Its Site Lies Between Two
Hills, In A Valley Which Is Exposed To Frequent Inundations.
The
roadstead of Saffee is good and safe during summer, and its shipping
once enabled it to be the centre of European commerce on the Atlantic
coast.
The population amounts to about one thousand, including a number
of miserable Jews. The walls of Saffee are massy and high. The
Portuguese captured this city in 1508, voluntarily abandoning it in
1641. The country around is not much cultivated, and presents melancholy
deserts; but there is still a quantity of corn grown. About forty miles
distant, S.E., is a large salt lake. Saffee is one and a half day's
journey from Mogador.
Equidistant between Mazagran and Saffee is the small town of El-Waladia,
situate on an extensive plain. Persons report that near this spot is a
spacious harbour, or lagune, sufficiently capacious to contain four or
five hundred sail of the line; but, unfortunately, the entrance is
obstructed by some rocks, which, however, it is added, might easily be
blown up. The lagune is also exposed to winds direct for the ocean. The
town, enclosed within a square wall, and containing very few
inhabitants, is supposed to have been built in the middle of the
seventeenth century by the Sultan Waleed. after whom it was named.
This brings us to Mogador, which, with Aghadir, have already been
described.
CHAPTER V.
Description of the Imperial Cities or Capitals of the Empire. -
El-Kesar. - Mequinez. - Fez. - Morocco.
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