About Morocco.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 March 1910, Page 4

About Morocco.

a lorocco is largely a whited sepulchre, of pleasing exterior, but within rampant with murders and torturing vice, and all manner of uncieaiiness. The population largely consists, it is said, of Moors in the lull stature of native cupidity, of Arabs of crass brutality, and the scum of Europe. Mr Harris, who penetrated to .Fez, describes the Sultan as wearing a gentle air of selfindulgence, marred with a fearful look which at times flits across his face. He suffers from the frighttill rear of assassination. "As lie read my credentials," the writer relates, "his bands were shaking from the nervous tension he was labouring under. The anxiety was too iniicii lor him, and nt times lie must have been bordering on a state of hysteria." Evidently Mulai Hafid, who is presented to us as the orthodox type of corpulent Oriental tyrant, is fully siezed of the sinster ]>o.ssibilities of the next turn of the political wheel, and remembering the cruelties which he has dispensed so. lavishly since ascending the throne, lie perceives no prospect of mercy should the hand of destiny be interposed between him and his present sovereign powers. There is a good deal of the griiesonieuess of the charnel house about Mr Harris's narrative, and one turns from the vividly etched picture of this side of Moorish life to a humorous interlude in the author's audience with the Sultan with relief. MiHarris was explaning to Mulai Ha fid (who, by the way is grossly ignorant of European affairs) the illustrations in the "Graphic." After explaining the picture of Air John Burns, and findiing the page turned over abruptly as soon as it became evident that the subject was not of Royal blood, he created nobility on every page. Upon the original of every one of the numerous photographs Mr Harris conferred a title and made excellent progress until the illustrated advertisements were reached. A cocoa advertisement containing a policeman and some children yielded a. peer; a scantily dressed lady extolliing the virtues of ia certain brand of hair reestorer became a peeress; and everything passed off splendidly until the distinctive announcement of a widely canvassed variety of soap, which has a monkey for a trade mark, came in sight. The monkey was dressed in evening clothes, and was perched on the front of a railway engine. "Who is this?" the Sultan demanded. "I had to do it," Mr Harris confesses, "really it wasn't my fault, but—l had to give him a title."