Well fortified - is now
fallen into decay, and consists only of a miserable village inhabited by
some sixty families, among which are a few Jews - Aghmat lies at the foot
of Mount Atlas, on the road which conducts to Tafilett, near a river of
the same name, and in the midst of a fine country abounding in orchards
and vine-yards; Aghmat was the first capital of the Marabout dynasty.
Fronga is a town densely populated almost entirely by Shelouhs and Jews,
lying about fifteen miles from the Atlas range upon an immense plain
which produces the finest grain in Morocco.
Tednest, the ancient capital of the province of Shedmah, and built by
the Berbers, is deliciously placed upon a paridisical plain, and was
once the residence of the Shereefs. It contains a population of four
thousand souls, one thousand eight hundred being Jews occupied with
commerce, whilst the rest cultivate the land. This is a division of
labour amongst Mahometans and Israelites not unfrequent in North Africa.
But, as in Europe, the Jew is the trader, not the husbandman.
Tekoulet is a small and pretty town, rising a short distance from the
sea, by the mouth of the stream Dwira, in the province of Hhaha. The
water is reckoned the best in the province, and the people are honest
and friendly; the Jews inhabit one hundred houses.
Tesegdelt, is another city of the province of Hhaha, very large and
rich, perched high upon a mountain, and that fortified by nature. The
principal mosque is one of the finest in the empire.
Tagawost is a city, perhaps the most ancient, and indeed the largest of
the province of Sous. It is distant ten miles from the great river Sous,
and fifty from the Atlas. The suburbs are surrounded with huge blocks of
stone. Togawost contains a number of shops and manufactories of good
workmen, who are divided into three distinct classes of people, all
engaged in continual hostilities with one another. The men are, however,
honest and laborious, while the women are pretty and coquettish. People
believe St. Augustine, whom the Mahometans have dubbed a Marabout, was
born in this city. Their trade is with the Sahara and Timbuctoo.
Fedsi is another considerable city, anciently the capital of Sous,
reclining upon a large arm of the river Sous, amidst a fruitful soil,
and contains about fourteen thousand inhabitants, who are governed by
republican institutions. It is twenty miles E.N.E. of Taroudant.
Beneali is a town placed near to the source of the river Draha, in the
Atlas. It is the residence of the chief of the Berbers of Hadrar, on the
southern Atlas.
Beni-Sabih, Moussabal, or Draha, is the capital of the province of
Draha, and a small place, but populated and commercial.
