(74) Abd el-Hak (a.D. 1195, A.H. 591) was the first Beni-Merin
King. But before and after his reign Marakesh was so frequently
sacked that it fell into ruins, and never recovered its former prosperity.
NOTES TO BOOK II. 359
(75) Thiswas Ibn Abdu-'l-Malik,who wrote a biographical dictionary
which Leo admits that he made affluent use of. — Dozy, Reclierc/ics,
etc., t. ii, App. No. V. Leo Africanus, De Viris qidbusdam, etc.
(76) This is Aghmat, to the south of Marakesh, and near Miltsin,
the capital of the Almoravides before Yusuf-ben-Tasfin laid the
foundation of Marakesh. There were two towns of that name,
.\ghmat-Urika and Aghmat-Ailan, six miles east from it, "at the
point of Mount Daran", to quote Abulfeda, who again cites the
work entitled, Nozhat-cl-Moschak. He describes it on the authority
of Ibn Said, as surrounded by gardens and running streams, with
a healthy climate, and the air fragrant with the odour of sweet-
scented herbs. Edrisi is equally enthusiastic, adding that some-
times during winter the river is covered with ice thick enough to
JDear children. This is the Aghmet, called Urika. In the Kiiab
clbaydn el moarib an akhbar cl Maghrib of the Sheikh Abu Abdallah
ben Adhari I'Andalus, their pleasant waters are mentioned as supply-
ing verdure to the gardens of Essaliha. The same writer mentions
El Mansur visiting the saints formerly here. In Charant's day (prior
to 1660) there was, at a place called " Gomet", a monument which the
people affirmed to cover the grave of St. Augustine, whom they call
" St. Belabech". This is a common trick of the Arabs. Witness,
for example, Sidi Bu-Said, near the site of Carthage, which is
affirmed to be the burial-place of St. Louis, who on his death-bed
became a convert to Al-Islam ; and the story told in Egypt, of
St. George having embraced the faith. The Coptic monks of Dar-al-
abiad, in Girgel, have, however, adopted the opposite plan to protect
their patron saints' belongings from Mohammedan outrage, for they
have converted them into a Moslem Sheikh, who commands the respect
of the Faithful under the name of Abu Shenudah. Godard, on what
authority he does not mention, states that in i860, Aghmat had not
more than 6,000 inhabitants. There is probably not a tenth of that
number. From what I have learned, it is now little more than a
squalid village, the few inhabitants living mainly by the pilgrims who
visit the saints' " Zouas" here. Even the Jews point out the graves of
two Rabbis, who escaped from the second destruction of Jerusalem.
As late as a.h. 1178 (1764-65), the Sultan Mulai Abdallah is
reported by Ezziani to have made a " pilgrimage to Aghmat which he
had given in fief to the sons of Enneksis. He remained there some
time, visiting the fields about the town, in company with jurisconsults
and secretaries, and at this time he received from the Kadi of Aghmat
"the celebrated ram" — an animal of which the fame has not descended
to our times. There is no foundation for the belief that Aghmat, or
its people, are of " Roman origin", as stated by Lenz without giving his
authority, for he did not visit the place. — Timbuktu, vol. i, p. 254.
360 NOTES TO BOOK II.
Yet to-day the reputation of Aghmat is all but gone. I do not
know a single European who has visited the Almohade capital, though
no doubt the fanaticism of this holy town, which lives by pilgrims, is
not very favourable to the reception of infidels. It has even dis-
appeared from maps, though it appears as Aghmat-Urika in the
itineraries of El Bekri given by D'Avezac, which may be the
Ureka of Washington and De Foucauld ; Edrisi (Hartnam's Ed.),
pp. 140, 141 ; Charant, Lettre ecritte en reponse de diverses (2teestioiis
curieuses siir les parties de PAffrique on regne aujourd'huy Mvley
Arxid, Roy de Tajilete, par M. .... qui a demure 2j aits dans la
Mauritanie {ibjo) ; Godard, Le Maroc, p. 35 ; D'Avezac, Geog. critique
de r Affrique Sept.,-g. 179 ; Washington, yo//r«. R. G. S., vol. i, p. 139.
The underground river is curious, but in a region with so many
caves, not remarkable. The " soil of Narnia" is " citta di Name", and
the ' River Niger of Vmbria" "Negra fiume in Umbria". In Mar-
mol's day, the aqueduct supplying Marakesh tapped the Wad Agmet,
which formed a lake below the town. The Kasbah was then in-
habited by holy men of the Masmudic tribe. These inhabitants, all
of whom were Berbers of that stock, were mostly potters, gardeners,
or farmers. But he is merely guessing when he suggests that Agmet
might be Ptolemy's Emere. Renou, from finding " Armat " in El
Bekris itinerary (though D'Avezac gives it Aghmat), invariably
spells the word thus. Bab Ghmat, one of the seven gates of Marakesh,
may refer to Aghmat, while the Bab-Ailan may possibly point to the
existence of Aghmat-Ailan in the shape of some village even more
wretched than Aghmat-Urika, the ancient capital of an Empire, which
has only preserved the second part of the name, and, if John David-
son's information is correct, contained in 1835 only si.xty heads of
families. — Davidson, African Journal^ p. 61. The Urika Valley and
the Wad Urika are well known. But Urika itself has not been
visited. — Thomson, Travels, etc., pp. 137, 445-455.
(77) I do not find this is a list of book now read in the " Univer-
sity of Fez".
(78) This seems to be Demnat, or Demenet, a tabia-built, fairly
prosperous Berber town, with a picturesque castle, in which resides a
Kaid representing the Sultan. Among the inhabitants are many
Jews, of whose oppression Europe has of late years been hearing a
great deal. Yet they seem more prosperous than their Moslem
neighbours, and are not even obliged to live in a Mellah, though their
quarters are, if possible, filthier than those of the Berbers, and
most of them, as in many Moroccan towns, are afflicted with
ophthalmia. Everything is cheap — a family being able to li\e,
and have meat twice a day, on about 3^'. a week. There are some
NOTES TO BOOK II. 36 1
remarkable caves in the limestone ; and the Wad Demnat, after an
underground passage like that described by the Wad Aghmat,
emerges from under what is really a natural bridge, the roof which is
hung with stalactites. Of course, the natives believe that there is
great store of hidden gold and silver here abouts, which the wise men
of Sus and the Dra — a people who can handle snakes with impunity —
get by pronouncing certain incantations written in old books. In the
neighbouring Atlas region there are great caves on the banks of the
Wad Dadi. A few are still inhabited by a portion of the tribe known
as " the sons of the Caves". Some of the caverns are looked upon
with particular reverence, and in one the Jews are said to expose
their dead for a night before burial (Harris, Geog. Journal^ vol. v,
p. 327). Near Demnat there are ruins which the natives ascribe
to the " Rumi "—e.g. Romans — or Christians. But Mr. Thomson,
who examined them, pronounces them to be simply the remains
of some mountain stronghold, of which many in decay are
scattered all about the Atlas, or are perched like sentries on almost
inaccessible precipices without the people around having any
tradition regarding their origin and history. They are simply the
work of " the Rumi ". Jackson seems to have heard of these re-
mains ; for on his map he marks at this place, " Ruins of a Roman
or Portuguese Temple", and a little way further south, " Copper
Mines", while " Saltpetre" is the legend inscribed on it nearer Mara-
kesh, and about the same distance from '" Dimenit ". On Chenier's
map (English Ed., in two vols., 1787) it is marked " Hanimed". But
the town does not seem to be of great antiquity, and it is not men-
tioned by any of the older Arab historians. The earliest notice of it
is that piece of history for which Leo is the sole authority. Ezziana
tells us that when Mulai Sheriff died in 1652, his son, Mulai Er-Rashid
(afterwards Sultan), quitted Tafilet for Demnat, and that Mulai
Abdallah (1746) received the submission of the rebels of "Demnat,
Sanaga, and other Berbers of the mountains in the vicinity of Demnat".
This submission was of short duration. For his son, Sidi Mohammed,
had to march with a powerful army against Demnat, and by a bold
stratagem succeeded in surprising the revolted mountaineers and
burning their houses. In those days the Demnatees were accounted so
incorrigible, that the then Sheikh had always to reside at Court as a
hostage for their good behaviour. They are more cowed now-a-days,
but their former conduct may account for the many nameless ruins
scattered round this and neighbouring provinces. There are photo-
graphs of Demnat in Thomson's Travels., etc., pp. 158, 161 ; and
sketches in Foucauld, Reconnaissance, pp. 77-78. For " yeere of
our Lord" 151 1, read 15 14, the equivalent of A.H. 920; and for
1512, read 1515, the equivalent of .\.H. 921. Both are additions of
Florianus.
362 NOTES TO BOOK II.
The Ait H'aimmi have now their home in Sus. It is quite possible
that the tribe may have been the one from which "Hanimmei" took
its name, these Berber septs having shifted out very much in the last
four centuries. For instance, the Zanaga who, in Leo's day, inhabited
the valley of the Ziz, or Siss, have since then migrated across the
Sahara, and, under the old name, are not the best of neighbours to
the Senegal valley.
(79) Nisifa, or Nisipha, is Marmol's Nefrisa. Renou is, perhaps,
correct in considering it the Jebel-Nefis of Edrisi, and the Nefes-el-
Jebel of Ben-Aias. It is also the name of one of the principal tribu-
taries of the Tensift, which Marmol expressly declares to rise in the
mountains of Nefrisa. This Wad Nefis, or Nefisa, is a well-known
stream. It may be the Jebel Tiza, near the head-waters of the Nefis,
and certainly not so far west as Renou indicates it to be. There is, in
Tripoli, a Nefussa tribe which formerly inhabited a Jebel-Nfus
between Gabes and Tripoli city. But they do not appear to have
any direct connection with Nefrisa.
(80) The position of Semede, or Cemmede, is precise, the Shesawa
River lying between it and Nisifa. But this does not agree with the
Nefis rising on the Nesifa mountain, and though that ])art of the
Atlas is not minutely known, there are at present no two mountains
under that name, or in that position laid down on our maps. The
natives acquainted with that region, whom I caused to be questioned
on this and other geographical difficulties, did not recognise the names.
Leo and Marmol are the only authors who have mentioned them,
and De Foucauld did not identify them. The only two — following
Leo's description and ignoring Marmol's addition, which may be a
mere guess — at all corresponding to his position are the Jebel Ida
Mohammed, over 13,000 feet in height, and the Jebel Urigis, on the
other side of the Sheshawa to the north-east : but neither has been
examined.
(81) " Seusaua", .Sesava, or Chauchava, is clearly the source of the
Shesawa River, and is the part of the Atlas bearing that name
(Seksaua on Schnell's Map). In the Nozhct-Elliadi (p. 150) it is
mentioned that Abu Suliman Daud ben Abd-El-Mumen benEl-Mahdi
{i.e., Hosein ben Mahommed, founder of the dynasty of the El-Hoseini
Sheriffs), a nephew of Ahmed 1 1 (sometimes also known by the lofty
title of El Mansur), rebelled against his uncle, and declared himself
sovereign "in the mountain of Seksaua, where he took refuge, and some
Berber" bands rallied to him. The Seksaua people were routed, and
Daud again sought asylum among the mountain folk of Huzala, who
were in the habit of harassing the Dra tribes. The latter, therefore,
NOTES TO BOOK II. 363
joined the Sultan's troops in taking vengeance on their enemies, and
compelHng Daud once more to become a wanderer, until his death in
A.H. 998 (a.d. 1588-90), among the Udaias Arabs.
(82) Sesiua, Secsiva cannot be identified under that name, unless
the Jebel-Ogdimt, between twelve and thirteen thousand feet, is the
mountain, it being near, or at, the source of the Asif-el-Mal. The
Berbers who inhabit its valleys are described as veiy fierce. Thomson
ascended it. — Travels, etc., pp. 328-345.
Secsiva seems so like the previous name as to suggest confusion.
The description is that of the Atlas Berbers.
(83) Tenmelle, Tinmal, Tynmal (the proper pronunciation), Tin-
melet, Tenmalt, or Tenmalet, is to the south of Aghmat, and though
not now a place of any consequence, was at one time famous as the
cradle and the burying-place of the Almohades.
When Mohammed ben Tumert, " El Mahdi", arrived in Tinmal,
he was received well, and made converts of the population to his
doctrines. After preaching in the Mosque, attended by his ten
companions (the names of whom are preserved in the Roiidh al-
Kartas), all armed with sabres, the people proclaimed the new
Imam, and helped to secure the allegiance of the neighbouring
mountaineers. It was for them that he wrote the Tazuahhud which
the Masmuda regarded as of equal authority with the Koran :
they invoked his name on all occasions, and even prayed in the name
of the Mahdi, "the Infallible Imam". And to Tinmal, an eagle's nest
among the snows, the Mahdi returned, after capturing all the castles
of the Atlas, and receiving succour from the Hentata, Jenfysa, Hargha,
and other tribes, to prepare for his attack on Marakesh. Then, after
capturing that city, the concjueror came to rest in his well-beloved
Tinmal, and to this faithful town his body was brought to be interred
in its Mosque. Abd-el-Mumen (or Mumenin) was equally attached
to Tinmal. He was a Zeneta tribesman, and the son of a potter, a
trade which, according to a current tale, furnished two other
Barbary conquerors, in the persons of Barbarossa and his brother.
He also was proclaimed at Tinmal as Emir of the Mussulmen (Emer-
al-Mumen — Prince of Believers — often disguised by old historians as
Miramomolin, or Yiramulmin), and, according to theRotidh al Kartas,
he sent the head of the last Almoravide Emir — Mohammed Ibn-
Tashfin-Ishak — to be hung on a poplar tree {Safsaf) in Tinmal. In
1 1 53, after crucifying, on the chief gate of Marakesh, a relation
of the Mahdi who had played false at Ceuta, Abd el-Mumen visited
the Mahdi's tomb at Tinmal, which he enlarged and beautified, and
distributed large sums to the loyal citizens. And in this mosque, after
a reign of thirty-three years, four months, and twenty-three days, his
364 NOTES TO r.OOK II.
body was laid by the side of the Mahdi ; but there are wide
differences regarding the duration of his reign. 1 have followed the
RoiidJi al Kartas, written in 1326, at Fez, most probably by Abu '1-
Hassan ben Abd-el-Halim of Grenada, though, according to some
copies, the writer was Abu'l-Hassan ben Abd Allah ben Abi Zara' al-
Fasi (see Gayangos' Ed. of Al Makkari^ vol. ii, pp. 515-16; Playfair and
Brown, Bib. of Morosco, No. 871.
It is the mosque which Leo refers to, though he is unable to con-
ceal his sectarian hatred of " Elmadi predicatore e il suo descepolo
Abdul Mumen". Even after more than three centuries the Tinmalees
appear to have preserved the old "heresy", and to ha\e been
extremely arrogant on account of their connection with the two first
Almohades, and their knowledge of the " teologia e dottrina del detto
predicatore" {Elmahdi in the translation). Yet they were in Leo's
day by no means flourishing. Besides the two Almohades mentioned,
Yusuf El-Mansur, and, it is probable, some of his successors, were
interred here. The early Almohades fortified it strongly, but if it was
one of the sixteen castles of the Ueren (Adrar-n-Dren), of which Edrisi,
Ibnu-1-Wardi, and other historians speak under the names of Tanimal,
Tamilat, orTanmalat, it must always have been a place of arms. To-
day it is forgotten: it is not even accorded the distinction of a word
on maps which preserve the names of spots which have disappeared. —
See also El Kairouani, in Expl. scientifique de PAlge'rie, \ol. iii,
pp. 1 84, ct seq.
(84) Gedmeva, or Guidneva, is, perhaps, in better transliterated
Arabic, Djedmiua or Guidmua, though no mention of that name is
known in the position assigned to it. It is evidently one of the fort
hills of the Adrar-n-Deren (Idraren Drann, etc.), but like most of
Leo's mountain names cannot be identified. Minmizi (Imirmizi in the
original) is of course Asmis.
(85) Hantera is one of the few mountain peaks in the Atlas which
can be identified by Leo's description, though no longer, if at any
time, bearing the name he gives to it. The name has been altered a
good deal in the course of passing through the printers hands. Some
of the earlier editions of Ramusio have the word Hantera., and Aiiteia
at the beginning of the article. The Latin edition (taken from the
first issue of Ramusio) and the translation therefrom have invariably
Hantata. The French of Temporal follows suit in Hantera, and the
last Italian issue (1837), with its usual practice of dropping the
aspirate, has A/iteta, while the beautiful, but entirely unedited, re-
print of Temporal's version (1830), copies his blunder of Hantera.
Marmol, however, has Henteta (Hentete) in his plagiarism of
Leo's description. — Marmol, IJAfrique, t. ii, p. 75 (Spanish ed.),
NOTES TO BOOK II. 365
vol. ii, p. 39) ; Moura, Historia dos sobranos Mahomctanos, etc.,
p. 195 ; D'Avezac, Geog. critique sur I Afriqtie Sept., pp. 167-6S.
It is evidently the modern Jebil Mlitsin, or Miltsin, of the Asif Sig,
which Washington believed to be the highest Atlas peak visible from
Marakesh. But though Ball estimated it considerably over 13,300
feet (nearly 2,000 feet higher than Washington did), it is probable
that several peaks reach that or an even loftier elevation, — the Tizi-
Nzacwti for example, which might possibly be accepted as Gedmeva,
only Leo describes it of smaller height than Hanteta.
The name he gave seems to have been derived from the Hentela, a
Berber tribe of the Masmuda, frequently mentioned by Arab historians,
as a troublesome people of a district comprised in this mountain,
Leo possibly named it simply from these people, the Berbers knowing
the various valleys and ridges by different names. This is common
among rude races. They have seldom any general name for a moun-
tain range or river or island. AUwana must also be made from the
" personal error". He might have picked it up erroneously, and
further altered it in transliterating from the Arabic into Italian. Ramusio,
who may again have mistaken his handwriting, and the printer,
without any one to correct their errors who had acquaintance with
Africa, might have made still further puzzles for geographers. This
applies to the whole of Leo's work. Yet it is remarkable how few of
his mountain names, even in well known districts, we can now re-
cognise. If correct originally, they must have changed in four
hundred years ; and as Leo almost invariably gives them the name of
tribes inhabiting them, that is not improbable. It is not often that
the Berber races have been permitted to remain where they were
in 1500. In many instances they seem to have been exterminated, to
have been forced to migrate, or to have lost a tribal existence. And
the remembrance of their old wrongs keeps those who remain from
encouraging too great curiosity on the part of stray travellers. " EI-
Hentete" — the Hentatian — is the name of several personages with
whom we meet in the history of Morocco. In addition to a large
part played by them in founding the Almohade dynasty, they gave to
Tunis the Beni-Hafy dynasty, which ruled there for three centuries. For
the distribution of the Morocco Berbers, see Quedenfeldt, Eintheilung
und Verbreitung der Berber-bevolkerimg in Marokko (Zeitschrift fiir
Ethnologie, Berlin, 1885, Bd. xx, s. 98-130, 146-160, 184-210;
Bd. xxi, 3, 81-108), papers written with Teutonic completeness, but
with little discrimination as regards authorities.
(86) Adimmei is the mountain on which Hannemei, identified as
Dennat, is built, and extending from Militsen (Hateta) to the Tessant
River, a tributary of the Um-er-Rbia, its possible position is therefore
circumscribed by that portion of the main range and its spurs, in
2,66 NOTES TO BOOK II.
which the Jebel Taurvit, Tizi Amsug, Tizi-Tarkeddit, and Jebel
Taseragh are the chief peaks. By " monte" Leo does not always
mean summit, l)ut chunp, "massif", or range.
(87) By Guzzula, Guzula, or Gezula, Leo means the mountainous
region south of the Atlas, or between the Great Atlas (Adrar-n-Dren)
and the so-called Anti-Atlas (Adrar-n-Bani), but separated by Sus
from the sea, while the Arab writers generally mean by this, one of the
great divisions of the Berber race. It is not improbable that Leo
was the first to apply — after his custom — the name of the people to
the region they inhabit, for I cannot find any previous writer using the
name. In a letter addressed by Pierre Treillault to the Constable de
Montmorency, quoted by Renou, the word " Gouzula" is employed.
But that was in 1597. There exists a mountain, the Dar Kezul, in Gran
Province, Algeria, which might mark a colony of these people, and
the suggestion has been frequently been made that Guzula is a memory
of the ancient Gfetulians, or the country of Getulia, which was in nearly
the same part of Africa. Possibly, however, the Gaetulians (Ta/rsDAw)
may be derived from the Berber tribe Godala, who, according to Ibn
Sayd (Abul-Hassan Nur-eddin Ali, a.d. 12 14), lived in the Mandron
mountain of Ptolemy, whence descend the rivers Saladus, Chusareus
(Wad Messa), Ophiodes (Wad Nun), Nugies (Wad Sabi), and Massa
(Albach). Ibn Khaldun, at the close of the fourteenth century, refers to
the wars of the Sus people with the Guzzula races. But the " Djodalah"
are mentioned much earlier by El Bekri (A.H. 392, A.D. 1001-2). To
this day the inhabitants of the country between the Wad Sus, the Wad
Dra, and the "Sahel" (or region bordering the ocean south of the
Wad Sus) is divided into great families, the Seketana and the Gezula.
Yet in all matei'ial points Leo's description of the people is still
applicable. The Gezula — or Kezula — played some part in history,
having, in the thirteenth century, occupied Jaen and Xeres in Spain,
until, in 1255, they were driven out of the latter. They claim, as one
of their race, Abd-Allah Ibn Yasin, who began the movement which
culminated in the rise of the Almoravide dynasty.
The geographical name applied by Leo has, however, long been
lost, if, indeed, it was ever once recognised by the Arabs, except
in the sense already suggested. It is now the Bled-Filleli, and
further south the Bled el-Jerrid, and none of the seven provinces in
which the Bled-Filleli, or Tafilet, is officially divided off has received
a designation even remotely like Gezula. The Atlas mountains,
according to Jackson, a writer of less authority than a cursory reader
might imagine, are, in Arabic, Jebel Attils, z..?., the Mountains of Snow,
which might be excellent etymology for Atlas. There are, howe\er,
two difficulties, first, that this is not the Arabic name, and secondly.
NOTES TO BOOK II. 367
that the Atlas was a familiar name long before the Arabs came to
Barbary.
Mannert, Geog. ancienne des Etats Barbaresqiics (Marcus and
Duesberg's Ed.) pp. 257, 482, 723 ; Vivien de Saint-Martin, Le Noni
de rAfrique dans rantiquitc Grecque et Roiiiai/ie, pp. 124, 128, 437 ;
Abulfeda, Geographie (Reinaud's Ed.) vol. ii, p. 216.
(88) I Ida is not known under that name to geographers. It is,
apparently, a spur from the Atlas, and may be Idekel. The statement
that Guzula stretched into Haha may be understood from Leo's state-
ment that in his day the Sus River separated the provinces of Haha
and Sus. At one time Cape Gir (Igir Ufrani) was the boundary line.
Jackson was the first to point out that Leo, in describing the Sus to
fall into the Atlantic at Agadirt blundered by six miles — Agadir being
that distance north of the mouth of the river.
(89) Here add " with great quantities of barley" (e molta copia di
orzo).
(90} This pious abuse is an intercalation of Pory's.
Mohammed, according to Abulfeda, was born on " Monday, the
1 2th of Rabia I [the third lunar month] in the year of the Elephant''.
" Now the coming of the elephant happened in the middle of the month
Moharram, that year being the forty-second of the reign of Kosri
Anusherwan, which was the year eight hundred and eighty-one of
Alexander [the Great], and one thousand three hundred and sixteenth
of Bukht-Masser" (Nebuchadnezzar), that is, about A.D. 570. — Isiiiacl
Abulfeda^ De Vita, et Rebus gestis Mo/iaimnedts, etc. (Ed. Gagnier),
p. 2.
(91) For A.D. 1511, read 1514. I cannot learn that this great fair is
held nowadays. The scattering or extermination of the tribe has, no
doubt, broken it up among a variety of places.
(92) Dukala is still a well-known province. " Habid", is the Wad
el-Abid, the Slave's River, and " Ommirabih", the Wad Um-er-Rbia,
which falls into the Atlantic at Azamor. " Diis sauentibus" is an
addition of Florianus, though, as an Arab, such a pious phrase would
be continually in Leo's mouth.
(93) Saflfi, Asafi, Asafa, Asafie, Sefi, Saffee, Safify, Safi, Zafin
(Portuguese, corrupted from Azaafi, according to De Faria y Sousa),
Azafo (old Italian), Saffin (old French in trans, of Diego de Torres),
Czafi (Spanish), is a very old town. Abn-1-feda mentions it under the
name of Asfi, and describes it from the information of Ibn Said
(a.D. 1214), and still earlier Edrisi has a reference to it as Asafi.
368 NOTES TO ROOK II.
M. Berbrugger found Moula-Ahmed using Asfi-Azar, Asif-Azar, or
Asfi-Azara. " Asif ', in the Shelluh dialect means, he thinks, the same
as "Uadi" in Arabic, viz., a pilgrimage station, though other authorities
insist that it may be translated " river" {ExpL scicntifiquc dc PAlgcrie,
vol. ix, p. 172). The Moors generally known as Asfi, and the
Europeans as Saffi. It may have been the 'MuGoyJ/.pag '/.i;hriv of
Ptolemy, but must yield to Mazagan its claim to be the Tortus Rutubis
of Polybius.
But it first rose into European fame \\hen the Portuguese captured
it in 1 508, under the circumstances mentioned, and abandoned it in
1 541 (see Introd.). Chenier, and his copyists, put the date in 1641, and
Thomassy {Relation dc la Fraitce avec Le Maroc^ p. 156) still further
widens the blunder to 1661. But though the data regarding the
Portuguese proceedings in Africa, if any exist, lie for the most part in
the inaccessible Lisbon archives, there is a certainty (from facts to be
presently mentioned) that they evacuated Saffi in 1541, while there is
nothing to support the belief that they re-occupied it. After the
unsuccessful siege (Diego de Torres, Istoria de los Xarifcs, pp. 120-
124) in 1539, by the two Sheriffs (Shorfa, if we were not writing in
English), sons of the original Sheriff, the Portuguese did not care
to be harassed any further. Their attention was beginning to be
more engrossed in the Indies, and less in Africa. Accordingly, Saffi
and Azimor were both abandoned after being fired, and the garrison
and merchants transferred to Mazagan.
There is no ground for holding that Saffi was at any time a
Phoenician or aVisigothic town, or that its name was originally Sophia,
though most likely it was always a Berber village. But, probably, it
grew to the extent it covered before the Portuguese occupation round
the sanctuary or mosque of Sidi Bu Mohammed Salah, a famous saint,
whose fame as Mohammad el-Wari (?) has extended as far as Alexandria,
where, on a Mecca pilgrimage, he is credited with some wonderful
feats. A " Rabat" (camp), the quarter in which it is situated, is a
well-known asylum for criminals of any degree of heinousness. In
1874, all the prisoners escaped from the town and took refuge there.
Yet, in spite of the 2,000 inhabitants being mostly of bad or dubious
reputation, this cliff-town, within a stone's throw of the main gate of
Saffi, is very orderly, and is the place in which the European merchants
have their stores. Before the Portuguese, howe\er, there is evidence
of Saffi covering a much larger space than at present. But the con-
tinual attacks upon it led its new masters to raze the ancient walls,
which then encircled the suburb of Rabat, so as to have a less
extensive front to defend. They also erected a fort upon the cliff
overhanging the water port, which was connected with a strong wall
with a castle overlooking the slope on which the town is built. This
castle was afterwards converted into a palace by Sid Mohammed ben
NOTES TO BOOK II. 369
Abd Allah (1757- 1790), the founder of Mogador and Fedala, which,
after a short flicker of trade, was abandoned by the Europeans, and is
now in ruins. The palace is still a picturesque object from the sea,
but has long been dismantled, though there are several beautiful courts
or halls in a fair state of preservation.
During the Portuguese rcghiiL\ Saffi enjoyed great prosperity in
spite of the harassment it suffered from the Moors. If we are to
believe De Faria y Sousa, it had at one time 3,500 houses. Except
that the Portuguese ceased to be welcome, the place, nevertheless,
continued to do a considerable foreign trade, and to have foreign
" factories". Thus, when Sir Anthony Sherley went as Ambassador
to the King of Morocco from the Emperor [of Germany] in 1605,
sixty-three years after the Portuguese left, he stayed in Saffi (" Saphia"),
or " Saphie", four months, kept open house, and invited all Christian
merchants — English, Flemish, French, and Spanish — "both to dinner
and supper daily" [Ro. C], A True Historicall Discourse of Muley
Hainefs rising to the three Kingdoms of Moruecos^ Fes, and Sus, etc.,
1609, cap. xi. This is the black-letter pamphlet, from which there are
e.xtracts in Purchas (Bk. vi, c. i, s. 3). Sherley's visit also shows, in
common with the fact of Louis XIII of France and Mulai El Valed
signing a treaty in 1631, " a la Rade de Saffi", that the Portuguese
were not there at that period, and that the 1641 and 1661 dates of
some writers, for the evacuation of Saffi, must be erroneous. Sherley
bought a ship of " an English merchant factor", and " got credit of
Jewes to take up money and pay them in Moruccos". Eight years
earlier — in 1577 — Edward Hogan [Huggins?], Queen Elizabeth's
Ambassador to Morocco, landed at " Azafi". At that time there were
eight merchants in the place, and the Moors were in possession. There
were also in Marakesh English and French traders, who came out to
meet the Ambassador several miles from the city. The "Jewes",
likewise, had dealings with Master Hogan and his suit, in those
notable days of English enterprise {Hakluyt, vol. ii, Part II, pp. 64-67).
It is thus clear, notwithstanding the general impression, that Safifi
was not deserted by Christians after the Portuguese left. On the
contrary, the " Portugalls" having ceased to exercise their illiberal
monopoly — all nations had an opportunity of doing business here.
Yet the town under the Moors never recovered from the condition in
which it had been left. In 1753, a Danish company obtained the
exclusive right of the trade of .Saffi and Sallee. But it was unable to
compete with Larache and Mogador, to which the merchants removed,
and Safifi like Agadir was closed to foreign trade.
It then ceased to be visited. This place is very hot in summer,
and in winter the floods from the neighbouring plains accumulate in
the valley and inundate the chief thoroughfares to the depth of
several feet, occasionally destroying the contents of low-lying houses
A A
370 NOTES TO BOOK II.
and rendering the place damp and unhealthy. Add to this a heavy
surf which often renders landing difficult, the presence of a fanatical
clan in the town, and a savage set of tribesmen outside it, and
the neglect of Saffi may be understood. At one time, it was the
point from which embassies and other travellers disembarked for the
land journey to Marakesh ; but after 1760 Mogador and then Maza-
gan — on the evacuation by the Portuguese — had that distinction. It
was not until 181 7 that the place began to revive, on Lenda ben 'Adi
Sliriki, an influential Jew, obtaining the Sultan's permission to export
some wool through the port. Finding that he could do a very pro-
fitable business here, he settled in the town and waxed rich on the
shipment of skins, wool, wheat, and barley to London and Marseilles,
and the importation of cotton, tea, sugar, and iron. The exchange
was, in those days, ideal. The dollar was taken for I2yi okiat, and
the peseta passed for 2^, instead of 120 and 24 respectively, with six
large copper "filus" to each okia. In the Rabba, or grain market,
wheat and barley were so cheap that the country-folk bringing either
for sale were compelled to give security at the town gate for re-
moving any not sold, instead of leaving it to litter the place. Now-a-
days, the place is moderately busy, though the anchorage is a
dangerous one when the south-west wind blows. Then the chances
are that a vessel unable to run to sea will, in a few hours, be driven on
the sandy beach.
The town, in spite of its sacks and sieges and burnings, still pre-
sents an old-world appearance, and many of the houses are fine
specimens of heavy cool Portuguese mansions, though in filth it
surpasses any of the Morocco coast towns. In the vicinity are many
substantially-built tombs, or •' .Saints' houses" as the Europeans call
them, which attract pilgrims, by whom the holy men inside — Sidi Bu
Zid, Sidi Bu Zikri, and so forth — are sincerely venerated, and their
real or apocryphal history related in interminable tales ; while at the
village of Sidi Wastel, nestling among the hills to the south, the
number of white domed " Kubbas" give the place a picturesque ap-
pearance. In the Raljat are the remains of a palace, with painted
ceilings, frescoes, richly carved door frames, and marble columns,
which was built by 'Abd er-Rahman ben Nasir, a son of Mulai
Vezid, the " red Sultan", himself a native of Saffi, and the son of a
reputed Irish (more likely Hessian) woman. During the reign of
Mulai Suliman (1795-1822) 'Abd er-Rahman was so powerful along
the coast from Sallu to Messa, that he was popularly known as
the " Sultan es-Seghir" — the little Sultan. Being like so many of
the Imperial line not above business, he trafficked with .Spaniards,
who supplied him with cannon and gunpowder, and built mosques
and houses, bought land, and greatly improved the town of Saffi.
But all these favours from royalty in the shape of princes and palaces,
NOTES TO BOOK 11. 37 1
and from Heaven in the guise of that rank product of Morocco, its
holy men, have made the Mesfivvi — as the inhabitants are called —
most arrogant, if not very fanatical. They have no desire to see
Europeans, and prohibit any Jew — of whom there are many in the
town — from entering the quarter in which Sidi Bu Mohammed Salah's
sanctuary is situated. Even Europeans consider it prudent not to
put themselves too much in evidence during the procession of the
Aisavva and Hamadsha sects, and on the occasion of certain forms
and holidays when religious rancour is apt to get the better of dis-
cretion. Up to 1767 no Christian was permitted to ride into Saffi, or
a Jew to enter it, as in Fez and other cities, except barefooted. But
in that year Chenier, the French representative, who had removed
the Consulate for a time from Mogador, refused to obey this humilia-
ting mandate, and ever after it was not enforced in the case of Euro-
peans (though more than a century later a French Envoy tried to
curry favour with Fasees by dismounting while passing a saint's tomb
which the English minister had ridden past !). Yet even the Portu-
guese when masters of the place, so far humoured the Moslems as to
adopt this habit out of respect for the saints who reposed within the
walls. After the Portuguese seized the place they tried to prevent
treachery by expelling all the disloyal Mussulman citizens. These
settled in a Gentile district, one day's journey to the south-east of
Marakesh, which they named "Mesfiua", and where they have become
a prosperous Kabila in the Wad Imspini country, among whom
many Jewish families live.
Portuguese heraldic devices are still discernible over the chief
gateway of the crumbling and untenanted, but still beautiful palace ;
and a church, of which the vaults are intact, with similar arms, etc.,
has been detected amid the rubbish heaped up to the cornice.
All south of the town the sea is undermining the cliffs, so that'Abd-
er-Rahman's house (p. 370) had to be abandoned, and it is no longer
possible to walk along the shore to the Tensift — 18 miles to the south
— as old men are reported to have done in their youth. The "Jew's
Rock" (Jerf el Yudi), a limestone cliff, upwards of 400 feet, about four
miles south, is dangerous from its repeated crumbling of masses from
the edge. Yet it is doubtful whether the coast is not actually undergoing
a slow secular rise, and that the lakes between the Sebu and El Kus
(Lakos) are not old lagoons, which have, by the rising of the coast,
been shut off from the Atlantic. — Times of Morocco, Nos. 137, 138
(June 23rd and 30th, 1888) ; De Faria y Sousa, Africa Portuguesa
(1681), pp. 76-114; Berago (Avogadro), Historio Africana delta
divisionc deWimperio degli Arabi, etc. (1650), pp. 94-99 ; Castellanos,
Alarruscos, pp. 96- 1 1 o.
(94) Most of Leo's allusions are explained in the Introductioi. He
visited the place immediately after the Portuguese had obtained
A A 2
372 NOTES TO BOOK II.
possession of it, so that his account is, therefore, a first-rate, if not a
unique, historical authority.
"Their originall from Farchon" (La famigha di Faron), or Beni
Farhon, are the " usurpers", who raised Saffi into a species of republic
on the dechne of Merinides.
(95) 'Al)d er-Rahman ("Abdear- Rahman, hombre de Valor", ac-
cording to Ue Faria y Sousa) was a member of the Beni-Farhon
family. He murdered his uncle, Ameduy, then head of the State,
and usurped sovereign power, though, as the sovereignty seems to
have been hereditary in the Beni-Farhon family, the republic was,
probably, one something like that of Holland under the House of
Orange — only about as free as a South American Commonwealth under
a military dictator.
(96) Ali ebn-Goesimen — Sidi-.-Mi, " Cide Aleadux mancebo noble"
—as he is variously called.
(97) This " trusty friend" was the afterwards celebrated Sidi Yahia
ben Tafut.
(98) Under Diego Arambuja, governor of Mazagan, and Garcia de
Melo, Captain of the Carvals, the Portuguese intrigued as described.
Ali showed himself less tractable than Yahia ben Tafut, and had to
seek asylum in Targa, a town now all but vanished. But Yahia,
after explaining his conduct at Lisbon, was appointed Captain-
General. He was the "builder of the castle".
Leo actually says so: — "detto capo, nominato Ichia", though the
words are omitted in the translation, and he was not sent " back again
to Azafi", but to " Africa".
(99) Introduction. The subsequent history of Safifi is given in note
93. Marmol {L'Afriquc, t. ii, p. 2) follows Leo, but has expanded his
account from other sources of information not mentioned, and, unless
original, for the most part now either lost or difficult to trace.
(100) Conta. Marmol confounds this with Cotes — (Kwr?;? X&/.77-&;,
or rather, Kw:-?;; aTtpov) of Ptolemy, the Ampelusia Promontorium of
Mela, the Ras Achakar of the Arabs — under the name of Cape
Comte, and declared it was ruined under the government of Tarek.
Chenier fancies it to have occupied the site of Waladia. The town
was probably founded by Mulai el Waled about 1645, near a lagoon
which could be made the best harbour in North Morocco; but, after a
brief trial, was abandoned, and is now almost deserted, no Europeans
having resided there for many years, and, as there are no ships, the
caravans pass it by. During the usurpation of Krom el Haj (1645-52)
the place was used as a basis of operations against Saffi. When
Moiiette was captured in 1670, one of the pirate ships ran from
Waladia, and in Peliow's day (1715-38) the harbour seems to have
been regularly frequented Tissot makes it out to be the " very safe
NOTES TO HOOK II. 373
port" of El Ghant mentioned by Edrisi {Bull. Sac. Geog. Paris, 6me
sen, t. X, pp. 6y-yf, with plan).
But neither El Ghant nor Aiyir can be Leo's Comte. It is just as
little likely to be the " ancient town called by the Africans Cantin",
the recess of which Jackson notes on Cape Cantin. The promontory
— the Promontorium Solis, ^o/.ot/c ay.^a, "H/./ol/ lifog — of the ancient
geographers — the Ras Kantin of the Arabs (if Tissot's identifications
are accepted), was the headland on which Hanno erected a temple, or
fane, or sanctuary to Neptune (Poseidon). There is a Moslem sanctu-
ary here. But the spot seems to have been a sacred one long before
Islam appeared in Africa. In this respect the history of the cape is,
therefore, continuous from Carthaginian times. The word .Soleis, in
the Punic language, meant probably the same thing as Ras Kantin
in Berber. " Kant", its singular, being, it is suggested, applied to a
steep cliff in the Riff country — the Ras Kant-ez-Zit. But Cape Kantin
is spelt with a ^e/, whereas Kant-ez-Zit begins with a ga/. M. Tissot,
however, goes further. In a rounded eminence which dominates the
cape, he recognises the azpojrrjfiov of .Scylax, and on the summit
of this tumulus is one of the rude Cromlech structures, in the shape of
a stone circle, which the natives call " heuch", plural, " heuchet".
Not improbably more lies concealed by the mound ; but the super-
stitious awe with which this ancient structure, like so many of its
kind in Morocco, is regarded, must prevent excavation. It is the
" Medjma'a es-Salihin " — the Reunion of Immaculate — and is one of
the most venerated sanctuaries of a region which to-day, as in the
tin\e of Scylax, is one of the holiest in that part of Africa. Numbers
of Kubbas (dome) sanctuaries, " heuchets" (those open to the sky),
and " sid " (any not circular), with the usual swarm of sanctimonious,
but not always moral, attendants dot the country around. The
tradition of its being the y^upry/tiporarri is a legend uninterrupted from
the days of the Periplus (Tissot, RccJierdies sur la Geog. CoJiip. de la
Tingihine, pp. 105-111).
It would, perhaps, be rash to say that the original of the " heuch "
was Hanno's fane to the Carthaginian Neptune. But it is very
probable that as Leo and Jackson do not mention it in any other
significance, it is their ruins of Conte, or Conta, as Pory has it.
(loi) Tit still stands, in a ruinous condition, with the walls in the
last stage of dilapidation, and, so far as people and business are
concerned, might be removed from the map. It is probably the
" Teturit " of the Catalan map and its copyists, and the Teturia
of Sanson (1656) between Canthenum Caput (Cape Cantin) and
Carvoccum Caput (Cape Blanc?), in a bay beyond which in this
fanciful map of the best French geography of the day the altogether
apocryphal " Ducc.ilie lnsuUe"are placed (note 108). Some of the
inhabitants of Mazagan have ancient burying-places here, with tomb-
374 NOTES TO BOOK II.
stones on which inscriptions can still be Yta.d.—Discurso da Jornada
de D. Goncalo Coutinho, p. 54 ; Castillanos, Marruecos, p. 94.
Jackson, whose etymologies, like his acquaintance with ancient
geography, were primitive, tells us that " Tett signifies in Arabic Titus,
and is, therefore, supposed to h& the ruins of the ancient city of Titus,
founded by the Carthagineans " {Morocco, p. 43). In reality, the word
enters into the composition of various Berber names — Tit-n-Ali,
Ticuga, Titutla Fukia, Titutla Tahtia, Tittal, etc. Tetuan (Titauen),
for instance, is the plural of Tit, a in the Berber language meaning-
much the same as the Arabic ain, aiun, spring. Marmol's notion
that the name was formerly Tut, according to Josephus, named from
Tut, the grandson of Noah, who led the Tuteians into Mauretanea
Tingitana, is, of course, only amusing.
When the Duke of Braganza took Azamor (1513), then under the
command of Sidi Mansur, " Tite" with " Almedina" were abandoned
by the citizens, the inhabitants going elsewhere until the Portuguese
took possession of them. Then most of the people returned, and
became vassals of the King of Portugal, under the command of Sidi
Yahia ben Tafut (Diego de Torres, Istoria de los Xarifes, pp. 23, 24).
Mulai en Nasir, brother of the Sultan Mohammed El Oate(i527),
failing to raise a holy war in the province of Dukala, after capturing
the Christian Treasurer of the King of Portugal and a Jew, his com-
missary, removed the people of the province to a place about twelve
miles from Fez. There is nothing in the original to warrant the
rendering of the passage as Florianus and Pory have it. The " cer-
tain Christian" and " a Jew" were not " hanged", though, of course, there
would have been nothing extraordinary in this drastic retribution,
except that they were more valuable as slaves than as dead men.
Nor is there a word to justify the intercalation about the Christian
being " the King of Fez . . . his owne Treasurer". The pair were
most likely a tax-gatherer and his assistant, who were caught while
going about their unpopular, though, in Morocco, lucrative business.
Tit does not appear to have fully recovered after this proceeding,
though some of the inhabitants no doubt returned on the evacuation
of Azamor. But the presence of the Portuguese in Mazagan must
have checked the re-peopling of the deserted little towns in Dukala.
After this it almost disappeared from history — the latest plunder of it
being in A.H. 121 1 (1796-99), when the Sultan, Mulai Suliman, visited
it at the head of an army, and received the submission of El Hakemi
bel Arusi and the recently rebellious people of Dukala (Ezziani,
Nozhet EIMdi, p. 179), which shows that Tit was not 'completely de-
serted so early as is generally supposed.
(102) Elmedina means "the city", and is a common name all over
the Arabic-speaking world, and seems at that time to have been the
chief town of Dukala. It was depopulated in the same expedition of
NOTES TO BOOK II. 375
Mulai en Naser as Tit and other places were (p. 374). It was
situated on a plain about eight or nine miles from the sea, and may
be the large ruined town called " Medinat (or M'dina) el-Gharbia",
according to the note kindly sent mc by Mr. Vice-Consul Hunot of
Saffi.
The Portuguese expedition in which it suffered is described by
Marmol (t. ii, pp. 64-66), Birago (pp. 96, etc.), though not at first
hand, and Diego de Torres (pp. 18-20). Mulai en Naser's expedition,
in which it was sacked the year previously (15 14), is noticed in
Marmol, t. ii, p. 107.
(103) Centum putei (Cento pozzi is the original) is a case in which
Leo translated the name of a place into Italian. But as he could not
have done this without knowing the Arabic or Berber, we must as-
sume either that he omitted the native one, or that the editor could
not decipher it. The place described is Miat-Bir-u-Bir, literally, "the
hundred and one wells", a village situated on the right bank of the
Tensift, at some distance from the mouth of that river. It is men-
tioned by Ezziani (p. 181) as the place where, in A.H. 212 (a.d.
1797-98), 'Abd er- Rahman ben Naser, a rebellious chief of Dukala, did
homage to Mulai Suliman. Marmol describes " Miatbir" in his day
as a scattered village on the slope of a hill, with some rude fortifica-
tions erected by the Berber inhabitants. The place gets its name
from the " matamoras", or underground cellars, excavated in the rocks
for storing grain, after the custom of the country. Corn, it is said,
has remained good after lying for many years in these " matamoras".
The tradition that these were originally rocks, may perhaps be sup-
ported by an ancient inscription which Marmol saw on a piece of
alabaster, as big as a man, which marked the sepulchre — now van-
ished— which three centuries ago stood near the " Bibeltobul" (Bab-et-
Tobul), a gate not now in existence or known by that name. These
were the words :— " Here lies Ali, son of Atia, who was Kaid over a
hundred thousand men. He had ten thousand horses, and in one day
dug a hundred and one wells for them to drink. He married three
hundred girls, and was faithful, victorious, and one of the twenty-
four generals of Yakub el Mansur. I ended my days at forty years.
Whoever reads this epitaph, pray God to pardon me." — L'AjrigiiC,
t. ii, p. 51 ; Francisco dc San Juan Mission historial de Marruec-'^s
(1708), p. 77.
Host mentions that he often hunted francolins near Miat-Abrar-u-
VAr.
(104) Subeit was one of the places which met the same fate as Tit,
etc. It was waste in Leo's day ; but it still exists as a little walled
town on the left bank of the Um-er-Rbia ; it must have been again
partially re-peopled. — Godard, Maroc, p. 40. Renou suggests that the
376 NOTES TO BOOK II.
name might possibly have been derived from the Sbeit or Sbeita, a
tribe of Northern Morocco.
(105) Tamaroch, or Temeracost, is another of the little places to
which the same remarks apply as to Subeit, etc. They were all early
deserted, and may now, if the name has survived, be sought among
the ruined villages scattered in Shecdona, Abda, and Uukala — the
last two provinces being in Leo's description considered as one.
Renou was inclined to regard the name as the same as Temarkest,
the diminution form of the Berber name for Marakesh.
(106) Terga. This a Berber name, which occurs frequently,
signifying " a glen", perhaps the glen through which a rivulet flows.
The Um-er-Rbia town in which Ali-ben-Goesin fought against the
Portuguese, and the chief of which came to the help of Azamor
(note III, p. 379), was, in Leo's day, in ruins, must not be con-
founded with Targa, or Terga, on the Mediterranean in quite as
woeful a plight. In fact, though we know its exact position, it is now
difficult to trace any remains of this once important place. There is
another Terga in the Wad Azgemerzi, in the Wad Dra Basin.
(107) Bulauan, or Bu el-Auan, is still existing in Tabulawan,
on the south side of the Um-er-Rbia, not far from the Meshra
Bu el Auan, and the little Bene Meskin desert. It is at a place
where the river narrows between high banks before spreading
out into the plain through which it runs for the rest of its course.
At one time, there was a bridge across the Um-er-Rbia, built
by Mulai bel Hassan, one of the Ben Marini family, not far from
Bulawan. Before this work was completed, and after it dis-
appeared, travellers had to be ferried across the river on rafts of
inflated goat skins (Madia el gerb), or on bundles of rushes and reeds,
a primitive contrivance on which I crossed the Sebu in 1884. Being
on the route from Sallee to Marakesh, Bulawan — to use the common
spelling which Renou describes as "the English" — was frequently
visited last century. Chenier saw it in 1781, and describes the strong
castle which guards the passage of the river here. It stands on a
wild and barren spot near the bank, on a pyramidal eminence more
than 200 feet high, below which flows the swift, deep river. In May,
1785, when Keatinge halted at " Bulaughuan", mud houses occupied
part of the internal area of the castle, the flanks of which extended
down to the water's edge. Castle, soil, buildings, beings, and river
were all of one tint of colouring, except where the verdure of the
gardens by the river's edge broke the dreary monotony. Lempriere
visited " Buluane" in 1790, but though he was not struck, any more
than was Host (who called it "miserable"), with the place, from an
architectural point of view, the strength of the walls amazed him.
It was then inhabited by some negroes, banished there when Sidi
Mohammed thought it proper to disband the black troops, who were
NOTES TO BOOK II. UJ
beginning to play the parts of Proetorian guards, Janizaries, or
Mamelukes. These unruly " Bok hari", who still speak a dialect
called "Guenani" (that is, " Guinea"), were also in charge at the time
of Chenier's visit. The bridge, however, seems to have long ago
broken down, the people of Tabulawan \illage, on the other side of
the river, and another near the castle — built of rough-hewn stones,
without mortar — being exempt from taxes on the condition of helping
travellers across the ferry. The goat-skin raft is very ancient. It is
common all over barbarous Africa, and is mentioned by Livy as used
by Hannibal in passing his army over the Rhone, Ticinus, and Po.
But the Sultan usually crossed the river by a kind of temporary
suspension bridge.
The town of Um-er-bia (Ommrbia), mentioned by Edrisi, is
probably Bulawan. But the castle was not begun before the time of
Abd-el-Muniim, who began to reign in 1130; and, according to an
inscription over the gateway, it was built, enlarged, or repaired, by
Sid Ben Elcheat, who was in the service of Mulai Ismail, in 1709.
In Marmol's day the people of" Bulaguen", a "good place" of 500
houses, were rich, owing to the favourable position of the village on
the way to the southern capital, and Saffi, and Sallee ; and, in spite of
the melancholy waste around them, they cultivated the soil in a
laborious manner.
The battle in which Leo took part, in 15 14, between the Azamor
Portuguese, probably under Juan de Meneses, and Mulai en-Nasir,
. brother of Mohammed VI. It was one of the many skirmishes in which
nearly all of Dukala came under the short-lived power of Portugal.
Now-a-days, the place is seldom heard of. — Chenier, Recherdies
Jiistoriques stir les Maures, vol. i, pp. 75, 77, 273 ; Lempriere, Tour to
Morocco^ p. 419 ; Host, Efterretninger om Marokos og Fes, p. 76 ;
Jackson, Morocco, p. 6 ; Renou, E.vpl. scientifiqiie de PAlgerie,
vol. viii, p. 217 ; Edrisi (Hartman ed.), pp. 160-61 ; Marmol, L'A/rique.
vol. ii, p. 614 ; Keatinge, Travels in Africa, vol. ii, p. 22 ; De Faria
y Sousa, Africa Portugiiesa (1681), p. 1 17.
(108) Azamur, or Azamor, as it is spelt in the earliest Portuguese
documents. Azamoor, as it is usually pronounced by Europeans, the
Azamor-es-Sidi-Schaib of the natives. Azamor meaning, in Berber*
olives, and Sidi-Schaib being one of the many saints whose tombs
give a pseudo piety to the place. Not improbably the town grew
rapidly around the Kubba of that holy man. But a place so well
situated for fishing shebbel (a shad, chtpea alosa), the only good
fresh-water fish in Morocco, must have always attracted some inhabi-
tants to the mouth of the Um-er-Rbia — "the river of forty springs", on
the south side of which it stands. The Um-er-Rbia — corrupted into
Morbeya — ^was probably the Anatis tlumen of Polybius, the Asana
flumen of Pliny, and the'Affa/ia TT-ora/^OL/ ix/SoAa/ of Ptolemy, but the
3/8 NOTES TO BOOK 11.
permanent settlement nearest was at Portus Kutubis, Pyo/iS/r /./,a9;i',
or the modern Mazagan.
About the earliest notice of Azamor is by Abu-1-feda, who describes
it as one of " the towns of Berr-el Udvah. " Azamor is written with
an clif/iaiJisa, surmounted by a.fat/ia, a za, a iiieiii with a teschdid, a
iva, and a ra^\ which ought to fix the spelling. It was then a place
of 2,000 inhabitants, partly " Sanhadjites " of the Zanaja or Sanhaja
tribe. But Azamor first came into European history when it was
attacked without success by the Portuguese in 1508, and then was
taken by them on the 2nd of September 1513, after an assault in
which Magellan was wounded, and evacuated after thirty-two years of
troubled possession.
In 1546, the Sherif Mohammed proposed to raze the city, '* a form
of vengeance which explains the disappearance of more than one
place, but, at the solicitation of three Marabouts, permitted it to stand
as a check to the Portuguese incursions from Magazan, and as a base
for raids upon them. These three holy men were Sidi "Abd-allah-
ben-Sasi, Sidi Mohammed de Caque (.''), and Sidi Canon, whom Leo
refers to in his account of Armez. The second of these is known by
being mentioned in Diego de Torres, while the first, the most
venerated of the three, is buried on the banks of the Tensift, fourteen
miles east of Marakesh. It was near the sanctuary of the holy
personage, and at his mediation, that the Sherif Ahmed was per-
suaded to definitely abandon the Empire to his brother Mohammed,
and retire to Tafilet. But Captain Major Luiz de Loureyro, Governor
of Magazan, had less esteem for the three saints. For, as an inscrip-
tion over the chief gateway of Mazagan in part indicates, when he
learned through his spies that they were plotting mischief against the
Portuguese, he immediately marched the eight miles from Mazagan,
seized the three, and held seven of tiieir children as security for the
payment of a fine of 22,000 ducats.
Since then Azamor has played almost no part in history. A bar
across the river mouth prevents the entrance of ships, and no
European lives in the town. Weaving and fishing shebbel is the
chief employment of the eight or nine thousand (if so many) people,
many of whom are Jews. The walls are falling into decay, like the
place generally, but some of the houses bear traces of the Portuguese
occupation.
Shebbel has always been one of its sources of wealth, 10,000 dried
fish being part of the tribute exacted by the Portuguese after the
double treachery of Mulai Sidan-n-Zejam, in 1508, by which Azamor
was not captured in that year.
The large number of storks, which build their nests in every mosque-
tower and ruined fortification in this sleepy city of the past, add to its
sanctity, the stork being a sacred bird. On the charts from the four-
NOTES TO BOOK II. 379
teenth to the seventeenth century, the cape near Azamor is called
Scossor, Fcossor, Zozor, etc., which Sanson finally Latinises into
Cacorum Caput (note loi).
(109) This was, perhaps, an exaggeration, considering that Leo
wrote so soon after the siege and sack. De Faria y Sousa, in
1680, after the place had recovered from the disaster and was again
under the Moors, reckoned it to have 5,000 Moslems and 400 Jews.
(iio) The indiscreet general was Juan de Meneses, Governor of
Arzilla, who depended on the treachery of Sidan-n-Zejam, a relation
of Mohammed the Beni Mereni King of Fez, who had offered his
services to deliver the city into the King of Portugal's hands. But
Sidan proved false, and the citizens bidding fair to set the Portuguese
fleet on fire, Meneses withdrew. The Christian merchants in the
city also acted as spies, advising the Portuguese of the weakness of
the garrison and defences.
(hi) The Duke of Braganza's fleet consisted in reality of 400 ships
— mostly, however, very small — carrying 8,000 infantry and 2,500
cavalry. The " certaine prince", who had to escape in so undignified
a manner, appears to have been "' Alchengue Cim" — the spelling is
Diego de Torres' — the Chief Terga, who had come to help Sidi
Mansur against the Infidels.
(112) Leo is quite correct in accusing the Jews of treachery. After Sidi
Mansur, the Governor, was killed, a Jew, named Jacob Adibe, managed
to communicate with the enemy.
Mazagan (Mazagao)- — or Castello-Real — a town built by the Portu-
guese in 1506 under Diniz Gregorio de Mello Castro e Mendonc^a,
and abandoned in 1769, is not mentioned by Leo, though he must
have been acquainted with it. The place existed originally as a
Berber town, called Maziren, by Edrisi. This name was forgotten by
the natives, who applied to the fortress which the Portuguese built
the title of El Bridja (Boreycha of Marmol, El Breza of Venture, the
Bureeja of Jackson, the Berigia of Graberg de Hemso, etc.). Even
that name is ceasing to be used. This place, with its crumbling walls
and antiquated guns, some with " G. R. Ill" on them, often dis-
mounted and always rusty, is no longer a fortress (Bridja). After the
Portuguese left it was called " Meheduma" (the Ruined), a name
changed in 1770 by the Sultan, Sidi Mohammed, into El-Jedida (the
New). It bears many traces of the Portuguese : a jetty of stone, a
large cistern with pillars, and bearing marks of having been struck by
a bomb, a building said to have been the Inquisition, great galleried
houses, etc. It is about the only place in Morocco where ducks are
kept. Jews and Europeans are nearly as numerous as Arabs and
Berbers ; but Rohlfs shows entire ignorance of the conditions of com-
merce in supposing that the trade of Mazagor could be carried on in
Azamor were it not for the fanaticism of the latter. The Um-er-Rbia
380 NOTES TO BOOK II.
River bar alone is an almost insuperable difficulty. Yet after the
Portuguese left the town was for a time uninhabited. Sidi Mohammed
(who to obtain means to defray the cost, for a time permitted the
export of cereals) had, indeed, laid siege to it with 30,000 men, 36 guns
and mortars, after the order of Dom Jose to evacuate the place had
been received. But at the date when Chenier wrote (1786) Mazagan
was " entirely ruined and almost uninhabited. The Moors have taken
away the timber and left the walls standing. . . A little to the south-
west of Mazagan is an old tower, called Borisha, whence the name of
Bridja, which the Moors confound with that of Mazagar". This is
mainly copied from Marmol, who adds, that this tower (Boreycha)
marked the ancient port of Almedina, where there was a ruined
village. But El Bordj is Arabic for any tower. So fanatical was the
hatred felt towards the Christians, that the Moors, who were unable to
make the Mecca pilgrimage, were instructed by their religious teachers
that to come and discharge their markets at Mazagan was compensa-
tion enough for the neglect of their religious duty. The garrison
on a certain occasion having fired at a group of these fanatics, one
was killed by a cannon ball. His comrades gave him a saint's burial,
but they took care not to risk the same glorious fate, by in future
keeping out of range while indulging in the harmless marketing
mentioned. The Moors were also prohibited from buying or selling
in the hated town ; but as they did a clandestine trade through the
tributary natives, the departure of the Portuguese from the last place
they held in Morocco was much regretted, until more Europeans
came, and greater freedom of commerce began. Yet it was not until
1777 that Portugal had Consuls in Morocco. The inscription in stone
over the main gateway, under the arms of Luiz de Loureyro, gives a
succinct history of the early days of the city. In 1502, a Portuguese
ship having been wrecked on this part of the coast, the crew erected a
stockade. In isogthis grewintoasmall quadrangularfortress, to protect
the builders of the town, which began in 15 13, and was completed on
the 1st of August 1541, the year that Saffi was evacuated, evidently
with the intention of concentrating here, as the garrison of Azamor
also was soon withdrawn. From i5ioto 1541, Luiz di Azambuga was
commandant ; in the latter year he was succeeded by Luiz de
Loureyro, who died in 1547.
The town must have cost an enormous sum, the huge blocks of
stone having been brought from Lisbon ready hewn and all numbered
for the workmen and Moorish slaves to fit into position. So strong
was the place that, after trying to take it by treason, the siege by the
Moors in 1562 had no effect upon it. Mulai Abd-AUah had resolved
on this enterprise, at the instigation of one of the many renegades in
his army. He brought 80,000 men into the field, but the Governor,
Rodreguez de Sousa, conducted the defence with a skill and courage
NOTES TO HOOK II. 38 1
worthy of the heroic era of Portugal. The Villa Nova de Mazgam,
in the Brazilian Province of Grao, in Par^, was built by the exiled
Portuguese in memory of their old home in Mazagan. — Luiz Maria
do Conto de Albuquerque Da Cunha, Mcmorias para a liistoria da
pra(^a de Afazagdo, etc. (1864) ; Galvao, Vida do fainoso Itcroc Ltiiz dc
Loiireiro J De Sousa, Docuvientos Arabicos para a Historia dc
Portugal ; Castellanos, Marruecos, pp. 77-<^2> '■> Som/nario delP assedio
di Mazzagano nel regno di Marocco per i Portughesi 1562 nelP
aprile^ Trad., N. C. Amaroglio (1563) ; References in Playfair and
Brown's Bibliography of Morocco (R. G. S.), under " Mazagan", Times
of Morocco, No. 48, Oct. 9th, 1886 ; De Faria y Sousa, Africa Portu-
guesa (1681), pp. 107, 207 ; Diego de Torres, Istoria de los Xarifes,
pp. 17, 171, 199, etc. One of the rarest pieces of early literature on
Morocco is the letter of Emanuel the Fortunate, King of Portugal, to
Pope Leo X, describing the capture of Azamor and the subjugation of
the surrounding country {Bib. of Morocco, No. 39).
(113) Meramer in the original. In Cochelet's narrative Meramer
is mentioned as two days from Marakesh, and is probably the place
of the same name found in El Bekri. It is not now a place of any
consequence, and was certainly not " built by the Goths", a people
who seem to dominate Leo's imagination. The Beni-Merer are a
tribe of the Sheadma Berbers, though using the Arabic " Beni "
instead of the Berber " Ait". — Renou, E.vpl. scientifiqiie de PAlgc'rie,
vol. viii, p. 215.
(114) The Jebel Beni Megher. Rohlfs refers to them as the " Dja
Megher mountains, which begin or end in Cape Cantin, and which
pass round the town [Saffi] sending out little spurs close up to it,
relieve the monotony of the coast line, and charm the eye with their
lovely tree-clad slopes". — Mei/i Ersier Aufenthalt in Marokko, etc.
(3nd Ed., 1885), pp. 340-399. In the English translation (1874),
" Di-Megher mountains " do not help the reader's understanding.
The " Dj. Megher" also appear on Petermann's map attached to
some of the German editions.
(115) Monte verde is simply a translation of Jebel el-Akder, a range,
the more southerly continuation of which is known as Jebel Falhnassa.
Westward, according to Leo's description, they extend to the Hasara
hills (Colli di Hasara), a range not mentioned by any other writer.
No such mountains exist in this region, or under that name. The
Jebel Hessaia are too far north to fall into Leo's description, so that
unless Hasara is a misprint for Hescura (Escura), an old province
bordering Tedla (Tedles), on the frontier of which the mountains in
question lie, it means simply the extension of the Jebel Falhnassa
through Ahmar country almost to the Tensift.
This is rendered all the more probable from Leo describing a lake at
the foot of the " monte" — that is, mountain range. The only lake in
382 NOTES TO BOOK II.
that part of the country is the brackish Sebka-Sima, on the route
from Safti to Marakesh, close to the Sok el Khamis and the village of
Sim a.
Leo says that the camels drink of the water, which, with all a
camel's catholicity for quenching its thirst, it may be questioned
whether a camel would do now. But its saltness may be of later date.
All Morocco shows strong signs of dessication in recent times, which
might, by equalling evaporation and supply, render the lake saline. It
seems also decreasing in size, if Leo is correct in likening it to the
Italian Bolsena, a water lake 45 miles in area. At all events, no
other sheet with which the lake can be identified exists in that region.
M. de Breugnon, French Envoy Extraordinary to the Moorish
Court, passed the sebka in May 1767. His geographical nomencla-
ture is quite that of a period when "men of quality did not spelL'.
But though it is placed too near Safifi, and Azac-Haim Zima is
mentioned at one day from Saffi, " Gutna-Rasselin, saline mineral",
must be the sebka, which again is described in the itinerary of a
Portuguese embassy in 1773. — Thomassy, lib. cif.,\i. 159; O Pano-
rama, jornal de litterario, etc., 1839, cited by Renou, lib. cit., p. 212.
"Pine apples" (e anche delle pine); "pine apples" is wrongly
rendered. They are neither cultivated nor wild in Morocco. The
word may mean the seeds or nuts of the Finns /lalpensis, which are
sometimes eaten, or the fleshy seeds of the Pistachio. This also may
be the tree " bearing leaues like vnto the pine-leaues". " Frutto rosso
che h detto afifricano " is dubious.
" Great store of fountaines " shield the saints (moltf santi), or
rather, saints' tombs, and "altar", " Kubbas", " heuchet", or " sidi",
at which every good Moor behaves as Mohammed did on his
expedition to drive the Portuguese and their Arab allies out of
Dukala.
(116) Hawking and, to a less degree, hunting with hounds, are still
favourite pastimes with the Moors. The game Mulai Mohammed got
in the " bosco, nel circuito del detto lago" (omitted in the translation)
were "oche salvatiche, anitre, e altera sorte d'uccelli d'acqua, e tort-
orelle" — wild geese, snipe, and other kinds of water birds and pigeons.
"Aquile" eagles would appear to mean hawks, for eagles have not
been trained to hawk.
" Hares, deere, porcupines, roe deere, woolues, quailes, and
starlings" are, in the original, " lepri, cervi, porchespini, capriuoli,
lupi coturneci, e di starne". Though often called "hare" by the
Europeans, the rabbit {Lepus Caniculus) is the animal meant, that
being the only member of the Leposida; family in Barbary, with the
exception of the dubious L, CEgyptius (Desm.). M. Lataste, after
examining a number of skulls of the Barbary rabbit, came to the
conclusion that it docs not differ essentially from that of Europe
NOTES TO BOOK II. 383
(Acies de la Soc. Lhmcennc de Bordeaux, vol. xxxix, pp. 129-2S9, and
Etudes sur la Faune dcs vertebrcs de Barbarie — Cat. provisiore des
Mamiuipres apclagiques sauvages {\%%%), p. 157. The " cervi " may
lie the now rare, if not extinct, Cervus Corsicanus, the Barbary stag
(C barbarus) of some zoologists; the " porchcspine" is the common
porcupine {Hystrir cristata) still occasionally met with, even on the
hills near Tangier, where I have seen it. " Capriuoli", admitting that
Leo did not mistake some antelope for it, may refer to Dama daiiia.
The wolf is not a Morocco mammal, but the jackal {Cavis aureus)
and the fennec {C. cerdd) are, not to mention the hyena.
(117) For A.H. 922, read 921, and for A.D. 1512, A.D. 1516, as its
equivalent, the first date being a blunder of the translator, the second
of Leo himself, as it is in the original, though not in the 1837
reprint.
(118) Hascora, Heskoura, Ecura, Escura.
Though put on maps well into this century, and described as such
Ijy Chenierand his copyists, is not now recognised as a province. With
Rhumna it formerly composed one government, but was separated
from the more western province so as to keep the mountain tribes
more firmly under subjection. The " Heuz" of Alarakesh and the
modern province of Chragna now occupy much the same area in the
old kingdom of Morocco.
(119) Elmadina in the original, literally, El Medina, "the city".
(120) Almedin in the original. Here we have two towns in
" Hascora", and a third in Dukala, all three with practically the same
name, and that meaning simply "the city", or town. The Dukala one
(p. 288) figures more than once in Portuguese history, so that as
neither of the two, as " Hascora", appear to have had, in Leo's time
at all events, any participation in the troubles of which he speaks so
frequently, the Dukala " Elmedina" may be considered entirely
different from the two now under consideration. Each of these was,
no doubt, " commonly called Almedin" ; for, at this moment, just as an
Englishman will speak of "going to the town", or a cockney of
"coming to town", or" going into the city" (meaning London), so a
country Moor, talks of visiting " El M'd'nah", instead of referring
to the particular one by name, if indeed it has any other of which he
knows. Every large town in Morocco has a " Medinah" section, just
it has a " Mellah", or Jewry, and a " Kosbah", or Government quarter-
Whether the names Leo gives were actually those of the places
described, or simply those which he heard the people apply to
them in familiar discourse, can never be known. And his data are
too vague to enable us, at this time, to affix them to any particular
spot, even if they now exist, or have not fallen victims to time, or the
rage of some vengeful tyrant who had vowed to " sift" the rebellious
towns "through a sieve", as Abd-el-Mumen promises to treat Mara-
384 NOTES TO BOOK II.
kesh, and INIulai Abd' Allah the rebellious city of Fez. All that we can
determine is that EI Medinah was the more easterly of the two.
Renou, who equally failed to identify either, suggests that Leo made
some lapsus pcumr in the manuscript, such as a writer does not notice
until his words appear in print (and not always then), and that
probably the one place might have been M'dinet-ech-Chergui, the
eastern, and M'dinet-el-R'arbi, the western town. But we have seen
that there is a M'dinet-el-Gharbia (R'arbi) in Dukala. The position
of the other two is, therefore, as puzzling as their names, which afford
almost no clue to their identity. Possibly "Haskoura", which occurs
in two itineraries from Marakesh to Tafilet, and from Akka to Dades,
may be the same. — Renou, Expl. scioitifique de f Algcrie^ vol. viii,
pp. 162, 163. 225.
There is an El Medinah on the Wad Dmini in the Dra basin,
which, with the villages of Ifelt, Iril, Tagnet, Afella Isli, Tauirt,
and Amerzeggan, form the place known by the general name of Imini.
There is another " Almedina'", in ruins at the time Chenier wrote, but
as it was near Tit, must undoubtedly have been the Dukala town of
that name already noticed (pp. 288, 373), and which frequently figures
in De Farm y Soiisa (pp. 100, loi, etc.), and other writers on the
Portuguese struggle in ^Morocco.
(121) Tagodast, or Isadgaz (Marniol), has not been fully identified,
like many places in the Atlas, or its spurs which intersected " Has-
cora". There is a Tagaust, near the headwater of the Sus. But
" Tag", a Berber word, occurs in the composition of many place-
names — Tagadert, Tagliet, Tagdurt, Tagemt, Tagendut, Tagenduzt,
Tagentat, Tagentaft, Tagenza, Tagenzalt, Tagergent, Tagergust,
Tagerra, Tagersift, Tagerhot, Tagjdet, Taglaut, Tagmadart, Tagmut,
Tagnit, Taguiamt, Tagulemt, Tagummast, Tagunza, Tagust, Tag-
ressalt, Tagrvit, Tagzart, Tagzvit, etc., all mentioned by De Foucauld.
But Leo's description does not permit us to identify his Tagodost
with any one of them. Marmol seems to have had some personal
acquaintance with " Isadagaz". For he notes that though indepen-
dent during the decline of the Beni-Marinis, the people submitted to
the Sheriffs, and were, in his day, governed by a Berber of the " Has-
cora" branch of the Musamuda Berbers. But the place was not
strong, either by nature or art, and did not contain over a thousand
people, including some Jews, mostly traders and artizans (vol. ii,
pp. 122-24).
(122) This "El Jama" may, perhaps, not mean " Jemaa" (in the
Berber tongue " Anfaliz"), or tribal assembly, but really mosque
(pp. 384), though in neither case the etymology will help us in the
difficulty of identification. It was on the top of a hill, four miles from
Tagodost, of which it was an off-shoot, when the dissensions of the
aristocracy of that place became (about 1500?) too hot for the
NOTES TO BOOK II. 385
humbler folk. There is a Jama (Djemoua) Tisergat in the Tezuata
District, near the source of the Dra, though I am more inclined to
seek Leo's place in the country of the Jemua (Djemoua), one of the
many fractions of the Chauia Berbers of the upper part of the Um-er-
Rbia basin — perhaps Jema (Djemaa) Entifa, a place of about 1,500
people, including 200 Jews. In any case it can be only a httle hill,
" Ksor", of the kind very plentiful all over this region.
(123) Bzo, or Bizu — in all likelihood the " Bezzou" marked on
Beaudouin's map as lying on the route from Marakesh to Tedla,
about the distance mentioned from the Wad el-Abid. The inhabi-
tants, like those of the preceding places, are Musmuda Berbers.
(124) Teneves, or Tenendez, is, like all of Leo's mountains, too
loosely described to be now identified. No known summit bears that
name, though it appears to have been the site of a considerable
Berber town, if the magnificence of the chief may be accepted as any
criterion of his people's wealth. There are many places beginning
with " Ten", such as the " Tenin" of the Ida on Mohammed, etc.
(De Foucauld, Reconnaissance aic Maroc, p. 489 — Index). Probably it
was the home of a Berber tribe, whose name has been corrupted from the
Tenairou-Dez, or some such form which has now disappeared. They
made continual war on the Ten-sita people. But what it all ended in
we may suspect, but cannot say for certain, these wild mountaineers
not keeping any annals. " Woad " is, in the Italian, " guado".
(125) Tensita, or Tensit, though called "a mountain", is avowedly
"a part of Atlas". Monte, meaning in Leo's descriptions almost
invariably a spur or range, and which receives from him the name of the
tribe inhabiting it, is of some large " Ksor" in the neighbourhood.
Marmol knew a place called Tinzeda, which he describes, rather
vaguely, as on the River Dra. In reality there is such a large Ksor in
the Dra Basin, still called Tanzida, which quite corresponds to Leo's
description, though much reduced in power since his day, when it
seems to have been the capital of a powerful confederation, ex-
tending, most probably, over the Tisint District. De Foucauld visited
it, and found it " un grand qgar [Ksor] peuple de Haratin", a Berber
tribe. But it is governed quite apart from any other district, though
it recognises the sovereignty of the Ida u Blal. The valley, " ou
plutot I'encaissment au bood duquel il s'eleve", is about 3,000 feet
wide. On the south it is bordered by the Bani, and on the north by
the " Feija", or hilly desert, whence the Wad Tanzida, in which it
stands, takes its rise. The Tanzida people belong to the Seketana
section. There is a Zauia in the Ternata district of the Wad Dra
called Tanzita, or the Zauia el Baraka, but it has no connection with
Tanzida. — De Foucauld, Reco7tnatssa7ice au Maroc, pp. 116, 291, 304,
etc., Map 9. The extension of the spur to Dedes is the Jebel
Saghro (Sarro) range.
B B
386 NOTES TO BOOK II.
(126) In Casiri's Bib. Arab. Histr. Esc, p. 257, there is a passage
quoted from a history of Granada, by Ibnu-1-Khattib, in which the
Andalusian parts of the King of Granades' army were armed with
" leathern buckles, called lamatti". In a note, copied by Gayangos
from an Arabic MS. of the Kitdbu-l-jagrdfiyyah, it is explained that
the shields were manufactured from the skin of a species of antelope,
called hunt or lamat, in the dialect of Berbers, and found at Dra and
other places bordering on Sudan. This information is confirmed by
the passage in Leo. But Ibn-Khaldun (Arabic MS. in British
Museum, fo. 52) says that Lanta is the name of a tribe of the great
family of Senhaja (Zenata), and that their shields were so-called
from being manufactured in the country which they occupied. — De
Gayangos, Hisf. of the MoJiainnicdan Dynasties of Spaiji^ vol. i,
pp. 407, 408. Marmol {^UAfrique., t. i, p. 52) describes the "Dante"
as a form of little ox (Buffalo ?) abandoned in the deserts of Numidia
and Lybia, particularly " in the Morabitain country". In the Roitdh el
Kartas (Beaumier's ed., p. 141). A "thousand bucklers covered with
the lanit hide " are mentioned among the expiating gifts of El-Bahary
to El-Mansur in A.H. 381 (?).
The "Sherif el Wad" (River Lord) {Bos atlanticus) has been
described from the Atlas Mountains, and is, perhaps, the Empolunga
of Purchas. A'second species is said to be sometimes found in the
country around Sallee and Rabat. But neither is satisfactorily known,
and both may be simply domestic cattle which have escaped and
reverted to savagedom. — Blyth, T'rf?^. Zool. Sac, London, 1 841, p. 6.
(127) Gogideme or Guigdeme (Marmol) is too loosely indicated by
Leo to be identified with certainty, more especially as we do not know
any tribe or Ksor of that name. "Adjoining" ("che confina col
sovradetto") may mean in any direction, though the probabilities are
that by Gogideme is meant the Jebel Tifernin, the country of the still
numerous Ait Seddrat. or on the opposite water-shed of the Wad
Tigdi Ughchen, inhabited by the Berber tribe of the same name.
Indeed, apart from the closeness of the name to Gogideme, the
locality agrees as closely as the description enables us to fix it.
Marmol furnishes no additional information, his account being, as
usual, almost a paraphrase of Leo's under the guise " the historians
say".
(128) The incident of Ibrahim, the short-lived King of Morocco,
taking refuge in Gogideme, is not mentioned in the Roudh el Kartas,
so that this additional clue to the identification of the"monte" is
lacking. Pory, however, makes an entirely erroneous translation of
'' discepolo di Almadi " by " his disciple Elmahele". The disciple
was, of course, Abd-el-Mumen, and the master and Mahdi Mohammed
Ibn Junurt, the founder of the Almohade dynasty. This reckless
NOTES TO BOOK II. 387
fanatic was anything but a disciple of Ibrahim, whose race he and his
successor did their utmost to exterminate.
Gogideme is, perhaps, as both Mr. Corley, and M. de Averzac have
suggested, the Gogdem (Cocadem) of Edrisi, apphed to the station of
Arki seven days from Wad Nun, and twelve from Traza, on the route
between these two places, and the same as Gogdem, the name of a
desert which it takes nine days to traverse on the way from Tuat to
Timbuktu. Leo himself, as we shall see, places this desert on the
route from Plensem to Timbuktu. The identity — or existence — ot
this locality will be discussed at a later stage. Meantime, it is, no
doubt, an alluring hypothesis to imagine that both places owe their
names to exiles driven by Abd-el-Mumen from Gogideme. — Corley,
NegT'oland of the Arabs, pp. 19, 20, note 34 ; Renou, Notice sur
V Afriqtte septe7itrionale, t. ii, pp. 297-298.
(129) Tesevon, or Tescevin, is doubtful. Marmol mentions that
the two mountains close together were peopled by the Musmuda
Berbers, and that the river which traverses their country eventually
ioins the Um-er-Rbia. They were poor, and paid rent for their fields
to "the Arab vassals of the Sheriff", probably the Beni-Jebir of
Marmol. If the "certaine River" is, as there seems some reason for
believing, the Tessaut el Fukia (Wad Akhdir), then that portion of
the Great Atlas in which it rises, though the source, and, indeed, the
course of the river, have still to be traced, is the " Tesevon". But if
the "certaine River" (un fiume) is the Um-el-Abra, the mountains
might be that portion of the range in which Jebel Ben Mellal and
Jebel Amhaust are the most prominent summits. The difficulty of
placing Tagodat makes a nearer identification almost impossible until
the Atlas is better known. A trice historicall discourse oj Muley
Haniefs Risiiig, etc. (1609), chap, xvi, the writer (Ro. C, perhaps
Cotlington) refers to a mountain, Jessevon, not far from Marakesh.
(130) The "region of Tedles" (Tedle of Leo, Tedia of Marmol) is
practically the modern province of Tedla, between the Wad-el-Abid,
which appears in the older authors under such a variety of names
(Quadelhabid, Hued-ala-Abed, Guedelebi, Louet-de-Leibit, Guadel-
habid, etc.), and the Um-er-Rbia into which it eventually empties,
though Leo takes in much of the Atlas. It is traversed by some of
the highest points of the Great Atlas, and forms the home of many
semi, or altogether independent tribes who are rich in cattle, fruit
trees, etc., and in the grain which they cultivate in abundance on
the lower grounds. There are many " Kasbahs", or castles, or
mountain strongholds, such as Bebi-Melall, Ait-Rbia, etc., the first
containing fully a thousand people, and is defended by three forts
belonging to the Ait-Seri, on the defile leading to it. The Ait Atla are
addicted to raiding the plains. The Ait Rbaa Kasbah holds about
1,500 people, including some Jews, who hold their usual condition of
38^ NOTES TO BOOK II.
vassalage to the Berbers. M. Erckmann mentions the ruins of an
"old palace, dating from the time of Mulai Ahmed ed-Dehebi [1727-
I729]i", though as the "Amil" (governor), representing the Sultan, has
only nominal authority, it is difficult to imagine who lived in the old
palace. The Um-er-Rbia rolls at the side of the Kasbah, over a
rocky bed, and is crossed by a bridge, nearly 500 feet long and 7 feet
broad. In the north of the region is Bejad, a holy town, the residence
of Ben Daud, a "saint" of considerable influence ; and to the south of
the Zayain tribe, another place, named Mhaush, completely under the
independent rule of the mountain Berbers. Even the Sultan traverses
Tedla with an army, not without extreme precaution. — Erckmann,
Lc Maroc Modcrnc^ pp. 64-65 ; De Foucauld, Reconnaisaiice aic
Moroc, pp. 65-67.
(131) Tefza, the Tebza of Marmol, has been universally accepted
by commentators on North African geography to be the modern
Tazza, or Tesa, about fifty miles from Fez. But that is clearly a
blunder, the town being afterwards mentioned as Terja, or Tezza,
with its proper geographical surroundings. The Tefza, now to be
considered, is in reality the modern Kasba Tadla. Indeed, Leo
afterwards refers to it as "Tedle" in his description of " Seggheme",
so that Tefza, if it was not a slip of the pen, must have been another
name for it. The Kasbah, the country folks say, was, with the bridge
often arches over the Um-er-Rbia, erected by Mulai Ismail, a state-
ment which, however, is of no historical value, as Moorish legends
are notoriously untenable, and are prone to be eminently so when they
circle round Mulai Ismail, whose masterful ways have impressed the
public memory. Actually every fact is against the tale. It is, how-
ever, quite possible, as the place might have fallen into decay, or have
been desolated after Leo's day, and have been repaired or recon-
structed by Mulai Ismail. But it bears the impress of great anti-
quity. It stands on the right bank of the Um-er-Rbia, which flows at
the foot of its walls in the shape of a rapid current, about 100 feet
broad and of considerable depth. The castle is well preserved, and,
from the Morocco point of view, of more than ordinary strength.
In addition to the officials, there are about 1,200 or 1,400 people in
the town proper, of whom about 150 are Jews, some of them rich ;
but the neighbourhood of the place differs from nearly all others in
Morocco, in having no vestige of garden, fruit trees, or verdure. The
soil is in many places saline, and the water of the Um-er-Rbia — like
those of the Wad Rdat, Wad Imuil, Asif Marren, Tisint, Talta, Ain
Imariren, Messun, etc. — though clear and drinkable, tastes slightly
of the soil. Salt is, however, not extracted here, but in the territory
of Beni Musa. De Foucauld, Reconnaissance^ etc., pp. 57-58 (Map 6),
gives a view and plans of the place which confirms this identification,
built in historical date. It ought to be added that on Host's map
NOTES TO BOOK II. 389
" Tefza" is marked as a town near the upper water of the Um-er-
Rbia — in fact, just where Kasba Tadla is.
(132) " Burnvose", the hooded cloaks, or upper woollen garment, so
universally used all over Barbary. Bernouse weaving is still a com-
mon trade of all the towns in this region.
(133) Zvairs, the Zueyr of Marmol, the modern Zacs, who inhabit
one of the most savage, and owing, to their ferocity, most dangerous
region in Morocco. They are the terror of caravans, intercepting
travellers between Rabat and Casablanca, and then escaping with
their booty into the mountains, where even an army would hesitate to
follow them. Their country is little known, and contains many in-
tricate ravines like the " Kurifla" in the northern part of the region,
roamed over only by them. They frequent the Rabat market, where
notorious robbers are occasionally seized. — Erckmann, Le Maroc,
p. 67.
(134) The Benigabir, Bemegaber or Beni-Cheber of Marmol, most
probably the notorious Beni Mitir.
(135) Leo has been taken by the translator at his own opinion.
For the harangues of " Captaine Ezzeranghi " — who does not appear
in any other historical document — have been somewhat abridged of
their prolixity. But, as nothing essential has been omitted in the
consideration, it has not been considered necessary to re-translate
the entire speeches on either side.
(136) Read A.D. 1509.
(137) Efza, the Tefza Fistala or Fichtala of Marmol, according to
him the name of a tribe which occupies Tefza and Efza. Tefza,
following Leo, means, in the Berber dialect of that region, " marble",
but Marmol translates it "a bunch of straw". He evidently regards
both towns as mere divisions of each other, a league apart. I have
not been able to find that any recent writer mentions it by name,
though several have been in the neighbourhood. It was without
walls in Marmol's day, a fact which its naturally strong situation
might not have prevented it from being destroyed.
The Derne, or Derma, which, according to Leo, lies between it and
Teza, is not known in the district where it is usually sought from
(note 131). Yet the stream is historical.
El Bekri speaks of the Derne, which he declares is a tributary of the
Nansifen, which M. Renou makes out to be the Um-er-Rbia, which it
is not, but the Wauizert (Quaouizert), a tributary of the river. He
also indicates a point called Darna, one day to the east of Dai, a
town situated, according to Edrisi, four days north-east of Marakesh,
a geographical reality, as we shall presently see. Ben Aias also
mentions two towns — Badla and Dani — on the Atlas, which may be
390 NOTES TO BOOK II.
Tadla (really Tezza) and Dai {Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la
Bibliothcqiie du Rot, t. viii).
The Derne, or Derna, also makes its appearance in the Moroccan
history almost contemporar>' with Leo. In 1544, after the outbreak
of hostilities between Ahmed and Mohammed, son of the Sheriff,
Mohammed declared war against Ahmed-el-Oates, Sultan of Fez,
and sent his son, Abd-el-Kader, to besiege " el Castillo de Fistela", as
Diego Torres calls a place which Ibn Onzar, the Governor, surren-
dered to the Sheriff after Ahmed, and his son, Bu-Bekr, had been
captured at the passage of the Derna {Istoria de los Xarifes^ pp. 146-
161). In this battle one of the commanders was the Kaid Mumen,
son of Yahia, or Mohammed el-Euldj, a Genoese renegade, who held
in fief Tedsi, in Sus. Moiiette also has the Darna among his list of
geographical names. Pellow mentions the " Darnol". Yet it does
not occur in any other writers, and the Darna, if it is to be sought in
the neighbourhood of the modern Taza, east of Fez, where it has
hitherto always been placed, it could not possibly flow into the Um-
er-Rbia, but into the Sebu. The difficulty is, however, easily solved
by putting the blame not on Leo, but on his commentator. The one
is right, the other wrong.
In reality, the Darna exists just where Leo puts it, between Tefza
(Kasha Tedla) and Ezza, still called Fistela (Fichtela), as in Marmol's
day, though the other name, if not a bit of hearsay blundering on
Marmol's part, seems to have been forgotten.
The Wad Derna which Diego de Torres mentions as the locality of
the battle is, in short, between Marakesh and the Beni Mtir country,
a little south of the Kasba Tadla on the Um-er-Rbia, of which it is a
tributary. Fichtala, or Fistela, is a Kasbah or fortress town on the
Wad Fichtala, a little further south. Actually it is a very old place,
having, in addition to the present village, the remains of an ancient
castle (De Foucauld, Reconnaissance^ etc., pp. 59-60), which super-
seded the present one erected by Mulai Ismail. It is embosomed
amid groves of almonds, but does not now contain more than 300
people. They do not reckon themselves members of any tribe. The
Kasba is a " Zouia", of which, at the time of De Foucauld's visit, two
brothers were absolute masters.
There are various ruins scattered over Tadla. For instance, Mulai
Ahmed, son of Mulai Sidan (a.d. 1608-1630), laid the foundation of a
town on the Um-er-Rbia, in the provmce of Tadla, which was by and
by destroyed, and has not left any trace behind it (Ro. C, A True
Historical Discourse, etc., chap. vi).
There are two places bearing the name of Fichtala — one "between
Fez and Taza", the other {ut supra) between Fez and the Wad-el-
Abid. But it is uncertain to which of these belonged Abd-el-.A.ziz Ibn
Mohammed (surnamed Abu Fares of Fichtala), who compiled a
NOTES TO BOOK 11. 39I
history of the Sheriffs, under the name of Menahel-es-Snfd-fi-Fadail-
esh-S/iorefd, i.e., " Fountains of purity, or the virtues of the Sheriffs
(De Slane, Revue Africaine., t. i, p. 291).
(138) Cititeb is, according to Leo, west of Efza, according to
Marmol, east of it, the latter being most likely the correct statement,
as there is no place which can be assigned to the description in the
now fairly well known country immediately east of Fez which Leo's
slip of the pen would make it, while in Algeria, between Setif and
Msila, there is a Berber tribe, the Ait 'Aiad of which name either
Cititeb or Eitiad may be the corruption. During the endless wars of
this region, various tribes have at different times migrated to other
parts of Northern Africa, and even across the Sahara. But in the
southern part of Tadla there still live the Ait Aiad, whose moun-
tainous region borders on that of the Ait Bu Sid, though their country
is properly in the Um-er-Rbia Basin. They can put into the field a
thousand men, of whom one hundred are horsemen, and, according
to De Foucauld, are habitually allies of the Ait Atab, a name in which
it is easy to detect "Citibeb", their chief village. In the principal
Ksor of the Ait Aiad there is a little Mellah with twenty Jews, and
among the Ait Atab the same number.
(139) Eitiad, or Aitiat, was a Musmuda Berber "Ksor", of which
the probable site is discussed in Note 138.
(140) Seggheme, or Segene, that Renou suggested might be Ser-
rarna, the name of a Berber tribe, " connu de M. Delaporte", in the
vicinity of the mountains. The tribe is not known to me, but the Ait
Segrouchen (Tsegrouchen, or Tserrouchen), a wide stretching tribe in
the region indicated, seem the people described by Leo, always
remembering that by " monte" he generally means the mountainous
region inhabited by particular Berber people, he proceeds to charac-
terise. "The townes of Tedles" is in the original simply "Tadla",
and by the " Captaine" who " had won" them must be meant Ezzer-
hanghi (p. 312). The North American Indian-like torturing of
prisoners by women is the only case of this kind which I have met
with among the Berbers.
(141) Magran, or Marran, the Ait Marraua or Meraou, whose
Ksors are situated on the borders of the Wad Ait Meraou, a tributary
of the Dades, and are capable of furnishing, according to De Fou-
cauld's estimate, 700 or 800 fossils. Further down the river enter the
territory of the Imgae (.?) tribe. The kind of houses described by Leo
are still seen in the Atlas, but the Meraou, if I am correct in the
identification given, have removed into regions more favourable for
cattle grazing, where they reside during winter when the high valleys
are deep in snow. Lions are now very scarce in Morocco ; and by
wolves, jackals are no doubt meant. " Farcala" is Ferkla,
392 NOTES TO BOOK II.
(142) A " Jebel Dades", under various transformations, occurs in
.several old itineraries of more or less authenticity (Renou, ExpL
scie7itifiqiie de VAlgerie^ t- viii, pp. 160, 164, 172, 174, 227, 231) as
the source of the Wad Dra. The Wad Dades, which rises in the
Great Atlas, is also a known river which enters the Dra Valley,
and the District of Dades is dotted with the Ksors of the Draua
(Haratin), the Beraber, the Ait Seddrat, etc. The Dades is divided
into six groups, or " Jemaas", each with its own Sheikh and
" Aam". These divisions are Ait Temuted, Ait Unir, Ait Hammu,
Ait u Allah, lurtegin, and Arba Mia. There are many Jewish
families in the Ksors of the Berber Confederation, of which Dades
forms one of the leading members. The ruins of which Leo speaks
are not known. — De Foucauld, Rcco?t>taissatice au Maroc, pp. 215
(view), 218, 222, 224, 268, 269, 403, map 15; D'Avezac, Etudes de
Gcog. Critique^ etc., pp. 174-177. The idea of Tedsi being on
Mt. Dades shows that Leo forgot what he said before (p. 254), if,
indeed, he was not speaking from hearsay. Todra and the Wad
Todra (Todga) are also well known. " The mountain of Adesan" is
the mountainous region inhabited by the Ait u Ez Zin, a once power-
ful ti^ibe of the Dades country, who do not appear in any other
portion of Leo's work. " Elhasid" is El asid (Note 5). The descrip-
tion of the houses applies very accurately to those of the present day ;
and the caves in which they lived and housed their cattle are still
used for these purposes. " Sisa and Fabbriano" refer to the towns of
their names in the Italian Marches.
The use of saltpetre is now well known, the natives making with it
and the sulphur they obtain from such thermal springs as those of
Ain Sidi Yusuf (the Aquae Dacica;), near Fez, from the spot at Man-
suria on the Selu (not that near the coast), from which sulphurous
vapour and, it is said, flames arise (?), etc., a very poor quality of
gunpowder. Indeed, a canister of English gunpowder, which they care-
fully economise for the priming of their flint-locks, is one of the most
acceptable presents which can be made to a mountaineer, or, indeed,
to any native of Morocco ; foreign gunpowder being like foreign arms
among the contraband articles which can be obtained only by smug-
gling, and therefore at a price proportionate to the risk run. The
mysterious " one" by whom Leo was bound to go to Segelmessa was,
no doubt, the Sherifif, then beginning those crafty proceedings which
eventually obtained for the Hoseni dynasty the thrones of Sus,
Morocco and Fez. Leo's connection with them is always open to
suspicion.
lOHN LEO HIS
THIRD BOOK EOF
the Historic of Africa, and
of the memorable things
contained therein.
A most exact description of the kingdovie of Fez.
HE kingdome of Fez beginneth west-
ward at the famous riuer Ommira-
bih, and extendeth eastward to the
riuer Muluia ; northward it is en-
closed partly with the Ocean, and
partly with the Mediterran sea. The
said kingdome of Fez is diuided * ^^,^^^
into seuen prouinces ; to wit, Temesna, the territorie ^ c-^aws or
of Fez, Azgar, *Elhabet, Errif, Garet, and *Elchauz :
euery of which prouinces had in olde time a seuerall
gouernour : neither indeed hath the citie of Fez alwaies
beene the kings royall seate, but being built by a
certaine Mahumetan apostata, was gouerned by his pos-
teritie almost an hundred and fiftie yeeres.^ After which
time the familie of Marin got the vpper hand, who here
setling their aboad, were the first that euer called Fez by
the name of a kingdome : the reasons why they did so,
we will declare more at large in our small treatise concern-
ing the Mahumetan religion. But now let vs as briefly
as we may, describe the foresaid seuen prouinces.
C C
394 TPIE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
w
Of Temesna one of the prouinces of Fez.
Estward it beginneth at the riuer Ommirabih, and
stretcheth to the riuer Buragrag eastward ; the
south frontire thereof bordereth vpon Atlas, and the north
vpon the Ocean sea. It is all ouer a plaine countrie,
containing in length from west to east almost fowerscore
miles, and in breadth from Atlas to the Ocean sea about
threescore. This prouince hath euer almost beene the
principall of the seuen before named : for it contained to
the number of fortie great townes, besides three hundred
castles, all which were inhabited by Barbarian Africans.
In the 323. yeere of the Hegeira this prouince was by a
certaine heretike against the Mahumetan religion called
Chemim the sonne of Mennal freed from paying of tribute.
A dangerous This bad fellow perswaded the people of Fez to yeeld no
seducer
tribute nor honour vnto their prince, and himselfe he
professed to be a prophet : but a while after he dealt not
onely in matters of religion, but in commonwealth-affaires
also. At length waging war against the king of Fez (who
was himselfe then warring with the people of Zenete) it so
befell, that a league was concluded betweene them, con-
ditionally that Chemim shoulde enioy Temesne, and that
the king should containe himselfe within his signiorie of
Fez, so that from thencefoorth neither should molest other.
The said Chemim gouerned the prouince of Temesne
about fiue and thirtie yeeres : and his successours enioyed
it almost an hundred yeeres after his decease. But king
Joseph hauing built Maroco, went about to bring this
prouince vnder his subiection. Whereupon he sent sundry
Mahumetan doctors, and priestes to reclaime the gouernour
thereof from his heresie, and to perswade him, if it were
possible, to yeelde vnto the king by faire meanes.
Whereof the inhabitants being aduertised, they consulted
with a certaine kinsman of the foresaid gouernour, in the
HISTORIE OF AP^RICA. 395
citie called Anfa, to murther the king of Maroco his
ambassadours : and so they did. Soone after leuying an
armie of fiftie thousand men, he marched towards Maroco,
intending to expell thence the familie of Luntuna, and
Joseph their king. King Joseph hearing of this nevves, was
driuen into woonderfuU perplexitie of minde. Wherefore
preparing an huge and mighty armie, he staied not the
comming of his enemies : but on the sudden within three
daies, hauing conducted his forces ouer the riuer of
Ommirabih, he entred Temesne, when as the foresaid fiftie
thousand men were so dismaied at the kings armie, that
they all passed the riuer Buragrag, and so fled into Fez.
But the king so dispeopled and wasted Temesne, that
without all remorse he put both man, woman, and childe
to the sword. This armie remained in the region eight
daies, in which space they so razed and demolished all the The horrible
desolation of
towns and cities thereof, that there scarce remaine any Temesne.
fragments of them at this time. But the king of Fez on
the other side hearing that the people of Temesne were
come into his dominions, made a truce with the tribe of
Zenete, and bent his great armie against the said Temes-
nites. And at length hauing found them halfe famished
neere vnto the riuer of Buragrag, he so stopped their
passage on all sides, that they were constrained to run vp
the craggie mountaines and thickets. At last being
enuironed with the kings forces, some of them were
drowned in the riuer, others were throwne downe headlong
from the rocks, and the residue were miserably slaine by
their enemies. And for the space of ten moneths there
was such hauock made among the Temesnites, that a sillie
remnant of them was left aliue. But king Joseph prince of
the Luntunes returned foorthwith to Maroco for the re-
pairing of his forces, to the end he might bid the king of
Fez a battell. Howbeit Temesne being bereft of her
people, was left to be inhabited of wilde beastes. Neither
C C 2
396 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
had that prouince any new colonie, or supply of inhabi-
tants, till that about 150. yeeres after, king Ma)isor
returning from Tunis, brought thence certaine Arabians
with him, vnto whom he gaue the possession of Temesne.
And these Arabians enioyed the said prouince for fiftie
yeeres, till such time as king Mansor himselfe was ex-
pelled out of his kingdome : and then were they also
expelled by the Luntunes, and were brought vnto extreme
miserie. Afterward the kings of the familie of Marin
bestowed the said prouince vpon the people of Zenete and
Haoara. Hence it came to passe that the said people of
Zenete and Haoara were alwaies great friends vnto the
Marin familie, and were thought to haue defended them
from the furie of the king of Maroco. From which time
they haue peaceably enioyed Maroco, & now they are
growne in lesse then an hundred yeeres so mighty, that
they stand not in feare of the king of Fez. For they are
able to bring threescore thousand horsemen to the field,
and haue two hundred castles at their command. My
selfe had great familiaritie and acquaintance with them,
and therefore I will not sticke to record all memorable
things which I sawe among them.^
Of Anfa a towne in Teniesna.
THis famous towne was built by the Romans vpon the
Ocean sea shore, northward of Atlas sixtie, east-
ward of Azamur sixtie, and westward of Rebat fortie
miles. The citizens thereof were most ciuill and wealthie
people : the fields thereto adioyning are exceeding fruitful!
for all kinde of graine : neither doe I thinke, that any
towne in all Africa is for pleasant situation comparable
thereto. The plaine round about it (except it be to the
sea northward) is almost fowerscore miles ouer. In olde
time it was fraught with stately temples, rich ware-houses
and shops, and beautiful! palaces : whicli the monuments
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 39/
a.s yet remaining doe sufficiently testifie. They had also
most large and faire gardens, out of which they gather
great abundance of fruit, especially of melons, and pome-
citrons euen at this day : all which are perfectly ripe by
mid-Aprill. So that the inhabitants vsually carrie their
fruits vnto Fez, by reason that the fruits of Fez are not so
soone ripe. Their attire is trim and decent, and they haue
alwaies had great traffique with the Portugals and the English traf-
fL (J trCi. ,
English. Likewise they haue many learned men among
them. Howbeit two reasons are alleaged of the destruction
of this towne : first, because they were too desirous of
libertie ; and secondly, for that they maintained certaine
gallies or foistes, wherewith they daily molested the Island of
Cadiz and the Portugals. Wherefore at length the king of
Portugall sent a strong nauie of fiftie sailes against them,
the consideration whereof strooke such terrour into the
inhabitants, that taking such goods as they could carrie,
some fled to Rebat, and others to Sela, and so their towne ^"/'^ destroicd
by the Portu-
was left naked to the spoile of the enemie. But Xk^&gais.
Generall of the kings fleete not knowing that they were
fled, put all his forces into battell-array. Howbeit after a
while being aduertised how the matter stood, he conducted
his soldiers into the citie, which in one dales space they
so defaced, burning the houses, and laying the walles euen
with the ground, that vntill this day it hath remained voide
of inhabitants. My selfe being in this place, I coulde
scarce refraine from teares, when I seriously beheld the
miserable ruine of so many faire buildings and temples,
whereof some monuments are as yet extant. The gardens,
albeit they bring foorth some fruit, yet are they more like
vnto woods then gardens. And now by reason of the
king of Fez his weaknes and default, this place is fallen
into so great desolation, as I vtterly despaire, that euer it
will be inhabited againe.-"^
398 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Of the citie of Mansora.
THis towne was built by Mansor the king and Mahu-
metan patriarke of Maroco vpon a most pleasant
field, being two miles distant from the Ocean sea,
fiue and twenty miles from Rebat, and fiue and
twentie from Anfa : it contained in times past almost
fower hundred families. By this towne runneth a
certaine riuer called by the inhabitants Guir, on both sides
whereof in times past were most beautifull gardens, but
now there are no fruits at all to be found. For vpon the
surprize of Anfa the inhabitants of this towne fled vnto
Rebat, fearing least they also should haue beene assailed
by the Portugals. Howbeit the wall of this towne re-
mained all whole, sauing that the Arabians of Temesne
brake it downc in certaine places. This towne also I
could not but with great sorrow behold ; for easie it were
to repaire it, and to furnish it with new inhabitants, if but
a few houses were saued from ruine : but such is the
malice of the Arabians thereabout, that they will suffer no
people to reedifie the same.*
Of the toivne of NucJiaila.
THis little towne called by the inhabitants Nuchaila, is
built almost in the midst of Temesne. It was well
peopled in times past, and then (so long as the foresaid
Chemim and his successours bare rule) there were fayres
yeerely holden, whereunto all the inhabitants of Temesne
vsually resorted. The townesmen were exceeding tvealthie ;
for the plaines stretched almost fortie miles right foorth
from each side of their towne. I red (as I remember) in a
certaine storie, that they had in times past such abundance
of corne, as they would giue a camels burthen thereof for
a paire of shooes. Howbeit when king Joseph of Maroco
destroied all the region of Temesne, this towne was laid
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 399
waste, together with all the townes and cities of the same
prouince : howbeit at this day certaine fragments thereof
are to be seene, namely some partes of the towne-wall, and
one high steeple. Here also in the large and pleasant
gardens you may see many vines and trees planted, which
are so olde and sear, that they yeeld no fruit at all. The
husbandmen thereabout hauing finished their daies worke,
doe lay vp their rakes and other such countrey tooles in
the said steeple : supposing that by vertue of a certaine
holy man which lieth there buried, no man dare remooue
them out of their place. I haue often seene this towne, as
I trauelled betweene Rebat and Maroco.^
Of the tozune of Adettdum.
THis towne was situate among certaine hils almost
fifteene miles from mount Atlas, and fine and
twenty miles from the towne last named. The soile neere
vnto it is exceeding fruitfull for corne. Not farre from
the walles thereof springeth a certaine riuer ; about which
place are great store of palme-trees, being but low and
fruitles. The said riuer runneth through certaine vallies
and rocks, where iron-mines are said to haue beene o{ iron-jninei
olde, which may seeme probable, for the earth rescmbleth
iron in colour, and the water in taste. Here is nothing
now to be seene but a few reliques and ruines of houses
and pillars ouerturned : for this towne was destroied at
the same time, when the whole region (as is before
declared) was laid waste.^
Of the towne of Tegeget.
THis towne was built by the Africans vpon the banke
of Ommirabih neere vnto the highway leading from
Tedles to Fez. It had in times past ciuill and wealthie
inhabitants, for it stood not far from the way which passeth
400 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
ouer Atlas into the deserts : hither were all the neighbour-
people woont to resort for to buy corne. And albeit this
towne was razed with all the residue in the prouince, yet
is it after long time replanted with inhabitants. Hither
doe all the Arabians of Temesne bring their corne, de-
liuering it vnto the townesmen, to be kept. Here are no
shops nor artificers at all, but certaine smithes onely,
which makes tooles of husbandrie and horseshooes. The
townesmen are streightly inioyned by the Arabians their
gouernours courteously to entertaine all strangers trauelling
that way. Merchants pay custome there for each packe
of cloth to the value of a riall : but for their horses and
camels they giue no custome at all. Often trauelling the
same way, the towne did not greatly please me, albeit the
grounds about it doe plentifully abound with cattell and
corne.^
Of the towne called Hain Elchallu.
THis small towne standeth on a certaine plaine not
farre from Mansora. About this towne grow
abundance of wilde cherrie-trees, and of other thornie
trees, bearing a round fruit not much vnlike to a cherrie,
sauing that it is yellow : it is somewhat bigger then an
oliue, and the vtter part thereof is nothing pleasant in
taste. The fennes and marishes on all sides of the towne
are full of snailes and toades : which toades (as the in-
habitants told me) are no whit venemous. There is not
any African historiographer which maketh description or
mention of this towne ; because perhaps they thought it
not woorthie the name of a towne, or for that it was long
since destroied. Neither was it (as I coniecture) built by
the Africans, but either by the Romans or some other
forren people.^
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 40I
A description of Rebat.
THis great and famous towne was built not many yeeres
agoe by Mausor the king and Mahumetan patriarke
of Maroco, vpon the Ocean sea shore.^ By the east part
thereof runneth the riuer Buragrag beforenamed, and there
dischargeth it selfe into the maine sea. The rocke whereon
this towne is founded, standeth neere the mouth of the
said riuer, hauing the riuer on the one side thereof, and the
sea on the other.^^^ In building it much resembleth Maroco,
which J/^fz;/^-^^ willed to be a paterne thereof: sauing that
it is a great deale lesse then Maroco. Some say that the
reason why it was built in this place was, for that king
Manser possessing the kingdome of Granada and a great jt^'^^f^X///
part of Spaine besides, and considering that Maroco was ihn tnvne of
r r ^ o Rebat vpon the
SO far distant, that if any warres should happen, he could seashore.
not in due time send new forces against the Christians,
determined to build some towne vpon the sea shore, where
he and his armie might remaine all summer time. Some
perswaded him to lie with his armie at Ceuta a towne vpon
the streites of Gibraltar : but Mansor seeing that by reason
of the barrennes of the soile he could not maintaine an
armie royall for three or fower monethes in the towne of
Ceuta, he caused this towne of Rebat in short space to be
erected, and to be exceedingly beautified with temples, "^
colleges, pallaces, shops, stores, hospitals, and other such
buildings. Moreouer on the south side without the walles
he caused a certaine high tower like the tower of Maroco
to be built, sauing that the winding staires were somewhat
larger, insomuch that three horses a-breast might well
ascend vp : from the top whereof they might escrie ships
an huge way into the sea. So exceeding is the height
thereof, that I thinke there is no where the like building
to be found.^^ And to the end that greater store of
artificers and merchants might hither from all places make
402 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
resort, he appointed, that euery man according to his trade
and occupation should be allowed a yeerely stipend :
whereupon it came to passe that within (ew moneths, this
towne was better stored with all kinde of artificers and
merchants, than any towne in all Africa besides, and that
because they reaped a double gaine. Here vsed Mansor
with his troupes to remaine from the beginning of April,
till the moneth of September. And whereas there was no
water about the towne meete to be drunke (for the sea
runneth ten miles vp into the riuer, and the wels likewise
yeeld salt-water) Mansor caused fresh water to be conueied
to the towne by certaine pipes and chanels, from a fountaine
twelue miles distant. And the conducts hee made arch-
wise, like vnto the conducts of Italic in many places and
specially at Rome. So soone as the said water-conduct
was deriued vnto the towne, he caused it to be diuided
and sent into sundry places, as namely some pipes thereof
to the temples, some to the colleges, others to the kings
pallace, and the rest into the common cesternes, through-
out all the citie. Howbeit after king Mansors death this
towne grew into such decay, that scarce the tenth part
thereof now remaineth. The said notable water-conduct
was vtterly fordone in the warre betweene the Marin-
familie and the successors o{ Mansor ^?iX\^ the famous towne
it selfe decaieth euery day more then other : so that at this
present a man shall hardly finde throughout the whole
towne fower hundred houses inhabited ; the residue are
changed into fields and vineyards. About the foresaid
rocke are two or three streetes with a few shops in them,
which notwithstanding are in continuall danger, for they
daily feare least the Portugals should surprize them;
because the Portugall king often determined their ouer-
throw, thinking if he might but win Rebat, that the
kingdome of Fez were easie to be conquered. Howbeit
the king of Fez hath alwaies endeuoured to defend the
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 403
same, and strongly to fortifie it against the enemie. But
comparing their former felicitie with the present alteration
whereinto they are fallen, I cannot but greatly lament
their miserable case.
Of the tozvne of Sella.
THis towne was built by the Romans vpon the riuer of
Buragrag, two miles from the Ocean sea, and a mile
from Rebat : from whence, if a man will goe to the sea, he
must take Rebat in his way. This towne also was destroied
when (as is aforesaid) king Joseph spoyled all Temesne.
Howbeit afterward king Mansor caused it to be walled
round about, and built therein a faire hospitall and a stately
pallace, into which his soldiers might at their pleasure
retire themselues. Here likewise he erected a most jJ^J'^^^/^^^
beautifull temple, wherein he caused a goodly hall or burud.
chapel to be set vp, which was curiously earned, and had
many faire windowes about it : and in this hall (when he
perceiued death to seaze vpon him) he commanded his
subiects to burie his corpes. Which being done, they laid
one marble-stone ouer his head and another ouer his feete,
whereon sundry epitaphes were engrauen. After him
likewise all the honourable personages of his familie and
blood, chose to be interred in the same hall. And so did
the kings of the Marin-familie, so long as their common-
wealth prospered. My selfe on a time entring the same
hall, beheld there thirtie monuments of noble and great
personages, and diligently wrote out all their epitaphes :
this I did in the yeere of the Hegeira 915.^'-
Of the towne called Mader Avuam.
THis towne^^ was built in my time by a certaine
treasurer of the Mahumetan prelate Abdulvmmen^
vpon the banke of Buragrag. Some say it was built onely
for yron-mines. From mount Atlas it is ten miles distant, iron-mines.
404 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
and betvveene it and Atlas are certaine shadie woods, full
Lyo7is, and of tcrriblc Hons and leapards.^^ So long as the founders
leopards. _ _ ^ °
posteritie gouerned this towne, it was well stored with
people, with fa ire buildings, temples, innes, and hospitals :
but, the Marin-familie preuailing daily more and more, it
was at length by them vtterly destroyed. Part of the
inhabitants were slaine, and part taken prisoners, and the
residue by flight escaped to Sella. The king of Maroco
sent forces to succour the towne, but the citizens being
vanquished before their comming, were constrained to
forsake the same, and to yeeld it vnto the Marin-soldiers.
Howbeit the king of Maroco his captaine comming vpon
the Marin-captaine with round forces, draue him and his
foorth of the towne, and tooke possession thereof himselfe.
At length the king of the said Marin-familie marching
with an armie against Maroco, tooke his iourney by this
towne : whereat the gouernour being dismaied left the
said towne, and before the kings approch betooke himselfe
to flight. But the king putting all the inhabitants to the
sword, left the towne it selfe so defaced and desolate, that
by report it hath lien dispeopled euer since. The towne-
walles and certaine steeples are as yet to be seene. My
selfe sawe this towne, when the king of Fez hauing con-
cluded a league with his cozen, tooke his iourney to
Thagia, for to visite the sepulchre of one accounted in
* Or Sidi. his life time an holy man, called *Seudi BiiJiasa : which
was in the yeere of the Hegeira 920. Anno Dom. 1511.^^
Of Thagia a towne in Temesne.
THis little towne was in ancient time built by the
Africans among certaine hils of mount Atlas. The
aire is extreme cold, and the soile drie and barren. It is
enuironed with huge woods, which are full of lions and
other cruell beasts. Their scarcitie of corne is sufficiently
counteruailed with abundance of hony and goates. Ciui-
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 405
litie they haue none at all ; and their houses are most
rudely built ; for they haue no vse of lime. In this towne
is visited the sepulchre of one accounted for a most holy
man, who is reported in the time of Habdiilinunien, to
haue wrought many miracles against the furic of lions :
whereupon he was reputed by many as a great prophet.
I remember that I read in a certaine writer of that nation
commonly called Etdeale, a whole catalogue of the said
holy mans miracles : which whether he wrought by arte-
magique, or by some woonderfull secret of nature, it is
altogether vncertaine. Howbeit his great fame and
honorable reputation is the cause why this towne is so
well fraught with inhabitants. The people of Fez hauing
solemnized their passeouer, doe yeerely frequent this towne
to visite the said sepulchre, and that in such huge numbers,
that you woulde esteeme them to be an whole armie ; for
euery principall man carries his tent and other necessaries
with him : and so you shall see sometime an hundred
tents and sometimes more in that company. Fifteene
daies they are in performing of that pilgrimage ; for
Thagia standeth from Fez almost an hundred and twenty
miles. My selfe being a childe, went thither on pilgrimage
oftentimes with my father ; as likewise being growne vp
to mans estate, I repaired thither as often, making suppli-
cation to be deliuered from the danger of lions.^''
Of the toivne of Zarfa.
THis towne the Africans built vpon a certaine large
and beautifull plaine, watred with pleasant riuers,
and christall-fountaines. About the ancient bounds of
this citie you may behold many shrubs, together with
fig-trees and cherrie-trees, which beare such cherries, as at
Rome are called Marene. Here are likewise certaine
thornie trees, the fruit whereof is by the Arabians called
Rabich. Somewhat lesser it is then a cherie, resembling
4o6 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
in taste the fruit called Ziziphum, or lujuba. Here also
may you finde great store of wilde palme-trees, from which
they gather a kinde of fruit like vnto Spanish oliues,
sauing that the stone or nut is greater, and not so pleasant
in taste : before they be ripe they taste somewhat like
vnto Seruice-apples. This towne was destroied when king
loseph aforesaid spoiled Temesne. Now the Arabians of
Temesne sow their corne where the towne stood, with
great increase and gaine.^^
Of tJie territorie of Fez.
Estward it begiimeth at the riuer of
Buragrag, and stretcheth eastward
to the riuer called Inauen : which
two riuers are almost a hundred
miles distant asunder. Northward it
Orrcbu. k^^^^^^^fi^ bordcrcth vpon the riuer *Subu, and
southward vpon the foote of Atlas.
The soile both for abundance of corne, fruits, and cattell
seemeth to be inferiour to none other. Within this
prouince you shall see many exceeding great villages,
which may for their bignes, not vnfitly be called townes.
The plaines of this region haue beene so wasted with
former warres, that very few inhabitants dwell vpon them,
except certaine poore silly Arabians, some of whom haue
ground of their ownc, and some possesse ground in com-
mon, either with the citizens of Fez, or with the king, or
else with some courtier. But the fields of Sala and
Mecnase are tilled by other Arabians of better account,
and are for the most part subiect to the king of Fez. And
now those things which are woorthy of memorie in this
region let vs here make report of.
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 407
Of the citie or towne of Sella.
THis most ancient citie was built by the Romans, and
sacked by the Gothes. And afterward when the
Mahumetans armie were entred into the same region, the
Gothes gaue it to Tarick one of their captaines.^^ But euer
since the time that Fez was built, Sela hath beene subiect
vnto the gouernours thereof It is most pleasantly situate
vpon the Ocean sea-shore, within halfe a mile of Rebat ;
both which townes the riuer Buragrag separateth insunder.
The buildings of this towne carrie a shew of antiquitie on
them, being artificially carued and stately supported with
marble pillers. Their temples are most beautifull, and their
shops are built vnder large porches. And at the end of
euery row of shops is an arch, which (as they say) is to
diuide one occupation fro another. And (to say all in
a word) here is nothing wanting, which may be required
either in a most honourable citie, or in a flourishing com-
monwealth.^^ Moreouer hither resort all kinde of mer-
chants both Christians and others. Here the Genowaies,
Venetians, English and lowe Dutch vsed to traffique.-'^ English traf-
^ riTT-i- • ^ fique.
In the 670. yeere of the Hegeira this towne was surprized
by a certaine Castilian captaine, the inhabitants being put Seia woon by a
n- 1 > 1 r-'i • • • • 1 • • All captatnc of
to tiight, and the Christians enioying the citie. And when Castuia, and
they had kept it ten daies, being on the sudden assailed ^uZ'kbytiie' '
by lacob the first king of the Marin-familie (who could "'^"^ ^^'
not, they thought, surcease his warre against Tremizen)
they were put to the woorst, the greater part being slaine,
and the residue put to flight. From thencefoorth that
prince fauoured of all his subiects, enioyed the kingdome,
after whom lineally succeeded those of his owne race and
blood. And albeit this towne was in so few daies recouered
from the enemie ; yet a worlde it was to see, what a woon-
derfull alteration both of the houses and of the state of
gouernment happened. Many houses of this towne are
408 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
left desolate, especially neere the towne-walles : which,
albeit they are most stately and curiously built, yet no
man there is that will inhabit them. The grounds ad-
ioyning vpon this towne are sandie : neither are they fit
for corne, but for cotton-wooll in diuers places very pro-
fitable. The inhabitants, diuers of them, doe weaue most
excellent cotton. Here likewise are made very fine
combes ; which are sold in all the kingdome of Fez, for
the region thereabout yeeldeth great plenty of box, and of
other wood fit for the same purpose. Their gouernment
is very orderly and discreet vntill this day : for they have
most learned iudges, vmpires, and deciders of doubtfull
cases in lawe. This towne is frequented by many rich
merchants of Genoa, whom the king hath alwaies had in
great regarde ; because he gaineth much yeerely by their
traffique. The said merchants haue their aboad and diet,
partly here at Sella, and partly at Fez : from both which
towns they mutually helpe the traffique one of another.
These Genowaies I found in their affaires of merchandize
to be exceeding liberall : for they will spend frankly to
get a courtiers fauour, not so much for their owne priuate
gaine, as to be esteemed bountifull by strangers. In my
A merchant of ixmQ there was an honorable gentlema of Genoa in the
Genoa. - . ...
king of Fez his court, called Messer Thontaso di Marino, a
man both learned & wise, & highly reputed of by the king.
This man hauing continued almost thirtie yeeres in the
Fessan court, hee there deceased, and requesting on his
death-bed to haue his corpes interred at Genoa, the king
commanded the same to be transported thither. After his
decease he left many sonnes in the Fessan kings court,
who all of them prooued rich, and were greatly fauoured
by the king.-^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 409
Of the tozi'iic called Fanzara.
THi's towne being not very large, was built by a certaine
king of the familie called Muachidin, on a beautiful
plaine almost ten miles from Sella. The soile thereabouts
yeeldeth corne in great plenty. Without the towne walles
are very many cleere fountaines ^x\6.'^€is,,\^\\\c\\ Albuchesen
the king of Fez caused there to be digged. In the time of
Abusaid the last king of the Marin-familie, his cozen The occasion of
_ the bloody wars
called Sahid wdA taken by Habdilla the king of Granada ; mooued by
Sahid.
whereupon by letters he requested his cozen the king of
Fez to send him a certaine summe of money required by
the king of Granada for his ransome. Which when the
Fessan king refused to yeeld vnto, Habdilla restored his
prisoner to libertie, and sent him towardes Fez to destroy Thedtieof Fez
both the citie and the king. Afterward 5(5'/^z'(3', with \}i\& seum'yeeres to-
helpe of certaine wilde Arabians besieged Fez for seuen ^^
yeeres together ; in which space most of the townes,
villages, and hamlets throughout the whole kingdome
were destroied. But at length such a pestilence inuaded
Sahids forces, that himselfe, with a great part of his armie,
in the *qi8. yeere of the Hegeira, died thereof. Howbeit * This number
^ ^ fc. ' [as I take it)
those desolate townes neuer receiued from thencefoorth ^''^''"'''^'''"''^''^
be 819.
any new inhabitants, especially Fanzara, which was giuen
to certaine Arabian captaines, that came to assist SaJiid?—
Of the towne of MaJiviora.
THis towne was built vpon the mouth of the great
riuer Subu by a certaine king of the Muachidin-
familie, being almost halfe a mile distant from the sea,
and about twelue miles from Sella. The places neere vnto it
are sandie and barren. It was built (they say) of purpose
to keepe the enemies from entring the mouth of the said
riuer. Not farre from this towne standeth a mighty wood,
the trees whereof beare a kinde of nuts or acornes about
D D
4IO THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
the bignes of Damascen-plums, being sweeter in taste then
chestnuts. Of which nuts certaine Arabians, dwelHng
neer vnto the place, conuey great plenty vnto the citie of
Fez, and reape much gaine thereby : howbeit in going to
gather this fruit, vnles they take good heede vnto them-
selues, they are in great danger of the most cruell and
^/osi c:ruf// a/id deuouving hons in all Africa, which there oftentimes doe
deuouring t-i • i i i i
lions. seaze vpon them. i his towne a hundred and twenty
yeeres agoe was razed in the foresaid warre of Sahid
against the king of Fez, nothing but a few mines thereof
remaining, whereby it appeereth to have beene of no great
The Portugah bigncs. In the 920. yeere of the Hegeira the king of
attempting to
build a forte Portugal sent an armie to build a forte in the foresaid
within the , 1 1 • 1 , t 1 1
mouth of the rmcrs mouth; which they accordingly attempted to
riuer Subu, -r-. 1 • 1 - 1 1 r 1 • 1 1
defeated of their doe. But hauing laide the foundations, and reared
siauu.'"^'^' the walles a good height, the king of Fez his brother
so defeated them of their purpose, that he slue of them
in one night almost three thousand in maner following :
on a certaine morning before sun-rise three thousand
Portugals marching towards the king of Fez his campe,
determined to bring thence all the ordinance and field-
peeces vnto their new-erected fort : howbeit most rashly
and inconsiderately, themselues being but three thousand,
and the kings armie containing fiftie thousand footemen,
and fower thousand horsemen. And yet the Portugals
hoped so slyly and closely to performe this attempt, that
before the Moores were ready to pursue them, they should
conuey all their ordinance vnto the forte which was two
miles distant. The Moores which kept the ordinance being
seuen thousand men, were all asleepe when the Portugals
came : whereupon the Portugals had so good successe, that
they had carried the ordinance almost a mile, before the
enemie was aware thereof. But at last, some rumour or
alarme being giuen in the Moores campe, they all betooke
themselues to armes, and fiercely pursued the Portugals
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 411
who likewise arranged their whole companie into battell-
array. And albeit the enemie enuironed them on all sides ;
yet they made such stout and valiant resistance, that they
had all escaped to their forte in safetie, had not certaine
villains in the king of Fez his armie cried out amaine in the
Portugall toong : Hold your hands (fellow soldiers) and
throw downe your weapons, for the kings brother will make
a truce. Which the Portugals no sooner yeelded vnto, but
the sauage and merciles Moores put them cuery one to
the sword, sauing three or fovver onely, who were saued at
the request of a captaine in the Moores campe. The
Portugals Generall being sore dismaied with this slaughter
(for thereby he had lost all his principal soldiers) craued
aide of a certaine other captaine, which by chance arriued
there with a mightie fleete, being accompanied with a great
number of noblemen and gentlemen. Howbeit, he was so
hindred by the Moores (who daily did him all the villanie
they could, and sunke diners of his ships) that he was not
able to performe that which he desired. In the meane
space news was published among the Portugals, of the king
of Spaines death ; whereupon diuers ships were prouided,
and many Portugals were sent into Spaine. Likewise the
captaine of the said new forte seeing himselfe destitute
of all succour, leauing the forte, embarked himselfe in those
ships, which then lay vpon the riuer. But the greatest part
of the fleete were cast away at their setting foorth, and the
residue, to escape the Moores shot, ran themselues a-ground
on the flats and shouldes of the riuer, and were there
miserably slaine by the Moores. Many of their ships were
here burnt, and their ordinance sunke in the sea. So many
Christians were then slaine (some say to the number of ten a lamentable
thousand) that the sea-water in that place continued red '^ """^^ '"^^
with their blood for three dales after. Soone after the
Moores tooke vp fower hundred great peeces of brasse out
of the sea. This hugh calamitie befell the Portugals for
D D 2
412 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
two causes : first because they would with such a small
number make so rash an assault vpon the Moores, whom
they knew to be so strong : and secondly, whereas the
Portugall-king might at his owne cost haue sent another
fleete for a new supply, he would by no meanes ioine his
owne people and Castilians together. For by reason of the
diuersitie of counsels and of people, there is nothing more
pernicious then for an armie to consist of two nations : yea
the Moores certainly expect the vppcr hand, when they are
to fight with such an armie. I my selfe was present in the
John Leo his foresaid warre, and sawe each particular accident, a little
voiage to Con- , - • i o'?
itantbiopie. bcforc my voyage to Constantmople.-^
T
Of the toivne called Tefelfelt.
'His towne is situate vpon a sandie plaine, fifteene miles
eastward of Mahmora, and almost twelue miles from
the Ocean sea. Not far from this towne runneth a certaine
riuer, on both sides whereof are thicke woods haunted with
Fierce lions. Hiorc ficrcc and cruell lions, then the last before mentioned,
which greatly endanger those trauellers that haue occasion
to lodge thereabout. Without this towne, vpon the high way
to Fez, standeth an olde cottage with a plancherd chamber
therein : here the mulettiers and carriers are said to take
vp their lodging ; but the doore of the said cottage they
stop as fure as they can with boughes and thornes. Some
affirmc, that this rotten cottage (while the towne was
inhabited) was a most stately inne. But it was defaced in
the foresaid war of Sahidr^
A description of Mecnase.
'"T^His towne was so called after the name of the Mecna-
1 sites who were the founders thereof. From Fez it
is 36. miles, about fiftie from Sella, and from Atlas almost
15. miles distant. It is exceeding rich, and containeth
families to the number of six thousand. The inhabitants
HISTOr^IE OF AFRICA. 413
hereof while they dwelt in the fields liued a most peaceable
life : howbeit at length they fell to dissension among
themselues, and the weaker part hauing all their cattell
taken from them, and hauing nothing in the fields to
maintaine their estate, agreed among themselues to build
this city of Mecnase in a most beautifull plaine."^-'' Neere
vnto this towne runneth a little riuer : and within three
miles thereof are most pleasant gardens replenished with
all manner of fruits.-*^ Quinces there are of great bignes,
and of a most fragrant smell ; and pomegranates likewise,
which being very great and most pleasant in taste, haue no
stones within them, and yet they are sold exceeding cheapc.
Likewise here are plentie of damascens, of white plums,
and of the fruite called lujuba, which being dried in the
sunne, they eate in the spring, and carrie a great number
of them to Fez. They haue likewise great store of figs
and grapes, which are not to be eaten but while they are
greene & new : for their figs being dried become so brittle,
that they waste all to powder, and their grapes when they
are made raisins, prooue vnsauorie. Peaches and oranges
they haue in so great quantitie, that they make no store of
them : but their limons are waterish and vnpleasant.
Oliues are sold among them for a duckat and a halfe the
Cantharo, which measure containeth a hundred pounds
Italian.^'^ Moreouer their fields yeeld them great plentie
ofhempeand flaxe, which they sell at Fez and Sela. In
this towne are most stately and beautifull temples, three
colleges, and ten bath-stoues. Euery monday they haue a
great market without the towne-walles, whereunto the
bordering Arabians doe vsually resort. Here are oxen,
sheepe, and other such beastes to be sold : butter and
wooll are here plentifull and at an easie rate. In my time
the king bestowed this towne vpon a certaine noble man
of his, where as much fruits arc reaped as in the third part
of the whole kingdome of Fez. This towne hath bccne so
414 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
afflicted by warres, that the yeerly tribute thereof hath
beene diminished sometime fortie thousand, and fiftie
thousand duckats, and sometimes more : and I haue red,
that it hath beene besieged for sixe or seuen yeeres
together. In my time the gouernour thereof the king of Fez
his cozen, relying vpon the fauour of the people, rebelled
against his kinsman and soueraigne. Whereupon the Fessan
king with a great armie besieged the towne two moneths
together, and, because it would not yeeld, so wasted and
destroied all the countrie thereabout, that the gouernour
lost by that means fine and twentie thousand duckats of
yeerely reuenue."-^ What then shall we thinke of the sixe
and seuen yeeres siege before mentioned ? At length those
Mecnase re- citizens which fauourcd the king of Fez opened the gates,
duced vnder
subiectionby and stoutly resisting the contrarie faction, gaue the king
the king of ^ i • ^ ^^ T-i 11- 11-
Fez. and his soldiers entrance. 1 hus by their meanes the king
wan the citie, carrying home to Fez the rebellious gouernour
captiue, who within fewe daies escaped from him. This
most strong and beautifull citie hath many faire streetes,
whereinto by conducts from a fountaine three miles distant,
is conueied most sweet and holesome water, which serueth
all the whole citie. The mils are two miles distant from
the towne. The inhabitants are most valiant, warlike,
liberall, and ciuill people, but their wits are not so refined
as others : some of them are merchants, some artificers, and
the residue gentlemen. They count it vnseemely for any
man to send an horse-lode of feede to his husbandman or
farmer. They are at continuall iarre with the citizens of
Fez ; but whereupon this dissension of theirs should arise,
I cannot well determine. Their gentlemens wiues neuer
goe foorth of the doores but onely in the night season, and
then also they must be so vailed and muffeled that no man
may see them : so great is the ielousie of this people.^^
This towne is so durtie in the spring-time, that it would
irke a man to walke the streetes.
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 415
Of a towne called Geiniha ElcJunen.
THis ancient towne standeth on a plaine neere vnto
certaine baths, being distant southward of Mccnase
fifteene miles, westard of Fez thirtic, and from Atlas about
ten miles. By this towne lieth the common high way from
Fez to Tedle. The fielde of this towne was possessed by
certaine Arabians, and the towne it selfe vtterly destroied
in the war of Sahid. Howbeit in certaine places the walles
are yet remaining, and diuers towers and temples standing
without roofes.^"
Of the toivne called Cannis Metgara.
THis towne was built by certaine Africans in the field
of Zuaga almost fifteene miles westward from Fez.
Without this towne for two miles together were most
pleasant and fruitfull gardens : but by the cruell warre of
Sahid all was laide waste ; and the place it selfe remained
void of inhabitants an hundred and twenty yeeres. How-
beit when part of the people of Granada came ouer into
Africa, this region began to be inhabited anew. And
whereas the Granatines are great merchants of silke, they
caused, for the breeding of silkewormes, great store of white
mulberrie trees to be brought hither. Here likewise they
planted abundance of sugar-canes, which prosper not so
well in this place as in the prouince of Andaluzia. In
times past the inhabitants of this place were very ciuill
people, but in our time they haue not beene so, by reason
that all of them exercise husbandrie.^^
Of tJie toivne of Banibasil.
THis towne was built by the Africans vpon a certaine
small riuer iust in the mid way betweene Mecnase
and Fez, being distant from Fez about eighteene miles
westward. Out of their fields many riuers take their
4l6 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
originall, which fieldes are by the Arabians sowen all ouer
with barlie and hempe : neither indeed will the soile yeeld
any other commoditie, both by reason of the barrennes
and also for that it is for the most part ouerflowed with
water. Whatsoeuer commoditie ariseth out of this place
redoundeth to the priestes of the principall Mahumetan
temple in Fez, and it amounteth almost yeerel}' to twenty
thousand duckats. Here also in times past were most
large, pleasant, and fruitfull gardens, as appeereth by the
monuments and reliques thereof, howbeit they were, like
other places, laide waste by the war of SaJiid. The towne
it selfe remained destitute of inhabitants an hundred and
ten yeeres ; but as the king of Fez returned home from
Duccala, he commanded part of his people to inhabite the
same : albeit their inciuilitie made them loth so to doe.^-
Of Fez the principall citie of all Barbaric, and of
the foiifiders thereof.
Ez was built in the time of one Aron a Mahumetan
patriarke, in the yeere of the Hegeira 185. and in
the yeere of our Lord 786. by a certaine heretike against
the religion of Mahum.et. But why it should so be called
some are of opinion, because when the first foundations
thereof were digged, there was found some quantitie of
golde, which mettall in the Arabian language is called
Fez. Which etymologie seemeth to me not improbable,
albeit some would haue it so called from a certaine riuer
of that name.^^ But howsoeuer it be, we leaue that to be
discussed by others, affirming for an vndoubted truth, that
the founder of this citie was one Idris, being the foresaid
idris the first Aroji his ncerc kinsman. This Idris ought rather to haue
foun erof cz y^^^^^ Mahumctau patriarke, because he was nephcw vnto
Hali the cozen-german of Mahumet, who married Falerna
Mahumets owne daughter, so that Idris both by father,
and mother was of Mahumets linage : but Aron being
F
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 417
nephew vnto one Habbus the vncle of Mahumet, was of
kinred onely by the fathers side. Howbeit both of them
were excluded from the said patriarkship for ccrtaine
causes mentioned in the African chronicles, although Aron
vsurped the same by deceit. For Arons vncle being a most
cunning and craftie man, and faining himselfe to beare
greatest fauour vnto the familie of Hali, and to bee most
desirous, that the patriarkship should light thereon, sent
his ambassadours almost throughout the whole world.
Whereupon the dignitie was translated from Vvieve to
Habdulla Seffec the first patriarke. Which, Vmeve being
informed of, waged warre against the familie of Hali, and
so preuailed, that some of them he chased into Asia, and
some into India. Howbeit an ancient religious man of
the same familie remained still aliue at Elmadina, who
being very olde, no whit regarded the dignitie. But this
ancient sire left behinde him two sonnes, who when they
were come to mans estate, grew into so great fauour with
the people of Elmadin, that they were chased thence by
their enemies ; the one being taken & hanged ; and the
other (whose name was Idris) escaping into Mauritania.^"^
This Idris dwelling vpon mount Zaron about thirtie miles
from Fez, gouerned not onely the commonwealth, but
matters of religion also : and all the region adiacent paid
him tribute.^^ At length Idris deceasing without lawfull
issue, left one of his maides big with childe, which had
beene turned from the Gothes religion to the Moores.
Being deliuered of her sonne, they called him after his
fathers name, Idris. This childe the inhabitants chusing
for their prince, caused him to be most carefully brought
vp : and as he grew in yeeres, to the end they might traine
him vp in feates of chiualrie, they appointed one Rasid a
most valiant and skilfuU captaine to instruct him. Inso-
1 M 1 ^ rr r t Idris his great
much, that while he was but nfteene yeeres of age, h.& valour at
f. . . . .. fifteene yeeres
grew famous tor his valiant actes and stratagems, z.\\aofage.
4l8 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
began woonderfully to inlarge his dominions. Wherefore
his troupes and familie increasing euery day more and
more, he set his minde vpon building of a citie, and
changing of his habitation.^" And so he sent for cunning
builders into all nations, who hauing diligently perused all
places in the region, at last made choise of that where the
citie of Fez now standeth. For here they found great
store of fountaines, and a faire riuer, which springing
foorth of a plaine not far of, runneth pleasantly almost
eight miles amidst the little hils, till at length it casteth it
selfe vpon another plaine. Southward of the place they
found a wood, which they knew would be right commo-
dious for the towne. Here therefore vpon the east banke
of the said riuer, they built a towne containing three
thousand families : neither omitted they ought at al which
might be required in a flourishing commonwealth. After
the decease of Idris, his sonne erected another towne
directly ouer against the foresaid, on the other side of the
riuer. But in processe of time either towne so increased,
that there was but a small distance betweene them : for
the gouernours of each laboured might and maine to
augment their owne iurisdictions. An hundred and fovver-
score yeeres after, there fell out great dissension and ciuill
warre betweene these two cities, which by report continued
an hundred yeeres together. At length Joseph king of
Maroco of the Luntune-familie, conducting an huge armie
against both these princes, tooke them prisoners, carried
them home vnto his dominions, and put them to a most
cruell death. And he so vanquished the citizens, that
there were slaine of them thirtie thousand. Then deter-
mined king losepJi to reduce those two townes into firme
vnitie and concord : for which cause, making a bridge ouer
the riuer, and beating downe the walles of either towne
right against it, he vnited both into one, which afterward
he diuided into twelue regions or wardes.^*" Now let vs
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 419
make report of all such memorable things as are there to * 1526.
be scene* at this day.
A most exact descriptioji of the citie of Fes.
A World it is to see, how large, how populous, how
well-fortified and walled this citie is. The most
part thereof standeth vpon great and little hils : neither is
there any plaine ground but onely in the midst of the
citie.^^ The riuer entreth the towne in two places, for it is
diuided into a double branch, one whereof runneth by new
Fez, that is, by the south side of the towne, and another
commeth in at the west side. And so almost infinitely
dispersing it selfe into the citie, it is deriued by certaine
conducts and chanels vnto euery temple, college, inne,
hospitall, and almost to euery priuate house. Vnto the
temples are certaine square conducts adioned, hauing
celles and receptacles round about them ; each one of
which hath a cocke, whereby water is conueied through
the wall into a trough of marble. From whence flowing
into the sinks and gutters, it carrieth away all the filth of
the citie into the riuer. In the midst of each square
conduct standeth a lowe cesterne, being three cubites in
depth, fower in bredth, and twelue in length : and the
water is conueied by certaine pipes into the foresaid square
conducts, which are almost an hundred and fiftie in
number. The most part of the houses are built of fine
bricks and stones curiously painted. Likewise their bay-
windowes and portals are made of partie-coloured bricke,
like vnto the stones of Majorica. The roofes of their
houses they adorne with golde, azure, and other excellent
colours, which roofes are made of wood, and plaine on the
top, to the end that in summer-time carpets may be
spred vpon them, for here they vse to lodge by reason of
the exceeding heate of that countrie. Some houses are
of two and some of three stories high, whereunto they
420 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
make fine stairs, by which they passe from one roome to
another vnder the same roofe : for the middle part of the
house is ahvaies open or vncouered, hauing some chambers
built on the one side, and some on the other. The chamber-
doores are very high and wide : which in rich mens houses
are framed of excellent and earned wood. Each chamber
hath a presse curiously painted and varnished belonging
thereunto, being as long as the chamber it selfe is broad :
some will haue it very high, and others but sixe handfuls
in height, that they may set it on the tester of a bed. All
the portals of their houses are supported with bricke-
pillars finely plaistered ouer, except some which stand vpon
pillars of marble. The beames and transoms vpholding
their chambers are most curiously painted and earned.
To some houses likewise belong certaine square cesternes,
containing in bredth sixe or seuen cubites, in length ten or
twelue, and in height but sixe or seuen handfuls, being all
vncouered, and built of bricks trimly plaistered ouer.
Along the sides of these cesternes are certaine cocks, which
conuey the water into marble-troughs, as I haue scene in
m.any places of Europe. When the foresaide conducts are
full of water, that which floweth ouer, runneth by certaine
secret pipes and conueiances into the cesternes : and that
which ouerfloweth the cesternes, is carried likewise by other
passages into the common sinks and gutters, and so into
the riuer. The said cesternes are ahvaies kept sweete and
cleane, neither are they couered but onely in summer
time, when men, women, and children bathe themselues
therein. Moreouer on the tops of their houses theyvsually
build a turret with many pleasant roomes therein,
whither the women, for recreations sake, when they are
weary of working, retire themselues ; from whence they
The numbers may scc wcll-nigh all the citie ouer. Of Mahumetan
of tiuMahu- temples and oratories there are almost seuen hundred^^ in
liVpez. ""^'^ this towne, fiftie whereof are most stately and sumptuously
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 421
built, hauing their conducts made of marble and other
excellent stones vnknowen to the Italians ; and the
chapiters of their pillers be artificially adorned with
painting and earning. The tops of these temples, after the
fashion of Christian churches in Europe, are made of ioises
and planks : but the pauement is couered with mats which
are so cunningly sowed together, that a man cannot see
the bredth of a finger vncouered. The walles likewise on
the inner side are lined a mans height with such mats.
M oreouer, each temple hath a turret or steeple, from whence
certaine are appointed with a lowd voice to call the people
at their set-time of praier. Euery temple hath one onely
priest to say seruice therein ; who hath the bestowing of
all reuenues bel5ging to his owne temple, as occasion
requireth : for thereby are maintained lampes to burne in
the night, and porters to keepe the doores are paid their
wages out of it, and so likewise are they that call the
people to ordinarie praiers in the night season : for those
which crie from the said towers in the day-time haue no
wages, but are onely released from all tributes and
exactions. The chiefe Mahumetan temple in this towne The prindpaii
ft>j)7'f}lp of F^z
is called Caruven,^^ being of so incredible a bignes, that the called Caru-
circuit thereof and of the buildings longing vnto it, is a
good mile and a halfe about. This temple hath one and
thirtie gates or portals of a woonderfull greatnes and
height. The roofe of this temple is in length 150. and in
bredth about fowerscore Florentine cubites. The turret or
steeple, from whence they crie amaine to assemble the
people togither, is exceedingly high ; the bredth whereof
is supported with twentie, and the length with thirtie
pillers. On the east, west, and north sides, it hath certaine
walkes or galleries, fortie cubites in length, and thirtie in
bredth. Vnder which galleries there is a cell or storehouse,
wherein oile, candles, mats, and other such necessaries for
the temple are laid vp. Euery night in this temple are
422 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
burnt nine hundred lights ; for euery arch hath a seuerall
lampe, especially those which extend through the mid-
quire. Some arches there are that haue 120. candles
apeece : there are likewise certaine brasse-candlestickes so
great and with so many sockets, as they will holde each
one fifteene hundred candles : and these candlestickes are
reported to haue beene made of bels, which the king of
Fez in times past tooke from Christians. About the wals
of the said temple are diuers pulpits, out of which those
that are learned in the Mahumetan lavve instruct the people.
Their winter-lectures begin presently after sun-rise, and
continue the space of an hower. But their summer-lectures
holde on from the sunne going downe, till an hower and a
halfe within night. And here they teach as well morall
philosophic as the law of Mahumet. The summer-lectures
are performed by certaine priuate and obscure persons ;
but in winter such onely are admitted to read, as be reputed
their greatest clerkes. All which readers and professours
are yeerely allowed most liberall stipends. The priest of
this great temple is inioined onely to read praiers, and
faithfully to distribute almes among the poore. Euery
festiuall day he bestoweth all such corne and money as he
hath in his custodie, to all poore people, according to their
neede. The treasurer or collector of the reuenues of this
church hath euery day a duckat for his pay. Likewise he
hath eight notaries or clerkes vnder him ; euery one of
which gaineth sixe duckats a moneth : and other sixe
clerks who receiue the rent of houses, shops, and other such
places as belong to the temple, hauing for their wages the
twentith part of all such rents and duties as they gather.
Moreouer there belong to this temple twentie factors or
bailies of husbandrie, that without the citie-vvalles haue an
eie to the labourers, plowemen, vine-planters, and gardeners,
and that prouide them things necessarie : their gaine is
three duckats a moneth. Not far from the citie are about
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 423
twentie lime-kils, and as many bricke-kils, seruing for the
reparation of their temple, and of all houses thereto belong-
ing. The reuenues of the said temple daily receiued, are The reuetiues
of the great
two hundred duckats a day ;*^ the better halfe whereof is tewp/e, and
,., ., - -lAi-ri 1 ''"'"' '''"y "■''^
laid out vpon the particulars aforesaid. Also 11 there be bestmved.
any temples in the citie destitute of lining, they must all be
maintained at the charges of this great temple : and then
that which remaineth after all expences, is bestowed for the
behoofe of the commonwealth : for the people receiue no
reuenues at all. In our time the king commanded the
priest of the said temple to lend him an huge summe of
money, which he neuer repaied againe. Moreouer in the
citie of Fez are two most stately colleges, of which diuers
roomes are adorned with curious painting ; all their beames
are earned, their walles consisting both of marble and free-
stone. Some colleges here are which containe an hundred
studies, some more, and some fewer, all which were built
by diuers kings of the Marin-familie. One there is among
the rest most beautifull and admirable to behold, which
was erected by a certaine king called Habu Henon^'-'- Here
is to be scene an excellent fountaine of marble, the cesterne
whereof containeth two pipes. Through this college
runneth a little streame in a most cleere and pleasant
chanell, the brims and edges whereof are workmanly framed
of marble, and stones of Majorica. Likewise here are
three cloysters to walke in, most curiously and artificially
made, with certaine eight-square pillers of diuers colours
to support them. And betweene piller and piller the
arches are beautifully ouercast with golde, azure, and diuers
other colours ; and the roofe is very artificially built of
wood. The sides of these cloysters are so close, that they
which are without cannot see such as walke within. The
walles round about as high as a man can reach, are
adorned with plaister-worke of Majorica. In many places
you may finde certaine verses, which declare what yeere the
424 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
college was built in, together with many epigrams in the
founders commendation. The letters of which verses are
very great and blacke, so that they may be red a far off.
This college-gates are of brasse most curiously carued, and
/ so are thedoores artificially made of wood. In thechappell
of this college standeth a certaine pulpit mounted nine
staires high, which staires are of iuorie and eben. Some
affirme, that the king hauing built this college, was desirous
to knowe how much money he had spent in building it ;
but after he had perused a leafe or two of his account-
booke, finding the summe of fortie thousand duckats, he
rent if asunder, and threw it into the foresaid little riuer,
adding this sentence out of a certaine Arabian writer :
Each pretious and amiable thing, though it costeth deere,
yet if it be beautifull, it cannot choose but be good cheape :
neither is any thing of too high a price, which pleaseth a
mans affection. Howbeit a certaine treasurer of the kings,
making a particular account of all the said expences, found
that this excellent building stood his master in 480000.
duckats. The other colleges of Fez are somwhat like
vnto this, hauing euery one readers and professors, some of
which read in the forenoone, and some in the afternoone.
In times past the students of these colleges had their
apparell and victuals allowed them for seuen yeeres, but
now they haue nothing gratis but their chamber. For the
The suppres- warre of Sahid destroied many possessions, whereby
Ingandkarncd learning was maintained ; so that now the greatest college
^cipaiicaul'eof of al hath yecrcly but two hundred, and the second but
tasT^Zfrn- ^^ hundred duckats for the maintenance of their pro-
fessors. And this perhaps may be one reason, among
many, why the gouernment not onely of Fez, but of all the
cities in Africa, is so base. Now these colleges are furnished
with no schollers but such as are strangers, and Hue of the
citie-almes : and if any citizens dwell there, the}- are not
aboue two or three at the most. The professor being ready
ment.
HLSTORIE OF AFRICA. 425
for his lecture, some of his auditors readeth a text, where-
upon the said professor dilateth, and explaneth obscure
and difficult places. Sometimes also the schollers dispute
before their professor.
A description of the hospitals and bathes in the
citie of Fez.
MxAny hospitals there are in Fez, no whit inferiour,
either for building or beautie, vnto the foresaid
colleges. For in them whatsoeuer strangers came to the
citie were intertained at the common charge for three dales
together. There are likewise as faire and as stately
hospitals in the suburbes. In times past their wealth was
maruellous great ; but in the time of Sahids warre, the
king standing in neede of a great summe of money, was
counselled by some of his greedy courtiers to sell the
liuings of the said hospitals. Which when the people
would in no case yeeld vnto, the kings oratour or speaker,
perswaded them that all those liuings were giuen by his
maiesties predecessours, and therefore (because when the
warres were ended, they should soone recouer all againe)
that it were far better for them by that meanes to pleasure
their soueraigne, then to let his kingly estate fall into so
great danger. Whereupon all the said liuings being sold,
the king was preuented by vntimely and sudden death
before he could bring his purpose to effect : and so these
famous hospitals were depriued of all their maintenance.
The poore indeede and impotent people of the city are at
this day reliued ; but no strangers are entertained, saue
only learned men or gentlemen.'*^ Howbeit there is
another hospital for the releefe of sick & diseased strangers,
who haue their diet onely allowed them, but no phisition or
medicine : certaine women there are which attend vpon
them, till they recouer their former health, or die. In this
hospitall likewise there is a place for franticke or distraught
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426 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
persons, where they are bound in strong iron chaines ;
whereof the part next vnto their walks is strengthened
with mighty beames of wood and iron. The gouernour
of these distraught persons, when he bringeth them any
sustenance, hath a whip of purpose to chastise those that
offer to bite, strike, or play any mad part. Sometimes it
falleth out that these franticke people will call vnto them
such as passe by ; declaring how vniustly they are there
detained, and how cruelly they are handled by the officers,
when as notwithstanding they affirme themselues to bee
restored vnto their right minde. And hauing thus per-
swaded the commers-by, approching neerer and neerervnto
them, at length they take hold with one hand on their
garments, and (like villans) with the other hand they
shamefully defile their faces and apparell with dung. And
though all of them haue their priuies and close stooles, yet
would they be poysoned in their owne filth, if the seruants
did not often wash their lodgings : so that their abhomin-
able and continuall stinke is the cause why citizens neuer
visite them. Likewise this hospitall hath many roomes for
the purueiors, notaries, cookes, and other officers belonging
to the sicke persons ; who each of them haue some small
yeerely stipend. Being a yoong man I my selfe was
lohnLeo in kis notaric hccre for two yeeres, which office is woorth three
youth a notarie •'
of av hospitall duckats a moneth.'*^
for two yeeres
together. In this citie are moe then an hundred bath-stoues very
artificially and stately built : which though they be not of
equall bignes, yet are they all of one fashion. Each stoue
hath fower hallcs, without which are certaine galleries in
an higher place, with fiue or sixe staires to ascend vnto
them : here men put off their apparell, and hence they goe
naked into the bath. In the midst they alwaies keepe
a cesterne full of water. First therefore they that meane
to bathe themselues must passe through a cold hall, where
they vsc to temper hot water and cold together, then they
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 427
goe into a roome somewhat hotter, where the seruants
dense and wash them ; and last of all they proceede into
a third hot-house, where they sweate as much as they
thinke good. Of the said water they giue vnto euery man
two vessels onely : but he that will haue more and will be
extraordinarily washed, must giue to the seruant one
Liardo at the least, and to the master of the stoue but two
farthings. The fire that heateth their water is made of
nought else but beastes dung : for which purpose many
boyes are set on worke to run vp and downe to stables,
and thence to carrie all the dung, and to lay it on heapes
without the towne-walles ; which being parched in the
sunne for two or three moneths together, they vse for
fewell. Likewise the women haue their stoues apart from
the men. And yet some hot-houses serue both for men
and women, but at sundry times, namely for men from the
third to the fourteenth hower of the day, and the residue
for women. While women are bathing themselues, they
hang out a rope at the first entrance of the house, which
is a signe for men, that they may then proceed no farther.
Neither may husbands here be permitted to speake with
their owne wiues ; so great a regarde they haue of their
honestie. Here men and women both, after they haue
done bathing, vse to banquet and make merrie with
pleasant musicke and singing. Yoong striplings enter the
bath Starke naked without any shame, but men couer their
priuities with a linnen cloth. The richer sort will not
enter the common bath, but that which is adorned and
finely set foorth, and which serueth for noblemen and
gentlemen. When any one is to be bathed, they lay him
along vpon the ground, annointing him with a certaine
ointment, and with certaine instruments doing away his
filth. The richer sort haue a carpet to lie on, their head
lying on a woodden cushion couered with the same carpet.
Likewise here are many barbers and chirurgions which
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428 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
attend to doe their office. The most part of these baths
pertaine to the temples and colleges, yeelding vnto them
a great summe of money for yeerely rent ; for some giue
a hundred, some an hundred and fiftie duckats a yeere.
Neither must I here omit the festiuall day which the
seruants and officers of the bathes yeerely celebrate. Who
with trumpets and pipes calling their friendes together,
goe foorth of the towne, and there gather a wilde onion,
putting it in a certaine brazen vessell, and couering the
same with a linnen cloth wet in lee : afterward with a
great noise of trumpets and pipes they solemnely bring
the said onion vnto the hot-house doore, and there they
hang it vp in the little brazen vessell or lauer, saying that
this is a most happy boading or signe of good lucke vnto
their stoue. Howbeit I suppose it to be some such
sacrifice, as the ancient Moores were woont in times past,
when they were destitute of lawes and ciuilitie, to offer,
and that the same custome hath remained till this very
day. The like is to be seen euen among Christians, who
celebrate many feasts whereof they can yeeld no reason.
Likewise euery African towne had their peculiar feast,
which; when the Christians once enioied Africa, were
vtterly abolished and done away.*^
Of the Innes of Fez.
IN this citie are almost two hundred innes, the greatest
whereof are in the principall part of the citie neere
vnto the chiefe temple. Euery of these innes are three
stories high, and containe an hundred and twenty or moe
chambers apeece. Likewise each one hath a fountaine
together with sinks and water-pipes, which make auoid-
ance of all the filth. Neuer, to my remembrance, did I
see greater buildings, except it were the Spanish college
at Bologna, or the pallace of the Cardinall di San Giorgio
at Rome : of which innes all the chamber-doores haue
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 429
vvalkes or galleries before them. And albeit the innes of
this citie are very faire and large, yet they affoord most
beggerly entertainment to strangers : for there are neither
beds nor couches for a man to lie vpon, unlesse it be a
course blanket and a mat. And if you will haue any
victuals, you must goe to the shambles your selfe, and buie
such meat for your host to dresse, as your stomach stands-
to. In these innes certaine poore widowes of Fez, which
haue neither wealth nor friends to succour them, are
relieued ; sometimes one, and sometimes two of them
together are allowed a chamber ; for which courtesie they
play both the chamberlaines and cookes of the inne. The
inne-keepers of Fez being all of one familie called Elcheua,
goe apparelled like women, and shaue their beards, and
are so delighted to imitate women, that they will not only
counterfeite their speech, but will sometimes also sit
downe and spin. Each one of these hath his concubine,
whom he accompanieth as if she were his owne lawfull
wife ; albeit the said concubines are not onely ill-fauoured
in countenance, but notorious for their bad life and be-
hauiour. They buie and sell wine so freely, that no man
controules them for it. None resort hither but most lewd
& wicked people, to the end they may more boldly com-
mit villany. The inne-keepers haue a consul ouer them,
and they pay tribute vnto the gouernour of the citie.
And when the king hath occasion to send foorth an armie,
then they as being most meete for the purpose, are con-
strained largely to victuall the campe. Had not the streit
law of historie enforced me to make relation of the fore-
said particulars as they stand, I would much rather haue
smothered such matters in silence, as tend so extremely to
the disgrace of Fez ; which being reformed, there is not
any citie in al Africa, for the honestie and good de-
meanour of the citizens, comparable thereunto. For the
very companie of these inne-keepers is so odious and
430 THE THIRD EOOKE OF THE
detestable in the sight of all honest men, learned men, and
merchants, that they will in no wise vouchsafe to speake
vnto them. And they are firmly enioined not to enter
into the temple, into the burse, nor into any bath. Neither
yet are they permitted to resort vnto those innes which
are next vnto the great temple, and wherein merchants
are vsually entertained. All men in a manner are in vtter
detestation of these wretches : but because the kings armie
hath some vse of them (as is aforesaid) they are borne
withall, whether the citizens will or no.^''
I
Of the mils of Fes.
N this citie are mils of fower hundred places at least.
And euery of these places containeth fiue or sixe
mils ; so that there are some thousands oi mils in the
Zj/J^ W//0 o«r whole citie. Euery mill standeth in a large roome* vpon
lorse-mt s. gomc Strong piller or post ; whereunto many countrie-
people vse to resort. Certaine merchants there are in Fez,
which hiring mils and shops, buie corne and sell it ready
ground vnto the citizens, whereby they reape exceeding
gaine : for the greatest part of the citizens being poore,
and not able to lay vp corne sufficient in store, are faine to
buie meale of them. But the richer sort buie their owne
corne, and send it to some common mill, where they pay
a shilling for the grinding of each measure. All the saide
mils pertaine either to the temples or colleges : for he
must be very rich that hath a mill of his owne ; for euery
mill eaineth the owner two duckats.*"
t>'
A description of the occupations, the shops and
the market.
EAch trade or occupation hath a peculiar place allotted
thereto, the principall whereof are next vnto the
great temple : for there first you may beholde to the
number of fowerscore notaries or scriueners shops, whereof
HISTORIE OF AP^RICA. 43 1
some iolne vpon the temple, and the residue stand ouer
against them : euery of which shops hath alwaies two
notaries. Then westward there are about thirtie stationers
or booke-sellers.^^ The shoo-merchants which buie shooes
and buskins of the shoomakers, and sell them againe to
the citizens, inhabite on the south side of the temple : and
next vnto them, such as make shooes for children onely,
their shops being about fiftie. On the east side dwell
those that sell vessels and other commodities made of
brasse. Ouer against the great gate of the said temple
stands the fruit-market, containing fiftie shops, where no
kinde of fruit is wanting."*^ Next vnto them stand the
waxe-merchants, very ingenious and cunning workmen,
and much to be admired. Here are merchants factors
likewise, though they be but few. Then followes the
herbe-market, wherein the pome-citrons, and diuers kindes
of greene boughes and herbes doe represent the sweete
and flourishing spring, and in this market are about twentie
tauernes ; for they which drinke wine, will shrowd them-
selues vnder the shadie and pleasant boughes. Next vnto
them stand the milke-sellers, who haue great store of such
earthen vessels by them, as the Italians call Vast di
Maiolica : but their milke they cause to be brought thither
in certaine vessels of wood bound with iron-hoops, being
narrow-mouthed and broad at the bottome. From these
milke-sellers some there are which daily buie great store
of milke to make butter thereof : and the residue of their
milke they sell either crudded or sometimes sower vnto
the citizens : so that I thinke there passeth scarce one day
ouer their heads, wherein they vtter not fine and twentie
tunnes of milke. Next vnto these are such as sell cotton,
and they haue about thirtie shops : then follow those that
sell hempe, ropes, halters, and such other hempen com
modities. Then come you to the girdlers, and such as
make pantofles, and leather-bridles embrodered with silke :
432 THE TFirun HOOKE OF THE
next, their shops adioine that make sword-scabberds and
caparisons for horses. Immediately after dwell those that
sell salt and lime. And vpon them border an hundred
shops of potters, who frame all kinde of earthen vessels
adorned with diuers colours. Then come you to the
The porters uj sadlcrs-shops : and next of all to the street of porters, who
(as I suppose) are aboue three hundred : these porters
haue a consul or gouernour, who euery weeke allotteth
vnto part of them some set busines. The gaine which
redoundeth thereof they put into a coffer, diuiding it at
the weekes end among them, which haue wrought the
same weeke. Strange it is to consider how exceedingly
these porters loue one another ; for when any of them
deceaseth, the whole companie maintaineth his widow and
fatherlesse children at their common charge, till either she
die, or marrieth a new husband. The children they care-
fully bring vp, till they haue attained to some good arte
or occupation. Whosoeuer of them marrieth and hath
children by his wife, inuiteth most part of his companie
vnto a banquet : who being thus inuited, present each of
them some gift or other vnto the good man, or his wife.
No man can be admitted into their companie, vnlesse first
he banqueteth the principall men thereof: otherwise he is
to haue but halfe a share of the common gaine. Free they
are from all tributes and exactions : yea their bread is
baked of free cost. If any of them be taken in any
hainous offence, he is not publikely but priuately pun-
ished. While they are at worke they all weare short
garments of one colour : and at vacant times they are
apparalled as themselues thinke good : but howsoeuer it
be, they are most honest and faire-conditioned people.
Next vnto the porters companie dwell the chiefe cookes
and victuallers. Here also stands a certaine square
house couered with reed, wherein pease and turnep-
rootes^*^ are to be sold, which are so greatly esteemed
HIS TOR IF, OF y\FRICA. 433
of in Fez, that none may buie them of the countrie-
people at the first hand, but such as are appointed, who are
boud to pay tole & tribute vnto the customers : & scarcely
one day passeth, wherein mo then 500 sacks of pease and
turneps are not sold. And albeit (as we haue said) they
are so much esteemed of, yet are they sold at a most easie
price : for a man may buie 30, or at least 20. pound weight
for one * Liardo.^^ Greene beanes likewise in time oi'' Rammiusm
Ins Italian
yeere are sold good cheape. Not far fro the place before '""/''■ (aikth it
mentioned are certaine shops, wherein lumps or steakes of
flesh beaten in a morte, & the fried with oile, & seasoned
with much spice, are to be bought, euery one of the said
lumps or steakes being about the bignes of a fig, & being
made only of dried beefe. On the north side of the temple
is a place whither all kind of herbes are brought to make
sallets withall : for which purpose there are 40. shops
appointed. Next whereunto is The place of smoke, so
called by reason of continuall smoke : here are certaine
fritters or cakes fried in oile, like vnto such as are called at
Rome Pan Melato. Of these fritters great store are daily
vttered : for euery day they vse to breake their fasts
therwith, & especially vpon festiual daies : vnto which
fritters theyadde for a conclusion either rostmeat or honie:
sometimes they steepe them in an homely kinde of broth
made of bruised meat, which being sodden, they bray the
second time in a morter, making pottage thereof, & colour-
ing it with a kinde of red earth. They roste their flesh
not vpon a spit, but in an ouen : for making two ouens one
ouer another for the same purpose, in the lower they kindle
a fire, putting the flesh into the vpper ouen when it is wcl
het. You would not beleeue how finely their meat is thus
rosted, for it cannot be spoiled either by smoke, or too
much heat : for they are all night rosting it by a gentle
fire, and in the morning they set it to sale. The foresaid
steakes & fritters they sell vnto the citizens in so great
434 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
abudance, that they daily take for them mo the 200. duckats.
For there are 15. shops which sell nothing else. Likewise
here are sold certaine fishes & flesh fried, & a kind of
excellent sauorie bread, tasting somewhat like a fritter :
which being baked with butter, they neuer eat but with
butter and honie. Here also are the feet of certaine beasts
sodden ; wherewith the husbandmen betimes in the
morning breake their fast, and then hie them to their
labour. Next vnto these are such as sell oile, salt, butter,
cheese, oliues, pome-citrons & capers : their shops are full
of fine earthen vessels, which are of much greater value
then the things contained in them. Their butter and honie
they sell by certaine criers, which are porters appointed for
the same oflRce. Neither doe they admit euery one to fill
their vessels ; but that worke is reserued for certaine
porters appointed to doe it, which also fill the measures of
oile when merchants buie the same. The said vessels are
sufficient to containe an hundred and fiftie pounds of
butter ; for so much butter the countrie-people put into
each vessell. Then follow the shambles, consisting of
about fortie shops, wherein the butchers cut their flesh a
peeces, and sell it by weight. They kill no beastes within
the shambles, for their is a place allotted for this purpose
neere vnto the riuer, where hauing once dressed their flesh,
they send it to the shambles by certaine seruants appointed
for that end. But before any butcher dare sell his flesh
The goiiernoztr vuto the citizcns, he must Carrie it to the gouernour of the
of the shambles
in Fez. shamblcs, who so soone as he seeth the flesh, he sets downe
in a peece of paper the price thereof, which they shew
together with their meate vnto the people ; neither may
they in any case exceed the said price. Next vnto the
shambles standeth the market where course cloathes are
sold, which containeth at least an hundred shops ; the said
cloth is deliuered vnto certaine criers (which are about
threescore in number) who carrying the cloth from shop to
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 435
shop tell the price thereof, and for the selh'ng of euery
duckats-woorth they haue two*Liardos allowed them. *^'f ^^f'^^'^'^"'''
^ copte tncy are
This trafifique of cloth indureth from noone till night, to called Baiochi.
the merchants great aduantage. Then follow their shops
that scowre and sell armour, swordes, iauelings, and such
like warlike instruments. Next vnto them stand the fish-
mongers, who sell most excellent and great fish, taken both
in the riuer of Fez and in other waters, exceeding cheape ;
for you may buie a pound of fish for two farthings onely.
There is a great abundance of the fish called in Rome
Laccia, and that especially from the beginning of October
till the moneth of Aprill, as we will declare more at large
when we come to speake of the riuers. Next vnto the
fishmongers dwell such as make of a certaine hard reed,
coopes and cages for fowles ; their shops being about fortie
in number. For each of the citizens vseth to bring vp '
great store of hennes and capons. And that their houses
may not be defiled with hennes-dung, they keepe them
continually in coopes and cages. Then follow their shops
that sell liquide sope, but they be not many, for you shall
finde more of them in other partes of the citie. Neither
make they sope at Fez onely, but also in the mountaines
thereabout, from whence it is brought vnto the citie vpon
mules backes. Next of all are certaine of their shops that
sell meale, albeit they are diuersly dispersed throughout
the whole citie. Next vnto them are such as sell seed-
graine and seed-pulse : which you cannot buie of any
citizen, because that euery one had rather keepe his corne
in store : many there are likewise in the same place, that
will Carrie pulse or corne to mules or horses, whithersoeuer
you will haue them. A mule vseth to carrie three measures
of pulse vpon his backe (which the muliter is enioined to
measure) in three sacks lying one vpon another. Then are
there ten shops of them that sell straw. Next them is the
market where threed and hempe is to be sold, and where
436 THE THIRD ROOKE OF THE
hempe vseth to be kempt : which place is built after the
fashion of great houses, with fower galleries or spare-
roomes round about it : in the first whereof they sell linnen-
cloth, and weigh hempe : in two other sit a great many-
women hauing abundance of sale-threed, which is there
solde by the criers, who carrie the same vp and downe from
noone till night. In the midst of this place grow^e diuers
mulberie trees, affoording pleasant shade and shelter vnto
the merchants : and hither such swarmes of women resort,
that a man shall hardly withdraw himselfe from among
them : good sport it is sometime to see how they will barret
and scould one at another : yea and oftentimes you
shall see them fall together by the eares. Let vs now
come to the west part, which stretcheth from the temple
to that gate that leadeth vnto Mecnase. Next vnto the
smokie place before mentioned, their habitations directly
stand, that make leather-tankards, to draw water out of
wels ; of whom there are some fourteene shops. Vnto
these adioine such as make wicker-vessels and other, to
lay vp meale and corne in : and these enioy about thirtie
shops. Next them are 150. shops of tailors. And next
the tailors are those that make leather-shieldes, such as
I haue often seene brought into Europe. Then follow
twentie shops of laundresses or washers, being people of a
base condition ; to whom the citizens that haue not maids
of their owne, carrie their shirtes and other fowle linnen,
which after few daies are restored vnto them so cleane and
white as it is woonderfull. These laundresses haue diuers
shops adioining together in the same place : but here and
there throughout the citie are aboue two hundred families
of such persons. Next vnto the laundresses are those
that make trees for saddles ; who dwell likewise in great
numbers eastwarde right in the way to the college founded
by king AbuJiinanP- Vpon these adioine about fortie
shops of such as work stirrops, spurres, and bridles, so
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 437
artificially, as I thinke the like are not to be scene in
Europe. Next standeth their street, that first rudely make
the said stirrops, bridles, and spurres. From thence you
may go into the street of sadlers, which couer the saddles
before mentioned threefold with most excellent leather :
the best leather they lay vppermost, and the woorst
beneath, and that with notable workmanship ; as may be
scene in most places of Italic. And of them there are
moc then an hundred shops. Then follow their long shops
that make pikes and launces. Next standeth a rocke or
mount, hauing two walks thereupon ; the one whereof
leadeth to the east gate, and the other to one of the kings
pallaces, where the kings sisters, or some other of his
kinred are vsually kept. But this is by the way to be
noted, that all the foresaid shops or market begin at the
great temple : howbeit, that I might not inuert my set-
order, I haue onely described those places that arc round
about the said temple, minding last of all to speake of the
merchants station or burse.
Of the station or burse of merchants in Fez.
THis burse you may well call a citic, which being
walled round about hath twelue gates, & before
eucry gate an iron chaine, to keepe horses & cartes from
comming in. The said burse is diuided into 12. seuerall
wards or partes : two whereof are allotted vnto such
shoomakers as make shooes onely for noblemen and
gentlemen, and two also to silke-merchants or haber-
dashers, that sell ribands, garters, skarfes, and such other
like ornaments ; and of these there are about fiftie shops.
Others there are that sell silke onely for the embrodering
of shirts, cushions, and other such furniture made of cloth,
possessing almost as many shops as the former. Then
follow those that make womens girdles of course wooll
(which some make of silke) but very grossely, for I thinke
438 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
they are moe then two fingers thicke, so that they may
serue almost for cables to a ship. Next vnto these
girdlers are such as sell woollen and linnen cloth brought
out of Europe : which haue also silke-stufifes, caps, and
other like commodities to sell. Hauing passed these, you
come to them that sel mats, mattresses, cushions, and other
things made of leather. Next adioineth the customers
office ; for their cloth is sent about by certaine criers to be
solde, who before they can passe, must goe to the cus-
tomers to haue the said cloth sealed, and to pay toll vnto
the customers. Criers here are, to the number of sixtie,
* Or Baiocho. whicli for the crying of euery cloth haue one *Liardo
allowed them. Next of all dwell the tailors, and that in
three seuerall streetes. Then come you to the linnen-
drapers, which sell smocks and other apparell for women :
and these are accounted the richest merchants in all Fez,
for their wares are the most gainful of all others. Next
vnto these are certaine woollen garments to be sold, made
of such cloth as is brought thither out of Europe. Euery
afternoone cloth is sold in this place by the criers, which is
lawfull for any man to doe, when necessarie occasion
vrgeth him. Last of all is that place where they vse to
sell wrought shirts, towels, and other embrodered works ;
as also where carpets, beds, and blankets are to be sold.^^
TJie reason why this part of the citie tvas called Ccesaria.
THe foresaid burse or station of merchants was in times
past called Cjesaria, according to the name of that
renowned conquerour lulius Ccesar : the reason whereof
some afifirme to be ; because all the cities of Barbarie were
in those dales first subiect to the Romans, and then to the
A meancs vsed Goths. And cach citic alwaies had either Romans or
in Africa /ww .
tokeepethc Goths to rcceiuc and take charge of the tribute. Howbeit
princes tribute , - , . ... , ,^
and merchants bccause the people often made ciuill wars and assaults
^tTe. ^"''^^'^'^'^' vpon them, their determination was in euery citie to build
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 439
some strong walled place, where both the tribute and the
principall goods of the citizens might remaine in safetie :
hoping by this meanes that the citizens would be as
careful! of the princes goods as of their owne. Which
course had the Italians imitated, they had neuer beene
spoiled so often of their goods. For in ciuill wars it many
times befalleth, that the greedie soldiers not being satisfied
with the enimies goods, will prey vpon the wealth of their
friendes.^^
Of the grocers y apothecaries, and other tradesmen, and
artizans of Fez.
NExt vnto the said burse, on the north side, in a
streight lane, stand an hundred and fiftie grocers
and apothecaries shops, which are fortified on both sides
with two strong gates. These shops are garded in the
night season by certaine hired and armed watchmen, which
keepe their station with lanternes and mastiues. The
said apothecaries can make neither serups, ointments, nor
electuaries : but such things are made at home by the
phisitions, and are of them to be bought. The phisitions
houses adioine for the most part vnto the apothecaries :
howbeit very few of the people knowe either the phisition
or the vse of his phisicke. The shops here are so artificially
built and adorned, that the like (I thinke) are no where
else to be found. Being in Tauris a citie of Persia, I loimLeo ims
at laitris i)i
remember that I saw diuers stately shops curiously built Persia.
vnder certaine galleries, but very darke, so that (in my
iudgement) they be far inferiour vnto the shops of Fez.
Next the apothecaries are certaine artificers that make
combes of boxe and other wood. Eastward of the apothe-
caries dwell the needle-makers, possessing to the number
of fiftie shops. Then follow those that turne iuorie, and
such other matter, who (because their craft is practised
by some other artizans) are but few in number. Vnto the
440 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
turners adioine certaine that sell meale, sope, & brooms :
who dwelling next vnto the threed-market beforemen-
tioned, are scarce twenty shops in all : for the residue
are dispersed in other places of the citie, as we will here-
after declare. Amongst the cotton-merchants are certaine
that sell ornaments for tents, and beds. Next of all stand
the fowlers, who, though they be but few, yet are they
stored with all kinde of choise and daintie fowles : where-
upon the place is called the fowlers market. Then come
you to their shops that sell cords and ropes of hempe : and
then to such as make high corke slippers for noblemen and
gentlemen to walke the streetes in, when it is fowle
weather : these corke-slippers are finely trimmed with
much silke, and most excellent vpper leathers, so that the
cheapest will cost a duckat, yea some there are of ten
duckats, and some of fiue and twentie duckats price. Such
slippers as are accounted most fine and costly are made
of blacke and white mulberie-tree, of blacke walnut-tree
and of the lujuba-tree, albeit the corke-slippers are the
most durable and strong. Vnto these adioine ten shops
of Spanish Moores, which make crosse-bowes : as also
those that make broomes of a certaine wilde palme-tree,
such as are daily brought out of Sicilie to Rome. These
broomes they carrie about the citie in a great basket,
either selling them, or exchanging them for bran, ashes,
or olde shooes : the bran they sell againe to shepherds,
the ashes to such as white threed, & the old shooes to
coblers. Next vnto them are smithes that make nailes ;
& coopers which make certaine great vessels in forme of a
bucket, hauing corne-measures to sell also : which measures,
when the officer, appointed for the same purpose, hath
made triall of, he is to receive a farthing apeece for his fee.
Then follow the wooll-chapmen, who hauing bought wooll
of the butchers, put it foorth vnto others to be scowred
and washed : the sheepe-skins they themselues dresse :
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 44I
but as for oxe-hides they belong to another occupation, and
are tanned in another place. Vnto these adioine such as
make certaine langols or withs, which the Africans put
vpon their horses feete. Next of all are the braziers ; then
such as make weights and measures ; and those likewise
that make instruments to carde wooll or flaxe. At length
you descend into a long streete, where men of diuers occu-
pations dwell together, some of which doe polish and
enamell stirrops, spurres, and other such commodities,
as they receiue from the smithes roughly and rudely
hammered. Next whom dwell certaine cart-wrights,
plow-wrights, mill-wrights, and of other like occupations.
Diers haue their aboad by the riuers side, and haue each
of them a most cleere fountaine or cesterne, to wash their
silke-stufifes in. Ouer against the diers dwell makers of
bulwarkes or trenches, in a very large place, which being
planted with shadie mulberie-trees is exceeding pleasant
in the summer-time. Next them are a companie of
farriers, that shooe mules and horses : and then those that
make the iron-worke of crosse-bowes. Then followe
smithes that make horse-shooes ; and last of all those that
white linnen-cloth : and here the west part of the citie
endeth, which in times past (as is aforesaid) was a citie
by it selfe, and was built after the citie on the east side of
the river.^^
A description of the second part of Fez.
THe second part of Fez situate eastward, is beautified
with most stately palaces, temples, houses, and
colleges ; albeit there are not so many trades and occupa-
tions as in the parts before described. For here are
neither merchants, tailors, shoomakers, &c. but of the
meaner sort. Here are notwithstanding thirtie shops of
grocers. Neere vnto the walles dwell certaine bricke-
burners and potters : and not far from thence is a great
F F
442 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
market of white earthen vessels, platters, cups, and dishes.
Next of all standes the corne-market, wherein are diuers
granaries to lay vp corne. Ouer against the great temple
there is a broad street paued with brick, round about which
diuers handy-crafts and occupations are exercised. There
are likewise many other trades diuersly dispersed ouer
this east part of the citie. The drapers and grocers haue
certaine peculiar places allotted vnto them. In this east
part of Fez likewise there are fiue hundred and twenty
weauers houses, very stately and sumptuously built : hauing
in each of them many worke-houses, and loomes, which
yeeld great rent vnto the owners. Weauers there are (by
report) in this citie twenty thousand, and as many millers.
Moreouer in this part of Fez are an hundred shops for the
whiting of threed ; the principall whereof being situate
vpon the riuer, are exceedingly well furnished with kettles,
cauldrons, and other such vessels : here are likewise many
great houses to saw wood in, which worke is performed by
Christian captiues, and whatsoeuer wages they earne,
redoundeth vnto their Lordes and masters. These
Christian captiues are not suffered to rest from their
labours, but only vpon fridaies, and vpon eight seuerall
dales of the yeere besides, whereon the Moores feasts are
solemnized. Here also are the common stewes for harlots,
which are fauoured by great men, and sometime by the
cheefe gouernors of the citie. Likewise there are certaine
vintners, who are freely permitted to keepe harlots, and to
take filthie hire for them. Here are also moe then sixe
hundred cleere fountaines walled round about and most
charily kept, euery one of which is seuerally conueied by
certaine pipes vnto each house, temple, college, and
hospitall : and this fountaine-water is accounted the best :
for that which commeth out of the riuer is in summer
oftentimes dried vp : as likewise when the conducts are to
l>e cleansed, the course of tlie riuer must of necessitie be
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 443
turned out of the citie. Wherefore euery familie vseth to
fetch water out of the said fountaines, and albeit in summer-
time the chiefe gentlemen vse riuer-vvater, yet they will
often call for fountaine-water, because it is more coole
and pleasant in taste. But in the spring-time it is nothing
so. These fountaines haue their originall for the most part
from the west and south, for the north part is all full of
mountains and marble-rocks, containing certaine caues or
eels, wherein corne may be kept for manyyeeres ; of which
caues some are so large, that they will holde two hundred
bushels of corne. The citizens dwelling neere those caues,
and such as possesse them, do sufficiently maintaine them-
selues in taking yeerely euery hundred bushell for rent.
The south part of east Fez is almost halfe destitute of
inhabitants : howbeit the gardens abound with fruites and
flowers of all sortes. Euery garden hath an house
belonging thereunto, and a christall-fountaine enuironed
with roses and other odoriferous flowers and herbes ; so
that in the spring-time a man may both satisfie his eies,
and solace his minde in visiting this part of the citie : and
well it may be called a Paradise, sithence the noblemen
doe here reside from the moneth of April till the end of
September. Westward, that is, toward the kings palace,
standeth a castle built by a king of the Luntune-familie,
resembling in bignes an w^hole towne : wherein the kings of
Fez, before the said palace was built, kept their royal
residence. But after new Fez began to be built by the
Marin-kings, the said castle was left onely to the gouernour
of the citie. Within this castle standes a stately temple
built (as aforesaid) what time it was inhabited by princes
and nobles, many places being afterward defaced and
turned into gardens : howbeit certaine houses were left
vnto the gouernour, partly to dwell in, and partly for the
deciding of controuersies. Here is likewise' a certaine
prison for captiues supported with many pillers, and being
F F 2
444 TUK THIRD lIOOKr: OF THE
so large, that it will hold (as diuers are of opinion) three
thousand men. Neither are there any seuerall roomes in
this prison : for at Fez one prison serueth for all. By this
castle runneth a certaine riuer very commodious for the
gouernour.
Of the magistrates, the adjiimistration of iustice, and of
the apparell vsed in Fez.
IN the citie of Fez are certaine particular iudges and
magistrates : and there is a gouernour that defineth
ciuill controuersies, and giueth sentence against malefactors.
Likewise there is a iudge of the canon law, who hath to
doe with all matters concerning the Mahumetan religion.
A third iudge there is also that dealeth about marriages
and diuorcements, whose authoritie is to heare all witnesses,
and to giue sentence accordingly. Next vnto them is the
high aduocate, vnto whom they appeale from the sentence
of the said iudges, when as they doe either mistake them-
selues, or doe ground their sentence vpon the authoritie of
some inferiour doctor. The gouernour gaineth a great
summe of money by condemning of parties at seuerall
Tiupuiiisii- times. Their manner of proceeding against a malefactor is
III lilt of iiia/i-
fciitors in Fez. this : hauiug giuen him an hundred or two hundred stripes
before the gouernour, the executioner putteth an iron-chaine
about his necke, and so leadeth him starke-naked (his
priuities onely excepted) through all partes of the citie :
after the executioner followes a seageant, declaring vnto
all the people what fact the guiltie person hath committed,
till at length hauing put on his apparell againe, they carrie
him backe to prison. Sometimes it fallcth out that many
offenders chained together are led about the citie : and the
gouernour for each malefactor thus punished, receiueth one
duckat and one fourth part ; and likewise at their first
entrance into the iaile, he demaunds of each one a
certaine dutie which is paid particularly vnto him by diuers
IIISTORIK OF AFRICA. 445
merchants and artificers appointed of purpose. And
amongst his other linings, he gathereth out of a certaine
mountaine seuen thousand duckats of yeerely reuenue : so
that when occasion seructh, he is at his proper costs to
finde the king of Fez three hundred horses, and to giue
them their pay. Those which follow the canon-lawe haue
neither stipend nor rewarde allowed them : for it is for-
bidden by the law of Mahumet, that the iudges of his
religion should reape any commoditie or fees by their
office ; but that they shoulde Hue onely by reading of
lectures, and by their priesthood. In this facultie arc many
aduocates and proctors, which are extreme idiotes, and
vtterly voide of all good learning. There is a place also in
Fez whereinto the iudges vse to cast the citizens, for debt,
or for some light offence. In all this citie are fower officers
or sergeants onely ; who from midnight till two a clocke in
the morning doe walke about all partes of the citie ; neither
haue they any stipend, but a certaine fee of such male-
factors as they lead about in chaines, according to the
qualitie of euery mans crime ; moreouer, they are freely
permitted to sell wine, and to keepe harlots. The saide
gouernour hath neither scribes nor notaries, but pro-
nounceth all sentences by word of mouth. One onely
there is that gathereth customes and tributes ouer all the
citie, who daily paieth to the kings vse thirtie duckats.
This man appointeth certaine substitutes to watch at euery
gate, where nothing, be it of neuer so small value, can
passe before some tribute be paid. Yea sometime they
goe foorth of the citie to meete with the carriers and
muliters vpon the high waies, to the end they may not
conceale nor closely conuey any merchandize into the citie.
And if they be taken in any deceite, they pay double.
The set order or proportion of their custome is this, namely
to pay two duckats for the woorth of an hundred : for
Onix-stones, which are brought hither in great plcntie.
446 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
they pay one fourth part : but for wood, corne, oxen, and
hennes, they giue nothing at all. Neither at the entring of the
citie doe they payany tribute for rammes,but at the shambles
'^ Or Daiociu. ^}-jgy give two *Liardos apeece, and to the gouernour of
the shambles one. The said gouernour of the shambles hath
alvvaies twelue men waiting vpon him, and oftentimes he
rideth about the citie to examine the weight of bread, and
finding any bread to faile of the due waight, he causeth
the baker to be beaten with cudgels, and to be led in
contempt vp and downe the citie. The said office was
woont to be allotted vnto men of singular honestie ; but
now adaies euery ignorant and lewd person enioieth it.
The citizens of Fez goe very ciuilly and decently attired,
in the spring-time wearing garments made of outlandish
cloth : ouer these shirtes they weare a iacket or cassocke
being narrow and halfe-sleeued, whereupon they weare a
certaine wide garment, close before on the breast. Their
caps are thinne and single, like vnto the night-caps vsed in
Italic, sauing that they couer not their eares : these caps are
couered with a certaine skarfe, which being twise wreathed
about their head and beard, hangeth by a knot. They
weare neither hose nor breeches, but in the spring-time
when they ride a iourney they put on bootes : mary the
poorer sort haue onely their cassocke, and a mantle ouer
'^ Ornbunius. that Called *Barnussi, and a most course cap. The doctors
and ancient gentlemen weare a certaine garment with wide
sleeues, somewhat like to the gentlemen of Venice. The
common sort of people are for the most part clad in a
kinde of course white cloth. The women are not altogether
vnseemely apparelled, but in sommer-time they weare
nothing saue their smocks onely. In winter they weare
such a wide sleeued garment, being close at the breast, as
that of the men before mentioned. When they goe
abroad, they put on certaine long breeches, wherewith
their legs are all couered, hauing also, after the fashion of
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 447
Syria, a vaile hanging downe from their heads, which
couereth their whole bodies. On their faces hkewise they
weare a maske with two little holes onely for their eies, to
peepe out at. Their eares they adorne with golden eare-
rings & with most pretious iewels : the meaner sort weare
eare-rings of siluer and gilt only. Vpon their armes the
ladies and gentlewomen weare golden bracelets, and the
residue siluer, as likewise gold or siluer-rings vpon their
legs, according to each ones estate and abilitie.
Of their manner of eating and drinking.
LEt vs now speake somewhat of their victuals and
manner of eating. The common sort set on the pot \
with fresh meat twise euery weeke : but the gentlemen and '
richer sort euery day, and as often as they list. They take
three meales a day : the breakefast consisteth of certaine
fruits and bread, or else of a kinde of liquid pap made
like vnto frumentie : in winter they sup off the broth of
salt flesh thickened with course meale. To dinner they
haue flesh, sallets, cheese, and oliues : but in summer they
haue greater cheere. Their supper is easie of digestion,
consisting of bread, melons, grapes, or milke : but in winter
they have sodden flesh, together with a kinde of meate
called Cuscusu, which being made of a lumpe of dowe is set A kinde of
. ~ . . iriirii ^ r meatc called
first vpon the fire m certame vessels full oi holes, and after- Cusai.su.
warde is tempered with butter and pottage. Some also
vse often to haue roste-meat. And thus you see after what
sort both the gentlemen & common people lead their Hues:
albeit the noblemen fare somewhat more daintily : but if
you compare them with the noblemen and gentlemen of
Europe, they may seeme to be miserable and base fellowes;
not for any want or scarcitie of victuals, but for want of
good manners and cleanlines. The table whereat they sit is
lowe, uncouered, and filthie : seats they haue none but txie
bare ground, neither kniues or spoones but only their ten
44^^ THE TIIIRI) nOOKK OF THK
talons. The said Cuscusu is set before them all in one
only platter, whereout as well gentlemen as others take it
not with spoones, but with their clawes fine. The meat &
pottage is put al in one dish ; out of which euery one
raketh with his greasie fists what he thinkes good : you
shall never see knife vpon the table, but they teare and
greedily deuoure their meate like hungrie dogs. Neither
doth any of them desire to drinke before he hath well
stuffed his panch ; and then will he sup off a cup of cold
water as big as a milke-bowle. The doctors indeede are
somewhat more orderly at meales : but, to tell you the
ver}' truth, in all Italie there is no gentleman so meane,
which for fine diet and stately furniture excelleth not the
greatest potentates and lords of all Africa.^^
The manner of soleinnizing niariages.
AS touching their mariages, they obserue these courses
following. So soone as the maides father hath
espoused her vnto her louer, they goe foorthwith like bride
and bridegroome to church, accompanied with their parents
and kinsfolkes, and call likewise two notaries with them
to make record before all that are present of the couenants
and dowrie. The meaner sort of people vsually giue for
their daughters dowrie thirtie duckats and a woman-slaue
of fifteene duckats price ; as likewise a partie-coloured
garment embrodered with silke, and certaine other silke
skarfs or lags, to weare vpon her head in stead of a hood
or vaile ; then a paire of fine shooes, and two excellent
paire of startups ; and lastly many pretie knackes curiously
made of siluer and other metals, as namely combes,
perfuming-pans, bellovves, and such other trinkets as
women haue in estimation. Which being done, all the
guests present are inuited to a banket, whereunto for great
dainties is brought a kinde of bread fried and tempered
with honie, which wee haue before described ; then they
IIISTORIE OK AFRICA. 449
bring roste-meate to the boord, all this being at the bride-
groomes cost : afterward the brides father maketh a banket
in like sort. Who if he bestow on his daughter some apparell
besides her dowrie, it is accounted a point of liberalitie. And
albeit the father promiseth but thirtie duckats onely for a
dowrie, yet will he sometimes bestow, in apparell and other
ornaments belonging to women, two hundred, yea sometimes
three hundred duckats besides. But they seldome giue an
house, a vineyarde, or a field for a dowrie. Moreouer vpon
the bride they bestowe three gownes made of costly cloth ;
and three others of silke chamlet, or of some other
excellent stuffe. They giue her smockes likewise curiously
wrought, with fine vailes, and other embrodered vestures ;
as also pillowes and cushions of the best sort. And
besides all the former giftes, they bestow eight carpets or
couerlets on the bride, fower whereof are onely for
seemelines to spread vpon their presses and cupboords :
two of the courser they vse for their beds ; and the other
two of leather, to lay vpon the floore of their bedchambers.
Also they haue certaine rugs of about twenty elles
compasse or length ; as like three quilts being made of
linnen and woollen on the one side, and stuffed with
flockes on the other side, which they vse in the night
in manner following. With the one halfe they couer
themselues, and the other halfe they lay vnder them :
which they may easily doe, when as they are both waies
about ten elles long. Vnto the former they adde as many
couerlets of silke very curiously embrodered on the vpper
side, and beneath lined double with linnen and cotton.
They bestow likewise white couerlets to vse in summer-
time onely : and lastly they bestow a woollen hanging
diuided into many partes, and finely wrought, as namely
with certaine peeces of gilt leather ; whereupon they sowe
iags of partie-coloured silke, and vpon euery iag a little
ball or button of silke, whereby the saide hanging may for
450 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
ornaments sake be fastened vnto a wall. Here you see
what be the appurtenances of their dowries ; wherein some
doe striue so much to excell others, that oftentimes many
gentlemen haue brought themselues vnto pouertie thereby.
Some Italians thinke that the husband bestowes a dowrie
vpon his wife ; but they altogether mistake the matter.
The bridegroome being ready to carrie home his bride,
causeth her to be placed in a woodden cage or cabinet
eight-square couered with silke, in which she is carried by
porters, her parents and kinsfolkes following, with a
great noise of trumpets, pipes, and drums, and with a
number of torches ; the bridegroomes kinsmen goe before
wnth torches, and the brides kinsfolkes followe after : and
so they goe vnto the great market place, and hauing
passed by the temple, the bridegroome takes his leaue of
his father in lawe and the rest, hying him home with all
speed, and in his chamber expecting the presence of his
spouse. The father, brother, and vncle of the bride lead
her vnto the chamber-doore, and there deliver her with one
consent vnto the mother of the bridegroome : who, as
soon as she is entred, toucheth her foote with his, and
foorthwith they depart into a generall roome by
themselues. In the meane season the banket is comming
foorth : and a certaine woman standeth before the
bride-chamber doore, expecting till the bridegroome
hauing defloured his bride reacheth her a napkin stained
with blood, which napkin she carrieth incontinent and
sheweth to the guestes, proclaiming with a lowd voice,
that the bride was euer till that time an vnspotted and
pure virginc. This woman together with other women
her companions, first the parents of the bridegroome and
then of the bride doe honourably entertaine. But if the
bride be found not to be a virgine, the mariage is made
frustrate, and she with great disgrace is turned home to
her parents. At complete manages they make for the
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 45 I
most part three bankets : the first the same day when the
bridegroome and bride are ioined in wedlocke ; the second
the day following for women onely ; and the third seuen
daies after ; whereat all the kinsfolks and friends of the
bride are present ; and this day the brides father, accord-
ing to his abilitie, sendes great store of daintie dishes vnto
his Sonne in lawe : but so soone as the new married man
goeth foorth of the house (which is for the most part
on the seuenth day after the mariage) he buieth great
plentie of fishes, which he causeth his mother or some
other woman to cast vpon his wiues feete ; and this they,
from an ancient superstitious custome, take for a good
boading. Likewise at the bridegroomes fathers they vse
to make two other feasts ; the one vpon the day before the
bride is married ; and so that night they spend in dauncing
and disport. The morrow after a companie of women goe
to dresse the bride, to combe her locks, and to paint her
cheekes with vermillion ; her hands and her feete they die
blacke, but all this painting presently looseth the fresh
hew ; and this day they haue another banket. The bride
they place in the highest roome that she may be scene of
all, and then those that dressed the bride are condignely
entertained. Being come to the bridegroomes house, his
parents salute the new bride with certaine great cups full
of new wine and cakes, with other iuncats, (which wee wil
here passe ouer in silence) all which are bestowed vpon
the bridegroomes companions. The same night which we
said was spent in dauncing, there are present at the
bridall-house certaine minstrels and singers, which by
turnes sometimes vse their instruments and sometimes
voice-musicke : they daunce alwaies one by one, and at
the end of each galliard they bestow a largesse vpon the
musitions. If any one wil honour the dancer, he bids him
kneele downe before him, and hauing fastened peeces of
money all ouer his face, the musitions presently take it off
452 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
for their fee. The women daunce alone without any men
at the noise of their owne musitions. All these things vse
to be performed when the bride is a maide. But the
Th' marriage mariages of widowes are concluded with lesse adoe.
Their cheere is boiled beefe and mutton, and stued hens,
with diuers iuncating dishes among. Instead of trenchers,
the guestes being ten or twelue in number, haue so many
great round platters of wood set before them. And this is
the common custome of gentlemen and merchants. The
meaner sort present their guestes with certaine sops or
bruesse of bread like vnto a pan-cake, which being dipped
in flesh-pottage, they eate out of a great platter not with
spoones but with their fingers onely : and round about
each great platter stand to the number of ten or twelue
persons. Likewise they made a solemne feast at the
The circiim- circumcision of their male children, which is vpon the
eisioii of their
children. scuentli day after their birth ; and at this feast the circum-
ciser, together with all their friends and kinsfolks is
present : which being done, each one, according to his
abilitie, bestoweth a gift vpon the circumciser in manner
following. Eurry man laics his money vpon a lads face
which the circumciser brought with him. Whereupon the
lad calling euery one by his name, giueth them thanks in
particular: and then the infant being circumcised, they
spend that day with as great iollitic as a day of mariage.
But at the birth of a daughter they show not so much
alacritie.^^
Of their rites obserued vpon festiuall daies, mid their manner
of mourning for the dead.
Keiiquesof A Mong the pcoplc of Fcz there haue remained certaine
Chris/iaii cere-
A":
niuiiies'obseriicd ^^*^ rcliqucs of fcstiuall dalcs instituted of olde by the
'^Mooril'"^ Christians ; whereupon they vse certaine ceremonies which
themselues vnderstande not. Vpon Christmas euen they
eate a sallet made of diuers herbs : they seeth likewise
IIISTORII-: OF AFRICA. 453
that night all kind of pulse, which they feede vpon
for great dainties. Vpon New-yeeres day the children
goe with maskes and vizards on their faces to the
houses of gentlemen and merchants, and haue fruits
giuen them for singing certaine carols or songs. When
as the feast of Saint loJin Baptist is hallowed among
Christians, you shall here see all about great store of fires
made with straw. And when their childrens teeth begin
to grow, they make another feast called, according to the
Latines, Dentilla. They haue also many other rites and
customes of diuining or soothsaying, the like wherof I
haue scene at Rome and in other cities of Italie.^*^ As
touching their feasts prescribed by the Mahumetan lawe, ^
they are at large set downe in that briefe treatise which
we haue written concerning the same lawe. The women
hauing by death lost their husbands, fathers, or any other Thdrfuitcrais
of their deere friends, assemble foorthwith a great multitude
of their own sexe together, who stripping themselues out
of their owne attire, put on most vile sackcloth, and defile
their faces with much durt : then call they certaine men
clad in womens attire, bringing great fower-square drums
with them, at the noise of which drums the women-
mourners sing a funeral! song, tending as much as may
be, to the commendation of the partie deceased : and at
the end of euery verse, the said wome vtter most hideous
shrikes & outcries, tearing their haire, & with much lamen-
tation beating their cheekes & breasts, till they be all-
imbrued with blood : and so these heathenish superstitions
continue for seuen whole daies together. At which seuen
daies ende they surcease their mourning for the space of
40. daies, & then they begin anew to torment theselues
for three daies togither in maner aforesaid : howbeit these
kinds of obsequies are obserued onely by the baser people,
but the gentlemen and better sort behaue themselues more
modestly. At this time all the widovves friends come
454 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
about her to comfort her, and send diuers kinds of meats
vnto her : for in the mourning house they may dresse no
meate at all, till the dead corpes be carried foorth. The
woman her selfe that looseth her husband, father, or
brother, neuer goeth foorth with the funerall. But how
they wash and burie the dead corpes, and what super-
stitions they vse thereabout, you shall finde recorded in my
little treatise aboue mentioned.
Of their doiic-houses.
Diuers there are in this citie, that take much pleasure
in keeping of doues, which are here in great
plentie, of all colours. These doues they keepe in certaine
cages or lockers on the tops of their houses, which lockers
they set open tvvnse a day, to wit, morning and euening,
delighting greatly to see them flie, for those that out-flie
the residue are accounted the best. Oftentimes it falleth
out, that neighbours doues will be mingled together, for
which cause you shall see the owners goe together by the
eares. Some haue a certaine net bound vnto two long
canes, wherewith they vse to take their neighbours doues,
as they come flying foorth of their louers. Amongst the
colliers you shall finde seuen oi eight shops onely of those
that sel doues.'^^
Their manner of gaming at Fez.
THe citizens vse most of all to play at chesse, and that
from ancient times. Other games there are also,
but very rude, and vsed onely by the common people.
At certaine times of the yeere the boies of one street
wil fight with clubs against the boies of another street,
and that sometimes with so great furie, that they betake
themselues to other weapons and slay one another,
especially vpon their festiuall dales, what time they will
challenge and prouoke one another foorth of the citie-
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 455
walks. And hauing fought hard all the whole day, at
night they fall to throwing of stones : till at length the
citie-ofFicers come vpon them, taking some, and beating
them publiquely throughout the citie. Sometimes it falleth
out, that the yoong striplings arming themselues, and
going by night out of the citie, range vp and downe the
fields and gardens : and if the contrarie faction of yoonkers
and they meete, it is woonderfull what a bloodie skirmish
ensueth : howbeit they are often most seuerely punished
for it.'^'^
Of the African poets.
IN Fez there are diuers most excellent poets, which
make verses in their owne mother toong. Most of
their poems and songs intreat of loue. Euery yeere they
pen certaine verses in the commendation of Mahumet,
especially vpon his birthday : for then betimes in the
morning they resort vnto the palace of the chiefe iudge
or gouernor, ascending his tribunall-seate, and from thence
reading their verses to a great audience of people : and
hee whose verses are most elegant and pithie, is that yeere Rewards for
proclaimed prince of the poets. But when as the kings of '
the Marin-familie prospered, they vsed to inuitc all the
learned men of the citie vnto their palace ; and honour-
ably entertaining them, they commanded each man in
their hearing to recite their verses to the commendation
of Mahumet : and he that was in all mens opinions
esteemed the best poet, was rewarded by the king with an
hundred duckats, with an excellent horse, with a woman-
slaue, and with the kings own robes wherewith he was
then apparelled : all the rest had fiftie duckats apeece
giuen them, so that none departed without the kings
liberalitie : but an hundred and thirtie yeeres are expired
since this custome, together with the maiestie of the
Fessan kingdome, decaied.*'^
456 TIIK THIRD P.OOKE OF THE
o
A description of the grammar-scJiooles in Fez.
F schools in Fez for the instructing of children, there
are almost two hundred, euery one of which is in
fashion like a great hall. The schoolemasters teach their
children to write and read not out of a booke, but out of a
certaine great table. Euery day they expound one sen-
tence of the Alcoran : and hauing red quite through they
begin it againe, repeating it so often, til they haue most
firmely committed the same to memorie : which they doe
right well in the space of 7. yeeres. Then read they vnto
their scholers some part of orthographie : howbeit both
this and the other parts of Grammar are far more exactly
taught in the colleges, then in these triuiall schooles. The
said schoolemasters are allowed a very small stipend ; but
when their boies haue learned some part of the Alcoran,
they present certaine gifts vnto their master, according to
each ones abilitie. Afterward so soon as any boy hath
perfectly learned the whole Alcoran, his father inuiteth all
his sonnes schoolefellowes vnto a great banket : and his
Sonne in costly apparell rides through the street vpon a
gallant horse, which horse and apparell the gouernour of
the royall citadell is bound to lend him. The rest of his
schoole-fellowes being mounted likewise on horse-backe
accompany him to the banketing house, singing diuers
songs to the praise of God and of Mahumet. Then are
they brought to a most sumptuous banket, whereat all the
kinsfolkes of the foresaid boyes father are vsually present :
euery one of whom bestoweth on the schoolemaster some
small gift, and the boyes father giues him a new sute of
apparell. The said scholers likewise vse to celebrate a
^ feast vpon the birth-day of Mahumet, and then their
fathers are bound to send each man a torch vnto the
schoole : whereupon euery boy carrieth a torch in his
hand, some of which waigh thirt\- pound. These torches
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 457
are most curiously made, being adorned round about with
diuers fruits of waxe, which being lighted betimes in the
morning doe burne till sun-rise, in the meane while cer-
taine singers resound the praises of Mahumet, and so soone
as the sunne is vp, all their solemnitie ceaseth : this day
vseth to be very gainfull vnto the schoolemasters, for they
sell the remnant of the waxe vpon the torches for an
hundred duckats, and sometimes for more. None of them
paies any rent for his schoole : for all their schooles were
built many yeeres agoe, and were freely bestowed for the
training vp of youth. Whatsoeuer ornaments or toyes are
vpon the torches, the schoolemasters diuide them among
their scholers and among the singers. Both in these
common schooles and also in the colleges they haue two
dales of recreation euery weeke, wherein they neither
teach nor studie.*^-^
Of the fortune-tellers mid some other artisans in Fez.
WE haue said nothing as yet of the leather-dressers,
who haue diuers mansions by the riuers side,
paying for euery skin an halfepeny^^ custome, which
amounteth yeerely almost vnto three hundred duckats.
Here are likewise chirurgions & barbers, whom, because
they are so few, I thought not to haue mentioned in this
place. Now let vs speake of the fortune-tellers and
diuiners, of whom there is a great number, and three Three sorts of
kindes. For one sort vseth certaine Geomanticall figures. /-Vs!
Others powring a drop of oile into a viall or glasse of water,
make the saide water to bee transparent and bright,
wherein, as it were in a mirrour, they afifiirme that they see
huge swarmes of diuels that resemble an whole armie,
some whereof are trauelling, some are passing ouer a riuer,
and others fighting a land-battell, whom when the diuiner
seeth at quiet, he demandeth such questions of them as he
is desirous to be resolued of: and the diuels giue them
G G
458 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
answere with beckning, or with some gesture of their
hands or eics : so inconsiderate and damnable is their
credulitie in this behalfe. The foresaid glasse-viall they
will deliuer into childrens hands scarce of eight yeeres old,
of whom they will aske whether they see this or that diuell.
Many of the citie are so besotted with these vanities, that
they spend great summes vpon them. The third kinde of
diuiners are women-witches, which are affirmed to haue
familiaritie with diuels : some diuels they call red, some
white, and some black diuels : and when they will tell any
mans fortune, they perfume themselues with certaine
odours, saying, that then they possesse themselues with
that diuell which they called for : afterwards changing
their voice, they faine the diuell to speake within them :
then they which come to enquire, ought with great feare
& trembling aske these vile & abominable witches such
questions as they meane to propound, and lastly offering
some fee vnto the diuell, they depart. But the wiser and
honester sort of people call these women Sa/iacat, which in
Latin signifieth Fricatrices, because they haue a damnable
custome to commit vnlawfull Venerie among themselues,
which I cannot expresse in any modester termes. If faire
women come vnto them at any time, these abominable
witches will burne in lust towardes them no otherwise then
lustie yoonkers doe towardes yoong maides, and will in the
diuels behalfe demaunde for a rewarde, that they may lie
with them : and so by this meanes it often falleth out, that
thinking thereby to fulfill the diuels command they lie
with the witches. Yea some there are, which being
allured with the delight of this abominable vice, will desire
the companie of these witches, and faining themselues to
be sicke, will either call one of the witches home to them,
or will send their husbands for the same purpose : and so
the witches perceiuing how the matter stands, will say
that the woman is possessed with a diuell, and that she
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 459
can no way be cured, vnlesse she be admitted into their
societie. With these words her silly husband being per-
suaded, doth not onely permit her so to doe, but makes
also a sumptuous banket vnto the damned crew of witches :
which being done, they vse to daunce very strangely at
the noise of drums : and so the poore man commits his
false wife to their filthie disposition. Howbeit some there
are that will soone coniure the diuell with a good cudsrell
out of their wiues : others faining themselues to be pos-
sessed with a diuell, wil deceiue the said witches, as their
wiues haue been deceiued by them.
Of the coniurers, inchanters, and iuglers in Fes.
IN Fez likewise there are a kinde of iuglers or coniurers
called MuJiazzimin .•^* who of all others are reported
to be most speedie casters out of diuels. And because
their Necromancie sometimes taketh effect, it is a wonder
to see into what reputation they grow thereby : but when
they cannot cast foorth a diuell, they say it is an airie
spirite. Their manner of adiuring diuels is this : first they
drawe certaine characters and circles upon an ash-heape or
some other place ; then describe they certaine signes vpon
the hands and forehead of the partie possessed, and
perfume him after a strange kinde of manner. Afterward
they make their inchantment or coniuration ; enquiring of
the diuell, which way or by what meanes he entred the
partie, as likewise what he is, and by what name he is
called, and lastly charging him to come foorth. Others
there are that worke by a certaine Cabalisticall rule called
Zairagia : this rule is contained in many writings, for it is
thought to be naturall magique : neither are there any
other Necromancers in all Fez, that will more certainly and
truly resolue a doubtfuU question ; howbeit their arte is
exceeding difficult : for the students thereof must haue as
great skill in Astrologie, as in Cabala. My selfe in times past
G G 2
460 THE THIRD EOOKE OF THE
hauing attained to some knowledge in this facultie, con-
tinued (I remember) an whole day in describing one figure
onely : which kinde of figures are described in manner
following. First they draw many circles within the com-
passe of a great circle : in the first circle they make a crosse,
at the fower extremities whereof they set downe the fower
quarters of the world, to wit, East, West, North, and South :
at each end of one of the said crosse lines, they note either
pole : likewise about the circumference of the first circle,
they paint the fower elements : then diuide they the same
circle and the circle following into fower partes : and
euery fourth part they diuide into other seuen, each one
being distinguished with certaine great Arabian characters,
so that euery element containeth eight and twentie
characters. In the third circle they set downe the seuen
planets ; in the fourth the twelue signes of the Zodiacke ;
in the fift the twelue Latine names of the moneths ; in the
sixt the eight and twentie houses of the moone ; in the
seuenth the 365. dales of the yeere, and about the conuexitie
thereof, the fower cardinall or principall windes. Then
take they one onely letter of the question propounded,
multiplying the same by all the particulars aforenamed, &
the product or summe totall they diuide after a certaine
manner, placing it in some roome, according to the qualitie
of the character, and as the element requireth wherein the
said character is found without a figure. All which being
done, they marke that figure which seemeth to agree with
the foresaid number or sum produced, wherewith they
proceed as they did with the former, till they haue found
eight and twentie characters, whereof they make one word,
and of this word the speech is made that resolueth the
question demanded : this speech is alwaies turned into a
verse of the first kinde, which the Arabians call Ethauii,
consisting of eight Siipites and twelue Chordi, according to
the meeter of the Arabian toong, whereof we haue intreated
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 461
in the last part of our Arabian o-rammar. And the verse ^« Arabia?!
_ grammar
consistins: of those characters, comprehendeth alwaies a written by
^ ^ John Leo.
true and infaHible answer vnto the question propounded,
resoluing' first that which is demanded, and then expound-
ing the sense of the question it selfe. These practitioners
are neuer found to erre, which causeth their arte of Cabala
to be had in great admiration : which although it be
accounted natural), yet neuer saw I any thing that hath
more afifinitie with supernaturall and diuine knowledge. I
remember that I saw in a certaine open place of king
Abiiliman his college in Fez, vpon a floore paued with
excellent smooth marble, the description of a figure. Each
side of this floore or court was fiftie elles long, and yet two
third parts thereof were occupied about the figure, and
about the things pertaining thereto : three there were that
made the description, euery one attending his appointed
place, and they were an whole day in setting it downe.
Another such figure I saw at Tunis, drawen by one that
was maruellous cunning in the arte, whose father had
written two volumes of commentaries or expositions vpon
the precepts of the same arte, wherein whosoeuer hath
exact skill, is most highly esteemed of by all men.^'^ I my
selfe neuer sawe but three of this profession, namely one at
Tunis, and two other at Fez : likewise I haue scene two
expositions vpon the precepts of the said arte, together
with a commentarie of one Margian father vnto the fore-
said Cabalist which I saw at Tunis : and another written
by Ihim Caldiin the historiographer.'^^ And if any were
desirous to see the precepts and commentaries of that arte,
he might doe it with the expence of fiftie duckats : for
sailing to Tunis a towne neere vnto Italic, he might haue a
sight of all the particulars aforesaid. I my selfe had fit
oportunitie of time, and a teacher that offered to instruct Diui7iation
... a?id soothsay-
me gratis m the same arte : howbeit I thought good not to ing forbidden
accept his offer, because the said arte is forbidden ?in<\ Va'iiumd/^
462 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
accounted hereticall by the law of Mahumet : for Mahumets
law affirmeth all kinde of diuinations to be vaine, and that
God onely knoweth secrets and things to come : wherefore
sometimes the saide Cabalistes are imprisoned by the
Mahumetan inquisitours, who cease not to persecute the
professours of that arte.
Of cert aim rules and superstitions obserued in the
Mahmnetan lazv.
H
Ere also you may finde certaine learned men,
which will haue themselues called wizards and
morall philosophers. They obserue certaine rules which
Mahumet neuer prescribed. By some they are accounted
catholique or true Mahumetans, and by others they are
holden for heretiks, howbeit the greatest part of the
common people reuerence them as if they were gods, not-
withstanding they commit many things vnlawfull and
forbidden by the Mahumetan lawe, as namely ; whereas
the said lawe forbiddeth any loue-matters to be expressed
in any musicall ditties or songs, these moralists affirme
the contrarie. In the foresaid Mahumetan religion are a
DiucrsMahu- great number of rules or sectes, euery of which hath most
metan sects. learned patrones and protectours. The foresaid sect
sprang vp fowerscore yeeres after Mahumet, the first
author thereof being called Elhesen Ibmi Abilhasen, and
being borne in the towne of Basora : this man taught his
disciples & followers certaine precepts, but writings he left
none behinde him. About an hundred yeeres after there
came another notable doctor of that sect from Bagaded,
called Elharic Ibnu Esed, who left volumes of writings vnto
his disciples. Afterward those that were found to be his
followers, were all condemned by the Mahumetan patriarks
and lawyers. Howbeit 80. yeeres after, that sect began to
reuiue againe vnder a certaine famous professour, who
drew after him many disciples, vnto whom he published
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 463
his doctrine. This man at length and all his followers
were by the patriarke and lawyers condemned to die.
Which he vnderstanding, wrote foorthwith vnto the
patriarke, requesting that hee might be licenced to dispute
with the lawyers as touching his doctrine, of whom if he
were conuinced, he would most willingly suffer death ;
otherwise that it would be against all equitie, that so many
innocents should perish vpon an vniust accusation. The
patriarke thinking his demand to be reasonable, conde-
scended wholy thereunto. But when the matter came to
disputation, the partie condemned soon put all the lawyers
to silence. Which when the patriarke perceiued, he
reuoked the sentence as vniust, and caused many colleges
and monasteries to be erected for the said partie and his
followers. After which time this sect continued about an
hundred yeeres, till the emperour Malicsach of the Turkish
race came thither out of Asia the greater, and destroied all
the maintainers thereof. Whereupon some of them fled
vnto Cairo, and the rest into Arabia, being dispersed here
and there for the space of twenty yeeres, till in the raigne
of Caselsah nephew vnto Malicsach, Nidavi Ehmile one of
his counsellers, and a man of an high spirit, being addicted
vnto the said sect, so restored, erected, and confirmed the
same, that by the helpe of one Elgazzuli a most learned
man (who had written of the same argument a notable
worke diuided into seuen parts) he reconciled the lawyers /
with the disciples of this sect, conditionally, that the
lawyers should be called Conseruers of the prophet
Mahumet his lawes, & the sectaries Reformers of the same.
This concord lasted between them, til Bagaded was sacked Bagdet sacked
by the Tartars.
by the Tartars ; which befell in the yeere of the Hegeira
6^6. at what time those sectaries so increased, that they
swarmed almost ouer all Africa and Asia. Neither would
they admit any into their societie, but such as were very
learned, and trained vp in all kinde of liberall sciences ;
464 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
to the end they might the better defend their owne
opinions, and confute their aduersaries : but now adaies
they admit all kinde of rude and ignorant persons, affirm-
ing all sortes of learning to be needlesse ; for the spirit
(say they) reuealeth the knowledge of the truth vnto such 1
as are of a cleane hart ; and they alleage many reasons \
for the confirmation of this their opinion, though not very
forcible. Wherefore despising their ancesters rites, and
the strict obseruations of the law, they addict themselues
to nought else but delights and pleasures, feasting often
& singing lasciuious songs. Sometimes they will rend
their garments, either alluding thereby to the verses that
they sing, or being mooued thereunto by their corrupt and
vile disposition ; saying falsly that they are then rauished
with a fit of diuine loue : but I rather impute it to their i
abundance of meat, and gluttonie. For each one of them
will deuoure as much meate, as may well suffice three. Or
(which is more likely) they vtter those passionate clamours
and out-cries, bicause they are inflamed with vnlawfull and
filthic lust. For sometimes it happeneth that some one of
the principall of them, with all his scholers and disciples,
is inuited to the mariage of some gentleman, and at the
beginning of the banket they will rehearse their deuout
orizons arid songs, but so soone as they are risen from the
table, the elder of the companie being about to daunce,
teare their garments : and if any one in the middest of
their dauncing, that hath drunke immoderately, chaunceth
to fall downe, he is taken vp foorthwith by one of the
scholers, and to too lasciuiously kissed. Whereupon this
prouerbe grew among the people of Fez : T/ie Jiereinites
banket. Which they vse in reproch of those masters, that
make their scholers their minions.*"^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 465
Of diuers other rules and sectes, and of the superstitious
credulitie of many.
AMonc^st these sectes there are some, that haue not
onely a diuers law, but also a different beleefe from
the residue, whereupon by some others they are called
heretikes. Some there are also which hold, that a man by
good works, by fasting and abstinence, may attaine vnto
the nature of an angell, which good works, fastings, &c.
doe (say they) so purge and free the minde from all
contagion of euill, that by no meanes it can sinne any
more, though it would neuer so faine. Howbeit they
thinke themselues not capable of this felicitie, before they
haue ascended thereunto by the degrees of fiftie disciplines
or sciences : and although they fall into sinne before they
be come to the fiftith degree, yet they say that God will
not impute that sinne vnto them. These fellowes indeed
.in the beginning leade a most strict life, and doe euen
macerate and consume themselues with fasting ; but
afterward they giue themselues to all licentiousness and
pleasure. They haue also a most seuere forme of lining
set downe in fower bookes, by a certaine learned man of
their faction, called Essherauar de Sekrauard, and borne in
the citie of Corasan. Likewise there was another author
called Ihiul Farid, that described all their religion in wittie
verses, which being fraught with allegories seemed to
intreate of nought but loue : wherefore one Elfargani
expounded the said verses with a commentarie, and there-
out gathered the canons and orders of the sect, and shewed
the degrees to the attainment of felicitie. Moreouer the
said verses are so sweet and elegant, that the maintainers
of this sect will sing and repeate none other in their
bankets : for these three hundred yeeres no author hath so
adorned their language as the said Ibnul. These sectaries
take the heauens, the elements, the planets, and the fixed
466 TITE THIRD ROOKE OF THE
starres to be one god, and that no law nor religion is
erronious : for euery man (say they) may lawfully worship
that which his mind is most addicted to worship. They
thinke that all the knowledge of God was infused into one
man, whom they call in their language Elcorb ; this man,
they say, was elect by god, and was made equal! in know-
ledge to him. Fourtie there are among them called all by
the name of Elauted, which signifieth in our language, a
blocke, or stocke of a tree : out of this number, when their
Elcoth deceaseth, they create another in his roome, namely
seuentie persons that haue the authoritie of election
committed vnto them. There are likewise 765. others
(whose names I doe not well remember) who are chosen
into the said electors roomes, when any of them decease.
These 765. being bound thereunto by a certaine canon or
rule of their order, are constrained alwaies to goe vnknowen,
and they range almost all the world ouer in a most vile and
beggerly habite, so that a man would take them for mad
men and estranged from all sense of humanitie : for these
lewd miscreants vnder pretence of their religion run like
roagues naked and sauage throughout all Africa, hauing so
little regarde of honestie or shame, that they will like brute
beastes rauish women in publike places ; and yet forsooth
the grosse common people reuerence them as men of
woonderful holines. Great swarmes of these filthie vaga-
bonds you may see in Tunis, but many more in Egypt, and
especially at Alcair, whereas in the market called Bain
Elcafrain I saw one of these villaines with mine owne eies,
in the presence of much people, deflowre a most beautifull
woman as she was comming foorth of the bath : which
being done, the fond people came flocking about the said
woman, striuing to touch her garment as a most holie thing :
saying that the adulterer was a man of great sanctitie, and
that he did not commit the sinne, but onely seemed to
commit it : which when the sillie cuckold her husband
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 467
vnderstood, he shewed himselfe thankful! to his false god
with a solemne banket, and with liberall giuing of almes.
The magistrates of the citie would haue punished the
adulterer, but they were in hazard to be slaine of the
people for their labours, who (as is before said) adore these
varletsfor saints and men of singular holines. Other more
villanous actes I saw committed by them, which I am
ashamed to report.^^
L
Of the Caballistes and certaine other sectes.
Ikewise there is another sort of men, which we may
fitly call Caballists. These fast most streitly, neither
doe they eate the flesh of any liuing creature, but haue
certaine meates and garments allotted vnto them : they
rehearse likewise certaine set-praiers appointed for euery
hower of the day and for the night, according to the varietie
of daies and monethes, and they vse to carrie about certaine
•square tables with characters and numbers engrauen
therein. They faine themselues to haue daily conference
with the angels, of whom they learne (they say) the
knowledge of all things. They had once a famous doctor
of their sect called Boni, who was author of their canons,
praiers, and square tables. Which when I saw, me thought
their profession had more affinitie with magique then with
Cabala. Their arte was diuided into eight partes ; whereof
the first was called ElumJia Enonnzta, that is, the demon-
stration of light : the which contained praiers and fastings.
The second called Semsul Meharif, that is, the sunne of
sciences, contained the foresaid square tables, together with
their vse and profit. The third part they call Sirru Lasmei
ElcJiusne ; this part contained a catalogue of those 99.
vertues, which (they say) are contained in the names of
God, which I remember I saw at Rome in the custodie of
a certaine Venetian lew. They haue also a certaine other
rule called Suvach, that is, the rule of heremites, the pro-
4^8 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
fessors and followers whereof inhablte woods and soHtarie
places, neither haue they any other food, but such as those
wilde deserts wil affoord : the conuersation of these
heremites no man is able exactly to describe, because they
are estranged from all humane societie. But if I should
take vpon me to describe the varietie of Mahumetan sectes,
I should digresse too farre from my present purpose. He
that desireth to know more of this matter, let him read ouer
the booke of Elefaaii, who discourseth at large of the
sectes belonging to the Mahumetan religion, the principall
72. principall whcreof are 72. euery one of which defend their opinions to
sectes III the
religion of be true and good, and such as a man may attaine saluation
Mahmnet.
by. At this day you shall finde but two principall sects
onely, the one of Leshari being dispersed ouer all Africa,
Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Turkic : the other of Iniainm,
which is authorized throughout the whole kingdome of
Persia, and in certaine townes of Corasan ; and this sect
the great Sophi of Persia maintaineth, insomuch that all
Asia had like to been destroied thereabout. For whereas
before they followed the sect of Leshai'i, the great Sophi
by force of armes established his owne of Iinainia : and
yet one onely sect stretcheth ouer all the Mahumetans
dominions.*"^
Of such as search for treasures in Fez.
MOreouer in the citie of Fez there are certaine men
called Elcanesin, who supposing to finde treasure
vnder the foundations of old houses, doe perpetually
search and delue. These grosse fellowes vse to resort
vnto certaine dennes and caues without the citie-walles,
certainly perswading themselues, that when the Romans
were chased out of Africa, and driuen into Baetica or
Granada in Spaine, they hid great abundance of treasure
in the bowels of the earth, which they could not carrie
with them, and so enchanted the same by art-magique,
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 469
that it can by no meanes be attained vnto but by the
same arte ; wherefore they seeke vnto inchanters to teach
them the arte of digging vp the said treasures. Some of
them there are that will stedfastly affirme, that they sawe
gold in this or that caue : others, that they saw siluer, but
could not digge it out, by reason that they were destitute
of perfumes and enchantments fit for the purpose ; so that
being seduced with this vaine opinion, and deepely deluing
into the earth, they turne vpside downe the foundations of
houses and sepulchers, and sometimes they proceede in
this manner ten or twelue daies iourney from Fez : yea so
fond they are and so besotted, that they esteeme those
bookes that professe the arte of digging gold, as diuine
oracles. Before my departure from Fez these fantastical!
people had chosen them a consul, and getting licence of
certaine owners to dig their grounds, when they had digged
as much as they thought good, they paid the said owners
for all dammages committed.^*^
Of the Alchyniistes of Fes.
IN this citie likewise there are great store of Alchymists
which are mightily addicted to that vaine practise :
they are most base fellowes, and contaminate themselues
with the steam of Sulphur, and other stinking smels. In
the euening they vse to assemble themselues at the great
temple, where they dispute of their false opinions. They
haue of their arte of Alchymie many bookes written by
learned men, amongst which one Geber is of principal!
account, who liued an hundred yeeres after Mahumet, and
being a Greeke borne, is said to haue renounced his owne
religion. This Geber his works and all his precepts are
full of allegories or darke borrowed speeches. Likewise
they haue another author, that wrote an huge volume of
the same arte, intituled by the name of Attogrehi : this
man was secretarie vnto the Soldan of Bagaded, of whom
470 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
we haue written in the Hues of the Arabian philosophers.
Also the songs or the articles of the said science were
A bookewnuen \yritten by one Mugairibi of Granada, whereupon a most
by lohn Leo of
the Hues of the learned Mamaluch of Damasco wrote a commentarie ; yet
Arabian phi lo- mi
sophers. SO, that a man may much more easily vnderstand the text
then the exposition thereof Of Alchymistes here are two
sorts ; whereof the one seeke for the Elixir, that is, the
matter which coloureth brasse and other metals ; and the
other are conuersant about multiplication of the quantities
of metals, whereby they may conueniently temper the
same. But their chiefest drift is to coine counterfeit
money : for which cause you shall see most of them in
Fez with their hands cut off.'^^
I
Of cJiai'mers and inchanters of snakes.
N this citie likewise there is a great swarme of base
people, such as the Italians commonly call Ciurmatori:
these sing foolish songs and rimes in all the streets of the
citie, and broching meere trifles with the musicke of
drums, harpes, and citterns, they sell vnto the rude people
certaine scroules or briefe charmes instead of preseruatiues.
Vnto these you may adde another kinde of reffuse people
of one family and disposition with the former, who carrie
dauncing apes up and downe, and haue their neckes and
armes all entwined with crawling snakes. These also
professe Geomancie, and perswade women that they can
foretell them their fortune. Likewise they carrie stone-
horses about with them, which for a certaine fee, they will
let others haue to couer their mares. I coulde heere reckon
vp more sorts of people ; but let it suffice to haue ad-
monished in this place, that the greatest part of the
forenamed are people of most base condition, and such as
beare little good will to strangers, albeit there are but a fewe
in this citie, by reason it is distant more then an hundreth
miles from the sea, the way thither also being rough and
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 47 I
dangerous. Their gentlemen are very stately and high
minded, and will haue little or no familiaritie at all with
the citizens : so likewise the doctors and iudges of prin-
cipall account will admit but fewe vnto their acquaintance.
This citie it selfe is most beautifull and right commodiously
situate ; where albeit in winter time the streetes are so
mirie, that you cannot walke in them without startups,
yet they let passe such abundance of water out of their
conducts, that all the filth is washed cleane away. Where
conducts are wanting, they carry all the durt in carts vnto
the next part of the riuer.^-
A description of the suburbes zvitJiout the foresaid
citie of Fez.
Without the wals of this citie westward standeth a
suburbe containing almost fiue hundreth families,
the houses whereof are but meane, and the inhabitants base,
as namely driuers of camels, water-bearers, and cleauers
of woode for the kings pallace. Yet here you may finde
diuers shops, and all kinds of artificers. Here likewise
dwell all the charmers and roguish minstrels before named ;
as also great swarmes of sluttish and filthie harlots. In
the principal! streete of this suburbe, you shall finde
certaine caues most artificially hewen out of excellent
marble, wherein the noble men of Fez were woont to lay
vp their corne : but after that by reason of the warres it
was often taken from thence, they haue since vsually
conueied their corne into new Fez, and there stored it vp :
and from that time to this the marble-caues haue remained
desolate. It is a woonder to see howe "wide and large
these caues are ; for the least of them will containe more
then a thousand measures of corne, there being aboue an
an hundreth and fiftie of them in all, but now they lie
waste and open, insomuch that diuers fall into them at
vnawares, for which cause their brimmes are enuironed with
roucrnour.
472 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
wals. Here euery one may play the vintener and the
baud ; so that this suburbe may iustly be called the sinke
of Fez. From the twentith hower you shall see none at
all in their shops : for then euery man runs to the tauerne
to disport, to spend riotously, and to bee drunken. Another
suburbe there is allotted vnto the lepers, of whom there are
The habitation ,-^q hundreth families : these leprous persons haue a
of lepers in tez, ^ ^
ind their gouernour, which gathereth certaine yeerely reuenues from
the noble-men, and taketh such care of the saide lepers,
that they want no necessarie thing. He is bound by his
office to discharge the citie of all leprous persons, and to
compel 1 all such as he vnderstandes to be infected with
that disease, to depart into the foresaide suburbes. If any
leper chanceth to die without issue, part of his goods are
emploied to the common benefite of the lepers, and part
fall to the gouernours share : but if he hath any children,
they enioy his goods. Among the lepers also those are
placed, which are infected v/ith white botches, or with any
other incurable maladie. Next beyond standeth another
suburbe inhabited onely with muleters, plaisterers, and
wood-mongers : which although it be but little, yet con-
taineth it about an hundreth and fiftie families. Moreouer
vpon the way leading westward from the citie there is
another great suburbe of moe then fower hundreth houses :
howbeit they are low & base, and the inhabitants are
beggerly, which neither can nor will dwell among any other
people. By this suburbe there is a certaine broad plaine
which leadeth to the riuer two miles off, and extendeth
westward almost three miles. Vpon this plaine euery
weeke there is an exceeding great market of cattell. Like-
wise the shopkeepers of the citie resort hither and sell their
wares in tents. Also a certaine companie of gentlemen vse
to come hither, and to diuide a ramme among themselues,
leauing the head vnto the butcher for his fee, but the feete
and the skin they sell vnto the wooll-chapmen. For those
HISTOklE OF AFRICA. 473
wares that are heere sold they pay so little tribute to the
king, that it is not woorth the mentioning. But this one
thing I must in no wise passe ouer in silence, namely, that
I neuer sawe neither in Asia, Africa, nor Italy, a market
either more populous, or better furnished with wares. Not
farre from Fez stand certaine high rockes enuironed with
a ditch of two miles compasse, out of which rockes certaine
matter is hewed to make lime withall. Neere vnto the
saide ditch are many furnaces, some whereof are so large,
that they will containe moe then sixe thousand measures
of lime : and this lime is made at the costes of the richest
citizens in Fez. Westward without the wals of Fez by the
riuers side stande about an hundred cottages, which are
onely inhabited by them that white linnen cloth. Hither
in the spring and in summer vse the citizens to bring their
linnen cloth, spreading it vpon the medowes, and as often
as they see it drie in the sunne, casting water thereupon,
which water they fetch either out of the riuer or out of
some cesterne in certaine lether tankards made for the
same purpose : but at night each one carrieth his cloth
into the foresaid cottages. Neither are the medowes
wherein they bleach their cloth euer destitute of grasse.
A most gallant prospect it is to beholde a farre off the
white clothes dispersed ouer the greene medow, and the
christall streames of the riuer, which seeme to be of an
azure hue, running along : all which the Poets haue cele-
brated in their verses.'^^
A description of the common place of buriall
without the citie.
MAny fieldes there are without the citie, which haue
been giuen by certaine noblemen for the buriall of
the dead. Vpon their sepulchers for the most part they
lay a long three-square stone. When any noble man or
any principall citizen deceaseth, they lay one .stone ouer
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474 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
his head and another ouer his feete, whereupon vseth to
bee engrauen some epitaph, with the day and yeere when
the partie deceased. I my selfc bestowed much labour in
gathering of epitaphes, which I saw both about Fez and in
other places of Barbary ; all which being set downe in a
booke I gaue vnto the kings brother. The matter of their
epitaphes is diuers, some tending to consolation, and others
to sorrow.
Of the sepulchres of the kings of Fez.
Northward of the citie vpon a certaine high hill stands
a palace, wherein are the monuments of diuers
Marin kings, being most artificially hewen out of marble
with epitaphes vpon them, so that I cannot condignely
expresse the maiestie and beautie thereof.'^'*
A description of their gardens.
Without the north, east, and south parts of the citie are
great store of gardens, replenished with all kinde
of fruite and with stately trees. Through the midst of
these gardens, they deriue some small vaine of the riuer,
some whereof are so full of trees, that you woulde take
them for groues rather then for gardens. These gardens
they manure not at all, but only water them continually in
the moneth of May,'^ whereupon they haue great abundance
of fruit. All their fruits, saue their peaches onely, are of a
most delicate taste, whereof, so soone as they are ripe,
aboue hue hundreth cart-loades are daily carried into the
market, besides grapes, which here I do not mention. But
the saide fruits are carried vnto a certaine place in Fez,
where tribute being paide for them, they are solde by criers
vnto the fruiterers there present. In the same place like-
wise after paying of tribute, they sell certaine Negro-slaues.
Towards the east of Fez lieth a plaine fifteene miles broad,
and thirtie miles long : this plaine is full of fountaines and
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 475
freshets, and is reserued for the vse of the great temple.
It is farmed out vnto gardiners, who sowe thereupon such
abundance of hemp, melons, turneps or nauevves, radish,
and other such like rootes and herbes, that euery summer
there are saide to be gathered thereof aboue fifteene
thousand cart-loads, and as many in winter. Howbeit the
aire is verie vnholsome thereabout, for the inhabitants are
continually vexed with feuers, and are of a yellowish
colour.'*^
Of tJiat part of Fez which is called new Fez.
NEW Fez beeing enuironed with an high and impreg-
nable wall, and situate on a most beautifull plaine
not farre from the riuers side, is almost a mile distant from
old Fez, and that vpon the east and south side thereof
Betweene the wals of either towne, to the northward,
entereth a certaine arme of the riuer, where the foresaid
milles do stande, and the other part of the riuer is seuered
into two branches, one whereof runneth betweene new Fez
and old Fez, not farre from the edge of the rocke, and the
other passing through certaine vallies and gardens,
trendeth at length southward. The other jDart of the
riuer holdeth on his course b)' the rocke, and so by the
college of king ^Abutiman. This citie of new Fez lacob '' Or Ahuii-
UlUI.
the Sonne o{ Abdultach caused to bee built, who was the
first king of the Marin family, and expelled the kings oi of new Fez.
Maroco, and vsurped the kingdome vnto himselfe : but
the king of Telensin, to the end he might make the people
of Maroco beholding vnto him, and might subuert the
prosperous successe of the Marin family, went about to
hinder the king of Fez his attempts against Maroco :
wherefore king lacob hauing finished the wars of Maroco,
determined to reuenge himselfe to the vttermost for the
iniuries offered by them of Telensin. But considering
with himselfe, that the strong townes of his owne
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4/6 THE THIRD BOOKE OP THE
kingdome were farre distant from Telensin, he thought
it a better course to builde this citie, whereunto the seate
roiall of all Maroco might be translated : which being
erected, he called The white citie, but it was afterward
named by the inhabitants new Fez."'' This citie king
lacob the founder diuided inio three parts, whereof the
first contained his roiall pallace, and diuers noble mens
houses, vnto euery one of which he allotted a most
pleasant garden. Not farre from his pallace he built a
most stately and sumptuous temple. In another part of
this citie he built a large and faire stable for the kings
horses to stande in. Then also he caused other palaces
to be erected for his captaines and principall courtiers.
From the west gate to the east he appointed the market
place, the distance betweene which gates is a mile and an
halfe, and on both sides he placed artificers and merchants
shops. At the west gate he caused a faire portall to be
set vp, to harbour the watchmen and warders of the citie.
Not far from thence he erected two stables sufficient to
containe three hundreth horses, which he might vse for
the protection of his owne palace. The third part of the
citie was appointed for the kinges guarde and attendants,
which were most of them borne eastwarde of Fez, neither
had they any other weapons but hand-bowes (for crosse-
bowes were not then vsed in that kingdome) vnto which
attendants the king allowed a large stipend : but now the
same place is full of beautifull temples and stoues. Neere
vnto the kings palace standes the mint, hauing in the
midst a fower-square court with certaine portals or eels
rounde about it, wherein the money-minters dwell. Like-
wise there is another lodging in the midst of the same
court, where the gouernor of the mint with his scribes
and notaries haue their aboad. Here, as well as in any
other places, whatsoeuer commoditie is raised, redoundeth
wholy to the king. Neere vnto the mint stande the gold-
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 477
smiths shops, whose Consul or gouernour keepes the seale
and stamps of the coine. In Fez neither ring nor any
other lewell or commoclitie can bee made of siluer or
golde, before the metall bee sealed, for the offenders are
most seuerely punished. And, the metall being sealed,
whatsoeuer is made thereof is weighed as if it were money.
The greatest part of goldsmiths dwelling in new Fez are
lewes, who carrie their vessels of gold and siluer vnto a
certaine place of old Fez, neere vnto the grocers shops,
and there sell them. For in old Fez neither gold nor
siluer is coined, nor any Mahumetans are suffered to be
goldsmiths, bicause they haue vsurers among them, which
will sell any peece of wrought siluer or golde deerer
then the weight requireth ; albeit the same priuilege is by
the gouernours of the citie granted vnto the lewes.'^^
Some there are also that onely make plate for the citizens,
who are paied hire onely for their worke. That part of
the citie which the kings attendants or guard once possessed,
is now inhabited by lewes : for now a daies the kings vse
no such guard. The lewes indeed first dwelt in old Fez,
but vpon the death of a certaine king they were all robbed
by the Moores : whereupon king A dusadid caused them to
remooue into new Fez, and by that meanes doubled their
yeerely tribute. They therefore euen till this day doe
occupie a long street in the said new citie, wherin they
haue their shops and synagogues, and their number is
maruellously encreased euer since they were driuen out of
Spaine. These lewes are had in great contempt by all
men, neither are any of them permitted to weare shooes,
but they make them certaine socks of sea-rushes. On their
heads they weare a blacke * dulipan, and if any will goe in * Orturbant.
a cap, he must fasten a red cloth thereunto. They pay
vnto the king of Fez monethly fower hundred duckats.'^^
At length within the space of an hundred and forty yeeres
this new citie was enuironed with most impregnable walles,
4/8 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
and adorned with temples, colleges, palaces, and other such
buildings as serue to beautifie a citie, so that I thinke
there was more bestowed in garnishing of the citie, then in
building of the walles. Without the citie-walles are built
Enguis for the manv hugfe wheeles^*^ or engins, for the conueying of riuer-
conuetance of •' ^ o ' ^ o
water. water ouer the said walles into cesternes, from whence it is
conueied in certaine chanels and pipes vnto the temples,
gardens, & palaces. The said wheeles were built not fully
an hundred yeeres past, before which time water was
brought vnto the citie by a certaine conduct, from a foun-
taine ten miles distant. Of which artificiall conduct a
certaine Genouese, beeing then in great fauour with the
king, is reported to haue been the author : but the wheeles
(they say) were inuented by a Spaniard : and in them there
is maruellous cunning workmanship : for to the conueiance
of so huge a quantitie of water, each wheele is turned about
but fower and twentie times onely in a day and night. To
conclude, here are but few gentlemen in this citie, except
such as attend vpon the court, for the residue are base and
mechanicall people : but such as carie any shew of honestie,
doe so hate and disdaine the kings courtiers and gentlemen,
that they will by no meanes vouchsafe to marie their
daughters vnto them.^^
Of the fashions and customes vsed in the kings court.
AMongst all the princes of Africa, I neuer red of any
that was created by the common suffrages and
consent of the people vnto his kingdome or princedome, or
that was called from any strange prouince or citie to beare
rule. Also by the law of Mahumet no man may beare
any secular authoritie, which may be called lawfull, saue
onely the Mahumetan patriarkes and prelates : howbeitthe
saide patriarkes authoritie decreasing daily more and more,
the ringleaders of such people as ranged vp and downe the
deserts began to inuade places inhabited & ciuilized, and
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 479
by force of armes, against Mahumets lawe, and maugre his
prelates, to ordaine sundrie princes : As for example in the
East, whereas the Turkes, Cordians,*^^ ^nd Tartars, haue
vsurped dominion ouer such as was not able to repell them.
So likewise in the west parts first the families of Zeneta
and Luntuna, then the seditious Mahumetan preachers,
and afterward the family of Marin got the vpper hand.
Hovvbeit the family of Luntuna is reported to haue aided
the western regions, & to haue released them from the furie
of the seditious heretiques, wherein they shewed themselues
friends and not enimies : but afterward their tyrannic
began to shew it selfe. And this is the reason why they
do not now a dales attaine vnto gouernment by hereditarie
succession or by election of the people, or of the nobilitie.
But the prince himselfe when he feeles death seazing vpon
him, calleth about him all his peeres and nobles, and /
bindeth them by oath, to establish his sonne, brother, or /
anie other whom he most fauoureth, in his kingdome. But
they after the princes disease neglecting their oath, will
chuse any other whom they list.^^ And this is ordinarily
the election of the king of Fez, who, so soone as he is
proclaimed king, chuseth foorthvvith some one of his nobles
to be his chiefe counsellour, and on him he bestoweth the
thirde part of all his kingly reuenues. Then chuseth J^/^^^g 'officers
another to be his secretarie, treasurer, and high steward of '" ^^^'^ '""''^ ^
his houshold. Then is created the captaine of the horse-
men appointed for the kings guard, and these horsemen
with their horses Hue most commonly in the fieldes. Lastly
he appointeth a new gouernour ouer euery citie, vnto
whom all the tributes and reuenues of the same place
redound, with condition, that as often as any warres betide,
he shall maintaine a certaine companie of horses to the
kings seruice. After a while also he placeth certaine
deputies and commissioners ouer his people inhabiting the
mountaines, and ouer the Arabians subiect vnto him.
:j8o THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
The gouernours of cities diuersly administer iustice,
according to the custome of the place. Some there are
also appointed by the king to collect all the tributes and
reuenues of his kingdome, and duly to paie the same vnto
him. Likewise there are others chosen, whom they call in
their language keepers or guardians, and vnto euery one of
these the king giueth some cattle or village, whereby he
may procure his owne maintenance, and be able to serue
the king in time of warre. Moreouer the king of Fez
maintaineth a troupe of light horsemen, who so long as
they serue the king in his campe, haue their diet allowed
them out of the kings prouision : but in time of peace, he
findeth them corne, butter, and pouldered flesh for the
whole yeere, but money they haue very seldome. Once a
yeere they are apparelled at the kings cost ; neither do
they prouide for their horses either within the citie or
without, for the king furnisheth them with all necessaries.
Those that giue attendance to their horses are Christian
captiues, which go shackled in great chaines and fetters.
But when the armie remooueth any whither, the saide
Christians are carried vpon camels backes. Another
officer there is that giueth attendance onely to the camels,
assigning certaine pastures vnto the heards-men, and
diuiding fields among them, and making such prouision
for the kings camels, as himselfe shall thinke expedient.
Each camel-driuer hath two camels, which are laden with
the kings furniture, according to the appointment of the
gouernour. Likewise the king hath a certaine purueiour
or steward, whose office is to prouide, keepe, and distribute
corne both to the kings houshold and to his armie. This
man in time of warre hath tenne or twelue tents to lay vp
corne in, and euery day with change of camels he sendeth
for newe corne, least the armie shoulde be vnprouided of
victuals : he hath also cooks at his command. Moreouer
there is a gouernour or master-groome of the stables, who
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 48 1
prouicleth for the kings horses, mules, and camels, and is
furnished with all necessaries by the steward. There is
another also appointed ouerseer of the corne, whose dutie
it is to prouide barly and other prouender for the beasts :
and this man hath his scribes and notaries about him, who
diligently set downe all particular expenses, for they must
giue vp a perfect account vnto the chiefe steward. They haue
also a certaine captaine ouer fiftie horsemen, which horse-
men may well be called purseuants, for they are sent by the
secretarie in the kings name to do his busines. Likewise
the Fezzan king hath another captaine of great name,
being as it were gouernour of his guard, who in the
kings name, may compell the iudges to do iustice,
and to put their sentences in execution. This mans
authoritie is so great, that sometimes he may commit
principal noblemen to ward, & may seuerely punish them,
according to the kings commandement. Moreouer the
said king hath a most trusty chancelor, who keepeth the
great scale, and writeth and signeth the kings letters.
He hath also a great number of footemen, the gouernour
of whom accepteth and dismisseth whom he thinkes good,
and giueth to euery one wages, according to his agilitie
and desert. And whensoeuer the king commeth in place
of iudgement, the saide gouernour alwaies attendeth vpon
him, and is in a manner his high chamberlain. Also there
is another that taketh charge of the carriages and baggage
of the armie, and causeth the tents of the light horsemen
to be carried vp and down on mules, and the tents of the
other soldiers on camels. There are likewise a company
of ensigne-bearers, who in marching on a iourney carrie
their colours wrapped vp : but he that goeth before the
armie hath his banner displaied, and of a great height.
And euery one of the saide standard-bearers knoweth most
exactly alwaies, fords of riuers, and passages through
woods, wherefore they are for the most part appointed to
4^2 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
guide the armie. The drummers (of whom there are
great store in the kings host) plaie vpon certaine drums
of brasse as bigge as a great kettle, the lower part whereof
is narrow, & the vpper broad, being couered with a skin.
These drummers ride on horsebacke, hauing alwaies on
the one side of their horses a great waight hanging downe,
to counterpoize the heauiness of their drums on the other
side, They are allowed most swift horses, bicause the
Moores account it a great disgrace to loose a drum. The
said drums make such a loude and horrible noise, that
they are not onely heard a farre off, but also strike
exceeding terrour both vpon men and horses, and they
are beaten onely with a buls pizzle. The musitions are
not maintained at the kings charge, for the cities are
bounde at their costs to send a certaine number of them
to the warres, who, according to their demeanour in the
warres, are admitted or not admitted vnto the kings table.
This king hath also a certaine master of ceremonies, who
sitteth at his feete in the senate-house, and commandeth
each man to sit downe, and to speake according to his
dignitie. All the maide-seruants in the kings familie are
Negro-slaues, w^hich are partly chamberlains, and partly
waiting-maids. And yet his Queene is alwaies of a white
skin. Likewise in the king of Fez his court are certaine
Christian captiues, being partly Spanish, and partly
Portugale women, who are most circumspectly kept by
certaine Eunuchs, that are Negro-slaues. The king of
Fez hath very large dominions, but his reuenues are small,
to wit, scarce three hundreth thousand ducats, the fift
part whereof redoundeth not to the king : for the
remainder is diuided into sundrie portions, as we haue
before signified. Yea, the greater part of the said
reuenues is paide in corne, cattle, oile, and butter, all
which yeeld but small store of money. In some place
they pay a ducate and one fourth part, tribute for euery
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 483
acre, but in other places a whole family paieth but so
much. In some other regions each man aboue fifteene
yeeres of age paieth as much tribute also. Neither are
the people of this great citie more vexed with any thing
then with paying of their tributes and impositions. Heere
also is to be noted, that the Mahumetan gouernours (the
priests onely excepted) may not exact greater reuenues
then those that Mahumet hath allotted vnto them, namely
of euery of their subiects which possesseth 100. ducates in
ready money, they are to haue two ducates & an halfe
for yeerely tribute. Euery husbandman likewise is bound
to pay for tribute the tenth part of all his corne. And
all the saide tributes he appointed to be paied vnto the
patriarke, who should bestow that which was superflous
for the Prince to haue, vpon common vses ; namely for
the releeuing of poore impotent people and widowes, and
for maintaining of wars against the enimie. But since
the Patriarches began to decay, the Princes (as we haue
beforesaide) exercised tyrannic. For it was not sufficient
for them to exact all the forenamed tributes, and riotously
to consume the same, but also to vrge people vnto greater
contributions ; so that all the inhabitants of Africa are so
oppressed with daily exactions, that they haue scarcely
wherewithal! to feed and apparell themselues ; for which
cause there is almost no man of learning or honesty, that
will seeke any acquaintance with courtiers, or will inuite
them to his table, or accept any gifts (bee they neuer so
pretious) at their hands : thinking that whatsoeuer goods
they haue, are gotten by theft and briberie. The King ^^'''^''■".^^''/
ot 1-1 ez contmually mamtaineth sixe thousand horsemen,
fiue hundreth crossebowes, and as manie Harquebusiers,
being at all assayes prepared for the warres, who in time
of peace, when the king goeth on progresse, lye within Hmu the King
a mile of his person : for being at home in Fez, he needeth "'trogre'sle!^ ' ""
not so strong a guard. When he wageth warre against
484 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
the Arabians that be his enimies, because the forenamed
garison is not sufficient, he requireth ayde of the Arabians
his subiects, who at their owne costs finde him a great
armie of men better trained to the warres, then his owne
souldiers before-mentioned. The pompe and ceremonies of
this king are but meane, neither doth he wilHngly vse them,
but onely vpon festiuall daies, and when meere necessitie
requireth. When the king is to ride foorth, the master
of ceremonies signifieth so much vnto certaine herbengrers
or postes, whereupon the herbengers giue notice thereof
o/^es. '""' '^"^° ^^^ kings *parents, vnto his nobilitie, his senatours,
captaines, guardians, and gentlemen, who presently arrange
themselues before the palace gate. At the kings comming
foorth of the palace, the herbengers appoint vnto each
man his place and order of riding. First and foremost go
the standard-bearers, next the drummers, then followeth
the chiefe groome of the stable with his seruants and
family : after him comes the kings pensioners, his guard,
his master of ceremonies, his secretaries, his treasurer, and
last of all his chiefe ludge and his captaine generall, at
length comes the king accompanied with his principall
counseller, or with some other great peere. Before the.
king also ride certaine officers belonging to his person,-
whereof one carries his sword-royall, another his shield,
and the third his crosse-bowe. On each side of him march
his footemen, one carrying a payer of stirrups, another
the kings partizan, the third a couering for his saddle, and
the fourth a halter for his horse. And so soone as the
king is dismounted, they foorthwith couer his saddle, and
put the foresaide halter vpon his horse-head. Likewise
there is another footeman that carrieth the kings pantofles
most artificially wrought. After the king followeth the
captaine of the footemen, then the eunuches, the kings
family, the light horsemen, and last of all the crosse-bowes
and Harquebusiers. The apparel! of the king is then verie
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 485
moderate and plaine : insomuch that if a man knew him
not, he would thinke him to be absent : for the attendants
be far more sumptuously attired. Moreouer no Mahumetan
king or prince may weare a crowne, diademe, or any such
like ornament vpon his heade, for that is forbidden by the
law of Mahumet. When the king lyeth with his armie in JJ^'^^'^f^^^
the fields, first his owne great tent is pitched in a fovver </«'«'/'"''••
square forme like vnto a castle, each side of the saide
square being fiftie elles in length. At euerie of the fower
corners standeth a little sharpe turret made of cloth, with a
gallant spheare on the top which glistereth like gold. This
royall pauilion hath fower gates, euerie one of which is
kept by eunuches. Within the said pauilion are contained
diuers other tents, among which is the kings lodging, being
framed in such wise, that it may easily be remooued from
place to place. Next vnto it stand the tents of the noble-
men, and of such as are most in the kings fauour ; then
the lodgings of the principall guard beeing made of goates-
skinnes, after the Arabian fashion ; and in the middest of
all stands the kings kitchin and his pantrie. Not farre
from hence the light horsemen haue their aboade, who
all of them are victualled out of the kings storehouse,
notwithstanding their attire be verie base. Next of
all are the stables, wherein their horses are maruellous
well tended. Without this circuit keepe such as carrie
the tents and the kings furniture from place to place.
Here are also butchers, victuallers, and such like. All
merchants & artificers that resort hither, take vp their
aboad next vnto the tent-carriers : so that the kings
pauilion is pitched like a strong citie, for it is so
enuironed with the lodgings of the guarde, and with
other tents adioining, that there is very difficult passage
to the king. Round about the saide roiall pauilion, there
are certaine appointed to watch and ward all night long,
howbeit they are base and vnarmed people. In like
486 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
sort there is a watch kept about the stables, but sometimes
so negh'gently, that not onely some horses haue been stolne,
but there haue beene founde enimies in the kings owne
pauilion, that came to murther him. The king liueth the
greatest part of the yeere in the fieldes, both for the
safegard of his kingdome, and also that he may keepe his
Arabian subiects in obedience, and sometimes he recreateth
himselfe with hunting, and sometime with playing at chesse.
I know right well how tedious I haue beene in the descrip-
tion of this citie : but bicause it is the metropolitan not
onely of Barbary, but of all Africa, I thought good most
particularly to decypher euerie parcell and member
thereof.^*
Of the towne of Macarmeda.
THis towne standeth almost twentie miles eastward of
Fez, and was built by the familie of Zeneta, vpon
the banke of a most beautifull riuer. It had in times past
a large territorie, and great store of inhabitants. On both
sides of the saide riuer are many gardens and vineyards.
The kings of Fez were woont to assigne this towne vnto
the gouernour of their camels ; but in the warre of Sahid it
was so destroied and wasted, that at this day scarce is
there any mention of wals to be found. But the fields
thereof are now in the possession of certaine gentlemen of
Fez, and of the pesants.^^
Of tJie castle of Hiibbed.
THis castle standeth vpon the side of an hill, about sixe
miles from Fez, and from hence you may beholde
the citie of Fez, and all the territorie adiacent. It was
founded by a certaine hermite of Fez, being reputed for a
man of singular holines. The fields thereto belonging are
not verie large, bicause the houses being demolished, it is
vtterly destitute of inhabitants, the wals onely and the
HISTORTE OF AFRICA. 487
temple as yet remaining. In this castle I lined fovver
summers, becauseth it standeth in a most pleasant aire,
being separate from concurse of people, and a solitarie
place fitte for a man to studie in : for my father had got
a lease of the ground adioining to this castle from the
gouernour of the temple, for many yeeres.^^
Of the towne of Z aula.
THe towne of Zauia was founded by Joseph the second
king of the Marin-family, and is distant from Fez
about fowerteene miles. Heere king Joseph built a stately
hospitall, and commanded that his corps shoulde be
interred in this towne. But it was not his fortune heere to
be buried, for he was slaine in the warres against Tremizen.
From thencefoorth Zauia fell to decay and grew destitute
of inhabitants, wherein at this present the hospitall onely
remaineth. The reuenues of this place were giuen vnto
the great temple of Fez, but thefielde thereof was tilled by
certaine Arabians dwelling in the region of Fez.^"
Of the castle of Chaidan.
THe ancient castle of Chaulan is built vpon the riuer
Sebu, eight miles southward of Fez. Not farre from
this castle there is a certaine hot bath, whereunto AhdJiezcn a hot bathe.
the fourth king of the Marin-family added a faire building,
vnto this bath once a yeere in the moneth of Aprill the
gentlemen of Fez usually resort, remaining there fower or
fiue daies together. There is no ciuilitie to be found in
this castle : for the inhabitants are base people, and
exceeding: couetous.^^
't>
Of the viountaine of Zelag.
THis mountaine beginneth eastward from the riuer of
Sebu, extending thence almost fowerteene miles
westward, and the highest part thereof to the north, is seuen
488 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
miles distant from Fez. The south part of this moun-
taine is vtterly destitute of inhabitants ; but the north side
is exceeding fertile, and planted with great store of castles
and townes. Most of their fields are imployed about
vineyards, the grapes whereof are the sweetest that euer I
tasted, and so likewise are their oliues, and other fruits-
The inhabitants being verie rich, have most of them houses
in the citie of Fez. And so likewise most part of the
gentlemen of Fez haue vineyards vpon the saide moun-
taine. At the north foote of this mountaine the fields are
replenished with all kinde of graine and fruits. For all
that plaine is watered southward with the riuer Sebu :
and here the gardiners with certaine artificiall wheeles
and engines draw water out of the riuer to moisten their
gardens. In this plaine are wel-nigh two hundreth acres
of ground, the reuenues whereof are giuen vnto the kings
master of ceremonies, howbeit he maketh thereof not
aboue fiue hundreth ducates a yeere : the tenth part of
all which reuenues, amounting to three thousand bushels
of corne, belongeth to the kings prouision.^^
Of mount Zarhon.
THis mountaine beginneth from the plaine of Esais
lying ten miles distant from the citie of Fez ; west-
ward it extendeth thirtie miles, and is almost ten miles
broad. This mountaine is all couered with waste and
desert woods, being otherwise well stored with oliues. In
this mountaine there are of sheepe-foldes and castles to
the number of fiftie, and the inhabitants are very wealthy,
for it standeth betweene two flourishing cities, that is to
say, Fez on the east, and Mecnase on the west. The
women weaue woollen cloth, according to the custome of
that place, and are adorned with many siluer rings and
bracelets. The men of this mountaine are most valiant,
and are much giuen to pursue and take lions, whereof they
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 489
send great store vnto the king of Fez. And the king
hunteth the said lions in manner following : in a large HutiHngof
^ o hons vscd by
field there are certaine little eels made, being so high, that theKingof'Fez.
a man may stand vpright in them : each one of these eels
is shut fast with a little doore ; and containe within euery
of them an armed man, who opening the doore presents
himselfe to the view of the lion : then the lion seeing the
doores open, comes running toward them with great furie,
but the doores being shut againe, he waxeth more furious
then before : then bring they foorth a bull to combate
with the lion, who enter a fierce and bloudie conflict,
wherein if the bull kill the lion, that daies sport is at an
end ; but if the lion get the victorie, then all the armed
men, being ordinarily twelue, leape foorth of their eels,
and inuade the lion : each one hauing a iauelin with a
pike of a cubite and an halfe long. And if these armed
men seeme to bee too hard for the lion, the king causeth
their number to be diminished : but perceiuing them too
weake, the king with his companie from a certaine high
place, where he standeth to behold the sport, kill the lion
with their crossebowes. And oftentimes it falleth out,
that before the lion be slaine, some one of the men dies
for it, the residue being sore wounded. The reward of
those who encounter the lion is ten duckats apeece, and a
new garment : neither are any admitted vnto this combat
but men of redoubted valour, and such as come from
mount Zelagi : but those that take the lions first are
inhabitants of mount Zarhon.^"
Of Gualili a towiic of viouiit Zarhon.
THis towne was built by the Romanes vpon the top
of the foresaide mountaine, what time they were
lordes of Granada in south Spaine. It is enuironed
around with mighty thicke walles made of smoothe and
hewen stones. The gates are large and high, and the
I I
490 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
fields are manured for the space of sixe miles about :
howbeit this towne was long sithence destroied by the
Africans. But afterward when the schismatike Idris came
into this region, he began to repaire this desolate towne,
and to replant it so with inhabitants, that within short
time it grew very populous : howbeit after his decease it
was neglected by his sonne, being wholy addicted (as is
beforesaid) vnto the building of P'ez. And yet Idris lieth
buried in this towne, whose sepulchre is visited with great
reuerence almost by all the people of Barbaric, for he is
as highly esteemed as if he had been some patriarke,
because he was of the linage of Mahumet. At this
present there are but two or three houses in all the towne,
which were there built for the honour and maintenance
of the sepulchre. The fields adiacent are exceedingly well
husbanded : and their gardens are most pleasant by reason
of two sweet freshets running through them, the which
diuersly winding themselues about the little hils and
vallies, doe water all that plaine.'^^
Of a certaine towne called tlie palace of Pharao.
THis towne was founded by the Romans vpon the
top of an hill, about eight miles distant from Gualili.
The people of this said mountaine, together with some
historiographers are most certainly perswaded, that this
towne was built by Pharao king of Egypt in the time of
Moses, and tooke the name from the first founder, which
notwithstanding I thinke to be otherwise : for I can read
in no apprcmed author that either Pharao or any other
Egyptians euer inhabited these regions. But I suppose
that this fond opinion was taken out of that booke which
one Elcabi wrote concerning the words of Mahumet. For
the said booke affirmeth from the authoritie of Mahumet,
that there were fower kings onely that gouerned the whole
world, two whereof were faithfull, and the other two
IIISTOKIK OF AFRICA. 491
ethnikes : the faithfull he saith were Alexander the great,
and Salomon the sonne oi Dauid : and the ethnikes were
Nimrod and Pharao. But I am rather of opinion, by the
Latine letters which are there engrauen in the walles,
that the Romanes built this tovvne. About this towne
run two small riuers on either side thereof. The little
hils and vallies adiacent doe greatly abound with oliues.
Not far from hence are certaine wilde deserts frequented
with lions and leopards.^^
Of the tow7ie called Pietra Rossa or The red rocke.
Pletra Rossa is a small towne built by the Romans vpon
the side of the foresaid mountaine, being so neere the
forrest, that the lions will come daily into the towne and Tame lions.
gather vp bones in the streets, yea, they are so tame and
familiar, that neither women nor children are afeard of
them. The wals of this towne are built very high and of
great stones, but now they are ruined in many places, and
the whole towne is diminished into one streete. Their
fields being ioyned vnto the plaines of Azgara, abound
with oliues and all kinde of pulse.^^^
Of tJie towne of Maghilla.
MAghilla is a little towne founded of old by the
Romans vpon that side of the foresaid hill which
looketh toward Fez. About this towne are most fertill
fields, and greatly enriched with oliues : there is a plaine
likewise containing many fresh fountaines, and well stored
with hempe and flaxe/-**
Of the castle of Shame. "
THis ancient castle is built at the foote of the said
mountaine neer vnto the high way from Fez to
Mecnase : and it was called by this name, because the
inhabitants are most shamefully addicted to couetise, like
I 1 2
492 THE THIRD l;OOKE OF THE
vnto all the people thereabouts. In old time it is reported
that a certaine king passed by, whom the inhabitants of
the castle inuited to dinner, requesting him to change the
ignominious name of the place : which when the king had
condescended vnto, they caused, according to their custome,
a companie of rams to be slaine, and certaine bladders and
vessels to be filled with milke, to serue for the kings
breakfast the morrow after. But because the said vessels
were very large, they consulted together to put in halfe
milke and halfe water, hoping that the king should neuer
perceiuc it. The day following albeit the king was not
very hastie of his breakfast, yet, his seruants vrging
him thereunto, he perceiued the milke to be halfe water ;
whereat smiling he said : Friends, that which nature hath
giuen, no man can take away. And with that saying he
departed. Now this castle is razed to the ground & vtterly
destroied, but the territorie thereof is occupied by certaine
miserable Arabians.^^
T
Of tlic region of Bcni Giinriten.
He region of Beni Guariten lieth eastward of Fez
about eighteene miles. It is altogether hillie and
mountainous, abounding with all kind of pulse, and with
store of good pasture and medow-ground, and containing
almost two hundred villages. Their houses are in all
places rudely built, and the inhabitants are base people,
neither haue they any vineyards or gardens, nor any tree
that beareth fruit. This region the king of Fez vsually
diuideth among his yoongest brothers and sisters. The
inhabitants haue great store of corne and wooll : and
albeit they are passing rich, yet go they very meanly
attired : they ride onely vpon asses, for which cause they
arc had in great derision by their neighbours.^''
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 493
Of the region called A sets.
THis region is distant to the west of Fez almost tvventie
miles, and is by the inhabitants called Aseis ; it
consisteth of a perpetuall plaine, wherupon some coniecture
that it hath had in olde time many villages and castles,
whereof now there is no mention at all, nor so much as a
signe of any building onely the names of places yet
remaine. This region extendeth westward eighteene, and
southward almost twenty miles. The soile is most fertile^
and bringeth foorth blacke and small graines, Wels and
fountaines are here very rare. It was woont to be subiect
vnto certaine Arabian husbandmen, but now it is assigned
by the king vnto the gouernor of that citie.^^
Of Mount Togat?^
THis mountaine standeth almost seuen miles westward
of Fez, being ver)' high, and but of small bredth.
Eastward it extendeth to the riuer Bunase^^ being about
fiue miles distant. All that side which looketh towards
Fez, and the top thereof, and that part which lieth ouer
against Essich^*^*^ are woonderfully replenished with vines,
and with all kinde of graine. Vpon the top of this
mountaine are diuers caues and hollow places, where the
searchers of treasure suppose that the Romans hid vp their
wealth, as we haue before signified. The said treasure-
searchers, so soone as the vintage is passed, vse to take
great paines in digging of the rocke, and albeit they finde
nothing, yet will they not giue ouer. All the fruits of this
mountaine are most vnpleasant both to the eie and to the
taste, and yet they are sooner ripe, then the fruits of other
places thereabout.
494 THE THIRD ROOKE OF THE
T
Of mount Guraigiira.
'His mountaine being neer vnto Atlas is almost fortie
miles distant from Fez. From hence springeth a
certaine riuer, which running westward falleth into the
riuer Bath. This mountaine standeth betweene two most
large and spatious plaines, whereof the one to Fezward is
(as we haue before said) called Aseis : and the other
lying southward is named Adecsen. Which Adecsen
is most fertile both for corne and pasture. And they are
possessed by certaine Arabians called Zuhair being vassals
vnto the king of Fez : but the king assigneth for the
most part this plaine vnto his brother or some other of
his kinsfolkes, out of which they yeerely gather ten
thousand duckats. The foresaid Arabians are continually
molested by certaine other Arabians called Elhusein,
which Hue in the deserts : for in summer-time they
vsually inuade the plaines : wherefore the king of Fez
for the defence of this region maintaineth a certaine
number of horsemen and of crossebowes. This plaine
is watered with christall-fountaines and pleasant riuers.
Neere vnto the said plaine are diuers woods and
Tame lions. forrcsts, where lions keepe which are so gentle and tame,
that any man may driue them away with a staffe, neither
doe they any harme at all. Now let vs proceede vnto
the description of Azgara.^*^^
A description of Azgara, one of the setien principall
regions belonging to the kingdome of Fez
THis region bordereth northward vpon the Ocean-sea ;
westward vpon the riuer of Buragrag ; eastward
vpon the mountaines partly of Gumera, partly of Zarhon,
and partly of Zalag ; and southward it is inclosed with
the riuer of Bunasar. This region consisteth altogether
of plaine ground being a most fertile soile, and in olde
HISTORTE OF AFRICA. 495
time very populous, and adorned with many townes
and castles, which are now so defaced and ruined by
reason of wars, that small villages onely are left for
the inhabitants to hide their heads in. The length of
this region is about fowerscore, and the bredth almost
three score miles. Through the midst thereof runneth
the riuer of Subu. The Arabian inhabitants are called
Elculoth, being descended from the familie of Muntafic ;
they are subiect to the king of Fez, and pay vnto him
large tributes : howbeit they are rich, and curious in their
apparell, and are such valiant soldiers, that the king of
Fez leuieth his whole armie of them onely, when he hath
any warres of great moment to atchieue. This region
abundantly furnisheth not onely Fez, but all the moun-
taines of Gumera with victuals, horses, and other cattell ;
and here the king of Fez vsually remaineth all winter and
the spring, by reason of the temperature and holesomnes
of the aire. Here is great plentie of roes and hares, and
yet very few woods.^'^^
Of Giuniha a towne in Azgara.
THis towne the Africans built in our time by a riuers
side vpon that plaine ouer which the way lieth
from Fez to the citie of Harais, and it is distant from Fez
about thirtie miles. It was in times past very populous,
but now it lieth so desolate by reason of the war of Sa/nd,
that it serueth onely for caues and receptacles for the
Arabians to lay vp their corne in, for the sauegard
whereof they pitch certaine tents neere vnto the place. ^°^
Of the towne of Harais.
THis towne was founded by the ancient Africans vpon
the Ocean sea shore, neere vnto the mouth of the
riuer Luccus, one side thereof adioining vpon the said
riuer, and the other side vpon the maine Ocean. When
496 THE THIRD BOOKli OF THE
the Moores were lords of Arzilla and Tangia, this towne
was well inhabited : but those two townes being woon by
the Christians, Harais remained destitute of inhabitants,
almost tvventie yeeres together : howbeit afterward the
king of Fez his sonne, fearing the Portugals inuasion,
caused it strongly to bee fortified and kept with a
perpetuall garrison. The passage vnto this towne by
the riuers mouth is very dangerous and difficult. Likewise
the kings sonne caused a castle to be built, wherein is
maintained a garrison of two hundred crosse-bowes, an
hundred Harquebusiers, & three hundeed light horsemen.
Neere vnto the towne are diuers medowes and fennes
where the townesmen take great store of eeles and of
water-fowles. Vpon this riuers side are huge and solitarie
woods haunted with lions and other wilde beastes. The
inhabitants of this towne vse to transport coales by sea
to Arzilla and Tangia, whereupon the Moores vse for a
common prouerbe, A ship of Harais, which they alleage
when a man after great brags and promises performeth
trifles ; for these ships hauing sailes of cotton, which make
a gallant shew, are laden with nought but base coales :
for the territorie of this citie aboundeth greatly with
cotton.^"-*
Of tJie towne called Casar Elcabir, that is.
The great palace.
THis large towne was built in the time o^ Mansor \\^q.
king and patriarke of Maroco ; of whom this
notable historie is reported, namely, that the said king,
as he rode on hunting, being separated from his companie
by tempestuous weather, came vnto a certaine vnknowen
place, where if he continued all night, fearing least he
A pleasant dis- '^oViXdi die in the fens, he looked round about him, and
King Mansor at length espied a fisher getting of eeles: can you, my
was entertained i i i • s i i -, t-i
by a fisher. inend (quoth the kmg) conduct me to the court? Ihe
IIISTORir: OF AFRICA. 497
court (saith the fisher) is ten miles distant. Howbeit, the
king intreating hard to be conducted ; if king Mansor
himselfe were present (quoth the fisher) I could not at
this present conduct him, for feare least he should be
drowned in the fennes. Then answered Mansor: what
hast thou to doe with the kings life or safetie? Marie
(quoth the fisher) I am bound to loue the king as well as
mine owne life. Then haue you obtained some singular
benefite at his handes, said the king. What greater
benefit (quoth the fisher) can be expected at the kings
hand, then iustice, loue, and clemencie, which he vouch-
safeth vnto his subiects ; by whose fauour and wisdome
I sillie fisher with my poore wife and children Hue a most
quiet and contented life, so that I can euen at midnight
haue free egresse and regresse vnto this my cottage
amidst these vallies and desert fennes, no man lying in
wait to doe me iniurie? But (gentle Sir) whatsoeuer you
be, if you please to be my guest for this night, you shall
be right welcome, and to morrow morning betimes I will
attend vpon you at your pleasure. Then the king went
vnto the fishers cottage, where after his horse was prouided
for, the fisher caused some eeles to be rested for his supper,
while he sate drying of his garments by the fire : but the
king not being contented with this fare, demanded if his
host had any flesh in the house : Sir (quoth he) I haue a
shee-goate and a kid, and they are all my substance of
cattell : but because by your countenance you seeme to be
some honourable personage, I will aduenture my kid for
your sake ; and so without any more words he caused his
wife to kill it & roste it. Thus the king remained the
fishers guest all night : and the next morning about sun-rise,
being scarcely gone out of the doores with his liberall host,
he espied a great companie of his gentlemen and hunters
whooping and hallowing for their king amidst the fennes,
but when they saw him, they all greatly reioiced. Then
49^S THE THIRD ROOKE OF THE
Mansor turning him to the fisher, told him what he was,
promising that his liberalitie should not be vnrewarded.
Neere vnto the place were certaine faire castles and
palaces, which the king at his departure gaue vnto the
fisher in token of thankfulnes ; and being by the fisher
requested, for declaration of his farther loue, to enuiron the
said buildings with wals, he condescended thereunto. From
thencefoorth the fisher remained lord and gouernour of that
new citie, which in processe of time grew so large, that
within these fewe yeeres it contained fower hundred
families. And because the soile neer vnto it is so fertile,
the king vsed to make his aboad thereabout all summer
time, which was a great benefit to the towne.^*"^ By the
RcadOsorius walles of this towne runneth the riuer Luccus, which some-
lib. 2. de rebus
gestis Email, times encrcascth so, that it floweth to the citie gates.^°^
concerning this
towne. In this towne are practised dmers manuarie artes and
trades of merchandize : also it hath many temples, one
college of students, and a stately hospitall. They haue
neither springs nor wels, but onely cesternes in stead
thereof. The inhabitants are liberall honest people, though
not so wittie as some others. Their apparell is but meane,
but being of cotton-cloth, and wrapped often about their
bodies. In the suburbes are great store of gardens re-
plenished with all kinde of fruits. Their grapes are
vnsauourie, because the soile is fitter for medow-ground.
Euery munday they haue a market vpon the next plaine,
whither their neighbours the Arabians vsually resort.^''^ In
the moneth of May they goe foorth of their towne a fowling,
and take great store of turtles. Their ground is exceeding
fruitful], and yeeldeth thirtie fold increase : but it cannot
be tilled for sixe miles about, bicause the Portugals garrison
at Arzilla which is but eighteene miles distant, doth so
molest and endomage them : whom likewise the gouernour
of this towne with three hundred horsemen continually
encountereth, and sometime proceedeth euen to the gates
of Arzilla,io9
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 499
Of tJie region of Habat.
THis region"" beginneth southward from the riuer of
Guarga.^" and bordereth northward vpon the Ocean,
westward it adioineth vnto the fennes of Argar/^^ and
eastward it abutteth vpon those mountaines which are next
vnto the streites of Gibraltar. In bredth it stretcheth fower
score, and in length almost an hundreth miles. The
fruitefulness of the soile, and the abundance ofcorne cannot
easily be described : it is almost a perpetuall plaine, watered
with many riuers : howbeit heretofore it hath beene more
noble and famous, by reason of the ancient cities built
partly by the Romans and partly by the Goths : and I
thinke it be the same region which Ptoleiney called Mauri-
tania; but since Fez was first built, it hath fallen into
woonderfull decay. Moreouer Idris the founder of Fez
leaning ten sonnes behinde him, bestowed this region vpon
the eldest :^^^ afterward ensued a rebellion of diuers
Mahumetan heretiques and lords, one faction of whom
suing for aide at the gouernour of Granada, and others
seeking aide from certaine gouernours of Cairaoan, they
were all vanquished and put to flight by the Mahumetan
patriark of Cairaoan : who hauing thus subdued the region,
left it vnder garrison and returned home. After the great
chancelour of Cordoua leuying an huge armie, conquered
all this countrey euen to the borders of the region of Zab.
Fiftie yeeres after king loseph of the Luntune family,
chasing out the people of Granada, obtained the saide pro-
uince by force : and last of all the king of Fez enioied it.
Of Ezaggen a towne of Habat.
THis towne was built by the ancient Africans vpon the
side of a mountaine, almost ten miles distant from
Guarga : all of which distance being plaine ground, serueth
for corn-fields and gardens : howbeit the hilles are farre
500 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
more fruitfull. This towne is distant from Fez almost
three-score and ten miles, and containeth to the number of
fiue hundred families, out of the territorie whereof there is
the summe of tenne thousand ducates yeerely gathered for
tribute, with which tribute the gouernour of the same towne
is bound to maintaine on the kings behalfe fower hundred
horsemen, for the defence of the whole region. For they
are often molested with inuasions of the Portugals, who
proceed wasting and spoiling the countrey, sometimes
fortie, and sometimes fiftie miles. Here is but little ciuility
to be found, neither are the people but homely apparelled,
though they be verie rich. They haue a priuilege granted
them by the ancient kings of Fez to drinke wine, which is
otherwise forbidden by the law of Mahumet, and yet none
of them all will abstaine from drinking it.^^^
Of the towne called Bani Teude.
THis ancient towne was built also by the Africans on a
large plainc by the riuer of Guarga, fiue and fortie
miles from the citie of Fez. In the prosperitie thereof it
contained to the number of eight thousand families, but
afterward it was so destroied by the wars of the Patriarkes
of Cairaoan, that now the towne wall is only remaining.
At my being there I sawe diuers monuments and sepulchres
of noblemen, and certaine conducts curiously built of
excellent marble. From this towne mount Gumera is
almost fowerteene miles distant : the fieldes adiacent being
good arable, and very fruitfull.^^^
Of the tow7ie of Mergo.
MErgo standing vpon the toppe of a mountaine is from
Bani Teude about ten miles distant. Some thinke
that the Romans were founders of this towne, bicause there
are found vpon the ancient ruines certaine Latine letters
ingrauen. But now it is quite destitute of inhabitants, how-
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 501
beit vpon the side of the same mountaine standeth another
small tovvne inhabited with vveauers of course cloth ; from
whence you may behold the riuer Subu to the south, and
the riuer Guarga to the north, from which riuers the saide
tovvne is fiue miles distant. The inhabitants loue to bee
accounted gentlemen, albeit they are couetous, ignorant, and
destitute of all goodnes.^^*^
Of the towne of Tansor.
TAnsor standeth vpon a little hill, almost ten miles
from Mergo, and containeth three hundreth families,
but very fevve artificers. The inhabitants are rude and
barbarous people, hauing neither vineyardes nor gardens,
but onely exercising husbandry, and possessing abundance
of cattle. This tovvne standeth in the midde way between
Fez and mount Gumera, which (I thinke) is the occa-
sion, that the inhabitants are so couetous and void of
humanitie.^^^
Of the towne of Agla.
THis ancient towne was built by the Africans vpon the
banke of the riuer Guarga. The fruitfull fields
thereof are manured by the Arabians: but the towne it
selfe hath beene so wasted with warre, that nowe there is
nothing to be scene but in a few places the ruines of houses
& wals, & certaine pits. In the suburbes there is euery
weeke a great market, wherunto the next Arabians vsually
resort ; and so do some merchants of Fez likewise, to buie
oxe hides, wooll, and waxe, which are the principall com-
modities of that place. Hereabouts keepe great store of
lions, but they are by nature so fearefull, that they will
flee at the voice of a childe : hence commeth the prouerbe The occasion
so rife in Fez; A lion of Agla: which they applie vnto '^ ""^ ''
such a one as maketh great brags, and is but a meere
dastard."^
502 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Of the castle of Narangia.
THe castle of Narangia built by the Africans vpon a
little hill not farre from the riuer Luccus, is almost
ten miles distant from Ezaggen. It hath most fruitful!
corn-fields, but no plaines belonging vnto it. Along the
riuers side are huge deserts, wherein grow great store of
wilde fruits, especially cherries, such as the Italians call
Ciriegie marine. This castle was surprised and sacked by
the Portugals in the yeere of the Hegeira 895. which was
in the yeere of our Lord, 1486.^^^
Of the Isle of Gesira.
THe Isle of Gesira^-*^ lying not farre from the mouth of
the riuer Luccus, is distant from the sea about ten,
and from Fez about an hundreth miles. There was in
times past a little ancient towne vpon this Island, which
was abandoned when the Portugals first made warre vpon
Barbaric. About the saide riuer are many deserts, but
An attempt Very fcwe corn-fields. In the yeere of the Hegeira 894.
and dcfeate of , , . r -n . 11 1 • 1 • t ■ ^ ^ ■
the Portugals. the kmg of rortugall sent hither a great armie, which being
landed on the Isle, the generall of the field built a strong
fort thereupon, by meanes whereof he hoped to be free
from the enimies inuasion, and to enioy the fields adiacent.
* 1562. But the king of Fez, namely his father that *no\ve reigneth,
foreseeing the damage that he shoulde sustaine, if he
permitted the saide fort to be finished, leuied a mightie
armie to withstand the Portugals proceedings. Howbeit,
so great was the force of their ordinance, that the Moores
durst not approch within two miles of the Portugal campe.
Wherefore the Fessan king being almost out of hope, was
perswaded by some that were about him to stoppe vp the
riuer with postes and raftes two miles from the Island : by
which meanes the Moores being defended, and hauing cut
downe all the woodes adioining, the Portugals percciued
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 503
the passage of the riuer in short time to be choaked and
stopped vp with great trees, and that there was no
possibihtie for them to depart. Then the king hoping
easily to ouercome the Portugales, determined to assaile
their fort : but considering he could not do it without
great slaughter of his people, he couenanted with the
Portugall generall, that besides a great summe of money
paide vnto him, the saide generall shoulde obtaine of the
Portugall king to haue certaine daughters of the king of
Fez his gouernour (which were at that time prisoners in
Portugall) to be restored, and that then he would freely
dismisse him and his companie : which being done, the
Portugall armie returned home.
Of the toivjie of Basra.
THis towne containing almost two thousand families,
was built by Mahumet the sonne of Idris}^^ which
was the founder of Fez, vpon a certaine plaine betweene
two mountaines, being distant from Fez about fowerscore,
and from Casar^^"^ southward almost twentie miles. And
it was named Basra for the memorie of a citie in Arabia
Foelix called by that name, where Halt the fourth
Mahumetan patriarke after Mahwnet, and great grand-
father vnto Idris was slaine. It was in times past enuironed
with most high and impregnable wals : and so long as it
was gouerned by the posteritie of Idris, the jjeople were
verie ciuill ; for Idris his successours vsed alwaies to
rcmaine there in sommer time, by reason of the pleasant
situation of the place, the hils and valleies being beautified
with sweete gardens, and yeelding corne in abundance :
and that both by reason of the vicinite of the towne, and
of the neighbour-hood of the riuer Luccus. Moreouer, in
old time this towne was verie populous, being adorned with
many faire temples, and inhabited with most ciuill people :
but the family of Idris decaying, it became a pray vnto the
504 THE THIRD I500KF, OK THE
enemie. At this present the ruines of the wals are onely
to be scene, and certaine forlorne gardens, which, because
the ground is not manured, bring foorth naught but wilde
fruits.123
Of the tozvne called Ho war.
THis towne was built by one Halt a disciple of the
foresaid Mahumet vpon a little hill, and by a riuers
side, being situate about fourteene miles to the north of
Casar, and sixteen miles to the south of Arzilla : which
although it be but a small towne, yet it is well fortified and
fairely built, and enuironed with fruitfull fieldes, vineyardes,
and gardens replenished with woonderfull varietie of fruits.
The inhabitants being most of them linnen-weauers,
gather and prouide great store of flaxe. But euer since
the Portugals woon Arzilla, this towne hath remained
desolate.^2*
T'
A description of the citie of Arzilla.
He great citie of Arzilla called by the Africans Azella,
was built by the Romans vpon the Ocean sea shore,
about seuentie miles from the streits of Gibraltar, and an
hundred and fortie miles from Fez.^-^ It was in times past
subiect vnto the prince of Septa or Ceuta, who was tribu-
tarie to the Romans, and was afterward taken by the
Goths, who established the said prince in his former
gouernment : but the Mahumetans wan it in the yeere of
the Hegeira 94. and helde the same for two hundred and
twenty yeeres, till such time as the English at the per-
suasion of the Goths besieged it with an huge armie ; and
albeit the Goths were enemies to the English, because
themselues were Christians, and the English worshippers of
idols, yet the Goths perswaded them to this attempt, hoping
The taking of by that mcancs to draw the Mahumetans out of Europe.
Arzilla by the . ^^,.,,. , ,,.. ,
English. The English haumg good successe tooke the citie, and so
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 505
wasted it with fire and sword, that scarce one citizen
escaped, so that it remained almost thirtie yeeres voide
of inhabitants.^-" But afterward when the Mahumetan
patriarks of Cordoua were lords of Mauritania, it was
againe reedified, and by all meanes augmented, . enriched
and fortified. The inhabitants were rich, learned, and
valiant. The fields adiacent yeeld graine and pulse of all
sorts in great abundance, but because the towne standeth
almost ten miles from the mountaines, it sustaineth great
want of wood ; howbeit they haue coales brought them
from Harais, as is aforesaid. In the yeere of the Hegeira
882. this citie was suddenly surprised and taken by the
Portugalles, and all the inhabitants carried prisoners into ArzUia taken
Portugal], amongst whom was MaJmmet the king of Yq:z gah^
that now is, who together with his sister being both
children of seuen yeeres old, were taken and led captiue.'"-^
For the father of this Mahumet seeing the prouince of
Habat reuolt from him, went and dwelt at Arzilla, the very
same time, when Esserif a great citizen of Fez, hauing
slaine Habdulac the last king of the Marin-familie, was by Hahduiac the
- , , , _, , . last king of the
the fauour of the people aduanced vnto the ressan kmg- MarhifawHy.
dome. Afterward one Saic Abra being pricked forward
with ambition, went about to conquer the citie of Fez, and
to make himselfe king ; howbeit Esserif hy the aduise of
a certaine counsellour of his, being couzin vnto Saic,
vanquished and put to flight the saide Saic to his great
disgrace. Moreouer while Esserif had sent his said
counsellour to Temesna, to pacific the people of that
prouince being about to rebell, Saic returned, and hauing
for one whole yeere besieged new Fez with eight thousand
men, at length by treason of the townesmen he easily wan
it, and compelled Esserif with, all his familie, to flee vnto
the kingdome of Tunis. The same time therefore that
Saic besieged Fez, the king of Portugall (as is aforesaid)
sending a fleete into Africa, tooke Arzilla, and then was
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506 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
the king of Fez that now is with his yoong sister caried
captiue into Portugal!, where he remained seuen yeeres,
in which space he learned the Portugall-language most
exactly. At length with a great summe of money his
father ransomed him out of Portugall, who afterward being
aduanced to the kingdome, was by reason of his long
continuance in Portugall called king Alahuinet the. Portugall
This king afterward attempted very often to be auenged
of the Portugals, and to recouer Arzilla. Wherefore
Read Osorius Suddenly encountring the said citie he beat down a great
gesffs Email, part of the wall, and entring the breach, set all the captiue-
Moores at libertie. The Christians retired into the castle,
promising within two dales to yeeld vnto the king. But
Pedro Nauarro comming in the meane season with a great
fleet, they compelled the king with continual! discharging
of their ordinance, not onely to relinquish the citie, but also
to depart quite away with his whole armie : afterward it
was so fortified on all sides by the Portugals, that the said
king attempting often the recouerie thereof, had alwaies
lohn Leo scriied 'Ci\& rcpulsc. I my selfc scruing the king in the foresaid
the kill ^ of Fez
in his wars expedition could find but fiue hundred of our companie
^uia. slaine. But the warre against Arzilla continued from the
yeere of the Hegeira 914. to the yeere 921.^^8
Of the citie of Tangia.
THe great and ancient citie of Tangia called by the
Portugals Tangiara, according to the fond opinion of
some historiographers, was founded by one Scdded the
Sonne of Had, who (as they say) was emperour ouer the
whole world. This man (say they) determined to build a
citie, which for beautie might match the earthly paradise.
Wherefore he compassed the same with walles of brasse,
and the roofes of the houses he couered with gold and
siluer, for the building whereof he exacted great tributes of
all the cities in the world. But the classical! and approoued
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 507
authors affirme that it was built by the Romanes vpon the
Ocean sea shore, at the same time when they subdued the
kincfdome of Granada.* From the streites of Gibraltar it is * Or Da-tic
distant almost thirtic, and from Fez an hundred and fiftie
miles. And from the time that the Goths were first lordes
of Granada, this citie was subiect unto Septa or Centa,\x\\\\\
it and Arzilla were woon by the Mahumetans. It hath
alwaies beene a ciuill, famous, and well-peopled towne, and
very stately and sumptuously built. The field thereto
belonging is not very fertill, nor apt for tilth : howbeit not
far off are certaine vallies continually watred with fount-
aines, which furnish the said citie with all kinde of fruits in
abundance. Without the citie also growe certaine vines,
albeit vpon a sandie soile. It was well stored with inhabit-
ants, till such time as Arzilla was surprized by the Portu-
gals : for then the inhabitants being dismaied with rumours
of warres, tooke vp their bag and baggage and fled unto
Fez. Whereupon the king of Portugall his deputie at
Arzilla sent one of his captaines thither, who kept it so
long vnder the obedience of the king, till the king of Fez
sent one of his kinsmen also to defend a region of great
importance neere vnto the mountaines of Gumera, being
enemie to the Christians. Twentie fiue yeeres before the
Portugall king wan this citie, he sent foorth an armada
against it, hoping that the citie being destitute of aide,
while the king of Fez was in warres against the rebels of
Mecnase, would soone yield it selfe. But contrarie to the
Portugals expectation the Fcssan king concluding a sudden
truce with them of Mecnase, sent his counsellour with an
armie, who encountring the Portugals, made a great
slaughter of them, and amongst the rest slue their generall,
whom he caused to be caried in a case or sacke vnto new
Fez, and there to be set vpon an high place where all men
might behold him. Afterward the king of Portugall sent
a new supply, who suddenly assailing the citie in the night,
K K 2
508 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
were most of them slaine, and the residue enforced to flee.
But that which the Portugall-king could not bring to passe
with those two Armadas, he atchieued at length (as is afore-
said) with small forces and little disaduantage. In my
time MaJiumet king of Fez left no meanes vnattempted for
the recouerie of this citie, but so great alwaies was the
valour of the Portugals, that he had euer ill successe.
These things were done in the yeere of the Hegeira 917,
which was in the yeere of our Lord 1508.^-^
Of the towne called Casar EzzagJiir, that is,
the little palace.
THis towne was built \>y Manso7'\\\Q. king and Patriarke
of Maroco vpon the Ocean sea shore, about twelue
miles from Tangia, and from Septa eighteene miles. It
was built (they say) by Mansor, because euerie yeere when
he passed into the Prouince of Granada, hee was con-
strained with his whole armie to march ouer the rough and
ragged mountaines of Septa, before he could come vnto the
sea shore. It standeth in an open and pleasant place ouer
against the coast of Granada. It was well peopled in times
past, part of the inhabitants beeing weauers and merchants,
and the rest mariners, that vsed to transport the wares of
Casar Ezzag- Barbarie into Europe. This towne the king of Portugall
hirlakenbythe ^ ^ fc. to
kingofPortu- tookc by a sudden surprise. And the Fessan king hath
gall.
laboured by all meanes to recouer it, but euer with ill
successe. These things were done in the yeere of the
Hegeira 863.1=^0
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 509
Of the great citie of Septa.
Epta, called by the Latines, Chiitas^
and by the Portugals, Seupta, was
(according to our most approoued
Authors) built by the Romanes vpon
the streits of Gibraltar, being in olde
time the head citie of all Mauritania ;
wherefore the Romanes made great
account thereof, insomuch that' it became verie ciuill, and
was throughly inhabited. Afterward it was woone by the
Gothes, who appointed a gouernour there; and it continued
in their possession, till the Mahumetans invading Mauri-
tania surprised it also.^^^ The occasion whereof was one
Iidiau Earle of Septa ; who being greatly iniuried by
Roderigo king of the Gothes and of Spaine, ioyned with the
infidels, conducted them into Granada, and caused Roderigo The entrance of
the Moores into
to loose both his life and his kingdome. The Mahumetans Granada.
therefore hauing taken Septa, kept possession thereof on
the behalfe of one Elgualid, sonne of Habdtibiialic their
Patriarke, who then was resident at Damasco, in the yeere
of the Hegeira 92.^^"- From thencefoorth till within these
fewe yeeres, this citie grewe so ciuill and so well stored
with inhabitants, that it prooued the most worthie and
famous citie of all Mauritania. It contained many temples
and colledges of students, with great numbers of artizans,
and men of learning and of high spirite. Their artizans
excelled especially in workes of brasse, as namely in
making of candlesticks, basons, standishes, and such like
commodities, which were as pleasant to the eie, as if they
had beene made of siluer or gold. The Italians haue
great cunning in making of the like, but their workmanship:)
is nothing comparable to theirs of *Septa. Without \hc*Orieuta.
citie are diuers faire villages and granges, especially in that
place which for the abundance of vines is called The vine-
5lO THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
yards : howbeit the fields are verie barren and fruitles, for
which cause their corne is exceeding deere.^^^ Both with-
out and within the citie there is a pleasant and beautifull
"c/ibr altar from pi'ospcct to the shore of Granada vpon the streits of
Septa hut 12 Gibraltar, from whence you may discerne liuing creatures,
miles broad. ' -' •' !=> '
the distance being but 12. miles. Howbeit this famous
citie not many yeeres since was greatly afflicted by
Habduliimmen the king and patriarke : who hauing sur-
prised it, razed the buildings, and banished the principal
inhabitants thereof ^^* And not long after it sustained as
great damage by the king of Granada, who (besides the
foresaide harmes) carried the nobles and chiefe citizens
captiues into Granada. And lastly in the yeere of
Septa taken by Makuiiiet his Hcgcira 818. being taken by a Portugall-
the Portngals. ^ fc> / fc.
,, ^ ,., armada, all the citizens did abandon it.^^^ Aim Saliid
Abu Sahid
king of Fez being then king of Fez, and a man of no valour, neglected
and his sixe ^ "^ ' _ _ . .
soHJtes siaine the recoucrie thereof: but in the midst of his dauncing
all in one
night. and disport being aduertised that it was lost, he would not
so much as interrupt his vaine pastime : wherefore by gods
iust iudgement, both himselfe and his sixe sonnes were all
slaine in one night by his Secretarie, in whom he reposed
singular trust, because hee would have defloured the said
Secretaries wife. These things came to passe in the yeere
of the Hegeira 824. Afterward, the kingdome of Fez
being eight yeeres destitute of a king, a sonne of the
murthered king whom he begot of a Christian woman, and
who the same night that his father was slaine fled vnto
Tunis, succeeded in the gouernment : this was Habdulac
the last king of the Marin family, who likewise (as is
aforesaide) was slaine by the people.^^''
Of the towne of Tettegiiin, now called Tetuan.
THis towne being built by the ancient Africans
eighteene miles from the streits of Gibraltar, and
sixe miles from the maine Ocean, was taken by the
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 51I
Mahumetans at the same time when they woon Septa
from the Gothes. It is reported that the Gothes bestowed
the gouernment of this towne vpon a woman with one eie,
who weekly repairing thither to receiue tribute, the inhabi-
tants named the towne Tetteguin, which signifieth in their
language an eie.^^'^ Afterward being often assayled and
encountered by the Portugals, the inhabitants forsooke it,
and it remained fc-werscore and fifteene yeeres desolate:
which time being expired, it was reedified and replanted
a new with inhabitants by a certaine captaine of Granada,
who together with his king being expelled thence by
Ferdinando king of Castile, departed vnto Fez. This
famous captaine that shewed himselfe so valiant in the
warres of Granada was called by the Portugals Almandali.
Who hauing obtained the gouernment of this towne, and
gotten licence to repaire it, enuironed the same with new
wals, and built an impregnable castle therein compassed
with a deepe ditch. Afterward making continuall warre
against the Portugals, he extremely molested and en-
damaged their townes of Septa, Casar, and Tangia : for
with three hundred valiant horsemen of Granada he made
daily incursions and inroades vpon the Christians, and
those that he tooke, he put to continuall labour and toile
about the building of his forts. Vpon a time I my selfe
trauelling this way saw three thousand Christian captiues,
who beincf clad in course sacke-cloth, were constrained in
the night to lye fettered in deepe dungeons. This captaine
was exceeding liberal vnto all African and Mahumetan
strangers that passed by : howbeit within these few yeeres
one of his eies being thrust out with a dagger, and the
other waxing dim with age, he deceased ; leaving the
towne after his death vnto his nephew, who was a most
valiant man.^^'^
512 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Of the monntames of Habat.
AMongst the mountaines of Habat there be eight more
famous then the rest, all which are inhabited by the
people of Gumera, who vse one generall forme and custome
of lining : for all of them maintaine Mahumets religion,
albeit they drinke wine contrarie to his precept. They are
proper men of personage and much addicted to Industrie
& labour, but for the wars they are verie unfit. Subiect
they are vnto the king of Fez, who imposeth such heauie
tribute vpon them, so that besides a few (of whom we will
speake hereafter) the residue are scarce able to finde them-
selues apparell.
Of mount Rahona.
THis mountaine being neere unto Ezaggen, containeth
in length thirtie miles, and in breadth twelue miles.
It aboundeth with oyle, hony, and vines. The inhabitants
are principally imployed about making of sope and trying
of waxe. Wines they haue great store both browne and
white. They pay vnto the king of Fez for yeerely tribute
three thousand ducates, which being allowed vnto the
gouernour of Ezaggen, he maintaineth fower hundred
horsemen in the kings seruice.^^^
Of the mountaine called Beni-Fenescare.
THis mountaine of Fenescare adioyning vnto mount
Rahon, is about fiuc and twentie miles long, and
eight miles broad. It is better peopled then Rahon,
hauing many leather-dressers, and weauers of course cloth,
and yeelding great abundance of waxe. Euery Saturday
they haue a great market, where you may finde all kinde
of chapmen and of wares ; insomuch that the Genoueses
come hither to buy oxe hides and waxe, which they conuey
into Portugall and Italy. Out of this mountaine is yeerely
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 513
collected for tribute the summe of sixe thousand ducates,
three thousand whereof are allowed vnto the gouernour
of Ezaggen, the residue being payd into the kings
exchequer.^^°
Of the mountaine called Beni-Haros.
THis mountaine standing neer vnto Casar extendcth
northward eight, and westward 20. miles. It con-
taineth but sixe miles onely in bredth. It was wont to be
well peopled and inhabited with gentlemen, who, when the
Portugals woon Arzilla, cruelly vsurping ouer the people,
compelled them to flee and leaue the mountaine desolate.
There are at this present certaine cottages vpon the
mountaine ; but all the residue lyeth wast. While this
mountaine continued in good estate, it allowed yeerely vnto
the gouernor of Casar three thousand ducates.^^^
Of mount CJicbib.
VPon this mountaine are sixe or seuen castles inhabited
with ciuill and honest people : for when the Portugals
wan Tangia, the citizens fled vnto this mountaine beeing
but twentie miles distant. The inhabitants are perpetually
molested with the Portugals inuasions : the tributes of this
mountaine being halfe diminished since the losse of Tangia,
waxe euery day woorse and woorse, because the garrison
is thirtie miles distant, and cannot come to succour them
so often as the Portugals come to waste and spoyle their
territories.^*^
Of the mountaine called Beni Chessen.
THis mountaine is of an exceeding height, and very
hard to be encountrcd : for besides the natural 1
fortification thereof, it is inhabited with most valiant
people. These inhabitants being oppressed with the
tyrannic of their gouernours, rose vp at length in armes
514 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
against them, & brought them to great miserie and
distresse. Whereupon a yoong gentleman, one of their
said gouernours, disdaining to submit himselfe vnto the
yoke of his inferiours, went to serue in the king of Granada
his warres, where being trained vp a long time in martiall
discipline against the Christians, he prooued an expert
warriour : and so at length returning vnto one of his
natiue mountaines, he gathered a certaine troupe of horse-
men, and valiantly defended the said mountaine from the
Portugals inuasions : whereof the king of Fez being
aduertised, sent him an hundred and fiftie crossebowes :
which he imploied to the subduing of that mountaine, and
to the conquest of the mountaines of his enemies. But
after he began to vsurpe the kings tribute in the same
mountaine, the king waxing wroth sent foorth an huge
armie against him. Howbeit vpon his repentant sub-
mission, the king pardoned him, and ordained him
gouernour of Seusauon, and of all the region adiacent.
After him succeeded in the same gouernment one of the
linage of Mahumet, and of Idris the founder of Fez. This
man became very famous among the Portugals, and by
reason of his nobilitie (for he was of the familie called
Helibenres) he grew vnto great renowme.^*^
Of mount A ngera.
IT standeth southward of Casar the lesse almost eight
miles, being tenne miles long and three miles broad.
The soile thereof is exceeding fruitful, and in times past
greatly abounded with woods, which being cut downe by
the inhabitants, were sent to Casar for the building of
ships : which at that time had a great fleete belonging
thereunto. This mountaine likewise yeelded abundance of
flaxe ; and the inhabitants were partly weauers and partly
mariners. Howbeit when the foresaid towne of Casar was
woon by the Portugals, this mountaine also was forsaken
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. S15
by the inhabitants : and yet at this day all the houses
stand still, as if the inhabitants had not forsaken it at
Of mount Quadres.
THis high mountaine standing in the midst betweene
Septa and Tetteguin, is inhabited with most valiant
and warlike people, whose valour sufficiently appeered
in the warres betweene the king of Granada, and the
Spanyards ; where the inhabitants onely of this mountaine
preuailed more then all the armed Moores beside.^*^ Vpon
the said mountaine was borne one called by them Hcllul :
this Hellul atchieued many woorthie exploits against the
Spanyards ; the historic whereof is set downe partly in
verse and partly in prose, and is as rife in Africa and
Granada, as is the storie of Orlando in Italic. But at
length in the Spanish warrc (wherein loseph Enesir king
and patriarke of Maroco was vanquished) this Hellul was
slaine in a castle of Catalonia, called by the Moores, The
castle of the eagle. In the same battell were slaine three- Threescore
thousand
score thousand Moores, so that none of them escaped saue Moores siaii.
the king and a few of his nobles. This was done in the
yeere of the Hegeira 609. which was in the yeere of our
Lord 1 160. From thenceforth the Spanyards had alwaies
good successe in their warres, so that they recouered all
those cities which the Moores had before taken from them.
And from that time till the yeere wherein king Ferdinando
conquered Granada, there passed (according to the Arabians
account) 285. yeeres.^^*^
Of the nioiintaine called Beni Guedarfeth.
THis mountaine standing not farre from Tetteguin
(although it be not very large) is well fraught with
inhabitants. The people are very warlike, being in pay
vnder the gouernour of Tetteguin, whom they greatly
5l6 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
honour and attend vpon him in all his attempts against the
Christians : for which cause they pay no tribute vnto the
king of Fez, vnlesse it be for their fieldes, which is very
little. They reape much commoditie out of those moun-
taines, for there groweth great abundance of boxe, whereof
the Fessan combes are made.^*^
A description of Errif one of the seuen regions of Fez.
WEstward this region beginneth neere vnto the streites
of Gibraltar, and extendeth eastward to the riuer
of Nocor, which distance containeth about an hundred and
fortie miles. Northward it bordereth vpon the Mediterran
sea, and stretcheth fortie miles southward vnto those
mountaines which lie ouer against the riuer Guarga and
the territorie of Fez. This region is very vneeuen, being full
of exceeding colde mountaines and waste deserts, which
are replenished with most beautifull and straight trees :
Here is no corne growing, they haue great store of vines,
figs, oliues, & almonds. The inhabitants of this region are
valiant people, but so excessiuely giuen to drinking, that
they scarcely reserue wherewithal 1 to apparell themselues,
Head-cattell they haue but fewe : howbeit vpon their
mountaines they haue great plentie of goates, asses, and
apes. Their townes are but few : and their castles and
villages are very homely built without any plancher or
stories, much like to the stables of Europe, and are couered
with thatch or with the barke of trees. All the inhabitants
of this region haue the balles of their throat-pipes very
great, and are vnciuill and rude people.^^**
Of the toivne of Terga.
THis small townc (as some thinke) built by the Goths
vpon the shore of the Mediterran sea, is distant
from the streits of Gibraltar about fowerscore miles, and
containeth to the number of fine hundred families. The
HISTORIE OF AFRICA.
517
towne wall is of no force. The inhabitants are most part
of them fishers ; who getting great abundance of fish, salt
them, and carrie them to sell almost an hundred miles
southward. This towne was in times past well stored with
people, but since the Portugals entered the same region, it
hath fallen greatly to decay. Not farre from this towne
groweth abundance of wood vpon the ragged and cold
mountaines. And albeit the inhabitants are valiant, yet
are they rustical! and void of all humanitie.^*^
Of Bedis, otherivise called Velles de Gumera.
His ancient towne built vpon the
Mediterran sea shore, & called by
the Spaniards Velles de Gumera,
containeth about sixe hundred fami-
lies. Some writers there are that
afifirme it to be built by the Africans,
and others by the Gothes ; so that
it remaineth as yet vncertaine who were the true founders
thereof. It standeth betweene two high mountaines : and
not farre from it there is a faire and large valley, from
whence commeth a little riuer or streame to the towne,
alvvaies when it raineth. In the midst of the towne
standeth the market place, which containeth great store of
shops. Here is also a verie stately temple to be scene.
Water for drinkc is exceeding scarce among them, for they
are all constrained to resort vnto one pit or well, being in
the suburbes, neere vnto the sepulchre of a certaine man,
that was in times past very famous among them. Howbeit
in the night it is dangerous to fetch water from thence,
because it is so full of blood-suckers or horse-leeches.
The townesmen are of two sorts : for some be fishers, and
the residue are pirates, which daily doe greate harme vnto
the Christians. Vpon the mountaines grow great store of
wood, verie commodious for the building of ships and of
5l8 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
galleies. The inhabitants of which mountaines are almost
wholly employed about carrying of the said wood from
place to place. They haue very little corne growing, for
which cause most of them eate barley bread. Their
principall foode are certaine fishes (which the Italians call
Sardelli) together with other like fishes. They haue such
abundance of fish, that one man alone is not able to draw
vp a net; wherefore whosoeuer will assist the fishermen in
that busines, are rewarded with good store of fishes for
their labour : yea sometimes they will freely bestow fishes
vpon such as passe by. They salt the foresaid Sardelli,
and send them to the mountaines to be sold.^^*^ In this
towne there is a long street inhabited with lewes, wherin
dwell sundry vintners that sell excellent wines. So that in
calme euenings the citizens vse to carrie wine aboord their
barkes in the sea, and to spend their time in drinking and
singing. In this towne standeth a faire castle, but not
strong, wherein the gouernour hath his aboad. And neere
vnto this castle the saide gouernour hath a palace, where-
unto belongeth a most pleasant garden. Vpon the shore
the gouernour buildeth galleies and other ships wherewith
they greatly molest the Christians. Whereupon Fcrdinando
king of Spaine taking a certaine Hand within a mile of the
towne, built a fort thereon, and so planted it with ordinance
and souldiers, that neither their temples nor themselues
walking in the streets were free therefrom, but were
daily slaine. Whereupon the gouernour of the towne
was constrained to craue ayde from the king of Fez,
who sent out a great armie against the Christians ;
but they were partly taken, and partly slaine, so that verie
few escaped back vnto Fez. The Christians kept this isle
almost two yeeres : and then it was betrayed by a false
trecherous Spaniard (who slew the gouernour of the isle,
because he had taken his wife from him) into the Moores
possession, and all the Christians were slaine : not a man
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 519
of them escaped, saue onely the Spanish traitour, who in
regard of his treason was greatly rewarded, both by the
gouernour of Bedis, and also by the king of Fez. Being
at Naples I heard the whole relation of this matter from a
certaine man that was present at all the former exploits,
who said that they were done about the yeere of our Lord
1520. But now the said island is most diligently kept by
a garrison of souldiers sent from Fez : for Bedis is the
neerest hauen-towne vnto Fez vpon the Mediterran sea
shore, although it be an hundred and twenty miles distant.
Euerie yeere or euerie second yeere the Venetian galleies
vse to resort vnto this isle, and to exchange wares for
wares with the inhabitants, or sometimes to buy for readie
money : which wares the Venetians transport vnto Tunis,
Venice, Alexandria, and sometime to Barutto.^^^
Of the towne of I elks.
THis towne being built vpon the Mediterran sea shore
is almost sixe miles distant from Bedis : the hauen
thereof is very commodious and much frequented by ships
in fowle and tempestuous weather. Not farre from this
towne are diuers mountaines and waste deserts growing
full of pine trees. In my time it remained voide of
inhabitants, by reason of certaine Spanish pyrates which
haunted the same ; and now there are but a few poore
cottages of fishers, who standing in dayly dread of the
Spaniards, keepe continual! and circumspect watch to
see if they can escrie any ships making towards them,
which if they do, they flee foorthwith vnto the next
mountaines, bringing from thence a sufficient number of
armed men to withstand the attempts of the Spaniards or
Portugals.i^"^
520 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Of the towne of Tegassa.
THis towne though it be but little is well stored with
inhabitants, and standeth vpon a riuers side, about
two miles from the Mediterran sea. Families it containeth
to the number of fiue hundreth, the buildings thereof being
very rude and homely : all the inhabitants are fishers and
sea-faring men, who from thence carrie victuals vnto other
cities ; for their own towne being enuironed with moun-
taines and woods, they haue no corne at all. Howbeit
certaine vines there are, and very fruitfull trees, without
which the whole region were in a miserable case. Besides
barly-bread the inhabitants haue nought to Hue on, sauing
a fewe little fishes and onions. I my selfe could hardly
for one day endure the extreme stinking smell of their
fishes, which stinck miserablie infecteth the whole pro-
uince.^^^
Of the towne of GehJia.
GEbha is a little towne walled round about, and built
by the Africans vpon the Mediterran sea shore.
From Bedis it is aboue fower and twentie miles distant.
Sometimes it hath inhabitants and sometimes none,
according to the custome of that region. All the fields
adiacent are vnfitte for corne, being full of fountaines and
woods. Here also arc certaine vines and other fruits, but
no buildings of any account.'^*
Of the towne of Mesemme.
IT is a large sea-towne standing vpon a certaine hill
which bordereth vpon the prouince of Caret. Neere
vnto this towne lieth a verie large plaine, the length
whereof stretching southward is eight and twentie, and
the breadth almost ten miles, and through the midst of it
runneth the riuer called Nocore, which diuideth the region
of Errif from that of Garet. This plaine is occupied by
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 521
certaine Arabian husbandmen, who reape such plentie of
corne there, that they are constrained to pay about fiue
thousand bushels a yeere vnto the gouernour of Bedis.
This citie was woont in times past to be well peopled,
and was the metropolitan of the whole region, although it
were continually molested with inconueniences.^^^ For
first it was almost vtterly destroied by the patriarke of
Cairaoan : who, bicause the townesmen refused to pay him
his woonted tribute, burnt it downe, and beheaded the
gouernour thereof: whose head was carried to Cairaoan
vpon the pike of a iaueline. This was done in the ycere
of the Hegeira 318. From thencefoorth for fifteene yeeres
after it remained destitute of inhabitants : and then vnder
the same patriarke the foresaide towne was by certaine
noblemen inhabited a newe. Lastly it was taken by a
certaine great man of Cordoua. He seeing this citie
stande within fower-score miles of his confines (for so
broad is the sea betweene Malaga in Granada, and this
part of Barbaric) began to demaund tribute of the
citizens : which when they refused to pay, he tooke their
towne with a small number of men : for the patriark
coulde not in so short space succour it, by reason that
Cairaoan is distant from thence aboue *three and twentie * ^<^>'e sec;/! e /i
to be an eriar
hundreth miles. Wherefore this towne being taken a.nd in the ongi-
vtterly razed, the gouernour thereof was sent captiue vnto
Cordoua, where he spent the residue of his dales in prison.
And now the wals of this towne are onely to be scene.
This was done in the yeere of the Hegeira 892.^^*^ Now
let vs speake somewhat of the mountaines of Errif.
Of inotint Benigarir.
THis mountaine is inhabited by certaine people which
came first from the mountaines of Gumera. It
standeth neere vnto Terga, and is ten miles long, and
almost fower miles broad. Vpon this mountaine are great
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522 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THEi
store of woods, as likewise abundance of vines and oHues,
The inhabitants are miserable and poore people. Cattell
are very scarce among them : they vse to make much wine
and sodden must. Neither haue they any store of barly
growing vpon this mountaine.^"
Of mount Beni Mansor.
THis mountaine containeth in length fifteene, and in
bredth almost fiue miles. Vpon this mountaine are
great store of woods and fountaines : All the inhabitants
are most valiant, and yet poore and miserable people, for
the whole mountaine yeeldeth nothing but vines : they
haue indeed some small number of goats. Euery weeke
they haue a market, whereunto is brought nothing but
garlike, onions, raisins, salt fishes called before Sardelli,
togither with some corne and panicke, whereof they make
bread. This hill is subiect to the gouernour of Bedis.^^^
T
Of mount Bacchuia.
His mountaine is fowerteene miles long, and almost
eight miles broad. The inhabitants are richer and
somewhat better apparelled then they of other mountaines,
& possesse great store of horses. Corne it yeeldeth in
abundance : neither are the people constrained to pay any
great tribute, by reason of a certaine holy man buried at
Bedis, and borne vpon this mountaine.^^^
Of mount Beni CJielid.
BY this mountaine lieth the high way from Bedis to
Fez. It is a verie cold place, and containeth great
store of wood and fountaines. It yeeldeth no corne, but
vines onely. The inhabitants being subiect to the gouern-
our of Bedis, are by reason of continuall exactions so
impouerished, that they are faine to rob and steale for their
liuing.^^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 523
Of mount Beni Matisor.
THis mountaine extendeth eight miles, standing an
equall distance from the sea with the mountaines
aforesaid. The inhabitants are valiant and stout people,
but too much addicted to drunkennes. Wine they haue
great store, and but little corne. Their women keepe
goates and spinne vpon the distaffe both at one time : the
greater part of whom will not refute the dishonest company
of any man.^*"^
Of mount Beni loseph.
THe length of this mountaine is twelue miles, and the
bredth about eight miles. The inhabitants are
poore, and basely apparelled : neither haue they any corne
but panicke, whereof they make blacke and most vnsauorie
bread. They Hue also vpon onions, and garlike. Their
fountaines are verie muddie. They haue great store of
goates, the milke whereof they keepe as a most precious
thing.1'52
Of mount Beni Zaruol.
VPon this mountaine are great store of vines, oliues,
and other fruites. The inhabitants are poore
miserable people, being subiect to the gouernour of
Seusaoen, who exacteth so great tribute at their handes,
that all which they can scrape and get out of the moun-
taine will hardly maintaine them. Euery weeke they haue
a market, wherein nothing is to be solde, but onely dried
figs, raisins, and oile. Likewise they vse to kill their hee
and shee goats, whose flesh is so vnsauorie, that it cannot
be eaten, vnlesse it be fried.^*"^
Of mount Bent Razin.
THis mountaine bordereth vpon the Mediterran sea, not
farre from Terga. The inhabitants Hue a secure
and pleasant life ; for the mountaine is impregnable, and
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524 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
aboundeth with all kinde of graine, neither are they con-
strained to pay any tribute at all. They haue likewise
good plentie of oliues and wine ; and their ground is
exceeding fruitful], especially vpon the side of the moun-
taine. Their women partly keepe goates, and partly till
the ground.^*^*
Of mount Setisaoen.
THere is no mountaine in all Africa for pleasant situa-
tion comparable to this : hereon standeth a towne
inhabited with all kinde of artificers and merchants. Vpon
this mountaine dwelleth one called Sidi Heli Berrased,
being lord ouer many mountaines. This Sidi Heli hxo\x^\\.
some ciuilitie into this mountaine, rebelled against the
king of Fez, and maintained continuall warre against
the Portugals. The inhabitants of the villages of this and
the foresaid mountaines, are free from all taxation and
tribute, bicause they serue vnder their captaine as well for
horsemen as for footemen. Corne heere groweth small
store, but great plentie of flaxe. There are great woods,
and many fountaines vpon this hill : and the inhabitants
go all decently apparelled.^''^
Of moicnt Beni Gebara.
THis mountaine is very steepe, and of a woonderfull
height, out of the foote whereof spring certainc
riucrs. Vines and figges here are great store, but no corne
at all : and the inhabitants weare most base attire. They
haue abundance of goats, & oxen of so little a stature,
that a man would take them to be calues of half a yeere
olde. Euery weeke they haue a market, being furnished
with very few commodities. Hither doe the merchants of
Fez resort, and the muletters or carriers, which conueie
fruits out of this mountaine vnto Fez. In times past it
was subiect vnto a certaine prince of the king of Fez his
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 525
kinred : and there were collected out of this mountaine
almost two thousand ducates of yeerely tribute.^'"'^
Of mount Bent lerso.
THis mountaine in times past was exceedingly well
peopled. Heere was likewise a faire colledge built,
wherein the Mahumetan lawe was publikely taught, for
which cause the inhabitants were freed from all tributes
and exactions. Afterward a certaine tirant being assisted
by the king of Fez, made this mountaine to become
tributarie vnto him ; but first he put the inhabitants to
flight, and then destroied the colledge, wherein were founde
bookes woorth more then fowre thousand ducates, and the
learned and famous men he cruelly put to the sword.
This was done in the 918. yeere of the Hegeira, which was
in the yeere of our Lord 1509.^''^
Of mount Tezarin.
THis mountaine called by the inhabitants Tezarin,
standeth neer vnto the foresaid Beni lerso, &
aboundeth greatly with fountaines, deserts, & vineyards.
Vpon the top thereof stand diuers ancient buildings, which
(so farre foorth as I can coniecture) were erected by the
Romains. And here (as is before signified) certaine fond
people continually search in caues and holes of the earth
for the Romains treasure. All the inhabitants of this
mountaine are most ignorant people, and greatly oppressed
with exactions.^^^
Of mount Beni Busibet.
THis is a most cold mountaine, and therefore ityeeldeth
neither corne nor cattell, both by reason of the
extreme coldnes, and the barrennes thereof Moreouer
the leaues of the trees are not fit for goates to feede vpon.
They haue so .great plentie of nuts, that they abundantly
Zibibbo.
526 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
furnish the citie of Fez, and all other neighbour cities and
townes therewith. All their grapes are blacke, whereof
they make a certaine pleasant meate called Zibibbo.
They make likewise great store of must and wine. They
are clad in certaine woollen clokes or mantles, such as are
vsed in Italy : these mantles haue certaine hoods, which
couer their heads and visages, so that you can scarce
discerne them to be men : and they are particoloured with
blacke and white spots. In winter the merchants that
resort vnto this mountaine to carrie away nuts and raisins
vnto Fez, can scarce finde any meate to eate, for there is
neither corne nor fleshe, but onely onions and certaine salt
fishes, which are extreme deere. They vse likewise to
eate sodden must and beanes dressed after their manner,
and this is the daintiest fare that this mountaine can
affoord ; and their sodden must they eate with much
bread.16^
Of mount Bern Gualid.
IT is an exceeding high and steepe hill, and the inhabi-
tants are very rich, for of their blacke grapes they
make the foresaid meate called Zibibbo. Almondes, figges,
and oliues they haue in great abundance : neither pay they
any tribute vnto the king of Fez, but onely each family
one fourth part of a ducate, to the end they may haue free
libertie to buie and sell in the Fez market. And if any
citizen of Fez doth them any wrong, when they take him
or anie of his kinred in their mountaine, they will not
suffer him to returne home to Fez, till sufficient recompence
be made. These people go decently apparelled, and they
haue a priuilege granted, that whatsoeuer persons are
banished out of Fez, may freely remaine in their moun-
taine ; yea, they will bestow their lining gratis vpon such
banished persons, so long as they continue amongst them
And doubtles if this mountaine were subiect vnto the
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 527
king of Fez, it would afifoord him yeerely for tribute sixe
thousand ducates : for it containeth nao then sixe hundreth
rich famihes.^'^*^
Of mo?i)it Merniza.
THis mountaine standeth iust by the former, the
inhabitants being endued with the same nobilitie,
Hbertie, and wealth, that the people of the former are
endued with. The women of this mountaine for any
light iniurie offered by their husbands, leauing foorthwith
their saide husbands and children, will depart vnto some
other mountaine, and seeke them newe paramours fit for
their humor. For which cause they are at continual!
warre one with another : neither will they be reconciled
till he that is last possessed of the woman pay her former
husband all such money as he spent in the solemnizing of
her marriage : and for this purpose they haue certaine
iudges, that make their poore clients spend almost all their
whole substance. ^"^
I
Of mount Haugustian.
T is an exceeding high and a cold mountaine, contain-
ing great store of springs, and abundance of vines
bearing blacke grapes, togither with plentie of figs, of
honie, and of quinces : howbeit the sweetest and fairest
quinces grow vpon a plaine at the foote of the hill. Like-
wise they are well stored with oile, and are free from all
tribute, and yet there is not one of them, but in token of a
thankefull minde will sende great gifts vnto the king of
Fez : hence it is that they may freely and securely traffique
with the people of Fez, of whom they buie great store of
corne, wooll, and cloth. They are most ciuilly and
decently apparelled, especially such as dwell vpon the
principall part of this mountaine, who are most of them
either merchants or artificers, and a great many of them
gentlemen.1^2
528 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Of Mount Beni ledir.
THis is a great and well peopled mountaine, but it
yeeldeth nought but grapes, whereof they vse to
make the foresaid Zibibbo and wines. The inhabitants
were in times past free from all tribute ; howbeit in regard
of their daily robberies and outrages committed against
other people, the gouernour of Bedis being aided with
some souldiers of Fez, subdued them all, and depriued
them of their libertie : in this mountaine there are about
fiftie farmes or granges, which scarcely pay fower hundred
ducates for tribute.^''^
T
Of Mount Lucai.
His mountaine is of a wonderfull height, and verie
difficult to ascend. The inhabitants are exceeding
rich, hauing great abundance of raisins, figs, almonds, oyle,
quinces, and pome-citrons : and dwelling but fine and
thirtie miles distant from Fez, they carrie all their fruits
and commodities thither. They are almost all gentlemen,
and verie proud and high minded, so that they would neuer
pay any tribute at all : for they know that their mountaine
is so fortified by nature, that it cannot easily be subdued :
here likewise all such as are banished out of Fez, except
onely adulterers, are friendly entertained : for the inhabi-
tants are so iealous, that they will admit no adulterers into
their societie. The king of Fez granteth them many
priuileges and fauours, in regard of the great commodities
which he reapeth out of their mountaine. ^^^
Of mount Beni Guazeuall.
THis mountaine is almost thirtie miles long, and about
fifteen miles broad : it is diuided into three parts,
and betweene this and the mountaines aforesaid run
certaine little riuers. The inhabitants are most valiant &
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 529
warlike people, but extremely oppressed and burthened
with exactions by the gouernor of Fez, who euery yeere
demaundeth of this mountaine for tribute eighteen thousand
ducates : the mountaine indeed aboundeth with grapes,
oliues, figs, and flaxe, whereby great summes of mony are
raised ; howbeit whatsoeuer they can gather goeth presently
to the gouernour of Fez, who hath his officers and receiuers
in the mountaine, which doe miserably oppresse and bribe
the inhabitants : in this mountaine are a great number of
villages and hamlets, that containe some an hundred, and
some two hundred families and aboue : of most expert &
trained soldiers they haue aboue fine & twentie thousand,
& are at continuall war with those that border vpon them.
But the king of Fez for those that are slaine on both parts
requireth great sums of mony, so that he gaineth much by
their dissensions. In this mountaine there is a certaine
towne indifferently well peopled, and furnished with all
kinde of artificers ; whereunto the fields belonging maruel-
lously abounde with grapes, quinces, and pome-citrons, all
of which are sold at Fez : here are likewise great store of
linnen weauers, and many iudges and lawyers. They haue
also a good market, whereunto the inhabitants of the
neighbour mountaines resort. Vpon the top of this
mountaine there is a certaine caue or hole that perpetually A cam- or hole
_ . that per pet II-
casteth vp nre. home woondermg greatly at the xx\dX\.ex,aiiy casteth
haue cast in wood, which was suddenly consumed to ashes :
I my selfe neuer saw the like miracle in any other place, so
that a great manie thinke it to be hell-mouth.^^^
Of mount BenigueriagJiell.
IT standeth neer vnto the mountaine last mentioned, and
yet the inhabitants of these mountaines are at con-
tinuall warre and discord. At the foot of this mountaine
there is a large plaine which extendeth to the territorie of
Fez, and through the same runneth that riuer which the
530 , THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
inhabitants call Guarga. This mountaine greatly aboundeth
with oyle, corne, and flaxe, for which cause here are great
store of linnen-weauers. The greatest part of al their
commodities is gathered for the kings vse, so that they
which otherwise would prooue exceeding rich, becom by
this meanes starke beggers, and that especially by reason
of the courtiers continuall extortions. They are people of
an ingenuous and valiant disposition. Souldiers they
haue almost tweluc thousand, and to the number of three-
score villages.^''^
Of mount Beni Achmed.
THis mountaine is eighteene miles long and seuen
miles broad. It is verie steepe and containeth many
waste deserts, and yeeldeth likewise great store of grapes,
oliues, & figs : howbeit the soile is not so apt for corne.
All the inhabitants are continually oppressed with the
exactions of the Fessan king. At the foote of this moun-
taine are diuers springs and small streames, the water
whereof is muddie and vnpleasant in taste, for in regard of
the nature of the sande or earth it tasteth of chalke.
There are many in this place, the balles of whose throte-
pipes are verie great and sticke farre out, like vnto those
abouementioned. All of them drinke pure wine, which
Wine that will \^q;xx\^ boylcd will last fifteene yeeres, howbeit they boyle
last fifteene
yeeres. not all their wine, but some they keepe vnboyled, and they
yeerely make great quantity of boiled wine, which they vse
to put in vessels, that are narrow at the bottome, and
broad at the top. They haue euerie weeke a great market,
where wine, oyle, and raisins are to bee sold. The people
of this mountaine likewise are extreme poore and beggerly,
as a man may coniecture by their apparell. They haue
had continuall and ancient quarrels among themselues,
which make them oftentimes fall together by the eares.^^^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 53 1
Of moitnt Beni leginesen.
THis mountaine bordereth vpon Beni Achmcd, &
stretcheth in length almost ten miles. And be-
tweene it and mount Beni Achmed runneth a certaine
small riuer. The inhabitants are too much addicted to
drunkennes, by reason that their wines are so excellent.
No fruits grow vpon this mountaine but onely great
abundance of grapes. Goates they haue which Hue con-
tinually in the woods, neither haue they any other flesh to
eate but goates-flesh. I my selfe had great acquaintance
with the inhabitants, by reason that my father had some
possessions vpon the mountaine : but he hardly got any
rents or money at their hands : for they are the woorst
paymasters that euer I knew.^''^
Of mount Beni Mesgalda.
THis mountaine bordereth vpon the mountaine last
mentioned, and vpon the riuer of Guarga. The
inhabitants make great store of liquid sope, for they know
not how to make hard sope. At the foote of this moun-
taine there is a large plane possessed by certaine Arabians,
who haue often combates with them of the mountaine.
They pay yeerly to the K. of Fez an huge summe of mony,
and it is a woonder to see with what new exactions they
are daily burthened. In this mountaine are many Doctors
of the Mahumetan lawe, and diuers inferior students : who
put the inhabitants to great damage. Themselues forsooth
will drinke wine, and yet they perswade the people that it
is vnlawfull for them to drinke it, albeit some do giue
them little credit. The inhabitants of this mountaine
pay in respect of others no great tribute, and that
perhaps, because they maintaine the foresaid Doctors and
students.'^'^^
532
THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Of mount Beni Guamud.
THis mouiitaine standeth so neere vnto the territorie of
Fez, that they are diuided onely by a riuer. All the
inhabitants make sope, out of which commoditie the king
of Fez reapeth sixe thousand ducates of yeerely tribute.
The villages of this mountaine are about five and twentie
in number. All the sides thereof bring foorth corne and
cattell in great abundance, sauing that they are sometimes
destitute of water. The inhabitants are verie rich and
Carrie all kinde of wares to Fez, where they gaine ex-
ceedingly by them. This mountaine yeeldeth nothing,
but is commodious for mans vse. From Fez it is almost
ten miles distant.^^*^
Of Caret, one of the seucn Prouinces of the Fessan
kingdome.
Auing described all the chiefe townes
and mountaines of the prouince of
Errife, it now remaineth that we say
somewhat of Caret, which is the sixt
Prouince of Fez. This Prouince be-
ginneth westward from the riuer
Melulo, and bordereth eastward vpon
the riuer Muluia ; southward it is enclosed with the moun-
taines next vnto the Numidian desert, and northward it
extendeth to the Mediterran sea. The bredth of this
region along the sea shore stretcheth from the riuer Nocor
to the foresaide riuer of Muluia : the southern bredth is
bounded with the riuer Melulo, & westward with the
mountaines of Chauz. The length of this Prouince is
fiftie, and the bredth fortie miles. The soyle is rough,
vntilled, and barren, not much vnlike to the deserts of
Numidia. The greater part hath beene destitute of in-
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 533
habitants, especially euer since the Spaniards tooke two of
the principall tovvnes in all the Prouince, as we will in
due place record. ^^^
Of the toivne of Meldain Caret.
THis great and ancient towne built by the Africans
vpon a certaine bay or hauen of the Mediterran
sea, containeth almost two thousand families. It was in
times past well stored with inhabitants, as being the head-
citie of the whole prouince. It had a great iurisdiction or
territorie belonging thereto, and collected great abundance
of yron and honie, whereupon the towne it selfe was called
Mellela, which word in their language signifieth honie. In
the hauen of this towne they fish for pearles, and get great
store of oisters wherein pearles doe breed. This towne
was once subiect vnto the Goths, but fell afterward into
the Mahumetans possession. The Goths being chased
thence, fled ouer to Granada, which citie is almost an
hundred miles distant, to wit, so farre as the bredth of
the sea is ouer.^^-^ In my time the king of Spaine sent a
great armie against this towne : before the arriual whereof,
the townesmen sent vnto the king of Fez for aide, who
making warre as then against the people of Temesna,
could send but small forces to succour them. Which the
townesmen being aduertised of, and fearing least their
small forces would prooue too weake for the Spanyards
great armada, they tooke all the bag and baggage that
they could carie, and fled vnto the mountains of Buthoia.^^^
Howbeit the captaine of the Fessan soldiers, both to be
reuenged vpon the townesmens cowardice, and also to
leaue nothing for the Spanyards to inioy, burnt downe all
the houses, temples, and buildings. This was done in the
yecre of the Hegeira 896, which was in the yeere of our
Lord 1487. But the Spanyards, for all they found the
citie so wasted, would not depart thereupon, but first built
534 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Meiieia a Strong castle, and afterward by little and little repaired
euioyed and re- . ,
edified by the the tovvne-wallcs, and by that meanes haue kept possession
Spaniards. -n i • i
thereof euen till this day. °*
T
Of the towne of Chasasa.
'His towne is from Mellela aboue twenty miles distant.
It hath beene a famous towne and strongly walled,
with a royall hauen belonging thereunto, which was yeerely
frequented by Venetian ships. The townesmen haue
alwaies had great traffique with the people of Fez, to the'
exceeding commoditie of them both. At length, while
the king of Fez was seriously imployed in the warres, Don
Ferdinmido king of Spaine came with great forces against
Chasasa iake?i it, and wan it very easily ; for the inhabitants being
ards'^ aduertised of the Spanyards approch, betooke themselues
wholy to flight
185
Of the towne of Tezzota.
IT standeth vpon an high grauelly hill almost fifteene
miles from Chasasa, and hath but a narrow passage to
ascend vp vnto it. Within the towne they haue no water
but onely out of one cesterne. The founders hereof are
reported to haue beene some of the familie of Beni Mar-in,
before they attained vnto great dominions, and in this
towne they laid vp their corne and other of their com-
modities. At that time were all the deserts of the region
adiacent void of danger, for the Arabians were not as yet
possessed of Garet : but after the familie of Beni Marin
began to flourish, they left this towne and all the region of
Garet vnto their neighbours, and went to inhabit better
prouinces. Howbeit in the meane season Joseph the sonne
of king lacob of the Marin-familie (I know not vpon what
occasion) in a manner vtterly destroied Tezzota : but after
the Christians were possessed of Chasasa, one of the king
of Fez his captaines being a valiant man and borne in
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 535
Granada, got licence of his prince to reedifie it againe.
The inhabitants of this reedified towne are Moores, and
are at continuall warre with the Christians of Chasasan.^^^
Of the tozvne of Meggeo.
THis little towne standeth vpon the top of an exceeding
high mountaine, being westward from Tezzota ten
miles, & almost 6. miles southward of the Mediterran sea.
Founded it was by the Africans, and is inhabited with
people of a noble and liberall disposition. At the foote of
this mountaine there are most fruitfull corne-fields. Like-
wise great store of iron is digged out of the mountaines Vron-mincs.
adioining. The gouernment of this towne was committed
vnto one of the blood-royall, namely of the familie of
Muachidin, whose father was not very rich, but being a
weauer, he taught his sonne the same occupation. After-
ward the valiant yoong man being aduertised of the
estate and nobilitie of his ancestors, left his loome, and
went to serue the king of Bedis, where he continued an
horseman for a certaine time : but because he was an
excellent musitian, the king loued him most intirely for his
skill in musick. A while after, the gouernour of Tezzota
requiring the kings aide against the Christians, this woorthie
yoong gentlemen with three hundred horsemen was sent
to succour him, who as he had valiantly behaued himselfe
oftentimes before, so now also he appeered to be a most
resolute commander. Howbeit the king regarded not his
valour so much as his excellent skill in musicke : which
the yoong gallant disdaining, went at length to Caret vnto
certaine gentlemen of his acquaintance there, who ioining
fiftie horsemen vnto him, appointed him gouernour of the
castle of Meggeo : and afterward he was so wel beloued by
all the inhabitants of the next mountaines, that each man
according to his abilitie pleasured and gratified him. At
length the gouernour of Bedis hauing assembled an armie
536 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
of three hundred horsemen and a thousand footmen, went
about to expell the foresaid yoong gouernour out of
Meggeo ; who presently with that small troupe which
he had, so valiantly encountred his enemies, that he put
them to flight, and so growing famous in regarde of his
manifolde victories, the king of Fez bestowed very large
reuenues vpon him (which he had giuen before-time
vnto the gouernours of Bedis) to the ende he might
wholy indeuour himselfe to expell the Spanyards out of
that region. And of this noble gouernour the Moores
learned great skill in warlike affaires. The king of Fez
hath now doubled his yeerely allowance, so that at this
present he hath two hundred horsemen at command, who
are of greater force then two thousand soldiers of any
other captaines thereabout.^^*"
Of mount EcJiebdeiiou.
THis mountaine extendeth from Chasasa eastward as
farre as the riuer Muluia ; and from the Mediterran
sea southward it stretcheth vnto the desert of Caret. The
inhabitants are exceeding rich and valiant ; and the moun-
taine it selfe aboundeth with honie, barlie, and all kinde of
cattel. Here are likewise great store of pleasant and
greene pastures. But since that Chasasa was taken by the
Spanyards, the people of this mountaine seeing that for
want of soldiers they were not able to withstande the
violence of their enimies, abandoned their owne mountaine,
burnt their houses, and fled vnto the mountaines next
adioining.^^^
Of mount Beni Sahid.
WEstward this mountaine extendeth almost to the
riuer Nocor, for the space of fower and twentie
miles. The inhabitants are rich, valiant, and liberal, and
entertaine all strangers with great courtesie and bountie.
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 537
They haue abundance of iron and of barlie ; and their pas-
tures are very commodious, abounding with store of cattell ;
and yet in those pastures are their iron-mines, where they
sometime lacke water ; neither pay they any tribute at ail.
Their houses that dig the iron arc not farre distant from
the iron-mines. This iron the merchants sell at Fez
in rude lumpes, because they vse not to frame it into
barres, neither indeede haue they the cunning so to frame
it. Also they make culters, spades, and such like tooles
of husbandrie, and yet their iron hath no Steele at all
in it.^=^^
T
Of mount Azgangan.
His mountaine beginning southward from Chasasa is
inhabited with most rich and valiant people : for
besides the great plentie of all things in the mountaine
it selfe, it hath the desert of Garet adioining vpon it. The
inhabitants of which desert haue great familiaritie and
trafifique with the people of the said mountaine : howbeit
this mountaine also hath remained void of inhabitants,
euer since the taking of Chasasa.^'^"
Of mount Bent Teuzin.
THe south part of this mountaine bordereth vpon the
mountaine last mentioned, the length whereof from
the desert of Garet to the riuer Nocor is almost ten miles ;
and on the one side thereof lie most beautifull & pleasant
plaincs. The inhabitants are all free, paying no tribute at
all, and that perhaps, because they haue more soldiers,
then Tezzota, Meggeo, and Bedis can aiToord. Moreouer
they are thought in times past so to haue assisted the
gouernour of Meggeo, that by their aide he attained vnto
that gouernment. They haue alwaies been great friends
with the people of Fez, by reason of that ancient familiari-
tie which they had, before Fez was gouerned by a king.
M M
538 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Afterward a certaine lawyer dwelling at Fez, who was
borne in this mountaine, so represented vnto the king the
said ancient familiaritie, that he obtained freedome for his
countrie-men. At length also they were greatly beloued
by the Marin-familie, perhaps bicause the mother of Abu-
Sahid the third king of the saide familie was borne of
noble parentage in the foresaide mountaine.^^^
Of mount Guardan.
THe north part of this mountaine ioineth vnto the
former ; and it stretcheth in length toward the
Mediterran sea twelue miles, and in bredth to the riuer of
Nocor, almost eight miles. The inhabitants are valiant
& rich. Euery Saturday they haue a great market vpon
the banke of a certaine riuer : and hither resort many
people from the mountaines of Garet, and diuers merchants
of Fez, who exchange iron and bridles for oile, for in these
mountaines grow great plentie of oliues. They haue little
or no wine at all, notwithstanding they are so neere vnto
mount Arif, where the people carouse wine in abundance.
They were for a certaine time tributarie to the gouernour
of Bedis, but afterward by the meanes of a learned
Mahumetan preacher, the king granted them fauour, to
pay each man so much tribute as themselues pleased. So
that sending yeerely to the king some certaine sum of
money, with certaine horses and slaues, they are put to no
further charo-e.^^-
'fc>^
Of the extreme part of the desert of Garet.
THe prouince of Garet is diuided into three parts : the
first whereof containeth the cities and townes, the
second the foresaide mountaines, (the inhabitants whereof
are called Bottoia) and the thirde comprehendeth the
deserts, which beginning northwarde at the Mediterran sea,
and extending south to the desert of Chauz, are bounded
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 539
westward with the fore.saide mountaines, and eastward
with the riuer of Muluia. The length of these deserts is
60. miles, and the bredth thirty. They are vnpleasant and
dry, hauing no water but that of the riuer Muluia. There
are many kinds of beasts in this desert, such as are in the
Lybian desert next vnto Numidia. In sommer time
many Arabians take vp their abode neere vnto the riuer
Muluia ; and so do another kinde of fierce people called
Batalisa, who possesse great abundance of horses, camels,
and other cattell, and maintaine continuall warre against
the Arabians that border vpon them.^^^
A description of Chans, the seuenth prouince of
the kingdome of Fez.
THis prouince is thought to comprehend the thirde part
of the kingdome of Fez. It beginneth at the riuer
Zha from the east, & extendeth westward to the riuer
Guruigara : so that the length thereof is an hundred fower-
score and tenne, and the bredth an hundred threescore and
ten miles :. for all that part of mount Atlas which lieth ouer
against Mauritania, ioineth vpon the bredth of this region.
Likewise it containeth a good part of the plaines and
mountaines bordering vpon Lybia.^''* At the same time
when Habdulach the first king of the Marin-family began
to beare rule ouer Mauritania and those other regions, his
kinred began also to inhabite this region. This king left
fower sonnes behinde him, whereof the first was called
Abubdar, the second Abuichia, the third Abiisahid, and the
fourth Jacob : this Jacob was afterward chosen king, bicause
he had vanquished Miiachidin the king of Maroco, & had
conquered the city of Maroco it selfe : the other three
brethren died in their nonage : howbeit before Jacob had
woon Maroco, the old king assigned vnto each of them
three, one region a peece. The other three parts were
diuided into seuen, which were distributed among the
540 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
fower kinreds of the Marin-family, and two other tribes or
famihes that were growen in great league with the same
family : insomuch that this region was accounted for three
regions. They which possessed the kingdome were ten in
number, and the regions onely seuen. The foresaid king
HabdulacJi was author of the saide partition, who left the
region of Chauz after his decease in such estate, as we will
foorthwith orderly describe.^^^
T
Of the towne of Teurcrto.
'His ancient towne was built vpon a mountaine by the
Africans not farre from the river Zha. The fields
hereof not being very large, but exceeding fruitfull, adioine
vpon a certaine dry and barren desert. The north part of
the same bordereth vpon the desert of Garet, and the south
vpon the desert of Adurha : eastward thereof lieth the
desert of Anghad, which is neere vnto the kingdome of
' orTremisseii. * Tclcnsin, and westward it is enclosed with the desert of
Tafrata, which bordereth likewise vpon the towne of Tezza.
This Teurerto was in times past a most populous and rich
towne, and contained about three thousand families : heere
also are stately palaces, temples, and other such buildings
to be scene. The towne wall is built of most excellent
marble. Euer since the Marin-familie enioied the westerne
kingdome of Fez, this towne was an occasion of great
warres : for the Marin-family woulde haue it belong to the
crowne of Fez : but the king of Telensin chalenged it as
his owne.^^*'
Of the tozvne of Haddagia.
THis towne was built by the Africans in manner of an
Isle, for it is enuironed with the river Mululo, which
not far from hence falleth into the riuer Muluia. It was in
times past a most populous & flourishing towne : but after
the Arabians became lords of the west, it fell by little and
IirSTORIE !)!• AFRICA. 54I
little to decay : for it bordereth vpon the desert of Dahra,
which is inhabited with most lewde and mischieuous
Arabians. At the same time when Teurerto was sacked,
this tovvne was vtterly destroyed also, whereof nothing
remaineth at this day but the towne wals onely.^^''
Of the casile of G arsis.
IT standeth vpon a rocke by the riuer Muluia, fifteene
miles distant from Teurerto. Here, as in a most impreg-
nable place, the familie of Beni Marin laid their prouision
of corne ; when as they inhabited the deserts. Afterward
it became subiect vnto AbiiJienan the fift king of the
Marin-familie. It hath no great quantitie of arable or
pasture ground belonging thereto : but it hath a most
pleasant garden replenished with grapes, peaches, and
figges, and enuironed on all sides with most thicke and
shadie woods, so that it is a paradise in respect of other
places thereabout. The inhabitants are rude and vnciuill
people, neither do they ought, but keepe such corne as the
Arabians commit vnto their custodie. If a man behold
the castle a farre off, he woulde thinke it rather to be a
cottage then a castle : for the wall being in many places
ruined, maketh shew of great antiquitie, and the roofe is
couered with certaine blacke stones or slates.^^'^
Of the toivne of Diibdii.
THis ancient tovvne was built by the Africans vpon an
exceeding high and impregnable mountaine, and is
inhabited by certaine people of the familie of Zeneta.
From the top of this mountaine diuers springs come
running into the towne. From this towne the next plaines
are distant almost fine miles, and yet they seeme to be but
a mile and a halfe off; for the way is very crooked and
winding. All the iurisdiction longing to this towne is
onely vpon the toppe of the mountaine, for the plaine
542 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
vnderneath is vnpleasant and barren ; except certaine
gardens on either side of a little riuer running b}' the foote
of the hill : neither haue the townesmen corne growing
vpon the same hill sufficient for their prouision, vnlesse
they were supplied with great store of corne from Tezza :
so that this towne was built for a fortresse onely by the
family of Marin, what time they were dispossessed of the
westerne kingdome. Afterward it was inhabited b}' a
certaine farnily called Beni Guertaggcn, who are lords of
the saide towne euen till this day. But when the Marin-
family were expelled out of the kingdome of Fez, the next
Arabians endeuoured to winne the towne : howbeit by the
aide of one Mose Ibnu Chainii, who was one of the saide
family, the Arabiane were so valiantly resisted, that they
concluded a truce with the people of Marin : and so Mose
Ibnu remained gouernour of the towne ; after whose death
his Sonne y^c7//ty/ succeeded him, who treading iust in his
fathers vertuous steps, kept the saide towne in great
tranquillitie euen till his dying day. After him succeeded
one Mahurnct, a man highly renowmed for his noble valour
and great skill in martiall affaires. This MaJmmet had
before time conquered many cities and castles vpon the
foote of the mount Atlas, southward whereof bordereth the
land of Numidia. But hauing gotten this towne in posses-
sion, he beautified it exceedingly with store of faire houses
and buildings : likewise he greatly altered and reformed
the gouernment of this towne ; and shewed such extra-
The great cur- ordiuaric curtcsic vnto al strangers, that he grew very
met toward* famous. Moreoucr the saide Mahiiinet consulted howe to
strangers. ^^^ Tczza from the king of Fez, & offered great matters to
the performance of his intent : and that he might the
easlier attaine his purpose, he determined to go to the
market of Tezza in a simple habite, and so to make an
assault vpon the captaine of the towne : for he hoped that
a great part of the townesmen, whom he knew to be his
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 543
friends, vvoulde assist him in that enterprise. Howbeit this
practise was at length discouered vnto the king of Fez
(which king was ca\led_^Sazc/i, and was the first of the
family of Ouattas, and father vnto the king that * now * 1526.
reigneth) who presently assembled an huge armie, and
marched of purpose against Dubdu, vtterly to destroy it :
and so comming vnto the foote of the mountaine he there
encamped. The people of the mountaine hauing gathered
an armie of sixe thousand men, hid themselues craftilie
behinde the rockes, suffering their enimies to ascende by
certaine difficult & streite passages, from whence they were
sure they could hardly escape, & so at length they brake
foorth on the sodaine & encountred their said enemies
being wearie of ascending ; and because the way was very
troublesome and narrow, the king of Fez his soldiers could
not endure their assaults, but being constrained to giue
backe, were moe then a thousand of them throwne downe
headlong and slaine. In this skirmish were slaine in all to
the number of three thousand Fessan soldiers : and yet the
king not being dismaied with so great an ouerthrow, pre-
pared foorthwith a band of fine hundred crossebowes, and
three hundred Harquebuziers, and determined to make a
newe assault vpon the towne. But Mahimet seeing that
he could no longer withstand the king, resolued to goe
himselfe vnto him, that he might, if it were possible,
obtaine peace, and to release his countrie from the furie
of the enemie. Wherefore putting on the habit of an
ambassadour, he went and deliuered a letter with his owne
hand vnto the king. Which the king hauing perused,
asked him what he thought concerning the gouernour of
Dubdu ? Mary I thinke (quoth Mahumef) he is not well
in his wits, in that he goeth about to resist your Maiestie.
Then said the king, if I had conquered him (as I hope to
doe within these few dales) I would cause him to be dis-
membred and tome in peeces. But what if he should
544 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
come hither (saith Mahumef) to submit himselfe, and to
acknowledge his ofifence ; might it then please the king to
admit him into fauour ? Then the king answered : I
sweare vnto thee by this my head, that if he will come and
acknowledge his fault in manner as thou hast said, I will
not onely receiue him into fauour, but will espouse my
daughters vnto his sonnes, and will bestowe most ample
and princely dowries vpon them. But I am sure, being
distraught of his wits (as thou hast said) that he will by no
meanes come and submit himselfe. Then said Mahiunet :
he would soone come (I assure you) if it pleased the king
to protest this for a certaintie vnto his nobles. I thinke
(said the king) it hath beene sufficiently protested and
affirmed, sithence I haue bound it with a solemne oath in
the presence of these fower ; for heere stande my chiefe
secretarie, the generall of my forces, my father in lawe, and
the chiefe iudge and patriarke of Fez ; the testimonie of
which fower may well satisfie you. Whereupon MaJiuviet
humblie falling at the kings feete : lo heere the man (quoth
he) that submissely acknowledgeth his fault, and craueth
the kings gratious pardon. With that the king himselfe
lifted him from the ground, embraced him, and saluted
him with friendly speeches. Then caused he both his
daughters to be called, which he bestowed vpon Mahiwiets
sonnes : all which being done, he remooued his armie from
that mountaine, and returned conquerour vnto Fez. This
was done in the yeere of the Hegeira 904. which was in
the yeere of our Lord 1495. And in the yeere of the
Hegeira 921. I my selfe was at the citie of Dubdu, where I
was most curteously entertained by the foresaid MaJnanet,
in regard of certaine letters of commendation which I
brought from the king of Fez and his brother. Neither
would he cease enquiring how all things passed at the king
of Fez his court.^'-'''
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 545
Of the citie of Teza or Tezza.
THis great, noble, and rich citie of Tezza was built by
the Africans, fine miles from mount Atlas, being
distant from Fez fiftie, from the Ocean an hundred and
thirtie, and from the Mediterran sea seuen miles, and
standing in the way from Garet to Chasasan. It contained
in times past about fine thousand families : the buildings
of this towne are not very stately, except noblemens
palaces, colleges, and temples, which are somewhat beauti-
full. Out of Atlas springeth a little riuer which runneth
through the chiefe temple of this citie : and sometimes it
falleth out, that certaine people bordering vpon the citie,
vpon some quarrell with the citizens will cut off this riuer
from the citie, and turne the course thereof some other way,
which breedeth great inconueniences vnto the citizens : for
then they can neither builde houses, nor get any water to
drinke, but onely corrupt water which they take out of
certaine cesternes, for which cause they are often con-
strained to make a league with those borderers. This
citie both for wealth, ciuilitie, and abundance of people is
the thirde citie of all the kingdome, and hath a greater
temple then that at Fez : heere are likewise three colleges,
with diuers bath-stoues, and a great number of hospitals.
Each trade and occupation hath a seuerall place in this
citie, like as they haue in Fez : the inhabitants are of a
more valiant and liberall disposition, then they of Fez :
heere are also great store of learned and rich men : and
the fieldes adiacent are exceeding fruitfull. Without the
citie wals are verie large plaines, and many pleasant
streames, that serue to water their gardens which are
replenished with all kinde of fruits : heere are abundance
of vines also yeelding verie sweete grapes, whereof the
lewes (being fine hundreth families) make excellent wine,
such as I thinke all Africa scarce affoordeth better. In this
546 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
towne standeth a faire castle, where the gouernour hath
his abode. The king of Fez assigned the gouerment of
this towne vnto his second sonne, being rather a meete
place for the kings owne residence, in regard of the
wholesome aire both in sommer and winter : heere were
the nobles of the Marin-family woont to remaine all
summer, both in respect of the holesomenes of the place,
and also that they might defend those regions from the
Arabians dwelling in the deserts : which Arabians resorted
yeerely to Tezza, to the end they might there furnish
themselues with victuals and other necessaries, and brought
dates thither from Segelmese to exchange for corne : the
citizens also receiued of the Arabians for corne great
summes of money, whereupon all of them in a manner grow
exceeding rich, neither are they annoied so much with
any inconuenience, as with durtie streetes in winter. I
my selfe was acquainted in this citie with a certaine aged
sire, whom the townesmen adored as if he had beene a
god : he was maruelous rich both in fruite, grounds, and
other commodities, which the people bestowed vpon him
in great abundance. The citizens of Fez vsed to come
fiftie miles (for so farre is Fez distant) onely to visite the
saide olde man. My selfe conceiued some great opinion of
this aged sire : but after I had scene him, I could finde no
such superexcellencie in him, saue onely that he deluded
the fonde people with strange deuises. The iurisdiction of
this citie is very large, containing diuers mountaines vnder
it, as we will foorthwith declare in order. '^^"^
Of mount Margara.
THis mountaine is very high & difficult to ascend, both
by reason of the vast deserts & the narrow passages,
and it is distant from Teza almost fiue miles : the top of
this hill is most fruitefull ground, and full of cleere foun-
taines : the inhabitants being burthened with no exactions,
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 547
gather yeerely great store of corne, flaxe. and oile : they
haue likewise abundance of cattell, and especially of
goates : neither doe they any whit regard princes. Hauing
vpon a day vanquished the king of Fez in battell, they
carried a certaine captaine of Fez taken prisoner vnto the
toppe of the hill, where in the kings owne presence they
put him to a most cruell, and miserable death : whereupon
the saide inhabitants haue beene at continuall discord with
the people of Fez : they haue almost a thousand soldiers,
and their mountaine containeth about fiftie villages and
hamlets.'^oi
Of mount Gauata.
THis mountaine being as difficult to ascende as the
former, standeth westward of Fez, almost fifteene
miles : both the sides and top of this mountaine are very
fruitefull for barly and flaxe : it is extended in length from
east to west eight miles, and in bredth about fine miles :
manie deserts here are, haunted with apes and leopards.
The greater part of the inhabitants are linnen weauers ;
people they are of a franke disposition, neither can they
till the fields adioining to their mountaine, by reason of
their continuall dissension with the king of Fez, vnto
whom they will pay no tribute nor custome at all, perhaps
because of the strong situation of their mountaine, & for
that it aboundeth with all things necessarie for mans
sustenance : so that albeit this mountaine were beseiged
ten yeeres together, yet could it by no meanes be woon ;
neither is it euer destitute of water, for thereupon are two
huge fountaines, which running downe into the plaine,
become the heads of two riuers.-*'"^
(9/ mojint Megesa.
THis mountaine also is somewhat difficult to ascend : it
is rough and full of woods, and yeeldeth little corne,
but great plentie of oliues. The inhabitants being most
54^ THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
part vveauers (for their soile yeeldeth good store of flaxe)
are in the warres right vaHant both on foote and horse-
backe. Their faces are white, and that perhaps for the
coldnes of the mountaine : neither doe these pay any
tribute at all. Here also the exiles of Fez and Teza haue
safe aboad, and albeit they haue great store of gardens
and vineyards, yet are they no wine-drinkers. Soldiers
they haue to the number of seuen thousand, and almost
fortie villages.-^^
Of mount Baronis.
THis mountaine standeth fifteene miles northward of
Teza. The inhabitants are rich and mighty, and
possesse great store of horses : neither doe they pay any
tribute at all. This hill aboundeth with plentie of corne,
fruits, and grapes, and yet they make no wine at all. Their
women are white and fat, and adorne themselues with
much siluer. In this place also they entertaine exiles, but
if any of them offer to haue familiaritie with their wiues,
they punish him most seuerely ; for of all iniuries they
cannot endure this."°*
Of the mountaine called Bent Gtierienage.
THis is an exceeding high and impregnable mountaine,
both in regard of the ragged rocks, and of the vast
desertes, being distant from Teza about thirtie miles.
This mountaine affoordeth great store of corne, flaxe,
oliues, pome-citrons, and excellent quinces. They haue
likewise all sorts of cattell in great abundance, except
horses and oxen. The inhabitants are valiant and liberall,
and as decently apparelled as any citizens. The villages
and hamlets of this mountaine are about thirtie fiue, and
the soldiers almost three thousand.-*^^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 549
Of mount Gueblen.
THis high, cold, and large mountaine contahieth in
length about thirty, and in bredth about fifteene
miles. Eastward it bordereth vpon the mountaine of
Dubdu, and westward vpon mount Beni-Iazga, and it is
distant from Teza almost fiftie miles southward. At all
times of the yeere the top of this mountaine is couered
with snowe. The inhabitants in times past were most
rich and valiant people, and liued in great libertie : but
afterward when they began to play the tyrants, the people
of all the mountaines adioyning hauing gathered great
forces, inuaded this mountaine, slew them euerie one,
and so burned and wasted their townes and villages, that
vnto this day it hath remained voide of inhabitants :
except onely a few, which detesting the cruel tyrannic of
their parents, conueied themselues and all their goods vnto
the top of the mountaine, where they liued an abstinent
and vertuous life ; wherefore these were spared, and their
posteritie remaineth in the mountaine till this present :
they are all learned and of honest conuersation, and well
esteemed of by the king of Fez : one of them in my time
being a very learned and famous old man was vsed by the
king of Fez, both about treaties of peace, and in other
serious affaires : and in this man the king reposed all his
confidence, as if he had beene some petie-god : for which
cause all the courtiers had him in great detestatiou--^*^
Of mount Beni lesseten.
THis mountaine is subiect vnto the gouernour of
Dubdu, being inhabited with most base and
beggerly people. Their houses are made of sea-rushes,
and so likewise are their shooes made of such rushes when
they trauel any iourney, whereby a man may coniecture
the miserable estate of this people. The mountaine
550
THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Iron-mines.
yeeldeth nought but panicke, whereof they make bread
and other victuals : but at the foote thereof are certaine
gardens replenished with grapes, dates, and peaches.
Their peaches they cut into fower quarters, and casting
away the nuts or stones, they drie them in the sunne, and
keepe them an whole yeere, which they esteeme for great
dainties. Vpon this mountaine are many iron-mines : and
they frame their iron in manner of horse-shooes, which
serueth them sometimes in stead of money, whereof they
haue great want in this mountaine, vnlesse the smithes by
their arte keepe this money in store : who, besides horse-
shooes, make certaine daggers with blunt points. Their
women weare iron-rings vpon their fingers and eares for a
great brauerie, but they are more basely apparelled then
the men, and remaine continually in the woods, both to
keepe goates, and to gather fewell. They haue neither
ciuilitie nor learning, but liue after a brutish manner
without all discretion and humanitie.-''^
Lions, leo-
pards, and
apes.
Of mount Selelgo.
THis v/oodie mountaine is full of pine-trees and foun-
taines. Their houses are not made of stone, but of
sea-rushes, so that they may easily be remooued from
place to place, which is very commodious to the inhabitants,
for euery spring they leaue the mountaine and descend
into the vallies, from whence about the end of May they
are expelled by the Arabians which inhabit the deserts :
who by reason of their abundance of goates and other
cattell, forsaking the said deserts, seeke vnto the fountaines
and moist places : but in winter, because their camels are
so impatient of cold, they resort vnto the woods, and
warme regions. In this mountaine are great store of lions,
leopards, and apes. And from the said mountaine runneth
a certaine streame of water with such violence, that I haue
seene a stone of an hundred pound waight carried with th^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 551
force thereof: and here Subu taketh his beginning, which
is the greatest riuer of all Mauritania.-*'*
Of mount Beni lasga.
THe inhabitants of this mountaine are rich, and ciuil
people : it standeth so neere the mountaine last
mentioned, that they are onely separated with the foresaid
riuer : and to the end they may the easilier passe from one
moutaine to another, they haue made a certaine strange
bridge in the midst, and that in manner following : on A woonderfui
■ 1 • , • bridge.
either side stand certame postes, through the which runneth
a rope vpon a truckle or pulley, vnto which rope is fastened
a great basket, that will containe ten persons, and that in
such sort, that so often as they will passe ouer to the
opposite mountaine, they enter into the basket, and
drawing the rope whereon it hangeth, they are easily
carried aloft in the aire ouer the river by the helpe of the
foresaid pulleys, but somtimes with great hazard of their
hues, especially if the basket or the rope be worne in any
place : yea and the distance of place is often an occasion of
great terrour. In this mountaine there is great store of
cattel, but little wood. It aboundeth likewise with most
excellent fine wooll, whereof their women make cloth
comparable vnto silke, which is solde at Fez for a great
price. Here also is great plentie of oile. The king of
Fez is lord of this mountaine, the yeerely tribute whereof
amounting wel nigh to eight thousand duckats, is paid to
the gouernour of old Fez.^^^
fc>^
Of mount Asgan.
THis mountaine bordring eastward vpon Selelgo, west-
ward vpon mount Sofroi, southward vpon the
mountaines by the riuer Maluia, and northward vpon the
territorie of Fez, containeth in length fortie, and in bredth
about fiftcene miles. It is of an exceeding height, and so
552 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
intolerably cold, that onely that side therof is habitable
which looketh towards Fez. It aboundeth greatly with
oliues and other fruites : and from thence also run great
store of fountaines into the plaines and fields adiacent,
which are most fruitfull for barlie, flaxe and hempe. In
my time there were abundance of mulberie-trees planted
vpon this plain e, which beare white berries, and bring
foorth silke-wormes. The inhabitants in winter dwell in
most base cottages. Their water is most extremely cold :
insomuch that I my selfe knew one, who with drinking
onely a cup thereof, suffered most intolerable gripings and
tortures in his bowels for three moneths after.-^*'
Of the towne of Sofroi.
THis towne being situate at the foote of mount Atlas,
and standing about fifteene miles southward of Fez,
almost in the way to Numidia, was built by the Africans
betweene two riuers, on either sides whereof grow great
abundance of grapes and all kinde of fruites. The towne for
fine miles compasse is enuironed with oliue-trees : but the
fieldes are apt onely for hempe and barlie. The inhabitants
are very rich, notwithstanding they goe in meane apparell,
and greazie with oile, the occasion whereof is in that they
carie oile vnto Fez to sell. There is no memorable thine in
all their towne, saue onely a certaine temple, through the
midst whereof runneth a large riuer, and at the doores
standeth a fountaine of most pure water. Howbeit the
greatest part of this towne is fallen to decay by the negli-
gence of one of the kings brothers that now raigneth, & is
ruined in many places.-^^
Of the towne of Mesdaga.
THis towne being situate likewise at the foote of Atlas,
and standing about eight miles westward of Sofroi,
is compassed with a faire wall, and albeit the houses
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 553
thereof are but meane, yet euery one hath a fountaine
of cleere water belonging vnto it. Most of the inhabitants
are potters, because they haue such abundance of porcel- Porceiian.
Ian earth, whereof they make great store of earthen vessels,
and send them to be sold at Fez, from whence they are but
twelue miles distant southward. Their fields are most
fruitfull for barlie, flaxe, and hempe : and they gather
yeerely great abundance of figs, and of other fruits. In
the forrests about this towne, as also about the former, are
maruellous store of lions, being not very hurtfull, for any
man may driue them away with a little sticke.'-^^
Of the towne of Bent Bahlul.
THis little towne standing vpon the side of Atlas
towards Fez, is distant from Fez about twelue miles,
not farre from the high way leading to Numidia. Through
the midst of this towne run certaine little riuers from the
next mountaine, neither doth it differ much in situation
from Mezdaga, sauing that the south frontier thereof is
ful of woods, whereout the inhabitants get timber and
fewell, and carrie it vnto Fez to be solde. They are
oppressed with continuall exactions of courtiers and
others, neither haue they any ciuilitie at all among
them.213
Of the towne called Ham Lis nan.
THis towne built by the Africans vpon a certaine
plaine enuironed with mountaines, in the way from
Sofroi to Numidia, borrowed the name thereof from the
fountaine of an idoll, vpon the occasion following. At the
same time while the Africans were as yet idolaters, they
had a temple standing neere vnto this towne, whither at
certaine times of the yeere resorted in the night great
multitudes of people both men and women : where hauing
ended their sacrifices, they vsed to put out their lights, and
N N
554 THE THIRD noOKE OF TFH^:
euerie man to commit adulterie with that woman which
hee first touched. But the women which were present at
this abominable sport, were forbidden to lie with any man
for a yeere after : and the children begotten in the saide
adulterie, were kept and brought vp by the priest of the
temple, as being dedicated to sacred vses. In the same
temple there was a fountaine which is to be scene at this
day : but neither the temple it selfe, nor any monument
or mention of the towne is remaining, because they were
vtterly demolished by the Mahumctans.-^*
Of the towne of MaJidia.
THis towne being situate vpon a plaine, betweene
mount Atlas, and certaine woods and riuers, is
about ten miles distant from the former. The founder
thereof was a certaine Mahumetan preacher of that nation,
which was borne in the next mountaine : and it began to be
built at the same time when the familie of Zeneta were lords
of the Fessan kingdome. But when king loseph of the Lun-
tune family got possession of the said kingdom, this towne
was so wasted and destroyed, that the beautifull temple with
some part of the towne wall was onely left standing, and
the inhabitants became tributarie to the king of Fez : this
was done in the yeere of the Hegeira 515.'-^"
Of Sahblel Marga, that is, The plaine of the
valiant man.
THis plaine containeth in length fortie, and in bredth
almost thirtie miles, neere vnto it are certaine
mountains which border vpon mount Atlas : and in these
mountaines are waste deserts ful of goodly timber : here
are likewise a great number of cottages inhabited with
colliers for the most part, who carrie abundance of coales
from the saide mountaines to Fez. The lions that are
here doe so haunt the poore colliers, that sometimes they
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 555
deuour them. From hence likewise are carried to Fez
store of excellent and great beames of timber. All the
plaine is so barren and drie, that it will scarce bring foorth
any good thing at all.-^''
Of the plaine called Asg-arl Camaren.
THis plaine is also inuironed around with woodie
mountaines, being a kinde of medowe-ground, for
it is couered all ouer with most pleasant herbes and grasse:
wherfore in the sommer time they vse to keepe their cattell
heere, and' to defend them with high and strong hedges
from the fury of the lions.-^''
Of mount Centoposzi.
Pon this high mountaine are great store
of most ancient buildings, neere vnto
the which there is a hole or drie pit
of so great a depth that the bottome
thereof can in no wise be scene. Into
this pit some mad fellowes will haue
themselues let downe by ropes, carry-
ing a candle or torch in their hands : and beneath they say
it is diuided into manie roumes, and as it were chambers ;
and last of all they come to a most large place hewen out
of the rocke with instruments, and compassed about as it
were with a wall, in which wall are fower doores which
lead to other more narrow places, where they say that
fountaines of springing water are. And sometimes it
falleth out that some miserably ende their Hues here : for
if their lights chaunce to be blowen out with anie sudden
blast of wind, they can by no meanes finde the place
where the rope hangeth, but are there constrained to die
for extreme famine. It was told me by a certaine noble-
man of Fez, that there were ten persons, who being desirous
to see the woonders of this pit, and being prepared for the
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556 THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
same purpose, went first three of them downe, who when
they were come to the foresaid fower doores, two of them
went one way, and the third went alone another way. And
being thus diuided, after they had proceeded almost a
quarter of a mile, there came great swarmes, of bats flying
about their lights, insomuch that one light was put out ; at
length being come to the springing fountaines, they found
there certaine white bones of men, and fiue or sixe candles,
whereof some were new, and others were olde and worne
with long lying there : but hauing found nothing but
water in the said fountaines, they returned backe againe the
same way as they came : and they had scarce gone halfe
way, but their other light also was blowen out with a
sudden blast. Afterward seeking earnestly vp and downe,
and being wearie of manie falles that they caught among
the rockes, they found that there was no hope of returne :
wherefore in this desperate case committing themselues
with teares into the hands of God, they vowed, if they once
escaped this danger, neuer to aduenture any more. They
that stood at the caues mouth being ignorant of their
companions mishappe expected their returne, and hauing
staide ouer long, at length they let downe themselues by
the rope, and began with lights to seeke their fellowes,
making a great noise, and at length found them heauie and
sad. But the third who was wandring vp and downe those
darke places, they could by no meanes finde, wherefore
leauing him, they returned foorth of the caue. And he
that was left behinde heard at length a noise like the
barking of little dogs, and shaping his course toward them,
he found immediately fower strange, and (as it should
* The beast sccmc) ncw-bome beasts, after which followed the *damme
calltd Dabah.
being not much vnlike to a shee-woolfe, sauing that she
was bigger : wherefore he began exceedingly to feare ;
howbeit there was no danger, for being about to flee, the
beast came towards him, fawning gently vpon him with her
IIISTORIE OF AFRICA. 557
taile. And so at length, after long seeking, he found the
holes mouth with great ioy, and escaped the danger. For
within a while he saide that he began to see some glimmer-
ing of light, as they do which haue long bin in the darke.
But after a certaine time this caue was filled with water vp
to the top.-is
Of the viountaine of rauens, called Cunaigel Gherben.
THis mountaine standeth verie neere the former, and is
full of woods and lions. Here is no citie, nor any
other place of habitation, perhaps by reason of the extreme
coldnes of the place. From this mountaine runneth a
certaine little riuer : and here is a rocke of an exceedino-
height, whereupon keepe infinit swarmes of crowes and
rauens, which some thinke to haue beene the occasion of
the name of this mountaine. Sometime the terrible
northerly windes bring such abundance of snow vpon this
mountaine, that such as trauell from Numidia towards Fez
loose their Hues thereby, as hath beene signified in the
first booke. Euerie sommer the Arabians next inhabiting-,
beeing called Beni Essen, vsually resort vnto this moun-
taine, in regard of the coole water and pleasant shadowes,
notwithstanding they knowe it to be haunted with great
store of lions and leopards.-^*^
Of the towne of Tezerghe.
THis little towne was by the Africans built in manner
of a fort vpon the side of a small riuer which
runneth by the foote of the foresaid mountaine : both the
inhabitants and their houses are most base and destitute of
all ciuilitie. Their fields being enuironed with the moun-
taines adioyning, bring foorth some small quantitie of
barley and peaches. The inhabitants are all subicct vnto
certaine Arabians called Deuil Chusein.-o
55^ THE THIRD BOOKE OF THE
Of the towne called Vvien Giunaibe.
THis auncient towne beeing destroyed by the Arabians
was situate about twelue miles from Tezerghe vpon
the south side of Atlas. It is so dangerous a place by
reason of the often inuasions of certaine Arabians, that
none almost dare trauell that way. There lyeth a way
neere this towne, which a man may not passe without
dauncing and leaping, vnlesse he will fall into an ague :
the certaintie whereof I haue heard many auouch.^-i
Of mount Beni Merasen.
THe inhabitants of this exceeding high and colde
mountaine haue great plentie of horses and asses '■
here are store of mules likewise, which carie wares vp and
downe without either bridle or saddle. Their houses are
built not with walles of stone, but of rushes. The people
are very rich, and pay no tribute to the king, perhaps
in regard of the strong situation of their mountaine.-^
Of mount Mesettaza.
THis mountaine extendeth in length from east to west
almost thirtie miles, and twelue miles in bredth.
The west part thereof adioineth vpon the plaine of Edecsen,
which bordereth vpon Temesna. It is like vnto the fore-
said mountaine, both in regard of the inhabitants, and
also for plentie of horses and mules. At Fez there are
great store of learned men which were borne in this moun-
taine : they pay no tribute at all, but onely send the king
such gifts as themselues please.-'^
Of the mountaines of Ziz.
THese mountaines are thought to haue borrowed their
name from a certaine riuer springing out of them.
Eastward they begin at Mesettaza, and extend westward
to the mountaines of Tedla and Dedis, southward they
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 559
border vpon that part of Numidia which is called Segel-
messe, and northward vpon the plaines of Edecsen and
Guregra : in length they containe an hundred, and in
bredth almost fortie miles : in number they are fifteene,
being extremely cold and difficult to ascend, and sending
foorth many streames of water. The inhabitants are
called Sanaga, and are men most patient of all boisterous
and cold weather. They weare but one coat at all seasons
of the yeere, ouer which they cast a kinde of cloke or
mantle : their legs and feete they wrap in certaine clothes
as it were in swathing bands, and they goe at all times
bare-headed. In this mountaine are great store of mules,
asses, and other cattell, but very few deserts. The inhabi-
tants are a most lewd and villanous generation, being
wholy addicted to theft and robberie. They are at
continuall dissension with the Arabians, and practise daily
mischiefes and inconueniences against them, and to the
end they may prouoke them to greater furie, they will
sometimes throwe their camels downe headlong from the
top of some high mountaine.-'^ In these mountains there
happeneth a certaine strange and incredible matter, for
there are serpents so familiar with men, that at dinner- Domestkaiand
tame serpents.
time they will come like dogs & cats and gather vp the
crums vnder the table, neither wil they hurt any body,
vnlesse they be offered some iniurie.--^ The walles of their
houses are made of chalke, and the roofes are couered with
thatch. There are also another kinde of inhabitants in
these mountaines, who possesse more droues of cattell
then the former, and dwell for the most part in cottages
made of rushes. And these carrie vnto Segelmese butter
and wool to be sold, but at that time only when the
Arabians inhabite the deserts, for it often falleth out
that they are encoUtred by them, & spoiled of their goods.
These people are most valiant warriours, for they will fight
euen to the last gaspe, rather then be taken of their
56o HISTORIE OF AFRICA.
enemies : they carrie fower or fiue iauelins about with
them, wherewith they know right well how to defend
themselues from the enemie. They fight alwaies on foote,
neither can they be vanquished but with a great number
of horsemen, and they vse to carrie swords and daggers
with them also. In my time they obtained safe conduct
of the Arabians, and the Arabians of them likewise, which
was a cause, that the merchants of both partes trauelled
more securely.^-*^
Of the towne of Gerseluin.
THis ancient towne was built by the Africans at the
foote of one of the foresaid mountaines, nor farre
from the riuerof Ziz. It is enuironed with an impregnable
and stately wall, the founder whereof was a certaine king
of the Marin-familie. In regard of the walles and bul-
warks it is a most beautifull towne. But being once
entred thereinto, you shall see most base and beggerly
houses, and scarce any inhabitants dwelling in them, and
that by the iniurie of certaine Arabians, who when they
reuolted from the Marin-familie, tooke this towne and
grieuously oppressed the citizens. Their drie and barren
fields He open to the north. Vpon the riuer are diuers
mils, and by the side thereof are many gardens replenished
with grapes and peaches, which they vse to drie in the
sunne, and to keepe an whole yeere. They haue great
scarcitie of cattell, which causeth them to Hue a most
miserable life. This towne was built by the familie of
Zeneta in stead of a fort, to the end it might be a place of
refuge onely in their iournie to Numidia, but afterward it
was surprised and vtterly destroied by the familie of Lun-
tuna. Here also are great store of such domesticall
serpents, as we reported to be in the mountaines of
Ziz.227
Here endeth tJie third booke.
NOTES TO BOOK III.
(i) The provinces of the Empire have changed since Leo wrote,
and, indeed, are still frequently altered. Those of the old kingdom of
Fez at the present time are, El-R'arb or Gharb, El-Rif, Bene-Hasan,
Tamesna or Temsna, Chavia, Fez, and Tadla, besides several districts
which, owing to various circumstances, are often of almost equal
importance to the province. The term " R'arb" (or West) is familiarly
applied to all Fez ; that is, the country bounded by the sea, the Alge-
rian frontier, the Um er-Rbia, the R'arb el-Isar or North, and the
R'arb el-Imen or South, being separated by the Sebu River,
" The certaine Mahumetan aposteta" (certo rubello e scismatico), as
in his new-born zeal Leo describes the founder of the holy city of Fez,
was no apostate, but the sainted Idris, whose green-tiled mosque is
the most sacred spot in the city. The Edrisite dynasty lasted in
reality from A.D. 172-375 (a.d. 788-985), or 203 Mohammedan years,
which are those by which Leo sometimes reckons. The genealogy of
Idris from the prophet is as follows : —
All, Mohamed's son-in-law and nephew.
' ' >
Hasan. Housein.
Said Hasan, father of thirteen sons
I and four daughters.
Abdallah, and other children.
I
Ibrahim. Mohammed. Musa. Yahia. Idris. Ali. Suleiman.
Arabic MS., No. 853, in the Bibliotheque National, Paris. Silvestre
de Sacy, Chrestomathie arabe, t. i, n. 63.
(2) These details Leo seems to have taken from Ibnu-Rakuk ; but
the early history of Morocco is so confused and vague that many ver-
sions exist regarding these events. Mahdis were always springing up.
The entire history of Islam is lurid with the atrocities of the followers
of these ambitious fanatics. Thus, in the Roudh el-Kartas (p. 131), a
Muezzin (caller to prayer) of the neighbourhood of Tlemsen, obtained
a great many proselytes to his novel doctrines until the " King of
Andalus" (Spain), having vainly endeavoured to persuade him to
abjure his heresies, condemned the Mahdi to be crucified (a.h. 237,
A.D. 831).
5^2 NOTES TO EOOK III.
In A.H. 325 (a.d. 936) a man named Hamyn proclaimed himself a
prophet, and after converting many of the Rif mountaineers was cruci-
fied at the Masmuda Ksor, as a promulgator of false doctrine, and his
head sent to Cordova, when his sectaries all returned to orthodoxy.
But although the date and name of this adventurer are much the same
as " Chenmen", he could not be the same person.
The King whom Yusuf Ibn Tasfu overthrew was Moennasir, a
descendant of Ziri ben-Atiya, who, in the turmoil of the troubles
between the Fatemites and Omiades, consequent on Abu Abd-Allah
(el-Mahdi) introducing the Shiite doctrines, had, about a.h. 384 (a.d.
994), founded a dynasty in place of the Edrisites. The Almoravides
destroye.d all of these petty Berber principalities after the ruthless
fashion described by Leo. Kennun was an Edrisdite prince, and the
various Temem or Temmans are not to be identified with Chemem
ben Mennal, the prophet, who divided Fez with the descendants of
Edris. Leo's narrative is in places very confused.
Al Bekri speaks of Saleh, son of Tarif, being the founder of the
dynasty or religious sect of the Baraghwatta, who reigned in Tamesna
and along the coast about Sallei, Azamor, &c., from the beginning of
the second to the middle of the fourth century of the Hegira. (MS.
in British Museum, No. 9,577, fol. 90. Quatremere. Notices ctExtraits,
etc., vol. vii, pp. 552 et seq. Al Makkari, vol. i, pp. 33-4.)
Thecolony of Tunisian Arabs which Leo mentions Yakub el-Mansur
having planted in Temesna, was bought after his expedition against
Kassa and other revolted places in a.d. 1186 (a.h. 582).
(3) Anfa, Anasna, or Anafe, or Abca (according to Marmol), is the
modern Dar al-beida, or Casa blanca ; both meaning the same, viz.,
the one in Arabic, the other in Spanish, " White House". But though
an ancient Berber town, it was assuredly not built by the Romans,
or, as Marmol asserts, one of the cities founded by Hanno. Edrisi
mentions Anfa as a frequented port {Edrisiz Africa, ed. Hartmann,
p. 168), and Abu-1-feda notes it, under the same name, as one of the
well-known ports of Tamesna.
During the decadence of the Beni-Marini dynasty, Anfa, like Liffi
and Sallee, became a kind of rude republic, flourishing enough to
send piratical vessels as far as the Tagus. The Portuguese, therefore,
utterly destroyed it in 1468, and though they attempted to rebuild the
place in 15 13, the opposition met with by Antonio de Lenares com-
pelled him to withdraw his large fleet, army, and workmen, after a
battle which ended so very like a rout that it is not permitted a very
prominent place in the Portuguese annals. Leo describes the ruined
condition in which it lay at the time he saw it, and up to near the close
of last century it was nothing but a heap of rubbish, with a few
wretched huts and fragments of walls, ever now and again overturned
NOTES TO BOOK III. 563
by the treasure-seekers. Mulai Mohammed, the great building Sultan,
began to re-erect the houses, and it is from his reign that it obtained
the name of the "White House". Mulai Abd er-Rahman continued
his grandfather's work, until Dar al-Beida(a name only seen in official
reports) is now, with the exception of Tangier, the busiest, if not the
best port of Morocco, being the chief outlet for the maize and wool-
growing country behind.
Anise-seed {anas/ia) also grows plentifully in the vicinity ; hence,
possibly, the old native name. But every obstacle is put in the
Europeans' way. There are many vacant gardens and other spots
inside the walls ; but in case the foreigners get too good a hold on the
place, and cause complication, building material is not permitted to
pass the gates, and the export-duty on maize is 105 per cent. Leo's
description is very inaccurate ; for apart from his random shot at the
Romans being the founders, it is not 60 miles north ofAtlas, or3o
east of Azamor.
" Melons and pome-citrons" are in the original " mellone e citri-
nola", melons and cucumbers ; perhaps pumpkins. "The Island of
Cadiz, or of the Portugals", "Isola di Calice a tutta la riviera di
Portogallo". Cadiz is on a peninsula, not on an island. The old
Italian name was " Calix", and in English it used to be known as
" Cales".
(4) According to Ibn Khaldun (a.d. 1332- 1406), followed by Leo,
built by Yakub el-Mansur (a.d. 1163-1184). But that is mere tradition
suggested by the name, and there is nothing to show that it might not
have been of a later date. In Chenier's day it was nothing but "a
wretched castle". Rohlfs evidently expected to see a town ; but in
reality the place was never more than the fort built on a kind of forti-
fied " Nzla", or resting-place, where travellers could pass the night with-
out danger from the robbers infesting the country around ; though, no
doubt, a few houses of people interested in doing business with the
wayfarers gathered around it. The Kasbah Mansur, on the little
Wad Mansur (Le oi "Guir"==Gir, a common name for rivers among
the Berbers), or Wad en-Nfifek (the swelling river) on Renou's map,
is now about all that remains ; yet in Mulai el-Yezid's time, El-Man-
suria was still used for its original purpose. (Ezziani, Ettordjemdn
El vidarib^ etc., pp. 164, 176.)
(5) Nuchaila, or Nucheyla, consisted, in Leo's day, of nothing more
than a mosque tower, all the rest having been destroyed in the devas-
tation with which Yakub el-Mansur visited Temesna (note 2). Nothing
is now known regarding it. Even in Marmol's time it was no more
en evidence^ by description, than a mere copy of Leo's. The name may
be " Nkhei'la", a place so called still existing on the Wad Zgid, in the
5^4 NOTES TO BOOK III.
Dra Basin, to which, not improbably, the survivors of the Temesna
town fled.
(6) Leo describes its position too loosely for its site to be indicated ;
but as it was destroyed in the course of Yakub el-Mansur's peace-
making, when all Temesna was turned into a desert, and four centuries
ago consisted of nothing more than a few ruins, it is unlikely that its
site could now be traced. Marmol hazards the opinion, probably
from its Latin-sounding name, that it had been built by the Romans.
There are several tribal fractions in the Sus Basin called "Aderdur".
The " vr Adendun" may have been the real name of " Aderdun", a
Berber word signifying " resounding". The latitude indicated is too
far north for the date-palm to ripen, and much of the country in that
direction is ferruginous in hue.
(7) Tegeget, or Tegegilt, of Marmol. It was razed with the pre-
ceding towns, but seemed to have attracted a few inhabitants, engaged
in smith work for the neighbouring farmers. " Teg", or " Tag", forms
the first portion and last of Berber tribal names ; but if anythmg now
remains of it, the village must be unimportant. It is perhaps Tezezat,
a place said to be near the Um er-Rbia.
(8) Hain el-Challu, which may perhaps be more correctly written
'Ain el-Kallu, "the Kallu Spring"— " Ain", as it forms part of many
Berber names, always meaning this. In Leo's day it seems to have
been utterly effaced, though it is not impossible that Ain Sbah, south
of Masurea, marks its site.
The common Morocco toad, which Leo seemed to be amazed at not
finding venomous, is Bufo Maiiretanica; but he probably means the
common frog, Rana esculenta. The fruit seems a Primus, but the
species is not known to me, and is equally strange to my Moroccan
correspondents.
(9) " Rabato", in the original. " Not many yeeres ago" (ne tempi
moderni) must, like "grandissima" applied to Rabat, be taken in a
comparative sense. For, actually, according to the best authorities,
the author of the Roudh el-Kartas and Abd el-Wahed Merakeshi
among the most important, it was begun by Yakub el-Mansur about
the year 1190 A.D., or more than four centuries before Leo wrote.
Abu-1-feda, however, apparently on the dubious second-hand authority
of Ibn-Said, and others copying him, affirms that Abd el-Mumen was
the builder of " Rabath el-Fath", which he laid out on the model of
Iskandariyyah (Alexandria). He also mixes it up with EI-Mahadiyyah,
or Mahdiyyah, which M. Solvet, who favours Abd el-Mumen's claims as
founder, imagines to be another name for Rabat, and to refer to Abd
el-Mumen's title of Mahdi. But all this is erroneous. As M. Fagnan
NOTES TO BOOK III. 565
points out in a learned note (which is nevertheless not without
geographical and historical errors) the Mahadiyyah is Marmora, or
Mehedia, near the south side of the Sebu mouth, south of old Marmora,
the original Mehedia. But this fort to defend the entrance to the
river was erected, not by Abd el-Mumen, but by Yakub el-Mansur,
while the modern Marmora is much more recent — much after the date
which Marmol (who on the authority of Abdul- Malik attributes the
foundation of Rabat to Abd el-Mumen, by whom it was named
Mehedia), and subsequent commentators, assign to Rabat. It is,
however, quite possible that Abd el-Mumen had a palace here, and he
began a castle finished by El-Mansur. Indeed, in the Roudh el-
Kartas, which expressly attributes the building of Rabat to Yakub el-
Mansur, there are mentions (pp. 273, 286, etc.) of Abd el-Mumen coming
to " Rabat el-Fath", though he seems always to have encamped at
Sallee, which he had to subdue. This throws some doubt on the
origin of the name of " Rabat el-Fath" having been due to El-Mansur
(p. 401). Hence, also, perhaps the confusion regarding the founders.
But M. Fagnan is in error when he says that El-Bekri (tran. p. 202),
Edrisi (ed. Hartman, pp. 163, 167, etc.), and " Ibn Haukal" (p. 57),
alone mention the ancient Sheila without examining the other
quotations ; and in Ousley's edition of Ibn Haukal there is no mention
of Sheila. Edrisi directly mentions Sala el-Haditsah (New Sala),
which can only be Rabat, unless "old .Sallee" is intended. (.'')
Reinaud (ed. Abu-1-feda, t. ii, pp. 174, 183) without, however, giving
any authority, considers the existence of " Rebath-alfath" anterior by
two hundred years to Abd el-Mumen, that is, sometime in the tenth
century of the Christian era. This statement is in contradiction to so
many other precise data, that it may be dismissed without much
compunction. — Fagnan, Histoire des Alniohades {Revue Africaine,
1893, p. 235) ; Abu-1-feda (ed. Solvet, pp. 15, 45, 46, 165, 166) ; Roudh
el-Kartas, pp. 324, etc.).
Its full name is Ribat el-Fath, " the camp of victory", having been —
so the tradition is — with the Tower of Hassan in the vicinity (/^/zV//rcz),
erected in commemoration of El-Mansur's victory over the Christians
at Alarcos, and also as a convenient place to keep watch over Spain.
And as it was on the other side of the river from Sallee, it was
commonly known as Sla-Jedid, the New Sallee. The preceding facts>
however, throw some doubt on this.
But when we speak of " Arab" structures, either in Spain or Morocco,
at the time that Rabat was reared, Arab money and the liberality of
Arab or Berber kings should be understood. For the architects were
often Jews or Christians, and frequently Moslem-cultured Sara-
cenic artists, brought from Egypt and the most distant parts of Islam-
On Rabat and Shellah, for instance, tradition has it that 40,000
Spanish Christian slaves were employed, with the stimulus of obtaining
566 NOTES TO BOOK III.
freedom when the task was done, and the liberty of selecting a district
for themselves. In defiance of his Minister's advice that such a
colony would be dangerous, El-Mansur kept his word, and established
the free men in the mountain region east of Fez, where, so runs the
legend, they tried for a time to preserve their faith and language.
But, marrying Moslem wives and having no priests, in three centuries
the Shabanats (as they were called, from the emigration taking place
in the month called Shaban) lost both their faith and their language,
and became indistinguishable from the tribes around them in manner,
language, or religion, and were often at war with Mulai er-Rashid
and other Sultans of Fez. The Fazees are still very fair, though this
may be attributed to the influx of European blood through European
slaves. Gothic slaves, no doubt, had their share in this ethnic fact,
though it is difficult to credit the legend mentioned to the full extent
it has taken. A second tale regarding the building of Rabat is less
complim.entary to all concerned. For — -the story runs — many of the
Christian slaves having been detected making the roofs so flimsy that
they fell upon their taskmasters, were decapitated at the iron gate.
The Rabat Kasbah has a beautiful gate. The Kasbah quarter has
also a different government, and is inhabited by the Udaih, a distant
tribe whose original home is said to be beyond Timbuctoo, their colo-
nisation here being, no doubt, in the early days of the foundation of
Rabat, for the purpose of acting as a garrison not likely to form an
alliance with the native tribes around them. The Jews say that they
were offered this quarter as a Mellah, but preferred the eastern portion
of the town as better fitted for business. (MS. note by the late Cap-
tain F. P. Warren, R.N.)
Rabat, another etymology, makes a place to make fast to, an
anchorage, or perhaps a (water) camp; and the deep water being on that
side of the river may have induced the Romans to build Sheila there,
using the site of the present Rabat, where Roman remains are often
disinterred (p. 586), as the shipping-place, and Sheila (or what is
known by that name) as the suburban residential quarter.
The alteration in the depth of the river has been great, ever since
the building of Sallee, and the gate of the water-port at what is known
as old Sallee, a little farther up the river-bank, but on the same
side, is now 300 yards distant from high-water-mark, with a rising
ascent of 10 feet. This may be due either to the secular rise of the
coast already noticed, or to the less amount of water in all the
rivers of Morocco since the woods have been cut down. What Pliny
says about the forests in this quarter is true of all the country. At
one time they must have harboured enormous numbers of lions or
other wild beasts, and from Mauretane-Tingitana great consignments
of lions were made for the Roman amphitheatres. At Sheila also the
water-gate is now about 1,000 yards from the river, with a rise of
NOTES TO BOOK III. 567
10 feet. The Bu-ragreg is indeed more an estuary at this spot than
an ordinary river-course. The tide runs up for 16 miles, though
during the dry season the body of water entering it is very small. At
the head of tidal influence a considerable shebbel fishery (p. 377) is car-
ried on from November to the end of April. (MS. note by Captain
Warren, R.N.)
(10) The Wad Bu-ragrag (the Father of Ravines) is called the
Armer by Edrisi, a name which appears in Marmol's Sumerj though,
like another name, Wad er-Raman, it seems to be forgot now-a-days.
It is also sometimes corrupted into Banrog, Bu-Rgak, and Bu-Rabba.
(11) The Borj el-Hassan, or Sma' Hassan, so called from being
situated in the Beni Hassan district, is, with the Kutubiyyah of
Marakesh (p. 352), and the Giralda of Seville, all the handiwork of
Yakub el-Mansur, and evidently from the same design, perhaps by the
same architect. It is the first object which strikes any one approach-
ing Rabat-Sallee from sea; but it was never really completed, nor was
the great mosque intended to surround its base ever built. The fine
unpolished granite pillars, by tradition declared to be three hundred
and sixty in number, stand or lie neglected in every direction, being
part of the material brought at such cost to Rabat for the erection of
the dream of the great Amir. The unfinished cistern, with ten parallel
walls to support the pillars, still attest the magnitude of the design.
The cost indeed was so enormous that on dying El-Mansur had only
three regrets to express — first, that he had begun the mosque; secondly,
that he had released the Christian prisoners after the battle of Alar-
cos ; and thirdly, that he had built Rabat opposite Sallee. Com-
plaints having been made that the place was used for purposes foreign
to those of a place of worship, the entrance to Hassan Tower
was built up by Sidi Mohammed ; who, indeed, ordered it to be razed,
but desisted owing to the enormous strength of the material, and it is
now the abode of legions of bats and blue-rocks. I obtain this
information from my friend Mr. Budgett Meakin, who, managing to get
in through a window 22 feet from the ground, ascended to the sum-
mit of the tower by means of the inclined plane inside, broad enough
for a horse and rider. Mr. Meakin considers the height of the tower
about 180 feet.
Rabat is now inhabited by several European merchants, and has, in
addition to the Kasbah, or castle overlooking the town, a number of
serviceable batteries with modern guns ; and among its few architec-
tural notabilities are some large " fondaks" in the main street. Seen
from the river, the houses of the European consular agents give the
place a Western appearance, but inside it is very Oriental, and very
unprogressive, though, with Sallee, it still contains from 30,000 to
568 NOTES TO BOOK III.
40,000 people. The " Heuz Rabat", a district in the vicinity, is, how-
ever, thinly peopled by tribes not always conscious of the Sultan's
power. In 1610, at the period of the final expulsion of the Moors
from Spain, many settled in Rabat, and were assigned Sallee for a
place of residence, " where they have since made themselves famous
by their maritime expeditions against the enemy of God". {Al-Mak-
kari, ed. Gyargos, vol. ii, 392.)
(12) This is the modern Sheila, the Sala Colonia of the Romans,
though most probably there was an earlier Phoenician settlement here.
" Sela", rock, is according to Tissot, Phoenician, though that etym-
ology may be questioned. Altogether, the foundation of Sala must
date not later than a.d. 145, if not earlier. Pliny tells us that the
vicinity of the town was infested by troops of elephants and by the
nation called Autololes. The elephant has long disappeared in all
the country north of the Sahara, though its remains have been found
in Algeria, and will doubtless be disinterred from the soil of Morocco
when the country is better known. But though the neighbourhood
of Rabat is not now troubled with the elephant, panthers {Felts
pardiis) are numerous on the neighbouring mountains, and the Zairs
and Zemmur tribes carry out the character of the Autololes, their
ancestors (Tissot, Recherches, etc., pp. 95-96). Sheila, Marmol calls
Mensala. But every Morocco town has its Mssala when prayers are
offered on the great feast days.
At Sheila is the burying-ground of many of the Sultans, for which
reason it was long considered ground too sacred to be trod by any
but believers. Yakub el-Mansur was laid here, with many other
Almohades and Merinides. The place is still an asylum for refugees
from justice, or otherwise. Roman coins, lamps, urns, and lachrymalia
are sometimes obtained here, showing that its sanctity as a burial-
ground is traditional. The identity of names in Leo's description has
deceived some writers without local information. M. Fagnan, for
instance, with an admirable knowledge of the historical authorities
concerned {Revue Afncaine, 1893, P- 235), leads one to believe that
Sheila is on the Sallee side of the Bu-ragrag— " Sale est au bord de la
mer, a deux milles de I'emplacement d'une ancienne Chala ou Chella";
though, to be accurate, the modern name is " Sheila", the ancient, as
we have seen, was " Sala". Sheila is in itself a little walled place, not
bearing many traces of its Roman origin. The aqueduct of which
Leo writes is now, greatly to the loss of Rabat, in ruins, having been
broken in the wars of the Beni Marini against El-Mansur's successors.
It is considered by Maltzar and Rohlfs to have been Roman, but any
one who has seen the best work of the best period in Morocco will not
be so sceptical. The " square massive stone blocks" appear to have
led to the German's doubt of the Moors accomplishing anything so
NOTES TO BOOK III. 5^9
good. The stones were, as is the case in many places in Morocco,
most probably taken from the old Roman buildings ; or, as the granite
pillars around the Sma Hassan are alleged by tradition to have been,
brought from Spain ready hewn.
Leo copied the epitaphs in a.h. 9I5 = a.d. 1509.
Of the thirty tombs which he saw, all of Almohade and Beni-Marini
princes, the greater number have disappeared — broken, destroyed, or
concealed by the rubbish of the roofless edifice in which they are
built. Of these old gravestones only three have escaped the icono-
clast. One, attributed by local tradition to be that of Yakub El-
Mansur, does not correspond with Leo's description ; but though the
name has been mutilated, the date, which is still perfectly plain, shows
it to be the tomb of Abu Yakub Yussuf, who was assassinated by a
Eunuch at TIemsen in 706. But if the usually accepted chronology is
correct it must be that of Abu Thabet Amir, who died in a.h. 706
(a.d. 1307), and was laid in Sheila beside Abu Yakub Yussuf, whose
body had been brought from TIemsen. However, a reference in the
inscription on the tablet in the wall which separates the mosque from
the burial place, to " Ebi . . Yakub, Son of our Master the King,
the learned .... the Defender of Islam, the Marabat, the virtuous,
the Amir of Moslems, Yussuf ben Abd el-Hak", leaves little doubt
as to M. Tissot's determination being accurate.
The second inscribed tomb is that of Abu-1-Hassen, whose death
took place on the 27th day of Rebia I, A.H. 752 (a.d. 1351), which is
no doubt correct, though Ibn Khaldun {Hist, des Berbcres, t. iv, p. 292),
whose dates have generally been accepted, put that event to have
taken place the 23rd of Rebia H, 752. The third tomb, marked like
the other with a prism of inscribed marble, is that of Leila Chapa,
wife of the preceding Sultan, who died in a.h. 750. But the inscrip-
tion on her gravestone is as imperfect as that on her husband's. Time
has dealt hardly with it, and numerous lacunas occur.
The mosque in Sheila is, however, now so choked with vegetation
that it is with difficulty approached. Some of the graves within its
precincts have been opened in search of treasure, and as the material is
being carried off to build elsewhere, in a few years nothing will be left
except the pretty mosque tower and the external walls and fine gate-
ways, which seem to defy the passing centuries. An Arab, indeed,
offered a friend of the Editor to remove (for a consideration) the
marble covering of any of the tombs within the enclosure. Other
visitors to Rabat have possibly been less scrupulous, and it is not
impossible that the missing memorial tablets of some of the Sultans,
and other members of their families interred here, may yet be found
in private museums. Jackson mentions that, more than a century
ago, a sea-captain disguised himself as an Arab, and, with a con-
fidential friend, obtained entrance into the burying-place at Sheila.
O O
570 NOTES TO BOOK III.
He was very hurried, and therefore could not examine anything
closely, but he saw two graves which his guide told him were those
of " Roman generals". Such a statement, coming from such a source,
is of little value. Indeed, at first sight, it may appear exceedingly
unlikely that the tomb of any infidel Rumi would be permitted beside
those of the Commanders of the Faithful. But it would seem a still
more improbable assumption for a Roman prefect's memorial tablet
to be utilised for that of a Moorish Sultan. Yet this was actually the
case. The mural tablet in memory of the Sultan Abu Yakub Yussuf,
has a curious round hole closely to the left edge, apparently, from its
breaking the inscription, made after the marble tablet was erected.
Through this hole there is a tradition that of old the Arabs were
accustomed to put their hands, and declare to the truth of any state-
ment when a particularly binding oath was desirable. If the hand
could be withdrawn freely this was a proof of the testifier speaking the
truth, but if he had told a lie, a superhuman force prevented the
perjurer from doing so. In 1880, M. Ducour, French Vice-Consul in
Rabat, who was permitted to visit the tombs, having the curiosity to
put his hand through the hole, believed that he could feel on the
reverse side of the stone something like engraved characters. Interest
was accordingly made to have the tablet removed, when it was found
that the surmise was correct ; for, as the clearly-cut Latin inscription
showed, the tablet had, previous to extolling the virtues of a Mussul-
man sovereign, already recorded the merits of a Roman Pro-
Consul. This was Aulus Caecina Tacitus, Governor of the province
of Betica, who had been recently promoted to the Consulate, and the
friend who reared the commemoration tablet was Septimus Carvillianus,
a Roman knight. — Valentin, Bulletin EpigrapJiique de la Gaule,
1881.
There are some other mausolea in the enclosure, the greater por-
tion ruins, and all without any inscriptions on them. One Kubba is,
however, remarkable for the care with which it has evidently been
tended. M. Tissot, when he visited the Chilla sanctuary ("dont
j'avais en quelque sorte force I'entree", as the late French Minister
to Morocco coolly confesses) could not examine it very carefully ;
but a soldier who escorted him said it was always known as that of
the " Black Sultan". Possibly it is the grave of the Mulatto, Moham-
med ben Abd-Allah, of the Hassanean dynasty, who fell at the battle
of Alcassar, though the story is that Mulai Ahmed stuffed the skin of
the slain Sultan, and carried it in front of him to terrify the people
of Fez.
Sheila is built on the foundation of the Roman town of which it bears
the name ; but little Roman now remains on the surface, — a canal by
which the waters of the Ain Sheila are carried away, and a few fluted
columns, being about all. The medals, coins, bricks, fragments of —
NOTES TO BOOK III. 571
indeed almost entire— statues, which have been and are still found
even in Rabat, show that the Roman town stretched to the river-
mouth. After heavy rains the boys search for these relics near Sheila.
Early last century two fine marble statues were found, but Mulai
Ismail would not permit the Freftch Consul to buy them ; and after
having them sent to Mekines, gave them to his Jew agent, Abraham
Meimoran ; and finally, to avoid the scandal of anyone about the
Court having articles so condemned by the Koran, he ordered them
to be " enfermees entre quatre murailles". {Relation dc ce qui s'esi
passe da7i5 les trots voyages, etc., p. 31.)
Nowadays the Jews fabricate coins and other relics with which to
impose upon any stray traveller less wary than zealous ; and of late,
finding little sale for coins actually dug out of the ruins of Sheila,
melt them down for the value of the bullion. M. Ducour was offered
as many as sixty silver ones at one time, while copper ones are com-
mon. A gold piece of Vespasian was found in splendid preservation.
Sheila, in short, is now a beautiful ruin, silent, solitary, with memo-
rials of the past which contrast in their crumbling magnificence most
suggestively with the squalid architectural efforts of modern Morocco
nearer the sea. The crenellated wall which " King Mansur caused to
be built" is still traceable, with a gate on the north-east, which Tissot
considers the finest monument of Arab architecture in Morocco. The
ruins of a vast edifice, perhaps the "stately pallace" of El-Mansur, are
in the centre of the enceinte, and not far away the ruins of the mosque
and its tower. As M. Tissot remarks, nothing is at once more melan-
choly and more charming than the solitude of Sheila. The profound
silence which reigns is undisturbed except by the murmur of run-
ning water among the maidenhair ferns, the rustling of the breeze
through the great trees which overshadow the royal graves, the chat-
ter of the storks which build on the summit of the deserted mosque,
and the cry of the hawks which dart after the pigeons resting on the
dismantled tower. Nature in her loveliest form has again taken pos-
session of the ruins abandoned by man, and now the garden of El-
Mansur is a forest of orange, pear, palm, and olive, the roots and
branches of which interlace in and about the crumbling walls. A little
above the gate in the south-east tower two beautiful ^ar'ar trees {Calle-
tris qiiadrivalvis), the wood of which was so highly valued by the
Romans, and is still forbidden to be exported by the Moors, are seen.
They had evidently been planted, for though the cypress is common
in the Atlas, the Riff, and other mountain tracks, it is rarely if ever
seen in the lowlands. (Tissot, Bull, de la Soc. Geog. de Paris, Sept.
1876.) There is a view of the ruins in Trotter's Our Mission, etc.,
p. 268.
Only a few years ago no Jew or Christian was permitted to enter
Sheila. The order is, however, now a dead letter, little hindrance
002
572 NOTES TO BOOK III.
being offered to the unbeliever's visits, though the tombs are still
taboo to him.
(13) This place — Mader Auvan — is not now known. In Leo's time
it was depopulated, and in ruins. " Mader", according to Renou, is a
word applied to a plateau which crowns a hill — a geological formation
common in Morocco and Algeria, where these decapitated elevations
give a peculiar feature to the landscape.
(14) Lions are said even yet to be occasionally seen in the Forest oi
Mamora. By "leopards" (leopardi), the panther, still frequently met
with, is probably meant.
(15) For Thagia cf. note 16, For A.H. 920 read 15 14.
(16) Thagia, Tagia or Dagia, as put among " certe monti di quelle
di Atlante", has been inserted on maps at random all over Temesna.
The tomb of " Sidi Boaza" (" Deda-Buaza" of Marmol), to whose
remains is attributed a supernatural power against lions, was thought
by Renou to be near the forest of Mamora, because the late Sir John
Drummond-Hay speaks of "Seedj Boaza" as a shrine in the "Forest
of Manura" which, though several times mentioned as " five days
south of Tangier", was taken for granted was a misprint for
"Mamora" (West, Barbary, ed. 1861, pp. 151, 152, etc.).
In reality, the Kubba of Sidi Bu Aza, or, rather, Mulai Bu Aza, as
he is more generally called nowadays, is, it appears, situated " on the
border between Zair and Zaian near Ain Dahman, a wooded district,
roughly speaking, about longitude 6° 40', latitude 33° 30'. Ain
Dahman is marked on the French War Office Map. " Buazza" is the
vulgar name ; it is more correctly spelt "Abu Yaza" (MS. note from
Mr. Herbert E. White, H.M. Consul, Tangier). " Mulaij Bouaza" is
marked on a route map of M. de la Martinicre on the borders of the
table-land north-west of Zarhun, near Abu-1-Klea, or " Neck of
Zeggotta" {Morocco, p. 177, map 4); and on Schnell's map "Ain
Daghman", though not Mulai Bu Aza, is marked on a route leading
south-west from Rabat.
Sidi Bu Aza lived, according to Leo, in the days of Abd el-Mumen,
and he made the pilgrimage as a child, and afterwards often as a man,
on one occasion with Mohammed VI in 15 14. — See Introduction.
The tomb seems nowadays little visited, perhaps because lions
have vanished before rifles. — For maps, Tissot, Bull, de la Soc. de
Geog.. Paris, September 1 876 ; Trotter, Our Mission to the Court of
Morocco. 1881 : and those already cited.
(17) Zarfa, or Azarfe (Marmol), perhaps Es Arfa, is not now known,
and having been destroyed by Yusuf more than 700 years ago, must
NOTES TO BOOK III. 573
have now disappeared. In Leo's day the site could be known only by
the fruit trees which had been in the old gardens.
(i8) Sla, Sella, Sela, Sale, Sali, Sally, Cele, is the town opposite
Rabat on the north side of the Bu-ragreg, the Arabic name of which is
Sola, though it has obtained an enduring place in English history as
the notorious piratical town of Sallee. A " Sallee Rover" is a per-
sonage quite as familiar as " Robinson Crusoe", who was doomed to
make the acquaintance of one of them.
Modern Sallee — possibly as distinguishing it from Old Sallee, the
New Sallee of Edrisi, though I have preferred to consider Rabat
as being meant (p. 565)— is built on a sandy spot, and means, accord-
ing to local information, the Sacred Town, though we have seen that
M. Tissot traces the name to the Phoenicians.
The name as directly applied to the town, and not to .Sheila on the
other side of the Bu-ragreg, is found in most of the old Arabic writers.
From these allusions it is safe to say that Sallee was a notable town
before the tenth century. Abd el-Mumen had to subdue the place in
A.H. 526 (a.h. 541 according to Ibn el-Athir, x, 411 ; Zerkeche, p. 5 ;
Ibn Khallikan, ii, 183 teste; Fagnan, /. c, p. 235) = a.d. 1132 {Roudh
el-Kartas, p. 266).
On the other hand, there is no ground for believing that it was built
by the Romans, or even was more than a Phoenician station. It was
most likely a very ancient Berber village, at which the Romans did
their commercial business, though they preferred to live at the more
agreeable Chella, on the other side of the river. Even that is doubtful,
for it is quite possible that the prudent Rumi preferred to live
entirely away from the not entirely trustworthy Barbarians, the name
of whose village they applied to their new town of Sala Colonea ; and
it is certain, from the remains found, that Chella stretched during
Roman occupation to where Rabat now stands. During Roman
times, therefore, Chella would be the principal j^lace ; but, on their fall,
Sallee no doubt received an impetus, though whether the Visigoths
sacked it, and Tarik obtained the mastery, is a statement which may
be accepted on the authority of Leo and the legends or MS. histories
which he had — as he often tells us he had — an opportunity of consult-
ing in Fez and elsewhere. As the Goths had settlements in Africa, the
statement is, however, likely enough to be true, though as the last of
the Gothic kings lost his hold of Spain in A.D. 711, at the battle of
Guadelete, the settlement which they pillaged was most probably the
Roman Chella, unless indeed the attack was after the Arabs or
Berbers had wrecked it.
The Salletines — or Slawis as they are called in Arabic — no doubt
early stimulated the predatory instincts of their neighbours by their
wealth, or earned their vengeance by iheir arrogance. In 1260
574 NOTES TO BOOK III.
(according to Ibn Khaldun, Hist, des Berberes^t. iv, p. 47), or 1263 A.D.
(Leo and Marmol), Alfonso the Wise of Castile is said to have taken
the place, and held it for less than two weeks, when he was driven out
by the King of Fez. This circumstance is referred to by Leo in his
mention of a " certaine Castilian captaine" surprising Sallee in
A.H. 670. In the original, however, it is "anni seiceto settanta di
Leghira, I'anno di Xpo 1221", which, like most of Leo's calculations of
the equivalents of A.H. and A.D. years, is widely wrong. After that
date the Slawis were in perpetual hostilities with their neighbours
opposite, with foreign powers, or with the kings of Morocco and Fez,
whose power they invariably refused to recognise. Indeed, so power-
ful were they, that beyond exacting a share of their piratical plunder,
the Sultans interfered very little with the Slawis in the heyday of their
power. The city was a kind of republic, which in 1648 was so
insolent that MulaiZidan asked the aid of an English fleet to demolish
the fortifications of the pirates' stronghold. Already, in 1628, Don
Thomas de la Raspur, with a Spanish squadron, had bombarded it in
retaliation for the Moors' siege of Mai-mora {Arch. Espagnoles, c. iv.
No. 4 MS. in the French National Library), and, in 1681, Sallee was
unsuccessfully blockaded by a French squadron under the Chevalier
de Chateau Renault. Again and again Sallee, when the centre of
Moorish piracy, has had to bear the brunt of some European power's
vengeance, though with so little effect that, until piracy and Christian
slavery were abolished, Sallee continued nearly as insolent as of old.
Thus, in 1S51, it had to be bombarded by the French for refusing to
pay an indemnity for the plunder of a stranded vessel : though as
provisions ran short before the city could be brought to reason, the
official sent to surrender found, when the mist cleared away, no one
to accept the Slawis' submission.
(19) Viewed from the river, Sallee has, like most Moroccan towns,
a picturesqueness which is not borne out by a closer acquaintance.
Once inside the outer wall which stretches along the bank, the
town is divided into two portions by gardens in the centre, to the
left of which rises a low hill surmounted by the tower of the chief
mosque. To the right is a lower eminence, and beyond are gardens
and summer-houses. The Mellah also lies on this side. But every
quarter is narrow, dirty, and neglected, comparing in these respects
badly with Rabat, which, if not a model town, is kept reasonably free
from the accumulated filth of ages by the stimulus imparted to the
authorities by the consular agents and foreign residents. But in
Sallee no strangers reside ; it is a perfectly native town ; and, if Leo's
description be not a little coloured, must have decayed greatly since
his day. For in 1895 it is a poor place, crumbling away year by year,
and in even more than the usual slipshod condition of everything in
NOTES TO BOOK III. 575
Morocco. Few of the tortuous lanes are paved in the most primitive
style, and the best have foul gutters full of garbage coursing down the
centre. Cattle-yards alternate with gardens and ruined dwellings, in
the space within the walls ; outside there is no security for life or
property. Even in the chief thoroughfare of this fanatical town,
rendered all the more inimical to Christians by the majority of
the inhabitants being the descendants of the Spanish Moors, a
" Nazarene " is not always safe from insult. Sullen looks and
muttered curses are often his lot, and sometimes children and the
baser sort of adults will risk a flogging— if the Christian chooses to be
very persistent in his complaints — by stoning the hated " infidel".
The memories of piracy are still vivid here. Old people were, until
recently, alive who remembered white captives being landed, and the
dungeons in which they were confined were not long ago — may per-
haps be still— in existence. Abdul ben Reis— "Abdul, son of the
captain "—used, as late as 1885, to entertain a friend of mine with
many joyous tales of the day when his sire swept the sea in command
of a corsair vessel. — (Introduction \.o Adventures of Thomas Pellow,
p. 44.) Indeed, at this hour, the lighters which convey the cargo
from the ships ashore are manned by the rovers' descendants who
claim the hereditary title of " sailor". The natives say that, after the
Lisbon earthquake of 1715, the land on both sides of the river rose so
considerably that the old water port of Bailee is now left high and
dry, and where docks formerly existed, a wide reach of sand
stretches for some distance from the river. But more likely the rise
— which is, erroneously, I think, said to have deepened the bar by
causing the scouring action of the river to be increased — is only a
portion of the slow secular elevation now in progress all over the
coast of Morocco.
Sallee, in short, is fast decaying. Rabat is killing it ; and
even Rabat is not prospering — bad government and the bar of
the Bu-ragreg being too much for this ancient port. The castellated
wall of Sallee is pierced by four gates, the Bab Malka, opposite
Rabat, Sidi Ba Bahaja, Bab Fas, and Bab Sebta. A fine stone
aqueduct runs to the north side of the town. This useful
work, also not in its primal condition, is hke so many monuments
of antiquity in Morocco, reported to have been built by the
Romans ; but most probably it is Moorish. — Times of Morocco,
Nos. 165, 166.
To the north of Sallee are the remains of a town which is some-
times imagined to be ancient, if not the work of the Romans or
Carthaginians. In reality, it was built by Mulai Ismail for the black
troops, mainly Songhai (the "abid mta Sidi Bokhari"), by whom he
ruled his subjects after the style of Pretorian guards. Janissaries, or
Mamelukes.
576 NOTES TO BOOK III.
(20) In the middle ages Sallee must have been the best port in
Morocco, and the outlet for all the then thickly populated kingdom of
Fez. Genoese, Pisans and Venetians came to buy the products
brought by caravans from the interior ; while ships from Seville,
Valencia, and Barcelona traded in oil and saffron. In spite of the
heavy export and import duties, and the frequently arbitrary treatment
of the merchants during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the business was so profitable that in those days, perhaps, more
traders lived in Rabat-Sallee (for Rabat was always the principal
place) than at present.
Some of the exactions demanded would, in any trade less profitable,
have rendered business impossible. For instance, as at Tripoli,
Tunis and Bugia, the merchants paid the "decime". Then there
was the " mangona", or a sixth, payable in silver on the value of all
goods entered. And finally there was the "intalacca", a " gratification"
— one-and-a-half per cent, of the price of every article, which stuck to
the hands of certain officials of the Sultan. After having paid their
dues, the merchants were free to sell their goods in any part of the
empire except Fez, Rabat (if entered at Sallee), Mekines, and
Marakesh. If these markets were visited, a second " decime" had
to be paid.— Balducci Pegolotti, Pratica della fnercattira, p. 279.
(21) The Genoese seem to have been in most favour. As early as
A.D. 1 161 Caffari tells us that the Republic of Genoa entered into a
treaty with Abu-Yakub, the main articles of which were the payment
of 10 per cent, (the present duty) ad valorem on all imports into Sallee
(" Burea" it is called, from Bu-ragreg, the river), F'dala El-Araish, or
Azila. This date must, however, be incorrect ; for Abu-Yakub did
not succeed until A.D. 1 163 (a.h. 558), when his father, Abdul-Mumen,
died at Sallee, or at Rabat el-Fath, as the Roudh el-Kartas (p. 286)
states. Another treaty with Yakub el-Mansur confirmed these
privileges and granted some new ones, so that by the sixteenth
century the great Genoese trade in Morocco, spoken of by Leo, had
been established. Fine wool, ivory from the Sudan, skins tanned
and untanned, fabrics of goat's hair of an excellent quality, amber
(ambergris ?), wax, sugar, and Mekines honey, so highly esteemed
that it was carried into Egypt, formed the chief articles of export. In
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Pisans entered into rivalry
with the Genoese and Florentines, but before long abandoned the con-
test (Tronconi, Annali di Pisa; Fanucci, Storia dei celebri popoli
maritimi dclP Italia, t. iii, iv ; De la Primaudace, Revue Africaine
No. 98, p. 121, 122.) The Catalans and Aragonese also shared for
a brief period in the profits of business with Sallee, and the country
beyond. In the year a.d. 1274, Jayme I, King of Aragon, engaged to
send to Yakub II ten ships and 500 horsemen to aid in the conquest
NOTES TO BOOK III. 577
of Ceuta ; and in 1309 Jayme II entered into a treaty with Suleiman I
(Abu-r-Rbia) to furnish more troops and ships to help in the
reduction of the same fortress, then in possession of the Amir of
Granada, the sum of 2,000 doublons being the stipulated pay for each
ship during four months. The services of "Christian" soldiers in
Morocco has already (p. 338) been noted. Among the Almohades
these mercenaries were common, Kurds being among the hired
troops. The Almoravides had also many foreign fighting men in
their employment in A.D. 626. When, in a.d. 1229, Idris III (Abu-
1-Oli, El-Mamun) crossed from Spain on the expedition which ended
in the recovery and sack of Marakesh, he was permitted by his ally
Ferdinand III to take with him 12,000 Castilian mercenaries. These
valiant cut-throats were paid with such unwonted punctuality that
they remained with him as a corps of free-lances, and his sons
Abd ul-Vahed (Er-Raschid), and Ali (Es-Said), regularly enrolled
their successors. It was stipulated in return that, not only should
certain fortresses in Spain be made over to the Christian king, but
that a Christian church " with bells " should be erected in Marakesh.
The mercenaries were not to be hindered in the exercise of their
faith, and if any of them apostatised he was to be judged by his
compatriots. El-Mamun kept these terms, and indeed went so far
as to proclaim that the only Mahdi was Christ. {Ibii Khaldun,
t. ii, p. 236.) These 12,000 men might be supposed Spanish Moors,
if the Roiidh el-Kartas (p. 358) did not expressly describe them as
the first Christian cavaliers who had entered and served in Al
Maghreb. In a.d. 1234, the Genoese helped Er-Rachid with twenty-
eight galleys at Ceuta, and a letter of Pope Innocent IV to the Sultan
Omar I, Es-Said, is extant, asking for increased favour to the Christian
soldiers in Morocco, and permitting the latter to protect the seaports
and raise reinforcements for that purpose. (De la Martiniere,
Morocco^ p. 305, but the dates are incorrect.) Soon after the trans-
action with Jayme II, the Catalans obtained freedom of commerce
with Morocco, and had even an establishment in Fez. (Capmany,
Memorias sobre el Covimercio de Barcelona^ t. iii, p. 300 ; t. iv, p. 7.)
The Venetians were never very active in Morocco, finding, perhaps, that
the Pisans and Genoese had anticipated them, though in Leo's time
the merchants established in Fez were of considerable consequence.
(Marin, Storia del Coviviercio de' Veneziani, t. iv ; De la Primaudace,
" Les Villes Maritimes du Maroc," Revue A/rtcame, No. 98, etc.)
The articles which the Italian traders brought to Morocco through
the port of Sallee, practically at that period the only one in possession
of the Sultan, were light cloth in gay colours, silks, French and Italian
draperies and lace, fur trimmings, wood carvings, tinware, ironwork,
glass, coral, gold and silver (coined or in ingots), precious stones,
toys and arms. For these they received indigo, flax, cotton, almonds,
57^ NOTES TO BOOK III.
tanning bark, dyeing materials, cordage, dried fruits, and grain. The
English and Dutch (Flandresi) seem even in Leo's day to have tried
to share in the profits of the Sallee trade ; but with the special
privileges granted to the Italians and Spaniards, they must have fared
badly. Indeed, it was not until the business of the former was on the
decline that— /^j/ hoc, propter hoc — the French and the northern
nations obtained the firm footing which, with the exception of the
Dutch and Danes, they have kept to this hour. — Mas Latrie, Traites
de Paix et de Commerce et Documents divers concerjiatit les Rela-
tions des Chre'tiejts avec les Arabes de lAfrique Septentrionale au
moyen age, etc. (1868). Thomany, Le Maroc et ses Caravans: Rela-
tion de la France avec cet Empire (1845). Bibliography of Morocco
(1893) for numerous English, French, Spanish, Dutch and Danish
treatises.
In those days, Sallee was correctly reputed. very rich, and when
piracy was added to its industries, both it and Rabat must have
prospered far beyond anything which the citizens knew sub-
sequently. If Leo is to be credited— and the Arab historians are
in unison with him — the town was full of fine mosques, sanctuaries,
schools, other public and private buildings, and the bazaars filled
with every kind of merchandise in demand by a luxurious, wealthy,
and active people. The manufacture of carpets, still, with shoe-
making, about the only industry of the place, flourished, and the
delicate fabrics of Sallee were valued even by a people so skilful in
weaving as the Genoese. Agriculture was thriving, and all kinds
of food so cheap that it could be had for next to nothing, while fish
was often so abundant that— we have the authority of El-Bakri, Edrisi,
and Ibn Khaldun for the statement, readily believed by those who
have seen a donkey-load of iizlemzah {Scicena aqiiila) sold at Mogador
for sixpence— not unfrequently it could not find purchasers at any
price. A MS. note by my friend the late Captain F. P. Warren, R.N.,
mentions that, in the summer of 1885, fish was sold in Rabat for \d.,
beef at id., and mutton at \\d. per pound. Fowls brought \s. a
pair, and rabbits id. each. Eggs were easily obtained for \s. 6d. the
hundred, and all kinds of fruit equally cheaply. Even potatoes
could be bought at about English price, though they are not much
grown.
The spirit infused into the thriving burghers by the bolder Spanish
Moors who had settled in Sallee and Rabat led those cities to rebel
and establish a republic, under which greater freedom of trade
was permitted : a state of matters which lasted after the overthrow'
of the decaying Beni-Marini dynasty and the advent of the Sheriffs,
who were content with the suzerainty of the Commonwealth and the
nomination of the Kadis who administered justice in their name. '
Only Spanish and Portuguese vessels were refused entrance into the
NOTES TO BOOK III. 579
port. Dutch and English were, however, much in favour, owing to
the alacrity with which they sold arms, ammunition, and ships to the
pirate republic ; the other " Christian" merchants making a show at least
of submitting to the Pope's orders not to help the Moslem corsairs after
the fashion of the heretics of England and Holland. But all accounts
agree in treating the traders as quite ready to submit to any degrada-
tion for the sake of profit. — Moiiette, Relation de la Captivite, etc.,
(i682)y Relation de ces qui s'est Passe dans les Trois Voyages que les
Religieux de POrdre de Nostre Dame de la Mercy ont fait, etc. (1724) ;
Godard, Maroc (i860), pp. 436-438 ; Dan, Hist, de Barbarie, etc.
(1649), pp. 206-225, 315 ; and the Introduction and Notes to The
Adventures of Thomas Fellow (1892).
The internal dissensions which led to the rupture (in 1755) of the
Sallee Republic, after it had existed for nearly 130 years, also ended
in the decay of the Slawis' opulence. Piracy still existed well into
this century ; but by the middle of the eighteenth century Europe had
begun to no longer tolerate the corsairs' insolence. Captures of rich
argosies ceased to be as frequent as of old, and reprisals were out of all
proportion to the gain made out of any venture. But if it is no longer
to be feared or even envied, Sallee is still a holy city. Its wars
.against the infidel and the many tombs of presumably holy men
within and without its walls entitle it to that dubious rank. Of these
Ben Asher is the greatest. He is the patron saint of the Slawis, and
is supposed to have earned his sanctity through his services against
the Christians during the occupation of the city by Alfonso the Wise
in 1260. He still, however, works miracles. Dead trees bloom by
his intercession, and at his bidding honey fills the crevices of arid
rocks. He cures disease, gives sight to the blind, restores the
paralytic to their former powers, and generally attends to the interests
of Sallee and its citizens. For instance, were not the infidel Franks,
during their bombardment of Tangier in 1844, forbidden by Ben
Asher to injure Sallee, and was not a vessel, daring to approach the
sacred coast under his protection, lost ? This was the Groenland.
The difficulty about the Saint permitting Sallee to be bombarded
in 1851 by a French squadron under Admiral Dabourdieu is not
explained. — De la Primaudace, Revue Africaine, July, 1873, No. 100,
p. 279.
The " Messer Tommaso di Marino " mentioned by Leo has given
origin to much speculation, the favour shown him by the Beni-
Marini kings having even led to the belief that he was of the same
family, and that the Beni-Marini are descended from the Genoese
De Marini. It is quite possible that the accidental likeness of the
name of the Genoese merchant might have obtained for him some
consideration. But there is no ground for holding that the Sultans
of that dynasty were not sprung from the Beni-Marini or Merines,
58o NOTES TO BOOK III,
a nomad tribe between Figuy and Moluia, and notorious for their
raids from Algeria to the Riff.
Graberg de Hemso discusses the question evidently with a leaning
towards the romantic but unhistorical side of the question, in his
Specchio Geografico e Siatistico dcW Imperio di Marocco, pp. 259,
324-6.
Comb-making of lentisk {Pistacia Lentiscus and P.Atlantica) wood
is still, as in Leo's day, an industry of Sallee.
(22) Fanzara, or Finzard, the Tefen Sara of Marmol, was in Leo's
day " not very large", and almost deserted. Destroyed in the civil
wars which preceded the advent of the Hassani Sheriffs, or rather
made them possible, since Mohammed did not attract much attention
until nearly a century subsequent to the events which Leo relates
rather inaccurately, Marmol considers it the " Banaza ou Valence,
selon Pline". But this is erroneous, the Colofiia Banasae Valentin,
of Pliny (V. i), being, according to Tissot, still traceable as a mound
on the left bank of the Sebu, on a plain offering no other eminence
of the kind. It is known to the natives of Sidi Ali ben Jenum,
whose "kubba" is here. The place has never been properly examined ;
but an inscription found in 1871 contains the words " COL . eliae .
banasae", and, from inference, dated a.d. 177, though this Banasa
had exchanged, some time about the epoch of Antoninus, the surname
Valentia for that of "^lia".— Desjardins, Rev.Archaeolog., Dec. 1872,
n. s. t. xxiv, pp. 366-367.
Abd ul-Malik, whom Leo and Marmol follow, is perhaps right in
attributing its foundation to "a king of the Almohades", though
whether Abd el-Mumen is not so certain, and that it was enlarged by
Ali IV (Abu-l-Hasan)=Abulchesen (Albuchesen of Pory). But the
history which follows will bear correction. Sahid (Said) was not the
cousin (Leo) or the nephew (Marmol) of Abu-Said, but the brother.
All his Spanish possessions, with the exception of Gibraltar, having
been absorbed by the Amir of Granada, Abu-Said, anxious at once
to save the remnant of his empire in Andalus and to get quit of Said in
Africa, sent him to defend that fortress. But when it and its garrison
were captured by Abdullah of Granada, Abu-Said (as in the text)
refused to ransom Said. The latter then left for Africa, hearing that
the Fasees had revolted and murdered the king and several of his
sons. But Said found a rival in his brother Yakub, and the Sahid
war which followed was between these two princes, until in 1423
Abd-Allah, a son of Abu-Said, whose mother, a Christian, had, on
the murder of his father, escaped with him to Tunis, now presented
himself Then his uncles Said and Yakub, wearied of further hosti-
lities, agreed to resign their claims in his favour, and the people, sick
of the desolation of the kingdom of Fez, gladly accepted him.
NOTES TO BOOK III. S8l
Abdallah III reigned many years, though latterly his tyranny plunged
the country into fresh anarchy, paving the way for the regicide and
usurper Es-Sherif, and the El-Uatas dynasty. Abu-Said was there-
fore not the last king of the Beni-Marins, nor did Said die of the
pestilence during his siege of Fez, which was not in A.H. 918,
A.D. 1509, as is superfluously mentioned in the original, but about
A.D. 1417-23.
Fanzara itself seems to have disappeared. At all events, though
the position assigned to it in the Forest of Mamora is well known, no
one seems of late to have noticed any place corresponding to it, or
which bears a similar name. This, however, may be because it was
in the Forest of Mamora, a locality still so dreaded as a haunt of
robbers and desperadoes that travellers avoid it. More than once the
Zenmur, when hard pressed by the Sultan's troops, have taken refuge
in it. But in former days, when it was commonly traversed on the
way from Sallee to Mekines, the place was known. Then in 1704-
1709, the Fathers of "I'Ordre de Nostre Dame de la Mercy" halted
the first day out of Sallee at " Finzara", an abandoned castle, with a
high tower occupying the angle nearest the route through the Forest.
— Relation de ce qui s'est pass^, etc., pp. 46, 52, 116, etc. Renou con-
siders that its name is " Fenzara", or " Fenzaia", or in the Berber
form, "Tefenzait".
(23) Mamora, Marmora, Mehedia, Maheduma ("the Ruined"),
or New Marmora, as it is sometimes called, to distinguish it
from Old Marmora, a spot further up the coast, is now a wretched
place on the south side of the Sebu mouth, whose poor hovels,
enclosed within massive walls, recall at once its former fame
and its present obscurity. There is another Mamora, a small place
on the Wad Fuaraa, close to the Forest of Mamora, between the
Sebu and the Bu-ragreg ; but it is not of any importance. De la
Primaudace {Reviie Africaine, No. 97, p. 69) declares that Mehdia
is a name only found on English and recent charts, but that it is
modern, the old geographers knowing it only as Mamora. On the
contrary, the people of the town do not know Mamora except as the
Nazarenes' name for the place, always using Mehedia, which may
have been given in honour of the Alm^ohade Mahdi, or, as Mahdis
have been numerous, after some person or event not now remem-
bered (p. 561).
The place was originally less than half a mile from the Sebu, but,
by the change of its mouth, owing to the immense amount of brown
clay brought down by the current, this fortress, intended to guard the
entrance of a river which nobody desires to enter, and to oppose the
easiest and most direct line of march on Fez, is now nearly two miles
from the water.
582 NOTES TO BOOK III.
Old Mamora (Vecchia Mamora, etc.), also a name unknown in the
country, was perhaps appHed by mistake to a bay on the shore of
which the name appears on all the older charts. The Pisan map and
that of Ferier have it Moxmar, Visconti, Mesmera, and Battisti
Agnesi, Maximar, and the Sanson maps of 1656, Moxmara, Mamora
being at the Sebu mouth. But except the inevitable ruin and the
"kubbas" of four saints, the chief of whom is Mulai bu Selhamj,
Mulai Abd es-Salim (the "Muley Busehom" of Washington), there is
nothing to mark the spot or to indicate that there ever was anything
to entitle the chartographers to apply " Old Mamora " to this par-
ticular spot : a fact first pointed out by Renou, and enlarged upon by
Primaudace in his useful papers on the northern coast of Morocco.
Rohlfs— not much of an antiquary — considers that old Mamora was
either on the north side of the Sebu or on the fortified hill, whilst new
Mamora was erected by the Portuguese on the opposite shore.
He also, contrary to Tissot's etymology, asserts that, in Berber,
Mamora means "rocky hill", so that old Mamora, if there ever was
such a place, need not, as is often done, be regarded as equivalent to
the kubba of Mulai bu Selhamj.— See also Barth, IVanderungen durch
die Kiisienldftder des Mittelmeeres, p. 29.
The other, Mehedia, or Mamora, as it may continue to be called,
does not appear early in history, unless it is referred to by Edrisi.
In that case, the tradition that Mamora was built by Yakub el-
Mansur to defend the entrance to the Sebu must be unfounded ; for
Edrisi wrote in 11 54, while Abd el-Mumen was alive. Finally, the
latter gave the place the name of his master, Ibn Tament El-Mahdi.
But though the name Mamora is now scarcely known to the natives,
it means, according to Tissot, "the populated," or " abundant," and
was one of the epithets Arabs are fond of applying to their towns.
On the Catalan chart of 1375, Mamora is marked at the Sebu mouth.
But, before the occupation of the place by the Spaniards, it was only
a port to which merchants came to traffic in honey, " white and very
good " wax, wool, skins, flax, and tanning bark. At that time the
people had an amazing quantity of cattle, and everything else in an
abundance unknown to the poor " shebbel " fishers who now inhabit
the ruined town of ancient fame. In 161 1 a Florentine captain writes
that at Mamora an ox could be bought for thirty reals, its skin being
valued at twelve. " In certain years the olive crop is so considerable
that 100 livres of Italy can be had for a ducat and a half." To-day
Mamora has no commerce whatever ; not a ship ever visits the
place. In 1515, however, it burst into history. Emanuel the Fortu-
nate, selecting it as the site of an intermediate post between his
northern and southern settlements on the Morocco coast ; the task
of occupying it was committed to Antonio de Noroiia, afterwards
Count of Linares, who had 200 (not 1,200, as Marmol and his copyists
NOTES TO BOOK III. 583
have it) ships, 8,000 men-at-arms, and several hundred artizans and
colonists under his direction when he arrived there on the 23rd June.
He found no town at the place, that previously existing having been
razed about fifteen or sixteen years previously in the war mentioned
in Note 27, of which Leo frequently speaks as that "of Sahid". But
he was speedily attacked by the governor of Mekines, Mulai Nasir,
brother of Mohammed VI, the second king of the El-Uatas dynasty,
and compelled to re-embark after suffering heavy loss, as Leo,
who accompanied the Moors, tells us in detail (see Introdtcction).
Marmol calculated that the Portuguese lost 4,000 men, without
counting prisoners, many of whom he saw long after in Fez, and no
doubt obtained information from them ; though, as they were incensed
at the mismanagement of the enterprise, and at the way in which
they had been treated, their evidence was no doubt biased.
By 1614 Mamora was rebuilt and surrounded with strong walls,
and in that year a Spanish force under Luis Fajardo occupied it,
finding that the English pirates did a thriving trade here, using it as
a depot for their booty. This kennel of sea-robbers was speedily
rooted out, and the Spanish continued there until 1681, in spite of
attempts in 1628 and 1647 to drive them out of "San Miguel
Ultramar", as they had renamed the place. In 1681, however, Mulai
Ismail, discovering that the place was fully garrisoned, Kaid Amor-
Hadu, his general, took it by assault, finding in the fort eighty-eight
brass cannon, fifteen iron ones, and more ammunition than he ever
before possessed at one time. Since then Mamora has been a
Moroccan possession. It seems, from Thomas Phelps and Edmund
Baxter helping, on June 13th, 1685, to burn in Mamora harbour "two
of the greatest Pirate Ships belonging to Barbary", that under its
rightful masters the town soon returned to its old habits. — D'Avety,
Le Aloiide (1640) ; Phelps, A True Account of the Captivity of
Thomas Phelps at Machanez in Barbary, etc. (1685); Windus, A
Journey to Mequinez (1725), p. 40 ; Tissot " Itineraire de Tanger k
Rabat," Bull, de la Soc. de C^og., Paris, Sept. 1876.
Mamora, however, perched on the highest pomt of the southern
side of the Sebu embouchure, and surrounded with its old crenellated
walls and flanking towers, is still one of the many picturesque
mediccval spots on which the traveller comes so suddenly in Morocco.
A ruined palace on the northern side, called Dar el-Kebira, has a
gateway which, in purity of style and fineness of detail, is comparable,
M. Tissot considers, to the Kasba of Rabat. The population is
mainly composed of a military colony of " Buakber", or negro troops,
who have built some poor huts on the plain, of which they are quite
proud, as memorials of what the place was in times of which they
have only the vaguest ideas. There is a view of Mamora in Trotter's
Our Mission, etc., p. 272.
584 NOTES TO BOOK III.
(24) The name of Tefelfelt, " by the side of which runneth a cer-
taine river", appears in "Tenfelfet", the certaine river" mentioned in
the Itinerary of the Father of the Order of Mercy. There is a village
near, and the cottage for sheltering travellers — or " Nzla" — seemed to
have existed early in last century, when the Father (^ui stiprd) and
Pellow mention it as Dar es-Saltana, or Darmsultan. The river
called by Pellow Teffelfille, and by Ali Bey Filifle (Berber, Tefelfelt),
is easily recognisable as the Wad-Telfil. Dar es-Saltana — the "home
of the Sultana" — a common name in Morocco, was then by legend
declared to have been built by Mulai Ismail's mother. She may
have rebuilt it ; but if our identification is accurate, it was much older,
being accounted even in Leo's day an ancient " inne".
(25) Mequenez, Mekenes, Mekenez, Meknes, of which the correct
name is Meknasa, has been long known as one of the three capitals
of Morocco, and during the reign of Mulai Ismail the most important
of the three. It is not a very old city, having been founded in the
middle of the tenth century by the Meknes, a tribe originally from
the neighbourhood of Tessa. But Marmol, and those who have
accepted him as an authority, are entirely wrong in regarding its site
as that of the Roman Silda or Gilda, which Tissot places near El-
Halvyn ; though he is, perhaps, indulging in one of the vices of etym-
ologists in regarding the Mesgulda tribe as inheriting the old name,
which perhaps they originally gave to the vanished town in their countr)\
Originally Mekenes was called Meknaset Ezzitun, to distinguish it from
Meknaset Tazza (Tessa), the home of the other section of the Meknasa,
its founders, or of whom it formed the rendezvous. Meknessa or
Srira is still in the neighbourhood of Tessa, close to the Innauen
River. Another village named Mekenes exists in the Ouanseres
mountains, about 23 miles north of Tiaret. — Renou, Expl. scieniifiqiie
de PAlgMe, t. viii, p. 255 ; Pellissier, Ibid.^ t. vi, pp. 400-402 ;
D'Avezac, Etudes de Geog. critique sur une partie de PAfrique Sept.,
pp. 152-153.
Abu-1-feda mentions Meknasa as written with a miin, surmounted
by a kesra and a -^a/" with a. sukun, a fiun, an elif, a sin, and a he
(lakut el-Hamawi's Moschtarek, a work whose pronunciation of
names is often quoted by Abu-1-feda.
It was always famous for the olive gardens (which are mentioned by
Abu-1-feda) and grapes made into sweet raisins which grew in its
vicinity, and is to this day celebrated for the beauty of its women : an
opinion on the soundness of which the Nazarene has, of course, no
opportunity of deciding, though I have been assured by the Faithful
that the reputation is not deserved.
(26) Mohammed ben Ahmed ben Mohammed ben Ali ben Ghazi,
who lived A.H. 858-919, wrote an account of his native town under the
NOTES TO BOOK III. 585
title of Erroudli clhahm fi akhbar Meknaset ezzitun^ admirably
annotated by M. Houdas under the name of " Monographie de
Mequinez " {Journal Asiatiqice^ No. 6, 1885), though in reality it is
mainly an annotated work by a Kadi of Mequinez, Ahmed ben Zegli-
bouch, who died in A.H. 640. According to him, this river, now called
the Bu Fekrar, was formerly called the " Filfil", but at the time he
wrote was known as the Bu Amair, on which a poem — Nozhct
cnnadhir It Ibn Jabir — was written by Abu Abdallah ben Jabir
Elghassani, of which one verse has been preserved in which it is
affirmed that nothing in all the universe was equal to the beauty of
the Bu Amair.
According to Ben Ghazi, it rises in the " Mountain of Beni Fezaz ".
But on many maps the river on which Mekines stands is called the
Wad Bu Naser. On Spanish maps — and the Spanish friars had here
at one time, previous to Sidi Suleiman's reign, an Hospitium for suc-
couring captives — the name is written " Bunazaro". Edrisi, who
mentions Mekines and declares that its true name was Tagdert or
Taguedart, does not apply any name to the stream, while Leo and
Marmol mention vaguely a river in the vicinity of Fez as the Busnasr
and Buc-Nacr. Moiiette calls it by Ben Ghasi's name — the " Bou-
maire", and Marmol the " Bu cehel"; while in other old descriptions it
receives the title of Bou-Fekroun, which is the modern one (Bu
Fekran).
Actually, most of the very familiar Moroccan rivers have more
names than one, the other being — like the epithets bestowed on
cities — poetical or playful designations.
'The historian also vaunts the fertility of the soil of Mekines plain,
and the many fruitswh ich it produced — apricots, helladj {berkuk) :
plums, trabolosi; pomegranates of several varieties, sefri, rahibi,
//laiinuna, ?ioaiini, and akhdar ; figs, chart; etc. The "jujube"
{giiiggiole) is not mentioned directly by name, but is included among
berries and nuts.
(27) The Kintar ox quintal (cantaro) is still used in Barbary as the
equivalent of 112 lbs. avoirdupois, 45.346 kilogrammes, and 145
Leghorn pounds. In Mogador it is taken for 168 lbs. avoirdupois.
This is the rate at which country produce is sold. The Kentar, by
which the price of imported goods is estimated, is equal to 112 lbs.
(i 18 lbs. according to Godard). The Kintar el-Arab is three-fourths
of a Kintar^ while the great Kintar is at Saffi 125, and at Rabat 150
pounds.
Mekines was much enlarged and beautified by Mulai Ismail, but
much of his handiwork, on which swarms of Christian captives were
employed under the ruthless taskmaster of a capable but cruel Sultan,
was effaced by his successors, so that, with the exception of the old castle,
P P
SS6 NOTES TO BOOK III.
the gateways, and the palace of the Sukan (built by Mulai Ismail,
and still the finest building in the place), Mekines does not contain
many remnants of ancient architecture, or, indeed, any modern work
of much note. What there is has been described in a host of volumes
since the treasure city came within the range of the more adventurous
tourist. There are in the. palace and other buildings numbers of
marble columns evidently taken from the Roman Volubilis, though
some of them may, as the story runs, have been brought from Leg-
horn. The Aguedal, a large park, in which the menagerie-loving
Mulai El-Hassan collected a number of ostriches, is less known. But
the three colleges, as described by Leo, have, with many ancient
glories, gone in the endless wars in which the city has been embroiled,
or in the sieges to which it has been subjected. The ancient olive
groves had even in Ben Ghazi's day largely disappeared, owing to the
same causes — when "the Beni-Marini began to ruin the Maghreb".
The population is about 20,000, many of them negroes of the Bokhari
Corps, for whose accommodation Mulai Ismail built a quarter which,
in common with all similar buildings in other parts of the Empire,
is in ruins. The black soldiers, like Pretorian Guards everywhere,
were unpopular.
(28) This refers to the rebellion of Mulai Zidan and the siege of
Mekines for two months by Mohammed VI, of the El-Uatas dynasty,
during which the country around was laid waste and Mulai Zidan
taken prisoner and confined in Fez for a long period. Mulai Naser,
who inflicted so notable a blow on the Portuguese at Mamora(pp. 582,
583), became governor of Mekines in his place. The seven years'
siege refers to the civil war of the two Saids (note 22, p. 580).
(29) At one time the Mekines people bore the reputation of
hospitality, unlike most Moors actually inviting Christian visitors to
their houses. Their wives also unveiled when trying to get a glimpse
of the strangers from their house-tops, but — as invariably happens in
all cities — disappeared when their lord approached. As for the "suavity
of manners" mentioned by Jackson, that must be mere inference, as
they never are unveiled, or speak to any Christian — or, indeed, to any
male except their husbands, or the members of their own families.
But the Mekines husbands are no more jealous than those in other
cities. The streets, moreover, are cleaner than in Leo's day, being
less filthy than those of Moroccan cities generally. It is also worth
remarking that Rohlfs is entirely misinformed in supposing that
" Mequines is the only town in Morocco in which there are public
houses of bad repute."
The subsequent history of Mekines does not concern Leo's narra-
tive.— Moiiette, Histoire dcs Conqucstes de Moiilcy Archy^ etc. (1653) ;
NOTES TO BOOK III. 587
Hist, de ce qui s" est passe dans Ic trois voyages, etc. (1724) ; Windus,
A Journey to Mequines (1725) ; Braithwaite, The History of the
Revolution in the Empire of Morocco, etc. (1279) ; Harris, The Land
of an African Sultan (1889) ; " Montbard" [Georges Loyes], Among
the Moors (1894) ; Leared, A Visit to the Court of Marocco (1879) ;
Stuttfield, El Maghreb {i?)%6) ; Trotter, Our Mission to the Court of
Morocco (1881) ; De la Martiniere, }\lovocco. Journey in the Kingdom
of Fez (1889), etc.
(30) Gerniha-Elchmen, Gontiane, Gemua el-Hamen, or Jami el-
Hammam, was destroyed in the Said wars, about 1420 (p. 580). The
environs were, according" to Leo, inhabited by " certaine Arabs", the
Ibni-Mehc-Sofian of Marmol (the Beni-MeHk-Sefian), who held every
Sunday a market within two miles of the town. This market,
Marmol says, was called Hat-de-tarna. El-Had— Sok el-had — is the
name applied to all markets held on Sunday, while Tarna may be the
name of a tribe, the Beni-Taura (as Renou suggests), who, Edrisi
notes, lived near Mekines. Taura was, indeed, according to Ben
Ghazi, one of the suburbs of old Mekines.
The name of the town, which was sanctuary, refers to the
Hammam, or bath, and at once enables us to determine it to be the
locality where there are still well-frequented hot sulphurous baths, in
high repute for skin diseases. Tissot calls the place Ain el-Kibrit,
and considers it, quite correctly, to have been the site of the Aquae
Dacicas of the Romans. But among the natives the place is better
known as Ain Sidi Yusuf. In taking a bath, it is necessary to keep
calling out " Mulai Yakub burrd u Shrun ! burrd u Shrun I" ("cold
and hot ! cold and hot !"), otherwise the saint, whose tomb is close by
and from whose body the spring is supposed to issue, may send the
water so hot ihat the bather will be boiled (Colville, A Ride in Petti-
coats and Slippers, p. 183). Colonel Colville did not, any more than
the Editor, visit this place. Christians not being welcome. Bllt I have
heard the bathing incantation pronounced differently, Sidi Yusuf and
not Mulai Yakub being invoked. The tradition that the now vanished
town was built by "an Almohade king" (Marmol) may be accepted as
of about as much value as similar legends elsewhere : Abd el-Mumen,
Yusuf Ibn Tasfin, and Yakub el-Mansur being the three sovereigns
who in Morocco are credited with the erection of every town, bridge,
fort, and aqueduct, not clearly assignable to anyone else. The Ulad
Jama is an Arab tribe immediately north of Fez, so that perhaps the
old name might mean simply the Bath in the Jama country. The
" Tedle", on the road to which the place lies, is Kaba Tadla, another
instance of applying this name to Tefza (p. 388).
(31) Camis (not Cannis) Metgara, or Hamiz Metagara of Marmol
in the Zuaga country {Campagtta di Zuaga), was even in Marmol's
P P 2
588 NOTES TO BOOK III.
day a poor place, in which was a ruined castle. In the Said war it
had been destroyed, but the Moors driven out of Spain at the capture
of Granada occupied it in part, as Leo tells us. But, lying on the
route from Fez to Morocco, it always fared so badly that it seems to
have been early deserted for good. In 1544 it suffered (during the
war between the Sheriffs) at the hands of the army of Bu-Hassan, or
Bu azon, governor of Velez (Diego de Torres, Istoria de los Xarifes^
pp. 149-152 ; Marmol, LAfriqiie, t. ii, p. 156). But, though still
occasionally put on maps {e.g., Petermann's, illustrating Rohlfs'
travels, where " Chames Melghara" — not referred to in the narrative —
is the variant, a form copied by Weller in the map attached to the
English version), it is in every case on Leo's and Marmol's authority
alone. According to Ibn er-Rakk it was founded by the Berbers.
In Marmol's day it had a Thursday market, from which it took its
name (Khamis). In the reign of Mulai Ismail, and his predecessor,
there was a fort at " El-Khamis", in which was a garrison of the
Cherage tribe, for patrolling the roads in the vicinity of Fez and
]\Iec|uines (Abulqasim ben Ahmed Ezziani, pp. 23, 35, 92). My friend,
Mr. Budgett Meakin, then of Tangier, took great pains to identify this
place. The country Arabs, and even the more polished town Moors,
seldom take any interest in the past, nor can they understand the motives
for anyone else doing so. Their answers to questions, even when
they do not purposely mislead the inquisitive Nazarene, are very vague,
and altogether wide of the mark. However, a man from the part of
the country in question was found, who had either more intelligence
or frankness than the rest, and the result of a sifting of his informa-
tion is, that " Khamis" is undoubtedly the " Camis" of Leo and Zuaga,
Shraga (the Cheraga of Ezziani and De Foucauld, the Cherarda of
Erckmann), a large tribal district. The only place which can be identi-
fied with Khamis Metgara is Khamis Hajawa (the g of Metgara is
doubtless soft). There is no town, only a village, with a Thursday
(Khamis) market. The distance from Fez is stated to be a short day's
journey ; but there are no mulberries there, nor silk-weaving now-a-
days. Hajawa is not quite in Shraga, but within a few miles of the
border, and the road from Had Kort (near El-Ksar) to Fez passes
through it. The mere fact of the place being a village does not
matter, though at Khamis Hajawa there are traces of the place
having been at one time much larger, for it may be taken that in most
cases by " citt^", Leo means the Arabic equivalent of " blad" — a place
only — as well as a town. Many of his "cities" could never have been
more than villages at their best.
(32) The Beni-Bical of Marmol is described so precisely that its
position can scarcely be mistaken. It is on a small river midway
between Mekines and Fez, a route which is, perhaps, as well known
NOTES TO BOOK III. 589
as any in Morocco. Marmol further gave the name of the river,
" Hue nija," which being translated into less phonetic Arabic, is
Wad Nedja, Nsa Endja, or Ennedja (close to the Palm Tree Bridge),
one of the four streams crossing the road in question, and which
arises near the "Ain Zore". It was destroyed in the Said war, and
not repeopled until 1514, when Mulai Naser was governor of
Mekines. But even then the place was of little account, and at
present may perhaps be traced on one of the rivers on the Nedja.
The Beni-Besil are mentioned by Edrisi as a tribe near Fez. The
village — for it does not seem to have been anything better — was,
according to Marmol, built by Sanhadja Berbers. The "Ain Zore"
of Marmol is the Ainun Zorak of Tissot {Bull, de la Soc. de Gc'og.,
Sept., 1876), and of Martinifere's map {Morocco, p. 420). The Ain
Zorak ("the blue fountain") is not, however, as Marmol imagined, the
source of the Wad Endja, but an affluent of that stream, which was
much further south.
{■},'^ " Fessa, magna cittk e capo di tutta Mauritania," Fez, or Fas,
to use the proper Arabic name, is still the greatest town of Morocco,
and the one on which the Arabic historians are best agreed regarding
its foundation. The story that the town owed its origin to Harun ar-
Raschid, or indeed to anyone except the second Edris, or Idris Ibn
Idris Ibn Abu-1-Kasim, may be passed without discussion. Leo is also
wrong in putting the date A.H. 185 — 736, "di nostra salute," a date
copied by Marmul, and being rendered into a.d. 798, or its equi-
valent. But Renou, while correcting the error, falls into one not less
serious. For A.H. 177=: a.d. 793 was, according to the Roudh cl-
Kartas (p. 25), the date of Edris the Second's birth, not of the
foundation of Fez. It was in A.H. 190 (A.D. 805) that he began to
lay out the future city, having, according to the most acceptable
version of the story, bought of the Beni Yarghish the ground on
which the Adua el-Andalus quarter was built, and the site of the
Adua el-Karwain (Kairwan) from the Beni el-Kheir, a sept of the
Quagha tribe.
The Roudh el-Kartas devotes much space to a discussion of the
etymology of Fas, or Fes, or Fahs, for it is written in either way
almost indifferently. The favourite derivation is that Fas means the
city of the axe, because a stone tool of the kind was found in digging
the foundation for the walls. This is not improbable, since it is
extremely likely that stone weapons of the primitive inhabitants would
be among the relics disinterred in a region so long one of their
favourite haunts. In the Jebel Zalah there are numerous caves in
the limestone, which, though never examined, bear the distinct im-
press of having been troglodytic dwellings, just as similar natural
or excavated caverns do in so many other parts of Morocco. The
590 NOTES TO BOOK III.
word " Fedda", money, and the etymology favoured by Leo, is less
plausible.
The river on which Fez is built is now usually known as the Wad
Fez, as it also was in Marmol's time. But the occasional name
of Wad (Huet) Giohorra (el-Jahar), the River of Pearls, which he
and his copyists mention as an alternative one, is not generally, if at
all, in use. The Fas poets have other fancy titles for it (Wad el-
Kantsa, Wad Mafresin, etc.), and the historians are not much less
fertile. The poets of this city excel themseh^es in praise of the
wholesome character of its water, now so dysenteric that everyone
who can afford it drinks water brought from the neighbouring
Sherardi hills. The picturesque manner in which it dashes through
and under the city, driving mills, and acting as a general sewer before
it reaches the Sebu, is, however, undeniable.
(34) This refers to the early disputes over the Khalifate. " Cozen "
and " Cozen-german " are here used in the meaning of relatives.
Ali was nephew and son-in-law — not " fratelcugino " — of Mohammed.
What follows narrates in a quaint manner the broils between the
families of Abbas (Habbus) or Abassides, and that of Moawiya
(Vmeve) — the grandson of Omayya, leader of the Meccans in the
battle of Ohod — or Omayyades. In the lifetime of the Prophet
the most powerful sept of Korash were the Beni Makhsun, but the Beni
Abd Shams were more distinguished ; while among the Abd Shams,
the Beni Omayya were the greatest. Mohammed was himself a Beni-
Hashem, a family which it is said enjoyed at one time the position
occupied by the Beni Omayya. This, however, was an after-invention
of the Hashemites, when they claimed, as the House of Ali and
representatives of the Abassides, to be the heirs of the Khalifate
in opposition to the Omayyades (Sprenger, Lehcn und Lehrc des
Muli(i))imed^ etc., vol. iii, pp. cxx, et seq.)
The remainder of Leo's account is a well-known part 01 the history
of the early Khalifate. For " Falerna Mahumets owne daughter",
read " Fatima". 1
By " the first patriarke " (primo pontifice) is meant Abu-1-Abbas as-
Safifah. His proper name was Abd-Allah (Hab dulla), and the cog-
nomen of Safifah (Seffie) was afterwards conferred on him. He was
not " the first patriarch", but the first Khalif of the Abbasid dynasty ;
and in him the headship of Islam returned to a grand-nephew of the
Prophet. It was this Khalif s successor who tried to exterminate the
descendants of Ali, and it was under the fourth Khalif of the dynasty
(Hadi) that the partisans of the house of Ali raised a rebellion.
Harun ar-Raschid was Hadi's brother and successor. Edris ben
Abd allah was cousin of " Hosain ben Ali", who had proclaimed
huiiself Khalif, but on a pilgrimage to Mecca was slain by a party
NOTES TO BOOK IIT. 59I
of Abbasides. But though Edris's brother had been beheaded (not
"hanged") by the Khalif, he was not, as usually stated, the last of the
family of Ali and Fatima. He, however, considered it prudent to
escape by way of Egypt into Morocco, and seek refuge among the
Berbers of Mount Zarhun (Zaron), where he built, or rather improved,
the town of Ualili (Gualili, Tuilit), which might possibly have been
originally Roman, and was certainly largely constructed out of materials
obtained from the neighbouring Roman town of Volubilis. Indeed,
it was a tradition in Ben Ghazi's day that the population of that part
of the country were of " Rumi " origin ; Roman blood is undoubtedly
in the veins of many of them.
In the French edition of Leo (vol. i, p. 325) Zarhun is put at 130
miles from Fez, and Renou gravely argues that this must have been a
mistake of the author for 30 ; Leo (p. 488) mentioning that the moun-
tain begins at 10 miles from Fez, and extends for 30 miles. The
blunder is, however. Temporal's, for in the original the distance is
" circa k trenta miglia".
(35) This, according to the Roiidh cl-Kartas, was in A.H. 172,
(a.d. 788). At that time the Berbers were still to a large extent
Pagans. Many of them were semi-Judaised, and some who had
fallen under the influence of the Goths in Spain (the so-called
"Andalus") had obtained a veneer of Christianity. But even the
Moslem section of the people, while venerating a descendant of Ali
and Fatima, had little love for the Amirs, lieutenants of the Khalif,
who governed Morocco, so far as they were concerned, in a very
nominal fashion. They therefore gladly received Edris as their chief,
and in time the probity of his life attracted to him many adherents at
a distance from Zarhun. The Pagans, Judaised tribes, and Christians
who did not accept his rule were conquered by force. Behlula,
Mediuna, tribes of the people of Fasaz territory, then Temsena,
Sheila — still an uninhabited town — and Tedla, passed under the yoke ;
and Tlemsen was attacked and forced to submit until the Edrisite
dynasty was established. It was the first independent royal house in
Morocco, and, though under an Arab, was actually one of Berbers.
Edris, however, roused the suspicion of Harun ar-Raschid, whose
Amir, Ibrahim Ibn el-Aghlab, sent an agent to Ulili, who under
the guise of a physician anxious to join the Edrisites, managed
to poison the too-victorious Imam. Poison has always been a favourite
instrument of diplomacy in the East, and is to this day in Morocco. Not
many years before Edris's death, Ashar All's general had been poisoned
by the order of Moawiya, and Hassan, son of Ali, met the same fate,
it is believed, by a plot of the same inveterate enemy of his father.
(36) The mother of Edris II (Abu-1-Kasim) was Khanza, a slave,
592 NOTES TO BOOK III.
whom his father had received as a present. He had no other
children.
Rashid, the faithful general of Edris I, and Guadia, his son, is
always referred to with great respect by the native historian. The
accomplishments of his pupil, both in arms and poetry, are also
praised.
(37) Originally there were two towns, one on each side of the river ;
the one called, in Marmol's day, " Beleyde", and the other " Ain Alu"
(Ain Halwa, " the pleasant fountain"), between which a little rivalry
existed, owing to the different banks of the river being inhabited by
the Zuagh (a branch of the Zeneta) and the Beni Yarghish (note 33).
The one professed Christianity and inhabited the Andalus side, the
other Islam, and claimed the Kairwan bank. From them Idris bought
the land for 5,000 dirhems (about £200), though they continued to live
in the houses which covered their old territory.
The Andalusi, or Spaniards, after whom the Adua el Andalus was
named, were people of mixed race— many of them being Jews, the
descendants of refugees from Cordova, who had sought safety in Fez, and
paid a tribute of 30,000 dinars to Edris. The Kairwain, from whom
the Adua el Kairwain (Kairwan) obtained its name, came from Kairwan
in Africa. But though Yussuf ben Tasfin removed the wall separatmg
the two quarters, and erected a bridge to unite them, the old animosity
was so deeply seated that as late as the reign of the present Sultan's
grandfather (Abd er-Rahman), it vented itself in bloodshed. Each
section had its own mosque, market, and mint, and at one time even
proclaimed a Sultan of its own choice. To this day the people of the
Andalus quarter bear the reputation for being the strongest, bravest,
and most skilful in agriculture, while the Kairwain are — or were —
more learned and cultured, better traders, and more handsome in
person. There are now six bridges over the river, and the town is
divided into twenty quarters (homa), two In Fas el-Jedid (New Fez),
the remainder in Fas el-Bali (Old Fez), and contains about 50,000
people, a fifth of them Jews. New Fez has three gates. Old Fez seven.
But only one of the ancient gates, the site of which is called by the
same name, Silslah, and the successor of the Bab el-Hadid, is still
standing. " Kamaseka", the name of one of the old gates, is in
Morocco given to Christian churches as distinguished from mosques.
Wlien the gate was rebuilt in a.d. 1204, it was renamed " Kharkha".
Little of Edrisi's structures are standing, new walls and new gates
having in eleven centuries been built, and destroyed, and rebuilt, in the
many sieges and civil wars of which Fez has been the centre. In the
first 500 years of its existence the city was laid siege to eight times,
viz., in A.D. 960, 979, 1045, 1048, 1069, 1 145, 1248 and 1250. Abd' el-
Mumen nearly destroyed it by building a dam across the plain, until
NOTES TO BOOK III. 593
the springs were collected into a reservoir, which he let loose on the
rebellious town. What remained of the walls he levelled, though they
were re-erected by his grandson. Almost every sovereign since then
has been compelled, as a preliminary to making good his claim
to the throne, to reduce Fez, with the result that the place has been
alternately converted into a heap of ruins and then rebuilt ; as the
Sultan found that to leave this pestilent town to itself was, at times,
tantamount to raising up a rebel stronghold behind him. Except
mosques, palaces, and the like, all built in its palmy days, the modern
Fez does not in its general plan differ much from that of an earlier
period. Everything else is very old. Of the seven gates, the Bab el-
Muharrak, outside of which a market is held on Thursday, was built in
A.D. 1204. It derives its name, "the burned", from the fact that on
the day it was completed, a rebel's head was stuck over it, and his
body burnt beneath it. The Jami el-Andalus, a mosque close to
the Bab Sidi Bugida— Sidi Bugida being the name of a saint whose
tomb is hard by— reminds us that it was built by the Moors from
Spain. Ftuh and Gisa commemorate two legendary rivals of that
name, who, in A.D. 1063, contended for the throne of Fez. But when
El-Ftuh conquered his brother, he ordered his name, Ajisa, to be
decapitated, hence Jisa, or Gisa. The gate was rebuilt by Abu Abd-
Allah in A.D. 1285. — Times of Morocco, Nos. 174, 176.
There were many springs in the land on which Fez was built, and
one still bears the name of Ain Amir, after the Vizier Ben Moshab el-
Azdi, who made the explorations which resulted in the selection of the
site. The Beni Meljoun, a tribe long the hereditary masons of
Fez, claimed to be descended from him {Roztdh el-Karias, p. ■},-^).
About A.D. 127, Abu Yussuf erected another town to the S.S.E. of the
old one. This was at first called Medinet el-Beida (the white town),
but afterwards received the name of Fas el-Jedid (or New Fez), in oppo-
sition to Fas el-Bali (old Fez). These names are still preserved, " Old
Fez" being the town proper, New Fez, the Court and Jews' Quarter.
(38) The description is criticised by Rohlfs as inaccurate, Fez
being " surrounded by mountains on all sides excepting the south "
{Adventures, p. 123). But, in reality, the hills are on all sides except
the west, Rohlfs having confused the west with the south and the
other points of the compass correspondingly. Then he says that
"the town may be viewed as if placed on an axis lying north and
south", the fact being that it lies east and west. If the error is borne
in mind and allowed for, south being read west and north, east, his
description of Fez is fairly accurate. —Colville, .^ Ride, etc., pp. 135
and 136. Fez is in Lat. 34° 6' 3" N. ; Long. 4° 38' 15" W. But
though only 230 miles N.E. of Marakesh, it cannot, owing to the
disturbed condition of the country, be reached by a straight route.
594 NOTES TO BOOK ITT.
(39) It is doubtful if there were ever so many mosques in Fez ; and
though at present they are numerous, the total does not reach any-
where near 700, which would be a mosque for every 100 inhabitants
in even its palmy days, which may be regarded as those described
by Leo.
(40) The Kairwain (not " Karubin, the mosque dedicated to the
Cherubim," as Rohlfs has it) is not "the largest in North Africa",
though one of the finest edifices of its kind. It was begun on the
first of the month of Ramadhan, A.H. 245 (a.d. 859). Previously, the
religious rites of Friday were held either in the Mosque Esh-Shurfa,
built in the Adua el- Kairwain, or in the Mosque of the Sheikhs in the
Adua el-Andalus. The Imam Ahmed ben Abu-Bekr constructed the
minaret of El-Kairwain in the years a.d. 955 and 956, and most of the
Sultans have added to its architectural glories. It is now the building
in which the "Library" and " LIniversity" (Dar el-Funun) are con-
tained. The candlesticks made out of Christian bells seem to have
disappeared — cast, possibly, Rohlfs suggests, into cannon.
C41) Accepting the ducat as equal to one metkal, now worth ten
ounces, or 3xoo5 '^^> ^^ '^^e value of money four centuries ago, worth
one franc twenty-five centimes — rather less than one shilling — this
must have been a large sum four hundred years ago. — (Lorsbach.)
(42) The " stately colleges " are now no longer stately, though there
are fourteen IVIedresas named after the quarters in which they are
situated and the trades by which they were chiefly founded and are
supported. But the so-called University of Fez, the centre of all
Arabic learning, though it still attracts a number of fanatical students
of Moslem theology, is now little better than a mosque school in
which the knowledge imparted is of the most antiquated description.
The Professors are, however, noted for their independence of the
opinions of those in power, and are frequently the leaders of what
semblance of public opinion exists in Fez. As late as 1540 Nicolas
Cleynarts (Latinised Clenardus), the Flemish grammarian, came to
study here, but unfortunately he left but a scanty account of his
experiences, having died in Granada in 1542 on his way home from
Fez. He found, however, the place then in its decadence {Peregri-
7iationum ac de rebus mahometicis Epistola elegantissimcc, 1561).
M. Delpen, in his Fas son Universite et renseignevient stiperieiir
niusidnian (1881), has compiled from native information a very full
and the only approximately accurate account of the once-noted seat
of learning. The students have still many ancient privileges, such
as electing (usually by bribery) a puppet Sultan who levies contri-
butions from the citizens, etc. The mosque of Mulai Edris, in which
NOTES TO BOOK III. 595
the founder of the city is buried, is notable for its green roof. On the
exterior is a silver plate with raised gold letters containing the legend
regarding the building of the mosque.
The quarter in which it stands is the most sacred ground in Fez.
At the entrance to the street a chain is stretched, and a guard is
always placed to prevent Jews or Christians defiling the ground by
passing down ; and most of the inhabitants are .Shurfa or descendants
of Mohammed.
(43) These are not infirmaries for the sick, but simply places where
pilgrims and the like were entertained free of charge, as is still the
case with some foundations in England (Rochester, for example),
Savoy, France, etc. They do not now exist, having even before
Leo's day been deprived of their funds by needy kings. Vincent Le
Blanc refers to this. " Muley Malouco" (Abd el-Melek, who fell at
the Battle of Alcassar, 1 578") wishing to borrow the golden balls of
the Kutubia in Morocco for the expenses of his wars, was told by the
people that his grandfather had " sold the foundation rents of the
Hospitall of Fez, and dyed before he could recover them, so as 'twas
lost to the poor" {The World Surveyed, etc., tran. by T. B. Gent,
1660, p. 256).
(44) A lunatic asylum existed at the time Rohlfs stayed in the city.
It was simply a dungeon, in which among filth the half-starved inmates
were chained, so as to be out of harm's way. It was supported by
legacies, but seems now a vanished institution. At all events, I
cannot hear of its existence. Leo's account sounds amazingly like
that which might have been given of a hundred European "Bedlams"
less than a century ago. He wrote from intimate acquaintance with
the system, for he was hospital clerk at a salary of about 3i.y. a
month {Introduction).
(45) The baths in Fez belong to private individuals, to the govern-
ment, or to the mosques. But most of them are very uncomfortable.
In Rohlfs' time the highest price charged was a penny. The charge
in Leo's day seems to have been higher. But having been indignantly
refused the privilege of one of the baths — as all "Christians" are — I
cannot speak of them except from hearsay. The annual festival is, I
am told, still surviving, but in a very shadowy shape of its ancient
form.
(46) Fez, even when the Sultan is absent, is, unlike Marakesh, a
comparatively busy place, the streets having generally numbers of
people in them. This is due to the many strangers visiting it for
business, or pleasure, or devotion. Hence the number of caravan-
59^ NOTES TO BOOK III.
serais in it, thouj^h possibly 200 is more than the town could at any
time support. In Fez hospitality is less practised than where there
are fewer of what Leo calls " innes". But in reality the latter are
merely buildings where the traveller can sleep, store his goods, stable
his animals, and cook his food either himself, or have it done by his
servants. The innkeeper seldom undertakes to board his lodger. The
inns are of all kinds. The better class have fine courtyards and galleries
like the old English inns, while the poorer are filthy in the extreme, the
cattle being kept in the courtyards, and their owners in wretched cells
around it. The Kandji (coffee-seller) does not provide attendance,
and, as every traveller is provided with the necessary camping equip-
age, his services, except perhaps to supply the tea or— less frequently
— coffee (all day long in request) are seldom required.
The infamous houses kept by the El-Khanate (Elchena) have
ceased to exist, for though Fez does'not bear the best of reputations, it
is not perhaps the sink of indescribable vice it was in the Middle
Ages. The " innes " of Fez are, indeed, mostly owned by the Jews.
They are, as everywhere in Morocco, known as " fondaks" (A mh'c,
fenaduk, szng: funduk ; Spanish, Fo^ida ; Italian, fotidaco), and are
quite distinct from the coffee-shops, which are in Morocco not
frequented by the best kind of people. Coffee, indeed, is very little
drunk ; but though intoxicating liquor is prohibited, it can be got, the
Jews being notorious for making and selling wine and a spirit distilled
from dates and figs. Some of these fondaks are far from respect-
able, but the more disreputable class of houses are generally in the
hands of some individual wealthy enough to bribe the authorities to
be officially blind.
(47) This description may still stand for the Fez water mills. Leo
has, however, rather exaggerated the number, even in his day, w^hile
Pory has mistranslated the passage relating to the charges for
grinding. It was not "a shilling", which would have made the fine
flour of the Fez plain wheat rather costly, but "due bjocchi"— about
twopence.
(48) At one time, according to the RoudJi el-Karlas, there were said
(with oriental exaggeration, perhaps) to have been 400 paper-makers in
Fez. There is not one now, paper being imported from Europe, and
not a great deal being required. A letter from the late Sultan Mulai el-
Hassan, which the Editor received in 1884, is written on cheap "com-
mercial post". In vain did I inquire for a bookseller, the only
approach being a Taleb— too greedy to be scrupulous— who offered to
write a copy of the Koran. A scholar I never met with— ne\'er as
much as heard of. When I inquired for a learned Moor, somebody
who had learned by heart whole chapters of " the book ", or could
NOTES TO BOOK III. 597
repeat pages of Sidi Bakari, or was an authority on the Tradition,
might be mentioned. But an astronomer, a geographer, a man with
any European — any except theological oriental — learning seemed
to be unknown in modern Morocco.
At one time, however, there must have been collections of books in
Fez large enough to warrant the fame of the city for learning. The
Arab Amirs of Morocco competed with their rivals in Spain for the
glory of being the patrons of scholarship and of its cultivators.
When the Moors left Spain shiploads of books were taken with them.
Embassies were sent for the purpose of reclaiming certain documents,
and Christian captives were given in exchange for others. In 1285,
Yakub el-Mansur obtained from Sancho, King of Seville, the resti-
tution of thirteen mule-loads of books, which he presented to the
libraries of Fez. In 1326, Abu Said was equally munificent. — Delphin,
Fas, son Uiiiversite, etc., pp. 82-83. /
M. Delphin had no personal knowledge of Fez, but from his position
as Professor of Arabic at Oran he had better opportunities of obtain-
ing valuable information than in the former city. For, in Morocco,
to ask questions about anything is to arouse suspicion. But civil war,
and the neglect which the libraries suffered during the reign of
unlettered Sultans must have ended in the destruction, theft, or ruin
of many. Forty years after the date when Leo was a boy in Fez,
Clenardus relates that the company around the book-stalls by the
great mosque were fonder of pricing than of buying the literary
treasures. Indeed, he does not make any remark about the value
of that which was offered for sale.
Since then, all manner of vain imaginings have been suggested
regarding the contents of the "Library" in the Kairwain mosque.
It may, so runs the oft-repeated legend, possess valuable histories
in MS., classics, it may be, from the old library of Alexandria —
possibly the lost books of Livy (107 out of 142, though of two only
do we not possess epitomes). But all is far from probable. The
liuctuations in opinion regarding this library are curious, if not
instructive. The late Sir John Drummond Hay, for so many years
English Minister to Morocco, made exhaustive inquiries on the
subject ; and, though he offered a large sum of money for any MS.
of value, he failed to obtain the desideratum. At one time, he was
told, there were a good many books, but they have been lost by
lending, devoured by insects, mould, and the other enemies of litera-
ture, until few remained. Most probably some theological treatises,
translations in Arabic, possibly of the classics, or it may be some
chronicles like those of Ibn Batuta Ben Ghazi, Ben Abdallah
Eloufrani-Ezziani, and others found in the Library of Constantine
and other Algerian towns, comprised the bulk. But no European
has much chance of ascertaining until Morocco is under other rulers,
598 NOTES TO BOOK III.
and while the Moors place such inordinate store by what they possess
that their assertions are of little value. They imagine that Europe is
longing for the seraphic wisdom stored up in these diffuse maunder-
ings of a few centuries ago, unaware that in the Nazarene libraries
there are more Arabic books than in all Morocco. Few, if any, of
them have any idea of what a great library is ; and hence the
adjectives applied to the magnitude of the Kairwain collection may
be accepted for what they are worth.
It was from some such stories that Rohlfs obtained the information
that there was " at least 5,000 MS. volumes in the mosque". The
authorities will assuredly not give any voluntary assistance. They
even object to the Christian visitors being allowed to buy any object
in the bazaars which may happen to have a verse of the Koran on it.
and if a copy of that work is written for a book-loving traveller, the
price charged is usually high enough to salve the scribe's wounded
conscience. In short, the only literature to be picked up in Fez, or
other towns of Morocco, is usually of no more than caligraphic interest.
Still the idea is persistent that there must be some books of value in
the palaces and mosques, which would well repay a search by some
good Arabic scholar. In 1883, M. Rene Basset published a list of
240 MSS. in the Kairwain mosque library. This had been furnished
to M. Ordega, at that time French Minister to Morocco, but though
manifestly imperfect, it comprises, most likely, all the more important
works {Bull, de Correspondance Africaine^ Fas. VI, Nov. and Dec,
1882, p. 366). The catalogue is very disappointing, while Edris ben
Tsabet's estimate of the library containing 30,000 volumes can scarcely
be accepted as in keeping with the space in which they are stowed
{Bibl. of Morocco, Nos. 424, 15 18). In 1540, Clenardus saw only
remnants of libraries, but, in 1613, Erpennius estimated the Fez books
in the collection at more than 32,000.
<^ But in 1760 the Sultan Sidi Mohammed distributed to the Kadis
/ throughout the empire the greater part of the books in the Kairwain
mosque, and Mulai Sulieman, reserving only such works as were
required for the use of Jurisconsults, dispersed a large part of the
remainder — a state of matters much more in keeping with the facts of
the case than pretending that anything like 30,000 volumes are still in
the library. M. de la Martiniere even declares that M. Tissot
"visited the two great mosques of Mula Idris and El-Qairouyin, and
found the libraries empty." This statement is so entirely contrary to
everything that I have heard, and in every respect so unlikely, that it
must be accepted with doubt. But if M. de la Martiniere was not
misinformed, it proves that M. Delphin must have been grossly deceived
by his friend, M. Tolba. He takes, moreover, an exaggerated view of
the " University", which a less Algerianised idea of Morocco might
perhaps have dissipated.
NOTES TO ROOK ITI. 599
(49) " A cinquanta altre bottighe"— the fifty shops of the fruit-sellers,
— is omitted.
(50) " Carote e navoni" are the words which Pory, throughout this
chapter, translates as " pease and turnep-rootes". Temporal renders
the first word not carrots but parsnips (pastonnades). The carrot was
known to the ancients, and is a favourite vegetable among the Moors;
but as it was not introduced into England before the sixteenth century,
it is not impossible that neither Pory nor Temporal were acquainted with
it. Yet it is curious to find Florianus translating " carote" as " ciceres"
(an error copied by Pory), since the carrot was imported into England
by way of Holland.
(51) The substitution by Florianus of "liardo" for "bajocho" is
erroneous, for the old hard was worth only the fourth of a sou.
Temporal falls into the same inaccuracy.
(52) Fares (Abu An'an), a.d. 1351-1357, of the Beni-Marini dynasty.
This description, making allowance for the different needs of the time,
and the decadence of Fez, will very fairly apply to the present day.
(53) Leo says little about the slave trade, which at that time was
largely supplied by European captives. The negro traffic had, however,
begun, and was most likely then, as now, held in the same place.
Corn is sold in the morning and slaves in the afternoon (note 76).
(54) " Kaseria" is the title of a market-place all over the Barbary
States, and no doubt received this name from the custom described.
In Fez the Kaseria is a network of narrow, covered-in lanes, guarded
by men and dogs trained to spring on any intruder.
(55) Many of the Fez merchants still do a large business, and are
held in good repute in Marseilles, Cadiz, Lisbon and Gibraltar ; and a
Moor with whom I voyaged from Gibraltar to Plymouth gave me a
curious account of the number of his countrymen in Manchester, and
of the extent of their dealings and credit in England and other countries.
This confidence is therefore presumably not misplaced, though there
are disagreeable experiences of traders in the coast towns who
become bankrupt and return an apocryphal list of Mohameds and
Ibrahims of El-This and El-That, their debtors in " the interior". In
fact, it is now difficult for the ordinary Moorish trader to get credit
from the Christian manufacturer.
(56) There is an excellent chapter (by Mr. Cowan) on Moorish
cookery in Cowan and Johnston's Moorish Lotos Leaves, pp. 237-286.
(57) As Moorish rites are all ordained by " the law", they do not
differ much in the course of centuries. This description of a marriage
600 NOTES TO BOOK III.
m Morocco may be accepted as still correct, not only for that
country, but generally for other Moslem lands.
(58) Some may be remnants of Roman rites which were dovetailed
into early Christianity.
(59) Pigeons are still kept, but more for food than sport, and the
breeds I have seen are very poor. The early reputation of Morocco
for fancy pigeons is preserved in the variety called " Barbs"—" He
will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back any
show of resistance."— i%;?ry /F, Act II (Part 2), Sc. IV. Mary
Queen of Scots wearied in her last captivity for "pigeons from
Barbary".
(60) Chess-playing is still in favour with the better-class Moors,
and indeed figures in many Moorish tales. The " bickers", as they
used to be called in Scotland, are not now much in vogue among the
Fez boys.
(61) The Fez poets seem to be almost extinct, though the people
are fond of singing, and the professional musician still chants his own
verses when invited to entertain company after dinner at great men's
houses.
(62) This still applies. See also Delphin, Fas, sojt Universite, etc. ;
Godard, Maroc, p. 235, etc.
(63) "Due bajocchi." Fortune-telling and divining are much in
vogue, and the methods described are those practised at the present
day, and indeed all over Europe, where divination is popular in pro-
portion to the credulity of the diviner's dupes.
(64) Or " Sahharin".
(65) Astrology is cultivated, though even that illegitimate sister
of astronomy has fallen from any semblance of science it ever pos-
sessed. Astronomy is said to be "taught" in the University, but
though Mulai el-Hassan learned the use of the sextant from a French
renegade (Abd er-Rahman, Count de Saulty, a Captain of Engineers,
whose romantic tale relieves the dulness of these latter days of
Barbary), and was fond of using it, neither he nor any one of whom
I have heard had any acquaintance with systematic astronomy. At
one time it was very different. Abu Hassan Ali, of Morocco, composed
a treatise on astronomical instruments, which showed that in the
thirteenth century the science had made considerable advances in
Morocco {Bibl. of Morocco, Nos. 575, 743, 2023 ; see Introduction.
Ali Bey found at the beginning of the century that, in addition
NOTES TO BOOK III. 6oi
to a room full of rotting manuscripts in the Kairwan mosque, there
was another containing clocks and various astronomical instruments,
mostly out of repair, and of which nobody knew the use. Among the
latter were European terrestrial and celestial globes, etc., none of them
less than a century old. Euclid existed m four great folio volumes
unread, Ptolemy was the latest treatise on cosmography studied, and
Aristotle's physics were talked of Yet even then sufficient astronomy
was understood for the time of prayer to be fixed by observations
taken with rude astrolobes constructed for each latitude. But though
some notions of alchemy existed, chemistry, in the true meaning of
the term, was unknown, and the ideas of medicine and geography
were most elementary. Among the text books in use in the " Uni ■
versity of Fez", are — in astronomy, Ilin et-tenjin, the Mi/qna el-
Kebir, and the Miiqna! es-serir of Sussi, the Nef tnii cs-Siradj of El-
Akhdari, the Mandhuma of El-Meknassi, the Rissala of El-Mardine,
and his commentator Et-Tajuri, Benu Ahibak, Abd Allah ben
Mohammed el-Tejibi, Benu el-Benna, El-Althab, and Benu Merzug.
In geography and history the text-books are: — Mas'udi, Ibn el-Athu",
Es-Suyuti El-Khatibi, Abu-1-Feda, Makkari, Ibn Khatib, El-Adhari,
Obeid El-Bekri, Edrisi, Benu el-Uardi, El-Abderi, Ibn Bathutha, El-
Karamani, Ibn As-Sakir, Ibn Abi Zera'a Er-Rumi, Abd el-Wahid,
Abu Ishak es-Sijilmassi, Sidi Bu Ras, El-Kessi, Ez-Zeiani, Handun
ben el-Hajj El-Fasi, etc. Many of these works are of course
well known, but numbers are still strange to European scholars.
M. Delphin's information was obtained from presumably trustworthy
quarters, viz., Si Idris ben Isabel and Si Mohamed El-Harchani, both
professors in TIemsen and former students in Fez. To them Fez was
still "le Dar el-'ilm" — the House of Science — the asylum of Mussul-
man learning ; so that while not ignorant of the state of knowledge
elsewhere, they probably regarded their Alma Mater rather more
favourably than she deserved. The height of the sun is still taken by
an astrolabe, and the names of the principal constellations and phases
of the moon are known. But beyond this, the knowledge of
astronomy in Fez is very limited, though probably since Captain
Erckmann taught the Kairwain Tholba the use of logarithms, they
may aim at higher things. M. Godard, who lived long in Morocco,
and is in most facts of the kind tolerably accurate, does not by
any means take so high an estimate of the Moroccan Tholba's
acquirements. They possess, he affirms, a translation of Euclid, but
algebra, a branch of science with an Arabic name, is little known.
The arithmetical treatise of AH Ibn-Mohammed Ibn Ali el-Coish
(better known as El-Calsadi) is their common text-book, and for the
Kitab el-Mokna of Abd Allah-Mohammed Ibn-Said, a native of Sus.
Their astronomy consists mainly in the casting of horoscopes. Pro-
fessors of divining, incantations, necromancy, and occult science, swarm
QQ
6o2 NOTES TO BOOK til.
throughout the empire. The Tholba — graduates of Fez — are often
so ignorant, or so knavish, as to pretend to predict events by the
appearance of the sky, though it is doubtful if one of them could
calculate an eclipse. The dense ignorance of the people wins for the
Tholba, and especially for the Professors of the Kairwain " University",
immense consideration among their tribesmen, who believe that they
know incantations by which hidden treasures can be unearthed and
the future foretold, and disagreeable people removed. Their influence
in the country is perhaps the reason why they are compelled to reside
in Fez.
(66) The two names printed Margian and Ibnu Caldim should be
Margiane and Ibn Khaldun.
Magic and kindred occult sciences of the Moslems were in large
part adopted from the Jews, so that their incantations, talismans, and
the like, are much the same as those in Europe, the Babylonian-
Greek astrology having been systematised in the writings of Paul of
Alexandria and Claudius Ptolemy, which were known to the learned
Mohammedans through translations.
The " hand " painted on walls, or made in brass and other
materials, is a protection, universal in Morocco, against the evil eye ;
and " Solomon's seal" (the pentagram), which is equally common, is a
tradition of the Pythagoreans, though now a magic symbol in almost
every country. — Bretschneider, Geometrie von Euklides, p. 85.
(67) These remarks of Leo on Hassan al-Basri and the other Free-
thinkers of Islam do not specially concern Morocco, as none of the
heterodox sects, according to the Mohammedan way of thinking,
have now an open — if indeed any — existence in Barbary.
(68) The chief sects in Morocco are not I'eally religious dissenters,
or Al viotazila^ as the followers of Wasil ibn Obaid were called, but
Akhivdn (sing. Akhu, brother) or brotherhoods, comparable in some
respects to monastic orders. These powerful fraternities are Mulai
Tayyib, whose head is the Grand Sherifif of Wazan, the Derkana, the
Aissawi — from whom most of the fire-eaters and performers of other
hideous orgies come — that of Sidi Abd el-Kader, el-Jilali, and that of
Sidi Ahmed Jejini, though the two latter have fewer followers than
he others. There are some other Akhivdn in Morocco, but none of
much importance. — Krckmann, Lc Maroc Modcrnc, pp. qq-i 12.
The scene described by Leo in Cairo has also been witnessed in
Morocco.
(69) These sects of Leshari and Imamia have not nowadays much
hold, so far as I can learn, in Morocco.
Leo likened these doctrines to the Jewish Kal^balah, and in many
NOTES TO BOOK III. 603
respects they are similar. It is indeed known that Jewish philosophy-
infiltrated into Mahommedanism. Leo X — the patron and godfather
of the Moor— was greatly attracted to the Kabbalah doctrines, a
fact which might perhaps have tempted Leo to trace them among the
Arabs also. — Ginsburg, The Kabbalah (1865).
(70} These treasure-seekers, or El-Kanisin (from Kanz, a treasure),
are as sanguine as ever, and to their iconoclastic propensities
is due the fact that scarcely an ancient building in Morocco has
one stone left on another. Some of the Tholba affect to know
the magical art of finding where the ancient people hid their treasures,
and wondrous tales are told of gold and precious stones having been
dug out of the ruins of Roman towns. " Pots and kettles of gold, and
silver coins", Jackson, a rather credulous writer, was led to believe
in 1801 were "continually disinterred from" the ruins of Volubilis.
Stories of this kind, invented or exaggerated, keep alive the legend,
though I have never ascertained that any facts support them.
If a European examines any old building he is, of course, set down
as a treasure-seeker, and if he takes any measurements he is supposed
to be following the instructions of his "book". The same ideas prevail
everywhere in Barbary, and extensively in Egypt (Abd-Allatif, Relation
de PEgyptc, ed. Silvestre de Sacy, pp. 196, 198, 203, 209, 509, 513).
Amazing tales are told of the treasures come upon among the ruins
of Carthage and other ancient sites, as also, and with more basis
in truth, of the Incas buildings in Peru. No doubt engraved gems
and articles of even more intrinsic value have been and are disinterred,
especially in Tunis, but Morocco seems to have been evacuated too
leisurely for many hastily hidden hoards to have been neglected.
(71) J afar, better known as Geber, lived in the middle of the
eighth century. He was not a Greek, but a Sabtean. But Avicenna
(Ibn Sina) Rhazes, Artephius (a Cabbalist also) Kalidi, and other
Moslems whose writings must have been well known in Leo's day,
were at least alchemists, if not searchers after the philosopher's stone.
In Morocco the seekers after the elixir seem extinct, though the
" other sort", so far as counterfeiting coin is concerned, still survive.
Hands cut off for this and other offences are common. There
are, however, Moghrebins — mostly Tunisian and Algerian — who
affect to possess the secret of how base metals may be transmuted
into gold and silver. In Egypt they are held in esteem as skilful in
raising genii to do their bidding, and as necromancers generally. —
Perron, Notes to Sidi-Khclil, t. iii, p. 583.
(72) The snake-charmers come, for the most part, from Sus. This
indeed is the land of acrobats and show folk generally, who collect the
dwarfs which Mr. Halliburton imagines to inhabit particular localities
Q Q2
604 NOTES TO BOOK III.
in that region ; among others the oasis of Akka, actually one of the
best-known spots on the caravan route from Mogador to Timbuktu.
The fortune-tellers of Morocco are much less known to Europeans.
They are the gipsies known as " Jenkanes ", though by that term it
must not be supposed that any relation to the Indian wanderers
of Europe is suggested. The Moroccan Jenkanes are apparently
roamers who have lost a tribal connection — possibly the debris of the
nomad people of ancient invasions, or of the races pulverised by the
ruthless wars of the Romans. They speak no special dialect, most
of them understanding Arabic and Berber ecjually well. The men,
curiously enough, follow the trade of horse-coping, as do the European
gipsies, while the women are equally addicted to palmistry, and
knavery generally — these occupations being hereditary. They pro-
fess to be the best of Mohammedans, though they are suspected not
to be too strict in their observances, and to admix with it practices
smacking decidedly of paganism. The " Jenkanes " {sing, jinkan),
— about whom very little is known, though well worthy of study —
marry chiefly among themselves, the other races of Morocco not
caring much for brides or husbands selected from among these
outcasts. In appearance they differ much from the people around
them ; otherwise the suggestion might be made of the Jenkan being
a Spanish gipsy (Spanish. Gitano: Syrian, Jinganch; Turkish,
CJiinghidn; and so forth), who at some early date crossed, voluntarily
or involuntarily, the Strait of Gibraltar.
Leo compares them to the Italian " Ciurmatori", a word which
literally means wizards, witches— in short, cheats.
{T^ These caves in the limestone are well known. The evil reputa-
tion of the locality is still maintained ; but the open selling of wine
and the like has long ceased. The leper village seems to have dis-
appeared, though lepers are quite common in the vicinity of the city.
(Note 93, Book I.) The market is still held on the plain leading "to
the riuver" (Sebu). Lime making is also a busy pursuit, the "tabra"
being a kind of concrete mixed with lime, out of which the houses,
etc., are built. The picturesqueness of the meadows spread with
bleaching- clothes must have struck visitors even less sentimental
than Leo ; linen weaving, since English calico can be bought so
cheaply, is now almost a lost art in Moroccan towns. The pretty
embroidered towels made by the Berber women are woven of nati\e
cotton.
(74) Extensive burial grounds and refuse heaps encircle Fez, but
the mausolea of the kings are in many cases ruined and neglected, as
are even the endless tombs of saints, held in much higher considera-
tion. On the south-east of the town are the ruins of a castle, where.
NOTES TO BOOK III. 605
according to legend, "the old Sultans kept their provisions," and a
couple of towers close by are said to have been used for torturing
prisoners by dropping water slowly on their heads until they either
went mad or revealed the places in which they had concealed their
treasures. All Morocco is a huge graveyard of money which the
owners had committed to the custody of Mother Earth, but died
before revealing the secret of their hoards.
(75) " E vero che il maggio I'adacquano tutto," etc. The continual
watering is as yet by means of streams from the Fez River, which run
through the gardens, and can, if necessary, be used for irrigation.
" E perentro i giardmi passano alcuni piccoli i-ami del fiume."
(76) Most likely it is still the same place, now used for much the
same purposes as it was four centuries ago (note 53).
{77) For the history of New Fez see note 2,7. It was called the
White City (La citta bianca), from the whiteness of the new walls and
houses.
(78) The Jews continue to be the gold and silver smiths of Morocco,
and practise usury in its most outrageous form, though under names
and by subterfuges which soothe the Mussulman conscience, and
serve to obtain the necessary legal processes. A Jew and a " hillman",
for instance, appear before the Kadi, and testify that the one has
bought of the other a web of cloth — which is duly produced — promising
to pay for it next year when his crops ripen. The requisite bonds are
executed, but, as everyone knows, the Berber has actually borrowed
money of the Jew at 50, 100, and 150 per cent., and if he does not pay,
the farmer's corn and cattle will have to be sold.
(79) The Jews now live in New Fez. When they enter the Moorish
quarter they must go barefooted, as in Leo's day, and in any case are
required to wear black slippers. The " dulipan" is not a turban, but
a " fez" or skull-cap. The red " tarbux" or " xaxia" " fez" worn by the
Moors are now frequently made at Vienna, Marseilles, or anywhere
rather than the city from which they take their popular name. If Leo
is correct in saying that the removal of the Jews to New Fez was in the
reign of Abu Said (Abd-Allah II), this must have been between
A.D. 1398 and 1420.
The filthy " Mellah" is still guarded, though more than once the
Moorish rabble have broken into it, and sacked the houses and
massacred the hated inmates. Of late years, some good houses,
with an excellent school or synagogue, have been built there.
(80) These water-wheels are still in use. The Genoese was probably
the Messer Tomasso di Marino already mentioned (note 2i). The
6o6 NOTES TO BOOK III.
wheel generally in use is really the Persian one, though some new-
ones, the invention of Count de Saulty, are also employed.
(Si) This statement is worth noting. Morocco is in reality a very
democratic despotism, a man's position giving him no claim to respect
except what his office entails, unless, indeed, he is of the Prophet's
blood. Beyond the " .Shurafa" (Sheriffs) there is no aristocracy in the
country. A slave to-day, he may be the governor of a pro\ince to-
morrow, and the man who was a vizier in the morning be on the way
to beg his bread before night. All depends on the Sultan's will, and
the higher anyone is placed the more likely he will be soon to fall.
The extortions of the courtiers always makes them hated, though the
knowledge that they may have before long to depend on popular
favour, and the innately democratic character of the people and of
government, to a certain extent tends to an amazing affability on the
part of the highest official to the poorest person. A great Kaid will
discourse pleasantly with a muleteer or camel-driver, a position
which it is possible he at one time hiniself held, and may hold
again. The humblest person can present a petition to the Sultan
on his way to the mosque ; and it was not uncommon for a woman
to cry, " Mulai Hassan ! Mulai Hassan I" after the late sovereign,
and demand voice of this kindly, yet at times ferocious, Sultan.
' (82) "Curdi", Kurds. The Ghoz, Kurds, Turks, or Turkomans,
first appear as mercenaries in Africa under the authority of Abu Yakub
about A.D. 1 179 (a.h. 574). The Almohade Kalifs regarded them
favourably as friends and allies, just as they mustered Christians into
the ranks of their armies. — Dozy, Hist, of the Ahiwhadcs (1847);
Jour>7al Asiatique, 4th sen, t. iii, p. ; 49 it. x, p. 343.
(83) In Morocco the Mahommedan law of the eldest surviving
male member of the family succeeding does not obtain. The Sultan
can appoint any one of the Royal family, and as he generally abstains
from doing so until /;/ extremis, in order to obviate the temptation to the
heir designate of anticipating the natural course of events, the result is
often a civil war among the claimants for the " Sherifian umbrella."
(84) This description is valuable as the only one of the Moroccan
Court in the palmy days of the Sultan, as a distinctly African sovereign.
Needless to say, it no longer applies. The principal officials of
the modern " Maghzen" are given in Erckmann's Le Maroc Moderne,
pp. 218-240.
(85) This place, ruined more than four centuries ago, is perhaps
M'hamed (Renou). In Marmol's day it was inhabited by the Maha-
mide Arabs,
NOTES TO BOOK III. 6oj
(86) Hubbed, Habbar of Marmol. Originally the shrine of the first
Fakih of the Kairwain mosque in Fez. It was destroyed in the Said
wars (p. 580). This fakih, according to a tradition given in the RoiidJi
el-Kartas (p. 68), was the Sheikh Abu Abd Allah ben Ali el-Farsi.
(87) Zauia \Zdwtya) means literally a shrine or hermitage, and, on
that account, a "city of refuge". The "hospital," which alone attested
the existence of the place in Leo's time, was, no doubt, simply a
large "Nsla", or lodging place for travellers. Its locality is not now
known.
(88) Chaulan, or Halua (Marmol), a castle built by a Prince of the
Zeneta (Senhaja). The palace erected by Abu-1-Hassan (not the
fourth, but— according to whether the first four princes are reckoned —
the eleventh or the seventh Beni-Marini king=A.D. 1330-135 1), and
the hot bath, ought to mark this ancient kasba. "Ain Halua" would
mean the pleasant bath, unless it is the hot bath of Ain Sidi Yussuf,
which I have identified with Gemiha Elchmen (p. 587) ; the locality is
unknown.
(89) The Jebel Zelag, near Fez, is still one of the summer haunts of
the wealthy Fazees, and is famous for its sweet though small grapes.
The "great store of castles and towns" — for which read Ksars and
villages — are not so marked.
(90) The Jebel Zarhun, Zerhuan, or Zerhon, in reality a massive
mountain clump, or isolated range. In Leo's and Marmol's time it
was wooded, and swarmed with lions. The lions have long ago dis-
appeared, and the wood has been hewn down except in the vicinity
of saints' tombs, and (according to De la Martiniere) of certain Berber
villages of the Eastern valleys, and on some of the southern stretches
which stand opposite the plateau of Mekines and the gorge of Mulai
Idris. The Zarhun was evidently regarded by the Romans as of
strategical importance ; for one of their great roads led along the
edge of the western slope from the Volubilis (Ksar Faraun) to Toco-
losida. The country is now very thinly inhabited and little cultivated.
(91) This is Ualili, also called Zarhun, and "Zuia Muley Driss"
(Mulai Idris), from the father of the founder of Fez, and the
first of the Edrisite dynasty, being buried in the mosque of this
thrice holy town. The place is built on a rocky barren hillock, at the
bottom of a wild ravine formed by two spurs of the Zarhun, with dark
olive groves all around. But so sacred is the town regarded that
neither Christian nor Jew is permitted to enter ; and the faith of
renegades is, justly, so little regarded that even they have found
it wise not to risk the fanaticism of the last of the undefiled
strongholds of Islam. Jackson affirmed that, in June, iSoi, he wa§
6o8 NOTES TO P.OOK IT I.
not only kindly received in " Muley Dris Zerone", but slept in the
"adytum" of the famous sanctuary {An Account of Timbuctoo and
Hoiisa, etc., p. 119). If so — and Jackson mentions natives who were
ready to vouch for the truth of his statement — he is the only one who
enjoyed that barren honour. For though many have affected to ha\e
visited Ualili "in disguise" — as if the quick-eyed Arab could not
detect the slightest error in language or movement or ceremonial
observances in the European, no matter how well drilled ! — there is
no authenticated case of the kind. However, what need be known
regarding Ulali can be easily sifted out of the conversation of natives.
The town may, perhaps, have originally been a Roman outpost,
and it is not improbable that the native name is a corruption of
Volubilis, out of the ruins of which both it, Fez and Alekines, as well
as almost every hut in the country round about, has in part been built.
Indeed, the pillars of the Ualili mosque are said to have been taken from
Volubilis, and marbles — sometimes bearing priceless inscriptions — are
often taken from the many Roman ruins scattered in the unexplored
villages of Zarhun to repair a fence, or even to burn into lime. Out-
side the high walls of Ualili are fields and olive groves. The chief of
the three gates is the Bab el-Hajar. In the centre of the town is a
market-place surrounded by a colonnade, and on the south side of the
market-place is the sanctuary containing the tomb of Alulai Idris I.
To this shrine every Sultan must go on succeeding to the Sherifian
umbrella, and it is only on the occasions when he and his ministers
enter it that even Moslems can visit this sacred fane. At the approach
to the tomb, which is barricaded against the ingress of horses, etc., a
legion of beggars and sick people collect. After descending some
steps the main courtyard is reached. This is cooled by a white
marble fountain, and is surrounded by a colonnade said to be of
marble from \'^olubilis. The tloor also is paved with white marble
and coloured tiles, while the ceilings are beautifully carved, and the
arches above the pillars are sculptured and painted. To the left
of this court is the treasury, the door of which is also decorated, and
on the right is the sepulchral chamber, entered through a large arch
up one step. On the left side sits the guardian sherifif with a staff in
his hand, and opposite to him is a large chest, carved and painted,
and somewhat pyramidical in shape, with a hole in the lid to receive
alms. Visitors are only permitted to kiss the ground at the step and
deposit their ofterings. The tomb, sheathed with gilt, is in the centre
of the chamber, and in front of it are a large number of gold and
silver candlesticks, in addition to many large chandeliers hung from
the richly worked ceiling. Like most Moorish rooms, the place
where Mulai Idris I (" El-Kebir, the Great", as he is sometimes
called) lies is very incongruous in its furniture. An assortment of
fine old clocks, all going differently and chiming and striking at
NOTES TO BOOK III. 609
different times, are, as in many Moorish chambers, its most prominent
ornaments, and amongst the chandehers are hung several ostrich
eggs and looking-glass balls, while the walls themselves are covered
with magnificent carpets, any vacant spaces being allotted to native
brackets, on which are placed gaudy bits of bric-k-brac. The
sanctuary of Mulai Idris's barber (in the same street) is second
only to that of his master. But everything— and, indeed, everybody
— in the town is more or less sacred. No one pays any taxes, or is
liable to military service ; and though the Sultan is represented by a
deputy of the governor of New Fez, he exercises scarcely any
authority. And if one gets somewhat wearied of Mulai Edris II
in Fez, where his name is never out of men's mouths, his father is
even more frequently invoked in the town where he li\ed, and died,
and is buried ; for Ualili lives by the dead saint. Nearly the entire
population are Shurafa (Sheriffs), who find their relationship to the
Prophet a more lucrative accident than usual ; for the revenue of
the shrine, both in landed property and gifts, must be considerable.
The Sultan sends at times large gifts in cash, and every visitor to the
city pays for the privilege ; while on the great occasions when the
tomb is visible, the sums put into the pyramidal chest must be very
large. A pious Moor of my acquaintance assured me that the extor-
tion of the endless parasites on the saint is so shameless, that it is not
much less costly to make the Mecca Hajj than to visit Mulai Idris,
on an occasion when the pilgrimage is likely to be of superlative
value. Everybody is intent on squeezing the pious.
All — or nearly all — of the revenue is divided weekly among
the principal heirs of the saint. His descendants are naturally
extremely numerous, so that those entitled to share in the Zauia
revenue has to be restricted to two classes — viz., those families
resident in Fez and Mekines, and those living in Fez, Rif, and
Tetuan, who trace their descent from Mulai Abd es-Selam ben
Mesih. This distribution is done by the Mokaddem of the Zauia
who, contrary to the belief and the statement of Ali Bey {Trazic/s,
vol. I, chap, xi), is not a descendant of Mulai Idris, and not even
a Sheriff, but the member of a powerful family of Er-Rami, in
whom the office has been hereditary for a long time past. He lives
at the mosque of Mulai Idris in Fez, a relative acting as his deputy
in Zarhun. The Mokaddem is in certain places — among the Hiaina
and Riata tribes, in the Rif, and indeed in ail the wild country between
Fez, Taza, and the Mediterranean — more powerful than the Sultan,
and is indeed held in greater esteem than even the descendants of
Mulai Idris. -De Foucauld, Reconnaissance, p. 25 ; Times of Morocco,
No. 184, May iSth, 1889.
Though the town is now much more populous than at the time when
Leo wrote, it is doubtful whether it contains 6,000 inhabitants (Bonelli,
6lO NOTES TO BOOK HI.
El Iinperio de Marruecos, 1882, far less 12,000, as Jackson with his
usual exaggeration estimates, or 9,000, to quote the still less trust-
worthy guess of Graberg di Heniso. A couple of thousand will be
nearer the reality.
Ualili — a name apparently not now known — seems to have fallen
off in Leo's day, probably owing to the greater attractions of Fez and
Mekines. But nowadays it seems to be more prosperous than at
any former period — war having spared this holy town, while it has
again and again played havoc with Fez— which was also at one time
reckoned too sacred for infidel feet to pollute.
(92) The " Palazzo di Faraone", the Ksar Faraun of the Arabs, is
undoubtedly the remains of a city less than tw-o — not " about eight" —
miles from Ualili, and that this was the Roman Volubilis is quite
certain. The local twaddle about its being Pha7aoh's palace is of
course quite beneath criticism, as Leo had knowledge enough to see ;
though Jackson, by no means so safe an authority as is generally
imagined, .was inclined to favour this nonsense. Pharaoh figures
much in the legends of Morocco. Thus the common squill, which
g^rows plentifully on the Zarhun plateau, is Basal Faraun — Pharaoh's
onion. The " Zauia Mulai Idris" — as the town in which the saint's body
is laid is sometimes called — is universally accepted as Ualili, to which
the first Idris came when he fled to Africa from his enemies in Arabia,
and this general belief has been followed. Yet it is by no means beyond
cavil whether the ruined Roman town of Volubilis, which must at that
time have been in good condition, was not really Uahli — a corruption of
the Latin name. It was most likely occupied by the Berbers. Indeed,
it is not quite clear that the colonists ever really deserted the place ;
for, why should they have done so .'' They had lived there for centuries
and no doubt had formed marital bonds with the neighbouring tribes,
who in this town were semi-civilised. This in reality they were when
Idris arrived. Ben Ghazi tells us that there was a tradition that the
people of Zarhun, or the " mountain of gold", were of Roman origin.
The same writer, who edited the notes of the Kadi benZeghbush, who
died about A.D. 1241 (a.H. 640), refers to the Ksar Faruan as massive
buildings in the valley called Tazga, about twelve miles from Mekines.
Here, as in Marmol's day, a Wednesday (Arba) market was held, in
spite of the lions, which caused much inconvenience to the country-
folk on their way thither. This market extended to Ualili. " Ulali",
says a legend of that period, was a Roman pirince, and the city
named after him was the capital of the country. But (so ran the
tradition) after the Islamitic conquest, Ualili city like all the others
fell into the hands of the victors. And here Idris established himself
with the Sheikh of Aureba, " the pure, the chosen, the pious Sidi
Idris ben Abd-allah",
NOTES TO BOOK III. 6ll
At this period, therefore, it is clear that Mulai Idris bore the name
of Ualili. All that the RoudJi el-Kartas says (pp. 14, 15, 16, 19, etc.)
is that the powerful tribe of Aureba (Uaraba) was the first to accept
Idris ; and with Abd el-Mejid, Chief of Ualili, "the principal place in
the mountains of Zerhun" (Zraun), the Imam found an asylum. At
that date Ualili was a town surrounded by splendid walls of ancient
construction, and situated in a well-watered, fertile country, covered
with olive plantations.
This strengthens the probability of UaHIi having been a Roman town,
as indeed its walls indicate, though the place is so little known, that a
question otherwise easily settled must for the present remain pro-
blematical. It also settles, so far as legend can settle, that the city in
which Idris first arrived was the same as that in which he died and
was buried, and that this Ualili was the town ever since famous for
his shrine. If the links in this chain are sound, we need not, therefore,
cherish any doubt of Ualili and Volubilis having always been separate,
though, as already suggested, the name of the latter may have been
adopted in a corrupt shape from the former. Volubilis, however, we
cannot doubt, was inhabited long after the Roman period, and until it
formed a quarry of dressed stones for the builders of P"ez, Mekines, and
other places, must have been an imposing provincial town. Even yet,
the arches standing are good specimens of Roman architecture.
That the town was Volubilis is proved by an epitaph of Q. CEecilius
Domitianus, the Decurion of Volubilis ; and another inscription on a
triumphal arch to Caracalla and Julia Domna, which shows that it was
erected not later than A.D. 213. There are ruined temples and other
monumental records apart from the " Antonini Itinerarium", fixing the
old city just on this spot.
It is the Volubilis of Pomponius Mela, the Volubilis Oppidum of
Pliny (who places it at thirty-five instead of fifty miles from Banasa)>
the OuoXoujSiAig of Ptolemy, R. P. Volvbilitanorvm, or Municipivm
Volvbilitanvm of Inscriptions, the Volubilis Colonia of the Antonine
Itinerary.
Leo's description is very meagre and not very accurate ; but
Dr. Leared and M. Tissot are too sweeping in concluding that Leo
could never have seen either the ruins now under consideration or
Ualili, a name which they evidently consider was misapplied, ignorant
apparently of the passages in the historians already quoted. All the
blunder that he commits — if it is a blunder — is considering Ualili as
built by the Romans, and in placing it at eight instead of less than
two miles from Volubilis.
The " e.xtraordinary mistake" which M. de la Martiniere attributes
to Leo of placing these ruins " on the banks of the Sebu, at a distance
of thirty-fi\'e miles from Banassa", was never made by him. So far as
the distance is coricerned, it was Pliny who made the mistake.
6l2 NOTF.S TO ROOK III.
M. de la Martiniere, however, follows M. Tissot in his facts and
fancies. His otherwise excellent volume is also so frequently dis-
figured by inaccuracies made by the translator of his French MS.
into English, during the author's absence in Morocco, without an
opportunity of revising it, or obtaining its revision by anyone even
remotely acquainted with the country, that in many places it is
seriously misleading.— Tissot, La Geographic Comparee de la Maurc-
tnuic Tmgitanc, etc., pp. 147-156 ; De la Martiniere, i^/(9rcr(rc, pp. 181-
190 ; Trotter, Our Mission, etc., pp. 246-253 (two photographs) ;
\'. Augustin, Erimteriingen aits Marokko, gesammelt auf einer Raise
im Jahre 1830 (1838), and Marokko (1845); Leared, A Visit to the
Court ^/ J/^r^crrc, Appendix B, pp. 69-70, ?,x\^ Academy, ]\x\\t 29th,
1878 ; Richardson and Brady, in Hooker and Ball's Tour, etc.,
Appendix I, pp. 485-489, etc.
(93) This petty hill-town, then falling into decay, has been loosely
identified by Marmol as the Roman Aquse Dacicas, which with much
greater likelihood we have indicated in another locahty In reality,
Pietra rossa — the Red Rock — which for some reason gives the name
m our Italian translation, is in Arabic simply Hajar el-Hamra, the
Dar el-Hamara of Marmol in the Jebel Zerhan, which Graberg di
Hemso erroneously tried to make out to be the ancient \'iposcian«.
(94) This is the Maghaila of Edrisi, the ruins of which may be
recognised in the Jar Mghila, near the Wad Jedida on the slope
of Jel Zarhun, close to the route from Fez to Mekines. The " duar"
or temporary village of Madhuma— or " the ruined "—adjoins, and may
refer to the condition of what was once a little town, though whether
built by the Romans is more doubtful. The Romans, whose great
personality struck the ruder races of Morocco with such an ineffaceable
amazement, divide with Pharaoh— who never set foot in the country—
and latterly the Goths and the Portuguese, the credit of building every-
thing not attributable to Abd el-Mumen, Yusuf Ibn Yakub el-
Mansur, or Mulai Ismail. Mghila is apparently the Mrila of EI-
Bekn. It is also the name of a Berber tribe, descendants of whom
are found all over Barbary. The " Meghili " were formerly among
the great families of Sallee. It was at Jar Mghila that Ali ben
Yussuf (Abu ben Hassan) halted in 1107 on his way to Fez, then
occupied by his nephew, Ali Yahia ben Abu Bekr, and it was from this
insignificant hamlet that he dated his letter to the usurper and to
the Fazee dignitaries.— /f^?/^/? el-Kartas, pp. 221-227.
(95) In the original this is " La Vergogna, castello", which
Florianus has Latinised into " Verecundia; castrum", and Pory trans-
lated into the " Castle of Shame'', and Temporal into " La vergoigne.
Chateau": all meaning the same, though Leo does not give us its
NOTES TO BOOK III. - 613
Arabic or Berber name. But Marmol calls it Gemaa (not Gemaa el-
Hanien, as Ue la Martiniere has it, Gemaa el-Hamen being a different
place), and tries to find in it the Gontiana of Ptolemy. Four cen-
turies ago it was utterly razed by "the penultimate Beni-Marini
king", who must have been Yakub III, unless Esh-Sherif, the regicide
and usurper, who immediately preceded the Uatas or younger
branch, is reckoned as one of the line. " Abu Said " is mentioned as
the particular king in a marginal note to Marmol. But he was not
the " penultimate" member of the Beni-Marini. There is a break in
the line of the Uatas dynasty between Said and Mohammed VI,
which has not been quite accounted for. — Cardonne, Hist, de
rAfrique ct de PEspagne, t. ii, p. 372.
The " Castle of Shame " was very probably destroyed in the Said
wars. The remains of it may be looked for among the ruins near
Mehduma. But until the interesting Massif oi Zarhun is explored, this
and many other interesting historical and geographical questions must
remain unsolved, though the locality in question lies within a week of
London, and by treaty Europeans have a right to go anywhere in the
Empire of Morocco. The slightest goodwill on the Sultan's part,
and the faintest pressure on ours, could guarantee the safety of a
European in a locality within sight of Fez.
(96) Beni Guariten is the Beni Uarain country.
(97) The Essas or Fhahs (Fas ?) Sais, one of the best-known
plains in northern Morocco. It is bounded on the north by the
Utita, Zerhun, Tghat, and Zalag mountains, and on the south by El-
Behalil and Beni Mtir mountains.
(98) Jebel Tghat or Trat, the Tagat of Marmol, the Togad of
Temporal's version.
(99) " Piccol fiume di Bunafr." Marmol calls the stream the
" Buc Nacer", which is perhaps its right spelling.
(100) Essie, in the original, perhaps a different way of writing
Asseis.
(loi) Guraigura is evidently the modern Jebel Gureigura, out of
which rises a branch (Agubel of Marmol) of the Wad Beth. The
mountains are the Gureygura of Marmol, who describes them as
inhabited by the Gureigures.
Adecsen is the Adhazen of Marmol. The Zuhair (Zuair) are the
well-known Zaer, and the El-husein (Elusein), the equally notorious
Beni Hassan.
(102) Azgar. The province is not now known by this name.
Marmol says that the name means " the flying sea", from a legend
6l4 NOTES TO fiOOK III.
that, in some remote period, the sea invaded the plain as far into
tlie interior as Taza (Tezar). Renou points out that the Berber word
Azrar means plain, corresponding to the Arabic Buheira, the diminu-
tive of Bahr sea. " Little Sea " is a most appropriate name for an
endless plain or prairie. With Rabat, Azgar is now comprehended
in the great province of El-Rarb (Gharb) or the West.
(103) El-Giuma, the El-Gemaa el-Carvax, has disappeared, and
at present its site cannot be identified. Marmol (following the
customary legend) says that it was built by Yakub el-Mansur on
the border of a stream, the " Huet Erguila" (Wad Vargha), on a
plain on the principal route from Fez to Earache. On the stream
were two mills, and the stream flowed into the "Gorgot", a tributary
of the Um er-Rbia.
(104) Larais (Lharais), Arache, in Arabic El-Araish, in common
parlance Laraiche or Earache. Harais, which Pory copies from
Florian, is an error. This decayed picturesque town is situated on the
left bank of the Wad Kus (Luccas, the ancient Lixa or Lixus), at a point
where, close to its mouth, the river enlarges into a natural harbour,
which is at times dangerous to enter on account of a bar. The only
street of importance — though no better paved than the rest — leads
from the custom-house gate to a "soko", or market-place surrounded
by arcades supported on stone pillars, and reputed the finest of the
kind in Morocco. But otherwise the town is of little account, not
containing 8,000 people, including 1,500 Jews and a few Europeans.
El-Araish has, however, a notable history. Its native name,
according to Marmol, is Arays de Beni Aroz (Araish m'ta Beni
A'ghros) — " the vineyard of the Beni A'ghros," a Berber tribe who
seem to have early occupied it ; and the place is one of the many
claimants to the distinction of being the Garden of the Hesperides,
the orange groves being the golden apple trees, and the winding
El-Kus the serpent which guarded them. — Pliny.
On the Catalan map the place is called Larox, on that of Battista
Agnesi, Laraza, and on others Laraxi. It was first a Phoenician and
then a Roman town. M. Tissot identified the walls at El-Kantara
as of the former period, and others, in the same fortification as those
containing Phoenician structures, to have belonged to the Roman
period.
But the site of the modern Earache was built on by the Beni
A'ghros Arabs or Berbers much before the end of the twelfth or the
beginning of the thirteenth century, though the neighbourhood would
appear to have been a populous centre long before that date. De la
Primaudace, however, is inaccurate in saying that it is not mentioned
by any of the old Arabic historians. El-Bekri, for instance, describes
NOTES TO HOOlv III. 615
Harat el-Ahches, which is evidently the place ; and Edrisi has a
distinct mention of the town as Techmes or Techoumes, situated on
the banks of the Wad Sferded, Sferd or Sikerd, the lower portion
of the El-Kus (Renou). This can be no other spot than Tchemmich,
on the rtiins of Liikos. But as Edrisi mentions that Techmes was
at that time about a mile from the sea, the contour of the country in
the vicinity of the river must have changed considerably. El-Araish
itself is, however, not mentioned ; but the old town is described
as surrounded with strong walls, though intestine troubles had thinned
off the population of it and the adjoining villages. At that date,
therefore, the modern Larach was most likely not begun.
The Roiuih cl-Kartas (p. 62) notes that the third Edrisite Imam
(Mohammed ben Idris) gave (a.h. 213, a.d. 829), at the desire of
his grandmother, Khanza, the government of Basra, Azila, Larache,
etc., to his brother, Yahia. The same chronicle (p. 566) mentions
that, in .\.D. 1270, the Spanish Christians took it and massacred
or enslaved all of the inhabitants. In the middle ages the
Genoese and Venetian merchants were in the habit of visiting it,
but Leo notes that in his time the local business of the place was in
charcoal. Hence the proverb which he quotes.
The forest of cork oaks which surround Larache might, under more
provident exploitation than that of the natives, still become a source
of wealth. But of this there is little chance, and so the place has,
ever since the Portuguese left it, been steadily going from bad to
worse. Portuguese and Spanish inscriptions over the Marina Gate
(1618), and several doorways, recall this portion of its annals, and
some of the best houses are of Peninsular architecture.
The first attempt on Larache by the Portuguese is not taken notice
of by Leo. It was in 147 1 that Alfonso V captured Azilla, and the
inhabitants of Larache, like those of Tangier, abandoned the place
in terror. But it was not till six years later that the masters of
Azilla made an attempt to occupy Larache by building a fort on the
river (Note 120). They were prevented in the manner described
by Leo in his account of " Gesira ". It was in 1491, as noted in
the text, that Mulai Naser, the brother— not the son — of the
King of Fez (Said II El-Uatas), repeopled and fortified Larache.
In 1504, D. Juan de Meneses, governor of Azilla, in retaliation
for the port being a place of refuge for the Tetuan pirates,
captured it by a stratagem, though he did not keep it long. Here
Leo's history ends.
After failing to obtain a cession of the town in 1599, Filipe II of
Spain received it in 1610 as security for money advanced to Mulai
Sheikh, son of Mulai Ahmed. The Spanish held it for seventy-nine
years ; but in 1689 Mulai Ismail (after an unsuccessful attack in 1683).
aided by Louis XIV, became master of it at the close of a siege lasting
6l6 NOTES TO BOOK III.
five months. Sixteen hundred prisoners were enslaved, and after-
wards exchanged {Gaceta^ March 20th, 1691) at the rate of 100
Spaniards for a thousand Moors. Since that date Larache has
never been out of Moroccan hands, though frequently threatened by
European fleets. Thus in 1765, after having bombarded Sallee and
Rabat, Duchafifault, in command of a French squadron, appeared
before Larache. but met with a disastrous repulse, in which the
French lost 248 men, including forty-eight captured and enslaved :
among the latter Bide de Maurville, Garde de Marine, whose Relation
de r Affaire de Larache {ijjz^), is not a work to which patriotic
historians make very frequent references. In 1830 it was bombarded
by the Austrians with results almost equally futile, guns abandoned
by them being still, with some brass pieces left by the Spaniards,
among the town armament ; and in i860 it was again attacked by a
Spanish squadron without suffering seriously.
The silting-up of the river has greatly altered the topography of
the place. M. Tissot has, however, made the mound at the village of
Tehemech to mark the site of the ancient Lixos ; and the islet of
Rekada, the spot on which stood the altar of Hercules, surrounded by
its groves of golden fruit — though whether the " auriferum nemus" was
here or on the island (now the peninsula) of El-Khlij, is, I am
afraid, not a question worth argument.
As late as 1789 vessels were built here, but a few rotting hulks
are all that remain of the ancient pirate fleet of Larache. The
fine cork oaks are only cut for charcoal making, or for lighter gun
carriages, and the cotton once grown near the town does not now
figure among its sources of wealth. Oranges are still plentiful, but the
olives described by Pliny are no longer so abundant ; though the plain
if properly cultivated might, as in Strabo's day, yield two-hundred-
and-fifty-fold, so rich are the river bottoms of Morocco.
At one time (1786) a monopoly of the Larache trade — the export
of wheat included — was granted to the Dutch. At present, except in
oranges, beans, maize, chick beans, millet, canary seed, lentils,
linseed, goat hair and skins,oxhide, sheepskins, wool, fuller's earth
(ghasul), shebbel (shad), bonitos, and horse-mackerel, there is
little trade, and few of the Moors are even moderately prosperous.
Even the greater part of the scanty native clothing is brought from
El-Ksar el-Kebir, and other towns in the interior (Note by Mr. J. E.
Budgett-Meakin). — De la Primaudace, Revue Africaine, Nos. 96, 97 ;
Tissot, Gcog. Comp. dc la Mam: Tingitane, pp. 67-85 (an exhaustive
account of its archaeology) ; and Bull, de la Soc. de Geog. Paris,
1876 ; De Cuevas, " Estudio general sobre Geografia [etc.], del
Bagalato de Larache," etc., Bol. Soc. Geog. Madrid, t. xv, pp. 70, 167,
338, 417 ; t. xvi, pp. 31, 232, 365, 425 ; Earth, Wanderungen diirch
die Kiistenldnder des Mittelineeres, etc., pp. 23-25.
NOTES TO BOOK III. 617
(105) El-Ksar el-Kebir — that is, the great castle, to distinguish it
from El-Ksar el-Seghir— the "little castle" on the coast. It is the
AIcazar-Kebir of the French, the Alcaqar-quivir of Marmol, the
Alcacerquibir of the Portuguese, and the Alcassar of a hundred
histories, poems, plays, legends and pictures.
(106) This legend is too romantic not to be repeated by ail subsequent
writers, particularly by Marmol, who adds that the first name of the
place was after the fisherman (Alca(jar-Abdulquerim, that is, Ksar-
Abd el-Kerim). But whatever basis of truth there may be in the
story — and except that El-AIansur enlarged and strengthened the
town, there is probably very little— the main portions of it must be
apocryphal. For both El-Bekri and Edrisi — who wrote long before
El-Mansur's time — mention the place, the latter under the name, Ksar-
Abd el-Kerim, the former as Sok-Kotama, "a great and beautiful
city."
The place appears to have been the site of the Roman Oppidum
Novum, built at a spot commanding the passage of the Kus just where
tidal influence ceases. Thus, as M. Tissot points out, the links
between the present day and Roman times are unbroken, the new
city being the great market of Kotama and the great castle the ksar
of Abd el-Kerim.
The town is actually built to a large extent of Roman dressed stones,
and were anything like excavation or even careful examination permitted,
many interesting relics would be found of the ancient city, which
{more MaureiMiio) was used as a quarry by the Berbers and Arabs.
There is a Greek inscription, the only one as yet found in Morocco,
on a stone forming part of the mosque minaret, indicating a Greek
family or Greek colony being here in the third or fourth century A.D.
Another inscription near one of the town gates was smashed before
it could be copied, by one of the many fanatics with whom all Moorish
towns abound; and, while digging the foundation of a house some
years ago, the bronze statuette of a bacchante was found, and is now
in possession of "un de nos agents consulaires au Maroc" (Tissot,
Geog. Comparce, etc., p. 163 ; Miller, Melanges de Philol. et cTcptgr.,
ire partie, 1876, pp. 123-128). After these discoveries it is idle to
doubt that El-Ksar is not in part composed of ancient remains,
though Senor Cuevas {Inforine a la Real Academia de la Hisloria,
El-K'sar el-A<;abir, 1887) denies that the site is that of Oppidum
Novum (the position of which he considers still problematical), or that
the neighbouring Basra was ever more than an African town, and
consequently not the site of Tremute.
(107) There are still occasional floods, and beyond the town, near
where the route to Fez crosses the river, a feverish-looking marshy
cutting for the purpose of irrigating the gardens, is spanned by a low
R R
6l8 NOTES TO 1500K III.
viaduct of stone. The bad water-supply and the pestilential air,
together with swarms of greedy mosquitos and all-abounding filth,
make El-Ksar one of the least inviting towns in Morocco.
(io8) This Monday (Thenein) market is still held, and the figs,
grapes, and melons sold are as excellent as ever. The suburbs are,
as of old, surrounded by gardens, but the town itself, with its levelled
walls, no longer in peril of the " Portugals at Arzilla", is a poor half-
ruined place, with sloping roofs to the houses, a kind of architecture
very rarely seen in Morocco. See view in my Africa^ vol. iv, p. 85.
(109) El-Ksar, however, never played any great part in the history
of Morocco until 1578. In 1503, Juan de Meneses made a raid
on this place from Azila, but his expedition had no lasting influence ;
though no doubt, as Leo says, there were many reciprocities of this
kind between the Azila Portuguese and the El-Ksar Moors. It was
on the 4th of August, 1578 (the last day of Jumada I, A.H. 986), that
the town became famous in literature and history. For on that day was
fought the " Battle of the Three Kings", in which fell not only Dom
Sebastian of Portugal, and the Moorish rivals, Mulai Mohammed and
Mulai Abd el-Melek, but likewise the Portuguese dreams of a Moorish
empire. The battle was in reality fought not at El-Ksar, but on the
plain near the little Wad el-Mkasem, a tributary of the Wad el-Kus,
in which, according to tradition, Mohammed was drowned (MS. Con-
temporary Account, where the town is called " Alazar quibil". Bib. of
Morocco, No. 77).
In 1673, A^bd el-Kadr-Reilan, the rebel chief, who under the name
of Gayland figures so prominently in the history of the English
occupation of Tanger, fell in a battle with Mulai Ismail, near El-
Ksar. The half-restored ruins of Gayland's palace are still used as a
residence by the governor of Earache when he visits this part of his
jurisdiction. It was for sheltering him that Mulai Ismail razed
the walls of the town, which is now unprotected except by the great
doors which close the Kaisenah at night. At El-Duamar, about half
an hour's ride from the town, are the remains of what seem to have
been considerable buildings ; but nothing worthy the name of Great
Castle now exists. Indeed, the place is only great in comparison
with the neighbouring villages ; for the inhabitants, many of them
Jews, who have here no special quarter of their own, do not number
more than 6,000, if so many. It lies at the base of the Jebel Sarsar,
from which Earache and Azila can be easily seen on a clear day. An
absurd myth says that the workmen abandoned the place when they
found their tools every morning removed by unseen hands to where
the '' great " mosque now stands. These buildings are built of the
customary " tabia", but most of the houses in El-Ksar, unlike those
NOTES TO BOOK III. 619
of Morocco generally, are of brick. El-Harah, a leper's quarter on
the south-west side of the town, is now in ruins. — Times of Morocco^
Nos. 231, 232.
(no) Habat, Hasbata, or Hasbat, is not now recognised as a
province, being with Azgar (p. 613, note 102) included in the Rarb.
The term is, however, still used familiarly to describe a particular
district, e.g.^ Drummond Hay, Western Barbary (ed. 1861). In old
works it is commonly employed, e.g., D'Avity, Description generalc
de PAf rig lie {164,2), Y)^. 135, 136, where " Habut ou Ehabat province
de Fez" is mentioned, etc.
(ill) Guargha, Wargha.
(112) Argar is in the early editions. It is evidently a mistake for
Azgar, which we find in the 1837 reprint.
(113) Idris II left (to be accurate) twelve children. But it was his
successor, Mohammed, who divided the empire as governments
among seven of his brothers. To Kasim, the eldest, was allotted
Tangier, Ceuta, Alhucema (Hajer en-Nesr), Tetuan, etc. : but as
Yahia had Basra, Azila, Larache, etc., he could not have had all
of Habat. It was Ayssa, whose seat of government was in Sheila,
who first rebelled ; but it was Omar, Governor of Targa and
Ghomera, who defeated Ayssa, and joined his territory — with that
of Kasim (who had declined giving battle to Ayssa) — to his own.
He died seven months before his brother, the Imam, i.e., in a.h. 221
(a.d. 837). — Roicdh el-Kartas, pp. 61-64.
(114) Ezaggen, as Renou suggested, may be Wazan (Oczan, Vezan,
Guazan), a once holy city (but which may now be visited without any
restriction), the capital of the semi-independent Sheriff of Wazan.
But this was an unfortunate guess, for, as Wazan was not begun
until the latter part of the seventeenth century, it could not have
been mentioned by Leo and Marmol. Before the time of Mulai
Abd-allah as Sheriff, who died in 1675, the town was merely a
collection of mud huts.
Even for long after this date, Ezaggen, or more correctly, Asigen,
now a heap of ruins on a hill opposite Wazan, was the residence of
the Sheriff, and, as such, the headquarters of the sect of Mulai
Tayyib. It bears the appearance of having been a large place, and it
is certainly of great antiquity. It is, perhaps, the Zadd-jam of Edrisi.
But, according to information obtained in Wazan, it was destroyed in a
trilial war in consequence of one of its rulers wishing to marry one
of the Sheriff's daughters. In 1727 the Embassy under Mr. Russel
halted at the "town of Harach ])leasantly situated on a mountain",
R I'L 2
620 NOTES TO BOOK III.
and the residence of a saint who exercised power over all the sur-
rounding country (Braithwaite, Hist, of tlie Revolutions in the Empire
of MoroLXO, etc., p. 129). The first impression was that "Harach" must
be either Asigen or Wazan under a corrupt form. But, from informa-
tion kindly communicated through Air. Budgett Meaken by the Sherif
of Wazan, it appears that " Dar el-Harash" is a place about a third
of a day above Wazan towards El-Ksar, in the Masmudah district,
where Sidi Abd-allah Sherif lived before Wazan was founded, when
its site was a wood and belonged to the Beni Msara. El-Harash is
now only a village, but it shows signs of having been at one time
much larger. There is another El-Harash on the Wad el-Aisha.
Though Barth and Renou are, I believe, wrong in identifying the
site of Wazan with that of Vopisciante, it is quite possible that so
favourable a position for a settlement was utilised by the Romans.
The late Grand Sheriff El-Hajj Abd es-Selam knew that pottery and
coins had been dug in the place, and that tombs "in three rows,
placed one over another," had been found.
Why De la Martiniere refers to the " ancient Ezaguen, now in ruins,
the site of which it would be rash to attempt to point out" {Morocco.,
p. 81) is hard to imagine, for there is no possible doubt about the
place. This is the more puzzling, since a few pages further on
(p. 107) he refers to Ezaguen as a "town now destroyed", which it is
partially, but not entirely. M. de la Martini^re's quotations from
Leo are not quite accurate — probably owing to the execrable trans-
lation of his MS. Leo, for instance, does not place Ezaggen " seventy-
two miles from Fez", but " almost three score and ten" (settanta
miglia), which is too much. Nor does he put it at about "twenty-two
miles distant from the Wargha", but almost ten ("circa a dieci miglia").
These errors of " septante deux milles", and "enuiron deux milles"
(which M. de la Martiniere, as stated in a foot-note, altered into 22,
on the erroneous supposition that " the figure 2 must be an error
of the copyist") are in Temporal's edition (1556), p. 192.
Marmol places " Ezagen" (Esagen, Esegcn) three leagues from the
river "Erguile", also called (t. ii, p. 205) " Erguila", a name he applies
to part of the Wargha, or Uerra. It was then famous for a great
Tuesday market. The chief market of Wazan is now held on Thurs-
day. Wine has ceased to be made at Ezaggen, though the Riff and
other Berbers drink it freely. — Watson, A Visit to Wazan., pp. 214-223 ;
De la Martiniere, Morocco., etc., pp. 106-145.
(115) Bani Teude. This town no longer exists, but the Sheikh of
the Uled Messenana told M. De la Martiniere that, about two days
east of the Zauia of Mazeria, close to the Sebu, there are important
ruins, which may possibly be those of Beni Teude ; but at present
the fanatical jealousy of the Berbers renders any attempt to penetrate
NOTES TO BOOK Ilf. 621
the country dangerous, if not impossible. Edrisi mentions " Beni-
Tauda", two days from Fez, separated from it by the plain of Fez,
inhabited by the Lamta. Beni Tauda was three miles from the
Ramiira or Ramra Mountains. By Mount Gumera (" Monte di
Gumera") is meant the Gumera Hills (El Ghumera). The "Wars
of the Patrearkes (" pontefici ") of Cairoan" (Kairwan) refers to the
invasion of Northern Morocco and the dethronement of the Edrisitei
about A.D. 919, by El-Kaim (Abu-1-Kasim), the Fatimite Khalif
of Ifukia, the religious capital of which was Kairwan. — Ibn Khaldun,
Hist, des Berbcres, t. I, pp. 267 et seq.; t. II, pp. 527, 528.
(ii5) Mergo or Amergue (Marmol) was, in Leo's day, in ruins ; its
inhabitants seem to have built another village close to it. On the
Jebel Mulai Buchta (which, though visible from the Wargha,
and probably a continuation of the Jebel Jamana, has not Iseen
visited by any European traveller since Marmol's day, if then)
is the celebrated Zauia of Sidi Mergo, and Mergo may therefore be
looked for in that quarter. But the Rifhans' hostility renders quite
impossible any such observations as are necessary for the identifica-
tion of a town site, even were it possible to penetrate the country for
any distance. The recent war with the Spaniards at Mellila has
effectually closed the Riff to Europeans for another long term of years.
If Latin inscriptions were found among the ruins, as Leo asserts, he
is probably right in thinking that Mergo was a Roman town. Not
unlikely it was built on or out of the ruins of the Prisciana of
Pomponius Mela, and perhaps the n^/ffy./ava or ri/ff/c/a/ai/?) of Ptolemy.
Among the Bishops of Mauretania, Tingitana was an Episcopus
Priscianus or Presinensis which M. Tissot thinks must be linked with
some other name than the Viposciana; or Vopiscianas of the Anionine
Itinerary, which has been identified with another spot.
But there are so many ruins rumoured to exist in the unknown
region where Leo places Mergo, that its site must remain for long
merely a piece of historical speculation. The position assigned to
Mergo is between the Wargha and Sebu, five miles distant from
either. But these two rivers are not, so far as known (and their
course is fairly well defined), separated by a distance of ten miles,
except where the Kubba of Sidi Mohammed es-Snussi is situated —
perhaps identical with another described as Sidi Mergo on the
summit of the Tselfat.
(117) Tansor or Tenzert (Marmol) stood half way between Fez
and the Jebel Ramra, and in the Berber language means "nostril" —
also "pride". It was destroyed by the Khalif El-Kaim, according
to Marmol, in whose day, however, it began again to be inhabited by
Berbers. On Lassailly's Carte die Maroc there is a "Tamsour" on the
622 NOTES TO BOOK III.
river Wargha ; but the site of Tamsor is still hypothetical, and must
continue to be so until the country in which it stood has been
thoroughly explored. " Tan " and " Tam " enter commonly into the
composition of Berber words.
(i i8) Agla— the Aguila of Marmol— is a ruined town on the Wargha,
the site of a great Saturday market, whither, in spite of the Moors,
merchants came from Fez and other parts to buy and sell. Agla
was ruined by El-Ka'im, its prosperity being, in Marmol's time, little
compared with what it appears to have been in earlier times. There is
a locality three miles west of Tangier called "Agla", where, according
to M. Tissot's view, certain stones marked the site of Pliny's " Cotta".
What Pory translates by the old word "manured" is cidtivati^
cultivated. The Moors rarely, if ever, "manure" their fields, in our
sense of the term.
(119) The Frixa of Marmol, not far from the Kus River, sacked by
the Portuguese from Tangier and Azila, in the year of the Hegeira
895 (equivalent, not to A.D. i486, but to 1490). Its position is
doubtful, Mannert's belief that it was the site of Oppidum Novum
being, I think, untenable. 1 do not know on what authority, except
Leo's, Lassailly (Carte dii Maroc) places "Narandja" on the Kus
above El-Ksar el-Kebir.
Ceries:e marine = sea. cherries.
"^s-
(120) Gezira is simply the Arabic jesira, an island, in Berber ligzirt.
It is usually supposed to be the island of El-Khlij (now not a
jeztra, but a peninsula, being joined to the shore by a swamp
formed of the silt of four centuries), and which the Portuguese
occupied in 1477. But this is a mistake; Leo describes his Gesira
as about ten miles from the mouth of the river (" lontana dal mare
circa a dieci miglia"), while El-Khlij is only a little way within
the bar, and totally without traces of habitation. As no other island
exists in the course of the Kus as far as El-Ksar el-Kebir, the con-
clusion must be, if any confidence is to be placed in historians, that
Gezira has been washed away by the river. But just ten miles up the
river there is a place called El-Maliha (" the beautiful"), close to the
confluence of the little Wad Tarfaiyat with the Kus, which quite
corresponds to such a locality, and to the name of " agreeable" given
to the vanished island by the Portuguese.— Tissot, /j////. de Soc. Geog.,
Paris (Sept. 1876).
There are two wrong dates in this account : A.H. 894 ("otto cento
noauta-quattro"), and 1562, gratuitously added as a note by the
translator, is meant to be 1526. But even then it is wrong : for 1526
was only the year of the publication of the account, not of its
NOTES TO BOOK III. 623
composition. "The King of Fez, his father, that now reigneth",
was Said Uates, A.D. 14S9, while the incident related was in
A.D. 1477.
(121) Idris II died after a surfeit of raisins— or of poison— on the
1 2th of Jumad II, A.H. 213 (A.D. 829) ; and was laid— not at first
in the mosque bearing his name — but in Ualili beside his father.
— Roudh el-Kartas, p. 6 1 .
(122) Casar = El-Ksar el-Kebir.
(123) If Leo is correct, Basra must have been founded in the reign
of iMohammed Ibn Idris (a.h. 213-221, a.d. 828-837) ; but, according
to El-Bekri, it was a city of more modern date (about A.D. 1067).
Edrisi speaks of it as north of El-Hajar (" the stones"), by which
name, evidently from the Roman remains near it, he designates
Ualili.
By Basra, " a citie in Arabia Fa?lix", the context indicates Basora.
The Morocco Basra was also called, according to El-Bekri, Basrat
ed-Debban (" Basra of the Flies", the numerous dairies attracting
swarms of these insects) and Basrat el-Katan (" Basra of the Flax",
flax being used as a medium of exchange); also El-Hamra (" the
Red"), from the colour of the soil of the Jebel Sidi Amor el-Hadi, on
which it is built.
Abu-1-feda, from the information of Ibn Said, declares that before
El-Ksar (Ksar Abd el-Karim) was built Basra was the capital of the
surrounding country. Ikit it then decayed, and at the time he
wrote (early in the fourteenth century) was in ruins.^ — Solvet's ed.,
p. 47.
The oblivion and decay into which Basra has sunk is indeed, as Tissot
remarks, an apt example of the rapidity with which centres of popula-
tion in Morocco vanish without leaving a vestige of their ancient
prosperity. Nowadays scarcely any portion of it remains (see
Ifttroduction). In El-Bekri's time {ctr. A.D. 1067) it covered two
hills and had ten gates. Less than a century later Edrisi refers to
it as " formerly" a city of considerable importance. It is now difficult
to find a block of stone entire. Of the ten-gated walls only the north-
west angle stands— or stood, for it, too, may by this time have yielded
to time and the treasure-seekers ; all the rest — monuments and
towers— are traceable only in the dust or in rubbish heaps. The
women were in El-Bekri's day famous for their beauty, and the
musical tastes of the Basraites is referred to in a poem of Ahmed
Ibn Fath. Even " the sweet gardens", which seem to have
survived till Leo's day, have not escaped the general ruin (I)e la
Martiniere, p. 100). Yet if Basra was built on the site of, or from the
ruins of, the military post of Tremula;, it is of still greater antiquity ;
■ 624 NOTES TO BOOK III.
and no doubt its position on a plateau commanding, on the west, the
valley of the Wad Mda, on the east the route to Wazan, on the north-
east a valley opening into the El-Kas basin, and on the south the
caravan road which passes El-Ksar el-Kebir, Fez, and Mekines, would
render it an important site for a commercial town or as a strategic
position. Actual remains of Roman bones have, however, still to be
found, though the Anto7iine Itinerary leads us to look for Tremulte
about this place.
(124) Or Homara (Marmol), the modern Humar, a large Berber
village, founded, according to Leo, " pure da uno il cui nome fu Ali
figluiolo del sopradetto Maumet" — a child, a son (not " a disciple") of
the third Imam of the Edrisite dynasty. This must have been Ali,
his successor, who died in A.H. 234 (a.d. 848). Leo is, however, not
strictly correct in describing it as fourteen miles from El Ksar and
six from Azila, for in reality it is more than thirty from the former, and
as the time taken to cover the distance between it and Azila is an hour
and a half, at the "jog-trot" of a mule, the latter must be about seven
and a half miles. As Leo's distances are exact copies of those given in
the Antonine Jlinerary, as are also those between Zilis, Jabernae, and
Lixes, M. Tissot suggests that possibly Leo saw this document with
other sources of his later-acquired erudition, during his residence in
Rome. The "jar", or stationary village of Humar, is at the foot of
the hills of Et-Turki, between the Wad Tuareus (Mtuarreus) es-Sahel
(Riverofmany Stones), and the Wad er-Raha (the "River of the Mill",
the Rio de los Molinos of Dom Sebastian's expedition), which con-
jointly under the name of Wad el-Halu (the ancient Zil/a fliimen
(ZiXi'ia TToraiMju sxlSoAai), flow into the Atlantic a little way north of
Azila. But beyond some ruins and verdant orchards, there are few
traces of its former prosperity. Marmol, indeed, indicates the position
when he mentions its proximity to the Wad Er-Raha or Wad er-Rehan
(Vet Rayhan). In the Iti)7erary of M. de Carmar we find a river
mentioned by the name of Wad el-Hhomar, as running between Azila
and El-Ksar el-Kebir, to the south of a plain called " Fahs er-Rehan",
or the country of myrtles {Spectatetir Militaire, Aug. 15th, 1844 ;
Renou, Expl. scientifiqtie de PAlgerie, t. viii, p. 282 ; Tissot, Bn/l. de
la Soc. Ge'og. Paris, Sept. 1876, pp. 239,240). Wad er-Rihan, "the
river of the myrtles", is, however, not the stream near which Humar
stands, but the upper part of the Sebt, just as the lower reach of it is
the Wad el-Ghemen, " the sheep river". It rises in the Fahs
er-Rehan, stretching to the west and south-west of Sidi el-Yemani.
(125) Azilla, Acila, usually called and spelt Arzilla. The natives
call the place indifferently Azila, or A^rzila, but as Edrisi names it
Azila, or Acila, and El-Bekri and Abu Hassan el-Fasi, Acila, it is more
NOTES TO BOOK III. 625
in conformity with its derivation from the Roman Zilis, or Zilia, to
keep to Azila. In Portuguese documents contemporary with their
occupation of it, "Arzila" is the form employed. "In ora Oceani
Colonia JuHa Constantia Zilis" is Pliny's description of the Roman
forerunner of Azila. It is the Zilia of Pomponius Mela, the ZvfKic, and
ZsXjjc of Strabo, and the Z/X/a, ZiXi7ai, ZnXia of Ptolemy. Pliny and
the Antonine Itinerary are responsible for Zilis, though whether it is
of Lybian origin is a more puzzling question, the ancient coins
attributed to Zilis giving the form of Aslith. Strabo tells us that most
of the colonists of Julia Traducta came from Zilis, if this and Tingentera
are not the same place. At all events, Mela affirms that Tingentera,
the modern Tarifa, his birthplace, was peopled by Phoenicians who
were taken from Africa. Zilis was, therefore, most likely originally a
Phoenician settlement. At all events, it was one of the first Roman
colonies founded by Augustus. In A.H. 94 (a.D. 712), while Zilis was
under the jurisdiction of the governor of Septa (Ceuta), it fell into the
power of the Arabs.
(126) Leo's subsequent history of Azila requires correction, as it has
given rise to some persistent blunders. The English {Inglesi) who
captured and sacked Azila must have been Norman pirates — the
English never held the place. Moreover, El-Bekri's account of this
incident is diametrically opposed to that of Leo, for he gives the date
of the attack as a.h. 229 (a.d. 843-844), and it was of a sufticiently
serious character to cause the inhabitants to construct a Ribat, or
fort, for the defence of their town against future pillagers. — Dozy,
Recherches, etc., third ed., t. ii, p. 264.
(127) The capture of Azila by the Portuguese took place in A.H.
876 = A.D. 147 1, not in A.H. 882 = A.D. 1477. Abdallah (Habdu-
lac), having degenerated into a tyrant, was assassinated by a citizen
of Fez known as Esh-Sherif (Esserif) — but in no way related to the
dynasty of " the Sherif" — who claimed to be a descendant of the
Prophet. But the friends of the murdered king rose against the regicide
and usurper who had been chosen king by the fickle Fasees. Among
the party opposed to Esh-Sherif was Mulai Said Sheikh (Saic Abra),
governor of Habat, a member of the Uatas or younger branch of the
Beni-Marini family, who immediately quitted Azila and laid siege to Fez;
but, according to Leo, was routed, whereupon the entire Um er-Rbia
(Temsena) country fell off from their support of " one Saic Abra", who
is the same person, viz. : Mulai Said Sheikh — the " Muley-xeque" of
the Portuguese chronicles. The chances are, however, that the latter
voluntarily abandoned the siege when he heard that the Portuguese,
considering the time favourable, had taken the opportunity of cap-
turing Azila in his absence, and had sent 5,000 slaves, together with his
626 NOTES TO EOOK III.
two wives and a son and daughter, prisoners to Lisbon. But Mulai
.Said .Sheikh, seeing that he had arrived too late and was hard pressed
by the Sheriff, signed a treaty by which he recognised the King of
Portugal as sovereign over Ceuta, El-Ksar es-Seghir, Tangier, and
Azila. Then, freed from an enemy in the rear, he raised a fresh
army with which he carried Fez by storm, and forced the usurper to
seek refuge in Tunis, while he became the first king of the Uatas line.
In one of the reverses they suffered in 1437, the Portuguese had to
promise the evacuation of Ceuta, and, as a hostage, surrendered the In-
fante Dom Ferdinando (brother of "Prince Henry the Navigator") into
the hands of the Moors. But the Cortes refusing to ratify the capitula-
tion, as dishonourable to the country, the young prince had to bear the
consequences until his death, in 1443, secured for him a place among
the martyrs of his church. The .Sheikh, being now anxious to recover
his family, exchanged for them the bones of Dom Ferdinando. — Joao
Aharez, Cronica do sancto e inrtuoso iffante dom Ferdinando, 1527.
These exploits obtained for King Alfonso V the titles of "the African"
and "Redeemer of Slaves", while Mohammed, the son of the Sheikh,
from his long residence in Lisbon, was known among his countrymen
as " the Portuguese". But Mohammed's captivit)' in no waj' modified
his hatred of the Christians ; and, when he came to the throne (1508),
he made so vigorous an assault on Azila that had it not been for the
timely succour of Joao de Meneses with a Portuguese squadron from
Tangier, and a Spanish one under Count Pedro Navarro, the hard-
pressed governor, Dom Vasco Coutinho, Count of Borba, must have
capitulated. It was at this siege that Leo served.
(128) In 1 5 16, Azila was attacked a third time by the King of Fez,
but again without success. By this time the place must have become
essentially a European town. A mosque had been converted into
the Christian church of Our Lady of the Assumption, and many pious
memorials of his victories erected by the king, who had also vowed
to the monastery of Evora an equestrian statue of the Virgin in silver ;
while numerous Portuguese traders had settled in the place. But in
1553, Azila was abandoned, being, like most places on the Moroccan
coast, of more expense than value. In 1578, however, Dom Sebastian
once more occupied the town, and landed here on his hapless African
expedition. Finally, Felipe II of Spain, anxious, if possible, to stand
well with Morocco, evacuated for the second time this solitary conquest
of his predecessor on the throne of Portugal. This was in 1588
(Suarez Montanes, Hist, de Africa), and ever since Azila has been
falling deeper and deeper into decay; until to-day, with its sanded-up
harbour (perhaps owing to the destruction of the breakwater which
protected it), the town is little better than a filthy ruin, in which less
than 2,000 people, many of them Spanish-speaking Jews, manage to
NOTES TO BOOK III. 627
exist. Many memorials— particularly the castle walls— recall the
former masters of this wreck of the Middle Ages, which crumbles
away in sight of Cape Spartel lighthouse. — De Faria y Sousa, Africa
Portuguesa (1681), pp. 64, 65, etc.
(129) Tanja of the natives, the Tanger of the French, Tangere of
the Portuguese and Spaniards (more modern spelling Tanger), Tangeri
of the Italians, Tangier of the German and English. Though they do
not pronounce the word in the same way, " Tangiers", once common^
is not now used, except by those who have never been in "the city
preserved of the Lord". The final " s" is indeed a sort of Sibboleth or
Shibboleth in this respect. In the State Papers relating to the English
occupation, " Tanger", " Tangeri", " Tangiers", are the forms used
indifferently. The Portuguese sometimes called it "Tanjar" {e.g.'>
De Faria y Sousa, p. 66). It is the ancient Tingis, built on a Berber
site, most of the inhabitants being Berbers, though the ruins on the
other side of the Wad el-Hall (the now shoaled-up river in which the
Sultan's piratical craft anchored), known as Tanja el-Balia (old Tangier),
are, with the broken-down bridges over it, apparently of Byzantine
origin— perhaps the work of Belisarius, who fortified Ceuta. A few
Roman inscriptions, mosaics, coins and sculptures, have been found,
and the foundations of the citadel are Roman. Remains of what was
considered a Greek structure have been disinterred, and two or three
Lybio-Phoenician coins have also been found.
The town, being now the most European in the empire, is described
in almost every work relating to Morocco. The Portuguese became
masters of it on Aug. 28th, I47i,and on 30th Feb. 1662 handed it over to
the English as part of the dowry of the Infanta Catherine of Braganza,
Queen of Charles II. The English in the town evacuated it on 7th of
Feb. 1684. The first of the fifty Portuguese governors or captains-
general was Joao, Marquez de Montemor,son of the Duke of Braganza;
the last, Luiz de Almeida, the successor of Fernando de Menezes,
Count of Ericeira, a member of a family which supplied many rulers to
the Portuguese possessions in Morocco. This ex-go\ernor wrote a
histor>' of the city {Historia de Tangere^ 1732). The first of the Eng-
lish governors was the Earl of Peterborough ; the last — but only to
effect the evacuation — Lord Dartmouth. Most of the documents relat-
ing to the English occupation, and the history of the place generally,
are entered in the Bibliography of Morocco (1893).
Up to 1580 the city was a dependency of Portugal, but in that year
it passed, with the union of the two kingdoms of the Peninsula, into
the hands of Spain. In 1640, when the arrangement was ended, Tan-
gier remained with Spain, and would have continued a fief of that
country had not the citizens rebelled and insisted that they should
revert to their former allegiance, which was effected in 1643 {MS.
628 NOTES TO BOOK III.
A}'cJn7'es Espagnoles, c. iv, No. 4, in French Foreign Office ; De la
Primaudace, Revue Africaitie, No. 94.)
The Portuguese residents and garrison of Tangier so bitterly resented
the bargain with England, that had not they been compelled to ask
Lord Sandwich to send a force of seamen ashore to assist in repelling
an attack by the Moors prior to the formal surrender, they would most
probably have resisted the landing of our troops. Tangier, after the
Moors recovered it, was little better than a ruin. The English, before
leaving, had not only blown up the costly mole, thus ruining Tangier
Bay as a harbour, but the fortifications, and with them the best
part of the town. During the English occupation many good houses
were erected. On a plan of the town we find a cathedral, perhaps
the Portuguese one ; and as there was a Mayor (Alderman Baker) and
Corporation, there were, doubtless, beside what had been reared
during the long Portuguese occupation, humbler offices of various
kinds. The plan of the town then was much the same inside the walls
as it is now ; but to trace any sign of our twenty years' hold of Tangier,
from which so much was expected, is difficult. Even Portuguese
buildings, except in the Kasbah, are by no means easy to detect. In
the Marina wall is the date " 1623". The Moors most likely rebuilt
it after their own fashion ; and though Catherine Street, St. John
Street, St. Barnabas Street, Lewis Street, Salisbury Court, Dean
and Cannon Street, Roches Street, and so forth remained, their
names disappeared as the Portuguese names had. In reality, the
history of the English occupation of Tangier, and of the circum-
stances under which it was abandoned, have still to be written.
An interesting subject for a geographico-historical monograph would
be the tracing out of the localities of the battles which had to
be fought with the Moors. The latter, almost as soon as our backs
were turned, relapsed into piracy, and more than once Tangier
deserved destruction from the barbarous habit of its people of cap-
turing and enslaving shipwrecked seamen. The place had a poor
aspect after the English left. Thus, in 1727, the embassy under
Mr. Russel describes it as in a very ruinous condition, without one
house standing as built in the time of the English ; and as all the
buildings were one story high, and much exposed to the setting sun, it
was about as hot a town after dinner as there was in Africa. " Besides
this"— and the description applied until very recently — "the streets are
so pestered with dead dogs, cats, and loose stones and dunghills, 'tis
very troublesome walking." The only tolerable house in the town was
one built after the Moorish fashion by an English merchant, and used
as a warehouse for English goods ; but not having been used as such
for some years, a Bashaw had taken possession of it. So inconsider-
able was the trade that it could not afford a living for one Christian
merchant ; and the Jews, now so numerous, were few, and existed
NOTES TO BOOK III. 629
mainly by buying raw hides, and clipping what little money was stir-
ring. (Braithwaite, The History of the Revolutions in the Empire of
Morocco, etc., pp. 323-325, and the Editor, Africa, vol. i, pp. 99-105 ;
vol. iv, pp. 15,70-80,83-87, and Introduction to the Adventures of
Thomas Pclloiv, pp. 15, 41, etc.)
The attempts made by the natives to recover Tangier were never of
much importance, though to the last day of their occupation the
English were molested by the Moors, and it was impossible to go
beyond the walls without the risk of death or capture (Oliveira
Martins, Os Filhos de D. Jodo /, pp. 207-242). The date of
Mohammed VI's attempt was a.h. 917 = a.d. 1511, not 1508.
On the 6th August 1844, Tangier was bombarded, but with little
effect, by a French fleet under the Prince de Joinville ; but since
1684 it has never been in foreign hands, though it is now almost less
Moorish than Spanish and English, i.e., Gibraltarene.
(130) El-Ksar es-Saghir (Sr'ir), "the little castle", to distinguish it
from El-Ksar el-Kebir, "the great castle" (p. 617). It has long been
in ruins, though during the periods of Moorish raids on Spain it
served for the embarkation of troops. It was for this reason taken by
Alfonso V, in November 1458, and put under the governorship of
Eduardo de Meneses, but abandoned in 1553 (Montanes), not in 1540,
the date to which Renou commits himself. The Portuguese, in whose
chronicles it figures as " Alcagarseguer", also besieged it in 1503 until
it was relieved. The statement that the castle was built by Yakub el-
Mansur is only one of the very unhistorical traditions of Morocco.
For it is mentioned in El-Bekri (1067) and Edrisi (1154) — both of them
writing before El-Mansur's day, as Ksar Masmuda — the castle of
Masmuda, one of the five primitive Berber divisions ; and this name is
referred to by Marmol when he calls it " Alcaqar-ceguer", or " Cacjar-
Maymoda". It is the Kasr el-Mejaz of Abu-1-feda. But most likely
the place was of some importance during El-Mansur's reign, and
perhaps strengthened by him.
(131) The names of the well-known Spanish fortress town of Ceuta,
Septa, Sebta, Cevta, are considered to be variants of the Roman Septem
Fratres. Septa and Septum, under the last of which name it appears
on the maps of Andrea Bianconi in 1436, and Benincasa in 1467 —
the designation Ceuta being first used on the map of Juan de Cosa in
I 500 — are evidently slightly altered forms of " Septem". And no
doubt this theory is correct, though M. Tissot is inclined to look for
Ad Septem Fratres at Punta Bermeja, near the " Jebel Belyunech" of
the Arabs {Gco_q;. Comp., pp. 30,31). It was, however, the '^sZtov or
Septa of the Byzantines, who, after Justinian had reconquered Africa,
rebuilt the fortress which had been dismantled by the Vandals.
Occupied by the Goths during the reign of Heraclius, in the early part
630 NOTES TO BOOK III.
of the seventh century, the name of the place had got gradually
altered to Septem, Septum, or Septa. This last was its designation
when the Arabs under Tarik obtained possession of it by the vengeful
treachery of Ilyan (Julian), the governor under King Roderick. The
tale which Leo notices undoubtedly came to him from Arabic sources,
and may have been based on fact. It was, however, originally a
Christian tale, and obtained currency through the Monk of Silos, a
chronicler of the eleventh century {Chrotiicon Silense, Florez, Esp.
Sag., vol. xvii, p. 279 ; Gyangos, ed. of Al-Makkari, vol. i, pp. 255,
513) 537)- ^^^ whatever may have been Ilyan's motive in betraying
Roderic — a project he had long meditated — there is no doubt about
the fact that he did so.
Few memorials of its earliest history remain in Ceuta. The aqueduct
which in the eleventh century carried the water in the Wad Auiat
passed for Ilyan's work, and the Wad Lian, which falls into the Strait
of Gibraltar, is a corruption of Nehr Ilyan, the name which it bears in
El-Bekri's writings. Tiie " Torre del Conde Don Julian", on the
mainland behind the ruins of Badis is, I believe, a memorial of more
modern date. Abu-1-feda, depending on Ebn Said's information, men-
tions that the fortifications were remarkable in that they were built of
stone, and that at the time he wrote the water was brought by canals,
though there were also cisterns to gather the rain-water. A city of
Andalus, Jezirat el-Khodra (Algesiras), could be seen from the city.
Edrisi, who was a native of Ceuta, derives Scbta from a word signify-
ing a peninsula, which Dozy (ed. Edrisi, p. 200), with characteristic
love of originality, considers an alteration of Saeptum, though he
admits the possibility of this coming from ScpLvn ffatrcSjihc WAinc
applied by the ancients to the Jebel 15elyuncch.
(132) The Khalif of Damascus, El-Walid I, son of Abd el-Malik.
Tarik landed at Gibraltar (Jebel Tarik) in a.m. 92 (a.d. 710-71 1).
(133) After the fortress had passed into the hands of the Arabs it was
considered so important as one of the harbours of the Berrel-Mejaz —
"Countrv of the Crossing" — between what Abu-1-feda calls the Berr
el-Udwah (Morocco) and the Berr el-Andalus (Spain) — that it was
always governed by a member of the Khalif's family (Ibn Khaldun,
Hisf. des Berbcres, t. ii). Hence the presence of a semi-royal court,
which attracted many skilful artificers and other panderers
to wealth and luxury. The (Genoese and Venetian merchants
regarded it as one of their most important places of trade, and even
helped their Moorish customers against their Christian enemies of
Ceuta ; though finding these allies rather treacherous, the Genoese,
unable to get their pay for an expedition in which they had barg-ained
to help Er-Reshid (a.d. 1234) against Spain, turned and bombarded the
town, until 400,000 dinars were promised. — Roiidh el-Kar/ds, p. 394.
NOTES TO BOOK HI. 63 1
(134) Al)cl cl-Mumen's cause of quarrel with Ceuta's citizens and
governor is mentioned elsewhere in this Ijook.
(135) In A. II. 818 (a. I). 1415), Ceuta was captured by Joao I, Prince
Henry the Navigator greatly distinguishing himself at the siege.
Sala Ibn Sala, the governor under Abu Said, the debauched Heni-
Marini Amir of P'ez, made a courageous defence. — Oliviera Martins,
Os Filhos de I). Joao / (1891), pp. 29-64.
(136) For this event, which precipitated what Leo so often refers to
as the " .Sahid war", see p. 580.
In 1418, the King of Fez, aided by the Amir of Oranada, attempted
to recover the place, but was repulsed by Prince Henry the Navi-
gator. In 1580, on the union of the two crowns, Ceuta was occupied
by Spain, and in 1640 remained Spanish, the citizens not having been
made privy to the plot by which Tangier and Mazagan reverted
to Portugal. In 1668 the place was formally confirmed to Spain, but
it began to lose prestige and prosperity from the day it came under
the sway of the Castilian sovereigns. The memories of its sieges
and defences gave to Ceuta an dclat in Portuguese eyes, which it took
the experiences of another generation for it to acquire in the eyes of its
new masters. In 1693, Mulai Ismail made a strenuous effort to
recover it, recalling in a curious letter to Don Francisco Varona, the
governor, a Moorish proverb that " Tetuan without Ceuta was not
worth a turni|j" (" Los quaies dicen que Tetuan sin .Seupta no vale um
nabo"j. But after the fortress had been invested unintermittenlly
for twenty-seven years, the siege was raised in 1721. During this
notal)le attempt Mulai Ismail had in his army many renegades ; and
in 1732, when he again made an attempt on Ceuta, he was aided by
the Duke of Ripperda, an unscrupulous Dutch adventurer, who, after
having been high in the councils of the King of Spain, had in dis-
grace offered his services to Morocco. Since that date Spain has,
with the e.xception of a few unimportant attacks, remained without
molestation in the possession of Ceuta. It is now a presidio, or
convict settlement. — AJrica, vol. iv, pp. 71-73-
(137) Tetuan, the Titawan of El-Bekri and Edrisi, is a Berber
name.
The river on which it stands is the Martil, or Martin, though this is
in reality the name of the custom-house built near its mouth. The
proper name of the river is Bu Sega, or Wad el-Jalu. El-Bekri calls
it Wad Kasen or Ras, or Wad Mahaksa, the people- in the town
having been, according to Edrisi, originally Mahaksa. Marmol, who
erroneously believed the river to be the " Cus", calls the castle on the
north the Castle of Adives.
The town is evidently the Tdinuda of Pomponius Mela antl Pliny,
632 NOTES TO BOOK III.
the QaXoZba Trora/xoi/ s5C/SoX«/ of Ptolemy, Taiiida meaning, in the
Shluh dialect, swamp, or overflowed ground, such as the river makes
near its mouth ; for which reason and because of the dangerous fevers
thereby engendered, the town is built on higher ground nearly four
miles inland. 7>/, it may be added, means, in the many place-names
into which it enters, spring ; while ain is Arabic for the same ; so that
in a double sense "Titawan" means a fountain-head.
Though the Tainuda oppiduin of Pliny is not mentioned in the
Antonme Itinerary^ it was probably on the site of the present town.
But, in any case, Tetuan is a very ancient place, though it was not
until Ceuta fell into the infidels' hands that its rival superseded it in
importance as a native market town.
It appears in European history in 1400, when a fleet sent by
Henry 111, King of Castile, sacked the place, and reduced the
inhabitants to slavery. For the next ninety years it remained desolate,
until the Moors, expelled from Spain, occupied it under El-Madani
(Almandali of Leo, Almandari of Marmol), who prospered in the
manner described by Leo.
Helibenres = Ali Benres, or, according to Marmol, Ali Barrax.
(138) As Leo saw the place only a few years after his fellow
Granadines had settled there, they must have lost no time in making
reprisals for the terrible blow they suftered in 1492.
But in 1520 an event happened of which our historian could have no
personal knowledge, and of which, as he does not mention it, he was
probably unaware. This was, that the depredations of the Tetuanese
became so troublesome that, on the advice of the governor of Ceuta,
King Emanuel of Portugal resolved to construct a fortress at the Martil
mouth. But although Pedro Mascarenhas made the requisite soundings,
for some reason nothing more was heard of the project. In 1 564, how-
ever, after Garcia de Toledo captured the Peiion de Yelez, he presented
himself in Tetuan Roads, with orders to make the Martil an impossible
place of refuge for the exiled Granadines' pirate vessels. The season,
however, being too late, .A.lvazar de Bazan was next year charged with
the same duty, which he tried to accomplish by blocking up the river
with a quantity of stones brought from Gibraltar. This simple method
of rendering a river outlet unnavigable was, however, but a temporary
obstacle, for the Tetuan people soon cut another channel to the north
of the old mouth, and began afresh their raids on the Spanish and
Portuguese coasts. They even ventured to ignore the authority of the
rulers of Morocco, until in 1567, weakened by internecine dissensions,
they were forced to submit to Mulai Abd-Allah, greatly, it seems, for
their own good. For in the early years of the seventeenth century the
"city of Mudejares", or Moors of Castile and Granada — those of
Valentia being called " Tagartins" — had 800 good houses and a fleet
NOTES TO BOOK III. 633
which was the scourg-e of the " Gut of GibraUar", while their city was
frequented by EngHsh, Dutch, Genoese and Venetian merchants, the
Dutch being especial favourites by reason of the war they carried on
with Spain.
To-day, except for its orange groves and its native armourers, who
in some respects perpetuate the art of Granada, the place is of little
importance commercially. After the war of 1859-60 the Spanish
troops occupied it for two years, and their stay has given the place a
European appearance and taught a wholesome lesson, which makes
Tetuan extremely tolerant to Christians. Up to 1770, all the European
diplomatic agents resided here, and it was consequently the starting-
place for the missions to Fez and Mekines, just as Saffi was for
those to Marakesh. It is, however, taking a fresh lease of prosperity,
having from 20,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, many of them Jews, who
do business with the Riffians ; while the richness of the soil in
the adjoining country, and its trade in tanning barks and in leeches,
bring a great deal of money into the town, in spite of the silting-up of
the Martil mouth and of its two little subsidiary ports Negro and
Emsa. The magnificent Atlas liistorico y topografico de la Guerra
de Africa ... en 1859 v i860, prepared by the Estado Mayor del
Ejercito, is exhaustive so far as the topography of the country in the
immediate vicinity of Tetuan and Ceuta is concerned. But less care
has been taken to ascertain the exact native names of localities, and,
worse still, Spanish names have been applied to various spots, without
any trouble having been taken to learn whether they had Arabic or
Berber designations. Hence this fine work must be consulted with
caution, and is often disappointing.
(139) A fine range near the ruined town of Ezaggen (p. 619).—
Watson's Visit to JVazan, p. 223 ; De Foucauld, Reconnaissance, p. 5.
(140) Beni-Zeguer of Marmol, who says that is called Beni Fensecare
by an error, and that the inhabitants are Beni Zeguers, who derive
their wealth from the sums received for their woven fabrics, honey,
wax, etc., from the Fez and Christian merchants at their Saturday
market.
(141) Jebel beni Aros (or Arous), a once powerful tribe in this
vicinity. Larache was the " Arbour of the Beni Arous". They
were a branch of the Ramra (Ramara), and some of their villages
paid tribute to the Portuguese when they occupied Azila. — Marmol,
t. ii, p. 223.
(142) Chebit, or Telit, the Jebel Habib, about 2,267 ft- h'^h. It was
known to El-Bekri, and the name which is in full Jebel Habib ben
Yussef Fahri, for having given refuge to one of the sons of Yussef el-
S S
634 NOTES TO BOOK III.
Fahri, who was the last prop of the Khalifs of the East in Spain, and
was beheaded by order of Abd er-Rahman, about A.H. 140 (a.d. 757).
In Marmol's day the inhabitants were called Beni Telit.
(143) The highest point of the Jebel Beni Hassan, Mount Anna
(7,250 ft.) is often capped with snow (for which the editor can vouch
from personal observation) from November to the end of April. The
Gomera mountains have sometimes patches of snow late in June, and
some of the elevations in the Metiwa El-Bahar country, have, as
seen from the coast, a snow covering in that month. These Beni
Hassan villages are still, as in Leo's day, strongly built, and the
people, an ill-looking set, bear the reputation of being incorrigible
robbers, who object to any strangers entering their countiy. A few
years ago, they actually raided the harem of the Grand Vizier in his
passage to Rabat, and even threatened the Sultan himself. — Tissot,
Bull, dc la Soc. Gcog. Paris.., Sept. 1879, P- 54-
(144) Or Amegara. Anjera is a well-known district of the El-
Rarb province, which harbours tribesmen who at times give the
Sultan's representative sore trouble.
(145) Guadres, Vateras, or Huat. Idris of Marmol is Uad Ras,
the highlands inhabited by a Berber tribe of that name. It is the
" Dj-Uad Ras" of Schnell's map, the " Quad Ras" of Tissot's. The
"battle of Wad -Ras" was the decisive action in the Spanish war of
1859-60. But the name is derived from the stream of that name
(note 137), which rises in the Uad Ras, and is a tributary, if not indeed,
as El-Bekri considers it, the main current of the Martil, or El-Jalu.
(146) This passage refers to the battle of Navas de Tolosa, known
to the Moors as Hisn el-Ukab, the Eagle's Castle, or simply El-
Ukab, in which on i6th Jul)', 1212, not "the yeere of Our Lord
1 160", though A.H. 609, which is given correctly, corresponds with
the right date (p. 358, Bk. ii, note 72;. Nor was it "Joseph Enesir"
or Yussuf En-Nasar, but Mohammed en-Naser li Din Illah, who lost
this turning-point in the Arab hold upon Spain. Yussuf (el-Mostanser)
was his son. The calculation of 285 years as having elapsed between this
battle and the fall of Granada is accurate, which of course it could
not be if A.D. 1160 were accepted as the Christian era equivalent.
This is given in the early editions of Ramusio, thouyh whether, as in
this and other cases, added by the editor as part of Leo's manuscript,
it is now impossible to say. The not very judiciously revised reprint
of 1837, which omits most of the equivalents in the Christian
calendar, in this case leaves the erroneous A.u. 11 60.
147) Beni Hued-fiteh, or Beni Gued el-Fetoh of Marmol, a tribe
NOTES TO BOOK III. 63S
of the Tleni Ghorfit, who lived not very far from El-Uted, which was
celebrated for its Manhar (or aqueduct).
(148) Er-Rif, Riff, Rif, Reef, as the Massif on the Mediterranean
shore of Morocco is called, is one of the parts of the empire most
familiar by name and yet least known. The wild Berber inhabitants,
still pirates when opportunity offers, persistently refuse nowadays
to permit any stranger to penetrate their fastnesses. Even the
Sultan considers it prudent not to trouble this " vnciuill and rude
people"; and more than once the hapless officials of their own race
who have aroused their disapproval have been murdered. Leo's
description still applies, so far as can be learned from the parts of
their country which have been skirted here and there. The " Rifi "
are Mohammedans, but, like many of the Berbers, not very strict ones :
smoking, drinking wine, and eating the flesh of the wild boar. They
pay what tribute they choose to render to the Sultan in mules, honey,
and other country produce, and to this day the lion — a little black
variety— which has been killed off in most of the adjoining parts of
Morocco, is still troublesome in the Riff. The only European who
has traversed this country from north to south, from Alhucemas
(which he calls Albouzema), or rather El-Mezenma to Taza, was
Roland Fregus of Marseilles. The mission was accomplished be-
tween the 9th April and the 19th June, 1667. But, unfortunately, like
many of the remarkable journeys of merchants at that period, the
Sieur Roland's unique opportunities have left little matter of which
geographers can make use. — The Relation of a Voyage made into
Mauritania in Africk^ etc. (Englished out of French), 1671.
The word "rif" means in the Berber language " the littoral", and is
therefore synonymous with the Arabic " Sahel", and nearly identical
with the Latin " ripa" and the French "rive, rivage" (Renou). Leo
calls it "riviera".
" The riuer of Nocor " is the Wad N'Kur.
The " Rifi " have been long separated from the rest of the Berber
stocks, and in process of time have not only contracted peculiarities
of life and morals (some not of the highest), but are said to be
readily recognised by physical features. The prominence of the
poniuDi Adanii mentioned by Leo is one about as noticeable in a
Rifian as is the bareing of the upper front teeth by a more southern
country Arab when scanning anything with curiosity. But altogether
the entire bearing of the people of Er-Rif is characteristic of bold,
independent mountaineers, whom more than twenty centuries of in-
vaders have left still unconquered. — Rohlfs, " Der Riff", Deutsche
Rundschau, 1894, pp. 193-198; Duveyrier, " Itineraire de Tlemsiin a
Melila", Bull, de Son. Gcog. Paris (31st May — loth June, 1886), ide
trimestre, 1893; "La Derniere partie inconnue du littoral de la
S S 2
636 NOTES TO BOOK III.
Mediterranee : Le Riff", Bull, de Geog. historique et descriptive
1887, No. 3, pp. 127-149, etc.
(149) This is, perhaps, the Tazka of Edrisi ; but the name Targa is
often found in the Berber countries, and means " stream".
The story of Terga repeats what has been so often told in these
notes — viz., the rapidity with which a busy town melts away and
disappears in Morocco. From the reference to it in Edrisi, it appears
to have been an ancient trading port. On the Catalan atlas and the
map of Battista Agnesi it appears as Torga or Targa, in the latter a
little to the west of a small river called " Cherche", which seems to be
the Wad Kerkal of Edrisi, the Rio de Alamos of the Spanish charts,
and Riviere de Tarssa of Dumoulin. But Mannert, Lapie, and
Lacroix are wrong in seeking for the Ticnea Longa of the Antonine
Itinerary — Taivia Koyya, of Ptolemy — here, and not at Mersa
Tighessa. Our Terga does not appear to have been a Roman town.
Leo speaks of its trade in fish, which even then was dwindling, prob-
ably owing to the rivalry of the Portuguese and Spaniards. There
are grounds for believing that these last plundered it in 1481. Still, at
that very period, it was sufificiently prosperous and piratical to arouse
the mingled wrath and cupidity of Ferdinand de Meneses, governor
of Ceuta, who, judging the inhabitants to be off their guard, surprised it,
took 300 prisoners, and burnt twenty-five ships, big and little. This
success was so cheering to King Joao the Perfect that, ten years later,
the Portuguese tried to repeat their exploit, but failed. In 15 17 a
great expedition of sixty ships was sent against it, but the commanders
quarrelling over a question of precedence returned to Ceuta without
striking a blow. Sixteen years later, the Spaniards, under Alvar de
Bazan, sacked it by order of Charles V, and in 1568 Don John of
Austria meditated a similar enterprise. Not long after, Mulai Abd-
Allah rebuilt and fortified it, placing a strong garrison in the place.
Yet, towards the close of last century, there were no remains of a
town. To-day it is difficult to trace the site of this place, which has
long ago disappeared from all maps of any authority, in company with
a place called " Canise", likewise sacked in 1481 by Ferdinand de
Meneses. — (De la Primaudace, Re^ntc Africaine, No. 92, pp. 125-127 ;
Lacroix, Carte de fAfrique sous la domination des Romaitts, etc.
(1864) ; Lapie, Recueil des Itineraires Ancieiis, etc. (1844), etc.
(150) Badis, the Badich of El-Bekri, is now a ruined and, so far as
its name is concerned, an almost forgotten place at the bottom of a
bay opposite El-Pefion, not far from the La Rambla (Wad Tameda),
which flows — when there is any water in it — through the plain known
as the Plaza del Fuerte. Badis (a Berber name, or Balech, the name
of the Pefion) was corrupted by the Arabs into Beles, which the
NOTES TO BOOK III. 637
Spaniards in their turn transformed into Velez. Penon means a rocky
islet. Accordingly, when the Spaniards took the Penon, a rocky
islet in front of Badis, it was called, without regard to the native
name being- " Balech", " EI Peiion de Velez", to which was added " de
la Gomera", the name formerly given to the Rif of Rarb (El-Gharb),
inhabited by the Gumera (Ghomera), one of the five great primitive
divisions of the Berber race. They extended from the river Muluia to
Tangier (Ibn Khaldun, Hist, de Bcrbcres^ vol. iii, p. 134). Badis is
now all but a vanished memory, and El-Peiion de Velez de la (iomera,
the Spanish rock-presidio, has taken its place. The history of the place,
and the struggles of which it has been the scene between the Berbers,
Turks, and Spaniards, is detailed in Marmol,Z,'y?yr/^;/^, t. ii, pp. 251-266
(up to its final capture by the Spaniards under Garcia de Toledo in
1564) ; the Editor's Africa., vol. iv, pp. 75, 76 ; and in Pezzi, Los
presidios memores de Africa (1893), pp. 12-77, 215-242.
El-Bekri and Abu-1-feda refer to Badis as a town furnished with
good markets and more than 100 Jewish houses of business.
Abu-1-feda, indeed, characterises it as " a port celebrated among the
ports of the country of Ghomarah". In the thirteenth and fifteenth
centuries it enjoyed a considerable commerce, and in the times of Leo
and Marmol Badis was celebrated for its sardines {sardelli)., still
abundant in the bay, and for the timber cut in the neighbouring
mountains.
Water is as scarce now as then, and when the hot weather sets in,
the cisterns have to be filled, as are those of Alhucemas and Melilla,
by supplies brought from Malaga. The " little ruiver or streame"
which flowed " alwaies when it raineth" is the Rambla marked on
Battista Agnesi's map.
The " sepulchre of a certaine man" is that of Sidi Buazza, a
marabout of the same name as the lion-scaring one (p. 572).
(151) The Pefion was captured by Pedro Navarro in 1508, though as
early as 1499 the Portuguese had built a fortress a little west of Badis,
to keep a check upon its pirates, and was betrayed on loth December
1522 — not " 1520 al niodo de' Christiani" (Marmol, Suarez Montancs^
Minana, etc.). From 1554 it was in the hands of the Algerine
Turks, until in 1 564 the Spaniards recovered by an attack upon it
with 153 ships and 9,200 men, under Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of
Sicily.
(152) lelles, Iris, Yellez, is mentioned in all the ancient nautical
records, in the Catalan atlas as Ellis, and in the Pisan map as Eres,
though Badis was not marked on it. There is some timber near it,
but the place is now a miserable fishing village on Iris bay, where the
638 NOTES TO BOOK III.
anchorage is good and the shelter fair, on a coast of whicli the old
Spanish sailors' rhyme saj'S : —
'■'' Junto, jiilio, agosto y piierto Mnlioit
Los mejores piiertos de Mediterrafieo soti."
"June, July, August, and Port Mahon
Are the best ports of the Mediterranean."
Jeziret Beni bu Fras is the name of an islet at the entrance to the
bay. The " Jell" is a desert plain in the Muluia valley.
(153) Tagaza of Marmol. Mannert and Lapie place Taenia Longa
(p. 636) at Tagaza, which the former misspells " Fagasa", an error
copied in Vincendon-Dumoulin and De Kerhallet's Description
Nautiqiie de la cote 7iord du Maroc {\'&^7), and by Lasailly in his
Carte du Maroc (1858). It is the " Anse des peupliers", the Mersa
Tighissa of Tissot's Gcog. Coinp., p. 19, Mersa Tigui9ast of PI. I in
same memoir. Tagaza appears to be a corruption of the Rifian
Tighissa. Edrisi mentions it as Tikii^as. It is now a mere fishing
village, by a little river of the same name.
(154) Jebba, a petty place — pettier even than in Leo's day, when it
was alternately empty and occupied — between El-Peiion de Velez de
Gomera and Alhucemas.
(1515) Mezemme, Mzemma, Megeyma (Marmol), or El-Mzemma,
was an old Berber town, of which the ruins exist near the mouth of the
Wad Ris, or Nkhur (" Nocore", Nekor), though its memory lives in
Mersa el-Mzemma, the name applied to the coast in its vicinity.
Alhucemas, the name of the lavender-covered Spanish rock-presidio
hard by, is perhaps a corruption of El-Mezemma. For the native
name of this islet is Hajirat En-N'kur, the rock of N'kur, in order to
distinguish it from el-Hajra Kebdana (the rock of Kebdana), or
Isla del Congresso, in the Chafarine Island.
(156) In A.D. 922 it was sacked by the troops of the Khalif of
Bagdad ('' the patriarke of Cairoan"), and after lying deserted for
fifteen years was re-peopled, only to be a second time destroyed by
Abd er-Rahman III, Khalif of Cordova ("a certaine great man of
Cordoua"). From that date the place began rapidly to decay, though
in the latter part of the seventeenth century, as we learn from Roland
Frejus's narrative, it did some little trade. This, however, was
lost as soon as the Spaniards built their fortress on the islet in the
bay. This spot was given them, according to the accepted version,
by Mulai Abd Allah (1557-1573), to pre ent its occupation by
the Algerines (Moura, Mem. da Acaa Real, Lisboa, vol. x,
p. 102), but it was not permanently occupied iintil August 27th,
NOTES TO BOOK III. 639
1673 (Pezzi, Los presidios mevwres, &\.c.^ p. 78), when the Prince of
Montesacro laid the foundation of Alhucemas, universally agreed to
be one of the least agreeable and most unhealthy of the Spanish
presidios on the Morocco coast. The distance from Kairwan to
Alhucemas is over-estimated by Leo. Instead of being " three and
twentie hundreth miles" (due mille trecenti miglia), it is, by a direct
route, not much over 700.
(157) Beni-Garir or Beni-Oriegan. Any description of the Rif
mountain system must of- necessity be indefinite, since no geographer
has had an opportunity of examining it, except on the border. Even
from the sea-coast the view is hindered by certain peaks which
mock the explorer. Hence, on the conscientious cartographer's map
of Morocco, the Rif is marked by a partial blank, relieved by a few
heights, often the result of very problematical measurements estimated
from a great distance, and by a name or two which may or may not
be the correct titles of the peaks or ranges to which they are attached.
Hence Leo's "Monti" must in most cases be more or less doubtful,
though some, especially near the sea-board, are identifiable without
much difficulty. As usual, they are the names of the tribes inhabiting
them.
(158) The Beni Mansur. These were in Leo's day subject to the
rule of Badis (Bedis) or Velez (p. 636).
(159) The Botoye of Marmol, who states that this is the country of
a saint named Sidi Bu Aza, whose tomb is at the gate of Badis (p. 637).
It is "the Port of Boazon, on the Road of Boutoye", mentioned by
Roland Frejus and other writers, and on some charts {e. g., the French
one of 1843, issued by the Depot de la Marine), marked as the Port
of Botoye. Duveyrier {Bull, de Gcog. Hist, et Descriptive, 1887,
pp. 130, 131) refers to "the country of Bogouya, called also Bogiwa",
lying to the west of the Temsamani, and near the Bene bu Ferrahs,
in the vicinity of Penon de Velez. It is drained by the Wad Bu'
Azzun, and is peopled by the Beni Ulitshitsh. The .Spaniards know it
as Bocoya, or the country of the Beni Botoya. (Pezzi, Los presidios
memores, pp. 170, 171.) El-Bekri speaks of the road of Bkuia or
Bukuia, and Edrisi of the Beni-Btuia : but it is not certain that they
are the people of these mountains.
(160) Beni-quilib, or Beni-quelid, of Marmol.
(161) The second Beni Mansur, is probably the Beni Mansur whose
country lies behind the Jagerschmidt's Sp. (Point) of Schnell's map.
(162) Beni Giusep, the Beni Yussuf. In Marmol's day they paid
tribute to the " Lords of Velez,"
640 NOTES TO BOOK III.
(163) These seem to be the Beni uz-Zerual, the Beni Zarval of
Marmol.
The " Seusaoen", to which they are described as subject, is the
well-known Berber town of Sheshauen, ut mfra.
A detached fraction of the Beni-Zerual are found in Algeria near
the mouth of the Chelif.
(164) The Beni Hasgin of Mamiol. Why Marmol changes it to
Beni Hasgin is not explained, for it is not the Beni Hassan already
described.
(165) This place, also spelled Seusaen by Leo, and Chechuan or
Sesava by Marmol, is Sheshuan, a fanatical little town in the moun-
tains between the Beni Hassan country and the Rif proper. It was
first visited by any European, so far as is authentically known, when Ue
Foucauld entered it in 1883 disguised as a Jew, and accompanied by
the celebrated Rabi Mordekhai Abi Serur, of Timbuktu fame. Mr.
Walter B. Harris visited it in 1888 ; and since then at least one
European has repeated the adventure. The houses have sloping
roofs, a peculiarity rarely seen in Morocco. It is the capital of
the Sheshuan. — Harris, The La7id of ati African Su//a?i, pp. 298-317
(sketch); Blackwood^ s Magazine, 1888, pp. 786-792; De Foucauld,
Reconnaissance, etc., pp. 7-9 (good view).
The " Sidi Heli Berrased " mentioned is the " Ali Barrax " referred
to above. — Marmol, LAfrique, t. ii, p. 273.
(166) Their country is behind Cotelle Point. The river which runs
through their territory Marmol calls the " Halef-Vgus", that is,
" curse and pass " — more accurately Halef-on-juz (Renou). In
Marmol's time they paid tribute to Sheshuan, and could at a pinch
bring into the field more than 2,000 men, among whom were some
arquebusiers, but no cavalry.
(167) Beni Jerso, Yerso, of Marmol. Ali Barrax was the founder
of its prosperity, but its ruin, as narrated by Leo, if in "918 yeere
of the Hegeira", was not in a.d. 15 18, as added by Florianus, but
1513-14-
The Beni-Iersu are a Berber tribe who, like so many in this region,
have dropped the national " Ait " in favour of the Arabic " Ben"'.
Some tribes of pure Berber origin have even adopted Arabic as their
tongue.
(168) Beni-Tiziran of Marmol. They paid tribute to Sheshuan, and
searched for hidden treasures among the ruins of old buildings,
believed to be Roman.
NOTES TO BOOK III.- 64 1
(169) Beni-Buzeybet of Marmol, covered with forests of walnuts
which supphed Fez and other towns.
(170) Beni-Wahd.
(171) Mernisa, the Beni Uva or Bervira of Marmol, as appears
from his relating the same particulars regarding the people — such as
the informal divorces of the women, who among the Berbers have
great power, etc. They belong to the Gumera stock.
(172) Haugustun, Hagustan of Marmol, Haugustuin of Ramusio,
ed. 1613, Agustun of the 1837 reprint.
(173) Beni-Jedir, or Beniyedi, of Marmol. The Benider mountain,
with a large village of the same name, is between the Wad er-Ras
(Rio el-Ras) and the Wad Engachera (Rio Engachera), on the Spanish
War Office Map.
(174) Alcai of Marmol, Al Kai. The distance of the place from
Fez appears to be under-estimated by Leo, as are, indeed, most
of his distances in the Rif country. Badis (p. 636), for instance, is
not thirty miles, but over eighty-five miles in a straight line from Fez.
(175) Beni guazeval, or Beni zarval, of Marmol. Duveyrier con-
sidered this mountain to be in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Beni Uriaghel country, and it may be Guezennaya. But in referring
to " le traducteur du texte arabe en latin " of " Hasen Ben Mohammed
el-Wassas autrement dit L^on I'Africain", Duveyrier shows himselt
strangely ignorant of the history of the book, which both he and
Tissot invariably quote in the Latin version.
The most remarkable fact which Leo relates about this mountain is
its being an active volcano. But though the statement has been
repeated again and again since it first appeared, no one has been able
to confirm it. Thus, on Abraham Ortelius's 1595 map FesscE, et
Marocchi Regna Africce celeberr., " Beniguazendl mons " is marked
as possessing " Specus perpetuo ignem evomens". It may be added
that nearly all the places on this map are transferred from Leo.
Mr. Maw regards the southern coast of the Strait of Gibraltar as
exhibiting signs of modern upheaval (Hooker and Ball's Tour, etc.,
pp. 448-450), and M. Duveyrier's observations on the Sebka (La
Laguna o Puerto Nuevo) south of Melillatend to the same conclusion ;
while we have seen that the Merja de Ras ed-Dura, Ez-Zerga, and other
coast-lying lakes between the .Sebu and El-Kus bear every appearance
of having been lagoons formerly : a theory not rendered untenable by
M. Tissot's objection that the narrow barrier separating them from
the sea is not of sand but of rock. In the Ghruneh country, on the
borders of Er-Rif, Mr. Harris found volcanic traces, and he heard
642 NOTES TO BOOK III.
that there is in " Beni Zarun", not far distant, a circular hole {i.e.
crater), out of which by day smoke rises, and by night fire is clearly
visible {Proc. Roy. Gcog. Soc, vol. xi, 18S9, pp. 489-91)- This may be
the place described by Leo.
(176) Beni-Gueriaghel of the original, l^eni-Gueriagel, or Beni-
Vrieguil of Marmol, the Beni-Uriaghel already mentioned (note 175).
The name of the tribe occurs in El-Bekri and Edrisi, and it is cited
by Leo as the " Bani-guerjaghel", one of the tribes of the Senhaja
Berbers.
El-Bekri mentions the Nkur (Nekor), and a stream called by him
the Nahar-'Aish, which falls into the Mediterranean near it. The
first rises in the Jebel-Kuin (Kum) in the Kertana country, and the
other in the " Beni-Ueriaghel " district not far distant.
There is also a fraction of the Beni-Ueriaghel in the vicinity of
Tetuan (Renou). The Kuin (Kum) mountain gave rise, according to
El-Bekri, to the Uerra River (the Guarga of Leo— the well-known
Wargha). The " Kertana" country is perhaps Kebdana, south of the
Sebka of Puerto Novo, near Melilla (note 175).
(177) Beni hamet, or Beni acmet, of Marmol. In his day they
could muster 4,000 fighting men, but, what with the King of Fez upon
one hand and the " Seigneurs of Velez" on the other, in addition to
their civil broils and their love of wine, the Beni Hamed were " poor
and beggarly". They are still a well-known Arab tribe south of the
Lakhames, but no wealthier than formerly.
(178) The Benizanten or Benyeginesen of Marmol. Between the
Beni Hamed and the Uled Aissa runs a branch of the Wargha, but
the dividing stream referred to by Leo must be one of the more
northern branches, as the Beni Zanten are not known. From the
fact that Leo's fiither had to do with them in his capacity of land-
lord, they most likely lived not far from Fez. They may be the Beni-
Zarun.
(179) The Beni M'sgilda, or Mesgalda, are a well-known Arab tribe
north of Fez, south of the Lakhamis, Beni Hamed, and Beni Zarun,
and west of the still more powerful Beni M'Sara, who sometimes invited
the Sultan to take his taxes in silver bullets. They must not be con-
founded with the Beni M'Gild, a Berber tribe south of Fez, who range
on the head waters of the Beth, Sebu, etc.
(180) The Beni guamud, as Marmol spells the name, are described
by him as more "civil" than the rest of the Rif mountaineers, but like
the rest of them regarding the Christians with an undying hatred, and
not without cause. They could at the time he wrote put 4,000 men into
NOTES TO BOOK III. 643
the field, including in this number some cavalry. But it is probable
that all the estimates are exaggerated ; unless indeed the population
of Morocco was four or five centuries ago far larger than it is at
present. The Rif country, however, is so little known that one can only
guess at its population and at its geography. Fifty years ago, Renou
deplored the scantiness of our information regarding it. " We know",
this industrious student wrote, " the names, more or less disfigured,
of a certain number of tribes, but we are entirely ignorant of the
names and positions of all their villages. We do not know the height
of a single one of their mountains". This is still true to-day.
For, if the past half-century has added largely to our information re-
garding the rest of Morocco, it has left the great mountain clump over-
looking the Mediterranean far less explored than the centre of the
continent to which it belongs. We know, indeed, a few more of the
tribal names on the coast, and, in a rough way, the altitude of some
of the mountains. But the explorer has, been permitted to see them
from a distance only, so that a country past which thousands sail
every year is to-day little better known than it was four centuries
ago. Indeed, as the foregoing commentary proves, our erudition
has in the interval not proceeded much beyond that of Leo the
African.
(181) Caret is not now recognised as a province of the old kingdom
of Fez, though long after Leo's time it appears on maps with
much the same boundaries as he assigns to it — viz., from west to
east between the river Nkur and Muluia, and from north to south
between the sea and the river Melulo — a tributary of the Muluia near
Debdu on the northern side of the Tell Atlas. Chenier gives the
same boundaries, though he appears to be simply copying Leo. Its
correct name is Gharet (Renou, ExpL Scientifique de PAIgerte, t. viii,
pp. 332-335). The country of Guela'aya (Ak'la'ia, Akkalaya, Alcalaya,
or Alcaladia, of various authors), part of the amala of Ujda, ends on
the west at the Wad Kart, the Karat of El-Bekri (pp. 90, 99), a name
in which Duveyrier rather fancifully traces a resemblance to Caret
{Bull, de Gcog. Hisloriqitc ct Dcscript., 1887, p. 130). The region
called Charet is now much smaller than in Leo's day (see Moiiette, Hht.
des Conqiicstes de Mouley-Arc/iy, p. 417 ; and Braithwaite, Hist, of the
Revolutions in Morocco., etc., for maps in which the name of Ak'la'ia
(Alcaladia) is applied to the entire province of Charet or Caret. It is
the "Arcadia de III forcate" fTres forcas) of the map in the Pinelli
Library (the author of which is ianknown).
(182) Melilla of the Spaniards is the Mlila, '• the place of honey", of
the Moors, so called from the great quantity of bees in the vicinity.
It was the Russadir Oppidmn et Portiis of Pliny, the Riisaddcr
644 NOTES TO BOOK III.
Colonia of the Antonine Itinerary, and probably the Ax^og irokiz y.ul
}j,'MriV of Scylax, and the 'P-jSsddiipov of Ptolemy. Whether it was ever
inhabited by the Goths is doubtful, though it is possible that they
occupied the Roman town. The Berbers, however, were no doubt
there when the Phoenicians came (as Scylax relates in the Periplus\
and again became masters when the Romans, or their successors, left.
In the Middle Ages it was a place frequented by European merchants,
who bought honey, and iron mined in the neighbouring mountains.
The Rif is, indeed, believed to be rich in minerals ; antimony and
manganese are known to be plentiful. Iron, "or a mine of some
metal", exists in the Jebel Hammam, near Badis, in the Beni Said
country, in " Meggeo" (note 189), and here. The French marine
surveyors found their work on the coast frequently interfered with
by abnormal deviations of the compass. Pearl fishing is not now
followed in the bay.
In the Portulan of Visconte, and the Catalan atlas, the place is
called Millela, in the map of the Pinelli Library " cavo Milela", and in
other Routiers, Mellila. But none of these majjs, not even that of
Battista Agnesi (1574), shows the little river which flows mto the bay
a little east of the town, the Wad Tigand — the Rio del Oro of the
Spaniards. Marmol says that it is the leyrat-Melila of the Berbers.
(183) Butoja, Buccuja (note 159).
(184) Melilla was captured by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Captain-
General of Andalusia, on the 17th of September 1496 (or 1497, accord-
ing to Galindo y de Vera), Leo's date being, in any case, erroneous.
The subsequent history of the place, during which the Sultan of
Morocco and the Berbers on their own account attempted to capture
Melilla, or carried on war against its occupants to as late as 1890, is
narrated in the Editor's Africa, vol. iv, pp. 73-75 ; De la Primaudace,
Revue Africaine, No. 92, pp. 106-113; Berbrugger, Ibid., No. 53.
p. 366 ; Marmol, LAfrique, t. ii, pp. 284-290 ; Pezzi, Los presidios
jiietnores, etc., pp. 99, 243-318; 0\\\\&, Marritecos, passim ; Liana y
Rodrigaiiez, El imperio de Marruecos, p. 192 ; Perez del Toro,
Espana en el Norveste de Africa ; Galindo y de Vera, Historia,
vicisitiides y poliiica iradicional de Espana respccto de sus posesiones
en las Cos/as de Africa, etc., p. 74 ; Ordega, Revtte Bleu, Nov. 4th,
1893 ; and references in the Bibliography of Morocco (1893).
(185) Also spelled "Chasasan" — Cacja^a of Marmol, a place the
former position of which is very uncertain, the name not appearing in
Spanish history, and the old cartographers placing it almost at random
on the map, Cala-Cassaza, K'saga, etc. ; Renou believes that K'saga
is its true name, because El-Bekri places the Risaka, a Berber tribe,
in the region near the mouth of the Muluia, where, according to Leo's
NOTES TO BOOK III. 645
description, we must look for the spot. It was taken immediately
after Melilla. It is not improbable that Leo, who is far from precise,
meant by Chasasa a settlement on the Chafarine Island, close to the
mouth of the Muluia, which was afterwards, with the exception of the
tower, razed to the ground.
(186) Tezzota, the Tezote of Marmol, apparently Tezzat. Founded
by the Beni-Marini, and abandoned by them to the Batalises, one of
the Zeneta tribes, it was eventually destroyed by Yussuf En-Naser
li Din Illah (1307), until it became, after the occupation of Melilla and
" Chasasa" by the Spaniards, a place from which they might be
harassed. In Leo's day the people were constantly at war with the
Christians, which may account for Tezzota no longer existing, at
any rate under that name. There are various ruins on the hills near
the Muluia, but none which can with confidence be fixed upon as
those of the little Berber hill-Ksar, in question. " Tafersit" cannot
well be identified with it.
«
(187) Meggeo, Megea of Marmol, in whose day it was noted for
iron mines, though in itself a little place. Except that it must be (if it
exists, which is more than doubtful) in the Guela'aya country nothing
further is known about it.
(188) The Mequebhuan of Marmol, between Melilla and the River
Muluia, in which position is a cape spelled Quilbadana, Quobrada,
Quiviana, etc., on different maps. All these names are evidently
variants of one, and that derived from the Kebdana or Gebdana, a
well-known Berber tribe, whose country lies back of this coast. A
short time before his expedition against Fez and Marakesh, Mulai er-
Rashid (1672) halted in Quiviane, a town within or on the borders of
Rif — Moiiette, Hist, des Conquestes de Mouley-Archy, etc., pp. 8, 25.
(189) The Beni Said of the country west of Ras ed-Uir (Tres
Forcas). Iron is no longer mined, it being cheaper to buy European
tools. Marmol describes the castle "of Calaa" in their country.
Renou suggests that this may have been the Berber village of Calaa-
Guizin-aque, the name of which is mentioned by Marmol. This is
possible, but it was more likely the fortress of " Kala", which the
King of Portugal built in 1498 to keep watch over Badis and its
pirates.
(190) Azgangan can be identified with Ageddim, the mountains
which form C. de Agua or Ras Sidi Basher, from the name of a
village surmounting it. There is also a village called Ageddim.
(191) This is the Beni-Touzin of Roland Frejus, the Quizina of
Marmol.
646 NOTES TO BOOK III.
(192) The Giuirdam market was, in Marmol's day, held on
Saturday, and was much frequented by the Fez merchants.
(193) Leo's description of the dryness and sterility of this region
is quite accurate. Travellers in it are at times hard pressed for
water.
(194) Chaus, or Cuzt (Mannol), is the name applied to the country
between the Wad Za and the province of Temsena (River Wargha),
and between Gharet and the Desert Region. " Ro. C." also, m A
True Historical Discourse, etc. (1609), chap, xiv (the book is not
paged), refers to Chaus, or Coucoes. Most subsequent writers have
copied Leo. Thus Chenier refers to Chaus or Shaus, Graberg de
Hemso to Sciaus, etc. There is, however, no such province nowadays,
if there ever existed one of that name. The word " Heuz", evidently
the same, is, however, still employed to designate a large district such
as the Heuz Rabat, and the Heuz Marakesh. The Fum el-Rorb
is the country east of the Heuz Rabat on to the Muluia and to the south
of Rif — in fact, nearly what Leo comprises in Chaus.
(195) Abd el-Hakk (Habdulach) was, with Idris, one of his sons,
slain in a battle with the Riata from near Taza (a.h. 614, according to
Roudh el-Karias, p. 408). Abu Said Othman was elected Emir on
the battle-field. Upon his assassination in A.H. 638 (a.d. 1240), his
brother, Abu Mahruf Mohammed, succeeded. After him came Abu
Yahia, another son of Abd el-Hakk, and, finally, Abu Yussuf Yakub,
a fourth son of Abd el-Hakk, became Amir. But Marakesh was
captured, and the last Almohade (Muachedin) sovereign was
vanquished after Yakub had become king.
" Muachedin, the King of Maroco", is " la famiglia di Muachidin
re di Maroco". The paragraph is, however, inaccurate. In another
place Leo describes Yakub as being the first king of the Beni-
Marini dynasty, an error which he could not have committed through
ignorance, as he properly states in this passage that Abd el-Hakk
was the first.
(196) Teurert of Marmol, a town near the Za, on what is now the
Algerian frontier. The Za, one of the tributaries of the Muluia from
the left bank, is the Sa of El-Bekri, the Saa of Edrisi, the Zha and
Za of Leo, the Za and Esaha of Marmol, the Enza of Ali Bey.
Teurert is a frec|uent Berber name (properly " Taurirt ") meaning
hill, and is a not uncommon designation of villages which crown
high places. It is not improbably " Temessuin", the large, ruined,
fortified place which Ali Bey described in 1805 on the left side of the
Muluia valley. It then consisted of a square wall about 425 feet in
front, with a square tower on each corner, and another in the middle
NOTES TO COOK HI. 647
of each front. The wall was 18 feet high and 3 feet thick, with
a kind of parapet on the top, pierced with places of defence. There
was a decaj'ed mosque, and some other ruins by the side of the
mosque. But beyond some miserable huts giving shelter to a few
poverty-stricken natives, the place was entirely deserted. Another
ruined castle was passed further on ; but ruins are the most marked
feature of Morocco. This particular one, under that name at least,
does not seem to have attracted the attention of any subsequent
traveller whose itinerary I have seen. But on the " Wad Zaar " (the
Za apparently) Colonel Colville notes the " Kassbar" (Kasba, Alcas-
saba of AH Bey), "Zaar", the "Kassbar Muley Ismail" (Qagba
Moulei Ismail) of the French War Department Map. Near it is a
wrecked village which was formerly inhabited by a colony of Jews.
But in one of the many disturbances of the country it was destroyed,
as were also such of the inhabitants who did not escape to the
mountains. Other travellers describe the same place, \)e Foucauld
identifying it with Taurirt : " Qagba Moulei Ismail porte aussi le nom
de Taourirt." This synonymy is also adopted on Schnell's map
(Petermann's Geo£: Miiteilungcn Ergiinsieiigshefi, No. 103). A
difficulty in accepting the identity of Taurirt with Leo's " Tuerto " is
that he describes the town wall as of" most excellent marble", which De
Foucauld tells us is of tabia (pise). — Ali Bey, Travels, vol. i, pp. 180,
181 ; Colville,^ Ride in Petiicoats and Slippers, ■p. 2J2, ', De Foucauld,
Rccotinaissa7ice, pp. 258, 259.
The " Desert (Plain) of Tafrata " lies between the Wad Bu Rsab
and the Wad Debu, both tributaries of the Mulaia. It is a true
desert, and often remains for years at a time without vegetation.
(197) Hadagie of Marmol, Hadaha and Haddaja of other writers,
on a peninsula, merely the junction of the Muluia and the " Mululo",
which is only a branch of the same river, has been suggested by
Renou to be " El-'Audja" (' the bend', or elbow) on the left bank of the
Muluia, where Abd el-Kader stayed for a long time after the battle of
I sly.
(198) Garces, or Galafa, of Marmol, who falsely supposes it to be
the Galafa of Ptolemy — a very fanciful identification. Founded by the
Beni-Marini to serve as a fortress and magazine, it was, owing to a
rebellion of the inhabitants, destroyed by Abu A'nan (Abu henan,
.\.D. 1357), who was, however, not the fifth of the Beni-Marini dynasty,
but, counting Abd el-Hakk I, the twelfth of this line. Yakub el-
Mansur was the fifth.
D'Avezac recognised it in the Guersif, or Akersyf, or Ag'ersyf of
various Arab authors {Etudes de Geog. Critique,'^. 171). Unless it be
El-Gelf, not far from the Wad Bu Rsab, its site is not known.
648 NOTES TO BOOK III.
([99) Dubudu of Marmol. Debdou, the well-known though seldom
visited Debdu on the river of the same name (a tributary of the Muluia),
and situated at the height of 3,717 ft. above the Mediterranean, on a
rock, the face of which is between 200 ft. and 300 ft. perpendicular.
On the top is a majestic fortress with crumbling towers ; the town itself is
composed of the customary square flat-roofed houses. Of the 2,000
inhabitants, three-fourths are Jews — Debdu being the only place in
Morocco where the Israelites exceed the Mohammedans in numbers.
But they must be easy to govern, for De Foucauld, when he visited the
place, found no representative of authority resident, the Kaid of Taza
or one of his lieutenants settling any quarrels and collecting the Sultan's
imposts when they came on their rounds. The town is surrounded
by beautiful gardens of vines, olives, pomegranates, and other fruits,
while the rest of the Debdu valley is clothed with fields of wheat and
barley. The houses are for the most part of clay, and if ever there
was a wall it has now disappeared. Springs are abundant, the old
fortress having one inside its enciente. The town is the first on the
Moroccan frontier which does a regular trade with Algeria, Tlemsen
and Lalla-Maghrnia being the chief places with which the townsmen
traffic.
P'rom the account given by Leo and Marmol, Debdu was, in the
times of the Beni-Marini, a town of some importance, and its revival
from the decay into which it fell has been mainly due to the influence
of the neighbouring French colony. In Leo's account the following
glosses may be useful : —The Beni Guertaggen, Beni-guertenax
(Marmol) were relations of Abd el-Hakk ; Mose (Muse) Ibnu Chamu,
Mugaben Camu of Marmol, is Musa Ibnu Kamu ; Acmed Hamet is
Ahmed ; Saich, Saic, Said, is Said II EI-Uatas(Quattas) : as he reigned
until 1527 he was king at the time Leo was writing, but the date, as we
have seen, must have been considerably before 1526 (which Poryadds
as a note), that year being the one in which vol. i of Ramusio's Viaggi
was published (see Introduction). A.H. 904 is not A.D. 1495, but
1499. If Leo was there in A.H. 921, this must have been A.D. 1515,
which quite falls in with the chronology of his life as deduced from
his own account.
(200) Tezar, or Teza of Marmol, the modern Tazza, Taza, or Tesa,
perched most picturesquely on a cliff, 2,034 ft. above sea-level, 272 ft.
over the bed of the Wad Taza, and 427 ft. above that of the Wad
Innauen. Some have suggested it to be the ancient Colonia lulia Babba
Campestris, which was founded most probably by Claudius, and which
received various favours from Augustus. Pliny says, " Ab Lixo XL
Milliaria in Mediterraneo altera Augusti colonia est, Babba. Julia
Campestris appellata" ; but it is not clear whether he means forty
miles from the river Lixus (Wad el-Kus), or from the town of that
NOTES TO BOOK III. 649
name. The word Babba, in the Punic language, meant " in the
forest" — ad silvain — as ihe Atitoiii/ie Itinerary so frequently notes of
places in this then wooded region. Very possibly it was the Bani
Teude of Leo (p. 620). Tissot believes that some vestiges of
antiquity, rumoured to exist at Es-Serif, a region closed to Europeans,
may be those of Babba. What Jaubert translates Baba Kclain in
Edrisi, is in reality Bab Aklam, so that it would be idle to trace any
connection between this place and Babba. However, the modern Taza
is a well-known town, though rarely visited by Europeans, and now
fast falling into decay. But though the position of Taza may in the
future make it a strong strategical point in relation to Fez, it is
nowadays a poor place from the engineer's point of view. At present
the inhabitants number three or four thousand, including 200 Jews
confined to a little Mellah. There are four mosques, and two or
three spacious " fondaks", or caravanserais (p. 596), but they are
all falling into decay from neglect. The town itself is constructed
partly of stone and partly of bricks ; the houses are stained a
brownish-red colour, which gives them a sombre appearance, and
like those of every town known to De Foucauld in Morocco, except
Sheshuan (p. 640) and El-Ksar el-Kebir (p. 617), have flat terraced
roofs. The water is pure and cool, though the supply is insufficient
for the wants of the townsmen and their cattle. Beautiful gardens,
full of fine fruit trees, surround the place on all sides, but everything
bears the aspect of having seen its best days. Nominally under the
rule of the Sultan, Taza is really dominated by the Riata tribesmen,
who have reduced the town to its present miserable condition, and the
inhabitants to a state of subjection similar to that of the Timbuktues
with regard to the Tuaregs before the French came. The Kaid and
his garrison of " Mkhaznis", or regular troops — rather policemen than
soldiers — are powerless. They live by squeezing the citizens, but
otherwise exercise scarcely any authority ; while the Riata treat the
town so much as part of a conquered country, that it is dangerous
for anyone to venture into the region round about without a paid
Riata escort (Zetat). No Moorish official or soldier dares enter their
territory. They even claim a monopoly of the Wad Taza water,
— a practice which Leo alludes to — and sell it to the timid house-
holders, whose goods and dwellings they are apt to treat very much
as those of vassals. On market days, when they come into the town
in greater numbers than usual, pillage is frequent. In 1876, these
ruthless brigands surprised the Sultan's army in the " Valley of
Hill", a defile of the Wad Bu Jerba, near Tazo, and even carried ofif
his harem. The result is that the prudent trader keeps as little money
as he can in Taza, and that the price of European goods, owing to
the risks run in bringing them there, or in keeping them reasonably
safe, is double their price in Fez. Little business is carried on, except
T T
650 NOTES TO BOOK III.
with Fez, Algeria, and in the Rif, Mehlla, Fafersat, and the villages
of the Muluia valley. Even the beautiful gardens are being neglected.
The wretched people in despair of " Sidina"— Our Lord the Sultan
— doing anything for them, hoping against hope, not daring even
to whisper their longings — pray that some day the Frank may
free them from their wretched life under the Amir al-Mumenin,
who permits True Believers to be sorrily treated by their co-
religionists.
Taza must have been steadily decaying during this century.
Roland Frejus, who visited it in 1666, speaks of the liveliness of the
town, especially during the Sultan's stay, and of the beautiful position
it occupies. Towards the close of the last century the place had, like
most other Moroccan towns, fallen greatly from its former importance.
But in 1804, Ali Bey el-Abasi— (Domingo Badia y Leblich, a somewhat
mysterious Spaniard, the exact nature of whose mission to Morocco
has never been clearly explained)— described Taza as an industrious
town, charmingly situated on a rock "which lies at the bottom of much
higher mountains towards the south-west". The valleys were covered
with abundant crops, and in the gardens " innumerable nightingales,
turtle doves, and other birds made the spot as agreeable as it is en-
chanting". Even when Rohlfs saw " Thesa" sixty years later it had
5,000 inhabitants, of whom 800 were Jews— a falling off, no doubt, from
Leo's 5,000 fireplaces, that is 25,000— though, unless the Tezaees
crowded very closely together in 1500, it is scarcely possible for as
many people to have found houseroom within the circuit of its walls.
At the time of Rohlfs' visit, the Hiaina, a tribe on the other side of the
Innauen, were so troublesome that caravans to Algeria had to be
accompanied by escorts of troops, of which there were 500 stationed
in the town. — De Foucauld, Reconnaissance au Maroc, pp. 29-35
(views), 65 ; Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, etc., between
the years 1803 and 1807, written by himself, vol. i, p. I79 ; Rohlfs,
Adventures in Morocco, pp. 272, 273.
Taza, however, figures frequently in Moroccan history. Thus, m
1595, the rebel prince En-Nasir ben El-Ghalib Billah, after being
joined by the neighbouring tribes, entered Taza, and demanded a
heavy ransom from the citizens, the Christian mercenaries in his train
even.
Again, after the death of Mulai Mohammed in 1664, Mulai Er-
Rashid marched upon Taza, and after a long struggle gained
possession of it, using the place as a basis for his attack on Fez
{NorJiet Elhadi, p. 501). After being the subject of so many
sieges, it is no wonder that Chenier, writing a century ago,
says that the aspect of the country had entirely changed since
Leo's day, and that Teza, once populous, then only contained a few
inhabitants.
NOTES TO BOOK III. 65 I
(201) Medrara, Matagara (Marmol). It is to the south-west of
Taza. It was inhabited by Zenatas, who, though pure Arabs,
according to the Roudh el-Kartas (p. 397), speak Berber. Eloufrani
{Noz/iei Elkddi, p. 40) refers to the "Methgara" tribe of Tlemsen, to
which the Grand-Kadi of Fez, at the time of the disputes between the
Sheriffs and the Beni-Marini (1533), belonged.
There is also a district called " Medghara", north of Tafilet,
mentioned by Aboulqasem ben Hamed Ezziani. — {Etiordjeindn, etc.,
Houdas' ed., pp. 4, 184).
(202) Gavata, inhabited by the Zenata stock, fifteen miles west of
Fez, and the fountain-head of two tributaries of the Sebu. Renou
believed it to be a corruption of " Gaiata", the Jebel Riata which
.Schnell writes Jebel " Ghiata", though not the mountain of the same
name close to Taza, and, indeed, occupying" the position of Leo's Mat-
gara.
(203) Menche9a of Marmol. The Mejesa were a tribe living near
Fez at the time when Edrisi wrote.
(204) Baraniz of Marmol ; perhaps Baranis, inhabited by Zenatas
and Hauara. Edrisi refers to this tribe.
(205) The Guertenage, or the Beni-guertenax of Marmol, the Jebel
Uarvietz of Schnell's map. The Beni-Marini having set out on their
career of conquest from this mountain (Marmol tells us), the Zenata
inhabitants of it were regarded as the most illustrious of their stock,
and being held in much respect, were free of all taxes ; though they
were quite submissive to the Sheriff.
(206) Gueblen, or Guebeleyn, probably means simply "the two
mountains". It is difficult to identify it with any range except,
perhaps, Jebel Obiod or the country of the Beni Uaghain.
(207) Or Benijechseten of Marmol, vassals to the rulers of Debdu,
the Beni Iznaten (Beni Zenata), who usually appear on maps as Beni
Snassen. Their stronghold, the Jebel Isnaten, is well known.
(208) Or Ciligo of Marmol, in whose day the mountain was full of
lions, monkeys, and wild boars. Leo describes it as one of the chief
sources of the Sebu, though Marmol notes that he had seen it
affirmed by Arabic authors that a mountain called " Gayasa", in the
" Zarahanum" group, was the true birthplace of the principal river of
Morocco. We are to-day not much wiser.
(209) Also written Beni-Isasga.
T T 2
652 NOTES TO BOOK III.
(210) Azgan. There are several mountains in the quarter assigned
to Azgan, but I am not aware of any bearing that name.
(211) Sfru, Saforo, Sfro, Safrou, Saforoui, Ssofifrouy, Ssoforo, a
little town largely favoured by Jews, situated 2,700 ft. above sea-level,
between the Wad Sfru and the Sebu, and therefore liable to be
flooded. It is a perfect oasis in the desert, owing to the abundance
of olives, oranges, citrons, lemons, cherries, and grapes grown in
the gardens surrounding it, for the supply of fruit to the Fez market.
It is still, as it was in Leo's day, an important centre of the olive-oil
trade, while the adjoining mountains of Ait Yussi and the Beni M'Gild
territory contain extensive forests of good timber, particularly the
" Belluta", a resinous species of conifer. Though not containing
more than 3,000 inhabitants — a third of them Hebrews— Sfru was
already a town in the days of Edrisi, who refers to it under the name
of Cofrui. It also figures in El-Bekri, Ahmed ibn-Hassan, and other
writers.
An air of prosperity, such as is rarely encountered in Morocco,
pervades this charming place. All the usual signs of decadence
are absent. Good houses of whitewashed brick, often two storeys
high, take the place of the crumbling dwellings common elsewhere.
Vines shade many of the lanes and terraces, and a clear stream
courses through the town.
There are now two mosques and a zauia belonging to the
descendants of Sidi El-Hassan el-Jussi, a celebrated saint of the latter
years of the sixteenth and the early part of the seventeenth century.
Green turbans, marks of the Derkana sect, are frequently seen.
In addition to its trade with the neighbouring tribes in wool, hides,
etc., Sfru thrives on the caravans which halt here on their way to and
from Tafilet. Good wine is made by the Jews, and sold at about 5^-. a
gallon.
Many of the Sfru people are said to be the descendants of Christian
renegades. The Beni Behalil, whose large village is passed on the
way from Fez, more especially bear that invidious reputation, and on
that account are named " the fools". — De Foucauld, Reconnaissance,
PP- 37) 3S (sketch) ; Ue la Martiniere, Morocco, p. 400 (map 5) ; El-
Bekri, L'Afriqiie Sept. (De Slane's text), p. 164 ; Edrisi, Africa, (ed.
Hartmann), p. 173 ; Ahmed Ibn-Hassan in Paulus, Meviorabilien
(1791), vol. i, p. 47 ; and Walckenaer, Rechcrclies Ge'og. siir T hitcrieitr
de PAfrique Sept., p. 458 ; D'Avezac, Etudes, etc., p. 156; Caillie,
Journal d'un Voyage, etc., t. iii, p. 109.
As the journey to Fez takes about ten hours, the distance is greater
than fifteen miles.
(212) Mezdaga is not known, though its position is given so exactly
NOTES TO KOOK III. 653
— twel\-e miles south of Fez and eight miles west of Sfru — that did any
town exist on the routes mentioned, it could scarcely escape notice.
One of the Ilalen tribes is called Mezdagen.
(313) El-Bahalel, or Baalel, the village of the people of the same
name already alluded to (notes 210, 211). It is the ]>eni-Buhalul
of Marmol, who, absurdly enough, imagines it to be Ptolemy's
" Ceuta". In an itinerary of Hajj Mohammed Sherif preserved
by D'Avezac, the road to Sfru (Ssoforo) is described as passing-
between the mountains A'zabah (which may be Azgan) (note 210)
on the left and Behalyl on the right.— (D'Avezac, Etudes, etc.,
p. 156.)
(214) Ainelginum (the "fountain oi ge^nn", i.e., jinnim), of Marmol,
and El-Esnam of El-Bekri : 'Ain el-Esnam "the fountain (spring) of
idols" on the Asra el-Hamar Plain — the " certaine plain" of Leo.
'Ain el-Esnam — or plural 'Aiun el-Esnam — abbreviated into " Snam",
is a common name in Barbary, perhaps for the reason Leo indicates.
The ancient orgie described is matched by similar rites enacted else-
where— such as, for instance, in mediaeval Heligoland, as described
by Von der Decken.
(215) Mehedie of Marmol. This place, which even in Leo's day was
in ruins — though probably it was never more than a mountain " Ksor"
— must, according to the indications supplied, have been founded by
Obeid-ullah (Abu Mohammed) ben Ismail El-Mahdi of the tribe of
Zeneta el-Maghraua tribe. Hence Marmol refers to the Empire of
"Magaroas". Yussef ben Tashfin (AH ben Yussef, king of the
Lemtunas, according to Marmol) destroyed all of it except the mosque,
part of which Abd el-Mumen restored.
(216) The Sahab el-Marga, or Mangar, of Marmol, or " the plain of
brave men". Renou considers that the actual name is Seheb el-
Merja — the grassy plain — corrupted into the abbreviation El-Mrijat.
" Seheb" means an uncultivated plain.
(217) Azgari-Camaren is a very phonetic form of Asra el-Hamar, or
Kamar, between Sfru and the Atlas already referred to in Note 214.
It seems to be the same locality that Marmol refers to as " Hamaran"
and " Azgar", with the remark that some people call them the "plains
of Onzar" ; others those of " lufet or of Mocin", though the name
most com.monly employed was that which he had adopted.
In the Itinerary of Ahmed ibn-Hassan (El-Mtui) the plain is
mentioned as " Zogari-Ahmar " (Walckenaer, Rccherches, etc.,
p. 458). It is the Zaghar el-Hamar of the Hajj Mohammed
Sherif (D'Avezac, Etudes, etc., p. 156). Azrar is a Berber word
^54 NOTES TO ROOK III.
(generally transformed by the Arabs into Zrar), meaning " plain",
and Hamar signifies "donkeys".— Renou, Expl. Scieiit. de VAlgerie,
t. viii, p. loo.
(218) As in Centopozzi (p. 375), Leo translates the name of this
mountain into Italian. " Hundred pits" being Miat Abiar, or Miat
Bir, the presumption is that the Arab name of this mountain is
Jebel Miat-Bir, and this is what Marmol applies to it ; though, as he
does not appear to know any more about it than what Leo tells, it is
quite possible that this is a mere presumption on his part. Its position
is, however, fixed by what is noted in the next paragraph regarding
Cunaigel Gherben.
(219) In the Itinerary of Ahmed ibn Hassan he mentions the
mountain " Omm-Djeniba", on which there is a bad pass across
the Atlas called Kebur et-Tuat, the tomb of the Tuatees, twenty-
three men from that oasis having perished in its snows. Both
Leo and Marmol note a dangerous and difficult pass, often blocked
with snow, though in summer the " Beni Essen" (Beni Hassan) Arabs
resort to this mountain for coolness. Ahmed mentions that the
villages called " Ksor Ait louci" were on the other side of the pass, in
the plain of Zergu. We further learn, from the conjoint information
of Leo and Marmol, that there are two fortified places on this
mountain, which render the Beni Hassan masters of the pass.
Tezerghe, or Tigaza, is, in Renou's opinion, "without doubt" the
fortified Berber village or Ksar of Tsaguts (Tarsut), which Ahmed
seized on the banks of the Guigo (Gigu) river. Umen-Guinable
is one of the Ait-Jussi villages, of which the exact name has not
come to us.
Marmol says that Tigaza is situated on a stream which falls into the
Sebu. It belongs to the mountain called by him Cunagel-gerben, and
by Leo Cunaigel-Gherben, which means the crow's passage. This is
evidently the Kheneg el-Gherab, and the mountain the Jebel el-
Gherab, one of the most important in the Atlas. The famous pass is
therefore between Jebel Om Jeriba on the south-west, and El-Gherab
on the north-east.— Renou, Expl. Scicnt. de VAlgerie, t. viii, pp. lor,
102, 234.
(220) The Tigaza of Marmol (note 219).
(221) Umegiunaybe of Marmol (note 219).
(222) Marizan of Marmol, a mountain inhabited by independent
Berbers, the Mirasen of El-Bekri. The tribe is not known by that
name, and the locality is too vague for identification.
NOTES TO BOOK III. 655
(223) Mezetal^a of Marmol, the western part touching the plain of
Adesen.
(224) The Ziz mountains derive their name from the Ziz river. Leo
defines their extension to be from Mesettaza west to Tedla and Dades,
southward to the modern Tafilet, and northward to the Adesen and
Gureigura plains. According to Marmol, there are silver mines in two
of them, namely, "Aden" (Ait Ham) and " Arucanez", which were
worked in his day to little profit ; and in that quarter also were to
be seen the ruins of a town called "Calaat aben Tavyla" (Kal'at Ibn
Tawila).
The mountains in this region are not now known by any such
general name, though De Foucauld, who traversed the district, would
certainly have noted the fact had it reached his ears. What Leo
names the Ziz mountains must comprise Jebel Aiashen, Jebel el-
Abbari, Jebel el-Abbarat, and several other summits in the vicinity of
the Ziz river.
This river rises in the Great Atlas in the Ait Hedidda district, and
in its course receives the name of each independent tribe in turn
whose Ksars border its banks. Then, after passing through a short
desert tract, it enters the Ziz district, and flows past the twenty-five
or thirty castellated villages of the Ait Izdeg, an independent fraction
of the Ait Tafelman. Another short stretch of desert intervenes
before it reaches the district of Gers. To this succeeds Tiallalin,
El-Kheneg (where the date palm region begins) Ksar es-Suk,
Metrara, Reteb, Tizime and Tafilet. These people do not recognise
the Sultan's authority ; and as there are no Jews there, the country,
despite its silver mines, must be very poor indeed.
(225) This story of the Atlas Berbers keeping domestic snakes has
been a hard one for the commentators to swallow. But, in reality, it
is confirmed from a variety of quarters. James Bruce, recalling what
Pomponius Mela says about the Berbers of the vicinity of Jebel
Abeide, south of the Gulf of Gabes, living in caves and feeding on
serpents, remarks that " if he had said fed together with serpents, his
observations had been just ; for they have such an esteem for snakes
as to suffer them to feed promiscuously with them, and live continually
in their house, where they perform the office of cats. These animals
are perfectly inoffensive to their protectors, and suffer themselves to
be lifted and carried in the hand from place to place, being, no doubt,
non-venomous species. Some are six or seven feet long : they suffer
no one to hurt them, or to transport them to any other place. No
persuasion or reward could induce them to let me carry one of them,
it being believed universally that they are a kind of good angels,
whom it would be of the highest impropriety, and of the worst con-
656 NOTES TO BOOK III.
sequences to the community, to remove from their dwellings." Sir
Lambert Playfair tells us that in questioning the Tunisian tribesmen
regarding the practice, the reply was invariably the same : " No one
here keeps them, but the tribes further south are said to do so."
This statement of Bruce aroused much ridicule, though, like so many
other of his assertions, it has been amply confirmed. Jackson,
writing in 1805, assures his readers that there was scarcely a house in
Marakesh without its domestic serpent, which is sometimes seen
moving along the roofs of the apartments. It is never injured by the
family, who would consider it certain misfortune to maltreat so bene-
ficent a guest. " They have been known to suck the breasts of
women whilst asleep, and retire without offering any further injury.
It is thought imprudent to incur their displeasure. A European
stranger living in a Jew's house killed one four feet in length, which
had entered his sleeping-place at night ; his host was seriously
alarmed, and begged him to leave immediately, as he feared the
malignity of the serpent, and was not reconciled until it was explained
that the reptile was beyond the power of entertaining vindictive
feelings." Jackson could scarcely have invented this anecdote, though
an exhaustive acquaintance with his writings does not incline me
to place that confidence in his accuracy which is usually done. But
though I cannot confirm the statement from personal observa-
tion, I have heard much the same story, and have repeatedly
seen the reluctance of the Berbers to kill toads, harmless snakes,
etc.
All this points, of course, to the persistent remnants of serpent-
worship, which not even the teachings of Islam have been able to
eradicate. It was one of the most gruesome rites of the old Cartha-
ginians, as it was and is among scores of other races. To this day
it is a proverb in Tunisia, " Blessed is the habitation where the
serpent dwells". Like the storks and swallows' nests in Europe, they
bring " luck" to the house ; and though possibly Europeans are pur-
posely kept in the dark, it is affirmed that among some of the more
remote tribes the domestic snake's food is set out before the family
have begun theirs. No one eats till the serpent has crept back to his
hole. " If he is not the ruler of the house", write Messrs. Graham
and Ashbee, "he possesses an importance the owner himself does not
even attempt to share."
Further south, among the Pagan negroes, serpent-worship is open
and widespread. In Dahomey it is an important cult, and in the
island of Goree the domestic snake is, as in the Jebel Abeide
underground dwellings, employed to kill rats and mice, and treated
much as a cat is by the memlaers of a family. It is even asserted
that the young shepherds take them to the fields with them, and
that the tame serpents watch over them when they sleep under
NOTES TO BOOK III. 657
the shade of a tree, lest their masters should be bitten by
poisonous snakes. Many of the old houses in the city of Tunis
are frequented by snakes, possibly survivals of domestic species.
The wondrous tales of monstrous serpents, one of which kept the
Roman army at bay on the banks of the liayadras (Mejerda), finds
an echo in Leo's statement about the " many huge and monstrous
dragons" in the Atlas Caves, which, Marmol adds, had the head and
wings of a bird, the tail and skin of a serpent, and the feet of a
wolf, though without the strength to lift their eyelids. It was called
"Taybin"; but this is simply a corruption of Thu'abdtt, the ordinary
Arabic word for a serpent ; and it is not impossible, as Sir Lambert
Playfair suggests, that just as elephants and other animals have
become extinct, larger species of snakes, such as pythons, may have
formerly existed in Barbary, and given rise to the fables mentioned.
— Playfair, Travels iti the Footsteps of Bruce, pp. 141, 273, 274; Jack-
son, Morocco, p. 112; Tinibiictoo, p. 212; Graham and Ashbee,
Travels in Tunisia, pp. 27, 28; Temple, Excursions in the Mediterra-
nean: Algiers and Tunis, vol. i, pp. 183, 253-255.
(226) This account of the habits of these mountaineers applies
to-day. Their houses are still of "chalke" (that is, " creta" or
limestone), though, naturally, their arms are now muskets^sometimes
even rifles — instead of'fower or five javelins". But the sword with
a brass sheath and the curved dagger, often silver-mounted, or in a
silver-plated scabbard, are still the universal " side" (or rather front)
weapons.
(227) Gerseluin, or Garciluna, was a Berber town, or rather hill-
Ksar. It was ruined by the Almohades, and rebuilt by the Beni-
Marinis, only again to fall into insignificance on the death of the
last of that dynasty, when it was seized by the Arabs of the plain.
The Maghrauas of the Zeneta stock held the pass across the
mountains against the Lanutuna (Almoravides) ; but that served
them very little, since the place was taken from the other side (" by
Agmet", Marmol adds). In a.d. 1534, the Sherif Ahmed captured
it, but at the time Marmol wrote it was governed by the King of
Fez. Yet this fortress-town, commanding a pass then much used
for crossing the Atlas to Segelmessa, does not now exist, at all events
under Leo's name. Since Tafilet has replaced Segelmessa this
pass has been largely discarded in favour of the Tizi-n-GIawi and a
second caravan-pass further to the east, via Demnat and Ait bu
Gemmes. Gerseluin may be Gers el-Ain (the Spring of Gers, the
district in which it is situated). It must have been close to the
Jebel Gers, and Leo says not far from the Ziz river, on which all the
modern Ksars are situated. (Note 224.)
658 NOTES TO BOOK III.
Between Amalu and El-Hain, the ruins of a " Duar", with what
must have been a large castle, can be seen. This is possibly
Gerseluin ; for at best it could never have been more than a Kasba
village to hold the pass. Though there are now no Jews in the Gers
district, there are the remains of a Mellah at Duar.
lOHN LEO HIS
FOVRTH BOOKE OF
the Historic of Africa, and
of the memorable things
contained therein.
A description of the kingdome of *Telensin} * OrTremizen.
His kingdome beginneth westward
from the riuers of Zha & Muluia,
eastward it bordereth vpon The
great riuer, southward vpon the
desert of Numidia, and northward
vpon the Mediterran sea. This re-
gion was called by the Romanes
Csesaria, and was by them inhabited : howbeit after the
Romanes were expelled, it was fullie possessed by the
ancient gouernours thereof called Beni Habdulguad,^ and
being a generation of the familie of Magraua. And it
remained vnto them and their successors three hundred
yeeres, vntill such time as a certaine mightie man called
Gkajiiraaen the sonne of Zeyen tooke possession thereof
His posteritie changing at length their ancient name were
called Beni Ze'j/en, that is, the sonnes of Zeyen : and they
enioied this kingdome for the space almost of 380. yeeres.^
At length the kings of Fez of the Marin-familie greatly
molested them, so that those ten kings which succeeded
Zeyeti were some of them vnfortuate in battell, some
slaine, some taken captiue, and others expelled their
66o THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
kingdome, and chased to the next mountaines. Neither
were they free from vexation of the kings of Tunis : how-
beit the kingdome of Telensin still remained to this familie,
and they continued in peace for almost an hundred and
twentie yeeres, being endammaged by no forren power ;
sauing that one Abu Feris king of Tunis, and his sonne
Hutinefi made them to pay tribute for certaine yeeres vnto
Tunis, till the decease of the said Hutmen. This kingdome
stretcheth in length from east to west 380. miles, but in
bredth from north to south, that is, from the Mediterran
sea to the deserts of Numidia not aboue fiue and twentie
miles : which is the occasion that it is so often oppressed
by the Arabians inhabiting the Numidian deserts. The
kings of Telensin haue alwaies endeuoured by great gifts
to gaine the good will and friendship of the Numidians,
but they could neuer satisfie their insatiable couetice. A
man shall seldome trauell safely through this kingdome :
howbeit here are great store of merchants, perhaps either
because it adioneth to Numidia, or else for that the way to
the land of Negros lieth through it. It hath two most
" Or Oran. famous & frequented hauen-townes, the one called *Horam,
* Or Mcrsai- and the other *Marsa Elcabir, whither vse to resort great
CiX b if
store of Genoueses, and Venetians. But afterward both
these townes were taken by Don Ferdmando the Catholike
king, to the great inconuenience of all this kingdome : for
which cause the king then raigning called AbiicJiemmeu,
was expelled his kingdome and put to flight by his owne
subiects: afterward Abuzeyeii was restored to the kingdome,
who had for certaine yeeres beene imprisoned by his
nephew AbucJieinmeu : howbeit he enioied the kingdome
but a very short space. For he was at length miserably
slaine by Barbarossa the Turke, who conquered the king-
Ahiichemmcu
kingofTremi- domc of Tremizcn by force of war. W\\Qve.o{ Abuchemineii,
zen restored to
his kingdome that was expelled by his owne subiects, hauing intelligence,
by the emperonr -iri /^t ? ^ r r ^ ^
Charles the fift. Sent to crauc aide of the emperour Charles the nft, whereby
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 66l
he hoped to recouer his kingdome. Which request being
granted, he leuied a puissant armie, and made warre against
Barbarossa, and hauing driuen him out, he recouered his
kingdome, and seuerely punished them that had conspired
his banishment. And then he gave the Spanish soldiers
their pay, sent the captaines home with great revvardes,
and allowed Charles the emperour a large yeerely reuenue
so long as he Hued.* After his decease succeeded his
brother Habdulla, who neglecting the league made before
betweene the emperour and his brother, and relying vpon
Solinian the great Turke, refused to pay any more tribute
vnto the emperour diaries, and hath kept possession of
the kingdome, till *this present.^ The greater part of this 1526.
region is vntilled, drie, and barren, especially towards the
south. Howbeit the sea coast is somewhat more fertill.
The territorie adiacent to the citie of Telensin is full
of woods, sauing that the westerne part towardes the
sea is mountainous. Likewise the regions of Tenez and
Alger containe mountaines abounding with all kinde of
commodities. In this part are but few cities aud castles,
howbeit it is a most fruitfull and blessed place, as we will
hereafter declare in particular.
Of the desert of A ngad.
THis barren, drie, and vntilled desert being vtterly
destitute of water and wood, is situate vpon the
westerne frontire of the kingdome of Telensin ; and
extendeth in length fowerscore, and in bredth almost
fiftie miles. Here are great store of roes, deere, and Gn-at store of
ostriches. Such merchants as trauell from Fez to Telensin
passe ouer this desert not without great danger, by reason
of certaine Arabians which Hue onely vpon theft and
robberie, especially in winter, when as the soldiers
appointed to defend the said desert from those lewd
vagabonds, doe vsually retire themselues into Numidia.
662 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
Many shepherds there are in this desert, who are daily
vexed with multitudes of fierce h'ons, which sometime
seaze not onely vpon cattell, but also vpon men.*^
Of the castle of Temzegzet.
THis castle standing in the same place, where the fore-
said desert adioineth vnto the territorie of Telensin,
and built by the Africans vpon a rocke, was in times past
very strong, and often annoied by the people of Fez ; for
it standeth in the high way from Fez to Telensin. Through
the fields adiacent runneth a certaine riuer called in their
language Tesme. The said fields adiacent sufficiently
abound with all things necessarie for the sustenance of the
inhabitants. Heretofore being subiect vnto the kings of
Telensin it well deserued the name of a citie, but since the
Arabians got possession thereof, it hath prooued more like
to a stable : for here they keepe their corne onely, and the
naturall inhabitants are quite expelled by reason of their
bad demeanour.^
Of the castle of Izli.
THis ancient castle of Izli built by the Africans vpon a
certaine plaine bordering vpon the foresaid desert,
hath some fieldes adioining vnto it, apt only for barlie and
panicke. It was in times past well stored with inhabitants,
and enuironed with stately walles : but afterward by the
iniurie of warre it was razed to the ground, and the inhabi-
tants expelled. Howbeit a few yeeres after it began to be
inhabited anew by certaine religious persons had in great
reuerence both by the kings of Telensin and by all the
Arabians. These religious persons with great courtesie
and Hberalitie giue entertainment for three daics vnto all
strangers that passe by, and then dismisse them without
paying of ought. All their houses are very base and low
built, their walles being of claye, and the roofes of straw.
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 663
Not far from this castle runneth a riuer ; out of which they
water all their fields : for this region is so hot and dry, that
vnlesse the fields were . continually watered, they would
yeeld no fruit at all.^
Of the towne of Giiagida.
THis ancient towne built by the Africans vpon a large
plaine, standeth southward of the Mediterran sea
fortie miles, and about the same distance from the citie of
Telensin. The southwest part of the said plaine bordereth
vpon the desert of Angad, and it containeth most fruitful!
fields and pleasant gardens, exceedingly replenished with
figs and grapes. Through the midst of this towne runneth
a certaine riuer, which affoordeth good water to drinke and
seeth meate withall. In times past the towne-walles and
all the buildings were most sumptuous and stately, and the
inhabitants exceeding rich, ciuill, and valiant : but after-
ward by reason of certaine warres waged by the king of
Fez against the king of Telensin, this towne was left
desolate, and the inhabitants all put to flight : but the said
warres being ended, new inhabitants reedified it and dwelt
therein : howbeit they could not reduce it to the former
state, neither doth it now containe aboue fifteene hundred
families. The townesmen lead now a miserable life, being
constrained to pay tribute both to the king of Telensin and
also to the Arabians of Angad, and wearing most base
apparell : asses and mules they haue great store, whereof
they make round summes of money. They speake after
the ancient manner of the Arabians, neither is their
language so corrupt as the language of the people round
about them.''^
664 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
Of the citie called Ned, Roma.
THis ancient towne built by the Romans, while they
were lords of Africa, standing vpon a large plaine,
almost two miles from a certaine mountaine, and about
twelue miles from the Mediterran sea, and neere vnto it
runneth a little riuer. The historiographers of those times
report, that this towne was in all respects built after the
fashion of Rome, whereupon they say it borrowed the
name. For Ned in the Arabian toong signifieth like. The
wall of this towne is as yet to be seene : but all the ancient
buildings of the Romans are so destroied, that now there
scarcely remaine any ruines thereof It began in some
places to be repaired and reedified anew, but nothing
comparable to the former buildings. The fieldes adiacent
are exceeding fruitfull, and containe many gardens re-
plenished with such trees as beare Carobs (being a fruit
like vnto Cassia fistula^ which in the suburbes they vse for
foode. This towne is indifferently well inhabited, especially
with weauers, who make great store of cotton-cloth, and are
free from all tribute. The gouernours of the towne are
chosen onely at their assignement : and that they may haue
more free traffique with the people of Telensin, they sende
many gifts vnto the king.^*^
Of the toivne of Tcbecrit.
THis little towne built by the Africans vpon a certaine
rocke neere vnto the Mediterran sea, is almost
twelue miles distant from the former. All the next moun-
taines are exceeding high and barren, and yet well stored
with inhabitants. In this towne dwell great store of
weauers ; and here they haue abundance of Carobs and
honie. Being in continuall feare of the Christians, they
keepe euery night most diligent watch and ward : for they
are not of sufficient abilitie to maintaine a garrison of
tllSTORIE OF AFRICA. 665
soldiers. Their fields are no lesse barren then vntilled ;
and yeelde onely very small quantitie of barlie and panicke.
The townesmen are most barely apparelled, and vtterly
destitute of humanitie.'^
Of the towne of Himain.
THis towne being founded by the Africans, and being
famous both for stately building and ciuill inhabi-
tants, hath a little hauen belonging thereunto well fortified
with two turrets standing one on the one side, and another
on the other side. The towne-wall also is very high and
beautifull, especially on that side which standeth next vnto
the sea. Hither doe the Venetians yeerely bring great
store of merchandize, and doe traffique with the merchants
of Telensin ; for the citie of Telensin is but fourteene miles
from hence. Since the time that Oran was surprized by
the Christians, the Venetians would no longer frequent
Oran, fearing least the Spanyards hauing it in possession
should worke them some mischiefe : wherfore then they
began to repaire vnto this port. The townesmen in times
past were most ciuill people, the greatest part being weauers
of cotton and of linnen. Their houses are most stately
built, and haue euery one fountaines belonging vnto them :
likewise here are many vines running pleasantly vpon
bowers or arbours. Their houses are paued with mats of
diuers colours, and their chambers and vaults are curiously
painted and earned. Howbeit, so soone as the inhabitants
were aduertised of the losse of Oran, they fled from Hunain
and left it void of inhabitants : sauing that the king of
Telensin maintaineth here a garison of footemen, who giue
notice when any merchants ships approch. Their fields
abound with cherries, peaches, figs, oliues, and other fruites :
howbeit they reape but little commoditie thereby. I my
selfe passing this way could not but bewaile the extreme
calamitie whereinto the inhabitants of this towne were
u u
666 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
A ship of great fsiWf^n: at the same time there arriued a certaine ship of
value. _ , .
Genoa, which one ship brought commodities sufficient to
serue Telensin for fiue yeeres : the tenth part whereof
amounting to fifteene thousand duckats, was paid for
tribute to the king.^^
Of the towne of Haresgol.
THe great and ancient towne of Haresgol was built
vpon a rocke enuironed on all sides with the
Mediterran sea, sauing on the south, where lieth a way
from the firme lande to the towne. It standeth northward
of Telensin fourteene miles ; and was in times past well
stored with inhabitants. The gouernour thereof was one
Idris, vncle vnto that Idris that was the founder of Fez ;
the posteritie of whom enioied the same gouernment for
the space of an hundred yeeres. At length there came a
certaine king and patriarke of Cairaoan who vtterly
destroied this towne, so that it remained voide of inhabi-
tants almost an hundred yeers : after which time it was
reinhabited by certaine people of Granada, which came
thither with Mansor ; which Mansor repaired the towne,
to the end it might alwaies be a place of refuge for his
soldiers. After whose decease, and the death of his sonne
Mudaffir, all the soldiers were expelled by the tribes or
people of Zanhagia and Magraoa ; and this second desola-
tion of that towne happened in the yeere of the Hegeira
410.^^
HISTORIE OF AFRICA.
667
Of the great citie of Telensin, otherwise called Tremizen.
Elensin is a great citie and the royall
seate of the king ; but who were the
first founders thereof it is vncertaine :
howbeit most certaine it is, that this
citie was very small at the beginning
and began greatly to be augmented at
the same time when Haresgol was
laid waste. For then, a certaine family called Abdulguad^*
bearing rule, it increased so exceedingly, that in the raigne
of king Abu Tesfin^^ it contained sixteene thousand families.
And then it was an honourable and well-gouerned citie :
howbeit Joseph king of Fez continually molested it, and
with an huge armie besieged it for seuen yeeres together.
This Joseph hauing built a fort vpon the east side of the
towne, put the besieged citizens to such distresse, that they
could no longer endure the extreme famine : wherefore
o
with one accord they all went vnto their king, beseeching
him to haue compassion vpon their want. The king, to
make them acquainted with his daintie fare, which he had
to supper, shewed them a dish of sodden horse-flesh and
barlie. And then they well perceiued how little the kings
estate was better then the estate of the meanest citizen
of them all. Soone after the king hauing procured an
assemblie, perswaded his people that it was much more
honourable to die in battel for the defence of their
countrie, then to Hue so miserable a life. Which words of
the king so inflamed all their mindes to the battel!, that
the day following they resolued to encounter the enemie,
and valiantly to fight it out. But it fell out farre better for
them then they expected ; for the same night king loseph
was slaine by one of his owne people : which newes being
brought vnto the citizens, with greater courage they
marched all out of the towne, easily vanquishing and
U U 2
668 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
killing the confused multitude of their enemies ; after
which vnexpected victorie they found victuals sufficient in
the enemies campe to relieue their long and tedious
famine.^'' About fortie yeeres after, the fourth king of Fez
of the Marin-familie called Abulhesen, built a towne within
two miles westward of the citie of Telensin. Then he
^ besieged Telensin for thirty moneths together, making
daily and fierce assaults against it, and euery night erecting
some new fort, so that at length the Fessan forces next
vnto Telensin easily entred the citie, and hauing conquered
it, caried home the king thereof captiue vnto Fez, where he
The ki)ii; of was by the king of Fez beheaded, and his carcase was cast
Tdetiscn taken - . ,_,,_,.. ii-
prisoner and foorth among the filth of the citie : and this was the second
and the greater dammage that Telensin sustained.^'' After
the decay of the Marin-familie Telensin began in many
places to be repaired, and replenished with new inhabitants,
insomuch that it increased to twelue thousand families.
Here each trade and occupation hath a peculiar place,
after the manner of Fez, sauing that the buildings of Fez
are somewhat more stately. Here are also many and
beautifull temples, hauing their Mahumetan priestes and
preachers. Likewise here are fiue colleges most sumptu-
ously built, some by the king of Telensin, and some by the
king of Fez. Here also are store of goodly bathes and hot-
houses, albeit they haue not such plentie of water as is at
Fez. Also here are very many innes built after the manner
of Africa : vnto two of which innes the merchants of Genoa
and Venice doe vsually resort. A great part of this citie
is inhabited with lewes, who were in times past all of them
"" Or Ttcrihin. exceeding rich: vpon their heads they weare a *Dulipan
to distinguish them from other citizens : but in the yeere
of the Hegeira g2j, vpon the death of king AbuJiabdilla^'^
they were all so robbed and spoiled, that they are now
brought almost vnto beggerie. Moreouer in this citie
there are many conducts, the fountaines whereof are not
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 669
farre from the citie-walles, so that they may easily be
stopped by any.forren enemie. The citie-vvall is very high
and impregnable, hauing fine great gates vpon it, at euery
one of which there is placed a garde of soldiers, and
certaine receiuers of the kings custome. On the south
side of the citie standeth the kings palace, enuironed with
most high walles, and containing many other palaces within
it, which are none of them destitute of their fountaines and
pleasant gardens : this royall palace hath two gates, one
leading into the fields, and the other into the citie, and at
this gate standeth the captaine of the garde. The territorie
of Telensin containeth most pleasant habitations, whither
the citizens in summer-time vse to retire themselues : for
besides the beautifull pastures and cleere fountaines, there
is such abundance of all kinde of fruits to delight both the
eies and the taste, that to my remembrance I neuer sawe
a more pleasant place : their figs they vse to drie in the
sunne and to keepe vntill winter : and as for almonds,
peaches, melons, and pome-citrons, they grow here in great
plentie. Three miles eastward of this citie are diuers mils
vpon the riuer of Sefsif ;^^ and some other there are also
not far from the citie vpon the mountaine of Elcalha.
The south part of the citie is inhabited by lewes, lawyers,
and notaries : here are also very many students, and pro-
fessours of diuers artes, which haue maintenance allowed
them out of the fine forenamed colleges. The citizens are
of fower sorts, to wit, some artificers, some merchants,
others schollers and doctors, and all the residue soldiers.
The merchants are men most iust. trustie, liberall, and
most zealous of the common good ; who for the most part
exercise traffique with the Negros. The artificers Hue a
secure, quiet, and merrie life. The kings soldiers being all
of a comely personage and of great valour, receiue very
large and liberall pay, for they are monethly allowed three
peeces of the gold-coine of Telensin, which are worth three
670 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
Italian duckats and one second part. All students before
they attaine to the degree of a doctor Hue a bare and
miserable life, but hauing attained thereunto, they are
made either professours or notaries, or priestes. The
citizens and merchants of this citie are so neate and curious
in their apparell, that sometimes they excell the citizens of
Fez in brauerie. The artificers weare short garments
carrying seldome a Dulipan vpon their heads, and content-
ing themselues with plaine caps : their shooes reach vp to
their mid-leg. Of all others the soldiers go woorst
apparelled, for wearing a shirt or iacket with wide sleeues,
they cast ouer it a large mantle made of cotton, and thus
they are clad both sommer and winter : sauing that in
winter they haue certaine iackets of leather with hoods
vpon them, such as trauellers vse in Italic, and by this
meanes their heads are defended from raine and from
snow. The schollers and students are diuersly apparelled,
according to their abilitie, and according to the fashion of
their natiue countrie : the doctors, iudges, and priestes goe
in more sumptuous and costly attire.
The customes and rites obserued m the Kmg of Telensin
his co7irt.
AWoonder it is to see how stately and magnificently
the King of Telensin behaueth himselfe, for no
man may see him nor be admitted to parle with him, but
onely the principal! nobles of his court, each one of whom
are assigned to beare ofifices according to their place and
dignitie. In this court are sundry offices and dignities,
and the Kings lieutenant beeing principal! officer, allotteth
vnto each one such places of dignitie, as may be corre-
spondent to their honour : and this lieutenant leuieth the
kings armies, and sometime conducteth them against the
enemic. The second officer is the Kings chiefe Secretarie,
who writeth and recordeth all things pertaining to the
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 6/1
King. The third is the high treasurer, who is bound by
his office to receiue tributes and customes. The fourth
is the kings dispensator or almoner, who bestoweth such
Hbcralitie as the king vouchsafeth. The fift is the captaine
of the kings garde, who so often as any nobles are admitted
to the kings presence, conducteth the garde vnto the palace-
gate. Then are there other meaner officers, as namely, the
master of the kings stable, the ouerseer of his saddles &
stirrops', and his chiefe chamberlaine, who giueth attendance
onely at such times as any courtiers are admitted vnto the
kings audience. For at other times the kings wiues, with
certaine Christian captiues, and eunuches doe performe
that dutie. The king sometimes in sumptuous and costly
apparell rideth vpon a stately stead richly trapped and
furnished. In riding he obserueth not much pompe nor
many ceremonies ; neither indeede doth he carrie so great
a traine ; for you shall scarcely see a thousand horsemen in
his companie, except perhaps in time of warre, when as
the Arabians and other people giue attendance. When
the king goeth foorth with an armie, there are not many
carriages transported therein, neither can you then discerne
the king by his apparell from any meane captaine : and
though he conducteth neuer so great a garde of soldiers,
yet a man would not thinke how sparing he is of his coine.
Gold-money he coineth of baser golde, then that whereof
the Italian money called BislaccJii is coined, but it is of a
greater size, for one peece thereof waigheth an Italian
duckat and one fourth part. He stampeth likewise coine
of siluer & of brasse. His dominions are but slenderly
inhabited : howbeit because the way from Europe to a passage from
Europe to
Aethiopia lieth throug his kingdome, he reapeth much Adhiopia
1 i 1 -11- 1 througli the
benefit by the wares that passe by, especially smce the kingdome of
time that Oran was surprized by the Christians. At the
same time Telensin it selfe was made tributarie, which was
euer before a free citie : whereupon the king that was the
672 THE FOVRTH BOOKF. OF THE
author thereof, was extremely hated of his subjects till his
dying day. Afterward his sonne that succeeded him,
demanded customes and tributes likewise : for which cause
being expelled out of his kingdome by the people, he was
enforced to craue aide of the emperour Charles the fift. by
whose meanes (as is beforesaid) he was restored vnto his
said kingdome. When Oran was subiect vnto the king of
Telensin, the region thereabout paid vnto the king for
yeerly tribute sometime three thousand, and sometime
fower thousand duckats, the greatest part whereof was
allowed vnto the kings garde, and to the Arabian soldiers.
I my selfe continuing certaine monethes in this kings
court, had good experience of his liberalitie. I haue
indeede omitted many particulars in the description of this
court of Telensin : but because they agreed for the most
part with those things which we reported of Fez, I haue
here passed them ouer, least I should seeme too tedious
vnto the reader.'*^
Of the towne of Hubbed.
THis towne being built in manner of a castle standeth
about a mile and an halfe southward of Telensin,
It containeth store of inhabitants, who are for the most
part dyers of cloth. In this towne was buried one Sadi Bu
Median being reputed a man of singular holines, whom
they adore like a god, ascending vp to his monument by
certaine steps. Here is likewise a stately college, and a
faire hospitall to entertaine strangers in ; both which were
built by a king of Fez of the Marin-familie, as I finde
recorded vpon a certaine marble-stone.-^
Of the towne of Tefesra.
'His towne standing vpon a plaine fifteene miles from
Telensin hath great store of smiths therein, by
Mines of iron, rcason of the iron-mines which are there. The fields
T
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 673
adiacent are exceeding fruitfull for corne : and the inhabi-
tants being for the most part blacke-smithes are destitute
of all ciuilitie."
Of the townc of Tcsscla.
THis ancient towne was built by the Africans vpon a
certaine plaine, extending almost twenty miles in
length. Here groweth such abundance of excellent corne,
as is almost sufficient for the whole kingdome of Telensin.
The inhabitants Hue in tents, for all the buildings of this
towne are destroied, though the name remaineth still.
These also in times past paide a great yeerely tribute vnto
the king of Telensin.-^
Of the prouince called Bent Rasid.
THis region extendeth in length from east to west fiftie,
and in bredth almost fiue and twentie miles. The
southerne part thereof is plaine ground, but toward the
north it is full of fruitfull mountaines. The inhabitants
are of two sorts : for some of them dwell vpon the moun-
taines in houses of indifferent good building : and these
imploy themselues in husbandry and other necessarie
affaires. Others being of a more noble condition Hue
onely vpon the plaines in tents, and there keepe their
camels, horses, and other cattell. They are molested with
daily inconueniences, and pay yeerely tribute vnto the
king of Telensin. Vpon the foresaid mountaines are
sundrie villages, among which there are two principall,
whereof the one called Chalath Haoara, and built in manner
of a castle vpon the side of a certaine hill, containeth to
the number of fortie merchants and artificers houses : the
other called Elmo Hascar is the seate of the kings lieu-
tenant ouer those regions ; and in this village euery
Thursday there is a great market, where abundance of
cattell, corne, raisons, figs, and honie is to be sold : here
6/4 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
arc likewise cloth-merchants and diuers other chapmen,
which for breuities sake I passe ouer in silence. I my
selfe continuing for some time among them, found to my
hinderence what cunning theeues they were. The king of
Telensin collecteth yeerely out of this prouince the summe
of fiue and twenty thousand duckats ; and it containcth so
many most expert soldiers.^*
Of the towne of Bat ha.
THis great, rich, and populous towne-^ was built in my
time vpon a most beautifull and large plaine, which
yeeldeth great abundance of corne. The tribute which the
king of Telensin hath here, amounteth to the summe of
twentie thousand duckats. Howbeit this towne was after-
ward destroied in that warre which happened betweene the
king and certaine of his kinsmen. For they growing
mightie by the king of Fez his aide, woon many townes in
the kingdome of Telensin : and whatsoeuer towne they
thought themselues not able to keepe by force of armes,
they burnt it quite downe : and thus they serued Batha,
whereof now there remaine but very few ruines. Not far
from this towne runneth a little riuer, on both sides
whereof there are many gardens and fields replenished with
all kinde of fruites. Moreouer the foresaid plaine was
A famous vtterly destitute of inhabitants, till a certaine heremite with
followers, whom they reuerenced as a man of singular
holines, repaired thither. This heremite in short time grew
so rich in oxen, horses, and other cattell, that no man almost
throughout the whole region was comparable vnto him.
Neither he nor his followers pay any tribute at all, when as
notwithstanding (as I heard of his disciples) he reapeth
yeerly eight thousand bushels of corne, and at this time
possesseth fiue hundred horses, ten thousand small cattell,
and two thousand oxen ; and besides all the former hath
yeerely sent vnto him from diuers partes of the world fower
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 675
or fine thousand duckats : so greatly hath the fame of his
false hoHnes spread ouer all Africa and Asia. Disciples
he hath to the number of fiue hundred, whom he main-
taineth at his owne cost : neither emploieth he them to
ought else, but daily to read a few praiers : for which
cause many resort vnto him, desiring to be of the number
of his disciples, whom after he hath instructed in certaine
ceremonies, he sendeth them thither from whence they first
came. He hath about an hundred tents pitched, whereof
some are for strangers, others for shepherds, and the
residue for some of his owne familie. This holy heremite
hath fower wiues, and a great many women-slaues wearing
most sumptuous apparell. His sonnes likewise hauc their
wiues and families : insomuch that the whole familie of
this heremite and of his sonnes containeth fiue hundred
persons. He is greatly honoured by all the Arabians, and
by the king of Telensin himselfe. My selfe was once
desirous to trie what manner of man this heremite was: and
for three daies I was entertained by him in the most
secrete places of his habitation, where amongst other
things he shewed me certaine bookes intreating of art-
Magique and of Alchymie : and he endeuoured by all
meanes to perswade me, that Magique was a most true
and vndoubted arte, whereby I perceiued that himselfe was
a magician, albeit he neuer vsed nor regarded the arte,
except it were in inuocating of God by certaine names.
Of the towne of Oran.
THis great and populous towne containing about sixe
thousand families, and built many yeeres agoe by
the Africans vpon the Mediterran sea shore, is distant from
Telensin an hundreth and fortie miles. Heere may you
see great store of stately buildings, as namely of temples,
colledges, hospitals, bath-stoues, and innes. The towne is
compassed with most high and impregnable walles, hauing
676 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
on the one side a faire plaine, and on the other side diuers
mountaines. The greatest part of the inhabitants were
weauers, and the residue liued of their yeerely reuenues.
The territorie of this towne yeeldeth but small store of
corne, so that the townesmen make all their bread of
barley : howbeit they are most courteous and friendly to
all strangers. This towne was greatly frequented with
merchants of Catalonia, and of Genoa : and one street
thereof is at this present called the street of the Genoueses.
They were at perpetuall enmitie with the king of Telensin,
neither would they euer accept of any gouernor, but one
which receiued the kings tribute. But the townesmen
chose one of their chiefe Burgo-masters to iudge of cases
ciuill and criminall. The merchants of this towne main-
tained at their owne costs certaine foists and brieandines
of warre, which committed many piracies vpon the coast of
Catalonia, Geuisa, Maiorica, and Minorica, insomuch that
Oran was full of Christian captiues. Afterward Don Ferdi-
nando king of Spaine encountringOran with a great Armada,
determined to release the said Christians out of captiuitie :
but he had verie hard successe. Howbeit within a few
moneths after beeing ayded by the Biscaines and the
Oran taken hy Cardinall of Spaine, he tooke Oran. For the Moores
trie Spaniards.
issuing foorth with great furie vpon the Christians armie,
left the towne vtterly destitute of souldiers, which the
Spaniards perceiuing, began to assayle the towne on the
other side ; where being resisted by none but by women,
they had easie entrance. Whereupon the Moores seeing
the christians banners aduanced vpon their wals, they
returned backe into the town, and were there put to so
great a slaughter, that few of them escaped. Thus was
Oran taken by the Spaniards in the yeere of Mahomet his
Hcgeira 916.-*'
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 6^7
Of the towne Mersalcabir.
THis towne was built in my time by the king of Telensin
vpon the Mediterran sea, not farre from Oran. And
Mersalcabir in the Moores language significth a great or
large hauen : for I thinke there is not the like hauen to be
found in the whole world besides : so that here infinite
number of ships and galleies may finde most safe harbour
in any tempestuous weather. Hither the Venetians ships
made often resort, when they perceiued any tempest to
approach : and from hence they would cause all their wares
to be transported to Oran in other vessels. This towne MersakaUr
taken by the
also was at length taken by the Spaniards as well as Spaniards.
Oran.27
Of the tozvne of Mezzagran.
THis towne also was built by the Africans vpon the
Mediterran sea, neere vnto the place where the river
Selef disemboqueth. It is well peopled and much molested
by the Arabians. The gouernour thereof hath little
authoritie within the towne, and lesse without.-^
Of the tozvne of Mustuganin.
MVstuganin beeing founded by the Africans vpon the
Mediterran sea, standeth almost three miles from
Mezzagran, on the other side of the riuer Selef It was in
times past verie populous ; but since the kingdome of
Telensin began to decay, this towne hath beene so vexed
by the Arabians, that at this present the third part thereof
scarce remaineth. Families it containeth to the number of
fifteene hundred ; and it hath a most beautifuU and stately
temple. In this towne are great store of weauers : and
the houses are most sumptuously built, hauing cleere
fountaines belonging vnto them. Through the midst of
the towne runneth a riuer, on each side whereof stand
67^ THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
diuers milles. Not farre from the towne there are most
pleasant gardens ; but they lie now vntilled and desolate.
Their fields are exceeding fruitfull. There belongeth an
hauen vnto this towne, whereunto many merchants of
Europe vse to resort, albeit they finde not much traffick
here, because the townesmen are so destitute of money.-^
Of the towne of Bresch.
THis ancient towne built by the Romanes vpon the
Mediterran sea, standeth many miles distant from
Mustuganin. It containeth great store of inhabitants,
which are many of them weauers. The people of this
towne vse to paint a blacke crosse vpon their cheeke, and
two other blacke crosses vpon the palmes of their hands :
and the like custome is obserued by all the inhabitants of
the mountaines of Alger, and Bugia : the occasion whereof
is thought to be this, namely that the Gothes when they
first began to inuade these regions, released all those from
paying of tribute (as our African historiographers afifirme)
that would imbrace the Christian religion. But so often as
any tribute was demanded, cuery man to eschew the
payment thereof, would not sticke to professe himselfe a
Christian : wherefore it was then determined, that such as
were Christians indeed should be distinguished from others
by the foresaid crosses. At length the Gothes being
expelled, they all reuolted vnto the Mahumetan religion ;
howbeit this custome of painting crosses remained still
among them, neither doe they know the reason thereof.
Likewise the meaner sort of people in Mauritania vse to
make such crosses vpon their faces, as we see vsed by some
people of Europe. This towne aboundeth greatly with
figs, and the fields thereof are exceeding fruitfull for flaxe
and barley. The townesmen haue continued in firme
league and friendship with the people of the mountaines
adioyning ; by whose fauour they liued an hundred yeeres
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 679
togither without paying of any tribute at all : but Barbarossa
the Turke hauing woon the kingdome of Telensin put them
to great distresse. From hence they vse to transport by
sea great store of figs and flaxe vnto Alger, Tunis, and
Bugia, wherby they gaine great store of money. Here
also you may as yet behold diuers monuments of the
Romans ancient buildings.^°
Of the towne of Sersell.
THis great and ancient towne built by the Romanes
vpon the Mediterran sea, was afterward taken by the
Gothes and lastly by the Mahumetans. The wall of this
towne is exceeding high, strong, and stately built, and
containeth about eight miles in circuit. In that part of the
towne next vnto the Mediterran sea standeth a most
beautifull and magnificent temple built by the Romans,
the inward part whereof consisteth of marble. They had
also in times past an impregnable fort standing vpon a
rock by the Mediterran sea. Their fields are most fruitfull :
and albeit this towne was much oppressed by the Gothes,
yet the Mahumetans enioyed a great part thereof for the
space almost of fiue hundred yeeres. And then after the
warre of Telensin it remained voide of inhabitants almost
three hundred yeeres. As length when Granada was woon
by the Christians, diuers Moores of Granada fled thither,
which repaired the houses and a good part of the castle :
afterward they began to build ships, wherewith they
transported their merchantable commodities into other
regions ; and they increased so by little and little, that
now they are growne to twelue hundred families. They
were subiect not long since vnto Barbarossa the Turke,
vnto whom they paide but three hundred ducates for
yeerely tribute.^^
68o THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
Of the citie of Meliana.
Tllis great and ancient citie, commonly called now by
the corrupt name of Magnana, and built by the
Romanes vpon the top of a certaine hill, is distant from
the Mediterran sea almost fortie miles. Vpon this moun-
taine are many springs, and woods abounding with
walnuts. The citie it selfe is enuironed with most ancient
and high wals. One side thereof is fortified with impreg-
nable rockes, and the other side dependeth so vpon the
mountaine as Narnia doth, which is a citie neere Rome : it
containeth verie stately houses, euery one of which houses
hath a fountaine. The inhabitants are almost all weauers :
and there are diuers turners also which make fine cups,
dishes, and such like vessels. Many of them likewise are
husbandmen. They continued many yeeres free from all
tribute and exaction, till they were at length made tribu-
tarie by Barbarossa.^'-
Of the towne of Tenez.
THis ancient towne built by the Africans vpon the
side of an hill not far from the Mediterran sea, is
enuironed with faire walles, and inhabited with many
people.^^ The inhabitants are exceeding rusticall and
vnciuill ; and haue alwaies beene subiect to the king of
Telensin. King Mahuviet that was grandfather vnto the
king which now raigneth, left three sonnes behinde him ;
the eldest being called Abuabdilla, the second, Abuseuen,
and the third laJiia. Abuabdilla succeeded his father,
whom his brethren being ayded by the citizens went about
to murther. But afterward, the treason being discouered,
Abuzeuen was apprehended and put in prison. Howbeit,
* Ptr/iaps king *Abuche]nineu being after that expelled out of his
kingdome by the people, Abuzeuen was not onely restored
to his former libertie, but was also chosen king, and enioyed
IIISTORIF, OF AFRICA. 68 1
the kingdomc so long, till (as is before-mentioned) he was
slaine by Barbarossa. lahia fled vnto the king of Fez, who
being at length proclaimed king by the people of Tenez,
raigned for certaine yeeres. And his young sonne that he
left behinde him being vanquished by Barbarossa, fled vnto
Charles who was then onely king of Spaine. But when as
the ayde promised by Charles the Emperour stayed long,
and the Prince of Tenez was too long absent, a rumour was
spread abroad, that hee and his brother were turned
Christians : whereupon the gouernment of Tenez fell
immediatly to the brother of Barbarossa!^^ .Their fields
indeed yeeld abundance of corne ; but of other commodities
they haue great want.
Of the towne of Macnna.
''"T^His towne (as some report) was built by the Romanes,
1 and standeth about fortie miles from the Meditcrran
sea. It hath fruitfull fields, strong walles, but most base
and deformed houses. Their temple indeed is somewhat
beautiful : for it was in times past a most stately towne,
but being often sacked, sometime by the king ofTelen-
sin, and sometime by his rebels ; and at length falling
into the hands of the Arabians, it was brought vnto
extreme miserie, so that at this present there are but few
inhabitants remaining, all being either weauers or husband-
men, and most grieuously oppressed by the Arabians.
Their fields abound plentifully with all kinde of corne.
Neere vnto this towne there haue beene in times past
many houses, streets, and villages, which may probably be
coniectured by the letters engraucn vpon marble stones.
The names of which villages are not to bee found in any of
our histories or Chronicles.^''
X X
682 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
Of Gezeir, otherwise called Alger.
GEzeir in the Moores language signifieth an island,
which name is thought to haue beene giuen vnto
this citie, because it licth neere vnto the isles of Maiorica,
Minorica, and Icuiza : howbeit the Spanyards call it Alger.
It was founded by the Africans of the familie of Mesgana,
wherefore in old time it was called by the name of Mesgana.
It is a large towne, containing families to the number of
fower thousand, and is enuironed with most stately and
impregnable walles. The buildings thereof are very
artificiall and sumptuous : and euery trade and occupation
hath here a seuerall place. Innes, bath-stoues, and temples
here are very beautifull ; but the stateliest temple of all
standeth vpon the sea-shore. Next vnto the sea there is a
most pleasant walke vpon that part of the towne wall,
which the waues of the sea beat vpon. In the suburbes
are many gardes replenished with all kind of fruits. On
the east side of the towne runneth a certaine riuer hauing
many mils thereupon : and out of this riuer they draw
water fit for drinke, and for the seruices of the kitchen. It
hath most beautifull plaines adioining vpon it, and especially
one called Metteggia, which extendeth fortie fiue miles in
length, and almost thirtie miles in bredth, and aboundeth
mightily with all kindes of graine. This towne for many
yeeres was subiect vnto the kingdome of Telensin : but
hearing that Bugia was also gouerned by a king, and being
neerer thereunto, they submitted themselues vnto the king
of Bugia. For they saw that the king of Telensin could
not sufficiently defend them against their enemies, and
also that the king of Bugia might doe them great dammage,
wherefore they offered vnto him a yeerely tribute of their
owne accord, and yet remained almost free from all
exaction. But certaine yeeres after, the inhabitants of this
citie building for themselues gallies, began to play the
HISTORIE OF i^FRICA. 683
pirates, and greatly to molest the foresaid islands. Where-
upon king Fcrdinando prouided a mightie armada, hoping
thereby to become lorde of the citie. Likewise vpon a
certaine high rocke standing opposit against the towne, he
caused a strong forte to be built, and that within gun-shot
of the citie, albeit the citie walles could not be endammaged
thereby. Wherefore the citizens immediately sent ambas- Alger become
^ _ tributaric to
sadours into Spaine, to craue a league for ten yeeres, vpon tiie kingof
1 • • 1 Spai/ie.
condition that they should pay certaine yeerely tribute ;
which request was granted by king Ferdinando. And so
they remained for certaine moneths free from the danger
of warre : but at length Barbarossa hastening to the siege
of Bugia, and hauing woon one fort built by the Spaniards,
determined to encounter another, hoping if he could obtaine
that also, that he should soone conquer the whole king-
dome of Bugia. Howbeit all matters fell not out according
to his expectation : for a great part of his soldiers being
husbandmen, when they perceiued the time of sowing
corne to approch, without any leaue or licence they fonsooke
their generall, and returned home to the plough-taile.
And many Turks also did the like, so that Barbarossa
failing of his purpose, was constrained to breake vp the
siege. Howbeit before his departure, he set on fire with
his owne handes twelue gallies, which lay in a riuer but
three miles from Bugia. And then with fortie of his
soldiers he retired himselfe to the castle of Gewel beine
from Bugia about sixtie miles distant, where he remained
for certaine daies. In the mean while, king Ferdinando
deceasing, the people of Alger released themselues from
paying any more tribute : for seeing Barbarossa to be a
most valiant warriour, and a deadly enemie vnto Christians,
they sent for him, and chose him captaine ouer all their
forces ; who presently encountred the fort, but to little
effect. Afterward this Barbarossa secretly murthered the
gouernour of the citie in a certaine bath. The said
X X 2
684 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
gouernour was prince of the Arabians dwelling on the
plaines of Mettegia, his name was Selivi Ettewui, descended
of the familie of Tclaliba, and created gouernour of Alger
at the same time when Bugia was taken by the Spanyards :
this man was slaine by Barbarossa, after he had gouerned
many yecres. And then Barbarossa vsurped the whole
gouernment of the citie vnto himselfe, and coined money,
and this was the first entrance into his great and princely
estate. At all the foresaid accidents I my selfe was
present, as I trauelled from Fez to Tunis, and was enter-
tained by one that was sent ambassadour from the people
of Alger into Spaine, from whence he brought three
thousand bookes written in the Arabian toong. Then I
A voyage per- passed on to Bugia, where I found Barbarossa besieging
jormed by lohti ?:> o
Leo. the foresaid fort : afterward I proceeded to Constantina,
and next to Tunis. In the meane while I heard that
Barbarossa was slaine at Tremizen, and that his brother
called Cairadin succeeded in the gouernment of Alger
Then we heard also that the emperour CJiarlcs the fift had
sent two armies to surprize Alger ; the first whereof was
destroied vpon the plaine of Alger, and the second hauing
assailed the towne three dales together, was partly slaine
and partly taken by Barbarossa, insomuch that very {q^n
escaped backe into Spaine. This was done in the yeere of
the Hegeira nine hundred twentie two.^''
Of the toivnc of Tegdcuit.
THis ancient towne was built (as some thinke) by the
Romanes ; and Tegdemt signifieth in the Arabian
language Ancient. The wall of this towne (as a man may
coniecture by the foundations thereof) was ten miles in
circuite. There are yet remaining two temples of an
exceeding height, but they are very ruinous, and in many
places fallen to the ground. This towne when it was
possessed by the Mahumetans, was maruellous rich, and
IIISTORIK OF AFRICA. 685
abounded with men of learning and poets. It is reported
that Idris vncle to the same Idris that founded Fez, was
once gouernour of this towne, and that the gouernment
thereof remained to his posteritie almost an hundred and
fiftie yeeres. Afterward it was destroied in the warres
betweene the schismaticall patriarks of Cairaoan, in the
yeere of the Hegeira 365 : but now there are a few ruines
onely of this towne to be seene.^'^
Of the toivjic of Medtia.
THis towne standing not farre from the borders of
Numidia, is distant from the Mediterran sea almost
an hundred and fowerscore miles ; and it is situate on
a most pleasant and fruitfull plaine, and is enuironed
with sweete riuers and beautifull gardens. The inhabitants
are exceeding rich, exercising traffique most of all with
the Numidians ; and they are very curious both in
their apparell and in the furniture of their houses. They
are continually molested with the inuasions of the Arabians;
but because they are almost two hundred miles distant
from Telensin, they can haue no aide sent them by the
king. This towne was once subiect vnto the gouernour of
Tenez, afterward vnto Barbarossa, and lastly vnto his
brother. Neuer was I so sumptuously entertained as in
this place : for the inhabitants being themselues vnlearned,
so often as any learned man comes amongst them, they
entertaine him with great honour, and cause him to decide
all their controuersies. For the space of two moneths>
while I remained with them, I gained aboue two hundred
duckats, and was so allured with the pleasantnes of the
place, that had not my dutie enforced me to depart, I had
remained there all the residue of my life.^^
686 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
Of the towne of Teinejidfust.
THis towne also was built by the Romans vpon the
Mediterran sea, and is about twelue miles distant
from Alger. Vnto this towne belongeth a faire hauen,
where the ships of Alger are safely harboured, for they
haue no other hauen so commodious. This towne was at
length destroied by the Goths, and the greatest part of the
wall of Alger was built with the stones which came from
the wall of this towne.^^
Of the towne of Teddeles.
THis towne built by the Africans vpon the Mediterran
sea, and being thirtie miles distant from Alger, is
enuironed with most ancient and strong walles. The
greatest part of the inhabitants are dyers of cloth, and that
by reason of the many riuers and streames running through
the midst of the same. They are of a liberall and ingenuous
disposition, and can play most of them vpon the citterne
and lute. Their fields are fertill, and abounding with
corne. Their apparell is very decent : the greatest part
of them are delighted in fishing, and they take such
abundance of fishes, that they freely giue them to euery
bodie, which is the cause that there is no fish-market in
this towne.***
Of the mouiitaines contained in the kinodome
of Telensin.
Of the vwimtnine of Beni lesneten.
THis mountaine standeth westward of Telensin almost
fiftic miles, one side thereof bordering vpon the
desert of Garet, and the other side vpon the desert of
Angad. In length it extendeth fine and twentie, and in
HISTORTE OF AFRICA. 687
bredth almost fifteene miles, and it is exceeding high and
difficult to ascend. It hath diuers woods growing vpon it,
wherein grow great store of Carobs, which the inhabitants
vse for an ordinarie kinde of foode : for they haue great
want of barly. Here are diuers cottages inhabited with
valiant and stout men. Vpon the top of this mountaine
standeth a strong castle, wherein all the principall men of
the mountaine dwell, amongst whom there are often dis-
sentions, for there is none of them all but woulde be sole
gouernour of the mountaine. I my selfe had conuersation
with some of them, whom I knew in the king of Fez his
court, for which cause I was honorably intertained by them.
The soldiers of this mountaine are almost ten thousand.^^
Of mount Matgara.
THis exceeding high and colde mountaine hath great
store of inhabitants, and is almost sixe miles distant
from Ned Roma. The inhabitants are valiant, but not
very rich : for this mountaine yeeldeth nought but barly
and Carobs. They speake all one language with the
people of Ned Roma, and are ioined in such league with
them, that they will often aide one another against the
king- of Telensin.*-
't>
T
Of mount Gualhasa.
His high mountaine standeth nigh vnto the towne of
Hunain. The inhabitants are sauage, rude, and
vnciuill people, and are at continuall warre with the people
of Hunain, so that oftentimes they haue almost vtterly
destroied the towne. This mountaine yeeldeth great store
of Carobs, and but little corne."*^
688 THE FOVRTH BOOKE OF THE
Of mount Agbal.
THis inoiintaine is inhabited with people of base con-
dition and subiect to the towne of Oran. They all
exercise husbandrie, and carrie woode vnto Oran. While
the Moores enioied Oran, their state was somewhat better :
but since the Christians got possession thereof they haue
beene driuen to extreame miserie.*^
Of iiioiDit Beni Guerened.
THis mountaine being three miles distant from Tremisen,
is well peopled, and aboundeth with all kinde oi
fruits, especially with figges and cherries. The inhabitants
are some of them colliers, some wood-mongers, and the
residue husbandmen. And out of this onely mountaine
(as I was informed by the king of Telensin his Secretarie)
there is yeerely collected for tribute, the summe of twelue
thousand ducats.^^
Of mount Magraua.
THis mountaine extending it selfe fortie miles in length
towardes the Mediterran sea is neer vnto the towne
of Mustuganin before described. The soile is fertile, and
the inhabitants are valiant and warrelike people, and of a
liberall and humaine disposition.
Of mount Beni A bus aid.
THis mountaine standing not farre from Tenez, is
inhabited with great multitudes of people, which
lead a sauage life, and are notwithstanding most valiant
warriors. 1 hey haue abundance of honey, barly, and
goats. Their waxe and hides they carrie vnto Tenez, and
there sell the same to the merchants of Europe. When
as the king of Tremizen his kinscmcn were lords of this
HISTORIE OF AFRICA. 689
mountaine, the people paied for tribute certaine thousands
of ducats.
Of mount Gjianseris.
THis exceding high mountaine is inhabited with vaHant
people, who being aided by the king of Fez, main-
tained warre against the kingdome of Telensin, for aboue
three-score yeeres. Fruitefull fields they haue, and great
store of fountains. Their soldiers are almost twentie
thousand in number, whereof 2500. are horsemen. By
their aide lahia attained to the gouernment of Tenez : but
after Tenez began to decay, the gaue themselues wholy to
robberie and theft.^''
Of t lie mount aines belonging to the state of Alger.
NEre vnto Alger on the east side and on the west are
diucrs mountains well stored with inhabitants.
Free they are from all tribute, and rich, and exceeding
valiant. Their corne fields are very fruitefull, and they
haue great abundance of cattell. They are oftentimes at
deadly warre togither, so that it is dangerous trauailing
that way, vnlesse it be in a religious mans company.
Markets they haue and faires vpon these mountaines,
where nought is to be solde but cattle, corne, and wooll,
vnlesse some of the neighbour cities supplie them with
merchandise now and then.
Here endcth the fourth booke.
NOTES TO BOOK IV.
(i) The Berber name of the old Kingdom of Tlemsen, Tlemsan
or Tlemgen, now an " arrondissement " of Algeria, is Tilimsyn. The
Arab names are Tilimsen, Tellchen, and even Tinimsen. According
to the brothers Abd er-Rahman Ibn Khaldoun and Yahia Ibn Khaldoun,
Tilimsyn is composed of two Berber words, Tilimn and syit^ which
signify " uniting two", that is, the Sahara and the Tell — the King-
dom serving as a link between these two great divisions of Northern
Africa.
Tremizen, a form commonly used by the writers in Pory's time,
is the Spanish form, which has since been softened into Tremec^n.
Leo seems to have adopted a conglomerate Arabic- Berber varia-
tion, probably the vernacular form of his own time.
It is one of the most ancient cities of Barbary. Pliny {Hist. Nat..,
lib. V, cap. i) mentions the civitas Timici. Ptolemy mentions it as a
colony of the third legion of Augustus, under the name of Pomareum,
or Pomarea, in Mauritania Ctesariensis. — Barges, Histoire des Beni-
Zeiyan, Rots de Tleince/i par L'/iiuun Cidi Aboii Abd Allah Mo/unn-
jiied ibn-Abd' el-Djelyi et-Tenessy, pp. lix-lxi ; Piesse et Canal, Tleni-
cen ("Revue de I'Afrique Frangaise"), pp. i-io ; Caussade, Notice
sur les traces de f occupation ro limine dans la proidnce d'' Alger.,
pp. 85, 86.
(2) Beni Abd el-Wahed of the Maghrawa.
(3) Abu -Yahia Yaghromorasen, first of the Beni-Zeiyan dynasty, began
to reign A.H. 633. He is the Gomarazan of the Spanish chroniclers
the orthography of which Leo copies. The date of the death of this
famous sovereign, the first of the virtually independent sovereigns of
Tlemsen, is sometimes given as A.H. 601 (a d. 12S8), but et-Tenessi
expressly puts the date of his proclamation as the 7th of Jumada II, 637.
The Beni-Marini began very early to harass Tlemsen, the great
siege of the town beginning in the reign of Abu Said Othman, the
successor of Abu Yahia Yaghromorasen. The mishaps which befel the
successors of Yaghromorasen are noticed by Leo. Thus Othman, under
whom began the first great siege of Tlemsen by Abu Yakub, the
Merinide Sultan, was cut off by a fit of apoplexy in his bath — or accord-
ing to El-Abbeli, poisoned himself. Musa Abu Hammu I, who largely
extended the boundaries of the kingdom, is said to have been murdered
by his son Tashfin, whose time was fully taken up with wars against
NOTES TO BOOK IV. 69 1
the Beni-Marini of Fez and the Hafsites of Tunis. He was finally taken
prisoner by the former under Abu-1-Hassan, after a siege in which huge
marble balls were propelled from catapults. Tashfin was beheaded,
and with him ended the elder branch of Abd el-Wahed. Tlemsen was
then given over to pillage and anarchy ; for, though it was formally
united to the Beni-Marini empire, Abu-1-Hassan made no pretence of
governing it. For tweh'e years there was a kind of interregnum, during
which Tlemsen was governed by Othman Ibn Jerrar, who belonged to a
younger branch of the Abd el-Wahed. But in A.H. 749 (A.D. 1348)
Abu-Zeid Othman and Abu-Thabit, great-grandchildren. of Abu Yahia
Yaghromorasen, took advantage of the disastrous defeat of Abu-1-
Hassan under the walls of Kairwan to throw off the Beni-Marini yoke
and regain the throne of their ancestors. In A.D. 1352, however, they
were attacked by the Beni-Marini Sultan Abu Einan, and themselves
met the fate they had intended for Othman Ibn Jerrar. Their nephew,
Abu Hammu Musa II, succeeded in A.H. 760 (a.d. 1359). After
being engaged in continual strife with the Hafsite sovereigns of
Tunis, the Beni-Marini, and his domestic rivals, and after being
several times driven from the throne, he was finally defeated and
slain m battle by his eldest son Abu Tashfin, a.d. 1389 (a.h. 791).
The patricide Abu Tashfin reigned four years and his son forty days,
after which seven brothers and a nephew of Tashfin obtained
longer or shorter leases of power. Then Abu Abd Allah el-Motawakkel
al-Allah, a great-grandson of Tashfin, who reigned from A.H. 866 (a.d.
1462) to A.H. 880 (A.D. 1475), succeeded in establishing the regular
order of succession in the villainous line of Abu Hammu Musa. Abu
Tashfin III and Abu Abd Allah Mohammed eth-Thabiti, his two sons,
kept up the succession until the capture of Mersa el-Kebir by the
Spaniards in 1505 — an event largely brought about by the internal
dissensions, intrigues, and rivalries of the kingdom.
The suzerainty of Mulai Abu Fares Abd el-Aziz, the Hafsite,
was gained in the reign of Abu Malik Abd el-Wahed el-Motawakkel
al-AUah (a.d. 1412-30), and abandoned after the death of Abu Omar
Othman (" Hutmen"), son of Abu Fares and second in sucession
from him. Abu Fares received homage as suzerain of Tlemsen
in A.H. 827 (a.d. 1424), and the date of Abu Omar Othman's death
was A.H. 893 (a.d. 1488).
(4) Horam is an aspirated misprint for Oran (see note 26). It
was under the Sultan Abu Abd Allah eth-Thabiti that these two ports
of Oran and Marsa el-Kebir fell into the Spaniards' hands. It was he
also who gave hospitality to Boabdil (see rniroduction). His reign
extended from a.d. 1468 to a.d. 1505. .Abu Abd Allah Mohammed
came next in succession. But the Spaniards having cut off his piratical
source of wealth by seizing his sea ports, while the Turks pressed him
on his Algerian borders, his unpopularity with his subjects, who were
692 NOTES TO BOOK IV.
squeezed to support the old extravagance of his court, became so
marked, that he seldom ventured outside his own palace. At length
he became a voluntary vassal of the Spanish King, among the articles of
the tribute he paid being " a hen and chickens in gold". He died in
1 5 16, and was succeeded by his younger brother Zeiyan Ahmed
(" Abuzeigen"), who was, however, dethroned by his uncle (not his
nephew) Abu Hammu (" Abuchemmeu"), a son of Mohammed eth-
Thabiti, and put in prison. On the approach of Aruj (Barbarossa),
Abu Hammu, tied or, as Leo has it, was put to flight by his own subjects,
and Abu Zeiyan was restored, only to be murdered, with other members
of the royal family, by that ruthless corsair chief (see Introduction).
Aruj in his turn having been defeated near Ujda by Abu Hammu
aided by the Spaniards, that tyrant was restored by Charles V. —
Topogfap/iia y Historia General de Argel {ib\i\ and Epitome de los
Reyes de Argel (trans. De Grammont, Rev. Africaine, t.. xxiv, p. 37
et seq.). For an amusing commentary on the mangling of these
names, which gave him •' the Vapours", see Morgan, History of Algiers
(i73i),P- 247-
(5) Abu Mohammed Abd Allah (" HabduUa"), his brother, was
compelled by his chiefs to break the alliance with the Spaniards and
fall back upon a secret understanding with Kheir ed-Din, the terrible
brother of Barbarossa. Here ends Leo's history. In 1553, Tlemsen
was captured by Salah Reis, Pasha of Algiers, and under Turkish
misgove.rnment rapidly declined, until it passed under French rule in
1842, after a long struggle, first (1S30-34) between Abd er-Rahman,
Sultan of Morocco, and the Turkish troops, and later (1834-39)
between the French and Abd el-Kader, who in 1839 made it the
capital during his brief reign as Amir. — Barges, Complement de
Vhistoirc des Bcni-Zeiyan, etc. (1887); Primaudace, Hist, de Poccu-
pation Espagnolc en Afrique (1506- 1574).
(6) The well-known Desert of the Ang-gad, a warlike tribe, who in
Shaw's day extended their depredations to the \ ery walls of Tlemsen.
The " Ahl-Angad", or " Angad", to use the official spelling, are
described by M. Accardo as a tribe attached to the " Commune
mixte", and to the " cercle " of Sebdon and the "Canton judiciare"
and subdivision of Tlemsen. — Repertoire alpiiabetique des Tribiis et
Dollars de I'Algerie (1879).
(7) Temzezdakt, the Temzizdict of Et-Tenessiyi, Hist, des Beni-
Zeiyan (p. 15), and Ibn Khaldoun, ///j/. des Berberes (t. ii, p. 114).
But we find "Timzegsegt" in Yahia Ibn Khaldoun, and "Temzirdit "
in MS. No. 703, Bibl. Nat. of France, cited by the Abbe Barges {Hist,
des Beni-Zeiya?i, note on p. 149). All of the authors quoted place
this castle in the mountains to the south of Ujda (Outchdah), not far
from the Wad-Isli (Izli).
NOTES TO BOOK IV. 693
By desert is not to be understood a region altogether barren and
unfruitful, but only such as is not, or cannot be, sown or cultivated,
though yielding pasturage for stock, more or less sparse, and contain-
ing springs sufficient for the herdsman's purposes.
Angad is a desert of this kind. But like all the plains of Barbary it
is — as Sallust describes — arbori infcBCtindus .
(8) Isli, Isly, Zezil of Marmol. Isli is famous as the locality where
on the 14th August, 1844, General Bugeaud won for himself the title
of Due d'Isly by defeating the army of Mulai Abd er-Rahman,
Sultan of Morocco, who had espoused the cause of Abd el-Kader.
The castle may perhaps be looked for in the ruins of Ain-Muilah
("the brackish spring"), the " river" being the Isli.
(9) Ujda, Oudjda, Oojda, Ouschda, Outchdah, the Wooje-da of
Shaw, to cite a few of the many spellings, a well-known frontier town
in the valley of the Wad Shair, and between this stream and the Wad
Isli, which joins lower down to form the Tafna — a river famous for
giving a name to the treaty by which in 1839 Tlemsen was ceded to
Abd el-Kader. Ujda is always pronounced " Oucha".
(10) Originally Medinet el-Botaha, which was changed to the present
name, supposed to be a corruption of Dhadd Rumi — "a barrier against
the Rumi", or Christians, when Yaghrmoroasen of Tlemsen (p. 690)
rebuilt it in the middle of the thirteenth century. Leo's etymology
is more doubtful, and his idea of its being founded by the Romans is
not based on any sound fact, the suggestion that it was Kalama being
pure conjecture. Nedroma is essentially a Berber town, though the
inhabitants never speak Berber.
(11) Tebekrit, the modern Takebrit, covered with ruins which
point to its having been at one time a large place. It vvas the Siga
of the Romans.
(12) Honain, Honem, Honai. Deserted under the circumstances
described by Leo, it has never been rebuilt, and now nothing remains
except a few ruined houses surrounded by a concrete (tabia) wall
strengthened by towers, and of great thickness, but broken down at
intervals, with fragments of a citadel, a watch-tower and two gates,
which attest the former importance of the place.
" Hisn-Honein" is mentioned by El-Bekri as affording good
anchorage (Mersa Honai), and being much frequented by ships. The
fortress of Honain, surrounded by beautiful gardens (well watered by
many streams), was occupied by the Kumia tribe. From this tribe
came Abd el-Mumen, the successor of the Mahdi as the Almohade
Amir. '* He was born", according to the Roudh el-Kartas (p. 201), " at
Tadjura, a place situated three miles from Port Hcenyn " (Honain),
which is, however, not as M. Beaumier imagines, the modern
Nemours. The Spanish historians call the place "One". It is thus
called by Marmol, who also says that the .Arabs knew it as Deyrat-
694 NOTES TO BOOK IV.
Kneyn (Jaziret Honain), the "island of Henein". Cape Nunnu
Honain is a point close by.
(13) Rashgul, Rashgun, at the mouth of the Tafna and opposite
the isle of Archgoul, or Harchgoun, the Insula Acra of the Romans,
a place of some importance during the French operations for the
suppression of the Arab resistance in the province of Oran in 1835
and subsequent years.
El-Bekri refers to Archgoul, and Aslen to the east of it, as a place
which was probably the Roman Camarata. Edrisi and Abu-1-feda
mention it as being twenty miles from Tlemsen and opposite El-
Marriyyah in Andalus (Spain).
Rashgul is the "Harshgoone" of Shaw. The" patriarke of
Cairaoan", who destroyed the place, was probably El-Moez, who
by the hands of his general, Jaher the Sicilian, ruined Oran, Tlemsen,
and other towns at the same period (.\.D. 955-56 ; A.H. 344) in his
campaign against the Edrisites.
(14) Abd el-Wahed.
(15) Abu Tashfin, A.H. 718 (a.d. 1318).
(16) Abu Yakub Yussef was assassinated A.H. 706 by one of his
slaves — a eunuch (by another version a renegade) — called Lasaada, but
not before the beleaguered townsmen had been reduced to eating
human flesh.
(17) Abu-1-Hassan laid siege to Tlemsen in A.H. 735 (A.D. 1334-35),
with the result already noted, p. 691.
(18) Abu Abd Allah Mohammed, son of Mohammed eth-Thabiti,
who died A.H. 923 (A.D. 15 16). The sack of the Jews' houses, a
characteristic incident during a Barbary interregnum, is related by
Leo alone.
(19) The Wad Saf-Saf, a tributary of the Tafna.
El-Kara = the castle.
(20) This description applies to the court of Abu Abd Allah
Mohammed eth-Thabiti (a.h. 880-911, a.d. I475-I505),at which Leo was
a guest. Some notion of the wealth which in those days accumulated
in the principal centre of Barbary, maybe gathered from the fact that
a petty African king had a revenue of from 300,000 to 400,000 ducats
(" trecento e anco quattrocento milia" — not 3,000 to 4,000 as Leo's
words are mistranslated), equal to from 3,000,000 to 4.000,000 francs,
from one port alone.
But all the Arab historians, from Abu-1-feda downward, laud the
grandeur and wealth of Tlemsen, and, indeed, the proofs of its
former splendour are still abundant in its architectural monuments.
(21) El-Eubad, more commonly called Sidi Bu Medin, from the
shrine of Bu Medin, the patron saint of Tlemsen, who as Leo mentions
is buried here and, indeed, formed the nucleus for the village. It has
many fine monuments.
NOTES TO BOOK IV. 695
(22) This place is not readily identified. There exists to-day
a mud-walled village called Tefesra, though its situation is not
on the plain — a curious place for a blacksmiths' and iron smelters'
centre — but on the neighbouring mountains. In this district there are
mines of haematite at Beni-Saf, M'Sirda, and Bab-M'teurba, iron at
Brika and ("lar-Barud, and fibrous limonite at Honai.
(23) Tessala, a village at the base of Tessala, on a well-watered
plain ; the Tessailah of Shaw, who identified it with the ancient
Astacilis, a guess not justified by any discoveries since the publication
of his Trai'cls and Observations^ etc. (pp. 17, 37).
(24) The Beni Rashid district, " E. by S. of Merjejah and north of
the Wad Fuddah" (Shaw), was formerly of more note than at present.
In Shaw's day (when it was known as Beni-Arax) the citadel, the two
thousand houses, and the valorous inhabitants who ruled as far as El-
Kalla (" Chalath Hasara"), and Mascar (" Elmo Hascar" = El-Moascar
Maskara, now an important French town), had changed to some ruins,
a few huts, and a poor timid people taking shelter here from a "jealous
and severe" government. However, the Ben Rashid figs and other
fruits were as famous as ever, rivalling in flavour those of the Beni-
Zerwall.
Beni Rashid, Marmol considers to be the Villeburgum, or Villa
Vicus, and Sansom the Bunobora of Ptolemy. But neither identifica-
tion can be accurate.
(25) El-Bataha.
(26) For various blunders, etc., in the translations of Leo's account
of O ran or Wahran — the original name — see Iiitrodiiciion.
Oran was captured by the Spaniards in A.H. 915 (a.d. 19th May,
1509). — Fey, Histoire d'Uran (1858) ; De la Prmiaudace, Hist, de
r occupation Espagnole en Afiiqtte, 1506-1574(1875).
(27) Mersa (Mers) el-Kebir, "the great harbour", the Partus
Divinus of the Romans, eight kilometres from Oran, with which it
is now connected by a road cut most of the way through the solid
rock. Leo is wrong in considering the town having been built by the
Kings of Tlemsen in his time, since apart from the fact that the
harbour was used by the Romans, and probably long before their da>,
it was an arsenal of Abd el-Mumen the Almohade ; and during the
Arab dominion in Spain Mersa el-Kebir was a busy port, frecjuented
not only by the Moors but also by the Christian traders of Aragon, Mar-
seilles, and the Italian republics. After the fall of Granada, it became
a nest of pirates. The Portuguese occupied the harbours first from
1415 to 1437, and again from 1471 to 1477. In 1497, the Duke de
Medina- .Sidonia threatened it on the occasion of his capturing
Melilla, but it was not until the 23rd Oct. 1505, that Diego Hernandez
de Cordo\a landed here. Four years later the armada of Cardinal
Ximenes (the "Cardinall of Spaine")used it as a place of disembarka-
696 NOTES TO BOOK IV.
tion against Oran (note 26), and it shared in the subsequent vicissi-
tudes of that town.
(28) Mazagran, the Ta-Mazaghran of El-Bekri, in whose day il was
a walled town with a mosque, is now a place of about 1,500 inhabitants,
which has figured in the turmoils of Arab, Turk, Spaniard and
Frenchman. Edrisi praises the fertility of its suburbs. The Selef
(Chelif) actually reach the Mediterranean between Mostaganem and
Cape Ivi.
(29) Mostaganem, properly Mastaghanim, usually pronounced
Mostar'anem, the 'R.oma.n Murustaga. Its origin as a Berber or Arab
town is not known. It was, at all events, a place of some military
importance in the reign of Yussuf ben Tashfin (.4.D. 1061-1 106), who is
said to have built the old citadel, which has smce been converted into
a prison. In I5i6it passed into the power of Kheir ed-Din, since
when it has suffered the vicissitudes common to all to the neighbour-
ing towns of Algeria.
It was in the caves on the bank of the Wad Frechih, near Mostag-
anem, that Colonel (afterwards Marshal) Pelissier caused to be
asphyxiated nearly a thousand Arabs of the Uled Riah, who had taken
part in the insurrection of the Dahra in 1845.
{T)0) Bresch, Brescar (Marmol), Brashk, ruined by the Tuscan
Knights of St. Etienne on August i8th, 1610. In a.d. 1184 it had
been the capital of Zeri ben- Mohammed, an adventurer who raised a
rebellion against the Sultan of Tlemsen.
Bresch was built by the Berbers on the site of the Augustan colony
of Gunugi, or Gunugus, to employ the correct orthography (according,
to an inscription in the Algiers Museum), of the place called Kanoukkes
by Ptolemy.
(31) Cherchel, Sargel of Marmol, properly Shershal, the Phcenician
colony of lol (not Icosium, as Mannert supposed), established by Juba
under the name of Ctesarea, when it became the capital of Mauritania
Ciesariensis — the " splendida colonia Ccesariensis" as it is designated
on a variety of inscriptions disinterred in or about Cherchel. After
being united to the Roman Empire it was ruined by Formus, rebuilt by
Theodosius, sacked by the Vandals (the Goths), and once more raised
to more than its former grandeur by the Byzantine gosernors. The
town fell into the power of the Beni-iMarini in A.H. 699 (a.D. 1300).
After becoming a place of refuge for the exiled Andalus or Spanish
Moors, Kheir ed-Din captured it in.v.D. 1520. Andrea Doria attempted
to retake it in 1531, but he failed to effect a landing. It is now a
Frenchified town of about 9,000 people, chiefly notable for its in-
teresting ruins. The citizens are no longer, as in Shaw's day, famous
for their skill in making pottery and tools.
(32) Miliana, the Malliana of the Romans, of whose work something
still remains. The "certaine hill" on which it is built is a plateau
NOTES TO BOOK IV. 697
of the Zakkar mountain. St. Augustine {Epislola, 236) speaks of a
subcleacon of Malliana {Stibdeaconus Mallianensis). — Mannert, Gcog.
Ancienne, etc., p. 529.
{'^'^) Tenes, an old Phctnician town site, afterwards the Roman colony
of Cartenna, the Colonia Augusti of the Second Legion, who were
most probably stationed here to overawe the neighbouring Bakotya
tribe (mentioned by Ptolemy as the Baxot;ra/) of the interior of the
province of Gran. The modern Tenes does not date later than 1847.
But the older town was the capital of the petty principality of Tenes
or Tniss (generally tributary to Tlemsen), whose people bore an
e\'il reputation as sorcerers. — Shaw, Travels^ p. 36 ; Bourin, Tenes
(Cartennte) ; Revue de PAffique Fran^aisc, 1887.
(34) By " King Mahumet that was grandfather unto the king that
now reigneth" is meant Abu Abd Allah Mohammed eth-Thabiti, Leo's
former host (p. 694). Mohammed left three sons — Abu Abd Allah-
Mohammed (" Abuabdilla"), Abu Zeiyan-Ahmed (" Abu-zeuen"), and
Abu Yahia (" labia"). For other historical allusions see note 3. At
the time Leo wrote Abu Zeiyan had been deposed by his uncle Abu
Hammu III(a.h. 923-34, a.d. 1516-28). But this sovereign was not
grandson of Mohammed eth-Thabiti, but his son.
(35) Mazuna is the capita! of the Dahra. The neighbourhood is full
of Roman remains, but Mannert's attempt to identify it with Pliny's
Succabar is not fortunate. The town is, however, mentioned by Edrisi
{Africa, ed. Hartmann, p. 204). To-day it contains about 2,000 houses,
the inhabitants being Berbers, mainly engaged in pottery making-. For
a fuller description of Kabylia see Bourdon, "Etude Geog. sur le Dahra",
Bull, de la Soc. Geog. Paris, January, 1873 ; Demaeght, " Le Uhra
occidental", Iliid., 1882, pp. 254-63.
(36) The well-known city of Algiers, Alger, Arger, Argeir, Algel, etc.,
El-Jezairof the Arabs, and the Icosiumofthe Romans. El-Jezair means
the islets, or, as the older title was, El-Jezair Beni-Mez-r'anna, the
isles of the Beni-Mez-r'anna, from the islets in the harbour, most of
which have disappeared in the course of constructing marine fortifica-
tions— the Beni-Mezr'anna (" familie of Mesgana") being the tribe
which, according to tradition, inhabited the spot on which at a later
date the Great Mosque was erected. The native Algerians know this
name, but aflirm that it ought to be pronounced Beni-Mezrennafi.
This is the customary etymology of Algiers. Another is that Tzeyr or
Tzier, by which name the Algerines call their city in familiar parlance,
is a corruption of Cassarea, the name of the province (Mauritania
Cassariensis) and of a city Julia Caesarea, which stood on or near the
site of Algiers. The Algerines, it may be remarked, pronounce the
gim hard, not as in El-Jezair (Lane-Poole, j&\ir<J(?ry Corsairs, p. 13 ;
Tully, Residence in Tripoli, p. 169 ; Solvet, ed. Abu-1-feda, p. 160).
Leo's historical statements are referred to in Introduction. For
Y Y
698 NOTES TO BOOK IV.
Algiers generally, see the library of works which have been written
about the colony. — Playfair, Bibliography of Algeria (1888).
{yj) Takdemt, now a station on the railway from Mostaganem
to Tiaret. The town contains many Roman remains. — Baudens,
" Relation hist, de I'expedition h. Tagdempt ", Musee des families,
1S41, p. 310.
(38) El-Medeah, a pleasant town, with an almost European climate,
owing to its being situated 3,018 feet above the sea. It is subject
to heavy snow falls, and in January 1890 it was shut off from all com-
munication with the outer world. The Roman Media; (Ad medias)
most likely stood here.
(39) Tremendafust, a promontory on which a fort (" Bordj-Trcment-
foust") now in ruins was erected by Ramadan Agha in 1661.
Matifou, a hamlet, founded in 1853, marks the spot where Charles V
re-embarked after his disastrous attempt on Algiers in 1541. A
fountain near by is called " Ishrub wa harab" (Drink and be off),
a hint that fever seldom spared those who slept in this place.
Shaw, who calls it '" Tremendfuse, or Metafus", identifies the locality
with Rusgunia, a colony which, according to Pliny, was immediately
to the east of Icosium ; and the few relics discovered since his time,
including an inscription, point to the accuracy of the old scholar's
inferences. The area of the city can be easily traced, and as Leo
states that the stone was used for building the walls of Algiers — a
use it has likewise been put to for the last four centuries — it was
probably Rusgunia that he meant by " Tremendfuse". The Arabs
insist that the ruins are those of " Medina Takius", the town (one of
the many claimants for that distinction) which was the scene of the
adventures of the Seven Sleepers {Kara/!, chap, xviii).
(40) Dellys, Uelles, Tedellis, or Tedeles, a Carthaginian trading
station, and the site of the Roman Rusuccurus (an important town
during the reign of Claudian), out of which, after its ruin by earth-
quake (or by invasion ?), the Arab town of Dellys was built, and for a
time was part of the kingdom of Bugia. Fish is still plentiful and
cheap, but is not, as in Leo's day, given away.
(41) Beni-Iznaten, Beni-Snassen, Beni-Zenefell (Shaw, p. 17).
(42) Matghara.
(43) Ulhasa, Tarare of Marmol (t. ii, 388).
(44) Aghbal. (45) Warnid.
(46) Wanshersh, or Ouarsenis, the "Ancorarium mons", on whose
summit (6,500 feet) snow often lies throughout the yc.ir.
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