excellent schools in several of the towns-Tangier, Tetuan, Mogador, Saffi, and others—which have already proved highly successful. Fez and Morocco are 80 remote, and so difficult of access, that it is almost impossible for the slightest ripple of the tide of European civilization to reach them. The Jews in these cities seem to have adopted, too, many of the most pernicious of the social and domestic customs of the Moors; as their brethren in Europe have, while holding as firmly to the religious creed of their forefathers, assimilated their habits of life and modes of conduct to the social progress of the day. Polygamy is practised by the Jews in Fez and Morocco; and though the women do not suffer the same rigid seclusion that the Moorish women do, as little trouble is taken to educate them, and their entire interests and occupations, even amongst the wealthiest, are as rigidly confined to the narrow circle of the household. This latter is indeed the case with the Jewish women everywhere in Morocco. A horrible custom also prevalent, indeed almost universal, amongst the Jews in Fez, is the marriage of the women before they have arrived at years of maturity. Ten, even eight, is an ordinary age for a girl to be married at. It is needless to say, that at such an age as this, a girl must be quite an irresponsible party to the transaction, and must enter into it simply at the arbitrary dictation of her father. And the husbands of these child-wives are not infrequently decrepit old men. The consequences of

this abominable custom, and that of the frequent intermarriages between near relations, is a marked deterioration in the race. The Jewish men in Fez are a wretched dwarfed set of beings, and the women, though not quite so bad, can still bear no comparison in beauty and stature to their sisters of Tangier, who seldom marry before sixteen, and much more frequently between that and twenty; and where, owing to the frequent intercourse with Spain, alliances between families from the different continents, and totally unconnected, commonly take place.

CHAPTER XXII.

SLAVERY IN MOROCCO.

THERE is one subject, intimately associated in every mind with Africa, and just now, owing to recent movement in England regarding it, exciting particular interest, which it is impossible for me to overlook in the present work; namely, slavery.

Slavery is, and has always been, an institution among the Moors. This fact I should not deem it necessary to state, but that when I landed in Tangier I was myself still in ignorance of it, and some who read this book may perhaps be in the same condition. Indeed, I was living in the town for some little time, before I was aware that all about me there were human beings in that condition, the recital of the horrors of which by the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and other American writers of sensational fiction, had often in my childhood thrilled me to the soul with pity and indignation.

This may appear curious; and equally curious it may seem, that when I did become aware of the fact, it excited in me none of those sentiments of horror and disgust that might have been expected.

In telling this I do not mean it to be supposed, that I have not as strong a belief in the inherent right of every human being to personal freedom, and as great

an abhorrence of human slavery of every kind and in every sense, as any person in the world can have.

But in the first place it must be understood, that negro slavery, as I saw it in Tangier, and as I believe it exists generally throughout Morocco, is very different from negro slavery as it existed in our West Indian Colonies, and till more recently in the United States of America, or, as it even now, exists in Cuba. The principle may be the same, but the practice is very far removed. It was consequently not unnatural to view it somewhat differently. That is, seeing it in the very mild and modified form in which it is presented to view in Morocco, it was impossible, while condemning the system itself just as strongly, to feel roused to that pitch of enthusiastic indignation against the slave owners, or enthusiastic compassion for the slaves, which is the normal state of English feeling on the subject,—familiar as that subject generally is to us by the above examples. In the second place, it must be borne in mind, that negro slavery in Morocco, is only one feature of the entire principle of slavery upon which both the political and domestic systems of the country are altogether conducted; upon which, in fact, every institution in the empire, imperial and social, is entirely founded. The negro slave is only the smallest brick in the edifice.

It was impossible, therefore, in regarding the question of slavery in Morocco, to confine one's attention alto

gether, to that one feature of it, presented by the domestic enslavement of the negroes. And viewing it in its entirety, and with what study and consideration I was able to give to the subject, I came to the conclusion that the negroes were by no means the worst off of the "slaves" in Morocco. In some respects their condition was a safer, even a freer one than that of their actual owners; while it was hardly ever so miserable as that of the majority of the "free" population ; the wretched, impoverished peasantry of the land.

To prove the truth of this assertion it is necessary that I give a brief sketch of the mode in which the government of the country is conducted. This is a subject which I have not otherwise entered upon, in this work; not because I underrate the interest or importance attached to it, but because I have felt that neither my knowledge or my capacity fitted me for its treatment; I have therefore left it, in the hope that it may one day become the theme of an abler pen than mine.

The power of the Sultan of Morocco in his dominions is absolute and unlimited. As he cannot, however, rule the whole of his empire actually in person, he delegates some of his power to the governors of the provinces, called bashaws. These, in their turn, as it would be equally impossible for them to personally tyrannise over every individual placed beneath their sway, repose their authority in the hands of minor rulers, called the "headmen" of the villages. The community under the rule of a headman