lustrated by the reluctant permission to transport
grain from one Moorish port to another, granted from time to time,
but so hampered by restrictions as to be only available to a few, the
Moorish Government itself deriving the greatest advantage from it.
Then, too, there is the property clause in the Convention of Madrid,
which has been described as the sop by means of which the Powers were
induced to accept other less favourable stipulations. Instead of being
the step in advance which it appeared to be, it was, in reality, a
backward step, the conditions attached making matters worse than
before.

In this way only do the Moors shine as politicians, unless
prevarication and procrastination be included, Machiavellian arts in
which they easily excel. Otherwise they are content to jog along in
the same slip-shod manner as their fathers did centuries ago, as soon
as prosperity had removed the incentive to exert the energy they once
possessed. The same carelessness marks their conduct in everything,
and the same unsatisfactory results inevitably follow.

But to get at the root of the matter it is necessary to go a step
further. The absolute lack of morals among the people is the real
cause of the trouble. Morocco is so deeply sunk in the degradation of
vice, and so given up to lust, that it is impossible to lay bare its
deplorable condition. In most countries, with a fair proportion of
the pure and virtuous, some attempt is made to gloss over and conceal
one's failings; but in this country the only vice which public opinion
seriously condemns is drunkenness, and it is only before foreigners
that any sense of shame or desire for secrecy about others is
observable. The Moors have not yet attained to that state of
hypocritical sanctimoniousness in which modern society in civilized
lands delights to parade itself.

The taste for strong drink, though still indulged comparatively in
secret, is steadily increasing, the practice spreading from force
of example among the Moors themselves, as a result of the strenuous
efforts of foreigners to inculcate this vice. European consular
reports not infrequently note with congratulation the growing imports
of wines and liqueurs into Morocco, nominally for the sole use of
foreigners, although manifestly far in excess of their requirements.
As yet, it is chiefly among the higher and lower classes that the
victims are found, the former indulging in the privacy of their own
homes, and the la