The Last Frontier: The White Man's War for Civilisation in Africa

by E. Alexander Powell

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.