Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/162

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
146
THE FIRE OF DESERT FOLK

civilization and, after my experience on two continents which are innately hostile to Christianity and with my intimate knowledge of Russia, gained through lifelong residence, I distinctly see that the "liberty" about which the colored races dream would lead them today only to their destruction. I realize that the old psychology of nationalist policies, this ethnic egoism, in the fundamentals of which one cannot find the forces that will defend and conserve the moral and psychic national characteristics but only those that further and expand nationalistic materialism, is leading a blind Europe to the edge of a precipice. Though I realize this, still, having faith in the creative instinct of the Aryan race, I believe that among all the races it is only the Aryan that can direct the current of the tragic life of humanity into other and less turbulent channels and that, having succeeded in creating a material world organization, it will find within itself sufficient strength and idealism to evolve a moral organization comprising all mankind.

These thoughts shaped themselves in my mind, as we visited with Hafid the different medersas of old Fez—Meshabia, Sahridj, Attarine, Sherratine, Seffarine and finally-Bu Anania. I need not describe all these old buildings, which stand as architectural memorials to longdead masters, with their age-yellow marbles bought and paid for with the ransoms derived from the liberation of Spanish and Italian prisoners; their cedar carvings, black with age; their ceilings and walls, still carrying the gold and brilliant colors of other centuries and their smoothworn, graceful fountains, as there is a great similarity between these features in all the old Moorish architecture.