Yet this is no forbidding land. There are neither sands nor precipices. There are neither rudeness and asperity, nor barrenness and waste. There are lowly vales and verdant plains, as well as gigantic mountains. This great, this beautiful country--this corner of a mighty continent--almost touches Europe. One-half of our whole trade passes along it; yet it is sealed against us more effectually than China or Japan. European enterprize, by lust of conquest, love of gain, or spirit of proselytism, has made the wide world its vineyard; and, combining its various engines, has, far and near, shattered thrones, and subjugated or extinguished races. How is it that Morocco stands unmoved and unassailed? All the nations which formed part of the Roman Empire, and have become Mussulmans, have fallen under the sway of Constantinople, Morocco alone excepted. All the barbarous States, which have attracted the cupidity of Europeans, have fallen under their sway, Morocco alone excepted. But the breakers of her shores, the sands of her deserts, the valour of her sons, the wildness of her tribes, have not alone done this. Threatened now by a new enemy and a new danger, the past is worth sifting, in order to anticipate whether or not she will hold her own; or if she fall, whether she will rot away, or sink brightly and bravely, preserving Genio y figura Hasta la sepultura. It is an old story, and we have forgotten it, that on Morocco our first and greatest essays of conquest were made. England expended upon the fortification of Tangier more than all she ever advanced for the conquest of India. Portugal and Spain, who had found it necessary to separate, by half the globe, their other enterprizes, here combined, and expended more lives, ships, and treasure in their fruitless attempts than in the subjugation of the East Indies and the West. Neighbourhood, political hatred, religious animosity, combined with the prospects of dominion, and the hope of obtaining supplies of the precious metals, to urge them to make and continue these attempts. Elsewhere, by their wonderful successes, unknown adventurers--a Cortez, a Pizzaro, and an Albukerque--were converted into heroes. Here Princes of the State and Church, Kings and Emperors, were the leaders--to experience only failure and disgrace. Elsewhere handfuls of men conquered myriads. Here mighty armaments have been annihilated by despised foes. Elsewhere a native power had to do with but one European assailant. Morocco numbered amongst her assailants every European power. She holds the bones of English peers, of Turkish beys, of Portuguese princes, Andalusian kings. She has foiled an Emperor of Austria, and discomfited in succession the warlike operations, or the political plans of Cardinal Ximenes, of Philip II., Don Sebastian, and Barbarossa. Spain has some fortified points upon the coast, but they are _blockaded_; and this smothered warfare is a living record of our aggressions, and her delivery.