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Filibusters in Barbary
An entertaining account of Mr. Lewis' Moroccan and Middle East adventures. ILLUS.
307 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 1972
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August 25, 2020Affable enough, but recommended only for aspiring WL completists comme moi.
Typical WL in that the most alive bits are deep-dives into unhinged yet clinical mockery—& this in particular is the very best passage:
"What immobilized the march of progress upon the sea-front was, however, mainly a wholesale claim upon whole blocks of land, on behalf of a whole kennel of Bulldogs of one sort and another—all of whose interests are in the hands of a queer middle-aged middle-class Bulldog Drummond of an ex-Temporary Major. This odd, smug, highly respectable-looking filibuster lives outside Agadir in a smug white “Arab” house he has built for himself. What is this gentleman exactly? It is hard to say. He is a house-agent of a peculiarly Moroccan order. No doubt he was selected for the job on account of his typically British appearance: he is the real thing all right—the good, solid, pink, fetch-and-carry order of faithful dog-Toby of a man—his honest baldness inflamed with exposure to the African sun, with an invaluable air too of righting wrongs, about him, and assisting the poor downtrodden Arab against the wicked French, and really I dare say charged with a good bit of beefy romanticism of the station-bookstall shilling-a-volume order (the Briton in foreign parts, what what!—a bit of “secret service,” a dash of free-lance, but always sure to be anywhere where there’s a “scrap,” what what!) though doubtless aware which side his bread is buttered.—This strange plump Cockney-Scot was organizer and commander-in-chief of an assortment of pith-helmeted, Mill-Hill-Schoolish Tooting-Beck-bred hangers-on—he ran the principal estate office of Agadir, had a “dinky” dairy farm and his milk-cart affected to take milk to the town, but the town complained it was none too easy to get milk out of the Temporary Major.”
Typical WL in that the most alive bits are deep-dives into unhinged yet clinical mockery—& this in particular is the very best passage:
"What immobilized the march of progress upon the sea-front was, however, mainly a wholesale claim upon whole blocks of land, on behalf of a whole kennel of Bulldogs of one sort and another—all of whose interests are in the hands of a queer middle-aged middle-class Bulldog Drummond of an ex-Temporary Major. This odd, smug, highly respectable-looking filibuster lives outside Agadir in a smug white “Arab” house he has built for himself. What is this gentleman exactly? It is hard to say. He is a house-agent of a peculiarly Moroccan order. No doubt he was selected for the job on account of his typically British appearance: he is the real thing all right—the good, solid, pink, fetch-and-carry order of faithful dog-Toby of a man—his honest baldness inflamed with exposure to the African sun, with an invaluable air too of righting wrongs, about him, and assisting the poor downtrodden Arab against the wicked French, and really I dare say charged with a good bit of beefy romanticism of the station-bookstall shilling-a-volume order (the Briton in foreign parts, what what!—a bit of “secret service,” a dash of free-lance, but always sure to be anywhere where there’s a “scrap,” what what!) though doubtless aware which side his bread is buttered.—This strange plump Cockney-Scot was organizer and commander-in-chief of an assortment of pith-helmeted, Mill-Hill-Schoolish Tooting-Beck-bred hangers-on—he ran the principal estate office of Agadir, had a “dinky” dairy farm and his milk-cart affected to take milk to the town, but the town complained it was none too easy to get milk out of the Temporary Major.”
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