Reflections on the Barbary Coast

In the unaccustomed and unexpected role of war correspondent, your servant has been wandering about North Africa these past few weeks. Although it would be pleasant to set down tales of derring-do, reporting on the fight along the frontiers (?) of Morocco is very like the sort of journalism described in Mr. Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop.

Very few reporters have got so far, on the Algerian side, as Colomb-Bechar; in Morocco, most of the correspondents are to be found in the cafes of Marrakesh, three hundred miles out of mortar-range. A handful of hardy souls penetrated for a day or two to the skirmish at Hassi Beida—and, after hearing bullets whine, were hurried off again by uneasy Moroccans or Algerians.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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In the unaccustomed and unexpected role of war correspondent, your servant has been wandering about North Africa these past few weeks. Although it would be pleasant to set down tales of derring-do, reporting on the fight along the frontiers (?) of Morocco is very like the sort of journalism described in Mr. Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop.

Very few reporters have got so far, on the Algerian side, as Colomb-Bechar; in Morocco, most of the correspondents are to be found in the cafes of Marrakesh, three hundred miles out of mortar-range. A handful of hardy souls penetrated for a day or two to the skirmish at Hassi Beida—and, after hearing bullets whine, were hurried off again by uneasy Moroccans or Algerians.