THE PASSING OF THE PEACOCK'S TAIL
An unaccustomed silence hung over the labyrinth of court-yards,
corridors, gardens, mosques, and kiosks which compose the imperial
palace in Fez. The chatter of the harem women was hushed; the
white-robed officials of the household slipped through the
mosaic-paved passages like melancholy ghosts; even the slovenly
sentries at the gates, their red tunics over their heads to protect
them from the sun, seemed to tread more softly, as though some great
one lay dying. Within the palace, in a room whose furnishings were
a strange jumble of Oriental taste and European tawdriness, a group
of men stood about a table. Certain of them were tall and sinewy
and swarthy, their white burnooses, which enveloped them from their
snowy turbans to their yellow slippers, marking them unmistakably
as Moors. Of the others, whose clearer skins showed them to be
Europeans, some wore the sky-blue tunics and scarlet breeches of the
_chasseurs d'Afrique_, some the braided jackets and baggy trousers of
the _tirailleur_ regiments, some the simple white linen of the civil
administration, while across the chest of one, a grizzled man with the
épaulettes of a general of division, slanted a broad scarlet ribbon.
At the table sat an old-young man, a man with an aquiline, high-bred
nose, a wonderfully clear, olive skin, and a fringe of scraggy beard
along the line of his chin, a man with a weak mouth and sensual lips
and heavy-lidded, melancholy eyes. The man with the scarlet ribbon
unrolled a parchment and, bowing, spread it upon the table. One of
the native dignitaries, with a gesture of reverence which included
heart and lips and head, dipped a quill pen into an ink-well and
tendered it to the silent figure at the table. “Your Majesty will have
the goodness to sign here?” said the soldier, half-questioningly,
half-commandingly, as he indicated the place with his finger. The
man at the table gravely inclined his head, reached for the pen,
hesitated for a moment, then slowly began to trace, from right to
left, the strange Arabic signature. “Inshallah! It is done!” he said,
and throwing down the pen he sunk his face into his hands. “Vive la
France!” said the general solemnly, and “Vive la France!” echoed the
officers around him. Well might the one lament and the others rejoice,
for, with the final flourish of the Sultan's pen, Morocco had ceased
to exist as an independent nation and France had added an empire to
her dominions.
“The world is a peacock,” says a Moorish proverb, “and Morocco is the
tail of it.” Now, however, it has become the tail of the Gallic cock,
for when, on March the thirtieth, 1912, Sultan Mulai-abd-el-Hafid
signed the treaty establishing a French protectorate over his country,
Morocco entered upon a new phase of its existence. With that act there
ended, let us hope for all time, a situation which on more than one
occasion has threatened the peace of the world. Not since the English
landed in Egypt a third of a century ago has an event occurred which
so vitally concerns the future welfare of Africa; not since the Treaty
of Tilsit has France won so decisive a diplomatic victory or added
so materially to her territorial possessions. By the signing of that
treaty France laid the final stone in the mighty colonial structure
which she has built up in Africa, and opened to Christianity,
civilisation, and commerce the door of a region which has hitherto
been a synonym for mystery, cruelty, intolerance, and fanaticism.
Though scarcely forty hours of travel by train and boat separate the
departure platform at the Quai d'Orsay station in Paris from the
landing-beach at Tangier, though its coast is skirted by the tens
of thousands of American tourists who visit the Mediterranean each
year, less is known of Morocco than of many regions in central Asia
or inner Africa. Though a few daring travellers have made scattering
crow's-feet upon its map, there are regions as large as all our New
England States put together which are wholly unexplored. It is almost
the last of the unknown countries. As its women draw their veils to
hide their faces from the men, so the Moors have attempted to draw a
veil of mystery and intolerance over the face of their country to hide
it from the stranger. What strange tribes, what ruins of an earlier
civilisation, what wealth in forests or minerals lie behind its ranges
can only be conjectured. Its maps are still without the names of
rivers and mountains and towns—though the rivers and mountains and
towns are there; the sole means of travel are on camels, mules, or
donkeys along the wild, worn paths, it being the only country of any
size in the world which cannot boast so much as a mile of railway; its
ports and the two highways leading from the coast to its capitals, Fez
and Morocco City, were, until the coming of the French, alone open
to the traveller—and none too safe at that; the foreigner who has
the hardihood to stray from the frequented paths is taking his life
in his hands. Few of the maps of Morocco are, so far as accuracy is
concerned, worth the paper they are printed on, being largely based on
unscientific material eked out by probabilities and conjectures, there
being less accurate information, in fact, about a country larger than
France, and only two days' journey from Trafalgar Square, than there
is about Abyssinia or Borneo or Uganda. Even the names which we have
given to the country and its inhabitants are purely European terms and
are neither used nor recognised by the people themselves, who call
their country _El Moghreb el Aska_, which means literally “Sunset
Land,” the term Morocco being a European corruption of the name of one
of its capitals, Marrakesh, or, as it is known to foreigners, Morocco
City. A land almost as large as the State of Texas, with snow-capped
mountain ranges, navigable rivers, vast forests, a fertile soil,
an abundant water supply, and an ideal climate; a land of walled
cities and white villages, of domed mosques and slender minarets,
of veiled women and savage, turbaned men; a land of strange peoples
and still stranger customs; a land of mystery and fatalism, of
suspicion and fanaticism, of cruelty and corruption, of confusion and
contradiction—that is Morocco, where, as an Arabic writer has put it,
a wise man is surprised at nothing that he sees and believes nothing
that he hears.
This empire which has come under the shadow of the tricolour is,
above all else, a white man's country. Unlike India and Tripolitania
and Rhodesia and the Sudan, Morocco is a country which is admirably
adapted for European colonisation, being blessed with every natural
advantage that creation has to offer. Its only objectionable feature
is its people. Lying at the western gateway of the Mediterranean,
where the narrowed sea has so often proved a temptation to invasion,
its Atlantic ports within striking distance of the great lanes of
commerce between Europe and South America and South Africa, Morocco
occupies a position of enormous strategic, political, and commercial
importance. The backbone of the country is the Great Atlas, which,
taken as a whole, has a higher mean elevation than that of any other
range of equal length in Europe, Africa, or western Asia, attaining
in places an elevation of nearly fifteen thousand feet. Snow-clad,
this mighty and isolated wall rises so abruptly from the plain that
it needs but little stretch of the imagination to understand how the
ancients believed that on it rested the heavens—whence, indeed, its
name. Personally, the thing that surprised me most in Morocco was
the total absence of desert. Either because of its proximity to the
Sahara, or because of its camels, or the two combined, I went to
Morocco expecting that I should find vast stretches of sun-baked,
yellow sand. As a matter of fact, I found nothing of the kind.
Traversed from east to west, as I have already said, by the strongly
defined range of the Atlas, the greater part of its surface is really
occupied by rolling prairies, diversified by low hills, and not at
all unlike Ohio and Indiana. Though admirably adapted to the growing
of cereals, the strict prohibition against the exportation of grain
has naturally resulted in discouraging the native farmers, so that
immense tracts of fertile land remain uncultivated. The alluvial soil,
which is remarkable for its richness, frequently reaches a depth of
fifteen feet and could be brought to an almost incredible degree of
productiveness by the application of modern agricultural methods. What
greater praise can be given to any soil than to say that it will bear
three crops of potatoes in a single year and that corn is commonly
sown and reaped all within the space of forty days?
Unlike its neighbouring countries, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania,
Morocco does not lack for navigable waterways, for it possesses
several large rivers which could be navigated for hundreds of miles
inland, though at present, owing to the apathy of the inhabitants, and
the unsettled condition of the regions along their banks, they are
used for neither traffic nor irrigation. The chief of these is the
Muluya, which, with its tributary the Sharef, provides northeastern
Morocco with a valuable commercial waterway for a distance of more
than four hundred miles. The most important river of northwest Morocco
is the Sebu, which empties into the Atlantic, while in the central
and western districts the Kus, the Bu-Regreg, the Sus, and the Assaka
will, under the new régime, prove invaluable as means of opening up
the country.
A very large number of people seem to be under the impression that
Morocco is unhealthy and suffers from a sweltering heat. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. The climate is, as a matter of fact,
extremely healthful, malaria, the scourge of the other countries of
North Africa, being unknown. In the regions lying between the central
range of the Atlas and the sea the thermometer seldom rises above
ninety degrees or falls below forty degrees, the mountain wall serving
as a protection from the scorching winds of the Sahara. During the
winter months the rains are so heavy and frequent along the Atlantic
coast that good pasturage is found as far south as Cape Juby, while in
the interior the rivers frequently become so swollen that travel is
both difficult and dangerous. The unpleasantness of the rains (and you
don't know what discomfort is, my friends, until you have journeyed in
Morocco during the rainy season) is more than compensated for by the
beauties of the spring landscape. For mile after mile I have ridden
across meadows literally carpeted with wild flowers, whose varied
and brilliant colours, combined with the peculiar fashion in which
each species confined itself to its own area, gave the countryside
the appearance of a vast floral mosaic. After seeing these gorgeous
natural combinations of colour—dark blue, yellow, white, and scarlet,
iris, marigolds, lilies, and poppies—I no longer wondered where the
Moors draw the inspiration for that chromatic art of which they left
such marvellous examples in the cities of southern Spain.
Though the country has, unfortunately, become largely deforested—for
what Moor would ever think of planting trees, which could only be
of value to another generation?—a wealth of timber still remains
in the more remote valleys of the Atlas, the pines and oaks often
attaining enormous size. Though Spanish concessionaires are profitably
working gold mines in the Riff country, and the great German firm of
Mannesmann Brothers has acquired extensive iron-ore-bearing properties
in the Sus, and though large deposits of silver, copper, lead, and
antimony have been discovered at various points in the interior, the
mineral wealth of Morocco is still a matter for speculation. It is not
likely to remain so long, however, for history has shown that it is
the miners who form the real advance-guard of civilisation.
To the stranger who confines his investigations to the highways which
connect the capitals with the coast, Morocco gives the impression of
being very sparsely settled. This is due to the fact that the natives
take pains to avoid the highroads as they would the plague, the
continual passage of troops and of travellers, all of whom practise
the time-honoured custom of living on the country and never paying
for what they take, having had the natural result of driving the
inhabitants into less travelled regions, though traders and others
whose business takes them into the back country find that it is far
more densely populated than most foreigners suspect. Heretofore it
has been possible for almost any foreigner, by the judicious use of
bakshish, to obtain from the authorities an official order which
required the people living along the roads to supply food both for
him and his escort and fodder for their horses. Now, this was a very
serious tax, especially among a people as poverty-stricken as the
Moorish peasantry, and as a result of it the heedless traveller often
caused much misery and suffering. But if the occasional traveller
proved so serious a burden, imagine what it meant to these poor
people when the Sultan himself passed, for, able to move only with an
army, without any commissariat or transport, and feeding itself as it
went, he devastated the land of food and fodder as though he was an
invader instead of a ruler, sweeping as ruthlessly across his empire
as the Huns did across southern Europe, and leaving his subjects to
starve. Is it any wonder, then, that the desperation of the wretched,
half-starved peasantry has vented itself in repeated revolutions?
The coming of the French is bound to change this deplorable and
demoralising state of affairs, however, for, once assured of
protection for their crops and justice for themselves, the fugitive
country folk will quickly flock back and resume the cultivation of
their abandoned lands.
One of the facts about Morocco that will probably surprise most
people—I know that it surprised me—is that the Berbers, who form
fully two thirds of the population, are a purely white race, as white
indeed, barring the tan which results from life under an African
sun, as we ourselves. Though the generic term Moor is applied by
Europeans to all the inhabitants of Morocco, there are really four
distinct racial divisions of the population: the Berbers, who,
being the earliest-known possessors of the land, are the genuine
Moroccans, and are, when of unmixed blood, a very energetic and
vigorous people, indeed; the Arabs, who are the descendants of the
Mohammedan conquerors of the country and possess to the full the
Arab characteristics of arrogance, indolence, and cruelty; the
negroes, brought into the country as slaves from Central Africa in an
influx extending over centuries, this admixture having resulted in
deteriorating both the Berbers and the Arabs, the infusion of black
blood showing itself in dark skins, thickened lips, low foreheads,
sensual tastes, and a marked stupidity; and lastly, but by no means
the least important, the ubiquitous, persecuted, and persecuting Jews.
The Berbers dwell for the most part in the mountains, while the Arabs,
on the contrary, are to be found only on the plains, it being the
weak, sensual, and intolerant amalgam produced by the fusion of these
two races, and tinctured with negro blood, which forms the population
of the Moorish cities and to which the name “Moor” most properly
belongs.
Between the Moor of the mountains and the Moor of the towns there
is as wide a gulf as there is between the natives of Vermont and
the natives of Venezuela. The town Moor is sullen, suspicious of all
strangers, vacillating; the pride, but none of the energy, of his
ancestors remains. In his youth he is licentious in his acts; in his
old age he is licentious in his thoughts. He is abominably lazy. He
never runs if he can walk; he never walks if he can stand still; he
never stands if he can sit; he never sits if he can lie down. The
only thing he puts any energy into is his talking; he believes that
nothing can be done really well without a hullabaloo. The men of the
mountains are cast in a wholly different mould, however, from that of
the men of the towns. Fierce enemies and stanch friends, they like
fighting for fighting's sake. They are intelligent and industrious;
though fonder of the sword and the pistol than of the plough and the
hoe, their fertile mountain valleys are nevertheless fairly well
cultivated. They are a hardy, warlike, and indomitable race and have
never yet been conquered. It is well to remember in any discussion of
these people that, through all the vicissitudes of their history, they
have never before had the flag of another nation flying over them. All
the successive invaders of North Africa have been confronted with the
problem of subduing them, but always they have failed and have gone
back. Not only that, but once the Moors went invading on their own
account, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, conquering all southern
Spain, holding it for five hundred years, and leaving behind them the
architectural glories of Seville, of Cordova, and of Granada to tell
the story. Unless I am very much mistaken, therefore, it will cost
France many lives and much money to make them amenable to her rule.
The decadence of the Moors is primarily due to two things: immorality
and racial jealousies. They are probably the most licentious race, in
both thought and act, in the world. Compared to them the inhabitants
of Sodom and Gomorrah were positively prudish. This extreme moral
degeneracy is in itself enough to ruin the sturdiest people, but,
as though it was not sufficient, the two principal races, Arab and
Berber, hate each other as the Armenian hates the Turk, this racial
antagonism in itself making impossible the upbuilding of a strong and
united nation. In fact, the only thing they have in common is their
religion, which is the air they breathe, and which, though incapable
of producing internal harmony, unites them in hostility to the
unbeliever.
There is less public spirit in Morocco than in any place I know. No
Moor takes the slightest interest in anything outside his personal
affairs, and no one ever plans for the future—other than to hope that
he will get a comfortable divan and his share of houris in Paradise.
The last thing that would occur to a Moor would be to spend money on
anything which will not bring him in an immediate profit, so that,
as a consequence, trees are never planted, mines never worked, roads
never made, bridges never built. He does not want civilisation. He
does not believe in modern inventions or improvements. What was good
enough for his father is good enough for him. Why lug in railways and
telegraphs, and similar contrivances of the devil, then, when things
are good enough as they are?
There is no cause for the other European nations to envy France the
obligations she assumed when she declared a protectorate over Morocco.
She has a long and hilly road to travel before she can convert her
latest acquisition into a national asset. Before Morocco can be thrown
open to French settlers its savage and hostile population will have
to be as effectually subdued as were the Indians of our own West.
The tribes of southern Morocco are especially hostile to the French
occupation, and many military experts believe that the protectorate
will never be enforced in those regions without a long campaign and
much shedding of blood, while one eminent French general has openly
asserted that it will take at least a dozen years fully to subdue the
country.
Personally, I am a firm believer in the future of Morocco and the
Moors under the guidance and protection of France. I have seen too
much of what France has accomplished in far less favoured regions, and
under far more discouraging conditions, to think otherwise. Nothing
illustrates the latent possibilities of the Moorish character better
than an experiment which was made some years ago. At the request of
the Sultan, the British minister to Morocco asked his government
for permission to send a body of Moors to Gibraltar for the purpose
of being instructed in British drill and discipline. The War Office
acceding to the request, two hundred Moors, selected at random from
various tribes throughout the empire, were sent to Gibraltar and
remained there for three years, the men being occasionally changed
as they acquired a knowledge of drill. They had good clothing given
them, slept in tents, and were allowed by the Sultan a shilling a
day, receiving precisely the same treatment as British soldiers.
During the three years they were stationed on the Rock, there were
only two cases in the police court against them for dissolute conduct
or disorder. The soldiers of what civilised nation could have made
such a record? Colonel Cameron, under whose superintendence they were
placed, reported that they learned the drill as quickly and as well
as any Englishmen, and that they were sober, steady, and attentive to
their duties. (The Moors, it should be remarked, are noted for their
abstemiousness, the precepts of the Koran which forbid the use of
spirits and tobacco being rigidly observed.) This tends to show that
Moors, living under a just and humane government, and having, as these
men had, proper provision made for their livelihood, are not a lawless
or even a disorderly people, and that they are capable of being
transformed, under such a form of government as France has established
in Algeria and Tunisia, into the splendid warriors which their
ancestors were in Spain. It was, as I think I have remarked in the
preceding chapter, the knowledge that France, in acquiring Morocco,
would obtain the material for a formidable addition to her military
forces which was, it is generally believed, one of the motives that
inspired Germany's persistent opposition to a French protectorate.
Though the reins of Moorish power are already firmly in the hands of
the French Resident-General at Fez, there is no reason to believe that
the French expect, for the present at least, to depose the Sultan,
it being to their interests, for obvious reasons, to maintain the
pleasant fiction that Morocco is still an independent empire to which
they have disinterestedly lent their protection, In August, 1912,
Sultan Mulai-abd-el-Hafid, appreciating the emptiness of his title
under the French régime, abdicated in favour of his brother, Mulai
Youssef, who is known to be friendly to France. The new Sultan, who is
the seventeenth of the dynasty of the Alides and the thirty-seventh
lineal descendant of Ali, uncle and son-in-law of the Prophet, is
known to his subjects as Emir-el-Mumenin, or Prince of True Believers,
and as such he exercises a spiritual influence over his subjects which
the French are far too shrewd to disregard. The position of the Sultan
of Morocco has, indeed, become strikingly similar to that of his
fellow-ruler in the other corner of Africa, the Khedive of Egypt, for,
like him, he must needs content himself henceforth with the shadow
of power. Even if the imperial form of government is permanently
maintained (and this I very much doubt, for it is characteristic of
the Latin races—as Taine puts it—that they always want to occupy a
“sharply defined and terminologically defensible position”), its real
ruler will be the Resident-General of France, whose policies will be
carried out by French advisers in every department of the government
and whose orders will be backed up by French bayonets. So long as
Mulai Youssef is content meekly to play the part of a puppet, with
French officials pulling the strings, he will be permitted to enjoy
all the honours and comforts of royalty, but let him once give ear
to sedition, let him make the slightest attempt to undermine the
authority of the French régime, and he will find himself occupying a
sentry-guarded villa in Algiers near the residences of the ex-Queen of
Madagascar and the ex-King of Annam, those other Oriental rulers who
thought to match themselves against the power of France.
The Sherifian umbrella, which is the Moorish equivalent of a crown,
is hereditary in the family of the Filali Sherifs of Tafilelt. Each
Sultan is supposed, prior to his death, to indicate the member of the
imperial family who, according to his conscientious belief, will best
replace him. This succession is, however, elective, and all members
of the Sherifian family are eligible. It has generally happened that
the late Sultan's nominee has been elected by public acclamation at
noonday prayers the Friday after the Sultan's death, as the nominee
generally has obtained possession of the imperial treasure and is
supported by the body-guard, from whose ranks most of the court
officials are appointed. I might add that all of the Moorish Sultans
in recent years have been so extremely bad that no successor whom they
could appoint, or who could appoint himself, could by any possibility
be worse. The present Sultan knows scarcely half a dozen places in his
whole empire, and has spent most of his life in two of them—Marrakesh
and Fez—having held, up to the time of his accession to the throne,
the important post of Khalif of the latter city. The Moors never pray
for their sovereign to journey among them, for, so disturbed has been
the condition of the country for many years past, and so numerous have
been the pretenders to the Sherifian throne, that recent Sultans have
rarely ventured outside the walls of their capitals with less than
thirty thousand followers behind them, so that when they had occasion
to pass through the territory of a hostile tribe, as not infrequently
happened, they fought their way through, leaving ruin and desolation
behind them. Though both Mulai Youssef and his predecessors have
always resided at one or the other of the two official capitals, the
coast city of Tangier has heretofore been the real capital of Morocco.
Here lived the diplomatic and consular representatives of the foreign
powers and, with a cynical disregard for the Moorish Government and
people, ran things between them. Though considerations of safety
doubtless entered into the matter, the chief reason for making Tangier
the diplomatic capital was the extreme inconvenience to the foreign
legations of being obliged to follow the court in its periodical
migrations from one capital to the other. Therefore the diplomatic
folk remained comfortably in Tangier—which, incidentally, can readily
be overawed by a war-ship's guns—and the Sultan appointed ministers to
treat with them there and thus carry on the foreign business of the
state. When questions of great importance had to be negotiated special
missions were sent to the capital at which the Sultan happened to be
residing, the departure of these ambassadorial caravans, with their
secretaries, attachés, kavasses, servants, and body-guards, not to
mention the immense train of pack-mules and baggage camels, providing
a spectacle quite as picturesque and entertaining as any circus
procession. That feature of Moorish life disappeared with the coming
of the French, however, for the foreign ministers will doubtless
shortly be withdrawn; and hereafter, when any negotiations are to be
conducted anent Morocco, instead of a diplomatic mission having to
make a two-hundred-mile journey on horses or camels, the ambassador at
Paris of the power in question will step into his motor-car and whirl
over to the Ministry of the Colonies in the Rue Oudinot.
I know of nothing which gives so graphic an idea of the amazing
conditions which have heretofore prevailed in Morocco, and to which
the French are, thank Heaven, putting an end, as the speech which a
former British minister, Sir John Drummond Hay, made some years ago to
the reigning Sultan, and which was, probably, the most extraordinary
address ever made by a diplomatic representative to a foreign ruler.
“Your Majesty has been so gracious as to ask me,” said Sir John,
looking the despot squarely in the eye, “to express frankly my
opinion of affairs in Morocco. The administration of the government
in Morocco is the worst in the world. The government is like a
community of fishes; the giant fish feed upon those that are small,
the smaller upon the least, and these again feed upon the worms.
In like manner the vizier and other dignitaries of the court, who
receive no salaries, depend for their livelihood upon peculation,
trickery, corruption, and the money they extract from the governors
of provinces. The governors are likewise enriched through peculation
from tithes and taxes, and extortion from sheikhs, wealthy farmers,
and traders. A Moor who becomes rich is treated as a criminal. Neither
life nor property is secure. Sheikhs and other subordinate officials
subsist on what they can extort from the farmers and the peasantry.
Then again, even the jailers are not paid; they gain their livelihood
by taking money from prisoners, who, when they are paupers, are
taught to make baskets, which are sold by the jailers for their own
benefit. How can a country, how can a people, prosper under such a
government? The tribes are in a constant state of rebellion against
their governors. When the Sultan resides in his northern capital
of Fez, the southern tribes rebel, and when he marches south to
the city of Morocco, eating up the rebels and confiscating their
property, the northern tribes rebel. The armies of the Sultan, like
locusts, are constantly on the move, ravaging the country to quell
the revolts. Agriculture is destroyed, the farmers and peasantry only
grow sufficient grain for their own requirements, and rich lands are
allowed to lie fallow because the farmers know the crops would be
plundered by the governors and sheikhs. Thus it happens with cattle
and horses. Breeding is checked, since the man who may become rich
through his industry is treated as a criminal and all his possessions
are taken from him, as in the fable the goose is killed to get the
golden eggs.”
France, in pursuing her Moroccan adventure, will do well to bear
in mind two danger-spots: the Riff and the Sus. Unless she treads
carefully in the first she is likely to become embroiled in a quarrel
with Spain; with the natives of the Sus she will probably have trouble
whether she treads lightly or not. Sooner or later France is bound to
come into collision with Spain, for, with Morocco avowedly a French
protectorate, I fail to see how she can tolerate Spanish soldiers
on its soil. Spain, basing her pretensions on her expulsion of the
Moors from Granada in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, has always
considered herself one of the heirs of Morocco. In fact, a secret
treaty was signed between France and Spain in 1905 which distinctly
defined the respective spheres of influence of the two powers in that
country. By the terms of this treaty Spain was acknowledged to have
predominating interests in those regions adjacent to the ports of
Ceuta, Melilla, and El Araish, as well as in the Riff, a little-known
and exceedingly mountainous district, believed to be rich in minerals,
which lies in the northwestern corner of the empire, two days'
journey eastward from Tetuan. Spain distinctly engaged not to take
any action in the zone thus allotted to her other than to proceed
with its commercial exploitation, but it was stipulated that, should
the weakness of the Sherifian government make the maintenance of the
_status quo_ impossible, she should have a free hand in her sphere.
France, meanwhile, steadily continued her “pacific penetration”
of Morocco, pushing her Algerian railways closer and closer to
Morocco's eastern frontier, mobilising troops at strategic points, and
overrunning the Sultan's dominions with “scientific” expeditions and
secret agents. Spain soon began to regard with envy and impatience
the subtle game which the French were so successfully playing, but
it was not until 1910 that she found the opportunity and the excuse
for which she had been eagerly waiting. Some Spanish labourers, who
were working on a railway which was being laid from Melilla to some
mines a few miles distant, were attacked by Riffian tribesmen and a
number of the Spaniards were killed. Spain jumped at the opportunity
which this incident afforded as a hungry trout jumps at a fly, and a
few days later a Spanish army was being disembarked on Moroccan soil.
A sharp campaign ensued which ended in the temporary subjugation of
the Riffians and the occupation by Spain of a considerable tract of
territory extending from Ceuta eastward to Cabo del Agua and southward
as far as Seluan, thus comprising practically all of Morocco's
Mediterranean seaboard. A Moorish envoy was sent to Madrid and, after
protracted negotiations, a convention was signed which permitted Spain
to establish a force of Moorish gendarmerie, under Spanish officers,
at Melilla, Aljucemas, and Ceuta, for the maintenance of order in the
districts near those places. Until this force has shown itself capable
of maintaining order, the Spaniards assert that they will remain in
occupation of the territory they now hold. Emboldened by her success
in this adventure, and greedy for further expansion, Spain, in June,
1911, sent a vessel to El Araish (Laraiche) on the Atlantic coast, and
a column was despatched from there to Alcázar, which lies some twenty
miles inland. The region was apparently perfectly calm at the time,
and the reasons given by Spain for her action—that mysterious horsemen
had been seen upon the walls of Alcázar—appeared, in France at least,
to be mere pretensions and raised a storm of indignation. As things
now stand, France has proclaimed a definite protectorate over the
whole of Morocco, an arrangement to which the Sultan has consented.
Despite that proclamation, however, Spain continues to occupy a rich
and extensive district of the country with an army of forty thousand
men. By what means France will attempt to oust her—for oust her she
certainly will—is an interesting subject for speculation and one which
is giving both French and Spanish diplomats many sleepless nights.
A word, in passing, upon the region known as the Riff. It is more
discussed and less known than any other quarter of Morocco. Nothing
has been written upon it except from hearsay and no European has
penetrated across its length and breadth, and this although it is
but two days' ride on horseback from Tetuan. Situated in the very
heart of the Great Atlas range, and accessible only through narrow
passes and over rough mountain trails, this region has, from time
beyond reckoning, been the home and the refuge of that savage and
mysterious clan known as the Riffs. Their feudal chieftains live in
great castles built of stone and lead much the same lives as did the
European nobles of the Middle Ages. The passes giving access to the
Riff are commanded by hilltop forts impregnable to anything short of
modern artillery—and to get within range of them the artillery would
need to have wings. They are a people rich in possibilities, are these
Riffs, and one whom it is wiser to conciliate than to fight, as France
will doubtless sooner or later learn. Brigands by nature, farmers in
a small way by occupation, disciples of the vendetta, scorners of the
law, suspicious of strangers, their only courts the gun and dagger,
the Riffs have more in common with the mountaineers of the Blue Ridge
than any people that I know. They have nothing in common with the
other inhabitants of Morocco except their dress, wearing the universal
brown hooded _jellab_ and over it the toga-like white woollen _haik_,
a skull-cap of red or brown, a belt with pouches of gaily coloured
leather, and in it, always, a muzzle-loading pistol and the vicious
curved knife, while over the shoulder slants the ten-foot-long Riff
rifle, coral-studded, brass-bound, ivory-butted, and almost as
dangerous to the man behind it as to the one in front. The Riffs are
fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and quite frequently red-haired, and claim to
be descended from the Romans, which is no unreasonable assumption on
their part, as the Romans were adventuring in Morocco—they called it
Mauritania—long before Cæsar's day.
The other danger-point in Morocco is the Sus, a “forbidden” and
unknown country through which only a handful of European travellers
have ever passed, all in disguise and all in peril of their lives.
The Sus is the rich and fertile valley lying between the Great Atlas
and the Anti Atlas, and touching the Atlantic coast at Agadir. It is
said to be thickly populated; it is believed to contain rich mines;
it is fanatical to the last degree. Its Berber inhabitants, who are
separated from the Arabs of the surrounding regions by a totally
distinct language known as the _Tamazight_, or Tongue of the Free,
though acknowledging the religious supremacy of the reigning Sultan,
have always maintained a semi-independence, having never submitted to
Moorish rule nor paid tax nor tribute to the government of Morocco.
Twice within the last three or four decades Moorish Sultans have
invaded and attempted to conquer the Sus, but each time they have been
driven back across the Atlas. The origin of the people of this region
is lost in the mists of antiquity. According to the Koran its original
inhabitants were natives of Syria, where they proved themselves such
undesirable citizens that King David ordered them to be tied up in
sacks and carried out of the country on camels, since he wished to see
their faces no more. Arrived in the vicinity of the Atlas Mountains,
the leader of the caravan called out in the Berber tongue “_Sus!_”
which means “Let down! Empty out!” So the exiled undesirables were
dumped unceremoniously out of their sacks, and the country in which
they found themselves, and where they settled, is called the Sus to
this day. The people of the Sus have never liked the French, and
there is little doubt that they will oppose any attempt to treat them
as a province of Morocco, and consequently subject to French control.
It is obvious that France will sooner or later be obliged to send an
expedition into the Sus for the purpose of asserting her power as
well as to counteract the German influence which is rapidly gaining
ground there, for the Sus, remember, is the region where Germany's
interests in Morocco are centred and provided the excuse for sending
her gun-boat to Agadir and almost provoking a European war thereby.
Germany still retains her commercial interests in the Sus Valley, and
France will be obliged to step gingerly indeed if she wishes to avoid
stirring up still another _affaire Marocaine_.
If France accomplishes nothing more in Morocco than the extermination
of the slave trade she will have performed a genuine service to
humanity. Though slavery has been abolished in every other quarter of
Africa, no attempt has ever been made by the European powers to put
a check upon the practice in Morocco. Something over three thousand
slaves, it is estimated, are imported into Morocco every year, most
of them being brought by the terrible desert routes from Equatoria
and the Sudan, the trails of the slave caravans being marked by the
bleaching bones of the thousands who have died on the way from heat,
hunger, or exhaustion. Many smug-faced people will assure you that
slavery has been wiped out in Africa—praise be to the Lord!—but I can
take you into half a dozen Moroccan cities and show you slaves being
auctioned to the highest bidder as openly as they were in our own
South fifty years ago. There is a large and profitable demand for
slaves, particularly girls and boys, in all of the Moroccan cities, a
young negress having a market value of anywhere from eighty dollars
to one hundred and twenty dollars. Although, as I have already
remarked, the bulk of the slaves are driven across the Sahara by the
time-honoured method, exceptionally pretty girls are often brought
from West African ports in French vessels as passengers and disposed
of to wealthy Moors by private sale. So great is the demand for young
and attractive women that girls are occasionally stolen from Moorish
villages, the slave-dealer laying a trail of sweets, of which the
native women are inordinately fond, from the outskirts of the villages
up to neighbouring clumps of trees, behind which he conceals himself,
pouncing out upon his unsuspecting victims as they approach. If France
succeeds in stamping out the slave trade in Morocco as effectually as
she has in her other African possessions, she will prove herself, as
our missionary friends would put it, the flail of the Lord.
Of all France's ambitious projects for the exploitation of North
Africa in general, and the opening up of Morocco in particular, the
one which most appeals to the imagination, and which, when executed,
is likely to be of the greatest benefit to the world, is her
astounding scheme for bringing South America a week nearer to Europe
by means of a railway from Tangier, in Morocco, to Dakar, in Senegal.
The route, as at present planned, would run from Tangier, via Fez,
to Tuat. From Tuat the Sahara would be crossed and the Niger gained
at Timbuktu. Though about three hundred miles of this section would
lie through the most hopeless desert country, it presents no great
obstacle to engineers, the Sudanese line from Wady Halfa to Khartoum
proving how easily the difficulties of desert construction and lack
of water can be overcome. The third section would be from Timbuktu
to Dakar, where the French within the last few years have created a
magnificent naval port and commercial harbour. Already Timbuktu and
Dakar are in regular communication by a mixed steamer and railway
service, the journey taking, when the Senegal is in flood, but five
days. As such a system would have, of necessity, to be independent of
the Niger and Senegal river services, which are not always reliable, a
line is now under construction which will bring Timbuktu into direct
rail communication with Dakar, thus eliminating the difficulties
and uncertainties of river navigation. From Dakar to Pernambuco, in
Brazil, is less than fifteen hundred miles, which could be covered
by a fast steamer in three days. There are already regular sailings
between these ports, but with the completion of this trans-African
system (and, believe me, it is far from being as chimerical as it
sounds, for the French do not let the grass grow under their feet
when they once get a clear right of way for railway-building) ocean
greyhounds will be placed in service between Dakar and the South
American ports, it being estimated that the traveller who purchases
his ticket via Madrid, Gibraltar, and then over the Moroccan-Saharan
system, can journey from Paris to Rio de Janeiro in twelve days. It
is obvious that in some such scheme as this lies the future of the
French Sahara, as well as the enormously increased prosperity of the
Moroccan hinterland and of the Niger-Senegal possessions, for it was
just such a transcontinental line, remember, which brought population
and prosperity to the desert regions of our own West.
It is no light task to which France has pledged herself in agreeing
to effect the regeneration of an empire so decrepit and decadent as
Morocco, but that she will accomplish it is as certain as that the
leaves come with the spring. The changes which the coming of the
French will effect in Morocco stretch the imagination almost to the
breaking-point. Already the wireless crackles and splutters from a
mast erected over the French Residency in Fez. With the proclamation
of the protectorate the waiting railway-builders jumped their
rail-heads across the Moroccan border as homesteaders, hearing the
signal gun, jump their horses over the border of newly opened lands.
Two or three years more and the traveller will be able to purchase
through tickets to Fez and Marrakesh as easily as he can now to San
Francisco or Milan. At Tangier, Rabat, El Araish, Mogador, and Agadir
harbours will be dredged, break-waters built, and wharves constructed,
while the filthy, foul-smelling cities will be made as clean and
sanitary as Tunis and Algiers. Under French control Tangier, with its
ideal climate, its picturesque features, and its splendid situation,
will rival Cairo and the Riviera as a fashionable winter resort. The
Moorish peasantry will be permitted to till their farms in peace,
undisturbed by devastating armies, while the warlike Riffs can have
their fill of fighting in French uniforms and under the French flag.
This is no empty vision, remember. Peace, progress, and prosperity
are bound to come to Morocco, just as they have come to those other
African regions upon which the Frenchman has set his hand. Just how
soon they come depends largely upon the Moors themselves.