Letter from Abroad

It was not easy to understand our guide to begin with—his English, though fluent and clearly enunciated, simply didn’t make sense. He might tell us, pointing to a random cliff, that “that is where the ancient pirates had themselves into it for”; which left it to us to supply the proper relationship between the cliff and ancient pirates. My wife has less trouble than I in comprehending the incomprehensible, and would look at me with despairing impatience whenever I attempt to pin Max down. And then as a rule, the elucidation was more confusing than the original, so that I never did find out why the pirates had themselves into the cliff for; nor did I ever learn just what was the point in groping our way through those dank and ugly caves in which dozens of Arab families huddled, masticating what looked like a corn gruel; and I did not find out why a nondescript grotto, a few kilometers from the lighthouse that marks the northwesternmost tip of Africa, was called the Grotto of Hercules (beyond Max’s patient explanation that that was where Hercules had lived).

What really made it tough was that competing for Max’s attention was the commanding voice of His Majesty, Sidi Ben Youssef Mohammed the Fifth, King of Morocco, coming in over the car’s radio. The King spoke from Tangier, around which we were driving, and on the very day he had arrived there, his first visit in ten years. It was a triumphant return if ever there was one. Ten years before Mohammed V had spoken— romantically, many people, and all Frenchmen, thought—about Moroccan independence. He spoke then about the need “to proceed, without rest, to realize our aspirations, which consist in recovering our past glories and”—a sure-enough international teaser—“acquiring new ones.”

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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It was not easy to understand our guide to begin with—his English, though fluent and clearly enunciated, simply didn’t make sense. He might tell us, pointing to a random cliff, that “that is where the ancient pirates had themselves into it for”; which left it to us to supply the proper relationship between the cliff and ancient pirates. My wife has less trouble than I in comprehending the incomprehensible, and would look at me with despairing impatience whenever I attempt to pin Max down. And then as a rule, the elucidation was more confusing than the original, so that I never did find out why the pirates had themselves into the cliff for; nor did I ever learn just what was the point in groping our way through those dank and ugly caves in which dozens of Arab families huddled, masticating what looked like a corn gruel; and I did not find out why a nondescript grotto, a few kilometers from the lighthouse that marks the northwesternmost tip of Africa, was called the Grotto of Hercules (beyond Max’s patient explanation that that was where Hercules had lived).

What really made it tough was that competing for Max’s attention was the commanding voice of His Majesty, Sidi Ben Youssef Mohammed the Fifth, King of Morocco, coming in over the car’s radio. The King spoke from Tangier, around which we were driving, and on the very day he had arrived there, his first visit in ten years. It was a triumphant return if ever there was one. Ten years before Mohammed V had spoken— romantically, many people, and all Frenchmen, thought—about Moroccan independence. He spoke then about the need “to proceed, without rest, to realize our aspirations, which consist in recovering our past glories and”—a sure-enough international teaser—“acquiring new ones.”