The pier, by the way, represents the one harbor-improvement grudgingly executed by the Moors. The harbor of Tangier could be made most secure at small expense, but the Moors prefer not to tamper with it. "God made it so," they tell us; "we would not presume to alter the wise arrangements of the Almighty." They did not even attempt to repair the old breakwater built by the English years ago and blown up by them upon the close of the brief British occupation. The mention of a British occupation recalls a bit of history. Tangier was taken by the Portuguese in 1471. By them it was held until a Portuguese princess, Catarina of Braganza, went to England as the bride of Charles the Second. She brought to him a splendid dower, including two then unimportant pieces of real estate,—the island of Bombay in far-off India, and this city of Tangier at the Mediterranean's western gate. Strange indeed the fate of these two bits of real estate. Bombay, the hopeless, far-away possession, became in time the glorious Indian Empire. Tangier, with its unrivaled situation at one of the great doorways of the western world, was held for twenty years, and then, through sheer stupidity, abandoned to barbarism. It was returned by England to the Moors as a free gift; a transaction almost unique in Britain's history. But we must not forget that Gibraltar was not yet a cushion for the British lion's paw; had it been so, another paw would have rested firmly on this Moorish shore, insuring to England absolute control of the Gibraltar Strait.
THE CONTINENTAL HOTEL
But if the Anglo-Saxon armies long since relinquished this invaluable prize, the Anglo-Saxon tourist has made Tangier his own. Having passed the solemn Moors who sit at the water-gate at receipt of custom, we find ourselves in a trough-like passage above which rises that stronghold of the globe-trotter, the Continental Hotel. It appears like a huge grin upon the frowning face of the walled city; and its hospitable and cheery aspect contradicts the hostile impression produced by the cannon on the ramparts and the scowling looks of some of the inhabitants.
Let not the tourist be disappointed because a modern structure first obtrudes itself. Tangier is not the real Morocco; it is a Moslem seaport, defiled by contact with an infidel world.
THE HILLS OF SPAIN ARE SEEN ACROSS THE STRAITS
A CROWD OF MENDICANTS
The late Sultan of Morocco disowned the city. When last he came and beheld the changes wrought by foreigners, it is said that he exclaimed: "Allah confound these greedy Christians!—they have stolen from me my beautiful Tangier!"