3-083-036 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Visit to Tafilet: landing in Saffi, 1895. 'Saffi [is] the last port but one down the Atlantic coast of Morocco...From Mazagan to Saffi is an eight hours' steam, and...we managed, by leaving the former at sunset, to arrive shortly after sunrise. The anchorage at Saffi is a very bad one, and communication between the steamers and the coast is often impossible, so it was with real pleasure that I found the sea calm enough for the boats to come out...But the sight of all others at Saffi are the queer craft used for loading and discharging the cargo of the passing steamers, strange boats peaked fore and aft, and painted in designs in white upon their tarred bulwarks. Yet they are handy enough in the skilful management of the native boatmen, and it is a sight worth seeing and experiencing, too, to watch them lifted high by the inrolling wave, poised for a moment in the surf, and thence thrust forward, past the dangerous pile of rocks that guards the narrow strip of beach, high and dry on to the sand. What a shouting and a clamouring there are! what a rabble of soaking boatmen and porters bearing the heavy sacks of grain on their shoulders and heads! A busy day on Saffi beach is a fair example of Pandemonium. By W. B. Harris, F.R.G.S.' From "Illustrated London News", 1895.