KEATINGE, Maurice. Travels Through France And Spain To Morocco ... comprising a Narrative of the Author's Residence in that Empire. With an Account of the British Embassy to the Court of Morocco under the Late George Payne. Esq. Consul-General. To which is added a Second Journey through France in 1814. London, Henry Colburn, 1817.
Two volumes in one (as issued), 4to. Modern half-calf over cloth boards, spine with raised bands, lettered in gilt; pp. xv, 346; [ii], 274, engraved portrait-frontispiece (foxed), 33 plates in sepia aquatint after the author; light offsetting from plates, these occasionally a little spotted, otherwise a good copy of a scarce work.
First issued the year before under the title Travels in Europe and Africa comprising a Journey through France, Spain and Portugal to Morocco, this is the re-issue of the first printing sheet under a slightly altered title. 'The portions relating to Morocco – Mogador to Merakish, and up the coast to Tangier, the regular route of the embassies, one of which (Mr. Payne's) Col. Keatinge accompanied – are in vol. i. pp. 175-346 and in vol. ii. Pp. 1-54. The journey was, however, made in 1785, and though diffuse is valuable for the account it gives of Mowlai Abdalla; of whom a most repulsive portrait serves as frontispiece. At the time of Keatinge's visit to Merakish there seemed to have been, what is not the case now, quite a little European colony there - including a Venetian who was the Sultan's mercantile agent, a Prussian, and two Spanish monks who had a 'hospicio' there, and were engaged in the redemption of Christian captives. There was also a tiny 'Danish garden'. There were several renegades, including a Frenchman and his French wife, and numbers of people of consequence, the descendants of old renegades, who were always addressed as 'Uncles'. Among them was an Englishman, Thomas Myers, who bore the title of El-Kaid Boazzer. He professed to be one of the crew of the Inspector privateer, wrecked in Tangier Bay in January 1745, - a statement which is confirmed by one 'Thomas Mears' appearing in the list of the twenty members of the crew who 'turn'd Moors'' (https://www.judaisme-marocain.org/). Maurice Bagenal St. Leger Keatinge (c. 1761-1835) was a Kildare landowner, soldier and politician, who undertook this journey in 1784/5 whilst on half-pay and published it all those years later.
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