The first drops of rain since our arrival
in Morocco fell this morning about 8½. 
This shower lasted but a few minutes & the day though not bright became
agreeable, sufficiently warm & very favourable for the excursion we
made at 1 pm to the Town & thence to the Garden of Semelalia formerly
gifted by the Sultan to the clever Spaniard Badia,(26)
styling himself Ali Bey. We returned from our promenade about 4 in the
afternoon having been much gratified by our excursion.
|
{313} Measured in the small western division of our garden a noble & as I presume ancient white poplar of great height & found it at height of my chin from the ground 11 feet 11¼ inches in girdth. |
At 10 this night fell a serious shower of
rain.
I have a strong suspicion that this fountain
is that beautiful ruin in one of the main streets over and around which
the exquisite carvings on wood attracted the attention & admiration
of myself & friends on passing it as to be much noticed by the people
& our interest in the monument was reported (as a matter of course
of dull European folly or trifling) to Mulai Abderahman. I frequently observed
to the people round me that these remains of fine art did great honour
to their ancestors and noticed [??] that I hoped (but it was without hope)
the Sultan would preserve this and other monuments of noble antiquity from
further decay adding that if placed in such a conspicuous situation in
the Capital of England this fountain would be an object not of individual
merely but of national regard, would be renovated & taken care of accordingly.
I expressed an anxious desire to have a drawing of it made by Mr
Smith but cold water was ever dropped on this & like proposals.
{347} Mulai Solyman destroyed all ye effigies carved over the tombs of the Kings in the cemetery at Marocco called Mdarsah d'el Moheeah, or College of the Jammaa Moheea, within the mosque, as I understand. There are also interred within it many Princes of the Moluc Saidea dynasty, & others have been buried in the same place down to so late a time as the death of the Sultan Mulai el Yazeed who is entombed there.
Main courtyard
Tomb tops in open Interior of tombs
{351} Mulai Soleyman anxious to appear a devout Messlem was, or pretended to be, much offended by these carved & painted figures as being contrary to the (modern) interpretations of their Law. He therefore consulted with his pious & learned Talebs expressing his doubts of the propriety of allowing these monuments to exist in that state, notwithstanding their antiquity & demanded their opinion whether they ought not to be destroyed.
The pious, the learned, the devout & faithful counsellors sensible of the importance of seconding the religious scruples of the monarch decided for the demolition of the symbols that were doubtless in many instances of an antiquity unknown to them & had been objects of veneration in their ancestors from time long out of Moorish mind & had been imitated by the Sultan's recent predecessor in the tomb of M. el Yazeed!
26. Semelalia was planted by Muhammad III with fruit trees had its own irigation supply and was walled. See Ali Bey Viajes Por Marruecos (ed Salvador Barbera) (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1984), 290-293.