Colonel Keating Says, "As Far As Parapets, Ramparts, Embrasures,
Cavaliers, Batteries, And Casemates Constitute A Fortress, This Town Is
One; But The Walls Are Flimsy, The Cavaliers Do Not Command, The
Batteries Do Not Flash, And The Casemates Are Not Bomb-Proof.
The
embrasures are so close that not one in three upon the ramparts could be
worked, if they were mounted, which they are not.
All their guns, which
have been only twelve months here, are already in very bad order, from
exposure to the climate and surf. The casemates are so damp, that their
interior is covered constantly with a thick nitrous incrustation."
Nevertheless, the Moors have such a superstitious veneration for
fortifications built by a parcel of renegades, that they will not permit
Christians to walk on these ramparts. But what is most unfortunate for
the defence of Mogador, the water could be instantly cut off by
destroying its aqueduct.
The population is between thirteen and fifteen thousand souls, including
four thousand Jews, and fifty Christians, who carry on an important
commerce, principally with London and Marseilles. Excepting Tangier, it
is now the only port which carries on uninterrupted commercial relations
with Europe.
Mogador is situate in the midst of shifting sand-hills, that separate it
from the cultivated parts of the country, which are distant from four to
tweleve miles. These sands have an extraordinary appearance on returning
from the interior; they look like huge pyramidal batteries raised round
the suburbs of the city for its defence. The inhabitants are supplied
with water by means of an aqueduct, fed by the little river, or rill of
Wai Elghored, two miles distant south. The climate hereabouts is
extremely salubrious, the rocky sandy site of the city being removed
from all marshes or low lands, which produce pestiferous miasma or
fever-exhaling vegetation. Rarely does it rain, but the whole tract of
the adjoining country, between the Atlas and the sea, is tempered on the
one side by the loftiest ranges of that mountain, and on the other, by
the north-east trade winds, blowing continually. Mogador is in Lat. 31 deg.
32' 40" N., and Long. 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.
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