The same era affords sustenance for the most antagonistic personalities. The same Zeitgeist guided Leopardi into the Plutonian wilderness of Pessimism whence he never emerged, and Manzoni to the altar of the Roman Catholic Church, where he knelt devoutly all his life. The same Zeitgeist breathed round Newman and Mill, Jowett and Martineau, Clough and Maurice; nay, to drive the paradox home, all of us to-day are presumably undergoing similar general conditions, yet with such widely different results that we should resent the suggestion that we have been cast in one mould. The Zeitgeist, therefore, is as slippery and changeable as old Proteus a convenient symbol for general attributes, but quite incapable of explaining individuals. And so we are brought by another path to the conclusion that we can best understand history by studying it through the lives of actual men and women. When we have once felt the plasticity of human nature, the infinite play of variation, the apparently boundless sweep of possibility, and the incalculable effects of Fortune, we shall discard any system which pretends to reduce the world to a series of pigeonholes, or men to marionettes, and which substitutes for the holy mysteriousness of life a garish hypothesis.

And so to conclude. The outlook for Biography, that branch of history which has hitherto been least successfully cultivated, was never more bright. Science constantly invents new instruments for measuring human faculty more accurately. The art of fiction has been teaching us to distinguish the nicest variations of character, and to trace the rack-and-pinion interaction of cause and effect. The issues of life were never more interesting. We stand on the threshold of a new era, in which the individual shall be magnified as he never was before. Pessimists say that Democracy-the railroad, the newspaper, and machinery-tends to reduce the world to a dead level of uniformity: that, as local variations fade away and racial characteristics are rubbed down, the commonplace, the dull, the vulgar, will more and more prevail. This I do not believe. The mighty agents which have been at work for a century have simply brought within reach of millions the necessaries of material and intellectual life which could formerly be enjoyed by only a few. Can what lifted the thousands degrade the millions? These agents, properly viewed, win multitudes from the plane of Instinct to the plane of Will. As the size of the mass

increases, the field broadens from which the highest types can spring. Democracy means opportunity for variation, and variation is the cause of striking personalities, as the nineteenth century showed.

Since the material and the method exist, is it vain to hope that Biography, taking a fresh start, will go on improving until its masterpieces shall be as many and as excellent as those of the other great arts? May not the lives of real men be written as imperishably as the supreme creations of fiction? Shall Hamlet and Othello, Don Quixote and Tartuffe, shall the master creations of Hawthorne, Thackeray and George Eliot, of Turgenieff, Manzoni and Balzac, have no counterparts in Biography? The spell of the human reasserts itself. We cannot habitually satisfy ourselves with the cosmic point of view. We are not born to look at life through either telescope or microscope, but with our naked eyes. We are men: neither angels nor demons can interest us as much as our fellows.

WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER.

CONDITIONS IN MOROCCO.

BY PHILIP FRANCIS BAYARD.

MOROCCO and things Moroccan have recently received so much publicity in America as a result of the Perdicaris affair, that it is now hardly necessary to state, as it would have been a few months since in speaking to most Americans on the subject, that Morocco is a land distinct from Algiers both geographically and politically, and, although by geographical position the most western of Moslem countries, she still remains, by her obstinate conservatism and by the spirit of rude independence of the Berber tribes who make up two-thirds of her population, the bulwark of Islam, fanatical and uncompromising.

For many years past, tourists in making a "side trip" in Morocco have wondered how it was that this rich country, lying at the very doors of Europe, and in sight of whose shores passes such an enormous volume of the world's trade, has so long escaped the penetration of the modern world, and occupation and partition by the World Powers. They have almost invariably come to the conclusion (after a day or two spent in Tangier in the company of those cheerful liars, the guides) that the dawn of European occupation is at hand; that to-morrow will see the opening and improving of Moroccan ports;* the day after, the building of roads, bridges, and railways, etc.; and that they are lucky in having reached Morocco in time to see the "real Eastern thing," while Western civilization is thundering at the gates.

• Tetouan, Tangier, El Araish, Rabat, Mazagan, Saff and Mogador are open to commerce. In all these ports, vessels have to anchor at a considerable distance from shore and discharge their cargo on huge barges propelled by oars. Tangier is the only port that remains open practically the whole year. Landing or embarking at the other ports is often rendered impossible by wind and weather for days or even weeks at a time. The remaining ports, Azila, Mehediah, Azemmour and Agadir, are closed to commerce.

The tourist who has revisited Morocco after an absence of five, ten, or even fifteen years, has found, indeed, signs of the growth of European activity in Tangier and some of the other coast towns; but, as for the penetration of European ideas and methods into the interior of the land, he finds no more sign of it than before, no railway, bridge,* or telegraph,† not even such a thing as a made road. Travel and commerce still wear for themselves across the country irregular and uneven tracks, in summer choked with dust, in winter deep in mire. For want of bridges, travel and commerce, with their trains of mules and donkeys, still wait on the pleasure of the subsiding flood, an hour, a day, or weeks if need be, just as they have done for a thousand years past, just as they expect to do for a thousand years to come. European merchants and adventurers long resident in the country smile incredulously when passing globe-trotters announce to them the impending inevitable transformation of Morocco. The cry of "Wolf! wolf!" invariably followed by the non-appearance of that animal has so often rung in their ears that they have ceased to believe in him. The change that was inevitably impending yesterday, and that inevitably impends to-day, may well continue to impend inevitably forever. Morocco, like the ball sustained in mid-air on the jet of the fountain, ever tosses but falls not into the water below.

As children, we have watched such a fountain with delighted eyes, wondering that a thin jet of water could sustain the ball, and expecting every instant to see it fall. A little to the right, a bit to the left, and the ball must escape; but we have watched in vain for its fall, for, if the jet of water does not fail, the ball may continue to toss forever. Morocco is such a ball. The European Powers are the fountain, and their irreconcilable jealousies have ever been, and may well continue to be, the unfailing jet of water on which the ball maintains

* One can count the bridges in Morocco (outside of Tangier) on the fingers of one hand.

Tangier is connected with Europe by three telegraphic cables—one English to Gibraltar, one Spanish to Tarifa, and one French to Marseilles via Oran. Of these, the English is most patronized. The Spanish cable is out of gear on an average of six months in the year. There is an overland wire to Cape Spartel lighthouse, six miles distant, maintained at the joint expense of the Powers represented at Tangier. This lighthouse is, with the exception of Tangier Light, the only one on the Moroccan coast.

itself in mid-air. Of late, the fountain has shown signs of change; and the ball, tossing on a diminishing jet, seems to be at last on the point of falling. So it seems; but there are indications that the jet of water, spouting forth again with renewed vigor, will send the ball tossing merrily upward, high as before.

It is difficult for an American to form a just conception of the conditions of government in Morocco, almost as difficult as it is for a Moor to form an idea of existing political conditions in Christian lands. The Sultan's nominal dominions extend from east to west some four hundred miles, and from north to south some eight hundred and fifty; but his actual authority is exercised only in spots over this vast territory, according to time and opportunity. Following the Moorish expression, the country may roughly be divided into Blad-el-Makhzen, or subdued territory, and Blad-es-Siba, or unsubdued territory.* Blad-el-Makhzen comprises in normal times the inland towns of Fez, Miknas, Marakesh (Morocco city), Teza, Oujdah, El Kasar, Tafilet, and Taroudant and the contiguous plains; also the whole of the Atlantic coast, with its towns, from Tangier to Agadir, and Tetouan on the Mediterranean with the mountainous country bordering the Strait of Gibraltar. All the rest of Moroccan territory, i. e., about three-fourths of the whole, is included in Blad-es-Siba. But the boundaries between the subdued and the unsubdued territories are ever shifting according to the relative power of aggression of the Sultan and the power of resistance of the tribes. But, although the Sultan's political authority is so far from being universally obeyed, all Morocco, including Blad-es-Siba, reveres him as the religious head of Islam, and pays him tribute, real or nominal, accordingly.

The policy of the Sultans has always been to sow discord among the independent tribes, to set them at each other's throats, and, by throwing the imperial sword into the balance at the opportune moment, to extend Blad-el-Makhzen and hold Blad-esSiba in check. Your true Moroccan has respect for but one thing -namely, force. In his eyes, clemency and gentleness have ever been signs of weakness and incapacity. The Sultan who rules by violence and cruel oppression commands the respectful * Blad-el-Makhzen, literally, 'government country"; Blad-es-Siba, country without government."

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