Morocco

Morocco

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Morocco, by S.L. Bensusan This
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Title: Morocco
Author: S.L. Bensusan
Illustrator: A.S. Forrest
Release Date: August 13, 2005 [EBook #16526]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MOROCCO
PAINTED BY A.S. FORREST

DESCRIBED BY S.L. BENSUSAN
[Illustration: Stamp]
LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1904
[Illustration: IN DJEDIDA]
Transcriber's Note:
The following apparent printer's errors were changed: from appearonce
to appearance from everthing to everything from kindgom to kingdom
from "Tuesday market. to "Tuesday market." Other inconsistencies in
spelling have been left as in the original.

"As I have felt, so I have written."
EOTHEN.

Preface
It has been a pleasant task to recall the little journey set out in the
following pages, but the writer can hardly escape the thought that the
title of the book promises more than he has been able to perform. While
the real Morocco remains a half-known land to-day, this book does not
take the traveller from the highroad. The mere idler, the wayfarer to
whom Morocco is no more than one of many places of pilgrimage,
must needs deal modestly with his task, even though modesty be an
unfashionable virtue; and the painstaking folk who pass through this
world pelting one another with hard facts will find here but little to add
to their store of ammunition. This appeal is of set purpose a limited one,
made to the few who are content to travel for the sake of the pleasures
of the road, free from the comforts that beset them at home, and free
also from the popular belief that their city, religion, morals, and social
laws are the best in the world. The qualifications that fit a man to make

money and acquire the means for modern travel are often fatal to
proper appreciation of the unfamiliar world he proposes to visit. To
restore the balance of things, travel agents and other far-seeing folks
have contrived to inflict upon most countries within the tourist's reach
all the modern conveniences by which he lives and thrives. So soon as
civilising missions and missionaries have pegged out their claims, even
the desert is deemed incomplete without a modern hotel or two, fitted
with electric light, monstrous tariff, and served by a crowd of debased
guides. In the wake of these improvements the tourist follows, finds all
the essentials of the life he left at home, and, knowing nothing of the
life he came to see, has no regrets. So from Algiers, Tunis, Cairo--ay,
even from Jerusalem itself, all suggestion of great history has passed,
and one hears among ruins, once venerable, the globe-trotter's cry of
praise. "Hail Cook," he cries, as he seizes the coupons that unveil Isis
and read the riddle of the Sphinx, "those about to tour salute thee."
But of the great procession that steams past Gibraltar, heavily armed
with assurance and circular tickets, few favour Morocco at all, and the
most of these few go no farther than Tangier. Once there, they descend
upon some modern hotel, often with no more than twenty-four hours in
which to master the secrets of Sunset Land.
After dinner a few of the bolder spirits among the men take counsel of
a guide, who leads them to the Moorish coffee-house by the great
Mosque. There they listen to the music of ghaitah and gimbri, pay a
peseta for a cup of indifferent coffee, and buy an unmusical instrument
or two for many times the proper price. Thereafter they retire to their
hotel to consider how fancy can best embellish the bare facts of the
evening's amusement, while the True Believers of the coffee-house
(debased in the eyes of all other Believers, and, somewhat, too, in fact,
by reason of their contact with the Infidel) gather up the pesetas, curse
the Unbeliever and his shameless relations, and praise Allah the One
who, even in these degenerate days, sends them a profit.
On the following morning the tourists ride on mules or donkeys to the
showplaces of Tangier, followed by scores of beggar boys. The ladies
are shown over some hareem that they would enter less eagerly did

they but know the exact status of the odalisques hired to meet them.
One and all troop to the bazaars, where crafty men sit in receipt of
custom and relieve the Nazarene of the money whose value he does not
know. Lunch follows, and then