GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTH MAROCCO. 379 



the positions of the few places laid down unmistakable. The 

 now abandoned town of Fedala (Fidalah), Mefegam (Mazagan), 

 and Mogodor here appear for the first time. Of early Portu- 

 guese maps there must be many not now known to geographers, 

 and it was certainly from Portuguese authorities that Grerard 

 Mercator partly derived the materials used in both editions of 

 his Atlas. In the Atlas Minor, published by Hondins in 

 1608, a map of South Marocco is given in page 567, wherein 

 for the first time an attempt is made to represent the positions 

 of cities and mountains, and the courses of rivers in the interior 

 of the country. The outline of the coast is here less correct 

 than that given in the much more ancient Medicean map ; but 

 there is far more of detail, especially as to places which were 

 evidently well known to the Portuguese. Thus, as mentioned 

 in the text, we here for the first time find the island of Mogador 

 with the name ' /. Domegador.' The places laid down in the 

 interior appear for the most part to be taken (but with nu- 

 merous errors) from the work of Leo Africanus ; but the char- 

 tographer has spoiled his map by making the river Sous fiow 

 from SE. to NW., instead of from NNE. to SSW. Mountains 

 are scattered pretty uniformly over the map ; but what is made 

 to appear as the loftiest mass, and is marked 'Atlas M.,' with a 

 town named Tagovast at its foot, stands S. of Tarudant about 

 the western extremity of the range of Anti- Atlas. The accom- 

 panying letterpress, page 566, is to a great extent derived from 

 Leo Africanus, but with additions from other sources. It is 

 curious to read that Tarudant, now a jjlace which no Christian 

 stranger dare approach, was then resorted to by French and 

 English merchants. 



The name of the remarkable man, who stands almost alone 

 as a geographical authority for the interior of Marocco, has 

 already been mentioned ; but it is impossible to dismiss him so 

 lightly. Leo Africanus, to give him the name by which he is 

 known to posterity, was a Moor of Grenada, born in the latter 

 part of the fifteenth century, who, with his kinsfolk, fled to Fez 

 at or about the time of the siege of Granada in 1492. In those 

 diiys Fez was the head-quarters of Arabic culture ; Leo was an 

 earnest and successful studentj and, as a man of learning and 

 intelligence, was taken into favour by Mouley Ahmet, the 

 founder of the dynasty still reigning in Marocco. Either in 



