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The National Geographic Magazine 



comes from a very curious feature in tbe 

 customs of the country. Whenever re- 

 bellions break out — and they are very 

 frequent occurrences — the soldiers in 

 Morocco have instructions to bring in as 

 man) - heads as possible. These heads 

 have to be preserved and salted, and 

 nobody likes to execute this commission; 

 consequently the Jews were compelled to 

 undertake this revolting task. 



THERE IS NO DISTINCTION OE COLOR LINE 



Another element were the negroes 

 from Soudan, from which the famous 

 Bokhari guards were recruited. Some 

 of these negroes occupied very high offi- 

 cial positions. I may say, as it is an in- 

 teresting question to us here, that after 

 the death of the late Sultan of Morocco 

 there was an interregnum of six years 

 before the young Abd El Aziz was old 

 enough to take the reins of power. Dur- 

 ing that time a negro regent named 

 Ahmid ben Maussa governed, who was 

 one of the most able rulers Morocco has 

 ever had. He kept the country in perfect 

 order and was very much respected by all 

 who knew him. 



There is no distinction of color line in 

 Morocco. The question is simply what 

 is a man's capacity. It does not matter 

 what the shade of his complexion is in 

 the least. The gentry of the country are 

 mostly drawn from those Moors who 

 were expelled from Spain, and who re- 

 turned to Morocco. All those who have 

 any descent from the Prophet are called 

 Chereefs. This word is derived from the 

 root "Churf," which means to grow old — 

 to grow old with honor. To say that 

 anything is churf a means that it has be- 

 come distinguished through time and cir- 

 cumstance. So that this is a sort of title 

 of nobility — religious and secular. 



THE BETTER FAMILIES 



Some of the better families still claim 

 that they preserve the keys of the houses 

 occupied by their ancestors in Granada, 

 Cordoba, and Toledo and the other 

 Spanish cities. The women of some of 



these families at the notheastern capital, 

 Fez, wear embroidered upon their high 

 scarlet head-dresses a golden key, a sort 

 of symbol of this descent. I know some 

 of these families who claim to still pos- 

 sess these keys, but I have never seen any 

 of the keys. One consequence of the ap- 

 parently long residence of the ancestors 

 of these particular families in Spain is 

 the extraordinary fairness of the com- 

 plexion of a great many of their descend- 

 ants even at the present time. For in- 

 stance, the minister of foreign affairs at 

 Tangier, Hadj Mohammed El Torres,, 

 whose name you sometimes see in the 

 papers, is as fair as any person in this 

 room, and, as his name indicates, he is a 

 descendant from one of these very fami- 

 lies from the city of Tetuan. The expla- 

 nation of this fairness of complexion is 

 supposed to be the well-known fact that 

 many of these Mohammedan chieftains 

 of Spain intermarried with Gothic wo- 

 men. They are very proud of this and 

 strive to keep it up and not to cross their 

 blood. Consequently strangers who visit 

 Morocco are very much astonished to- 

 find so many absolutely white men. 



THE SULTAN HAS NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED- 

 ALLEGIANCE TO ANY OTHER POWER 



The Sultan, as you all know, is an 

 autocrat. Neither he nor his ancestors 

 have ever acknowledged allegiance to 

 any other power. The confusion which 

 exists on this point among so many peo- 

 ple in this country is due to the fact that 

 the neighboring province of Algiers was 

 for a long time under the control of 

 Turkey and was governed by Turkish 

 beys. But the Sultan of Constantinople, 

 who greatly desired to extend his control 

 over Morocco, was never able to do so on 

 account of the opposition of the dynasty 

 and especially the strong opposition of 

 the Berber tribes inhabiting the range of 

 hills between Morocco and Algeria. They 

 never allowed the Turkish government 

 or its representative in Algeria to get a 

 foothold in their own territory. 



