In Morocco - Edith Wharton

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to be said on all these subjects, save that of art and archæology. This is M. Augustin Bernard's volume, "Le Maroc," the one portable and compact yet full and informing book since Leo Africanus described the bazaars of Fez. But M. Augustin Bernard deals only with the ethnology, the social, religious and political history, and the physical properties, of the country; and this, though "a large order," leaves out the visual and picturesque side, except in so far as the book touches on the always picturesque life of the people.

      For the use, therefore, of the happy wanderers who may be planning a Moroccan journey, I have added to the record of my personal impressions a slight sketch of the history and art of the country. In extenuation of the attempt I must add that the chief merit of this sketch will be its absence of originality. Its facts will be chiefly drawn from the pages of M. Augustin Bernard, M. H. Saladin, and M. Gaston Migeon, and the rich sources of the "Conférences Marocaines" and the articles of "France-Maroc." It will also be deeply indebted to information given on the spot by the brilliant specialists of the French administration, to the Marquis de Segonzac, with whom I had the good luck to travel from Rabat to Marrakech and back; to M. Alfred de Tarde, editor of "France-Maroc"; to M. Tranchant de Lunel, director of the French School of Fine Arts in Morocco; to M. Goulven, the historian of Portuguese Mazagan; to M. Louis Châtelain, and to the many other cultivated and cordial French officials, military and civilian, who, at each stage of my journey, did their amiable best to answer my questions and open my eyes.

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      In the writing of proper names and of other Arab words the French spelling has been followed.

      In the case of proper names, and names of cities and districts, this seems justified by the fact that they occur in a French colony, where French usage naturally prevails; and to spell Oudjda in the French way, and koubba, for instance, in the English form of kubba, would cause needless confusion as to their respective pronunciation. It seems therefore simpler, in a book written for the ordinary traveller, to conform altogether to French usage.

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      FEZ ELBALI FROM THE RAMPARTS Frontispiece FACING PAGE GENERAL VIEW FROM THE KASBAH OF THE OUDAYAS—RABAT 16 INTERIOR COURT OF THE MEDERSA OF THE OUDAYAS—RABAT 20 ENTRANCE OF THE MEDERSA—SALÉ 24 MARKET-PLACE OUTSIDE THE TOWN—SALÉ 26 CHELLA-RUINS OF MOSQUE—SALÉ 30 THE WESTERN PORTICO OF THE BASILICA OF ANTONIUS PIUS—VOLUBILIS 46 MOULAY IDRISS 48 THE MARKET-PLACE—MOULAY IDRISS 50 MARKET-PLACE ON THE DAY OF THE RITUAL DANCE OF THE HAMADCHAS—MOULAY IDRISS 52 THE MARKET-PLACE. PROCESSION OF THE CONFRATERNITY OF THE HAMADCHAS—MOULAY IDRISS 56 GATE: "BAB-MANSOUR"—MEKNEZ 58 THE RUINS OF THE PALACE OF MOULAY-ISMAËL—MEKNEZ 66 FEZ ELDJID 84 A REED-ROOFED STREET—FEZ 88 THE NEDJARINE FOUNTAIN—FEZ 94 THE BAZAARS. A VIEW OF THE SOUK EL ATTARINE AND THE QUAISARYA—FEZ 108 THE "LITTLE GARDEN" IN BACKGROUND, PALACE OF THE BAHIA—MARRAKECH 128 THE GREAT COURT, PALACE OF THE BAHIA—MARRAKECH 130 APARTMENT OF THE GRAND VIZIER'S FAVORITE, PALACE OF THE BAHIA—MARRAKECH 132 A FONDAK—MARRAKECH 144 MAUSOLEUM OF THE SAADIAN SULTANS SHOWING THE TOMBS—MARRAKECH 156 THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO UNDER THE GREEN UMBRELLA 168 A CLAN OF MOUNTAINEERS AND THEIR CAÏD 170 THE SULTAN ENTERING MARRAKECH IN STATE 176 WOMEN WATCHING A PROCESSION FROM A ROOF 194 A STREET FOUNTAIN—MARRAKECH 262 GATE OF THE KASBAH OF THE OUDAYAS—RABAT 266 MEDERSA BOUANYANA—FEZ 268 THE PRAYING-CHAPEL IN THE MEDERSA EL ATTARINE—FEZ 270 INTERIOR COURT OF THE MEDERSA—SALÉ 274 THE GATE OF THE PORTUGUESE—MARRAKECH 276 MAP THE PART OF MOROCCO VISITED BY MRS. WHARTON 8

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      I

      LEAVING TANGIER

      To step on board a steamer in a Spanish port, and three hours later to land in a country without a guide-book, is a sensation to rouse the hunger of the repletest sight-seer.

      The sensation is attainable by any one who will take the trouble to row out into the harbour of Algeciras and scramble onto a little black boat headed across the straits. Hardly has the rock of Gibraltar turned to cloud when one's foot is on the soil of an almost unknown Africa. Tangier, indeed, is in the guide-books; but, cuckoo-like, it has had to lays its egg in strange nests, and the traveller who wants to find out about it must acquire a work dealing with some other country—Spain or Portugal or Algeria. There is no guide-book to Morocco, and no way of knowing, once one has left Tangier behind, where the long trail over the Rif is going to land one, in the sense understood by any one accustomed to European certainties. The air of the unforeseen blows on one from the roadless passes of the Atlas.

      This feeling of adventure is heightened by the contrast between Tangier—cosmopolitan, frowsy, familiar Tangier, that every tourist has visited for the last forty years—and the vast unknown just beyond. One has met, of course, travellers who have been to Fez; but they have gone there on special missions, under escort, mysteriously, perhaps perilously; the expedition has seemed, till lately, a considerable affair. And when one opens the records of Moroccan travellers written within the last twenty years, how many, even of the most adventurous, are found to have gone beyond Fez? And what, to this day, do the names of Meknez and Marrakech, of Mogador, Saffi or Rabat, signify to any but a few students of political history, a few explorers and naturalists? Not till within the last year has Morocco been open to travel from Tangier to the Great Atlas, and from Moulay Idriss to the Atlantic. Three years ago Christians were being massacred in the streets of Salé, the pirate town across the river from Rabat, and two years ago no European had been allowed to enter the Sacred City of Moulay Idriss, the burial-place of the lawful descendant of Ali, founder of the Idrissite dynasty. Now, thanks to the energy and the imagination of one of the greatest of colonial administrators, the country, at least in the French zone, is as safe and open as the opposite shore of Spain. All that remains is to tell the traveller how to find his way about it.

      Ten years ago there was not a wheeled vehicle in Morocco; now its thousands of miles of trail, and its hundreds of miles of firm French roads, are travelled by countless carts, omnibuses and motor-vehicles. There are light railways from Rabat to Fez in the west, and to a point about eighty-five kilometres from Marrakech in the south; and it is possible to say that within a year a regular railway system will connect eastern Morocco with western Algeria, and the ports of Tangier and Casablanca with the principal points of the interior.

      What,

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