CHAPTER XI.FEZ.
We had not advanced half a mile toward the city when we were surrounded by a throng of Moors and Arabs come from Fez and from the country round, on foot and on horseback, on mules and on donkeys, two and two like the ancient Numidians, so eager to see us that the soldiers of our escort are obliged to make use of the butt end of their muskets to keep them from pressing upon us. The ground being low, the city, whose castellated walls we had seen from the camp, remains for some time hidden. Then all at once it reappears, and between us and the walls we can see an immense white and crimson mass, like a myriad of lilies and roses trembling in the breeze. The city vanishes again, and again appears, but much nearer this time; and between us and it, the people, the army, the court, and a pomp and splendor and oddity that are beyond my powers of description.
A company of officers on horseback came galloping to meet us, and dividing in the middle, pass to the rear and join themselves to our escort. Behindthem comes a troop of horsemen splendidly attired and mounted on superb horses, preceded by a Moor of tall stature, with a white turban and a rose-colored caftan. He is the grand chamberlain, Hadji Mohammed Ben-Aissa, accompanied by his suite, who, having welcomed the Ambassador in the Sultan’s name, joins the escort.
We advance between two rows of infantry soldiers, who with difficulty keep back the crowd. What soldiers they are! There are old men and mature men, and boys of fifteen, twelve, and even nine years of age, dressed in scarlet, with bare legs and yellow slippers, ranged along in single file without regard to height, with their captains in front. Each one presents in his own fashion his rusty musket and his crooked bayonet. Some stand with one foot foremost, some with legs apart, some with their heads on their shoulders, some with their chins on their breasts. Some have put their red jackets on their heads to shelter them from the sun. Here and there is a tambourine, a trumpet, five or six banners, one beside the other—red, yellow, green, orange,—carried as crosses are carried in a procession. There seems to be no division into squadrons or companies. They look like paper soldiers stuck up in a row by boys. There are blacks, mulattoes, whites, and faces of an indefinable color; men of gigantic stature beside boys who are scarcely old enough to hold a gun; bent old men with long white beards, leaning on their neighbors; savagefaces, making the effect, in that uniform, of dressed-up monkeys. They all look at us with open eyes and mouth, and their line stretches farther than we can see.
A second troop of horsemen advances on the left. It is the old governor, Gilali Ben-Amù, followed by eighteen chiefs of inferior degree and by the flower of the aristocracy of Fez, all dressed in white from head to foot, like a company of priests—austere visages, black beards, silken caics, gilded housings. Saluting us, they circle round, and join our cortege.
We go forward, still between two lines of soldiers, behind whom presses a white and hooded crowd who devour us with their eyes. They are always the same soldiers, for the most part boys, wearing the fez, with red jackets and bare legs. They have blue, white, or green drawers. Some are in their shirt sleeves; some hold their muskets on their shoulder, some rest them on the ground; some press forward, some hang back. The officers are dressed according to their fancy—zouaves, Turcos, Greeks, Albanians, Turks—with arabesque embroidery of gold and silver, with scimitars, swords, curved poniards, horse pistols. Some wear the boots of a groom, and some yellow boots without heels; some are all in crimson, some all in white; some in green, and looking like masquerade devils. Here and there among them may be seen a European face, looking at us sadly and with sympathy.As many as ten banners are ranged in a row together. The trumpets sound as we pass. A woman’s arm protrudes itself between the soldiers’ heads, and threatens us with clenched fist. The walls of the city seem to recede before us, and the two lines of soldiers to extend interminably.
Another troop of cavaliers, more splendid than the first, comes to meet us. It is the aged Minister of War, Sid-Abd-Alla Ben-Hamed, black, mounted on a white horse with sky-blue trappings; and with him are the military governors of provinces, the commandant of the garrison, and a numerous staff of officers crowned with snowy turbans, and wearing caftans of every known color.
It is now more than half an hour that we have been proceeding between the two lines of soldiers, and some one has counted more than four thousand. On one side is drawn out the cavalry; on the other a nameless and heterogeneous mass of men and boys, dressed in divers uniforms, or rather fragments of uniforms, some with arms and some without, cloaked and uncloaked, with uncovered heads, or heads bound with a shapeless rag, shirtless for the most part; faces from the desert, from the coast, from the mountains; shaven heads, and heads ornamented with long braids; giants and dwarfs—people gathered from heaven knows where, to make a show and inspire terror. And behind them on the rising ground that borders the way, an innumerable throng of veiled women, screaming andgesticulating, in wonder, anger, or pleasure, and holding up their children to see us.
We approach the walls at a point where there is a venerable gate crowned with battlements. A band bursts into music, and at the same moment all the drums and trumpets rend the air with a mighty crash. Then our ranks are broken up, and there is a general rush and confusion of magistrates, courtiers, ministers, generals, officials, and slaves; our escort is scattered, our servants dispersed, and we ourselves divided from each other. There is a torrent of turbans and horses rolling and twisting about us with irresistible impetus; a confusion of colors, a phantasmagoria of faces, a noise of harsh voices, a grandeur and savagery that at once delight and bewilder. Passing in at the gate, we expect to see the houses of the city, but are still between castellated walls and towers; to the left is a tomb, orcuba, with a green dome shaded by two palms; people about the cuba, upon the walls, everywhere. We pass another gate, and find ourselves at last in a street with houses on each side.
My memory here becomes confused, for I had as much as I could do to save my neck, going as we were over great stones, in the midst of a crowd of plunging horses; it would have been all up with any one who had fallen. We passed, I remember, through some deserted streets bordered by tall houses, suffocated by dust, and deafened by the noise of the horses’ hoofs; and in about half an hour,after threading a labyrinth of steep and narrow alleys, where we were obliged to go in single file, we reached a little door, where some scarlet soldiers presented arms, and we entered our own house. It was a delicious sensation.
The house was a princely mansion in the purely Moorish style, with a small garden shaded by parallel rows of orange and lemon trees. From the garden you entered the interior court by a low door, and thence into a corridor large enough only for one person to pass. Around the court were twelve white pilasters, joined by as many arches of a horse-shoe form, which supported an arched gallery furnished with a wooden balustrade. The pavement of the court, gallery, and chambers was one splendid mosaic of little squares of enamel of brilliant colors; the arches were painted in arabesque; the balustrade carved in delicate open work; the whole building designed with a grace and harmony worthy of the architects of the Alhambra. In the middle of the court there was a fountain; and another one, with three jets of water, was in a carved and ornamented niche in the wall. A large Moorish lantern depended from every arch. One wing of the edifice extended along one side of the garden, and had a graceful façade of three arches, painted in arabesque, in front of which a third fountain sparkled. There were other little courts, and corridors, and chambers, and the innumerable recesses of an Oriental house. Some iron beds, without sheets or coverlets, a fewclocks, one mirror in the court, two chairs and a table for the Ambassador, and half a dozen basins and jugs, completed the furniture of the house. In the principal rooms the walls were hung with gold-embroidered carpets, and some white mattresses lay on the floors, and, except in the Ambassador’s room, there was neither chair, nor table, nor wardrobe. We had to send to the camp for some furniture. But, by way of compensation, there was everywhere coolness, shade, the gurgle of water, fragrance, and something deliciously soft and voluptuous in the lines of the building, in the air, in the light. The whole edifice was encircled by a lofty wall, and surrounded by a labyrinth of deserted alleys.
We had scarcely arrived in the court-yard when there began a coming and going of ministers and other high personages, each one of whom had a few minutes’ conversation with the Ambassador. The Minister of Finance was the one who attracted my attention most. He was a Moor of about fifty years of age, of a severe aspect, beardless, and dressed all in white, with an immense turban. An interpreter told me that he was very clever, and adduced as proof of the same, that he one day had brought to him one of those little arithmetical machines, and both he and the machine had done the same sum in the same time, and with the same results. It was worth while to see the expression of sacred respect with which Selim, Ali, Civo, and the rest, regarded those personages, who, after the Sultan, representedin their eyes the highest grade of science, power, and glory which could be attained on this earth.
Those visits over, we took possession of our abode. The two painters, the doctor, and myself occupied the rooms looking on the garden; the rest, those opening on the court. Interpreters, cooks, sailors, servants, soldiers, all found their place, and in a few hours the aspect of the house was changed.
The first to go out and visit the city were Ussi and Biseo, the two artists; and then the commandant and the captain. I preferred to wait until the following morning. They went out in couples, each encircled, like malefactors, by an infantry guard armed with muskets and sticks. After an hour they returned, covered with dust, and all dripping from the heat; and their first words were, “Great city—great crowd—immense mosques—naked saints—curses—sticks—wonderful things!” But Ussi had had the most interesting adventure. In one of the most frequented streets, in spite of the soldiers, a girl of fifteen or thereabouts had sprung upon his shoulders like a fury, and had inflicted a vigorous pummeling, crying out, “Accursed Christians! There is not a corner in Morocco where they do not push themselves!” Such was the first welcome given to Italian art within the walls of Fez.
Late in the night I made a tour through the house. On all the landing-places of the stairs, before the chamber doors, in the garden, were soldiers lying wrapped in their mantles, and sound asleep. Beforethe little door of the court-yard, the faithful Hamed Ben-Kasen, with his sabre by his side, snored in the open air. The dim light of the lanterns, touching the mosaic pavements here and there, made them look as if set with pearls, and gave an air of mysterious splendor to the place. The sky was thickly set with stars, and a light breeze moved the branches of the orange trees in the garden. The murmur of the Pearl River could be distinctly heard; the gurgle of the fountains, the ticking of the clocks, and now and then the shrill voices of the sentinels answering one another at the outer doors of the palace with their chanted prayer.
In the morning we went out, four or five of us together, accompanied by an interpreter, and escorted by ten foot-soldiers, one of whom wore buttons with the effigy of Queen Victoria—for many of these red coats are bought at Gibraltar from soldiers of the English army. Two of these placed themselves in front, two behind, and three on each side of us—the first armed with muskets, the others with sticks and knotted cords. They were such a rascally-looking set, that when I think of them I bless the ship that brought me back to Europe.
The interpreter asked what we wished to see. “All Fez” was the answer.
Shoe Shop, Fez.Shoe Shop, Fez.
Shoe Shop, Fez.
Shoe Shop, Fez.
We directed our steps first toward the centre of the city. Here I ought to exclaim, “Chi mi darà la voce e le parole!”[5]How shall I express the wonder,the pity, the sadness that overcame me at that grand and dismal spectacle? The first impression is that of an immense city fallen into decrepitude and slowly decaying. Tall houses, which seemed formed of houses piled one upon the other, all falling to pieces, cracked from roof to base, propped up on every side, with no opening save some loophole in the shape of a cross; long stretches of street, flanked by two high bare walls like the walls of a fortress; streets running up hill and down, encumbered with stones and the ruins of fallen buildings, twisting and turning at every thirty paces; every now and then a long covered passage, dark as a cellar, where you have to feel your way; blind alleys, recesses, dens full of bones, dead animals, and heaps of putrid matter—the whole steeped in a dim and melancholy twilight. In some places the ground is so broken, the dust so thick, the smell so horrible, the flies are so numerous, that we have to stop to take breath. In half an hour we have made so many turns that if our road could be drawn it would form an arabesque as intricate as any in the Alhambra. Here and there we hear the noise of a mill, a murmur of water, the click of a weaver’s loom, a chanting of nasal voices, which we are told come from a school of children; but we see nothing and no one anywhere. We approach the centre of the city; people become more numerous; the men stop to let us pass, and stare astonished; the women turn back, or hide themselves; the children scream andrun; the larger boys growl and shake their fists at a distance, mindful of the soldiers and their sticks. We see fountains richly ornamented with mosaics, arabesque doors, arched courts, some few remains of Arab architecture in decay. Every moment we find ourselves in darkness, entering one of the many covered passages. We come to one of the principal streets, about six feet wide, and full of people, who crowd about us. The soldiers shout, and push, and strike in vain, and at last make a sort of bulwark of their bodies by forming a circle around us and clasping hands, face outward. There are a thousand eyes upon us; we can scarcely breathe in the press and heat, and move slowly on, stopping every moment to give passage to a Moor on horseback, or a veiled lady on a camel, or an ass with a load of bleeding sheep’s heads. To the right and left are crowded bazaars; inn court-yards encumbered with merchandise; doors of mosques, through which we catch glimpses of arcades in perspective, and figures prostrate in prayer. All along the street there is nothing to be seen but silent forms in white hoods, moving like spectres. The air is impregnated with an acute and mingled odor of aloes, spices, incense, and kif; we seem to be walking in an immense drug-shop. Groups of boys go by with scarred and scabby heads; horrible old women, perfectly bald and with naked breasts, making their way by dint of furious imprecations against us; naked, or almost naked, madmen, crowned with flowers and feathers, bearing abranch in their hands, laughing and singing and cutting capers before the soldiers, who drive them away with blows. Turning into another street, we meet a saint, an enormously fat old fellow, as naked as he was born, leaning upon a lance bound with strips of red cloth. He squints at us, and mutters something as we pass. Further on come four soldiers dragging along some poor unfortunate, all bleeding and torn, who has been taken in the act of thieving; and after them come a troop of boys calling out, “Cut off his hand! cut off his hand!” Next come two men carrying an uncovered bier, upon which is stretched a corpse, dry as a mummy, wrapped in a white linen sack tied round the neck, waist, and knees. I ask myself where I am, and whether I am awake or asleep, and whether Fez and Paris are in the same planet! We go into the bazaar. The crowd is everywhere. The shops, as in Tangiers, are mere dens opened in the wall. The money-changers are seated on the ground, with heaps of black coin before them. We cross, jostled by the crowd, the cloth-bazaar, that of slippers, that of earthenware, that of metal ornaments, which all together form a labyrinth of alleys roofed with canes and branches of trees. Passing through a vegetable market, thronged with women who lift their arms and scream curses at us, we come out into the centre of the city. There it is the same experience as before, and we finally get out at a gate, and take a turn outside the walls.
The city stands in the form of a monstrous figure of eight between two hills, upon which still tower the ruins of two ancient fortifications. Beyond the hills there is a chain of mountains. The Pearl River divides the town in two—modern Fez on the left bank, ancient Fez on the right—and a girdle of old castellated walls and towers, dark and falling into ruin, binds the whole together. From the heights the eye takes in the whole city—a myriad of white, flat-roofed houses, among which rise tall minarets ornamented with mosaics, gigantic palm-trees, tufts of verdure, green domes, and castellated towers. The grandeur of the ancient city can be divined from what is left, though it is but a skeleton. Near the gates, and upon the hills for a long distance, the country is covered with monuments and ruins, tombs and houses of saints, arches of aqueducts, sepulchres,zanie, and foundations that seem like the remains of a city destroyed by cannon and devoured by flames. Between the wall and the highest of the two hills that flank the city it is all one garden, a thick and intricate grove of mulberry-trees, olives, palms, fruit-trees, and tall poplars, clothed with ivy and grape-vines; little streams run through it, fountains gush and sparkle, and canals intersect it between high green banks. The opposite bank is crowned with aloes twice the height of a man. Along the walls are great fissures and deep ditches filled with vegetation, rude remains of bastions and broken towers,—a grand andsevere disorder of ruin and greenery, recalling the more picturesque parts of the walls of Constantinople. We passed by the Gate of Ghisa, the Iron Gate, the Gate of thePadre delle Cuoia, the New Gate, the Burned Gate, the Gate that Opens, the Gate of Lions, the Gate of Sidi Busida, the Gate of the Father of Utility, and re-entered new Fez by the Gate of the Niche of Butter. Here are large gardens, vast open spaces, large squares, surrounded by battlemented walls, beyond which can be seen other squares and other walls, arched gate-ways and towers, and beautiful prospects of hills and mountains. Some of the doors are very lofty, and are covered with iron plates studded with large nails. Approaching the Pearl River, we come upon the decaying carcase of a horse, lying in the middle of the street. Along the wall about a hundred Arabs are washing and jumping upon the linen piled upon the shore. We meet patrols of soldiers, personages of the court on horseback, small caravans of camels, groups of women from the country with their children tied on their backs, who cover their faces at our approach. And at last we see some faces that smile upon us. We enter the Mella, the Hebrew quarter,—truly a triumphal entrance. They run to their windows and terraces, down into the street, calling to one another. The men, with long hair covered by a handkerchief tied under the chin like women, bow with ceremonious smiles. The women, comely and plump, dressed in red and greengarments embroidered and braided with gold, wish usbuenos dias, and say a thousand charming things with their brilliant dark eyes. Some of the children come and kiss our hands. To escape from this ovation, and from the filth of the streets, we take a cross street, and passing through the Jewish cemetery, get back at last to the palace of the embassy, tired out and with bewildered minds.
“O Fez!” says an Arabian historian, “all the beauty of the earth is concentrated in thee!” He adds that Fez has always been the seat of wisdom, science, peace, and religion; the mother and the queen of all the cities of the Magreb; that its inhabitants have a finer and deeper intelligence than that of the other inhabitants of Morocco; that all that is in it and around it is blessed of God, even to the waters of the Pearl River, which cure the stone, soften the skin, perfume the clothes, destroy insects, render sweeter (if drunk fasting) the pleasures of the senses, and contain precious stones of inestimable value. Not less poetically is related by the Arabian writers the story of the foundation of Fez. When the Abassidi, toward the end of the eighth century, were divided into two factions, one of the princes of the vanquished faction, Edris-ebn-Abdallah, took refuge in the Magreb, a short distance from the place where Fez now stands; and here he lived in solitude, in prayer and meditation, until, by reason of his illustrious origin, as well as because of his holy life, having acquired great fame among theBerbers of that region, they elected him their chief. Gradually, by his arms, and by his high authority as a descendant of Ali and Fatima, he extended his sovereignty over a large extent of country, converting by force to Islamism idolaters, Christians, and Hebrews; and reached such a height of power that the Caliph of the East, Haroun-el-Reschid, jealous of his fame, caused him to be poisoned by a pretended physician, in order to destroy with him his growing empire. But the Berbers gave solemn sepulture to Edris, and recognized as Caliph his posthumous son, Edris-ebn-Edris, who ascended the throne at twelve years of age, consolidated and extended his father’s work, and may be said to have been the true founder of the empire of Morocco, which remained until the end of the tenth century in the hands of his dynasty. It was this same Edris who laid the foundation of Fez, on the 3d of February of the year 808, “in a valley placed between two high hills covered with rich groves, and irrigated by a thousand streams, on the right bank of the River of Pearls.”
Tradition explains in several ways the origin of the name. In digging for the foundations, they found in the earth a great hatchet (called in ArabicFez), which weighed sixty pounds, and this gave its name to the city.
Edris himself, says another legend, worked at the foundations among his laborers, who, in gratitude, offered him a hatchet made of gold and silver; andhe chose to perpetuate, in the name of the city, the memory of their homage. According to another account, the secretary of Edris had asked one day of his lord what name he meant to give the city. “The name,” answered the prince, “of the first person we shall meet.” A man passed by, who, being questioned, said his name was Farés; but he stammered and pronounced it Fez. Another account says that there was an ancient city calledZef, on the Pearl River, which existed eighteen hundred years, and was destroyed before Islam shone upon the world; and Edris imposed upon his metropolis the name of the old city reversed. However it may be, the new city grew rapidly, and already at the beginning of the tenth century rivalled Bagdad in splendor; held within its walls the mosque of El-Caruin and that of Edris, still existant, one the largest and the other the most venerated in Africa; and was called the Mecca of the West. Toward the middle of the eleventh century Gregory IX established there a bishopric. Under the dynasty of the Almoadi it had thirty suburbs, eight hundred mosques, ninety thousand houses, ten thousand shops, eighty-six gates, vast hospitals, magnificent baths, a great and rich library of precious manuscripts in Greek and Latin; also schools of philosophy, of physics, of astronomy, and languages, to which came all the learned and lettered men of Europe and the Levant. It was called the Athens of Africa, and was at one time the seat of a perpetualfair, into which flowed the products of three continents; and European commerce had there its bazaar and its inns; and there—between Moors, Arabs, Berbers, Jews, Negroes, Turks, Christians, and renegades—five hundred thousand people lived and prospered. And now, what a change! Almost all traces of gardens have vanished; the greater part of the mosques are in ruins; of the great library, only a few worm-eaten volumes remain; the schools are dead; commerce languishes; its edifices are falling into ruin; and the population is reduced to less than a fifth of the former number. Fez is no more than an enormous carcase of a metropolis abandoned in the midst of the vast cemetery called Morocco.
Our greatest desire, after our first walk about Fez, was to visit the two famous mosques of El-Caruin and Muley-Edris; but as Christians are not permitted to put a foot in them, we were obliged to content ourselves with what we could see from the street: the Mosaic doors, the arched courts, the long low aisles, divided by a forest of columns, and lighted by a dim, mysterious light. It must not be imagined, however, that these mosques are now what they were in the time of their fame; since, already in the fifteenth century, the celebrated historian Abd-er-Rhaman-ebn-Kaldun, describing that of El-Caruin (may God exalt it more and more, as he says), speaks of various ornaments that were no longer in existence in his time. The first foundationsof this enormous mosque were laid on the first Saturday of Ramadan, in the year 859 of Jesus Christ, at the expense of a pious woman of Kairuan. It was at the beginning a small mosque of four naves; but, little by little, governors, emirs, and sultans embellished and enlarged it. Upon the point of the minaret built by the Imaum Ahmed ben Aby-Beker glittered a golden ball studded with pearls and precious stones, on which was represented the sword of Edris-ebn-Edris, the founder of Fez. On the interior walls were suspended talismans which protected the mosque against rats, scorpions, and serpents, The Mirab, or niche turned toward Mecca, was so splendid that the Imaum had it painted white, that it might no longer distract the faithful from their prayers. There was a pulpit of ebony, inlaid with ivory and gems. There were two hundred and seventy columns, forming sixteen naves of twenty-one arches in each, fifteen great doors of entrance for the men, and two small ones for the women, and seventeen hundred hanging lamps, which, in the season of Ramadan, consumed three quintals and a half of oil. All which particulars the historian Kaldun relates with exclamations of wonder and delight, adding that the mosque could contain twenty-two thousand and seven hundred persons, and that the court alone had in its pavement fifty-two thousand bricks. “Glory to Allah, Lord of the world, immensely merciful, and king of the day of the last judgment!”
Expecting that the Sultan would fix a day for the solemn reception of the embassy, we took several turns about the city, in one of which I had an entirely new sensation. We were approaching the Burned Gate,Bab-el-Maroc, to re-enter the city, when the vice-consul made an exclamation—“Two heads!” Lifting my eyes far enough along the wall to see two long streams of blood, my courage failed me to see more. But I was told that the two heads were suspended by the hair over the gate; one appeared to be that of a boy of not more than fifteen, and the other a man of twenty-five or thirty; both Moors. We learned afterward that they were heads of rebels from the confines of Algeria, which had been brought to Fez the day before; but the fresh blood made it probable that they had been cut off in the city, perhaps before that very gate. However that may be, we were informed on this same occasion that heads of rebels are always brought and presented to the Sultan; after which the imperial soldiers catch the first Jew whom they happen to encounter, and make him take out the brain, fill the skull with tow and salt, and hang it over one of the city gates. It is removed from one gate to another, and from one town to another, until it is destroyed. It does not appear, however, that this was done with the two heads of Bab-el-Maroc, for a day or two after, asking an Arab servant what had become of them, he answered with a gesture, “Buried,” and then hastened to add, by way of consolation, “But there are plenty more coming.”
Two days before the solemn reception, we were invited to breakfast by Sid-Moussa.
Sid-Moussa has no title; he is simply called Sid-Moussa; he was born a slave, and emancipated by the Sultan, who can to-morrow despoil him of all his property, cast him into prison, or hang his head over the gate of Fez, without being called to account for it. But he is the minister of ministers, the soul of the government, the mind which embraces and moves all things all over the empire, and, after the Sultan, the most famous man in Morocco. Our curiosity may be imagined, therefore, on the morning when, surrounded as usual by an armed guard, accompanied by the caid and interpreters, and followed by a tail of people, we went to his house in new Fez.
We were received at the door by a crowd of Arabs and blacks, and entered a garden enclosed by high walls, at the end of which, under a little portico, stood Sid-Moussa, dressed all in white, and surrounded by his officials.
The famous minister gave both hands with much heartiness to the Ambassador, bowed smilingly to us, and preceded us into a small room on the ground-floor, where we sat down.
What a strange figure! A man of about sixty, a dark mulatto, of middle height, with an immense oblong head, two fiery eyes of a most astute expression, a great flat nose, a monstrous mouth, two rows of big teeth, and an immeasurable chin; yet in spiteof these hideous features, an affable smile, an expression of benignity, and voice and manners of the utmost courtesy. But there are no people more deceptive in their aspect than the Moors. Not into the soul, but into the brain of that man would I have liked to peep! Certainly I should have found no great erudition. Perhaps no more than a few pages of the Koran, some periods of the imperial history, some vague geographical notions of the first States of Europe, some idea of astronomy, some rules of arithmetic. But instead, what profound knowledge of the human heart, what quickness of perception, what subtlety of craft, what intricate plottings and contrivings far from our own habits of mind, what curious secrets of government, and who knows what strange medley of memories of loves, and sufferings, and intrigues, and vicissitudes! The chamber, for a Moorish room, was sumptuously furnished, for it contained a small sofa, a table, a mirror, and a few chairs. The walls were hung with red and green carpets, the ceiling painted, the pavement in mosaic. Nothing extraordinary, however, for the house of a rich personage like Sid-Moussa.
After an exchange of the usual compliments, we were conducted into the dining-room, which was on the other side of the garden.
Sid-Moussa, according to custom, did not come with us. The dining-room was hung, like the other, with red and green carpets. In one corner was an armoire, with its two old bunches of artificialflowers under glass shades; and near it one of those little mirrors with a frame painted with flowers that are found in every village inn. On the table there were about twenty dishes containing big white sugar-plums in the form of balls and carobs; the silver and china very elegant; numerous bottles of water; and not a drop of wine. We seated ourselves, and were served at once. Twenty-eight dishes, without counting the sweets! Twenty-eight enormous dishes, every one of which would have been enough for twenty people, of all forms, odors, and flavors; monstrous pieces of mutton on the spit, chickens (with pomatum), game (with cold cream), fish (with cosmetics), livers, puddings, vegetables, eggs, salads, all with the same dreadful combinations suggestive of the barber’s shop; sweet-meats, every mouthful of which was enough to purge a man of any crime he had ever committed; and with all this, large glasses of water, into which we squeezed lemons that we had brought in our pockets; then a cup of tea sweetened to syrup; and finally an irruption of servants, who deluged the table, the walls, and ourselves with rose-water. Such was the breakfast of Sid-Moussa.
When we rose from table, there entered an official to announce to the Ambassador that Sid-Moussa was at prayers, and that as soon as he had finished he would have great pleasure in conferring with him. Immediately after there came in a tottering old man, supported between two Moors, whoseized the Ambassador’s hands and pressed them with great energy, exclaiming with emotion, “Welcome! welcome! Welcome to the Ambassador of the King of Italy! Welcome among us! It is a great day for us!”
He was the grand Scherif Bacalì, one of the most powerful personages of the court, and one of the richest proprietors of the empire, confidant of the Sultan, possessor of many wives, and a two years’ invalid from dyspepsia. We were told that he relieved the ennui of his lord with witty words and comic action; a thing which would certainly never have been guessed from his ferocious face and impetuous gesture. After him appeared the two sons of Sid-Moussa, one of whom made his obeisance and vanished immediately; the other was an extremely handsome young man of twenty-five, private secretary to the Sultan: with the face of a woman, and two large brown eyes of indescribable softness; gay, graceful, and nervous, continually pulling with his hand at the folds of his ample orange-colored caftan.
Bacalì and the Ambassador having gone out, we remained, with some officials seated on the floor, and the Sultan’s secretary on a chair, in honor of us.
He immediately began a conversation through Mohammed Ducali. Fixing his eyes on Ussi, he asked who he was.
“It is Signor Ussi,” answered Ducali; “a distinguished painter.”
“Does he paint with the machine?” asked the young man. He meant the photographic instrument.
“No, Signore,” replied the interpreter; “he paints with his hand.”
He seemed to say to himself, “What a pity!” and remained a moment thoughtful. Then he said, “I asked, because with the machine the work is more precise.”
The commandant begged Ducali to ask him whereabouts in Fez was the fountain called Ghalù, after a robber whom Edris, the founder of the city, had caused to be nailed to a tree near by. The young secretary was excessively astonished that the commandant should know this particular story, and asked how he came to know it.
“I read it in Kaldun’s history,” answered the commandant.
“In Kaldun’s history!” exclaimed the other. “Have you read Kaldun? Then you understand Arabic? And where did you find Kaldun’s history?”
The commandant replied that the book was to be found in all our cities; that it was perfectly well known in Europe, and that it had been translated into English, French, and German.
Moor Of Fez.Moor Of Fez.
Moor Of Fez.
Moor Of Fez.
“Really!” exclaimed the ingenuous young fellow. “You have all read it! and you know all these things! I never should have imagined it!”
Gradually the conversation became general, theofficials also joining in it, and we heard some singular things. The English Ambassador had presented to the Sultan two telegraphic machines, and had taught some of the court people how to use them; and they were used, not publicly, because the sight of those mysterious wires in the city would cause disturbance, but in the interior of the palace; and words could not express the astonishment they excited. Not, however, to the point that we might suppose, because, from what they had first heard, they all, including the Sultan, had conceived a much more wonderful idea of it; for they believed that the transmission of the thought was not effected by means of letters and words, but at once, instantaneously, so that a touch was sufficient to express and transmit any speech. They recognized, however, that the instrument was ingenious and might be very useful in our countries where there were many people and much traffic, and where every thing had to be done in a hurry. All of which signified in plain words: what should we do with a telegraph? And to what would the policy of our government be reduced if to the demands of the representatives of European States we were obliged to reply at once and in few words, and renounce the great excuse of delays, and the eternal pretext of lost letters, thanks to which we can protract for two months, questions that could be answered in two days? We learned also, or rather we were given to understand, that the Sultan is a man of amild disposition and a kind heart, who lives austerely, who loves one woman only, who eats without a fork, like all his subjects, and seated on the floor, but with the dishes placed upon a little gilded table about a foot high; that before coming to the throne he drilled with the soldiers, and was one of the most active among them; that he likes to work, and often does himself what ought to be done by his servants, even to packing his own things when he goes away; and that the people love him, but also fear him, because they know that should a great revolt break out, he would be the first to spring on horseback and draw his sabre against the rebels.
But with what grace they told us all these things! with what smiles and elegant gestures! What a pity not to be able to understand their language, all color and imagery, and read and search at will in the ingenuous ignorance of their minds!
In about two hours’ time the Ambassador came back, with Sid-Moussa, the grand Scherif, and the officials; and there was such an interchange of hand-pressings, and smiles, and bows, and salutations, that we seemed to be engaged in some dance of ceremony; and finally we departed between two long rows of astonished servants. As we went out we saw at a large grated window on the ground-floor about ten faces of women, black, white, and mulatto, all be-jewelled and be-diademed; who, beholding us, instantly vanished with a great noise of flapping slippers and trailing skirts.
From the first day of our journey, the Sultan, Muley-el-Hassan, was, as may be imagined, the principal object of our curiosity. It was, then, a festival for us all when at last the Ambassador announced the reception for the following morning. I never in my life unfolded my dress-coat, or touched the spring of mygibus, with more profound complacency than on this occasion.
This great curiosity was produced, in part, by the history of his dynasty. There was the wish to look in the face of one of that terrible family of the Scherifs Fileli, to whom history assigns pre-eminence in fanaticism, ferocity, and crime, over all the dynasties that have ever reigned in Morocco. At the beginning of the seventeenth century some inhabitants of Tafilet, a province of the empire on the confines of the desert, the Scherifs of which take the name of Fileli, brought from Mecca into their country a Scherif named Ali, a native of Jambo, and a descendant of Mahomet, by Hassen, the second son of Ali and Fatima. The climate of the province of Tafilet, a little after his arrival, resumed a mildness that it had for some time lost; dates grew in great abundance; the merit was attributed to Ali; Ali was elected king under the name of Muley-Scherif; his descendants gradually, by their arms, extended the kingdom of their ancestor; they took possession of Morocco and Fez, drove out the dynasty of the Saadini Scherifs, and have reigned up to our day over the whole countrycomprised between the Muluia, the desert, and the sea. Sidi-Mohammed, son of Muley-Scherif, reigned with wise clemency; but after him the throne was steeped in blood. El Reschid governed by terror, usurped the office of executioner, and lacerated with his own hands the breasts of women, in order to force them to reveal the hiding-places of their husbands’ treasure. Muley-Ismail, the luxurious prince, the lover of eight thousand women, and father of twelve hundred sons, the founder of the famous corps of black guards, the gallant Sultan who asked in marriage of Louis XIV the daughter of the Duchess de la Vallière, and stuck ten thousand heads over the battlements of Morocco and Fez. Muley Ahmed el Dehebi, avaricious and a debauchee, stole the jewels of his father’s women, stupefied himself with wine, pulled out the teeth of his own wives, and cut off the head of a slave who had pressed the tobacco too much down into his pipe. Muley-Abdallah, vanquished by the Berbers, cut the throats of the inhabitants of Mechinez to satisfy his rage, aided the executioner in decapitating the officers of his brave but vanquished army, and invented the horrible torture of cooking a man alive inside a disembowelled bull, that the two might putrify together. The best of the race appears to have been Sidi-Mohammed, his son who surrounded himself with renegade Christians, tried to live at peace, and brought Morocco nearer to Europe. Then came Muley-Yezid, a cruel and violentfanatic, who, in order to pay his soldiers, gave them leave to sack and pillage the Hebrew quarters in all the cities of the empire; Muley-Hescham, who, after a reign of a few days, went into sanctuary to die; Muley-Soliman, who destroyed piracy, and made a show of friendship to Europe, but with artful cunning separated Morocco from all civilized states, and caused to be brought to the foot of his throne the heads of all renegade Jews from whom had escaped a word of regret for their forced abjuration; Abd-er-Raman, the conqueror of Isly, who built up conspirators alive into the walls of Fez; and, finally, Sidi-Mohammed, the victor of Tetuan, who, in order to inculcate respect and devotion in his people, sent the heads of his enemies to theduarsand cities, stuck upon his soldiers’ muskets. Nor are these the worst calamities that afflicted the empire under the fatal dynasty of the Fileli. There are wars with Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, France, and the Turks of Algiers; ferocious insurrections of Berbers, disastrous expeditions into the Soudan, revolts of fanatical tribes, mutinies of the black guard, persecutions of the Christians; furious wars of succession between father and son, uncle and nephew, brother and brother; the empire by turns dismembered and rejoined; sultans five times discrowned and five times reinstated; unnatural vengeance of princes of the same blood, jealousies and horrid crimes and monstrous suffering, and precipitate decline into antique barbarism; and at all timesone principle is triumphant: that not being able to admit European civilization unless upon the ruins of the entire political and religious edifice of the Prophet, ignorance is the best bulwark of the empire, and barbarism an element necessary to its life.
With these recollections surrounding him, the Sultan became an object of special interest, and we were impatient to appear before him.
At eight o’clock in the morning, the Ambassador, the vice-consul, Signor Morteo, the commandant, and the captain, dressed in their best uniforms, were assembled in the court-yard, with a throng of soldiers, among whom the caid appeared in great pomp. We—that is to say, the two artists, the doctor, and myself, all four appeared in dress-coats,gibushats, and white cravats—dared not issue from our rooms in the fear that our strange costume, perhaps never before seen in Fez, might draw upon us the laughter of the public. “You go first.”—“No, you.”—“No, you,”—thus for a quarter of an hour, one trying to push the other out at the door. Finally, after a sage observation from the doctor that union made strength, we all came out together in a group, with our heads down and hats pulled over our eyes. Our appearance in the court-yard produced amazement among the soldiers and servants of the palace, some of whom hid themselves behind the pillars to laugh at their ease. But it was another thing in the city. We mounted ourhorses, and proceeded toward the gate of theNicchia del Burro, with a company of the red division of infantry leading the way, followed by all the soldiers of the Legation, and flanked by officials, interpreters, masters of ceremony, and horsemen of the escort of Ben-Kasen-Buhammei. It was a fine spectacle, that mingling of tall hats and white turbans, diplomatic uniforms and red caftans, gold-mounted swords and barbaric sabres, yellow gloves and black hands, gilded pantaloons and bare legs; and the figure that we four made, in evening dress, mounted on mules, upon scarlet saddles as high as thrones, covered with dust and perspiration, may be left to the imagination. The streets were full of people; at our appearance they all stopped and formed into two lines. They looked at the plumed hat of the Ambassador, the gold cord of the captain, the medals of the commandant, and gave no sign of wonder; but when we four passed by, who were the last, there was an opening of eyes and an exhilaration of countenance that was truly trying. Mohammed-Ducali rode near us, and we begged him to translate for us some of the observations which he caught in passing. A Moor standing with a number of others said something to which the rest seemed to assent. Ducali laughed, and told us they took us for executioners. Some—perhaps because black is odious to the Moors—looked at us almost with anger and disdain; others shook their heads with a look of commiseration.
“Signori,” said the doctor, “if we do not make ourselves respected it is our own fault. We have arms; let us use them. I will set the example.”
Thus speaking, he took off hisgibushat, shut down the spring, and passing before a group of smiling Moors, suddenly sprung it at them. The wonder and agitation of them at the sight cannot be expressed. Three or four sprang backward, and threw a glance of profound suspicion upon the diabolical hat. The artists and I, encouraged by the example, imitated him; and thus, by dint of ourgibus, we arrived, respected and feared, at the city walls.
Outside the gate of theNicchia del Burrowere ranged two rows of infantry soldiers, in great part boys, who presented arms in their usual fashion, one after the other, and when we had passed, put their uniforms over their heads to shelter them from the sun. We crossed the Pearl River by a small bridge, and found ourselves in the place destined for the reception, where we all dismounted.
It was a vast square, closed on three sides by high battlemented walls with large towers. On the fourth side ran the River of Pearls. In the corner furthest from us opened a narrow road bordered by white walls, which led to the gardens and houses of the Sultan, completely concealed by bastions.