And yet, in very sober truth,
Morocco has been no more than one of the pawns in the diplomatic game
these many years past.
We who know and love the country, finding in its patriarchal simplicity so
much that contrasts favourably with the hopeless vulgarity of our own
civilisation, must recognise in justice the great gulf lying between a
country's aspect in the eyes of the traveller and in the mind of the
politician.
[Illustration: A MARRAKSHI]
Before we parted, the Hadj, prefacing his remark with renewed assurance of
his personal esteem, told me that the country's error had been its
admission of strangers. Poor man, his large simple mind could not realise
that no power his master held could have kept them out. He told me on
another occasion that the great wazeers who had opposed the Sultan's
reforms were influenced by fear, lest Western ideas should alter the
status of their womenkind. They had heard from all their envoys to Europe
how great a measure of liberty is accorded to women, and were prepared to
rebel against any reform that might lead to compulsory alteration of the
system under which women live--too often as slaves and playthings--in
Morocco.
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