with the better classes. Some, as
officials, meet officials, but get little below the official exterior.
Those who know most seldom speak, their positions or their occupations
preventing the expression of their opinions. Sweeping statements
about Morocco may therefore be received with reserve, and dogmatic
assertions with caution. This Empire is in no worse condition now than
it has been for centuries; indeed, it is much better off than ever
since its palmy days, and there is no occasion whatever to fear its
collapse.

Few facts are more striking in the study of Morocco than the absolute
stagnation of its people, except in so far as they have been to a very
limited extent affected by outside influences. Of what European--or
even oriental--land could descriptions of life and manners written in
the sixteenth century apply as fully in the twentieth as do those
of Morocco by Leo Africanus? Or even to come later, compare the
transitions England has undergone since Hoest and Jackson wrote a
hundred years ago, with the changes discoverable in Morocco since that
time. The people of Morocco remain the same, and their more primitive
customs are those of far earlier ages, of the time when their
ancestors lived upon the plain of Palestine and North Arabia, and when
"in the loins of Abraham" the now unfriendly Jew and Arab were yet
one. It is the position of Europeans among them which has changed.

In the time of Hoest and Jackson piracy was dying hard, restrained by
tribute from all the Powers of Europe. The foreign merchant was not
only tolerated, but was at times supplied with capital by the Moorish
sultans, to whom he was allowed to go deeply in debt for custom's
dues, and half a century later the British Consul at Mogador was not
permitted to embark to escape a bombardment of the town, because of
his debt to the Sultan. Many of the restrictions complained of to-day
are the outcome of the almost enslaved condition of the merchants of
those times in consequence of such customs. Indeed, the position of
the European in Morocco is still a series of anomalies, and so it is
likely to continue until it passes under foreign rule.

The same old spirit of independence reigns in the Berber breast to-day
as when he conquered Spain, and though he has forgotten his past and
cares naught for his future, he still considers himself a superior
being, and feels that no country can rival his home. In his eyes the
embassies from Europe and Ameri