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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