which is partly carried on by the pilgrims to Mecca. The government is purely despotic: the title of the sovereign, whom we generally call Emperor, but the Moors Sultan, is Emir-al-Moomenim, that is, Prince of Believers. The whole kingdom is divided by the Atlas into two halves, of which the north-western answering to the Mauritania Tingitana of the ancients, is formed of the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco, with the province of Suse; the south-east, or the Gætulia of the ancients, is formed of the provinces of Tafilet or Tafilelt, Sejelmesa, and Darah. The two kingdoms of Fez and Morocco are divided into twenty-eight districts, which are governed by pashas and caids; Tafilet is under the administration of two caids; the other parts of the empire, particularly the Amazigh tribes in the interior of the Atlas mountains, are governed by chiefs nearly independent, who acknowledge the power of a Grand Shiek as head of all the Amazirghs and Shelleks, but scarcely pay a small tribute to the Emperor, whose irregular subjects they are. By their frequent rebellions they render a regular government of the country impossible.

The annual revenue of the state is estimated at 2,500,000 Spanish dollars, and the expenses one million, thus leaving a considerable surplus in the treasury. This is the personal property of the Sultan, and is preserved in the strong treasury building at Mecknaes, which was erected for this purpose. It is guarded by two thousand black slaves, and the keys are in the exclusive possession of the emperor, or of the favourite sultana. The treasures accumulated therein are supposed to amount to fifty millions of Spanish dollars. The regular army amounts to only from fifteen to twenty thousand men, and consists principally of black slaves; but, in times of war, there is a special levy of the militia, called goom, under the command of the local magistracy; this forms an irregular force of eighty or a hundred thousand men. The naval force of Morocco was, in former times, considerable; and the Morocco pirates were, in the 16th and 17th centuries, dreaded by all the European naval powers, particularly Spain. By degrees the greater powers by force or by treaties were protected from these acts of rapine, but the smaller states were either tributary to Morocco, or exposed to piratical depredations. This siteation of affairs gave rise to an expedition on the part of Austria against the coast cities of Morocco, within the last twenty years, and it has only been completely abolished in consequence of the successes of the French in Algeria. The whole navy of Morocco, which even at the end of the eighteenth century was dangerous to the smaller states, is now confined to a few insignificant vessels.

Morocco, properly Marakh, or Marakash, the capital of the whole empire, and the principal residence of the sultan, is situated on an extensive elevated plain, between the Atlas and the river Tensift. It was founded in 1052 probably on the

site of the antient Bocanum Hemerum, and in the twelfth century it contained one hundred thousand houses, and seven hundred thousand inhabitants, but its decline has been such that it now contains hardly fifty thousand. The walls are strong, thirty feet in height, and are provided with innumerable watch towers. The apparent extent of the city stretches over several miles, but within this circuit there are many desert spots and ruined buildings. The mosques, of which El Kolubia, built in the twelfth century, is the most remarkable, are numerous, and some of them very beautiful. The palace of the sultan, which consists of several buildings, is built in a grand style; it is without the city, and surrounded by a wall a league and a half in circumference. The air is pure, the city well provided with water, but dirty and disfigured by angular narrow streets, in the usual style of oriental architecture.

An eye-witness thus describes the city of Morocco. "The city of Marraksch stands in the centre of a vast plain, fertile beyond description, dotted beautifully at intervals with olive groves and clumps of palm trees, which here attain an immense height. Even within the walls these groves and gardens are continued, and the mosques and towers and shell-formed domes of the public buildings are picturesque, intermingled with the gracefully feathering heads of the date-palm, the richest and greatest ornament of the east. Here and there were extensive plantations of pomegranate trees, now covered with blossom. And the orange was there, the lemon, the ju-jube, and the fig-tree; and the fragrance breathing from their mingled effluvia filled the atmosphere with overpowering sweetness.

"Viewed from hence, Marraksch appears a truly magnificent city, inclosed by lofty walls of great extent, flanked with towers, square and massive, and pierced by numerous gates of imposing architecture: the grandeur and capaciousness of the buildings are exaggerated to the imagination by the interposing masses of foliage, which contrasting strikingly with their colour and partly concealing their dimensions, distract the mind pleasingly by suggesting ideas of indefinite beauty and extent. But much of the effect produced by this extraordinary place is borrowed from the sublimity of the site, which in some respects can scarcely be surpassed. It has all that artists understands by breadth in painting. It seems to grow up out of the plain, to form an integral part of it, and to partake of its immensity, which the eye loses sight of on the limits of the horizon to the east and to the west. But the grandeur is not in this. Many capital cities, Madrid and Rome for examples, occupy the centre of vast plains, but are not on that account sublime. What here strikes the eye and fascinates it, is the vast mountain ridges on the north and south, towering bold, broken into innumerable peaks, covered with an eternal weight of virgin snow, propping the superincumbent clouds."

As Morocco (from its proximity to Algeria and to Gibraltar, to which place it is of vital importance that the opposite provinces in Africa should never fall into the hands of powers who may one day be hostile to England) will most probably soon be the theatre of events seriously affecting the interests of European powers, a short sketch of its history will not be unacceptable to the reader.

After the death of Achmed, the most powerful of the Sherifs, about the year 1603, the empire sank into decay amidst the internal convulsions that prevailed under his successors, so that Muley Sherif, a descendant of Ali and Fatima, succeeded in dethroning the dynasty of the first Sherifs about the middle of the seventeenth century, and of establishing that of the second, or the present reigning family. The most notorious sovereign of this dynasty was Muley Ismail, who reigned from 1672 to 1727. He took Tangiers and El Arish from the Spaniards, but the glory which might have surrounded his name from these exploits is lost in the abominable cruelties which he committed, and which raise him to an unenviable supremacy above the greatest tyrants that have ever disgraced a throne. He is said to have executed not less than five thousand people with his own hands: he was ever inventing new torments for his victims; and even his favourites and wives and children were not safe from his insatiable cruelty. He had, during the period of his long life, eight thousand wives, eight hundred and twenty-five sons, and three hundred and forty-two daughters. Internal wars and disputed successions among his successors contributed to accelerate the decay of the empire, and the cruelties and barbarities of the times continued until the accession of Muley Sidi Mohammed, whose reign was distinguished by mildness, justice, and a desire to introduce European civilization, but he had to contend against repeated rebellions. With the death of Mohammed the former barbarity re-appeared, until happier times arose for this distressed country during the reign of Muley Soliman, from 1794 to 1822. His last years were embittered by the plague, rebellion, and a disputed succession. The present emperor, Muley Abderrahman, born 1778, succeeded to the throne in 1822, and at the very beginning of his reign he put an end to the rebellion of the mountainous tribes. This sovereign has generally shown himself a mild prince, and a friend to internal and external peace; but he was fated to see his empire subjected to the greatest dangers by the course of foreign wars and external events.

The conquest of Algiers by the French has exposed him to conflicts with that nation on the one side, and with the fanatic tribes of the Barbary districts of his country on the other, who were induced by the ever active Abd-el-Kader, to take a part inconsistent with the peace of the empire. Already the attempts to claim a part of the Algerine province of Oran, had nearly led to a war, which was only

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preverted by the decided measures adopted by the French. However the misunderstanding with France still continued, inasmuch as Morocco always served as a place of refuge to Abd-el-Kader. Matters came to a crisis, when Abd-el-Kader himself, pressed by the successful operations of Marshal Bugeaud, was forced to retreat within the territory of Morocco, where he was openly supported by the population, who enabled him to collect a considerable army. The Emperor of Morocco dispatched an army to the frontiers, but instead of supporting the reclamations of the French, these troops commenced hostilities against the foreigners, and thus a war became inevitable. A French fleet, under the Prince of Joinville, bombarded Tangiers on the 6th of August 1844, and Magador on the 15th of August, whilst an army under Bugeaud crossed the frontiers of Morocco, and on the 14th of August 1844, defeated the grand army of Morocco, which had been collected by a general levy, and by the proclamation of the holy war, and was commanded by a son of the emperor. This battle is called the battle of Isly, from the river of the same name. The whole camp, with the celebrated parasol of the prince, as the symbol of supreme authority, fell into the hands of the conquerors, and the Morocco army was totally dispersed. On the 10th of September 1844, a treaty of peace was concluded between France and Morocco, at Tangiers, by which the emperor pronounced sentence of outlawry against Abd-el-Kader, promised to detain him prisoner, if he fell into his hands, to hinder all attempts. at assisting the enemies of France, and to acknowledge the former boundaries of Algiers. But this treaty, far from abolishing the differences between the two powers, showed them in their full extent, for it was now manifest that the Emperor of Morocco had not the power to fulfil the conditions stipulated in the treaty, as he had more to fear from the fanaticism of his own people, and from Abd-el-Kader, who aimed at nothing less than dethroning him and placing himself at the head of a new empire in Morocco, than from the French. The victorious appearance of Abd-el-Kader at the head of an army, totally recruited from Morocco, is a sufficient proof of the difficulties of the emperor's position. Nor should he succeed in maintaining himself against the internal dangers which threaten him, is it probable that the empire of Morocco will remain as it is at present constituted, should the consolidation of the French power in Algeria proceed more rapidly than it has hitherto done. It may continue for some time to linger in its present state, as a greater power in the Levant, owing to the fear or jealousies of the great European Powers, till accident or design provoke the settlement of the great question, which may for some time be postponed, but according to the common course of events, can hardly be much longer averted.