When he wrote home and told his friends what had occurred to him, and how a Christian was regarded (near Tangier) with respect and awe, the answer that he got was curious. Of course they thought he was telling lies, but his best friend admonished him it was bad taste to jest about Mohammedans; for, though no doubt they were bad neighbours, no one in Syria could call them cowards. In fact, the friend appeared to me to be like every Eastern Christian I have met, quick to run down the Turks, to fight with them, hating them bitterly at home; but yet if a stranger slighted them abroad, quick to resent the slight, saythey were brave, and that they erred through wicked counsellors and not from lack of heart.
All the above he told me, and plenty more, with the inimitable charm that Easterns have in storytelling, compared to which even Guy de Maupassant, Chaucer, Boccaccio, Balzac, or Fielding fall immeasurably behind. The doubtful author of the Celestina[201]and Cervantes, perhaps, come nearer; but then they, being Spaniards, were more nearly in communion with the East.
As we returned, tired and half hoping that there might be news, we learned a “rekass” had just arrived bringing despatches from the Sultan to the Kaid. Though we knew well there had not been time for the Kaid to get an answer to the letter he had sent about ourselves, yet outside news was valuable, and, in fact, had I chanced to come upon a copy of the Rock, I think I could have read it, advertisements and all. In half an hour or so the “rekass” strolled past our tent, and I invited him to come and have some tea. Out of respect he sat outside the tent, saluted us, and remained waiting to be interrogated. He was a tall, lean, teak-complexioned man, in face resembling a Maori god stuck up outside a Pah; vacant and glassy eyed and at first sight a kieffi, that is a kief smoker, thick lipped and with uncertain speech as if the tongue was (like the tongues of Bourbons) too large for his mouth, also a symptom of too much kief smoking; legs like a bronco’s from the Bad Lands, a mule’s, or a bagual’s from the stony deserts of Patagonia; feet rather large, with the toes so flexible that the whole member seemed to quiver as he walked. For clothes he had a single white garment like anightshirt (long freed from all the tyranny of soap), hanging down almost to the ankles, girt round the waist with a string of camel’s hair. He went bare-headed and had a cord of camel’s hair bound round his temples, with a long lock, at least eight inches long, hanging from the top of his bare shaven head beside his ear. Though he had walked incessantly for the last seven days, sleeping an hour or two with a piece of burning match tied to his toe to wake him as it burned away, he strolled about, or sitting drank his tea, taking a cup now and again, which Ali or Swani passed to him out of the tent. He said as long as he had kief he never wanted food, but munched a bit of bread occasionally, drank at every stream, and trotted on day after day, just like a camel, for, as he told us, he was born to run. Withal no fool, and pious, praying now and then whenever he passed a saint’s tomb and felt wearied with the way. Just such a man as you may see amongst the cholos of the sierras of Peru, with the difference that the cholo takes coca instead of kief, and is in general a short, squat, ugly fellow, whereas our kieffi stood over six feet high, straight as a pikestaff, and was intelligent after his fashion, could read and write, and no doubt knew as much theology as was required from a right-thinking man.
For impedimenta he had a little bag in which he kept his kief, his matches, pipe, and the small store of money which it was possible he had. In one hand he carried a stout quarter-staff full five feet long, which all “rekasses” use to walk with, try the depth of water in crossing streams, defend themselves, and ease their backs by passing it behind them through their two arms, and resting on it as they trot along.
His news was brief but bloody. “Our Lord the Sultan is camped in Tedla.[202]He is indeed a king,fifty-one heads cut off, two tribes quite eaten up, three hundred of the Kaffirs wounded! O what a joy it was to see the ‘maquina,’ the Christian devil gun, which fires all day, play on the enemies of our Lord the king. Praise be to Allah who alone giveth victory.” Which being interpreted meant that the Sultan had gone under pretence of peace to Tedla; had by the advice of the Grand Vizier Ba Ahmed attacked them; butchered as many as he could, and probably sent a few hundred to die in gaol. The selfsame fate overtook the Rahamna tribe close to Morocco city. They fought a year with varying success, but at the last were decimated, butchered in hundreds, and their power destroyed.
The Grand Vizier Ba Ahmed, if all reports be true, is a bad counsellor for the young Sultan, Mulai Abdul Assiz. But be this as it may—for some who know the country say that the Grand Vizier, being a Moor, knows how to rule his countrymen—Sidi Ahmed ben Musa, usually called Ba Ahmed (Father Ahmed), is an ambitious and most powerful man, holding the Sultan in a sort of tutelage, and piling up a fortune by his exactions, which report says he has invested in safe securities abroad.
The father of the Sultan, Mulai el Hassan, who died or was poisoned some four years ago, was a remarkable personality, and perhaps one of the last Oriental potentates of the old school. Standing about six feet three inches in his slippers, he was dark in face, having, though a descendant of Mohammed, some negro blood; a perfect horseman, shot, and skilled in swordsmanship; though educated in all the learning of the Moors, he yet was tolerant of Christians, kind to Jews, and much more liberal in regard to new ideas than is his son, that is to say, if it is not Ba Ahmed who directs his policy. Mulai el Hassan was what is called a “riding Sultan,” that is awarrior, always on horseback, and passing all his life either in journeys between his various capitals, or on long expeditions to reduce refractory tribes. His fine white horse has been described by almost every embassy for the past ten years that went to Fez, for from his back the Sultan used to receive ambassadors, who bound in their hats, hosen, coats, swords, tight boots, and dignity, and forced to stand in a hot sun, on foot, must have presented a very lamentable sight.
On the white horse’s back the Sultan almost died, for one who saw him shortly before his death was standing in a street in the outskirts of Marakesh when the Sultan passed, having been sixteen hours on horseback in the rain, and looking like a corpse. Next day he died so suddenly that some thought he had been poisoned, but others think worn out with care and trouble, long journeys, and all the burden of a ruler’s life. All those who knew him say that his manners were most courteous, kind, and dignified, and that through all his life none of his servants ever heard him raise his voice, even in battle or when he ordered some unlucky man to death, above its ordinary pitch.
His clothes were spotless white; but made in the fashion of those worn by an ordinary tribesman, only of finer stuff. Colours he never wore, or jewellery, except a silver ring with a large diamond, and which when once an individual, whose name I forbear to mention, asked him for it for a keepsake, he half drew off (for usually he gave all that was asked for); but replaced and said with a quiet smile, “No, I will keep it, but you can have its value in money if you choose.” His clothes he never wore more than a day, and then his servants claimed them as perquisites; so that his wardrobe must have been pretty extensive even for a king. Upon a journey he carried almost all he had, packed upon camels, and, being troubled with insomnia at times, would say, “Bring me thetelescope the Belgian Minister gave me ten years ago,” or “the watch the Queen of England sent me,” and the unlucky man to whom he spoke had to produce the thing, if he unpacked a hundred camels in the search.
The taxes he used to collect in person with an army, so that his camp was like a town of canvas, and yet the order of his own tents so great and his men so skilled in pitching them, that at a halt they used to rise like magic from the ground.
Wives, and that sort of thing, he had about three hundred, and was much addicted to their company, and some of them accompanied him on all the journeys which he made. His son, the present Sultan, was born of a Circassian, white, and report said beautiful and educated; but she transmitted little beauty and less education to her son, who is a rather heavy youth of about twenty, not well instructed, and completely in the hands of his Vizier, Ba Ahmed, who, by exactions, cruelties, and bloodshed, has made his master’s name detested all through the land. Still a strong man, and no doubt in such countries as Morocco, when a Sultan dies a strong man is required, for the tribes usually rise in rebellion, kill their Kaids, burn down their castles, and a recognised period of anarchy takes place, known as El Siba by the natives, and of which they all take full advantage.
That the Vizier was a man of readiness and resource is shown by the way he foiled the expedition of the yachtTourmaline,[205]by means of which a syndicate in London endeavoured to procure a footing in the Sus. Thinking the kieffi would be an excellent man to take our letters, we sounded him, but in a moment he became mysterious, said he must sleep, would think about it, and though we often saw himsubsequently strolling about, he never visited our tent again.
After the kieffi went, the Persian came to say good-bye, and sat long talking about Montenegro, where the people are all brave, and to his astonishment, for they are Franks, the women virtuous. He tells us that their enmity with the Arnauts is constant, and this he illustrated by linking his two forefingers to indicate a fight. “Brave men,” he said, “who, when they draw the sword, never go back, and a fine country, but lacking the true faith.” Then came the leave-taking, and I presented him with a dollar, which he has magnified in talking of it to at least twenty, and he, after a few well-chosen, dignified sentences of thanks, pressed his open palm against my hand, and then pressed it upon his heart, saying again, “Mesquin, may you have patience, and may Allah not open to you the Sultan’s gate!” And so he took the road, shouldering his sack of “possibles,” and in his hand a staff, and carrying, God knows why, a wooden board, and in a little faded away on the hill track, out of my sight and life. Vaya con Dios, I never knew his name, for he was not a man given to descending to particulars of such a kind, and it is rank ill manners to ask an Oriental what his name is, the fiction being that he is so well known, to ask would be impertinent. It may be that he may cast up some day across my path, for he is always on the march; but if he does not, in many an Eastern khan and fondak men will know of me, not by my name, for that he never knew, but as the Frankish stranger whom he met a prisoner in the Atlas, and who gave him gold and more gold, so that he had to buy a sack to carry it away. And at the saints’ tombs, and in mosques, there he will pray for me (at least he said so), and I shall know that what he says will not be said in vain, for has not Sidna Mohammed himselfaverred that “the prayers of a stranger are always heard by God.”[207]
So, sadly, as if we had lost one we had known from youth, Lutaif and I wandered along the river; and by a stony beach, under some oleander bushes, came on a little tea-party, all seated on the ground. A little pleases Arabs, who in a measure are like children, easily pleased, and passing easily from good temper into rage, and nothing gives them greater satisfaction than when a stranger comes and joins their pleasure or their meals. So we advanced, and found they were three Sherifs from Taseruelt; Sherifs, but practically beggars, though white men of pure Arab blood and race. One was a little thin and wizened man, with hardly any beard, his clothes quite clean, but washed into holes by frequent soaping and thumping against the stones of streams. Quick, taciturn, and most intelligent, a hunter and, I think, an acrobat, and wearing round his head a yellow cloth gun-case twisted like a turban, which, with his meagre features and pale face, gave him an air as of a dwarf ghost or spectre, as he sat smoking kief. The other two were fine young men, but poorly dressed, and perhaps got their living by praying, or by writing charms, for all could read and write, and neither of the three seemed ever to have done any of that same honest toil which so much ennobles man. Placed on the sand before them stood a small brass tray, and on it three small glass tumblers and a tin teapot of the conical pattern which Germany supplies. Dried figs and walnuts were on another tray, and all were smoking kief. Close to them, on a little patch of grass,fed a black curly lamb, which I supposed they had reared and brought with them from Taseruelt; but they assured me it was given to them only two days ago, and now followed them like a dog. I asked if they intended to dispose of it, and they said no, they would teach it to do tricks, and gain much money by its antics, and as we spoke it walked up to the tray, took up a fig, smelt at it, but thought it unfit to eat, and then, after skipping about a bit, came back and went to sleep with its head resting upon its special owner’s feet.
We squatted down beside the three Sherifs and became friends at once, drank endless cups of tea as sweet as syrup, ate figs and walnuts, talked of Europe and of Taseruelt, and, I think, never in my life did I enjoy an afternoon so thoroughly. They asked no questions, thinking it apparently not strange we should be there dressed as Mohammedans, and I almost unable to speak Arabic, as if, for example, a Chinese dressed as an English country gentleman should stumble in upon a gang of haymakers in Rutlandshire, and sit down and drink beer. Much did they tell of the Wad Nun, and of the desert horses, known as “wind drinkers,” on which men hunt the ostrich, feeding them well on dates and camel’s milk, and flying through the sands after the ostriches in the same manner that the Pehuelches hunt their ostriches in Patagonia, save that the Arabs throw a club instead of the ostrich “bolas” which the Pehuelches use. In both countries the tactics are the same, the huntsmen spreading out like a fan, striving to join their ranks and get the birds into a circle, or to drive them into a marsh, edge of a stream, or some place out of which they cannot run.
The little dwarf Sherif got up and showed me how an ostrich ran, waving his arms and craning out his neck in a way which would have made his fortune onthe stage. It then appeared he had been a moufflon hunter, and he told how they can jump down precipices alighting on their horns, how shy they are; and here he worked his nose about to show the way they snuffed the wind when danger was about, so that he looked more like a moufflon than the very beast itself. His friends smiled gravely, and said Allah had given their comrade excellent gifts, and one was to be able to imitate all beasts, and another was to run all day and never feel fatigue.
On hearing this I mentally resolved he should run to Morocco city with our letters, starting that very night; but mentioned nothing of my purpose, intending to leave Swani to arrange it by himself. We thanked our entertainers, gave them some of our Algerian tobacco, which they prized highly, and the deputation then withdrew. As I looked back they had not moved, but the black curly lamb had gone back to the grass, and they, beneath the oleanders, seated on the stones, still sat smoking happily, before their little tray, as if the world belonged to them, as after all it did.
Just before nightfall Swani brought the small Sherif ostensibly for medicine to our tent. When asked to carry letters he said yes, that he was poor and wanted to buy clothes for winter, and would go at once, and his companions and the lamb could meet him somewhere near the coast. I asked if he could run, and he replied “like an Oudad,”[209]and by that name we knew him ever since. Five dollars was our bargain, two in the hand and three upon arriving at the missionary’s house. He asked no questions save the position of the missionary’s house, took the two dollars and the packet and a note asking the missionary to pay him three dollars when the letters came to hand, thanked us, and said “Your letters shall arrive,”walked quickly off, and disappeared into the night. On the evening of the third day from that on which he went, a dusty little man knocked at the missionary’s door more than a hundred miles away, handed a packet in, and waited whilst the note he brought was read, got his three dollars and an extra one for speed, and when the missionary, who went for a moment into his house to read the letters returned to question him, he was already gone. So the Oudad, after the Persian flashed across my path, or I intruded upon theirs, we talked, made friends, separated, and shall never meet again; but the impression that they made was much more vivid than that caused by worthy friends whom one meets every day and differentiates but by the checks upon their shooting jackets.
Determining to leave no stone untried, Lutaif, who fancied himself on his epistolary style, said he would write a letter to the Kaid to ask for an interview. About an hour he spent upon the task, lying upon his stomach in the tent, and writing on a large flimsy sheet of Spanish note-paper with a small pencil end; but after so much trouble he produced a gem, crammed full of compliments, in such high Arabic that he thought none but the Taleb would decipher it, and written as beautifully clear as Arab copper-plate:
“To the most happy and exemplary, the most fortunate and honourable, the Kaid Si Taleb Mohammed el Kintafi.
“May God’s peace and blessing be upon you whilst day lasts and time endures. Oh, Kaid, thou art the wielder of the sword and pen. Fate and a love of travel have led us to your happy and well-governed land, and you have generously received and entertained us, extending to us all the hospitality of your thrice blessed house. May God establish it for ever, and may the hand of no man be ever higher thanyour hand. But, mighty prince, we fear to trespass too long upon your kindness, though we know your hand is never tired of shedding blessings upon all. Therefore, we wish to see your face and thank you for your hospitality, so that on our return on talking of you we can say this was a man. May Allah bless and keep you, and at the last may Sidna Mohammed welcome you upon your entrance into Paradise. Deign, therefore, to accord an hour to-morrow on which to speak with you.”
This missive, read aloud, evoked great admiration both from Swani and Mohammed el Hosein, and they declared it certainly would have a good effect. So Swani, dressed in a clean white burnous, which Lutaif had with him in his saddle-bags, and with a pair of my new yellow slippers, went off, and with much ceremony handed the letter to the keeper of the gate. Knowing the respect the Moors attach to letters, and the astonishment they show if any Christian can write their characters, I thought perhaps the letter might bring an interview; but thinking of the happy afternoon I had spent with the simple fakirs upon the stony beach, did not care much, knowing the happy hours that a man passes in his life are few, and of more value than much gold or all the jewels of the Apocalypse.
Thoughnot so sanguine as Lutaif, as to the emollient powers of his epistle, I was pleased to find that for the first time, next morning, we received ample supplies of food, baskets of grapes and oranges, and for the first time people spoke to us without an air of breaking some command.
During the morning a miserable bundle of rags arrived and stood before our tent, asking in broken Arabic if we were the Christians, and on being answered in the affirmative broke out into French. It appeared he was a French deserter from Algeria, having deserted in Ain Sefra,[212]walked to Figig, and pretended to turn Mohammedan, he came by Tafilet, and was about to make his way down to the coast. This, as he said, was his itinerary, but why he should have come round by Tafilet, he did not explain. He certainly was not a personable man; a weasel-faced, pale, and fair-haired Parisian “voyou,” thin, active, and half-starved, foot-sore and weary, dressed in rags, and speaking a jargon of bad Arabic, compared to which that spoken by the Persian and myself became as the language of the Khoreish, or the best literal Arabic which Cairo boasts. He told us that he slept in the mosques, making the profession of his faith if there was any doubt about him before goingin; this with a wink, and “Sont-ils bêtes, ces Arabes, à la fin!” After he had eaten and smoked, he said that it was common in Algeria for soldiers to desert, adopt the Arab dress, and make their way into Morocco; some reached the coast, but many disappeared, murdered by the tribesmen or the villagers upon the way. Withal a merry knave, relating how he had served in a Spahi regiment during the war in Madagascar, and that the Arab troopers, when the war broke out, talked of the war with Madame Casba,[213a]and thought she was Sultana of some island, who was fighting with the French. Although he had no arms or money, he did not seem afraid, but trusted to arrive in Mogador or Saffi in a few weeks’ time. We went to bathe and left him smoking under a tree with Swani, talking a mixture of Arabic and French: on our return in half an hour, thinking to see him still before the tent, and make him tell us what he had seen in his long tramp, we found that, without a word to anyone, he had slunk mysteriously away.
Once in Morocco city I met three Englishmen dressed in the red baize rags which form the uniform of the Sherifian troops. Where they came from they did not say, but wanted money to buy magia[213b]and tobacco; I gave them something, and on receiving it with not too laboured thanks, they too mixed with the crowd in one of the bazaars and disappeared.
In the crowded Kaisariehs of the towns, and in the endless processions of noiseless-footed people on the roads, nothing is more surprising than the way in which odd characters come to the surface for a moment(like a fish rising), and then sink back again into the depths from which they rose.
On mules and donkeys, on horseback and on foot, beggars, or travelling well attended, Berbers and Arabs, Jews, Negroes, Haratin, men from the Sahara, and from the mountains of the Riff, Syrians, and Levantines, outcast Europeans, and an occasional Hindu, with Turks and Greeks, and people from the utmost regions of the Oriental world, they all are there, and always on the move, travelling about as if some not too swiftly circulating quicksilver ran in their veins; whither they go or why, whence come from, and what urges them to wander up and down, is to me inexplicable, and forms one of the many of the unfathomed and unfathomable problems of the East. Not that I mean the various passengers whom I have named bulk largely in the population of Morocco, but they are there, and every now and then one feels how all the Oriental world is linked together by nomadic habits, from Bagdad to Wad Nun, and from Shiraz to the oases of the Sahara.
In Morocco the prevailing tone is greyish white; men’s clothes, and houses, towns, bushes, tall umbelliferæ, nodding like ghosts in autumn, all are white; white sands upon the shore, and in the Sahara, and over all a white and saddening light, as if the sun was tired with shining down for ever on the unchanging life. In no part of Morocco I have visited does the phrase “gorgeous East” have the least meaning, and this is always noted by the wandering Easterns, who find the country dull and lacking colour compared to Asia, or as the Arabs call it, “Blad Es Shark.”[214]
Almost all day on the Maidan behind our tentfootball went on (called in Arabic El Cora), and every one joined in, middle-aged men, slaves, and the various hangers-on about the place, the Kaid’s sons playing furiously and whilst the game went on they were not more respected, and received as full a share of kicks, shoves, trips, and pushes as did all the rest. The ball they used was little larger than a pomegranate; no rules seemed to be observed, for everybody pushed, shoved, bit, scratched, and kicked as it seemed best to him, and as they had no goals, but played simply to drive the other players back, the play was wild, and now and then extremely savage, and I saw a man get his shoulder dislocated after a violent fall. Still I sat watching it with great delight, sometimes for hours, as certainly they played it with their whole souls, shouting and yelling, leaping like roe, and everybody playing off side when it seemed good to him, and glorying in his crime.
Towards midday came the Chamberlain, bringing back our guns with many thanks and offers of purchase, which we had to decline, as neither of the guns belonged to us. With him he brought a double-barrelled hammerless gun in good condition, and with the maker’s name (Green, Haymarket, London) engraved upon it. He said it was the Kaid’s, who set great store by it, having received it as a present from a merchant on the coast, and specially he wished to know if the gun was what would be called of first-rate workmanship in England. I told him that it was and probably cost about twenty pounds, and that the son of our Sultana could buy no better or more expensive weapon, unless, which I said did not seem probable to me, he had his guns adorned with gold or precious stones.
But better than the guns, or talk of guns, was the invitation which he brought from the Kaid, saying he would like to see us in the afternoon. As such aninvitation was, in our position, really a command, I hesitated some time before accepting it. The Chamberlain saw what was passing in my mind, and to gild the pill, remarked that had the Governor not been suffering from his wound, he would have got upon his horse and ridden to our tent. Though I felt sure that what he said was quite untrue, still mankind is so constituted that humbug flatters us, even although we think we see through it. So I accepted, and Si Mohammed departed after many compliments and with a promise to come and fetch us, and usher us into the Presence, in the afternoon. Lutaif lamented bitterly that we had no European clothes with which to endue ourselves, and properly impress the Kaid.
It must not be forgotten that in the East (and Mogreb-el-Acksa, though it means Far West, is perhaps as Eastern as any country in the world) European clothes, hard hats, elastic-sided boots, grey flannel shirts, with braces, mother-of-pearl studs, two-carat watch-chains, and all the beauty of our meanly contrived apparels, are to Mohammedans the outward visible sign of the inward spiritual Maxim gun, torpedo boat, and arms of precision, on which our civilisation, power, might, dominion, and morality really repose. A shoddy-clad and cheating European pedlar, in his national dress, always suggests to Easterns the might of England somewhere in the offing, and though they laugh at the wearer of the grey shoddy rags behind his back, they yet respect him more than if he were attired in the most beautiful of their own time-hallowed garments, which they know no European puts on but for some purpose of his own. But if a European loses respect in wearing Moorish clothes, he gains in another way, for the Moors are constituted like other men, and, seeing a man dressed in the clothes they wear themselves, converse with him morefreely, even if, as in my case, his knowledge of the language is so slight as to make conversation through an interpreter a necessity.
So we put on the best we had all cleanly washed, and Lutaif arrayed himself in a brand new white Selham (burnouse), and looked more Biblical than ever as he stood forth to be my Aaron, I having resolved, in order not to make myself ridiculous, to refrain from saying anything in Arabic, unless I saw a chance to get some phrase in pertinently, and with effect.
Punctually at half-past two the Chamberlain, accompanied by a single follower, came for us, and we—that is, Lutaif, myself, Mohammed-el-Hosein, and Swani—walked as majestically as we could across the deserted Maidan, baking in the sun. We passed through several courts in which our friends the horses and the mules were tied, and I observed the wounded cream-coloured stallion of the Kaid tethered alone and guarded by a little boy who flapped the flies away with a green bough. Passing by the door of the Mosque, we saw a preacher holding forth to a congregation all dressed in white and seated on the ground. No coughing drowned his saw, no shuffling of chairs disturbed his eloquence, the listeners sat as solid as limpets on a rock, whilst his voice rose and fell in measured cadences, reminding one of the long rollers in a calm, just off the line. The door of the mosque was a poor specimen of the bronze-plated work adorned with pious sentences, which can be seen to such perfection in the mosque at Cordoba; the knocker of the familiar round Arab pattern, which the Moors have left in half the houses throughout Southern Spain. A narrow passage, where a few Jews and tribesmen sat waiting for an audience, led beneath a horse-shoe archway. Then, climbing up a dark and almost perpendicular staircase,we emerged into a lofty ante-room where several men sat on the floor preparing saffron, which covered half the room with a dense carpet of bright purple blossom, whilst in a corner lay a clean white sheepskin with a mass of orange saffron fibres all gathered in a heap. At one end of the room there was a narrow doorway, where two men with long guns in their hands kept watch, and people going out and in continually; some emerging crestfallen, and others radiant, as in the times when kings, even in Europe, gave personal audience, and their subjects spoke with them face to face.
Here we waited almost half an hour, no doubt on purpose to impress us with the amount of business which the Kaid had to transact. For myself, I was not sorry, as I had full leisure to observe all that was going on. Though all the people in the room and the two guards must have known who we were, no one showed curiosity, and one man talked to me, pretending to comprehend all that I said as if he wished to put me at my ease. We slipped our shoes off at an intimation from our guide and entered the Presence Chamber, a narrow room with an “artesonado”[218]ceiling in the Hispano-Moorish style, but vilely daubed in Reckitt’s blue and dingy red, and with cheap common gilding making it look tawdry and like the ceiling of an old-fashioned music-hall.
In a recess within the wall two boys were sitting doing nothing in rather an aggressive way. To my eye they looked rather androgynous, but not more so than many young men one sees in Piccadilly on a fine afternoon, and who would tolerate even asuspicion about the noble Shillah race![219a]The room was carpeted with fine, almost white, matting, over which here and there were thrown black and white rugs from Sus, all worked in curious geometric patterns, woven from the softest of wool mingled with goats’ hair, and with long fringes at the edge.
Upon a dark red saddle-cloth[219b]and using an angle of the wall to lean against, his wounded leg stretched out before him on a sheepskin, and with cushions at his back, his Excellency sat. Luckily Arab manners (and in these matters Berbers follow the Arab lead) prescribe no Kiddush, or, most infallibly, situated as we were, we should have been obliged to make it, with the best grace we could. So we advanced, were formally presented by the Chamberlain, shook hands, and after being greeted quietly, but courteously, and after Lutaif had answered quite in the style of Faredi, sat down upon a rug and leaned against the wall, tucking our feet well underneath our clothes to show our breeding, and remained silently waiting to hear what the Kaid had to say.
Mohammed-el-Hosein and Swani advanced, lifted the Kaid’s selham, kissed it, and then retreating sat down, so to speak, below the salt, whilst in the doorway the two sentinels stood as unmoved as ifthey saw a Christian every day. Two or three elders sat round the room as stolid as josses in a temple, two Talebs, besides our friend the “Taleb of the Atlas,” were writing letters, and the Chamberlain stood at attention till the Kaid waved him to take a seat.
No doubt his Excellency took mental notes of us, and certainly I looked him over carefully, thinking that in a personal discussion upon horseback, out on the Maidan, he would prove a very awkward foe.
Just about forty years of age, thick-set, and dark complexioned, close black beard trimmed to a double point, rather small eyes, like those of all his race, he gave no indication of the cruelty for which he was renowned; not noble in appearance as are many of the Sheikhs of Arab blood, but still looking as one accustomed to command; hands strong and muscular, voice rather harsh, but low, and trained in the best school of Arab manners, so as to be hardly audible. Just for a moment, and no more, I got a glimpse of the inside man as I caught his eye fixed on me, savage yet fish-like, but in an instant a sort of film seemed to pass over it, not that he dropped his gaze, but seemed deliberately to veil it, as if he had reserved it for a more fitting opportunity. By race and language he was a Berber, but speaking Arabic tolerably fluently, and adapting all his habits and dress to those in fashion amongst Arab Sheikhs. His clothes white and of the finest wool, and clean as is a sheet of paper before a writer marks it black with lies. The Talebs never stopped opening and writing letters, now and then handing one to the Kaid who glanced it over and said “Guaha” (“Good”), and gave it back to have the seal affixed with one of the three large silver seals which stood upon a little table about six inches high. The sealing-wax was European, and kept in a box of common cardboard, which had been mended in several places with little silver bands to keep the sides together, aswe should mend a lacquered box from Persia or Japan. Behind the Kaid, to mark his seat, upon the wall were painted three “ajimeces,”[221]roughly designed in blue and red and green in the worst of taste. For furniture, in addition to the matting and the rugs and leather-covered cushions, the cover cut into intricate geometric patterns, the room contained a small trunk-shaped box (perhaps entirely stuffed with gold, Allah hualem), a Belgian single-barrelled nickel-plated breech-loading gun hung on a nail, and the before-named double-barrelled English gun (from the Haymarket of the mysterious Londres or Windres, in the isle of Mists), a large pair of double field glasses; some bags of hide, two porous water bottles, a bundle of reed pens, and two or three pieces of bread, the staff of life, which fills so large a place in Moorish thoughts and life, and which an Arab of the old school breaks, but never touches with a knife. Two negro boys with dirty handkerchiefs, and boughs of walnut, stood on the right and left hand of the Kaid, and flapped away the flies.
Oh, what a falling off from when, in Medina el Azahra, the great palace outside Cordoba, the Greek Ambassador beheld the Caliph’s court, the wonders of the great gold basin filled with a sea of quicksilver, and the slave boys, beautiful as angels, who fanned their lord with jewelled fans made of the feathers of the wondrous bird from Hind, which on its spread-out tail carries a hundred eyes. But in Kintafi, even the Kaid himself held in his hand a branch torn from a bush, and flapped occasionally with his own august hand, when the myriads of flies became impertinent.
People were going in and out perpetually, like bees into a hive, or politicians pretending they haveimportant business in the House of Commons. Some brought petitions, others begged for mules, horses, a gun, or anything which came into their minds, and generally the Kaid gave something, for Moors all pique themselves upon their generosity.
Besides suppliants, Jews and various artificers were hanging about the ante-room. A silversmith advanced to show a half-completed silver-sheathed and hafted dagger, engraved with pious sentences, as “God is our sufficiency and our best bulwark here on earth,” and running in and out between the texts a pattern of a rope with one of the strands left out, which pattern also ran round the cornice of the room we sat in, and round the door, as it runs round the doors in the Alhambra and the Alcazar, and in thousands of houses built by the Moors, and standing still, in Spain. The dagger and the sheath were handed to me for my inspection, and on my saying that they were beautifully worked, the Kaid said, “Keep them,” but I declined, not having anything of equal value to give in return, and being almost certain if I sent a present from Mogador, that it would never reach its owner’s hands. So we gravely put the dagger backwards and forwards with many courteous waves, “It is yours, take it I pray, although unworthy your acceptance”; and I “The dagger is in worthy hands, let it remain with one who had the good taste to order such fine work, and has the hands to use the weapon when there is need.” A pretty little comedy, my share of which I conducted through Lutaif, not wishing to fall into barbarities of speech and make myself ridiculous before so many well-spoken men.
Slave boys, in clothes perhaps worth eighteenpence, served coffee, rather an unusual thing in visiting a Moor, for all drink tea. The tray was copper, beautifully chased, and adorned with sentences from the Koran, the service varied, and consisting of a commonwine glass, one champagne glass of the old-fashioned narrow pattern, three cheap French cups, and a most beautifully engraved old Spanish glass goblet out of which his Excellency drank. The coffee-pot looked like a piece of Empire silver ware; the coffee excellent, and brought most probably by some pilgrim from Arabia, and used only on great occasions such as the present, or at a marriage feast.
The talk ran chiefly upon our journey: why had we come? why dressed like Moors? where were we going? and why we had no letter from the Sultan; and, above all, why had we not called at his house in passing as was usual for all Moors (of our assumed condition) to do when on the road? I answered that we were going to Tarudant, that we were dressed as Moors because the people were not accustomed to see Christians, and might have insulted us; and that we did not call upon him knowing he had so many visitors, and not wishing to intrude. As to a Sultan’s letter, that was unnecessary, for I knew well if I had one he would find some good reason to stop us, under the pretext that the roads we should encounter would be unsafe. Moreover, that I had travelled much in Morocco, and did not like to have a Sultan’s letter, for if I had one, no one would let me pay for food, and that I could not bear to be a burden on the poor tribesmen amongst whom I passed.
My object in visiting Tarudant seemed to him incomprehensible, as it was merely curiosity, and for a moment it crossed my mind, should I make up some reason, such as a vow to make a pilgrimage, a wish to see if there were mines in the vicinity, or something which should seem sufficient in his eyes? but in a minute was glad I had not done so, for he asked, did I know the English adventurers who, a few months ago, had tried to land upon the coast of Sus? As at that time I did not, I answered that they werepersonally unknown to me, but that I totally disapproved what they had done, especially because Government had warned British subjects not to try to come to terms with the Sus chiefs, and that the Sultan had expressed a wish that nothing of that nature should be done. I added that personally I reverenced all Governments, especially my own, having been once a member of the great Council of our Empire, which, I took care to state, with all the patriotism I could command, was, on reliable authority, said to be the largest and finest in the world. He answered “Guaha, that is so. Allah himself appointed Governments, placed the sword of justice in their hands, and it is for them to say what should be done and see their wishes are respected.” To this I gave assent, and he inquired was I still of the Council? and, when I answered no, asked if I had quarrelled with the Vizirs, or done anything unpleasing to them, or was I only tired of public life? Finding our parliamentary system too intricate to explain, I said I was tired of the cares of state, and he replied, “Yes, they are heavy, and I myself have never wished to go to Court.” As I knew well if he ever ventured there his life was not worth a rotten egg, I applauded his resolve, spoke of the pleasures of a country life, and, as all hitherto had passed through the good offices of Lutaif, thought that my chance had come, and mustering up my Arabic told him he should be content with what God gave him, for as he was, he was a Sultan in himself. He smiled, whether at the compliment or my bad Arabic, I do not know, and beckoned to Mohammed-el-Hosein to come and speak with him.
Mohammed-el-Hosein advanced, kissed his Selham, and in an instant became a gentleman and conversed on equal terms. What they conversed about I do not know, as all their talk passed in Shillah; but I conclude the Kaid was satisfied with whatMohammed said, for, signing to the slave who poured the coffee out (a knave who had a heavy silver earring in his ear, from which depended a cross-shaped ornament with Solomon’s Seal engraved upon it), he told him to give Mohammed coffee; he did so, in a white egg-cup, which, as it stood behind the coffee pot, I had not previously observed. “Do you in Europe travel about all through the different countries without letters from your Queen?” “No,” I rejoined, “we take a letter signed by our Grand Vizir, and show it, if asked for, at the frontiers of the various States.” “Of course you have one?” he immediately replied. I answered “Yes,” and just remembered I had left it behind me in the hotel in Mogador; but luckily he did not ask to see it, or I should have had to show him a letter which I had with a large seal upon it, which probably would have answered just as well.
I pressed him to allow us to go on to Tarudant; but he became mysterious, said the roads were bad, the people dangerous, and that to save our lives he had acted in the way that he had done.
Nothing is so disagreeable as to have your life saved in your own despite. Fancy the feelings of a would-be suicide when some intruding fellow, like a great Newfoundland dog, jumps in and pulls him out, and then on landing asks him for his thanks!
After the coffee, talk ran a good deal upon various things, polygamy and monogamy, always an interesting subject to all Orientals, who, being primitive in tastes and habits, set much account on primary passions (or affections) and think more of such matters than we do, talking quite openly and without periphrasis on things we do, but never talk about, or if we do, lower our breath in talking. Strange and incomprehensible to a logician that a man should say, I am hungry, thirsty, tired, and think there is something wrong, indelicate, or indifferent in mentioningthe kindred passions, presumably implanted in his body by the same All-Wise Creator who endowed him with the capacity to feel thirst, hunger, or fatigue. The Kaid was of opinion that polygamy was natural to mankind, and asked me if the English did not really think so in their hearts. It is most difficult, without having been duly elected, to speak for a whole nation, so I replied that many acted as if they thought polygamy was right, but I ventured to opine that advanced thinkers in general inclined to polyandry, and that seemed to be the opinion which, in the future, would prevail. This he thought clearly wrong; but I explained that advanced thinkers were inclined to hold that women could do no wrong, and that all infamy of every nature had its root in man.
The prisoners in the Riff[226]next were enlarged upon, and the Kaid asked if they had been released, and what I thought about the whole affair. Thinking the opportunity favourable to air my Arabic again, I said laboriously that I had heard there were some prisoners in the Riff, and added that there were prisoners also in the Atlas, but no doubt the Sultan would soon order their release.
His Excellency’s wounded leg was, on the whole, the subject which gave most scope for talk. Neither his Arabic nor mine was fluent enough to explain, or understand quite fully, what had taken place. More coffee having been ordered, the Chamberlain entered into an explanation which Lutaif translated when I(as happened now and then) became bewildered in the current of his speech. About two months ago the unlawfully begotten people in the Sus, egged on by certain British traders,[227a]had rebelled against their Lord. The chief offenders were sons of Jews (Oulad el Jahud), who had withdrawn themselves into a fortified position three or four days’ journey from Thelata-el-Jacoub. The Kaid was ordered to co-operate with the troops in Sus and bring the rebels back to allegiance, or destroy them all. Most probably the Kaid had no objection to an expedition out of his territory, though in point of fact his own allegiance to the Sultan did not much trouble him. However, mounted on the white horse, which I saw wounded and drinking in the river, and leading on his men, the Kaid had advanced against the revolted tribesmen, who were strongly posted amongst rocks protected with an outwork of Zaribas[227b]made of prickly bushes, from behind which they fired upon the Kaid’s forces who had no shelter, and soon suffered heavy loss. The saddles emptying on every side, the Kaid was left almost alone with about twenty men, amongst whom was I who speak (the Chamberlain remarked in passing, but without any self-consciousness), his horse received a bullet in the chest, and another in the head; but still the Kaid advanced, keeping his horse’s head as much as possible between him and the fire. At last another bullet struck the horse close to the nose and he wheeling, the Kaid received a bullet in the left leg and fell! “Then,” said the Chamberlain, “I rode close up to him, and the bullets tore up the grass on every side, when our men rallying brought us off, I and four others carrying the Kaid under a heavy fire, and the white wounded horse walking beside us, till we reached our camp.”
During the tale the Kaid sat imperturbable as a joss cut out of soapstone, but punctuating all his henchman said with an occasional “Guaha,” or some pious ejaculation fit for a man of quality to use.
In the camp they placed the wounded Kaid upon a mule, and fighting for the first two days almost incessantly, upon the evening of the sixth day they brought him home, two slaves having supported him on either side stretched on the mule, too weak to sit upright, and with four more helping the wounded horse, which the Kaid on no account would leave to be the prize of Kaffirs such as those who dwelt in Sus.
My opinion of all concerned rose not a little on listening to the history and on learning that the Kaid had hesitated not an instant to sacrifice his life, and those of all his followers, to save his favourite horse. And all the time the tale was going on I thought where had I heard all this before, for every incident seemed to me in some strange way familiar. At last I recollected that Garcilasso de la Vega (Inca) in his “Comentarios Reales del Peru,” when he relates the civil wars between the followers of the Pizarros and the forces of the Viceroy, tells how Gonzalo de Silvestre, after the battle of Huarina, found himself alone upon a horse wounded twice in the head, and in the chest, and that he gave himself up for lost, thinking his horse would fall, when “feeling him a little with the bridle, the horse threw up his head, and, snorting, blew blood through his nostrils and seemed relieved, then went on galloping, and presently I passed one of our partizans retreating, badly wounded, on a mule, not able to sit upright for his hurt, and by him walked an Indian woman, with her hand upon the wound to stop the blood.”[228]Gonzalo de Silvestre and the wounded man and horse all got off with their lives,no doubt the same tripartite deity assisting them who in his indivisible aspect came to the assistance of the Chamberlain and of the Kaid.
Could I then undertake to examine the leg and perhaps extract the ball? was put to me through the medium of the Chamberlain. For a moment I hesitated, thinking that if the ball was near the skin I would hazard it, and so earn the eternal gratitude of the Kaid and be sent on to Tarudant with honour and with an escort of his followers to guard me on the way. One look dispelled my hopes, for the wound was high up in the thigh, close to the femoral artery and had almost healed, although the patient said it gave him pain, and stopped him from getting on his horse, though when once mounted he could make a shift to ride. Reluctantly I had to say I was not able to undertake so serious a case. The Kaid’s face fell, so I advised him to send for an English doctor who I knew was staying in Morocco city for his health, and who would have been glad to see so strange a place, and put the patient upon his legs again. If he has done so by this time I do not know, or even if the Kaid made up his mind to send for him; but the chance for a doctor was unique, and therefore has, most probably, been missed.
Governors of provinces in Morocco, and throughout the East, are rather shy of going to the capital, even in such a case as this; for once there, the Sultan often takes the opportunity of making them disgorge some of the money which they have plundered in their government. On the first rumour that the Governor is in disgrace, the tribe rebels, blockades the castle, burns it down if possible, and some neighbouring Sheikh sends to the Sultan and offers a large sum to be made Governor in the disgraced man’s place. Even if things do not go quite so far as that, a journey in Morocco has its inconveniences, for generally thewives take the chance of the husband’s absence to dig up his money and send it to their friends. This happened to the Kaid of Kintafi when wounded in the Sus, and he, on his return finding his money gone, divorced two of his wives, and treated all the others to some discipline, which the Chamberlain assured me had restored peace and order to his Excellency’s house.
Our interview having lasted almost two hours, we rose to take our leave. I thanked the Kaid for his continued hospitality, assured him that I should not easily forget Kintafi, promised to send him a doctor if he wished, and quite forgot I was a prisoner. He on his part transmitted his good wishes through the medium of his henchman and Lutaif, and said he hoped we would not leave Kintafi for a few days more, as he was anxious to speak to us again. This was not quite the ending of the interview I had expected, for it amounted to an order we should not leave the place, so in conveying to him my best thanks for all his hospitality, I told him that I would let him know the latest news about the prisoners in the Riff on my return to Mogador, and in the meantime hoped Allah would guide him in all he did, and that he would continue to dispense his hospitality to all who passed, because, as Sidna Mohammed himself has said, “that hospitality, even when unasked for, blesses both the host and guest.”
Lutaif, who had the pleasure of translating this farewell, did not much like his task, but faced it manfully, and so amidst a shower of compliments we took our leave, and left the presence of our illustrious host for good. Still an experience not to have been missed, and differing extremely from the ordinary visit paid by the travelling European to a Moorish Kaid on equal terms, that is, when dressed in European clothes, furnished with letters from the Sultanand the ambassador of the traveller’s country, when one drinks tea, exchanges compliments, and learns as little of the real go on of an Oriental house, as does a man born rich learn the real workings of the people’s minds with whom he lives his life.
An Eastern potentate of the Arabian Nights was the Kaid, with all the culture of the Arabs of the Middle Ages absent, but as he was, the arbiter of life and death in a wide district. A gentleman in manners, courteous to those whom he had all the power to treat with rudeness or severity; a horseman and a fighter; a tyrant naturally, as any man would be if placed in his position; but no more tyrannical in disposition than is some new elected County Councillor, mad to make all men chaste and sober by some bye-law or another; himself a victim to a lewd Puritanism, and an insatiable love of cant. Half independent of the Sultan, leading his own troops, dispensing justice, as he thought he saw it, in his own courtyard, and to me interesting in special as a sort of after type of those great Arab Emirs who sprang from the sands of Africa and of Arabia, shook Europe, flourished in Spain, built the Alhambra and Alcazar, gave us the Arab horse and the curb bit, and kept alive the remains of Greek philosophy in Cordoba and in Toledo, when all the rest of Europe grovelled in darkness; then by degrees fell into decadence, and sank again into the sands of Africa, to still keep alive the patriarchal system, the oldest and perhaps the best conception of a simple life mankind has yet found out. Allah Ackbar; lost in a wilderness of broadcloth, I still praise God that such a man exists, if only to contrast him in my mind with the self-advertising anthropoids who make one fancy, if the Darwinian theory still holds good, that the God after whose image the first man was made had surely been an ape. Through passages and courtyards we reached the open space on whichour tent was pitched, escorted by a guard of men well armed with guns and daggers, which appendages made them none the less loth to take a tip on coming to the tent than if they had been so many gamekeepers, who take their unearned money after a grouse drive, or a hot corner in the coverts, with an air of doing you a service, and whose contempt for you is only equalled by your disgust both at yourself and them.
But, over everyone a change had come, for we had stood before the face of the great man with honour, and those who scarcely in the morning returned our salutations, gravely saluted us and condescended to enquire after our welfare and our health.
Swani and Mohammed-el-Hosein were radiant, more especially because the Kaid had sent a sheep, which they had already slain and given to a “master” (maalem) to roasten barbecue. Although I personally was disappointed that we had not been able either to get an answer from the Kaid as to our return, still less to get permission to go on, yet I was glad to have seen him, placed as I was, and wondered if an English Duke in the Georgian times would have treated an Arab wandering in England, and giving out he was an English clergyman, as well as the wild, semi-independent Berber Sheikh treated the wandering Englishman who assumed to pass, not merely as a clergyman, but as a saint.
Four men appeared bearing the sheep on a huge wooden dish, smoking and peppered so as to start us sneezing; and when the Maalem had torn it into convenient portions with his hands, we all fell to, Lutaif and I with an appetite that civilisation gives for such a meal; the rest like wolves, or men remembering the Hispano-Moorish proverb to the effect that meat and appetite go not always together, though both are sent by God.
Earlynext day the effects of our audience began to manifest themselves. The sick, the halt, the lame, and impotent, all besieged the tent, having been kept away apparently by the uncertainty of the Kaid’s attitude towards the Nazarenes. But as all Europeans are supposed not only to know something of medicine and to carry drugs about with them on all occasions, the afflicted fairly besieged me, and I dispensed my medicines with a freedom quite without fear of consequences, and not restrained as doctors are in “policed” countries, where every now and then the public fall into a panic when a case of human vivisection, carried out (upon the poor) in the pure joy of scientific life, leaks from inside the precincts of some hospital. Gratitude, which dies with knowledge, but flourishes luxuriantly as long as the medicine man is a being quite apart, working his wonders unrestrained by scientific bounds, showed itself in several ways. Yet, as per usual, most pathetically in inverse proportion to the riches of the patient, for several who should have recompensed my skill (or zeal) according to the goodness of their clothes, slunk off, as people do at home after street acrobats have been performing, and when the little boy who has risked his life upon a pyramid of father, big brother, and several uncles, straining in his baggy cotton tights (which give him the appearance of a cab horse shaken in the legs), is just about to come round holding out his tambourine. So I dispensed my stock, which Ihad brought to spread my fame and smooth my path in Tarudant, quite cheerfully; ophthalmia, tetanus, sciatica, elephantiasis, ulcers, and twisted limbs, with rheumatism, deafness, and El Burd, I alleviated by the faith of those who took my drugs. The more extraordinary and complicated were the instructions which I gave, the better pleased the patient was, and sometimes came back twice or three times to ask if the quinine or seidlitz powder was to be taken on every fifth or ninth recurring day. One poor Bezonian, for whom I had prescribed something or other, came in the evening, and lugging out from underneath his cloak a dirty pocket-handkerchief, produced a handful of greasy copper coin, worth, perhaps, one penny halfpenny in all, and with excuses for his poverty in Shillah, which came to me through Arabic, entreated me to pay myself for my prescription. I answered as nobly as I could, “The credit is Allah’s,” and the poor man advanced, kissed me upon the shoulder, and went out, perhaps to tell to-day of the great Christian doctor who would take no fee. Others brought eggs and bread, and these I took, as it would have been an insult to them to refuse, and besides that, I fancy the mere idea of having paid made my hell broths appear more efficacious to the simple folk. Who, even in England, that does not believe that the two guineas which he pays to see some great specialist[234]in Harley Street does not advance his case, and were it five I fancy the greater part of patients would leave the doctor’s mansion cured, or else omit to go, and all is one in cases where faith heals.
My most popular recipe for coughs may yet achieve the popularity which is reserved for faith-healing amongst the Christian world. Take four Beecham’sPills, and bruise them in a mortar with an ounce of cloves and two of Argan oil, a piece of rancid butter, and a cup of magia (spirit made from dates); rub well upon the chest, anoint the feet, and take a spoonful of the same liquid in tepid water, now and then, continuing our light and nourishing couscouso and shisha,[235a]and please Allah the cough will disappear.
Tired of dispensing, I strolled out to the olive grove, sat down, began to smoke, and watched two men seated close by, dressed in white robes, and evidently of the richer sort. One read a letter to his friend, with explanations upon every line, and with apparently some trouble to himself, for every now and then he drew a character in the sand with his forefinger, and compared it with the doubtful character in the document he read. In the same fashion I have seen grave, reserved, grey-bearded men in South America sit entertained for hours in “painting”[235b]horses’ marks upon the sand, and reasoning wisely upon every one of them. The man who listened said not a word, but looked entranced with admiration at the deep knowledge of his friend. I take it, reading and writing should not be abused, or it may chance with them to fare even as it has fared with sweet religion, which first a mystery concealed in a learned tongue, and thus respected and believed without inquiry, then became understandable by its translation to the vulgar speech, lost credit, and to-day has fallen into a fashion, and changes in complexion, form, and authenticity, as quickly as a hat brought from Paris in the spring falls into dowdiness and becomes ridiculous almost before the owner is aware.
We marvelled greatly that we had not been able to discover what were the Kaid’s intentions in regard to us, and, casting up the time, found we had passed nine days already in the place. Curious, in prison, or in a ship, or stuck alone in some wild hut on prairie, or on Pampa, to remark how long the time seems for the first few days, and then begins to race, so that before one is aware a month is past which at the first looked like eternity to face. And stranger still, how in a week or so, the newspapers and books, the so-called intellectual conversation, news of the outside world, the theatres, churches, politics, and the things which by their aggregated littleness, taken together, seem important, fall out of one’s life. The condition of one’s horse, the weather, crops, the storm, or coming revolution, all take their places and become as important as were the unimportant great events which a short time ago, served up distorted in an evening paper, wiled away our time.
Thus life at Kintafi after a little became quite natural to us, and at least as cheerful for a continuance as life in Parliament, in Paris, London, or any other of the dreary hives of pleasure or of thought. We rose at daylight, drank green tea and smoked, went down to bathe, came back and breakfasted, looked at the horses led to water, listened to the muezzin call to prayers, walked in the olive grove or watched the negroes in the corn field; engaged in conversation with some of the strange types, we read el Faredi, speculated on how long the “rekass” would tarry on the road from the Sultan’s camp, and wondered at the perpetual procession of people always arriving at the castle to beg for something, a horse, a mule, a gun, some money, or in some way or other to participate in the Kaid’s Baraka.[236]Had I butbeen allowed to ride about and explore the country, I should have been content to stay a month. However, there was no order, and all those who are not strong enough to disobey have to stick strictly to an order in the East.
As an example of how orders are obeyed, one day during my sojourn at Kintafi, Lutaif and I had wandered about a mile following the Wad el N’fiss and crossing it once or twice to save the bends. As we were walking we had to take our slippers off and cross barefooted, picking our way over the pebbles in the fierce stream, which made it difficult to walk. On our return, just at a ford where the current ran particularly swift, we met two mounted men, followers of the Kaid, whom we knew well, and one of whom I had prescribed for in my character of medicine man. Thinking the chance a good one, I asked the man to let me ride across, knowing his feet were hard as leather, and intending to have given him a trifle for lending me the horse. The man excused himself with many apologies, and said he had been sent to exercise the horse, and had no order to let any one ride on it, and dare not upon any pretext let me get upon its back. He had no reason to be uncivil, and was no doubt in terror of what the Kaid might do had the news come to him that he had gone an atom beyond his strict command.
Easterns of any nation are good company to be thrown with on an occasion such as the one in which I found myself. Lutaif had a never failing fund of stories about things he had seen and heard, and told them with the absolute lack of self-consciousnesswhich alone makes a story pleasant, and which distinguishes an Eastern story-teller from the Western, who in his story always has an eye on the effect of what he tells.
At present in the Lebanon it seems there is an exodus of all the educated young men towards America; and in New York there is a Syrian quarter where they speak Arabic, carry on small industries, and, curiously enough, are known to the natives as “the Arabians,” a designation which must sound most strangely to a Syrian’s ear. One of these Syrian young men, but in this instance quite uneducated, and speaking only a rough Arabicpatois, started to try and reach America, where the streets are paved with gold. Having shipped as a deck hand on board a steamer at Beirout, he reached New York. There he was put ashore, and failed to get employment; wandered about the streets; was taken to the Turkish Consul, and by him shipped to Marseilles as a vagrant who was unable to support himself in the free land where every man is better than his neighbour if he has more money in his purse. Dropped ashore at Marseilles, he got aboard an Italian steamer going to the River Plate, was found and flogged, then fastened to the mast for six or seven hours, and when the vessel touched at Malaga, shoved ashore, after receiving several hearty kicks. There, almost starving, and ignorant of Spanish, he set out to tramp to Gibraltar, about sixty miles away. But most unluckily he reckoned without theodium theologicum; for happening to wear a Turkish fez, and Spain just at that time being engaged in a squabble at Alhucemas, in the Riff, the country people were in a fervour of religious rage against the Moors. New York, Marseilles, the Italian steamer, all were as nothing to what he had to suffer in his tramp in the land specially the Blessed Virgin’s[238]own. No one would have him in the villages, and when he asked for bread he met, in the fashion of the Holy Scriptures, with a stone. The children hooted him, the shepherds minding their sheep slung pebbles at him, and after three days’ journey, in a most miserable plight, he reached Gibraltar, where he met a Moor, who gave him a bag to carry to a certain place. The bag turned out to contain cigars which the Moor wished to smuggle on board a ship. Up came a policeman, beat him a little with a short club (as he explained), and took him off before a magistrate. There not a soul spoke Arabic, so he was remanded to the cells, where, as he said, he was quite comfortable and better off than in that cursed “town called Spain.” At last an interpreter arrived and the poor man found himself free, but starving, and in despair crossed to Tangier, and there on my return I found him saving up coppers to pay his passage once more to New York.
Back in our tent the staring recommenced, as for some reason many of the wilder tribesmen were, so to speak, in town, to-day. They sat outside the tent like sparrows on a telegraph, and looked at us as if we were the strangest sight they ever had beheld. Even the stolid glare of a hostile (or stupid) audience at a public meeting was nothing to their gaze. At times I thought had we but brought a monkey and an organ our fortunes had been made, and we should have to buy a camel to carry off the avalanche of copper coin.
Still there was no sign of the rekass; and so the 28th and 29th slipped past, leaving us still a-thinking, still cavilling, and wondering how much longer we should have to stay.
Almost the most interesting, and certainly the most pathetic, of my patients arrived during the 29th. A long, thin, famine-stricken man dressed in rags beggedme for medicine for a “sad heart,” and certainly he had good cause for sadness, though I fancy that the peseta[240]which I gave him may have done him at least as much good as the last of my quinine. It appeared that the late Sultan, Mulai el Hassan, had destroyed his house, taken his property, and driven him to exile. Quite naturally the present Sultan had too much filial respect for his late father to undo any action, just or unjust, that he had thought fit to do. Therefore my patient, whose “sad heart” had stood out for three whole years, was still a suppliant, and his present errand was to try and interest El Kintafi in his case. For six long months he had been in the place trying his luck without success. Sometimes the Kaid would promise him his help, and then again tell him to come when he had thought the matter over and resolved what was the best to do. Meantime the man slept in the mosque by night, by day stood at the gate, and when the Kaid rode out clung to his stirrup and implored his aid. He said, “I see him every six or seven days, but there is no hope but in God.” Still he was cheerful, had his rags well washed, and was as resigned and dignified as I am certain that no Christian, out of fiction, could possibly have been. “God the great Helper;” but then how slow but merciful in this case, if only by the faith he had implanted to endure his own neglect. So the sad-hearted man of sorrows made his notch upon my life, as the old Persian and the Oudad had done, and still perhaps waits for the Kaid on mornings when his Excellency rides out to hunt or hawk with a long train of followers, issuing from the horseshoe arch, with negroes holding greyhounds in the leash, horsemen perched high on their red saddles, the sun falling upon longsilver-mounted guns, haiks waving in the air, whilst from the ramparts of the castle comes the shrill note of joy the women raise when, in Morocco, men go out to hunt, to war, to play the powder;[241]or when, at weddings, the bride, stuffed in a gilded cage upon a mule, is taken home.
An aged Israelite with a long train of mules came from the Sus that morning. He wore a sort of compromise between Oriental and European clothes, which gave him an incredibly abject look, the elastic-sided boots and ivory-handled cane contrasting most ill-favouredly with his long gaberdine; his ten-carat watch-chain, with a malachite locket hanging from it, rendering the effect of his maroon cloth caftan mean and civilised. He told me that his chief business was to lend money to the Kaids, and that his mules were packed with silver dollars, being the interest on the capital lent to various Governors in Sus. He expressed no fear of any attack upon his caravan; and when I quoted the saying that “if the caravan is attacked the poor man has nothing to fear,” returned, “Nor has the Jew, who is indispensable to the great ones of the earth.” Nevertheless he bore about him several old bullet wounds, and carried underneath his gaberdine a first-rate Smith and Wesson pistol, which he said he would not care to be obliged to use. I put him down as one who, given the opportunity, would shoot an unbeliever like a dog, having generally observed that readiness to shoot goes in an inverseratio with readiness to talk, and that the man who always has a pistol in his hand might just as often, for all purpose of defence, carry a meerschaum pipe. The way he travelled was curious, for, in the Sus amongst the Berber tribes, he had to take a tribesman, to whom he paid a certain sum, to see him safely through the tribe, who, in his turn, delivered him, on leaving his territory, to another man, and so on right through the country which he had to pass. This system is recognised throughout the Atlas range, and generally wherever the Berber tribes inhabit, and is known as el Mzareg, that is, the protection of the lance, for anciently the protecting tribesman bore a lance, but, nowadays, usually is satisfied with the stout cudgel which all hillmen use. Baruch, the Hebrew with the ivory crutch-handled stick, informed me that, in the Sus, nearly every Jewish family was obliged to have his corresponding Mzareg, who protected and also fleeced them; and that, in consequence, most of those “Pedlars of the ghetto,” in spite of all their industry, were poor. A curious down-trodden race the Atlas Jews, ostensibly the slaves of every one, and in reality their masters; for owing to the incapacity for commerce in the Berbers, every affair where money changes hands has to be brought about by the assistance of some quick-witted Jew. So, just as in Europe, though without being in other respects superior to the races amongst whom they live, the Atlas Jews control the warlike Berbers as easily and as completely as their brethren control all those with whom they come in contact on a business footing throughout the world. Baruch had his home in Mequinez, and was not from Toledo, but an Oriental Jew, his people, as he said, having come into Morocco after the great dispersion, and he himself being of the tribe of Benjamin; though, when I asked him how he knew, he said it was a tradition in his family,and that the ancients never spoke untruth. Into this matter I forbore to enter, and generally gave an assent, quoting the Toledan-Jewish proverb, that “if Moses died, Adonai still survived,”[243]which he at once knew in its Arabic form, and asked me, as Israelites in the East will often do if you appear to know a little of their lore, if I, too, was of the chosen race. This worthy Baruch, in appearance like a head cut out of walnut wood, set round with fleecy wool, asked me, when passing Mequinez, to remember I had my house there, and said that I should find him, Baruch ben Baruch, as a father and a friend. Unfortunately, since then I have not passed Mequinez; but, if I do so, hope to eat my “adafina” in my father’s house.