In Morocco

In Morocco, by Edith Wharton

The Project Gutenberg eBook, In Morocco, by Edith Wharton
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: In Morocco
Author: Edith Wharton
Release Date: February 15, 2004 [eBook #11104]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN
MOROCCO***
E-text prepared by Linda Cantoni and Project Gutenberg Distributed
Proofreaders

IN MOROCCO
BY
EDITH WHARTON

ILLUSTRATED
1920

[Illustration: From a photograph from the Service des Beaux-Arts au
Maroc
Fez Elbah from the ramparts]

[Illustration]

TO GENERAL LYAUTEY
RESIDENT GENERAL OF FRANCE IN MOROCCO AND TO
MADAME LYAUTEY
THANKS TO WHOSE KINDNESS THE JOURNEY I HAD SO
LONG DREAMED OF SURPASSED WHAT I HAD DREAMED

PREFACE
I
Having begun my book with the statement that Morocco still lacks a
guide-book, I should have wished to take a first step toward remedying
that deficiency.
But the conditions in which I travelled, though full of unexpected and
picturesque opportunities, were not suited to leisurely study of the
places visited. The time was limited by the approach of the rainy
season, which puts an end to motoring over the treacherous trails of the
Spanish zone. In 1918, owing to the watchfulness of German
submarines in the Straits and along the northwest coast of Africa, the

trip by sea from Marseilles to Casablanca, ordinarily so easy, was not
to be made without much discomfort and loss of time. Once on board
the steamer, passengers were often kept in port (without leave to land)
for six or eight days; therefore for any one bound by a time-limit, as
most war-workers were, it was necessary to travel across country, and
to be back at Tangier before the November rains.
This left me only one month in which to visit Morocco from the
Mediterranean to the High Atlas, and from the Atlantic to Fez, and
even had there been a Djinn's carpet to carry me, the multiplicity of
impressions received would have made precise observation difficult.
The next best thing to a Djinn's carpet, a military motor, was at my
disposal every morning; but war conditions imposed restrictions, and
the wish to use the minimum of petrol often stood in the way of the
second visit which alone makes it possible to carry away a definite and
detailed impression.
These drawbacks were more than offset by the advantage of making my
quick trip at a moment unique in the history of the country; the brief
moment of transition between its virtually complete subjection to
European authority, and the fast approaching hour when it is thrown
open to all the banalities and promiscuities of modern travel.
Morocco is too curious, too beautiful, too rich in landscape and
architecture, and above all too much of a novelty, not to attract one of
the main streams of spring travel as soon as Mediterranean passenger
traffic is resumed. Now that the war is over, only a few months' work
on roads and railways divide it from the great torrent of "tourism"; and
once that deluge is let loose, no eye will ever again see Moulay Idriss
and Fez and Marrakech as I saw them.
In spite of the incessant efforts of the present French administration to
preserve the old monuments of Morocco from injury, and her native
arts and industries from the corruption of European bad taste, the
impression of mystery and remoteness which the country now produces
must inevitably vanish with the approach of the "Circular Ticket."
Within a few years far more will be known of the past of Morocco, but

that past will be far less visible to the traveller than it is to-day.
Excavations will reveal fresh traces of Roman and Phenician
occupation; the remote affinities between Copts and Berbers, between
Bagdad and Fez, between Byzantine art and the architecture of the
Souss, will be explored and elucidated, but, while these successive
discoveries are being made, the strange survival of mediaeval life, of a
life contemporary with the crusaders, with Saladin, even with the great
days of the Caliphate of Bagdad, which now greets the astonished
traveller, will gradually disappear, till at last even the mysterious
autocthones of the Atlas will have folded their tents and silently stolen
away.
II
Authoritative utterances on Morocco are not wanting for those who can
read them in French, but they are to be found mainly in large and often
inaccessible books, like M. Doutté's "En Tribu," the Marquis de
Segonzac's remarkable explorations in the Atlas, or Foucauld's classic
(but unobtainable) "Reconnaissance au Maroc", and few, if any, have
been translated into English.