Jonas'
town
In
Leo's days Agadir was a small fortress a few miles away from the
greater Portuguese enclave at Messa. Today, Agadir has sprawled
much beyond the fortress walls, and overshadows provincial Messa.
While the city may have changed over the centuries, the surrounding
land has remained the same. Agadir is still enclosed by the River
Sus on one side, and a forest of sand and palm trees on the other.
Though, as Leo mentions, dates are not the best produce of these
lands:
" To tell you the truth these dates are not very good, as
they turn stale quite easily" (88).
Writing about Agadir, Leo tells a colorful
story of legends and whales: Jonas is said to have been washed upon
the Agadir shore, after the whale had spit him out (Tale from the
Old Testament): |
palm
tree and dates
|
"It
is said that Jonas' whale spit him out on this very coast. An old
temple made of whale bone stands by a beach, where many dead whales
wash up on the shore. These enormous corpses frighten those who
see them. The locals claim that any whale who swims near the temple
is struck with sudden death, due to the divine nature of the place.
I would not have believed this tale had I not , every day, seen
a whale corpse wash onto the shore. However, a local Jew told me
that there is nothing unusual to this, as there is a great reef
only a few miles away. When the sea is rough, whales are drawn near
the reef, and thrown against the rocks- leading to injury and death
for many. And the sea brings its victims onto this shore. This seems
to me a much more plausible explanation than the previous one! "
(88) |
And
to add to the drama of this entire whale story, Leo tells us of his own
encounter with gigantic whale remnants:
"During
my visit to Massa(a port in the Agadir region), a nobleman brought
me to lunch on the outskirts of town. On our way their we passed
below an archway which had been carved out of a whale rib. We rode
under it as if it were a door, and while we rode on camel-back our
heads did not even reach its summit I was told that arch had been
there for more than 100 years." |
Whales
are no longer an attraction in these areas of the Atlantic. And beaches
have traded the gigantic whale remnants for sprawling bodies of another
kind: tanning tourists!
|