The Passing of Morocco

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

‘No, one.’

‘Make it two—two dollars Spanish.’

This being the right tax, I paid. But I was not to get my goods yet; what was my name?

TANGIER THROUGH THE KASBAH GATE.

‘Moore.’

‘No, your name.’

‘I presented my card.’

‘Moore!’ A laugh went down the turbaned line.

A writer on the East has said of the Moors that they are the Puritans of Islam, and the first glimpse of Morocco will attest the truth of this. Not a Moor has laid aside the jeleba and the corresponding headgear, turban or fez. In the streets of Tangier—of all Moorish towns the most ‘contaminated’ with Christians—there is not a tramway or a hackney cab. Not a railway penetrates the country anywhere, not a telegraph, nor is there a postal service. Except for the discredited Sultan (whose ways have precipitated the disruption of the Empire) not a Moor has tried the improvements of Europe. It seems extraordinary that such a country should be the ‘Farthest West of Islam’ and should face the Rock of Gibraltar.