Mauresques
Mn. HAWKES' little book, modest in size but packed full of meat enough to furnish out a very much larger volume, shows a fine sense of historical and geographical imagination and merits a much longer notice than what follows. In a phrase, it treats of the influence of Mohammedan Africa on South- West Europe, and helps us to realize what this meant and means by drawing a picture of the North-West African—of the Berber particularly—as he lives to-day. It has been truly said that Africa begins at the Pyrenees, and it does so in very many ways. Spain indeed is an integral part of Barbary : its place-names and geography, quite possibly its fatalism, the physiognomy of some of its peoples, its architecture and horses—are to this day largely coloured by Moorish intru- sion. Nor does the influence of the Moor stop at the Pyrenees. Consider the name of the little Southern French town of Ramatuelle, which conceals the Arabic name of Rahmat Allah ; Andorra is the Arabic El Darra, the place of the woods, and maintains its sturdy smuggling and borse-coping independence now as it did 1,200 years ago, when Arabs and Berbers were invading France to be overthrown by Charles Martel at Tours—that France which was in her turn defended by other Arabs and Berbers in cantonments near Tours in 1917. Delightful historical glimpses are afforded of Tangier, that much vexed town, when it formed part of the dowry of Charles IL's wife, and of the people and environment round present-day Tangier, which yet again shows signs of becoming a political storm-centre. The temporary reduction of the Rites tribesmen and the surrender of Abd-el-Krim, which are in the recent memory of all, recall the Roman wars against the Berber chiefs, Jugurtha and Masinissa, and our own struggle with " Gayland " in the seventeenth century ; and to-day the veiled Tuareg robber, " the forgotten of God," is still a menace to any whose caterpillar tractor breaks down in the sands of the Sahara. Who then shall say that the fortunes of Mohammedan Africa and of professedly Christian Europe arc not still intermingled ? This bright and discerning book ends with some charming sketches of the Basques, another people cognate with the Berbers, who, via the Prince of Wales, are at present adorning our heads with the beret.
Nor is the influence of the Moors less evident in Seville, of which glorious city Mr. Allison Peers gives us a most informed and sympathetic study, with occasional excursions into the grimnesses of Seville's past. " To whom God loves," runs the Spanish proverb, " He gives a house in Seville " ; but for those who can never dwell in. that city of flowers and amid the majestic remains of Moorish architecture this book comes as a consolation. Flowers, dreams of architectural loveliness, gay bright life in the soft Andalusian air, and religion are its
themes. But perhaps above all religion. In Holy Week all over Seville you, may hear those devotional folk-songs called saetas—the arrow-like (and hence so called) melodies, shrill and poignant that cleave the air. Full of passion is :—
4 Quien me presta una escalera pare subir al madero a quitarle las espinas a Jestis el Nazareno ?
ME. Avery Park's charming illustrations are worthy of a charming bock.
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