The Governor Is The Lieutenant Of The Sovereign, Exercising The
Executive Power; The Kady, Or Supreme Judge, Is Charged With The
Administration Of The Law, And The Al-Motassen Fixes The Price Of
Provisions, And Decides All The Questions Of Trade And Customs.
There
are but few troops at Fez, for it is not a strong military possession;
on the contrary, it is commanded by accessible heights and is exposed to
a _coup-de-main_.
Fez, indeed, could make no _bona-fide_ resistance to an European army.
The manufactures are principally woollen haiks, silk handkerchiefs,
slippers and shoes of excellent leather, and red caps of felt, commonly
called the fez; the first fabrication of these red caps appears to have
been in this city. The Spanish Moorish immigrants introduced the mode of
dressing goat and sheep-skins, at first known by the name of Cordovan
from Cordova; but, since the Moorish forced immigration, they have
acquired the celebrated name of Morocco. 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.
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