nnon: 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
112 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
113 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