UNPICTURESQUE CASABLANCA.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 November 1907, Page 10

UNPICTURESQUE CASABLANCA.

A' MELANCHOLY MODERN' SEAPORT. Before Casablanca 'is forgotten —or rebuilt, , for it is all', but destroyed—it is interesting ,to . know what it was like (writes the special cor- , respondent ..of the,'' New York Evening . Post"). ", It' was .not. at, all a Moorish pity... like the others!' .It was, not built -in ; Middle tho.Moors of Span! trans-. mitted tlipirlculturo. to Africa, and Morocco.... finished at the Pyrenees. There, U'as nothing romantic in ifcs : historyor picturesque ill its . situation. It was just a modern seaport resulting from inefficient efforts of Moors and Europeans to trade together. ;... . In time it might have come to something ; as it stands ,at tho dividing lino of North and South Morocco, which aro two vory dit-', ' forent countries and neO'd .means of commun- ; ication with each other as well as with the' rest of the world.' It is about equidistant from the two capitals in the interior —i'ez and Marrakcslb—and' sixty miles, more or less, along the coast from Rabat to the north and Mazagan to tho south. There was ana is reason for a trading port-there, and thr harbour, bad as.it is, is.the only.-one along,; this part of"the Atlantic coasts -.: ; ' : Casablanca, of course, is tue.Spanish namo, vvhiclr, as usual, represents no -present real* itv. When you como in from tho ocean you, see nothing but a line of high gray walls, dirty and spotted where tho plaster 1 has ration from the stones. A.great- gate in the wall; opens to you its doors, lined .Nith tin rusted - by the sea spray. . . It- was hero the French , soldiers were caught by treachery, and had to fight for . their lives, the massacro of. tho Moors being, , the natural wind-up. • Inside, the gates,all is . i flat, and .monotonous,' narrow and crowded and dirty and melancholy.' ~. .. V" To.see'the town you' have.to.go up to tho' roof terraces ..'of some of the.. European., houses. Then you discover that, the city has three parts, each", with, its own colour. Around you is the Medina—-the real white city-—with' new high 'bouses, half Moorish, half European, built by; Europeans who hive conic here in quest of fortune or to aid their . country's diplomacy; Some of these houses lire inhabited by the. wealthier Moors, who_ have been quicl: to appreciate modern coift- : fort and would be glad to'live ill peace and; quiet. > . Next- comes the intermediate quarter—tlio Mellah —where the Jews, one-third of thetown, live together ill houses'all painted bluo ' from roof to the mudsill of the door on the • narrow tortuousstreets. Then, encircling.all, without plan'or order,'is tho Tnakor —tho mud-plastered reed huts of\the Moorish pop-., ufaco. When the rains of. winter fall, tha ground insido ■ and . outside tho huts is ono mass of mud. •. • ' , But still-each hut-wife turns tho crank of her barley mill and croons slow and sadly the praise of Allah. To them, and to their -, brethren of the Chaonia tribes' that cultivate poorly .the country , round, the white houses'of tho Medina were precious.and desirablo for plunder—which dispenses with religious fanaticism,as an explanation. ■