568 



MOROCCO. 



MUSIC, PROGRESS OF, IN 1890. 



the people of the Gharb or plains. At a religious 

 festival a handful of the Beni M'Sara, one of the 

 tribes that had been compelled to pay tribute by 

 Muley Hassan in the previous year, attacked 

 fifteen or twenty times their number of Gharb 

 people, who, though armed, fled in a panic, leav- 

 ing their women, cattle, and property in the pos- 

 session of the marauders. They continued their 

 raids and robberies, penetrating even into the 

 sacred city of Wazan, and making the road to 

 Fez quite unsafe for traders. Meanwhile the 

 Ait Youssi rose in rebellion and murdered their 

 governor ; the Beni M'Guild tribe, which caused 

 the Sultan much trouble in 1888, also rebelled ; 

 both the Berber and the Arab mountaineers 

 pillaged and murdered the people of the plains ; 

 and the Berbers of the province of Zair made 

 ready to revolt. The Sultan, who had not 

 reached Tedla on his way to the south, on learn- 

 ing the extent of the lawlessness and insurrec- 

 tion, suddenly marched northward again with 

 the intention of punishing and reducing to sub- 

 jection the rebellious tribes, leaving his son to 

 preserve order in Morocco. He entered Zair be- 

 fore the intended revolt had broken out, and 

 there organized his forces for an attack on the 

 Beni M'Guild and Ait Youssi, having in his un- 

 expected countermarch first inflicted punish- 

 ment on the Zimmour tribe, which had likewise 

 become unruly again and attacked the camp of 

 his son. He defeated the Zimmour in a battle, 

 and decapitated 80 of the prisoners, an act 

 which struck the other Berber tribes with terror. 

 All the insurgent tribes were filled with con- 

 sternation by the change in the Sultan's plans, 

 for though the mountaineers can escape the pur- 

 suit of the soldiers in their fastnesses, they must 

 abandon their villages, crops, and cattle to the 

 troops. A force was sent to stop the depreda- 

 tions of the Arab mountain tribes further north. 

 Foreign Relations. In the spring of 1890 

 the Sultan received at Fez an imposing embassy 

 from the Emperor of Germany. One of the 

 fruits of this mission was a permission to Ger- 

 mans to export grain, subject to an export duty. 

 A commercial convention with Germany was 

 concluded. The Spanish Government, according 

 to the declaration made by the Marquis de la 

 Vega de Armijo, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in 

 the Cortes, is waiting only till its finances and 

 military and naval resources permit of the ful- 

 fillment of its "historical mission" in Morocco 

 to create a Castilian Algeria stretching from the 

 African shore of the Strait of Gibraltar to the 

 Great Atlas. Meanwhile Ceuta is being made a 

 stronger fortress than any in Spain, and forts 

 are to be erected at every favorable position 

 along the bluffs on both sides of the strait. A 

 concession has been obtained from the Sultan to 

 put down submarine cables from Tarifa to Tan- 

 gier and Ceuta, and from Almeria cables are to 

 be laid to Melilla and other Spanish ports on the 

 coast of Africa. Catalan industries have been 

 established at Tangier, where a Spanish hospital 

 and Spanish schools are in successful operation, 

 and lines of steamers are regularly running be- 

 tween Spanish ports and the coasts of Morocco. 

 On July 20 an affray occurred between Arabs 

 and a Spanish cavalry patrol near the Spanish 

 fortress of Melilla, opposite Malaga. The com- 

 mandant, when the patrol guard was driven in, 



ordered out troops to pursue the Moors, many of 

 whom, as they fled to the mountains, were killed 

 by shells fired from the fort. One Spanish soldier 

 was killed and 3 were wounded. The Spanish 

 minister, who was then at the Sultan's court, 

 which was at Rabat, obtained from the Moorish 

 Government a promise that the Spanish flag 

 should be saluted, the offenders punished, and 

 compensation paid. The Sultan ordered that 

 detachments of regular Moorish troops should 

 be stationed near Melilla and other Spanish 

 fortresses to prevent aggressions of the natives 

 in the future. Muley Hassan, whose power and 

 independence, and therewith the prolongation of 

 barbarism and misrule, depends on the mutual 

 jealousy of the European powers, for not only 

 Spain, Great Britain, and France, but even 

 Austria and Germany are on their guard against 

 any alteration in the status quo prejudicial to 

 their separate interests, recently caused the ques- 

 tion to be put in all the mosques whether the 

 country should be opened more freely to foreign 

 enterprise or communication or not, and received 

 in every case the expected negative answer, ex- 

 cept where the priests humbly replied that he 

 was himself the best judge of the situation. 



MUSIC, PROGRESS OF, IN 1890. Be- 

 fore entering upon the record of the year, men- 

 tion must be made of an opera that was over- 

 looked in noticing the events of 1889 : " Maris- 

 ka," by Giacomo dell' Orefice (Turin, Teatro Ca- 

 rignano, in November). As the first musical 

 dramatic effort of the young maestro, the work 

 is commendable, and won hearty appreciation 

 on the part of the public, who called the com- 

 poser before the footlights more than a dozen 

 times, and insisted upon the repetition of several 

 of the numbers. The new creations in the field 

 of dramatic music appeared as follow : 



Operas. By French composers : " Salambo," 

 in five acts, by Ernst Reyer, libretto by Camille 

 du Locle, after Flaubert's novel of the same 

 name (Brussels, Theatre de la Monnaie, Feb. 

 10), won unqualified success, fully justifying the 

 great expectations entertained of the work and 

 its interpretation. 



" Ascanio," in six tableaux, by Camille Saint- 

 Sae'ns, libretto by Louis Gallet, after Paul Men- 

 vice's drama " Benvenuto Cellini" (Paris, Opera,. 

 March 21), heralded for two years, and continu- 

 ally postponed, the final appearance of this work 

 met with only moderate success. The music 

 shows more learning than inventiveness, without 

 any particular flight of imagination or real dra- 

 matic effect. The plot, in which Benvenuto 

 Cellini is the central figure, is very complicated 

 and anything but clear, contributing little or 

 nothing to counterbalance the musical defects ; 

 requiring, on the contrary, a very considerable 

 musical power to be kept afloat. The interpre- 

 tation left much to be desired, nor was the mise- 

 en-scene very brilliant. " Le Pilote," in three 

 acts, by John Urich, libretto by Armand Silves- 

 tre (Monte Carlo, in March) ,- the work, which 

 was favorably received, is not absolutely new, but 

 an enlargement of the one-act opera "L'Orage," 

 given at Brussels in 1879. 



" Le Venetien," by Albert Cohen, libretto by 

 Philippe Gallet after Byron's poem " The Siege 

 of Corinth" (Rouen, Theatre des Arts, April 

 14), met with tolerable success. 



