The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-10-12

I faFestIuK Letter from Ehr
/ COunIree."
| "Merk Twain" !" the most unctious OF
living humorists, accompanied the
quaker City" party which LEFT New
York early in the summer on an ex-
cursion 10 the Holy Land. He went
ont as the special correspondent of the
san Francisco "AuG Californian" and
has sent it some exceedingly quaint
and attractive letters. From the last,
dated .Tangier, Africa, July lst," we
make the following interesting and
amusing extracts: sr .r. 81
OUT OF THE WORLD AT LAST. 81
This is altogether the infernalest
place have ever come across yet. Let
ihose who went up through Spain make
much of it-these dominions of the
Emperor OF Morocco suit me well
enough, We have had enough OF Spain
at Gibraltar for the present. Every
where else one finds fofeign-looklng
things aud toreign-looking people, but
always with things and people inter
mixed that we were familiar with be-
fore, and so the novelty of the situa-
tiou lost deal OF its force. We wanted
snmethiug thoroughly and uncompro-
misiugly foreign-foreign from top TO
bottom-foreign from centre to circum-
fereuce-foreign inside and outside and
all rouud-nothinga anywhere bout 1t
10 dilute its foreignuess-nothing tore
mind us of any other people or any
other land under the sun. And lol in
Tangier we have found it. Here is not
the slightest thing that ever we have
seen save in piCtuTes-and we always
mistrusted the pictures before. We
cannot any more. The pictures used TO
seem lies-they seemed too wierd and
fancied for reality. But behold they
were not wild enough-they were not
fancilul enongh-tbey have not told
half the story. THngier is foreign
land If ever there was one. And the true
sDirit of il can never be found in any
book save the Arabian Nights. Here
are no white men visible, yet swarms
OF humanity all about me. Here is
packed and Iammed city enclosed in
"A thousand years old. All the houses
nearly are one and two story; made of
thick walls of stone; plastered outside;
square AS dry goods box; hat as Il
floor on top; no cOrnices; whltewashed
all over-a crowded city OF snowy
tombsl And the dOOrsa are arched with
the peculiar arch we see in Moorish
pictures, The floors are laid in YHri-
colored diamond-iags; in tesselated
MANY Colored porcelain squares
wrought in the furnaces of FeZ; in red
titles and broad bricks that time can
not wear. There is no furniture in the
rooms (of Jewish dwellinRs) save dl-
vans-what there is in the Moorish
ones no nan may know; within their
sncred walls no Christian dog can en-
Ter. And the streets are OIiental-some
OF them three feet wide, some six, but
only two that are over dozen; IA man
can blockade the most OF them by eX-
tending his body across them. Isn't it
an oriental picturer
There are staiwart Bedouins OF the
desert here, and stately Moors, proud
of "A history that goes back to the night
of time; and Jews, whose fathers fled
hither centuries upon centuries ago;
and swarthy Riffians from the noun
tains-borm nut-Ibroats; and original,
genuine negroes, as black as Moses,
and bowling dervishes, and a hundred
breeds OF Arabs-all sorts and descrip-
tions of people that are foreign and
curious to look upon.
And their dresses are strange beyond
all description. Here Is a bronZed
Moor in prodigious white turban,
curiousIy embroidered jacket, gold and
crimson sash, OF many folds, wrapped
round and round his waist; trowsers
that only come a little below his knee,
and yet have twenty yards of stuff in
them; ornamented scimetar, bare
shins, bare feet, yellow slippers,
and gun Of preposterous lengths mere
soldier-I thought he was the
Emperor at least. And here are
aged Moors with flowing white
boards and long white robes with vast
cowls; and Bedouins with long, cowled,
striped cloaks; and negroes and Rith-
ans with heads clean shaven, except a
kinky scalplock back OF the ear, or
rather up on the after corner OF the
skull; and all SORTS of barDarians in all
sorts of wierd costumes, all more or
less ragged. And here are Moorish
women who nre enyeloped from head
TO foot in coarse white robes, and
whose sex can only be determined by
the fact that they only leave one eye
visible, and who never look at men OF
their own race, or are looked upon by
them in public. Here are five thou
sand Jews in blue gaberdines, sashes
about their waists, slippers upon their
feet, little skull caps upon the backs of
heads. hair combed down on the fore
head, and cut straight across sthemiddle
of 1t from side to side-the selt-same
fashion their Tangier friends have worn
for thousand years. Their noses all
hooked, and hooked alike. They all
resemble each other SO much that one
could almost believe they were Of one
family. Their women are all plump
and pretty, and do smile upon a Chris
tiau in u way which is in the last de-
gree comforting. mi EEr
a CRADLE OF ANTIQUITY.
What funny old town it isl 1t
seems like proclamation to laugh and
Jest, and handy the frivolous chat Of
day amid It's hoary relics. Only the
stately phraseoIogy and the measured
speech Of the sons of the prophet are
suited to a venerable antiquity like this.
Here ia acrumbling wall that was old
when, Peter, the Hermit, reused the
knightly men of the middle ages to
arms for the first Crusade; was old
when Charlemague aud his pallidRns
beleagured enchanted castles and bat
tied with giants and geuii In the fabled
days Of the olden Tines; was old when
Christ and his disciples walked the
earth; stood where It stands to-day
when the lips of Memmon were not
silent, and men bought and sold in the
streets OF ancient Thebes7 ta
Tho pl1nnfpfan1 tha NarlhaOn