Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1888 — In Morocco. [ARTICLE]

In Morocco.

Morocco, like nearly all Oriental towns, is walled by high stone walls, and defended by towers erected at intervals along them. Outside the city one enters directly upon the country, there being no suburbs, unless the village of lepers can be called one—and a gruesome suburb it is! Within the walls the houses are low and the streets narrow; on every side one sees desolation and ruin, very different from the flourishing northern capital of i’ez; nor, as in Fez, does one see, except few and far between, little pieces of exquisite wood or arabesque work in plaster. The southwesterly part of the town, as in London, is the fashionable quarter, and there are the palaces and gardens of the Sultan, his ministers, and of most of the rich Moors; while to the north and east lies the commercial quarter—a dense maze of narrow, dirty streets and booths. Not far from our palace was a small sok, or marketplace, and here we often went in the hope of picking up curiosities; but, except for a few curious pieces of pottery, we got nothing there. Far finer was the Sok-el-Khemis, or Friday market, held outside the Bab Dukala. Here one cpuld see every variety of native, manufacture. In one corner would be sitting a group of fierce-looking mountaineers, selling silver daggers and long, inlaid guns; in another a group of women with a gorgeous-tinted carpet, worked in some country village And brought in for sale. Here straw baskets lay piled one on tip of the other in great heaps, and there gorgeous-colored kuftans were causing a little crowd of admirers. Under the shade of a tent the barber was bleeding a Moor, while, next to him, another Moor was having Jiis head shaved. In the center of a circle a performing ape was going thro gh its varied tricks, while the harsh-sounding pipes bespoke the presence of a snake-charmer. Everywhere something new and something noisy; for the Moors are shoating, and gesticulating, fighting and laughing, just as if the success of the whole market depended upon the noise they made, added to wh ch there was the constant jingle >of the water-carrier’s bell and his shrill cry of “A 1 ma" —“Water.” Near this market, and on the same day, was carried on the horse and animal sale, where long-robed Moors were galloping the sturdy little Barb horses up and down the long open space to show their paces, and where the wild Berber from the mountains, noticeable anywhere from bis scarcity of raiment, was trying to seU a couple of small Moorish donkeys. Camels, mules, horses, donkeys, goats, sheep, oxen—all kinds and varieties of animals—could be bought there. Nor were the streets less interesting than the markets , though one did not see such variety all at once, as usually all the shops in one street sell one kind of merchandise, so that if one wants to buy shoes one goes to the street of shoes to get them, and there one has endless varieties to choose from. Many shops however, have arrived at the civilized state of selling more than one article, and in them one can see exposed to view many Fnglish and French manufactures. In fact, the sight that most surprises one on arriving in these Eastern cities is the immense quantity of imports exposed for sale. Linen, colored handkerchiefs, matches, scented soaps, perfumes, looking-glass, candles and beads aro perhaps the most common, while the whole of the tea of the country—and the Moors drink scarcely anything else —is imported from Europe.