2.11.10

ANDRE CHEVRILLON, Marrakesh dans les Palmes

'Without doubt, Morocco, with one or two kingdoms in Asia,
represents the last surviving example of a civilization of the ancient world.
One finds here customs, moral, and physical aspects of mankind
that are eternal, simply because they have never changed.
Constantly, watching a gesture of prayer or salutation,
a dance, a semi-naked beggar,
the way a tailor prepares his cloth,
a pilgrim following his donkey across the vast expanse of the bled,
or looking into the smoky shade of a mill
where occasional shafts of light pierce the tangle of beams,
we feel we have seen it all before ...
For all the differences of appearance
they recall to us the essential identity of mankind.
If such a world, which shares so deeply the spirit of the past,
had disappeared two thousand years ago,
we would have lost a certain understanding of the past
and of ourselves, for we could never have re-created it ...
But that it has survived until our times,
that we can see it, we can touch it, we can mix with its people,
is a miracle that never ceases to astonish.'

Source: Morocco Modern by Herbert YPMA

PIERRE LOTI, Morocco, 1889

'No trees anywhere,
nothing but these carpets of flowers;
as far as the view extends,
incomparable patterns on the plain;
but the expression, "a carpet of flowers",
has been so abused in application to ordinary meadows
that it has lost the force needed for description here:
zones absolutely pink with large mallows;
marblings white as snow, which are masses of daisies;
streaks of magnificent yellow, which are trails of buttercups.
Never, in any garden, in any artificial English flower bed,
have I seen such a luxuriance of flowers,
such a packed grouping of the same kinds,
giving together such vivid colors.'

Source: Morocco Modern by Herbert YPMA