EOTHEN.




Preface


It has been a pleasant task to recall the little journey set out in the
following pages, but the writer can hardly escape the thought that the
title of the book promises more than he has been able to perform. While
the real Morocco remains a half-known land to-day, this book does not take
the traveller from the highroad. The mere idler, the wayfarer to whom
Morocco is no more than one of many places of pilgrimage, must needs deal
modestly with his task, even though modesty be an unfashionable virtue;
and the painstaking folk who pass through this world pelting one another
with hard facts will find here but little to add to their store of
ammunition. This appeal is of set purpose a limited one, made to the few
who are content to travel for the sake of the pleasures of the road, free
from the comforts that beset them at home, and free also from the popular
belief that their city, religion, morals, and social laws are the best in
the world. The qualifications that fit a man to make money and acquire the
means for modern travel are often fatal to proper appreciation of the
unfamiliar world he proposes to visit. To restore the balance of things,
travel agents and other far-seeing folks have contrived to inflict upon
most countries within the tourist's reach all the modern conveniences by
which he lives and thrives. So soon as civilising missions and
missionaries have pegged out their claims, even the desert is deemed
incomplete without a modern hotel or two, fitted with electric light,
monstrous tariff, and served by a crowd of debased guides. In the wake of