The platform of the upper floor of the court, where there are twelve more cells, affords the best view of the minaret of the mosque.
At a small house near the Medersa we obtain the key (fee 30 c.) of the so-called Petit Palais d’el-Eubbâd, a ruin popularly called Dâr es-Soltân (palace of the sultan), situated below the Kubba of Sidi Bou-Médine. The building, which also dates from the Merinide period, was more probably a hospice for the richer pilgrims. It comprises three courts with small side-rooms or alcoves, like those of the Alhambra, and remains of baths and latrines. A visit to it hardly repays if time is limited.
On the way to the ‘Dâr es-Soltân’ we pass the Latrine Court of the mosque and the so-called Kubba of Sidi el-Eubbâd. From (2 min. farther) the E. end of the village we may descend, and cross the railway, to (6 min.) the Sidi Bel-Abbès road.
This road leads to the E. through olive-groves, and then, turning to the S., through the Safsaf Valley to (¾ hr., or from Tlemcen 1 hr.) the gorge of *El-Ourit (p. [186]; carr. there and back 4–5 fr.). The bridge across it affords a fine view of the valley and the lower waterfalls. (Rfmts.)
The road to Aïn-Temouchent (p. [185]) diverges to the left from the Sidi Bel-Abbès road, at a point 10 min. from the Porte de Sidi Bou-Médine (p. [188]), and about ½ M. farther passes near the gorge of the Oued Metchkâna, which lies a little to the left. Here, beneath superb old terebinths (p. [202]), on the site of the old Cemetery of Agadîr (‘Cimetière de Sidi Yacoub’), are situated the pretty kubba of Sidi Wahhâb, the oldest saint of this region, said to have been a companion of the prophet, and the so-called Tombeau de la Sultane, a dilapidated octagonal domed building (12th cent.?), which served in 1412 as a tomb for a Ziyanide princess.
The ruins of Agâdir (p. [187]) may be reached in about 10 min. from the Porte de l’Abattoir (Pl. D, 1; p. [191]) by the old Safsaf road to the N.E. (p. [185]). Of the chief mosque founded here by Idris I. (p. [95]) the only relic is the elegant *Minaret, 105 ft. in height, erected by Yarmorâsen at the same time as the tower of the Great Mosque (p. [190]). The substructures, 19 ft. high, composed of Roman blocks of stone from the ancient Pomaria, and with Roman inscriptions built into them outside and in the staircase, probably belonged to an earlier minaret.—A little to the E., beyond the ravine, are preserved a few fragments of the E. Wall of Agâdir built by the Berbers. A few paces to the N. of the road rises the handsome Kubba of Sidi’d-Dâoudi (d. 1011); the present building is probably of the Merinide period.
31. Prom Tlemcen to Nemours viâ Lalla-Marnia.
64 M. Railway to (36½ M.) Lalla-Marnia (two trains daily in ca. 2¼ hrs.; fares 6 fr. 65, 4 fr. 75, 3 fr. 55 c.), going on thence to (43 M.) Zoudj-el-Beghal, the terminus on the Moroccan frontier.
The Railway, admirably engineered, skirts the N. side of Tlemcen, and then, near the Bâb el-Kermâdîn (p. [193]), turns to the S.E. to (3 M.) Mansura (p. [193]) and crosses the Col du Juif (2664 ft.). Behind us there is a fine view of Tlemcen, while the distant view extends to the Plaine des Angad and Jebel Beni Snassen (see below). We next skirt the N. spurs of the Jebel Terni group (p. [187]) and pass through superb valleys and ravines.