WHERE EAST MEETS WEST

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 79, 23 September 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHERE EAST MEETS WEST

ORIENTAL LIFK. (liy J. Foster Fraser.) Tangier! It is the last of the Oriental cities. And this Eastern child in the West —wandering Arabs, having passed fabled Pillars of Hercules, and with nothing beyond but unknown waters of the Atlantic. —stands in regretful pose. Her face is turned back—easlarus. All the cities of her lineage—Mecca, Cairo, Kairounan. Tlcmccen—have greeted the sun before she greets it. When the ocean behind her is (lushed with, the: glory of evening, the Moors asscnih!c oil the housetops and look eastwards towards the blackness as though their liery eyes would pierce the gloom until Mecca itself were spied. Blue, white, cream-tinted, but childly blue, Tangier sits on the left shoulder of a, north-facing bay. Tangier, however, is ever looking iback, ever westward. That is why, when the waters of the sea mirror the pale beauty of the sky, and Tangier' is just a splash of colored lights and dead shadows —like a picture turned into reality—a mournful, haze seems to wrap the city. There is busy life in the marts; there is the, minaret of the mosque, the, cry to prayer; there is the fantastic glamor of the Orient. But it is the last city. It is the boundary; it is the end of all things Oriental. If cities have souls, then I think Tanglier must sigh, "1 am, alone; I am cut off from my kindred. All my hopes aro in the. East. Though I am the westernmost city in Mauritania, my glance is ever towards the East." Now, if Moorish Tangier would stretch eastward, even a single mile, it cannot. No way farther east can the Moor erect his narrow passages and blank-walled houses. Tangier is cut off; it is stranded. For a French syndicate has bought up most of the land east of the native city, and the sand dunes which have not been purchased by Frenchmen have been taken over by German amalgamations. A tree-dotted straight boulevard is growing, and boards announce that adjoining land is to be let, and facilities will be given for payments by instalments. The, Sultan lives at Fez, but Tangier is the real capital of Morocco. Here stay the Ministers from Foreign Powers, and, with much polite squahbling, they manage things between them. France similes and sees the time when most of Morocco will be hers. But with no fortifications on the hills overlooking the Straits of Gibralter, insists Great Britain.

France would like to build railways, but Germany, so progressive at home, is sure railways would be bad for Mc roceo —that is, French railways.

However, the French look after the Customs and the Spaniards train the police. There is Moorish money, but English shillings, French francs, Spanish pesetas, are all good currency. has no effective, postal service. Each country of importance has its own post office and its own stamps. At the Cecil Hotel a,n English boy comes at half-past nine to open the red letterbox on one side of the vestibule, and at a quarter to ten a German youth appears to open the silver-grey letter-box on the other side of the vestibule. At the cafes in the twisted main street you can order your favorite beverages in half a dozen languages and the waiter understands. The Moor dislikes the unbeliever. If he is going to perdition, he prefers to go in his own way. He does not believe in modern inventions—railways and telegraphs and telephones. If lie likes a rickety mule-track over the mountains, what business is it of the unbeliever to say that there should be carriage roads? The Moor does not want your civilisation. After all, it is his country, and if it is misgoverned it is no concern of the foreigner. Besides, when the foreigner, talks about enlightenment and progress, and civilisation and Christianity, lie means grabbing slices of Morocco. The Moor chuckles sardonically in his board, and says the Moors taught Spain all the civilisation it has ever had. The Moors hate France and suspect Great Britain. Germany is a friend because Germany spokes the wheels of French progress in Morocco. The Moors would rather all Christians went away. The only thing Christians ever made and which the Moors appreciate is the Mauser rifle. But the foreigners prohibit the importation of Mausers into Morocco. Just like tho Christian, who has a modern rifle, and in dispute with the Moors thinks it fair fighting to restrict the Moor to antique flintlocks, muzzle-loading, and which cannot carry shot farther than across the road! Here in Tangier West meets East. Who are the people at the hotel? A duke, and his wife, the sister of an exiled Queen. A quiet-mannered man, with a touch of the North of England on his tongue, a man who lives down the coast at Casablanca, and is engagea in the Manchester business. A soft-mannered lady who sits alone; an American wandering around the world. A decrepit Frenchman and his florid wife. A fat German and his fat young frau. Two rosy-faced but awkward-mannered Englishmen, who spend much time on horseback scampering along the hard sandsof the sea front. A business man from Gibralter, half Spanish in race, but wholly British in sentiment. An artist —indifferent. An author—oh, yes, he is indifferent too. Soft-footed Moors are the servants. What a mixture of races here, in, Tangier! After dinner a cup of coffee at a cafe where German seems chiefly to be spoken. Then to a Moorish saloon, and the sipping of over-sugared mint tea whilst fat women wriggle their stomachs and call it dancing. Then to a Spanish cafe. Spry music and the rattle of casanets, and pretty Spanish girls dance and glide and sing, and come down and drink beer with generous members of the audience, and laugh and clap their hands —just as though life were one long, rapturous, merry evening. Smirking dealers in antiques invite visitors into their parlors, "not to buy, sare, just to look," and the touts and guides, who are to get commissions, press the ladies and gentlemen.

It is agreeable to dawdle in these darkened rooms packed with Moorish wares. Here is a stack of ivory-lrafted, silver-inlaid rilles, long and slender and delicate. As you play with the light piece you wonder about its story, on what young Moor's shoulder bad it rested; had it ever played a part in life's tragedy? But the Jew dealer, seeing the glint in your eye, is asking 2r>o francs for it, and you cannot make up your mind whether it is worth 120 francs to you, and how are you to get it home if you buy it? Iligh-pomnidled old saddles, once gay with gold lace and red and green in worked leathers, but now dull and ragged. Wonderful old Arab lanterns and lamps with cups for Hie eight lights at limes of religious festival. Ami Fatma '-'hands" in embossed brass--what a dump, squatfingered hand the favorite daughter of Mahommed must have had if these replicas are anything like a likeness; but useful as a, horseshoe to fasten upon a door to keep ill-luck nwav. And the neat, soft leather bags, which every Moor carries suspended from his shoulder, tasselled, with pocket within pocked and under pocket, you can buy these by the score. Crude but attractive Moorish brooches. Chased and filigreed silver cups with inscriptions

from the Koran. What pretty liugcrtable. in Piuris or Washington or London --ami they arc the bowls which, Moorish maidens used (o lave themselves with water when .it tin; table. It is a delicious experience, haggling in a Tangier curio shop, but you want to have plenty of time. The red liag of the Snllan of Morocco will not always lly over the kasbah. Once the English llag Hew over it. when Tangier came as the dowry of a Portuguese princess, Catherine of on lier marriage, to an Knglish "king, OharliiS 11. There was brave lighting in those days of old. But it was expensive, and the time came when England had no use for Tangier, and came away. But now Britain and I"ranee and Germany would like to have Tangier—it is at the gate of the Mediterranean,