MY QUIET TIME IN MOROCCO

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19346, 27 June 1925, Page 14

MY QUIET TIME IN MOROCCO

(By Alfred Lester, tho well-known Comedian). A man told me that for anyone who is run down the quietest spot in the whole world would be Morocco. .Well, there wore nine passengers in the small ferry boat/ from the steamer, all of us, I am sure, desirous of landing quietly. About 900 porters rushed at us and between them grabbed everything wo owned. They screamed, yelled, and shouted into each other’s faces and our ears. “Why let them quarrel?” I asked a Customs man who spoke a little English. “Let them toss for it.” “Oh, no; no quarrel,” he replied; “they good friends.” I should hate to be there when they are really upset or annoyed. To get out of Tangier you have to tip the whole population. If they still had a Sultan there I believe you would have to tip him also. But the SulUan has gone, and in about five years his former palace will have gone too. 21 few .carettakers live there now. They take care that you tip them. You tip them as you go in and as you come out and you tip them half-way through your visit. They keep on passing you on to each other till you become thoroughly confused as to who litis been tipped and who has not. The palace is made of beautiful tiles; u good many of them missing. One of the guides told me that tourists knock them off and take them home. He knocked one off for me; I did not ask him to, but I expect he thought 1 would like to Eave it. Well, in a few years’ time there will not be any palace left to knock bits off.

The guides said that the Moors did not want the palace now. If that is so, they have discovered a cheap wUy of getting rid of it. (Pathetic interest attaches to the above article, which appeared in the London Daily Mail by reason of the fact that Alfred Lester died in Madrid when homeward bound from Morocco).