THE PASSING OF MOROCCO [Illustration: _Frontispiece._ A SAINT HOUSE.] THE PASSING OF MOROCCO BY FREDERICK MOORE AUTHOR OF ‘THE BALKAN TRAIL’ _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP_ BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN, AND COMPANY 1908 TO CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND INTRODUCTION For several years I had been watching Morocco as a man who follows the profession of ‘Special Correspondent’ always watches a place that promises exciting ‘copy.’ For many years trouble had been brewing there. On the Algerian frontier tribes were almost constantly at odds with the French; in the towns the Moors would now and then assault and sometimes kill a European; round about Tangier a brigand named Raisuli repeatedly captured Englishmen and other foreigners for the sake of ransom; and among the Moors themselves hardly a tribe was not at war with some other tribe or with the Sultan. It was not, however, till July of last year that events assumed sufficient importance to make it worth the while of a correspondent to go to Morocco. Then, as fortune would have it, when the news came that several Frenchmen had been killed at Casablanca and a few days later that the town had been bombarded by French cruisers, I was far away in my own country. It was ill-luck not to be in London, five days nearer the trouble, for it was evident that this, at last, was the beginning of a long, tedious, sometimes unclean business, that would end eventually--if German interest could be worn out--in the French domination of all North Africa west of Tripoli. Sailing by the first fast steamer out of New York I came to London, and though late obtained a commission from the _Westminster Gazette_. From here I went first to Tangier, _viâ_ Gibraltar; then on to Casablanca, where I saw the destruction of an Arab camp and also witnessed the shooting of a party of prisoners; I visited Laraiche against my will in a little ‘Scorpion’ steamer that put in there; and finally spent some weeks at Rabat, the war capital, after Abdul Aziz with his extraordinary following had come there from Fez. Of these brief travels, covering all told a period of but three months, and of events that are passing in the Moorish Empire this little book is a record. * * * * * Six letters to the _Westminster Gazette_ (forming parts of Chapters I., IV., VI., XIV., XV., and XVI.) are reprinted with the kind permission of the Editor. I have to thank Messrs. Forwood Bros., the Mersey Steamship Company, for permission to reproduce the picture which appears on the cover. _March 15, 1908._ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION vii-ix I. OUT OF GIBRALTAR 1 II. NIGHTS ON A ROOF 12 III. DEAD MEN AND DOGS 30 IV. WITH THE FOREIGN LEGION 38