Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — MULEY HASSAN'S LAND [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MULEY HASSAN'S LAND

MOMETHMG ABOUT MOROCCO AMO ITS PEOPLE. ■to Aatov Car Which England, France ■to Qpato# Mrm How Contending—lgnommmmm anto Hheew o t the Population— An ■WheeWf Had Government, ■■Mteh Hetaral Advantage#. Ha ijanri the European powers are ton! to Hint small strip of country *■ Hw tosrthwestern coast of Africa, ■■■Hi nHMtoij ruled over by the late Aaaar&ai Maley Hassan—Morocco. Mktoto ttoa Saltan saw fit, some time *•»,*> ABtt this land of the living, toafctorra tarie become very complicated Satbalaad of the Moors and several tof As Ito n< >n countries stand ready hoxralrt a grub for it. England would Shatogak bold of Tangier, the prin■ftnattoity, an it lies directly opposite Clandtor wad would give her comastond cf tba straits between Europe and Afcan Spain wants it for a naval wants it because Spain 4aaa wfcSe France will leave no stone wtoocaac! to get possession of it, as it wardi sm> that country a chance to auhu all the French-African colonies h»aaa«i t body. There the matter totoad% ®a*3h country waiting for the •tin* tonafee a move. of the European powers toonaiatefeaMssion of Morocco it will ■aitortirtj reap a rich harvest, for of aK tto Wurth African countries this is Aha nod fevered by nature. Small mA feafeudScxnt though it be on the ■nap, Sfc nevertheless represents an area as ant let* than 260,000 square ■lki, tor almost as large a territory as MtoAaf Texan. Morocco has 250 miles toss aeaatSatocu the Mediterranean and ■at feaa tfeam ISA miles on the Atlantic dr*r Far from being a desert and Aatan Nto pcah-te lands of the West, totiirbi aaene to be the general impresfto, Moeoaco is just the oppo-ite. Ttor ran great stretches of sandy Atom, bat the general character of B* WMtrj fa wildly mountainous, reawiafcfiap Raw Mexico perhaps more titoe any ether State. The mountains are to raart parts destitute of any vegatoMm arid present a scene of desolation mmA hancxnaese rather than of pictur•MPM prtotear. The climate inland is bJyhihwf with the frowning scenery. firtnuuin m>6 cloudbursts are not inAmiiad mad are fully as destructive toatba Atotortean product. These auditor atorsar moke the rivers alternately Aitoflr md dry channels. Still the •mhj toaot so destitute of water as

it gnviwTTy sappoeed. Abundant wawmg be baa by digging in the nu■ww.il ■ atur courses or wadis, as they —a cut the country in tin aoD oi the plains and river val•Jejwiib aaoeptionaily fertile, but owing fin aqgacized robbery practiced by site cMwrnsaent and all its officials iron tie Saltan down, very little of tfc*lead that is available for cultivaMibJb tJßed at aIL, and none of it as it , 3Us fact is, no doubt, in some defiw iae to- the natural indolence of SwriOens in tropical climes, und particib iT) of tboee in Oriental countries. AaOrienlil never walks when he can ■teni never stands when he can rarely sits when he can lie 4§tma,mo the persistent toil and patient Mai ij which become habitual to a—ffhin he temperate regions are enforeign both to his nature and be Ms 'inchcation. But even in the loltnrt eoontries it has been found where proper incentives to injftndtnr k*v» been furnished and proper amisii wy guaranteed, the laziest of men adO wen. No such incentives of prokaOHun are held out in Morocco, tays 'She St Louis Globe-Democrat, for if bbe wftAaaa cf government had been aiahora&ely contrived so as to take Jnnatbwpeople all inducement to work 31 ■—M aunt have better answered its awrjposw. The raising of the beautiful Mmtwmcy horses is discouraged, for the Button has the right at any time to bate 43»a best of' these for tne use of Maanagp. No remuneration is paid the baffwwrtad owner, nor has he any notice at the intended robbery, and the first Iko knows of the intention to rob him lb the appearance of a party of solwhi> take the horse, with as acauct a show of ceremony as ever was ■aaethsed bv a band of guerrillas, and ■be* is the last he ever sees of his stolen inanrt}. Agriculture is discouraged iafw aamo way. A farmer goes to wasrk aad raises a cr p for the use of Mw—»U aad family, and, in all probaftfitftp, aa aeon as it is harvested a band at the Batten’s cavalry comes along ■iewiiinfatw the whole under the maaamm taxes. A pitiable case of this

MM* weauTTod. near Tangier a few waaam Mb, iA dative peasant by the ■NMMiiKf Mrised% ttttle more than flMBi of-wheat. As scon as it aai »■■'»■ red ,tkeS«}tdif.’a ta*-gather-m-aaatm oka® wit t&bk forty bushels am Wm ran of the government. The MMI Kadi took twenty for district tax-

atlon, and the aheik of the nearest village appropriated 10. This left the poor farmer with but thirty of the original 100 bushels. Afeyr days after the last robber had paid his visit to the granary a party of horsemen passed by and loaded ten bushels into their bags without so much as saying thank you. The unfortunate man lost no time in concealing the paltry remainder of his store, and a few days later was mercilessly bastinadoed by the orders of the commander of a foot regiment because he would' not tell where he had hidden it. Commerce is taxed with almost as much severity. Every transaction must pay a tax of 24 per cent, usually borne by the buyer. Day by day the Sultan's men make the rounds of the stops,in Tangier, Morocco, Fez and other towns, investigate the business of'thei day and demand the taxes. Every , handicraftsman must pay a tax for the privilege of entering on his calling, whatsoever it may be, besides annual fees for license to carry, it on. And over and above these forms of taxation, of every subject is demanded a yearly sum in the form of poll tax, for the privilege of being allowed to exist According to governmental ideas in Morocco, the only excuse a

man has for living Is that he may contribute to the Sultan's exchequer, and whatever else he does or does not do, he attends to this with reasonable promptitude, for he knows that excuses are of no avail: a failure to pay certainly moans the bastinado, applied at once; possibly imprisonment for an uncertain length of time: in some cases having his head cut off by the experienced executioner of the court, who never gets out of practice through lack of work. Thus it is that the people of Morocco are lazy, shiftless and improvident. They have been made so by their government. They have no incentive to labor, for labor seems to be useless: they do not care to bo put to the trouble of providing for the future only to see the means they collect unscrupulously appropriated by a savage soldiery, bo they pass their time as pleasantly as ttoy can, do as little work as may btoviecessary to satisfy hunger and tto bVer-greedy tuxgathorer, and employ themselves in listening to the stteet story-tellers, in watch-, ing the snake-charmers, in smoking, in sleeping, in anything, in short, but work. Under proper conditions they would would work cheerfully, and when Morocco is placod under a civilized government, as some day it will, its people will become as industrious as Orientals are capable of being, and Morocco will again, as it once was, bo an important productive country. That, however, was long before the days of Mohammed and Islam. When the iron rule of Home governed the whole of the then known world, Morocco, under the name of Mauritania, was a great province. It must have had a dense population, for here and there, at frequent intervals, even in what are now sandy deserts, are found groups of ruins, the remains of tne cities and temples and shrines built by the conquerors of the world, and there stretch across many ol its plains long lines of columns, built when the Ca - ears ruled, marking the line of some ancient aqueduct which brought water to the cities that have now crumbled into dust. From the ports of Morocco, now Ailed with sand, went forth cargces of wheat, which kept quiet the turbulent populace of Rome. From Morocco came the' best horses used on the European post routes and in the cavalry which hung on the wings of the legion. Morocco was then no doubt rich and prosperous, which is more than it or its people have ever been since. For a time, during the Saracenic period, Morocco was a seat of learning and industry. There were Moslem universities at Fez and Moroe-

co; there was an enormous trade in leather, the manufacture of which was unknown outside of this corner of Africa; there was an immense business done in ivory and furs and gums and slaves with the vast and, until lately, unknown interior south of the Sahara. Twice a year caravans with thousands of camels threaded their way through the pathless sand to the south, carrying to the Soudan what Morocco had to sell, and bringing back what Morocco wished to buy. Caravans of equal size crossed the Sahara toward Egypt, starting eight or nine months before the great festival: at Mecca, and trading their way slowly to the Red Sea and Mecca. These business expeditions, on the jobber scale of greatness, are now unknown, for, although the caravans stillymovej they are merely shadows 6f tTjjtf'liosts that formerly went through The Sahara like conquering armigp. ! The changes due solely to depotism and and thus it is that the cities of Morocco are merely crumbling aggregations of houses, the streets filthyianesnwhich s erve alike a* pasaagfwjijfe fo£ .the people and sewers for all manner of ref use from the houses. The taljqsof travelers who return froinlkrohrcno'disagree in many i particulars as to the people and their

ways, bat in regard to the vileness of the amells emanating from a street it. Tangier or any other city in Morocco, there is practical unity. The wonder is that plague, cholera, yellow fever, smallpox and a few other vile diseases a-e not epidemic all the year around, and probably the only rea.on they are not is due to the fact that the Moroccan constitution is fetrong and the Moroccan nose hai no conscience. Anatomists have not as yet discovered any important difference between the nose of Morocco and the no e of any other country.but some difference mustexist, for it :e3m: impon-ible that any human nose, proparly fitted out with smelling apparatus, should be able to endure the smells of a Morocco street But somehow or other the rose of Morocco bears the strain, and the people are as healthy as dirty savages ever are. More than that, they are gcod-looking, and many of the women are beauties. In the north they are veiled in compliance with the law as laid down in the Koran, but in the southern parts of the empire they are much less par ticular, and the tourists often speak of their beauty. It is not a civilized beauty, but the loveliness of the desert: a beauty adorned with strings of silver coins; a beauty best

set off by the softcolors which predominate in Oriental fabrics: a beauty which has nothing of tho intellectual about it, but is purely sensuous. They are the earthly prototypes of the houris, which every true believer expects to have as his personal attendants when the gates of paradise have closed behii d him. They do not seem fit companions for the lierca-looking, warlike men. but the latter, to speak the truth, are far fiercer in appearance than in reality, and though armed with Hintlocks seven feet long and half a dozen pistols, which cannot hit anything, they will rarely attack civilized travelers, save in overwhelming numbers,

and even then with caution, for experience has taught them tie immense superiority Oi the rifle and revolver over their own inefficient weapons. Although lying in sight of Europe and at the doors of European commerce, Morocco, owing to its Government, is still in the dark ages. It has remained so from the fact that Christendom has not been able tq come to an agreement as to the disposal of its territory. When an understanding is reached, Morocco will be placed under a stable form of government that will enable the people to resume something of their ancient industry and regain something of their ancient prosperity.

The forests, the mines, the agricultural resource j of the country, are only now becoming known to outsiders, and as soon as stability in the form of government is assured, and an equitable and reasonable taxation established, some European power—most probably England—will have a province that in its value will eqoal South Africa and rival Egypt.

A[?] CARRTER NEAR MOROCCO.

A SAINT'S TOMB IN MOROCCO.

A ROMAN PALACE IN THE SAHARA.

AT A DÒRWAY IN FEZ.

A ROMAN ARCH NEAR TANGIER