9 deg. 35' 30" W.
The environs offer nothing but desolate sands, except some gardens for
growing a few vegetables, and a sprinkling of flowers, which, by dint of
perseverance, have been planted in the sand of the sea-shore. This is a
remarkable instance of human culture turning the most hopelessly sterile
portions of the world to account. These sands of Mogador are only a
portion of a vast and almost interminable link, which girdles the
north-western coast of the African continent, and is only broken in upon
at short intervals, from Morocco to Senegal, like a shifting, heaving,
and ever-varying rampart against the aggressions of the ocean. Both wind
and sea have probably equally contributed to the formation of this vast
belt of shifting sands.
The distance from Tangier to Mogador, by ordinary courier, is twelve
days, but no traveller could be expected to perform the journey in less
than twenty days.
Other courier distances are as follows:
Tangier to Rabat 4 days
Rabat to Fez 2 days
Fez to Mickas 12 hours
Rabat to Morocco 8 days
Mogador to Morocco 21/2 days
Mogador to Santa Cruz 3 days
Mogador to Wadnoun 8 days
Santa Cruz to Teradant 11/2 days
A notice of the interesting, though now abandoned part of Aghadir, may
not be out place here. Aghadir, (called also Agheer and by the
Portuguese, Santa Cruz) means in Berber "walls." It is the Gurt Luessem
of Leo Africanus.
