The Project Gutenberg eBook, In Morocco, by Edith Wharton

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Title: In Morocco

Author: Edith Wharton

Release Date: February 15, 2004 [eBook #11104]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN MOROCCO***

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IN MOROCCO

BY

EDITH WHARTON

ILLUSTRATED

1920

[Illustration: _From a photograph from the Service des Beaux-Arts au
Maroc_

Fez Elbah from the ramparts]

[Illustration]

TO GENERAL LYAUTEY

RESIDENT GENERAL OF FRANCE IN MOROCCO AND TO MADAME LYAUTEY

THANKS TO WHOSE KINDNESS THE JOURNEY I HAD SO LONG DREAMED OF SURPASSED
WHAT I HAD DREAMED

PREFACE

I

Having begun my book with the statement that Morocco still lacks a
guide-book, I should have wished to take a first step toward remedying
that deficiency.

But the conditions in which I travelled, though full of unexpected and
picturesque opportunities, were not suited to leisurely study of the
places visited. The time was limited by the approach of the rainy
season, which puts an end to motoring over the treacherous trails of the
Spanish zone. In 1918, owing to the watchfulness of German submarines in
the Straits and along the northwest coast of Africa, the trip by sea
from Marseilles to Casablanca, ordinarily so easy, was not to be made
without much discomfort and loss of time. Once on board the steamer,
passengers were often kept in port (without leave to land) for six or
eight days; therefore for any one bound by a time-limit, as most
war-workers were, it was necessary to travel across country, and to be
back at Tangier before the November rains.

This left me only one month in which to visit Morocco from the
Mediterranean to the High Atlas, and from the Atlantic to Fez, and even
had there been a Djinn's carpet to carry me, the multiplicity of
impressions received would have made precise observation difficult.

The next best thing to a Djinn's carpet, a military motor, was at my
disposal every morning; but war conditions imposed restrictions, and the
wish to use the minimum of petrol often stood in the way o