Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VI. Tangiers
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
114 DAYS IN THE SUN
Or, when they are able to earn some for themselves!
Necessity has made them inventive and stimulated
their energies. Although they may never have fol-
lowed a calling while they were at liberty—here they
sit surrounded by dirt and filth, engaged in turning
out the neatest little baskets and purses of gayly
colored reeds and Moroccan leather, which they sell to
the tourists who come to see and enjoy this wretched
spectacle. And the inhuman treatment they receive
has made them more humane to each other; what other
consideration could impel those who stand nearer to
us and who are themselves offering objects they are
eager to sell at any price, to pass on the output of the
prisoners who stand behind them and offer them for
sale together with their own? They would hardly do
as much if they were trading under free conditions; in
fact, society does not even deal so well by them, for
society has locked them up here and exposed them to
the certain fate of death by starvation and filth. Nor
would any human society treat them much better.
This society, whose practice accords with the pre-
scriptions of the Mosaic Code, and which dooms to
destruction its diseased or demoralized members, by no
means consists of barbarians who would find it a dif-
cult task to acquire civilization step by step. In num-
bers, the Moors embrace but one-third of the popula-
tion of Morocco, but they constitute the entire upper
class, the official stratum—from the sultan down to the
night watchman—as well as the merchant class and the
higher artisans; they make up practically the entire
population of the city. And they are the descendants
of a race of high culture, remnants of which they still
retain in the interior splendor of their buildings, in the
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
