avilla, Photo., Tangier._

GATE OF THE SEVEN VIRGINS, SALLI.]

Yet Morocco has a history, an interesting history indeed, one
linked with ours in many curious ways, as is recorded in scores of
little-known volumes. It has a literature amazingly voluminous, but
there were days when the relations with other lands were much closer,
if less cordial, the days of the crusades and the Barbary pirates,
the days of European tribute to the Moors, and the days of Christian
slavery in Morocco. Constantly appearing brochures in many tongues
made Europe of those days acquainted with the horrors of that dreadful
land. All these only served to augment the fear in which its people
were held, and to deter the victimized nations from taking action
which would speedily have put an end to it all, by demonstrating the
inherent weakness of the Moorish Empire.

But for those whose study is only the Moors as they exist to-day, the
story of Morocco stretches back only a thousand years, as until then
its scattered tribes of Berber mountaineers had acknowledged no head,
and knew no common interests; they were not a nation. War was their
pastime; it is so now to a great extent. Every man for himself, every
tribe for itself. Idolatry, of which abundant traces still remain,
had in places been tinged with the name and some of the forms of
Christianity, but to what extent it is now impossible to discover. In
the Roman Church there still exist titular bishops of North Africa,
one, in particular, derives his title from the district of Morocco of
which Fez is now the capital, Mauretania Tingitana.

It was among these tribes that a pioneer mission of Islam penetrated
in the eighth of our centuries. Arabs were then greater strangers in
Barbary than we are now, but they were by no means the first strange
faces seen there. Ph[oe]nicians, Romans and Vandals had preceded them,
but none had stayed, none had succeeded in amalgamating with the
Berbers, among whom those individuals who did remain were absorbed.
These hardy clansmen, exhibiting the characteristics of hill-folk
the world round, still inhabited the uplands and retained their
independence. In this they have indeed succeeded to a great extent
until the present day, but between that time and this they have given
of their life-blood to build up by their side a less pure nation of
the plains, whose language as well as its creed is that of Arabia.

To imagine that Morocco was invaded by a Muslim host wh