Edith Wharton

In Morocco Edith Wharton

With such opportunities ahead it was impossible, that brilliant morning of September, 1917, not tobe off quickly from Tangier, impossible to do justice to the pale-blue town piled up within brownwalls against the thickly-foliaged gardens of "the Mountain," to the animation of its market-placeand the secret beauties of its steep Arab streets. For Tangier swarms with people in Europeanclothes, there are English, French and Spanish signs above its shops, and cab-stands in its squares; itbelongs, as much as Algiers, to the familiar dog-eared world of travel-and there, beyond the lastdip of "the Mountain," lies the world of mystery, with the rosy dawn just breaking over it. Themotor is at the door and we are off. The so-called Spanish zone, which encloses internationalized Tangier in a wide circuit of territory, extends southward for a distance of about a hundred and fifteen kilometres. Consequently, whengood roads traverse it, French Morocco will be reached in less than two hours by motor-travellersbound for the south. But for the present Spanish enterprise dies out after a few miles of macadam(as it does even between Madrid and Toledo), and the tourist is committed to the piste. These pistes-the old caravan-trails from the south-are more available to motors in Morocco than in southernAlgeria and Tunisia, since they run mostly over soil which, though sandy in part, is bound togetherby a tough dwarf vegetation, and not over pure desert sand. This, however, is the utmost that can besaid of the Spanish pistes. In the French protectorate constant efforts are made to keep the trails fitfor wheeled traffic, but Spain shows no sense of a corresponding obligation