The Chief Food Of The People Is
The National Moorish Dish Of _Cuscasou_, A Fine Grained Paste, Cooked By
Steam, With Melted Fat, Oil, Or Other Liquids Poured Upon The Dish, And
Sometimes Garnished With Pieces Of Fowl And Other Meat.
A good deal of
animal food is consumed, but few vegetables.
The climate is mild in the
winter, but suffocating with heat in the summer. This city is placed in
latittude 34 deg. 6' 3" N. longitude 4 deg. 38" 15'W.
Morocco, or strictly in Arabic, _Maraksh_, which signifies "adorned,"
is the capital of the South, and frequently denominated the capital of
the Empire, but it is only a _triste_ shadow of its former greatness. It
is sometimes honoured with the title of "the great city," or "country."
Morocco occupies an immense area of ground, being seven miles in
circumference, the interior of which is covered with heaps of ruins or
more pleasantly converted into gardens. Morocco was built in 1072 or
1073 by the famous Yousel-Ben-Tashfin, King of Samtuna, and of the
dynasty of the Almoravedi, or Marabouts. Its site is that of an ancient
city, Martok, founded in the remotest periods of the primitive Africans,
or aboriginal Berbers, in whose language it signifies a place where
everything good and pleasant was to be found in abundance.
Bocanum Hermerum of the Ancients was also near the site of this capital,
Morocco attained its greatest prosperity shortly after its foundation,
and since then it has only declined. In the twelfth century, under the
reign of Jakoub Almanzor, there were 10,000 houses and 700,000 souls,
(if indeed we can trust their statistics); but, at the present time,
there are only some forty to fifty thousand inhabitants, including 4,000
Shelouhs and 5,000 Jews. Ali Bey, in 1804, estimates its population at
only 30,000, and Captain Washington in 1830 at 80, or 100,000. This vast
city lies at the foot of the Atlas, or about fourteen miles distant,
spread over a wide and most lovely plain of the province of Rhamma,
watered by the river Tensift, six miles from the gates of the capital.
The mosques are numerous and rich, the principal of which are
El-Kirtubeeah, of elegant architecture with an extremely lofty minaret;
El-Maazin, which is three hundred years old, and a magnificent building;
and Benious, built nearly seven hundred years ago of singular
construction, uniting modern and ancient architecture. The mosque of the
patron saint is Sidi Belabbess. Nine gates open in the city-walls; these
are strong and high, and flanked with towers, except on the south east
where the Sultan's palace stands. The streets are crooked, of uneven
width, unpaved, and dirty in winter, and full of dust in summer.
There are several public squares and marketplaces. The Kaessaria, or
commercial quarter, is extensive, exhibiting every species of
manufacture and natural product.
The manufactures of this, as of other large places, are principally,
silks, embroidery, and leather. The merchants of Mogador have magazines
here; this capital has also its caravans, which trade to the interior,
passing through Wadnoun to the south.
The Imperial palace is without the city and fortified with strong walls.
There are large gardens attached, in one of which the Emperor receives
his merchants and the diplomatic agents. The air of the country, at the
foot of the Atlas, is pure and salubrious. The city is well supplied
with water from an aqueduct, connecting it with the river Tensift, which
flows from the gorges of the Atlas. But the inhabitants, although they
enjoy this inestimable blessing in an African climate, are not famous
for their cleanliness; Morocco, if possessing any particular character,
still must be considered as a commercial city, for its learning is at a
very low ebb. Its interior wears a deeply dejected, nay a profoundly
gloomy aspect.
"Horrendum incultumque specus."
and the European merchants, when they come up here are glad to get away
as soon as possible.
Outside the city, there is a suburb appropriated to lepers, a
Lazar-house of leprosy, which afflicting and loathsome disease descends
from father to son through unbroken generations; the afflicted cannot
enter the city, and no one dare approach their habitations. The Emperor
usually resides for a third portion of his time at Morocco the rest at
Fez and Mequinez. Whenever his Imperial Highness has anything
disagreeable with foreign European powers, he comes down from Fez to
Morocco, to get out of the way. Occasionally, he travels from town to
town of the interior, to awe by his presence the ever restless
disaflfection of the tribes, or excite their loyalty for the Shereefian
throne.
Morocco is placed in Lat. 31 deg. 37" 31' N. and Long. 7 deg. 35" 30', W.
Tafilett consists of a group of towns or villages, situate on the
south-eastern side of the Atlas, which may he added to the royal cities,
being inhabited in part by the Imperial family, and is the birth-place
of their sovereign power - emphatically called Beladesh-Sherfa, "country
of the Shereefs." The country was anciently called Sedjelmasa, and
retained this name up to 1530 A.D., when the principal city acquired the
apellation of Tafilett, said to be derived from an Arab immigrant,
called Filal, who improved the culture of dates, and whose name on this
account, under the Berber form of Tafilett, was given to a plantation of
dates cultivated by him, and then passed to the surrounding districts.
At the present time, Tafilett consists of a group of fortified or
castle-built villages, environed by walls mounted with square towers,
which extend on both sides of the river Zig. There is also a castle, or
rather small town, upon the left side of the river, called by the
ordinary name of Kesar, which is in the hands of the Shereefs, and
inhabited entirely by the family of the Prophet. The principal and most
flourishing place was a long time called Tafilett, but is now according
to Callie, Ghourlan, and the residence of the Governor of the province
of Ressant, a town distinguished by a magnificent gateway surrounded
with various coloured Dutch tiles, symmetrically arranged in a diamond
pattern.
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