MOROCCO HORRORS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue VI, 10 February 1900, Page 261

MOROCCO HORRORS.

The following account of the present condition of things in Morocco is reprinted from Mr Budgett Meakin’s luminous volume on “ The Moorish Empire.’ The summary jurisdiction of the Kaids affords some striking scenes. Picture a reclining official supported by cushions on a raised dais in an archway. Before him an excited group of litigants and witnesses are all attempting to be heard at once, contradicting one another, abusing one another, uttering volleys of oaths, gesticulating wildly as they crouch on the ground, or excitedly rise with declamation and protests. hardly pausing when the judge speaks ; they inay all be hurried off to prison to reflect together ; there are no formalities to intervene, and a word from the governor puts any man in or out. Often thrashings are inflicted, brutal flagellation with a rope or stick on the bare back of a victim held face downwards by four men, or on the soles of the feet tied to a short pole. Women are sometimes flogged in tins last manner, being thrown back seated in a basket tightly tied round the waist.

Hundreds of lashes are often inflicted, at once or at intervals, the sufferer being bucketed to restore animation, or carried, faint from pain and loss of blood, to the comfortless gaol. Flogging is specially employed to extract information as to hidden treasure, or to extort money. In the prisons, which are reeking, unhealthy courtyards or cellars, without any furniture or even a supply of water, usually overcrowded, many are thrust into ankle, wrist, or neck rings of heavy iron. The latter are reserved for special eases, unless on the march, when they are common to all, a number of them being threaded on to a heavy chain. This being riveted at the ends, if one dies, or even falls sick by the way, his head is cut off to release his body, and is brought into town to show’ that he has not escaped.

Such heads, as well as those of rebels killed in battle, are pickled by the first Jews on whom hands can be laid, if the distance to go be great, to preserve them, just as formerly used to be done in England. In the towns there is a separate prison for women, chiefly those caught on the streets, in charge of an arifah or wise woman, where they are not much worse off than at home.

Other tortures, which depend on individual caprice, are frequently resorted to, such as starvation in under-

ground granaries, cutting off a hand or an ear, or gouging out an eye for theft; bastinadoinground the town, mounted, face backwards, on a donkey ; or filling the hand with salt and binding the doubled fingers with raw hide, leaving it so untli the nails grow into the palms. Many other tortures might be mentioned, such as the “wooden shirt” lined with spikes, but they are very rarely employed, and their emuneration would only convey a false idea of Moorish cruelty. The terrible deeds of a bygone age,

which make the pages of their history so black, are seldom approached by the Moors of these days, and they are better forgotten.