BOOKIV.EL GARB.CHAPTER I.DEPARTURE FROM RABAT.I never had greater difficulties of the kind to encounter, than in getting away from Rabat. Ali Bey, in the narration of his pilgrimage, mentions that, after starting from some place, the whole caravan commenced a violent dispute about the loading of the animals; after lasting about two hours, it suddenly ceased. On inquiring the cause of this phenomenon, it was told him, that from such a place to such a place, “the Arabs dispute.” Our dispute had no limits, save those of the journey. A large party accompanied us across the water to the Salee side, and a slave of Mustafa Ducali’s privately suggested that it was a great pity that I should go away, that it was better to stay at Rabat than to go. “If you stay,” said he, “you will have a nice house like my master’s, and two or three pretty wives, the daughters of caïds.”We left the beach about two o’clock, turning to the right to avoid Salee: we passed through one of the gates of its old walls, enclosing the ancient harbour; turning again to the left, we passed between the gardens and the back of the city. When opposite one of the gates, we sent in for corn to carry with us, and I was much tempted to enter the forbidden city, but contained myself, not to commence dissensions with the guard at the very moment of starting.Rambling on while the guard awaited the messenger, we came on a cleft in the rock, the bottom occupied by an orange grove, most inviting, with its green lustre and deep shadow, cool, damp, dark, and fragrant. To this retreat, many a seafarer has returned to enjoy the fruits of his industry: how many a tender “Rover,” has been here formed by listening to his sire’s tales of Maltese galleys, Christian argosies and Andalusian maids. While we were looking from the backs of our horses over the wall that ran along the edge of the cliff, the proprietor came up, and invited us to descend: there was nothing piratical about him, so we yielded. The first flight of steps brought us to a small tank, covered with a trellis of vines, surrounded by a little walk, through which there were grooves for the water to circulate, without wetting your feet, and it fell from all sides into the tank in little cascades. At one side there was a little kiosk with a window opening upon the orange grove below. Here we found a party of Moors seated in one corner, and the inseparable tea-things in the other. My host hurried me down, and walked me all over the grounds, gathering sweet and bitter lemons and oranges, and seemingly anxious to stock me with a supply of every variety. Suddenly, having got me alone, he stopped, and with ominous signs and emphasis, pronounced the wordSerser! I was now in my turn anxious to know what he had to say, and wished to call a Jew I had got as an interpreter; but this he would not suffer, and seemed to expect to succeed in making me understand by speaking very close to my ear:—he was much opposed to the working of mines, and apprehensive of my safety. When I admired in one place the culture of the garden, he said, “this is the ‘Madem’ (mines) of the Arabs;” he then asked me to stay some days at Tangier, and he would come and see me there. On taking leave, he insisted on walking with me a quarter of a mile, till I was outside of the aqueduct, and in the open country, and gave me the name of a person at Larache, to whose house he desired me to go. This person was absent on my arrival there.Towards sunset we entered a douar, without asking anybody’s leave, and pitched in the middle of it without a question being asked us by any one: the change was as great as if one had fallen through from one century into another, yet all external objects were precisely the same. There were, however, only so many cottagers living in tents: we had entered a village, not a douar. Had I gone from Tangier to Rabat by land, I should, by passing through these successive changes, have become gradually familiarized with them; fortunately I had seen the southern country. Everything in this douar was for sale at extortionate prices, each bargain accompanied by great squabbling. The Sheik did come, and did bring, as a present, a jar of milk. This was all that recalled to me the tribes to the south.Early the next day we arrived at Medea. Lying on the edge of a ravine, we were almost at the gate before we saw it. Like the other towns, it is built at the estuary of a river, which descending through a chasm, has carved out through the rock and sand, its way to the ocean, where, met by a heavy surge, it heaps up a bar, which the waves incessantly lash.The fortress is a parallelogram. The contents in people, and in value, could not be equal to a douar. Below and between the town and the river, there is an enclosure of walls in the form of a rectangle, and about four hundred yards long: the walls are in Tapia, and vary from twenty to forty feet in height, and from five to seven in thickness. Seen from above, it appears like a labyrinth; there are large square spaces and passages running round them; the interval between the walls is at times not greater than their own thickness; there are no windows or doors, or the spring of arches for covering in. Bare dead walls compose the vast chambers, or narrow passages; a small aperture is seen here and there, by which a man might creep through. There is a Moorish gateway, but it is a modern addition. Being outside the fortress, and under it, this building could not have been intended in any way for defence. It was neither a reservoir for water, nor a store for merchandize. The deputy governor who accompanied me was perfectly certain that it was built by Christians: when I expressed doubts, he became angry, and vociferated loudly, “Eusara,” “Romani.” It was so fresh, that the walls might have been just finished or still in process of construction.I found the caïd superintending the mending of an oar. He reiterated his salutations of welcome at least a dozen times (it has to be repeated three times) and pressed me to stay that night, or at all events to dine. We, however, were anxious to get on, and the cattle were conducted down to the boat, while the caïd sent his deputy—who, like himself, every inch a Moor, is a negro in complexion, but whose features are European—to conduct me over the building I have already noticed.We intended here to get if possible fresh horses, not less on account of the wretched quality of those we had, than of the annoyance we suffered from their owners. After they had received their money, they wanted to decline performing the journey, and when I expressed surprise, they answered, “We have no law—we have no flag: we are neither Mussulmans, Jews, nor Christians.” This answer I comprehended, knowing them to be Oudaïas, a tribe broken and dispersed, and holding no ties with the world, its enemy—a Poland of the Desert.The boat in which we crossed was about forty feet by ten, pulled by a couple of oars. Their ingenuity had not arrived at making a platform for embarking cattle. The camels stride in fastly enough, and stow easily: they are made to crouch down head and tail, and a row of their strange heads projects over both sides. Getting in the horses is a laborious operation: they have to be unladen, and then walked into the water, and beaten until they spring in, first getting their fore-legs into the boat, and then with a second spring their hind-legs: some of them, however, are very expert. Our horses had to perform this operation four times between Rabat and Tangier—at Rabat, Medea, Larache, and Arzila.Just as we had got our cattle embarked, the caïd was seen on horseback winding his way down the rock. We put back to take him in; and he came into the stern, where we were seated upon our baggage, carrying in his hand a handkerchief containing a large provision of hard-boiled eggs. He said, “As you would not stay to eat, I had these boiled that you might not be hungry on the way.” One of the packages of majoon appearing amongst the baggage, the conversation turned upon that composition; and he told me that he was then going, in consequence of an order he had received that morning from the Sultan, to gather for him roots, from which another and superior kind of majoon was made, and which were only to be found at an hour’s distance from whence we were, and if we would wait for him at a certain well, he would himself bring a specimen of the plant. As soon as we reached the indicated place, he appeared on the hill above, coming towards us at full speed, and presented me with one of the roots, which was like a large parsnip: it appears to be the plant called surnag by Leo Africanus. He had also the consideration to bring some of the leaves, that I might recognise it again. I forgot to ask the mode of preparing it, which I have since been unable to ascertain, as it is not used by the people; though the most strange stories are told of its effects. It is said to have been discovered by the Emperor Ismael, and to its use is attributed the numerous progeny of that sovereign, reported at sixty births per month.The Seboo is the largest river of the kingdom of Fez; it is here about half a mile in width: the bar is so fierce as to be wholly impassable. It rises in the Atlas, and passes near Fez and through Mequinez. A branch of it passes through the city of Fez: it is there termed the “river of pearls,” and was formerly called the “river of gold.” It was once navigable as far as Fez, and it still has all the appearance of being so; yet the corn is carried thither to be ground at an expense of transport exceeding its value, and then the flour is carried back again, for at Fez they seem to have good mill-stones, and do not use the common sand-grit. But, probably, the navigation of the stream has been purposely disused, in pursuance of their standing policy of closing the door against Europeans, and sacrificing the advantages of the present to security for the future.The Seboo, more than any other river in Morocco, abounds with the shabel; that of Azimore is the finest in quality. It is about the size of a salmon, which it resembles: the flesh is soft, fat, and delicate, and those who have tasted the kiran of the Lake of Ochrida have eaten something that recalls it. The Seboo bore signs of passing through a chalk country, showing that the region around had still all the aspect of the Zahel. The river, while we crossed it, was covered with bees that were dropping in. There are thousands of hives in the neighbourhood: the bees were perishing in great quantities from its being a foggy morning.A broad and level beach of sand bordered the river, and exhibited a beautiful pattern in colours, resembling that Moorish ornament which is at once the richest and the commonest. On pointing it out to one of those who were with me, he exclaimed, “That is the figure on the Tower of Hassan.” It is so remarkable that it must have been imitated in their buildings. It is produced by there being sands of different colours, which also vary in size and specific gravity. Each warp of a wave sets them in motion, and then deposits them with mathematical precision. The river abounds with black sparkling grains of iron, which they use for dusting on their writing: this was the first time we had seen it. To the south there was no lime: the iron on the surface is red, being oxide: here the chalk commenced, and the iron is carbonate. Besides this, there are three or four sands of different shades of yellow and red, falling into different portions of the patterns. There is the blue,[212]brown, and yellow figure, as if laid on with a touch or stamped with a block. This beach presents at once the origin of the peculiar Moorish tracery and colouring, with which no other style has anything to compare.That night we encamped in a douar, which was near the southern extremity of the long marsh or lake, El Marga, which runs parallel to the sea. As we passed along its placid waters, we had on the left the incessant roar of the ocean, which we never saw. From the sea, the country must appear a perfectly barren waste; and yet, at the back of the cliffs, there was a vale of forty miles thickly peopled and well cultivated. The lake seemed very shallow, and was so covered with waterfowl that they might have been rained upon it. We saw some boats, not pulled with oars, but punted. The lake varied in width from one mile to five. The douars were close to each other all along its banks on both sides; but, on the side on which we were, the tents might be seen in lines, or irregularly scattered. They had seines and cast-nets, and the fish was chiefly a very fat but flavourless barbel. They did not shoot the water-fowl, but caught them with gins of horse-hair, into which they ran their necks while swimming. The swans, in one place seen from a great distance, appeared like a white streak: we could scarcely believe they were birds till we came near. Next to that on the Lake of Mexico, I imagine that this is the largest collection of waterfowl on earth.That night, when our people were at supper, there was an attempt made to carry off one of our horses. The alarm was given, not by the dogs, which only barked as usual, but by the women, who set up a frightful yelling—the classicululatus. We had pitched a little way from the tents to avoid the noise. After this, men were drafted from the douar to sleep and watch all round us. The robbers were suspected to be of the tribe of Azamor, near Mequinez, two of which tribe were sitting at supper with our people at the very time.The whole of the next day we travelled along the shore of the lake. We had in sight before us a range of hills, one of which was covered with snow; and here snow upon a mountain in the middle of winter is the sign of a greater height than it would be with us in the middle of summer. I performed most of the journey on foot, wearing only shirt and drawers; and I got away from the party that I might have a better chance of seeing the people, and I always met with the utmost kindness. They were always surprised that I was on foot, but never that I was alone. I was invited to their tents; or they would come running from a distance, bringing milk. I was amused with the alertness with which they always set to work to teach me Arabic words.About sunset, and after travelling ten hours, we came to the head of the lake, and chose for pitching, a sward on a projecting angle running into it, and some hundred yards from a douar. This was the first time that we got away from the tents, and I revelled in recalling the night’s repose of Eastern travel. The Arabs came and helped us to pitch; brought us all we required, and then made a blazing fire of cork-bark. As the night closed in, the water-fowl near us in the angle of the lake, came swimming in to a clump of bulrushes not fifty yards distant, just as tame ducks might do. There is abundance of boars in the neighbourhood; and the Sheik offered to turn out with all his tribe if I would stay or return for a day’s hunting.Next morning, while the animals were lading, I strayed along the water’s edge, and was suddenly assailed by a rush of dogs from the tents. With my back to the water, I defended myself with a stick for some time.[213]Presently, a woman and a girl ran down from the tents to the rescue; and after belabouring the dogs, and setting me free, they seemed overjoyed with their exploit, ejaculating incessantly, “Eh, Nazarene!” examining me all over, feeling my hair and skin, and bursting into fits of laughter. Our conversation, if notspirituelle, was lively. When the interpreter came up, I learnt that my deliverer was the wife of the Sheik: she was a comely middle-aged woman, with a head to delight a phrenologist. She said she had a question to ask me, if I would answer her. On my promising to do so, she resumed: “You have come to our country, and seen it: now, tell me which is best, your country or ours?” I answered her, “God is the father of all men, and the maker of all lands, and he has given to his children the land that best suits each: your country is good for you, and ours for us.” I in my turn proposed a question:—“In your country, which is a good country, tell me what is the best thing?” She reflected, and said, “We have no good things.” I then asked, “What are your bad things?” She answered, “God’s evils.” The explanation was, “old age and bad weather.” I told her that, if she had seen my country, she would know that with them the one was rare and the other late. She then asked how much I had seen of their country; and having told her that I had been into Shavoya, and amongst the Ziaides, she began to expatiate on her own tribe. “God,” she said, “has given us a fertile and a pretty land; he has given us plain, and forest, and marsh; he has put a sea beyond the hills, that no one should harm us; we have a lake that has fish and birds; we have cattle, sheep, milk, and butter; we have reeds, honey, and firewood; we have corn in store, and gold and silver; and, if we live under tents, and not in the city, it is because we choose it.” Our conversation was put an end to by the rest of the tribe thronging around us; and an old woman entertaining, or pretending, great alarm, a little pantomime was suddenly improvised. The Sheik formally announced that they had in their tents a slave escaped from England, whom it was their intention to deliver up that I might take her away, upon which they recounted her services and merits to show how useful a slave she was that they were giving up—and one of her services was to supply the douar with wild sows’ milk. On this the old woman ran for her life, and all the children after her: she was, however, caught, brought back, and delivered up, and by this time our horses were laden and we took our leave.Nothing can exceed the richness of the women’s hair—it falls like clusters of black grapes or knots of snakes: it is plaited on both sides of the head, and falls behind. They increase its volume by silk or worsted cords; and I could not help thinking that the hair of the women of Carthage was not so despicable a substitute for standing rigging, especially if they used, as the Jewesses to-day, a turban of silk thread (shoualif) made to imitate it.I here saw one of the boats. It was certainly the great grandfather of skiffs; the hollow tree, or monoxyllo, is to it a modern invention. It was simply a bundle of rushes tied together, and raised at the point like an Indian canoe, with “thwarts,” to keep it hollow: it was open at the stern, and floated merely by the buoyancy of the rushes. It had nothing in the form of fastening; no rulucks; and was propelled by a pole. I now sawthe“basket”[214]in which the mother of Moses placed her child, and which does not exactly tally with the notions of Poussin and Guercino. The name of the rushes isscaif, and that is the Arabic for ship. When I heard it before, I thought it must have been derived from the Greekσκάφη, which again is derived fromσκάπτω, to hollow out; whence alsoσκαπτὴζ, a digger,σκάφη, a ditch. If this be so, then the Arabs, in borrowing their word from the Greeks, proceeded to call by the same name a plant spread over the whole land; displacing the ancient name—which it must have had, as also the roots made from it, a thousand years—and before the Greek islands were visited by Cadmus. If this is too absurd, then the Arabs called the boats after the reed, and the Greeks, adopting from them the name, constructed out of it this root, their verbto hollow, and all its derivatives. The modern Greeks have not this word, but have taken the Arabic one for caravan (καράβι). The Arabs have the same word for boat and camel,merkeb, not because it is the “ship of the desert,” but because it is “mounted.”The Highlander calls a beehivescape, the French,ruche: the English “skiff” and “ship,” the German “schiff,” come all fromskaff. The Portuguese preserve the old Greek wordnaus.Bastimentoandbâtimentare frombeit, a house or building; and our sea-terms generally come from the Arabic. The aloe is calledkordean, which applies equally to the plant and to the fibres extracted from it. Thence we may have got theGordianknot. At all events, it is good as an etymon forcord. Their word for cord iskenab, from which the Greeks and Romans took their name for hemp. The continental name for pitch (alkitran, Spanish;goudron, French) is fromkitran; hammock, fromhamaca(Hebrew); cable, fromhabl(Arabic). The Greek word for boat-fare,ναῦλος, is from the Arabicnaulbabi, mother of harbours.[215]Frigateis mentioned as a Moorish name for longboats by a writer at the beginning of the last century, who says, “We call them brigantines.”[216]Brigantine or breck, seems to come fromcoffee-pot;ibrek, a coffee-pot.Corvetteis also Phœnician.[217]An Arab sailor mentioning the different winds, called the sirocco, shiloh. The same term is applied to the southern Brebers, which therefore designates the country from which they came, and makes the sirocco a derivative from the Arabic. Again,dabét, which they give to compasses, their compasses being made like our boats’ davits. The new French dictionary of the dialect of Algiers has the following words:spaolon, twine;dmane, helm;saboura, ballast. The Greek for twine isσπάον. The French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, &c., for helm istimonortimoni, and the common Levant term for ballast issavoura.After quitting the lake we ascended a hill, and passed by a saint’s tomb. I had not been so close to one before, and was surprised at their not leading me away from it. There were quantities of rushes lying around for sleeping on, and I found that it was a common practice for travellers to sleep there, as in the Heroa of Greece, where they were always secure. They even asked me if I had ever slept in one, so that the fanaticism of the towns is here unknown.The snow-white saints’ tombs are very beautiful, seen across the lakes, and reflected in them. The resemblance was striking with the Mussulman tombs of India. The half-globe is placed on the cube, and within the spandril the Gothic arch. Whether was the Indian building derived from the Moorish, or this from the Indian; for as yet, as in the other parts of Moorish architecture, I had not seen any natural type or human work from which it could be derived. The tents, however, had now assumed a new form, and looked like cottages, being closed in at the bottom by mats of reeds, made into hurdles, over which the tent itself stood, like a roof. The population is here more stationary. In the centre of the circle the mosque, instead of being a tent, was constructed with reeds, like a tall beehive; and, as they have no carpenters, the entrance was by a round hole, three feet from the ground, to prevent the entrance of pigs, cattle, sheep, or poultry, which might defile it.As we advanced, we found numbers of these beehives, sometimes one to each tent, and used as dormitories for the children.[218]While I was considering the origin of the tombs, I observed one of these cones, against which a square hurdle had been placed to close the orifice, and there was in rushes the perfect model of the stone building.The round hole is the origin of the horse-shoe arch, which is a circle slit down. The walls of the tombs are finished off with the ornaments, to represent the obtruding ends of the reeds in the hurdles. I was confirmed in this supposition when, on asking the name of the reeds, I was answered,Kasob, which is the name of a fortress,Kasaba. The first fortresses, or stocades, were of course constructed of reeds. I beheld in these shining edifices on the borders of this marsh, the rudiment of the swelling dome on the banks of the Tiber, and the type of the mausolea of Akbar and Jhanju, on those of the Indus. In their substance they are the very root of all building, as in their forms they are of all architecture.architectural formsI must refer the reader to what I have said elsewhere on Moorish and Gothic architecture.From our early studies probably no more pleasing impressions remain than those connected with the funereal solemnities of the ancients. The feeling they convey goes home to the mind, and the manner in which it is expressed, and the ceremonies, rites, and laws connected with it, take possession of our youthful imaginations. Indeed, funeral rites constitute in a great degree our idea of the life of antiquity, as funeral monuments furnish the largest proportion of its records. But, if we are thus moved in reading of what existed thousands of years ago, and are made to partake in the, to us, strange veneration that consecrated the tomb into a temple[219]—that converted it into a sanctuary for the criminal—that made it sacrilege to tread upon the grave[220]—that enjoined the utmost cleanliness in the arrangements and preservation of sepulchres, and (among the Jews) imposed the yearly white-washing of them—how much more so, in seeing those very practices amongst an extant people! Treading the Continent that bears the load of the Pyramids, the sight of these tombs suggests other reflections: the connexion of the honour of the dead with judgment on his acts—with recompense and punishment, and therefore with an after-existence—with a Creator of man, the Giver of life, the Receiver of the soul.[221]They prepared for the belief in a future state by creating for themselves a future here; and in the treatment of their mortal remains lay punishments and rewards, that surpassed any that present things, except in this anticipation, could furnish.In after times there was a superstitious veneration for the dead—not so in early times. The corpse was judged by those who had witnessed its life, before it received thehonoursof sepulture. Until this sentence was pronounced, the body was an uncleanly thing, and polluted those whom it touched. And thus the denial of sepulture remained for ages the direst of misfortunes that could befall a man, and the darkest dishonour that could be inflicted on his kindred. We have instances amongst the Jewish kings of both extremes;—a sepulchre raised for a good king above all the rest, and the ashes of a bad one cast out from the tombs of his ancestors.[222]And thus those wonderful structures which, of the earliest ages, will survive all that has since been constructed on the earth, are but evidences of the reverence paid to judgment at their death upon the lives of men. The height of the Pyramids assumed a scale in rating human conduct, and thereby conveyed the transcendant worth of those whose ashes they concealed.The first, the greatest structures thus rose, not to shelter the living, but to receive the dead. I am describing what I see around me. This land contains no houses but for the dead. The few cities are formed of edifices that resemble tombs, being built upon their model, in the forms that mourning piety had devised, and by the arts that sepulchral edifices have preserved.So also have the arts sprung from their hallowing and judging the dead. Painting and sculpture have their origin in the art of embalming. The covering presented the human form; the resemblance was completed by colour. The case that contained it was in like manner fashioned to preserve the likeness; and thus, in the first of solemn duties and ceremonies, in the cerement (wax-cloth) itself, were united, in primeval times, painting, sculpture, and carving. A step further was, to present, instead of the corpse, the man as alive, as reposing on, or rising out of his tomb. These we have in Etruria, calling into being or adopting a new art—that of the potter.In the centre of Africa it is a custom among some of the tribes for mothers who have lost young children, to carry about with them little wooden dolls to represent them; and to these they offer food whenever they themselves eat. Have we not here the origin of theimaginesof the Romans, derived from the Etruscans, derived by them from the Egyptians, as by these from the Abyssinians,—beyond whom we cannot ascend; and that people was the fellow race to the Lybians. And here we have uninterrupted the traditions which have floated down the Nile, crossed the Mediterranean, and flourished so long in ancient Europe.In a region where Islamism universally prevails, we might expect few traces of pagan ceremonies, and here Islamism was the successor of Christianity, so that there had twice been the sweeping away of the old land-marks; but here, at all events, it is not a thousand years that have made any difference—the differences are only in so far as positive change has been effected by some event—there has not been a perpetual process of change going on. This people is a true society:—the man perishes, but the society is deathless.In Barbary there are no longer the judges of the dead, or the scales and feather. There are no longer the games in their honour, the embalming of their bodies, or the sacrifices to their manes. No longer are mountains of granite piled on high, to signify their worth, nor caverns burrowed in the rock to prevent their dust from desecration; but still there is on the houseless waste the house of the dead, not of the common and vulgar, or the mighty and proud—but of the venerated, the saint by the decree of public judgment, whether misguided or not. There it stands in the form of ancient days, with its shady olive or locust grove—the only green spot that greets the eye, with its well or fountain for the thirsty to drink, where the weary may repose, or the devout may pray—here are safety for the wayfarer and sanctuary for the guilty.And meaner sepultures have not lost their all. Tread not where the dead repose; it is holy ground! not consecrated for their use, but hallowed by their presence: there the sorrowing festival is kept, there are gathered the mourners with the revolving sun; there the feast of the dead is prepared and left for the stranger to partake, and bless the memory of the departed. Is not this a record of ancient days?I cannot dismiss the subject without pointing to the strange contrast, in merely worldly sense or wisdom, between the careful attention, which marks all antiquity, to render the dead innocuous to the living, and our negligence in this respect. This negligence has cost more lives and suffering than probably all the swords of all the conquerors. Epidemics, endemics, slow fever or rapid plague, ever present in deep vengeance or savage fury, are the produce of our enlightened contempt for superstitions, and mark the imbecility of that intellectual presumption which blights in our hands the fruits of science, the impulses of benevolence, and the benefits of freedom. There was no plague in ancient Egypt, thickly peopled as it was—they embalmed their dead; elsewhere, when numbers rendered such precaution advisable, they were burned. But, where neither embalming nor burning was practised, they took care at once to remove the dead from the dwellings of the living, in apprehension of the evil consequences, and through respect for the repose of the departed. The scenes that may daily be witnessed in the metropolis of England, it would have been impossible for an ancient to have conceived, save as existing among some race of hitherto undiscovered savages destitute of the common instincts of nature.[223]We are now striving to remedy this evil by legislative means. It may not be cared about, but its enormity no one will dispute, and it fills with astonishment and disgust those who are induced to examine into it. But here, as in so many other instances, the work is done and the evil prevented by some simple and ancient habits, which are entered in the traveller’s note-book as at best interesting curiosities, or amiable weaknesses.The superstition of the Mussulman lies, however, the other way, and hence the plague that ravages at present most other Mussulman countries, and which we shall see again in Europe—or rather in England—unless the condition of our London cemeteries be ameliorated. They do not, indeed, bury in the towns; but, in making the grave, they leave a hollow space above the body, in the belief that it has to sit up finally, to surrender the soul to the angel of death. Boards are then placed two feet above the body, and over this but a slight covering of earth. Thus the gases from the decomposing flesh are collected, and escape; and being heavier than the atmospheric air, flow around, seeking the lowest level, and pour downwards, so that when the cemetery is above the dwellings, these are periodically subject to the plague. I have observed this so constantly, so regularly, that, on merely glancing at the position of a town, I can tell whether it is or is not subject to the plague, in what quarters it is so subject, and, judging by the winds that prevail, at what season. I do not speak of those vapours as immediately and necessarily producing the plague, but as favouring its extension. Our typhus, a low plague, is never wanting in cities peculiarly exposed to the vapours from overstocked grave-yards. In fact, as decomposed vegetable matter gives us intermittent fevers, so does decomposed animal matter furnish, according to the climate and atmosphere, putrid fever, typhus, yellow fever, and plague.[212]The iron sand gets a bluish tint from the yellow.[213]The plan adopted by Ulysses, as described by Homer, has the effect of stopping an onslaught of dogs. Squat down and drop your stick—the dog will crouch too; but he will immediately rush at you, if you move or take up your stick.[214]The rushing of these boats is represented in tombs of the fourth dynasty.[215]Marmol,t. i. p.4.[216]Boyd’s Algeria.[217]“Tardiores quamcorbitæsunt in tranquillo mare.”—Plautus.[218]Highland cottages are divided into “but,” and “ben.” The first is the kitchen, the second the sleeping apartment. They say “Comeben” or “I am goingbut.” I know not whether this usage is connected with the practice here, but it is singular that the names should run so close.The Hayme here assumed the form of the beit, or house, and the reed hut by it is occupied by the children—beni. It is constructed, like a beehive, ofscaff. There are in the Highland home, but, and ben, and scape.[219]“Fuit in tectis de marmore templum,Conjugis antiqui miro quod honore colebat.”[220]Treasure also was placed in them, and used perhaps centuries after, as a last resource, in the necessities of state. Thus in the tomb of David, opened in the siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus, 3000 talents were found, which served to avert the storm.[221]Diod. Sic., p.17.[222]Ahaziah was not suffered to be buried in the tomb of his fathers.—2 Kingsviii.16-21; 2Chron. xxi.Joash also was denied royal burial.—2 Kingsxii.; 2Chron. xxiv.Hezekiah had a tomb raised higher than the rest.—2Chron. xxxii.33. The high priest Jehoiada was honoured with a royal burial.—2Chron. xxiv.16.[223]“It is one of the most odious and debasing features of civilization, that death is habitually desecrated, and the grave ceases to be a refuge.”—St. John’sGreece,vol. iii. p.430.
BOOKIV.EL GARB.
I never had greater difficulties of the kind to encounter, than in getting away from Rabat. Ali Bey, in the narration of his pilgrimage, mentions that, after starting from some place, the whole caravan commenced a violent dispute about the loading of the animals; after lasting about two hours, it suddenly ceased. On inquiring the cause of this phenomenon, it was told him, that from such a place to such a place, “the Arabs dispute.” Our dispute had no limits, save those of the journey. A large party accompanied us across the water to the Salee side, and a slave of Mustafa Ducali’s privately suggested that it was a great pity that I should go away, that it was better to stay at Rabat than to go. “If you stay,” said he, “you will have a nice house like my master’s, and two or three pretty wives, the daughters of caïds.”
We left the beach about two o’clock, turning to the right to avoid Salee: we passed through one of the gates of its old walls, enclosing the ancient harbour; turning again to the left, we passed between the gardens and the back of the city. When opposite one of the gates, we sent in for corn to carry with us, and I was much tempted to enter the forbidden city, but contained myself, not to commence dissensions with the guard at the very moment of starting.
Rambling on while the guard awaited the messenger, we came on a cleft in the rock, the bottom occupied by an orange grove, most inviting, with its green lustre and deep shadow, cool, damp, dark, and fragrant. To this retreat, many a seafarer has returned to enjoy the fruits of his industry: how many a tender “Rover,” has been here formed by listening to his sire’s tales of Maltese galleys, Christian argosies and Andalusian maids. While we were looking from the backs of our horses over the wall that ran along the edge of the cliff, the proprietor came up, and invited us to descend: there was nothing piratical about him, so we yielded. The first flight of steps brought us to a small tank, covered with a trellis of vines, surrounded by a little walk, through which there were grooves for the water to circulate, without wetting your feet, and it fell from all sides into the tank in little cascades. At one side there was a little kiosk with a window opening upon the orange grove below. Here we found a party of Moors seated in one corner, and the inseparable tea-things in the other. My host hurried me down, and walked me all over the grounds, gathering sweet and bitter lemons and oranges, and seemingly anxious to stock me with a supply of every variety. Suddenly, having got me alone, he stopped, and with ominous signs and emphasis, pronounced the wordSerser! I was now in my turn anxious to know what he had to say, and wished to call a Jew I had got as an interpreter; but this he would not suffer, and seemed to expect to succeed in making me understand by speaking very close to my ear:—he was much opposed to the working of mines, and apprehensive of my safety. When I admired in one place the culture of the garden, he said, “this is the ‘Madem’ (mines) of the Arabs;” he then asked me to stay some days at Tangier, and he would come and see me there. On taking leave, he insisted on walking with me a quarter of a mile, till I was outside of the aqueduct, and in the open country, and gave me the name of a person at Larache, to whose house he desired me to go. This person was absent on my arrival there.
Towards sunset we entered a douar, without asking anybody’s leave, and pitched in the middle of it without a question being asked us by any one: the change was as great as if one had fallen through from one century into another, yet all external objects were precisely the same. There were, however, only so many cottagers living in tents: we had entered a village, not a douar. Had I gone from Tangier to Rabat by land, I should, by passing through these successive changes, have become gradually familiarized with them; fortunately I had seen the southern country. Everything in this douar was for sale at extortionate prices, each bargain accompanied by great squabbling. The Sheik did come, and did bring, as a present, a jar of milk. This was all that recalled to me the tribes to the south.
Early the next day we arrived at Medea. Lying on the edge of a ravine, we were almost at the gate before we saw it. Like the other towns, it is built at the estuary of a river, which descending through a chasm, has carved out through the rock and sand, its way to the ocean, where, met by a heavy surge, it heaps up a bar, which the waves incessantly lash.
The fortress is a parallelogram. The contents in people, and in value, could not be equal to a douar. Below and between the town and the river, there is an enclosure of walls in the form of a rectangle, and about four hundred yards long: the walls are in Tapia, and vary from twenty to forty feet in height, and from five to seven in thickness. Seen from above, it appears like a labyrinth; there are large square spaces and passages running round them; the interval between the walls is at times not greater than their own thickness; there are no windows or doors, or the spring of arches for covering in. Bare dead walls compose the vast chambers, or narrow passages; a small aperture is seen here and there, by which a man might creep through. There is a Moorish gateway, but it is a modern addition. Being outside the fortress, and under it, this building could not have been intended in any way for defence. It was neither a reservoir for water, nor a store for merchandize. The deputy governor who accompanied me was perfectly certain that it was built by Christians: when I expressed doubts, he became angry, and vociferated loudly, “Eusara,” “Romani.” It was so fresh, that the walls might have been just finished or still in process of construction.
I found the caïd superintending the mending of an oar. He reiterated his salutations of welcome at least a dozen times (it has to be repeated three times) and pressed me to stay that night, or at all events to dine. We, however, were anxious to get on, and the cattle were conducted down to the boat, while the caïd sent his deputy—who, like himself, every inch a Moor, is a negro in complexion, but whose features are European—to conduct me over the building I have already noticed.
We intended here to get if possible fresh horses, not less on account of the wretched quality of those we had, than of the annoyance we suffered from their owners. After they had received their money, they wanted to decline performing the journey, and when I expressed surprise, they answered, “We have no law—we have no flag: we are neither Mussulmans, Jews, nor Christians.” This answer I comprehended, knowing them to be Oudaïas, a tribe broken and dispersed, and holding no ties with the world, its enemy—a Poland of the Desert.
The boat in which we crossed was about forty feet by ten, pulled by a couple of oars. Their ingenuity had not arrived at making a platform for embarking cattle. The camels stride in fastly enough, and stow easily: they are made to crouch down head and tail, and a row of their strange heads projects over both sides. Getting in the horses is a laborious operation: they have to be unladen, and then walked into the water, and beaten until they spring in, first getting their fore-legs into the boat, and then with a second spring their hind-legs: some of them, however, are very expert. Our horses had to perform this operation four times between Rabat and Tangier—at Rabat, Medea, Larache, and Arzila.
Just as we had got our cattle embarked, the caïd was seen on horseback winding his way down the rock. We put back to take him in; and he came into the stern, where we were seated upon our baggage, carrying in his hand a handkerchief containing a large provision of hard-boiled eggs. He said, “As you would not stay to eat, I had these boiled that you might not be hungry on the way.” One of the packages of majoon appearing amongst the baggage, the conversation turned upon that composition; and he told me that he was then going, in consequence of an order he had received that morning from the Sultan, to gather for him roots, from which another and superior kind of majoon was made, and which were only to be found at an hour’s distance from whence we were, and if we would wait for him at a certain well, he would himself bring a specimen of the plant. As soon as we reached the indicated place, he appeared on the hill above, coming towards us at full speed, and presented me with one of the roots, which was like a large parsnip: it appears to be the plant called surnag by Leo Africanus. He had also the consideration to bring some of the leaves, that I might recognise it again. I forgot to ask the mode of preparing it, which I have since been unable to ascertain, as it is not used by the people; though the most strange stories are told of its effects. It is said to have been discovered by the Emperor Ismael, and to its use is attributed the numerous progeny of that sovereign, reported at sixty births per month.
The Seboo is the largest river of the kingdom of Fez; it is here about half a mile in width: the bar is so fierce as to be wholly impassable. It rises in the Atlas, and passes near Fez and through Mequinez. A branch of it passes through the city of Fez: it is there termed the “river of pearls,” and was formerly called the “river of gold.” It was once navigable as far as Fez, and it still has all the appearance of being so; yet the corn is carried thither to be ground at an expense of transport exceeding its value, and then the flour is carried back again, for at Fez they seem to have good mill-stones, and do not use the common sand-grit. But, probably, the navigation of the stream has been purposely disused, in pursuance of their standing policy of closing the door against Europeans, and sacrificing the advantages of the present to security for the future.
The Seboo, more than any other river in Morocco, abounds with the shabel; that of Azimore is the finest in quality. It is about the size of a salmon, which it resembles: the flesh is soft, fat, and delicate, and those who have tasted the kiran of the Lake of Ochrida have eaten something that recalls it. The Seboo bore signs of passing through a chalk country, showing that the region around had still all the aspect of the Zahel. The river, while we crossed it, was covered with bees that were dropping in. There are thousands of hives in the neighbourhood: the bees were perishing in great quantities from its being a foggy morning.
A broad and level beach of sand bordered the river, and exhibited a beautiful pattern in colours, resembling that Moorish ornament which is at once the richest and the commonest. On pointing it out to one of those who were with me, he exclaimed, “That is the figure on the Tower of Hassan.” It is so remarkable that it must have been imitated in their buildings. It is produced by there being sands of different colours, which also vary in size and specific gravity. Each warp of a wave sets them in motion, and then deposits them with mathematical precision. The river abounds with black sparkling grains of iron, which they use for dusting on their writing: this was the first time we had seen it. To the south there was no lime: the iron on the surface is red, being oxide: here the chalk commenced, and the iron is carbonate. Besides this, there are three or four sands of different shades of yellow and red, falling into different portions of the patterns. There is the blue,[212]brown, and yellow figure, as if laid on with a touch or stamped with a block. This beach presents at once the origin of the peculiar Moorish tracery and colouring, with which no other style has anything to compare.
That night we encamped in a douar, which was near the southern extremity of the long marsh or lake, El Marga, which runs parallel to the sea. As we passed along its placid waters, we had on the left the incessant roar of the ocean, which we never saw. From the sea, the country must appear a perfectly barren waste; and yet, at the back of the cliffs, there was a vale of forty miles thickly peopled and well cultivated. The lake seemed very shallow, and was so covered with waterfowl that they might have been rained upon it. We saw some boats, not pulled with oars, but punted. The lake varied in width from one mile to five. The douars were close to each other all along its banks on both sides; but, on the side on which we were, the tents might be seen in lines, or irregularly scattered. They had seines and cast-nets, and the fish was chiefly a very fat but flavourless barbel. They did not shoot the water-fowl, but caught them with gins of horse-hair, into which they ran their necks while swimming. The swans, in one place seen from a great distance, appeared like a white streak: we could scarcely believe they were birds till we came near. Next to that on the Lake of Mexico, I imagine that this is the largest collection of waterfowl on earth.
That night, when our people were at supper, there was an attempt made to carry off one of our horses. The alarm was given, not by the dogs, which only barked as usual, but by the women, who set up a frightful yelling—the classicululatus. We had pitched a little way from the tents to avoid the noise. After this, men were drafted from the douar to sleep and watch all round us. The robbers were suspected to be of the tribe of Azamor, near Mequinez, two of which tribe were sitting at supper with our people at the very time.
The whole of the next day we travelled along the shore of the lake. We had in sight before us a range of hills, one of which was covered with snow; and here snow upon a mountain in the middle of winter is the sign of a greater height than it would be with us in the middle of summer. I performed most of the journey on foot, wearing only shirt and drawers; and I got away from the party that I might have a better chance of seeing the people, and I always met with the utmost kindness. They were always surprised that I was on foot, but never that I was alone. I was invited to their tents; or they would come running from a distance, bringing milk. I was amused with the alertness with which they always set to work to teach me Arabic words.
About sunset, and after travelling ten hours, we came to the head of the lake, and chose for pitching, a sward on a projecting angle running into it, and some hundred yards from a douar. This was the first time that we got away from the tents, and I revelled in recalling the night’s repose of Eastern travel. The Arabs came and helped us to pitch; brought us all we required, and then made a blazing fire of cork-bark. As the night closed in, the water-fowl near us in the angle of the lake, came swimming in to a clump of bulrushes not fifty yards distant, just as tame ducks might do. There is abundance of boars in the neighbourhood; and the Sheik offered to turn out with all his tribe if I would stay or return for a day’s hunting.
Next morning, while the animals were lading, I strayed along the water’s edge, and was suddenly assailed by a rush of dogs from the tents. With my back to the water, I defended myself with a stick for some time.[213]Presently, a woman and a girl ran down from the tents to the rescue; and after belabouring the dogs, and setting me free, they seemed overjoyed with their exploit, ejaculating incessantly, “Eh, Nazarene!” examining me all over, feeling my hair and skin, and bursting into fits of laughter. Our conversation, if notspirituelle, was lively. When the interpreter came up, I learnt that my deliverer was the wife of the Sheik: she was a comely middle-aged woman, with a head to delight a phrenologist. She said she had a question to ask me, if I would answer her. On my promising to do so, she resumed: “You have come to our country, and seen it: now, tell me which is best, your country or ours?” I answered her, “God is the father of all men, and the maker of all lands, and he has given to his children the land that best suits each: your country is good for you, and ours for us.” I in my turn proposed a question:—“In your country, which is a good country, tell me what is the best thing?” She reflected, and said, “We have no good things.” I then asked, “What are your bad things?” She answered, “God’s evils.” The explanation was, “old age and bad weather.” I told her that, if she had seen my country, she would know that with them the one was rare and the other late. She then asked how much I had seen of their country; and having told her that I had been into Shavoya, and amongst the Ziaides, she began to expatiate on her own tribe. “God,” she said, “has given us a fertile and a pretty land; he has given us plain, and forest, and marsh; he has put a sea beyond the hills, that no one should harm us; we have a lake that has fish and birds; we have cattle, sheep, milk, and butter; we have reeds, honey, and firewood; we have corn in store, and gold and silver; and, if we live under tents, and not in the city, it is because we choose it.” Our conversation was put an end to by the rest of the tribe thronging around us; and an old woman entertaining, or pretending, great alarm, a little pantomime was suddenly improvised. The Sheik formally announced that they had in their tents a slave escaped from England, whom it was their intention to deliver up that I might take her away, upon which they recounted her services and merits to show how useful a slave she was that they were giving up—and one of her services was to supply the douar with wild sows’ milk. On this the old woman ran for her life, and all the children after her: she was, however, caught, brought back, and delivered up, and by this time our horses were laden and we took our leave.
Nothing can exceed the richness of the women’s hair—it falls like clusters of black grapes or knots of snakes: it is plaited on both sides of the head, and falls behind. They increase its volume by silk or worsted cords; and I could not help thinking that the hair of the women of Carthage was not so despicable a substitute for standing rigging, especially if they used, as the Jewesses to-day, a turban of silk thread (shoualif) made to imitate it.
I here saw one of the boats. It was certainly the great grandfather of skiffs; the hollow tree, or monoxyllo, is to it a modern invention. It was simply a bundle of rushes tied together, and raised at the point like an Indian canoe, with “thwarts,” to keep it hollow: it was open at the stern, and floated merely by the buoyancy of the rushes. It had nothing in the form of fastening; no rulucks; and was propelled by a pole. I now sawthe“basket”[214]in which the mother of Moses placed her child, and which does not exactly tally with the notions of Poussin and Guercino. The name of the rushes isscaif, and that is the Arabic for ship. When I heard it before, I thought it must have been derived from the Greekσκάφη, which again is derived fromσκάπτω, to hollow out; whence alsoσκαπτὴζ, a digger,σκάφη, a ditch. If this be so, then the Arabs, in borrowing their word from the Greeks, proceeded to call by the same name a plant spread over the whole land; displacing the ancient name—which it must have had, as also the roots made from it, a thousand years—and before the Greek islands were visited by Cadmus. If this is too absurd, then the Arabs called the boats after the reed, and the Greeks, adopting from them the name, constructed out of it this root, their verbto hollow, and all its derivatives. The modern Greeks have not this word, but have taken the Arabic one for caravan (καράβι). The Arabs have the same word for boat and camel,merkeb, not because it is the “ship of the desert,” but because it is “mounted.”
The Highlander calls a beehivescape, the French,ruche: the English “skiff” and “ship,” the German “schiff,” come all fromskaff. The Portuguese preserve the old Greek wordnaus.Bastimentoandbâtimentare frombeit, a house or building; and our sea-terms generally come from the Arabic. The aloe is calledkordean, which applies equally to the plant and to the fibres extracted from it. Thence we may have got theGordianknot. At all events, it is good as an etymon forcord. Their word for cord iskenab, from which the Greeks and Romans took their name for hemp. The continental name for pitch (alkitran, Spanish;goudron, French) is fromkitran; hammock, fromhamaca(Hebrew); cable, fromhabl(Arabic). The Greek word for boat-fare,ναῦλος, is from the Arabicnaulbabi, mother of harbours.[215]Frigateis mentioned as a Moorish name for longboats by a writer at the beginning of the last century, who says, “We call them brigantines.”[216]Brigantine or breck, seems to come fromcoffee-pot;ibrek, a coffee-pot.Corvetteis also Phœnician.[217]An Arab sailor mentioning the different winds, called the sirocco, shiloh. The same term is applied to the southern Brebers, which therefore designates the country from which they came, and makes the sirocco a derivative from the Arabic. Again,dabét, which they give to compasses, their compasses being made like our boats’ davits. The new French dictionary of the dialect of Algiers has the following words:spaolon, twine;dmane, helm;saboura, ballast. The Greek for twine isσπάον. The French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, &c., for helm istimonortimoni, and the common Levant term for ballast issavoura.
After quitting the lake we ascended a hill, and passed by a saint’s tomb. I had not been so close to one before, and was surprised at their not leading me away from it. There were quantities of rushes lying around for sleeping on, and I found that it was a common practice for travellers to sleep there, as in the Heroa of Greece, where they were always secure. They even asked me if I had ever slept in one, so that the fanaticism of the towns is here unknown.
The snow-white saints’ tombs are very beautiful, seen across the lakes, and reflected in them. The resemblance was striking with the Mussulman tombs of India. The half-globe is placed on the cube, and within the spandril the Gothic arch. Whether was the Indian building derived from the Moorish, or this from the Indian; for as yet, as in the other parts of Moorish architecture, I had not seen any natural type or human work from which it could be derived. The tents, however, had now assumed a new form, and looked like cottages, being closed in at the bottom by mats of reeds, made into hurdles, over which the tent itself stood, like a roof. The population is here more stationary. In the centre of the circle the mosque, instead of being a tent, was constructed with reeds, like a tall beehive; and, as they have no carpenters, the entrance was by a round hole, three feet from the ground, to prevent the entrance of pigs, cattle, sheep, or poultry, which might defile it.
As we advanced, we found numbers of these beehives, sometimes one to each tent, and used as dormitories for the children.[218]While I was considering the origin of the tombs, I observed one of these cones, against which a square hurdle had been placed to close the orifice, and there was in rushes the perfect model of the stone building.
The round hole is the origin of the horse-shoe arch, which is a circle slit down. The walls of the tombs are finished off with the ornaments, to represent the obtruding ends of the reeds in the hurdles. I was confirmed in this supposition when, on asking the name of the reeds, I was answered,Kasob, which is the name of a fortress,Kasaba. The first fortresses, or stocades, were of course constructed of reeds. I beheld in these shining edifices on the borders of this marsh, the rudiment of the swelling dome on the banks of the Tiber, and the type of the mausolea of Akbar and Jhanju, on those of the Indus. In their substance they are the very root of all building, as in their forms they are of all architecture.
architectural forms
I must refer the reader to what I have said elsewhere on Moorish and Gothic architecture.
From our early studies probably no more pleasing impressions remain than those connected with the funereal solemnities of the ancients. The feeling they convey goes home to the mind, and the manner in which it is expressed, and the ceremonies, rites, and laws connected with it, take possession of our youthful imaginations. Indeed, funeral rites constitute in a great degree our idea of the life of antiquity, as funeral monuments furnish the largest proportion of its records. But, if we are thus moved in reading of what existed thousands of years ago, and are made to partake in the, to us, strange veneration that consecrated the tomb into a temple[219]—that converted it into a sanctuary for the criminal—that made it sacrilege to tread upon the grave[220]—that enjoined the utmost cleanliness in the arrangements and preservation of sepulchres, and (among the Jews) imposed the yearly white-washing of them—how much more so, in seeing those very practices amongst an extant people! Treading the Continent that bears the load of the Pyramids, the sight of these tombs suggests other reflections: the connexion of the honour of the dead with judgment on his acts—with recompense and punishment, and therefore with an after-existence—with a Creator of man, the Giver of life, the Receiver of the soul.[221]They prepared for the belief in a future state by creating for themselves a future here; and in the treatment of their mortal remains lay punishments and rewards, that surpassed any that present things, except in this anticipation, could furnish.
In after times there was a superstitious veneration for the dead—not so in early times. The corpse was judged by those who had witnessed its life, before it received thehonoursof sepulture. Until this sentence was pronounced, the body was an uncleanly thing, and polluted those whom it touched. And thus the denial of sepulture remained for ages the direst of misfortunes that could befall a man, and the darkest dishonour that could be inflicted on his kindred. We have instances amongst the Jewish kings of both extremes;—a sepulchre raised for a good king above all the rest, and the ashes of a bad one cast out from the tombs of his ancestors.[222]And thus those wonderful structures which, of the earliest ages, will survive all that has since been constructed on the earth, are but evidences of the reverence paid to judgment at their death upon the lives of men. The height of the Pyramids assumed a scale in rating human conduct, and thereby conveyed the transcendant worth of those whose ashes they concealed.
The first, the greatest structures thus rose, not to shelter the living, but to receive the dead. I am describing what I see around me. This land contains no houses but for the dead. The few cities are formed of edifices that resemble tombs, being built upon their model, in the forms that mourning piety had devised, and by the arts that sepulchral edifices have preserved.
So also have the arts sprung from their hallowing and judging the dead. Painting and sculpture have their origin in the art of embalming. The covering presented the human form; the resemblance was completed by colour. The case that contained it was in like manner fashioned to preserve the likeness; and thus, in the first of solemn duties and ceremonies, in the cerement (wax-cloth) itself, were united, in primeval times, painting, sculpture, and carving. A step further was, to present, instead of the corpse, the man as alive, as reposing on, or rising out of his tomb. These we have in Etruria, calling into being or adopting a new art—that of the potter.
In the centre of Africa it is a custom among some of the tribes for mothers who have lost young children, to carry about with them little wooden dolls to represent them; and to these they offer food whenever they themselves eat. Have we not here the origin of theimaginesof the Romans, derived from the Etruscans, derived by them from the Egyptians, as by these from the Abyssinians,—beyond whom we cannot ascend; and that people was the fellow race to the Lybians. And here we have uninterrupted the traditions which have floated down the Nile, crossed the Mediterranean, and flourished so long in ancient Europe.
In a region where Islamism universally prevails, we might expect few traces of pagan ceremonies, and here Islamism was the successor of Christianity, so that there had twice been the sweeping away of the old land-marks; but here, at all events, it is not a thousand years that have made any difference—the differences are only in so far as positive change has been effected by some event—there has not been a perpetual process of change going on. This people is a true society:—the man perishes, but the society is deathless.
In Barbary there are no longer the judges of the dead, or the scales and feather. There are no longer the games in their honour, the embalming of their bodies, or the sacrifices to their manes. No longer are mountains of granite piled on high, to signify their worth, nor caverns burrowed in the rock to prevent their dust from desecration; but still there is on the houseless waste the house of the dead, not of the common and vulgar, or the mighty and proud—but of the venerated, the saint by the decree of public judgment, whether misguided or not. There it stands in the form of ancient days, with its shady olive or locust grove—the only green spot that greets the eye, with its well or fountain for the thirsty to drink, where the weary may repose, or the devout may pray—here are safety for the wayfarer and sanctuary for the guilty.
And meaner sepultures have not lost their all. Tread not where the dead repose; it is holy ground! not consecrated for their use, but hallowed by their presence: there the sorrowing festival is kept, there are gathered the mourners with the revolving sun; there the feast of the dead is prepared and left for the stranger to partake, and bless the memory of the departed. Is not this a record of ancient days?
I cannot dismiss the subject without pointing to the strange contrast, in merely worldly sense or wisdom, between the careful attention, which marks all antiquity, to render the dead innocuous to the living, and our negligence in this respect. This negligence has cost more lives and suffering than probably all the swords of all the conquerors. Epidemics, endemics, slow fever or rapid plague, ever present in deep vengeance or savage fury, are the produce of our enlightened contempt for superstitions, and mark the imbecility of that intellectual presumption which blights in our hands the fruits of science, the impulses of benevolence, and the benefits of freedom. There was no plague in ancient Egypt, thickly peopled as it was—they embalmed their dead; elsewhere, when numbers rendered such precaution advisable, they were burned. But, where neither embalming nor burning was practised, they took care at once to remove the dead from the dwellings of the living, in apprehension of the evil consequences, and through respect for the repose of the departed. The scenes that may daily be witnessed in the metropolis of England, it would have been impossible for an ancient to have conceived, save as existing among some race of hitherto undiscovered savages destitute of the common instincts of nature.[223]
We are now striving to remedy this evil by legislative means. It may not be cared about, but its enormity no one will dispute, and it fills with astonishment and disgust those who are induced to examine into it. But here, as in so many other instances, the work is done and the evil prevented by some simple and ancient habits, which are entered in the traveller’s note-book as at best interesting curiosities, or amiable weaknesses.
The superstition of the Mussulman lies, however, the other way, and hence the plague that ravages at present most other Mussulman countries, and which we shall see again in Europe—or rather in England—unless the condition of our London cemeteries be ameliorated. They do not, indeed, bury in the towns; but, in making the grave, they leave a hollow space above the body, in the belief that it has to sit up finally, to surrender the soul to the angel of death. Boards are then placed two feet above the body, and over this but a slight covering of earth. Thus the gases from the decomposing flesh are collected, and escape; and being heavier than the atmospheric air, flow around, seeking the lowest level, and pour downwards, so that when the cemetery is above the dwellings, these are periodically subject to the plague. I have observed this so constantly, so regularly, that, on merely glancing at the position of a town, I can tell whether it is or is not subject to the plague, in what quarters it is so subject, and, judging by the winds that prevail, at what season. I do not speak of those vapours as immediately and necessarily producing the plague, but as favouring its extension. Our typhus, a low plague, is never wanting in cities peculiarly exposed to the vapours from overstocked grave-yards. In fact, as decomposed vegetable matter gives us intermittent fevers, so does decomposed animal matter furnish, according to the climate and atmosphere, putrid fever, typhus, yellow fever, and plague.
[212]The iron sand gets a bluish tint from the yellow.
[213]The plan adopted by Ulysses, as described by Homer, has the effect of stopping an onslaught of dogs. Squat down and drop your stick—the dog will crouch too; but he will immediately rush at you, if you move or take up your stick.
[214]The rushing of these boats is represented in tombs of the fourth dynasty.
[215]Marmol,t. i. p.4.
[216]Boyd’s Algeria.
[217]“Tardiores quamcorbitæsunt in tranquillo mare.”—Plautus.
[218]Highland cottages are divided into “but,” and “ben.” The first is the kitchen, the second the sleeping apartment. They say “Comeben” or “I am goingbut.” I know not whether this usage is connected with the practice here, but it is singular that the names should run so close.
The Hayme here assumed the form of the beit, or house, and the reed hut by it is occupied by the children—beni. It is constructed, like a beehive, ofscaff. There are in the Highland home, but, and ben, and scape.
[219]
“Fuit in tectis de marmore templum,Conjugis antiqui miro quod honore colebat.”
“Fuit in tectis de marmore templum,Conjugis antiqui miro quod honore colebat.”
“Fuit in tectis de marmore templum,Conjugis antiqui miro quod honore colebat.”
“Fuit in tectis de marmore templum,
Conjugis antiqui miro quod honore colebat.”
[220]Treasure also was placed in them, and used perhaps centuries after, as a last resource, in the necessities of state. Thus in the tomb of David, opened in the siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus, 3000 talents were found, which served to avert the storm.
[221]Diod. Sic., p.17.
[222]Ahaziah was not suffered to be buried in the tomb of his fathers.—2 Kingsviii.16-21; 2Chron. xxi.Joash also was denied royal burial.—2 Kingsxii.; 2Chron. xxiv.Hezekiah had a tomb raised higher than the rest.—2Chron. xxxii.33. The high priest Jehoiada was honoured with a royal burial.—2Chron. xxiv.16.
[223]“It is one of the most odious and debasing features of civilization, that death is habitually desecrated, and the grave ceases to be a refuge.”—St. John’sGreece,vol. iii. p.430.