seaports, the twin towns of Rabat and Salli alone remaining always
Moorish, but these two in their turn set up a sort of independent
republic, nourished from the Berber tribes in the mountains to the
south of them. No Europeans live in Salli yet, for here the old
fanaticism slumbers still. So long as a port remained in foreign hands
it was completely cut off from the surrounding country, and played no
part in Moorish history, save as a base for periodical incursions.
One by one most of them fell again into the hands of their rightful
owners, till they had recovered all their Atlantic sea-board. On the
Mediterranean, Ceuta, which had belonged to Portugal, came under the
rule of Spain when those countries were united, and the Spaniards hold
it still, as they do less important positions further east.

The piracy days of the Moors have long passed, but they only ceased at
the last moment they could do so with grace, before the introduction
of steamships. There was not, at the best of times, much of the noble
or heroic in their raids, which generally took the nature of lying
in wait with well-armed, many-oared vessels, for unarmed, unwieldy
merchantmen which were becalmed, or were outpaced by sail and oar
together.

Early in the nineteenth century Algiers was forced to abandon piracy
before Lord Exmouth's guns, and soon after the Moors were given to
understand that it could no longer be permitted to them either, since
the Moorish "fleets"--if worthy the name--had grown so weak, and those
of the Nazarenes so strong, that the tables were turned. Yet for many
years more the nations of Europe continued the tribute wherewith the
rapacity of the Moors was appeased, and to the United States belongs
the honour of first refusing this disgraceful payment.