Old Morocco - And The Forbidden Atlas

OLD MOROCCO And the Forbidden Atlas BY G. E, ANDREWS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS GfflD GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPAWTST OLD MOROCCO AND THE FORBIDDEN ATLAS-I THE UNITED STATES OB 1 AMERICA To JOSEPH CONRAD PREFACE What I love is a minaret, a mosque in the blue moonlight, a white-domed saints tomb sleeping in the sun, an old fountain beautiful with broken bits of faience, and beside it a Moslem girl muffled in a white veil, except for her dark, deep eyes, filled with the wonder of life and the sadness of the world. I love to dream over the rich colours in old carpets woven with the mysterious symbols of strange human hearts, or to finger bizarre jewels that have glistened in the hair of some once lovely slave. I like to remember the glorious thrill of my first glimpse of Asia, drowned in a dawn of rose and gold, framed in the port-hole of a Roumanian steamer or the forests of masts against the sunset in the Golden Horn, and the wild procession of strange humanity always thronging over the Galata Bridge or the jangle of bargaining tongues in five languages in the Jitni Pazar of Monastir. I love the fascination of the old east, its music and its sorceries and its dreams, its dim memories of races that have gone, its peoples that have grown old in living and have become a little tired. is x PREFACE One day, as I wandered along the left bank of the Seine, longing for the sight of a minaret or the sound of a tom-tom, I idly prowled among the rubbishy old books and pictures and medals in the stalls along the quay. I picked at random John Speeds Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, London, 1668, and in his description ofAfrica read that Fesse hath a City in it with seven hundred Churches, and one of them a mile and a half in compass And in this country was our English Stukely slain. And Morocho where the chief Town of the same name hath a Church larger than that of Fesse, and hath a Tower so high that you may discern from the top of it the hills of Azasi at an hundred and thirty miles distance. Here is likewise a castle of great fame for their Globes of pure gold that stand upon the top of it, and weigh ing 130,000 Barbary Duckets. Here was a place to dream about as one sat in ones cafe on the boulevard, sipping an apfratif. Just where was this city of Morocho, and did anything remain to day of these glories Or was the old geographer a dreamer too How wonderful it would be to go and see There would surely be minarets there and probably tom-toms. And shortly afterward, I passed a window with a large map of the Protec torat du Maroc, and there, something over a hun PREFACE xi dred miles from the coast was the city of Mar rakesh. This, of course, must have been John Speeds Morocho. And it seemed so easy to go there, for Morocco, the country, was just across from Spain, and in a few days journey one could be within the shadow of a mosque, and hear the muezzins call float over a strange oriental city filled with mystery and enchantment. In fact, the advertisement in the window said that the trip could be made by aeroplane from Toulouse to Rabat in one short day. But this was annihilating space and time too speedily. It seemed disrespect ful to the orient. It suggested Professor Einsteins journeying by comet so fast that the travellers watch turns backward and he arrives before he starts For one loses eighthundred years in going to Morocco, and a Tyrian trireme seems a more fitting means of going there than an aeroplane. And so I embarked from Bordeaux on one of the triremes of the Compagnie Generate, and after five perfect summer days on the Atlantic, sailing past the dream dim mountains of Portugal, landed at Casablanca, the newly built port of French Morocco...