The Modern Capital Is Placed In A Valley Upon The Gentle Slope Of Several Hills By Which It Is Surrounded, And Whose Heights Are Crowned With Lovely Gardens Breathing Odoriferous Sweets.

Close by is a little river, or a branch of the Tebou, named Wad-el-Juhor, or "streamlet," which supplies the city with excellent water.

The present buildings are divided into old and new Fez. The streets are so narrow that two men on horseback could scarcely ride abreast; they are, besides, very dark, and often arched over. Colonel Scott represents some of the streets, however, as a mile in length. The houses are high, but not handsome. The shops are numerous and much frequented, though not very fine in appearance. Fez contains no less than seven hundred mosques, fifty of which are superb, and ornamented with fine columns of marble; there is, besides, a hundred or more of very small and ill-built mosques, or rather, houses of prayer. The most famous of these temples of worship is El-Karoubin (or El-Karouiin), supported by three hundred pillars. In this is preserved the celebrated library of antiquity, where, it is pretended, ancient Greek and Latin authors are to be found in abundance with the lost books of Titus Livy.

This appears to be mere conjecture. [27] But the mosque the more frequented and venerated, is that dedicated to the founder of the city, Muley Edris, whose ashes repose within its sacred enclosure. So excessive is this "hero-worship" for this great sultan, that the people constantly invoke his name in their prayers instead of that of the Deity. The mausoleum of this sacro-santo prince is inviolable and unapproachable. The university of Fez was formally much celebrated, but little of its learning now remains. Its once high-minded orthodox mulahs are now succeeded by a fanatic and ignorant race of marabouts. Nevertheless, the few _hommes de lettres_ found in Morocco are congregated here, and the literature of the empire is concentrated in this city. Seven large public schools are in full activity, besides numbers of private seminaries of instruction. The low humour of the talebs, and the fanaticism of the people, are unitedly preserved and developed in this notorious doggerel couplet, universally diffused throughout Morocco: -

_Ensara fee Senara Elhoud fee Sefoud_

"Christians on the hook Jews on the spit," or

"Let Christians be hooked, And let Jews be cooked."

The great division of the Arabic into eastern and western dialects makes little real difference in a practical point of view. The Mogrebbin, or western, is well understood by all travellers, and, of course, by all scholars from the East.

The palace of the Sultan is not large, but is handsome. There are numerous baths, and an hospital for the mad or incurable. The population was estimated, not long ago, at 88,000 souls, of which there were 60,000 Moors and Arabs (the Moors being chiefly immigrants from Spain), 10,000 Berbers, 8,000 Jews, and 10,000 Negroes.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 42 of 103
Words from 21320 to 21820 of 53114