Note (return) — WEST AND SOUTH BARBARY,

Rabat is the largest town on the coast of the empire, it is walled round; its circumference is about four miles; an aqueduct conveys abundance of water to the town from a distance of several miles. The mausoleum of the sultan Muhamed, father to the present sultan Soliman, is in the town of Rabat, it is a neat building, surrounded by a colonade; here is a lamp continually burning, and a muden 112, who is a fakeer, is continually proclaiming the omnipotence of God, and that Muhamed is the prophet. "La Allah, ila Allah, wa Muhamed rassul Allah." There is a very strong battery towards the sea, at the mouth of the river, which is bomb proof. The city wall is high, and is strengthened by several bastions mounting cannon: towards the land, about a mile from Rabat, there is a spring, reported to have been discovered by the Romans, and near it is the Roman town of Shella, which none but musulmen are permitted to enter. In it are said to be the tombs of two sultans, but most probably of Roman generals. Kettles or pans of coins are continually found by the people who dig the ground at this place, and the coins found are Roman. Some European travellers enhanced the price of these coins so much, by their eagerness to purchase them, that they offered more than double their intrinsic value, so that the Jews imitated them so well that they deceived even these antiquaries. There are several mosques in this town, but that which attracts particularly the notice of travellers, is the sma Hassan, i.e. the tower of Hassan, situated about a mile from Shella, on the south banks of the river Buregreg, so called from its being in the province of Beny Hassan, it is an old tower built in a superior manner by an architect of Grenada, the same that built the tower at Marocco, called Jamaa Lifenar, one at Timbuctoo, and that at Seville; it is about 200 feet high, perfectly square, and a person may ride up to the top on horseback, having a gradual ascent, and seven chambers one above the other: the cement with which it is made is so hardened that no pickaxe can destroy it. It was represented to the sultan Muhamed that the apartments in this tower were the haunts of vice and immorality, and the sultan ordered the floor or terras, by which visitors ascend, to be broken; it was found, however, impossible to destroy it, wherefore the workmen were ordered to desist, and the entrance was blocked up with loose stones. This tower I ascended with my friend the Comte de Fourban, nephew to the duke de Crillon, who conducted the famous siege of Gibraltar, and whose machinations were so admirably defeated by the immortal governor of that garrison, General Elliott, Lord Heathfield. The Comte had ruined his constitution by being immolated in a dungeon in France, during the reign of Robespierre, where he remained during fifteen months, oftentimes seated on steps in water up to his ankles. The Comte was a very generous and liberal man, an emigrant French nobleman, protected by the British consul at the court of Morocco. The disorder contracted by ill usage and confinement in prison, brought on a disease which, after applying various remedies to no purpose, carried him off, and he died at Rabat. The house of the French consul and those of some other European consuls who formerly resided here, are conveniently situated on the southern banks of the river Buregreg, which divides Rabat from Salee. Ships of one hundred tons, that do not draw much water, may pass the bar and load close to these houses; but larger vessels must come to anchor in the offing, and take in their cargoes by boats. The country about Rabat and Salee is wonderfully abundant in all the finest grain, leguminous plants, fruits, vegetables, and cattle; the orange, lemon, Seville, or bitter orange, and citron plantations are here very extensive and extremely productive. Several ships might be loaded here with oranges in October and November, before the gales of the latter half of December and the month of January set in. One hundred fine large oranges may be had for a drahim, a silver coin worth 6d. sterling. The orange plantations of Rabat are of incalculable extent; the trees are as large as a middling-sized oak; the vineyards and cotton plantations are likewise most abundant; and nothing can exceed the good quality of the grapes, figs, oranges, citrons, apricots, peaches, and water-melons; the quality of the latter is peculiarly sweet, they are called Dilla Seed Billa; the seed of which might be advantageously transported to our new colony, the Cape of Good Hope. The vineyards of Rabat are very extensive; the vines are cultivated in the Arabian system, on the ground, which is a light sandy soil: the immense numbers of turtle-doves that are in these vineyards is such, that a bad sportsman cannot fail killing a dozen or two at every shot; they rise just before you in thousands, and the foulahs, or vine cultivators, express their gratitude to the Christians who go to shoot them. These birds, from being unmolested, are so tame and so abundant, that they destroy an incalculable quantity of the best fruit.