Precarious and barren result of a mission costing several million of
francs. Even an Englishman, but much more a Frenchman - and the latter is
especially hated and dreaded in all the Maroquine provinces, would have
considerably hesitated in placing confidence in the safe conduct of this
jealous Court.
The spirit of the Christian West, which has invaded the most secret
councils of the Eastern world, Persia, Turkey, and all the countries
subjected to Ottoman rule, is still excluded by the haughty Shereefs of
the Mahometan West. There is scarcely any communication between the port
and the court of the Shereefs, and the two grand masters of orthodox
Islamism, this of the West, and that of the East, are nearly strangers
to each other.
All that Muley Errahman has to do with the East, appears to be to
procure eunuchs and Abyssinian concubines for his harem from Egypt, and
send forward his most faithful, or most rebellious subjects [2] on their
pilgrimage to Mecca.
Englishmen are surprised, that the frequent visits and uninterrupted
communications between Morocco and Gibraltar, during so long a period,
should have produced scarcely a perceptible change in the minds of the
Moors, and that Western Barbary should be a century behind Tunis. This
circumstance certainly does not arise from any inherent inaptitude in
the Moorish character to entertain friendly relations with Europeans,
and can only have resulted from that crouching and subservient policy
which the Gibraltar authorities have always judged it expedient to show
towards the Maroquines.
Our diplomatic intercourse began with Morocco in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth; and though on friendly terms more or less ever since,
Englishmen have not yet obtained a recognised permission to travel in
the interior of the country, without first specially applying to its
Government. Our own countrymen know little of Morocco, or of its
inhabitants, customs, laws, and government; and, though only five or six
days sail from England, it must be regarded as an unknown and unexplored
region to the mass of the English nation.
Nevertheless, in spite of the Maroquine Empire being the most
conservative and unchangeable of all North African Mussulman states, and
whilst, happily for itself, it has been allowed to pursue its course
obscurely and noiselessly, without exciting particular attention in
Europe, or being involved in the wars and commotions of European
nations, Morocco is not, therefore, beyond the reach of changes and the
ravages of time, nor exempt from that mutability which is impressed upon
all sublunary states. The bombardments of Tangier and Mogador have left
behind them traces not easily to be effaced. It was no ordinary event
for Morocco to carry on hostilities with an European power.
The battle of Isly has deeply wounded the Shereefians, and incited the
Mussulman heart to sullen and unquenchable revenge.
