Morocco | Page 2

well in mind, it seemed best for me to let the pictures suffice for Tangier, and to choose for the text one road and one city. For if the truth be told there is little more than a single path to all the goals that the undisguised European may reach.
Morocco does not change save by compulsion, and there is no area of European influence below Tangier. Knowing one highway well you know something of all; consequently whether Fez, Mequinez, Wazzan, or Marrakesh be the objective, the travel story does not vary greatly. But to-day, Marrakusha-al-Hamra, Red Marrakesh, is the most African of all cities in Morocco, and seemed therefore best suited to the purpose of this book. Moreover, at the time when this journey was made, Bu Hamara was holding the approaches to Fez, and neither Mequinez nor Wazzan was in a mood to receive strangers.
So it falls out that the record of some two or three hundred miles of inland travel is all that awaits the reader here. In time to come, when Morocco has been purged of its offences of simplicity and primitiveness, the tourist shall accomplish in forty-eight hours the journey that demanded more than a month of last year's spring. For Sunset Land has no railway lines, nor can it boast--beyond the narrow limits of Tangier--telegraphs, telephones, electric light, modern hotels, or any of the other delights upon which the pampered traveller depends. It is as a primeval forest in the hour before the dawn. When the sun of France penetrates pacifically to all its hidden places, the forest will wake to a new life. Strange birds of bright plumage, called in Europe _gens d'armes_, will displace the storks upon the battlements of its ancient towns, the commis voyageur will appear where wild boar and hy?na now travel in comparative peace, the wild cat (_felis Throgmortonensis_) will arise from all mineralised districts. Arab and Berber will disappear slowly from the Moroccan forest as the lions have done before them, and in the place of their douars and ksor there shall be a multitude of small towns laid out with mathematical precision, reached by rail, afflicted with modern improvements, and partly filled with Frenchmen who strive to drown in the café their sorrow at being so far away from home. The real Morocco is so lacking in all the conveniences that would commend it to wealthy travellers that the writer feels some apology is due for the appearance of his short story of an almost unknown country in so fine a setting. Surely a simple tale of Sunset Land was never seen in such splendid guise before, and will not be seen again until, with past redeemed and forgotten, future assured, and civilisation modernised, Morocco ceases to be what it is to-day.
S.L. BENSUSAN.
_July 1904._

Contents
CHAPTER I
page By Cape Spartel 3
CHAPTER II
From Tangier to Djedida 21
CHAPTER III
On the Moorish Road 41
CHAPTER IV
To the Gates of Marrakesh 57
CHAPTER V
In Red Marrakesh 77
CHAPTER VI
Round about Marrakesh 101
CHAPTER VII
The Slave Market at Marrakesh 121
CHAPTER VIII
Green Tea and Politics 139
CHAPTER IX
Through a Southern Province 159
CHAPTER X
"Sons of Lions" 179
CHAPTER XI
In the Argan Forest 199
CHAPTER XII
To the Gate of the Picture City 217

List of Illustrations
1. In Djedida Frontispiece FACING PAGE 2. A Shepherd, Cape Spartel 2 3. The Courtyard of the Lighthouse, Cape Spartel 4 4. A Street, Tangier 6 5. In Tangier 8 6. A Street in Tangier 10 7. A Guide, Tangier 12 8. The Road to the Kasbah, Tangier 14 9. Head of a Boy from Mediunah 16 10. The Goatherd from Mediunah 18 11. Old Buildings, Tangier 20 12. Moorish House, Cape Spartel 22 13. A Patriarch 24 14. Pilgrims on a Steamer 26 15. The Hour of Sale 28 16. Evening, Magazan 30 17. Sunset off the Coast 32 18. A Veranda at Magazan 34 19. A Blacksmith's Shop 36 20. A Saint's Tomb 40 21. Near a Well in the Country 42 22. Near a Well in the Town 44 23. Moorish Woman and Child 46 24. Evening on the Plains 48 25. Travellers by Night 52 26. The R'Kass 56 27. A Traveller on the Plains 58 28. The Mid-day Halt 60 29. On Guard 64 30. A Village at Dukala 68 31. The Approach to Marrakesh 72 32. Date Palms near Marrakesh 76 33. On the Road to Marrakesh 80 34. A Minstrel 84 35. One of the City Gates 86 36. A Blind Beggar 90 37. A Wandering Minstrel 94 38. The Roofs of Marrakesh 100 39. A Gateway, Marrakesh 104 40. A Courtyard, Marrakesh 108 41. A Well in Marrakesh 112 42. A Bazaar, Marrakesh 114 43. A Brickfield, Marrakesh 116 44. A Mosque, Marrakesh 120 45. A Water Seller, Marrakesh 124 46. On the Road to the S?k el Abeed 126 47. The