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There were consequently perpetual irruptions into our territory, not only of the fanatic Moorish element, but, covertly, of the Emperor of Morocco's own troops, whom he had massed, on pretence of keeping watch, close to our frontier, and in the long run these attacks, which had to be ceaselessly repulsed at the cost of precious lives, had grown intolerable.
Of books but few, some fifty score For daily use, and bound for wear; The rest upon an upper floor; Some little luxury there Of red morocco's gilded gleam, And vellum rich as country cream. Busts, cameos, gems, such things as these, Which others often show for pride, I value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride; One Stradivarius, I confess, Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
The place at which we had halted for lunch was El Faidar, within sight of one of Morocco's countless little white saint-houses Sidi Bousuktor. Now, after a long climb over a ridge, we looked down from the top into a valley Ain-el-Hadger; and Omar pointed out in the distance the spot he suggested we should camp at for the night.
We then pursued our voyage: and least they should think me gone to the Straits' mouth, I kept to the southward to the truly Barbarian coast; but in the dusk of the evening, I changed my course, and steering directly S. and by E. that I might keep near the shore: and, having a fresh gale of wind, with a pleasant smooth sea, by three o'clock next day I was one hundred and fifty miles beyond the Emperor of Morocco's dominions.
Of books but few, some fifty score For daily use, and bound for wear; The rest upon an upper floor; Some LITTLE luxury THERE Of red morocco's gilded gleam, And vellum rich as country cream. Busts, cameos, gems, such things as these, Which others often show for pride, I value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride; ONE Stradivarius, I confess, TWO Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
Here lies the whole secret of Morocco's backward state.
But as soon as it grew dusk in the evening, I changed my course, and steered directly south and by east, bending my course a little toward the east, that I might keep in with the shore; and having a fair, fresh gale of wind, and a smooth, quiet sea, I made such sail that I believe by the next day at three o'clock in the afternoon, when I first made the land, I could not be less than 150 miles south of Sallee; quite beyond the Emperor of Morocco's dominions, or indeed of any other king thereabout, for we saw no people.
The place I was in was no doubt that wild country, inhabited only by a few, that lies between the Emperor of Morocco's dominions and the Negroes. It is filled with wild beasts and the Moors use it for hunting chiefly.
The inhabitants of Wadinoon are descended from the tribe Woled Aboussebah, and owe their independence to its support, for the Arabs of Aboussebah being most numerous on the northern confines of the desert, present a barrier to the extension of the emperor of Morocco's dominion in that direction.
By the best of my calculation, that place where I now was, must be that country, which, lying between the emperor of Morocco's dominions and the Negroes, lies waste, and uninhabited, except by wild beasts; the Negroes having abandoned it, and gone farther south for fear of the Moors; and the Moors not thinking it worth inhabiting, by reason of its barrenness; and indeed both forsaking it because of the prodigious numbers of tigers, lions, leopards, and other furious creatures which harbour there; so that the Moors use it for their hunting only, where they go like an army, two or three thousand men at a time; and indeed for near an hundred miles together upon this coast, we saw nothing but a waste uninhabited country by day, and heard nothing but howlings and roaring of wild beasts by night.
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