Part 1 (1/2)
Travels through the Empire of Morocco.
by John Buffa.
PREFACE.
My motives for publis.h.i.+ng this volume of Travels, will be best explained by a detail of the circ.u.mstances which gave rise to my journey to Morocco. In 1805, I was serving in the capacity of Physician to His Majesty's Forces, at the Depot Hospital in the Isle of Wight; whence, by dexterous management of the Army Medical Board[*], I was removed, and placed upon half-pay, in June of that year. At this period, it occurred to Mr. Turnbull, Chairman of the Committee of Merchants trading to the Levant, that it would be of advantage to the public, were the offices of Garrison Surgeon of Gibraltar, and Inspecting Medical Officer of the s.h.i.+ps doing quarantine, which were then united in the person of Mr. Pym, separated and made distinct appointments; and he was pleased to think that, from my local knowledge, and other circ.u.mstances, I should be a proper person to fill the latter of these offices. This was also the opinion of His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, Governor of the garrison.
Representations were accordingly made on the subject, to the then Secretary of State for the War and Colonial Department, Lord Castlereagh; and it was so fully understood that the proposition had been a.s.sented to on his part, that an order was issued from the Transport Board, to provide a pa.s.sage for myself and family to Gibraltar. There I waited some months, in the expectation that the commission would be sent after me, but in vain. In the mean time, I received a communication from Mr. Mattra, British Consul General at Tangiers, requesting that I would cross over to Barbary, and attend His Excellency the Governor of Larache, First Minister of the Emperor of Morocco, then labouring under a dangerous illness. It was on my return from this journey, that I found a letter from Mr. Turnbull (See Appendix, No. III. p. 227), stating that my old friends of the Medical Board had been at their usual work of persecution, and by their scandalous misrepresentations to the new Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Mr. Windham, had succeeded in preventing the appointment which His Royal Highness the Governor of Gibraltar had been graciously pleased to design for me.
During my residence in Barbary it was my good fortune to gain the approbation and friends.h.i.+p of the Emperor of Morocco, and of the princ.i.p.al Officers of his Court, by which I was enabled to give facilities to the procuring of fresh provisions for our Navy, and render to my country other services, not strictly in the line of my profession. (See the various doc.u.ments at the end of Appendix.) Having succeeded in restoring the Governor of Larache to health, and performed some other cures, acceptable to the Emperor of Morocco, I considered the objects for which I had crossed over to Barbary accomplished, and returned to Gibraltar, after having received the most flattering marks of distinction, both from the Imperial Court, and from Lord Collingwood, Commander of the British fleet in the Mediterranean. The letter of the Emperor of Morocco to His Majesty (Appendix, No. X. p. 239) is an ample proof of the disposition of that prince in my favour.
Finding the princ.i.p.al aim of my voyage to Gibraltar frustrated by the machinations of the Medical Junta, whom I have already stated as ever active in mischief, I determined to return to England. The letter of the Emperor of Morocco to His Majesty, and a general certificate, couched in the strongest terms of approbation, and signed by all the princ.i.p.al merchants of Gibraltar, I thought were doc.u.ments, which, added to my correspondence with Lord Collingwood, and the officers of his fleet, would not fail to have procured me a favourable reception, and some attention to my claims.
But the letter of the Emperor of Morocco, as it still remains unanswered, I cannot but believe has never been presented to His Majesty. Nay, the pressing solicitations, with which I have since been honoured on the part of the Emperor of Morocco, through his princ.i.p.al Minister, to return to that country, I have hitherto been obliged to delay answering, that I might not, on the one hand, insult, by evasive or false replies, a government from which I had experienced such friends.h.i.+p and respect; or, on the other hand, be compelled, by a true statement, to compromise my own.
The princ.i.p.al design of publis.h.i.+ng this account of my journey to the Barbary States, is to shew the good policy, on the part of this country, of keeping upon terms of strict amity with the government of Morocco. The neglect, which, on this occasion, has been evinced of the Emperor's letter, I cannot but consider, in a public point of view, as extremely reprehensible, independently of the private injury it has occasioned to myself. Whether this neglect arose from the misrepresentations of the Army Medical Board, or from those of any other persons, I will not pretend to determine; but in any case, a most censurable disregard, even of the forms of civility, towards a Prince, who, however we may affect to despise his influence in the great political scale, has it always in his power materially to promote or to impede the interests of this country in the Levant, must attach to some quarter or other.
[*] As the members of that body are expected shortly to be dismissed from their situations, I think it right, lest at any future period injustice should be done to innocent individuals, by confounding them with the guilty, here to state that Sir Lucas Pepys, Bart. Mr. Thomas Keate, and Mr. Francis Knight, Apothecaries, at present compose the body illegally calling themselves the Army Medical Board, whose conduct for a great many years has brought disgrace and disaster on that important department. For a detail of their conduct, see ”An a.n.a.lytical View of the Medical Department of the British Army, by Charles Maclean, M.D.” 8vo. published by Stockdale, Pall Mall.
TRAVELS,
&c.
LETTER I.
Inducement for the Journey--Arrive at Tangiers--Its History-- Situation--Inhabitants--Military--Governor--Fortifications-- Subterraneous Pa.s.sage--Socco, or Market--Adjacent Villas--Invited to Larache.
Tangiers, January 12th, 1806.
I have long felt very desirous to visit a country, which, notwithstanding the many revolutions it has undergone, and the enlightened characters of its conquerors, is regarded as still immersed in a degree of barbarism almost unparalleled. It appeared to me next to impossible that a nation so contiguous to Europe, with which it has for centuries maintained a constant intercourse, could have remained in a state of such profound ignorance.
Impressed with these ideas, I readily embraced the offer of a friend to accompany him from Gibraltar to this place, intending to travel further up the country, should I meet with sufficient inducement from the result of my observations here. We landed on the first of this month, and the intermediate time I have employed in obtaining information relative to the town of Tangiers from the earliest tradition to the present time. As the particulars I have collected do not appear devoid of Interest, I flatter myself, you will be gratified that I should have made them the subject of a letter.
This town, which by the ancients was called _Tingis_, or Tingir, and appears to have been the metropolis of the _Western Mauritania_, or Tingitania, as it was named, to distinguish it from _Mauritania Caesariensis_; according to Pliny and others, was first founded ed fay _Antaeus_ (about a thousand years before Christ), the same who was afterwards conquered and slain by _Hercules_. The giant is supposed to have been buried here: and the report of Plutarch, that his tomb was opened by Sertorius, and a corpse sixty cubits or more in length, taken out of it, confirms the idea. But according to others, _Tingis_, or the present _Tangiers_, lays claim to a more ancient founder than _Antaeus_. Procopius mentions, that in his time were standing two pillars of white stone, upon which were inscribed in the Phoenician characters the following words: _”We are the Canaanites who fed from Joshua, the son of Nun.”_
A colony of Carthaginians settled here, and it is most probable that a flouris.h.i.+ng trade was carried on by them, as the situation of Tangiers is extremely well adapted for that purpose. Indeed the name _Tingis_, in the language of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, signifies an _emporium_. When the Mauritaniae became subject to the Romans, in the reign of Julius Caesar, Bocchus, the son-in-law of Jugurtha, having defeated Bogud, the king of _Mauritania Tingitania_, he became possessed of that country, and Augustus, or, as some say, Octavius, confirmed this acquisition to him; and the inhabitants of _Tingis_ were allowed the privileges of Roman citizens.
I cannot discover any thing further remarkable of Tangiers from the time it became a Roman colony, and during the period it was possessed by the Saracens, till the latter end of the fourteenth century, when it was taken by the Portuguese, who erected fortifications and other public works. It continued in their possession for nearly two centuries; and was at length given to our King, Charles the Second, as part of the dowry of his consort Catharine, We did not keep it long; for, owing to the little harmony that subsisted between that Monarch and his Parliament, it was ceded to the Moors in 1684, after we had blown up all the fortifications, and utterly destroyed the harbour. Since that event, it seems to have been gradually dwindling into its present insignificance.
I have before observed, that the situation of Tangiers is well adapted to the purposes of commerce, being about two miles within the Straits of Gibraltar (or Hercules); but the ruins of the fortifications and harbour have rendered the anchorage in the bay of Tangiers very unsafe. This is a great obstacle to trade; very little is carried on there at present, and that little is by a few Jews, and lately, by a Spanish merchant of the name of Don Pedro.
The town being built on the declivity of that high tract of land called Cape Spartel (the Cape _Cottes_ or _Ampelusian_ of the ancients), it is seen at a great distance; but on entering the bay, it appears to the best advantage. It is defended by two martello towers, a castle, and a large battery; but I am confident that it could not withstand the attack of a few English frigates, and that such a force from the bay might destroy the town in the s.p.a.ce of a few hours. Notwithstanding the vicissitudes to which this place has been exposed, it still possesses a superiority over the other towns in the empire of Morocco; it is the capital of the kingdom, and the residence of the Consuls General of the powers in amity with his Imperial Majesty. The houses of these foreign residents are constructed with great taste in the European style; the habitations of the Moors are neat; the air is pure and salubrious; the supply of excellent water, abundant; and the market cheap and plentiful. This combination of advantages renders Tangiers, in many points of view, an eligible residence. The European society, which consists almost solely of the families of the foreign consuls, is pleasant and agreable, The adjacent country is beautifully romantic; and the opposite coast and bay present a most delightful prospect. The Moorish inhabitants are all soldiers, very poor, and entirely subject to the arbitrary will of the Emperor. It is capable of furnis.h.i.+ng, at a moment's warning, three thousand cavalry, and two thousand infantry and artillery-men; but these troops are badly trained, and without order or discipline: I attended their evening parade yesterday, and was truly diverted with the sorry appearance of their best militia-men, who were to mount guard for the night. These Moorish soldiers are remarkably addicted to cheating. It is probably owing to their excessive indolence, which prevents them from making the usual exertions for obtaining a livelihood, and induces them to adopt the more expeditious mode of extorting from strangers the means of subsistence; but as they are not often presented with an object of prey, they continually labour against the pressure of extreme poverty. Tangiers is under the government of Sidy Ash-Ash; who resides at Tetuan. He is by no means partial to the English, but devoted to France; influenced by French principles, and French interest. Excepting a few small armed vessels, fitted out for piracy, there is no s.h.i.+pping in the harbour. I have observed none for the purpose of commerce; all their goods are exported in foreign bottoms; and when they bring in a prize, the vessel remains unsold for a considerable length of time, and it is always disposed of to a foreign merchant.
Several remains of the European fortifications are yet visible; the Moors have repaired some, among which the western bastions still form a princ.i.p.al part of the strength of the place. The castle, which appears to have been built before the time of the Portuguese, stands in a commanding position upon one of the most prominent rocks of this coast. By an order of the Emperor, all the civil and military officers of this town are obliged to reside in it.
From this castle is a subterraneous pa.s.sage containing many curious remnants of antiquity. On each side of the pa.s.sage are ruinous apartments, which we may readily suppose to have been designed as places for the concealment of treasures, or receptacles for the dead. From the fragments of some urns I have collected, upon which are to be traced parts of inscriptions in the Punic character, I imagine this subterraneous place to have been built by the Carthaginians, for one or both of those purposes. It extends from the castle to several miles without the gates of the town; whence we may likewise infer, that it served as a means of escape in case of a sudden insurrection, or siege. Here are several superb mosques and commodious public baths.