Edith Wharton

In Morocco Edith Wharton

To step on board a steamer in a Spanish port, and three hours later to land in acountry without a guide-book, is a sensation to rouse the hunger of the repletestsight-seer. The sensation is attainable by any one who will take the trouble to row out into theharbour of Algeciras and scramble onto a little black boat headed across the straits. Hardly has the rock of Gibraltar turned to cloud when one's foot is on the soil of analmost unknown Africa. Tangier, indeed, is in the guide-books; but, cuckoo-like, ithas had to lays its egg in strange nests, and the traveller who wants to find outabout it must acquire a work dealing with some other country-Spain or Portugal orAlgeria. There is no guide-book to Morocco, and no way of knowing, once one hasleft Tangier behind, where the long trail over the Rif is going to land one, in thesense understood by any one accustomed to European certainties. The air of theunforeseen blows on one from the roadless passes of the Atlas.