CHAPTER I.

Policy of the Court of Morocco.—­Its strength.—­Diplomatic Intercourse with England.—­Distrust of Europeans.—­Commercial Relations.

Morocco is the China of North Africa.  The grand political maxim of the Shereefian Court is, the exclusion of strangers; to look upon all strangers with distrust and suspicion; and should they, at any time, attempt to explore the interior of Morocco, or any of the adjacent counties, to thwart and circumvent their enterprise, is a veritable feat of statesmanship in the opinion of the Shereefian Court.  The assassination of Mr. Davidson, some years since, is an odious and enduring stigma on the Moorish Court, notwithstanding the various efforts which have been made to deny the personal responsibility of the Emperor in that transaction.

The Prince de Joinville was once going to open Morocco, as we opened China; but bullets and shot which his Royal Highness showered upon Tangier and Mogador, only closed faster the approaches and routes of this well-guarded empire—­only more hermetically sealed the capitals of Fez and Morocco against the prying or morbid curiosity of the tourist, or the mappings and measurings of the political spy.  The striking anecdote, illustrating the exclusive policy of the Maroquine Court, is familiar to all who have read the history of the Moorish Sultans of the Mugreb.  Years ago, a European squadron threatened to bombard Tangier, unless their demands were instantly satisfied; and the then reigning Sultan sent down from Fez this imperial message: 

“How much will the enemy give me if I myself burn to ashes my well-beloved city of Tangier?  Tell the enemy, O governor of the mighty city of Tangier, that I can reduce this self-same city to a heap of smoking ruins, at a much cheaper rate than he can, with all his ships, his warlike machines, and his fighting men.”

The strength of Morocco lies in her internal cities, her inland population, and the natural difficulties of her territory; about her coast she cares little; but the French did not find this out till after their bombardments.  The unwonted discovery led them afterwards to boast that they had at length opened Morocco by the other and opposite system of a pacific mission.  The parties forming the mission, pretended to have obtained from the Emperor permission for Europeans “to travel in Morocco without let or hindrance whithersoever they will.”  But the opposition press justly ridiculed the pretensions of the alleged concession, as the precarious and barren result of a mission costing several million of francs.  Even an Englishman, but much more a Frenchman—­and the latter is especially hated and dreaded in all the Maroquine provinces, would have considerably hesitated in placing confidence in the safe conduct of this jealous Court.

The spirit of the Christian West, which has invaded the most secret councils of the Eastern world, Persia, Turkey, and all the countries subjected to Ottoman rule, is still excluded by the haughty Shereefs of the Mahometan West.  There is scarcely any communication between the port and the court of the Shereefs, and the two grand masters of orthodox Islamism, this of the West, and that of the East, are nearly strangers to each other.