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?2     Morocco, so long aloof f/om Western civilisation, has been
^ striding along rapidly on the road to progress since 1912, when

, the Protectorate of France and Spain was established.

'^       In the French zone principally, un.der the eminent manage-

S-tnent of Marshal Lyautey, a masterly work has been realised,

'^\vhich the War of 1914-18 did not put a stop to, or even abate.

It may be said that the establishment of peace and order in a

country just emerged from  a perpetual state of upheaval, its

rapid organization and the glorious part this new-comer in the

great French family took in the common Victory, constitute

one of the finest, one of the most comforting spectacles of those

tragic years.

Frpiti the touristic point of view, what is particularly notice¬
able in the present evolution of Morocco is that it aims at
improving the country not only by careful and wise administra¬
tion, by the introduction of modern, perfected means of
communication, such as ports, roads, railways, postal and tele¬
graph facilities, etc., but also by the care taken not to interfere
with agelong customs, considering as intangible the entire
inheritance of the past.

The consequence is that the local colour has been preserved;
and that it has a charm and intensity it would be useless to seek
elsewhere. The whole of Middle Age Africa reveals itself with
its gentle and slow pastoral and town hfe; with its varied mani¬
festations, its scholastic methods, so like those of the West in by¬
gone days, its quaint old-world customs, its admirable monu¬
ments, the logical expression of esthetical conceptions of a
thousand years'growth, its alternately inviting, rough or tho¬
roughly wild scenery; and all this brought into sharp contrast
with the most mpdern development : the birth of large European
towns full of noise and light, given up to feverish activities and
ambitions. Such are the never-to-be-forgotten sights afforded
bv Morocco to its astonished visitors.

^ Until the beginning of the present century, Morocco was
practically unbroken ground, over which it was only possible to
ti:av^l slowly and diplomatically, and even so at the peril of