The Florence daily tribune., 1902-01-23
BANDITS IN MOROCCO.
WHAT 1T COST TO PAY FOR STOLEN
CHILDREN.
Ths suitan's Government Compelled 70
Pay Over Big sum An In
dembity for One of Their Recent
Franks.

In May last some of the wild tribes
men of Morocco stole a Spanish boy
and girl who were living with their
parents at one of the Spanish settle
ments on the north coast of Africa
The Spanish government. knowing
well that the children would be killed
II the ransom demanded by the ban
dts was not paid, advanced the money,
and the children were released. Then
Spain made claim for the amount of
Its disbursement, and also for dam
ages, upon the government of Moroc-
co. Recently the government paid to
Spain the sum of 100000, and an ad-
ditional sum of $l60c to be given to
the parents of the stolen children.
Several incidents of the same sort
have occurred in the past two or three
years, and each time the sultan has
been compelled to take large sum of
money from his treasury to meet the
claims of Spain. He seems incapable
OF preventing these outrages. Probably
few persons have any idee how weak
the sultan of Morocco is in the large
country he assumes to govern. The
fact is that his rule extends over only
about one-sixth of the territory desig-
mated on our maps by the name of
Morocco. 1t is easy to distinguish be-
tween the territories over which his
rule is well established and those in
which his authority is not recognized,
ana whose Inhabitants refuse to pay
taxes unless the taxgatherer is sup
ported by large force of soldiers. II
we look at the map showing the distri-
button OF the population of Morocco
we will observe two areas. roughly
triangular in shape. which are inhabit-
ed by Arabs. The most northern
area extends from the Strait of Gibral-
tar to the coast town of Rabat with
Fee, the largest city OF the country
near the apex Of the triangle. The
base OF the southern triangle lies
along the coast between Mazagari and
Agadir and the city of Morocco in the
interior is near its apex. Practically
all the Arab population live within
these two triangles. All the rest of
the country is Inhabited by Berbers.
the aboriginal population. Within
these triangles white men may travel
in comparative safety without being
compelled to disguise their origin. All
the chiefs are servants of the sultan.
and are held accountable for outrages
committed upon the whites. II is a
mistake to suppose that the sultan of
Morocco encourages outrages upon
white visitors to his country. They
are comparatively safe in all the re-
gions where his power is supreme: this
Is not to say that the Arabs have
very friendly feeling for whites, but as
rule they dare not attack them.
Pierre Lott. in his vivid picture of
Morocco as he saw 1t twelve years ago,
tells of woman beggar who, while ac-
ceptfng the aims given to her by mem
bers of the French embassy with ap-
parent gratitude, was at the same time
repeating over and over again the
words: Curses upon you and your re-
hgfon thinking that none of them
knew the meaning of what she said
But in the vast territories Inhabited by
Berbers not even the sultan nor his Of
hcials dare venture unless accompan-
led by regiments OF troops No white
man would think of penetrating these
regions openly. No drawer explorers
ever lived than Foucauld, Harris and
Lenz. who, with only handful of men
In their parties. passed through the
thick of the Berbers. traversing the
country in all directions These ex-
plorers were SO well disguised that
they were never suspected of being
white men. If their Identity had been
known they would have paid for
their temerity with their lives. II we
examine map showing the routes of
explorers in Morocco we will see that
they are very numerous in the tri-
angles occupied by the Berbers. Thus
1t is the hostility eyinced, not only
against white men, but also against
the sultan himself, that has kept five
sixth of Morocco from being well
known. and has limited satisfactory
explorations to the small triangles oc-
cupied by the Arabs