CHAPTER THE N IN TH
O P EN P O R T S— 5
DAR EL BAIDA (CASABLANCA)
\ ] EITHER in point of history nor situation, nor even
l \ l for what it is in itself, does Dar el Bai'da offer
the slightest attraction. It has never been, and probably
never will be, more than a trading port for the provinces
of Tadla and Shawia, in the latter of which .. Position,
it is situated on the south side of an open
bay, at 330 36' 20" N. and 70° 33' 30" W. It is
about 130 m. or five days’ journey almost due north of
Marrakesh. By sea it is distant from Tangier 160 miles.
Dar el Baida has passed the stage in which Ali Bey
found it, that of “ a small village with a great wall round
i t ” ,1 but it has not yet assumed the dignity to
, c 7 • History
be imparted only by the march of history.
Once, it is true, there existed here a town called Anfa,3
but all vestiges of that have so long disappeared, that
even in imagination one can hardly connect the two.
After its capture by. the ameer Y a ’kub II. in 1260 A.C.
(658 A.H.),3 Anfa seems to have risen steadily in importance
as a sort o f trading republic, till Leo Africanus
was able to describe it as one of the finest and best
conditioned cities of Africa.4 The wonderful fertility o f
some eighty miles width of tilled land stretching down to
the coast, and the mildness of a climate which ripened
melons and cucumbers in April— and which, he declares,
1 p . 132. 2 I d r e e s i , e t c . 3 Ra6d el Kartds, p / 4 3 0 . ' | E d . R a m u s io , p . 58.