CRUMBLING
EMPIRE OF
THE MOORS
bay. The English wise men of the day
thought money could be made out of
Tangier, but no thought was paid to
Bombay. All of which goes to show
how uncertain are real estate ventures
in an international as well as in a lo
cal sense. Out of the occupation of
Bombay has grown the Indian empire
and much wealth and I believe much
honor to the British, but out of the
occupation of Tangier, from which
so much of wealth anud pelf was ex
pected, came only hard knocks and
final defeat. In Tangier the English
held on grimly 20 years, and it was
here, fighting with the Moorish caval
ry on the beach, that handsome
"Jack”- Churchill, who was to become
the conqueror of Malplaquet and oth
er fields which illustrate the history
of the British arms, first blooded his
f
fALF way down the Atlantic
coast of the Moorish em
pire, and about opposite
Charleston, rises out of
the sea the little port of
Casablanca, which is
known as the “White
.House'’ port in every language that is
spoken along the coast. It is white
and beautiful, if you lie in the offing
of a clear night. Like all the rest of
Morocco, and,indeed, the Mohamme
dan world, Casablanca is best seen
by the pale moonlight, and to wind
ward, writes Stephen Bonsai in the
New York Times.
Nearby salee, at the very name of
which our New England ancestors
who went down to the sea in ships
were wont to shudder, and with good
reason, is now closed by a sand bar,
which even the daring Barbary cor
sairs would not dare to cross in their
light-drawing feluccas, but the Moor of
the bad country is still a pirate,
though the times have driven him in
land from the seas. Until recently he
preyed upon the passing caravans as
a century ago he swooped down with
his hawklike galleys upon our be
calmed sailing ships. The Kabyle
horsemen who rush with so much fury
and reckless daring up to the French
batteries and rifle pits, -do it not only
because they have a hatred of the
Christian which their church sancti
fies to a virtue, but because they are
starving to death and want to get at
the men who have taken the bread out
of their mouths.
Held Plains and Passes.
Ten years ago these dashing horse
men, whose gorgeous costumes and be
jeweled weapons made them most
beautiful if somewhat barbaric ob
jects to behold, were the lords of the
plains and the marshes which lie be
tween the western Soudan and the
port owns of southwest Morocco. They
were the masters of transportation in
this part of the world, and had to be
reckoned with. If you cared to take a
caravan flight in ostrich feathers, gold
dust, slaves, or salt, they would pro
tect you or pillage you, whichever was
the most profitable.
Sid Iioubkelir, who was and is the
most prominent man in this part of
the world, used to rebate and cut rates
just like all the other masters of
transportation, and just like you and
I. He would give a caravan protec
tion at his price or he would pillage
it to secure the just tolls which were
his. as he never doubted, by the divine
right of might. Boubkehr and his
colleagues and rivals got all they
could get out of the job without dis
turbing business or destroying val
ues, and would still be doing a profit
able and philanthropic business were
it not for the recent opening up of
the Western Soudan by the French,
who have diverted to their own in
terests and profit all the former cara
van trade from Morocco down to Tim
buctoo and the Niger. So without
wishing to be unduly alarmist about
the situation of the besieged garri
sons in Mogador and Casablanca it is
clear that their assailants are not
only fanatics, but hungry fanatics
wrho have been quietly put out of a
most profitable and gentlemanly busi
ness. which permitted them the ex
travagance of often paying one linn
dred good dollars for a carbine, which
in New York would have been dear at
twelve.
These dashing bordermen were
bound to the imperial government by
I ~~ 1
ness men, they paid him large sums to
go away and not restrain trade.
Typical of this same Sultan Mulai
Ilassan’s attitude toward what is
called progress and improvement in
the western world is an anecdote, the
authenticity of which I feel I can
vouch for. There were and still are
some dangerous rocks in the harbor
of Rabat, and the owners of the coast
ing steamers engaged in the Morocco
trade were anxious, for obvious rea
sons. to have them removed. Having
failed to interest the local governor in
the matter, the steamship men got to
gether and sent an envoy to Fez, who
requested that the companies con
cerned might be allowed to remove
these dangers to commerce at their
own expense.
Sultan’s Wily Answer.
"Certainly not,” was the sultan's
immediate answer, “the rocks were
put there by God for some good pur
pose, let no man dare to remove
them.”
What the sultan doubtless thought
was that foreign men-of-war could get
into the Atlantic ports of his empire
quite easily enough, and at all events
he did not wish to appear in the eyes
of his sullen people as facilitating the
exits and the entrances of the hated
r
sy
A Moorish Soldier.
Christians. The policy of his little son,
Abdul-Aziz, has been much more lib
eral, and from the western view point
more enlightened, and is, sad to relate,
one of the contributing causes to the
present alarming situation. He recent
ly consented to the request of the con
sular corps and the shippers that har
bor improvements should be under
taken in Casablanca. Whereupon the
suspicions Kabyles of the adjacent
mountain fastnesses rushed down to
the “White House” city and killed 12
or 15 Europeans, mostly Spaniards,
who were engaged upon the work.
In making concessions to the Euro
pean spirit of progress and enterprise,
for which his people are not ready, the
unlucky and probably most incapable
young sultan has raised a storm which
may cost him his throne. To-day, if
he stands with his people, he is threat
ened with a foreign expedition, while
j if he stands by the treaty he runs even
I greater and nearer danger at the hands
I of the various pretenders to the
| throne, by whose activity the sultan’s
i life has been made very miserable
! ever since, or almost ever since. By a
harem conspiracy and the weakness
of his father the young prince was
called to the difficult post of ruling
the Moors.
Present Ruler Unpopular.
Abdul Aziz’s accession to the throne
was. a most unpopular one, and this
fact probably accounts for the fact
that early in his reign he surrounded
himself with foreigners who, with
some exceptions, were not generally
men of a high type—rope walkers,
photographers, balloonists, and sleight
of-hand men were the representatives
of western civilization who for a long
time appealed most powerfully to the
young sultan's appreciation of our cul
ture. In view of the rising tide of dis
content and the disaffection even of
the people of the capital, and the
growing strength of the various revo
lutions in progress, in the last year
the sultan has dismissed his staff of
foreign adventurers and goes- to the
mosque as regularly as his father did
—but probably the harm has been
done. In Morocco, as well as in other
countries, a reputation for orthodoxy
is hard to retrieve.
One brother of the unlucky sultan;
Mulai Hafid by name, of whose*fchar
acter and leanings upon the questions
of the day little is known, has been
formally proclaimed sultan in the
great mosque at Morocco City. An
other brother Hassan, it is said, has
been exercising rights of sovereignty
in the Riff highlands, west of Tetanu
and on' the Mediterranean coast for
two years past. In the Sus country an
other brother, who bears the name of
Morocco’s greatest , sultan, Mulai Is
mail, Is threatening rebellion with a
the slenderest of ties; they were
wholly immersed in their profitable
business operations and in annexing
to their own households the most
beautiful slaves culled from the pass
ing caravans. When the tax-gatherers
ventured into their domains they
buried them alive, but when the late
sultan, Mulai Hassan, who was a fight
er, appeared in their neighborhood, be
ing conservative, clear-headed bugj
force of fanatical horsemen estimated
at 35,000 at his back, while in the
western provinces still slumber the
never radically suppressed rebellions
of the Rogui and Bou Hamara, the
benevolent “Father of the Asses,” who,
with his claim to divine descent and
revelation and his wondrous gift of
eloquence, exercises a remarkable in
fluence upon the mule drivers and all
the other nomadic folk of the empire.
Nations Have Hard Task.
Such in outline is the situation by
which France and Spain find them
selves confronted because of the recog
nition of their special interests in the
disturbed country, and the police man
date -which they received at the con
ference of the powers at Algeciras. In
the light of recent events it would
seem not at all unlikely that their
diplomatic victory at the conference
will entail upon France and Spain the
loss of many thousands of men and
many millions of francs, which neither
can afford to throw away. The talk
of an expedition to Fez, a flying col
umn of 10,000 men, in which the boule
vard sheets indulge, is the sheerest
nonsense, or the wildest madness. It
would require 150,000 men, all picked
troops, to capture Fez, and it W'ould re
quire many thousands more, and re
quire them indefinitely, to hold the
holy city and maintain something ap
proaching law and order in the sur
rounding country.
Portugal was for several hundred
years in possession of nearly all the
Moorish ports on the Atlantic coast,
including Casablanca; indeed, the sec
ond title of the ruler of Portugal to
day is “King of the Algarves,” which
refers to the royal pretensions to
Moorish sovereignty, all substantial
basis to which has long since disap
peared, together with the East Indian
dependencies
Fate of Portuguese Army.
It was in 1578 that Dom Sebastian,
the chivalrous hero of Portuguese song
and story, equipped an army for the
purpose of overrunning the whole
country. A duke of Leinster and many
other gentlemanly adventurers joined
Dom Sebastian’s standards and began
the journey to the capital, which so
many conquerors have undertaken but
in which no single one has succeeded,
at least not since the day when the
green banners of the Prophet of Islam
were first flung to the breezes from
the battlements of Fez.
Dom Sebastian and liis army of 20,
000 men, together with the uncounted
adventurers who had come together
from all over Christendom to follow
so gallant and so generous a prince,
met their fate in the valley by Alkesar,
which is watered by a shallow river
generally identified by historians and
geographers as the Lixus of Pliny.
There 20,000 men were cut to pieces
by the Moorish cavalry, and those who
died here by the sword were the for
tunate members of the army. Accord
ing to some accounts, Dom Sebastian
and the more notable of his followers,
wounded or captives, were taken to
Mekinez, where, after they had graced
the triumph of the terrible sultan, Ab
del-Melet, their conqueror, the greater
number of them were buried alive in
the city walls. In these same walls
1 are visible to-day many hundred brick
ed up cells in which on this occasion
and at other times of fanatical fury,
| Christians were immured while living
as a punishment for refusing to recite
the fatiha and so become renegades
to their creed.
The Battlefield of Long Ago.
It is a.dreary scene, this long for
gotten battlefield, but one that the fu
ture invaders of Morocco may remem
i ber with advantage. I came upon it
on one of my journeys in Morocco,
and made it an indelible impression.
It had been a very hot day, and we
w*ere at first delighted to be wet to the
skin as our horses waded, or rather
swam, the Lixus. Then the cold
:=n_
One of the Gates of Fez.
lance. Churchill served here two
years and then was so fortunate as
to secure a change of garrison to a
place where there was not so much
ihankless fighting, but the English
government, reluctant as ever to give
up a corner of land that has once
been painted red, hung on to the wed
ding present of the luckless queen for
a generation. On one occasion the
earl of Teviott' the British governor,
with most of his officers and a large
portion of the garrison, was surprised
by the vigilant Moors, and but few
escaped with their lives. After 20
years of constant warfare, harassed
day and night by a tireless and trucu
lent enemy, the keepers of John
Bull’s treasury counted up the cost,
and shortly after the figures were
known Tangier was abandoned, and
so the second attempt of the conquest
of Morocco failed.
Spain Had Enough.
In 1859 the Spaniards, under O’Don
nell, invaded Morocco, bent upon ob
taining satisfaction for undoubted in
juries at the hands of lawless Moors,
and perhaps with thoughts of perma
nent conquest if all went well. As a
matter of fact, nothing went well.
From 40,000 to 60,000 men were en
gaged for two years, with heavy casu
alties, and even greater losses from
sickness. At the end of the second
campaign, the Sancho Panza in Cas
tillian politics got the upper hand of
the Don Quixote, proclaimed honor
satisfied, the terms offered by the
Moors all that could be desired, and
retired in a blaze of false glory, out
of which O’Donnell secured a duke
dom .and many Spanish regiments un
pronounceable Moorish names. But
the real results were none.
In 3893 the Moors attacked the
Spanish possession of Melilla, and the
Madrid government, if hungry for ad
venture, had every opportunity, and
even justification, for a punitive ex
pedition, but very wisely did not
£*■ V.
J
Returning from an Expedition.
evening breeze began to blow, and the
damp fogs to rise from the grave
yard of so much Christian chivalry;
indeed, our teeth were chattering and
our hearts cold before, in the mystic
light of the rising moon, we rode up
a mound in the middle of the battle
field which, according to the local leg
end that may be true, was built out
of the corpses of the Christians who
were slain that day, and was also the
coign of vantage from which, when
the battle was fought and won, the
Emin of the Sultan proclaimed the
hour of piayer and of thanksgiving,
the greatness of the One God of
Islam and of Mohammed his Prophet.
Ceded to England.
After this disaster Portugal gradu
ally withdrew from Morocco, and in
1660 what remained of her conquests
were ceded to England as part of the
dowry of the Infanta Catherine of Bra
ganza, who became the wife of Charles
II. Another piece of real estate includ
ed in the dowry because the King of
Portugal was just at that moment
short of cash was the island of Bom
avail itself of the opportunity. It
has always seemed to me that, thanks
to the travels and researches of the
late Padre Lerchundi and others of
his thorough and deligent school, the
Spaniards understand conditions in
Morocco better than men of other
nationalities. They showed it at Me
llila ten years ago, and I rather think
tho commanding officer of the Span
ish contingent in "Casablanca is show
ing it to-day when he refuses to ex
pose his men outside the city to the
furious driving charge of the Moorish
irregular cavalry
industry in Alabama.
Alabama is now producing as much
pig iron as Pennsylvania did a quar
ter of a century ago. Jn 1887 the
south made a trifle more than 800,000
tons. Last year it made 3,500,000
tons. The south lias about one-half
the known Iron ores of the United
States. A great steel Industry has
sprung up in Alabama within the
last ten years, and it is said to pro
duce better steel rails than th«
north, and at lower cost.
“WAY DOWN EAST”
HER? GENTLE ART OF SWAPPING
IS AT ITS BEST.
In Woodhull, New York State, Citi
zens Stand Ready to Trade Any
thing at Any Time—Some
Sample Doings.
Woodhull, up in Steuben county,
New York, lays claim to two distinc
tions, according to a country doctor,
who was relating some of his experi
ences to several of his old classmates
at a class reunion the other night. It
boasts of being the largest village in
the state far removed from any steam
or trolley road, and it is the greatest
“swapping” center in the state, if not
in the whole country. Its annual horse
traders’ convention, which is held in
the fall, is its pride.
"I .shall never forget my first even
ing in the village,” said the doctor.
“A friendly native had volunteered to
show me ‘round a bit,’ and he led me
first to the nightly camping ground
of the village gossips, the veranda of
the Lantz House. -
“‘There's a crowd fer ye!’ whis
pered my guide. ‘They jest set ’round
doin’ nawthin’ ’cept smoke, chaw and
swap lies. That's Hank Bump they’re
listenin’ to naow. He’s the greatest
swapper in Woodhull—chiefly hoss
swapper, but he’ll swap anything he's
got. Come on, an’ I’ll interduce ye.
Might as well git to knowln’ the folks
naow as any time.
“ ‘Mr. Bump, shake hands with the
new doc.’
“ ‘Haow be ye, Doc? Glad to know
ye. Goin’ to locate here, be ye?
There's a big ride ‘raound Woodhull
fer doctors. I was jest tellin’ the
boys haow cheap I got that ’ere ole
gray mare over there. I traded her
to Bill, here, the same night I got her.
I was 'tendin’ an auction sale daown
to Addison a couple o' year ago. They
sold a buggy an' a lot o’ truck. When
Andy (that’s the auctioneer) brung
out that ole mare somedody bids 25
cents. Another bids 30. Then I sings
out “35 cents,” an’ Andy knocks her
daown to me. She’s been a high
hooker in her day, an’ she’s a good
mare yet—Bill knaows that.’
“ 'Yes,' said Bill, taking up the
swapping yarn, ‘I ketched up to him
cornin’ up from Addison, an’ see he
was leadin' somethin'?
“‘“What you got there?” I sings
out.
“ ‘ “A trader,” says Hank. “Got
anything ye'll swap?”
“ ‘ “I got a watch,” says I. “Here,
take a look at it an’ put in yer pocket
till we git to the bridge.”
.Well, when we gits to the
bridge,” Hank says, “haow'll ye
trade?”
i ougiu. to nave a uonar er two
to boot,” says I.
“ ‘ "Can't do It,” says he.
“ ‘Well, I considered Into it a minute
I seen she had a good halter on an’
a new hame strap hitched to it—an’
I needed a new hame strap—so I
says, “Well, I'll trade yer even.”
“It’s a go,” says he, and so we
swapped.
“ ‘What kind of a watch did ye get,
Hank?’ someone asked.
“ ‘Well, it was a pretty good watch
to look at,’ replied Hank, ‘but it
wouldn t go. One night I came daown
here an’ heerd a feller braggin’ that
he'd swap anything at any time er
place. He was one o’ them Bradys
from Hardscrabble. 1 ast him what
time o’ day it was, an’ see he had a
watch just like mine, only it was
goin’.
"Haow'll ye swap watches?” says
I.
"Even,” says he, so we swapped.
“‘Yes, an’ I’ll tell ye what the
watch cost ye got o’ me,” volunteered
Bill. ‘My boy give two hens fer it,
so I give him the ole mare.”
To Fight Fire in Mines.
For fighting fire in its anthracite
coal mines a chemical fire engine is
now being used by a company in
Pennsylvania. This engine is built on
a truck which can run upon tracks
throughout the mine. When an alarm
of fire is sounded the engine is at
tached to an electric locomotive and
rushed to the scene of trouble at a
high speed. Water played upon a
coal fire is almost instantly convert
ed into steam, which further disin
tegrates, forming a gas so suffocating
that it drives away the men fighting
the fire. Blue flames which shoot
out when water strikes the hot coal
often set ablaze pockets of gas in
the ceiling. When a chemical engine
plays upon burning coal the heavy
gases evolved cling to the floor and
smother the blaze by excluding the
air. Men are not annoyed by the
fumes and can stay close enough to
do effective work.
Apple of Sodom.
The true apple of Sodom, or mad ap
ple, of the shore of the Dead sea, men
tioned by Strabo, Tacitus, and Jose
phus, and described as beautiful to
f.V eye, but filling the mouth, with
hitter ashes if tasted, is a kind of gall,
growing on dwarf oaks, and produced
hy a species of gall-insect, which has
i *ceived the name of Cynips insana.
r*hese galls are about two inches long,
fad one and a half inches in diameter,
o: a beautiful, rich, glossy, purplish
r«d color, and filled with an intensely
letter, porous, and easily pulverized
substance, surrounding the insect.
They are attached to the twigs in a
ctrious manner, different from other
gT«lls, the narrow end rising upwards
on each side, and bending inwards, so
st to clasp the extremity of the twig
rumehow like a pair of wide and
Curved nippers.
i
!EiS-t5:FIZEE'M'-5>«-*.K,.
“I have suffered with kidney ana
other trouble for ten years past. * *B*
‘'Last March I commenced nsm„
Teruna and continued for three m«Sf
I have not used it since, nor have T u
a pain. ieit
,lI believe that I am well and I there,
fore Rive my highest commendation to
the curative qualities o£ Peruna.”
Pe-m-na For Kidney Trouble.
“I had, not been well for about four
years. / had kidney trouble, and l„
fact, felt badly nearly all the time.
“This summer I pot so very bad I
thought I would try Peruna, sol wrote
to you and began at once to take Peruna
and Manalin.
“I took only two bottles of Peruna
and one of Manalin, and now I feel
better than I have for some time.
“I feel that Peruna and Manalin cured
me and made a different woman of me
altogether, i bless the day I picked up
the little book andread of your Kpruna."
It Is the business of the kidneys to
remove from the blood all poisonous
materials. They must be active all the
time, else the system suffers. They are
times when they need a little assistance.
Peruna is exactly the sort of a rem
edy. It has saved many people from
disaster by rendering the kidneys sen
vice at a time when tin y were not able
to bear their own burdens.
KNEW VALUE OF AN OATH.
Colored Witness at Least Was Aware
of Its Pecuniary Worth.
Clarence S. Darrow, the well known
lawyer and essayist, discussing the
Haywood trial, in which he played so
prominent a part, said the other day:
“Some of the evidence in that trial
was so transparently false that it re
minds me of a case that came off In
Alabama a few years back. One ol
the witnesses in this case was an ei
tremely ignorant man. As his testi-:
monv progressed, his ignorance be
came so shockingly evident that the
judge, looking sternly down at him ,
said:
“ 'Look here, sir, are you acquaint
ed with the value of an oath?'
“The witness answered anxiously:
“ ‘Jedge, I hope I am. That thar j
lawyer on yer left hand gimme six dol-'
lars to sw'ar agin the other side,
Thet's the correck value of an oath,
ain’t it, jedge?’”
FIFTEEN YEARS OF ECZEMA.
Terrible Itching Prevented Sleep
Hands, Arms and Legs Affected
—Cuticura Cured in 6 Days.
“I had eczema nearly fifteen yean 1
The affected parts were my hands,
arms and legs. They were the worst
In the wdnter time, and were always
itchy, and I could not keep from
scratching them. I had to keep both
hands bandaged all the time, and at
night I would have to scratch through.
the bandages as the itching was so
severe, and at times I would have to >
tear everything off my hands to scratch |
the skin. I could not rest or sleep,
had several physicians treat me b ]
they could not give me a permanent]
cure nor even could they stop the ito 1
ing. After using the Cuticura Soap,]
one box of Cuticura Ointment and t j
bottles of Cuticura Resolvent for a ou 1
six days the itching had ceased, an
now the sores have disappeared, an j
never felt better in my life than j
now. Edward Worell, Band 30th l- »•
Infantry, Fort Crook, Nebraska.
Quite a Difference. ,
Alice—Kate is awfully dlsaPp0‘ 1(
That young Englishman aske
she thought a married couple sM
get along on 30 a week a
hastened to say yes.
Mildred—Well? , thst i
Alice—Now she has
he meant 30 shillings.
Journal.
Actua' Facts. ' f,
For upwards of fifteen J^a ^
Cure has been sold under a8 ^
antee to cure any form of c ^
troubles known. No matte:
—less than one per (ce,nt'th°eir moneT j
chasers have requested . worfc|
back. Why? It simplydoestbe j
Shrewd S®h#"^porter,#j
Traveler In Parlor ( ar jr(fl
man in front will g've '° ,
for dusting him off. wont
Porter—Yessir! __
Traveler—Well. II' giu,_ tno ^
dollar to leave the dust
not brush it off on to me._.
For him who aspires and hj
loves, life may lead ‘ (he »
thorns, but it never stops |
ert.—Lord Lytton.
•-- an ^
It isn’t necessary to Pu 1 4
brelia wher. silence reign3