Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-30
A WEEK In MOROCCO.
Edgar L. Wakeman's Pen Pictures Of
the Shores of Two Continents.
THE ODD LANDING AT TANGIER.
Weird Night Experiences in the interest
ing Moorish City.
At THE MEDITERRANEAN'S ENTRANCE
rcoRRrspoNpENcr OF TIE p1sp,rcr,

4
ing between Lisbon and Cadiz. After a
| day in the latter, once the emporium of the
world and still the most winsome and beau
tiful city of Spain, we sailed on smaller
vessel, little better than ferryboat, for the
| African coast, touching for an hour at
Tarifa, the southernmost city of continent
| tai Europe, but Is miles southwest of
| Gibraltar.
In this less than 100 miles from Cadiz
there are innumerable scenes and memories
of wondrous impressiveness. Cadiz itself
was the Tarsbish of Bible history, Juno's
wondrous island, and the glorious Iberia of
Anacreon and Homer. AT the end of the
fourth century it was the richest, most
brilliant, and most profigate city in the
world. Then the Goths and the Arabs pos
sessed it, the latter for 500 years from the
eighth century, when Alfonso the Learned
retook it in 1862. What a vision of riches
and pillage comes with vanishing sight of
the beautiful citv, when its American
treasure is remembered The old writer's
tell that in the one year of 1892 the gold
and silver imported at Cadiz from America
amounted to S125, 900, 900; and away back of
this, when the English Lord Essex sacked
and pillaged Cadiz, the booty amounted to
40 great galleons and 13 ships of war laden
with American gold.
Travel on Historical Waters.
In an hours time you have come abreast
of Cape Trafalgar. Your steamers course
is through the very waters where Nelson
won his immortal victory over the combined
fleets of Gravina and Villeneuve. All the
mighty paintings you have seen, all the
majestic monuments to Nelson underneath
whose shadows you have stood, all the
thrilling prose and verse you have read upon
this inspiring theme, fill and thrill your
mind and heart, until the air is dimmed
with smoke, the hoarse bellowings of can
non deafen you, the sheets of flame from
those two solid columns of war ships blind
you, the shrieks OF wounded and dying and
the crashing of masts add to the conured
horror-all for an instant, may be; but no
poet or painter has ever brought its glory
and savagerv to your comprehension so
matchlessly as your own brief presence
there.
And now Tarifa is reached; Tarifa cele-
brated of all cities of the Latin race for the
fatal beauty of its women; Tarifa where the
besieging Moors put to death the son of
Don Alfonso before his eyes in an attempt
to effect the city's surrender; where mighty
battles between the Kings of CASTLE and
meath its walls; where once 1000 Roman
sons came and took to themselves their pick
OF Spanish women; where the Berbers first
met the dispirited armies of Roderick, last
of the Goths; Tarifa with its scores of tow
ers and gatea, labarynthine streets balconies
hidden behind masses of flowers, and it's
haE-Spanish halt-Moorish scenes and life
which taunt and tempt ravishingly to daily
ing and delay.
Across the Strait of Gibraltar.
From this point, as your course is set to
the southwest for Tangier almost straight
across the Strait Of Gibraltar, the scene on
every hand is one of matchless beauty and
grandeur. Back to the northwest stretches
the Spanish coast line to Trafalgar, low
lying along the sea, but with background
of undulating foothills, breaking into deep
gorges, and capped by lofty sierras, the
whole checkered by vineyards and dotted
with cities and hamlets, in the distance as
white as flakes of snow. Back across the
waters to the northeast looms gray old |
Gibraltar, line of fishing villages, arsen- |
ais, quays and moles at its base like slen- !!
der ribbon of foam, its thousands of threat |
ening cannon above hidden and submitted |
by terraces bright and vines and gardens |
fair.
Before you is Africa, warm and glowing |
beneath u mfdwinter sun. Away to the !
southeast is the shadowy peak Of Apes i
Hill, at whose base Ceuta lies. A grand |
and diversified coast stretches westward, |
past as yet invisible Tangier, to Cape |
Spartel the northwesternmost point in |
Africa.
Feasting with eager and selfish delight |
upon the glorious shores OF two continents,
I had lost sight of honest Dobrado; Dobrado
who was TO have returned to his place by
the babbllng fountains of Lisbon, from
Beja, should persist in tramping thence to
Tavira and the sea; Dobrado who was now
sworn servitor and friend; Dobrado broad
of grin as Gargantua, and of beam as
Quixote's no less faithful squire; Dobrado
HON 1 found with lowering ewes and hid
eous face, as rapt as 1 had been, scowling
with unutterable hate at the fair land of the
Moors.
The Gallegan Gets Confused.
/ touched the Gallegan gently upon the
and my eyes sought his inquir-
ingly. He trembled and was wofully con-
fused for moment. Then his great blue
ewes saddened and he said softly and slowly,
IS though his heart meanwhile travelled long
and bitter way:
There is not choza (cabin) from Finis-
terre to Palencia in which there does not
hang some forefather's gaita, or hoz (sickle)
Or sword upon the wall, under which the
Gallegan boy is not daily brought to swear
for the murders of the Moorl'
AS pondered over Dobrado's dramatic
action and words, 1 could not but feel that,
sfter all, it is a pleasant thing to live, as
We Americans do, so far removed from end
ess mental, if not physical, clashings of
,hese awful hereditary religious hatreds of
he centuries.
But just now we have rounded Cape Mala-
,ar and Tangier lies before US like mass of
oam churned in the seething tides of Glib
altar Strait, and tossed into structural
emblance upon the mountain-rimmed shore
If the bay.
There is no mole, quay or pier at Tangiers;
md we came to anchor near the shelving
hore, where the harborside traffic goes on
With wondrous din, and the Moorish GUS
oms officers squat upon their launches
their duties in severe silence
md gravity. On either side were number
ess fellucas, with strange craft from the
over Mediterranean, and perhaps two score
# French, Spanish, English and Dutch
chooners, barks and brigs. Rather lone
ome harborsseems that of Tangler; and the
wo huge kitish men-of-war, which had
'een lying here several days in view of
possible danger to British interests from the
threatened revolt of interior tribes, who
eem always to be about to be doing some
hing unpleasant, brought again the keen
nd humiliating longing 1 have had in
undred other ports, that the American
government possessed sufficient character
nd dignity to make our flag tithe as well
espected as any other that floats the seas.
The Landing at Tangier.
Getting ashore at Tancier is NOT alto |