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031 - A Ride Through Morrocco · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Cory Samuel, Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by
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  Speaker 1: Robert Ross. Section thirty. A Ride through Morocco, Palmal Gazette,
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  Speaker 1: October eighth, eighteen eighty six. Morocco is a sort of
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  Speaker 1: paradox among countries. For though it lies westward of Piccadilly,
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  Speaker 1: yet it is purely Oriental in character, And though it
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  Speaker 1: is but three hours sail from Europe, yet it makes
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  Speaker 1: you feel to use the forcible expression of an American writer,
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  Speaker 1: as if you had been taken up by the scruff
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  Speaker 1: of the neck and set down in the Old Testament.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Hugh Stuttfield has ridden twelve hundred miles through it,
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  Speaker 1: penetrated to Fez and Wazen, seen the Lovely Gate at
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  Speaker 1: McQueen's and the Hassen Tower by Rabat, feasted with shakes
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  Speaker 1: and fought with robbers, lived in an atmosphere of moors,
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  Speaker 1: mosques and mirages, Visited the city of the Lepers and
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  Speaker 1: the slave market of siss and played Loo under the
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  Speaker 1: shadow of the Atlas Mountains. He is not a Hereditus
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  Speaker 1: nor a Sir John Mandeville, but he tells his stories
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  Speaker 1: very pleasantly. His book on the whole is delightful reading,
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  Speaker 1: for though Morocco is picturesque, he does not weary us
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  Speaker 1: with word painting, though it is poor. He does not
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  Speaker 1: bore us with platitudes. Now and then he indulges in
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  Speaker 1: a traveler's license and thrills the simple reader with statements
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  Speaker 1: as amazing as they are amusing. The Moorish coinage, he
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  Speaker 1: tells us, is so cumbersome that if a man gives
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  Speaker 1: you change for half a crown, you have to hire
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  Speaker 1: a donkey to carry it away. The Moorish language is
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  Speaker 1: so guttural that no one can ever hope to pronounce it.
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  Speaker 1: Arte who has not been brought up within hearing of
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  Speaker 1: the grunting of camels, a steady course of sneezing, being
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  Speaker 1: consequently the only way by which a European can acquire
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  Speaker 1: anything like the proper accent. The Sultan does not know
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  Speaker 1: how much he is married, but he unquestionably is so
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  Speaker 1: to a very large extent. On the principle that you
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  Speaker 1: cannot have too much of a good thing. A woman
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  Speaker 1: is valued in proportion to her stoutness, and so far
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  Speaker 1: from there being any reduction made in a marriage market.
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  Speaker 1: For taking a quantity, you must pay so much per pound.
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  Speaker 1: The Arabs believe the Sheerif of Wazan to be such
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  Speaker 1: a holy man that if he is guilty of taking Champagne,
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  Speaker 1: the forbidden wine is turned into milk as he quaffs it,
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  Speaker 1: and if he gets extremely drunk, he is merely in
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  Speaker 1: a mystical trance. Mister Stuckfield, however, has his serious moments,
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  Speaker 1: and his account of the commerce, government, and social life
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  Speaker 1: of the Moors is extremely interesting. It must be confessed
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  Speaker 1: that the picture he draws is, in many respects a
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  Speaker 1: very tragic one. The Moors are the masters of a
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  Speaker 1: beautiful country and of many beautiful arts, but they are
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  Speaker 1: paralyzed by their fatalism and pillaged by their rulers. Few races, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: have had a more terrible fall than these Moors. Of
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  Speaker 1: the great intellectual civilization of the Arabs, no trace remains.
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  Speaker 1: The names of Avrose and al Maman, of al Abbas
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  Speaker 1: and ben Husa are quite unknown. Fairs. Once the Athens
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  Speaker 1: of Africa. The cradle of the Sciences is now a
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  Speaker 1: mere commercial caravansary. Its universities have vanished, its library is
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  Speaker 1: almost empty. Freedom of thought has been killed by the Koran,
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  Speaker 1: freedom of living by bad government. But mister Stutfield is
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  Speaker 1: not without hopes for the future. So far from agreeing
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  Speaker 1: with Lord Salisbury that Morocco may go her own way,
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  Speaker 1: he strongly supports Captain Warren's proposition that we should give
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  Speaker 1: up Gibraltar to Spain in exchange for Sutor, and thereby
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  Speaker 1: prevent the Mediterranean from becoming a French lake and give
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  Speaker 1: England a new granary for Corn. The Moorish Empire, he warns, us,
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  Speaker 1: is rapidly breaking up, and if in the general scramble
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  Speaker 1: for Africa that has already begun, the French gain possession
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  Speaker 1: of Morocco, he points out that our supremacy over the
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  Speaker 1: Straits will be lost. Whatever may be thought of mister
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  Speaker 1: Stutfield's political views and his suggestions for multiple control and
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  Speaker 1: collective European action, there is no doubt that in Morocco
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  Speaker 1: England has interests to defend and a mission to pursue,
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  Speaker 1: and this part of the book should be carefully studied.
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  Speaker 1: As for the general reader, who we fear is not,
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  Speaker 1: as a rule, interested in the question of multiple control.
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  Speaker 1: If he is a sportsman, he will find in al
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  Speaker 1: mac greb a capital account of pig sticking. If he
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  Speaker 1: is artistic, he will be delighted to know that the
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  Speaker 1: importation of magenta into Morocco is strictly prohibited. If criminal
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  Speaker 1: jurisprudence has any charms for him, he can examine a
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  Speaker 1: code that punishes slander by rubbing cayne pepper into the
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  Speaker 1: lips of the offender. And if he is merely lazy,
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  Speaker 1: he can take a pleasant ride of twelve hundred miles
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  Speaker 1: in mister Stutfield's company without stirring out of his arm chair.
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  Speaker 1: El mc grebb twelve hundred miles Ride through Morocco by
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  Speaker 1: Hugh Stutfield, Samson, Low Marsden and Company. End of Section
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  Speaker 1: thirty A Ride through Morocco