ABSTRACT
There are naturally some discrepancies between the two treatments of Fez: thus Leo numbered the mosques there at about 700 and Lithgow at over 460. Lithgow’s relation of his trip from Algiers to Fez seems reasonably circumstantial; but the account of the latter part of his journey across North Africa is vague and at times verging on the fantastic, as when he describes the tribes of the interior as treating the herb garlic as a god. The origin of the woodcut, ‘The Modell of the Great City of Fez’, which illustrates his narrative (see Figure 6),87 is uncertain but could well have derived from the published account of some earlier European visitor to Fez. It may be that Lithgow did travel from Algiers to Fez in the company of Monsieur Chatteline but was unable during his brief stay in the city to see much for himself, hence had recourse to Leo for À lling out his narrative. At all events, and however we may regard the À rst part of his travel account through North Africa, it is doubtful whether one should regard Lithgow as an unimpeachable source on Fez in the last years of Sacdian rule there.
