Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-01-31
BREWERS AND BOLERS OF BEER AND MANUFACTURERS OF E

the famous '.Pepy's Diary" was guilty of
more wanton crimes and butcheries than
were ever charged to fiercest and fellest
tyrant Moor.
There is no mole, quay or pier at Tan
gierS; and we came to anchor near the
shelving shore, where the harborside traf-
fic goes on with wondrous din, and the
Moorish customs officers squat upon their
launches transactiug their duties in severe
silence and gravity On either side were
numberleSs fellucas, with strange craft
from the lower Mediterranean, and per-
haps two score of French, Spanish, Eng
fish and Dutch schooners, barks and brigs.
Rather lonesome harbor seems that of
Tangier; and the two huge British men-of-
war, which had been lying here several
days in view of possible danger 10 British
interests, from the threatened revolt OF in
terror tribes, who seem always to be aoout
to be doing something unpleasant, brought
again the keen and humiliating longing 1
have had in an hundred other ports, that
the American government possessed sufti-
Gent character and dignity to make our
flag a 1.-THE as well respected as any other
that floats the seas.
Getting ashore at Tangier is not alto
gether a stately performance. Scarcely
had our steamer anchored, when there
came swarming over the rail from all quar-
tiers horde of swarthy turbaned harbor
porters, dressed in the natural black leath-
ern skin of Morocco, many with huge
rings in their ears, daDglets and banglets
of tinSling metals and bright sashes, bare
legged and barefooted, or shod with loose
sandals; all as uncanny and weird lot as
ever looted ship and butchered its crew in
the good old days of Moorish piracy and
pillage.
Formerly these black imps grabbed trav-
elers bodily, lifted them astride their backs
or shoulders, and waded ashore with them.
Recently a diminutive landings stage has
been built, but the treatment is quite as
ferocious. Ordinarily the strangers be-
lOngings are seized and pitched into half
dozen different small boats and himself
made the unwilling subject of a fierce
scramble, after which the victor pulls and
hauls his victim into still another boat, and
rushes him to the landing where separate
bride must be paid for the recovery of each
article, and a final heavy tribute is eXacted
for ones own liberation. Precisely the
same form of piracy is repeated on your
way to hotel with your own effects; but
once within the great gate leading into the
city from the harbor side, and you are safer
from annoyance and exaction than in any,
other Moorish or Christian city in the
world.
Good fortune had more than once At
tended me through the alert and cunning
service of Dobrado, and it stood me now in
good stead, getting me on African soil IN
relieved of as much as a copper flu; al
though his rugged diplomacy at first sub
jected me to some disQuiet Standing in.
front of me, as each furious onslaught by
q porter was MADE, and without apparent.
effort of his giant strength, first with kfsF
open right hand and then with his left, he
sent African, Moor, Berber and what not,
alike sprawling to the steamers deck.
Each jumped nimbly TO his feet and skunk
humbly away.
Suddenly fellow, swarthy as a Moor,
with hair and matted beard, black, curling
and glossy as Astrakhan wool, sprang from
the crowd full upon Dobrado. Visions of
tragedies, dungeons in the Kasba, consular
courts of inquiry and international compli-
cations flashed before me. The two
clinched, parted, clinched again, and, after
various alarming contortions, fell in what
still seems to be terrific embrace together
upon their knees. Then such kissing and
embracing began as I had never before seen
between man and man, man and woman, or
stranger still, between woman and woman
Soon they arose utterly breathless but
radiant Dobrado half dragged the hulk
ing fellow to me, and after the latter had
embraced my still trembling knees, Do
brado said alphabetically but laconically:
Il feared l would not meet him, senior.
He is my kinsman, from Mondonedo, be-
side the Ria de Eoz. You know the Gale
ganS go wherever there is money for toll
He is half-time portero and half-time does
some service for a merchant here who has
trafic with Valladolid." And then, hest
tatingly: perhaps senior could find him
useful in Tangier7'
''Senor'' could and did. ''Seuor." the
writer. shuns great hotels in his wander
ings; loves TO know the lowly, and, from
their standpoint of thinking, feeling and
condition. to thus look through the back
windows Of foreign life and WAYS.
No one can wholly tell another what Tan
gier is like within its ancient city walls.
1t has no street geography. Though It con-
tains scarcely more than 90 600 souls, its
own inhabitants get lost within it; and
there is but one street or way in which the
stranger is safe from absolute wreck of
consciousness of location This extends
upward from the harbor side to the Soc-de-
barra, the great outside market place Of
Tangiers, just where you leave the city on
the way to Fec, Morocco's capital Once a
dozen yards away from this narrow
thoroughfare of bazaars, and the prompting
to PRAYER to Allah or Allah's subjects for
succor is q quickly realized experience.
But for Colorado and his kinsman. I
should have turned back, passed the night
outside the great city gate upon the shore
beneath the stars and some handy tarpau-
lin, ana incontinently led the place uron
the next days stesIsr for Gibraltar As.
it was, kept close 70 my Gallegan guides.
The ax-a,,irer hrd fxflau laafo-a rv.a h.5