Page 3

Vol. VI, No. 12

January 15,

1920





THE COLLEGE NEWS



A FORTNIGHT WITH PRESIDENT
THOMAS IN MOROCCO

Described By Alys Russell, 90, in
Letter to the News

PART ONE
THROUGH SPAIN TO FEZ

Our way to Morocco lay through Spain,
and, appropriately enough for a_ student
of President Thomas’s first year of Gen-
eral English lectures in 1885, began at
the Pass of Roncesvalles, where Roland
kept the Spaniards at bay, while Charle-
magne’s troops retreated down the French
slopes. After Roncesvalles, with equal
appropriateness, we followed the career of
the Cid, from his town of Burgos in Old
Castille, to the remote monastery of San
Pedro de Cardena, where he and Chimene
lie buried. We did not, however, quote
to each other their passionate love speeches
from Corneille’s Cid, as Napoleon’s officers
are reported to have done, with tears in
their eyes, during their wanton destruc-
tion in 1808 of the Cid’s own town. Alto-
gether, we had a perfect motoring tour of
50 days in Spain, and though we felt that
no other country cotild ever be so beauti-
ful, nor so full of enchanting towns and
wonderful cathedrals, we remembered that
our goal was Fez, in that remote and mys-
terious land described by Pierre Loti as
“Au Moroc.”

Found Motor to Fez With Difficulty

We knew that it might be dangerous, if
not impossible, to ‘pass through the Span-
ish Zone of Morocco, where the Spaniards
were fighting a serious rising of rebel!
tribes; that the railways were unfinished
and the hotels bad, and that we shou!d
not have a private car nor the protection
and hospitality of the’ French Governor,
General Lyautcy,dike Mrs. Edith Wharton
last year in her trip, so intérestingly des-
scribed in the July, August and September
numbers of Scribner’s. But nevertheless,
we set sail from Gibraltar to Tangier,
and there found we could get round the
western coast to Casablanca by boat, and
approach Fez from the south, missing the
bad roads and the fighting in the Spanish
Zone to the north. At Casablanca, we found
with difficulty a motor car ample enough
to take us, our Moorish guide (dressed in
a beautiful embroidered robe of prickly-
pear blosom pink with the red fez worm
by bachelors), our seven suit cases and rugs.
coffee machine, condensed milk, jam, bot-
tle water, rubber tubs, etc., etc. on our
three days journey to Fez.

Visit Moorish College

We arrived first at Rabat, a port fifty
miles north of Casablanca, and one of the
four make-zenia, or government towns,
where the present Sultan lives, and Gen-
eral Lyautey has his headquarters. But
we were only interested in the old town
with its walls, terraces and minarets, perch-
ed on a cliff hanging over the Atlantic, and
sloping down to the Bou-Rigrig river, and
we visited first of all, the Moorish Me-
dirsa or college. It was just inside the
gate of the immense old Kabash (citadel)







and was characteristic of the Mohamme-
dan colleges everywhere as also of Moorish |
domestic architecture. It was an exquisite- |
ly ‘beautiful building, with long narrow |
prayer and study rooms opening by carved |
ceder doors on to an arcaded, perfectly
proportioned courtyard, with a delicious.
tile fountain in the middle. Up the
narrow stairs were long corridors, from
which opened small bedrooms, with tinv
latticed windows on the courtyard, each
room furnished with two mattresses, and a
shelf for cooking materials. Cooking, we
are told, was lone in the corridors, washing
in the fountain. Each student receives
free lodging and a loaf of bread a day
from the Sultan, having to beg the rest of

his food. In addition to free lodging and
bread, free instruction is given at the
mosques, principally in the Koran and
in grammar and_ rhetoric, while for
mathematics and_ science, astrology, al-

chemy, and divination are substituted, and
history and geography omitted alto
gether. We were not allowed to entér tne
taosques, but drove across the river to
pictureseme Sale, the little old pirate town

are

where Robinson Crusoe was a prisoner, and
we saw at sunset the famous tower of
Hassan, built in 1173 and one of the three
most beautiful Moorish towns still stand-
ing. The next day we took the inland
road to Meknez, with its famous ruined
pleasure city of Moulay Ismail, the Sultan
who was contemporary of Louis XIV, and
exchanged magnificent presents with him,
while-he employed an army of Christian
captives on his great palaces, simply build-
ing into the walls any who dropped at
their work. In the original old town, we
found another beautiful Medrisa, but in
the new French one, only a horrible little
hotel where we had to sleep.

Picnic on Columns of Volubilis

Early the next morning, we crossed the
fierce, burning plateau with its flights of
white cranes, and climbed up to the Zer-
houn mountain, where on an almost inac-
cessible peak is hidden away the sacred
town of Moulay Idriss. It contains the
tomb of Mohammed’s grandson, Moulay
Idriss, the founder of the Idrissides, and
the most venerated saint of all Morocco,
and no Christian had ever been allowed
inside its walls till a few years ago and
still none may sleep in the town.



But we entered quite simply, and were
warmly welcomed by a native in the blue
cloak of the French police, who rushed up
to shake our hands, and to offer his ser-
vices as a guide. We were allowed
also to peep into the mosque, where many
pilgrims were saying their Friday prayers,
and we even saw through a crack the wo-
men worshipping in the gallery, where they
veiled, Our enthusiastic guide incited us
may come only on Fridays and heavily
to climb higher and higher in the town,
to the mosque of Moulay’s barber and
heeded not the midday sun, nor the uneven
and unpaved paths, rather than streets,
that threaded the town. We elt really in-
dignant that after 1100 years the streets
should still be so rough and impassable. Our
picnic lunch was eaten sitting on the col-
umms of neighboring Velubilis, the ruins of
the old capital of the Roman Mauretania
Tingitana, but we could not linger long
as we had to reach Fez before dark, on ac-
count of bandits. So we raced back along
our mountain road, till we reached the
main highway, and then hurried on by
sunset and moonrise through the savagely
beautiful country which Loti calls “tor-
tured.” until we drove by moon light under
the vast and monumental walls of Fez.



SCHOOLS

THE SHIPLEY SCHOOL
Preparatory to Bryn Mawr College

BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA

Principals
Eleanor O. Brownell





Alice G. Howland









THE ‘Harcum “ScHOOL

FOR GIRLS—BRYN MAWR, PA.

For Girls anne wre preparation a thorough
course is offered

For Girls not going to college the school offers
special opportunities to pursue studies suited to
their tastes and needs.

For Girls desiring to specialize in Music and Art,
there are well known artists as instructors.

“In Bryn Mawr, a \beautiful a town, ten
miles fom Philadelphia. New_ stone Idi
sunny rooms with private bath, home life, large
grounds; hockey, tennis, basket ball, riding.

Catalogue.

MRS. EDITH HATCHER HARCUM, B.L.
(Pupil of Leschetizky), Head of the School

Miss M. G. Bartlett, Ph. D. a ee Heads of
Miss S. M. Beach, Ph. D. the Sch











1 r
Bh \ 4 r
5 yt
}
&

Tavis clock y ia
‘wound auto- ee
matically by
one-half horse ;
power motor.







Electrically-heated glu&pots
are used ‘in pattern mee



ated by a







Magnetic sorting

machine, oper

horsepower ma-
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‘Electric monorail crane!
for hoisting coal.







Electricity—

facturing industries.

twa-

evolution.

+





to a multitude of needs.

offices and other distributing channels, its products are

made accessible to all.





the Master Forcein Manufacturing

HE marvels of electricity have revolutionized our manu-

With belts and pulleys replaced
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power of driving energy is brought by three small wires
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machinery which handles the coal for heating, cuts the steel,
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Such an institution is marvelous—superhuman—made thus
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Electric Company has been instrumental in effecting this
First, by developing successful electric gener-
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of active co-operation with hundreds of manufacturers, it
has mastered the art of applying the use of electrical energy



Ipany



‘Hauling materials with train operated
by electric automobile motors.




















Motor-generator set mounted on crane _
supplying power: for lifting magnet.





Its 10,000 horse-

Then electricity drives the

The General

Secondly, through many years

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fs
pk

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