These towns are supplied with water in a most singular manner from a river, called _Rasalema_, which takes its source in a valley near the road to Mequinez. It issues from a rock, about eight or ten feet above the ground, in a stream, that, from the form of the valley through which it runs, appears a continued waterfall. It is conveyed into the Emperor's garden by means of a large wheel, about twenty-five feet in diameter, round which, at regular distances, are small buckets, which, as the wheel goes round, are alternately filled, and emptied into a reservoir at the top of the wall of the garden. From the reservoir the water is also conveyed to the upper and lower towns by aqueducts.
On the outside of one of the western gates of Upper Fez are the gardens of the Emperor, surrounded by a good stone wall, within which are a number of spacious walks, shaded by rows of tall trees, on each side, and intersected by parterres and grass-plots, on which are elegant pavilions, some in a pyramidical, others in a conical form, where the Emperor frequently retires, to take his repose, or to amuse himself with his courtiers. These pavilions are between thirty and forty feet in height, covered on the outside with varnished tiles of different colours, and contain three and sometimes four neat apartments, furnished in the most simple style imaginable, having in general nothing more than a carpet, several couches, a few arm-chairs, a table, a clock, and a tea-equipage of china. The cornices round the walls of these apartments are embellished with passages from the Koran, and other Arabic sentences, carved in cedar-wood.
The propensity to cheating, so prevalent in all Barbary, is no where so notorious as in the lower town of Fez; and the Europeans who trade with the Moorish merchants here must employ the same means as themselves, or submit to be most flagitiously imposed upon.
I have visited several manufactories of carpets, mats, silk, linen, and leather, of which the merchants export great quantities. I have also seen some beautifully embroidered shawls, scarfs, and sword-knots, of the manufacture of this country. Their exports besides are, elephants' teeth, ostrich feathers, copper, tin, wool, hides, honey, wax, dates, raisins, olives, almonds, gum-arabic, and sandrach. They carry on a considerable trade, by caravans, to Mecca and Medina, the inland regions of Africa, and to the farthermost parts of the coast of Guinea; from which last place they bring gold-dust, and a prodigious number of negroes, some of whom are destined to serve in the Emperor's armies; the rest are slaves in the Moorish houses and fields.