4,000,000
Moors and Arabs; 2,000,000 Berbers; 500,000 Jews, and the remainder are
of the Negro race.
The regular Army consists of less than thirty
thousand men, but every Arab is an expert irregular horseman, and the
Berbers make good foot-soldiers.
These indeed are, in ordinary times, rarely to be depended on by the
Emperor, but so powerful an incentive is religious fanaticism that, were
he to raise the standard of the Holy War, a large Army would quickly
rally around him, deficient perhaps in discipline, yet living by
plunder, and marching without the encumbrance of baggage, it would prove
a formidable opponent.
Let us, however, suppose, that the present action of France and Spain
should result in the subversion of the atrocious system of Government
practised in Morocco: a guarantee from the conquerors that our existing
commercial privileges should be respected, would alone be required to
ensure the protection of our interests, and what an extended field would
the facilities for penetrating into the interior open to us! We must
also remember that Napoleon III. in heart, is a free-trader; and, should
Destiny ever appoint him the arbiter of Morocco, the protectionist
pressure of a certain deluded class in France would be impotent against
his policy in Western Barbary, a country perhaps more hostile to the
European than China. Sailors and others, who have had the misfortune to
be cast on the inhospitable shore of Northern Africa, have been sent far
inland into slavery to drag out a miserable existence; and, at this
moment, there are many white Christian slaves in the southern and
eastern provinces of the Empire.
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