The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-23 00:00:00

SPAIN AND MOROCCO.

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)
TETUAN, FEE. 11.
Events r.t first regarded as calamitous sometimes
prove blessings in the end, and among such, perhaps,
will have to be classed the sack of a large portion of
Tetuan by the defeated and lawless army of the
fugitive Muley Abbas. It has compelled the abo-
minably dirty and negligent population to turn out
of their houses the shattered fragments of their fur-
niture, and, at the same time, an amount of rubbish
and filth such as an European imagination could
hardly conjure up. " You are removing the dirt of
three centuries," said this intelligent Moorish
alcalde whom the Spaniards have appointed; and
really, judging from appearance, the Mahomedan
did not greatly exaggerate. Except some parts of
Galata, I know nothing that can even remotely
compare with the streets of Tetuan, and notably
with those of the Jewish quarter. You would not
thank me for an attempt to catalogue the ingre-
dients of the mass of foulness which, under Spanish
direction, the Tetuanese are now raking up and re-
moving—not willingly, believe me. The unfortu-
nate Jews evidently think it very hard that old

abuses should be thus interfered with, and that
they should be compelled, by brown-coated bayonet-
bearing taskmasters, to delve, and scrape, and
sweep, and gradually to remove the sacred accumu-

Wiens of ages. The owner of the rottenest o
boroughs could hardly have viewed the Reform
Bill with greater disgust than they testify for this
innovating and compulsory purification. I assure
you it was a strange sight yesterday to see the
mai* street of the Ghetto crowded with these poor
children of Israel, in their striped cotton coats and
loose white trousers, their heads for the most part
bare, or scantily covered with a skull cap, their
ankles naked, their feet slippered, their figures
shambling and slightly stooping, as of a people used
to oppression ; their countenances timid and furtive,
their slender hands unused to rude toil, grasping
but feebly shovel and broom. They were not
hardly treated or unnecessarily tormented ; the
Spanish soldier is generally neither brutal nor
cruel; but they were made to work, and evi-
dently thought it a harsh and tyrannical proceed-
ing. if they are kept to the necessary labour, in a
few days Tetuan will assume an aspect hitherto
unknown to its oldest inhabitant ; its streets will
have sunk a foot or two, and will no longer stifle
the passenger with odours compared to which the
combined emanation from a knacker's yard and an
extensive soapboiling establishment would seem
Arabian perfumes ; its walls will be whitewashed,
with which object large quantities of limo are pre-
paring ; water will have leave to flow down the
gutters, at present choked with black and fetid
mud ; in short, the place will be fit to live in, which
it certainly was not when we arrived here, except
for Moors and African Jews. There is the less
excuse for these horrible dirty habits as water is
extremely abundant here ; there are wells and
springs and streams all around the town, and in
nearly all its houses one finds pumps and fountains
yielding a plenteous tupply, clear as crystal. Only
the very healthy and airy position of Tetuan, on a
rising ground between two valleys, with sea or
mountain breezes refreshing it from whatever quar-
ter the wind may set, can have saved it from con-
tinually recurring fevers and pestilence ; for, be-
sides the dirt, the streets are narrow and confined,
and the house's derive light and air chiefly from
inner courts, often only a few feet square. Exter-
nally few windows are seen, and most of those are
but a foot high and a few inches broad—more like
loopholes than windows. Here and there a semi-
circular box, like half a barrel, is fixed against the
wall, covering an aperture and having in its staves
minute loopholes, not much larger than keyholes,
through which one can fancy the dusky Moorish
beauties stealing a glance at a passing pageant--
perhaps at the gallant array of Muley Abbas's
picked cavalry, as they went out, full of con-
fidence, to meet a disastrous defeat. From de-
serted window sills and narrow ledges of the
whitened brickwork sprout rich tufts of dark green
vegetation, shooting npwards as if they would
fain rise above the roof and catch the sunbeams
the narrow streets exclude, or drooping down-
wards as though resigned to shade. Where rooms
are not built across and over the street, narrow
arches unite its opposite sides, as though the
builder, mistrustful of his work, had desired addi-
tional support. The best of Tetuan's streets are but
lanes, some with ragged pavement, others unevenly
floored with earth, which the least rain converts
into mud. They are narrow, as befits the climate;
tortuous and labyrinthian, and meeting each other
at all possible angles. At a short distance from the
western exit from the town, outside of which now
camps the corps of Don Juan Prim, is the princi-
pal square, mentioned in a former letter, and on
the most conspicuous building of which, high above
the ground, the Spaniards have painted, in large
black letters, " Plaza de Espana." To facilitate re-
ference and circulation, the Spaniards—who, in
some things, display a promptitude and method I
must own I should hardly have expected from
them—have already given names to the streets,
have had them painted on boards, and are fixing
them up at all corners. Considering that they en.
tered Tetuan only on the 6th inst., a good deal has
already been done, and one important point gained
is that the Moors have been inspired with confidence
in their new rulers. Some of the plundered Jews
conceiving, on the Spaniards' entrance, that their
star was in the ascendant, thought to indemnify
themselves for their losses at the hands of the
Moorish army by reprisals on the deserted Moorish
houses. There was an excuse for them. They had
been left, in many cases, without a bed to lie upon
or a blanket to cover them ; they saw houses full
of what they greatly needed and destitute of occu-
pants, and they went forth to help themselves.
One of the first acts of the Spanish authorities,
when here installed, was to forbid the removal of
property from deserted houses. It was necessary to
enforce the order, and two Jews, who were caught
stealing from a Moorish house, were visited with
stripes. This had a great effect on the Moors. They
felt themselves protected—as the Israelites had felt
themselves protected—and, the orderly and quiet
behaviour of the Spanish soldiery concurring to dis-
sipate their first alarm, they began to emerge in num-
bers from their hiding-places, and to show themselves
abroad without any signs of fear. The difference
in the bearing of Jews and Moors is very striking.
Cringing, servile, abject aro the former; even when
in full security they seem to shrink from dreaded
question or reproof, and if you but raise your voice
they crouch as though they feared a blow. If they
excite contempt, they must also move to pity, for
their broken spirit is the effect of long persecution.
But mark the differeneo in the Mahomedan. lie is
proud and stoical, even in his great distress and dis-
aster. His bearing is erect, his countenance calm ;
his eye, if it does not always firmly sustain your
gaze, at least betrays no faint heart ; his supremacy
is gone, but his manly dignity remains. On the 7th
the second day of Spanish presence in Tetuan, I was
particularly struck by this. Rambling through the
Moorish quarter we met several of its inhabitants,
who had evidently come forth for the first time
since the capture of the city, and with some doubts
as to the reception reserved for them by the invaders.
But there were no st •
gns of humiliation about them ;
they were none the less in their own esteem because
conquered and subjected • they took their misfor-
tune in the true fatalist spiritr
tl; it was so ordained,
and there was no shame
Not only in the city, but in the adjacent country,
the Moors seem to be acquiring confidence in ths
Spaniards and disposed to submit quietly
to their
rule.
Deputations have arrived from villages,
ten-
dering submissson and allegiance. Only yesterday
afternoon one of them came in, apparently the
cor-
poration of some Moorish douar, anxious to see the
Ceneral-in-Chief and to present a modest tribute of
fowls and eggs. Unfortunately O'Donnell was ab-
s, Int. The ex-king of a tribe, whom
the Emperor's
Government had deprived of his authority, has
off bred. to bring 13,000 men under Spanish govern-
me Qt provided he be restored to his station. There
,
wmild be no difficulty in forming a native corps
hens, and O'Donnell ;entertains the project. The
soldiers snd others who have presented themselves
are assureel of good treatment, of the possession of
their horses, of security for their women, and of

twice the pay they got from the Emperor of Mo-
rocco ; and, as they find that the Christians are
fair in their dealings and keep their word, they
show a disposition to accept the terms, and some
have gone away again to inform their re-
latives and friends that the unbelievers offer good
conditions and may be trusted. There is in this
country—as might be expected from the vicinity of
French colonies—a party in favour of European
rule, and which the Spaniards call the Argelino or
Algerine party, which would prefer foreign domi-
nation to that of their present Sovereign. That
party, of course, rallies round the Spanish banner;
and now, for the first time since this army landed
in Africa, information is obtained of the position of
the enemy, the nature of the country, its resources,
&c. When Prim went out to reconnoitre a day or
two ago, and advanced a couple of leagues towards
Tangier, he passed through several villages, the in-
habitants of which showed no signs of terror, nor
sought to avoid the foreign soldiers, the report of
whose orderly, inoffensive behavour had already
reached them. The Tetuan Moors have actually
entreated the Spanish authorities to extend the
term originally fixed for those inhabitants who have
fled to return and take possession of their homes.
They have been granted until to-morrow. Some
appear to have fled far, and others have been pre-
vented returning by terror of aimed bands, proba-
bly wandering, thieving stragglers from the routed
army. For protection from these, some of the
country people have asked to retain their arms, and
have been allowed to do so. In Tetuan all the arms
have been called in by the authorities, but I very
much doubt whether all, or nearly all, have been
given up, although a great number of old unservice-
able weapons have been sent into store. The num-
ber of the wounded Moors left in hospital here was
exaggerated by rumour. I hear that there are not
much more than 1,000 at the most wounded. All
who could hobble or crawl fled on the approach of
the Spaniards. Ltold you that on Sunday forenoon
from the hill of the Casbah, we saw a long train of
Moors making for the lateral valley that leads to-
wards Tangier. When Rios's troops crowned
the height, a large body of Moorish horse (about
2,000, it is said) was just outside the western gate
of Tetuan, and it was at them that the shots were
fired from the guns of the citadel.
There seems no danger of a scarcity of supplies
here, even were communication by sea cut off. The
drove of oxen and cows that has accompanied the
army from the lines of Ceuta is now large and on
the increase. Twenty beasts were purchased the
other day by the commissariat for little more than
£2O sterling. They are small, but even were they
smaller the price is ridiculously low, The people of
the surrounding country, which is thickly sprinkled
with villages and hamlets, show every disposition, I
am assured, to bring in articles for sale, the utmost
pains having been taken to convince them that the
Spaniards pay for everything. The Spanish soldier,
as I have taken occasion more than once to remark,
is habitually good tempered and well-behaved, and
I attribute this in great measure to his sober habits.
He does not irritate his system and his temper by
the abuse of strong drinks, as English and French
soldiers are but too apt to do, especially under cir-
cumstances of hardship and exposure. He is no
dram drinker, or consumer of that deleterious ab-
sinthe which plays suchmischief among the French
army in Africa. To his sobriety is unquestionably
to be chiefly set down the scarcity of cases of mis-
conduct in the army, which it would be unjust not
to recognise and extol. Living, as I have now done,
since the end of last November, in the very midst
of the soldiers, with their tents all around, and
often very near to mine, I have not once seen or
heard of a fight among them, scarcely so much as a
brief dispute or verbal brawl, and courts-martial
have been almost unknown. Without going nearly
so far as some of my Spanish friends, who, in their
naive enthusiasm at the recent successes over these
undisciplined, ill-armed, and ill-commanded Afri-
cans, sometimes proclaim their infantry to be the
first in the world, I must admit that they pos-
sess qualities which constitute them excellent
materials for the manufacture of first-rate ar-
mies ; and their conduct towards the natives is,
so far as I have as yet had opportunities of
observing and ascertaining, exempt from reproach.
It were desirable, however, that while respecting
persons and their immediate property, they
would show some consideration for ono branch of
the wealth of this country, and that is its orchards.
It is quite necessary that the soldier should
boil his pot ; but at the expense of a little more
trouble, he might manage to do so with less pre-
cious fuel than fruit trees. If the army, or a con-
siderable portion of it, passes the spring in and
around Tetuan, as is highly probable, I fear the rich
orchards that surround us will be grievously devas-
tated. Orange and almond trees are really too
agreeable in their aspect, and too valuable in their
produce, for one to behold them without regret
serving to cook the beans and bacon of hungry bat-
talions. I believe that the attention of the mili-
tary authorities has been called to the abuse, and
doubtless means will be taken to check it. An ac-
tive provost and guard, intrusted with a reasonable
latitude as to the infliction of prompt punishment
on offenders taken in the act, would also be a most
useful institution, more for the town than for the
camp, and less for the soldiers than for the host of
canteenmen, petty vendors of sundries, and equivo-
cal camp-followers of all descriptions who stick to
the skirts of this army, and have lately much in-
creased in numbers, and are likely still further to
do so now that it is in possession of a considerable
town.