TERRIBLE FAMINE IN MOROCCO.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 126, 5 March 1879, Page 3

TERRIBLE FAMINE IN MOROCCO.

The crops having been.a total failure, the farmers and peasants in the interior were ruined, and failing to pay taxes and imposts, all their cattle and little property were confiscated by the local authorities, so that they had left their ruined homesteads and tramped to the seaports in a starving condition, many dying on the road. At Mongador there are over two thousand of these poor refugees, besides thousands of the poor townsfolk, both Moors and Jews, in a state of utter destitution. Living skeletons of men, women, and children might be seen groping into foul refuse heaps for hideous bits of offal. Down at the Waterport, and in the streets along which grain bags are carried, poor starving wretches were constantly scratching and shifting the sand, dust, and mud, for stray grains of rice, or barley. Over the rocky ledges trudged at low tide half-naked women, eagerly collecting mussels, limpits, and other shell-fish. Beggars were swarming in the streets, corpses were often seen, small-pox was horribly rife among the poor folk, who are huddled together those afflicted with the diseases were neither isolated nor tended. Sick, sound, and dead might be seen lying together in foul, fetid dens. Owners of horses and mules could no longer afford to feed them. Outside the town gates, and along the sea beach, lay scores and scores of carcasses and skeletons of beasts of burden which had been brought ■'•ut there to die of starvation —rich feasts for jackals, dogs and carrion crows. The wild country Moors were very desperate with hunger and misery. Murders were frequent, one man being ktlled for a bunch of grapes, another for a. loaf of bread and soon. Robberies were, of course, very frequent. The English people were pretty safe ; we were in high esteem and received greetings and blessings everywhere. The committee had been giving relief for many weeks past to from 1200 to 2000 people daily —first in bread and afterwards soup. The poor refugees were very grateful. Deaths were from thirty to forty a clay among the country folk alone ; of course many other deaths in the Moorish and Jewish quarters. The cattle left to the town folk were nearly starving. There is no grass in the. land, the cattle and sheep go out miles into the country daily to feed on scrubby brushwood and dry prickly plants, and come back in the evening slowly, thin and hungry-look-ing still, —' Globe ' Correspondent.