races called
Moorish, but the Moor himself is alone responsible for his Government and
his religion.

[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]

A PEEP OF TETUAN.

[_To face p. 138._]

Historians from time to time have had something to say about these
tribes, and tradition boasts a legion tales respecting them; but the most
able writer upon Morocco in old times was Leo Africanus, a Moor himself,
who, when all his countrymen were expelled from Spain in 1492, fled to
Fez.

Twenty-five years later he was captured by Christian pirates and taken to
Rome. He became a Christian, and he published his great and reliable
history about the time that Henry VIII. was successful in Flanders and
Scotland, when Wolsey obtained a cardinal's hat, and Catherine of Arragon
had not been ousted by Anne Boleyn.

The aborigines of Morocco were without doubt Berbers, and to-day Berbers
occupy four-fifths of the country, in spite of the invasions of other
nations. First on the list of the invaders came the Phoenicians, the
earliest civilizing agency. The Romans followed eighty years after Caesar
had landed in Britain, and annexed Morocco, Christianizing its people.
Next to invade the country were the Vandals, who turned out the Romans,
remained among the Berbers for over a hundred years, leaving red hair and
blue eyes behind them. Then six hundred and ninety-eight years after the
birth of Christ the deluge of Mohammedan conquest burst over Morocco, and
hordes of Arabs, burning with a fanatical missionary spirit, swept over
the land. At the end of eleven years the resistance of the Berbers was
overcome, and they adopted Mohammedanism as lightly as they had adopted
Christianity under the Roman rule.

About two years afterwards a body of them crossed over into Spain under
the one-eyed chieftain Tarik, and laid the foundation of the Moorish
supremacy in Europe. Thither this band of pioneer Berbers was followed by
the Arabs: the two races mingled and built up together an empire in Spain
said to surpass all its contemporaries in learning and refinement. The
Spanish named them indiscriminately _Mauros_, and _Moors_ they have been
ever since; but the name Moor can be traced back as far as 23 A.D., when
Pliny and Strabo speak of the _Maurusii_ and _Mauri_.

A reflection of their empire's greatness shone even in Morocco itself:
libraries and universities were founded in Fez and Morocco City. But at
the same time the benighted country knew