THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO.
In his latest bookWifch Mulai Hafid at Fez, 7 '" Mr Lawrence Harris, |
F.R.G.S., furnishes a series of peeps behind the Moorish scenes which are at once vividly illuminating and sadly destructive of any illusions that ona may have cherished regarding tha romantic side of life in those regions.] For Morocco is largely a whited sepulchre, of pleasing exterior, but within rampant with murders and .orturings, vice, and all manner of incleanness. The population largely :onsists, it is said, of Moors in the 'ull stat 10 of native cupidity, of \rabs cj crass brutality, and of ;he scum of Europe. Mr Harris, vho penetrated to Fez, describes tha Sultan as wearing a gentle air ot selfndulgence, marred by a fearful look which at times flits across his face. He suffers from the frightful fear of assassination. "As he read my credentials," the writer relates, 'his hands were shaking from the nervous tension he was labouring under. The anxiety was too much for him, and at times he must have been bordering on a state of hys-' teria." Evidently Mulai Hafid, who is presented to us as the orthodox type of corpulent Oriental tyrant,! is fully seized of the sinister pos-' sibilities of the next turn of the political wheel, and, remembering: the cruelties which he has dispensed so lavishly since ascending thQ; throne, he perceives no prospect of mercy should the hand of destiny; be interposed between him and his present sovareign powers. There is a good deal of the gruesomeness of the charntl house about Mr Harris* narrative, and one turns from thavividly etched picture of this sidaof Moorish life to a humorous interlude in the author's audience with tha Sultan with relief. Mr Harris wasexplaining to Mulai Hafid (who, by the way is groasly ignorant of Ejropean affairs) the illustrations in the "Graphic." After explaining thepicture of Mr John Burns, and finding the page turned over abruptly as eook as it became evident that the subjectwas not of Royal blood, he created nobility on every page. Upon tha 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 extolling the virtues of a certain brand of hair restorer became a peeress; and everything passed off splendidly until the distiiictive announcement of a widely canvassed variety of soap, which has a monkey for a trade mark, came in sight. The monkey was dressed la evening clothes, and was perched on the front ot a railway engine. "Who is this" the Sultan demanded. "I was forced into it," Mr Harr's confesses—"really it wasn't my fault, jut—-I had to give him a title."
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19100317.2.9.3
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9996, 17 March 1910, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
464THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9996, 17 March 1910, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Wairarapa Age. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.