WELL IN MARRAKESHWELL IN MARRAKESH
"Then the Father of the Faithful, the Ever Victorious," continued the True Believer, "decreed that the tolba should have a festival. And every year they meet in Marrakesh and Fez, and choose a talib who is to rule over them. The post is put up to auction; he who bids highest is Sultan for a week. He rides abroad on a fine horse or mule, under a M'dhal, as though he were indeed My Lord Abd-el-Aziz himself. Black slaves on either side brush away the flies with their white clothes, soldiers await to do his bidding, he is permitted to make a request to the true Sultan, and our Master has open ear and full hand for the tolba, who kept the Moghreb from the Unbelievers, the inheritors of the Fire, against whom Sidna Mohammed has turned his face."
I arrived in Marrakesh just too late to witness the reign of the talib, but I heard that the successful candidate had paid thirty-two dollars for the post—a trifle less than five pounds in our money, at the rate of exchange then current. This money had been divided among the tolba. The governor of Marrakesh had given the lucky king one hundred dollars in cash, thirty sheep, twenty-five cones of sugar, forty jars of butter, and several sacks of flour. This procedure is peculiar to the Southern capital. In Fez the tolba kings collect taxes in person from every householder.
The talib's petition to the Sultan had been framed on a very liberal scale. He asked for a home in Saffi, exemption from taxes, and a place in the custom-house. The Sultan had not responded to the petition when I left the city; he was closely beleaguered in Fez, and Bu Hamara was occupying Taza, the ancient city where the deed of the tolba had first instituted the quaint custom. My informant said there was little doubt but that his Shareefian majesty would grant all the requests, so the talib's investment of thirty-two dollars must be deemed highly profitable. At the same time I cannot find the story I was told confirmed by Moorish historians. No record to which I have had access tells of a Jewish king of Taza, though there was a Hebrew in high favour there in the time of Rasheed II. The details of the story told me are, as the American scribe said, probably attributable to Mr. Benjamin Trovato.
When the attractions of Kaisariyah palled, the markets beyond the walls never failed to revive interest in the city's life. The Thursday market outside the Bab al Khamees brought together a very wonderful crowd of men and goods. All the city's trade in horses, camels, and cattle was done here. The caravan traders bought or hired their camels, and there were fine animals for sale with one fore and one hind leg hobbled, to keep them from straying. The camels were always the most interesting beasts on view. For the most part their attendants were Saharowi, who could control them seemingly by voice or movement of the hand; but a camel needs no little care, particularly at feeding time, when he is apt to turn spiteful if precedence be given to an animal he does not like. They are marvellously touchy and fastidious creatures—quite childlike in many of their peculiarities.
A BAZAAR, MARRAKESHA BAZAAR, MARRAKESH
The desert caravan trade is not what it was since the French occupied Timbuctoo and closed the oases of Tuat; but I saw some caravans arrive from the interior—one of them from the sandy region where Mons. Lebaudy has set up his kingdom. How happy men and beasts seemed to be. I never saw camels looking so contented: the customary sneer had passed from their faces—or accumulated dust had blotted it out. On the day when the market is held in the open place beyond the Bab al Khamees, there is another big gathering within the city walls by the Jamáa Effina. Here acrobats and snake-charmers and story-tellers ply their trade, and never fail to find an audience. The acrobats come from Tarudant and another large city of the Sus that is not marked in the British War Office Map of Morocco dated 1889! Occasionally one of these clever tumblers finds his way to London, and is seen at the music halls there.
I remember calling on one Hadj Abdullah when I was in the North, and to my surprise he told me he spoke English, French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Moghrebbin Arabic, and Shilha. "I know London well," he said; "I have an engagement to bring my troupe of acrobats to theCanterburyand theOxford. I am a member of a Masonic Lodge in Camberwell." Commonplace enough all this, but when you have ridden out of town to a little Moorish house on the hillside overlooking the Mediterranean, and are drinking green tea flavoured with mint, on a diwan that must be used with crossed legs, you hardly expect the discussion to be turned to London music-halls.
Snake-charmers make a strong appeal to the untutored Moorish crowd. Black cobras and spotted leffa snakes from the Sus are used for the performance. When the charmer allows the snakes to dart at him or even to bite, the onlookers put their hands to their foreheads and praise Sidi ben Aissa, a saint who lived in Mequinez when Mulai Ismail ruled, a pious magician whose power stands even to-day between snake-charmers and sudden death. The musician who accompanies the chief performer, and collects thefloosoffered by spectators, works his companion into a condition of frenzy until he does not seem to feel the teeth of the snakes; but as people who should be well informed declare that the poison bags are always removed before the snakes are used for exhibition, it is hard for the mere Unbeliever to render to Sidi ben Aissa the exact amount of credit that may be due to him.
A BRICKFIELD, MARRAKESHA BRICKFIELD, MARRAKESH
The story-teller, whose legends are to be found in the "Thousand Nights and a Night," is generally a merry rogue with ready wit. His tales are told with a wealth of detail that would place them upon the index expurgatorius of the Western world, but men, women, and children crowd round to hear them, and if his tale lacks the ingredients most desired they do not hesitate to tell him so, whereupon he will respond at once to his critics, and add love or war in accordance with their instructions. One has heard of something like this in the serial market at home. His reward is scanty, like that of his fellow-workers, the acrobat and the snake charmer, but he has quite a professional manner, and stops at the most exciting points in his narrative for his companion to make a tour of the circle to collect fees. The quality of the adventures he retails is settled always by the price paid for them.
It is a strange sight, and unpleasant to the European, who believes that his morality, like his faith, is the only genuine article, to see young girls with antimony on their eyelids and henna on their nails, listening to stories that only the late Sir Richard Burton dared to render literally into the English tongue. While these children are young and impressionable they are allowed to run wild, but from the day when they become self-conscious they are strictly secluded.
Throughout Marrakesh one notes a spirit of industry. If a man has work, he seems to be happy and well content. Most traders are very courteous and gentle in their dealings, and many have a sense of humour that cannot fail to please. While in the city I ordered one or two lamps from a workman who had a little shop in the Madinah. He asked for three days, and on the evening of the third day I went to fetch them, in company with Salam. The workman, who had made them himself, drew the lamps one by one from a dark corner, and Salam, who has a hawk's eye, noticed that the glass of one was slightly cracked.
"Have a care, O Father of Lamps," he said; "the Englishman will not take a cracked glass."
"What is this," cried the Lamps' Father in great anger, "who sells cracked lamps? If there is a flaw in one of mine, ask me for two dollars."
Salam held the lamp with cracked glass up against the light. "Two dollars," he said briefly. The tradesman's face fell. He put his tongue out and smote it with his open hand.
"Ah," he said mournfully, when he had admonished the unruly member, "who can set a curb upon the tongue?"[26]
FOOTNOTES:[24]Mulai Rashed II.[25]The royal umbrella.[26]Cf. James iii. 8. But for a mere matter of dates, one would imagine that Luther detected the taint of Islam in James when he rejected his Epistle.
[24]Mulai Rashed II.
[24]Mulai Rashed II.
[25]The royal umbrella.
[25]The royal umbrella.
[26]Cf. James iii. 8. But for a mere matter of dates, one would imagine that Luther detected the taint of Islam in James when he rejected his Epistle.
[26]Cf. James iii. 8. But for a mere matter of dates, one would imagine that Luther detected the taint of Islam in James when he rejected his Epistle.
A MOSQUE, MARRAKESHA MOSQUE, MARRAKESH
As to your slaves, see that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit a fault which ye are not willing to forgive, then sell them, for they are the servants of Allah, and are not to be tormented.—Mohammed's last Address.
As to your slaves, see that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit a fault which ye are not willing to forgive, then sell them, for they are the servants of Allah, and are not to be tormented.
—Mohammed's last Address.
In the bazaars of the brass-workers and dealers in cotton goods, in the bazaars of the saddlers and of the leather-sellers,—in short, throughout the Kaisariyah, where the most important trade of Marrakesh is carried on,—the auctions of the afternoon are drawing to a close. The dilals have carried goods to and fro in a narrow path between two lines of True Believers, obtaining the best prices possible on behalf of the dignified merchants, who sit gravely in their boxlike shops beyond the reach of toil. No merchant seeks custom: he leaves the auctioneers to sell for him on commission, while he sits at ease, a stranger to elation or disappointment, in the knowledge that the success or failure of the day's market is decreed. Many articles have changed hands, but there is now a greater attraction for men with money outside the limited area of the Kaisariyah, and I think the traffic here passes before its time.
The hour of the sunset prayer is approaching. The wealthier members of the community leave many attractive bargains unpursued, and, heedless of the dilals' frenzied cries, set out for the Sok el Abeed. Wool market in the morning and afternoon, it becomes the slave market on three days of the week, in the two hours that precede the setting of the sun and the closing of the city gates; this is the rule that holds in Red Marrakesh.
I follow the business leaders through a very labyrinth of narrow, unpaved streets, roofed here and there with frayed and tattered palmetto-leaves that offer some protection, albeit a scanty one, against the blazing sun. At one of the corners where the beggars congregate and call for alms in the name of Mulai Abd el Kader Ijjilalli, I catch a glimpse of the great Kutubia tower, with pigeons circling round its glittering dome, and then the maze of streets, shutting out the view, claims me again. The path is by way of shops containing every sort of merchandise known to Moors, and of stalls of fruit and vegetables, grateful "as water-grass to herds in the June days." Past a turning in the crowded thoroughfare, where many Southern tribesmen are assembled, and heavily-laden camels compel pedestrians to go warily, the gate of the slave market looms portentous.
A crowd of penniless idlers, to whom admittance is denied, clamours outside the heavy door, while the city urchins fight for the privilege of holding the mules of wealthy Moors, who are arriving in large numbers in response to the report that the household of a great wazeer, recently disgraced, will be offered for sale. One sees portly men of the city wearing the blue cloth selhams that bespeak wealth, country Moors who boast less costly garments, but ride mules of easy pace and heavy price, and one or two high officials of the Dar el Makhzan. All classes of the wealthy are arriving rapidly, for the sale will open in a quarter of an hour.
The portals passed, unchallenged, the market stands revealed—an open space of bare, dry ground, hemmed round with tapia walls, dust-coloured, crumbling, ruinous. Something like an arcade stretches across the centre of the ground from one side to the other of the market. Roofless now and broken down, as is the outer wall itself, and the sheds, like cattle pens, that are built all round, it was doubtless an imposing structure in days of old. Behind the outer walls the town rises on every side. I see mules and donkeys feeding, apparently on the ramparts, but really in a fandak overlooking the market. The minaret of a mosque rises nobly beside the mules' feeding-ground, and beyond there is the white tomb of a saint, with swaying palm trees round it. Doubtless this zowia gives the Sok el Abeed a sanctity that no procedure within its walls can besmirch; and, to be sure, the laws of the saint's religion are not so much outraged here as in the daily life of many places more sanctified by popular opinion.
On the ground, by the side of the human cattle pens, the wealthy patrons of the market seat themselves at their ease, arrange their djellabas and selhams in leisurely fashion, and begin to chat, as though the place were the smoking-room of a club. Water-carriers—lean, half-naked men from the Sus—sprinkle the thirsty ground, that the tramp of slaves and auctioneers may not raise too much dust. Watching them as they go about their work, with the apathy born of custom and experience, I have a sudden reminder of the Spanish bull-ring, to which the slave market bears some remote resemblance. The gathering of spectators, the watering of the ground, the sense of excitement, all strengthen the impression. There are no bulls in thetorils, but there are slaves in the pens. It may be that the bulls have the better time. Their sufferings in life are certainly brief, and their careless days are very long drawn out. But I would not give the impression that the spectators here are assembled for amusement, or that my view of some of their proceedings would be comprehensible to them. However I may feel, the other occupants of this place are here in the ordinary course of business, and are certainly animated by no such fierce passions as thrill through the air of a plaza de toros. I am in the East but of the West, and "never the twain shall meet."
A WATER-SELLER, MARRAKESHA WATER-SELLER, MARRAKESH
Within their sheds the slaves are huddled together. They will not face the light until the market opens. I catch a glimpse of bright colouring now and again, as some woman or child moves in the dim recesses of the retreats, but there is no suggestion of the number or quality of the penned.
Two storks sail leisurely from their nest on the saint's tomb, and a little company of white ospreys passes over the burning market-place with such a wild, free flight, that the contrast between the birds and the human beings forces itself upon me. Now, however, there is no time for such thoughts; the crowd at the entrance parts to the right and left, to admit twelve grave men wearing white turbans and spotless djellabas. They are the dilals, in whose hands is the conduct of the sale.
Slowly and impressively these men advance in a line almost to the centre of the slave market, within two or three yards of the arcade, where the wealthy buyers sit expectant. Then the head auctioneer lifts up his voice, and prays, with downcast eyes and outspread hands. He recites the glory of Allah, the One, who made the heaven above and the earth beneath, the sea and all that is therein; his brethren and the buyers say Amen. He thanks Allah for his mercy to men in sending Mohammed the Prophet, who gave the world the True Belief, and he curses Shaitan, who wages war against Allah and his children. Then he calls upon Sidi bel Abbas, patron saint of Marrakesh, friend of buyers and sellers, who praised Allah so assiduously in days remote, and asks the saint to bless the market and all who buy and sell therein, granting them prosperity and length of days. And to these prayers, uttered with an intensity of devotion quite Mohammedan, all the listeners say Amen. Only to Unbelievers like myself,—to men who have never known, or knowing, have rejected Islam,—is there aught repellent in the approaching business; and Unbelievers may well pass unnoticed. In life the man who has the True Faith despises them; in death they become children of the Fire. Is it not so set down?
Throughout this strange ceremony of prayer I seem to see the bull-ring again, and in place of the dilals the cuadrillas of the Matadors coming out to salute, before the alguazils open the gates of the toril and the slaying begins. The dramatic intensity of either scene connects for me this slave market in Marrakesh with the plaza de toros in the shadow of the Giralda tower in Sevilla. Strange to remember now and here, that the man who built the Kutubia tower for this thousand-year-old-city of Yusuf ben Tachfin, gave the Giralda to Andalusia.
Prayers are over—the last Amen is said. The dilals separate, each one going to the pens he presides over, and calling upon their tenants to come forth. These selling men move with a dignity that is quite Eastern, and speak in calm and impressive tones. They lack the frenzied energy of their brethren who traffic in the bazaars.
ON THE ROAD TO THE SÔK EL ABEEDON THE ROAD TO THE SÔK EL ABEED
Obedient to the summons, the slaves face the light, the sheds yield up their freight, and there are a few noisy moments, bewildering to the novice, in which the auctioneers place their goods in line, rearrange dresses, give children to the charge of adults, sort out men and women according to their age and value, and prepare for the promenade. The slaves will march round and round the circle of the buyers, led by the auctioneers, who will proclaim the latest bid and hand over any one of their charges to an intending purchaser, that he may make his examination before raising the price. In the procession now forming for the first parade, five, if not six, of the seven ages set out by the melancholy Jaques are represented. There are men and women who can no longer walk upright, however the dilal may insist; there are others of middle age, with years of active service before them; there are young men full of vigour and youth, fit for the fields, and young women, moving for once unveiled yet unrebuked, who will pass at once to the hareem. And there are children of every age, from babies who will be sold with their mothers to girls and boys upon the threshold of manhood and womanhood. All are dressed in bright colours and displayed to the best advantage, that the hearts of bidders may be moved and their purses opened widely.
"It will be a fine sale," says my neighbour, a handsome middle-aged Moor from one of the Atlas villages, who had chosen his place before I reached the market. "There must be well nigh forty slaves, and this is good, seeing that the Elevated Court is at Fez. It is because our Master—Allah send him more victories!—has been pleased to 'visit' Sidi Abdeslam, and send him to the prison of Mequinez. All the wealth he has extorted has been taken away from him by our Master, and he will see no more light. Twenty or more of these women are of his house."
Now each dilal has his people sorted out, and the procession begins. Followed by their bargains the dilals march round and round the market, and I understand why the dust was laid before the procession commenced.
Most of the slaves are absolutely free from emotion of any sort: they move round as stolidly as the blind-folded horses that work the water-wheels in gardens beyond the town, or the corn mills within its gates. I think the sensitive ones—and there are a few—must come from the household of the unfortunate Sidi Abdeslam, who was reputed to be a good master. Small wonder if the younger women shrink, and if the black visage seems to take on a tint of ashen grey, when a buyer, whose face is an open defiance of the ten commandments, calls upon the dilal to halt, and, picking one out as though she had been one of a flock of sheep, handles her as a butcher would, examining teeth and muscles, and questioning her and the dilal very closely about past history and present health. And yet the European observer must beware lest he read into incidents of this kind something that neither buyer nor seller would recognise. Novelty may create an emotion that facts and custom cannot justify.
THE SLAVE MARKETTHE SLAVE MARKET
"Ah, Tsamanni," says my gossip from the Atlas to the big dilal who led the prayers, and is in special charge of the children for sale, "I will speak to this one," and Tsamanni pushes a tiny little girl into his arms. The child kisses the speaker's hand. Not at all unkindly the Moor takes his critical survey, and Tsamanni enlarges upon her merits.
"She does not come from the town at all," he says glibly, "but from Timbuctoo. It is more difficult than ever to get children from there. The accursed Nazarenes have taken the town, and the slave market droops. But this one is desirable: she understands needlework, she will be a companion for your house, and thirty-five dollars is the last price bid."
"One more dollar, Tsamanni. She is not ill-favoured, but she is poor and thin. Nevertheless say one dollar more," says the Moor.
"The praise to Allah, who made the world," says the dilal piously, and hurries round the ring, saying that the price of the child is now thirty-six dollars, and calling upon the buyers to go higher.
I learn that the dilal's commission is two and a half per cent on the purchase price, and there is a Government tax of five per cent. Slaves are sold under a warranty, and are returned if they are not properly described by the auctioneer. Bids must not be advanced by less than a Moorish dollar (about three shillings) at a time, and when a sale is concluded a deposit must be paid at once, and the balance on or shortly after the following day. Thin slaves will not fetch as much money as fat ones, for corpulence is regarded as the outward and visible sign of health as well as wealth by the Moor.
"I have a son of my house," says the Moor from the Atlas, with a burst of confidence quite surprising. "He is my only one, and must have a playfellow, so I am here to buy. In these days it is not easy to get what one wants. Everywhere the French. The caravans come no longer from Tuat—because of the French. From Timbuctoo it is the same thing. Surely Allah will burn these people in a fire of more than ordinary heat—a furnace that shall never cool. Ah, listen to the prices," The little girl's market-value has gone to forty-four dollars—say seven pounds ten shillings in English money at the current rate of exchange. It has risen two dollars at a time, and Tsamanni cannot quite cover his satisfaction. One girl, aged fourteen, has been sold for no less than ninety dollars after spirited bidding from two country kaids; another, two years older, has gone for seventy-six.
"There is no moderation in all this," says the Atlas Moor, angrily. "But prices will rise until our Lord the Sultan ceases to listen to the Nazarenes, and purges the land. Because of their Bashadors we can no longer have the markets at the towns on the coasts. If we do have one there, it must be held secretly, and a slave must be carried in the darkness from house to house. This is shameful for an unconquered people."
I am only faintly conscious of my companion's talk and action, as he bids for child after child, never going beyond forty dollars. Interest centres in the diminishing crowd of slaves who still follow the dilals round the market in monotonous procession.
The attractive women and strong men have been sold, and have realised good prices. The old people are in little or no demand; but the auctioneers will persist until closing time. Up and down tramp the people nobody wants, burdens to themselves and their owners, the useless, or nearly useless men and women whose lives have been slavery for so long as they can remember. Even the water-carrier from the Sus country, who has been jingling his bright bowls together since the market opened, is moved to compassion, for while two old women are standing behind their dilal, who is talking to a client about their reserve price, I see him give them a free draught from his goat-skin water-barrel, and this kind action seems to do something to freshen the place, just as the mint and the roses of the gardeners freshen the alleys near the Kaisariyah in the heart of the city. To me, this journey round and round the market seems to be the saddest of the slaves' lives—worse than their pilgrimage across the deserts of the Wad Nun, or the Draa, in the days when they were carried captive from their homes, packed in panniers upon mules, forced to travel by night, and half starved. For then at least they were valued and had their lives before them, now they are counted as little more than the broken-down mules and donkeys left to rot by the roadside. And yet this, of course, is a purely Western opinion, and must be discounted accordingly.
It is fair to say that auctioneers and buyers treat the slaves in a manner that is not unkind. They handle them just as though they were animals with a market value that ill-treatment will diminish, and a few of the women are brazen, shameless creatures—obviously, and perhaps not unwisely, determined to do the best they can for themselves in any surroundings. These women are the first to find purchasers. The unsold adults and little children seem painfully tired; some of the latter can hardly keep pace with the auctioneer, until he takes them by the hand and leads them along with him. Moors, as a people, are wonderfully kind to children.
The procedure never varies. As a client beckons and points out a slave, the one selected is pushed forward for inspection, the history is briefly told, and if the bidding is raised the auctioneer, thanking Allah, who sends good prices, hurries on his way to find one who will bid a little more. On approaching an intending purchaser the slave seizes and kisses his hand, then releases it and stands still, generally indifferent to the rest of the proceedings.
DILALS IN THE SLAVE MARKETDILALS IN THE SLAVE MARKET
"It is well for the slaves," says the Atlas Moor, rather bitterly, for the fifth and last girl child has gone up beyond his limit. "In the Mellah or the Madinah you can get labour for nothing, now the Sultan is in Fez. There is hunger in many a house, and it is hard for a free man to find food. But slaves are well fed. In times of famine and war free men die; slaves are in comfort. Why then do the Nazarenes talk of freeing slaves, as though they were prisoners, and seek to put barriers against the market, until at last the prices become foolish? Has not the Prophet said, 'He who behaveth ill to his slave shall not enter into Paradise'? Does that not suffice believing people? Clearly it was written, that my little Mohammed, my first born, my only one, shall have no playmate this day. No, Tsamanni: I will bid no more. Have I such store of dollars that I can buy a child for its weight in silver?"
The crowd is thinning now. Less than ten slaves remain to be sold, and I do not like to think how many times they must have tramped round the market. Men and women—bold, brazen, merry, indifferent—have passed to their several masters; all the children have gone; the remaining oldsters move round and round, their shuffling gait, downcast eyes, and melancholy looks in pitiful contrast to the bright clothes in which they are dressed for the sale, in order that their own rags may not prejudice purchasers.
Once again the storks from the saint's tomb pass over the market in large wide flight, as though to tell the story of the joy of freedom. It is the time of the evening promenade. The sun is setting rapidly and the sale is nearly at an end.
"Forty-one dollars—forty-one," cries the dilal at whose heels the one young and pretty woman who has not found a buyer limps painfully. She is from the Western Soudan, and her big eyes have a look that reminds me of the hare that was run down by the hounds a few yards from me on the marshes at home in the coursing season.
"Why is the price so low?" I ask.
"She is sick," said the Moor coolly: "she cannot work—perhaps she will not live. Who will give more in such a case? She is of kaid Abdeslam's household, though he bought her a few weeks before his fall, and she must be sold. But the dilal can give no warranty, for nobody knows her sickness. She is one of the slaves who are bought by the dealers for the rock salt of El Djouf."
Happily the woman seems too dull or too ill to feel her own position. She moves as though in a dream—a dream undisturbed, for the buyers have almost ceased to regard her. Finally she is sold for forty-three dollars to a very old and infirm man.
"No slaves, no slaves," says the Atlas Moor impatiently: "and in the town they are slow to raise them." I want an explanation of this strange complaint.
"What do you mean when you say they are slow to raise them," I ask.
"In Marrakesh now," he explains, "dealers buy the healthiest slaves they can find, and raise as many children by them as is possible. Then, so soon as the children are old enough to sell, they are sold, and when the mothers grow old and have no more children, they too are sold, but they do not fetch much then."
This statement takes all words from me, but my informant sees nothing startling in the case, and continues gravely: "From six years old they are sold to be companions, and from twelve they go to the hareems. Prices are good—too high indeed; fifty-four dollars I must have paid this afternoon to purchase one, and when Mulai Mohammed reigned the price would have been twenty, or less, and for that one would have bought fat slaves. Where there is one caravan now, there were ten of old times."
Only three slaves now, and they must go back to their masters to be sent to the market on another day, for the sun is below the horizon, the market almost empty, and the guards will be gathering at the city gates. Two dilals make a last despairing promenade, while their companions are busy recording prices and other details in connection with the afternoon's business. The purchased slaves, the auctioneer's gaudy clothing changed for their own, are being taken to the houses of their masters. We who live within the city walls must hasten now, for the time of gate-closing is upon us, and one may not stay outside.
It has been a great day. Many rich men have attended personally, or by their agents, to compete for the best favoured women of the household of the fallen kaid, and prices in one or two special cases ran beyond forty pounds (English money), so brisk was the bidding.
Outside the market-place a country Moor of the middle class is in charge of four young boy slaves, and is telling a friend what he paid for them. I learn that their price averaged eleven pounds apiece in English currency—two hundred and eighty dollars altogether in Moorish money, that they were all bred in Marrakesh by a dealer who keeps a large establishment of slaves, as one in England might keep a stud farm, and sells the children as they grow up. The purchaser of the quartette is going to take them to the North. He will pass the coming night in a fandak, and leave as soon after daybreak as the gates are opened. Some ten days' travel on foot will bring him to a certain city, where his merchandise should fetch four hundred dollars. The lads do not seem to be disturbed by the sale, or by thoughts of their future, and the dealer himself seems to be as near an approach to a commercial traveller as I have seen in Morocco. To him the whole transaction is on a par with selling eggs or fruit, and while he does not resent my interest, he does not pretend to understand it.
From the minaret that overlooks the mosque the mueddin calls for the evening prayer; from the side of the Kutubia Tower and the minaret of Sidi bel Abbas, as from all the lesser mosques, the cry is taken up. Lepers pass out of the city on their way to Elhara; beggars shuffle off to their dens; storks standing on the flat house-tops survey the familiar scene gravely but with interest. Doubtless the dilals and all who sent their slaves to the market to be sold this afternoon will respond to the mueddins' summons with grateful hearts, and Sidi bel Abbas, patron saint of Red Marrakesh, will hardly go unthanked.
ON THE HOUSE-TOP, MARRAKESHON THE HOUSE-TOP, MARRAKESH
Whither resorting from the vernal HeatShall Old Acquaintance Old Acquaintance greet,Under the Branch that leans above the WallTo shed his Blossom over head and feet.The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
Whither resorting from the vernal HeatShall Old Acquaintance Old Acquaintance greet,Under the Branch that leans above the WallTo shed his Blossom over head and feet.
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
He was a grave personable Moor of middle age, and full of the dignity that would seem to be the birthright of his race. His official position gave him a certain knowledge of political developments without affecting his serene outlook upon life. Whether he sat outside the Kasbah of his native town and administered the law according to his lights, or, summoned to the capital, rode attended so far as the Dar el Makhzan, there to take his part in a council of the Sultan's advisers, or whether, removed for a time from cares of office, he rested at ease among his cushions as he was doing now, this Moorish gentleman's placid and unruffled features would lead the Western observer to suppose that he was a very simple person with no sort of interest in affairs. I had occasion to know him, however, for a statesman, after the Moorish fashion—a keen if resigned observer of the tragic-comedy of his country's politics, and a pious man withal, who had visited Mecca in the month that is called Shawall, and had cast stones on the hill of Arafat, as the custom is among True Believers. Some years had passed since our first meeting, when I was the bearer of a letter of introduction written by a high official in the intricate Arabic character. It began: "Praise be to God! The blessing of Allah on our Lord Mohammed, and his peace upon Friends and Followers." Irrelevant perhaps all this, but the letter had opened the portals of his house to me, and had let loose for my benefit thoughts not lightly to be expressed.
Now we sat side by side on cushions in his patio, partly shaded by a rose tree that climbed over trellis-work and rioted in bud and blossom. We drank green tea flavoured with mint from tiny glasses that were floridly embossed in gilt. Beyond the patio there was a glimpse of garden ablaze with colour; we could hear slaves singing by the great Persian water-wheel, and the cooing of doves from the shaded heart of trees that screened a granary.
"Since Mulai el Hasan died," said the Hadj quietly, "since that Prince of Believers went to his Pavilion in Paradise, set among rivers in an orchard of never-failing fruit, as is explained in the Most Perspicuous Book,[27]troubles have swept over this land, even as El Jerad, the locust, comes upon it before the west wind has risen to blow him out to sea."
He mused awhile, as though the music of the garden pleased him.
"Even before the time of my Lord el Hasan," he went on, "there had been troubles enough. I can remember the war with Spain, though I was but a boy. My father was among those who fell at Wad Ras on the way to Tanjah of the Nazarenes. But then your country would not permit these Spanish dogs to steal our land, and even lent the money to satisfy and keep them away. This was a kindly deed, and Mulai Mohammed, our Victorious Master, opened his heart to your Bashador[28]and took him to his innermost councils. And I can remember that great Bashador of yours when he came to this city and was received in the square by the Augdal gardens. Our Master the Sultan came before him on a white horse[29]to speak gracious words under the M'dhal, that shades the ruling House.
"A strong man was our Master the Sultan, and he listened carefully to all your Bashador said, still knowing in his heart that this country is not as the land of the Nazarenes, and could not be made like it in haste. His wazeers feared change, the Ulema[30]opposed it so far as they dared, and that you know is very far, and nothing could be done rapidly after the fashion of the West. My Lord understood this well.
"Then that King of the Age and Prince of True Believers fulfilled his destiny and died, and my Lord el Hasan, who was in the South, reigned in his stead.[31]And the troubles that now cover the land began to grow and spread."
He sipped his tea with grave pleasure. Two female slaves were peering at the Infidel through the branches of a lemon tree, just beyond the patio, but when their master dropped his voice the heads disappeared suddenly, as though his words had kept them in place. In the depths of the garden close, Oom el Hasan, the nightingale, awoke and trilled softly. We listened awhile to hear the notes "ring like a golden jewel down a golden stair."
A HOUSE INTERIOR, MARRAKESHA HOUSE INTERIOR, MARRAKESH
"My Lord el Hasan," continued the Hadj, "was ever on horseback; with him the powder was always speaking. First Fez rejected him, and he carried fire and sword to that rebellious city. Then Er-Riff refused to pay tribute and he enforced it—Allah make his kingdom eternal. Then this ungrateful city rebelled against his rule and the army came south and fed the spikes of the city gate with the heads of the unfaithful. Before he had rested, Fez was insolent once again, and on the road north our Master, the Ever Victorious, was (so to say, as the irreligious see it) defeated by the Illegitimate men from Ghaita, rebels against Allah, all, and his house[32]was carried away. There were more campaigns in the North and in the South, and the Shareefian army ate up the land, so that there was a famine more fatal than war. After that came more fighting, and again more fighting. My lord sought soldiers from your people and from the French, and he went south to the Sus and smote the rebellious kaids from Tarudant to High. So it fell out that my Lord was never at peace with his servants, but the country went on as before, with fighting in the north and the south and the east and the west. The devil ships of the Nazarene nations came again and again to the bay of Tanjah to see if the Prince of the Faithful were indeed dead, as rumour so often stated. But he was strong, my Lord el Hasan, and not easy to kill. In the time of a brief sickness that visited him the French took the oases of Tuat, which belongs to the country just so surely as does this our Marrakesh. They have been from times remote a place of resting for the camels, like Tindouf in the Sus. But our Master recovered his lordship with his health, and the French went back from our land. After that my Lord el Hasan went to Tafilalt over the Atlas, never sparing himself. And when he returned to this city, weary and very sick, at the head of an army that lacked even food and clothing, the Spaniards were at the gates of Er-Riff once more, and the tribes were out like a fire of thorns over the northern roads. But because the span allotted him by destiny was fulfilled, and also because he was worn out and would not rest, my Lord Hasan died near Tadla; and Ba Ahmad, his chief wazeer, hid his death from the soldiers until his son Abd-el-Aziz was proclaimed."
There was a pause here, as though my host were overwhelmed with reflections and was hard driven to give sequence to his narrative. "Our present Lord was young," he continued at last thoughtfully; "he was a very young man, and so Ba Ahmad spoke for him and acted for him, and threw into prison all who might have stood before his face. Also, as was natural, he piled up great stores of gold, and took to his hareem the women he desired, and oppressed the poor and the rich, so that many men cursed him privately. But for all that Ba Ahmad was a wise man and very strong. He saw the might of the French in the East, and of the Bashadors who pollute Tanjah in the North; he remembered the ships that came to the waters in the West, and he knew that the men of these ships want to seize all the foreign lands, until at last they rule the earth even as they rule the sea. Against all the wise men of the Nazarenes who dwell in Tanjah the wazeer fought in the name of the Exalted of God,[33]so that no one of them could settle on this land to take it for himself and break into the bowels of the earth. To be sure, in Wazzan and far in the Eastern country the accursed French grew in strength and in influence, for they gave protection, robbing the Sultan of his subjects. But they took little land, they sent few to Court, the country was ours until the wazeer had fulfilled his destiny and died. Allah pardon him, for he was a man, and ruled this country, as his Master before him, with a rod of very steel."
"But," I objected, "you told me formerly that while he lived no man's life or treasure was safe, that he extorted money from all, that he ground the faces of the rich and the poor, that when he died in this city, the Marrakshis said 'A dog is dead.' How now can you find words to praise him?"
"The people cry out," explained the Hadj calmly; "they complain, but they obey. In the Moghreb it is for the people to be ruled as it is for the rulers to govern. Shall the hammers cease to strike because the anvil cries out? Truly the prisons of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz were full while Ba Ahmad ruled, but all who remained outside obeyed the law. No man can avoid his fate, even my Lord el Hasan, a fighter all the days of his life, loved peace and hated war. But his destiny was appointed with his birth, and he, the peaceful one, drove men yoked neck and neck to fight for him, even a whole tribe of the rebellious, as these eyes have seen. While Ba Ahmad ruled from Marrakesh all the Moghreb trembled, but the roads were safe, as in the days of Mulai Ismail,—may God have pardoned him,—the land knew quiet seasons of sowing and reaping, the expeditions were but few, and it is better for a country like ours that many should suffer than that none should be at rest."
I remained silent, conscious that I could not hope to see life through my host's medium. It was as though we looked at his garden through glasses of different colour. And perhaps neither of us saw the real truth of the problem underlying what we are pleased to call the Moorish Question.
A GLIMPSE OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAINSA GLIMPSE OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS
"When the days of the Grand Wazeer were fulfilled," the Hadj continued gravely, "his enemies came into power. His brother the War Minister and his brother the Chamberlain died suddenly, and he followed them within the week. No wise man sought too particularly to know the cause of their death. Christians came to the Court Elevated by Allah, and said to my Lord Abd-el-Aziz, 'Be as the Sultans of the West.' And they brought him their abominations, the wheeled things that fall if left alone, but support a man who mounts them, as I suppose, in the name of Shaitan; the picture boxes that multiply images of True Believers and, being as the work of painters,[34]are wisely forbidden by the Far Seeing Book; carriages drawn by invisible djinoon, who scream and struggle in their fiery prison but must stay and work, small sprites that dance and sing.[35]The Christians knew that my Lord was but a young man, and so they brought these things, and Abd-el-Aziz gave them of the country's riches, and conversed with them familiarly, as though they had been of the house of a Grand Shareef. But in the far east of the Moghreb the French closed the oases of Tuat and Tidikelt without rebuke, and burnt Ksor and destroyed the Faithful with guns containing green devils,[36]and said, 'We do all this that we may venture abroad without fear of robbers.' Then my Lord sent the War Minister, the kaid Maheddi el Menebhi, to London, and he saw your Sultan face to face. And your Sultan's wazeers said to him, 'Tell the Lord of the Moghreb to rule as we rule, to gather his taxes peaceably and without force, to open his ports, to feed his prisoners, to follow the wisdom of the West. If he will do this, assuredly his kingdom shall never be moved.' Thereafter your Sultan's great men welcomed the kaid yet more kindly, and showed him all that Allah the One had given them in his mercy, their palaces, their workplaces, their devil ships that move without sails over the face of the waters, and their unveiled women who pass without shame before the faces of men. And though the kaid said nothing, he remembered all these things.
"When he returned, and by the aid of your own Bashador in Tanjah prevailed over the enemies who had set snares in his path while he fared abroad, he stood up before my Lord and told him all he had seen. Thereupon my Lord Abd-el-Aziz sought to change that which had gone before, to make a new land as quickly as the father of the red legs[37]builds a new nest, or the boar of the Atlas whom the hunter has disturbed finds a new lair. And the land grew confused. It was no more the Moghreb, but it assuredly was not as the lands of the West.
"In the beginning of the season of change the French were angry. 'All men shall pay an equal tax throughout my land,' said the King of the Age, and the Bashador of the French said, 'Our protected subjects shall not yield even a handful of green corn to the gatherer.' Now when the people saw that the tax-gatherers did not travel as they were wont to travel, armed and ready to kill, they hardened their hearts and said, 'We will pay no taxes at all, for these men cannot overcome us.' So the tribute was not yielded, and the French Bashador said to the Sultan, 'Thou seest that these people will not pay, but we out of our abundant wealth will give all the money that is needed. Only sign these writings that set forth our right to the money that is brought by Nazarenes to the seaports, and everything will be well.'
"So the Sultan set his seal upon all that was brought before him, and the French sent gold to his treasury and more French traders came to his Court, and my Lord gave them the money that had come to him from their country, for more of the foolish and wicked things they brought. Then he left Marrakesh and went to Fez; and the Rogui, Bu Hamara,[38]rose up and waged war against him."
The Hadj sighed deeply, and paused while fresh tea was brought by a coal-black woman slave, whose colour was accentuated by the scarletridaupon her head, and the broad silver anklets about her feet. When she had retired and we were left alone once more, my host continued:—
"You know what happened after. My Lord Abd-el-Aziz made no headway against the Rogui, who is surely assisted by devils of the air and by the devils of France. North and south, east and west, the Moors flocked to him, for they said, 'The Sultan has become a Christian.' And to-day my Lord has no more money, and no strength to fight the Infidel, and the French come forward, and the land is troubled everywhere. But this is clearly the decree of Allah the All Wise, and if it is written that the days of the Filali Shareefs are numbered, even my Lord will not avoid his fate."
I said nothing, for I had seen the latter part of Morocco's history working itself out, and knew that the improved relations between Great Britain and France had their foundation in the change of front that kept our Foreign Office from doing for Morocco what it has done for other states divided against themselves, and what it had promised Morocco, without words, very clearly. Then, again, it was obvious to me, though I could not hope to explain it to my host, that the Moor, having served his time, had to go under before the wave of Western civilisation. Morocco has held out longer than any other kingdom of Africa, not by reason of its own strength, but because the rulers of Europe could not afford to see the Mediterranean balance of power seriously disturbed. Just as Mulai Ismail praised Allah publicly two centuries ago for giving him strength to drive out the Infidel, when the British voluntarily relinquished their hold upon Tangier, so successive Moorish Sultans have thought that they have held Morocco for the Moors by their own power. And yet, in very sober truth, Morocco has been no more than one of the pawns in the diplomatic game these many years past.
We who know and love the country, finding in its patriarchal simplicity so much that contrasts favourably with the hopeless vulgarity of our own civilisation, must recognise in justice the great gulf lying between a country's aspect in the eyes of the traveller and in the mind of the politician.