Leo

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Cristel

Agadir
according to Leo

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!