NEW GARDEN OF EDEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 12, 30 August 1911, Page 6

NEW GARDEN OF EDEN.

CAVALRY CHARGES ON FIELDS OF FLOWERS. Morocco, which France is adding to her empire, is a wonderful and beautiful country. in a few years it will be the market garden of Europe and one of her richest granaries as well. A granary, orchard, and garden Morocco was 2000 years ago, when ancient Caithage was in her prime ; and granary ,orchard, and gulden it will become again. Morocco is one of tiro most fertile countries in the whole world.

Tiiis statement has a strange sound, I fancy, to English cars (writes Alan Ostler, in the “Daily Mail”). To most English minds the very name of Morocco brings a picture ol burning yellow sands, arid wastes peopled by swarthy camcl-men, barren bills dotted with scrub and castus, Morocco! There is something not and craggy’, something suggestive ol rocks and heat in the very sound of the name. The ndsvonception is too old to be lightly shaken.

h,pi, no youi mind of the imm’«ssion that the country is a desert. Picture to yourself, instead ol burning wastes of sand, rolling praiiies of golden corn, fields of rye, and maize, and tobacco; green bills covered with olive tree and fig and vine; streams and cascades of clear water, gardens of peach and pomegranate, orange groves, with golden globes shining through the foliage ot dusky green; lime and lemon plantations, plots wherein beans, peas, cabbages, artichokes, potatoes—-all the vegetables you can sco ill Covent Garden —thrive and are ready for the table before our English winter is drawing to a close. Imagine to yourself a climate such as England would have il summer were all August and winter all October.

Picture hills and dales and moors whereon in springtime snoh (lowers as you in England must tenderly cherish under glass are strewn with a lavish prodigality that makes the face of the land one glorious, tapestry. Within the month 1 have seen the Sultan’s wild cavalry trampling yellow and purple iris under their horses’ feet; smashing down frail spires of gladiolus, ruining starry stretches of marigold, ox-eye, purple vetch, and hyacinth; and filling the air with the fragrance of crushed verbena. Poppy and Lily and Christmas rose, wild crocus, star of Bethlehem, and delicate germander speedwell—these are among the commonest weeds that strew the face of this so-called “desert.” Picture to yourself a wild and 'beautiful garden, rich in fruits and flowers and every produce of the soil; and them you will have a fair idea of what Morocco is like, southward and eastward from the coast to Fez and M.efjuiuez, and far beyond. hi the long run it will he immeasurably hotter for the Moor and particularly the Moorish peasant, that his country should pass in to the hands of France. For thou there will he an end of the infamous system of native government, which makes any and every prosperous farmer or trader an object of plunder. And yet, sooner than pass into the hands of France they have fought, are fighting now, and will continue to light, till from north to south this hitter lesson lias been ruthlessly driven home: “The flintlock cannot stand ■against the cannon; courage cannot avail against science.” Why are they lighting? Because they want to be ruled by England! From the highest to the lowest, from Sultan to slave, the cry of the Moors is still the same. 1 have heard it from the lips of Mulai Halid, from the scented and silken Ministers, from merchants, from sheikhs, and from the hard-pressed villagers of the Gharh. “Let the English come, as we have bogged them to do and we will welcome them with open arms. They shall make Morocco another and a richer Egynt. But as long as we have guns and horses n e will resist the coming of the French.” I have known what it is to receive most embarrassing tributes to my nationality. When one’s tent is beset In ignorant \ iltagcrs who come to a stranger just because he is English to seek advice and have pitiful wrongs redressed; when grey-bearded elders accept one’s idle opinion as unquestionable law ; when sheep and poultry aie sacrificed In villagers whose poverty shows in their staring ribs; then one may glory in the mighty name of England. But at the same time one cannot help fooling a pang that England should remain so obstinately cold to such pathetic supplicants.