Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-07-04
THE DEATH
or the Sultan OF Morocco Furnishes De-
casion for a Very Interesting His
torical Summary and Re-
view OF the
Empire OF M0roce0-Its Rise, Progress
and Decay What Portugal and
Spain Did to Hasten the Latter
Romance OF History.


Morocco will be very generally passed over
with indifference. People are too apt either
to imagine that all that is unknown must be
magnificent, or to assume the directly oppo-
site view, and think that everything of which
they themselves are Ignorant is necessarily OF
but little moment. From this last cause
thousands will scarcely take the trouble to
glance at the record of any occurrence In the
great sultapate of northwestern Africa. This
is at once foolish and wrong, for everything
which tends to attract our attention to re-
gions comparatively but little known broad
ems the mind and enlarges the sphere OF our
conceptions. Morocco, too, is by no means
an insignificant State. 1t has an area, ac-
cording to the best computations, of two hun
dred and nineteen thousand square miles,
and is thus larger than the whole of France,
or all Spain and Portugal combined. Its his
tory, too, and its present condition are full
of interest. 1t was in 709 that the Arabs,
then in the full tide of their early triumphs,
completed the conquest of that part OF the
continent bordering upon the Mediterranean
aud stretching back to the desert and the
lses of Sahara The Berbers, as the abo-
rIginal inhabitants were called, rapidly cast
aside their idolatry and embraced the pure
mono theism of the invaders, and for time
it seemed as though the Mediterranean sea-
board of Africa were about to be restored to
that position among the nations which she
had once asserted in the palmy days of
Carthage before, and st. Augustine after,
Christ But the star of the Arabs paled land,
although In the middle of the fifteenth cen
tury their co-religionists, under Mohammed
III, had trampled under foot the Greek en-
pire of the east and taken Constanhnople, as
early as the year 1878 the power of Morocco
had sunk SO low that Portugal, then nearly at
the zenith of her power and prosperity, de-
termined upon it, conquest. The Portuguese
army was led by the brave and chivalrous
Cal h,,N l..1f oil thn hrler
hopes with which the Campaign was COM
menced were quenched forever In the
fatal defeat of Alcazar, when the
heroic young monarch, who had been scarcely
year upon the throne, persisted mlserably,
and was succeeded by Dom Enrique, popu-
larly known in the history of his nation as
the cardinal, as one of his predecessors, Joao
|. was called the Great, and another of his
successors, Joao ", the Fortunate. The bat
tie of Alcazar, tragic as it was In story, has
been the theme of many a beautiful Portu
guese romance, and sonnets and ballads
almost innumerable have been inspired by
the bravery of the invaders, and the reckless
and splendid. charges of the turbaned lnhdels
who defended their land. For many years
thenceforward Morocco was undistUrbed by
foreign aggression, and she might have con-
tinued to live in peace with all the world had
she not made her ports the headquarters OF
the pirates who for so many years were the
scourge of the Mediterranean. By all in
ternational law, from the days of Pompey
till the present, pirates have been placed
beyond the pale of the law, and declared the
enemies of the whole human race. And
thus all the maritime peoples-England,
Spain, Portugal, France, Venice and Genoa
not perhaps unnaturdlly stretched the doc
trine to such an extent that they regarded
any vessel sailing under the flag of Morocco
as a legitimate prize whenever they were SUI
C.: -, Il ,ko,-
with the dark-browed and black-boarded sail
ors of Tangier. But if in the history of the
world there ever could be an excuse for pira-
CIV, then the dwellers on the coast of Morocco
could claim it. When the pirates began their
career, it was less than hundred years since
Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella, had
perpetrated one of her greatest crimes. The
two sovereigns had driven the Moorish king,
Boabdil Ell Chico, from his last refuge in Gra-
NADIA, and inspired by all the ferocious bigotry
of Toruuemada, had decreed the expulsion
from the peninsular of all the Moors who re-
fused to abandon the crescent and the koran
for the cross and the gospel. Among the
disciples of Ell Islam there were but few
renegades, and tens of thousands took refuge
across the narrow seas, crossing from Gibral-
| tar to Ceuta, and from Carthagena to points
all along the opposite mainland. 1t would
| have been too much to expect from these
| children of an essentially combative religion
| any feelings of amity to the Spaniards whose
hand had laid so heavily upon them. And
as the Ottomans, two hundred years ago,
called all christians Franks, so these banished
Moors revenged upon all Europe, confusing
| its inhabitants under one generic title, the
wrongs inflicted upon them by single ma
| ton, and for many year the corsairs were
the terror of the sea. Again and again they
were terribly pupIshed, now by England, now
| by France, and Spain seized and still main
tains several strongholds, such as Ceuts, upon
the coast of the Sultanate. The me lntain
| fortress is but eight miles across the straits
| from Gibraltar, and it is a strange and signif-
icant sight to see the English flag waving
from Europa Point, upon Spanish soil, upon
one side of the channel, while the Spanish
flag floats from the Punta di Africa,
upon the other continent, upon the other.
| Piracy has finally been put down, and tho last
| war which Morocco has waged with a Euro
| pean power was that In which Prim won his
| laurers, some years before the flight of Isa-
bella to France in 1868. Muley- Hassan, the
sultan, who is just dead, was born in 1881
| the eldest son of the late sultan, Sidi-Muley
Mohammed; and although he had been on
the throne bet four years and half, he had
| done much for the development of the re-
sources of the country. New ports have been
| declared free, and commercial treaties upon a
more liberal basis than ever before have been
| entered into with Great Britain, France,
Spain and the United States. The sultan
was the thirty fifth in lineal descent from Ali,
| the uncle of the prophet, and his title Is, In
Arabic, Emir- al Muemin, Or, absolute ruler
of true believers. His government is auto
cratic, even in theory-far more 80 than that
of Turkey, for the sultan at CONSTANT
nople is liable to deposition, as In the
case of the late Abdul Aziz an Murad
V, who is now dragging out weary life In
confinement, by virtue of a fetvah signed by
the Sheik ul Islam, the head of the body of
the expounders of the koran called the Ule-
ma From such interference the sultan of
Morocco is completely free. He has not even
| ministry, and he himself Is the fountain
head of the expedition of the Sidi Beccari
the commentary upon the koran universally
used all over Morocco. Being thus absolute
| spiritual as well as temporal sovereign, he
reigns with undisputed sway over the whole
of the mingled races of his dominions. The
number of his subjects can only be estimated
They consist of Berbers, Arabs. Moors, Jews
and negroes, with probably less than one
thousand christians, and the most competent
Judges make the total less than three mill
ions of souls all told. The population of the
. city of Morocco is about fifty thousand
living within walls about seven miles IN cir
conference. To this very day, indeed, al
the larger cities in the country are walled
and the gates are as jealously closed soon af
ter sunset as those OF Gibraltar are at tatto
in the evening. The cities, indeed, although
possessing no municipal privileges whatever
are well governed Each has for its chief mag
istrate its kaid, under whom is the cadi, tn,
minister of public worship and justice; the
mohtassib, or chief of police, and the nadher
the keeper Of the mosques and their property
The people are, of course, very ignorant, bu
education has made great progress during
the past ten or twelve years, and English o.
French governesses are employed In most o.
the wealthiest families.
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