12 BARBAROUS GOVERNMENT. ch. i, 



pared to find that the utmost excesses of barbarism are 

 matters of daily occurrence in a country so close at hand ; 

 and though we had read startling statements in the books 

 of preceding travellers, and heard confirmatory tales during 

 our stay in North Marocco, we were inclined to think that, 

 at the worst, these referred to solitary acts of cruelty, 

 probably magnified by the proverbial tendency to exagge- 

 rate all that is strange and horrible. It was not until we 

 had spent some time in the southern provinces, beyond 

 the reach of European prying observation, that we could 

 persuade ourselves that these terrible stories of cruelty and 

 wrong merely give a true representation of the ordinary 

 condition of the country. Sir J. D. Hay, who probably 

 knows it better than any other European, was not slow to 

 testify to the good qualities of the rural population of 

 Marocco, and the general absence of crime. "We were 

 afterwards led to believe that if life and property may be 

 said to be tolerably secure throughout the portion of the 

 empire really subject to the Sultan's authority, this is due 

 rather to the fact that temptation is rare, and the danger 

 of swift and bloody retribution imminent, than to the 

 existence of any high moral standard among the people. 

 It is a strange inversion of all notions of government, that 

 crime should come from above rather than below, and that 

 the dread that men feel for the safety of their persons and 

 goods is directed rather to the constituted guardians of 

 order than to the outcasts from society. The first feeling 

 of one unused to a barbarous government is surprise that 

 it should be allowed even to exist, much more that it 

 should possess considerable stability, and be handed on 

 from one generation to the next, without a, general outburst 

 of resistance. Observation tends to explain this seeming 

 enigma. Bad as it may be, the oppression exercised by 

 the few strikes only those who are in some way conspicuous. 

 The common mass, who offer no special temptation to 

 extortion, escape comparatively unhurt, and feel little 

 sympathy for the victim. Accordingly it is only when a 



