Morocco -- Description and travel; Morocco -- Foreign relations
The Arab losses under the fire of the French 75-millimètre guns and
the fusillade of the Foreign Legion and the Algerians, many of them
sharpshooters, are usually heavy where the Arabs attempt a serious
resistance. I should say it would average a loss on the part of the
Moors of fifty dead to one French soldier wounded. Moreover, when a
Moor is badly wounded he dies, for the Moors know nothing of medicine,
and the only remedies of which they will avail themselves are bits of
paper with prayers upon them, written by shereefs; these they swallow
or tie about a wound while praying at the shrine of some departed
saint. It has seemed to me a wanton slaughter of these ignorant
creatures, but if the French did not mow them down, the fools would say
they could not, and would thank some saint for their salvation.
The arms of the Arabs are often of the most ineffective sort, many of
them, indeed, made by hand in Morocco. While I was with the French army
on one occasion we found on a dead Moor (and it is no wonder he was
dead) a modern rifle, of which the barrel had been cut off, evidently
with a cold chisel, to the length of a carbine. The muzzle, being bent
out of shape and twisted, naturally threw the first charge back into
the face of the Moor who fired it. I have seen bayonets tied on sticks,
and other equally absurd weapons.
There are in Morocco many Winchester and other modern rifles, apart
from those with which the Sultan’s army is equipped. Gun-running has
long been a profitable occupation amongst unscrupulous Europeans of the
coast towns, the very people for whose protection the French invasion
is inspired. A man of my own nationality told me that for years he got
for Winchesters that cost him 3_l._ as much as 6_l._ and 8_l._ The
authorities, suspecting him on one occasion, put a Jew to ascertain
how he got the rifles in. Suspecting the Jew, the American informed
him confidentially, ‘as a friend,’ that he brought in the guns in
barrels of oil. In a few weeks five barrels of oil and sixteen boxes of
provisions arrived at ---- in one steamer. The American went down to
the custom-house, grinned graciously, and asked for his oil, which the
Moors proceeded to examine.
‘No, no,’ said the American.
The Moors insisted.
The American asked them to wait till the afternoon, which they
consented to do; and after a superficial examination of one of the
provision boxes, a load of forty rifles, the butts and barrels in
separate boxes, covered with cans of sardines, tea, sugar, etc., went
up to the store of the American.
It was more profitable to run in guns that would bring 8_l._, perhaps
more, than to run in 8_l._ worth of cartridges, and after the Moors
had secured modern rifles they found great difficulty in obtaining
ammunition, which for its scarcity became very dear. For that reason
many of them have given up the European gun and have gone back to the
old flintlock, made in Morocco, cheaper and more easily provided with
powder and ball.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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