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Magellan was of too active a nature to remain long without again taking service; he went next to fight in Africa at Azamor, a town in Morocco, where he received a slight wound in his knee, but one which by injuring a nerve made him lame for the remainder of his life, and obliged him to return to Portugal.
At the time of his accession, Portugal had lost much of her old military prestige; the Moors had proved too strong for her diminished armies; the four strongholds of Arzilla, Alcazar-Sequer, Saphin, and Azamor, had been wrested from her; and Mazagan, Ceuta, and Tangier alone remained to her of all her African possessions.
Azamor was taken by the Portuguese under the command of the Duke of Braganza in 1513 who strengthened it by fortifications, the walls of which are still standing; but it was abandoned a century afterwards, the Indies having opened a more lucrative field of enterprise than these barren though honourable conquests on the Maroquine coast.
First, they did winne and conquere from the princes of Barbary the Island of Geisera and towne of Arzila, not past an 140. mile distant from their Metropolitane and chiefe citie of Fesse: and after that they wonne also from the said princes the townes of Tanger, Ceuta, Mazigan, Azamor, and Azaffi, all alongst the Sea coasts. And in the yeere of our Lord, 1455.
The bay will admit of vessels of large burden anchoring in safety, except when the wind blows strong from the north-west. Casa Blanco is two days journey from Rabat, and two from Azamor, or Azemmour, which is an ancient and fine city of the province of Dukaila, built by the Amazigh Berbers, in whose language it signifies "olives."
Conscious of the superiority which his theoretical and practical knowledge and his services had earned for him above the herd of courtiers, Magellan naturally felt more keenly than another would have done the unjust treatment he received from Emmanuel with regard to certain complaints laid by the people of Azamor against the Portuguese officers.
The kingdom of Marocco also extends to the ocean, on which it has the cities of Azamor and Azafi. Near to Fez and Marocco in the ocean are the Canary islands, anciently called the Fortunate islands.
Azamor contains now about eight or nine hundred inhabitants, but formerly was much more populated. The Shebbel salmon is the principal commerce, and a source of immense profit to the town. The river is very deep and rapid, so that the passage with boats is both difficult and dangerous. It is frequently of a red colour, and charged with slime like the Nile at the period of its inundations.
The kingdom of Marocco is also extended aboue the Ocean Sea, vnto the citie of Azamor and Azafi, which are vpon the Ocean Sea, toward the West of the sayd kingdom. Toward the south of this region is the kingdom of Guinea, with Senega, Ialofo, Gambra, and many other regions of the Blacke Moores, called Aethiopians or Negros all which are watered with the riuer Negro, called in old time Niger.
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