Flushed with their success, and burning with the hopes of plunder, in the conquest of countries more fertile and richer, but less warlike than their own, they extended their arms as far as the western _Mauritania_. This country then remained for some time subject to the Caliphs of Bagdad, and was governed by their lieutenants, a set of cruel, arbitrary, and rapacious men.
The distance from the seat of government, and the oppressive manner in which the Caliphs ruled, excited universal commotion in this part, and considerably diminished their authority. Their generals, far from suppressing, openly encouraged these tumults, and severally aspired to the sovereignty. In the midst of these intestine broils, _Edris_, a descendant of Mahomet, fled into Mauritania, to avoid the persecutions of the Caliph _Abdallah_, who, to ensure the succession to his own family, had caused the kinsmen of _Edris_ to be put to death. _Edris_ first settled in a mountain, between Fez and Mequinez, called _Zaaron_, where he soon gained the confidence of the Moors. He preached the doctrine of Mahomet, and, by degrees, succeeded in establishing it throughout the country. These people, fond of novelty, and extremely susceptible of fanaticism, readily embraced a faith so well suited to their manners and inclinations. They elected him their chief, and invested him with supreme power; which he employed in reducing the Arab generals. From that time, the characters of the Moors and Arabs gradually blended, so that in after-ages, among the generality of them, scarcely any distinction can be traced.
As it is foreign to my present purpose to carry you farther into the ancient history of this country, I shall proceed to give you tho particulars of my journey to this town. I left Tangiers, escorted by a guard, consisting of a serjeant and six horsemen, accompanied by an interpreter, and my few servants. We rode for several hours, alternately through gardens and woods: the former full of fruit-trees; such as orange, lemon, fig, pomegranate, apple, pear, and cherry trees. The scene became every moment more interesting. As we advanced, the country assumed a variety almost indescribable. The contrast was every where infinitely striking. At one instant the eye was presented with fine corn-fields, meadows, and high hills; nay, mountains, cultivated to the very summits, are covered with immense flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle; while the vallies conveyed to the imagination an idea of the fertile plains of Arcadia; the simple manners of the Moors, who tend these flocks and herds, still further inducing one to believe them the happy, peaceful people, the poets feign the Arcadian swains to have been. On the other hand are huge mountains, bleak and barren, inaccessible to man, and scarcely affording food to the straggling wild goats that venture to browse on them.