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 politiques (1856). See the literature dealing with Napoleon III., and the article on Flahaut de la Billarderie; also F. Loliée, Le Duc de Morny, adapted by B. O’Donnell. A volume, Extraits des mémoires de Morny: Une Ambassade en Russie 1856, was published in 1892.

MORO, ANTONIO (c. 1512–1575), otherwise known as Sir Anthony More, the eminent portrait-painter, was born at Utrecht in 1512 according to some, but in 1525 according to Karl van Mander in his Het Leven der Schilders. He studied his art under Jan Schoorel; and after making a professional visit to Italy he commenced to paint portraits in the style of Hans Holbein. His rise to eminence was rapid. In 1552 he was invited to Madrid by the emperor Charles V. to execute a likeness of Prince Philip. Two years afterwards he was in London painting the portrait of Queen Mary. For this picture an annual salary and, as some suppose, the honour of knighthood were conferred upon him. On the death of Mary in 1558 Moro returned to Spain, and lived there for two years in great honour with Philip II., executing, in addition to portraits, several copies after Titian. His death took place at Antwerp about 1575. Among his figure-pictures Van Mander specifies the “Circumcision of Christ,” executed for Antwerp Cathedral, as one of the most notable. His portraits are full of individuality, and characterized by firm and solid rendering of flesh. Several admirable examples are preserved in Madrid; among the rest the portrait of Queen Mary of England, which has been excellently etched by Milius (L’Art, Dec. 8, 1878). “Moro’s style,” says Stanley in his Dutch and Flemish Painters, “so much resembles that of Holbein as to frequently create a doubt to which of them a portrait is to be attributed; but he is not so clear and delicate in his colouring (perhaps from having painted so much in Spain) as that master.”

MOROCCO (, “The Farthest West,” i.e. of the Mahommedan world), an independent state of North Africa, bounded on the N. by the Mediterranean, on the E. by Algeria, on the S. (indefinitely) by the Sahara, and on the W. by the Atlantic as far south as Wad Dra’a. Its landward limits can only be vaguely defined. The eastern frontier towards Algeria, determined by the treaty of 1844, is a purely conventional line starting from the mouth of a small stream called the Skis and running across country in a general S.S.E. direction. In 1900 this was given a westerly trend to the south of the Atlas by the annexation of the Figig, Igli and Tūat oases by France. The southern boundaries expand and contract according to the power and acivity of the central authorities. Behm and Wagner, who included Figig, Tūat, Kenatsa and other oases, estimated (in 1882) the then area of the sultanate at 305,548 sq. m. The allegiance of many of the tribes within this compass is questionable and intermittent, and the loss of the district from Figig to Tūat, which is not accurately defined, has considerably reduced the area. Morocco is still the portion of Northern Africa about which European information is most defective, and all maps are still to a considerable extent composed of unscientific material eked out by probabilities and conjecture.

The Mediterranean Coast Lands.—The seaward aspect of Morocco only is known in detail. To the Mediterranean it presents for about 200 m. the rugged profile of the Rīf hills (still unexplored), which generally end in lines of cliff broken at intervals by narrow sweeps of sandy beech, but occasionally open up into beautiful and fertile valleys., About 6 m. west of the Skis lies the mouth of the river Mulwiya; and 10 m. farther on, opposite Cabo del Agua (Ras Sidi Bashir), is a group of dry and barren islands, owned by Spain, known as Chaffarinas or Jazair Zafrān (Spanish las Chafarinas), which protect the best roadstead on the Rīf coast. Between Point Quiviana and Melilla runs a low and sandy shore in front of a great salt marsh, the Mar Chica of the Spaniards. Melilla (Melilīya) is a fortified rock convict station or presidio, held by the Spaniards since 1497, forming a peninsula connected by lines of rampart with Fort Rosario on the heights behind. The fine semicircular bay of Alhucemas is the seaward end of one of the most beautiful valleys in the Rīf, clothed with verdure and dotted with hamlets. A Spanish presidio occupies one of the larger of the Alhucemas islands (Al-Mazemma), which are identified with the Ad Sex Insulas of the itineraries. Another Spanish presidio crowns the island rock Peñon de Velez; and in the valley off which it lies stood a town known to the Spaniards as Velez de Gomera, to the Arabs as Bādis, which continued to be a place of importance in the 16th century. The so-called Bay of Tetuan (Teṭṭāwan)—the town is just visible from the sea—is little more than the straight stretch of coast between Cape Mazari on the south and Cape Negro or Negrete on the north; but the prominence of these two headlands gives it an appearance of depth. From Cape Negro northwards to Ceuta the most notable object is the summit of Jebel Mūsa, which, though situated on the Strait of Gibraltar, towers above the intervening hills. Ceuta (Sibta), the most important of the Spanish settlements in Morocco, occupies a peninsula—the head, Mt Acho, standing about 4 m. out to sea, and the neck being low and narrow. It marks the eastern end of the strait. Westwards, the first point of interest is again Jebel Mūsa, the Elephas of Strabo, and the Apes Hill of English charts. About 20 m. farther along the coast lies the Bay of Tangier (Tanja), one of the finest harbours in Morocco. West from Tangier runs the Jebel Kebīr (rising to a little over 1000 ft.), the seaward extremity of which forms Cape Spartel, the north-west angle of the African continent, known to the ancients as Ampelusia or Cotes Promontorium. The lighthouse, 312 ft. above sea-level, built in 1865 at the cost of the sultan of Morocco, and maintained at the joint expense of England, France, Italy and Spain, is the only one on the western coast. It is provided with a fixed intermittent white light, visible for 36 m.

The Atlantic Coast Line.—The Atlantic coast of Morocco is remarkable for its regularity; it has not a single gulf or noteworthy estuary; the capes are few and for the most part feebly marked. Southward from Cape Spartel the shore sinks rapidly till it is within a few feet of the sea-level. In the low cliff which it forms about 4 m. from the lighthouse there is a great quarry, which from remote antiquity has yielded the hand-mills used in the Tangier district. A stretch of low marshy ground along the Tahaddārt estuary—W. Muharhar and W. el-Kharrūb—agrees with Scylax’s Gulf of Cotes (Tissot). Eight m. farther lies Azīla, the ancient Colonia Julia Constantia Zilis, with a Moorish and Jewish population of about 1200. For the next 16 m., between Azīla and Laraish (Laraiche), the coast has a tolerably bold background of hills, Jebel Sarsar forming an important landmark for the latter town which, with its Phoenician, Roman and medieval remains, is historically one of the most interesting places in Morocco. A line of reddish cliffs about 300 ft. high runs south for about 10 m. from the W. Lekkus, at whose mouth the town is built; then the coast sinks till it reaches the shrine of Mūlāi Bū Selhām on an eminence 220 ft. high. Between Mūlāi Bū Selhām (often wrongly called “Old Māmora”) and a similar height crowned by the tomb of Sidi ‛Abd Allah Jelāli lies the outlet of the Blue Lake (Marja Zarka), 10 or 12 m. long. Farther south, and separated from the sea by an unbroken line of rounded hills (230–260 ft.), is the much more extensive lagoon of Rās ed-Dūra, which in the dry season becomes a series of marshy meres, but in the rainy season fills up and discharges into the Sebū. Eastward it is connected with the Marjat el-Gharb, fed by the W. Meda. On the south side of the outlet of the Sebū lies Mehedīya (otherwise misnamed New Māmora or Mehduma) founded by ‛Abd el-Mūmin, and named after the Muwaḥḥadi Mahdi. It was held by Spain from 1614 to 1681. Twenty miles farther is the mouth of the Bū Ragrag, with Salli (Sla) on the north side, long famous for its piracies, and still one of the most fanatical places in the empire, and on the south side Rabat, with its conspicuous Hassan tower, and Shella with its interest in ruins. Onward for 100 m. to Point Azammur and the mouth of the Um er-Rabī‛a river a line of hills skirts the sea; the shore is for the most part low, and, with the exception of capes at Fedāla (a small village, originally a port, partly rebuilt by Mulai Ismā’il, and completed by Mahommed XVII., who opened it to Europeans between 1760 and 1773) and Dār el-Baida or Casablanca, it runs in a straight line west-south-west. Azammur (Berber for “The Wild Olives,” viz. of the Sheikh Bū Shaib)—once the frontier town of the kingdom of Fez—stands on an eminence about 1 m. from the sea on the south side of the Um er-Rabī‛a, here some 150 ft. wide, deep and red, with an obstructing bar. The bay of Mazagan, a few miles to the south, curves westward with a boldness of sweep unusual on this coast. About 8 m. to the south, and less than 1 m. inland, lie the extensive ruins of Tīt, a town which proved a thorn in the side of the Portuguese of Mazagan till they destroyed it. At Cape Blanco (so called from its white cliffs) the coast, which bulged out at Cape Mazagan, again bends south to resume much the same general direction for 55 m. to Cape Cantin. On this stretch the only point of interest is the site of the vanished Walīdīya, formerly El-Ghait, with an excellent harbour, formed by an extensive lagoon, which by a little dredging would become the safest shipping station on the whole Morocco seaboard. About 18 m. farther lies Saffi (Asfi), the most picturesque spot on the west coast, with the high walls and quare towers of its Portuguese fortifications shown to advantage by the ruggedness of the site. Sixty miles farther south lies Mogador, beyond which the coast becomes more and more inaccessible and dangerous in winter, being known to navigators as the “Iron Coast.” From Cape Sim (Ras Tagriwalt), 10 m. south of Mogador, the direction is due south to Cape Ghīr (Ighīr Ufrani), the termination of Jebel Ida ū Tanān, a spur of the Atlas. Beyond this headland lies Agadīr (Agadīr Ighīr), the Santa Cruz Mayor or Santa Cruz de Berberia