Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-12-03
LIFE INLAZYLANn.
Travel In Morocco, Tts DiscOmf0rts,
Delays and Amusements.
Pan Mall Gazette.


Visitors to Morocco find the country
and its people marvelously strange and
fresh. Theirs 'fare the rain and sun
shine and the ways of an old wisdom by
our world forgot" Nowhere can a man
be more impressed with the vanity and
tedium of much that European civiliza-
ton considers indispensable to the in
terest Of life. From the hour you set
foot in the country the present mo-
ment seems so full of delight that there
Is but the smallest desire to project life
into anticipation. Time ceases to exist.
or at least 70 be of any account. 1t must
be admitted, however, that the DISPOSE
ton of everybody in this lazy, lotus-eat.
ing land to act on this is at times a little
troublesome. You have arranged to
make an excursion to a town in the in :
terror; you have fixed the day for start
ing-after having found that It must not
be Tuesday, for ''T1ets1 feletsG'' cor,
the third day all falls nor on Friday,
for that is their Sabhath-you have been
promised guides and mules before such a
time; but do not expect them there, they
viii not come. You 90 to the man with
whom you have made arrangements; he
is probably doing nothing, and he has
probably nothing to say in answer to
your complaint but Please Allah, to-
morrow" Yet if you manage to set out
on the third day, or before the week has
run out. you will have been treated fairly
well. They mean no neglect or disre.
spect; it is only their "old-world"
way. Hence their proverb. "Once
over the threshold the journeys half
done"
For travelling there are, Of course,
neither carriages nor roads; the roads So
called are only collocations of mule and
camel tracks. Till within two or three
years there was not a single wheeled
vehicle in Morocco, but now there are
known to be two-the one is yellow
antediluvian gig, which the Sultan has
procured somehow or other, and which
figured some time ago in a state process
sion, to the astonishment and delight of
the spectators; the other is a wheel
barrow which a gentleman recently took
to Mogador, and of which the stalwart
Moor to whom it was consigned so little
surmised the use that, when he had filled
it with mortar according to instructions,
he promptly shouldered it and strobe off.
Travelling on muleback, however, in the
large, well padded saddles of the coun-
try, with stirrups like slippers, is no
great hardship to either man or woman,
and the way is constantly beguiled by
some fresh illustration of Moorish life
and manners; company of noisy country
folks going to or from market; troop
of horsemen dashing past, with flowing
white celabs; the ghostly looking, silent
cavalcade of an Arab Shiek of the plains
and his harem, swathed from view, all
but, perhaps, one lustrous eye, the as
tOnished girl, who hides her face, but
not her legs. or the toilsome. almost
naked, peasant dawdling along behind
his aboriginal plow. A goat and
donkey may often be seen yoked to-
gether, and a woman has been seen in
The place of the gost but whatever the
team, the blowing is always the same
a mere scoring of the soil-and yet it
brings forth in abundance.