Living under a tyrannical government and religion, both of which, welded together, form the one dominant factor of his life, the Moor is afraid of each, and stands in dread of the ruin it is in their power to work in his life. Not only this, but he lives in fear of his countrymen and their long guns, of his wives and their poisons, of evil spirits.
Morocco, as has been said, accepted Mohammedanism of necessity, not from choice, at the hands of the conquering Arabs, and it is accepted to-day, as the corrupt Government is accepted, with a shrug of the shoulders and "What God wills cannot but be." Weakened by blind submission, and at the same time holding nothing for which they have fought or wrought—no truths made adamant in the furnace of persecution, no Magna Charta won on the sword-point of patriotism, all of which are so much tonic and discipline to a nation, breeding grit, developing backbone—the Moorish people are paralyzed by a despotism which allows no originality of thought and action; they are no longer capable of "running straight," but, suave and polite to a fault, lack that species of courage which conduces towards plain-speaking.
After all, who and what are to blame except the people themselves? One writer curses the religion, another curses the Government. Cui bono? Climate and the fertility of soil may have influenced the races called Moorish, but the Moor himself is alone responsible for his Government and his religion.
A Peep of Tetuan.
Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.
Historians from time to time have had something to say about these tribes, and tradition boasts a legion tales respecting them; but the most able writer upon Morocco in old times was Leo Africanus, a Moor himself, who, when all his countrymen were expelled from Spain in 1492, fled to Fez.
Twenty-five years later he was captured by Christian pirates and taken to Rome. He became a Christian, and he published his great and reliable history about the time that Henry VIII. was successful in Flanders and Scotland, when Wolsey obtained a cardinal's hat, and Catherine of Arragon had not been ousted by Anne Boleyn.
The aborigines of Morocco were without doubt Berbers, and to-day Berbers occupy four-fifths of the country, in spite of the invasions of other nations. First on the list of the invaders came the Phœnicians, the earliest civilizing agency. The Romans followed eighty years after Cæsar had landed in Britain, and annexed Morocco, Christianizing its people. Next to invade the country were the Vandals, who turned out the Romans, remained among the Berbers for over a hundred years, leaving red hair and blue eyes behind them. Then six hundred and ninety-eight years after the birth of Christ the deluge of Mohammedan conquest burst over Morocco, and hordes of Arabs, burning with a fanatical missionary spirit, swept over the land. At the end of eleven years the resistance of the Berbers was overcome, and they adopted Mohammedanism as lightly as they had adopted Christianity under the Roman rule.
About two years afterwards a body of them crossed over into Spain under the one-eyed chieftain Tarik, and laid the foundation of the Moorish supremacy in Europe. Thither this band of pioneer Berbers was followed by the Arabs: the two races mingled and built up together an empire in Spain said to surpass all its contemporaries in learning and refinement. The Spanish named them indiscriminately Mauros, and Moors they have been ever since; but the name Moor can be traced back as far as 23 a.d., when Pliny and Strabo speak of the Maurusii and Mauri.
