Abstract
MOROCCO has a paradoxical place in the history of exploration; although the only part of Africa fully in sight from the shores of Europe, and dotted with one or two half European coast towns, its interior is more firmly closed to the traveller, sportsman, and missionary than the dense forests of the Congo, or even the shores of Lake Chad. The difficulties in the way are not physical, nor are they wholly political. They arise mainly from the deeply-rooted antagonism in race and creed between the inhabitants of Morocco and all Christendom—this quaint and semi-fossil phrase is still here a necessary and sufficient term. At this moment public attention is turned somewhat intently on the political conditions of the Oriental despotism which has so anomalously maintained itself to the west of our prime meridian. Hence the politician has a temporary interest in what would otherwise have appealed mainly to the geographer and man of science, the publication by the Royal Geographical Society of a “Supplementary Paper,” the “Bibliography of Morocco.” This is a work of splendid thoroughness, almost, if not quite, exhaustive in its list of 2243 titles, and made convenient for reference by two copious indexes of subjects and authors. But it is much more than a catalogue. Comments, judiciously brief, but in some cases of exceptional interest extending to a couple of pages, give information as to little-known authors, or record some striking circumstance in or concerning the books referred to. There is a specially-compiled map, and an introduction which is really an essay on the growth of knowledge regarding Morocco in European countries. With regard to the map, it is explained that only the coast-line has been surveyed. As to the interior:—
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Morocco1. Nature 47, 298–299 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/047298a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/047298a0