Show 1 f UMBLING ne EMPIRE OF ° ° THE MOORS h sad aDr t AW wuy down tno Atlantle tOli coast of thQ Moorish empire aer em-pire and about opposite ° 0t Charleston rises out of anal tho sea tho little port of od 11 Casablanca which Is known as the White Cea of port In every language that Is UC l a d along the coast Its white rrice eantltul If you 110 In tile offing Cofer atAteat night Like all the rest of dear t LO andhuleed tho Mohnnime rand Casablanca is best scbn GRAN pie moonlight and to wind rites Stephen Bonsai in the RN ftork Times 1 jty salee at the very name of our New England ancestors ftent down to tho sea In ships IC fro hont to shudder and with good rcul t w a Is now closed by a sand bar late jeten tho daring Barbary cor tadsu cstt iwulJ not dare to cross In their ui iN IrawI l ° B feluccns but the Moor oft of-t ad country is still n pirate dosdepot 1 the times have driven him In tOrceac tram tho seas Until recently he OF Id 1 upon tho passing caravans as D tent ago he swooped down with r lIkllke galleys upon our be 810P J l sailing ships The lab le ton who rush with so much fury Icepkra luckless during up to the French St irm4 rfca and ride pits do It not only ersonnr lie they have a hatred of tho ° 1afci the which their church sancti ar 0 a virtue but because they are ileket Jlng to death and want to get at 1tLakeq mho have taken the bread out elr mouths EBB 1 Plains and Passes lajears ago these dashing horse R Iitoso gorgeous costumes and be RS Id weapons mado them most litiil If somewhat barbaric ob p < < iad J to behold wero the lords ofthe heed ad S s and the marshes which Ho hers her-s i the western Soudan and the lowns of southwest Morocco They LDI J tie masters of transportation in I ICIAN part of the world and had to be i ned with If yoh cared to take a an i flight In ostrich feathers gold Prove l J staves or salt they would pro Farkerl yon or pillage you whichever was Dmfs ost t profitable 1 Boubkehr who was and is the prominent man in this part of e Cur arid used to rebate and cut rates it wu I like all the other masters of Cilt iportatlon and just like you and irefot e i would give a caravan protec ss Pilet Iit his price or he would plllago f I secure the Just tolls which wore hlh vv York she never doubted by tho divine of might Boubkehr and his agnes and rivals got all they 1 get out of the Job without dls r I og business or destroying val 9 and would still be doing a profit and I philanthropic business wore III for the recent opening up of Western Soudan by tho French jhave diverted to their own In Ilanj f id and profit all the former cara lliratlee I a t d trade from Morocco down to Tim Thou and the Niger So without ued > ri lug to be unduly alarmist about This me situation of tho besieged garrl r tho In Mogador and Casablanca it is that their assailants are not fanatics but hungry fanatics AUOi bare been quietly put out of a Profitable and gentlemanly busl rmeda which permitted them the ex anul ance of often paying one him nod 1 dollars for a carblno which s w York would have been dear ate at-e toad fai ere i dashing bordermen wero I ce1P l d to the imperial government by D S Slip S-lip I U Ei r 4 w fV 30 main i t e1 r t 1 I M I k 1 I 38 The Sultan on the March Iendcrest of ties they wero 7 Immersed in their profitable li J ens operations and In annexing fir titr own households tho most tit ul ta saves culled from the pass rauno When the taxgatherers ts Bred Into their domains they ei I them alive buUwhen the late In toil IUlal Ilas81 who was a light j P wared In their neighborhood bo Co m alive clearheaded busl Uuh r1 u I 4 ness men they paid him large sums togo to-go away and not restrain trade Typical of this same Sultan Mtilai Hassans attitude toward what Is called progress and improvement In the western world Is an anecdote the authenticity of which 1 feel I I can vouch for There were and still are some dangeiotiA rocks In the harbor of Rabat and the owners of the coast Ing steamers engaged fu the Morocco trade were anxious for obvious reasons rea-sons to have them removed Having failed to Interest tho local governor In the matter the steamship men got together to-gether and sent an envoy to Fez who requested that the companies concerned con-cerned might be allowed to remove these dangers to commerce at their own expense Sultans Wily Answer Certainly not was the sultans Immediate answer the rocks were put there by God for some good purpose pur-pose let no man dare to remove them What the sultan doubtless thought was that foreign ntei of war could get Into the Atlantic ports of his empire quite easily enough and at all events ho did not wish to appean l In the eyes of his sullen people as facilitating tho exits and the entrances of the hated t e I d es 1 I41ka i A Moorish Soldier Christians The policy of his little son Abdul Aziz has been much more liberal lib-eral and from the western view point more enlightened and Is sad to relate one of tho contributing causes to the present alarming situation He recently recent-ly consented to the request of the consular con-sular corps and the shippers that harbor har-bor Improvements should be undertaker under-taker In Casablanca Whereupon the suspicious Kabyles of the adjacent mountain fastnesses rushed down to the White House city and killed 12 or 15 Europeans mostly Spaniards who were engaged upon tho work In making concessions to the European Euro-pean spirit of progress and enterprise for which his people are not ready tho unlucky and probably most Incapable young sultan has raised a storm which may cost him his throne Today If he stands with his people he Is threatened threat-ened with a foreign expedition while If ho stands by the treaty he runs even greater and nearer danger at the hands of tho various pretenders to the throne by whoso activity the sultans life has been made very miserable ever since or almost ever since By a harem conspiracy and the weakness of his father the young prince was called to the difficult post of ruling the Moors Present Ruler Unpopular Abdul Azizs accession to the throne was a most unpopular one and this fact probably accounts for the fact that early In his reign ho surrounded himself with foreigners who with some exceptions wero not generally men of a high typo rope walkers photographers balloonists and sleight ofhand men wero the representatives of western civilization who for n longtime long-time appealed most powerfully I to tho young sultans appreciation of our cul turo In view of the rising tide of discontent dis-content and tho disaffection even of the peoplo of the capital and tho growing strength of tho various revo lutlons In progress in tho last year lie sultan has dismissed his staff of foreign adventurers and goes to tho mosque as regularly as his father did but probably tho harm has been done In Morocco as vell ns In other countries a reputation for orthodoxy Is hard to retrieve I One brother of the unlucky sultan Mobil Hand by name of whoso character char-acter and leanings upon the questions of tho day little Is known has been I formally proclaimed sultan In the great mosque at Morocco City Another An-other brother Hnsenn It Is said has been exercising rights of sovereign In tho rUff highlands west of Tctani and on the Mediterranean coast for two years past In the Sus couutry another an-other brother who bears the name of Moroccos greatest sultan Mulal Is mall Is threatening rebellion with a I force of fanatical horsemen estimated at 36000 at his back while In tho western evinces still slumber the never radically suppressed rebellions of the Hogul and u Hanna the benevolent Father of tho Asses who with his claim to divine descent and revelation and his wondrous gift of eloquence exercises a remarkable Influence In-fluence upon tho mule drivers l and all the other nomadic folk of the empire Nations Have HardTask Such In outline is thQ situation by which Prance and Spain find them solves confronted because of the recognition recog-nition of their special Interests in the disturbed country and the police man date which they received at tho con erenco of tho powers at Algectrns In the light of recent events It would seem not at all unlikely that their diplomatic victory at the conference iVlll entail upon France and Spain the loss of many thousands of men and many millions of francs which neither can affordto throw away Tho talk of an expedition to Fez a flying column col-umn of 10000 men in which the boulevard boule-vard sheets indulge Is the sheerest nonsense or the wildest madness It would lequlto 160000 men all picked troops to captureFez and It would require re-quire many thousands more and require re-quire them Indefinitely to hold tho holy city and maintain something approaching ap-proaching law and order In the surrounding sur-rounding country Portugal was for several hundred ears In possession of nearly all the Moorish ports on the Atlantic coast including Casablanca Indeed tho second sec-ond title of tho ruler of Portugal today to-day Is King of the Algarvcs which refers to tho royal pretensions to Moorish sovereignty all substantial basis to which has long since disappeared disap-peared together with the East Indian dependencies Fate of Portuguese Army I It was In 1578 that Dom Sebastian the chivalrous hero of Portuguese song and story equipped an army for tho purpose of overrunning the whole country A duke of Icluster and many other gentlemanly adventurers Joined Dom Sebastians standards and began the Journey to tho capital which so many conquerors have undertaken but ice which no single one has succeeded at least not since tho day when tho giccn banners of the Prophet of Islam were first Hung to tho breezes from the battlements of Fez Dom Sebastian and his army of 20 000 men together with the uncounted adventurers who bat come together fiom nil over Christendom to follow so gallant and so generous a prince met their fate in the valley by Alkesar which Is watered by a shallow river generally Identified by historians and geographers as lee Llxus of Pliny There 20000 men were cut to pieces by the Moorish cavalry and those who died hOle by tho sword were the fortunate for-tunate members of the army AccordIng Accord-Ing to some accounts Dom Sebastian and the more notable of his followers wounded or captives were taken to Meklnez whore after they had graced the triumph of the terrible sultan Ab del Melet their conqueror the greater number of them were bUlled alive In the city walls In these same walls are visible today many hundred bricked brick-ed up cells In which on this occasion and at other times of fanatical fury Christians were Immured while living as a punishment for refusing to recite the fatlha and so become renegades to their creed The Battlefield of Long Ago It Is a dreary scene this long forgotten for-gotten battlefield but one that the future fu-ture Invaders of Morocco may remember remem-ber with advantage I came upon It on one of my Journeys in Morocco and mado it an indelible impression It had been a very hot day and we were at first delighted to bo wet to tho skin ns our horses waded or rather swam tho Lixus Then the cold bay The English wise men of the day thought money could be nestle out of Tangier but no thought was l paid to Bombay All of which goes to show how uncertain are real estate ventures In an International as well as In a local lo-cal sense Out of tho occupation of Bombay has grown tho Indian empire and much wealth and I believe much honor to the British but out of tho occupation of Tangier from which so much of weilth amid pelt was expected ex-pected came only haul kirockn and final defeat In Tangier tho English held on grimly 20 years and it was here lighting with the Moorish cavalry caval-ry on the beach that handsome Jack Churchill who was to become the conqueror of Malplaquct and other oth-er fields which Illustrate tho history of tho British arms first blooded his IM iUt w ugh ft yS > t ttf y v w ad A S v t t t + a tvs 4 1 I f r s Returning from an Expedition evening breeze began tQ blow and tho damp fogs to rlso from tho graveyard grave-yard of so much Christian chivalry Indeed our teeth wore chattering and our pearls cold before In the mystic light of tho rising moon we rode up a mound In the middle of the battle Held which according to the local legend leg-end that maybe true was built out of tho corpses of tho Christians who were stain that day and was also the colgti of vantage from which when the battlo was fought and won the Emit of tho Sultan proclaimed the hour of player and of thanksgiving the greatness of tho One God of Islam and of Mohammed his Prophet Ceded to England After this disaster Portugal gradually gradu-ally withdrew from Morocco and In 1000 what remained of her conquests were ceded to England as part of the dowry of the Infanta Catherine of Ura ganza who became the wife of Charles iL Another piece of real estate Included Includ-ed In tho dowry because tho King of Portugal was Just at that moment ° hurt of cash was tint ltdand of Horn One of the Gates of Fez lance Churchill served hero two years and then was so fortunate as to secure a change of garrison to a place where there was not so much thankless fighting but tho English government reluctant as ever to give up a corner of land that has onco been painted red hung on to tho wedding wed-ding present of the luckless queen for a generation On one occasion theca the-ca 1 of Tevlott tho British governor with most of his officers and a large portion of the garrison was surprised by tho vigilant Moors and but few escaped with their lives After 20 years of constant warfare harassed day and night by a tireless and truculent trucu-lent enemy the keepers of John Bulls treasury counted up tho cost and shortly after the figures wore known Tangier was abandoned and so tho second attempt of the conquest of Morocco failed I Spain Had Enough In 1859 the Spaniards under ODon nell invaded Morocco bent upon obtaining ob-taining satisfaction for undoubted injuries In-juries at the hands of lawless Moors and perhaps with thoughts of permanent perma-nent conquest if all went well As a matter of fact nothing went well From 40060 to 60000 men were engaged en-gaged for two years with heavy casualties casu-alties and even greater losses from sickness At the end of tho second campaign tho Sancho Panza in Gas LIllian politics got the upper hand of the Don Quixote proclaimed honor satisfied tho terms offered by tho Moors all that could bo desired and retired In a blaze of falso glory out of which ODonnell secured a dukedom duke-dom and many Spanish regiments unpronounceable un-pronounceable Moorish names Dut the real results were none In 1893 tho Moors attacked tho Spanish possession of Melllla and the Madrid government if hungry for adventure ad-venture had every opportunity and even Justification for a punitive expedition ex-pedition but very wisely did not avail itself of tho opportunity It has always seemed lo me that thanks to tho travels and researches of the late Padre Lorchundl and others ut his thorough and doll gent school tho Spaniards understand conditions In Morocco better than men of other nationalities They showed It at Me lllla ten years ago and I rather think tho commanding officer of tho Spanish Span-ish contingent In Casablanca is snowing snow-Ing It today when he refu ol to ex peso his men outside the City to the furious driving charge of the Moorish regular cavalry |