Sale, Pirates and Crusoe

Sale lies on the north bank of the mouth of the Bouregreg river opposite Rabat ,of which it is now mainly a suburb. But Sale was a thriving city when Rabat was a nothing much village. It was notorious as the base of the Barbary Coast pirates the originators of the "White Slave Trade", (as opposed to "the Slave Trade"?!). At one time the Rue des Conseilles in Rabat, now the main souk, once populated by the consuls of various european states whose sole occupation was to find out which of their countrymen were in captivity in Sale and to ransom them before they could be sold on. One dutch consul was so good at rescuing his clients he was driven out.
The main corsairs were andalusian refugees and in the 17C they established their own state, the Republic of the Bouregreg, plundering european vessels returning from West Africa and South America but also making raids on european ports including Plymouth and the Irish coast. They caused similar consternation as the somali pirates of the noughties. They eventually surrendered to Moulay Rashid but impromptu piracy continued until 1829 when Austria lost patience over the loss of a ship and shelled both Sale and Rabat into a backwater until the French made it the capitol under the Protectorate.
The whole encaptured the popular european imagination and Defoe had Crusoe captured by pirates and brought to Sale where he describes him entering by the Bab Lamrissa. Built in 1261 by the architect Mohammed Ibn Haj Ichbili it was 30m high and open to the river to allow boat to pass into the harbour. Now it is stranded next to the tram station.

The Chellah Storks

What makes the Chellah truly magical in the spring are the storks and egrets.

There are 79 breeding pairs of white storks. They nest on the mosque minaret, the walls of the medersa , and the trees around the santuary and spring. They swoop about and I have seen nothing remotely comparable apart from the Qutb Mintar south of Dehli although the birds there were eagles. The egrets flock and are harder to photograph.

It was a little disconcerting and creepy that the storks made a rapid slightly hollow knocking noise with their bills whilst roosting. The sound was identical to that attributed to Triffids in the 1960s BBC adaptation which was repeated before Xmas, so you would be siting in brilliant sunshine watching the birds and at peace with the world and the sound of  hunting vegetation would disturb you and be repeated round the site.

Chellah,

The Sanctuary at the Chellah comprises the Mosque of Abou Youssef (the second Merenid Sultan 1258-86), a zaouia, various royal tombs and koubas , and a sacred spring pool.
The minaret is the most identifiable part of the mosque ruins , topped by a storks nest which indicates good fortune.

 The medersa part of the zaouia retains some of the zellige ornament and the mihrab some stucco decoration.

 The tombs vary between the standard long stone with a triangular top 

and koubas  of local marabouts or saints. 

The sanctity of the pool must surely pre-date Islam. Apparently women wishing to conceive feed eggs to the resident eels which, thankfully, I did not see. 

Chellah -The Roman Forum

Northern Morocco was part of the Kingdom of Mauritania which managed to stay neutral in the Rome- Carthage rivalry. By Augustus' time it was something of a client state and the berber king Juba II (25BCE-23CE) whose bust is in the archaeological museum lived largely in Rome.  His son Ptolemy was murdered by Caligula in 41CE allegedly on the excuse that he was wearing a brighter coloured coat than the Emperor. This allowed Morocco to become the roman province of Mauritania Tingitania. The settlement at Rabat is of a small trading post with a forum, a craftsman's quarter and a Temple. The site remained inhabited until 1154 when it was abandoned in favour of Sale.

 

The Chellah

The Chellah is a short taxi ride out of central Rabat. It is the original settlement form Roman times.It was re-fortified by the Merenids and now comprises three separate parts in what is really a park with attractive wilderness gardens and views over to Sale.

The whole is enclosed in the Merenid walls and the view of these and the Rabat town walls with the very modern barracks building behind makes a startling contrast. 

The gardens make a pleasant break from the town and a worth a visit in themselves but but if you are lucky enough to visit in spring, as we did, what makes it truly magical are the 79 pairs of nesting white storks and the flocks of white egrets. 

The Tour Hassan and the Mohammed V Mausoleum

In the 1190s El Mansour decided to rebuild Rabat with a great new mosque as it's centrepiece. If it had been completed it would have been the second largest in the muslim world after Smarra in Iraq. The project was abandoned at his death and the earthquake of 1745 brought down the roof  so that it is now a ruin. However the uncompleted tower is important as one of the few surviving example of Almohad achitecture and is contemporaneous with the Koutoubia in Marrakesh and the Giralda in Seville.

The site however has an emotional significance for moroccans and was hence chosen as the site for the mausoleum of Mohammed V who, of course, was the restored monarch after the  protectorate and therefore symbolic of the independent nation. subsequently his sons Hassan II and Moulay Abdellah were also buried there.

 The mosque in his memory is closed but the mausoleum is open to the public of whatever faith. It is , in my view, an extremely successful example of modern prestige moroccan architecture, although, strangely, designed by a vietnamese architect.

The entrance to the site is guarded by resplendently uniformed horseguards.

 We decided they were not quite as awe-inspiring as those at Horseguards in London as  the horses were more fidgety, but when we got in found that this was really a cultural difference as the sentries at each door actively moved to smile and assist in the taking of pictures with the visitors, unlike in London where the challenge is to feign complete indifference and maintain a non-smiling forward blank demeanour. 

There are further infantrymen inside at the four corners of the building and an iman reciting the Q'ran continuously.