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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Tail of the Peacock, by Isabel Savory
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In the Tail of the Peacock
+
+Author: Isabel Savory
+
+Release Date: February 7, 2009 [EBook #28016]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE TAIL OF THE PEACOCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski, the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+and the booksmiths at http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Isabel Savory]
+
+
+
+IN THE TAIL OF
+THE PEACOCK
+
+By ISABEL SAVORY.
+
+Author of "_A Sportswoman in India_"
+
+
+WITH 48 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
+AND A PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT
+
+"The Earth is a peacock: Morocco is the tail of it"
+
+_Moorish Proverb_
+
+London: HUTCHINSON & CO.
+Paternoster Row 1903
+
+
+PRINTED BY
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY
+
+
+
+
+_PREFACE_
+
+
+_THIS book contains no thrilling adventures, chronicles, no days devoted
+to sport. It will probably interest only those minds which are content
+with "the C Major of this life," and which find in other than scenes of
+peril and excitement their hearts' desire._
+
+_Such as care to wander through its pages must have learnt to enjoy
+idleness, nor find weeks spent beneath the sun and stars too long--that
+is to say, the fascination of a wandering, irresponsible life should be
+known to them: waste and solitary places must not appal, nor trifling
+incident weary, while human natures remotely removed from their own,
+alternately delight and repel. Those who understand not these things,
+will find but a dull chronicle within the following pages._
+
+_If to live is to know more, and to know more only to love more, the
+least eventful day may possess a minimum of value, and even quiet
+monotones and grey vistas be found and lost in a glamour born of
+themselves._
+
+_In this loud and insistent world the silent places are often overlooked,
+and yet they are never empty._
+
+_ISABEL SAVORY._
+
+WESTFIELD OLD HALL,
+EAST DEREHAM.
+_February, 1903._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+                                                                PAGE
+TANGIER--COUNTRY PEOPLE--THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA--MOORISH
+PRISONS--WE RIDE TO CAPE SPARTEL--DECIDE TO LEAVE
+TANGIER AND PUSH INLAND                                             1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMP OUTFIT--A NIGHT AT A CARAVANSERAI--TETUAN--THE
+BRITISH VICE-CONSUL--MOORISH SHOPS--WE VISIT A MOORISH
+HOUSE AND FAMILY                                                   27
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DIFFICULTIES OF "LODGINGS" IN MOROCCO--A SPANISH FONDA--A
+MOORISH TEA PARTY--POISON IN THE CUP--SLAVES IN
+MOROCCO--EL DOOLLAH--MOORISH CEMETERY--RIDE TO SEMSAR--SHOPPING
+IN TETUAN--PROVISIONS IN THE CITY                                  63
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FAST OF RÁMADHAN--MOHAMMED--HIS LIFE AND INFLUENCE--THE
+FLOOD AT SAFFI--A WALK OUTSIDE TETUAN--THE
+FRENCH CONSUL'S GARDEN-HOUSE--JEWS IN MOROCCO--EUROPEAN
+PROTECTION                                                         97
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS AT GIBRALTAR--A ROUGH NIGHT--THE
+STEAMER WHICH WOULD NOT WAIT--AN IGNOMINIOUS RETURN
+TO TETUAN--A RASCALLY JEW--THE ABORIGINES AND THE
+PRESENT OCCUPANTS OF MOROCCO--THE SULTAN, COURT,
+GOVERNMENT, AND MOORISH ARMY                                      121
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WE LOOK OVER A MOORISH COURTYARD HOUSE WITH A VIEW TO
+TAKING IT--WE RENT JINAN DOLERO IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION--AN
+ENGLISHMAN MURDERED--OUR GARDEN-HOUSE--THE
+IDIOSYNCRASIES OF MOORISH SERVANTS--A NATIVE GUARD--THE
+RIFF COUNTRY                                                      153
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COUNTRY PEOPLE FORDING THE RIVER--WE CALL ON CI HAMED
+GHRALMIA--AN EXPEDITION ACROSS THE RIVER IN SEARCH OF
+THE BLUE POOL--MOORISH BELIEF IN GINNS--THE BASHA--POWDER
+PLAY--TETUAN PRISON                                               181
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MISSIONARIES AT TETUAN--POISONING IN MOROCCO--FATIMA'S
+RECEPTION--DIVORCE--AN EXPEDITION INTO THE ANJERAS--AN
+EMERALD OASIS                                                     217
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WE LEAVE TETUAN--A WET NIGHT UNDER THE STARS--S`LAM DESERTS
+US--WE SAIL FOR MOGADOR--THE PALM-TREE HOUSE--SUS
+AND WADNOON COUNTRIES--THE SAHARA--THE ATLAS
+MOUNTAINS                                                         249
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE--BUYING MULES--A BAD ROAD--FIRST
+CAMP--ARGAN-TREES--COOS-COOSOO--A TERRIBLE NIGHT--DOCTORING
+THE KHAYLIFA--ROUGHING IT UNDER CANVAS                            281
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A PARTING MONA--FORDING SHESHAOUA RIVER--JARS OF FOOD--FIRST
+SIGHT OF MARRAKESH--A PERILOUS CROSSING--RIDE
+INTO MARRAKESH--THE SLAVE MARKET                                  311
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE THURSDAY MARKET--WE MIGHT HAVE GONE TO GLAOUIA--LEAVE
+MARRAKESH AND SET OUT ON OUR LAST MARCH FOR
+THE COAST--FLOWERS IN MOROCCO--ON THE WRONG TRAIL--ARAB
+TENTS--GOOD-BYE TO EL MOGHREB                                     339
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+_Except where otherwise stated, the Illustrations are from photographs by
+ROSE A. BAINBRIDGE._
+
+
+                                         FACING
+                                           PAGE
+
+PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT            _Frontispiece_
+
+THE ROAD TO FEZ                               6
+
+R. ON A PACK                                 12
+
+TWO SHEIKHS                                  18
+
+TANGIER                                      24
+
+TETUAN                                       30
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+OURSELVES AND BAGGAGE                        34
+
+CLOUDS OVER TETUAN                           44
+
+ALARBI ABRESHA'S HOUSE                       54
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+OUR CAMP OUTSIDE TETUAN                      60
+
+A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE             66
+
+A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY                        80
+
+OUT SHOPPING                                 90
+
+SHOPS IN TETUAN                              94
+
+A CLUSTER OF COUNTRY WOMEN                  100
+
+A TYPICAL MOORISH STREET                    108
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+A STREET IN THE JEWS' QUARTER, TETUAN       116
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+REFUSE GOING OUT OF TETUAN                  124
+
+A MOORISH PRISON GATE                       130
+
+A PEEP OF TETUAN                            138
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+A SAINT-HOUSE, TETUAN                       148
+
+JINAN DOLERO                                158
+
+OUR SERVANTS, S`LAM AND TAHARA              164
+
+TWO WOMEN FROM THE RIFF COUNTRY             172
+
+SELLING EARTHENWARE POTS                    178
+
+A FERRY-BOAT ON MARKET DAY                  184
+
+THE AUTHOR FORDING THE WAD-EL-MARTINE       188
+
+THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY                     198
+
+THE FEDDAN, TETUAN                          208
+
+CHARMING SNAKES                             214
+
+MOORS AT HOME                               222
+
+STRAW FOR SALE                              230
+
+A GROUP IN THE FEDDAN, TETUAN               236
+
+A BREEZY CAMPING-GROUND ON A ROOF-TOP       254
+
+ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE WAY WE RODE IN MOROCCO  262
+
+LIGHTERS LOADING                            268
+
+AFTER RAIN IN MOGADOR                       274
+
+WHERE MANCHESTER GOODS ARE SOLD, MOGADOR    284
+
+OUR CAMP AT AIN-EL-HADGER                   290
+
+A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL   298
+
+SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE PASS ON THE MARCH    308
+
+TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE                    314
+
+MARRAKESH                                   318
+
+THE OPEN GATE                               324
+
+THE KUTOBEA, MARRAKESH                      328
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+THE WAD-EL-AZELL                            334
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+THE SULTAN'S GARDEN                         344
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+THE RIVER TENSIF OUTSIDE MARRAKESH          346
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+ONE OF OUR LAST CAMPS. LOADING THE CAMEL    350
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+TANGIER--COUNTRY PEOPLE--THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA--MOORISH PRISONS--WE
+RIDE TO CAPE SPARTEL--DECIDE TO LEAVE TANGIER AND PUSH INLAND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     The vague and hazy ideals which the white light of an English
+     upbringing relegates to dreamland and dismisses as idle fancies,
+     rise up in the glare of African sunlight, alive, tangible,
+     unashamed; the things that are, not the things that might
+     be:--the vivid colouring, the hot crowding, the stately men and
+     veiled women, the despotism and stoicism, the unchanging
+     picturesqueness of the Thousand and One Nights, the dramatic
+     inevitability of the Old Testament.--A. J. D.
+
+
+THERE was no desert in Morocco.
+
+If a country has not been "read up" beforehand, the imagination has free
+play and forms many false conclusions: yet though it suffer on the one
+hand rude awakenings, it is on the other compensated by certain new
+lights--indelible and unique impressions--which come only in the train of
+things _inconnu_. So though we found no desert, there are other things in
+Morocco.
+
+It is one of the few countries in the world, and they grow fewer each
+year, which is still unexplored--unknown. Thousands of square miles in
+Morocco have never been crossed by a European, or at any rate none have
+returned to tell the tale: maps mark only blank spaces, and have no names
+for villages, no records of mountains or rivers: there are no roads,
+still less railways, in the country: the only means of transport along
+the wild, worn tracks is by camels, mules, and donkeys: he who will not
+ride perforce walks.
+
+The bare fringe alone of Morocco, its coast towns, and the choice, let us
+say, of two roads connecting them with its capitals, Fez and Morocco
+City, are open to travellers; beyond these limits it is difficult and
+dangerous for Europeans to venture. Of even its coasts towns England
+knows little enough: a daily paper printed in 1902 describes one
+flourishing seaport of thirty thousand inhabitants as "a village." There
+is more vagueness, in fact, about a country three times the size of Great
+Britain and four days' journey from London than of many a remote corner
+in the heart of Asia.
+
+The reason is at hand. An old Arabic proverb, "The earth is a peacock:
+Morocco is the tail of it," typifies the entire satisfaction of its
+inhabitants with their native land. What is, is good; why "civilize" and
+"progress"? As far as possible there shall no European enter therein.
+Realizing that, were new blood allowed to come into Morocco, its own
+effete and uneducated people would have no chance in the race of life,
+and end by hopelessly knuckling under to the European, the country
+isolates itself; nor is it likely that the jealous Powers of Europe will
+allow any one of their number to disturb that isolation and pluck the
+tempting fruit.
+
+And so to-day Morocco drowses in an atmosphere of _laissez faire_, a
+decadent nation, a collection of lawless tribes, who have changed little
+for the last two thousand years, living still much after the manner of
+Old Testament days. They are devout Mussulmans. They believe the world to
+be flat, and to come to an end with the west coast of Morocco. Their
+country they call _El Moghreb el Aksa_, which means, "The Extreme West,"
+or "The Land of the Setting Sun": "Morocco" and "Moors" are entirely
+European words, and never used by the Moors themselves--the one being a
+corruption of the name of their capital city, the other having been
+given them by the Spaniards.
+
+Morocco should be fascinating on the face of it: a great country running
+into hundreds of thousands of square miles, the only independent
+Mussulman state of North Africa, with six million followers of the great
+Prophet, and a perfect climate, soil, and water-supply to boot, needs no
+extolling. And yet its chiefest fascination lies in things which, from
+some points of view, ought not to be.
+
+Its remote removal from all appertaining to the twentieth century, its
+strangely simple, untaught life, the solemn, stately men, the veiled
+women and their eyes, the steely blue cactus, the white cities and the
+glaring light, the mystery and the fatalism which intensify the air, are
+alike oddly inevitable and incomprehensible to a European. The other side
+of the closed door has always constituted, for the wandering vagrants
+among mankind, their hearts' desire. For them there is still Morocco; and
+the door will be shut in their faces again and again by a people and a
+faith and customs which they can never understand. And though it be
+useless they will still go on, because it seems the best thing.
+
+About six weeks before 1902 was due, Rose A. Bainbridge and myself left
+behind us the last outpost of England--Gibraltar--with its cluster of
+civilization round the bottom of the great Rock. Four hours brought us
+across the Straits; and seen from the deck of the dirty little _Gibel
+Musa_, on to which we had changed from a P. & O. at Gibraltar, Morocco
+shaped itself into a rugged country, ridge behind ridge of low hills and
+jagged mountains cutting the sky-line. A long white sand-bank lying back
+in a bay on the African shore, broken at one end by irregular vegetation,
+gradually developed upon its slopes a yellowish-white, fantastic city,
+which resolved itself into Tangier.
+
+Landing at Tangier among vociferating Moors has been described often
+enough, and needs no further enlargement.
+
+The next morning, November 13, 1901, found us sitting over coffee and an
+omelette out of doors, on a little balcony opening off the hotel Villa
+Valentina, over-looking the road to Fez, and facing the broad, blue
+Straits which divided us from Europe.
+
+It was like a June morning at home, soft and balmy: the city dropped from
+us down to the beach, and the sun poured upon the flat-roofed houses,
+coloured yellow to pale cream or washed-out blue, alternating with a
+lavish coat of glaring whitewash.
+
+Tangier is an example of structure without architecture; at the same time
+there is a certain fitness in the crude Moorish buildings, whose flat
+expanse of wall is unbroken either by windows or ornament: they are
+simple and "reserved." Gleaming in high light under an equally light sky,
+they huddle almost one on top of the other, built upon every available
+square yard inside the "papery" old city wall, which looks as if cannon
+would blow it away. Patches of blue sea break the white city outline, and
+the towers of the mosques rise above it all: their tesselated surfaces,
+tiled in shades of green and polished by the years, shimmer in the
+sunshine like peacocks' tails.
+
+[Illustration: THE ROAD TO FEZ.
+
+[_To face p. 6._]
+
+Two or three gateways pierce the drab-coloured city wall, their
+horseshoe-shaped arches washed over with salmon-pink. The same
+plaster-work arch repeats itself occasionally in the rough stone- and
+mortar-work of the houses, all of an inferior quality, short-lived and
+rebuilt again and again on the _débris_ of successive years, until
+they stand in time right above the cobble-stones of the narrow
+streets.
+
+Outside the city wall a few private houses and two hotels lie back among
+eucalyptus, palms, and bushy stone-pines: several of the legations which
+represent the European Powers have modern houses, lost in greenery of
+sorts. Behind these, again, a suburb of jerry-built Spanish houses, with
+the scum of Spain, is inclined to grow, which offshoot of fifth-rate
+Europe gives at last upon the rolling pastures and windswept hills of the
+open country.
+
+Our breakfast-table brought us face to face with every traveller who
+passed along the great sandy track leading eventually to Fez, which
+people in Morocco call a road, beaten to-day and for the last two
+thousand years by the feet of generations of camels, mules, donkeys,
+horses, cattle, and mankind.
+
+Though the wayfarers, plodding through the dusty hoof-marks, were
+desultory, it was quiet for few hours even at night, and under our
+windows we waked to an eternal shuffling in the soft sand, the champing
+of bits, and guttural Arabic tones.
+
+R. and I leaned over the balcony. Women passed us wrapped in voluminous
+whity-yellow garments--_haiks_--black eyes and red slippers alone
+showing. Date-coloured boys passed us, wearing red fezes and dirty-white
+turbans. Countrymen passed us in great, coarse, brown woollen
+cloaks--_jellabs_--the hood pulled right on over the head, short wide
+sleeves, the front joined all down, and having scarred bare legs and feet
+coming out from underneath. These drove strings of diminutive donkeys, a
+couple of water-barrels balanced across the back of each--supplies of
+water for Tangier when the rain-water tanks are giving out: there are few
+wells in the city.
+
+More women, veiled to the eyes, passed us, in delightful
+shoes--milk-coloured leather, embroidered with green: an African woman,
+black as a boot, with thick negro lips and yellow metal bracelets on her
+charcoal-sticks of arms. More donkeys passed us, carrying vegetables to
+market, driven by countrywomen in yellowish-white haiks, vast straw hats,
+and the inevitable veil. Two men passed us with an immense open box
+containing thousands of eggs, hung between them by a pole on the shoulder
+of each--export for England: forty-eight millions were sent off in 1902,
+and this morning's omelette might not be our first Morocco egg. A Moor of
+some means came by, riding at a hard-held ambling walk his star-gazing
+white mule: the high-peaked saddle and bridle were of scarlet cloth, the
+stirrup-leathers of scarlet twisted wool; he wore a creamy woollen haik,
+falling in soft folds down to his yellow slippers, a turban whose snowy
+disc of enormous size framed his cinnamon-coloured face in symmetrical
+folds of spotless white, and the top of a scarlet fez showed in the
+centre of it.
+
+Almost opposite us a beggar had sat himself down at the edge of the road,
+under the shelter of the high cane fence--a grimy old greybeard, tanned
+and worn like a walnut, in a tattered jellab and shady turban. "For the
+love of God; for the love of God," he rolled out incessantly in Arabic,
+ending in a throaty gobble like a turkey; and the country people threw
+him, as they passed, of their bundles--here an orange, there a lump of
+charcoal--whatever it might be it was crammed into the hood of the
+jellab; and the sing-song and the gobble began again. In a Mohammedan
+country it is counted a duty as well as a holy deed to encourage beggars:
+almsgiving represents to the faithful Mussulman equivalent gain in
+Paradise; and no one starves in Morocco, though occasionally dismissed
+with a wave of the hand and "God provide for you." Mad people are
+regarded as saints, and credited with the gift of prophecy. It is an
+exceedingly holy thing to walk about naked. A holy man in Fez was in the
+habit of sitting at a missionary's gate stark naked; eventually this
+proceeding had to be put a stop to, because the holy man would insist
+upon holding the horses of the missionary's afternoon callers.
+
+Our beggar sat in the same spot day after day, hour after hour,
+fatuitously happy, blissfully content. "God is great, and what is written
+is written": remorse, regrets, are alike unknown to Mussulmen; and it is
+this which dignifies their religion and themselves. Life passes lightly
+over them, and chisels few lines and puckers in the serene patriarchal
+faces--they may be scamps of the first water, for all one can tell; it
+sits lightly upon them.
+
+A small boy in a white tunic and red fez, who called himself Larbi, was
+playing about near the beggar: being able to speak a little English, he
+made himself useful to visitors, and was rapidly exchanging his good
+qualities for the drawbacks of the hanger-on: he came out with us for a
+day or two, smoked several cigarettes in the course of the afternoon, and
+picked us useless bunches of ordinary flowers. Remonstrance was futile,
+but when no more little silver coins were forthcoming he left off
+shadowing us.
+
+We found our own way down to the great _sok_, or market-place, in the
+wake of some donkeys carrying live cackling fowls, fastened by a bit of
+string and their feet to any part of the donkey and its baskets which
+came handy. On each side of the road and everywhere in Tangier the
+obstinate steely-grey cactus, or prickly pear, dominates the landscape:
+its fat fleshy leaves make as good a protection as the sharp-pointed aloe
+round the irregular plots of cultivated ground. Alternating with them,
+tall bound cane fences swish and rattle in the wind.
+
+Steely-grey and a yellow-bleached white describe the vegetation of
+Tangier, set in its white sand-dunes. Morocco is far from having lot or
+part in the gorgeous East, as tradition says. To begin with, from the end
+of August to the end of April hazy days greatly predominate, and thirty
+inches of rain are put in: naturally the country and people take their
+cue from the general colour of the sky, from its white-yellow light, in
+which a wan sun is yet able to produce a glare. Morocco is yellow-white,
+and the Moors themselves run from the colour of cinnamon, through shades
+of coffee and old gold, to biscuit and skim-milk. Their houses and their
+clothes take on the same whites and greys, yellows and browns, and the
+sand and the scrub again and again repeat the tale. Perhaps it has a
+saddening effect, borne out in the colourless monotone of the lives of
+its countrywomen.
+
+Presently we passed a skin-yard, salted goat-skins, drying by the hundred
+under the sun, spread upon the ground, upon the flat roofs, wherever a
+skin could lie, curling with dryness, the empty legs of the late owners
+standing stiff and upright, like petrified stockings, pointing dismally
+to heaven.
+
+We overtook a string of camels as we neared the sok, strolling along and
+regarding the skies, R. and myself with an exaggerated superciliousness.
+They were laden with dates, carpets, and slippers from Fez, and, together
+with mules and donkeys, constitute the vans and railway-trucks of
+Morocco, substituting over the face of the land a dilatory calm in the
+place of speed and bustle.
+
+But at first it was a real effort to take in a tenth part of surroundings
+so different from those of England; and when we found ourselves in the
+sok--the _hub_ of Moorish life--it was to be jostled by donkey-drivers
+shouting "Baarak! Baarak!" by black water-carriers from the Sus country,
+by veiled women, by negroes from Timbuctoo, by mules and camels, by men
+walking, men riding, without one sight or sound familiar, in a
+dream-world of intense life, recalling nothing so much as the Old
+Testament. It was worth the journey out from home to see this sok--an
+open space crawling with brown-and-white, cloaked and hooded humanity,
+mixed up with four-legged beasts, also brown, and the whole more like a
+magnified ant-hill on the flat than anything human. In front of the
+squatted country people their stock-in-trade lay in piles, gorgeous in
+tone: oranges and oranges and more oranges, selling at one thousand seven
+hundred for a shilling; scarlet chillies--hot blots of colour; pink
+onions; red carrots; white salt, collected down on the beach; green
+pumpkins blotched with yellow; besides grain of all sorts, basketsful of
+charcoal, bundles of wood, dried fruit, flat round loaves of bread,
+cabbages, and what not. The sound of a perpetual muffin-bell was ringing
+backwards and forwards--the _bhisti_ of Tangier, with his hairy
+goatskinful of water across his back, and two bright brass bowls hung by
+a chain round his neck, a bell in one hand, with the other dealing out
+drinks of water for a Moorish copper coin of which a penny contains
+fifteen.
+
+We elbowed our way through the _Báb-el-Sok_, or Gate of the Market-place,
+into the city, and found ourselves in a long, narrow, straight street,
+dropping down to the _marsa_, or harbour. The irregular, light
+colour-washed houses jut out promiscuously over the minute cupboard-like
+shops crammed with oddments of every sort and hue, and leaving scanty
+room for the owner to squat on some carpet or mattress, until it strikes
+him that it is time to eat or go to prayers, and he locks up the double
+doors of his "store cupboard" and strolls away.
+
+Looking down this attenuated Piccadilly of Tangier, over the white
+turbans and red fezes of the multitude, right away at the far end a field
+of blue sea was to be seen: half-way between, the faithful were beginning
+to pass into the big mosque one by one for midday prayers, each leaving
+his shoes behind him and stepping over the high doorstep barefoot on to
+the marble floor beyond, thence disappearing behind the ponderous green
+iron doors, where the great line is drawn between Europeans and Asiatics,
+debarring from entry any except Mussulmen.
+
+The Villa Valentina breakfasted at 12.45, and cut the morning short. We
+were out again later with a guide--Hadj Riffi he called himself--bent on
+a visit to the _Kasbah_, or fortress of the city.
+
+Hadj Riffi provided a donkey and pack, which of all substitutes for
+saddles is most foolish, intended only for loads of all sorts to be slung
+across them; but packs are easy to slip off and on, and have answered
+their purpose in Morocco since the days when in Judæa Mary rode on one to
+Bethlehem.
+
+Conducted through the queer, intricate city, we wound along maze-like
+alleys three or four feet wide, ever the old aromatic smell of the East,
+almost impossible to recall, yet recognized again in an instant's flash,
+and born of the Oriental world we jostled against--of Berbers, Arabs,
+negroes, men from the Sahara, men from the mountains of the Riff, Turks,
+Greeks, Levantines, Syrians, even an occasional Hindoo, all wanderers up
+and down the earth, unable to resist the call of the open road,
+engendered by nomadic habits of old.
+
+[Illustration: R. ON A PACK.
+
+[_To face p. 12._]
+
+One word on the inhabitants of the country. The Berbers are the
+aborigines of Morocco, and live more or less in the hills and
+mountains, into which they were driven by the Arabs in the seventh
+century, when they overran Morocco. The Arabs, on the other hand, live in
+the plains; and Arabs and Berbers practically halve the country between
+them. Both peoples divide into numerous tribes, of which the men from the
+Riff are a Berber tribe. The negroes in Morocco are merely slaves
+imported from the south. One and all the Arab and Berber tribes are
+called indiscriminately by Europeans "Moors." The other wanderers in
+Tangier filter through the land from their own countries: who can tell
+why or wherefore? Hadj Riffi himself had obeyed his Prophet Mohammed in
+so far as to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. A journey the prospect of
+which would horrify a tradesman at home is undertaken by an
+earnest-minded shop-keeping Moor as a matter of course. What are the
+twelve uncomfortable days by sea to Jeddah? Or the journey thence to
+Mecca, lying stretched in a long pannier on one side of a camel, balanced
+by a second pilgrim in a pannier on the other side, and over the whole an
+awning spread? But this luxurious travelling is for the rich pilgrim, who
+swings silently along day after day, under the burning sun or the cold
+stars, across the tideless sea of sand, towards an illimitable horizon.
+Hadj Riffi "footed it," spent three days at Mecca, at this time
+transformed into a city of a myriad tents, among which it is easy enough
+to be lost, teeming with pilgrims--Chinese, Hindoos, Circassians,
+Georgians, Bosnians--most of them unable to understand each other, beyond
+a verse or two from the Kor[=a]n and a few pious ejaculations.
+
+Hadj Riffi and his fellow-Moors prayed three days at Mecca, and performed
+the ceremonies round the celebrated _K[=a]aba_, the chief shrine and
+holiest of all holy places, built by Adam and Eve after the pattern of
+their own Sanctum Sanctorum in the Garden of Eden.
+
+The far-famed Black Stone, presented to the masons by the Angel Gabriel,
+built into the east corner of the outer wall of the K[=a]aba, is a
+semicircular fragment of volcanic basalt, sprinkled with coloured
+crystals, about six by eight inches large, bordered with silver, and the
+surface of it reddish brown, undulating, and polished.
+
+Having kissed the Black Stone and performed other rites, the Moors went
+three days' journey to the Prophet's Mountain to pray; then they took
+themselves back to Morocco, but on their way, missing a steamer, were
+obliged to travel by land through Tunis, which took them five months,
+and, running short of money, lived, Hadj Riffi said, largely on roots.
+
+In the meantime he urged our donkey along, breaking his discourse with
+"Arrah! Arrah!" until at last it was cajoled under the gateway and into
+the Kasbah. This fortress, reported a good specimen of Moorish
+architecture, could impress nobody: it has no regular garrison; the
+batteries are antiquated, the artillery hopelessly inefficient. The
+crumbling battlements are overgrown with rank grass and fig-trees, though
+tradition has it they were once brass, when the city was built of gold
+and silver.
+
+Tangier is immensely old, and has seen many conquerors, many demolitions.
+Arabs, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Spaniards, and Portuguese
+have all in their turn besieged and taken, ruled and deserted, the white
+city. England has had her turn too. When Charles II. married Catherine of
+Braganza, Tangier and Bombay formed part of her dowry and passed into
+British hands. The Portuguese, to whom Tangier then belonged, withdrew;
+the English entered, repaired the city wall, built forts, and in the
+course of three years a great mole across the harbour at a cost of
+£31,000. Trade increased rapidly under the protection of the plucky
+Tangier Regiment (now the Queen's Royal West Surrey). An English mayor
+and corporation--six aldermen and twelve Common Council men--were
+established in the little colony, and attended church in scarlet and
+purple.
+
+And then the Home Government made a mistake. The slovenly Tangier board
+in London wasted money, sent adventurers out to Tangier as governors. An
+exposure of their mismanagement followed, which induced the Home
+Government to throw up a troublesome charge, and to evacuate as valuable
+a port as England ever possessed, in a country which, unlike India, is
+admirably adapted for European colonization, and blessed with every
+natural advantage Creation can offer.
+
+The mole and fortifications were blown up, Lord Dartmouth and his
+garrison marched out of Tangier on February 6, 1684, and the Moors took
+possession of a heap of fragmentary ruins. With Tangier in our hands we
+could have confidently commanded the passage of the Straits for seventy
+miles, nor would there have been a risk to Gibraltar of having all her
+supplies cut off in the event of Spain and Morocco being hostile to us.
+Fresh-comers to Morocco regret these things: in a few weeks the spirit of
+the country induces a lazy tolerance and a general apathy towards the
+past as well as towards the present state of affairs.
+
+We found inside the Kasbah an entirely Moorish element--one sacred spot
+where no "Christians" may live. A children's school was making a
+deafening noise on our right, and we looked in to see a group of small
+boys sitting round an ancient, turbaned Moor, who was sewing at a jellab
+and paying small attention to his pupils: one and all were on their
+heels, lighted by the open door, there being of course no windows; and
+each held in his two hands a board inscribed with Arabic characters,
+which he swayed backwards and forwards as he swayed his body in time with
+sentences from the Kor[=a]n, learnt thus by heart and chanted in a high
+sing-song key. There were no girls. Boys alone are taught anything; and
+in general their education begins and ends, as above, with the Kor[=a]n.
+Few Moors can write or read: there are no books in Morocco, except the
+Kor[=a]n and a religious treatise or two, to tempt them to learn. As for
+geography, an intelligent Moor will know by name England, France, and
+Germany, not Russia, and that his own country is the biggest, the best,
+and the most powerful.
+
+Leaving the noisy little school, which did not approve of being stared
+at, we came to the empty palace, with its great horse-shoe doorway,
+painted blue-white and carved in a rudimentary way, called in Arabic "The
+little garden," descriptive of its inside courtyard, planted with
+oranges, figs, and palms.
+
+Farther on stands the forge of the fortress: "for the slippers for the
+horses," Hadj Riffi explained. The blacksmith wore an apron of a whole
+goat-skin; he pared down the hoof with an instrument like a shovel,
+helped by the horse's owner or any chance onlooker, for Moors "hunt in
+packs," and only a mere Christian does anything by himself. The shoe is a
+complete circle of iron, has three nails on each side, and in some places
+a bar across the centre.
+
+At last we reached the prison, the principal feature of the Kasbah. Much
+has been written about Moorish prisons, to be put down by ignorant
+critics as exaggerated. English visitors have shown up their horrors,
+only to be forbidden now by a stringent order to go inside. It is hard
+to say what happens behind the scenes, but torture is lightly thought of
+in Morocco; "cruelty," as Europeans understand it, has no place nor
+meaning in ignorant, fanatical minds; and an unpleasant inference is
+therefore to be drawn.
+
+Of course many of the prisoners are confined, in all good faith, for
+offences, and will be released in time; but there are also Moors, in high
+positions socially, or possessed formerly of means, who "wither and
+agonize" year after year in captivity, their only fault that they were
+rich or influential in bygone days, thus tempting a jealous rival to
+remove them out of his path, or a greedy Government to confine them and
+feed upon their money. If they ever come out, it will be because a
+wealthy friend has chosen to pay the Government for their release, or
+because it has happened to occur to the ministers at Court to send for
+them; and half of them will reappear but scarred remnants of the men who
+went in. Descriptions of tortures which were unknown even in the Middle
+Ages in England may well be omitted: tortures which result in blind and
+tongueless creatures, without hands; bled of every penny they once
+possessed, and maimed in order to induce them to reveal the spot where
+their money was hidden, or the friends' names with whom they traded.
+
+We looked in through a small iron grating in the door about two feet
+square, revealing a space open to the skies, with roofed recesses in the
+walls round the four sides, where the prisoners had huddled themselves in
+their rags. At night they are chained by the leg. An Oriental does not
+require "a bed," but he is provided with no substitute in prison, still
+less with food and drink, for which he is dependent on friends or
+relations willing to supply him. Of late years, in certain prisons, a
+small loaf of bread per day is given to each man. He has the great
+advantage of being able to talk all day to his fellow-prisoners; but in
+the case of a refined man such close intercourse has its drawbacks, more
+especially when a raving lunatic happens to be chained by an iron collar
+round his neck to one of the pillars. Madmen and all alike, without
+respect of persons, veritably rot to death, cheek by jowl, in a Moorish
+prison. Disease, starvation, and injuries tend to shorten their
+captivity. Whoever has smelt the smell within those walls will endorse
+the adjective "kindly" Death, than which there surely can be no more
+welcome visitor.
+
+A few of the sound prisoners, sitting on the ground, were weaving
+baskets, some of which we bought through the keeper of the prison; then
+turned away, struck by the stoicism among the prisoners themselves in a
+situation of such uncertainty. Was it to end in death or release? Who
+knows? They merely shrug their shoulders, and ejaculate, "Ift shallah"
+(God will show).
+
+Passing the soldiers guarding the outside of the prison, and out under a
+second gateway of the Kasbah, we stumbled down what is called one of the
+Sultan's "highways," something very rocky and not far off the
+perpendicular. R. chose her own feet, much to Hadj Riffi's annoyance.
+Though the ways are such that no donkey can be ridden without stumbling
+among cobble-stones and pitfalls, and thereby running a risk of pitching
+the rider off the insecure pack into a refuse-heap, it was impossible for
+a European, in his eyes, to walk and to maintain his dignity at the same
+time.
+
+[Illustration: TWO SHEIKHS.
+
+[_To face p. 18._]
+
+That no Moor runs when he can walk, or walks when he can ride, or stands
+when he can sit, or sits when he can lie down, is a saying fulfilled to
+the letter. And what poor man, however heavily he loads his small
+donkey with garden produce, forgoes mounting himself on top of all,
+and making the little beast stagger along, at a fair pace too, to market?
+The life of such a man is not eventful, but what there is of it is good:
+he sings as he jogs along in a monotonous tone, and has a word for every
+soul he meets, and a laugh too, curses his donkey--he is never quiet--and
+lands the produce of his little melon-patch in the market. The melons are
+sold by degrees, much gossip is interspersed, possibly he washes and
+prays, then eats, and sleeps a little; more gossip, until the sun tells
+him it is time to get outside the city gates; and then off he jogs again,
+singing, talking, back to the little reed-thatched hut, fenced in by its
+hedge of cactus. Life is too full of--call it resignation or content--to
+leave room for disturbing speculations, and he is born of a race which
+never repines: there is Allah and the One Faith, and the sun to lie down
+beneath and meditate and sleep. Not that the typical countryman is
+idle--far from it: he is hard-working, without any beer to do it upon.
+
+It is a matter of more speculation as to what the courteous, solemn men,
+in turbans like carved snow, whom one meets walking along the beach
+telling their beads, or sees sitting in sunshine reading aloud in a low
+voice, steadily praising Allah, occupy themselves with from month to
+month; or the sleek sheikh--a countryman of some means, with smooth
+coffee-coloured face and a haik whiter than an iced birthday
+cake--perched between the peaks of his red cloth saddle, under which his
+hard, hammer-headed mule paces at an intermittent amble.
+
+Probably the sheikh has ridden out of the city to inspect his crops. His
+house, with his wife, he has locked up: the keys are in his pocket. He
+swings along a sandy track bordered with cactus, reaches his garden
+door, which is painted Reckitt's blue, unlocks it, and, tying his mule
+up inside to a fruit-tree, proceeds to inspect his vines and prune
+casually some of the ashy-white branches of his fig-trees. Then he sets
+two ragged countrywomen to work to cut his vines and hoe his beans. He
+may read a few verses of the Kor[=a]n later on. He may sleep. Eventually
+he ambles home. Other days he spends among his friends in the city,
+sitting in their little shops and gossiping consumedly. He may hire an
+empty shop of his own for the same purpose, and turn it into what might
+be called "a club." He will pray regularly; will play chess and draughts
+sitting in the front of a shop; will drink green tea. Whatever he does is
+done without haste, and towards evening he strolls serenely, with many
+interruptions, in the direction of his own house.
+
+The climate of Morocco has never any of the brisk, freezing "grip" of a
+hard English winter, but rather tends towards encouraging indolence. In
+Tangier itself energetic English visitors find little superabundant scope
+for action: naturally enough, the residents, whom an enervating summer or
+two shears of much of the vitality with which they first landed, end in
+settling down into an enjoyable, mild routine. There is, however,
+shooting and a little pig-sticking for who will; but guns may not be
+brought into the country, and no European would be allowed to exploit its
+_nullahs_: if not killed, he would be turned back and escorted into
+trodden ways.
+
+The principal day's excursion from Tangier is out to Cape Spartel and
+back again: before we left the place we started early one morning with
+this end in view, taking a donkey and boy carrying a camera, lunch,
+etc.--first along a cobbled roadway of which Tangier is immensely proud,
+across the river by a new bridge, and up the Mountain. The Mountain is
+the summer abode of Tangier, and shady houses and gardens civilize what
+was once a wild hill, in the days when our great British minister, Sir
+John Hay, did an unprecedented thing, and built himself a house there.
+
+Forty years ago no Christian was safe outside Tangier without a guard,
+and it is largely to Sir John Hay's fearless trust in the honour of the
+Moor that the change is due. It may still be unwise to walk in lonely
+places after dark, or to become involved in a street row; for if one
+ruffian is excited to throw a stone, thirty will follow suit, and
+Europeans have thus been stoned to death. But those who live out in the
+Mountain and visitors to Spartel have nothing to fear in these days in
+the shape of attack and robbery.
+
+It was about ten o'clock when we left behind us the leggy remains of a
+Roman aqueduct over the river, and, having climbed the Mountain, broke
+into open ground, stretching far away at the top. The cobbled road
+resolved itself into an unsophisticated path; the stiff cane fences,
+shutting out all but the tree-tops in the gardens from view, came to an
+end; and we were in a breeze off the Atlantic, on undulating hills
+covered with short scrub, gum-cistus, arbutus, tall white heather,
+oleander, and pink-and-white convolvulus.
+
+The track led us up and down, and grew more stony as we went on,
+gradually rising, till we were about a thousand feet above the sea.
+Looking back, Tangier lay far below, and beyond it in the distance white
+cragged mountains glinted in the sun.
+
+It was a glorious day, November 24: a fresh breeze, tempered as it so
+seldom is in England at that time of year. Our path wound round the hills
+and dipped towards the sea. From the stretches of heather through which
+we brushed we could hear below us the surf breaking on the rocks: it
+might have been a corner of the west coast of Scotland.
+
+After eight miles' up-and-down tramp, the lighthouse at the end of the
+great cape, Spartel, the north-west corner of the African Continent, came
+into sight. This lighthouse was built at the instigation of the eleven
+Powers, but actually by the Sultan. The Powers--Great Britain, France,
+Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Russia, America, and
+Brazil--share the cost of its maintenance, and that of the whole road
+from Tangier to the lighthouse, which follows the line of
+telegraph-posts, the cable being laid to Spartel. The lighthouse is
+French built; its fixed intermittent white light can be seen thirty-six
+miles away, and it stands 312 feet above sea-level.
+
+Sitting down at its base, looking out to sea, we watched the black spines
+of rock underneath us, set in whirlpools of foam--the Dark Continent
+showing the last of its teeth. On our left the coast trended away into
+the hazy distance: to our right across the blue Straits lay the yellow
+sands of the bay where Trafalgar was fought, and the irregular little
+town of Tarifa, backed by purple Spanish hills.
+
+The evenings were short, and we were soon on our homeward way. The
+stunted bushes on each side of the path, disturbed by the devastating
+woodcutters, could hardly hold a lion in the present day. Yet in the
+course of Sir John Hay's forty odd years of administration in Morocco two
+were seen in these same woods, and he shot there himself a striped _Hyæna
+rufus_, a great shaggy animal with a bristling mane. One of the two lions
+ought to have been shot, but he doubled back, and was heard of afterwards
+travelling at a swinging trot between Tangier and Tetuan. He killed an ox
+in the valley the next day, and disappeared in the direction of the
+snow-topped mountains.
+
+In this twentieth century lions in the north of Morocco would be a rare
+sight: towards the south the mountain-fastnesses hold them still,
+together with leopards, wild cats, etc.; but, like everywhere else, big
+game moves off as civilization moves on.
+
+There remains the wild boar. The Moors hunt him with greyhounds,
+Europeans shoot him, and Englishmen have introduced pig-sticking. The
+largest pig Sir John Hay speared scaled twenty stone clean, and measured
+six foot four from snout to tail. But even pig are getting scarce. The
+Tent Club in Tangier organizes expeditions, and parties go out under
+canvas for a few days at a time: the result is nothing very great.
+
+When it is a question of shooting pig, the Moors, born sportsmen, join
+one and all--small farmers and peasants--purely from the love of sport.
+Some act as beaters, wearing leathern aprons and greaves--such as the
+Greek peasantry wore--to protect their legs. They carry bill-hooks to cut
+their way through the thickets, and bring along a tribe of native dogs,
+which do good service--a cross between a collie and a jackal, veteran
+poachers, which prowl through the scrub, winding a boar at any distance.
+The thickets where pig lie are for the most part backed by the sea, and
+bordered by lake and marsh or plain, in which case it is not difficult to
+inveigle the driven boar to break where the guns are posted. A haunch of
+wild pig judiciously roasted, with a _soupçon_ of wine in the gravy, is
+one of the delicacies of Morocco. As many as fifteen boars have been
+accounted for in a couple of days' shooting.
+
+The sun went down; the soft air grew colder: we walked quickly back
+through the outskirts of Tangier, between gardens full of plumbago,
+dituria, geraniums, hibiscus, pointsettias, narcissus, frescia, and roses
+of all sorts, besides other flowers. Anything would grow in a soil which
+has been known to bear three crops of potatoes in one year, and where
+corn is sometimes sown and reaped all within the space of forty days.
+
+An enterprising English market-gardener is this year growing vegetables
+and fruit for the London market, expecting to have green peas in Covent
+Garden in December, the duty on peas and tomatoes having been lowered to
+5 per cent. This man acts as agent to a land-owner. Fortunes, indeed,
+might be made, if it were not a question of FIND THE LAND; for while land
+cannot now be bought in Morocco by Europeans, the few fortunates who own
+inherited acres price them high, and, hoping for a boom in the course of
+the next fifteen years, demand £400 an acre.
+
+As we turned into the Villa Valentina a wonderful opal light warmed the
+white city and the sand-hills--they were no longer cold nor colourless;
+while banks of "rose" sunset-clouds were reflected "rose" in a grey-green
+sea.
+
+Tangier has two sides to it--one native, the other European. The European
+side is all which appears on the surface, and it swamps the other. Given
+each of the eleven Powers, with its minister, its minister's family, its
+secretary, its attaché, its interpreter, its student; add to these a
+handful of English residents, a handful of English and American visitors,
+and a handful of varied nationalities thrown in; back them up with the
+necessary foundation of purveyors, and lower down still a substratum of
+leeches and black-sheep, greedy Jews, needy Spaniards, introducing drink
+and tobacco and gambling,--and there you have before you all the elements
+of a highly civilized town on the Mediterranean shore. It may be Tangier:
+it is not Morocco.
+
+[Illustration: TANGIER.
+
+[_To face p. 24._]
+
+The Moorish aristocracy themselves speak of the place as
+"Christian-ridden Tangier," and will have none of it: the Sultan says it
+"no longer belongs to him." Its trade is _nil_, and what there is of it
+is in the hands of the Jews, who boast eleven synagogues, schools, and a
+Grand Rabbi at the head of all.
+
+We brought introductions with us to various people, and met with every
+hospitality in Tangier. Sir Arthur and Lady Nicolson, representing Great
+Britain, do all in their power for visitors; and the colony of mixed
+nationalities fills its off hours together, most successfully, with a
+round of picnics, afternoon rides, tea parties, and other amusements,
+implied by "wintering at Tangier"; from all of which any knowledge of
+Morocco, or association with Moors, is far removed indeed.
+
+A seaport which has neither roads nor railways to connect it with the
+surrounding country, is isolated a week's journey from the nearest
+capital town, and whose links with the outer world all tend seawards
+through steamers to foreign countries, can never constitute a study of
+the land to which it belongs only by right of position.
+
+But Morocco itself had brought us to the north of Africa. Tangier could
+only be a base for future operations, and consequently a fortnight of
+Tangier sufficed, finding us bent upon moving on, before the heavy rains
+broke, and the swollen rivers made travelling impossible. Travelling in
+Morocco is never at the best of times luxurious. "Say explore, rather
+than travel," somebody writes, speaking of Morocco; and many were the
+injunctions and warnings which the post brought us from friends at
+home--above all, to expect no ransoms, in the event of capture by lawless
+tribes.
+
+It is true that a _Wanderjahr_ in Morocco has not the luxuries of travel
+in India; and Englishmen who would break new ground must wear Moorish
+dress, talk Arabic, and prepare to face considerable risks, with the
+off-chance of writing in some such strain as Davidson: "To-day I have
+parted with all my hair except one long tuft over my right ear. I never
+expect to become white again. My beard is very long. My legs covered with
+bites of vermin. My cheek-bones prominent, and my teeth sharp from having
+very little to do."
+
+Not that R. and myself had such adventures in view; but we believed that
+even as humble followers in the tracks of others we should find no lack
+of interest in a country so little known, among a people of "The Arabian
+Nights," under conditions which tempt the Unexpected to stalk out from
+behind every corner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMP OUTFIT--A NIGHT AT A CARAVANSERAI--TETUAN--THE BRITISH
+VICE-CONSUL--MOORISH SHOPS--WE VISIT A MOORISH HOUSE AND FAMILY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Tetuan_--the tiger-cat! so curiously beautiful. Recollections of
+     it hang in the gallery of one's memory, not so much as pictures,
+     but as Correggio-like masses of vivid colouring and intangible
+     spirals of perfume.
+
+
+THE place we had set our hearts upon visiting, to begin with, was the
+northern capital, Fez--only to find, on going into particulars, that
+insurmountable barriers blocked the way. Even if we escaped the December
+rains on the ride there, they would break sooner or later, making
+sleeping out under canvas impossible: the flooded rivers might mean a
+long delay--probably a week or more--on the banks; bridges in Morocco are
+harder to find than diamonds on the seashore, and when a river is in
+flood there remains only to sit down in front of it until the waters
+abate.
+
+The "road" to Fez, after the tropical rains, soon becomes a slough of
+clay and water, ploughed up by mules and donkeys, and so slippery that
+nothing can keep its legs. We decided, therefore, to leave Fez till the
+spring, when the rains would be over, and to visit for the present a city
+called Tetuan, only two days' journey from Tangier, camping out as long
+as we felt inclined, and returning to the Villa Valentina in a week, or
+when the weather should drive us back. But the gods thought otherwise.
+
+Tetuan was, by report, in the most beautiful part of Morocco: its
+situation reminded travellers of Jerusalem; it was among the Anjera and
+Riff Mountains; and though, of course, travel was impossible within the
+forbidden land of the Riff, it was likely we should gather some
+interesting crumbs of information, and come across a few of the famous
+tribesmen, while we were staying on the borders. Above all, it was a
+Moorish city, and counted an aristocratic one at that: no European
+element spoilt its originality. On the face of it Tetuan had attractions.
+
+Accordingly we made preparations to be off.
+
+The first thing to be done was to get hold of a man who could cook, act
+as guide, interpreter, and muleteer: plenty of them presented themselves,
+and we closed with a certain Mohammed, who had been with Colonel H----.
+Every third Moor is named Mohammed, or some corruption of it--eldest sons
+invariably.
+
+Next we ransacked Tangier for commissariat and camp outfit. Out of a
+dirty little Spanish shop two men's saddles of antiquated English make,
+with rolls, were unearthed, and hired in preference to some prehistoric
+side-saddles, with moth-eaten doe-skin seats and horned third pommels.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 30._]
+
+Then we obtained a permit from the English Consul, for the sum of
+seven-and-sixpence, authorizing us to apply to the governor of the Kasbah
+for one of the Moorish soldiers quartered in Tangier, who should act as
+our escort to Tetuan. The Sultan of Morocco undertakes to protect British
+subjects travelling in his dominions as far as possible, provided they
+supply themselves with an adequate escort and avoid roads through unsafe
+territory. The various tribes from among themselves sometimes provide an
+armed guard to see travellers safely across their own country, handing
+them on at the borders to the next tribe, who sends its mounted escort to
+meet them. The headman arranges for the safety of Europeans, and his
+tribe answers for their lives. But this plan involves prearrangement,
+publicity, and fuss. Now from Tangier to Tetuan the road by daylight is
+perfectly safe--though it happens that, at the time of writing, the body
+of a peasant, presumably out after sunset, has been found robbed and
+murdered close to it. Therefore one soldier was all we should want; and
+at last this bodyguard was supplied, a ragged Moor, with a lean mule and
+a French rifle--all for five shillings per day.
+
+We next visited a general "stores," lined with the familiar Cadbury,
+Keiller, and Huntley & Palmer tins: there we invested in corned beef,
+tinned soup, potted meats, cheese, salt, macaroni, marmalade, tea,
+coffee, sugar, candles, soap, matches, etc. Things not to be forgotten
+were nails, hammer, rope, methylated spirit and etna. A revolver for its
+moral effect is necessary, and may be invaluable in a tight corner. We
+provided ourselves with two tents, one for the servants and a larger one
+for ourselves; a set of camp furniture, including kitchen pots and pans;
+and an enamel breakfast and dining service, which, if time had mattered
+little, would have been well exchanged for an aluminium set out from
+England, as lighter and more convenient.
+
+Mohammed hired four mules and another man--Ali--himself taking charge of
+the cooking department, providing meat, bread, vegetables, fruit, etc.:
+then with our _bundobust_ complete, and a letter of introduction from Sir
+Arthur Nicolson to the British Vice-Consul at Tetuan, we started on
+November 28.
+
+It was one of the hottest mornings we had had, not a fleck of cloud in
+the sky, and what air there was due east: the sea lay flat as a blue
+pool, and five or six white sails might have been swans on its glassy
+surface. Mohammed appeared early in the sandy road underneath our
+windows. To avoid waking people in the hotel, we handed our diminutive
+kit out through the window to him--only a couple of waterproof rolls,
+which held rugs and bare necessities; then locking up the bulk of our
+worldly goods behind us, slipped out of the Villa Valentina, mounted our
+mules, and were off across the white sand-dunes bordering the sea.
+
+Tetuan lies forty-four miles to the south-east of Tangier: people with
+much time and little energy have made a three days' march of it. A range
+of hills rather more than half-way makes a natural division, and on the
+top of this watershed a _fondâk_ (caravanserai) stands for the use of
+travellers during the night: here it is usual to camp.
+
+We were an odd little procession as we left Tangier. Our mounted soldier,
+Cadour, led the way, in a brown weather-worn jellab, which he pulled
+right up over his head like a Franciscan friar: his legs were bare, his
+feet thrust into a pair of old yellow shoes. He carried his gun across
+his saddle in front of him, inside one arm: it was in a frayed brown
+canvas case, which had holes in each end, out of which both stock and
+barrel respectively protruded. With his other hand he jogged incessantly
+at the mule's mouth. Take him all in all, a soldier's was the last trade
+he outwardly impersonated. Behind him rode R. and myself, shaking down by
+degrees into our saddles, glad not to have before us eight or ten hours'
+jog across rough country on provincial side-saddles, which, apart from
+the strained position, are inconvenient for slipping off and on again.
+Behind us followed the two baggage-mules with our tents, etc.: loaded as
+they were, Mohammed and Ali had climbed upon the tops of their great
+packs. A mule carries as much as he can get along under in Morocco: the
+man climbs up afterwards, and does not count.
+
+Two hundredweight, with a Moor on top, is a fair load for a long journey,
+marching seven hours every day. Enough barley should be carried for each
+night's fodder: the ordinary mule and pony live on barley and broken
+straw, beans when in season, and grass in the spring to fatten them.
+Sevenpence a day will feed a mule, and hire comes to three shillings a
+day. Good mules are not bought easily, and are worth, on account of their
+toughness, more than ponies, fetching £12 any day. Ours were but
+second-rate hirelings, and we made up our minds to buy later on, when
+starting on a long expedition. A mule should be chosen chiefly for its
+pacing powers, doing four and a half miles an hour on an average for
+seven hours a day, without turning a hair or tiring the rider, whose
+comfort depends on an easy pace. The longer the overlap of the hind-shoe
+print over the fore-shoe print, the better the pace. Moorish horses are
+wiry little beasts, but you seldom see a handsome one: either they are
+ewe-necked or they fall away in the hindquarters; their feet are allowed
+to grow too long, and their legs are ruined through tight hobbling. Nor
+is there much inducement to a Moor to breed a handsome foal, liable to be
+stolen from him, if seen by a governor or agent of the Sultan's.
+Naturally he breeds the inferior animal he has a chance of keeping, and
+puts a valuable mare to a common stallion, branding and otherwise
+disfiguring a colt which by bad luck turns out good-looking.
+
+The slender desert-horse, the _habb-er-reeh_ (gust of wind, as they call
+him), with the small aristocratic head, a nose which will go into a
+tea-cup, perfect shoulders, and diminutive sloping hindquarters, is
+seldom met with and hardly ever used, except quite in the south of the
+country, where he is given camel's milk to drink.
+
+People as a rule start off on their day's march with the dawn, after a
+light breakfast of coffee, beaten-up eggs, and dry biscuits; halt about
+ten o'clock, supposing they are near water; and, if necessary, do two or
+three hours more, comfortably, before sunset. But we had made a late
+start, and the sun was far up as we jogged along one after the other,
+leaving behind the sands, the orange gardens, and the gimcrack Spanish
+houses, at every step the open country widening in front of us.
+
+We followed a narrow path, one of the countless footpaths which zigzag in
+and out, and wind away to every point of the compass, like ants' tracks
+from an ant-hill. Donkeys, mules, countrywomen, eternally pass and
+re-pass along the polished ways, with the everlasting burdens of
+charcoal, faggots, vegetables, and flour: life in some form moving along
+them there always is.
+
+Towards the edge of the horizon, clumps of dwarf palm and coarse grass
+slanted in the breeze: here and there grey rocks stuck up on the hillside
+like fossilized bones, and met the blue sky. A stream was meandering,
+hidden under deep banks, on our right. We wound along the wide valley,
+doing our best to keep the mules going at a respectable pace, and finding
+that there was quite an art in accomplishing it on a hireling. Cadour cut
+in behind, and supplemented our sticks and heels with Arabic words of
+much effect, his own mule's mouth suffering badly from his jogging,
+remorseless hand.
+
+[Illustration: OURSELVES AND BAGGAGE.
+
+[_To face p. 34._]
+
+A raven, "a blot in heaven, flying high," sailed over our heads up in
+the blue, and then, leisurely dropping, sat on a rock and croaked at
+us. Morocco is a country of circling kites and keen-eyed hawks, whose
+easy, buoyant flight and vibrating "hover" in the hot air are
+things of undying fascination. Now and again a puff of east
+wind--life-giving--would stir the whole countryside and pass on,
+leaving us glowing under a sun which warmed every cranny, and made the
+section of air just above the flat fields rock with heat. Two
+countrywomen toiled towards us under their bundles--a couple of
+figures swathed in yellowy white; they gazed at us as people gaze who
+have few interests in their lives, then smiled and spoke,
+gesticulated, and laughed again: a herd of goats was outlined on the
+hill above; the goat-herd called to another far-off brown-clad figure,
+and the echoes filtered down to us: a rabbit dashed up out of a
+palm-bush and scuttled away: and then there was silence profound, and
+we paced on eastwards, talking and singing a song sometimes, while the
+sun climbed right-handed.
+
+There is no life like it--that life of the open air and its absolute
+freedom. Monotonous it would certainly be to many people: small and
+uneventful matters, and a palette set in greys and browns, charm but a
+few, for whom solitary rides and waste places are "things in common," and
+chance meetings and little incidents by the way suffice.
+
+Two or three miles outside Tangier stretch rich undulating lands between
+low hills: a few divisionless fields bear witness to both primitive and
+erratic farming, and give that regretful air to the landscape which land
+not "done well by" always imparts.
+
+The writer has lately read a somewhat pessimistic letter upon the state
+of Morocco. Morocco is a decadent empire, it is true: primarily, because
+the two races to whom the country belongs live, and have always lived
+from time immemorial, under a tribal system; and secondarily, because
+those same races, Arab and Berber, hate one another with a racial
+hatred. These two reasons by themselves augur badly for the land they
+live upon, implying a state of armed neutrality, no cohesion, and no
+settled peace.
+
+Under a tribal system the tribe is the unit, not the individual--"one for
+all, and all for one": it follows that transgression and retribution are
+both upon a wholesale scale, and alike disastrous towards the
+consolidation of a united nation.
+
+The government in a country cursed by the tribal system must in the very
+nature of things be despotic: lawless tribes need the tyrant's hand of
+iron. To the fact of his being a despot the Sultan owes his security,
+coupled with one other reason. Arabs and Berbers alike are fanatics:
+religion is the air they breathe, the salt of life. The Sultan is
+descended direct from the One Great Prophet; consequently the Sultan is
+acknowledged as lord. His policy is an Oriental one: tribe is played off
+against tribe, one European power against the other European power; the
+empire is isolated; innovations are prohibited, lest European
+civilization should oust Moorish eccentricities. So much for the Oriental
+policy of "the balance of jealousies."
+
+Despotism breeds despotism. While every Moor below the Sultan ranks as
+equal, the fact remains that Government officials are all in their own
+sphere little despots, governing districts many days' journey from Court,
+with every chance of robbing and oppressing those under them, until the
+day of reckoning comes, when the Court, hearing how fat their fine bird
+has grown, summons him to the capital, and the process of plucking and
+imprisoning their wealthy servant follows.
+
+Life exists upon life, from the _sheikhs_ (farmers), who live upon what
+they can squeeze out of the peasants, to the _bashas_ (governors), who
+exist on tithes, taxes, and extortion wrung from the sheikhs and
+townspeople, up to higher officials, who receive no salaries, and line
+their pockets by a process of bleeding the bashas and others . . . . . .
+thus _ad lib_. Even the gaolers--also unpaid--earn their living by
+extorting money from the prisoners. The whole system of government reacts
+upon itself; for the venality of the officials drives the tribes to
+redress their wrongs at intervals by raids and open rebellion, to punish
+whom there follows slaughter upon slaughter, and the country is laid
+waste.
+
+Hence the principal reasons--wheels within wheels--which account for the
+Morocco of 1902: its prehistoric customs, its uncultivated acres.
+
+No reformer, no missionary, will alter the condition of Morocco. The
+Moors themselves have made it what it is; but since for an Ethiopian to
+change his skin is no light matter, there is small probability of the
+Moors themselves unmaking it.
+
+A gloomy prospect, yet one which, taking the case of the people and
+looking upon it from a "happiness" point of view, must not be altogether
+judged from a European standpoint. The likes and dislikes of Moors are
+not the likes and dislikes of Europeans, and most of them view their good
+times and bad times with equal calm, as merely the will of Allah. Besides
+which, anything in the shape of law and order and daily routine rasps
+their raw nature. Just as a Moor prefers to eat to repletion when there
+is food, and to go without when there is not, so he would choose a
+desultory and irresponsible life, alternating between perfect freedom and
+excessive tyranny, to any regular humdrum form of government which Europe
+could offer him.
+
+The country people we met, if hard-worked, had at the same time cheerful
+enough faces: their enjoyment of life probably equals that of the English
+labourer.
+
+On the whole, it is possible that, when the day comes--as it must
+come--that an effete and inadequate people goes to the wall, and
+civilized blood occupies their room, it may bring good, but that good
+will be tinged with regret--certainly in the eyes of those selfish
+mortals to whom one country, neither wire-fenced nor scored by railways,
+nor swept nor garnished, but coloured to-day by the smoke of many
+thousand years, still offers palmy days. Thus giving thanks to Allah for
+things as they are, after the manner of the country, we jogged along,
+looking out for a halting-ground: it was between twelve and one o'clock,
+and time to stretch our legs.
+
+The river and some oleander-bushes, with green lawns between them,
+offered all we wanted. Cadour took off his brown jellab, and spread it
+for us to sit upon. There we lunched and waited for an hour. Some oxen
+were ploughing close to us, driven in a desultory way by a figure clad in
+a pair of once white drawers, and a once white tunic with a leather belt.
+All which this husbandman wanted being corn enough to supply himself, and
+no surplus to fall into the sheikh's hands, the field was naturally
+small. A well-to-do farmer might rise to growing a little maize or cummin
+or millet or fenugreek for exportation, perhaps some broad-beans,
+chick-peas, or canary-seed; but the duties are heavy. Wheat and barley
+have been forbidden export: the infidel shall not eat bread of the true
+believer's corn.
+
+Our Arabic at that time was _nil_; there was no chance of a word with the
+ploughman unless through Mohammed. Such a mere scratch of a furrow as he
+made, into which the grain would be casually thrown, with never a harrow
+or substitution for one! Allah provides, and there is no reason to
+interfere with his arrangements: "B`ism Allah." Thus will the fields be
+reaped, the corn ground, the bread made, the loaf eaten, with the same
+old invocation muttered beforehand: "B`ism Allah" (In the name of God).
+
+The two little oxen drew the patriarchal plough, hewn out of a log of
+wood, and shod with an iron point, entirely by means of their heads, to
+which it was fastened with dried grass-fibres across their foreheads and
+round their horns, making a sort of large straw bonnet on top of all
+which they held high in the air or sideways, with expressions of extreme
+disgust. In the middle of the field, yoked by the bonnet to a second
+plough and a fellow-ox, the companion had inconsiderately lain down, to
+the great inconvenience of its foolish partner, which remained standing,
+with its head forced into the most unpleasant angle downwards, and the
+stoical expression of a true Mussulman underneath its bonnet.
+
+On the opposite side of the stream some sheep, suggestive of the lean,
+tough mutton we fed upon, were searching round for anything in the shape
+of pasture: flocks of small cows and calves were on the same quest
+between the palmetto-bushes: somewhere a boy in charge was no doubt
+asleep.
+
+By this time Mohammed was impatient to be off: the bits were put back
+into the mules' mouths, we got into our saddles again, and pushed on. In
+wet weather the track must be a bad one to follow: innumerable
+streamlets, which have eaten out deep gullies in the clay, have to be
+crossed, making the going hard upon heavily laden beasts, and after heavy
+rains impossible. We slipped about a little. Mohammed and his man had
+their hands full with the two baggage-mules, which they had long ago
+given up trying to ride. The slopes became more bleak: far away in the
+distance Cadour pointed out our destination, a white speck on the top of
+a range of hills, to be seen for a moment and lost sight of the next, as
+we dipped down on to lower ground. Another hour brought it very little
+nearer: fresh irregularities between opened up continually, meaning
+_détours_ to the right or left. A few plover wailed over some marsh: in
+such places partridge, hares, golden grouse, and quail ought to be found;
+but since every male possesses a gun of sorts, from the peasant hoeing
+beans upwards, and is not troubled with game laws or ideas upon
+preserving, they become rarer.
+
+We passed clump after clump of white narcissus in full bloom, and
+marigolds in yellow patches; but as we neared the hills the country grew
+wilder, and short scrub, palmetto, and cistus took the place of coarse
+grass.
+
+At last we were at the foot of the pass, and the end of our march was all
+uphill, steep in places, the scrub turning into respectable bushes, with
+almost a "jungly" aspect. The baggage-mules were pushed and urged ahead.
+At last, about five o'clock, the sun setting, we reached our
+camping-ground, up in the teeth of a rising wind.
+
+Standing by itself, the caravanserai--called a _fondâk_ in Morocco--was a
+white-walled enclosure, with a great open space in the middle and
+colonnades all round the insides of the four walls, where men and mules
+huddled and slept unconcernedly. There is also one room to be had; but
+filthy, of course, such quarters always are, and dear at any price (the
+rate for accommodation is not large). One look into the walled enclosure,
+crowded with transport animals and their drivers, was enough, and we
+turned to see to the pitching of the tents outside.
+
+The panorama of hills in the west had a red, lurid light, such as Julius
+Ollsson loves to paint: across the stormy glow trailed a few white wisps
+of smoke where the peasants were burning wood on the hillside for
+charcoal. Making a _détour_ of the fondâk while there was light to see,
+we chose the west side for our camp, apparently the most sheltered; but
+the place is a temple of the four winds and gusty upon a breathless day.
+
+It was quite dark before the men had things ready, hampered as they were
+by the gale which was getting up and the want of light. We tried to keep
+warm, and watched the first star come out from a knoll; at last took
+refuge in our wind-shaken tent, unpacked, and sat ourselves down with
+outstretched legs, wrapped in a medley of garments, round the little
+camp-table, lit by the flicker of two candle-lanterns, the flaps of the
+tents snugly fastened together from within, awaiting Mohammed's first
+culinary effort.
+
+By-and-by from out of the chaotic kitchen-tent, pitched in the dark,
+filled with confused commissariat, and further blocked by Cadour, Ali,
+and their small effects, Mohammed emerged, and handed in through an
+opening in our tent chicken and eggs cooked in Moorish fat. After a long
+interval tea followed, and fruit. We sat listening to the wind, writing
+up a diary and talking till bed seemed the best and only warm place. The
+gale woke me after an hour or two: the tent, torn by raging gusts,
+threatened to give at every moment. I got up and took a look outside. A
+wild, gustful night indeed, of glimmering stars and a great white
+half-moon--cold too: the mountains stood out sharp; there was little
+cloud; round our tent a guard of men from the fondâk--always supplied,
+for the safety of travellers--were sleeping on the ground, heads and all
+wrapped up in their jellabs,--the moon shone on the queer bundles, and on
+our five mules, picketed opposite the tent door, backs to the wind,
+munching their barley. Neither of us got much sleep; roused periodically
+by the hammering in afresh of our strained tent-pegs, by the men's
+voices, which would relapse into silence for half an hour, and then break
+out again; above all, by the flapping and rattling of the canvas. For a
+moment there was a lull, and we heard the mules feeding and the thousand
+sounds of the night; then a wild blast almost carried the tent away, and
+the monotonous undertone of voices would begin once more.
+
+We were up early, spent little time over dressing in a stiff breeze, and
+turned out to look at the weather. Banks of cloud lay piled up in the
+wind, but rain never comes with the _sharki_ (east wind). The sun was
+up--no chance of seeing it for the present.
+
+Mohammed boiled eggs and tea, and in another twenty minutes we were ready
+to quit our exposed camping-ground.
+
+From the fondâk to Tetuan the distance is only fifteen miles, half a
+day's journey. The day before we had done twenty-eight miles, and ought
+to have started at dawn, avoiding the pitching of our tents in the dark.
+To-day we were off betimes.
+
+It was cold, and I walked the first hour or two, Cadour and R. riding
+behind with my mule, coming slowly down the steep, rocky ridge into the
+valley in which Tetuan lies. It was a bad bit of riding, a continuous
+descent, and the baggage-mules fell far behind: the rocky ravine was
+uncultivated and treeless, scrub and rocks only on the bare mountains.
+Sometimes a crest would have a saw edge against the sky, suggesting fir
+woods; but as a matter of fact every tree worth having which is not
+planted by a saint's tomb, and therefore holy, has long ago been made
+into fire-wood, no coal finding its way into the interior of Morocco, and
+mining being a thing unknown.
+
+At last the slopes gave on to more level ground and strips of
+cultivation: we had our first view of Tetuan, at that distance little
+more than a streak of white lying in the shelter of the hills.
+
+It was better going; and R. having jogged on some way ahead, I waited for
+Cadour, climbed into my saddle, and caught her up. Here and there,
+perched on each side of us, far above in the mountains, wherever an oasis
+of green lay between sheltering cliffs, a village had sprung up, an
+irregular cluster of brown-and-white huts, thatched with cane, weathered
+to shades of brown, the whole pile hedged with grey aloes and cactus, on
+the steep mountain-side--also brown--where, unless looked for, they could
+easily have been passed over altogether.
+
+These were the only signs of man; for Tetuan shared the speciality of the
+fondâk the night before, in vanishing behind intervening hills and never
+growing any nearer. But the mules this time were fresher, or we had
+learnt the art of keeping them up to the mark; they broke into a canter,
+and scampered across the rich-looking flats bordering the river Wád
+Martîl. The Wád Martîl is the proud possessor of one of the seven bridges
+which the Empire of Morocco can show--a somewhat quaint construction, but
+a _bonâ-fide_ stone bridge: no carriage could have crossed it; the middle
+cobble-stones were so steep and rough that they amounted to rocks. But
+Morocco knows not carriages, and at least it was a bridge.
+
+Once across, Tetuan was not more than a few miles off.
+
+Seen from any height, it is one of the whitest cities in the world, and
+the whitewashed walls lend themselves to flat shadow as blue as the sky
+above. Tetuan has been described as "a cluster of flat-backed white
+mice, shut up in a fortress in case they should escape": it has also
+been likened to Jerusalem, with "the hills round about." For my own part,
+it was like nothing I had seen, nor was prepared then and there to
+classify--this heap of chalk, this white city. Not a particle of smoke
+floated over it: purity and sunlight alone were suggested by the outside
+of the platter. The Moor has a weakness for whitewashed houses, for long
+white garments, for veiled women: there shall be no outer windows in his
+house, nor in his own private life. Ugliness there may be, enough and to
+spare, inside these white cities--it oozes out sometimes; but as far as
+possible let a haik and a blank wall enshroud it all in mystery.
+
+None can fix the age of Tetuan: once upon a time the city was on the
+seashore--now seven miles of flats lie between, and crawling mules and
+donkeys link the two, working backwards and forwards, week in, week out,
+jogging down with empty packs to the cargo-steamers, and labouring back
+across deep-flooded country half the year, under solid burdens, to the
+city. From the flat roof-tops the weekly visit of a merchant-vessel is
+duly looked for, and a long black steamer lies at anchor for the day in
+the narrow ribbon of blue sea seen to the east, near the white Customs
+House, which stands back from the beach.
+
+[Illustration: CLOUDS OVER TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 44._]
+
+Southwards Tetuan faces the Riff country, range after range of mountains,
+inhabited by that indomitable tribe, whose "highlands" are closed to
+Europeans. The river Wád Martîl, between Tetuan and _the Riff_, winds
+across the seven miles of flats to the sea, and is fordable in two or
+three places except in heavy rains; and days "in the mountains"--safe
+within sight of the city--promised us many an expedition, and opened up
+another world of heights foreshadowed and gulfs forbidden, where the
+hours were all too short.
+
+Behind Tetuan to the north, the mountainous Anjera country, wild, bare
+hills abut upon the very city wall.
+
+The name _Tetuan_ means in Arabic "The eyes of the springs," and all over
+the city water gushes out of the limestone rock--the hardest water, I
+submit, that ever mortal tried to drink. Such a supply is worth a kingdom
+to an Eastern city. Every tank, fountain, and _hummum_ (Turkish bath) has
+its never-failing supply, gratis, from the heart of the hills. The little
+streets are watered by it, and the sewage carried off on the lower side
+of the city in a strong current, which--still useful--works primitive
+corn-mills under the wall on the south side, where a sack receives the
+flour from a couple of flat revolving stones. A miller was robbed the
+other night asleep by his sack: the door burst open, and he expected a
+bullet, but was let off with a clout on the head and the confiscation of
+his sack.
+
+Having ground the corn, sewage and all is conducted over the land, and
+enriches the fertile apricot- and peach-orchards, corn-fields and
+vineyards. The great orange-gardens lie beyond in the rich river-deposit.
+There is no want of fruit round Tetuan: May sees pomegranates, apricots,
+peaches, figs, prickly pears, in due course; September brings the grape
+season; acres upon acres of gardens are covered with green muscats
+ripening on the dry ground, and protected from the sun by branches strewn
+over the plants.
+
+West of the city, upon which side we rode in, there are fewer orchards
+and more fields. Since crossing the Wád Martîl a string of travellers had
+caught us up and passed us: a soldier as escort led the way; a rich Jew
+ambled on a fat brown mule hard behind; a muleteer and three starved
+mules laden with Isaac's worldly goods brought up the rear.
+
+The muleteer, a happy fellow in a brown jellab, sang all the way, as he
+rode sideways on his beast. He begged a match from Cadour, produced a
+ragged cigarette from inside his turban, and lit it skilfully in the
+wind: he probably lived chiefly on cigarettes, kif, and green tea, eating
+when there was bread; he was lean and sun-dried as a shred of tobacco,
+would sleep in snatches and often, his jellab-hood over his face to keep
+off the sun or the dew.
+
+We got very near a pair of snowy _ibis_, or cow-birds, as they are
+called, attending on two grazing cows. White as geese, parading about on
+black stilt-like legs, which raise them a foot or more off the ground,
+they have yellow bills and a slightly puffed throat, in flight extending
+their long legs behind them. Cow-birds wage war on the parasites of
+mules, donkeys, oxen, and sheep, hopping about the fields and dropping
+down on to their backs: they are never shot.
+
+Morocco is by no means short of bird life. Only that morning, as we rode
+along, we saw several pairs of whinchats, any number of crested larks,
+some plover, pied and grey wagtails, starlings, and a sand-martin.
+Starlings in Morocco fly literally in clouds like smoke, blackening the
+sky wherever they are surging and wheeling. A single shot into the middle
+of a flock has brought down from sixty to seventy of them.
+
+We jogged up the last yard of rocky path, and found ourselves in front of
+Tetuan in rather less than four hours after leaving the fondâk, to the
+satisfaction of Cadour: it was an improvement on the day before. This
+ornament of the cavalry had now come out in a clean white turban, in view
+of entering the city: he puzzled us at this point by leading the way off
+the road to a white wall in the middle of the field, behind which
+travellers occasionally camp, devout people pray, and sheep are
+slaughtered at the time of the Great Feast. Here he produced our
+luncheon. But we, in the innocence of our hearts, would "lunch at a café"
+in Tetuan, after calling at the British Consulate and leaving our letters
+of introduction: this, with signs and a Spanish word or two, was brought
+home to Cadour, and we turned back, skirted the white city wall, reached
+a gate built in an angle, and rode in under the archway, passing a few
+figures in jellabs reclining and talking beside a great stone
+water-trough, which was running with fresh water.
+
+Following one of the worst-paved streets upon Allah's earth, whose
+slippery rocks and pools of brown manure-water offered no tempting
+footpath, the first Union Jack we had seen for many a long day appeared
+above a wall and spoke _Britain_: towards it we made our way. A soldier
+in a long dark blue cloak and high-peaked red fez was sitting at the
+Consul's office door: he took our letters of introduction, and, without
+our being able to explain ourselves in Arabic, insisted on ushering us
+straight into the presence of the Consul--Mr. W. S. Bewicke.
+
+We found him surrounded with papers and cigarette-ends: he would most
+hospitably take no denial in the matter of lunch, but made us come into
+the house at once. His long, narrow dining-room was flanked by a small
+kitchen; above, the same shaped, long, narrow sitting-room was flanked by
+a small bedroom; a flight of narrow, steep stairs divided all four rooms,
+and completed the Consulate: this simple plan is usual in a Moorish house
+of the sort, and admirably adapted for the Eastern habits of the people.
+The Consul considered it inadequate. A sunny, walled garden lay in front;
+big orange- and banana-trees, both covered with fruit, shaded precious
+seedlings; a large tank, filled with gold-fish, took up much space under
+the windows; and in the background a high cane fence penned in turkeys,
+geese, ducks, and chickens, scratching and squabbling under orange-trees.
+There are no grassy lawns in these gardens: they are devoted to fruit,
+shrubs, and flowers, bisected into equal divisions by tiled or grass
+paths.
+
+People in Morocco, as all the world over, collect curiosities _nolens
+volens_. Mr. Bewicke's dining-room was no exception. Guns from the Riff,
+eight feet long; brass powder-horns, knives, daggers, pistols, engraved
+and inlaid with silver, ivory, and coral; a long brass horn, once blown
+from the top of the mosque, sacred and difficult to get; copper vessels,
+pots, pans, jugs, bowls; blue china from Fez; quaint Jewish candelabra
+and lamps; brown and white native pottery,--all found a place.
+
+A young Riffian named Mohr acted as butler, a coffee-and-cream-coloured
+boy, with a girlish face and a head with a close weekly shave, all except
+one long love-lock, which, combed out, fell over one ear in a glossy
+brown curl. It is worn by all Riffs as good Mussulmans, and serves a
+double purpose, that of scalp-lock when the head is decapitated by
+enemies and borne by the lock instead of by the mouth, and that of
+handle, by which Azrael, the Angel of Death, carries the body to heaven
+on the last day. Mohr wore a Riff turban of brown string, several yards
+long, wound round and round his head, a white tunic and belt: his legs
+were bare; and leaving his yellow slippers behind him on the threshold,
+he moved noiselessly round the table with gracious manners, and, when he
+spoke, made nonchalant gestures with his hands.
+
+Had we come a few days earlier, we should have fallen in with a thousand
+men from the Beni Has`san tribe, who had come down to pay their respects
+to the new _basha_ (governor) of Tetuan, and to offer him presents.
+
+They had fired off a good deal of blank powder, and a stray bullet or two
+into the Consul's garden door; had rushed about the _feddan_
+(market-place), discharging their guns; and had thrown stones at some
+one. On their way to Tetuan the thousand odd had pillaged right and left,
+stealing fruit and robbing houses. Finding some women washing, they stole
+the clothes, and report said two women as well. At last twenty of them
+were caught and put into prison, after which the nine hundred and eighty
+marched back to their own country.
+
+Lunch over, we walked with Mr. Bewicke into the city. While Tangier might
+be called an anæmic copy of a Moorish town, Tetuan has the strength of a
+_bonâ-fide_ life-study, and all that is curiously beautiful, strangely
+obscure, is unsparingly suggested. The longer a European lives there, the
+more the paradoxes in Moorish life force themselves upon him, and the
+more tangible grow certain intuitions which his surroundings convey.
+
+It is not only such contradictions as lie on the surface--the squalor of
+some filthy fondâk, the emaciated raw-skinned donkeys, the bent-backed
+women, rubbing shoulders with the white-scented robes, the sleek mules,
+the luxurious tiled houses--these a blind man could see: the
+under-currents which will puzzle an Englishman more the longer he lives
+there are known to those only who have dwelt much in Morocco, and they
+belong by every right to a life which is drawn to the letter in "The
+Arabian Nights."
+
+The ramifications of the narrow streets in Tetuan would take a quarter of
+a lifetime to master, and then an unexplored alley might be found, though
+it is easy to walk across the entire length or breadth of the city in ten
+minutes. Down a dozen intricacies we dived with Mr. Bewicke, through a
+labyrinth, half dark in places, where houses built overhead shut out the
+sun. Looking along the narrow streets, the buildings jostle one another,
+and the flat blank walls slope backwards out of the upright, at every
+turn a haphazard colour-scheme in white and mauve and chocolate, in blue
+and ochre and cream.
+
+Here a long dark tunnel opens into sunlight and shops on each side, with
+great vines trailed on trellis-work--like a pergola--overhead, and
+sunlight in blotches on the cobbled paving below: there, just beyond, the
+_Slipper Quarter_, and we find ourselves in the thick of the tap-tap of
+the mallets on the hard-hammered leather--dozens of busy little shops on
+each side, lined with yellow matting, and hung from top to floor with
+rows of lemon-yellow slippers for the men, rose-red slippers for women,
+embroidered slippers for the wealthy, crimson slippers for slaves,
+slippers with heel-pieces and slippers without. In each shop a man and
+boys at work: the white turbans and dark faces bending over the leather,
+the coloured jellabs which they wear, the busy hard-white-wood mallets in
+the deft brown hands, even the waxed thread, the red jelly which glues
+the soles together, the gimlets, the sharp scissors, have a passing
+fascination for the wandering Moor himself, who sits down lazily in front
+and talks to the workers. Still more for ourselves. Leather bags are
+being sewn next door and ornamented with work in coloured leather and
+silks. Within hearing of the "tap-tap" lies the skin-yard, and the skins
+are scraped and tanned and dyed and turned into slippers all in the same
+square acre or two, whence they depart many of them for Egypt and supply
+the Cairo bazaars.
+
+A few steps farther, and there is a steady clanking of hammers on anvils,
+beating out hot iron--the _Blacksmiths' Quarter_. Not the old turbaned
+blacksmiths nor boys with shaved heads, in tunics grimed with age, and
+leather aprons sewn with red leather, nor the primitive bellows and
+quaint iron points, all being beaten out for the ploughs, are the
+features of the Blacksmiths' Quarter; but the sheep. Every forge has its
+sheep, every shop its pen like a rabbit-hutch, made out of the side of a
+box, where the sheep lives when it is not lying just at the threshold of
+the shop in the sun, beside a half-finished meal of bran in a box. Sheep
+after sheep, tame and fat, take up half the room in the street: there are
+sometimes a few hens, often a tortoiseshell cat curled up on a sack, but
+to every shop there is always a sheep fattening, as no other animal in
+Morocco fattens, against the _Aid-el-Kebeer_ (the Great Feast), when
+every family kills and eats its own mutton.
+
+The little shops in Tetuan group themselves together more or less. There
+is another quarter where sieves are made, a corner where baskets and the
+countrywomen's huge straw hats are plaited, another where carpenters
+congregate, and an open square where rugs, carpets, and curios cram the
+shops, and so on.
+
+We left the warm heat from the glowing cinders and the cascade of sparks,
+and walked on into the _feddan_ (market-place), which was teeming with
+women from the hills and villages round, come in to sell provisions.
+
+The _Jews' Quarter_ lies on one side of the feddan, shut in by a gate at
+night and locked--a squalid, noisy, over-populated spot, where the
+worst-kept donkeys and most filth are to be met with. Tetuan is a clean
+city: on every animal killed the "butchers" have to pay a tax; the tax
+goes towards the sweeping of the streets once a week, and towards their
+paving--that is, if the basha is conscientious: the last basha ate and
+drank the tax.
+
+A gutter runs down the middle of the streets, where chickens are killed,
+and the heads and uneatable parts of flesh, fish, and fowl thrown. Mules
+and donkeys walk along the gutter, while foot-people flatten themselves
+against the walls. A well-laden mule fairly absorbs the width of the
+little streets.
+
+The condition of these wretched transport animals is not due so much to
+wanton cruelty as to neglect, and to a callousness bred of long
+familiarity. A Moor will not trouble to prevent his beasts having sore
+backs and fistulated withers and raw hindquarters, any more than he sees
+that his children are warmly clad and suitably fed. Fond of both, he is
+foolish and apathetic, treating his mules roughly, cramming them with
+unnecessary food or neglecting them, and invariably working them till
+they drop.
+
+One or two little cafés we passed round the feddan, and banished any
+connection between them and lunch for ever and a day.
+
+A little room in the shade hung with yellow matting, no chairs, but a
+wide divan at the far end, where a few Moors sat cross-legged or
+reclined, smoking long pipes of soothing kif, and eating the pernicious
+haschisch--this constitutes a café. A few of the Moors are playing cards;
+the rest look on. A dome-shaped pewter teapot, filled with a brew of
+steaming tea, stands on a low table, with a painted glass beside it half
+full of mint, which a freckled boy in a coarse jellab fills up from the
+teapot to the brim and puts to his lips; then he lights a cheap
+cigarette. A great urn, with an oil lamp under it, stands in one corner.
+
+No self-respecting Moor patronizes these cafés: he is the most fanatical
+of Mohammedans in a land reputed to be more strictly religious than any
+Eastern country. In public he observes his Prophet's laws, only
+indulging _sub rosa_ in smoking--"eating the shameful," as it is called.
+
+Mohammed knew very well that Eastern peoples drink to get drunk, and
+smoke and eat opium for the purpose of intoxicating their senses. _Kif_,
+a herb something like hemp, produces this effect on the brain. He
+therefore forbade both.
+
+When a Moorish "swell" wants to amuse himself, instead of passing the
+time at a café he goes out for the day into the country. There is
+generally an expression of perfect satisfaction with life as he finds it,
+on his lineless biscuit-coloured face and in his brown agate eyes--a
+content seldom expressed under the top-hats in the Park. Time is to him
+no "race": he drifts easily down the years; knows no other home than, it
+may be, Tetuan; nor is conscious that Tetuan sleeps, as it has slept for
+ages, curled up, underneath the towering hills, white, petrified, like
+Lot's wife.
+
+Still down more streets, and on towards the Belgravia of the city we
+walked, leaving steaming little hot-fritter shops, where _sfins_ are
+fried in oil and eaten with honey, where cream tarts may possibly be made
+and honeyed cakes, and crisp pastry prepared with attar of roses, and
+candied musk lemons, and dates mixed with almond paste. We left the
+fried-fish shops and fried spitted-meat shops behind, whence emerge
+_kabobs_--second only to _coos-coosoo_--and a smell indescribable; and we
+wound down tortuous alleys, past quiet windowless houses, whose great
+painted doors, yellow and brown, studded with enormous nails and
+knockers, spoke respectability.
+
+Never a straight street for six yards. Here an angle with a door; turn
+down under an archway: there a tiny branching alley, which we follow:
+here another door; plunge down the opposite way. A woman passes us with
+a friend, walking as only women in Morocco walk--figures in creamy haiks
+of the finest wool, which swathe them entirely from top to toe like a
+sheet, a pair of eyes barely showing between the folds. At the bottom of
+the haiks a flash of colour obtrudes, tomato in one, beetle-green in the
+other, and filmy muslin over both, which in their turn allow a glimpse of
+ankles wrapped round in snowy linen folds--rose-pink, gold-embroidered
+slippers completing the whole, suggestive of a tea party.
+
+A yard farther and we pass _El-Jama-el-Kebeer_ (the Big Mosque), which,
+unlike that at Tangier, stands with its doors wide open, but in front of
+which no infidel may linger. There was a vision of a cool tiled courtyard
+and splashing fountains of white marble and clean yellow matting, of
+endless tiled pillars vanishing into shade. There are saint-houses in the
+city where women are allowed to pray, but only upon one night in the
+whole year in El-Jama-el-Kebeer--a field-day among the wives and
+concubines, who flit like white moths through the darkness in flocks to
+worship, carrying red-and-blue lanterns.
+
+At last we reached the house of the Moor upon whom Mr. Bewicke intended
+us to call--a specimen of the best Moorish houses.
+
+Alarbi Abresha has been nicknamed "the Duke of Westminster"--the
+wealthiest man in Tetuan. A slave responded to the hammer of the great
+knocker, demanded who knocked, and then opened the door. Alarbi Abresha
+was out; but his son, a youth badly marked with small-pox, received us,
+dressed in a jellab of pale blue, tasselled, and worked in white. Mr.
+Bewicke asked after _the house_. No one in Morocco inquires after the
+wife or family distinctively.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+ALARBI ABRESHA'S HOUSE.
+
+[_To face p. 54._]
+
+A long passage led us into a large _patio_ (courtyard), in which
+orange-trees were growing. It was open to the sky, the floor tiled
+with shining tesselated tile-work; a marble fountain rippled in the
+middle: the dado round the four walls, the three rows of pillars which on
+all sides supported the gallery above--all were tiled in the same mosaic
+of small saffron-yellow, powder-blue, and white tiles, which are baked,
+coloured, and glazed in primitive potteries outside the city, and made
+only in Tetuan and Fez. A Moorish house is the essence of purity and
+light, with its whitewashed walls, its absence of all stifling furniture,
+and its capability of being sluiced down from top to bottom every day
+with rivers of water by barefooted slaves.
+
+"The Duke" had spared no dollars to make his house beautiful. Of the
+triple row of arches, supported by the pillars round the patio, the
+outside row was a plain horse-shoe, the inner toothed, the inmost carved.
+Through an avenue of pillars the rooms all round the patio look out upon
+the fountain and the orange-trees. Slaves occupied them. The kitchen also
+and the hummum are always on the ground floor. We were taken up to the
+first floor by the tiled staircase, with a plaster fan-shell ceiling, and
+were shown into the best room--the room belonging to the master of the
+house. The tiled floor was hidden by an ugly modern French carpet in
+strips: white and coloured mattresses were laid all round the walls upon
+the floor instead of chairs. Two immense brass bedsteads stood in
+recesses, blue silk four-posters; a great cushioned mattress on the
+carpet beside the bed is reported to be used by the wife; a slave will
+often sleep in the same room. The lower half of the whitewashed walls was
+hung with ancient silk brocaded hangings, a long-forgotten relic of the
+old wandering life as nomad Arabs, and still used by Arabs for the
+insides of their tents. The richer the owner, the better his silk
+hangings: the design is invariably a succession of horse-shoe arches,
+more or less embroidered, and giving the rooms a warm, luxurious air. In
+the mosques very fine mats are used; in ordinary houses, cafés, and
+shops, yellow matting lines the walls. Above the old hangings the Duke
+had hung a line of immense and tawdry gilt-framed mirrors. There were
+clocks in the room to the number of ten, some of them going; two inlaid
+cabinets; three cases of artificial flowers under glass; a great wooden
+coffer--the wife's property--holding a wardrobe of clothes; a gun on one
+of the walls; a rosary; a thermometer made in Germany: these were the
+only knick-knacks. Moorish rooms combine bedroom with sitting-room, but
+are devoid of washing-apparatus, tables, chairs, books, or pictures.
+Bathing is done in the hummum or in the courtyard of the mosque; of books
+there are none; while pictures Mohammed forbade, as inclined to lead to
+idolatry. Query: have many artists been lost to the world in fourteen
+hundred years among a sect numbering a hundred millions?
+
+The ceiling and woodwork of the room were painted in barbaric, gaudy
+hues, which mellow with age and "tone" like a faded Kashmir shawl. A row
+of tiled pillars divided the room lengthwise, and raised the inner half a
+step above the outer: it was immensely lofty, lighted by the great double
+doors only, which stood wide open on to the patio. Glass is not used in
+Morocco: the windowless rooms are aired by the unfastened doors which
+look on to the patio, itself open to the winds of heaven. The outside
+world can have little idea of the life going on within the courtyard
+house: there is much seclusion therein, in fitting harmony with the
+spirit of Morocco.
+
+Fireplaces do not exist, though from December to March the thermometer
+has sometimes, on single occasions, touched freezing-point at night.
+Earthenware pans of charcoal, used for cooking, can be carried upstairs
+for warmth.
+
+The other rooms in Alarbi Abresha's house were all more or less replicas
+of the best room shorn of its gilt. As the laws of the Medes and
+Persians, so is the arrangement of the mattresses (_divans_) round the
+walls inside a Moorish house.
+
+A Moor does not spend his day indoors. He eats and sleeps at home, but is
+otherwise sitting talking with his friends in the city, or in his shop,
+or out at his garden-house or fields.
+
+He eats in any one of the divanned rooms in which he happens to be at the
+time, his rule being to "sleep where you will and eat where you will." A
+slave carries in his dish of meat on a tray, and puts it on a table four
+inches in front of the divan. Beef, mutton, and chicken are cooked in oil
+till they fall apart and can be eaten with the fingers. He eats
+vegetables and fruit, murmurs a "B`ism Allah" beforehand and a
+"Hamdoollah" (God be praised) at the end; washes his hands; drinks green
+tea, or begins his meal with it and bread of fine white flour. His wife
+has the refusal of the dish after her lord, never eating with him; and
+the slaves follow her. As many as five dishes may be brought up at a
+meal; and the master of the house, sampling each, chooses which he will
+eat, and sends the rest away. If he has a guest, it is the height of
+politeness to select small pieces off the dish and put them within the
+guest's reach, or, still better, into his mouth.
+
+Moors, unless they are wealthy men, eat "by the eye"--that is, not
+according to what they require, but according to that they see set before
+them: frequent hiccups express gratification at hospitality received,
+accompanied by "Hamdoollah." The amount which a Moor can eat is
+prodigious. There was a man at Fez who was reverenced as a saint by his
+neighbours, because he had been known to eat a hundredweight of
+_coos-coosoo_ (porridge) and a whole sheep at a sitting.
+
+Alarbi Abresha, Junior, meanwhile, took us on into his father's
+guest-house, a suite of magnificent rooms, decorated in execrable taste,
+the barbaric glories of the old Moorish style giving place to modern
+French vulgarity. A courtyard house can be a strange mixture. Its
+woodwork, possibly _arrar_, a cypress of beautiful grain, scented like
+cedar, cinnamon-coloured, and immensely hard (out of which the Roman
+patricians cut their precious tables, valued at their weight in gold if
+as much as four feet wide: beams of arrar put into the Córdovo Mosque by
+the Moors a thousand years ago still exist); its old silk hangings; its
+tiles, kept polished like jet, and never desecrated by anything harder
+than a slippered sole,--all alike are the finest relics of a taste which
+ruled in the construction of the Alhambra, where Mauresque design is seen
+at its best. The aristocrats of Tetuan are descendants of the old
+Andalusian families, who, having left Morocco and invaded Spain, settled
+there, built the Alhambra, were in the course of time driven back over
+the seas, and took refuge in Tetuan and other coast towns. Their very
+title-deeds, together with the keys of their houses in Granada, are still
+in the possession of their descendants in Tetuan.
+
+While the best work in the courtyard houses of to-day harks back to the
+brave days of Spain, the Moor of the twentieth century has less of the
+vitality and originality which distinguished his forefathers, and he is
+apt to mix cheap up-to-date decoration with the patio and the windowless
+wall, of which the Duke's guest-house may stand for an example.
+
+When the great door had shut behind us, and we were outside in the
+street again, it seemed both narrow and prosaic after the sunny patio,
+with the yellow-fringed orange-trees almost branching into the rooms, and
+the fitful accompaniment of running water, dear to the Moorish ear.
+
+In the course of the afternoon Mohammed, Ali, mules, and baggage put in
+an appearance, and we found them waiting in the feddan, anxious to put
+our tents up in the middle of the noisy, crowded sok, where the wind,
+which had dropped but little, was whirling dust round in clouds, and
+where we should have been the centre of a staring throng--at the same
+time, an ideal place in the servants' eyes, suggesting cafés and
+conversation the whole night through. The camping-ground which "the
+infidel" selects is an insoluble puzzle to the Moor, and they went off
+mystified and disappointed, under orders from the Consul to pitch the
+tents outside the city.
+
+Later on we followed, by a street redolent and sweet with honey, of which
+a great quantity had just come in from the Riff country, leading to
+_Báb-el-Aukla_ (the Gate of Wisdom), so called because the elders of the
+city, the wise men, used to sit outside on some of the great rocks: a
+fine two-storied, square-shaped gateway, with a pointed arch and toothed
+ornament above it. Three little windows overlook the arch; the black
+noses of small cannon protrude in a long row out of the white parapeted
+walls; a flagstaff tops the whole, and flies the crimson streamer of
+Morocco. A line of sea-green tiling beneath the cannon breaks the flat
+wall, where the heads of turbulent tribesmen hang occasionally, sent over
+from some neighbouring raid by the Sultan's orders, and first salted by
+the Jews in the city, _nolens volens_. The cobbles were slippery under
+the gate. The huge, heavy wooden doors, studded with iron bolts, are
+barred and locked every night half an hour after sunset. Inside, looking
+back, just at the parting of two streets, a great white wall faced us,
+topped with green tiles, grass-grown; below, a horse-shoe arch, somewhat
+in relief, belted with coloured tiles, defaced by age, contained a long
+solid stone trough, into which two spouts of water gushed--never dry in
+this city of springs. Mules and donkeys and country-folk all stop and
+drink, and the front of the trough is carved.
+
+Báb-el-Aukla is the finest gate in the city.
+
+Go where you will in Tetuan, at every turn water bubbles into time-worn
+and artistically moulded troughs and basins, under quaint arches, tiled
+in blue and brown and white. In the narrow winding street-ways, between
+the houses, half dark, still the bubbling of water is heard, and the
+shining wet trough seen.
+
+As we left the city and walked down the sandy road which leads to the
+sea, our tents lay a quarter of a mile off, two white spots, pitched on
+grass just off the road, the mules picketed by them.
+
+We had a somewhat light meal at six o'clock, Mohammed's chicken turning
+out like hammered leather. He was no cook.
+
+[Illustration: OUR CAMP OUTSIDE TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 60._]
+
+An Arabic proverb says, "What is past is gone, and the future is distant;
+and to thee is the hour in which thou art." It was obviously never
+intended by the Creator that mankind should make plans. Morocco may have
+its drawbacks, but it is at least one of those few and blessed spots
+where it is waste of time to plan: life is a matter of to-day, and
+
+    To-morrow?--Why, To-morrow I may be
+    Myself with Yesterday's Seven Thousand Years.
+
+Thus some time that evening, when, after coping unsuccessfully with
+the chicken, it struck R. and myself that Tetuan had attractions over and
+above the head of Tangier, we settled then and there to stay on at Tetuan
+as long as we liked the place, though the weather looked very much like
+rain, not at all like camping out, and we had no clothes with us to speak
+of.
+
+Overcoming or ignoring these difficulties, we finally decided to pay off
+our three men, send them back by themselves to Tangier with the tents and
+camp outfit, write to the Villa Valentina, pay our bill, have our boxes
+packed up and sent over to us at Tetuan by muleteer, and move ourselves
+into the Spanish _fonda_ (inn) inside the city. Thus were we left for the
+next six days with one clean collar apiece.
+
+In Tangier there had been some speculation on the elasticity of the
+Spartan wardrobes which we had brought out from England, at a moment when
+the dread of a vast impedimenta happened to lie strong upon us. In Tetuan
+such panics bury themselves. The slimmest wardrobe will suffice. A
+country's own materials, whether home-spun of Kashmir or sheep-skin coat
+of Afghanistan, naturally meet its requirements best: deficiencies are
+easily supplied, and later on we lived in mufti off the backs of Tetuan
+sheep.
+
+Lying in bed in the early morning before it was light, duck were to be
+heard calling up the river; and, breakfast over, we strolled down to the
+banks, where the thick green orange-trees on the opposite side bore a
+crop of cow-birds, sitting like a covey of white cockatoos on the tips of
+the branches among the golden oranges, so thick and snowy that the tree
+might well have burst into abnormal flower.
+
+By nine o'clock the camp was struck, and we had burnt our ships: the last
+of the five mules, three men, and baggage tailed off out of sight along
+the road to Tangier.
+
+Under a cloudy sky, prophesying rain, we walked into the city to look for
+quarters: better, perhaps, a fonda in Tetuan than a tent at the fondâk in
+wet weather.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DIFFICULTIES OF "LODGINGS" IN MOROCCO--A SPANISH FONDA--A MOORISH TEA
+PARTY--POISON IN THE CUP--SLAVES IN MOROCCO--EL DOOLLAH--MOORISH
+CEMETERY--RIDE TO SEMSAR--SHOPPING IN TETUAN--PROVISIONS IN THE CITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     This by God's grace is _El Moghreb_--Morocco--and here a wise man
+     is surprised at nothing that he sees and believes nothing that he
+     hears.
+
+
+IT is not easy to find a lodging in Morocco: there are no _dâk
+bungalows_--no large white English residences, with the familiar and
+hospitable _Burra Sahib_, a retinue of servants, spare horses, and a
+spacious bedroom at the disposal of the unexpected guest. Hotels, except
+at Tangier, are impossible for any length of time, unless to the vagaries
+of Spanish or Jewish cookery the heart can harden itself.
+
+We steeled our souls, assisted by the grateful sense of freedom from all
+petty society functions, which in the nature of things are unknown in a
+city where one vice-consul, six women missionaries, and a post-office
+alone represent the British flag--where there is no English doctor, no
+English church.
+
+Tetuan met all our needs: the only question was where to live.
+
+Immediately outside its walls lies a land of gardens and orchards. Every
+Moor who can afford it has a garden, wherein he cultivates grapes and
+fruit-trees,--a dim reflection of that Paradise of his, which must be
+chequered with acres of shade cast by great rocks and gigantic
+olive-trees; which must be abundantly watered by running brooks of milk,
+honey, and wine; whose soil shall be flour, white as snow. The Moor's
+Garden of Eden reserved for the faithful after death bespeaks abundance
+and repose, differing but little from a certain Heaven of Epicures,
+wherein _pâtés de fois gras_ were eaten to the sound of trumpets.
+Somewhere in his garden outside Tetuan he builds himself a garden-house,
+to which in the summer he migrates with his wife and slaves and the
+children of both, his divans, carpets, and kitchen utensils: the town
+house is locked up and stands empty while he spends four or five months
+under his vines and figs.
+
+At the time we arrived in Tetuan--early December--not a garden-house but
+still lay empty; and naturally in their direction our longing eyes
+turned--an impossible desire, it was said, thereby clinching the resolve
+to make a superhuman effort to bring it to pass: between living in the
+city and a garden there could be no choice. In the meantime a Spanish
+fonda must constitute a make-shift until that came which is laid down for
+those who wait.
+
+Inside Tetuan two hotels presented themselves. With fonda number one we
+could not come to terms; it was not attractive-looking: we took a
+high-handed line and left. Fonda number two, after much haggling in
+Spanish, agreed to take us both at the modest sum of seven-and-sixpence a
+day, all included. No sooner was the bargain struck than a messenger
+arrived post-haste from fonda number one, to say that they would take us
+at our own terms. Their golden opportunity was lost. Report said fonda
+number one might be a trifle cleaner, but fonda number two had the better
+cook: the inside man carried the day in favour of number two.
+
+[Illustration: A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE.
+
+[_To face p. 66._]
+
+It was one among many flat-roofed whitewashed houses in the Moorish
+Quarter, in a street barely six feet wide. There was no outlook except
+from the roof-top, where the washing dried: there were no windows, the
+rooms depending for light upon double doors opening on to the tiny tiled
+patio--except in our own case, where the second room allotted to us was
+built over the top of the street, and had two windows cut in the walls by
+the Spanish occupants, neither of which quite shut, and provided us with
+an ample supply of air. The room beyond possessed dilapidated doors,
+which gave upon the patio. The patio was, of course, open to all the rain
+of heaven as well as to all the sun: it was the principal sitting-room of
+the family, where, downstairs, on fine days, they plucked chickens, made
+bread, washed, sat and received callers, did needlework and chattered; on
+wet days creeping disconsolately round the lake of water in the middle of
+the tiled floor, where the rain dropped--splash--taking refuge on one
+sheltered seat in company with three dogs, a cat, and a tame chicken, or
+retiring into the dark little rooms which surrounded the lake.
+
+The family comprised Spanish parents, married daughter and husband, three
+unmarried sisters, a brother, and a lodger--an old Spanish music-master.
+The fonda was run by the married daughter, a lady with a temper, who made
+everybody else work: her mother and one sister cooked; the second sister
+was busy with a trousseau and a young man; the third and
+prettiest--Amanda--waited on us. On the whole we were not uncomfortable,
+in spite of the Spanish element. Our rooms were clean: one afternoon we
+found a chicken sunning itself in a patch of sunlight on the floor of
+one--nothing worse. Dinner was sometimes, and Amanda was always, lacking
+in certain points to a critical eye. Sometimes it was a skirt, sometimes
+a petticoat, she wore: except on high days, it was doubtful and dependent
+upon chance threads and pins. All Amanda's blouses were low-necked,
+whatever the time of day: the stains and slits and remnants of torn
+frills were unique. She wore her sleeves turned up, and silver bangles on
+her arms. Amanda never buttoned her boots, and often put in an appearance
+with bare feet.
+
+But Amanda was redeemed by her head-dress and her manners. She wound a
+crimson shawl gracefully over her dark head, after the fashion of a
+mantilla, with an effect beyond reproach. Amanda had a gracious way of
+putting things: she bore herself with infinite dignity, and a
+_je-ne-sais-quoi_ which pointed to a mixed ancestry; she had well-shaped
+hands.
+
+At seven o'clock in the evening her knock preceded preparations for
+dinner, while she munched something or hummed a tune meanwhile. Seas of
+thin soup invariably preceded a dish of shapeless masses of "soup-meat,"
+garnished with boiled peas. The third course consisted of chicken or
+partridge: on less happy occasions foreign and "shudderous" dishes
+appeared; a peculiar jelly shell-fish was the lowest ebb--that and pork
+we resented. Last of all, a tall glass fruit-dish would arrive, the
+standard sweet--_flan_ (caramel pudding). Then a long pause. Finally,
+Amanda's step, with a great plate of hot toast and a tall tin coffee-pot:
+black coffee was the best part of the meal.
+
+A day or two after settling into the fonda we were asked to our first
+entertainment in a Moorish house. Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli wanted Mr. Bewicke
+and ourselves to "tea" with him.
+
+As in the case of "the Duke's" house, so here, all the womenkind were
+hidden away on account of the Consul. Mohammedans are jealous and
+suspicious of their wives and daughters to a degree, and strongly resent,
+if not prevent, an Englishman's going up on to the flat roof, lest he
+have a view of fair occupants beyond or below. Nevertheless, the wives
+always contrive to peep out of some loophole and see all there is to be
+seen.
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli received us all three alone, as a matter of course,
+and led us upstairs to his best room. Like many others among the better
+class of Moors, our host had a shop and himself sold groceries. At the
+same time his sister is the wife of one of the Ministers; and as there is
+no respect of persons in Morocco, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli might be called
+upon himself any day to fill a high official position, and be obliged to
+go, raising money, if he had not wherewithal to support the post, which,
+if a lucrative one, would soon repay the outlay.
+
+Trade at Tetuan, and apparently everywhere else over Morocco, is not what
+it once was: the old flintlocks, inlaid with silver wire and lumps of
+pink coral, are unknown since the last gun-maker died; snuff-nuts, even
+slippers, do but a small business. Living is more expensive than it was:
+it cost Hadj Mukhtar three shillings a day to feed himself and the whole
+household, he said.
+
+The room into which we went--our host leaving his yellow slippers in the
+doorway, and motioning us all to sit down on the divans round the
+walls--was hung with a silk dado, tiled in mosaic, and overlooked a
+good-sized patio with a running fountain.
+
+Our dirty boots compared unfavourably with the Hadj's clean, bare feet,
+which, as he sat down cross-legged on the white and embroidered cushions,
+were hidden underneath his voluminous garments; whereas ours, not to the
+manner born, contracted cramp, unless stuck out in an ungainly way.
+
+A gorgeously upholstered bed filled up one corner of the room; a gun hung
+on the wall. There was nothing else.
+
+Three little sons of the house and Mr. Bewicke's soldier-servant having
+followed us in and seated themselves, preparations for tea--already
+waiting, arranged in front of the divans on four brass trays, standing on
+four low tables a few inches high--began.
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, sitting on his heels in front of his tea-table,
+making tea with his thin brown hands, and presiding over it all with true
+Oriental dignity, was a veritable Moses or Aaron reincarnated. Women and
+men alike mature rapidly in this country, putting on flesh and becoming
+matronly and aldermanic without at the same time growing lined or aged: a
+wealthy man of twenty-five is portly and slow of movement--the result of
+Eastern habits coupled with the climate.
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, barely forty years old by his own account, had a
+white beard and moustache, no wrinkles, eyes of mild blue and benign
+expression, equally guileless and unfathomable.
+
+Talking in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, he drew the tray close to the low divan
+in front of him, saw that his sons provided cushions for our backs, and
+proceeded to wash the green tea in a bright nickel pear-shaped teapot,
+with water from the great brass urn which stood over a charcoal-burner:
+the washed tea was then transferred into a twin teapot, which the Hadj
+generously filled with immense lumps of sugar out of a glass dish
+standing on a tray by itself, stacked high with great blocks split off
+the cone with a hatchet. Heavy with lump sugar, a handful of mint and bay
+leaves was also crammed into the little remaining space in the teapot,
+the boiling water out of the urn was turned on over all, filling up every
+chink, the lid shut down upon the steaming fragrant brew, and the teapot
+set back upon the brass tray, the centre of a ring of tiny gilt and
+painted glasses.
+
+The eldest son--a boy of fourteen, dressed in red, and wearing a leather
+belt embroidered with blue, and a fez-bag fastened thereto to match,
+whose head had evidently had its weekly shave that afternoon--lit a lamp
+underneath a little incense-burner, filling it with sticks of
+sweet-scented wood, till an odoriferous blue smoke rose from it. With
+much care he carried the burner to us, and put it inside our coats,
+thoroughly impregnating every thickness with warmth and odours of
+cedar-wood. It was taken last of all to Mr. Bewicke's soldier, who
+manipulated it correctly as a Moor, putting it inside his flowing
+apparel, and sitting down with every fold closed in round him like a
+miniature tent, the burner smoking away inside. A scent-spray was then
+handed, with which we anointed ourselves in Moorish fashion, inside our
+hats, up our sleeves, and round our necks.
+
+Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli poured out tea with a great elevation of
+the teapot, raising his arm and showing greens and blues mixed to
+perfection underneath his _k`sa_--a white woollen or silk robe worn only
+by gentlemen--which, semi-transparent and gauze-like, fell in white waves
+over his shoulders on to the divan. Under the k`sa was a long garment
+with wide sleeves and buttoned all down the front--a _kaftan_--of
+sea-green cloth, embroidered with gold. The kaftan just revealed a
+waistcoat of a shade of blue, with gold and green buttons and embroidery.
+Underneath this, and above his white cotton shirt and drawers, he
+probably wore a woollen jacket. But greens and blues and gold were alone
+visible. Sometimes several kaftans or several jellabs are worn one on top
+of the other, all colours mixed, particularly if the owner is travelling.
+Moors are a wool-clad people for the most part, due to the wet winter
+climate: the men's brown woollen hooded jellabs keep out the rain more or
+less, and the women's white woollen haiks answer the same purpose.
+
+The Hadj turned up his sleeves as he made tea, the underside of them
+being embroidered for this purpose. It was ready by this time, and
+brought us on a brass tray by the eldest son. Though the little glasses
+are not capable of holding much, the violent sweetness and the flavour of
+mint prevent the uninitiated from doing justice to the regulation three
+cups which courtesy demands should be drunk. But it grows, even upon the
+European, that steaming golden-brown beverage, fresh and fragrant with
+sweet thymes, while something in the climate of Morocco tends to make
+sugar acceptable after a few weeks. We supplied ourselves with sponge
+cake, pounds of which were piled on a brass tray in front of us: sweet
+biscuits, toasted nuts, almonds, and raisins abounded on the same lavish
+scale; while a wicker basket, like a large waste-paper basket, was full
+of thirty or forty round cakes of bread, several sizes larger than a Bath
+bun, made of the finest semolina flour, flavoured with aniseed and baked
+a warm biscuit colour.
+
+The Hadj pressed third cups upon us, but with the innate breeding of
+every Moor understood the limited capacity born of early days in Morocco.
+A Moor is nothing if not courteous, and, whatever his real feelings,
+conceals them under polite speeches. He will, as somebody has said, "cut
+your throat _most politely, most politely_," or with profound urbanity
+offer you a cup of poison.
+
+Our host had sipped a first cup before allowing the tea to be handed
+round--a custom observed to assure the guest that the teapot was free
+from poison, and that no deadly drink was offered us, containing seeds
+which should propagate a horrible disease in the intestines, destroying
+life sooner or later. Poisoning is only too common among the Moors
+themselves, cases occurring almost every day in the country.
+
+Once, when Sir John Hay was having an angry discussion with a
+governor--Mokhta--coffee was brought in. Mokhta, as usual, took the cup
+intended for the Englishman, and put it to his lips, making a noise as
+though sipping it, but which sounded suspiciously like blowing into it,
+and then offering it to Sir John. Not fancying the bubbled coffee, he
+declined, saying to Mokhta, "I could not drink before you. Pray keep that
+cup yourself," and helping himself at the same time to the second cup,
+which he drank. Mokhta put down the cup which he had offered Sir John,
+and did not drink it.
+
+Some one in Tetuan dies every year of poisoning. Wives frequently kill
+their husbands. No two brothers, both in ministerial offices at Court,
+would dream of sitting down and eating together without precautions
+beforehand, on account of _the marked pieces_ in the dish. One brother,
+as he dines, may invite the other, who happens to enter, to join him in
+the meal; but he will reply, "I have already dined." _He dare not._
+
+Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli talked away in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, who
+translated for us. He said that Menebbi, the Minister of War who went
+over to England with the last embassy, and who is practically Prime
+Minister, lost a considerable amount of influence during the short two
+months he was away, but that he was rapidly gaining ground, and might be
+said to be completely restored to favour again. Menebbi is the only one
+of the Sultan's Ministers who is likely to help him to reform the
+Government of Morocco. A clever, crafty brain, the whole Court under his
+thumb, it yet needed but an absence of eight weeks to generate in that
+hotbed of Eastern intrigue such a tissue of false evidence and lies as
+nearly cost Menebbi his position, if not his life. His enemies possessed
+the Sultan's ear; every Menebbi had been removed from the army; he had
+probably not a single friend left in Morocco. With the fickleness of
+their race, his name was cursed at every street corner; and when spoken
+of, the people said, "There _is_ no Menebbi." Hurrying back from England,
+the tidings of his fall reached Menebbi when he landed at Mazagan: he was
+to be arrested. But the man they had to deal with was one of those few
+who make a full use of every opportunity life ever offers. From Mazagan
+to Morocco City, where the Court was, a distance of a hundred and forty
+miles, he had a relay of mules and horses posted, and he rode without
+stopping. There were dead and sorry beasts left on the road that day.
+Menebbi rode up to the cannon's mouth, so to speak: he need never have
+gone to Morocco City, but that would have meant his sinking into private
+life and his banishment from Court; he preferred to "play to the
+uttermost," and he staked life and fortune on the card he held. Things in
+Morocco City hung on an eyelash: the great man galloped in from Mazagan,
+went straight to the palace, never paused a moment, straight to the
+Sultan's private door, straight into the presence itself. And who shall
+say what Menebbi said to the Sultan through that night which he passed
+with him--what false accusations he refuted, what diplomacy he used? Next
+day Menebbi was not at prayers; he was "sick": in other words, he had
+tidings of a plot to kill him on his way to the mosque. However, in time
+he righted himself: now his enemies are under his heel, and Menebbi
+breathes again.
+
+The Hadj spoke of the great wish the Sultan has to visit England--an
+impossibility, for in the eyes of his fanatical subjects he would be
+countenancing the unbelievers, and his throne would be handed over to a
+successor: the throne to which he succeeded, for the first time in the
+history of Morocco, without having to fight his way to it--a fact owed to
+the Wazeer's sagacity. Keeping the death of the old Sultan secret for a
+few days, the Wazeer meantime bribed and forced the Ministers to accept
+the young heir as Sultan, hurried to Fez, summoned every citizen to the
+mosque, had the doors locked, proclaimed the news of the Sultan's death,
+and surprised or forced the whole mosqueful into swearing allegiance to
+the present ruler.
+
+So far the Sultan knows only two or three places in his whole kingdom,
+and has practically spent his life at one--Morocco City, or _Marrakesh_,
+as the Moors call it. Nor would his journeys be reckoned blessings by the
+unfortunate country through which he passed. Only able to move with an
+army, that army, without any commissariat or transport, feeding itself
+upon its march, wipes corn and food off the face of the land as a sponge
+wipes a slate. "Where the Sultan's horse treads the corn ceases to grow."
+He seldom travels with less than thirty thousand followers; and,
+supposing he is passing through a turbulent tribe, fights his way as he
+goes, leaving ruin and desolation behind. "They make a desert, and they
+call it peace."
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli had travelled considerably farther afield than his
+sovereign; he knew Genoa, Marseilles, Egypt, and of course Mecca. The
+Mussulman pilgrims passing through Constantinople on their way to Mecca
+this year are, he told us, very numerous, the Sultan having ordered the
+fares on the Massousieh Company's steamers to be reduced one-half for
+them. He thought that about two thousand Moors would be leaving Tangier
+in the early spring for the pilgrimage, returning some three months
+later. Neither the Hadj's sons nor Mr. Bewicke's soldier joined in the
+conversation, but continued steadily to consume tea, all eyes and ears.
+
+At last the trays were removed; and there being no co-religious eye to
+shock, Hadj Mukhtar indulged in a cigarette, while we puzzled him with a
+few tricks of balance and reach, which pleased him quite as much as his
+boys: everybody tried their hands, and finally the Hadj sent his eldest
+son for an old, heavy sword, and, squatting on the floor, showed us a
+clever piece of leverage with it and his thumb, which it was in vain to
+try and imitate.
+
+Watching our failures, he produced a snuff-box, a small cocoanut-shell,
+ornamented with little silver and coral knobs, with a narrow ivory
+mouthpiece, a stopper, and an ivory pin fastened to the cocoanut-shell to
+stir up the snuff inside--Tetuan snuff--noted for its pungent flavour.
+Hadj Mukhtar jerked the grains through the narrow mouthpiece into the
+hollow of the back of his thumb, where all Moors lay it, then lifted his
+hand up to his nose.
+
+Near the door hung his rosary of ninety-nine beads, reminding the pious
+Mussulman of the ninety-nine attributes of God. Each of the ninety-nine
+beads corresponds to the name of some holy man, and as the bead is passed
+along with the hand the saint's name is murmured. Curious that the use of
+rosaries in the Spanish Church is said to have been borrowed first of all
+from the Spanish Moors.
+
+The eldest son of our host was, his father told us, looking forward to
+beginning the Fast of Rámadhan this year--fasting, as he was only a
+novice, for half the day instead of the whole of it: evidently as much
+importance and excitement were attached to the prospect as later on would
+attend the boy's marriage. This same boy of fourteen is learning to
+write in Latin characters, for a Moor a most unusual and advanced step:
+at present he was only wearing a little red fez cap, not having reached
+the age of turbans, with all their dignified symmetry. The Kor[=a]n was
+all the literature the boy would ever know. Strange that a strong and
+sober people should have for ages confined their studies to the Kor[=a]n,
+an occasional Arab poet, and a sacred treatise or two. There is, as I
+have already said, no literature, no art, no science, in Morocco, and no
+architecture--the Kor[=a]n forbidding, it is said, research or study in
+any line except that of religion. Geography is entirely unknown. Like
+Moors in general, Hadj Mukhtar may have heard of London and Paris, and
+might know the names Germany and Russia, besides Mecca; but none of the
+former would have any connection or "place" in his mind, and Morocco must
+be, he is confident, the finest country under the sun. If it were brought
+home to him that his country is in a decadent condition, he would reply
+that at least it is good enough for him as it is; and that if Europeans
+were allowed to exploit it and to settle therein, the end would be
+prosperity for the Western civilization, and a knuckling-under on the
+part of the Moorish--which is true.
+
+We talked on upon one and another subject till it grew late, but before
+we left our host took R. and myself to see his wife, downstairs, in a
+smaller room. Five wives are allowed by Mohammed, but few Moors in Tetuan
+were rich enough to afford as many, and contented themselves with slaves.
+We were not impressed by the very plain, sallow-faced lady, with a black
+fringe and hard brown eyes, who shook hands with us, and from her
+likeness to the eldest boy was probably his mother. The second son was
+evidently by a slave: there was no mistaking that likeness--a fat, happy
+individual, the greatest contrast to another slave, who, though well
+dressed, was pale and miserable-looking. Two or three other corpulent,
+smiling blackamoors made up the sum-total of the party in the downstairs
+room--most comfortable, lounging on the cushions, they looked, no mean
+advertisements of Hadj Mukhtar's "table." The principal and favourite
+wife possessed a noisy sewing-machine, which she proudly displayed.
+
+Every Moor's establishment has its slaves--so many, according to his
+income: in Tetuan they are sold privately, and frequently exchanged one
+for the other, while the wives are as easily divorced. Every year
+something like three thousand slaves come into Morocco, chiefly from the
+Soudan: a few are stolen from Moorish tribes; the rest are brought in by
+Moorish traders, who catch them in various ways, such as scattering
+sweetmeats, or in hard times corn, round the villages, up to neighbouring
+coverts, just as a poacher at home entices pheasants with raisins, then
+pouncing out and carrying them off.
+
+As there are no such things as Moorish women-servants, negresses and
+slaves of various types step into the gap, and the evil of this influx of
+black blood is seen in the deterioration of a fine race, and the increase
+of the type which tends towards thick lips, low foreheads, and sensual
+tastes. The slavery of Christians in Morocco, once common, has been by
+treaty abolished since the day when the savage Sultan Mulai Ismael had
+eleven thousand Christian slaves in Mequinez employed in building his
+walls, whose bodies, when they succumbed, were mixed in with the stones
+and mud of the buildings. Slaves are not ill treated in the present day,
+though now and again one may be flogged to death as the result of fault
+or the malice and slander of a jealous fellow-slave: as a rule they live
+happily; and if a female slave bears a male child to her master, by a law
+in the Kor[=a]n both mother and son are _ipso facto_ freed, though they
+continue to live on in the same house.
+
+The last thing Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli showed us was his hummum, cunningly
+arranged to flank the kitchen fire at the back. A tiny room; but four of
+his wives and slaves could, he explained, take their bath in it at once.
+There was a small stone slab inside as a seat, and hot air came in by
+means of a pipe in one corner. The _hummum_, or Turkish bath, is partly
+enjoined by the Kor[=a]n and partly taken for its own enjoyment; it is a
+feature of every Moorish house of any pretension, and largely used by men
+and women.
+
+The evening was a dark one, and we picked our way back to the fonda by
+the light of lanterns: it is impossible to go out at night in Tetuan
+without carrying one; the streets are wholly unlit, and the refuse-heaps
+and central gutters unpleasant traps.
+
+Next morning R. and I strolled out of the city in the direction of Ceuta
+by way of the _Báb-el-M`kabar_ (the Gate of the Tombs). Just beyond this
+gateway congregates in the road _el doollah_ (the drove)--that is to say,
+the mules and donkeys belonging to any one in Tetuan who has no work for
+them on that particular day. They are all left by their owners at this
+spot in the care of a tall, tattered Moor, whose business in life is to
+look after them; and there they lie in the sandy road or lean up against
+the hot wall or each other, one of the saddest sights on God's earth,
+some of them infant two-year-olds, all of them overworked and starved.
+About midday the drover drives his charges off to the nearest grass--such
+as it is--and the ragged squad troops along the stony track without
+bridles and without spirit to abuse its freedom. They have none of them
+packs or saddles, unless their sore backs are too deeply aggravated to
+allow of exposure to the flies and dust; and in due time, one by one, the
+old or the dying drop tacitly out of the ranks; a couple of days--the
+scavenging dogs' work is done--and only a tangled knot of bones is kicked
+away from the roadside by the feet of the living generation, which have
+picked up the scantiest feed, and are straying back citywards again in
+the late afternoon, to be called for outside the Báb-el-M`kabar each by
+its owner.
+
+El doollah had not started; and leaving them all in the road below us, we
+passed the little knots of countrywomen who sit by the Báb-el-M`kabar
+selling myrtle for laying upon the graves, and wound our way uphill
+through the old Mussulman cemetery, with its quaint domed tombs and
+toothed, arched doorways, cracked, decayed, and yellow with lichen, half
+hidden among the tangle of bushes and wild flowers on the rough slope.
+
+The older of the tombs are probably those of the first Moors who fled
+from Spain in the days of that great _trek_ back to Morocco: a much later
+and very conspicuous dome belongs to a brave lady, who, not a hundred
+years ago, did her best to defend Tetuan against the Spaniards, fighting
+side by side with the Moorish troops, and, in the course of the siege,
+accounting for half a dozen Spaniards, thereby earning for herself in due
+course a Joan of Arc reputation and a public sepulchre.
+
+[Illustration: A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY.
+
+[_To face p. 80._]
+
+The cemetery was overgrown with _ayerna_ root, one of the commonest weeds
+in Morocco, poisonous when it is eaten raw, though it is possible, after
+boiling the root for ten or twelve hours, spreading it out to dry in the
+sun, and grinding it in a mill, to make a sort of bitter bread out of the
+flour, and to subsist upon that. This the poor do to a great extent,
+whenever corn runs short and they have nothing but roots and grasses to
+fall back upon: their pale yellow faces and emaciated bodies tell a tale
+of the ayerna root. We grubbed some up with a little difficulty in the
+stiff clay soil with nothing but sticks to help. Fifteen inches down we
+found the root, a small whitish bulb, the size of a bluebell root.
+
+There is much desolation about the old cemetery, with its crumbling
+ruins; but the sun struck a key-note of splendour, and turned the
+lichened stones into nuggets of gold.
+
+A black raven sat on a grey rock above us and croaked; below lay the
+white city--white beyond all English ideas of whiteness. Two tall
+minarets, with simple straight lines, only a mosaic of green tiling let
+into their flat faces, cut the peaks of the mountains beyond. At a
+quarter past twelve a little white flag slowly mounted to the top of each
+mosque; an infinitesimally small black figure appeared against the sky;
+then leaning over the parapet and looking down upon the humming city, a
+cry broke from the figure, and was carried over to us upon the wind--a
+cry which rose and fell, most musical, most sonorous: "Allah Ho
+Akbar--Allah Ho Akbar." The black dot moved round the parapet, and east
+and west and north and south chanted the great summons to the Faithful to
+prayer. And then the little white flag was hauled down.
+
+On the other side of the river the neutral-coloured villages could be
+picked out by their white saint-houses. Morocco is stuck as full of
+saints' tombs--fuller--than England of dissenting chapels. They stud the
+land. Moors rid themselves of much valuable energy in the erection, by
+countless thousands, of tombs to the memory of the eccentric or pious
+dead; and distances are measured, tracks marked, not from church to
+church as in Spain, nor from village to village as in England, but from
+saint-house to saint-house, each of which is village-green, club, or
+public-house rolled into one, where the men gossip, the pious read,
+travellers halt, offerings are brought the dead saint, and sick children
+arrive to be healed--all at a little whitewashed building with a dome
+like an oven outside, and a horse-shoe arch, an olive- or a fig- or a
+palm-tree, a flag-staff hung with morsels of rag, and often a spring of
+water. At four cross-tracks, instead of sign-posts, heaps of stones,
+cairns, are to be found, placed in such a way as to indicate the
+direction in which the next saint's tomb lies.
+
+A saint-house or two spot the green plain below the cemetery, which
+merges into the seven miles of flats stretching from the city to the sea,
+the haunt of wild duck, plover, and snipe, among wastes of coarse grass,
+marsh, and red tangle. Coils of grey river lie upon the flats: the very
+flatness over which the stream snakes is at once most strong--serene.
+
+As we walked down the hillside, a brown figure upon a flat-topped tomb
+was silhouetted against the plain: he raised himself, and then again
+prostrated his body to the earth, his face set to the distant belt of
+blue sea, worshipping towards Mecca.
+
+That afternoon we visited Semsar, a village two or three hours' ride from
+Tetuan, up in the mountains to the west. R. had a sedate brown mule with
+no idea of exerting himself: my mount was a clever little grey, nervous
+and rather handy with his heels, nearly kicking me more than once when I
+dismounted or mounted carelessly. We rode, as usual, on the high-peaked
+Moorish saddles, covered with scarlet cloth, such as every Moor uses--the
+stirrup-leathers of twisted scarlet silk, several thick saddle-cloths
+underneath, the girths never drawn, the saddle only kept from slipping
+over head or tail by scarlet britching and breastplate. It is impossible
+to mount unless the stirrup is held. After repeating the sacramental word
+"B`ism Allah" (a Moor mounts and dismounts in the name of God), with a
+man at his stirrups, he sinks without an effort into his saddle, amidst a
+furbelow of white robes, which he has afterwards arranged carefully for
+him. Possibly for this reason he gets on and off as seldom as possible,
+hugging the convenient maxim, common among the Moors, that mounting and
+dismounting fatigue an animal more than carrying a burden. He rides with
+his knees up to his chin: he is a natural horseman, and looks at home in
+his practically girthless and quite shapeless saddle, which must have
+given him a pang, if ever he galloped for his life in front of his
+enemies, and reflected that his safety was dependent upon the
+breastplate. A man, before now, has, as he rode, unwound his waistcloth,
+and twisted it round his horse's neck, for further security against the
+saddle's slipping back.
+
+Mr. Bewicke and his soldier rode with us: the latter a dark, lean-faced,
+unwholesome-looking man, unable, like so many of his countrymen, to grow
+any hair on his face--an obsequious individual too, inspiring little
+trust; below his long blue cloak he wore brown riding-boots, embroidered
+with orange, and fastening up the back with orange-thread buttons.
+
+My little grey bustled along; but once or twice, when the road fell away
+into a steep drop, his weak hind legs gave under him, and he "sat down":
+we soon learnt the effect which merely shaking the feet in the great
+angular stirrups has on mules whose sides have often been in touch with
+the sharp points, and jogged forward wherever the bad road allowed.
+
+We had left the city by another of its six gates--the _Báb-el-Toot_
+(Mulberry Gate), the old name pointing back to an energetic past, when
+mulberries, silk-worms, and silk-weaving flourished around Tetuan--when
+the cultivation of sugar-cane, cotton, and rice in Morocco was more than
+a memory.
+
+Following for a time the road to Tangier, we branched off to the right,
+and took a rough path winding upwards, passing a spring where women wash
+clothes, three parts walled in, to prevent their being seen.
+
+A little higher up and one of the countless saints' tombs came in
+sight--better known in this case as the Robbers' Tower, where brigands
+congregate at sunset, and from an excellent coign of vantage keep a
+look-out on the Tangier road, to drop on any unfortunate so foolhardy as
+to be on it late in the day. After dark no Moor from Tetuan would walk
+near this saint-house.
+
+Only a few weeks after this very ride a man was murdered on the Tangier
+road, why or wherefore no one knew, except that his body was found,
+brought into Tetuan, and buried without further investigation, since his
+relatives were neither rich nor powerful enough to institute a search and
+demand compensation.
+
+Robbery in Morocco is almost sanctioned by Providence; it is made so
+simple. The lonely tracks, the absence of police, the inconveniences of
+travelling, and the innumerable wells scattered over the country, almost
+sunk for the reception of inconvenient bodies--one and all tempt a man to
+turn brigand; and yet Europeans are seldom attacked, in view of the fine
+imposed upon the tribe in whose territory a crime is committed.
+
+Thus the borders, where several tribes meet, are always unsafe country,
+one tribe disposing of bodies which they have done to death by
+depositing them in the territory of the next tribe. But even in
+"Christian-ridden" Tangier a German was knifed three years ago walking
+home, as was his custom, at dusk. He happened to have no money on him.
+His murderer was given up to justice--that is, the basha of Tangier said
+some one must die, and together with the fine the tribe outside Tangier
+produced a man, who was duly executed, though whether he was the
+murderer. . . . . .
+
+Meanwhile, we were leaving the millet-fields behind us--stubbles, an
+occasional stalk three feet high, no lying for birds--and were in a
+country of wild lavender and stunted bushes: these consisted chiefly of
+cistus or else palmetto, a little dwarf palm, the fruit of which is eaten
+by goats, and the root by natives as a vegetable, while its fibrous
+leaves make rope and baskets and a hundred things. A bleak undulating
+country, which ran up into rocky blue gorges and grey peaks on the right
+hand. The path was almost blocked at one point by an immense cairn on the
+top of a ridge--a holy pile, upon which the devout Moor in passing casts
+a stone, because from this spot the mountain can be made out on which the
+venerated shrine of Mulai Abdesalam lies, in Beni Anos, the goal of
+thousands of pilgrims each year. Though it is within a day's ride of
+Tangier, the country for miles around is forbidden to any European, and
+two Englishmen only have penetrated into the sacred city of Shesháwan,
+which lies in the same district. Mr. Walter B. Harris and Mr. Somers, at
+different times, got inside, but only at sunset, and after lying in
+hiding all night had to flee for their lives at dawn.
+
+Gradually we reached wilder and more rocky country, recalling Scotland as
+far as the open moorland went. If fir-trees were planted on the sheltered
+slopes, the fir-pins should, in conjunction with the natural soil, form
+land capable of growing vines--an idle dream in the Morocco of to-day.
+
+Between two hills in front of us towered a cliff of rocky red limestone,
+which might once have formed the bed of some vast stream. Semsar lay
+where the waters should have struck the rock beneath as they fell: a more
+sheltered village could not be, facing south-east. The cliff above is
+still riddled with the remains of an old silver-mine, worked years ago by
+the Portuguese: the ladders and scaffolding inside have fallen to pieces,
+and after penetrating along dark tunnels on hands and knees for a certain
+distance an open shaft intervenes, and further exploration is impossible.
+
+Semsar, nestled into its crevice, takes more or less the local brown; but
+among the thatched huts, rising one above the other like an uneven pile
+of mud terraces, a few walls were whitewashed, and of course a white
+village mosque stood guard over all on the top of a hillock. There is
+something a trifle "animal" in these villages, rough clusters of
+bee's-comb or ant-heaps or beavers' lodgings as they might be, assuming
+exactly the shade of their surroundings, as nests the colour of their
+hiding-places, or as the kh[=a]ki-coloured sand-lizard, desert-lark, and
+sand-grouse of the great Sahara take on the yellow-ochre tone of that
+desert.
+
+A friend belonging to Mr. Bewicke's soldier had ridden out behind us. He
+owned a garden at hand, and asked if we would go in and look at it. We
+stooped low under a white stone doorway, an imposing structure,
+invariably the entrance to every garden: the door generally painted
+Reckitt's blue, and kept locked with a key eight inches long, while on
+each side of the gateway the cane fence is tumbling to pieces and
+offering useful gaps to marauders--a curious inversion of the rule in
+Spain, where to this day they bar the window heavily and leave the door
+open.
+
+Though to all appearance the owner was a hard-working Moor, the garden at
+any rate bore no great signs of expenditure of labour. We found ourselves
+in an overgrown wilderness of orange-trees, peaches, pears, figs, plums,
+damsons, cherries, white mulberries, quinces, jasmine, all overgrown and
+stabbed by the interloping prickly pear--a good fruit, too, in its way,
+and a "useful beast" as a hedge.
+
+Half of his oranges were always stolen, the owner said; the remaining
+half brought him in from sixty to ninety shillings a year, selling
+perhaps at a shilling or two the thousand. He had evidently not the
+capital to get the half of what such fruitful soil could give with
+Gibraltar at hand for export, nor the means of securing to himself any
+money he made; and it is poor work putting money into the hands of the
+nearest extortionate sheikh. Yet his garden was, and is to every Moor, a
+source of great satisfaction and content: truly a field of the slothful,
+a garden where the mystic finds rest and heart's ease, and the two things
+which appeal most to sun-baked men--shade and water. It is enough in such
+a spot to drowse away the sunny hours amidst the hum of bees, the rattle
+of the tree-beetle; to muse upon some book of whose drift only a faint
+idea is intelligible, content to leave its problems in the limbo of the
+insoluble, where most of life's questions seethe harmlessly enough; then,
+turning, give thanks to Allah, who has made gardens for mankind, and doze
+again.
+
+Farther on the path led us across streams banked with maiden-hair fern
+like rank grass. Water had worn the rock into grotesque shapes, a
+cavernous arch in one place, the banks, like a tunnel, almost meeting
+over our heads in another. Immense blocks of stone barred the way; it
+was not easy riding, but the mules climbed up and down rocky staircases
+with much tact, while we sat holding our breath.
+
+Over one of these obstructions the breastplate of my saddle, which had
+only been fastened to begin with by three stitches of string, burst, and
+I found myself almost over the grey's tail: such a common occurrence that
+no Moor goes out without string and packing-needle handy; but this was
+past mending on the road, and I changed on to the soldier's mule, whose
+top-heavy saddle was no fit at all, and, shifting all over its back,
+required careful balance on the rider's part.
+
+The road was only a few feet wide, and so overgrown that, as we jogged
+one after the other, trying to dodge grey arms of fig-trees, lying on the
+mules' necks under dark masses of foliage which shut out half the light,
+hatless, the stiffest bullfinch at home would have been ears of corn
+compared with what we went through.
+
+At last, however, it came to an end, and the trail opened out into the
+village of Semsar. Nobody was to be seen; dogs barked as usual; some kids
+bleated inside a hut. We rode by the crazy hovels; a woman carrying water
+emerged, and a boy with a baby. Beyond the last brown erection we came to
+a saint's tomb. This meant the village green without any "green." Two or
+three country people sat in the usual meeting-place among trodden-down
+weeds, talking and smoking their long pipes, congregated round one busy
+man, who was chopping a log into a plough with an axe. Around the tomb
+was a group of olive-trees, preserved leaf and stick and all, not a
+branch even of dead wood off the ground removed, by reason of the
+sanctity of the spot. However small a grove, it would otherwise have been
+cut down, as affording cover to robbers and _ginns_ (evil spirits).
+Thanks to saints' tombs the traveller in Morocco still meets with clumps
+and occasional woods of olives. The sunshine glowed on their hoary
+twisted branches, and flecked the gnarled trunks; the grey foliage cast
+patches of dense shadow on the brown earth under the mammoths, whose
+broken lines and odd elbows supported such masses of quiet colour and
+solemn shade. We wound our way to the left among the huts. Of any road
+between them there was none; the mules could barely climb over some of
+the boulders among the refuse.
+
+Once quit of the "green," we saw no one again, and got much mixed as to
+direction. Finally, we struck a path with a descent into a pool and below
+a fig tree, which, having made ourselves small, we circumvented, and
+discovered that it meandered in time to the outside of the village.
+Following, we wound southwards by a gorge along a rocky stream, which has
+the reputation of rising suddenly after rain, and not long ago drowned
+three mules.
+
+Stepping-stones are not provided in Morocco, and it is generally a case
+of plunging through a stream to reach the opposite side. Near a city with
+good fortune a Jew may pass, the chance may be worth waiting for; but no
+Mohammedan Moor would carry an infidel across on his superior back.
+
+In time a different path led us back to Tetuan, and we rode in by the
+Mulberry Gate at sunset, as the mueddzin was calling upon true believers
+to worship.
+
+On fine days we made many such excursions, and exploited the country for
+miles round. Showery and doubtful days were devoted to the city and
+shopping.
+
+Shopping in a foreign city tends towards the accumulation of white
+elephants, which, safely landed in England, work havoc in an English
+home. Long flint guns from the Riff, and old blue dishes from Fez, and
+orange-striped rugs from Rabat look strangely out of place with
+wall-papers and oil paintings. The East will never sit down with the
+West, and the adjuncts of either are bound to "fight." And yet we
+shopped.
+
+There are fewer more interesting ways of studying the outside life of the
+people; a little gossip and less reliable information are all thrown in
+to the bargain. The little Tetuan shops are a species of club, for each
+Moor has certain shops at which he habitually sits and may be found with
+more or less certainty. While the owner and his goods remain inside the
+shop, there is room for two people outside on the sill or doorstep, and a
+couple of fat leather cushions are provided for them. Even Mr. Bewicke
+was in the habit of sitting every day at Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli's shop and
+hearing the news, between four and seven o'clock every evening.
+
+[Illustration: OUT SHOPPING.
+
+[_To face p. 90._]
+
+He interpreted for us in our early days. We spent a whole morning buying
+_humbells_ (striped carpets) at a shop where the owner was sitting on the
+floor playing chess with a friend and drinking green tea. All over Tetuan
+draughts and chess are played constantly on little boards, either on the
+doorstep or inside the shop. The game had its origin, like bridge and
+polo, eastwards of England, and was introduced into Europe after the
+Crusades, together with baths and other civilized habits. Our shopman
+looked exceedingly bored at the interruption. However, after much
+bargaining, we bought a humbell, having to point to everything we wished
+to buy, for no Moor likes a Christian to come inside his shop, because of
+his dirty boots. A Moor is either in a pair of clean yellow slippers, or
+else they are on the doorsill, and his feet are bare: he tosses all his
+silks, towels, embroideries, carpets, on the floor, and sits among
+them, while the purchaser stands outside, points to the shelves and heap,
+and trusts to the owner's divining which particular silk handkerchief is
+wanted.
+
+In another shop we found a second humbell, chiefly black and orange, the
+property of a taciturn individual in a snow-white _selham_ (hooded
+cloak), a turban to match, with scarlet peak, a dark blue garment
+underneath the selham, and a complexion like cream and roses. He lay at
+full length on a pile of many carpets. We stopped in front of the shop.
+Neither rising, bowing, nor bustling about to show off his goods, the
+white figure lay still, looking dreamily through and beyond us. We were
+bores. In reply to a question of price, a long sum was murmured. At last
+we expressed a decided wish to inspect the humbell, and, slowly rising,
+he condescended to lift it from a shelf, his looks suggesting that he
+would prefer being left alone. Again we asked his lowest price.
+Twenty-one shillings. We offered sixteen. Without deigning to answer, he
+solemnly folded up the humbell and put it away, then folded one by one
+the goods which littered the floor, and stacked them above the humbell on
+the same shelf. Still standing in front of the shop, we repeated our
+offer of sixteen shillings. He shook his head decidedly, made a
+deprecating gesture, and prepared to sink again on his couch. Mr. Bewicke
+forbade us to offer more; we walked away. A voice said in Arabic, "It is
+yours," and the humbell was thrown after us; the sixteen shillings were
+received with a sigh as the shopkeeper resumed his couch.
+
+Tetuan makes many artistic "towels," which form the ordinary dress of the
+countrywomen underneath their old enfolding yellowish-white woollen
+haiks; but for quite the majority a towel as skirt and a towel as cape
+are sufficient for all purposes. There is the rare addition of a pair of
+cotton drawers.
+
+The strong substance and fast scarlet dyes make these towels no mean
+substitutes for curtains, except that, like native goods in general, they
+seldom quite match, and distract the soul which demands "pairs" in all
+and everything.
+
+A Jew we visited in the Jews' Quarter had a fine carpet for sale, made
+farther south, something like a Persian, the ground whitish, with
+harmonious reds and greens. For a long time we sat and tried to bargain
+in his odd little den up a dilapidated staircase and nearly pitch dark:
+he wanted £5. The pattern was a little small. We came away without it.
+Some of the old _kaftans_ (robes of coloured cloth or satin or silk
+brocade, embroidered with gold or silver, buttoned down the front and
+with wide sleeves) were well worth buying: none are made like them
+nowadays, for common material is used; unfortunately the best are often
+in tatters.
+
+We visited the Slipper Market, and, sitting on the doorstep of one of the
+shops, gave directions for two pairs--blue velvet embroidered with gold,
+and milk-coloured leather embroidered with green. Size, price, and colour
+were duly discussed; rain came on, we sat on the doorsill sheltering, and
+the basha--Tetuan's governor--was criticised. The slipper-maker had not a
+good word for him. To begin with, it seems he has no money, is of no
+family, and aristocratic Tetuan refuses to "hob-nob" with him. He
+dislikes Tetuan after Fez, whence he was transferred, and where he made
+more money. The other day a neighbouring tribe sent him a present of so
+many dollars. At the same time they owed him certain taxes, in lieu of
+which he accepted the money, but pointed out that the present must follow
+in due course. None ever arrived, and the basha sent his brother-in-law
+and a soldier to the tribesmen to ask an explanation of its
+non-appearance. The brother-in-law was tactless, incensed the tribesmen,
+and provoked them to bastinado him, whereupon the soldier lost his head,
+and fired his gun off into the air. He was promptly disembowelled.
+
+The brother-in-law returned to the basha, stiff, but alive; and the
+country people give it as their verdict that the basha is a rapacious
+man. They threaten that they will no longer bring their produce into
+Tetuan to market, but will hold their own markets at some place chosen by
+themselves out in the country, and Tetuan shall come out to buy. Such a
+proceeding would be most inconvenient; for Tetuan is dependent for all
+its supplies on the country people, who hold their markets on Sundays,
+Wednesdays, and Fridays in the feddan, where they sit upon the ground
+packed in hundreds, their chickens, eggs, butter, and produce in general
+in their laps and at their feet. Their beef and mutton are but
+second-rate, and the shapeless lumps of lean, tough meat take double as
+long as an English joint to cook, and make but a poor show in the end,
+hacked by the unskilful butchers past all recognition. Goat and fish are
+to be had, sometimes partridges, hares, and rabbits, occasionally a
+haunch of wild boar. Fish came in on certain days when the wind was
+favourable: there was then a rush on the fish market, and almost a free
+fight over the great panniers full of shining silvery sardines, and over
+the bodies of the sellers seated on the ground. The successful carried
+off a handful each, and the cafés and fish shops were soon frying
+sardines for dear life, while the little streets were thick with the
+steam of native oil and butter. Some big fish, four and five feet long,
+came into market sometimes, and a small boy would be hired by a purchaser
+to carry one home across his shoulder, its great head hanging down
+behind, and underneath a pair of thin brown legs like little sticks
+hurrying along the street.
+
+Bread in Morocco is "passing heavy," flavoured with aniseed and full of
+grit. Vegetables are to be had in abundance.
+
+The slippers, which had been promised in three days, appeared in three
+weeks. Whenever we passed the shop we asked after them: always the same
+answer--_M[=a]nana_ (To-morrow). "No, there was no butter to be had
+to-day, but _m[=a]nana_." "No, the pillows were not finished yet, but
+_m[=a]nana_." "The boots left to be soled were not ready, but
+_m[=a]nana_." Tetuan lives upon _m[=a]nana_: it is the reincarnation of
+JAM YESTERDAY, AND JAM TO-MORROW, BUT NEVER JAM TO-DAY.
+
+Equally exasperating was the habit of every shopkeeper of locking up his
+shop and going off to pray or eat or chat. If a shop had to be revisited
+and purchases exchanged, the owner was invariably out, and the door
+fastened with lock and key. At 12.15 p.m. nobody could ever be found, but
+was presumably at the mosque. Again and again we visited the same shop:
+one day the owner was at a friend's shop, the next at home, and so on. We
+gave him up, to see his sleek cross-legged figure seated inside the
+little cupboard the very next time we passed.
+
+[Illustration: SHOPS IN TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 94._]
+
+Walking by a saint-house on the outskirts of the city, devout and
+impoverished women were often to be seen there, visiting the shrine and
+carrying with them small vessels of food, which they placed on the ground
+for the spirit of the holy man to eat. The window of the shrine was tied
+with a hundred scraps of rag and dead flowers, bits of wood, and paper
+and oddments of all sorts. Empty earthenware bowls later on, and pariah
+dogs skulking around, licking their lips, told a tale; but if asked if
+they really thought their saint would come up out of his grave and eat
+the food prepared for him, it was open to the Mussulman to answer the
+Christian, "And do you really believe that your dead friends come and
+smell the flowers you plant on their graves?"
+
+Small-pox kills a great many Moors, and an incredible number are marked
+by the disease. It is looked upon much as measles are in England: cases
+are never isolated, and children are all expected to have it. Each year
+it is prevalent, and people may be passed in the street with it out upon
+them; but every four years it breaks out seriously, and a large
+percentage of the population dies.
+
+Last of all, in our shopping days a few things we bought by auction. No
+auctioneer is employed as in European countries, but the owner and seller
+himself perambulates the street or courtyard with his goods--a mule, or a
+frying-pan, or a carpet--calling out each successive bid which he
+receives on his article, pushing his way and jostling the motley mob of
+market people, peasants and loungers, silks and rags, until he has got
+his price, and hands over to its new owner his late possession.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FAST OF RÁMADHAN--MOHAMMED--HIS LIFE AND INFLUENCE--THE FLOOD AT
+SAFFI--A WALK OUTSIDE TETUAN--THE FRENCH CONSUL'S GARDEN-HOUSE--JEWS IN
+MOROCCO--EUROPEAN PROTECTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+    Manage with bread and butter till God brings the jam.
+      _Old Moorish proverb._
+
+
+WE had not been long at the fonda before the Fast of Rámadhan began.
+Rámadhan, ordained by Mohammed, takes place in the ninth month of every
+Mohammedan year, and lasts for twenty-eight days, during which time the
+Faithful fast from dawn, when it is light enough to distinguish between a
+black and white thread, to sunset. It alters by a few days every year
+according to the moon, and when it falls during summer in scorching hot
+countries the agonies of thirst endured mean a penance indeed.
+
+Rámadhan begins when the new moon is first seen. Tidings were sent from
+Tangier to say that it had been observed there, which tidings Tetuan
+handed on to the farthest mountain villages: a gun was fired from the
+Kasbah at sunset, horns were sounded, and Rámadhan began. It sometimes
+happens that Tetuan does not see the new moon till the day after Tangier
+has seen it at the beginning of the fast, in which case the Tetuan people
+are guilty of "eating the head of Rámadhan": this year it was not so.
+During the twenty-eight days of the fast, every night, or rather every
+early morning at 2 a.m., the householder was awakened by the crashing of
+his knocker on his door and a shout bidding him "Rise and eat": the
+mueddzin at the same time from the top of the mosque called the hour of
+prayer, and long brass horns brayed to the same effect.
+
+The month was almost over before we had learnt to sleep through it all.
+As the fonda was in the Moorish Quarter our door was not exempt. Far away
+up the street the knockers clanked, nearer and nearer every moment, then
+the man's footsteps, then our own knocker sounded like a sledge-hammer,
+and "Rise and eat" followed: the man went on to the next door, and back
+again shortly up the opposite side of the street. And every Mussulman
+arose in the dark and had a large meal. Again at sunrise the big gun
+boomed from the Kasbah, the concussion shaking our ill-built room, and we
+woke once more.
+
+[Illustration: A CLUSTER OF COUNTRY WOMEN.
+
+[_To face p. 100._]
+
+No doubt the original motive of fasting and abstinence in the Old
+Testament was the promotion of sanitary conditions. It is not good to eat
+pig in hot countries: thus pork was "unclean," and is to-day in Morocco.
+Nor is the consumption of much spirituous liquor wise when the
+thermometer marks a hundred and one: hence the Kor[=a]n forbids the use
+of strong drinks. The same motive underlies the fast, which rests and
+relieves systems over-fattened and little exercised. But the "all or
+nothing" theory which governs the uneducated and knows no moderation runs
+a benefit into an abuse. Rámadhan had its disadvantages. Tetuan was
+revelling at night and in a sodden sleep through the day; work was
+slipshod and at sixes and sevens; men were irritable and quarrelsome;
+every one looked indisposed; and the excuse for it all was always
+Rámadhan. Worst of all, the countrywomen still tramped four and five
+hours into market with loads, and children a month old, only half
+nourished at the time of the fast.
+
+But Rámadhan came to an end at last: Morocco breathed again. The day
+before the fast was over everybody was smiling, and Tetuan had but one
+hope, that the new moon would be seen that night, and thus the month of
+penance come to an end. After the letter from Tangier had been received
+next morning, which said that the new moon had been seen there, the gun
+from the fort thundered, the basha went in gorgeous state to the
+_Jama-el-Kebeer_ (Big Mosque) on a white mule, all caparisoned in blue,
+and read aloud the letter, the city was uproarious, and the mountains
+echoed again, for soldiers were sent post-haste up the valleys, and fired
+all day at intervals to notify to the fathermost villages that Rámadhan
+was over.
+
+And the next day! The first day of the _Aid-el-Sereer_ (Little Feast)!
+Everybody was in shining white, if not new, apparel, and all Tetuan was
+abroad. That among a people clad so largely in white and in gorgeous
+colours means a great deal, and the streets of Tetuan might have competed
+with the Park on the Sunday before Ascot. The Moorish crowd was almost
+entirely a male one, dressed like peacocks: satins embroidered with gold
+and silver prevailed.
+
+And if the snowy haiks and turbans and the resplendent shades of the
+kaftans were the first point about the feast, the sweetmeat stalls were
+the second. A Moor is a born sweet-tooth, and at every corner of the
+streets a board was stacked with creamy mixtures in which walnuts were
+embedded, with generously browned toffee full of almonds, with
+carmine-coloured sticks, with magenta squares of sweet peppermint, with
+blocks of nougat inches thick. And the joys of the feast seemed amply to
+compensate for the fast.
+
+Mohammed ordained many minor feasts and fasts. Rámadhan stands out chief
+of the one: _Aid-el-Kebeer_ (Great Feast), falling two months and six
+days afterwards, is chief of the other.
+
+The three reforms which Mohammed instituted were temperance, cleanliness,
+and monotheism, at a time when reform was badly needed. He was born in
+Mecca five hundred and seventy years after Christ, an Arab of the tribe
+of Beni Has`sim. Christianity was not unknown around him in his day.
+
+Always somewhat of a visionary and introspective turn of mind, when he
+was about forty years old he became deeply interested in the subject of
+religion. Living in the imaginative East, in a hotbed of mysticism and
+superstition, it was easy for him to conceive himself a chosen vessel of
+the Almighty, and to assume by degrees the rôle of prophet, in the honest
+belief that the words he uttered came direct from that God whose
+mouthpiece he conceived himself to be. A small band of followers by
+degrees collected round him, and in the ordinary course of events his end
+would have been that of a saint with a tombstone white; but, added to the
+saint's fanaticisms, Mohammed possessed the talents of a leader, and the
+ambition which accompanies those talents.
+
+Men and more men were attracted to him; he instituted among them a
+ceremonial of prayer, feasts, and fasts, and built a mosque at Medina, in
+which they worshipped. Persecution from their fellow-countrymen followed
+as a matter of course, and Mohammed's disciples, who began to call
+themselves Mohammedans, turned to him as their chief. The one "able man,"
+he naturally assumed the position of a theocratic ruler, and led them
+against their enemies; while the words he spoke were committed to memory,
+constituting later on the Kor[=a]n.
+
+As a general Mohammed was successful: battle after battle was fought and
+won, reverses were amply compensated for, and men flocked to his
+standard, while deputations from surrounding tribes poured in upon him,
+acknowledging his supremacy, and asking for instruction in his creed.
+
+That creed was admirably adapted to suit the manners, opinions, and vices
+of the East: it was extraordinarily simple, it proposed but few truths in
+which belief was necessary, and it laid no severe restraints upon the
+natural desires of men; above all, its warlike tendencies captivated the
+men of its day, and war, which at first had been necessary in
+self-defence, was still carried on, and gradually came to be looked upon
+by Mohammed and his followers as a lawful means towards spreading their
+religion. In the name of a _Holy War_ the conquerors offered their
+defeated enemies the option of death or embracing the new religion, while
+the women and children taken in battle were sold as slaves, after the
+manner of the time.
+
+And the Prophet's influence deepened and extended. Meanwhile, his
+sayings, or "the Kor[=a]n," were written down from time to time by one or
+other of his followers, on palm leaves, on stone tablets, on the
+shoulder-plates of goats and camels, and even tattooed on men's breasts;
+while his ritual was strictly carried out--prayer with absolution,
+frequent washing, fasting, almsgiving, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the
+recital of the formula "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his
+prophet."
+
+Prayer was offered up five times a day, as now, by every true
+believer--at sunrise, at midday, at three in the afternoon, at sunset,
+and two hours after sunset: the _adzan_ (call to prayers) was chanted at
+each time by the mueddzin from the minarets of the mosques. The first
+thing in the morning at sunrise the call ran, "God is great; God is
+great. Mohammed is his prophet. Prayer is better than sleep. Come to
+prayer; come to prayer." The believer, obeying the summons, washes,
+enters the mosque, and repeats from four to eight short prayers, with
+genuflections between each.
+
+Mohammed strictly obeyed the forms of his doctrine, and himself performed
+the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca and the ceremonies round the K[=a]aba. He
+was familiar with at least part of the Gospels, but his knowledge was
+possibly scant and distorted: he was unfriendly towards Christians. For
+the Old Testament he had a profound respect.
+
+As far as can be gathered he was a sober and meditative man: he sought
+neither state nor riches for himself, when either might have been his for
+the asking. He looked upon women from a point of view not unlike the
+characters in the Old Testament--a distinctly Eastern one. He possessed
+five wives, and probably concubines--bondwomen in much the same position
+as Hagar of old.
+
+Mohammed instituted the veiling of women, with corresponding restrictions
+on domestic intercourse, as a check upon undue sexual licence--the curse
+of hot climates.
+
+There is no reason to believe that Mohammed was not honest in the
+conviction that his mission was divine, and that, if he countenanced
+vindictive revenge, rapine, and lust as a means towards the furtherance
+of his teaching, he justified the act in his own mind by what he believed
+to be revelations from a spirit other than his own.
+
+A great character has perforce its great faults, and the courage and
+ambition which made so mighty a leader were naturally enough the rock
+upon which that leader split, blinding his eyes and distorting his point
+of view, leading him into compromise and error. But though self-deceived
+and fanatical, it is improbable that Mohammed was insincere. By the
+spirit of his day he must be judged. His day believed in him.
+
+He died early in the seventh century, sixty-three years old, saying,
+"Verily I have fulfilled my mission. I have left that amongst you, a
+plain command, the Book of God, and manifest ordinances, which, if ye
+hold fast, ye shall never go astray." Within two years of his death the
+Mohammedan armies had overrun Syria; Egypt was in their possession, and
+the whole northern coast of Africa.
+
+The scraps which contained in writing the sayings of the dead Prophet
+were all collected by his chief amanuensis: his followers appointed three
+judges to overlook the work. The new collection was written in Mohammed's
+own pure Meccan dialect, and every spurious copy was burnt. So carefully
+was this done that there is but one and the same Kor[=a]n throughout the
+vast Mohammedan world.
+
+Mohammedanism satisfied the East for two reasons: first, because it was a
+warlike religion, and therefore appealed to warlike tribes; secondly,
+because, deeply underlying it, was the strong, calm spirit of fatalism,
+that world-old foundation-stone on which many a man has come to anchor.
+The very word Mussulman means, "One who has surrendered himself and his
+will to God."
+
+    ISLAM is the belief in one God,
+                           one Prophet (Mohammed),
+                           the immortality of the soul,
+                           the resurrection of the dead,
+                           the day of judgment,
+                           angels,
+                           a devil.
+
+There are no subtle intricacies in such a creed, no mysterious
+contradictions to puzzle the uneducated mind; it amply satisfies a simple
+people; and probably no other dogma makes so many converts.
+
+In Morocco to-day the Mohammedan religion is interwoven with the whole
+fabric of life. To the Moor Allah is always present, is behind every
+decree of the Sultan, and enters into the smallest detail of his own
+private life to such a degree that barely a single action is performed
+without invoking the sacred name. Religion is, according to the temper of
+the individual Moor, "a passion, or a persuasion, or an excuse, but never
+a check": for a man may commit any sin under heaven, and "Allah is
+merciful; Mohammed is his prophet; all will be forgiven." And this is not
+hypocritical: the larger soul includes the smaller--that is all.
+
+It follows as a natural sequence that, because Allah is as much part of a
+Moor's life as the air he breathes, he is forgotten. The repetition of
+words bulks so largely in Mohammedanism, that, as with the Jews of old,
+the letter of the law has killed the spirit. The evil of Mohammed's
+religion lies in its essential antagonism towards progress and
+civilization: scientific investigation is forbidden; a proverb runs,
+"Only fools and the very young speak the truth." Thus Mohammedanism will
+never advance or regenerate Morocco; for these tenets are Government
+policy.
+
+At the same time there is in Mohammedan society a certain negative virtue
+which contrasts strongly with the gross immorality existing in Christian
+countries. The conditions of what is lawful for a Mohammedan are wide
+enough to content, and extremes offer no temptation. Polygamy, divorce,
+and slavery are all allowed, and war upon unbelievers is enjoined as a
+duty. And yet "social evils" and the lowest depths to which humanity
+falls are almost unknown in Morocco; while what is held to be sin is
+rigorously punished--adultery by stoning (a father has no hesitation in
+shooting his daughter himself), robbery by mutilation, and so on.
+
+Unlike many Christian churches, a Moorish mosque is never closed: the
+sanctuary is always open. It is council-chamber, meeting-place, and for
+travellers at night resting-place. There are no priests in the European
+sense; but the _basha_ (governor) or the _kadi_ (judge) reads prayers on
+Fridays, a sermon follows, and letters or decrees from the Sultan are
+given out in the mosque after service.
+
+The treatment of Mohammedan women, against which so much has been
+written, is after all Oriental, and nothing more. The Kor[=a]n speaks of
+woman as an inferior being, an incomplete creation, needing no education,
+to be rigorously and jealously guarded all her life, and who after death
+may or may not be admitted into the Mohammedan heaven. Her function, if
+rich, is to bear children, and to be treated like a petted lap-dog: if
+poor, to work as a labourer. But interrogate the wife of a rich Moor on
+the subject, and she will not have the slightest wish to educate herself,
+but will affirm emphatically, "We have children and enough to eat. Why
+should we want to learn anything?"
+
+It is manifestly absurd to compare Mohammedanism with Christianity, which
+are each the outcome of a distinct race, divided by that greatest
+barrier--a racial gulf.
+
+Christianity, it must be confessed, bearing in mind the Christian
+renegades with whom the Moor has traded, is looked upon by him for the
+most part as a thing beneath contempt. It had five hundred years, before
+Mohammed was born, in which to impress itself on the East. It signally
+failed. And yet only a few years after Mohammed's death his religion had
+taken by storm Egypt, Turkey, Arabia, Persia, Turkestan, parts of India,
+the Malay Peninsula, the north coast of Africa, and parts of China,
+introducing monotheism, and impressing temperance and cleanliness on
+uncivilized millions, but never advancing beyond that point. It is borne
+in upon one that, in spite of missionary effort, Morocco will change its
+religion for that of Christianity when, as its own proverb says, "The
+charcoal takes root and the salt buds." The East, when it adopts other
+tenets, will exchange its own for a wider and a more universal cult than
+that which modern sects and parties are endeavouring and failing to
+introduce to-day.
+
+While we were in our small quarters at the fonda, the weather by no means
+came up to the high standard it is said to reach in December. A few sunny
+days, when we could bask out of doors, were grudgingly sandwiched between
+many wet ones, and again and again the Rámadhan sunrise gun awoke us to
+gouts of almost tropical rain, a fiery sunrise followed by an hour's
+brilliant sunshine, the herald of a shamelessly distorted April day. The
+little gutters down the middle of the streets ran like torrents, carrying
+off chickens' heads and cabbage-stalks; hail scoured the pebbles; outside
+the city "the dry land was over your boots"; the road to the sea was
+impassable, and the rivers between Tangier and Tetuan were unfordable;
+snow lay in patches on the mountains; half the vale was inundated; the
+river could be heard a mile away; both our windows leaked; and down in
+the little patio, where the family sat, the waters were out.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+A TYPICAL MOORISH STREET.
+
+[_To face p. 108._]
+
+From the west coast at Saffi terrible reports arrived of the havoc the
+weather had made of the city. The lowest barometer ever seen had preceded
+sheets of rain, and a solid _hamla_ (flood) had entered the gates from
+the valley above, filling the narrow streets in a few moments to a depth
+of seven and eight feet, and carrying everything before it: men, women,
+children, and cattle were swept in a torrent through the water-gate out
+to sea, sometimes a hand stretched out above the eddies. Then the gate
+became blocked with floating _debris_ and bodies, and the flood rose to
+ten feet in the principal street. The townspeople who survived took
+refuge on their roofs. The vice-governor was drowned. Houses, shops,
+mills, and mosques were gutted as if by fire; furniture and household
+goods were ruined; the Saffi shopkeepers were beggared. For many weeks
+after the survivors starved upon roots, in spite of a subscription raised
+in Tangier to relieve them.
+
+The rain apparently was something like a waterspout. Happily Tetuan was
+exempt from waterspouts, and on days when the rain gave over for a time
+we rode, or, picking our way along the muddy streets, drank tea with some
+Moor.
+
+One dull afternoon we sampled the state of the roads outside, R. on a
+donkey, and Mr. Bewicke and myself on foot. Walking out by the Gate of
+the Tombs, we bore to the left, and dived into the narrowest of narrow
+lanes, shut in with tall cane fences and high mud-banks crowned with
+prickly pear, the shape of whose fat, fleshy leaves recalls moles' paws.
+
+The donkey was an unusually large one, and its pack rolled more than
+packs in general: before we saw the last of Tetuan its rider had many a
+fall off her unsteady perch; and if there is truth in the Moorish saying
+that "one does not become a horseman till one is broken," R. may claim to
+have qualified. It shied and bucked and came on its nose over rocks; but
+this time Mr. Bewicke's boy, Mohr, directed its ways, and thoroughly
+enjoyed cudgelling it along with a stick, helped by its rider's switch,
+cut from a quince-tree, which often as not hit Mohr instead of the ass.
+
+By-and-by we met a countryman, his wife, and a donkey. The woman, who
+wore little except two striped towels, and a handkerchief round her head,
+staggered along under a great load of faggots. She was stunted and
+wrinkled, removed mentally but few degrees from the three-year-old
+weather-beaten donkey which minced along in front of her, also loaded
+with faggots. The woman had strips of rough leather bandaged round her
+legs to protect them from thorns. Her feet were bare. Her husband
+sauntered last of all, presumably looking after the donkey: he had no
+load. Another time the donkey also might be exempt, while the woman was
+still burdened; and the man, when asked why, if he would not carry the
+load himself, he did not at least put it upon the donkey, would reply,
+"Because it is too heavy for the ass."
+
+A little farther on and a magnificent Riffi passed us, walking along at a
+smart pace into the city, his face "old oak" colour, framed in a turban
+of dark red-brown strings of wool. He wore a chocolate-coloured jellab,
+embroidered at the edge with white, and sewn with tufts of red, violet,
+yellow, and green-coloured silks: a tall, wiry fellow, with a back like a
+ram-rod, a thin face, and keen, defiant eyes. The light glittered on his
+long, brass-plated Riffi gun: a red leather pouch full of bullets hung at
+his side. He was a great contrast to the labourer who passed us
+afterwards, also bound for the city--an old and grizzled monkey-faced
+man, with his head tied round with a ragged red cloth gun-case. His
+jellab hung in tatters, but he also carried a gun, and by a string a
+brace of partridges and a wild duck, which "bag," after some bargaining,
+became ours for the sum of one-and-sixpence.
+
+Among the brown jellabs and varied turbans European clothes were forcibly
+out of their place: a people like the Moors, childlike, patriarchal,
+whose lives embody one of the oldest and perhaps best ideas of a simple
+existence, may well hate the sight, on the face of their select country,
+of prosaic tailoring and hideous head-gear. The traveller in his boots,
+where boots are things unknown, passes the muffled women with their
+silent gait, the picturesque ruffians with their swinging stride, and is
+unable to help feeling not at home and something of a blot on the
+landscape.
+
+The lane we wandered up had been, and was still in places, a watercourse,
+and we struggled along the steep chasms gouged out of the soft soil, and
+clambered over rocks which had withstood the torrent.
+
+By-and-by a red door intervened on our left, fitted into an imposing
+whitewashed arched gateway, with a mounting-block on each side, and the
+great brass ring-shaped knocker in the middle of the door which the Moors
+have left all over Spain--the garden-house of the French Consul. In
+another four months, when all aristocratic Tetuan would migrate in a body
+into their "summer-houses," and by their mutual presence reassure each
+other as to their safety, the Consul would move out of the city: at
+present he would look on such a step as sheer madness.
+
+An old negro slave, with a beard like cotton-wool, was at work in the
+garden, and, opening the door, let us in to look round. A wide gravel
+path led up to the dazzling walls of the house, spotless as a sheet of
+glazed cream-laid note-paper, the window-frames and door picked out with
+Reckitt's blue. A white railing in front edged the terrace, the steps of
+which were tanned by the damp salt air a fine rusty ochre. The house
+inside was built on the invariable Moorish lines--kitchen and inferior
+rooms on the ground floor, one great lofty room above, and the flat roof
+over all. A garden-room flanked the house on the south-east, the front
+open to the garden, pillared and arched with the old white plastered
+"horse-shoe." In underneath the arches were shade and cool tiling, and
+outside more tiled ground suggested steaming brews of fragrant green tea,
+tiny glasses, low tables, and long divans spread under the sky.
+
+It was a grey day, and height beyond height on into the Riff country was
+cloud-capped, while _shar d'jebel_ (the hair of the mountain, as the
+Moors call snow) whitened a few furrowed peaks. The flats lay below to
+the left, and a horizontal blue pencil line was scored beyond them.
+Cow-birds stalked about the garden among some new vines which the old
+negro was putting in.
+
+We sat down on the terrace, looking at the view, and the silence of the
+place was above all things most striking. A cavalcade of mules tailed
+away in the distance in single file along the faint track to the sea; the
+packed white city lay to the right, but no voices reached us; here
+cart-wheels, railway-trains, threshing-machines, and busy farm life were
+not. It would have been hard to age and wrinkle in such a spot--Adam and
+Eve might have felt at home.
+
+It was also a weedy one, this Paradise: a tangle of greenery spread
+underneath the oranges, hanging like yellow trimming on a green fabric,
+choking the vines and a few scarlet geraniums. Labour, in such indolent
+and self-possessed acres, was a crude and gauche idea.
+
+The greybeard with the marmoset face and leathern apron let us out at the
+red door: he had a history. His master, a prosperous Moor, once offered
+to free him: the old slave refused the offer, on the score that he was
+quite content as he was. However, his master urged him to accept, and he
+was eventually given his freedom. But later on the master lost all his
+money, and ruin was before him. His old slave came back. "See here, my
+master; here am I. Take me; sell me"; and he finally persuaded the man to
+sell him. He seemed contented enough as the property of the French
+Consul, who is a Moor.
+
+We passed a party of closely veiled women, as we strolled citywards,
+taking advantage of a break in the wet weather to visit their gardens,
+carrying a great key, and accompanied by two or three ink-black slaves,
+fine upstanding women, well fed and clothed, looking good-tempered to a
+fault, whose children, by the same husband and master, would rank equally
+with those of the wives.
+
+Mohammedan women, though veiled and supervised, have at least their
+gardens to saunter out to and visit when the tracks allow. Jewesses in
+Morocco deserve infinitely more pity. Their one recreation seemed to
+consist in walking as far as the Jewish cemetery, ten minutes outside the
+Gate of the Tombs, and attending to the gravestones of their friends.
+
+The cemetery is gradually absorbing one side of a rough red-earthed hill;
+it has no fence of any description round it, and the flat pale-blue and
+white tombstones spread over the ground look in the distance like so much
+washing out to dry. The stones are all alike, oblong lozenges, inscribed
+in Hebrew.
+
+Here, especially on Fridays, the women's day, Jewesses congregate,
+flocking along the cemetery road--the mourners in ponderous black skirts,
+vast breadths of crimson silk let into the fronts and embroidered with
+gold, white shawls over head and forehead, a yellow sash-end edged with
+red appearing behind, and completing their mourning. Some of the shawls
+are family heirlooms, and only parted with for five-pound notes.
+
+Loud checks and gaudy colours adorn the Rahels, Donahs, Zulicas, and
+Miriams not in mourning, as well as the white shawls; and the procession
+troops to the cemetery, sallow, sad-eyed daughters of Jacob, talking a
+mixture of Arabic and Spanish, with a few English and Shillah words
+thrown in.
+
+Of all life's unfortunates, the Jew in Morocco was once, next to the
+negro in the West Indies, the most persecuted and degraded of God's
+creatures.
+
+In Tangier and the seaport towns, where the Christian representatives
+countenance and support him, the Jew, subject to certain restrictions, is
+in the present day a flourishing member of the community; but in the
+interior his fate is still a hard one.
+
+There is a Jewish tradition that when Shalmaneser, King of Assyria,
+conquered the Israelites, the tribe of Naphthali took refuge in the
+interior of Africa, and spread to Morocco. Jewish tombstones are
+certainly to be found dating as far back as twelve hundred years, and one
+synagogue possesses fragments of the Old Testament written on parchment,
+while there is a population of from four to five thousand Jews in the
+Atlas Mountains who have lived there since time immemorial.
+
+Perhaps the wandering Jew merely drifted into Morocco just as he drifts
+all over the universe, and he would have taken refuge in North Africa
+more particularly when Spanish persecution became intolerable.
+
+Once in Morocco, the Moors permitted the Jews to remain because they were
+useful to them; but upon certain conditions. They are confined to a
+certain quarter of the city--the Jews' Quarter, the Ghetto in
+fact--which is shut and locked by a gate at sunset, barring them from the
+outer world. In their own quarter they may do as they like, except ride a
+horse; the horse is considered too noble an animal to be ridden by the
+Jew: outside they may not ride at all, not even a mule, but are obliged
+to trudge barefoot through the slush of the rest of the city, summer and
+winter. They are compelled to wear one costume--a long black gabardine
+and a black skull-cap. Few Jewesses care to leave their quarters by
+themselves, for fear of insult. No synagogues or public places of worship
+are allowed them, and they must address Moors as _Sidi_, or "My lord."
+
+But these customs are fast dying out. There is one which universally
+obtains: the Jews' Quarter is known as the _Mellah_; Mellah means "salt"
+in Arabic,--the Jews are compelled to salt the heads of conquered tribes
+killed in battle, and of criminals, which are afterwards nailed on the
+city walls as trophies and warnings.
+
+In Tetuan the Jews are influential and well treated: many of them wear
+European clothes. On Saturday--the Jewish Sabbath--a young masher (a
+Mordejai, or Baruch, or Isaac) would boast a pair of brand-new yellow
+shoes and white socks, but wear at the same time a dove-coloured
+gabardine down to his heels and a mauve sash round his waist.
+Claret-coloured gabardines were fashionable, and a black skull-cap
+inevitable.
+
+Though Tetuan was lax and liberal in its treatment of the Israelites,
+wealthy families of whom it possessed, the Mellah was at once the
+noisiest and filthiest quarter of the city, teeming with children (unlike
+the Moorish quarters, where there are few), who played and fought,
+laughed and cried, by fifties down the three principal arteries of the
+quarter, whose few feet of walking-space were lined with small and dirty
+greengrocers' and butchers' shops, their stock-in-trade encrusted with
+flies. On hot days the Mellah stank; on wet it was deep in black slime.
+
+Once upon a time it ran close to the Jama-el-Kebeer; and when a hundred
+years ago the Sultan who had built the big mosque sent his envoy to
+examine it, all was approved of except the proximity of the Jews'
+Quarter. "Can a mosque be admired near Jews?" was speedily answered by
+the Tetuanites, who turned the Israelites neck and crop out of house and
+home, giving them another piece of ground walled in and sufficiently
+removed.
+
+The sons of Abraham are only tolerated all the world over. As a nation,
+Moors loathe them. To a pig, which they count "unclean," they give the
+epithet of _jew_: out pig-sticking, when the pig breaks, the beaters
+shout, "The jew! the jew!" To begin with, having forced his presence on
+an unwilling people, the Jew retains his own exclusiveness, neither
+marries a Moor nor eats with a Moor, nor treats him as anything else
+except unclean. Not only this, but by unscrupulous cunning Jews contrive
+to exercise a maddening oppression over a people with whom they have
+chosen to cast in their lot, swindling, extorting money, and playing a
+hundred low tricks upon the very race on the produce of whose labour they
+live: at the same time their exasperating patience and cringing humility,
+court contempt and insult.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+A STREET IN THE JEWS' QUARTER, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 116._]
+
+The poorest Moor in Tetuan is a gentleman: the richest Jew is not. But he
+has his good points: a great sense of brotherhood, a strong bond of
+freemasonry among the Jewish nation, undaunted energy, and an unshaken
+faith in their religion are all admirable points in themselves. Energy in
+Tetuan was concentrated in the Mellah. The best workmen were all Jews. A
+hundred things were sold by them which no Moor made.
+
+Thus in their Ghetto live the Chosen People, the Separate People, of
+strange and ancient customs,--leaving the hair uncut for a year after a
+relative's death, sitting on the floor, and not on a chair, for a week
+after; twisting a pocket-handkerchief round the waist on the Sabbath in
+order to save "the work" of carrying it; slitting the button-hole of the
+waistcoat in time of distress instead of "rending the garment"; eating
+_adafina_ on the Sabbath, an indigestible dish of hard-boiled eggs, meat,
+and potatoes prepared overnight and left on the fire till next morning.
+
+There is no end to ceremonials throughout a Jew's life: the first at his
+circumcision, the next when his hair is cut for the first time, the next
+when he goes to the synagogue for the first time, and so on.
+
+When a Jew was buried in Tetuan, the uncoffined body, wrapped in sheets
+on a wooden bier, might only be borne out of the city by the
+_Báb-el-Je'f_, literally the Gate of the Unclean Dead--that is, the Jews'
+Gate.
+
+The mourners howled and the male relatives cried aloud; friends followed,
+talking and smoking cigarettes. It happened sometimes that the grave was
+not ready when the cortège reached the cemetery, and that the party would
+sit down on the hillside while it was lengthened and deepened; from time
+to time the body would be measured with a walking-stick, and the result
+compared with the grave.
+
+It is impossible to write about the Jews and omit one certain point.
+Before the traveller has lived a week in Morocco he begins to hear of
+_protection_, and he carries with him vague words--"protected Jews" and
+"protected Moors"--which one sentence can explain. _Protection_ means
+that a European living in Morocco, a Portuguese, a Frenchman, an
+Englishman--it matters not--has it in his power to make the Jew or the
+Moor desiring protection a nominal citizen of that country, Portugal or
+France or what not, and can allow him the rights of a citizen and the
+protection of the same; while it follows that the Sultan and the Moorish
+Government have no more power to touch him than they have to touch a
+French or an English subject, the protected Jew or Moor being outside
+their jurisdiction, and only answerable to the consul of that country
+which has given him protection, whether Germany, France, or any other.
+The advantage of protection is to guarantee thereby the safety of
+property. It was instituted a hundred years and more ago, to obviate the
+difficulties and dangers incurred by Europeans in trading with Jews and
+Moors in a country so badly governed as Morocco. Supposing that a
+European went into partnership and traded with a Jew or a Moor who was
+unprotected, in course of time, when the Jew or Moor became rich, the
+Moorish Government would hear of it, and set to work systematically to
+bleed him. Naturally the European partner would lose money in the general
+robbery. Therefore _protection_.
+
+There is scarcely a Jew of property in Morocco who is not protected, and
+there are hundreds and hundreds of protected Moors; but though many Moors
+have enjoyed security for themselves and their belongings by this means,
+others less fortunate, more especially some years ago, have only escaped
+the talons of Moorish despotism to fall into the clutches of European
+swindlers, adventurers who have dared--themselves somewhat beyond the
+reach of their own home government--to fleece the unsuspecting
+Mohammedan, bribing some basha to imprison him for the rest of his days.
+
+A European consul has before now "sold" his Moorish protected
+partner--that is, he tells him that, if he does not produce so much
+money within a certain time, protection will be withdrawn. The wiser
+course for the Moor is to pay the sum. If protection is withdrawn, the
+Moorish Government and the European blackleg will divide his worldly
+goods between them.
+
+Such risks are minimized every year, and protection is greatly sought
+after by Moors and Jews. From the French they get it easily enough. The
+system is a bad one: that it prevails at all is a proof of the corruption
+of the Moorish Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS AT GIBRALTAR--A ROUGH NIGHT--THE STEAMER WHICH WOULD
+NOT WAIT--AN IGNOMINIOUS RETURN TO TETUAN--A RASCALLY JEW--THE ABORIGINES
+AND THE PRESENT OCCUPANTS OF MOROCCO--THE SULTAN, COURT, GOVERNMENT, AND
+MOORISH ARMY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     Why curse? _Mektub._ (It is written.)
+
+
+IN spite of the attentions of Amanda, as December drew on and the weather
+showed no signs of clearing, we began to hanker after a week at
+Gibraltar, which should combine Christmas and the purchase of camp outfit
+for use when the rains passed over. It was not difficult to tear
+ourselves away from the fonda; for it became less easy to tolerate the
+proximity of the old Spanish band-master, with his bad tobacco and
+long-winded stories; nor were our landlady and family over-refined. We
+had not come to Morocco to live amongst the scum of Spain: could Tetuan
+be swept clean of the Spanish element, it were better for it. In fine,
+amusing and even interesting though our quarters had been for the time,
+circumstances pointed towards a move into others, the interval being
+spent in a run across to Gibraltar.
+
+The steamers which call at Martine, down on the seashore, and bring goods
+to be carted up to Tetuan, six miles inland, are as mysterious as they
+are rare. One is supposed to call on alternate Tuesdays, weather
+permitting; another occasionally calls in the intervening weeks; none
+come direct from Gibraltar, though all are supposed to go straight back
+there after touching at Ceuta. But there are many buts. Worst of all, the
+river at Martine has formed a bar, and Martine is a "bar port": this
+prevents landing in a strong wind.
+
+We pinned our faith upon the Tuesday boat, not realizing its uncertainty;
+for if the boat had not enough cargo on board to make it worth while her
+calling, or if she had too much and time was short, or if the weather was
+bad, she had no hesitation in missing Martine and Tetuan out of that
+fortnight's round altogether.
+
+We did not want to ride forty-four miles to Tangier with the "roads" in
+the state they were, even if it had been practicable; nor almost as far
+and a worse track to Ceuta: either would have meant sleeping a night in
+the fondâk up in the hills, or in a Spanish lodging-house of doubtful
+repute: therefore we planned to go by boat from Martine, engaged rooms
+for a week in Gibraltar beforehand, and, with the optimism born of
+ignorance, doubted not but that we should get away on the steamer.
+
+Packing up overnight and breakfasting at eight, we were soon ready to
+mount our mules and ride down to the shore to catch our boat. It was a
+matter of two and a half hours from Tetuan down to Martine: the track
+need not be described--this speaks for itself. Our luggage, tied with
+complicated rope-knots, was judiciously balanced upon one mule, and we
+had said good-bye to Amanda and family when a message arrived from the
+steamships agency to say that the steamer was not in.
+
+After taking counsel, however, the luggage was dispatched down to
+Martine; a muleteer badly marked with small-pox climbed on the top of our
+worldly goods, and the mule jogged off: we would follow when the steamer
+was sighted.
+
+[Illustration: REFUSE GOING OUT OF TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 124._]
+
+Walking into the feddan in search of information about her, every Moor or
+Jew only replied with shrugged shoulders and extended palms. Who could
+tell? She might come in at eleven, she might not. "Ift shallah" (Allah
+will show). As she had two hundred and forty tons of cargo to unload, the
+agents thought she might stay till the following day before starting for
+Gibraltar: on the other hand, the previous night had been a rough one,
+and it was quite possible she had passed Martine altogether, and did not
+intend to call for another fortnight.
+
+It was a sunny morning: there was nothing to be said but "Mektub" (It is
+written), and nothing to be done except sit in the sun and await events,
+after the fashion of the brown figures in jellabs also sitting in the sun
+against the south wall of the feddan where it is highest and nearly
+always dusty.
+
+Wandering up and down, Spaniards were to be seen in one café shuffling
+filthy cards and drinking spirits, while in another, behind a great vine
+which held in its arms a rustic trellis porch and seats, Moors lay on
+their elbows, tumblers of tea swimming in mint in front of them and long
+kif-pipes. A Riffi sat on a stool in the sun, leaning against the vine,
+nursing his gun; his single long black lock fell down by his ear, glossy
+and tied in a knot at the end. Next door a gunsmith was at work in his
+little shop sand-papering a gun-stock: a sheep was penned inside against
+the Great Feast, and more sheep in the grocer's beyond. On the opposite
+side of the great square a Jew was selling enamel ware to one of the five
+lady missionaries. Then meat came hurrying by, just killed outside the
+Mulberry Gate and still warm. Red-and-white shapeless carcases were
+balanced on a donkey's back, kept steady by a sanguinary Moor who sloped
+along behind: the donkey knew its own way well, across the wide feddan,
+down a narrow street, and into the meat market. Thither hurried the lady
+missionary to buy a joint. If cooked before it has time to get cold the
+meat is tender, otherwise it must be hung.
+
+It did not seem long before the bell on the top of the Spanish Consulate
+rang out twelve o'clock. There was no sign of any steamer--the steamships
+agent had given her up; and not wishing our luggage to lie on the beach
+all night--for gumption was not one of the characteristics written on our
+pock-marked boy's face--we sent a messenger off on the two hours and a
+half ride down to Martine to summon him back.
+
+About one o'clock, just as we were sitting down to lunch in Mr. Bewicke's
+room, the news arrived that the steamer was signalled. All doubt was at
+an end: we lunched complacently, allowed time for coffee and a
+button-hole out of the garden, mounted the mules, Mr. Bewicke his white
+pony; the gardener, Madunnah, following behind on foot, carrying our
+sticks and umbrellas, which burden was increased half-way through the
+city by a bracket, but lately coloured in garish tones, vermilion
+prevailing--it bled somewhat, but was to serve as a Christmas present at
+Gibraltar.
+
+Over the cobbles, under the Gate of Wisdom, out on to the sandy track,
+and along the sea road we rode, the mules refusing at first to pass some
+sacks of grain which lay in the middle of the path waiting to go down to
+the beach. There is a gate tax on every loaded animal which passes under
+the Gate of Wisdom, to avoid which the sacks are carried just out of the
+city on men's backs, set down, and picked up in time by mules.
+
+The first mile or so was not worse going than usual. Coming from the
+right by a trail which led across the river, a string of women bore
+towards us, bringing wood into the city from villages miles away--scrub
+off the mountain-side. Their rough heads were bound round with
+weather-stained coloured handkerchiefs: listless eyes looked straight out
+from under lined foreheads. On each side of their doubled-up backs
+protruded rough wood-ends--these kept in place by a rope over the
+shoulder, grasped in knotted hands above copper-coloured muscular arms.
+The bit of towelling round the loins, brushed by the wind, left bare a
+species of knees and legs, carved by two thousand years of toil into
+humanized Norman piers, buttressed with muscle, in which ankles have no
+lot nor part, which have carried and still carry unreasonable loads from
+childhood to the grave. These women walked in single file, as do the
+mules and donkeys. And this is partly due to the space which the wide
+bundles take up on each side, partly to bad paths, and partly to entire
+lack of initiative. Why should they strike out a line of their own, these
+"cattle" and "beasts of burden," as they call themselves? The old way
+comes easier.
+
+Thus life has moved across Morocco, without deviation, down immeasurable
+years, and moves so to-day, along innumerable trails worn afresh by bare
+feet after every rain-storm, footprint into footprint, padded hard and
+smooth, narrow and polished.
+
+The flats, after so much wet weather, were under water, and the lower
+down the road dropped, the deeper the country grew. Our mules struggled
+along at a slow walk, and we constantly diverged off the track, circling
+to this side or the other whenever a field looked an improvement upon our
+muddy quagmire, generally to find that it was very little better and
+sometimes worse.
+
+About half-way we met our luggage and messenger. The pock-marked boy had
+taken our effects to the shore, had found no steamer, waited a short
+time, then calculated that he would be late getting back to the city,
+and ran risks of robbers, to say nothing of _ginns_ (spirits) lurking in
+the wells by the road, so turned his face homewards.
+
+We were in total ignorance, and so of course was he, all this time as to
+the movements of the steamer: once out of the city, the level of the road
+is such that nothing can be seen of the sea until a couple of hours'
+riding, lands people right on the beach itself. With every hope that she
+still lay at anchor, we turned our "pock-mark" round, and the poor mule
+faced the bad road down to Martine for the second time that day.
+
+Madunnah handed over the bracket to crown our baggage, and plodded
+bravely on, often well up to his bare knees in mud and water. A brace of
+duck forged across the sky above our heads; some plover called and called
+again mournfully, wheeling above the irresponsive marshes and brown
+fallows; a string of mules moved like mites over a cheese in the sandy
+distance. We passed the Wad-el-Martine in heavy flood, its yellow yeasty
+depths swirling between the soft red banks.
+
+At last a couple of stone bridges came into sight, isolated in a waste of
+water, remnants of the old Portuguese road, and in normal times affording
+a dry path over two dykes. We plunged through unseen holes and among
+stony pitfalls up to the lonely landmarks and dry ground for a few yards;
+then more floods; but after that the last mile or two became easy enough,
+the land rose, and dry sandy dunes, with tough bents flattened in the
+wind, conduced towards a jog, almost a canter. Goats, picking up a bare
+living, scattered as we hurried along, past the white Customs House and
+an old wharf on the river, away to the beach. Behind us the mountains
+were black and purple, heavy rain-clouds were gathering, and directly we
+topped the crest of the sandy shore a strong east wind met us full in
+the teeth straight off the sea. But there as large as life lay the
+steamer, a long way out, on account of the bar and the wind, with a
+choppy sea running between.
+
+A cargo-boat was vainly trying to cross the bar, towed by a long green
+boat which six Moors were rowing. She made no headway, shipped water
+which deluged the cargo, and seemed half aground on the bar. No other
+boat or boatmen seemed to be available: the steamer was not within hail.
+Certainly there were three more cargo-boats lying in shelter in a corner
+of the river-estuary a little way off the land, but some men in one of
+them seemed half asleep--at any rate, they were out of our reach, and
+deaf to our shouts and gesticulations to the effect that we wanted to be
+rowed on board the steamer.
+
+We waited and waited; Madunnah yelled himself hoarse; but the cargo-boat
+still rolled on the bar, lashed by the waves, and the men still strained
+at their oars and paid no heed to our cries. Twice we thought they meant
+coming to our signals, but each time they were only trying fresh
+manoeuvres.
+
+Rain came on, a sharp easterly scud; the pock-marked boy drew his jellab
+over his head; the mules turned their backs to the squall; but Madunnah
+still stood at the edge of the waves, gesticulating wildly with our
+sticks and umbrellas at the impassive rowers. Sunset was upon us. At a
+fire of driftwood on the beach a short distance off R. and I tried to
+warm ourselves.
+
+Suddenly the long green boat left the cargo and pulled towards us: the
+sea was rising, and looked anything but encouraging; breakers were
+showing their white teeth on the bar; but the green boat drew nearer and
+came in at last, or nearly so--for she stopped short off the shore, and,
+half aground, lost her rudder. Still none of the crew paid the faintest
+attention as we hailed them in Arabic, English, and Spanish across the
+few yards of water which put them just out of our reach. They had
+something else to do except attend to three mad Britishers--let them
+rave.
+
+The cargo-boat, deserted by the long green boat, had stuck worse than
+ever: darkness was coming on, and she was in a bad case. The men in the
+"long green" roused the half-sleeping Moors in the companion boat, and it
+was evident that both meant going out together to tow the belated cargo
+in.
+
+Our voices carried less as the wind rose, and it was evident even to
+Madunnah that words were wasted. The rain drove in torrents; it was
+bitterly cold, and growing darker every moment; as the two boats turned
+their heads towards the wave-swept cargo we realized that it was night,
+that all chance of getting on board was at an end for that day at least,
+and we set our backs to the sea.
+
+There still remained one alternative and a last chance of getting to
+Gibraltar for Christmas Day: the steamer might not leave till the
+following morning, and, taking shelter for the night in the Customs House
+on the beach, we ought to be able to get on board at daybreak. We turned
+off to the left through blinding gushes of rain, and headed for this
+refuge.
+
+[Illustration: A MOORISH PRISON GATE.
+
+[_To face p. 130._]
+
+The Customs House was much like a caravanserai: an open space in the
+middle was enclosed by sheds for mules and asses; a rough stair led to
+the living-rooms, above the sheds, which opened on to a flat white roof.
+We stumbled up on to the roof; then in under a low doorway into a little
+wooden lean-to, where an old Jew caretaker was living. The rest of the
+place was given over to a family of Israelites, who had come down to
+"the seaside" from Tetuan for change of air.
+
+Much to our relief, the old Jew caretaker assured us that the steamer
+would be landing cargo till noon on the following day: he offered us
+everything he had in his power for that night, and promised to see us off
+in a boat the next day. Committing us to his care, Mr. Bewicke left us
+and rode back to Tetuan with the mules and Madunnah; our baggage was
+stowed away under shelter; and the old Jew, finding a light and
+improvising two seats out of boxes and matting, sat us down at his little
+table, with a bit of frayed linoleum on it and a glass.
+
+The roof leaked and the rain beat on to the linoleum, but we were in snug
+quarters after the beach, and our friendly host began boiling up a great
+black kettle in a tiny inner room, assisted by a Moor. He was very
+rheumatic, the old man, also very deaf, and Martine must have been a damp
+spot for him (the river and marshes close at hand, and east or west wind,
+both of them heavy with moisture--nothing would dry, hung out in the air
+at Tetuan); nor were his quarters rain-proof.
+
+He hobbled backwards and forwards, muffled up in a worn grey
+handkerchief, with a fortnight's white stubble on his chin, and an aged
+greenish overcoat down to his slippers.
+
+From the recesses of a bunk in the next shelter, where he slept, he
+produced some pink china cups; then returned with a plate of bread,
+hardened to the consistency of biscuit, and smelling strongly of aniseed.
+After that he made tea in a little brown earthenware teapot--sweet green
+tea with mint--and we soon thawed under a succession of cups. Still he
+stumbled about, hunting out of a cupboard a small basket of eggs, and in
+the next room a great stirring and beating-up followed.
+
+By-and-by the Moor who had been assisting him appeared with an omelette;
+it was dark brown, mixed thick with aniseed, chopped ham, and parsley;
+nor was it easy to dispose of it.
+
+Our kind host ended up by pressing gin on us.
+
+Warmed and fed, but unfortunately unable to sustain a conversation with
+him either in Arabic or Spanish, and having exhausted the few words at
+our command, the next best thing was to make ourselves comfortable for
+the night. Lighting a candle, the old Jew paddled across the wet roof,
+and we followed him, dimly distinguishing beasts feeding in the stalls
+down below, to a small room on the far side, where some sort of
+preparation had been made for us: a rug was spread on the stone floor,
+and a bedstead had a blanket laid upon it, while our baggage was piled in
+a corner. Putting on overcoats and rugs, we sat down on one of our
+trunks--it is unwise to place confidence in unknown beds in Morocco; but
+when, driven by sheer weariness, we lay down as we were on the blanket,
+we slept unmolested.
+
+A Jew on the other side of a thin partition which did not reach the
+ceiling, snored heavily and awoke us at intervals. About six next
+morning, what sounded very like the steamer's whistle blew repeatedly,
+but we paid little attention to it, the old Jew and Mr. Bewicke having
+both assured us the boat would leave about twelve o'clock. Morning had
+dawned when we burst open the wooden shutters of a little window much
+swelled with damp, and looked out across the sand-dunes at the sea.
+
+There lay the black hull of the steamer at anchor: the wind of the night
+before had dropped; a flaring sunrise and stormy sky lowered behind the
+Riff Mountains, which were black.
+
+Dressing was short work. The Moor handed us in at the door a tin basin
+of water, and in a short time we were ready for the next move. At that
+point R. craned up to look out of the high window. When she spoke, I
+could hardly believe her words. . . . _The steamer had weighed anchor and
+was moving._
+
+There was no mistaking it: the black hull had swung round, and was making
+for the open sea, with a flag of smoke trailing behind her; and away she
+went to Gibraltar.
+
+We rushed out upon the flat roof and up a rotten ladder minus three
+rungs--all unheeding--which gave access to the roof above our room,
+gaining nothing thereby except a panoramic view, with the departing boat
+in the middle distance. Already she stood well out to sea: the Customs
+House was a quarter of a mile from the beach: there was nothing to be
+done: to blame our kind old host would have been as ungrateful as it was
+useless, and regrets were equally unavailing. True it is that the wise
+man fends for himself and makes no arrangements second-hand in Morocco,
+where every one is _casual_ and every plan is _casual_. Had we found out
+when the ship's papers were going on board, and arranged with the agent
+to call us and take us in his boat, we should have eaten plum pudding in
+Gibraltar. Apparently the steamer had been signalling for the last hour
+to the effect that she was going, that the weather was bad and the sea
+rough outside, and that she would not venture to stay and dispatch her
+cargo--none of which facts the deaf and decrepit old Jew had grasped. He
+hobbled out, and would hardly believe his eyes.
+
+We sat down to some weak green tea and the same dry aniseed-flavoured
+bread as the night before, and, thus fortified, reviewed our course of
+action, which had few complications, there being no other steamer before
+Christmas, and the ride to Ceuta or Tangier barred by reason of the
+flooded streams and general state of the country. The "open road" pointed
+towards Tetuan and our old quarters in the Spanish fonda, of which we had
+taken only the day before such joyful leave. It was inevitable, that next
+move; and should be made quickly, to judge by the look of the
+weather--the clouds were growing lower and blacker every half-hour.
+
+Animals were a difficulty--our mules had gone back to the city the night
+before; but it would have been hard work wading across the flooded acres
+for seven miles; and there was our luggage.
+
+Eventually we raised a seedy little rat of a pony, which R. rode; a
+ragged donkey, on which half our goods was balanced; while the other half
+went on a mule, with me on the top of all. We turned our backs on the
+hospitable white Customs House and the ill-favoured sea with a muttered
+imprecation.
+
+In Tetuan a wealthy man was building a house. It was at a standstill for
+want of plaster. The plaster had already come in on the steamer _three_
+times, and three times she had gone away without unloading it. The boat
+we had lost had made a fourth endeavour, and we learnt afterwards that
+Mr. N----'s ill-fated plaster had formed the cargo in the wave-washed
+boat of the evening before. Wet through, it set as hard as a stone in the
+sacks, and was useless: it lay like rocks on the beach. The bar at
+Martine has been tolerated for unknown ages: there is no reason to think
+that the Moor will rouse himself into making an effort and trying to
+facilitate the landing of passengers and cargo.
+
+We left upon our right as we rode along, some hundreds of yards from the
+sea, the remains of what years upon years ago was a fort, built somewhat
+as forts will be built in the near future--with a view to concealment.
+The outside wall facing the Mediterranean was crescent-shaped, and but
+four feet high at most, the sand sloping up nearly to the top, and
+overgrown with vegetation, so that little or no fort showed at all. There
+were a few loop-holes, through which men could shoot from the inside
+lying down; there was a well in the centre of the fort, and a small
+bomb-proof building, with an arched roof many feet thick, where powder
+had been kept. A primitive construction, this harmless-looking little
+crescent facing the sea--once upon a time bristling with dare-devil Moors
+and their long guns.
+
+Half-way to Tetuan we passed _the_ cart, the first and last I saw in the
+place: its antediluvian body was set on two demented wheels, which rolled
+out of the upright like a tipsy sailor. The cart was Government property:
+five mules of different sizes, drew it up in a string from the sea to the
+city, through the quagmire, laden with flour and kerosene oil and stores
+of all descriptions, a couple of Moors toiling alongside.
+
+R.'s "rat" was not too surefooted, and some of the floods were deep: once
+it came on its nose, but a second time sat down in a hole in the middle
+of a sheet of water, leaving nothing for its rider but to slip off and
+wade out, walking afterwards wherever the track allowed, to raise a
+little circulation underneath drenched clothes. A certain melancholy
+possessed the flats as well as our vexed selves that stormy and
+ill-fortuned morning. In places the tops of the grass-blades alone showed
+in a green watery waste, except where tall dark rushes made a heavier
+mass, or where the tufts of red-brown tangle lay in warm lines. The sea
+behind us was an angry purple; the Riff Mountains were steel-blue; the
+nearer hills now black, now gold in fitful sun-gleams, now crossed by a
+rainbow. Only in the north there was a great break, and a light like
+brass, behind Ape's Hill. Tradition has it that a subterranean passage
+leads thence underneath the Straits to the Rock of Gibraltar, and is used
+by the monkeys as a means of transit from Africa to Europe.
+
+Our miserable beasts were several hours toiling up to Tetuan: the rain
+came on, and with the wind straight off the snows it was as cold a ride
+as I remember.
+
+The next morning we went to the French Steamship Company's office for the
+purpose of recovering our passage money from the agent, who had insisted
+upon our buying tickets beforehand. This fat, greasy Tangier Jew, of no
+chin, and flabby, suet-pudding face, flatly refused in plausible French
+to return us our cash, gesticulating, contradicting himself, pretending
+to misunderstand us, all in the same breath, and needing nothing so much
+as a good kicking. Since the money would only go into his own pocket, we
+fought the point, and, after being most insolent, he was obliged to
+promise that if the French Consular Agent in Tetuan judged it right, he
+would hand over the money.
+
+To the French Consular Agent we went: a Moor, whose office was in the
+French Post Office--a solemn, dignified man in a flowing blue jellab,
+over the same in white, both hoods drawn up over his head, showing a long
+olive face of the true Arab type, black eyes, black beard and moustache.
+He wore white socks and yellow slippers--a most courteous individual. On
+hearing our case, he simply sent for the Steamships Company Agent, and
+told him to hand over the money. We sat and waited with Mr. Bewicke, who
+was interpreting for us. Presently a step, and, much out of breath, the
+plausible Jew himself arrived, in a long great coat and billy-cock. He
+took a seat, and stated his case in Arabic to the French Consular Agent.
+There could have been no greater contrast than between the vulgar excited
+Israelite and the stately Mohammedan. The Moor sat with folded arms:
+occasionally he raised one hand to emphasize a quiet monosyllable. But
+alas for the steadfastness of his race! Perhaps he disliked being mixed
+up in the matter. At any rate, having said that the money was to be
+refunded, he allowed the Jew to argue the point, and, we gathered, was
+telling him finally that the whole question had better be referred to the
+company itself--a dim and visionary Steamships Company on the other side
+of the Mediterranean: it augured badly for us.
+
+But at this point R. spoke in French, and reminded the Jew that he had
+promised to refund the money if the French Consul so judged, that the
+Consul had given judgment, and that if the Jew still refused he was no
+longer a man of his word. Strange to say, this quickened a dormant
+conscience underneath all the dishonesty, or it pricked the Jew's pride;
+at any rate, after a torrent of protestations, from his tight
+waistcoat-pocket he produced a pile of dollars, and handed them over to
+us. The money had taken an hour to draw: as far as actual value went it
+was not worth it.
+
+The French Consular Agent, the dignified Moor, had to all intents and
+purposes failed us at the critical moment, since he would not exert his
+lawful authority over a French-protected Jew. But a Moor's faults may be
+summed up in one word--_weak_. As in the above instance, refusing to face
+circumstances or to follow one definite line of action to the end, he
+invariably acts on the principle of "going roundabout." In the course of
+time evasion has come to appear to him the best line to pursue, and he
+has sunk like a stone into a slough of compromise, a tarn of apathy.
+
+Such weakness, incompatible with Moorish fanaticism and courage, is due
+probably to tyranny.
+
+Living under a tyrannical government and religion, both of which, welded
+together, form the one dominant factor of his life, the Moor is afraid of
+each, and stands in dread of the ruin it is in their power to work in his
+life. Not only this, but he lives in fear of his countrymen and their
+long guns, of his wives and their poisons, of evil spirits.
+
+Morocco, as has been said, accepted Mohammedanism of necessity, not from
+choice, at the hands of the conquering Arabs, and it is accepted to-day,
+as the corrupt Government is accepted, with a shrug of the shoulders and
+"What God wills cannot but be." Weakened by blind submission, and at the
+same time holding nothing for which they have fought or wrought--no
+truths made adamant in the furnace of persecution, no Magna Charta won on
+the sword-point of patriotism, all of which are so much tonic and
+discipline to a nation, breeding grit, developing backbone--the Moorish
+people are paralyzed by a despotism which allows no originality of
+thought and action; they are no longer capable of "running straight,"
+but, suave and polite to a fault, lack that species of courage which
+conduces towards plain-speaking.
+
+After all, who and what are to blame except the people themselves? One
+writer curses the religion, another curses the Government. _Cui bono?_
+Climate and the fertility of soil may have influenced the races called
+Moorish, but the Moor himself is alone responsible for his Government and
+his religion.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+A PEEP OF TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 138._]
+
+Historians from time to time have had something to say about these
+tribes, and tradition boasts a legion tales respecting them; but the most
+able writer upon Morocco in old times was Leo Africanus, a Moor himself,
+who, when all his countrymen were expelled from Spain in 1492, fled to
+Fez.
+
+Twenty-five years later he was captured by Christian pirates and taken to
+Rome. He became a Christian, and he published his great and reliable
+history about the time that Henry VIII. was successful in Flanders and
+Scotland, when Wolsey obtained a cardinal's hat, and Catherine of Arragon
+had not been ousted by Anne Boleyn.
+
+The aborigines of Morocco were without doubt Berbers, and to-day Berbers
+occupy four-fifths of the country, in spite of the invasions of other
+nations. First on the list of the invaders came the Phoenicians, the
+earliest civilizing agency. The Romans followed eighty years after Cæsar
+had landed in Britain, and annexed Morocco, Christianizing its people.
+Next to invade the country were the Vandals, who turned out the Romans,
+remained among the Berbers for over a hundred years, leaving red hair and
+blue eyes behind them. Then six hundred and ninety-eight years after the
+birth of Christ the deluge of Mohammedan conquest burst over Morocco, and
+hordes of Arabs, burning with a fanatical missionary spirit, swept over
+the land. At the end of eleven years the resistance of the Berbers was
+overcome, and they adopted Mohammedanism as lightly as they had adopted
+Christianity under the Roman rule.
+
+About two years afterwards a body of them crossed over into Spain under
+the one-eyed chieftain Tarik, and laid the foundation of the Moorish
+supremacy in Europe. Thither this band of pioneer Berbers was followed by
+the Arabs: the two races mingled and built up together an empire in Spain
+said to surpass all its contemporaries in learning and refinement. The
+Spanish named them indiscriminately _Mauros_, and _Moors_ they have been
+ever since; but the name Moor can be traced back as far as 23 A.D., when
+Pliny and Strabo speak of the _Maurusii_ and _Mauri_.
+
+A reflection of their empire's greatness shone even in Morocco itself:
+libraries and universities were founded in Fez and Morocco City. But at
+the same time the benighted country knew no settled peace; it was torn
+with civil war between the Arab and Berber tribes, until the Berbers
+finally mastered the Arabs, and forced them to confine themselves to
+certain districts.
+
+Meanwhile, in Spain the Moorish Empire, which for seven hundred years had
+remained firmly established, keeping alive Greek philosophy, building the
+Alhambra and making an indelible impression upon the Spanish nation,
+crumbled and fell, or, more properly speaking, was expelled from Spain
+after a year of bitter persecution. Thousands of Moorish refugees flocked
+back across the Straits to the land of their progenitors, and settled in
+Tetuan, Tangier, and the cities on the coast, buoyed up with the
+lingering hope of returning, when fickle Fortune smiled again, to the
+glories of their old houses in Granada, and to that land which had chosen
+to cast them out.
+
+As may be imagined, the government of Morocco soon fell into their more
+capable hands: they amalgamated more or less with the Arabs and
+Berbers--their own kith and kin--and the country became known to Europe
+as Morocco.
+
+In due time a certain Moor, a _Shar[=i]f_--that is, a direct descendant
+of the Prophet Mohammed--as head of the Mohammedan Church, gradually
+united under himself Arabs and Berbers alike, and was acknowledged as
+their Feudal Lord, Religious Chief, and Sultan. The present Sultan is of
+the same holy line: hence his title of _Shar[=i]fian Majesty_.
+
+A Berber and an Arab may easily be distinguished from each other.
+Berbers, taken as a whole, have square frames, high cheek-bones, small
+eyes, and are great walkers, not horsemen. The mountains are to them what
+the plains are to the Arabs, and they prefer an agricultural life to any
+other.
+
+Leo Africanus describes them, and his picture in all essentials holds
+good to-day: "They are strong, terrible, robust men, who fear neither
+cold nor snow; their dress a tunic of wool over bare flesh, and above the
+tunic a mantle, round their legs twisted thongs, never anything on the
+head. They rear sheep, mules, and asses; and they are the greatest
+thieves, traitors, and assassins in the world."
+
+From personal experience let this ryder be added: that they make good
+servants, faithful up to a certain point, to be trusted up to a certain
+point; but they are rascals.
+
+In Tetuan many more Berbers are to be met with than Arabs: the Riff tribe
+is Berber, and Tetuan is full of Riffis.
+
+Until the last thirty years the Berbers owned only a nominal allegiance
+to the Sultan; to-day he could pass through little of their territory
+without an army at his back, and into the Riff country he has never been
+at all.
+
+Among the Berbers there is plenty of throat-cutting as a legal
+punishment, and murder on the score of private vengeance, while
+Government oppression is rampant. As for travellers journeying across
+their country, only certain "roads" are "open" and safe: a Christian,
+with proper precaution, is seldom attacked on the way to Fez or Morocco
+City--a Jew occasionally. Off the beaten track and anywhere in the Riff
+country his life would not be worth a _flus_ (small copper coin).
+
+The Arabs have given the Berbers a name of their own--_Shillah_, which
+means "Outcast," referring back to the days when they drove them out of
+the plains up into the mountains; and it has stuck to them ever since.
+
+Travellers descant upon _the noble Shillah race_. The dialect which they
+speak is called Shillah: the Riffis at Tetuan spoke Shillah among
+themselves, but soon picked up Arabic of a sort, and a little Spanish.
+
+The Arab differs in every respect from the Berber. One of the finest
+types among mankind, he has a tall, spare frame, aquiline nose, fine
+eyes. He is kind, hospitable, dignified, abstemious, a poet, a gentleman,
+and a horseman. He is capable of great things, and of all Orientals has
+most impressed himself upon the world. At the same time he is too often
+treacherous and blood-thirsty, inclined to be sensual and inquisitive.
+
+Perhaps his faults have led to the extolling of the noble Shillah race at
+the Arab's expense. On this subject Mr. Cunninghame Graham writes, that
+certain travellers in Morocco must have "been humiliated at finding in
+the Arabs a finer type than their own, and have turned to the Shillah
+race with the relief that the earthen teapot must find when taken away
+from the drawing-room companionship of Dresden china and put back again
+on the kitchen dresser." For myself "earthen teapot" and "Dresden china"
+have both much fascination. I would trust either just as far as I could
+see him.
+
+Thus Morocco is populated by two antipathetic races, who neither singly
+nor jointly have or can consolidate it into a thriving empire. The Arab
+cared only to convert a conquered people to Mohammedanism and to push his
+individual fortune, heedless of assimilating individuals into one
+nation, as did the Romans. Great Arab chiefs there have been, but never a
+patriot. With the fatalistic spirit of the East, and a tendency to see
+life only from the personal standpoint, it followed that, when a holy war
+no longer fired the wandering and independent shepherds to fight and
+forced them to obey, they became "slack," remained stationary, or
+retrograded.
+
+The Arab would not advance civilization in Morocco, nor would the wild
+and lawless Berber; the Moorish refugees from Spain had sadly
+degenerated; to crown all, civil war led to the destruction of the
+libraries and universities in Fez and Morocco City, and education was no
+more.
+
+Ignorance begat worse government; decline and poverty followed one after
+the other. Corruption among the rulers spread downwards and ran through
+the country, until the whole body politic was unsound, and is so to-day.
+
+Though the name of the Sultan, as Head of the Church, is held in
+reverence, yet many of the tribes would resist to the uttermost any
+attempt on his part to subdue them by force of arms, so unsettled is his
+empire.
+
+He holds himself to be far superior to the Sultan of Turkey, who is not
+descended from the Prophet, but who, on the other hand, is the guardian
+of the sacred city of Mecca, and who possesses superior forces.
+
+Second in rank to the Sultan of Morocco follow his ministers--the Chief
+Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Chief Adviser, the Minister of the
+Interior, and the Minister of Finance. Their duties are to carry out the
+Sultan's wishes, and, receiving no pay, they look to enriching themselves
+at the expense of their respective billets.
+
+A body of secretaries come after the ministers, who write and dispatch
+the Sultan's decrees to distant cities, where their letters are read
+aloud in the mosques to the people by the governors. A special body of
+messengers is employed under the secretaries.
+
+Each district and city has its _kaid_ or _basha_ (its governor), whose
+duty is to read the Sultan's letter aloud and carry out his instructions,
+who oversees the city market, prices food, detects false weight, deals
+with robbers and murderers, and sees that the peace is kept.
+
+As well as basha every city has its _kadi_, or judge of civil law, who
+settles all questions of land, of grants, divorces, etc.
+
+We visited the Court of Civil Justice at Tetuan, a tiny room, carpeted
+with yellow matting, where the white-haired kadi, attired in white, sat
+like a magnificent white rabbit on a large red cushion on the floor,
+beside him a table six inches high, with learned-looking books, ink,
+parchment, and thin slips of wood for pens.
+
+Below the basha or kaid come _sheikhs_ (village elders), who may be
+called gentlemen farmers. They collect the taxes directly from the
+country people. A province is taxed according to what it produces: no one
+pays the sum demanded of him, nor at the time it is demanded, but
+eventually every householder in the district is judiciously squeezed to
+the uttermost farthing, and half of what he pays goes into the sheikh's
+pocket.
+
+Morocco conceals its wealth in times of visitations such as these: money
+and corn alike are buried in the ground. Some of the people are
+imprisoned, some tortured, and eventually all disgorge, and are left with
+barely enough for their every-day wants.
+
+It is a system typical of the East and its slipshod, rough-and-ready
+dealings: its great element of simplicity harks back to a life in tents,
+where red tape was unknown.
+
+The highest officials are in the habit of transacting business at their
+street doors or in their stables: the basha invariably sits in some
+gateway near his house, hearing and judging matters which two or three
+gesticulating claimants explain to him. Private matters are public
+property: the man in the street chats with the Minister of Finance--for
+are not all men equal? The minister may have sold groceries at one time,
+before he was called upon to fill a position at Court. Who can tell what
+a day may not bring forth?
+
+The Sultan--who is known as "The Lofty Portal, the Exalted of God, the
+Noble Presence"--has a body of servants and retainers round him: first of
+all "The Learned Ones," men who advise him, but make a point of
+ascertaining his wishes before they give an opinion, and are of no use at
+all except in conducting negotiations; next the officer who carries the
+great pearl-and-gold-embroidered parasol over his head; next an officer
+who flicks away flies; then a master of ceremonies, a headsman, a
+flogger, a shooter, a water-bearer, a tent-layer, a tea-maker, a
+standard-bearer, and a "taster" to see that no poison is given.
+
+More closely connected than any of these with the Sultan is of course his
+harem, of both black and white women, who have been honoured by admission
+into the much-sought-after precincts. Some of them are Circassians,
+supplied by Constantinople: all are the best which money can buy, or ease
+and position tempt. When their numbers have been greatly swelled, certain
+of them are drafted on as presents to kaids and bashas.
+
+The offspring of the Sultan's numerous wives are brought up in isolated
+sanctuaries, each boy in company with a slave of his own age, whom he
+calls brother. Girls inherit no rank.
+
+One and all are married when they reach maturity, at a State function
+which takes place each year, the Sultan choosing their consorts. He gives
+his favourite son--whom he has named as his successor--a high command in
+the army or an important governorship: as long as the boy is too young
+for either, the Sultan associates him with himself in official
+receptions.
+
+All possible rivals to the Sultan are disposed of, chiefly by banishment.
+
+Guarding the intriguing and inflammable harem are eunuchs, imported at
+great expense from Abyssinia, and responsible for the Sultan's wives and
+concubines, whom "wise women" prepare to meet their lord. The late Sultan
+was in the habit of having his harem paraded in his garden on Thursdays,
+in order to select the most attractive, and spend Friday--the Mohammedan
+Sunday--in her company.
+
+It is a curious fact that the Imperial Treasure, which is distributed
+between Fez, Morocco City, and Mequinez, of which no details are ever
+made public, can only be opened by agreement between the keeper, the
+governor of the palace, the trusted eunuch, and the head woman in charge
+of the harem. The secrets of its treasures are jealously guarded. It is
+probably impoverished.
+
+Every one who approaches the Court is expected to make the Sultan a
+present, and his collection of offerings would stock a museum.
+
+In the time of George I. we read of the Sultan's being sent "a rich
+crimson velvet sedan or chair for the favourite Sultana, and ten pounds
+of the finest tea at thirty shillings a pound." In the present day
+telephones, heliographs, gramophones, bicycles, motor-cars, guns,
+fireworks, and the latest inventions of all kinds find their way into
+Morocco.
+
+In return the staple Moorish offering has always been, and still is, Arab
+horses, with richly embroidered saddles and bridles.
+
+It is impossible to estimate the strength of the Moorish army. The only
+regulars are under European instruction, Sir Harry Maclean (known as Kaid
+Maclean) acting as commander-in-chief. Their pay is something like a
+penny half-penny a day for infantry, fourpence for cavalry, a shilling
+for commanding offices. The ranks consist of private, sergeant, captain,
+centurion, and colonel, each officer having a lieutenant.
+
+Every Moor capable of bearing arms in Morocco is liable to be _pressed_
+for service.
+
+In May, when the country is dry, each basha or kaid is ordered to collect
+troops in his own district: then is Tetuan deserted, and every boy and
+young man absents himself. How the lady missionaries hid their house-boy!
+Tetuan sent off two hundred men, under a colonel, while we were there,
+which were to help punish certain rebellious tribes. Often these
+expeditions are for the purpose of raising taxes. In any case the tribes
+against which the Sultan's troops are sent are said to be "eaten up."
+Long before it happened it was known and talked of.
+
+"Ah, yes; the Beni M`Saira would be eaten up in April."
+
+The Tetuan two hundred were sent to help eat up the Beni M`Saira tribe,
+some of whom had abducted two Spanish children a year ago. The children
+had driven their pigs on to land belonging to the tribe--a thing abhorred
+of by Mohammedans, to whom pigs are unclean. Expostulation was not
+heeded, and the Beni M`Saira resorted to strong measures, and kidnapped
+the children. They were sold from family to family beyond hope of
+recovery, and it would be hard to say what was their fate. Of course
+they were never seen again. Tales were circulated which said that the
+girl had been turned into a dancing-girl, and taught to dance upon hot
+ashes, or she may have become slave and concubine to some Moor. She was
+sixteen years old, and the lady missionaries at Tetuan knew her well, and
+her ten-year-old brother.
+
+The Spanish Government had complained to the Sultan, and now a year after
+the offence the Beni M`Saira were to be eaten up; there was to be a
+general raid upon their country: men would be killed, women taken as
+slaves, villages burnt, and corn destroyed. The worst part of the whole
+business is the fate of the prisoners on these occasions. These
+unfortunate men, suffering scarcely for their own misdeeds, are sent in
+chains to far-distant city prisons, whence they seldom emerge alive.
+
+The colonel of the Tetuan contingent was an example of the rapid rises
+and the vicissitudes of life in Morocco. Only the other day he had been
+harbour-master down at Martine, but was accused of smuggling and turned
+out of that berth; he then took a café and sold drinks in Tetuan, when
+suddenly the Sultan's pleasure took the shape of making him a full-blown
+colonel in his troops. As in the days of Joseph, the chief butler is sent
+for out of prison and made much of: the baker is sent for and hanged.
+
+[Illustration: A SAINT-HOUSE, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 148._]
+
+The lucky colonel and his two hundred left Tetuan in bad weather: their
+pay was such that many of them, before starting, sold the bullets
+supplied them, in order to buy food with the money, preferring to fight
+without ammunition rather than on empty stomachs; but only _one quarter_
+of them got as far as El K`sar--the rest deserted on the road, to escape
+hunger and exhaustion from rain and cold.
+
+The Oolad Moosa tribe were eaten up not long ago; their land was harried,
+their fruit-trees destroyed, and themselves killed, imprisoned, and
+enslaved. I was told by a Spaniard that he had seen five camel-loads of
+the heads of tribesmen brought into Larache while he was there. The
+Sultan offered three shillings per head. His soldiers sent up not a few
+heads which belonged to their own companions-in-arms. Consignments were
+sent off to various cities throughout Morocco, where the Jews, as usual,
+salted them, and they were set up over the gates and on the walls.
+
+There is little or no artillery in his Shar[=i]fian Majesty's army,
+though the few cannon he has, render him all-powerful against his
+rebellious tribesmen, who are only armed with rifles (principally
+French), which are smuggled into the country.
+
+Soldiers are supplied with the same rifles and European swords: the
+native curved dagger is also used.
+
+Pitched battles are seldom heard of. The troops entrench themselves
+strongly, gallop out in parties against the foe, fire a volley into his
+line, and gallop back again to reload. Pillage is the great element in
+this species of guerilla warfare.
+
+In connection with the army are the _Makhaznia_ (mounted police): they
+are practically cavalry. A few were quartered in Tetuan, and the basha
+employed them to take men prisoners and preserve peace and take messages
+and so on. The Makhaznia are paid for whatever they do by any one who
+employs them, and they often act as soldier-escort to Europeans.
+
+The Government of Morocco has but one hinge--a golden one. Thirty
+thousand pounds was paid by the late governor of Morocco City for his
+billet, and a capable man would still make his fortune before he retired,
+by means of bribes and presents from every one in connection with him,
+and a little undue pressure and taxation here and there. But no governor
+is exempt from that war-cry in Morocco, "Pay! pay! pay!" And if he or a
+basha wish for the Sultan's favour, which in order to remain in office is
+most desirable, he will forward a present regularly to Court, though at
+every feast he is obliged to send another in addition. When a Sultan
+imprisons a minister, he confiscates all his money.
+
+Bribes largely contribute towards filling the coffers of Government
+officials, from toadies down to unfortunate sufferers. A man has to buy
+himself out of prison: it costs a murderer about four pounds. Those who
+cannot afford to pay do not come out.
+
+Not long ago a poor man whom we knew was suddenly appointed to fill a
+lucrative post under Government. He dare not refuse it, but he was head
+over ears in debt, and of course a large sum of money was due in return
+for the appointment. He borrowed from the Jews and took up office. In one
+year he had paid all his debts, he had paid the Jews, and built himself a
+luxurious house. And who can wonder at it? Customs-house officers can all
+retire after _three years_ (if they choose), and live well. It is
+calculated that the Government gets exactly half of the duties.
+
+Tetuan had a favourite tale of bribery. A man wanted to make sure of a
+case he was bringing before the basha. He knew that the basha had a
+weakness for mirrors. He was a poor man, but he bought the best
+looking-glass he could afford, and dispatched it. The case came on; the
+basha gave it against him.
+
+"What!" cried the poor, discomfited loser; "did you not receive the
+mirror?"
+
+"Yes," replied the basha coolly; "but immediately afterwards a very fine
+mule came along, and _he kicked the looking-glass into a thousand
+fragments_."
+
+So when a man is disappointed of his due, they say, "The mule has kicked
+the glass."
+
+Another man had a brother in prison whom he wished to buy out: he took
+the basha a mule, and presented himself with his present.
+
+"You shall not bribe me," said the basha. "Soldier! put this man into
+prison with his brother, and put the mule into my stable."
+
+The man's family had a heavy bribe to raise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WE LOOK OVER A MOORISH COURTYARD HOUSE WITH A VIEW TO TAKING IT--WE RENT
+JINAN DOLERO IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION--AN ENGLISHMAN MURDERED--OUR
+GARDEN-HOUSE--THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF MOORISH SERVANTS--A NATIVE GUARD--THE
+RIFF COUNTRY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+    Ah! Moon of my delight, who know'st no wane
+    The Moon of Heaven is rising once again:
+    How oft hereafter rising shall she look
+    Through this same garden after me--_in vain!_
+
+
+CHRISTMAS DAY in a Mohammedan city passed with nothing to mark it except
+deluges of rain. The fonda had not grown upon us; and when two Moorish
+houses in the city at last presented themselves, the result of weeks of
+inquiry, we decided to take one, if, as was apparently the case, a
+garden-house outside the city was not to be had for love or money. The
+Moors all told us it was impossible. The fact is, that they are chary of
+letting their houses to unbelievers: the thing is not encouraged in the
+land; indeed, they are liable to be imprisoned for doing so, unless they
+have "protection" from a foreigner.
+
+All sorts of complications have arisen out of permission granted to
+Europeans to settle in the country: it depends on the European; he does
+something foolish, and legal or social or religious difficulties arise,
+and a storm in a teacup may end in serious dispute and a heavy indemnity
+to pay. So, naturally enough, the Sultan's advisers are averse to
+extending the limits of property owned by Europeans, and the barriers
+which they put in the way, debar ordinary people from running up villas
+and committing outrages such as half the world endures in silence.
+
+In Morocco it is necessary first of all to obtain the consent of the
+Government for the purchase of land. Interest can sometimes do it, and
+the pill must be heavily gilt. The next obstacle lies with Moorish
+jurisdiction, which, with forethought, sets forth that all disputes
+relating to property shall be referred to native courts and settled by
+Moorish law. This opens a door to barefaced bribery and intimidation:
+some one will be fleeced. Last of all, Moorish workmen building for an
+Englishman or any foreigner are liable to persecution and arrest. Thus
+foreign labour must be employed. And how is foreign labour to be had? A
+Jew or Spaniard may not be available. It is scarcely less difficult to
+rent a house in Morocco, unless it is in Tangier.
+
+Of the two which were thus unexpectedly offered us one was out of the
+question--it was damp; but the other, standing empty in a long narrow
+alley in the middle of the city, was as sound as houses built of rubbish
+and thin bricks can be, and we went to look over it, well prepared to
+ignore petty defects.
+
+It was entered, as usual, by a wide yellow door, studded with giant nails
+and a resounding knocker: a courtyard house--a most quaint and original
+construction in which to spend two or three months. From the
+ochre-coloured door we walked into a tiny tiled patio open to the sky,
+too small and insignificant for a fountain or an orange-tree: the kitchen
+and one other room where servants could sleep opened out of it, lighted
+only by their wide doors, which were never shut. So much for the ground
+floor.
+
+A tiny tiled staircase led to the first floor. Four narrow rooms,
+windowless, flanked the four sides of the square, and looked down into
+the little court below. Each room had double doors standing open for
+light and air. From the house-top above the first floor, on to which we
+went last, there was at least a view of a thousand flat white roofs, of
+pencil-shaped minarets, of turtle-backed mosques; but at the same time
+the sun itself could not be more dazzling to look at than was the
+impossible whitewash which besmeared all the roofs, and we soon left for
+our first floor, in whose four little dark rooms we proposed to live.
+Standing on the gallery which ran outside them, and leaning on the
+balustrade looking down into the minute patio, it was a case of the view
+below into that, and the view above up at the sky, and no more--a
+limited, and on wet days gloomy, prospect. Added to that, the orgies
+worked in the kitchen by a Moorish cook could not do other than proclaim
+themselves all over the first floor. True, the little patio embodied the
+Moorish conception of _al-fresco_ seclusion, and a depth of shadow lay in
+the inner rooms within the thin shell of the white walls. And yet--and
+yet--the lines of old-fashioned Eliza Cook returned insistently, and
+refused to be silenced:--
+
+    Double the labour of my task,
+    Lessen my poor and scanty fare,
+    But give, oh! give me what I ask--
+    The sunlight and the mountain air.
+
+And in the end the vote was given against the little windowless dwelling
+in the Moorish Quarter. No doubt a courtyard house is bizarre, but it has
+its imperfections.
+
+A Scotch proverb has it that "Where twa are seeking, they are sure to
+find." In time we found. A certain Moor of Tetuan, named Ali Slowee, a
+Spanish protected subject, was guardian, uncle, and stepfather to a boy
+named Dolero. Dolero owned a garden-house outside the city, called
+_Jinan Dolero_ (The Garden of Dolero). Ali Slowee heard of our wants and
+offered us his nephew's house, provided we undertook to give it up at the
+end of March. Than the unexpected, when it does come, nothing is so good.
+After a little difference over the rent (our landlord began by asking two
+pounds five a month, and came down to thirty shillings) all was settled,
+and New Year's Day, 1902, found us living in a whitewashed garden-house
+in Morocco, out in the country.
+
+Moors have extravagant ideas of the sums English people will pay. Mr.
+Bewicke was offered a house and garden for seven pounds ten a month: some
+time after the landlord asked three pounds; eventually he came down to
+thirty-nine shillings.
+
+[Illustration: JINAN DOLERO.
+
+[_To face p. 158._]
+
+Having handed a month's rent over to Ali Slowee, he had Jinan Dolero done
+up, whitewashed at least, outside and in, from top to toe--a rite
+performed on every opportunity all the year round in Morocco, like
+spring-cleanings at home. Tiles were mended, windows repainted, glass put
+in, and we followed,--the simplest thing in the world; "furnishing" takes
+no time in Morocco. Three mules carried out all we put into the empty
+little house--all our effects, that is to say, from the fonda. A few rugs
+were unrolled, camp-beds, table, and chairs put together, some nails
+driven into the walls, and in one hour we were "in." Gibraltar supplied
+the camp furniture; necessaries were raked together in Tetuan, including
+the dome-shaped pewter teapot, and the painted tins, pink and green and
+blue, for tea, coffee, and sugar, which mark the tramp of the European
+across Morocco, and are both of them for ever associated with sweet green
+tea and turbans. Mattresses we had made, and made ourselves, of moss,
+brought in by the countrywomen and dried; and an Englishman, A---- (one
+of the few who have become Mohammedans and settled in Morocco), lent
+several more, which made divans round our walls.
+
+A---- has a little house close to Jinan Dolero, and occupies himself with
+his garden outside the city. He dresses like a Moor. In spite of it all,
+he is not welcomed among them as a brother, but goes by the name of "The
+Renegade." They probably divine that he adopts their religion as a part
+of the customs of the country with which he identifies himself, less for
+the sake of Mohammedanism itself than for the life which that religion
+inculcates.
+
+Apparently men in such a position rarely benefit the country in which
+they settle, and often do harm, ending by paying the penalty of meddling
+with the manners and customs of another race.
+
+Now, at the time of writing this chapter, A---- has paid in full. Only a
+few months after we left Tetuan he was shot one evening in his garden and
+killed on the spot, apparently from close quarters, probably from behind
+the hedge. The servants had gone home and found his body next morning. If
+they are to be believed, no one heard a shot. Men have been imprisoned
+and men will suffer death for the murder, no doubt; but whether the
+actual murderer is shot or goes scot-free, and what his inducement for
+committing the crime, probably half Tetuan will know and half Tetuan will
+tell, _and tell a lie_.
+
+Some say that A---- was shot for the sake of his gun and his money.
+Others that he was shot by some Riffi brothers because he was in the
+habit of talking to their sister. Others that the murder was connected
+with his having lived at one time with a Moorish woman, from whom he
+eventually separated.
+
+No one will ever know.
+
+Jinan Dolero would have been called in the Riviera "a villa": it was a
+typical Moorish garden-house. We lived upstairs, after the manner of the
+country, in the airiest and lightest of small whitewashed sitting-rooms:
+its three windows, set certainly with head-splitting glass, looked south,
+east, and west, on sea, mountains, and city. The second larger room, in
+which we slept, had a thick white pillar in the very middle of it,
+supporting the ceiling. A store-room on the same floor did duty as
+larder, and a staircase led up on to the flat white roof.
+
+Underneath us were kitchen, mules' stable, and two rooms for our two
+servants: a little staircase led down to them and on to the hall and
+front door. The floors were all tiled: a dip in the corner of each room
+and a hole in the wall carried off the water when they were sluiced down.
+Innocent of spouting, the water merely streamed down the outside wall.
+Each window reached to the floor, and an inartistic iron grille removed
+all danger of falling out. It was the sunniest house in the world, and an
+airy one, for the passage and rooms had loop-holes, a foot high and four
+inches wide, cut in the wall, through which air freely circulated. On the
+ground floor the windows were _nil_, but more loop-holes let in ample
+light. One was constructed on each side our hall door, that before
+unbarring at night we might know what manner of visitor we had, and even
+fire a charge through the aperture if the occasion warranted.
+
+Our garden was another Moorish wilderness, another "Field of the
+Slothful," thick in a waste of weeds, blue borage, and yellow marigolds.
+But it was also a vineyard. Dead-looking branches of vines trailed among
+the weeds, which later on were cut down with a sickle and turned into
+green meat for cows. Splendid muscats, we were told, our vines would
+produce: branches are spread over them in the summer as a slight
+protection from the sun, but the grapes are left on the ground and often
+soiled; nor has a Moor the slightest idea of picking them, or of
+preserving their bloom. Besides the vines, there were fruit-trees in
+Jinan Dolero. Pink almonds blossomed first; the leaf and the flower of
+apricots followed; apples, peaches, and pears came almost at the same
+time; and we lived in a pink world. The fig-tree softened its hard heart
+last of all, and its ashy-grey arms burst into tender green leaf and
+infant figs; at the same time the pomegranates shot into warm red
+leaflets. There were lemons which were ripe on the trees on New Year's
+Day, and made many a lemon-squash: there was double narcissus in flower
+everywhere; it sprouted up in the grass paths which divided our garden,
+and got badly trodden down: there were rows and rows of beans, which
+scented the air: last of all, there were some red geraniums in flower.
+
+A hedge of prickly pear ran down the east side of the enclosure, a tall
+cane fence effectually hedged in the rest, and the whole was entered by
+the inevitable locked and barred door, and whitewashed doorway, the long
+key of which, was a care in life, till we learnt that in Morocco every
+precaution is taken up to a certain point; matters are then handed over
+to Providence, and man, forbearing to meddle further, sits down and
+awaits their development.
+
+Thus, with all their locks and bolts, garden doors were often left open,
+and the cane fences were full of gaps. But none of our lemons were
+stolen--not, at least, after we got rid of the guard of soldiers which
+for the first week the basha insisted on sending to Jinan Dolero every
+night. They ate them.
+
+Fine days were never long enough in the little garden-house facing the
+mountains: in the mornings an opal light; the sunrise stalking across
+their summits, while a cloud of white mist would sweep down the valley
+out to the blue sea-line; all day bright light and dazzle, a wind soft
+and yet racy; at night an abrupt sunset, leaving for a few moments a
+rose-pink after-glow, followed by an intense silence.
+
+The first thing in the morning, we always wandered in our garden down the
+grassy paths among the dew; measured the rain-gauge; looked at the sky;
+watched the birds, of which a flight, chiefly flocks of finches,
+invariably travelled over the little terraces of fruit-trees towards the
+river, taking our garden on the way, and feeding there for a while. A
+white jasmine almost hid our white steps and pillars: a rose grew with
+lavish prodigality; as Jinan Dolero stood there, in the middle of the
+Garden of the Slothful, a certain imperious dignity was given to the
+little white-walled structure by means of its magnificent situation.
+
+Sometimes we breakfasted in the garden: we were never in to lunch on fine
+days, but rode and walked all over the country, occasionally with the
+lady missionaries or Mr. Bewicke, but oftener alone with the big grey
+donkey and a boy. There were Moors to see in Tetuan, and always something
+of interest: we came away from that corner of Morocco without having got
+through half of what might have been done. To live in a country, adopting
+some of its ways and imbibing a little of its spirit, is the only
+satisfactory way to "travel." Hotels with home conventionalities and
+English tourists never amount to the same thing. Either camp out or
+settle down for a month or two in a hut, with one of the country people
+to cook. There must be sport, or agriculture, or village characters, or
+architecture, or botany, or geology to study: bird-life and bird-watching
+are never-ending interests; the fields are never empty. Only by living
+its own life, can the country and its ways unfold themselves, and become
+understood and cared for, by the traveller who has time for, and a love
+of, such things.
+
+As a whole, and seen in January before spring has begun, around Tetuan it
+is a tired and brownish-looking country: its colour is bleached and dried
+out of it, and it has the air of a sun-dried, wind-blown land, patched
+with pieces of brilliant greenery where corn has been sown near water.
+And yet it possesses the charm of strength and repose which simplicity
+gives; for it has been worried by man but little, rather allowed to
+straggle through the centuries at its own sweet will.
+
+In the evening every Friday, to mark the Mussulman's Sabbath, the sunset
+gun boomed and echoed among the opposite mountains. Watching the grey
+turreted walls of the Kasbah bitten out against a primrose sky, with
+watch in hand, at last the weekly flash of red, then a puff of brown
+smoke shot out of the wall, and last of all, a reverberating roar, tossed
+backwards and forwards among the hills. It is long before the "thunder"
+dies away, and we watch a gigantic smoke-ring, sprung from the mouth of
+the gun, float lazily out to the south; while the mueddzin's cry from the
+top of the mosque rises and falls on the waves of sound, drifting now
+clear, now faint, over the garden.
+
+When the sun dropped, the frogs began, from the cracks in the moist clay
+soil where they sat, all over our acre and a half, croaking in a wet,
+guttural chorus--the whole garden called; and the rattle of the
+tree-beetle which followed was one of those tropical sounds which recall
+the East. The frogs were tiny brown fellows, hard to get at. The owls
+would begin after the frogs--a brown owl, which flew noiselessly in the
+twilight among the fruit-trees and on to the edge of the roof, hooting
+long and low or chuckling oddly. Then stillness, and wonderful starlight
+nights, all through January. That month no rain fell. In February we had
+seven and a quarter inches, and more in March.
+
+Having found Jinan Dolero, and furnished it after a fashion, we still
+lacked servants, and they seemed to be almost as difficult to meet with
+as houses--that is, trustworthy ones. Again, however, we were fortunate.
+A soldier-servant who had lived with a missionary happened to have
+nothing to do, and agreed to come to us with his young wife, Tahara. They
+both of them knew something of European ways, and were scrupulously
+honest. They brought a few oddments, a little looking-glass, a mattress
+on which they slept upon the floor of the room near the kitchen, and a
+few cooking-pots and pans of their own. We overcame their objection to
+sleeping outside the city at that time of year; but I believe they never
+liked it up to the last, though they comforted themselves with two guns
+(one of which belonged to the man, and one he borrowed) and the fact of a
+revolver as well, being all under the same roof with them.
+
+[Illustration: OUR SERVANTS, S`LAM AND TAHARA.
+
+[_To face p. 164._]
+
+They were both of them Riffis, and their own home was in the Riff
+country, two days' journey into the mountains from Tetuan. His name was
+S`lam Ben Haddon Riffi of Bekiona, son of Haddon and of Fettouch Ben
+Haddon of Bekiona. S`lam's wife was Tahara. He had served for a year in
+the French army in Algeria, in the 2nd Regiment of Tirailleurs
+Algériens; and having picked up a little French, we learnt, with a few
+Arabic words, to understand each other. He and Tahara spoke Shillah to
+each other.
+
+S`lam was about twenty-six years old, Tahara about twenty. He was a
+sinewy, long-legged ruffian, well over six feet, and holding himself
+creditably. He had a pair of fierce, dark, restless eyes, little beard or
+moustache, the front half of his head shaved, and a few locks left long
+at the back in token of his being a "brave" and having slain his man in a
+blood-feud. The Riffi turban, of strings of dark red wool, was wound
+round his head; a white shirt showed at his neck; he wore a black
+waistcoat, a white tunic down to his knees, and red knicks, below which
+came his long hairy shanks, ending in a pair of yellow slippers.
+
+A scarlet leather bag, hung by a red cord over his shoulders, a leather
+belt, and his gun, finished off our Moorish servant, who shot us
+partridges, roasted chickens, and was as good a hand at buttered eggs and
+coffee as I have ever seen.
+
+Out of doors he always wore his brown jellab, embroidered with silk tufts
+of green and yellow and white.
+
+Tahara was a pretty, pale, dark girl, with curious cabalistic Riffi marks
+tattooed in blue on her forehead and chin. She bound round her head an
+orange-coloured silk handkerchief; wore, except when at work, an
+embroidered yellow waistcoat, a pale blue kaftan down to her ankles, a
+sprigged, white muslin, loose garment, all over that; and a creamy
+woollen haik, when she went out or was cold, covered everything.
+
+S`lam acted as butler, Tahara kept our rooms in order, and they were
+joint cooks. Their standing dish was mutton stewed in vegetables, or a
+chicken; and given time, four hours in the pot, on the pan of charcoal,
+it was quite a success. But they learnt many things in a Dutch oven lent
+by the missionaries, besides stews. They had eccentricities--as when
+S`lam prepared to put the toast-rack itself on the charcoal fire, with
+the bread in it, thus to "toast": the toast-rack we made ourselves, too,
+out of some old wire. They kept chickens, which S`lam brought home from
+market, either in their bedrooms for the night, or else in the kitchen,
+until their crops were empty and they could be killed.
+
+Every morning S`lam was dispatched to the city with a basket,
+instructions, and two or three shillings. He stayed there an
+unconscionable time, visiting his mother, and sitting sunning himself in
+the doorway of a little Moorish café, returning laden before lunch. He
+never went into the city without his gun and best jellab, striding along
+with his long legs--a most picturesque figure. After dinner every evening
+he rendered his account, stalking into the sitting-room when we called,
+pulling up a chair, and sitting down at the table opposite R. From his
+leather bag, change was produced, and if the change was wrong, there was
+agony; but that only happened once or twice. A scrap of paper was brought
+out covered with Arabic writing, items of the day's expenditure, which
+read more or less as follows:--
+
+Chicken                    7d.
+Milk                       1d.
+Four eggs                 2½d.
+Mutton                     6d.
+Apples                     2d.
+Vegetables                 2d.
+Bread three times a week  4½d.
+Butter twice a week       9½d.
+
+Charcoal for cooking purposes, and oil for lamps, added three shillings
+to our moderate weekly expenditure. Living is cheap enough in Morocco,
+nor are servants' wages heavy. S`lam and Tahara had eighteen shillings a
+month and their food, which was simple indeed--a loaf each of native
+bread a day, green tea, lump sugar, and odds and ends from our meals. Our
+rent, it will be remembered, came to thirty shillings a month. Morocco
+suits "reduced circumstances."
+
+Once a week, one of the little donkeys, which passed along our "lane" in
+droves, carrying charcoal into the sok, was waylaid, brought into the
+garden, and its three pannierfuls commandeered for us and stored in the
+mules' stable, where Tahara did the washing in a great tub bought from
+Mr. Bewicke.
+
+Milk was left every morning by a Moor, who took it in for sale to the
+sok.
+
+When the accounts were all settled up, S`lam would swing out of the room
+with a "Bon soir tout-le-monde," unless he stayed to give R. a lesson in
+Arabic, which he could write as well as read--an unusual thing, and
+marking him for a scholar in his country.
+
+Blood-feuds among the Riff tribe are common enough. S`lam's father was
+shot when S`lam was a boy. As soon as he grew up, S`lam shot the man. He
+had left the Riff in consequence: he was a "marked man," they said; but
+he began to talk of going back again, and while he was with us he bought
+a new French rifle. In the Riff he might be potted at, he might not: he
+would risk that. The brother or son of the man whom he had shot would
+never trouble to journey far for the purpose of shooting him. Why should
+they? All in good time. Some day, when he came their way, they would put
+a bullet into him. Only women die in their beds in the Riff. "Sudden
+death, Good Lord, grant us."
+
+Men in the Riff who have blood-feuds will not go out of their houses in
+the early mornings without first sending the women and children to look
+if the coast is clear: neither will they walk up a hedgerow nor in a
+wood, but across the fields, keeping well in the open, since murder is
+always committed out of sight, decently, and in good order.
+
+A man living in Tetuan now, has a blood-feud with an enemy, who has been
+in consequence obliged to move to Tangier. Sometimes he comes over,
+secretly, by night, to see his mother, and lies hidden in her house till
+the sok is full of market people in the middle of the day, when he can go
+out into the crowd without running great risk,--though in the sok a
+quarrel sometimes arises; in a flash, guns are up at men's
+shoulders--bang--bang--and bullets ping into the soft walls, if not into
+some one or other. Only lately a boy was shot twice in the thigh,
+happening to be in the way in a scuffle.
+
+S`lam and Tahara were often amusing, if not interesting: never
+commonplace or "well-meaning." One corner of the roof of Jinan Dolero had
+been left unwhitewashed, the whitewashers' ladder was still there, and
+one morning S`lam came to say in his best French, "Deux mesdames. Pour
+arranger en haut."
+
+The two madams were the whitewashers--two black madams, clad in a couple
+of striped towels each, Ali Slowee's slaves, bought for, say, £7 each. A
+very ragged countrywoman who came and weeded the garden, and seemed
+almost devoid of intelligence, was also a madam.
+
+S`lam was deft with a needle; he borrowed one of ours and a thimble, sat
+himself down in the kitchen, and stitched away at a large white garment
+"pour Maman," he said--sat up half the night, finished it, and took it to
+her next day.
+
+He did not make a bad man-servant; but he was fond of tempting Fate by
+carrying trays, laden with china and glass, balanced on one hand; then he
+would stoop down and pick up a kettle in the other, there would be an
+ominous clatter, if not crash, in the tray amongst our crockery, and
+S`lam would murmur reproachfully under his breath, "O tray! tray!"
+
+He bought a new jellab for wearing on visits to the sok; and after it had
+been proudly shown us, it was found, neatly folded up, placed on a
+hat-box in our bedroom. When we asked why it was there, he was taken
+aback. "Mightn't he keep it there? It was new: it was very clean."
+
+One evening, when he came in to settle accounts, he said that he wished
+to write a letter. Would we give him a sheet of paper and envelope? They
+were produced. We were not quite prepared for it, when he at once drew up
+a chair, sat down at the table, and politely asked for a pencil. But it
+was impossible to snub so simple and well-meaning a child. I sharpened a
+pencil, and S`lam wrote diligently for quite half an hour, without a
+pause, from right to left, wonderful spidery characters: it was a long
+letter to his old master down in Morocco City. He held his
+string-turbaned head on one side, and was without embarrassment as he sat
+between R. and myself (one of us worked, the other wrote); indeed, S`lam
+might have spent his evenings in a drawing-room all his life. When the
+letter was finished, he accepted a stamp most gratefully, wished us "Bon
+soir," and departed.
+
+Tahara had her eccentricities too, of which one was an extraordinary
+aptitude for annexing wherewithal to tie round her head in place of her
+own yellow silk scarf, which was kept for high days. One week one of our
+table-napkins was raised to this honour; the next one of our clean
+bedroom towels had taken its place round her dark locks.
+
+I made her a present of a flannel shirt to wear, but the second day S`lam
+had appropriated that, and wore it in place of his waistcoat, unbuttoned.
+
+Apparently, in the eyes of the Tetuan world, we were taking a most
+unprecedented and foolhardy step in sleeping outside the city in the
+winter: the Ceuta "road" near us was said to be famous for robbery and
+murder. For some reason or other a reputation clung to us of being
+fabulously rich. The Moors warned, the missionaries seriously
+expostulated with us. None of them would have done it, and Mr. Bewicke
+was put down as mad for countenancing such an action. But we had two men
+in the house at night; for, besides S`lam, a labourer was induced to
+sleep in the mules' stable for our protection, and we had a couple of
+rifles and a revolver. Now, since the news of the murder of A----, one
+wonders . . . . . But _he_ was alone: _we_ had the safety of numbers.
+
+To show how jealous Moors can be, and what precautions they take about
+their women, S`lam never allowed the labourer inside the garden gate
+unless he himself had come in. The man sat and waited on the bank. Then,
+after he was installed in the stable, the door between the kitchen and
+stable was locked and bolted. When we went out, Tahara was made to bolt
+every door; and if any one came to the house, she would only call down to
+them out of our bedroom window.
+
+The first night we slept in our garden-house and for several nights
+after, the basha took upon himself to send us out a guard of soldiers,
+who were responsible for our safety. We never asked this favour, and were
+annoyed; for they slept under our windows, talked and coughed the whole
+night, lay on the bulbs in a flower-bed, and stole the lemons. Seeing,
+however, that we did not pay them anything at all for the attention, the
+basha soon grew tired of sending them, much to our relief; for when, to
+prevent their depredations, we locked them outside the garden door, they
+broke down our fence, scrambled into the garden, and lay under the
+prickly pears, as being a safer place than the lane outside.
+
+There has never such a thing been known, as a guard without a cough, or
+who do not talk. If told to be silent, they reply that they must talk to
+keep awake; for if they fell asleep, how could they guard? Occasionally,
+to show how much on the alert they are, guards will discharge their guns
+in the dead of night. Altogether Moorish soldiers at close quarters are
+not conducive to sleep.
+
+We had an excitement one night, but it turned out to be groundless. Guns
+were fired from the garden-house below ours, repeatedly, about 10 p.m.,
+and S`lam got into a fever of excitement, brought his rifle up into our
+sitting-room, and sat watching at one of the windows. He thought it was
+tribesmen come down from the hills to rob. At last the firing stopped,
+and R. and I went to bed; but S`lam was up all night, and Tahara brought
+their mattress upstairs and slept in our sitting-room for safety. It
+turned out to be Moors who had come out to sleep for one night, and were
+amusing themselves by firing rifles from the loop-holes and out in the
+garden.
+
+There is an advantage in being in a country where game is not sacred. For
+instance, one evening after tea, standing on the steps outside our
+"bungalow," in the hush which came just after sunset, R. and I were
+startled by a familiar call over in the garden next ours. S`lam was
+strolling about, and confirmed our supposition--a partridge. We went
+indoors and forgot about it; but ten minutes later the report of a gun
+brought us out again, and there was S`lam crashing over the great bamboo
+fence into "next door" with his rifle, scudding across our neighbour's
+beans, then stooping down over something; a second later and he was back
+again, across the palisade like a lamplighter, and striding triumphantly
+up our path with a partridge dangling from his hand--a red-legged
+Frenchman, which we hung long. This acquisition to the larder had to be
+applauded perforce, in spite of its being shot sitting, and on some one
+else's acres. As luck would have it, S`lam's great bullet, about the size
+commonly used for big game, had gone through its head: he naïvely
+explained the advantages of shooting birds through the head. But I think
+he was a fair shot. Most Riffis are.
+
+I suppose that the Riff tribe is more or less an anomaly. Think, if you
+can, of a clan or a tribe who are pirates, wreckers, who encourage
+slavery, who count the vendetta an admirable custom, who have no laws, no
+governors, who acknowledge as their supreme head a Sultan who has never
+from all ages ventured within their borders--a tribe who have, as it has
+been said, "no fear, no anything, save and excepting their faith in One
+God and Mohammed as his Prophet, their own daggers, a Martini-Henry if
+they can get one, and failing that, a ten-foot-long Riff gun,
+coral-studded, ivory-butted, brass-bound, and deadly to handle"--a people
+who live in a country without roads, _and all within a few hours of
+Gibraltar_: have they their parallel, except among adventurers in the Far
+East, and those but a few upon distant seas?
+
+[Illustration: TWO WOMEN FROM THE RIFF COUNTRY.
+
+[_To face p. 172._]
+
+To explore the unknown Riff country would be interesting indeed. No book
+has been written upon it except from hearsay, and no European has
+penetrated across its length and breadth. The Riffis want no foreign
+interlopers among their sacred hills, and would "knife" the first who
+showed his face. It is but two days' journey eastwards from Tetuan, this
+select and exclusive country, and it extends about a hundred and fifty
+miles, with a population, it is reported, of one hundred and fifty
+thousand souls. Strange to think that no European pioneer, nor
+gentleman-rover, has ever exploited the Riff.
+
+The law of the vendetta, is the law and the ten commandments of the
+Riffi, which, if he fail to keep, renders him in the eyes of his
+country-folk damned to all eternity, to be ostracised among men. A widow
+will teach her baby-son to shoot, and studiously prepare him for his one
+great duty, that as early as possible he may put a bullet into the
+murderer of his father. And thus the feud is nourished. Even the
+great-great-grandson of a man who has taken a life years upon years ago
+is not safe. He will probably meet with a dagger or the muzzle of a long
+gun one day.
+
+But a people who inculcate such severe and cursory measures have their
+redeeming-points. It is a fact that cursing and swearing, so common among
+Moors, and polygamy and adultery, are seldom, if ever, met with in the
+Riff: for if one Riffi insults another, it is at the peril of his life;
+while the stain of immorality is wiped out at once by death.
+
+The gun, pistol, or dagger is the Riffi's summary judge and jury. He
+submits to no authority. Questions on land, on inheritance, all legal
+questions, are settled in each village by the keeper of the mosque. He
+arranges marriages.
+
+The Riffis are therefore a moral people: a man has but one wife; the
+women do not veil, and yet familiarity is not tolerated between the
+sexes; a young man will go out of his way to avoid passing close by a
+young woman whom he sees in the distance, lest he be suspected of
+behaving lightly to her.
+
+The Riffis are an indomitable race, one which has never been conquered,
+magnificent raw material out of which to shape a battalion of infantry.
+Though acknowledged as the Kaliph of the Prophet and their religious
+head, the Sultan, as has been said, has never dared to put his head in
+this independent hornets' nest.
+
+They are an industrious tribe, growing crops assiduously and rearing
+cattle: their valleys are fertile and well farmed for an uncivilized
+country. But these details must be taken for what they are worth. S`lam
+could say nothing but good of the Riff: how cheap living was, and how
+abundant food,--except when rain failed, and then there followed
+disastrous famine, and starving Riffis would come down to Tetuan, and lie
+in the caves outside the city, and live on roots, doing any work which
+offered; and some of them would die, in spite of the missionaries'
+kindness and unremitting efforts.
+
+There are many legends about the Riffis: they boast one tribe among
+themselves who are said to be descended from the Romans; and there is no
+reason against the assumption, since the Romans were in Morocco after
+Cæsar's day. Another family claims to be descended from the inhabitants
+of Sodom. Some of them are quite fair--regular "carrots": Vandal blood
+may run in their veins. While, again, some people say there are Celts
+among them, with Irish characteristics and Irish words. Possibly. Pirates
+and rovers are apt to introduce foreign strains.
+
+At any rate they have nothing in common with the Arabs, but are as unlike
+that race as a Scotchman is unlike an Italian. Berber is of course their
+common origin, and they are identical with the Kabyles of Algeria, the
+Touariks of the Sahara, and the Guanches of the Canary Isles. Shillah,
+the Berber dialect which they speak--one of the many dialects belonging
+to that race--is not a written language; but an educated Riffi learns to
+write and read at his village _jama_ (mosque school); he uses the Arabic
+character in writing, and he learns to read the Kor[=a]n.
+
+Yet in one great point, like the Arabs, the Riffi, in common with the
+Berber race, lacks the power of cohesion and the spirit of patriotism,
+which should have welded all Berbers into one powerful people. Internal
+strife, that curse of Africa, has split them up into isolated units, and
+they stand at the same point they stood at a thousand years ago.
+
+Nor have the Riffis, in common with the Moors, reached the point of
+discarding "petticoats and drapery"--that is to say, they wear the brown,
+hooded, woollen jellab, and the white woollen haik--a sheet of material
+without seam, which they cast round themselves something like a Roman
+toga. Perhaps a cotton tunic is worn underneath.
+
+Part of the sleeves, the hood, and front of the jellab are often
+beautifully embroidered in coloured silks. On the border of the cloth
+thin leaves of dried grass are laid, which are worked over and over with
+coloured silk, and make a thick, handsome edging. The coloured leather
+belts which they wear; the large embroidered leather pouches, with
+deep-cut leather fringes, which hold bullets and powder and money and
+hemp-tobacco; their shaved heads, with one long oiled and combed or
+plaited lock; their turbans, red or brown, of strings of wool,--all
+complete a Riffi, and a very fine-looking fellow he can be.
+
+The labour element, which as a whole is antagonistic to the spirit of
+Morocco, crops up here and there, less in the casually fanned fields than
+in out-of-the-way corners. The Potters' Caves just outside Tetuan
+constitute one of those corners. There is always work going on in the
+caves, and smoke coming out of one or other of the many kilns, all the
+year round. Morocco and Moorish architecture would be nowhere without the
+potteries. Those infinitesimal little tiles which fit together and make
+such artistic colour-patterns, lining the _al-fresco_ patios, facing the
+walls of the rooms, the pillars and doorways and flooring, the houses
+throughout, are every one of them kneaded and cut and baked there: crocks
+to wash in, pans for charcoal, immense water-pots, small water-pots,
+bowls and shallow basins, dishes of all sizes, and saucers down to the
+smallest, even ink-bottles, all come into being there.
+
+Leaving the city by _Báb-el-Nooadtha_ (the Gate of Sheaves), a little
+winding path leads to the caves, which lie among thickets of prickly
+pear, at the foot of the Anjera Hills, out of which they have been
+hollowed, probably by the action of water. Immense ramifications they
+are--great dark halls, roofed _au naturel_ in corrugated rock with
+fissured sides, where maiden-hair fern hangs cool and green. Here in the
+dark shadows are a little company of workmen, chiefly in brown jellabs
+and leathern aprons, one cutting squares out of the soft clay with a
+penknife--he has a pattern to help him keep them exact; another cuts
+diamonds, another stars: piled up together, they look like little pastry
+shapes in brown, beside the workmen, who are all sitting cross-legged on
+the ground.
+
+A little farther on two more men are dipping the top surfaces of the
+diamonds into an earthenware bowl full of yellow "cream," which will
+glaze and colour them, all in one. This sulphur-colour, and a blue, and a
+white, are generally used for the tiles--no other shades, as a rule. A
+boy in a corner is at work at one of the first processes, treading out a
+vast circle of yellowish clay into the consistency of stiff dough. A
+rather superior old Moor in a white turban, perhaps the master-workman,
+is deftly cutting out rosettes. In the front of the cave a little brown
+donkey, with pasterns as weak as a reed, is standing under the weight of
+four great earthenware pots full of water, two balanced on each side its
+pack. A boy empties them one by one of the water, pouring it into a
+natural basin scooped out in the ground, well puddled with clay, and
+therefore without a leak. The water is wanted to mix with the "dough."
+Then the donkey patters off for another load, the boy sitting sideways on
+its pack and shaking his heels--that makes it go.
+
+To the left stands a kiln in process of being packed with millions of the
+clay dice, which, baked hard, dove-tailed together, and forming a smooth,
+polished surface, will keep many a room cool. The kiln next door to it,
+is full of pots and pans of all shapes and sizes, but its opening is
+plastered up with clay, and they are not to be seen. Into the great fiery
+furnace underneath, a man is thrusting dry brown bushes, and dried
+prickly pear, and whatever rubbish will burn. Much of it has been hacked
+off the hillside by women, and has come on their backs many a mile. There
+is a crackling sound, smoke comes out, and a pink flame glows behind the
+man's body. The tiles ought to bake all right.
+
+Meanwhile, the same boy inside the cave has got his clay into good
+order--it is about two inches thick, and something the size of a big
+round table; then he stoops down, and, with a knife held in both hands,
+scores the clay across, much as toffee is scored; which done, each
+square, about a foot in diameter, is carried off to be cut up into little
+shapes or to go upon the potter's wheel.
+
+The potter sat in his little pit, working the wheel with his foot--as
+Carlyle says, "one of the venerablest objects, old as the Prophet Ezekiel
+and far older. Rude lumps of clay, how they spin themselves up, by mere
+quick whirling, into beautiful circular dishes."
+
+The potter thumped his wet clay; then, as the wheel turned, pressed and
+moulded it with clever clay-encrusted hands: the sleeves were turned back
+from his bony chocolate-coloured arms. He had a grey goatee and a quiet
+smile, a dirty turban round his head, a white tunic mostly clay, and
+underneath a claret-coloured garment showed at the neck.
+
+He was a spare, wizened old man: perhaps his work, like Dante's, had made
+him "lean for many years." The faster his wheel revolved, the truer
+apparently was the shape of the vessel he turned out. His country might
+accept the lesson--that labour, like the wheel, conduces towards a good
+end. I fancy that a decadent people, who will neither work nor spin, but
+choose to rest and lie at ease, give the potter Destiny no chance. He has
+no wheel, this potter--for Morocco will not labour, nor be broken, nor
+disciplined; and so he is reduced to a mere kneading and baking, without
+the means he fain would employ; and he turns out a mere makeshift--his
+production at best is "not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked,
+shambling, squint-cornered, amorphous botch--a mere enamelled vessel of
+dishonour."
+
+[Illustration: SELLING EARTHENWARE POTS.
+
+[_To face p. 178._]
+
+The great pot which the potter slowly evolved out of the soft brown clay
+under our eyes was not perfect: he made it entirely by eye, and it
+matched the rest of the group to the ordinary observer; yet it had a
+distinct "lean." Did it grumble to itself, that
+
+    vessel of the more ungainly make?
+
+as human vessels complain sometimes:--
+
+    They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
+    What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?
+
+Beyond the potter the ground was covered with an army of his soft
+mud-coloured vessels, all sorted and arranged in groups which matched,
+dozen after dozen, far back into the inner shadows of the cave, like some
+weird and interminable china shop. I gave the old man a cigarette, which
+he puffed at over his wheel.
+
+In the next cave a white-bearded Aaron was solemnly dipping dishes into a
+bowl of blue colour and glaze, and placing each with his finger and thumb
+on a board by him among countless fellows, while with his other hand he
+gravely swirled the liquid to prevent its setting. Others next him were
+again cutting out shapes; and three potters were hard at work, one
+moulding the bodies of pots, another the necks, another the lids, while a
+fourth put all three together.
+
+And thus they laboured on. Their slippers lay in the mouths of the caves
+beside their brown jellabs; and the smell of the moist clay and the drip
+of water up amongst the green fern mixed with the cool air.
+
+    Almighty Potter, on whose wheel of blue
+    The world is fashioned, and is broken too,
+    Why to the race of men is heaven so dire?
+    In what, O wheel, have I offended you?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COUNTRY PEOPLE FORDING THE RIVER--WE CALL ON CI HAMED GHRALMIA--AN
+EXPEDITION ACROSS THE RIVER IN SEARCH OF THE BLUE POOL--MOORISH BELIEF IN
+GINNS--THE BASHA--POWDER PLAY--TETUAN PRISON.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+    Set not thy heart on any good or gain--
+    Life means but pleasure, or it means but pain;
+    When Time lets slip a little perfect hour,
+    Oh! take it--for it will not come again.
+
+
+MANY walks began by degrees to tell upon our boots, for the cobble-stones
+of Tetuan and the rocks of Morocco in general are meant less for boots
+than for bare feet, which they do not seem to damage. In time, stress of
+circumstances drove us to a curly black-headed Jew bootmaker, whose most
+expensive pair of thick black boots cost nine shillings. Another
+Israelite made us suits of rough brown jellab material, for the sum of £1
+each--stuff which wore for ever.
+
+The mountains on the opposite side of the river were our El Dorado, but
+the river would not go down in January and allow of our fording it; rain
+followed rain, and it was higher than ever. One market day we walked down
+to watch the people from the other side come across, on their way into
+the sok, laden with country produce. Years ago a bridge had been built
+over the Wad-el-Martine, but, like other Moorish architecture, it was not
+built to last, and the immense floods which swing down the Wad-el-Martine
+in winter-time soon left only a broken pier or two, to point out that a
+bridge had been thought of. The money to build it was supplied by
+Government: half of it went into the pocket of the builder; a little
+went towards the bridge, which naturally could only be built of rubbish,
+without proper foundations. Now that there is no bridge, it is once more,
+as it had been for ages upon ages, a case of ferrying across by the big
+ferry-boat, or of fording. Since ferrying means money, and fording only a
+wetting, most of the market-goers ford.
+
+It was a sight to see the countrywomen wading through, one after another
+like a string of ducks, trying to keep dry: the water came just about up
+to their bodies, and the white haik and piece of towelling for a skirt
+could be bundled up somehow--a very few wore short white cotton drawers.
+Their legs were remarkable for an enormous development of muscle in
+unusual places. Once across, they wrung out anything which had been
+wetted, shivering somewhat; then arranged their voluminous haiks afresh
+over the mysterious great bundles on their backs, and, padding off in
+single file, made for the city. What those bundles, which bent their
+backs half double, had inside them it was impossible to certify: often
+part of it was a baby, judging by a round shape like a head under the
+haik, and the fact that, when it had a knock, there was a cry: the rest
+might be chickens, oranges, vegetables, baskets of eggs, baskets of
+coos-coosoo, heads of brooms made of bamboo, honey, and so on. Some of
+the chickens dangled in front of the women by strings tied to their
+waists: the chickens were alive, of course.
+
+[Illustration: A FERRY-BOAT ON MARKET DAY.
+
+[_To face p. 184._]
+
+On the tops of their heads the women wore enormous straw hats, with brims
+large enough to act as umbrellas and to keep the rain off their
+shoulders. The ferry-boat, packed with them _and_ these straw hats, was
+worth seeing, like a grand-stand in a shower hidden by umbrellas. The
+weights which the women carry for hours at a time are almost incredible;
+but they begin as tiny girls, lopping along after their mothers at a
+half-run under tiny bundles, with the same bent backs; and habit is
+second nature.
+
+After the string of women came along a youth, with two small donkeys,
+laden with panniers full of green vegetables. The donkeys jibbed upon the
+brink; many "Arrahs" and curses and much cudgelling with a stick got them
+started; the panniers swayed horribly, and threatened to turn completely
+round, as the current pushed the donkeys over this side and that. Once
+in, they made pluckily for the opposite shore; but the stream carried
+them down; the water was well up their bodies; the distracted boy plunged
+and struggled behind first this one and then the other, whichever seemed
+in most danger--for the ford was none too wide. Urging them to keep
+up-stream, he clung on to one refractory pannier. The water rose higher
+and almost took them off their feet; but that was the worst place; now it
+was better. The leading donkey was in safety in shallower water, nearing
+dry land; but the other poor fellow seemed less strong, and was not able
+to make half such a good fight of it--its load may have been heavier. In
+spite of the boy it got lower and lower down-stream: suddenly there was
+an upheaval and a splash; its head went under altogether, pack and
+everything in a hole. Then the boy surpassed himself; for, deep as it
+was, he was there in a moment, got hold of the donkey behind, and pushed
+and half lifted, at no small risk to himself, and pulled, until the
+little fellow, after several relapses, found his feet. Finally, he waded
+out, and stood, like a drowned rat, on the bank, pack and all streaming;
+then he collected himself after a pause, and doddered off towards the
+sok. The boy shook himself and his soaked clothes, clutched his stick,
+and ran after his donkeys.
+
+A well-to-do Moor, possibly a sheikh, was the next to go for the ford.
+He probably farmed, and his sleek mule was full of green corn and
+"beans." They were things of colour, the pair of them: all the mule's
+appointments scarlet, himself a glossy brown; while his master, in dark
+blue, sat tight on his scarlet saddle, his bright chased stirrups
+flashing, so short as to bring his feet right up the mule's side--his
+turban, white as snow, with the red peak of the fez underneath, the
+deepest blot of colour, against the sky. A white garment waved out in the
+breeze under the blue jellab; he sat straight as a withy, feeling the
+mule's mouth with a hard hand, and bringing its nose into the air. There
+were some bravado and a great deal of assurance in the whole. The world
+used him well. Moors ride everywhere, if they possess anything with four
+legs. Why should they give themselves the fatigue of walking? But besides
+that, they are horsemen and most at home on a horse, while their country
+is not one to travel in on foot.
+
+Having decided that the river was fordable, and that we ought to be able
+to ride across it, we walked back by way of the city, and went in to tea
+with a Moor, ordering a donkey to be sent out the next day to Jinan
+Dolero, which should take us across to our El Dorado. The Moor who
+entertained us was a certain Ci Hamed Ghralmia, the eldest son of a
+Government official who had fattened physically and financially on the
+Customs, and whose fine house represented so many perquisites and bribes,
+and so much pared off the lump sum which went annually up to the Sultan.
+
+It was as luxurious a house as Eastern could wish: soft Rabat carpets,
+old Fez silk hangings, round the four-post beds, standing back in
+recesses in the room into which our host led us,--hangings such as even
+Fez can no longer produce; such silk is not made. One piece, which was
+quite as handsome in its way, was made years ago in Tetuan, from Tetuan
+silk-worms, reared on the slopes outside the Mulberry Gate--spun, dyed,
+and woven in Tetuan.
+
+Couches and divans filled up the corners; glowing colours and fine snowy
+linen abounded. It was a house in which to spend a sleepy Sabbath
+afternoon on a hot day, if it must be spent indoors. Cool air blew
+through the high rooms; the splash and ripple of fountains rose and fell
+in the cool marble patio below, and echoed up the tiled staircase; while
+back, far in the shade of the secluded rooms, among avenues of pillars,
+vistas of light and shade, women like butterflies, in mauve and yellow
+and white, rose from some soft scented divan and flitted across. And in
+the centre of it all, a little king, Ci Hamed Ghralmia--a pale,
+café-au-lait complexioned man, who looked as if life had never shown him
+one of its angles. He was fat and lineless: soft white hands, fleshy
+ankles, no knots of muscle in so well-turned-out a mould of cream, not a
+spot, not a flush, no sign of liver; the lips slightly suggested
+sensuality, and there was a line of cruelty round the mouth, but no
+further indication of self-indulgence; he might have lived on sugar and
+chicken coos-coosoo all his life, and altered in nothing but size since
+he was a year old, except for a beard on the soft white chin, and his
+eyes, which were infinitely cunning. Brown and cold, like polished
+marbles, they had not reached that stage of cunning which veils its
+cunning, but would still gleam at the sight of money and express
+satisfaction over a well-made bargain. They were suspicious, as the
+ignorant generally are, and believed in little that they saw. The old
+Biblical characters who walk Morocco to-day have most of them the same
+failing: they are sly.
+
+Ci Hamed Ghralmia was an "advanced" Moor--that is to say, in the
+afternoons, lying on his divan, he read Arabic books. He had bought some
+French knick-knacks too. He told us that he rented a shop, in which he
+sat in the mornings and chatted to his friends, using it not in any way
+to dispose of any goods, of which it was devoid, but as a sort of "club"
+or meeting-place. Then in the afternoons he occasionally rode out on his
+mule. He had a garden, I think, outside the city. Or he played chess with
+a friend, or read. Perhaps he would use his _hummum_ (Turkish bath); he
+would pray at his own particular mosque, regularly, so many times a day;
+and he would drink much green tea, and consume sugar, and sleep
+inordinately.
+
+Thirty years of this life in Tetuan found Ci Hamed Ghralmia still a
+contented man--supremely so. Wrapped in the finest white wool and muslin
+clothes, he lay along a divan opposite to us upon one elbow, the picture
+of ease, and talked away. No Moor was ever anything but self-composed.
+Upon our camera's coming out, he was much interested; and to prove his
+progressive and enlightened state of mind, let us photograph him just as
+he lay there--a vast, voluminous white chrysalis. Then he took us to see
+his wives and slaves--a large party of them. They were allowed to come
+out on to the staircase and talk to us; but when the interview had lasted
+five minutes, Ci Hamed Ghralmia clapped his hands twice--we had seen
+enough--every wife and every slave vanished like magic.
+
+[Illustration: THE AUTHOR FORDING THE WAD-EL-MARTINE.
+
+[_To face p. 188._]
+
+The next morning we made one of many expeditions up into the hills on the
+opposite side of the river, towards the south, and in the direction,
+though somewhat west, of the Riff. We rode in turns, it being somewhat of
+a rest to scramble along on foot, to say nothing of exercise. The big
+grey donkey had our lunch, a camera, some field-glasses, and a box for
+botanical specimens slung about him. We had a fairly intelligent
+boy--Mohammed, a Riffi--and managed to understand a word or two he said.
+It had been explained to him by S`lam that we wished to get to the Blue
+Pool if possible. Arrived at the river, we found nobody--not being market
+day, it was utterly deserted. The current was still swirling in a
+forbidding fashion, but Mohammed led the donkey straight in with R.; he
+tucked up his clothes, held his yellow slippers high in one hand, and
+after some goading they landed on the opposite bank. Mohammed left his
+slippers, rode back through the river for me, and in due time I was
+deposited on the shingle. Off we set--first by a narrow path, thick on
+each side with scented violets, and closed in with the usual
+ten-foot-high cane fence. More streams had to be forded, but they were
+small and the donkey strong; so, to save time, I sat above his tail,
+behind R., and he carried us across in one journey.
+
+So far we were still down on the flats; the hills towered in front of us;
+and among the streams, and where the river in its vagaries had often
+flowed, there was deposited many a rich bed of fruitful mud, turned into
+valuable land, the very soil _par excellence_ for oranges. And they were
+all around us--garden after garden, acre after acre, foliage studded with
+gold knobs by the million. And among them, and as far as the eye could
+reach, up into the gorge between the hills, picturesque white
+garden-houses showed through rifts in the half-tropical foliage, or over
+hedges of prickly pear and oleander. Fig-trees, a hundred years old, made
+faded grey blotches amongst the vivid greenery; the pink bloom of apricot
+was stainless against stained-yellow walls. In such a place, the
+inexorable realism of the age in which we live, was shaken--spirits
+there surely were which should appear.
+
+We passed an old countrywoman with a tiny donkey carrying two great
+panniers full of green-stuffs: she was in difficulties, having a wrestle
+to make it cross a little stream. Mohammed went to her assistance. Once
+over, she climbed on its small back with the help of a stone, putting her
+foot on its neck to get into her place.
+
+And now, leaving the orange gardens and their wealth, our path took an
+upward turn into a more rugged country, a less fruitful soil. We left a
+field of pale blue flax on the left--a "blue pool" indeed; and about this
+point the donkey's pack, which had no breastplate, slipped over its tail;
+but Mohammed's knife, and some string, and the britching, put all to
+rights for the time being. Later on a stirrup-leather broke.
+
+Following our winding path, we reached at last a white saint-house, which
+dominated a little hill overgrown with gnarled grey olives, and acted
+guardian over a large and flourishing village which lay below,--at least
+it was a collection of mud huts, and more of them than usual, but, like
+so many of these "villages," seemed to all intents and purposes
+deserted--a city of the dead. Many of the inhabitants were out no doubt,
+but those who were in were not tempted by curiosity to stare at us:
+without windows there can be no signs of the rites which are carried on
+inside the houses. All we saw were dogs, fierce brutes, which stones
+alone kept at a distance, where they sat showing their teeth and
+bristling their crests ominously.
+
+The saint-house, of course, was forbidden ground: we went as close as
+common sense permitted, and from under the shady olives looked back at
+Tetuan down below us, a snow-white streak in the valley.
+
+Some rags were hanging upon a bush near us. It is an interesting and
+curious practice, that of hanging votive rags upon the bushes around
+chapels and holy shrines: no less venerable is the performance of
+pilgrimages to the same. Both practices go back into the dim ages. They
+are in use to this day amongst the Shintoists of Japan, and the
+inhabitants of Northern Asia, India, the Orkneys, and remote corners of
+Ireland, where sickly children are dipped in streams, or passed through
+holes in stones or trees so many times running, going against the way of
+the sun, in order to produce the effect of making the sick child as
+strong as a lion. Then an offering must be made to the saint, and a rag
+is torn off somebody's garment, and tied to a bush near his grave, to
+show that they would have done more for the good saint if they had had
+the power.
+
+Rag-trees, burdened with the tattered offerings of the devout and
+impecunious tribes-people, flourish throughout Morocco,--signs hanging
+out, and blown by the wind, in the face of travellers; warnings of the
+deep-rooted superstition entangled in the innermost heart-cells of its
+people, to be disturbed at imminent peril.
+
+Leaving the saint-house and village, we struck a path upwards into a wild
+gorge, at the bottom of which a brawling torrent was tumbling. It turned
+many rude mills, and there were lush fields of corn on its banks. Far
+away in the grey distance now, to the north, we could see a dark wedge of
+rock, almost on the sky-line beyond the Anjera and other hills of
+Morocco: _the_ Rock--Gibraltar.
+
+At this point we lunched. Mohammed was provided, and dropped behind a
+rock: the donkey grazed. A little boy, minding goats, came up with a
+fascinating pocket-knife, but would not let it go out of his hand. A
+clear stream gave us drink--it was warm; bees hummed in the balmy air;
+there was an aromatic scent; clouds hung round the hills; the panorama
+below was essentially peaceful and "Christian."
+
+And then we went on in search of the far-famed Blue Pool. But though we
+reached where the river lay in still pools, blue beyond all known blues,
+we found no more--only traces of a great flood and landslips, which, I
+suspect, had washed away the lake people had talked of. We found enough
+to bring us back on other days, and to understand why the missionaries
+take up their tents and camp in the mountains in the summer.
+
+We returned by a path farther west, and passed a great olive wood full of
+black shadows. The scrub on the hillsides holds pig--there are plenty of
+them; and the boars become more or less antagonistic at certain times in
+the year. We were told tales of people who had met with terrifying
+adventures, but personally our expeditions had no such thrilling
+incidents connected with them.
+
+It would have been unwise to stay out after sunset, and that time always
+saw us back at Jinan Dolero. It is said to be the most unsafe hour; for
+men are coming into Tetuan, and if they can waylay and rob or murder a
+traveller, and make their way into the city before the gates shut, half
+an hour after sunset, and sleep there, who shall suspect them of dark
+deeds done outside in the evening? Besides, Mohammed would never have
+consented to be out late, on account of the firm belief which Moors have
+in evil spirits. There is a special race of beings, they hold, in many
+respects like men, in others like spirits, called _ginns_. Their
+principal abode is the under-world, but they come up on to the earth, and
+are fond of lurking in wells and in dark corners, even in houses. Rooms
+are often haunted by ginns: men are surrounded by ginns. Some of the
+more enlightened Moors are inclined to represent ginns as merely
+superstitious imaginations and hallucinations on the part of the
+ignorant; but probably in his heart of hearts, no Moor but has a secret
+desire to propitiate ginns, and a secret dread of falling in with them.
+
+Ginns eat and drink and propagate their species, and even form sexual
+connections with men. A man whose wife is any way odd or mysterious has
+married of course a ginn. Ginns are fond of inhabiting rivers, woods, the
+sea, ruins, springs, drains, and caves; they come out at night more than
+by day, and in certain streets no Moor will walk at night. Nor will a
+Moor sleep alone in a room. Ginns, when they appear, take the forms of
+men, goats, cats, dogs, almost any animal in fact, and also monsters.
+
+Whirlwinds, and shooting stars, and dear times, and famine, and
+epidemics, are all caused by ginns. It is the ginns who have eaten all
+the food in the city when prices are exorbitant. If a man falls down in
+the dark, it is a ginn: a sudden illness or an accident is the work of a
+ginn. There are good ginns, but bad ginns are more common. The worst of
+them all is _Iblis_ (the devil). Iblis tempts men to wickedness. All
+iniquity is the fault of Iblis.
+
+In order to keep the bad ginns at a distance, certain precautions may be
+taken. Salt and steel are antidotes. Salt in the hand when going out at
+night, salt in the pillow when sleeping, are measures which should be
+used. In building a house some people put salt and wheat and an egg into
+the ground, and kill a goat on the threshold. On sinking a well (the
+stronghold of ginns) a goat or sheep must always be killed.
+
+The best talisman against ginns is the repetition of certain passages in
+the Kor[=a]n: when passing a dark spot, say the "Ajatu-l-kursi": as for
+neglecting to say "B`ism Allah" (In the name of God) before going for a
+ride, or before doing any sort or kind of action, why, that is to have a
+ginn as your companion on your horse, and at your elbow, whatever you may
+be doing. As every place has its "owners," its good or bad ginns, on
+striking a light and going into a room Moors say, "Good-evening to you, O
+ye owners of the place." And if a tent is to be pitched, first of all the
+protection of good ginns must be solicited in that spot.
+
+Supposing a ginn gets hold of a man, and he is ill, there are certain
+doctors, magicians, among the Moors who can cast the ginn out. They
+practice a regular "ginn-cult," and celebrate annual feasts, going
+outside Tetuan to a certain spring near the Moorish cemetery, and killing
+a bullock, a black goat, a black donkey, and some chickens.
+
+The word _ginn_ originally meant "the secret," "the mysterious," "the
+hidden"; and the belief in ginns is part of the actual creed of
+Mohammedans, Arabs, and Berbers alike. But Moors have a hundred
+superstitions. They believe that all animals had a language once upon a
+time,--that the horse prays to Allah when he stretches out his leg; that
+the donkey which falls down, asks Allah that the same may happen to his
+master. They say that the donkey was once a man whom Allah changed into
+his present shape because he washed himself with milk; that the stork was
+a _kadi_, or judge, who was made a stork because he passed unjust
+sentences upon his fellow-men. It is therefore a sin to kill a stork, or
+a crow, or a toad, or a white spider, or a white chicken. A white spider
+once spun its web over a cave where Mohammed hid: his enemies saw it,
+thought therefore that no one could have recently entered the cave, and
+passed on.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, that about Death--the Great Secret--there
+are numerous superstitions. There were too many funerals in Tetuan: early
+in the afternoon one was often encountered at the Gate of the Tombs;
+death would only have taken place that morning, without much inquiry as
+to its cause, and whether by fair means or foul nobody knew and few
+cared. The procession came swinging along, stately men in flowing
+garments, white and dark, chanting the weird funeral hymn or
+"lament"--always the same mournful, monotonous cadence, rising and
+falling in the narrow streets, and at last out into the air. And then
+once through the Báb-el-M`kabar, the great company in white turn into the
+Moorish burial-ground, and arrange themselves in a long line against the
+hillside, and the chant becomes general, almost a great cry, full of the
+strange fascination of certain Eastern music, withal so unintelligible to
+Europeans.
+
+The body, loosely wrapped in white, lies on an open bier. After a sort of
+service on that rough hillside against the walls of the city, the
+procession winds on again to the shallow grave: a last chant, and the
+body goes into the earth, and is quickly covered. A scribe, or reader, is
+left behind when every one has gone: he reads pieces out of the Kor[=a]n
+over the grave, and chants. Friends, mourners perhaps, will come out on
+other days, and sit round the tomb, reading the Kor[=a]n together, and
+singing the weird, sad melodies. You may see them. But I have never seen
+a Moor give way to the slightest outward expression of grief.
+
+Mohammedans firmly believe, of course, in a Paradise to which the good
+are admitted: their conception as to this land of the hereafter, largely
+consisting of gardens and shade, adds a bridge, by which means alone
+access to Paradise is gained. The bridge (_Al Sirat_) is finer than a
+hair and sharper than a sword: the wicked invariably turn giddy and fall
+off into the pit of Hell, while the righteous negotiate it in safety.
+
+A rich man, when he is buried, is provided with a vault. The body is laid
+on its right side, its sightless eyes turned to Mecca. During the first
+night, Mohammedans hold that the soul remains in the body for the purpose
+of being interrogated by two angels before it can be admitted into
+Paradise. They appear, and the body is roused to a sitting posture and to
+temporary life. It replies to the dread examination. If this ends
+unsatisfactorily, the angels torture and beat the body, until the
+sepulchre closes in upon it. But if they approve the soul's replies, they
+bid the man sleep on in peace in the protection of God.
+
+Travellers complain of a want of "pageant" in Morocco. Ostentatious
+funerals and processions of all sorts, public demonstrations over
+trifles, the worship of gilt and glitter, and the emotional spirit called
+_loyalty_, of the present day, do not exist in El Moghreb. There is a
+spirit of simplicity about its shows; they do not breathe of money: old
+as their customs are, there is vigour in them and a certain amount of
+use, for the people have not outgrown them, do not make of them so many
+lay figures on which to display signs of their own great wealth.
+
+The Day of the Great Feast up at Court with the Sultan, that is _the
+pageant_ in all Morocco. We missed it.
+
+Connected with the bashas and kaids, who are the only great men in the
+country or in the cities, there is little or no respect or formality.
+Only on Sundays a sort of "flash in the pan" reminds the Moor that he has
+a little despot in his midst, who is more or less lord of his life; and
+the drums are heard all over the city, the soldiers turn out, for the
+basha goes to pray at _El Aoli_ (noon) in his own particular mosque
+opposite his house.
+
+On Friday, the Sabbath, the biggest _sok_ (market) in all the week, a
+little black flag was flown from the mosque-tops early in the morning to
+remind Tetuan of the holy day. The basha was inside the cool mosque,
+praying, at the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected,
+though the same event happened every Friday. No Moor is ever busy, ever
+hurries, but can always wait. At a quarter to one a bugler on the east
+side of the street, who had been sitting in the sun with his bugle, got
+up and blew a call to fall in. About sixty soldiers, who had all strolled
+off after the great man had disappeared into the mosque, sauntered up
+from different directions. If they were a ragged and indifferently
+drilled company, there was colour in the ranks at least. Every man wore a
+short scarlet flannel tunic, a pair of white cotton drawers, and a red
+fez: one drummer had a tunic of beetle-green. As they lined the street,
+short sturdy men, with hairy legs and coffee-coloured faces, their bright
+bayonets flashing in the sun, the drums thumping and the trumpeter
+running up and down the scale, the dazzling sunlight gave a trace of
+splendour to the medley of scarlet and steel against the whitewashed
+walls.
+
+Everybody waited expectant. A stout man in white came out of the mosque,
+ordered the small boys away, and saw that there was ample room for the
+basha to pass across the street and into his own house. Then the ordinary
+crowd of worshippers began to file out of the building--prayers over:
+green-blue kaftans lined with crimson silk, filmy white robes, snowy
+turbans, moved slowly along--a dignified, impressive crowd. There was a
+pause before the basha appeared, a man arranging his two yellow slippers
+side by side upon the doorstep of the mosque. Another moment and the
+great, voluminous, expected figure filled the doorway. A twist of his
+ankles and he was in his slippers, the bugle sounded, the ragged squad
+presented arms somewhat untidily, a line of servants bowed themselves low
+and respectfully before him, and the basha moved slowly across the
+street.
+
+Leading his own troops, dispensing justice, an after-type of those great
+Arabs who sprang from the sands of Arabia and Africa, shook Europe, and
+flourished in Spain, a basha should be no tyrant, but a courteous
+gentleman, a noble of "The Arabian Nights." But there was no aristocratic
+trace about Asydaibdalkdar. Carrying his rosary in his hand, clothed
+entirely in white, his features bore traces of servility and sensuality,
+the result of poisoning the Arab and Berber blood with the strain from
+Central Africa. Slavery is proving fatal to the Moorish race. Unlike the
+well-bred Moor, the basha's face was deeply lined: cruelty, cunning,
+pigheadedness, all fought for the upper hand in his swarthy countenance.
+He walked in under his own gateway into a courtyard beyond: there he sat
+down in a corner upon a seat--a great figure, much like some Indian
+god--while his underlings came forward, stood in a semicircle, bowed low,
+and saluted him; followed by his soldiers, who marched in single file
+into the courtyard, round it, past their chief, and out again--this three
+times, to the sound of drums; then, headed by the officer in command,
+they trooped off to the barracks, the basha's gateway was locked, and
+Church Parade was over.
+
+[Illustration: THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY.
+
+[_To face p. 198._]
+
+For half an hour all the gates of the city had been barred and bolted,
+while prayers were going on--there being a superstition among the Moors,
+arising from an old prophecy, that on a certain morning of a
+Mohammedan Sabbath, Christians will gain possession of the cities while
+the kaids and bashas are in the mosques.
+
+Two hundred soldiers are allowed by Government to the governor of Tetuan,
+by means of which he is to maintain law and order. However, a hundred
+only were maintained, and the pay of the remaining half went into
+somebody's pocket. There was apparently little for them to do; drill was
+a thing unheard of, and they spent most of the day hanging round the
+basha's house or doing errands for him.
+
+On the feast days there was _Lab-el-Barod_--the famous "Powder Play" of
+Morocco; and then the soldiers all turned out into the _feddan_ (the
+great market-square), and showed what Lab-el-Barod meant: to me rather a
+foolish game, with but one interesting point--that it is the imitation of
+the old Arab tribal battle. To-day the Moors gallop forward, stand up in
+their saddles, fire their guns under their horses' necks, over their
+tails--all this at full gallop--throw their guns into the air and catch
+them, and last of all pull up in an incredibly short space, dragging
+their horses right on to their haunches, which evolutions are imitations
+of what their ancestors did with spear and javelin. Lab-el-Barod
+prevailed in Spain till the middle of the eighteenth century, and it is
+still played in the East with reeds. There is of course a picturesque
+element in it--white turbans, white garments streaming in the wind,
+scarlet saddles, flashing steel, hard-held horses with yards of tail, and
+above all, the lithe figures in perfect balance whatever their positions;
+but the performance is often too "ragged" to be impressive, and it
+strenuously demands flats of desert as a background.
+
+The basha would always come out and look on when there was one of these
+"field days" at Tetuan: his figure was not adapted to his participation
+therein, being perfectly in keeping with his walk in life, and that walk
+consisted in his sitting from six o'clock to ten o'clock in the morning,
+and from three o'clock to six o'clock in the afternoon, in a small open
+room off the street opposite his house, in a reclining position upon
+cushions, before him an excited group (as often as not), contradicting,
+swearing, gesticulating, abusing, all at the same moment--one of whom is
+carried off by the soldiers to be flogged, another is sent to prison, or,
+if the seekers after justice wax more troublesome than ordinary, they may
+all be thrown into prison by the heels together to calm them. At the same
+time the basha absorbs bribes, and sweeps loaves of sugar, packets of
+candles, and pounds of tea into his net. These are the ordinary bribes.
+
+When he was appointed basha, a royal letter from the Sultan was sent to
+Tetuan and read aloud in the mosque: then he entered upon his duties. He
+must needs go warily from day to day; and even then luck may desert him
+at any moment, and a summons may arrive from the Sultan--he is to go to
+Court at once. I recollect in what abject terror, one basha, who was sent
+for at a day's notice, set out upon his journey, only to find, when he
+got to Court, that he was to have a more lucrative billet and a higher
+post of honour. Many who have departed in terror, all unknowing of the
+future, have found, when they reached Fez or Morocco City, where-ever the
+Sultan might be, that their worst fears were realized. Either placed
+under arrest, tortured, imprisoned, or bastinadoed, the little wealth
+they had accumulated is extorted from them, under the pretext of there
+being arrears in taxes or other dues, which must be made good. The
+wooden jellab is used for the purpose of extorting confession in the case
+of imaginary wealth supposed to be hidden (and much often is hidden): it
+is made of wood, resembling in shape a long cloak, and placed in an
+upright position; the inside is lined with iron points, which prevent the
+body from resting against it without suffering. Inside this "jellab" the
+basha is squeezed, standing up, and he remains there on a sparse diet of
+bread and water till he divulges.
+
+Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of War were sent to the prison
+in Tetuan soon after the accession of the present Sultan; but that was
+for plotting against his life. In the common gaol, heavily chained, under
+the same roof with the herd of common prisoners, all they were allowed
+was a curtain across one corner, behind which they sat. The Prime
+Minister died there. The Minister of War is there to-day, March 1902,
+and, after over seven years' confinement, getting fat. Some members of
+the Rahamna tribe are there also. This tribe, which belongs to the far
+south, near Morocco City, about eight years ago was in a state of
+rebellion, to quell which the Sultan sent his army with orders to _eat
+them up_. Their fat lands and fine gardens were ruined; men, women, and
+children killed and taken prisoners; while six hundred of them were sent
+to the Tetuan prison, and a great number--I do not know exactly--went to
+Rabat. That was eight years ago. Sixty of them are in Tetuan prison now,
+the remnant of six hundred. There is a kaid among them who is very ill,
+dying: the eight years have done for him.
+
+Since this was written, an order has come from the Sultan for the release
+of the Rahamna tribesmen. In Rabat, unfortunately, almost all who were in
+the Kasbah prison died long ago. Its insanitary condition has earned for
+it the name of _Dar-el-Mout_ (the House of Death). But in the other
+prison there were survivors. These came out with traces of the late
+governor's butchery.
+
+For trying to send a written petition to the Sultan three years ago,
+which set forth their condition, and prayed that after five years'
+confinement they might be considered to have paid for their rebellious
+deeds, and be allowed to return to their own land for the last years of
+their lives, the late governor, Ba Hamed, gave orders that their hands
+should be mutilated. A knife was drawn across the back of the wrist,
+cutting the extensor tendons of the hand: the hand was packed with salt,
+and sewn up in wet cow-hide. When this was taken off or wore off, it was
+not recognizable as a hand.
+
+Miss Hanbury, who did her best to institute reforms in Moorish prisons,
+and succeeded in Tangier, left at her death a sum of money, out of which
+£5 came to Tetuan to be spent on their behalf. It fell into the hands of
+the lady missionaries, and they spent it in making jellabs for the
+prisoners to wear, whose garments are worse than filthy. Unfortunately £5
+was not nearly enough to clothe all; it only provided a jellab for one
+out of every three of the prisoners, and the poor wretches fought like
+dogs for them.
+
+"They will wear them in turns," the gaoler said. He and another Moor had
+superintended the distribution of them; and to their lasting disgrace,
+deaf to argument and remonstrance on the part of the missionaries, they
+each appropriated a jellab to himself, saying, "This is my share; this
+goes to me." They were of coarse material, such as neither gaoler nor
+under-gaoler would ever wear themselves: all they would do would be to
+take them into market and convert them into money.
+
+"Moors have _no_ feelings," people say, and say wrongly; but that, to a
+great extent, it is true take just one instance--the state of the
+prisons and prisoners. It was enough in the distance to "wind" the Tetuan
+prison. There remains the reflection--call it comforting if you
+like--that a people who consent to endure such filth, and misery, and
+harsh treatment, are not affected by them in the same way in which a
+highly civilized people would be affected.
+
+It is absurd to blame the Moorish Government; it is absurd to say, "The
+people are obliged to endure." No people can be forced to endure: a point
+comes beyond endurance, and they rebel, choosing death rather. The
+vigorous and progressive race endures least. Therefore on the Moors' own
+heads be the state of their prisons, the treatment of their prisoners: to
+that cursed spirit of _laissez-faire_ half the blame is due; the rest
+comes of their indifference to suffering, to bad smells and dirt and a
+sedentary existence. It is manifestly unfair to blame certain ministers
+and officials. Taking into consideration the manners and customs, hopes
+and fears, of the Moorish people, their prisons probably suit them right
+well, and they need no pity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not always easy to get provisions, except life's bare necessities,
+in Tetuan. Provision Stores, which were long out of their goods, always
+had the same answer when asked for them--"M[=a]nana" (To-morrow); and
+to-morrow never came. But it is unwise to "hustle the East": men have
+died trying to find a way of doing so. Therefore we chewed with
+philosophy the cud of the Moorish proverb:--
+
+    "_Manage with bread and butter till God brings the jam._"
+
+On the whole we fared not amiss, while our establishment, with its two
+Riffi servants, man and wife, worked well, until an occurrence took place
+which shook it to its very foundations, and left us to the end with a
+question which will never be solved.
+
+One evening, about half-past five, just as we had settled ourselves down
+after tea to read, there was an unusual stir on the stairs. A minute
+later and the door burst open. Tahara staggered in, followed by S`lam,
+who seemed very much excited and alarmed. The woman was deathly pale; her
+eyes were ringed with black. R. and I, seeing she was ill, jumped to the
+conclusion that something or other was very wrong with her, and tried to
+make her sit down, or lie down, at once, on our divan. In a confused
+scene which followed, the only words we grasped were, "Tabiba, tabiba"
+(Doctor), and S`lam, at our instigation, rushed downstairs to go off to
+Tetuan, and to bring back with him Miss Z----, one of the lady
+missionaries. Tahara was almost beside herself, apparently with terror,
+and for a few moments one was inclined to doubt her sanity. We tried
+vainly to quiet her, almost holding her on the divan; but there was
+evidently something on her mind which every moment threw her into fresh
+agitations, and--_ah! what would we not have given to have understood
+Arabic!_ for Tahara knew no French, like S`lam, and could barely say half
+a dozen words in English; her Spanish, of which she knew a few words, was
+Greek to us too.
+
+"Signorita! signorita! tabiba!" she kept repeating, wailing, and then a
+torrent of Shillah and Arabic and Spanish would follow, and we were at
+our wits' end. At last R. managed to quiet her a little, and by-and-by to
+make her try to help us to understand, by saying slowly in Arabic two or
+three words which would be intelligible to us, together with the word or
+so of English which she herself knew. Then we gathered that her one
+desire was that I should go to the tabiba's. But why? We told her that
+S`lam had gone. She burst out into fresh agonies and shrieks: "S`lam not
+go! S`lam not go!" Then she got up, and apparently wished to go
+downstairs--the last thing we thought she ought to do; but all our
+efforts to keep her still seemed rather futile; and from what she was
+trying to make us understand, there was more behind than we had an idea
+of. She went, almost ran, down into her and S`lam's bedroom, we following
+hard behind. Inside the room she tip-toed up to a recess high in the
+wall, almost out of her reach, and with difficulty lifted down a small
+bundle of rags. This she unrolled, fold after fold, before our eyes,
+while a thousand guesses as to what was coming rushed through the brain;
+the last rag came off, and a small blue bottle, about four inches high,
+lay in her hand. She held it up to the light. It was half full of a
+colourless liquid like water. We read the label--"Prussic Acid. Poison";
+and an ugly fear took the place of vague conjecture.
+
+"Who has eaten this?" R. asked in scanty Arabic.
+
+"Anna" (I), replied Tahara.
+
+The remedy of hot boiled milk rushed into both our heads at once, but
+Tahara was again beginning in a fresh agony, which was now more
+persistent than only terrified; and choking off her stream of words, we
+managed to gather, that what she wanted was to go herself with me into
+the city, at once, to Miss Z----. Now a few drops of prussic acid of
+course meant that she had not long to live, and yet there were no
+symptoms of poisoning so far as we could gather at present. She might
+have taken it in a diluted form certainly. The whole thing was possibly
+wild imagination on her part. At any rate Miss Z---- would understand
+her, and that we could not do.
+
+I hurried on my boots, questioning as to whether the woman really meant
+that S`lam had poisoned her. R. helped Tahara wind her long white woollen
+haik round her. In two minutes I was ready. Tahara slipped into her
+slippers, and, with the white shrouded figure clinging to me, in the
+fast-deepening dusk we started.
+
+It took fully twenty minutes to walk from Jinan Dolero to the house in
+the middle of the city where the lady missionaries lived and had a
+dispensary. Miss Z---- had had some medical experience, and was a clever
+woman. She understood, probably as far as any European can understand,
+the Moorish character; and it was with some confidence--possibly on the
+part of us both--that we set out. But the way seemed lengthy; I knew that
+S`lam would be there long before we could arrive: through the city there
+are at least three intricate ways by which the house is reached, and my
+heart sank as I reflected that there was every chance of Miss Z---- and
+S`lam's taking another way than our own, and thus missing us. Meanwhile,
+it was growing darker every moment. Would the city gate still be open
+when we reached it? Was it not certain to be shut when we wanted to
+return?
+
+Tahara hung on to my arm and hand. There had been rain, and we both
+slipped about in the dark, and splashed into unseen pools; she took off
+her pink slippers and carried them in one hand, and paddled along on her
+bare feet at a Moorish woman's top speed, still shaking with terror.
+Three or four times, dark as it was, she stopped and put out her tongue
+for me to look at it. It seemed very pink, and I did my utmost to
+reassure her, having disturbing visions of her collapsing altogether on
+the grass; for if she was to be understood rightly and believed, she had
+pains in her body, and breathing seemed an effort.
+
+We were crossing the cemetery now by one of the intricate paths which
+intersect it. There seemed not a soul within sight or sound. Every Moor
+would be inside his house or hut. I hoped Tahara would pull herself
+together and last as far as Miss Z----'s.
+
+She said she was _bueno_, meaning good, better, and spoke again of the
+bottle which she was carrying carefully hidden in her waistband. Then, as
+far as I could understand, she wished me to know that the poison had
+something to do with the signoritas--ourselves--and our food. This was a
+most unpleasant reflection: I devoutly hoped that R. would not begin
+dinner before I got back, and comforted myself with the assurance that it
+was unlikely, there being no one to get it ready. We had no outside man
+at that time sleeping in the house.
+
+"S`lam _no_ good; S`lam _no_ good," Tahara kept repeating. And, to tell
+the truth, our long-legged ruffian rose before my eyes as no mean
+embodiment of a stage villain. The Riffis are notoriously treacherous and
+put no value whatever on life; at the same time I knew that they made
+good and faithful servants up to a certain point, and I shrank from
+distrusting a man who had so far served us well. And yet, how much does
+one know of them? Nothing. We had had suspicions that all was not going
+smoothly with the two servants: though they had been married so lately
+there was friction between them; Tahara had been heard crying at night,
+and had looked red-eyed. It was likely, therefore, that there had been a
+quarrel.
+
+S`lam's old mother may have made mischief. She was madly jealous of
+Tahara, whom S`lam had married without letting her know. He had gone over
+to Tangier; had arranged the marriage with Tahara's brother, who was
+living at Tangier with her; had brought her off, hardly a happy or
+willing bride, for he told us that she cried the whole of the journey;
+and had sprung her upon his old mother at Tetuan. In his bachelor days
+S`lam's earnings had gone to the old woman. Now they were spent on his
+wife and himself. Therefore Maman saw nothing that was good in Tahara,
+and would have given much, no doubt, to see the last of her.
+
+Meanwhile, the city gate drew near. Tahara was moving along firmly with
+her hand in mine. The gate was still open!--that was a relief. We hurried
+through, and, seeing a group of soldiers waiting outside, I judged that
+it was just about to be shut. We were none too soon: the bars behind us
+clanged into their places. I much wished that R. was not henceforth cut
+off from all communication with me, and left outside the city entirely by
+herself: there were the two guns and revolver; after all, the house was
+no more likely to be molested on this night than on any other.
+
+[Illustration: THE FEDDAN, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 208._]
+
+The narrow streets were nearly pitch dark; shadowy figures passed us at
+first; and Tahara drew her haik all over her face, leaving only a slit
+for the eyes, and put on her slippers once more. Occasionally a little
+shop had its hard-working inmate, sewing at slippers by the light of an
+oil lamp; but for the most part all was black darkness. How long the
+intricate streets seemed! We stumbled on the rough cobbles and slid into
+the muddy gutter. Tahara's slippers again impeded her, and off they came.
+I wished devoutly I knew where Miss Z---- was, and could make straight
+for her, probably hurrying at that moment for Jinan Dolero, somewhere in
+the maze of streets and houses. We crossed the great open feddan, all
+deserted, and I strained my eyes for a glimpse of her tall figure beside
+that of S`lam's--in vain.
+
+Late as it was, children were about; they collected gradually behind us
+and followed us, nor was it easy at that time of night to drive them off.
+Tahara, though still struggling on, was leaning heavily on my arm. The
+sooner we get to the Mission House the better.
+
+Two more narrow lanes, a last winding alley, and the welcome door of the
+tabiba's--never more welcome.
+
+I called to Miss Z---- as I led Tahara into the courtyard. Her answering
+voice was all I would have prayed for at that moment. She was just
+starting with S`lam. Leading Tahara to the door, we found him on the
+threshold, with his old mother, whom he must have gone first to
+fetch--Maman, whom R. and I had ever distrusted: feeling that she was
+after no good the first time she came to the house, we had limited her
+visits.
+
+I told S`lam to stay outside. He did not seem astonished at seeing his
+wife and myself, asking not a single question of either. Miss Z---- took
+Tahara upstairs into her bedroom, and I followed, explaining that Tahara
+did not want any one else to come in. For a moment or two, after we got
+her up into the room, all her old terror seemed to return; she was unable
+to speak, and collapsed upon the floor--a ghastly colour. Briefly
+explaining to Miss Z---- that Tahara believed herself to be poisoned, we
+knelt down on the floor and examined her. There were no apparent symptoms
+of poisoning--none; she was only cold and terrified beyond words. Miss
+Z---- did her best to calm her, and laughed away her fears, hoping to get
+rid of the state of panic which her condition suggested more than any
+poisoning.
+
+The next thing to be done was to persuade Tahara to explain matters to
+Miss Z----. This might have been easy enough at Jinan Dolero with S`lam
+out of the way; but here, feeling that he and Maman were under the very
+windows, her terror was abject, and I almost gave up hope of getting a
+syllable out of her.
+
+We shut every window, we shut the door, we pulled down the blinds, to
+satisfy her; we even stopped up the ventilation-holes; and then she still
+hesitated and trembled.
+
+At last, crouched on the floor, Miss Z---- kneeling by her, Tahara, with
+her mouth at Miss Z----'s ear, murmured her tale in Arabic, while I
+wished I could understand. _S`lam had given her poison. People in the
+city had spoken against her and said evil things about her. S`lam was
+jealous. He had been very angry. They had quarrelled, and he had poisoned
+her. But he must never, never, on any account, know that she had been to
+the tabiba's to tell the tale. If S`lam suspected that Tahara knew he had
+tried to poison her, and had told us of it--well, her life was not worth
+a flus._ Even I knew that. Then in a fresh agony of terror she crouched
+on the floor. I told her to show Miss Z---- the bottle. Now to part with
+the bottle, or to run the faintest risk of S`lam's seeing it, was
+evidently a nightmare to the poor girl. If he ever found out that she had
+taken it and brought it to Miss Z---- . . .
+
+We wasted many precious moments in trying to persuade Tahara to take it
+out of her belt, where it lay concealed, and show it to Miss Z----. She
+looked at the curtains, at the door. Could S`lam possibly see? At last,
+more or less by force, I got possession of it, handed it to Miss Z----
+with one hand, and kept Tahara still on the floor with the other.
+
+The stopper of the bottle, Miss Z---- thought, had a suspicious smell,
+but she gave it as her verdict that the bottle itself contained nothing
+but water. She recognized it at once as having belonged to S`lam's late
+master, who always kept drugs in his house, and the name of whose English
+chemist was on the label.
+
+Miss Z---- poured a teaspoonful into a tumbler, and returned the bottle
+to Tahara, who was getting rabid at the delay. The teaspoonful we decided
+should be given to one of Miss Z----'s little chickens which she was
+rearing. I said I would come in the morning and hear her report.
+
+Meanwhile, Tahara had refolded and hidden the precious bottle as it was
+before, and Miss Z---- had managed more or less to reassure her,
+promising her that she was not poisoned this time, and laughing at her
+panic. The pain of which she had complained had no doubt a natural cause:
+giddiness might come on through bending over the charcoal fire cooking
+dinner, Miss Z---- told her. Now Tahara's only terror was that S`lam
+should ever find out what had happened. The bottle must be taken
+home--must be replaced exactly where it had been found.
+
+Unsatisfactory as such a course was, there was some risk in pursuing any
+other. S`lam, if he found out that his wife had betrayed him or had
+suspected him and come to us, might shoot her like a dog, in a passion,
+and be inside the borders of the Riff in a few hours. And who would blame
+him, if he gave as his reason for his whole line of conduct that his wife
+had been unfaithful to him, false though such a statement might be?
+
+A girl in Tetuan a few years ago was _suspected_ of having been seduced.
+Her father took her and her mother out to the Mussulman cemetery, within
+sight and hearing of the city--the girl was sixteen: he shot her on the
+road, and he and the mother dug a grave and buried her by the roadside.
+They went home, and no one said a word. The man still lives in Tetuan.
+
+Miss Z---- evidently shared Tahara's fears, and was anxious to allay any
+suspicions which S`lam might begin to entertain. First, however, she
+found out from Tahara that S`lam had no intention of poisoning the
+signoritas (_us_)--that was _quite_ a mistake--at least so the girl
+assured her. Then, having once more reassured Tahara about her own
+health, Miss Z---- led her downstairs; there she explained to S`lam and
+to his old mother that the girl was very nervous, that she had not felt
+well, was to take a pill that night (one had been given her), and was to
+keep quiet to-morrow, in which case she ought soon to be quite right.
+
+Miss Z---- wanted to walk out with me and to sleep at Jinan Dolero,
+evidently not liking our passing a night alone under such suspicious
+circumstances; but I was convinced there was no cause for fear, and I
+think we both knew that the less we made of what had happened the better;
+so, borrowing a lantern, I started back for Jinan Dolero, Tahara clinging
+to my arm, S`lam lighting the way, and the old mother following.
+
+Arrived at the city gate, it was shut. I had a strange wait alone with
+Tahara and Maman, while S`lam fetched a soldier to unbar the gate. The
+basha's leave had to be got, and the basha sent to the English
+Vice-Consul to ask if it was his will that the gate should be opened for
+a British subject. Eventually we got through, all except Maman, who said
+good-night and went home.
+
+It was a cheering sight to see at last a little light far away in the
+valley where our house lay--the only light visible. R. had left the
+curtains undrawn. In good time we reached the garden-house. I took Tahara
+straight into the bedroom, S`lam going to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
+The little bottle in its wrappings was immediately replaced in its niche,
+and Tahara ate some food which we brought her. S`lam, as usual, waited on
+us: he was oddly obsequious and deprecating in his manner, and I could
+not quite understand it.
+
+The night passed quietly. Early next morning Maman appeared, which
+neither of us liked, but she had come ostensibly to ask after Tahara, who
+had quite recovered. I walked into the city, and went to the Mission
+House to see Miss Z----. The chicken was quite as well as Tahara, and the
+liquid which at least one of them had taken was probably water. Even so,
+the mystery was not cleared up. If it was water, why did S`lam keep it
+wrapped up, and why did Tahara think it was poison? It was half empty. If
+Tahara had ever seen it full, somebody must have drunk a dose. Of course
+S`lam's old master had not left a bottle of prussic acid about, and then
+not missed it. He probably emptied the bottle and then threw it away; it
+might have had a drop or two left in it, and the bottle may have been
+filled up with water; but that was pure conjecture.
+
+The poisons Moors so easily get, and which S`lam or his mother could
+supply themselves with, are generally in a powder form. I do not know how
+they would mix with water: they are generally slow in working, sometimes
+weeks in taking effect. There was no reason why Tahara should not be
+poisoned by such a drug, and yet feel no ill effects for the present.
+Thus we argued. Poisoning in Morocco is such an every-day occurrence that
+it was a most ordinary suspicion on Tahara's part. After all, there might
+be nothing in it, but merely a fear grounded on all sorts of reasons and
+assumptions. It is only a matter of sitting down and thinking to conjure
+up plenty of fears in Morocco.
+
+Feeling that it was not pleasant to have a bottle marked "Poison" in the
+house, and not to be positive as to its contents, I resolved to empty and
+wash it out, sending the so-called "water" to an analyst at Tangier, and
+refilling the bottle with _bonâ-fide_ water before replacing it. The
+chicken test was not thoroughly satisfactory. As matters stood, Miss
+Z---- decided to come out that afternoon to our house, while S`lam should
+be sent away on an errand, in order that Tahara might be interrogated and
+the thing ended.
+
+[Illustration: CHARMING SNAKES.
+
+[_To face p. 214._]
+
+Arrived home, I found that S`lam had been dispatched to the city to
+market, and that Maman had gone with him. Alas! the little bottle had
+disappeared; it was no longer in the niche which could be seen every time
+the door was passed. Miss Z---- arrived in the afternoon. By that time
+some other occult influence had come to work in Tahara's mind, and
+directly Miss Z---- spoke to her it was evident that she was hedging. As
+long as she was terrified and had lost her head she blurted out the
+truth; but given time to think the matter over, a thousand side-issues
+weighed with her, and she was no more inclined to trust us than she would
+have been to trust a Moorish woman, who is brought up to lies, intrigue,
+and diplomacy, and fed upon such axioms as "When you have nothing else to
+tell, tell the truth." _The bottle_, she said, _had been taken away by
+S`lam and his mother. It belonged to his mother. It was poison to poison
+people in the Riff._ A little later on she said _it had nothing whatever
+to do with S`lam, and that it had only water in it--that S`lam had told
+her so. That she had never seen him put anything into her food. That he
+was "good." That she only had a bad pain last night. That she did not
+know why the bottle had been brought there._ And so on. Her one prayer
+was that the signoritas would forget all that had happened. But for days
+she would not let us: by creeping up when S`lam was out of the way and
+putting her finger on her lips, by anxious questionings and
+gesticulations, the thing was never allowed to rest. She felt, probably,
+that she was past one danger--there was no more to fear in that
+direction for the present; but that if her Riffi husband ever suspected
+she had "given him away," he would soon dispose of so troublesome an
+incubus.
+
+And so we found the matter had come to a deadlock: more we shall not
+know. It was typical of the Moors and their ways. It was, I cannot help
+thinking, rather a shady business. Taking into consideration S`lam's
+manner towards us for days after, added to those intuitions which one has
+and cannot put into words, it struck us that S`lam himself did not think
+the bottle had only water in it.
+
+Ask no questions in this strange land. Lies are the portion meted out to
+the inquirer: it is not well to know too much. "Knowledge and virtue and
+a horse's mouth should not pass through too many hands," and "If you
+question knowledge, it falls from its estate"--thus the Moors.
+
+I shall hear from Miss Z---- of Tahara's future welfare, unless she is
+moved from Tetuan. If she comes to an untimely end within the next year
+or so, our suspicions were not groundless. For the present we "forget,"
+of course. For the whole affair--
+
+    Oh no, we never mention it;
+      Its feet are never heard!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MISSIONARIES AT TETUAN--POISONING IN MOROCCO--FATIMA'S
+RECEPTION--DIVORCE--AN EXPEDITION INTO THE ANJERAS--AN EMERALD OASIS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     "_The friendship of man is like the shade of the acacia. Yet
+     while the friendship lives, it lives. When God wills it to die,
+     it dies!_" mused Dicky, with a significant smile. "Friendship
+     walks on thin ice in the East."
+
+
+THREE times a week, from ten o'clock to twelve o'clock in the morning,
+the lady missionaries opened their dispensary, which, as there was no man
+missionary in Tetuan, was in women's hands alone, Miss Banks at the head.
+Though, unfortunately, she was not an M.D. nor a qualified surgeon, the
+good which she and her staff did was incalculable. The first day on which
+the dispensary was open after Rámadhan over sixty Moors came to be
+doctored. The day I went, there were forty-four; and the two rooms--one
+for men, one for women--were as full as they would hold, while a large
+surplus stood waiting their turn outside. Most of them were of the lower
+class of Moors: the better class of women would ask Miss Banks to visit
+them in their own houses; the better class of men would not go to lady
+missionaries.
+
+The patients sat round the rooms in a circle. Miss Banks went to each in
+turn, and made a note of the case in a book. This over, she retired to an
+inner room; and, among scales, and glass measures, and drugs, and tins,
+and bottles by the score, proceeded to make up all the various medicines.
+Meanwhile, two others of the staff took up positions in the middle of
+the circles of men and women, and read the Bible to them in Arabic and
+talked to them. They seemed to listen attentively, and one or two nodded
+occasionally in agreement with what was said.
+
+Thus, though everybody was doctored and provided with medicine gratis,
+they had to sit and listen for a certain time to Christian views, _nolens
+volens_; and this is the chief opportunity which missionaries have of
+preaching to the Mohammedan world.
+
+Many of the patients who had been before brought medicine-bottles and
+ointment-boxes to be refilled. If not, the bottles had to be paid for. In
+the first instance they were given in with the medicine; but bottles are
+things of great value to the labouring Moor, and it was found that the
+people came purely for the sake of getting them--once outside the house,
+the medicine was thrown away.
+
+One woman paid for her bottle in kind--four eggs. Some of the bottles
+were absurdly small; others the reverse, for one woman appeared carrying
+a great earthenware water-pot standing three feet high.
+
+"My daughter," she said to Miss Banks, "I want medicine."
+
+"Yes, but I cannot give you medicine in such a huge pot."
+
+"My daughter, I have been three days on the road, and I want _much_
+medicine."
+
+Another woman, who looked old and decrepit, begged and prayed that a
+bottle might be given her. Miss Banks was adamant. The woman whined and
+entreated from ten till half-past eleven: "I am too poor to buy one. Look
+at me; I am ill," and so on--until at last one of the other missionaries
+begged Miss Banks to give her a bottle and send her away. Still she
+refused to break her rule. The last patient got up to go. It was twelve
+o'clock. The old woman thrust her hand into the rag round her waist,
+pulled out a bottle, and handed it to Miss Banks to be filled.
+
+The cases we saw were numerous. A mother with two little boys whose heads
+had to be examined: they were dispatched with a box of ointment (sulphur
+and oil) and a bottle of medicine. A boy with swelled glands had them
+painted. A woman had her chest painted, a man various parts of him.
+Pills, ointment, powders, etc., were distributed, with manifold
+instructions, repeated again and again, until the patient's clod-like
+brain had been penetrated and set in motion. Even then one would turn
+round at the door and say, "Then I am to eat this ointment?"
+
+A woman was given some salts wrapped in paper, to be mixed with water and
+taken the next morning fasting. She did not come again for a month, and
+she brought with her a large earthen pot half full of water and paper.
+She had mixed the salts in this with their wrapping, and had been
+drinking a mouthful daily, but felt no better.
+
+Miss Banks gave a woman in good circumstances a bottle of medicine which
+was to last her eight days, and be taken after food; also some liniment
+for external use. An urgent summons came two days later: the woman was
+dying. "I thought it did me so much good that last night I took all the
+rest, and then I drank the liniment," she said. She recovered.
+
+A man did the same with pills--was so much pleased with the effect of one
+that he devoured the rest all at once. They invariably ate the paper in
+which pills or powders were wrapped.
+
+On one occasion Miss Banks went to see a girl whom she was attending, and
+who seemed worse. The answer, when asked if she was having her medicine
+regularly, was, "Oh no! she's so ill just now. When she's a little
+better, we shall give it to her."
+
+Supposing that a patient dies, or a man who has once been a patient dies,
+the people have no hesitation in saying to the missionaries when they
+meet them in the street, "Oh! So-and-so's taken your medicine, and it's
+killed him."
+
+It is impossible to trust Moors with medicines which could damage them;
+this seriously handicaps a doctor: in extreme cases the dose must be
+administered by the doctor personally.
+
+Besides the dispensary, the missionaries had day schools for the
+children, night schools for boys, and mothers' meetings for women. Here,
+again, the mothers who attended the meetings were given the material of
+the clothes which they made for nothing; but they were obliged to sit
+down and listen to a Bible lesson first. It was one way, it was an
+opportunity, of bringing Christianity before Mohammedans.
+
+[Illustration: MOORS AT HOME.
+
+[_To face p. 222._]
+
+Thus through the meetings and the schools and the dispensary the
+missionaries knew many of the women in Tetuan, and there were few houses
+into which they had not been at one time or another. Sometimes it was
+possible to read to the people in their homes, sometimes to talk. But
+with the men they seldom came in contact. Never with an educated Moor. He
+would despise women in general, despise Christianity past words, and
+decline to argue on such a point with a man.
+
+People are apt to forget that Mohammedanism is a faith to which many
+millions of earnest and intelligent men and women have pinned their
+salvation. To talk and argue with these--it is almost a truism to say--a
+missionary must be "up" in that subject which they have at their
+finger-tips--namely, their religion. This means that he or she must have
+a complete knowledge of the Kor[=a]n; must know the traditions relating
+to Mohammed and his companions; must be able to converse about the
+divinity and the innumerable saints of Islam; must have read various
+religious treatises; and, above and beyond all, must understand to the
+smallest point the habits of the Mohammedan himself, know his life, be
+able to follow his thoughts, understand his actions, and be in sympathy
+with his recreations as well as with his work, otherwise the missionary
+treads on the Mohammedan's toes fifty times a day, and provokes
+amusement, mingled with contempt, of which resentment is born.
+
+Needless to say, few missionaries in Morocco, except at the end of their
+life's work, possess these qualifications. Only a limited number know the
+Arabic language: they speak it colloquially of course, but the immense
+difficulties, which a thorough knowledge of it entails, debar most of
+them from satisfactory study. After years upon years of hard work, an
+Arabian scholar frankly avowed to me that he had but skimmed the surface
+of the depths of the Arabic language.
+
+As far as the old idea of missionary work goes--of preaching to an
+attentive throng of Mohammedans and baptizing converts--Morocco ranks
+nowhere. The missionary who comes out to El Moghreb does incalculable
+good in curing the hereditary disease and taint with which an Eastern
+nation is rife, and many influence the surrounding people by the example
+of a good life and contact with a civilized mind: he or she is to be
+profoundly admired for the determination with which one end and one aim
+are held in view from first to last, and to the furtherance of which the
+whole of life is made subservient; and yet the shadows of disappointment
+must darken that missionary's path sometimes, unless he or she is a
+philosopher. For we met with none who could point us out a single
+convert, openly declaring himself to be one. In Tetuan, after twelve
+years' work, there was not one. Two women there were, who acknowledged to
+the missionaries, that they preferred Christianity to Mohammedanism, and
+who in private make use of Christian forms of prayer, but they would not
+"declare" their belief.
+
+It is said, and no doubt truly, that there would be many converts to
+Christianity in Morocco among the lowest class, if it were not for the
+persecution of the Government, and the strong anti-Christian feeling
+which exists amongst those in authority. The religion and the Government
+are one; the Sultan is the religious head, a direct descendant from
+Mohammed; consequently Mohammedanism is _enforced_. A woman who declared
+herself a Christian would have her children taken from her; a man would
+be flogged round the city and boycotted, if he was not killed. Thus the
+prospects of the would-be convert are not happy: all which the
+missionaries have to offer him is, on the one hand martyrdom, on the
+other a miserable line of compromise--a life, that is to say, of
+concealment and deceit towards those nearest him, for though Christian at
+heart, he must yet remain Mohammedan to the world. This latter course of
+compromise is the line which is followed, and it is the course which is
+tacitly inculcated by the missionaries. I heard of no martyrs, nor
+Christian Moors openly declared, living in Morocco at peace with mankind.
+
+There is a hitch somewhere. Christianity is in danger of being dragged in
+the dust. If it were possible for missionaries to make their doctrines
+appeal to the powerful and more enlightened class among the Moors,
+influencing the country to such an extent that it should adopt
+Christianity of its own accord, this could never be so. But it is not
+possible. In the present state of Morocco the idea is laughable. It is
+hardly to be expected that the most fanatical and conservative nation
+ever evolved, will cast its religion, like a snake its skin, at the
+bidding of a body of despised Europeans. Before such a revolution could
+take place, the character of such a nation must entirely change; the Moor
+must be broadened and given a scientific training, if he is ever to
+become of a "progressive" turn of mind, desiring other ideals than those
+of his forefathers.
+
+At the same time the missionary must be adequately equipped for the fray,
+must be a "strong man," must possess some of the qualifications of a
+leader.
+
+The first point is the all-important one: that more knowledge should be
+given to Mohammedans--scientific knowledge; that they should be fired to
+improve their own condition and that of their country, making themselves
+capable of mixing as equals with men who stand for the highest products
+of civilization the world so far knows.
+
+Then, educated and self-educating, their creed, whatever it is, will be
+the outcome of their secular training. It matters little what the belief,
+so long as the individual is free as air to adopt it or not at his own
+discretion.
+
+It would appear, then, that Morocco needs schools, colleges, and men of
+unusual calibre to deal with them. The doctor-missionaries do a vast
+amount of good; but it would seem that effort directed in fresh channels
+should meet with better results, and that so far there has been a
+tendency to "begin at the wrong end."
+
+It is easy to sit down and criticise; it is easy to map out new paths,
+the difficulties connected with which, few critics can realize. While we
+see that many of the old by-ways are tortuous and lead to error, and that
+many of them only result in waste of energy, let us at the same time not
+forget to give all honour to those who set out to dig them, for even
+"defeat, is great."
+
+One afternoon I walked round with Miss Banks, visiting patients. We
+started from the Mission House with a basket of medicines, ointment,
+thermometer, paint-brush, etc., and dived into the little, narrow,
+crowded streets of countless windowless houses. The first call we paid
+was at the house of a Moor in the capacity of "gentleman farmer": of
+course he was out. Miss Banks knocked; there was a movement on the other
+side, but no answer. She called through the keyhole, "Anna. Tabiba" (I.
+Doctor); and a discreet slave, trained by a jealous and distrustful
+master, opened at the sound of her voice. We walked into a
+three-cornered, tiled patio: the lady of the house came to meet us in a
+pink jellab, shook Miss Banks's hand and kissed her own, shook mine and
+again carried hers to her lips; then led us into a room opening on to the
+courtyard, with divans, in white, all round upon the tiled floor next the
+wall.
+
+We all three sat down cross-legged on the cushions, and our hostess
+related her symptoms to Miss Banks. She had a bad cough, and seemed glad
+to have her chest painted with iodine. She was the daughter of her
+husband's cowman; and if, according to English ideas, somewhat below him
+in rank, was no worse educated than the first lady in the land. It is odd
+that, while Moors are gentlemen born, their woman-kind, narrowed and
+degraded, are in no sense aristocratic. They will stand upstairs and
+shout "Come!" to any one who is calling upon them and waiting below.
+"Sit down," they will say imperatively: it is always the imperative. If
+they are asked to show anything, they will bring it and almost throw it
+at the visitor's head. They have no "breeding."
+
+Our hostess was thin, and not at all typical of a Moorish wife; for a
+Moor likes a waist which he can barely clasp with both arms, and women,
+when they desire to attract, fatten themselves at once. A woman who is
+engaged, is crammed with sweet fattening pills and farinaceous food.
+
+At one end of the room we sat in, was a gorgeous four-poster bed, hung
+with scarlet, and covered with embroideries, the posts painted bright
+green, and a great gilt crown on the top of all. When no furniture is
+bought except divans and a bed, all the dollars can be piled on the bed.
+We left a bottle of mixture out of the basket and a doll for the only
+child, which would be treasured, for a bunch of rags is the nearest
+Moorish approach to a doll.
+
+From this house we went on to our hostess' old home, where her father,
+the cowman, lived. The patio there was cold and bare, and seemed the
+general living-room; some wood was stacked in one corner; there was a
+well in another; there was an overpowering smell of "drains" everywhere;
+while in the third corner a poor, miserable little girl sat huddled up,
+with frightened eyes. Several families lived together in this small
+house, and no fewer than six women crowded round the girl to explain her
+symptoms to Miss Banks. It was only too apparent what was wrong, when she
+uncovered her neck. Syphilis, hereditary--a terrible evil, to be found
+all over Morocco, the result of Mohammedan customs and bad food.
+Considering that women are divorced and remarried over and over again,
+and that the conditions under which they live are so unhealthy, it is
+small wonder if disease in some form or other does not show itself.
+Examples are to be met with in almost any street--the features of the
+face obliterated, and so on.
+
+The poor child, whom Miss Banks was treating, had been married. Now that
+this disease had broken out, her husband would probably divorce her. If
+she were cured, she might marry again. Her friends had brought her all
+the way from Shesaw[=a]n to Tetuan to be cured, and a Jew doctor had
+offered to put her right for the sum of £4.
+
+"But," said her friends, "suppose she dies? What shall we get for our
+money then?"
+
+So they sent to the English tabiba, who cures for nothing.
+
+Miss Banks left ointment and medicine. Cases can be cured if the patient
+will persevere long enough with the medicine; but many of them are too
+far gone when they first come.
+
+An old man upstairs in the same house, but of a different family, claimed
+her attention next. Three weeks ago he was perfectly well. He went to a
+café one evening, drank a cup of coffee, came home, was seized with pain,
+and became completely paralyzed. It pointed to poison, but he had no
+enemies.
+
+Mercury is very largely used as a poison, and is given in different
+forms. Little is thought of ending life by this means, unless there
+happen to be influential relations who object to their relatives being in
+this summary manner "put out of the way."
+
+There is a girl now in Tetuan who keeps a shop. Her father and mother
+kept it before her, but she said that they were both so old, had lived so
+long, and had had their day, that she felt something must be done to
+secure her own turn, and that speedily. Therefore she gave them both some
+poison. There was a funeral. She took over the shop.
+
+Another woman was anxious to poison her husband because he was about to
+take a second wife. She prepared him the dish with the poisoned pieces.
+Suddenly she saw her child run into the house and join his father at the
+meal. Careless of betraying herself, she rushed to her Benjamin with
+cries of alarm,--too late; he had eaten, and he succumbed that night. The
+husband died at the end of a year from the effects of the same poison.
+Some of the drugs which Moors use take even longer to destroy life, but
+it is only a matter of time. The woman was put in prison, but she came
+out after twelve months, and another man has taken her to wife.
+
+Some missionary and poisoning experiences are amusing. People often came
+and asked for poison to administer to somebody who happened to annoy
+them.
+
+A slave appeared once and said, "I have a mistress: she's very old, isn't
+she?"
+
+"Yes," said the missionary.
+
+"She doesn't enjoy life now much, does she?"
+
+"No, I don't think she does much."
+
+"Would she enjoy being with the Lord much more than living on like this?"
+
+"Yes," said the missionary, "she would be far happier with the Lord."
+
+"Then," said the slave, "give me some poison to send her to Him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, Miss Banks looked at her patient, who might or might not have
+had his life tampered with; but there was little she could do then. We
+left that house and walked on into the poorest part of the city, down a
+little alley which was hard to find, in search of a certain door which
+was still harder. After two or three mistakes, we hit upon the right one,
+and knocked at an old, battered, rat-eaten entrance falling to pieces.
+
+"Anna. Tabiba," called Miss Banks; and the door was opened by a
+countryman, a Riffi, rough-looking, only a coarse jellab over him, but
+with a kind expression on his face. The space inside was something like a
+chicken-pen. We stooped under a very low doorway in the farther wall, and
+went into a little shed-like lean-to, where the inhabitants evidently
+lived entirely. A boy of thirteen was lying on the ground, covered with a
+piece of sacking. The father squatted down beside him. Two girls were
+grinding beans close to them in a hand-mill--the old mill of . . . "the
+one shall be taken, and the other left."
+
+Miss Banks and I seated ourselves on a wooden rail, which was part of a
+manger or a sheep-pen. These Riffis had been forced by famine to abandon
+their home and come down into Tetuan, where at first they had lived in a
+cave, on roots principally. The father would go out and hoe when he could
+get work--every land-owner has hoeing to be done; but lately he had had
+fever. The boy had an abscess, and could not move. In spite of it he
+smiled cheerfully, and was delighted with a new red jellab which Miss
+Banks brought him. Poor little chap! he did not live to wear it. I gave
+him a trifle to buy food. Beyond the dried beans in course of being
+ground, and half a lemon, there was no sign of anything to eat. Beans and
+lemons to fight an abscess!
+
+[Illustration: STRAW FOR SALE.
+
+[_To face p. 230._]
+
+After Miss Banks had attended to the child, we took our way to the house
+of a Moorish doctor, who had been unable to cure himself, and had sent
+in desperation for his European rival.
+
+He was lying on a divan upstairs, himself the colour of oatmeal porridge,
+with his wife attending to him; and he had a terrible sore on his thigh.
+This was duly attended to. The long fast of Rámadhan might partly account
+for his state of health. In spite of his faith in Miss Banks, which he
+would sooner have died than acknowledged, he had unbounded confidence in
+his own skill as a doctor.
+
+We asked him if he could read.
+
+"Read? No. Why should he read? What was the use of reading? The thing you
+wanted to do was to _remember_. Now he, if he was doctoring any one, he
+would try first this herb and then that. This herb no good. Try another.
+Another no good. Another no good. He might try twelve herbs, and all no
+good. And the thirteenth herb would be good. And then he would _remember_
+that herb. Why! all his doctoring he taught himself . . ."
+
+A rough sort of doctoring it is too, consisting of two remedies--a
+violent purge, or else burning with a hot iron. Every sore place is
+burnt; and for all sorts of illnesses, in cases of rheumatism, etc.,
+etc., the patient is scored, perhaps all over his chest or back--"fired"
+like a horse. Sores are always cauterized. Bullets are never extracted.
+Wounds are bound up with earth and rags. A serious gunshot wound, means
+death. Certainly there is a wide field for women doctors in Morocco.
+
+From this house we went on to one where the father, mother, and children
+were all having a meal--a poverty-stricken family again, where one of the
+children was wasting away with fever. The rest of the party were sitting
+round an earthenware pan, which was full of mallow leaves, stewed in
+native oil, with red pepper and garlic in huge quantities. They were
+dipping in their fingers, fishing out the greasy mallow and garlic, and
+laying it on their brown native bread and eating it. They insisted upon
+our joining them. It is no excuse to say "I have dined lately," for a
+Moor eats at any time, when there happens to be food. Miss Banks tasted
+the stew with a heroism worthy the noblest end.
+
+We went on to the house of a man who has one of the best shops in Tetuan.
+It was consequently comfortable, and delightfully fresh-looking. The
+master of the house was in bed with fever--that is to say, we found him
+reclining on a divan on the floor, beside a gorgeous bed, with a
+lily-white turban fresh from the wash-tub wound round his head. We sat
+down on the divan running round the room, and Miss Banks was glad to hear
+that her patient had at last consented to take quinine. He was
+worn-looking, with small black beard and moustache. Moors, like every
+effete people, are unable to grow a great quantity of hair on their
+faces.
+
+After visiting her cases Miss Banks suggested something of a change, and
+we turned into the best part of Tetuan, to pay a call upon one of the
+first families in Morocco, the head of which is now dead. B---- was
+probably the most wealthy and enlightened Moor in the city: he was once
+employed by Government, and he made his little pile; but he had never
+married--or, rather, his only marriage had ended in a speedy divorce; and
+most of his life he had been able to afford to keep a galaxy of slaves,
+whom he had freed in time, and whose offspring represent the family
+to-day.
+
+The name of the chief of his slaves, and the mistress of the dead man's
+house at the present moment, is Fatima. Fatima has a history. B----
+possessed twenty white slaves: they were chiefly stolen from villages in
+the south, and they passed into his hands; but his treasures were two
+beautiful Circassian women from Turkey, one of whom he sent to the late
+Sultan (who is the mother of the present Sultan), the other he kept for
+himself--Fatima. Fatima early showed a disposition far from humble, and
+B---- spoilt her. At last he made her head of his house and all his
+slaves. One day she caused two of these women to be beaten in such a
+manner that one of them died. The other vowed revenge; went to B----, and
+told him that she had seen Fatima looking through a window at a man in
+the garden below. Considering that a woman of superior class must not
+look out of her window, though the prospect be an arid yard, the
+statement was calculated to rouse B----. Brought up on such proverbs as
+"When the bee hums and the buttermilk ferments, place, O brother, a
+halter on thy little daughter," and to consider women "the nearest roads
+to hell," B----took prompt and drastic measures. He chained Fatima up to
+a pillar for three months, and fed her on bread and water. Her eldest
+daughter was to be married. Fatima was released and told she might attend
+the wedding, but only as the equal of the lowest slave, and dressed as
+such. She said that she had been accustomed to mixing with the first-born
+of Tetuan as an equal, and she would go among them as nothing else. To
+break Fatima's pride, B---- married a wife; but the wiles of his old
+favourite were too strong for him, and he gave her presents, including a
+gold bracelet. The indignant wife, furious at her husband's attentions to
+a mere slave, got a divorce and left B----; whereupon he fell into the
+arms of Fatima, and she graciously consented to become once more head of
+his house. She is now the proudest woman in Tetuan, inclined to look upon
+the missionaries and European women in general as dust under her feet.
+Her ignorance is unbounded. "India!" she said to Miss Hubbard. "You say
+all India belongs to you English. You may well wish it did. You've only
+got one port."
+
+Meanwhile, we had reached the door of this famous lady's house, and were
+clanging the great knocker. It was superior to any door we had "wakened"
+that afternoon--made of pale, cinnamon-coloured wood, and immensely wide,
+carved up above and brightened with great fork-like hinges and nail-heads
+as large as pennies. A vastly stout slave, smart in proportion, opened
+the door, and said something in Arabic to Miss Banks, which, translated,
+intimated that a large tea party was going on within. She led us along
+far-reaching, wide passages, which at length opened out into an extensive
+patio, paved with great black and white marble tiles, like a giant
+chess-board. A double row of finely tiled pillars supported the roof, and
+a fountain shot up water in the centre of all. The style of the building
+suggested that the dead man had known how to spend some of his money, and
+to make for himself a place refined and romantic rather than gorgeous.
+
+Stepping down the cool aisles between the pillars, the slave took us
+towards a room opening out of the patio; and such a room!--hung with
+embroideries, surrounded with luxurious divans worked in scarlet and
+white, carpeted with deep-piled carpets, and yet no more than a mere
+setting for the fantastic butterfly world which seemed let loose inside.
+Tetuan's most aristocratic women, scented favourites of Moorish society,
+kept in lavender and reared on sugar and orange-flower water, are not
+among those things which one easily forgets. About twelve of them or
+more--enough to dazzle and not bewilder, furnish to perfection yet avoid
+a crush--were half reclining on the divans round the room. Fatima was on
+our immediate left as we entered; a holy Shar[=i]fa on the right; the
+daughter of another Shar[=i]f sat beyond her. The circle was one of
+Sanctity and Rank.
+
+We shook hands with the mistress of the house, and were motioned to take
+our seats on the divan exactly opposite her.
+
+Fatima was no disappointment. She suggested much, and more than fulfilled
+the promise of her history. She was pale and dark, with a little head
+like a snake's, thin sarcastic lips, and eyes full of smouldering devil.
+Two silver trays stood in front of her, covered with fragile porcelain
+cups and thin gilded cut-glass, with a silver-topped box full of fragrant
+mint, another quaint box containing fine green tea, an enormous cut-glass
+sugar-basin heaped with small rocks of white sugar, two silver embossed
+and steaming teapots, some scent-sprinklers and incense-burners of
+silver. At her elbow, on the floor, was the largest silver urn I ever
+saw, capable of supplying half a dozen school feasts; down the room, in a
+line, upon the carpets, stood round baskets, three feet in diameter,
+filled with palest cream-coloured bracelet-shaped loaves of bread, made
+of too fine and white a flour and too perfectly baked for any but the
+upper ten to indulge in. The centre basket contained perhaps fifty
+cakes--nothing on a small scale here--made of thin flaked pastry, iced
+over with sugar, filled with a confectionery of almonds, and quinces, and
+raisins, and orange-flower water, and an essence, one drop of which cost
+five shillings. These take a day to make, and are only met with in an
+elaborate _ménage_. Other tarts, lavishly coated with a snow of white
+sugar, contained jams and nuts and all the sweet things dear to the
+Moorish heart.
+
+The movements of Fatima's small hands among the cups, covered with rings,
+each polished nail just touched with a half-moon of dark red henna, were
+born of _dolce far niente_, backed by a long line famous for their
+beauty: her restless black eyes alternately gleamed with cruelty and
+cunning; flashed with passion; grew sad as it is given to few eyes to
+grow.
+
+Many embroidered buttons, as edgings in front, betokened garment within
+garment, which she wore, all of them at last confined by a broad, richly
+worked belt; her kaftan was of lemon-yellow, shining with silver
+borderings; the muslin "overall" was the thinnest atmosphere of white;
+there were many necklaces, chiefly pearl, round her neck, and, most
+characteristic of all, a tiny yellow silk handkerchief was knotted once
+round her throat; on her black head, colour ran riot in silks of all
+shades, tied and twisted and arranged as only a Moorish hand knows; her
+feet were wrapped in a soft pale yellow shawl, embroidered. She did not
+get up when we came in.
+
+Multiply Fatima twelve times, in colours more opulent and more bizarre
+than her own, instead of her lithe figure, picture stone upon stone of
+sleek flesh, and some idea of the epicureanism of the scene is arrived
+at. Sitting on each side of us were two of the fattest women I have ever
+seen.
+
+[Illustration: A GROUP IN THE FEDDAN, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 236._]
+
+Meanwhile, Fatima signed to a slave to carry across the cups of tea which
+she had poured out, together with thin china plates; then we were
+supplied with the fine sweet bread. Miss Banks explained that I was not a
+_tabiba_ (doctor). Fatima told her I was to ask about anything which I
+did not understand, and with interpretations we carried on trifling
+conversation. It was like stepping into "The Arabian Nights" come to
+life. These women seldom go out of doors, or, if they do, nothing is to
+be seen of them except a figure in an immense creamy woollen haik from
+top to toe, heavily veiled: possibly a pair of haunting eyes and
+beautiful slippers suggest an attractive "beyond." But here were we "i'
+the centre of the labyrinth," where mere men can never go; in a maze of
+hot imperious colour; in a world of ivory-tinted faces, flowing lines,
+and stately gestures; among _abandon_ such as one little dreams of in a
+Mohammedan double-locked world.
+
+They lie at the ends of the pole, the women of Morocco: the countrywomen,
+beasts of burden; the wives of the rich, sumptuously fed and caparisoned
+lap-dogs.
+
+Amidst such a show of silk and embroidery no English-woman, in the
+utilitarian coat and skirt best fitted for travel, could feel other than
+out of place, nor resist the weak desire that the imperious Fatima and
+her circle should have another impression of our countrywomen made upon
+their ignorant minds than that given by short skirts and nailed
+boots--say, Covent Garden one night when the opera has drawn all the
+diamonds in town.
+
+I remember the Moorish French Consul, in the Tetuan post-office, saw R.
+writing a card in there once.
+
+"What a great thing it is," he said to Mr. Bewicke, "that your women can
+write and can arrange things for themselves. I go away; my wife cannot
+write to me. Our women are just like animals."
+
+As far as I could gather, a Moorish woman does not think for herself
+until she is divorced. Her father, mother, or brother marries her to
+whomsoever he or she chooses; but when once she is divorced, she is free
+to marry after her own heart, and no one can interfere with her. Divorce
+was of course allowed by Mohammed. It is so common that no wife is
+surprised at being divorced a year after marriage, or six months, even a
+week. If she does not get up in time in the morning, her husband can
+divorce her, or if she becomes ill, or for a hundred petty reasons.
+Therefore upon the marriage-lines is always entered the sum of money
+which a wife brings her husband; a poor woman will bring from thirty
+shillings to three pounds, a rich woman from a hundred to three hundred
+pounds; and whatever the sum be, the husband must refund it to the wife
+when he divorces her. The actual getting of the divorce is simplicity
+itself. Man and wife go before the deputy of the governor of the city or
+province and state their case. The deputy will probably say, "Very well.
+Pay the woman such-and-such a sum mentioned in the agreement, and go your
+several ways."
+
+A man, however, often changes his mind, and marries the woman whom he has
+divorced; and perhaps they are divorced a second time and married a third
+time. But he may not marry her the third time unless she has meanwhile
+been married by another man and divorced from him.
+
+Many of the Moorish husbands leave their wives--the Riffis, for instance,
+going back into the Riff. If they are away over a year and send no money
+to the wife, she can claim a divorce: going before the deputy with a
+witness or two, it is soon arranged; she then probably marries a second
+husband. Were it not for this arrangement, Tetuan would be full of
+deserted wives.
+
+It must be most difficult to try to "preach" either to the men or women.
+The men would not have it. I knew one missionary who used to sit in their
+shops and talk to them, but directly he veered round within a point of
+"religion" that talk was over. The women were less difficult in that
+respect; they would discuss the point: one woman I heard say something as
+follows:--
+
+"Why should I turn a Christian? See--I may steal, I may lie, I may commit
+murder; my sins may reach as high as from earth to heaven, and at the day
+of my death _God is merciful_. He will forgive me all, because I witness
+to Mohammed as his Prophet. Your religion is a narrow little religion;
+mine covers everything. You go home and go away by yourself and _witness
+to Mohammed_ as his Prophet, and all your sins will be forgiven."
+
+It is a sign of their being low down in the intellectual scale when the
+members of society talk for the most part of "persons," just as it is a
+sign of a higher tone when the conversation runs chiefly upon "ideas."
+Among the women at Fatima's tea party there was no sort or kind of
+exchange of thought of any description, nor was there general
+conversation. They talked in a desultory way to each other about their
+children, their clothes, their food, their money, and each
+other--sometimes they included Miss Banks, but never touched an
+interesting point.
+
+If a woman unable to read or write only meets women also unable to read
+or write, and knows but one man, her husband, who feeds her and values
+her much like a tame doe-rabbit, it is unreasonable to expect to find in
+her much intelligence and energy. Wives, when asked if they did not wish
+to do more, would not like to read or write or work, only laughed
+derisively. The idea was absurd: they could not understand any one
+wishing to exert herself in a novel and unnecessary way.
+
+On my left, still sat the stoutest woman in the room--the holy
+Shar[=i]fa. She lost her snuff-box, and roused herself to hunt all over
+her enormous person for it--a work of time; but a friend had borrowed it,
+and it was passed back to her. She sat on the divan, cross-legged like
+some gigantic idol of ancient Egypt, many yards in circumference at the
+base, her fat little hands folded across the embroideries and gold-worked
+buttons and worked edges of the many gorgeous waistcoats and kaftans,
+which seemed piled one on top of each other on her immense frame. Her
+head, the size of two footballs rolled into one, was swathed in violet
+and scarlet silk: straight whiskers of hair, dyed jet-black, were combed
+a few inches down each cheek, and then cut short. The whole "idol" sat
+very still, speaking but rarely, and then in a harsh croak like some
+oracular and forbidding bird: "it" had the appearance of being
+comfortably gorged.
+
+Meanwhile, Fatima signed or murmured to the slaves, and the sweetmeats
+were carried round, and the fragile cups refilled; and there went up a
+great aroma of sweet mint tea.
+
+Through the wide doorway the patio and its colonnades of many pillars lay
+cool and shaded; cages of singing canary-birds hung from the ceiling; the
+fountain rippled in the middle; a tall girl in green and white sauntered
+across in her slippered feet, carrying a tray; a gaily dressed slave
+passed silently; and the whole thing might have been a dream. . . .
+
+Past the patio lay the courtyard, all one large garden, with tiled walks
+and red-gold oranges and heavy foliage set against the blue sky. Broad
+date-palms, mimosa, and climbing creepers sometimes shook in a breath of
+wind. The clear tanks, full of ever-running water and lined with
+maiden-hair fern, moved with gold-fish, which matched the oranges; a pet
+monkey played amongst the lemons on a lemon-tree; a green parrot nodded
+to us from a bower of pink almond blossom.
+
+We wandered round the sleepy, silent courtyard, and in and out the
+chequered greenery, hot with windless, sun-filled air, back through the
+black-and-white courts, until at last the great outside door shut upon
+Fatima, her tea party, and the eternal mysticism of the East:--we were
+without the gates of Paradise, and in an atmosphere of rude realism once
+more.
+
+Soon after that afternoon of many calls with Miss Banks, a day up in the
+Anjera Hills, to the north of Tetuan, gave some idea of the strip of
+country which lay between us, and the sea, and Gibraltar. This country
+possessed the fascination of being little known. No one troubled to go up
+there, except its own wild inhabitants. Our own Consul had never been.
+The missionaries had not climbed so high, nor so far, this side the
+river.
+
+Now the Tetuan _sok_ (market) is greatly dependent upon the country
+people belonging to the Beni Salam tribe, who live up in the Anjeras; and
+from the flat white roof of our garden-house we had watched through a
+pair of glasses on market mornings, strings of women, winding by a
+precipitous path down the hillside, which is abrupt and mountainous,
+themselves dropping as it were from an upper world. They scrambled slowly
+down, one after the other, descending many hundreds upon hundreds of
+feet; then filed slantwise over the slopes, right into the rocky
+Mussulman cemetery, across that, and thence into the city by the
+Báb-el-M`kabar.
+
+The relations of these tribesmen between themselves and the city are more
+or less friendly, and it is comparatively safe to wander about the
+mountains as long as the "enemy," as the Moors call the sun, has not set.
+We were most anxious to visit the country whence these market-goers came,
+appearing first upon the crest-line, then against the rough hillside,
+like a string of industrious white ants crawling down the wall of a
+house; therefore we engaged a youth with a downy beard and hairy legs and
+the big grey donkey--the most active of his race--and set off one morning
+at half-past nine, prepared to climb into a Top World, like Jack of the
+Beanstalk, by means of a path which was less smooth "going" than his
+supernatural ladder.
+
+There was a strong north-west wind, and it was hardly an occasion for
+"aloft"; but there was no haze; the clouds were scudding away to South
+Australia; it was a day for a view.
+
+Taking the broken road towards the city, we branched off to the right,
+crossed a stream, and began the ascent. No one could ride at this point.
+R. tried a tow by means of the donkey's tail, and met with a
+remonstrating kick. Certainly, if this could be called "one of the
+Sultan's highways," it was an odd specimen. We scrambled up the east side
+of the range of hills, sometimes by a succession of rocky staircases,
+sometimes sliding (backwards chiefly) on loose shale: how the donkey
+contrived to look after its four feet must remain a problem, but the
+Morocco ass is brought up from birth upon stony ground, with naïve and
+simple notions upon the subject of paths.
+
+It was a long time before our heads showed up above the top of Jack's
+Beanstalk (so to speak), and we met with a gale, at which the donkey's
+hair stood on end, and which occupied all our attention for a minute. We
+had seen Tetuan disappear far below us behind the elbow of a hill; the
+topmost point of the Gib. Rock had loomed into sight; Ceuta looked as if
+one might have thrown a stone upon it; and the Riff Mountains were next
+door, clear and blue. We had passed some red fritillaries and the
+bee-orchid, a little wild mauve crocus, and some magnificent clumps of
+white heath, which smelt of almonds and honey; had seen several pairs of
+stone-chats with their white collars; had sat down for many "breathers";
+and at last were at the top, in a wind which flattened every
+palmetto-bush plumb against the hillside. It was a breezy spot for riding
+(and here one _could_ ride, for the grey donkey was on _terra firma_ once
+more); therefore we cut short a survey of the country below us, hurried
+off the crest-line, and followed the path which led straight away into
+the heart of the Anjera country. It was a good track when once the top
+had been reached, exactly the right width for one individual, and used by
+thirty or forty every market day--three times a week. At the time when
+the cave-men lived in England, _single file_ was a standing principle in
+Morocco, and the practice still holds good.
+
+The path was beaten hard, by bare feet, in the rich dark red soil, and
+had taken a shiny polish; the wind was held off us by boulders and small
+hillocks; we got along at a steady pace. On each side mountains and only
+mountains were to be seen, peak beyond peak, slope after slope, covered
+with short wind-tossed scrub and sharp, hard rock, except at any great
+height or in the prevailing wind; there ledge after ledge lay peeled by
+the weather, blistering in the sun, the scarified faces of the cliffs
+worn at the summits into pinnacles of gaunt stone. No mark of humanity,
+except the single red path, suggested that civilization ever troubled
+these heights, and there was hardly anything worth the notice of a goat
+in the shape of fodder.
+
+The path rose and fell, skirting now this shoulder and now a gully, but
+keeping for the most part on high ground, here and there winding upwards
+across the sharp spine of a ridge, and, by way of some awkward staircase,
+once more landing us on the level. More often than not, the donkey had
+only himself to carry; the boy probably thought us mad, but there was no
+understanding what the other would fain have said. Except for the
+wind--and even that dropped--a great silence lay on the proud heights;
+they defied man to interfere with their grizzled _débris_: the birds had
+forgotten to sing: all around was that certain awed solemnity, always to
+be found, in the companionship of the everlasting hills. But the air was
+champagne; the heather was mad in the breeze; the sky where it met the
+rocks, an intoxicating blue. And how the clouds "travelled"! Though, in
+spite of that, the hills never spoke: like the Sphinx, whose repose no
+dance of lizards nor flashes of sunlight can disturb, they are "too great
+to appease, too high to appal, too far to call." Occasionally a dip in
+the hollow back of a mountain showed the sea beyond: there are few seas
+bluer than the blue Mediterranean can be, and this was one of its days.
+
+The polished track led us on: still no sign of a village, nor any
+evidences of civilization. At last from the top of a ridge we looked over
+and down into a calm green oasis, "a lodge in some vast wilderness,"
+secluded, sheltered, where it would have been good to pitch a tent and
+camp for many moons. We swung along downwards, dropped under the lee of
+the hill, and our path skirted the fringe of the green oasis. It was not
+many acres in extent; it was covered with short scant grass; it would
+have made an ideal polo-ground.
+
+Water lay over a small corner of it, and beyond a shadow of doubt it had
+once been the bottom of a lake; indeed, the Beni Salam tribe believe that
+water still lies underneath the turf. Here the first sign of humanity
+showed itself: two goatherds drove their flock down to the water, and one
+of them carried in the hood of his brown jellab a few hours' old kid;
+they soon passed on and disappeared among the boulders and heath.
+
+The long level lines of the green oasis were broken at the edge by
+diminutive bones of rock protruding through the grass. Sunk in the hollow
+of the hills, there was little or no wind; the sun glowed indolently down
+on the green lawn, tempting us to stay; but the foot-prints in the red
+soil pointed forward, and we turned our backs upon the flat stretches of
+sunny turf and left the waveless tarn behind.
+
+No more emerald oasis, but grey-green scrub and stones on the
+mountain-sides: we were up again in a stern and desolate defile, waste
+beyond waste strewn with rocks. The distances were oddly deceptive in the
+rare, clear air: a saddle between two peaks looked miles away--we were
+upon it in half an hour; again, a turret of rock apparently within a
+stone's-throw was a weary climb. And still the red trail snaked on before
+us. Even the big grey donkey began to lose its interest and to require
+"encouragement" from the Moorish boy.
+
+We speculated as to whether we should ever reach a village before it was
+time to make tracks for the world below, while the sun was well up. At
+last, in front of us, a long low saddle intervened, with rising ground
+on each side: this we determined to scale, once mounted on top see all
+there was to be seen, and go no farther. And toil brought its unexpected
+and exceeding great reward. Standing on the crest-line, shading our eyes
+with our hands, mountain beyond mountain lay in the distance--the
+Anjeras, the hills of Spain, the Mediterranean, Gibraltar; while in the
+foreground clustered four villages, brown mud-coloured huts upon the
+brownish slopes, and only picked out of their surroundings by means of
+the one little whitewashed spot of a mosque. Below us a river had carved
+a gorge in the red soil and tumbled over worn boulders beside the nearest
+village, but it was more or less hidden from sight.
+
+Much as we wanted to go on, it was impossible. First, there was not time.
+Secondly, the donkey would have had as much as was good for him by the
+time he got back. Therefore we chose a warm, sheltered spot, backed by
+sun-baked rocks and scented with cropped tussocks of yellow gorse; and
+there we lunched, the boy and donkey slipping out of sight, and leaving
+us alone, with the hills, and the sound of the wind.
+
+It must be a long tramp into Tetuan, even for hill people born to the
+life of the open road,--four hours into the city with heavy loads of
+charcoal, faggots, chickens, eggs, butter, vegetables; four hours back
+again with oil, sugar, salt, tea, and every sort of necessary which is
+not home grown. And three times a week. And only women. We met a string
+of them as we set our faces homewards, like "toiling cattle straining
+across a thousand hills"; but they all had a word to say and a smile, as
+they sloped along at a steady swing.
+
+The sun was setting when we left the good upper world of silence and the
+winds; by-and-by the crest-line intervened between ourselves and the
+strong serene heights--they were seen no more; and we came "hand over
+hand down the Beanstalk" which led to the white city below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WE LEAVE TETUAN--A WET NIGHT UNDER THE STARS--S`LAM DESERTS US--WE SAIL
+FOR MOGADOR--PALM-TREE HOUSE--SUS AND WADNOON COUNTRIES--THE SAHARA--THE
+ATLAS MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+    The stream of life runs, ah! so swiftly by,
+    A gleaming race 'twixt bank and bank--we fly,
+    Faces alight and little trailing songs,
+    Then plunge into the gulf, and so good-bye.
+
+
+ABOUT the month of April, Morocco takes its head from under its wing; the
+bad weather turns its back on the country; the tracks dry up and are fit
+for travellers to take to once more. The time had come for the sake of
+which we had borne with the rains, and we longed to be off, to know
+something more of this strange and fascinating land.
+
+May is a better month than April, up in the north, for travelling; April
+is often dashed with the tail-end of the rains; but our desire was to go
+down into the far south, and May and June in the south are both too hot
+to enjoy camping out. April is quite warm enough; indeed, Morocco City
+"stokes up" early in April; therefore we made it the middle of March when
+we said good-bye to Jinan Dolero and set our faces Tangier-wards, there
+to await some steamer which should take us down the coast. The odds and
+ends which had furnished us at Tetuan and were not wanted had to be
+sold--a very simple matter. The day before we left our white
+garden-house, S`lam and some _mesdames_, as in his best French he always
+spoke to us of his ragged countrywomen, carried them into the sok, as
+they were, on their backs; and they were sold to the highest bidder
+among the market-goers.
+
+To transport ourselves and our belongings over to Tangier, a Jew
+muleteer was requisitioned, who provided men and mules for the two
+days' journey. After long consultations we decided to take S`lam with
+us on our travels in the capacity of personal servant and head
+cook--partly because he could cook, partly because, in spite of the
+Tahara-and-bottle-of-water-or-poison episode, we liked him, and he had
+been a good servant according to his lights. After all, he was
+probably as trustworthy, and more so, than any man we could pick up in
+a hurry down south--at least, everybody warned us that they were a set
+of rascals there, of whom we were to beware. Finally, he was used to
+us and we were used to him. So S`lam set out with our cavalcade, and
+we proposed to keep him while we were at Tangier, take him by boat to
+Mogador, and after our march was over return him to Tetuan. But, while
+"man proposes----"
+
+I was sorry for Tahara. She was left behind with her old enemy--S`lam's
+mother. He left the mother money, but Tahara not one flus. He said, too,
+that when he came back from Morocco City he should go straight off to the
+Riff and get work there; and Tahara would be left again. Such is the
+custom of the country: the husband may go off for a year, at intervals
+returning to his wife, whom he leaves generally under some sort of
+supervision. So poor little Tahara, who had no voice in her marriage, but
+had wept all the way to Tetuan under the escort of her bridegroom and
+brother, was left penniless in the old mother's clutches. She had no
+relatives near to help her, otherwise I have no doubt that she would have
+got a divorce. We could only ask Z---- to keep an eye on her, for
+interference in the Moorish domestic hearth on the part of a European
+would be a fool's work indeed.
+
+It was March 19 when we began to wander once more, having handed the keys
+of Jinan Dolero back to its owner and cleared out the little white house.
+Unfortunately we pitched on the _Aid-el-Kebeer_ (the Great Feast),
+starting the very day before it was due; and, in consequence of the
+Mohammedan-World being upside-down with joyful anticipation, could get no
+good mules, nor induce any one but a Jew to leave Tetuan at such a time.
+S`lam looked forward to feasting with his brother at Tangier, and started
+off with a good grace. A more serious miss than either Moorish servants
+or reliable mounts was perhaps a tent. There was none to be had in Tetuan
+at just that time, and a night had to be passed upon the way. However,
+there was no help for it: we set off as we were, and arrived towards
+sunset at the half-way caravanserai, the little white-walled fondâk on
+the top of the hills, where we passed such a windy night, on our way over
+from Tangier in December, under canvas.
+
+It was a good ride, and our mules travelled badly: saddles and bridles
+were tumbling to pieces too. For the last mile or so we both walked and
+sent the baggage on ahead. From a bend round the crest of a hill we said
+farewell to an uneven white streak set at the foot of the distant
+hills--Tetuan--and saw it no more. The fondâk was in front of us, four
+lonely walls exposed to every change of weather, and no life stirring
+outside. We walked through the arched gateway into the square, which is
+surrounded with Norman arches, and found a company of mules and donkeys,
+of owners and drivers, taking shelter for the night: our own baggage
+animals were already hobbled in a line in front of the arches, under
+which the muleteers sit, and drink, and smoke, and sleep the hours away,
+till the first streak of dawn.
+
+We scrambled up an uneven stone staircase at the corner of the square,
+and investigated the two little rooms at the disposal of travellers. One
+look: there were suggestions of the insect world in both. We recrossed
+the thresholds and sought further: the flat white roof above the arches
+round the square, if windswept, was too airy to be anything but fresh and
+wholesome,--it should meet all our demands. Here then, out in the open,
+under the sky, our two beds were arranged, in the lee of a few yards of
+parapet which had been built to shelter the west corner of the roof.
+S`lam had a small pan of charcoal also up on the roof in our corner, over
+which to get something hot for us to eat; and as soon as the odd little
+meal was finished we turned in.
+
+The precipitous twilight had shadowed down sufficiently to undress in
+more or less privacy even upon a housetop; over our beds we spread a thin
+woollen carpet to keep off the dew; the moon, which was beginning its
+last quarter, faced us full, in a sky picked out with a few stars,
+against which the dark outline of the hills was cut clear; there was
+hardly a fleck of cloud in that best roof under which a man can sleep.
+
+[Illustration: A BREEZY CAMPING-GROUND ON A ROOF-TOP.
+
+[_To face p. 254._]
+
+Below, down in the square, the picketed mules stamped and munched barley;
+the muleteers' voices, back under the arches in the colonnade, arose and
+fell, round a fire where green tea was brewing and much kif was in course
+of being smoked; occasionally an owl hooted. Waking from time to time,
+the moon was always staring down (I shall never forget that moon); but
+at each interval it had moved farther round overhead. At last it sank
+behind the field of vision, and up "in that inverted bowl we call the
+sky" the remote and passionless stars had it all to themselves.
+
+About half-past three in the morning we were awakened suddenly by the
+patter of rain on our faces, great single drops, which quickened into a
+hurrying shower; while gusts of wind from the south-west rose and swept
+round the corner of the low parapet against which we had put the heads of
+the beds. One glance showed that the sky was overcast; it was very dark,
+most of the stars were hidden, and there was an ominous sound of rain in
+the wind. The fondâk is notably a wet resting-place, for it lies on the
+top of the watershed which divides the plains of Tetuan and Tangier, and
+it draws the clouds like a magnet.
+
+One of us put up a sun-umbrella, which had been useful on the hot ride
+the day before; it kept an end of one bed more or less dry, and
+fortunately the shower did not last long, while underneath warm bedding
+it was possible to keep dry for a time. The wind rose, however, and
+forced itself in at every fold of the bedclothes. We had carefully
+arranged all our kit under the parapet close to the beds, partly to
+prevent its being stolen, which sometimes happens if left out of the
+owner's reach, partly to prevent its rolling or blowing off the
+unprotected edge of the roof.
+
+The sunset of the night before had not foretold wind; but wind there
+began rapidly to be, and by-and-by the lid of one of our cooking-pots
+bowled along the roof, fell over the edge, and rattled on the stones in
+the square below: a cloth belonging to the cuisine took flight next over
+the outer wall, and was seen no more. We lay speculating on what might
+follow. Then another shower began; but the clouds were lifting a little,
+and it was short if it was sharp; while underneath the blankets there
+was not much to complain of.
+
+At four o'clock a sound of life began down below; the muleteers were all
+up and stirring in the square. Lights were lit, for since the moon and
+stars had been obscured, the night had turned from brilliant light into
+one of shadows and blackness. Was there to be more rain? Nothing else
+mattered. In this fine interval--for the last shower was stopping--it
+seemed wise to get up and dress and have our bedding rolled together:
+neither of us was going to move into the rooms. Certainly dressing was a
+chilly opportunity. The evening before had been warm; but the rain
+freshened the air, and the wind made it still more brisk. It was darker
+than ever--too windy to have kept a light going; and clothes, discovered
+with some difficulty in the shadows in hiding-places under rugs and
+pillows where they had been stowed the evening before to escape the dew,
+were hurried into in the dark anyhow and any way, half blown inside-out
+in the wind.
+
+At half-past four S`lam came up on to the roof-top with a light (which
+was promptly extinguished) and a pail of cold fresh water, in which we
+had an acceptable wash. He rolled up our bedding, and brought an
+earthenware pan of burning charcoal, which was stowed away in a corner of
+the stone stairway out of the wind, and on which the kettle soon began to
+boil. At this point two remaining stars were put out by the advancing
+dawn--a wan and shivering dawn. Sitting in the lee of the parapet, five
+o'clock saw us ready, and supplied with hot tea and eggs. Not long after,
+the rain-clouds blew over and the day broke clear.
+
+Meanwhile, the muleteers had loaded up and vanished with the first streak
+of daylight, in order to be in Tetuan in time for the great feast that
+day; the inner square of the caravanserai was deserted; our own five
+mules were all that was left. It was not a long business loading them:
+the last rope was knotted, and the muleteers drove them off. We followed,
+riding out under the gateway, whereon is written in Arabic a sentence to
+the effect that Mulai Abdurrahman built the fondâk in 1256, according to
+Mohammedan reckoning of time.
+
+The sky was grey and menacing: too many of the little single clouds
+called "wet dogs" drifted across it. Having started at half-past five,
+not till three o'clock that afternoon did we reach Tangier; halting once
+on the march, at ten o'clock, and that only for half an hour for lunch. A
+heavy storm cut that halt short, for the rest of the day the "wet dogs"
+were true to themselves, and we were deluged. Vivid lightning flashed and
+cracking peals of thunder rolled over the plain; it was one of those
+March days which make March no month for camping out in Northern Morocco.
+Added to that, the track was in a shocking state--up to the girths in mud
+and water and clay of a sticky and treacherous nature. The mules slipped
+back at every step. We had many small rivulets to cross, and were obliged
+to make great detours in order to circumvent them at all. Even then our
+baggage was in the greatest peril, for the mules could barely keep their
+feet; and once down in some of the deepest quagmires, there would have
+been the utmost difficulty in getting them up again, or in rescuing our
+unfortunate kit. And the rain came through everything, bedding and all
+being fairly drenched. The mules which carried the baggage were of course
+much the best of our beasts: R.'s and my mounts were indeed sorry for
+themselves. The last hour was the darkest, during which R.'s mule fell
+down for the sixth or seventh time--it was slippery and rough--and we
+had the worst piece of country of all to cross, where we found one
+unfortunate mule bogged in a sort of mud stream. Though a soaking does
+not greatly signify when dry clothes and a roof lie at the journey's end,
+nine hours at a foot's pace, through mud and water, wet and weary, will
+take the heart out of most people. We tailed into Tangier, a dilapidated,
+worn string of bedraggled vagrants, and rode to the Continental. An hour
+later, clean and dry, in comfortable chairs, with hot coffee, there was
+content.
+
+Meanwhile, S`lam was not at all fulfilling our expectations; and since we
+left the fondâk, far from distinguishing himself on the march, he failed
+over and over again to rise to the occasion, excellent servant though he
+had been in the garden-house near his own city. While the muleteers
+walked all the way from Tetuan, driving the baggage-mules and urging on
+our own, S`lam by arrangement rode on the top of a light load; and there
+he sat, huddled up on the mule, wet and discontented, dawdling behind,
+last of all, in the cavalcade, and anything but living up to his
+character of soldier-servant and escort. By virtue of his late service in
+the Algerian army and his rifle, he should have been admirably adapted to
+fill that capacity; but less like a soldier, and more like a whimpering
+dog, man never looked. Nor did he look after our things, allowing them to
+be badly exposed to the rain, and taking no precautions for protecting
+anything. In the face of condemnation he sulked.
+
+Arrived at Tangier, nearly a week elapsed before a Hungarian boat put in,
+by which we could sail for Mogador. S`lam was of course due daily at the
+hotel to report himself and to execute orders. It was on one of these
+occasions, upon the very morning before we were due to start for Mogador,
+that he sprung upon us his intention of going straight back to Tetuan.
+This announcement came rather like a bolt from the blue. We had
+congratulated ourselves upon taking down into the interior a more or less
+tried and faithful knave, where knaves of such a description were
+proverbially scarce; and now our henchman announced that he had no longer
+any wish or any intention of accompanying us to Morocco City.
+
+The reasons or excuses which he gave were: first, that his wages were
+insufficient; and, secondly, that "a courier" had been sent over to him
+from Tetuan to tell him that his mother and his wife were quarrelling to
+such a degree that Tahara had threatened to go back to her native Riff
+country with her brother unless S`lam returned, and if she took that step
+it would mean a divorce.
+
+His wages had been already raised considerably, because the post he was
+now to fill had more duties connected with it: they might have been
+further increased. The other excuse may or may not have been true; but as
+the two women had never done anything else except quarrel, the situation
+was a foregone conclusion. The old mother may have been trying to poison
+Tahara again. But would S`lam trouble to prevent that? Whatever his
+motive, it was more than annoying that at the last moment he should throw
+us over, leaving no time in which to look out for a new man, and a
+reliable man, without whom, in a country as lawless as Morocco, it would
+be a little rash, on the part of two people only, to travel.
+
+But an unwilling servant is not to be endured. We gave S`lam his release,
+stipulating only that he should return the dollars advanced him for his
+wife and mother not many days before.
+
+To this he protested that he had no money, not a peseta left--every coin
+had either been spent at the feast or had been left at Tetuan.
+
+In this case, the best plan would be, we said, for S`lam to take with him
+a letter to the Consul at Tetuan explaining to him what had happened;
+then as S`lam earned money, he might pay it into the Consul's hands for
+us, until he had made good the sum advanced him. At this S`lam looked
+blank: he said such a letter would mean _prison_ for him. We stood firm.
+It was a rude shock to our faith when his hand found its way into the
+leather bag at his side under his jellab, and he pulled out and threw on
+the table two-thirds of the money which had been given him.
+
+It was suggested that he should pay the whole sum.
+
+No! he was penniless.
+
+Then in that case he could sell the new jellab he had just bought.
+
+He scoffed at the idea.
+
+In reply to our order to come to the hotel the first thing the following
+morning and see our baggage safely on board the steamer, he said that he
+should leave Tangier at daybreak, and that it was quite impossible for
+him to attend upon us, evidently expecting that his prepaid wages would
+be amicably allowed to slide. But not in the face of this final
+desertion. We reiterated the former course--a letter to the Consul at
+Tetuan; again he pleaded abject poverty; but meeting only with
+inclemency, once more plunged his hand into his bag, and pulled out
+dollars amounting exactly to the sum which he had been advanced.
+
+So much for his poverty. We were now, he explained, "quits." "All was
+right between us." He "would not like to leave us with a trace of ill
+feeling remaining between us and himself."
+
+He _did_ leave us, however, with his tail fairly between his legs, and,
+if he had been kicked out of the hotel, could not have gone forth more
+sadly.
+
+What motive he had for going back to Tetuan, or what whim seized him in
+Tangier, remained a mystery. Impulsive as a child, he had been at first
+madly keen, so he said, to go with us to the world's end; then, as the
+time approached, in the same ratio his ardour evaporated; until, finally,
+he had no more desire left, and on the march over to Tangier grew more
+indifferent and morose at every step. While we were in Tangier he was
+like a fish out of water. And yet he had been once to Fez and to Morocco
+City: he was a travelled man. Possibly he had a more remunerative billet
+in view, or was homesick, or jealous about Tahara. After all, whatever
+the reason, his line of conduct was only distinctly Moorish, and
+characteristic of a race in which, as a whole, no wise man places great
+reliance. A Moorish servant will not rob his European master: perquisites
+are a _sine qua non_, of course. Probably his lies are no blacker than
+those of European servants; but the Moor, in place of that quality of
+faithfulness which can ennoble an English rascal, has a cold-blooded
+current in his veins. His manners may be charming--he is a plausible
+devil; but lean upon him, and he turns out to be as jerry-built as his
+own crumbling whitewashed walls.
+
+It is with somewhat of a feeling of banishment into the unknown, that the
+passenger by the little coast-steamer takes his departure from Tangier,
+and sees first its white houses and yellow sands, and last of all Spartel
+lighthouse, disappear as the boat ploughs southwards. Once upon a time
+Gibraltar had constituted in our minds the outposts, so to speak, of
+civilization; but since we had spent three months in such an unexplored
+spot as the Tetuan vale and mountains, without society of the
+conventional type, or library, or church, or any other adjuncts, Tangier,
+when we came back to it, appeared in the light of a Paris. And now
+Tangier was again to be left behind; and on one of the little
+coasting-steamers, which deliver cargo at ports on the way, we meant to
+travel down to Mogador. To have marched the same distance would have
+meant perhaps a month on the road, going by Fez and taking it easily;
+therefore we saved much time by taking the steamer. Though by all report
+it was not likely to be at all a comfortable journey, it could only last
+four days at most; and few travellers but can stand four days'
+discomfort.
+
+We did not start without a few warnings and cautions from various
+friends, who seemed inclined to think that we were doing an unprecedented
+thing in thus setting off alone into the interior without even a reliable
+servant, which since the desertion of S`lam was the case. That could not
+be helped. We hoped for the best as regarded finding men in Mogador.
+
+[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE WAY WE RODE IN MOROCCO.
+
+[_To face p. 262._]
+
+Sir Arthur Nicolson had provided us with letters of introduction to the
+British Consul in Mogador, and to a Moor in Morocco City, where it is
+unnecessary to say there are no representatives of the English
+Government. I had written to him on the subject of getting up to Glaouia,
+in the Atlas Mountains, and had received the following reply:--
+
+    "DEAR MISS SAVORY,--
+
+     "As the Court is away from Morocco City, I hardly think it would
+     be wise for you to attempt a visit to Glaouia. Matters are never
+     very stable when the seat of Government is away, and I do not
+     think the Government would be disposed to give you a permit at
+     present. There would, however, be no objection whatever to your
+     going to Morocco City, and I think you will find the journey
+     interesting.
+
+    "Yours very truly,
+    "A. NICOLSON."
+
+This letter was a blow. But when we finally reached Morocco City we found
+that the thing could be done--that we could get up to Glaouia either
+under the protection of the English missionaries or with a certain Jewish
+trader who lives in Morocco City. The fact of the matter is, that to
+travel "officially," as it were, in Morocco is a fatal mistake. It means
+a written permission from the Sultan, an army of followers, a commotion
+wherever a halt is made, and a great deal of hospitality. The Sultan does
+not encourage Europeans to travel out of the ordinary line of route, on
+account of the superstitious and fanatical spirit of his people, which
+would be roused to wrath against him, were he to countenance the invasion
+of their sacred land by infidels. Consequently, when he gives a permit,
+he writes upon the document to the effect that the Christian is committed
+to the care of Kaid So-and-so, and Kaid So-and-so is to see that no ill
+happens to him.
+
+When the Christian traveller arrives at the district belonging to this
+kaid, through which he wishes to pass, he goes to the castle and delivers
+the permit. The kaid reads it, and knows what it means: the Sultan only
+wishes the Christian to be kept to frequented roads. Therefore the
+Christian is offered every hospitality, and the kaid almost weeps as he
+explains that it is impossible for the traveller to proceed--the
+tribesmen are dangerous, are in revolt along the line the Christian
+wishes to go. The traveller says he will take his chance. His servants,
+primed by the kaid, refuse to go with him on the score of the danger. If
+he manages to get away with one trusty follower, the kaid sends soldiers
+after them, fetches them back to the castle--to save their lives, he
+says, and his own life, which would be forfeited if a hair of their heads
+was injured. The Christian, after his rebellious conduct, may be forced
+to return discomforted to the coast towns, or he may be allowed to march
+on in another direction, keeping on the beaten track. Thus the Moorish
+Government will politely frustrate enterprising spirit on the part of the
+infidel. But if the traveller is content with other than a royal
+progression through the country, if he will travel quietly and without
+ostentation, dressed according to the habits of the people, and be
+prepared to "rough it," the chances are, that he may get to places which
+he could never have reached while impeded by a Government escort.
+
+But the way above all others to travel in Morocco is to secure the help
+of a missionary and to go with him. Medicine is the golden key which
+opens every gate; and a Moor will do anything for a _tabiba_ (doctor),
+which is what a missionary practically is to him. The missionary arrives
+at a remote village, and the countryside flocks to him to have its teeth
+pulled out, its sores doctored, its fevers cured; and if the tabiba
+wishes to go on farther, by whatever path, who shall gainsay him, while
+he carries life and health in his hands? He understands their dialect a
+little, he dresses as they do, and he brings no overbearing servants to
+eat up their substance. Nor is he a spy, but only some harmless fanatic,
+some quaint Nazarene, who thinks to win heaven by thus walking the earth
+and doing good.
+
+Thus several missionaries have penetrated to places in Morocco, from
+entering which, Europeans are debarred: they have not "advertised"
+themselves nor written books upon what they have seen. But the thing has
+been done, and not only by men. Women missionaries have been where no
+Christian is supposed to be allowed. Indeed, it should be easier for
+women, in one way, to travel in forbidden territory than men, because
+their sex is not credited with the sense which could do harm; and the
+idea of a woman spying, or thinking to exploit the country, discover
+mines, and so on, would be absolutely laughable to a Moor. Probably
+women, with a large stock of medicines and a knowledge of the country
+dialect, could travel in the unknown "Beyond" with comparatively little
+risk.
+
+There is one other way for the Englishman to see something of the
+less-known districts of Morocco, and that is to travel under the
+protection of a holy Shar[=i]f. Shar[=i]fs are, like the Sultan,
+descendants of Mohammed, and they possess the holy _baraka_--that is, the
+birthright of the Shar[=i]fian line. They are little gods, and they have
+immunity from the laws of God and man. Their advice is sought for and
+followed by the ordinary country people on every question, and their
+decision is invariably accepted as final. There is no such thing as an
+aristocratic class or nobility in Morocco; and yet the Shar[=i]fs answer
+in a way to the same idea, for they possess a religious authority which
+sets them far above their countrymen, and constitutes them, in a sense,
+lords over the people. Besides, they act greatly as mediums between the
+secular governors and the tribes, and judge upon various matters. It is
+possible for a holy Shar[=i]f to sin, but quite impossible for him to be
+punished, the obvious argument being that "the fire of hell cannot touch
+a saint in whose veins runs the blood of the holy Prophet."
+
+The Shar[=i]fian families form an entire class by themselves. They are
+fed and clothed and housed by a convenient system of religious taxation,
+and large presents are made them, while after death their tombs become
+objects of visit to all devout Mohammedans.
+
+A holy Shar[=i]f generally rides a horse, and he dresses in white, with a
+blue cloth cloak, or else a white woollen over-garment. He wears a pair
+of yellow slippers, or perhaps riding-boots, called _temag_, buttoned all
+up the back with green silk buttons, and embroidered down the side with
+silk and silver thread. A scarlet fez and a white turban complete him.
+
+Shar[=i]fs never shave under the chin, since the days when a certain
+sultan was being shaved thus by a barber who had it in his mind to cut
+the royal throat. But a little boy passing saw the evil design in the
+barber's eye. With great presence of mind he rushed into the shop, crying
+to the Sultan, "O Most Holy One! the Great Mosque has fallen down!" Both
+sultan and barber leapt up and rushed out: the boy explained matters to
+the sultan, and the barber was killed.
+
+But neither Shar[=i]f nor missionary-doctor had we any hope of meeting at
+Mogador, able and willing to travel into the Atlas Mountains with us. We
+started with plenty of chances open in front, but with nothing certain
+whereon to rely. Telegraph station and all such vanities were left behind
+us at Tangier: letters could not reach us till we ourselves reached
+Morocco City, ten or twelve days being the time they would take to arrive
+there from Tangier. Our agents--Cook & Son--in the latter place, had
+instructions to open all wires, and in an urgent case to forward to us by
+a _rekass_ (a runner), who might do the distance in as short a time as
+seven or eight days. A wire sent thus, by a rekass, might cost three or
+four pounds, according to the time the man took: the faster he did the
+journey, the more he should be paid.
+
+In spite of its hotels Tangier does not possess a single shop where
+English newspapers or books can be bought. Our literature had by this
+time reached a low ebb; and on board the Hungarian boat, at a time when
+one generally reads omnivorously because there is nothing else to do, we
+had but a couple of standard books to fall back upon--a history of the
+country was one, the other a volume of Lecky. The history was fairly
+committed to heart before travelling days were done.
+
+On the whole, when at last we got off in the little Hungarian steamer,
+she did not leave much to be desired. For three days we had hung on at
+the Continental Hotel, waiting for the hourly expected arrival of the
+boat, beginning almost to despair of her ever coming in.
+
+Finally, patience was rewarded, and one afternoon, with all our baggage,
+we went on board. We had everything wanted for camping out except tents,
+and these were to be hired at Mogador. A great wooden kitchen-box held
+pots, pans, knives, etc., and a case contained potted meats, soups,
+biscuits, and so forth.
+
+R. and myself were the only women on board when we left Tangier: eight
+men joined us at dinner that night, at one long table in the small
+saloon, and we were said to fill the boat. She was very small, only
+eighteen hundred tons, and there was not much room for walking about on
+her; but we never went out of sight of the coast, and, sitting on a
+couple of chairs, could see through the glasses whatever was going on on
+the beach--which, I must add, was little enough, at a time when the
+smallest incidents become of importance. The greater part of the _Arpad_
+was given up to cargo. We landed green tea in quantities at Mazagan, and
+black-wood, cane-seated chairs for the Jews and Spaniards living there,
+as well as bales of goods and casks; but we took nothing on board, and
+the _Arpad_ became more and more like an empty egg-shell, with a decided
+inclination to roll, on the swell which invariably sets down that coast.
+
+The captain, a small dark Hungarian, when we left Tangier, changed into a
+thin tweed suit and straw hat: he did not understand English. There was
+no stewardess; but the steward, who did all the waiting at table, spoke a
+little German. One of our fellow-passengers was an Englishman, born in
+Morocco, without any desire to leave it--his horizon Gibraltar: he was
+Dutch Consul at Mazagan. Another man was a grain merchant in Mazagan. All
+were interesting, and could tell us a great deal about the country.
+Certainly the coast-line, as seen from the deck of the _Arpad_, was
+monotonous, desolate, uninviting to a degree: a long low shore,
+kh[=a]ki-coloured, treeless, without sign of life, did not raise in us
+regrets that we had come by sea, especially when told that what we saw,
+was a fairly correct sample of most of the country we should have ridden
+through.
+
+[Illustration: LIGHTERS LOADING.
+
+[_To face p. 268._]
+
+On the entire six hundred miles' length of coast south of Cape Spartel,
+and down which we were steaming, there is not a single lighthouse, bell,
+beacon, or buoy to mark a reef or shoal, nor is there any harbour, and no
+steamer dares to lie close in-shore off a port at night. Therefore, as
+there are several ports at which cargo has generally to be landed or
+taken on board, steamers go on the line of steaming all night, and lying
+outside a port in the daytime, while boats carry cargo between them and
+the shore. Rabat, Casablanca, Mazagan--we stopped at them all, and got
+accustomed to the eternal clank of the crane hoisting bales in and out
+of the boats; to rolling on to the backs and down into the troughs of
+the Atlantic combers.
+
+Finally, we reached Mogador early on the morning of Good Friday, 1902,
+and said good-bye to the uneasy _Arpad_ and its primitive _ménage_
+without regret: irregular, white-walled Mogador, set in its rock-locked
+harbour, lay in front of us. It was the hot south--there was no doubt
+about that. The Riviera is called "the sunny south," and Tangier is
+warmer than the Riviera; but penetrate inland into Africa, go down as far
+as Mogador, and it is another thing altogether. Here there is no _trace_
+of Europe, but a great sense of being far away in letter and spirit from
+England--farther away than Bombay, and many another place, which
+out-distances it in miles again and again.
+
+We saw Mogador first in a grey light: heavy thunder-clouds hung above;
+dim and visionary hills lay behind; a regiment of camels paraded the wet
+sands in front, and lay in the sun underneath the battlemented walls;
+black flags floated from the mosque-tops, for it was the Mussulman
+Sunday. For the rest Mogador is a city of sea and sand--sand, sand, and
+yet more sand: it takes two hours' riding to get to anything else except
+sand.
+
+With the grey waves washing round two sides of it, and two sides blown
+and sanded by desert wastes, white-walled Mogador has a somewhat saddened
+aspect, as of lifeless bleached bones, apart from the fact that it is so
+far removed from the outer world.
+
+And infinitely remote, it certainly is. A telegram takes about a
+fortnight to reach England; so that an answer by wire to a wire can be
+expected in about a month. A letter sent by a special courier to Tangier
+takes eight days--a distance of four hundred miles: by this means a wire
+could be sent to England in nine days. The steamers to Mogador are most
+irregular, because, in view of there being no safe anchorage, a boat will
+not put in in bad weather. Cargo, passengers, and mails are often and
+often enough not landed at all, and the inhabitants of the city see but
+the stern of the vanished steamer with all their letters on board, not to
+return perhaps for a week. When the English Consul married, and his
+furniture was sent out from England, the _Forward_ boat, which brought
+it, came in sight of Mogador, and, being a rough day, went off to Madeira
+and on its round by the Canary Isles, back to London again, without
+touching at the sad white city at all. In this way things are apt to be
+lost: it has happened with passengers.
+
+A rowing-boat landed us on green seaweedy rocks, and we walked up the old
+shell-encrusted water-stairs, and under the arch of the Water-port Gate,
+above which is carved in Arabic, "The glorious King, my lord Mohammed,
+ordered the building of this gate by his servant Hamed, son of Hammoo,
+1184."
+
+Once on a time, Agadir, a city on the coast, much farther south, was the
+great port and commercial centre of Southern Morocco; but it was far
+removed from the Sultan's grasp, the tax-gatherer could pursue the even
+tenor of his ways without interruption, and the kaid afford to be
+dictatorial and troublesome. Then the heavy hand fell, and the Sultan's
+armies closed the seaport, offering its throng of prosperous merchants
+the alternative of going to prison or of taking up their abode in
+Mogador. This they did, and Mogador arose; while to work the lighters
+(the cargo-boats), and to generally serve the merchants, a company of
+Berbers was transported with them from the Sus and Agadir to the new
+seaport.
+
+Beyond the Water-port Gate we met a line of heavily laden camels, with a
+company of athletic Berber drivers from the Sus, in quaint long tunics of
+butcher-blue, and lank black hair: many of the men veiled themselves;
+they all looked as wild as hawks, different from any type hitherto seen.
+
+The familiar Hebrew broker, in dark blue or black gabardine and greasy
+skull-cap, was strongly _en evidence_; while as to the state of the dogs
+we met, of them must the Moorish proverb be written, "If fasting be a
+title to Paradise, let the dog walk in first."
+
+Our baggage had all to pass through the Customs House inside the
+Water-port Gate; and there we walked, through great white-walled
+courtyards, whose vistas, of arch beyond arch, suggested Temple courts.
+Donkeys laden with skins were hurrying across them. Now and then a train
+of camels swung along, carrying gum or wax or argan oil or almonds. In a
+good almond year as many as a thousand camels have sometimes come into
+Mogador in one day. The Customs House officer was at breakfast, and we
+awaited his coming by our baggage. At last there was a stir among the
+many hands who had carried our things up from the boat, and the most
+solemn and dignified individual conceivable slowly sailed upon the scene,
+way being made for his flowing robes, which were white as a sheet of best
+glazed "cream-laid" before the pen marks it. I handed him our pass-paper
+from the Customs House officer at Tangier, feeling like a humble subject
+laying a petition before a monarch: he slowly unfolded it, and more
+slowly searched for and produced a pair of spectacles in a silver case.
+Lastly, having read the document and reviewed our pile, he "passed" it
+with an impressive wave of his hand. He then took a seat, a Moor minion
+on each side: we filed solemnly past him, shaking him by the hand. A
+new-born infant has not such a guileless face as that bland Arab.
+
+We took up quarters in the Suera Hotel, managed by a capable Scotchwoman
+and her husband, who had once farmed on the veldt. Early next day I rode
+to Palm-tree House on a little horse belonging to the hotel: out by the
+Beach Gate, we cantered along the sands close to the sea, crossed the
+river, left the patron saint-house of Mogador on our left hand, bore
+upwards across the sandy dunes, and struck inland over hard calcareous
+rock, where, in the teeth of the wind, the sand never lies. It was
+blowing, that day, a hot desert wind, which in a naturally hot place only
+makes one the hotter: with the wind, came a good deal of fine sand, on a
+really windy day making riding almost impossible.
+
+Palm-tree House is a hotel four miles south-east of Mogador, in the
+loneliest of situations, with the advantage of a view and an open, wild
+country all round: it has none of the drawbacks of the city; it is
+breezy, wild, and bare. Having reached the top of the dunes, we struck
+off in more or less of a bee-line for Palm-tree House, still riding over
+soft sand, where nothing but miles upon miles of _r`tam_ (white broom)
+grew, lovely when in flower, of which we were destined to see almost more
+than enough before we left Southern Morocco.
+
+The horses ploughed their way through the white track; two or three
+butterflies hovered about the r`tam; chameleons scuttled occasionally
+over the path; a tortoise crept along. There were not a few locusts about
+either, looking like handsome little dragon-flies on the wing.
+
+A last canter along one of the rough rides through the scrub led us up to
+the house, planted well on a rising sand-hill, a view of the sea in
+front, the hills behind.
+
+There are no palm-trees, and there is no garden, nor is there any water,
+I was told, on the spot; but for all that, Palm-tree House might have
+been a satisfactory lodge wherein to put up. The stunted bush and the
+sand fringed the very walls. It had the country to itself, and there was
+nothing _but_ itself which could spoil that country. It was cool and airy
+and oddly quiet. Inside, tiles and open patios and big panelled rooms
+gave all that could be desired: outside, there was an impression of
+simplicity and freedom.
+
+The stables were a great point, and the bobbery pack, which hunt pig for
+five months all through the winter, accounted in one season for something
+like nineteen full-grown boar, ten tuskers, and nine sows.
+
+Palm-tree House belonged for more than twenty years to a British
+merchant, who simply provided accommodation for any sportsman liking to
+come out and put up for a week or so outside Mogador: it has still the
+air of a shooting-box. The host, in breeches and gaiters and a great felt
+wideawake, rode up while we were there, and offered us every
+hospitality--a tall wiry man, with good hands and seat.
+
+Had time been of no object, we should have moved on into Palm-tree House.
+It would be a spot to visit at any season, for the climate scarcely
+varies all the year round: the difference between summer and winter is
+not more than five degrees.
+
+Back again in the city and strolling round it that same afternoon, the
+conviction was borne in upon us that of all saddening spots Mogador was
+possibly the saddest--that is, to the traveller, from an outside point of
+view: residents may have another tale to tell. But without vegetation or
+cultivation within sight, suggestive of life and change and labour, with
+the monotonous roar of the grey breakers beating its seaward walls, and
+wastes of blown white sand to landward, Mogador is the picture of a city
+which has lost all heart, and settled down into grim apathy, without a
+vestige of joy or activity outside its walls. The overcrowding of the
+Jews in the Mellah is a shocking evil, already stamping the rising
+generation with disease.
+
+Earlier by three-quarters of an hour than Tetuan at the same time of
+year, the city gates at Mogador were shut at six o'clock, and picnic
+parties of Moorish or European traders were hurried back in broad
+daylight. We met the basha gravely pacing the sands on a white mule with
+scarlet trappings--of all stout officials, in a country where it is a sin
+and a shame on the part of one in office to be thin, the stoutest. His
+broad body overshadowed the big mule, and his two little legs might have
+been a pair of ninepins below a vast cask draped in white.
+
+To the south of Mogador lies first the Sus country and then Wadnoon,
+dividing the Morocco which is partly known to Europeans, from the Sahara,
+which nobody knows. The Sus may be said to be practically unknown, and it
+is distinctly "forbidden" land, through which only two or three
+travellers have ever passed--Oskar Lenz, Gatell, Gerhard Rohlfs, and
+possibly a missionary; but they were all disguised and went in terror of
+their lives; nor have they left satisfactory records of their
+experiences.
+
+[Illustration: AFTER RAIN IN MOGADOR.
+
+[_To face p. 274._]
+
+And yet the Sus is comparatively close to Mogador, with which it
+trades; mules from the Sus were always in the Mogador market; camels were
+coming in every week with wool, camels' hair, goat-skins, hides, beeswax,
+a little gold dust, ostrich feathers, gum-arabic, cattle, and all the
+produce of the Sahara; while the Berbers from the Sus were interesting
+above any Riffis or tribesmen with whom we had hitherto met.
+
+Their country is supposed to contain rich mines: it is said to be fertile
+and thickly populated; it is not loyal--on the contrary, it is
+ill-affected to its liege lord, the Sultan; it is fanatical to a degree,
+and largely swayed by a form of government best expressed by its
+title--Council of Forty. In return for their own goods the Berbers from
+the Sus carry back into their country all sorts of Manchester goods,
+powder, tea, sugar, cheap German cutlery, and the like.
+
+These same Berbers, of unknown origin, were, so the Kor[=a]n tells us,
+packed up by King David, in olden times, in sacks, and carried out of
+Syria on camels, since he wished to see them no more. Arrived somewhere
+near the Atlas Mountains, their leader called out in the Berber tongue
+"Sus!" which means "Let down!" "Empty out!" So the exiles were turned out
+of their sacks, and the country in which they settled is called Sus to
+this day.
+
+Wadnoon trades to a great extent with the Soudan, and Mogador receives an
+immense amount of its ostrich feathers: slaves are the most important
+article of commerce in Wadnoon, and Morocco is the chief market for this
+traffic in humanity, the slaves being brought chiefly to Morocco City.
+
+But if a fever lays hold of the traveller for penetrating into the
+unknown Sus, what must be felt of the great Sahara, that waveless inland
+sea of sand, with its eternal stretches of depressionless wastes
+reaching on, past horizon after horizon? Perhaps an occasional oasis,
+green as young corn; a well; a feathery date-palm; a melon-patch. But
+rare are these things, and for the most part the Sahara is an endless
+desert which few Europeans could cross and live. Its ancient lore, its
+mystic traditions, give it a fascination all its own. Imagine the
+ostrich-hunting on its borders; picture the natives riding their
+unequalled breed of horses, the _wind-drinkers_, which carry their
+masters a hundred miles a day, and which, ridden after the birds up-wind,
+gradually tire them down, until they can be knocked on the head with a
+bludgeon; the Arabs too, themselves, with the unforgettable manners
+possessed by such as Abraham, and handed down from time immemorial; last
+of all, Timbuctoo, the Queen of the Desert, the fabled home of the
+voracious cassowary,--does not the picture imperiously summon the
+traveller "over the hills and far away"? Very far away; for Timbuctoo is
+twelve hundred miles from Mogador, and a journey there would mean at
+least forty days across the Sahara, through a country belonging to
+peoples in no way friendly towards "infidels," where oases are few and
+far between.
+
+Some day we may know the Sahara under other conditions, for a scheme was
+started years ago with the intention of flooding the great desert by
+means of a canal from the Atlantic Ocean, which should carry water on to
+El Joof, an immense depression well below sea-level somewhere in the
+centre. Thus, where all is now sand, would lie a vast sea: we should
+"boat" to Timbuctoo. So far, however, the scheme has begun and ended in
+words.
+
+But though the great Sahara is desert pure and simple, it is a mistake
+to imagine it devoid of life. Even as there has never yet been found a
+collection of aborigines without its totem, neither are there any
+extensive parts of the globe where life of some sort does not exist. The
+Sahara is little known, chiefly because the oases in the centre are
+occupied by intensely hostile and warlike tribes, whose animosity is
+chiefly directed towards the French, whom they hate with a deadly hatred.
+But the edges of the great desert have been visited, and on the northern
+limits two animals are found--the addax antelope, and Loder's gazelle.
+The wide-spread hoofs of the addax antelope enable it to travel over sand
+at a great pace. It is a large and ungainly beast with spiral horns.
+Probably it follows in the wake of the rains wherever they go; but what
+happens to it in the dry season is unknown. Similarly with Loder's
+gazelle: though more or less a desert animal, it is a mystery how it
+remains alive through the long rainless months, in places apparently
+without water, and on wastes of rolling, wind-drifted sand.
+
+Of the natural inhabitants of desert country, the Sahara is by no means
+devoid: sand-lizards, jumping-mice, sand-grouse, sand-vipers,
+desert-larks, and even a family of snakes belonging to the boas, are to
+be found. The kh[=a]ki-coloured sand-grouse are most difficult to see on
+the yellow face of the country: the sand-rats and sand-moles all take on
+the colour of their surroundings, and thus hide and protect themselves:
+one and all exist in some marvellous manner where it would seem that
+existence could only be miraculous. The skink is met with, beloved of the
+Romans, who imported desert-skinks into Rome in Pliny's day, and held
+them a valuable remedy for consumption, chopped up into a sort of white
+wine: the trade was brisk in 1581. To-day the Arabs consider it a
+remedy, and eat it as a food. It acts very much in the same way as do
+flat-fish in the bottom of the sea, sinking itself under the sand,
+allowing the sand to lie over its back and cover it, like a flounder,
+only leaving its sharp eyes out of cover, and sometimes the spines on its
+back.
+
+For the maintenance of all this animal life, it is quite possible that
+rain may occasionally fall even upon desert, and disappear with
+lightning-like rapidity; for on the borders of certain African deserts in
+the north a phenomenon very much like the description of the Mosaic manna
+occurs when the plains have been wetted with rain. The surface is seen
+next morning "covered with little white globes like tiny puff-balls, the
+size of a bird-cherry, or spilled globes of some large grain." It is
+gathered and eaten by the Arabs, but, like an unsubstantial fungus
+growth, melts or rots in the course of a day or two.
+
+Enough of the Sahara. Meeting with men in Mogador who had come straight
+from the mysterious country, veiled, untamed, and remotely removed from
+European touch, our interest was naturally kindled in that Back of the
+Beyond. There is no need for the traveller to penetrate so far as either
+the Sahara or the Sus. Long before he reaches them, and in order to do
+so, he must cross the Atlas Mountains by one of the wild passes, and the
+great chain of the Atlas is still unsurveyed and practically unknown. Sir
+Joseph Hooker and Dr. Ball explored a part of its valleys many years ago:
+no one since then has made a satisfactory attempt to learn details. The
+chain is supposed to be about thirteen thousand feet high, and it is
+about twenty miles from Morocco City; but the character of the lawless
+chiefs and tribesmen who inhabit it, so far prevents intrusion and
+exploration.
+
+In a few days we were to see it--the mighty, solitary wall, on which the
+ancients believed the world to rest, described by Pliny, rising abruptly
+out of the plains, snowclad, one of the world's finest sights: the Atlas
+had largely brought us to Southern Morocco.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE--BUYING MULES--A BAD ROAD--FIRST
+CAMP--ARGAN-TREES--COOS-COOSOO--A TERRIBLE NIGHT--DOCTORING THE
+KHAYLIFA--ROUGHING IT UNDER CANVAS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     And all this time you (at home) are drinking champagne (well,
+     most of it, anyway), and sleeping in soft beds with delicious
+     white sheets, and smoking Turkish cigarettes, and wearing clean
+     clothes, with nice stiff collars and shirt-cuffs, and having
+     great warm baths in marble bath-rooms and sweet-smelling soap . . .
+     and sitting side by side at table, first a man and then a
+     woman--the same old arrangement, I suppose--knives to the right
+     and forks to the left, as usual.
+
+
+THE hot desert wind in Mogador showed no signs of changing: there was no
+enlivening sun, and the sad white seaport could only charm in a morbid
+manner: to be out under the skies, in the open, away from the city and
+sealed houses and the _eyes_, was a thing to be sought after, and that
+quickly. Southern Morocco is like the East in that it is all eyes. The
+watchful East--it may be lazy, but nothing escapes its eyes. They gleam
+between the folds of the veil; they look from out of a smooth face, mild
+and yet as little to be read as the deep sea. And who knows what lies at
+the bottom of those quiet pools?
+
+There need be no waste of time in Morocco, even as there is no
+convention: having decided to start--_start_. The 31st of March saw us
+away, leaving Mogador with the intention of marching to _Marrakesh_,
+which is the Moorish name for Morocco City, the southern capital of the
+empire. In order to see more of the country we marched by a zigzag
+route, crossing, but not following, the beaten track; thus we were once
+or twice in villages where European women had not been seen: we met no
+one, and we camped in odd, out-of-the way corners, objects of huge
+interest to the wandering Arabs with whom we fell in.
+
+Mr. Maddon, the British Consul at Mogador, to whom we brought letters of
+introduction from Sir Arthur Nicolson, helped us in several ways, and in
+his turn provided us with letters to an Arab in Marrakesh. We managed to
+buy two mules: one was from the Sus, with a backbone like a sword-fish
+and every rib showing, but he was as hard as nails, and would pace along
+all day without any trouble; the other was a lazy beast, fat and older;
+but they both of them proved useful animals, answering our purpose for
+the time being. We meant to sell, when we left the country: hiring is
+expensive work. Of course it was "just a dear time to buy": it always is.
+The Jew broker, through whom we bought the mules from the Susi to whom
+they belonged, asked seven pounds ten for each of them, but came down to
+six pounds fifteen. We sold them some weeks later for five guineas each:
+hiring would have cost a great deal more. Ordinarily they are to be
+bought for five pounds and less in Mogador. No Susi will trade direct
+with a European, and every bargain goes through Israel's hands, which
+means a big percentage pocketed by the Jew.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE MANCHESTER GOODS ARE SOLD, MOGADOR.
+
+[_To face p. 284._]
+
+Our hotel-keeper, the Scotch lady, provided us with reliable servants,
+one of whom turned out to be invaluable. Mulai Omar was, as his name
+indicates, a saint by heredity. Algeria was his birthplace. He was
+twenty-four years old; and having lived in a French possession, spoke
+French, not like S`lam, but perfectly. He was a well-educated little
+fellow, enterprising, energetic; interpreted Arabic and Shillah for
+us; acted as cook, in which capacity he was first-rate; generally
+organized the camp; and was our personal servant. Mulai Omar was quite a
+man to know, and a friend to trust. He was unattractive-looking--small,
+dark, and dirty; wore a red fez, a short black monkey-jacket, and
+immense, full, white cotton drawers. Saïd, our second servant, intended
+to look after the mules, was a lazy Arab, who acted the fine gentleman,
+and was never without a cigarette in his mouth. He helped Omar more or
+less, and was responsible for much loss of temper on our parts, before we
+parted. Another saint by heredity, Mulai Ombach, looked after our camel,
+which carried the heavy baggage. Our fourth and last man, Mohammed, drove
+a donkey, nominally for the purpose of carrying provender for the mules
+and camel, but which often as not bore either Mulai Ombach or Mohammed
+himself. The two principal servants, Omar and Saïd, rode two mules, which
+carried light loads as well.
+
+We hired a couple of Moorish men's saddles for our own use, red-clothed,
+high-peaked, and well stuffed; also two big tents--one for the servants,
+one for ourselves. Our commissariat was not hard to manage, helped out
+with stores we had brought from Tangier; for bearing in mind Napoleon's
+truism that "the army marches on its stomach," we had laid in an ample
+supply.
+
+Eleven o'clock saw us finally under way on the morning of the 31st. We
+had intended to start at nine; but any one who has ever travelled and
+camped out knows the difficulty of getting away upon that first
+morning--the final wrench between the servants and their old
+surroundings, the dozen petty obstacles. In this case one of the mules
+hired for baggage turned out to be in a wretched condition when it came
+to the hotel, and another had to be found in its place--no easy matter.
+The camel was started off at half-past ten with our beds, bedding,
+cuisine necessaries, part of the tents, and chairs and table; but, to our
+disgust, Mulai Ombach, its driver, stopped short at the bazaar, and there
+we found them both when we rode through the city. They were hurried up,
+and the whole party seen safely through the city gates; but once outside,
+the camel was so slow that we left them behind, R. and myself jogging
+ahead with Mulai Omar and Saïd, trusting that the heavy baggage would
+catch us up at lunch-time. One more delay--outside the Jewish cemetery
+was standing, waiting for us, the wife of Saïd: many tears were flowing,
+and sobs to be heard under the haik. Saïd produced some dollars, which
+were no doubt intended to last her during her husband's absence: he then
+rode on without attempting a farewell, and we were really off at last.
+
+For the first five miles we hugged the coast in a northerly direction,
+keeping close to the sea: the tide was high; in one place, where we made
+a short cut, resulting in rather a nasty bit of riding, we were actually
+in the waves, slipping over black rock, with deep pools on each side. It
+was a grey day, not hot, and the hard flat sands, across which we rode
+for the most part, were excellent going.
+
+The only wayfarers we met, tramped along behind camels. Untrustworthy
+brutes these animals are, especially the bubbling ones, out of whose way
+we most cautiously kept; for though a camel seldom bites, when he does it
+is serious. He never forgets an injury. A man in Mogador ill-treated one
+badly a few years ago: it went into the interior for a year, and came
+back to Mogador, and met and knew the man at once, taking him by the
+nape of the neck, as is its habit, and tearing the back of his skull off.
+
+The sandy dunes on our right were covered with _r`tam_ (white broom),
+slender, waving, silver-green stems, in seed just then. Only r`tam could
+grow in such poor soil. When we turned inland we found ourselves amongst
+dense undergrowth, a small forest, consisting chiefly of _tugga_ (a sort
+of juniper), of myrtle, _sidra_ bushes, and other shrubs, intersected by
+narrow paths, along one of which we paced in single file, the limestone
+which crops up all over the country making our pace a slow one. It was
+the middle of the day when we found ourselves in the thick of this
+jungle. Omar pointed out a little sandy clearing, and in amongst the
+bushes, out of earshot of the track, we halted for lunch. The mules had
+their packs taken off, and rolled themselves in the sand. A carpet was
+spread on a bank; and there, with the sea still to be seen behind us, the
+thickets echoing with familiar blackbirds, and every space glowing with
+thyme, iris, lavender, and other flowers, we spent the first of many lazy
+hours of the sort. Alas! our camel was still behind us, and never turned
+up: that was a wretched piece of _bundobust_. But long before we quitted
+Morocco we vowed never to have a camel for baggage again.
+
+Only half-an-hour's halt we allowed ourselves; then saddled up, and were
+off again. Still through "jungle," and by a sandy path the trail led us,
+blocked often by stones and rocks, truly one of those
+
+       . . . sad highways, left at large
+    To ruts and stones and lovely Nature's skill,
+    Who is no pavior.
+
+The flowers became more interesting at every step; but there was little
+time to get off and collect specimens, though the path was so narrow
+that, riding along, pink climbing convolvulus and tall lavender could
+easily be gathered off the bushes. For any unknown specimen some one
+dismounted, and it was stowed away in an empty tin kettle for safety.
+
+By-and-by we dropped down into a narrow valley, green and cultivated: a
+lonely palm-tree or two stuck up--the "feather duster struck by
+lightning" of Mark Twain. A fine crop of beans was growing on our right,
+Indian corn and barley to the left: the land looked full of heart, rich,
+and unlike even the Tetuan country. We came across a man or two working
+in a dirty white tunic in the fields, and left behind some wretched huts
+down by a spring. About this time we lost Omar's dog, which was to have
+been our guard--a rather lame lurcher, which thought better of footing it
+all the way to Marrakesh.
+
+The country was full of magpies--not nearly so smart as our
+Warwickshire mags, brownish about the tail, and with less white; yet
+they could scarcely have been in bad plumage at that time of year. In
+a narrow pathway we stood aside to let a camel pass: since we had left
+the coast wayfarers had grown rare for the most part. The place at
+which we had halted for lunch was El Faidar, within sight of one of
+Morocco's countless little white saint-houses--Sidi Bousuktor. Now,
+after a long climb over a ridge, we looked down from the top into a
+valley--Ain-el-Hadger; and Omar pointed out in the distance the spot
+he suggested we should camp at for the night. Descending the ridge was
+the roughest piece of riding on the road to Marrakesh: the shale gave
+way under the mules' feet; great rocks projected on the track. None of
+us dismounted, however: Tetuan had hardened our hearts and accustomed
+us to awkward corners, and the mules were clever. Slowly we slipped
+and slid down into the most luxuriant green vale, set in the
+scrub-covered hills, carpeted with fields of young corn, olive-trees,
+gardens, fruit-trees, and flowers abundantly.
+
+To the north, upon our left, lay the Iron Mountains, no very great
+height, somewhere about two thousand feet, and famous for iron in the
+days of the Romans and Carthaginians, who both probably worked them. Now
+they are mined no more, and only known as the favourite quarters of wild
+boar, signs of whose existence we saw for ourselves, in patches of ground
+rooted and torn up.
+
+We rode down through these fruitful acres as the sun was getting low:
+here and there lay a little white farmer's house; birds were
+everywhere--suddenly we heard a cuckoo, then a nightingale.
+
+At a place where three little glens met we passed a tall look-out tower,
+standing sentry over each one, from the top of which the Ain-el-Hadger
+people could easily see an enemy coming. In England it would have been a
+ruin: in Morocco it was in active use,--it is still "the Middle Ages" in
+Morocco.
+
+Leaving a garden on the left, surrounded by a high tapia wall, we crossed
+a little streamlet into the brook which waters the valley, and reached at
+last a corner surrounded with grey olives, deep in lush grass, and
+overlooked by the inevitable quaint white-domed saint-house on the top of
+a rocky hillock. It was an ideal spot. Omar and Saïd laid their two guns
+under a tree (they rode with them across their knees, ancient
+flint-locks, and carried bullets in bags at their sides, Omar possessing
+a French rifle as well); we off-saddled, unloaded the two men's mules,
+and unpacked what there was to unpack, the camel having practically
+everything. R. and I strolled about and photographed. A countryman
+brought us three fowls and some eggs. The sun set. Still the wretched
+camel had not come. Dew fell heavily, and Omar made a famous fire and
+supplied us with hot green tea. At last there were voices; a great form
+loomed in the darkness and swung towards us; the donkey followed. It was
+not long before the camel was unloaded, our big tent up, table and chairs
+and beds put together, and though dinner was late it was the more
+acceptable, The Saint proving a chef. A pannierful of bread was part of
+the camel's luggage, and intended to last us until we got to Marrakesh:
+vegetables we had in plenty for the first two or three days. And Omar
+worked wonders with the means at his disposal. Early we turned in: the
+stars were out; the frogs croaked in the streamlets. With the tent-flap
+tied back, and looking out into the quiet night, we slept as sound as
+tramps on the roadside at home.
+
+I woke at 2 a.m. The guard had stopped talking, and were all asleep and
+snoring round the tents, except one old greybeard, who was sitting up by
+the fire. Four Ain-el-Hadger men had come to act as guard for the night,
+bringing their guns and long knives with them. It was oddly light--the
+"false dawn" of Omar Khayy[=a]m; but there were no stars.
+
+[Illustration: OUR CAMP AT AIN-EL-HADGER.
+
+[_To face p. 290._]
+
+Such a dawn woke us at five! Every bird for miles around was singing:
+blackbirds sounded like England, wood-pigeons cooed, cuckoos insisted,
+and among them all, strange and Indian, a hoopoe called. The sun climbed
+up behind the saint-house and solitary palm; the olives began to cast
+shadows; the grass was silver with dew. We breakfasted soon after six,
+our table out on the green lawn. Such air and scents of moist earth! It
+was chilly too. The mules fed busily in the long wet grass; behind the
+kitchen-tent the camel lay, chewing; an old sheikh turned up on a donkey,
+and joined the servants at breakfast round the fire, at one of those
+meals which were all green tea and tobacco.
+
+Just as we were starting a party of fifteen sheikhs and countrymen rode
+up on their way to a distant "powder play" at the fête of some saint, two
+days' journey off. Passing our camp, they turned into a little
+three-cornered field of much poppies and little corn, and proceeded to
+bivouac for an hour or two. Tailing one after another through a gap in
+the hedge, on the finest barbs Southern Morocco can produce, heavy, but
+handsome in their way (particularly a white with flowing mane and tail,
+and two iron-greys), they pulled up underneath some dense green
+fig-trees, and dismounted in the shade, leaving their scarlet cloth
+saddles to match the poppies.
+
+There was colour running riot indeed. Several of the stately figures, all
+in white, walked up to the saint-house to pray: one great man waddled
+down to the stream (to be great is to be fat, in Morocco), and a few
+began to groom their horses. The guns were piled: the sun glinted on them
+and on the silver-chased stirrups, and blazed on the snowy garments, on
+the poppies, and the saddles, one of which was blue, another yellow. We
+were in the land of Arabs: the Berbers were left behind at Mogador, and
+these tall lean horsemen, burnt coffee-coloured, were all descendants of
+the sons of the desert.
+
+By this time the camp was scattered: the camel had risen from its knees
+and paced off under its medley load some time before, attended by Mulai
+Ombach, Mohammed, and the donkey.
+
+The Ain-el-Hadger guard had each received a trifle for his night's
+services; Saïd had groomed and brought up our mules; we mounted, and,
+followed by himself and Omar, perched on the top of the two packs, their
+guns sticking out at one side, rode away. The first few miles were not
+marked by anything of particular interest: the collections of huts and
+bare walls which sometimes adorned the hillsides were far away; the
+curious piles of stones in the fields, almost like scarecrows, were only
+landmarks. But after a time we rode into the country of the argan-tree,
+that most interesting and unique specimen, which flourishes in this
+corner of Morocco, covering an area about two hundred miles long and
+forty wide, and growing nowhere else in the known world. Southern Morocco
+would be lost indeed without argan oil, which is used for cooking
+purposes as a substitute for butter, and of which we had with us a large
+supply. The oil is extracted from the fruit of the tree: at the end of
+March it should be fit to gather, looking much like a large olive, and
+possessed of a green fleshy husk, greedily eaten by camels, goats, sheep,
+and oxen. Thus, as well as gathering the nuts themselves off the ground,
+the country people allow their flocks to feed upon the fruit: having
+driven them home, the animals chew the cud, disgorging the argan nuts,
+which are collected, and eventually cracked by women and children in
+order to obtain oil.
+
+The average height of the tree is twenty-five feet, but its rugged side
+branches will cover a space of seventy feet. Gnarled and twisted, the
+bark is a little like crocodile-skin, and forms in squares: the trunk has
+a way of folding upon itself, too, as it grows--slowly; for a large tree
+may be three hundred years old, and in consequence its wood is immensely
+hard. The argan is more or less tropical: though a tree has been known to
+live against a south wall in England, it was killed by the first severe
+winter.
+
+Among the argans, little oxen were ploughing the red rich soil of the
+vale through which we rode; it was watered by a brook, and real hedges of
+pomegranate, out in brilliant flower, divided the fields. In one of these
+some Arabs were digging carrots; in another homely potatoes, the first we
+had seen, were doing remarkably well.
+
+By this time the camel and attendants had been overtaken and left far
+behind, and since we had passed our heavy baggage no other forms of life
+seemed to be travelling along the same trail as our own: certainly a
+countryman joined himself to us, partly to point out our direction,
+partly for the sake of company; he held his stick behind his shoulders
+and stepped out well, but not for long. And after he had left we only saw
+a few women in the distance. These were often on donkeys, and some
+carried water-pots on their heads; but not one of them was "a beast of
+burden" in the sense of the women round Tetuan--not one crouched under an
+overpowering load of faggots or charcoal.
+
+As we jogged on, the great barley-fields, all in ear, though still green,
+might have led us to believe we were in England, except that in the next
+sheltered spot a white saint-house would be found, with its dome and its
+palm-tree, perhaps a shady olive grove, allowed to flourish for the sake
+of the holy place. Yes, it was Africa.
+
+Farther on, an Arab village lay close to the track, no windows in its
+yellowish flat walls, apparently no roofs: a stoned arched entrance was
+filled up with thorn-bushes, and the tops of the walls piled with the
+same to prevent outsiders from molesting the inmates. This warlike
+tendency was again shown in another watch-tower, built, like the last, at
+the conjunction of two valleys.
+
+Meanwhile, the bare and uninteresting-looking Iron Mountains were
+disappearing from view: another ridge, which met them at right angles,
+spotted with argan-trees, looked in the distance like a tea or coffee
+plantation on Eastern hills--that too faded from sight; and we rode
+on--now through a blaze of flowers, for every hedge flamed pink and
+yellow, and even the dry thorns were blotted with colour--now past fields
+of mauve poppies and scarlet poppies and stretches of stainless blue. A
+white saint-house stood out against the colour, its dome like dazzling
+chalk, it shadows blue: we looked back at it from under an argan-tree, in
+the shade of which we rested for ten minutes, picking up a few nuts, and
+drinking long and deep out of Omar's stone water-jar.
+
+Not far from this spot we came upon _Sok-el-Had_ (the Sunday
+Market)--that is, a place where every Sunday a country market is held,
+and to which the whole countryside flocks to do its marketing. This was
+Tuesday, and therefore Sok-el-Had was forlorn and deserted, its rows of
+little mud huts and its meat-hangers empty, not a soul within miles. They
+are as old as Morocco, these places known by the name of the week-day on
+which the market is held--places so strangely deserted upon any other
+day.
+
+Still we rode on for several hours, past Sheikh Boujiman Ben Hamed's
+white house, while the sun blazed on the bare path, and the argans stood
+too far apart to cast consecutive shade. It was with much satisfaction
+that we saw our next camping-ground in the distance about one o'clock: we
+had started early, and a long lazy afternoon was a good prospect.
+_Sok-el-Tleta_ is named once more after its market--Tuesday Market. Even
+as Sok-el-Had was forlorn, so Sok-el-Tleta in proportion teemed with
+life. Held on the open hillside, upon a great bare space worn brown by
+cycles of Tuesday markets, the prevailing colour brown and white,
+hundreds of mules, hundreds of Arabs, the sight was one not to be
+forgotten.
+
+We dismounted, and followed Omar into the thick of the fray, surrounded
+at once by a staring and interested crowd. It was an extraordinary scene.
+Streets were formed by rows upon rows of little mud cubicles, thatched
+over, inside which, on a mud shelf, the vendor sat, with his goods spread
+out for sale round him. Slippers were being mended; blacksmith's work was
+being done; cottons and stuffs were selling, sugar, groceries of all
+sorts, brand-new slippers and new clothes, vegetables and meat. Meat was
+the centre of the whirlpool, and round the carcases and shapeless joints
+the largest crowd: it hung on upright stakes and branches stuck in the
+ground, and the effect was that of a nightmare wood, in which the weird
+trees were bearing gory and dreadful fruit. It was all life and stir,
+that bare hillside; and by half-past one o'clock the whole thing had
+melted away, and there was no sign of a human being moving.
+
+Mulai Omar was well known in Sok-el-Tleta, his wife's relatives living
+there: because he was a saint his clothes and slippers were kissed by
+every one who met us as we rode along to our camp beyond the Tuesday
+Market. We passed women and children digging for ayerna root: the corn
+not being yet ripe, they were short of food. The root of this weed,
+though eatable, is most unwholesome, and unless carefully prepared,
+people grow thinner and more yellow upon it daily.
+
+But all our interest in a few moments was focussed upon a most imposing
+ruin, a real Windsor Castle of a rudimentary type, which commanded a
+hilltop on a table-land on the right, great walls rearing themselves up
+to the sky, towers defending every corner, a turreted gate-house the
+entrance, and the whole loop-holed, grim-looking enough. Obviously the
+kaid who built such a kasbah was a great man: his garden, a beautiful
+overgrown wilderness, gone like his castle to rack and ruin, lay below at
+Sok-el-Tleta, wisely situated, for vegetation would have been badly
+exposed upon the hilltop.
+
+About twenty-seven years ago the kaid who built the kasbah--chiefly by
+forced labour on the part of all the country people for miles round,
+though skilled workmen came from Mogador and were paid--was attacked by
+the Arab tribes from end to end of his province of Shedma, and after a
+six-months' siege was forced to fly to Marrakesh, where he died in
+prison, the tribesmen demolishing the castle for hidden treasure, till
+every wall had yielded its secret. Probably he oppressed his province
+like every other kaid, and was well hated. We went inside, and it was a
+foregone conclusion that we should camp there upon the grass. The
+governor's own halls were in a block in the centre, room after room, most
+intricate. Our tents were pitched in the vast sunny courtyard. We
+wandered about, exploring the odd corners, all the afternoon: not a
+vestige of timber or decoration remained. Handsome little red-brown
+kestrels with grey heads hovered over us and sat on the old walls,
+uttering their querulous cry: a beautiful blue jay, with cinnamon back
+and black-tipped wings and tail, was nesting in a hole among the bricks,
+and let us come close to him. A _sib-sib_ scampered along an old
+window-ledge, a little animal like a squirrel, grey with striped back,
+the stripes running from head to tail: it ruffled out its tail at will.
+
+The camel turned up at five, having been nine hours on the road. Later on
+a _mona_ (a present) was brought us, consisting of butter, in a lordly
+dish set round with pink roses. So in the deserted walls of the kasbah we
+passed the night. Ghosts ought to have haunted those horrible
+death-traps, the _matamors_, of which there are said to be a hundred. The
+ground seemed riddled with these "wells," intended for the storage of
+grain, but used by sheikhs and kaids as their private prisons, whence at
+their will they draft on luckless captives to the public gaols: an old
+enemy is quite harmless in a matamor, with a square stone over the top,
+for the rest of his life.
+
+The wonderful cisterns were another feature of the kasbah, immense tanks
+underground, concreted and still water-tight--at the end of every dry
+season cleaned out and whitewashed, now half full of stinking rain-water
+and decay.
+
+We got off at seven the next morning, struck the main road from Mogador,
+left it, and found ourselves in quite an agricultural country, green
+barley-fields, planted all over at intervals with figs and pomegranates,
+even hedges of a sort. Then again we were in the argan forest--the last
+of it, and the best: beautiful trees, with their knarled, twisted
+branches. I thought of yews on the Surrey hills. Here coarse grass grew
+between, something like a park at home: goats clambered up into the
+forks, feasting on the green fruit. But all too soon the argans came to
+an end, and we saw this phenomenon of Morocco no more.
+
+Nor was the exchange of the argan forest for the everlasting _r`tam_
+(white broom) and a sun-baked, arid wilderness, a welcome one. It always
+meant stones and sand and a general grilling, the r`tam, as it waved like
+pampas-grass to the far horizon. By-and-by palmetto cropped up, the
+fan-shaped dwarf palm, which makes ropes and twine, baskets, mats,
+dish-covers, leggings, hats, and girths. Here it grew in the middle of
+wretched little attempts at corn-fields--a drawback to farming, though
+from want of water farming might well have been let alone. Topping a
+rise, the whole undulating country was r`tam and palmetto: occasionally a
+flock of goats moved on its face, tended by thin mahogany-coloured Arab
+boys in dirty woollen tunics.
+
+When a single olive-tree appeared, we hailed its shade for lunch. The
+mules, hobbled together, grazed: Omar and Saïd lay at a short distance,
+drinking green tea and smoking near the little fire they had lit.
+Botanical specimens had to be dried.
+
+That night we camped outside the kasbah belonging to the most powerful
+kaid in the whole district: an immense reddish-yellow pile it was, built
+of _tapia_--that is, of mud, gravel, and water principally, poured into
+bottomless cases on the wall itself, and left to set. The kasbah had
+lived through a siege or two, and looked as if it would "ruin" quickly.
+From the arched gateway a crowd of squalid retainers emerged to stare at
+sun-helmets and Englishwomen: living like mediæval times within the
+castle's protecting walls, the "feudal system" practically obtains in
+Morocco in the present day.
+
+Alas! the governor, Kaid Mohammed, was at Fez: his _khaylifa_
+(lieutenant) received us inside the filthy and squalid kasbah, seated on
+a doorstep--a better-dressed man than his retainers, curtailed perhaps in
+intellectual allowance, who gave us leave to camp outside.
+
+[Illustration: A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL.
+
+[_To face p. 298._]
+
+That evening we watched a blindfolded camel turning a water-wheel, and
+some wretched prisoners, with irons on their feet, who shuffled out of
+the gate and drew water. A black slave brought Kaid Mohammed's horses to
+water one by one; then made each roll on a sandy patch of ground, off
+which he first carefully picked every stone.
+
+The sun streamed in at our tent door next morning, but we were at
+breakfast before it had more than left the horizon, and soon on our way
+through a rough country of scrub and olives--a capital country for pig
+(which are shot in numbers), and practicable for spearing them, one would
+think. Jogging along little paths, with a cool breeze in our faces, which
+invariably went round with the sun, we came by-and-by to a valley, green
+and wooded with olives, where barley was growing, looking as if it had
+been kept under glass, it was such an even crop, and rooted in the
+richest soil. Crack--crack--ping! and a stone whistled over our heads:
+this meant Arab boys scaring birds with slings, made of dried grass, and
+probably after David's pattern.
+
+From out of an Arab village a little black child ran with a bowl of very
+sour milk, which, however, Omar and Saïd appreciated: the child wore one
+filthy whitish garment and a bead necklace, a little inky-black pigtail
+completing it.
+
+This was a day of all days, in that we had our first view of the Atlas
+Mountains--those mountains which we had come so far to see. There they
+were, first seen from a certain ridge, mighty peaks, snow-covered,
+filling one with an intense desire to travel into their fastnesses: a
+haze, however, hid the greater part of the range.
+
+A countryman joined us for a short distance, to whom Omar gave a
+cigarette-paper and a pinch of tobacco. Again all cultivation was
+exchanged for uncompromising plain, stones, stones, and a soil like
+iron, on which nothing grew except the thorny zizyphus lotus, with the
+double row of thorns, one pointing forward, the other back, out of which
+the Soudanese make their zarebas. A colony of bottle-shaped nests, made
+of dried grass, in these thorn-bushes, tempted me to try for some eggs.
+The attempt proved what a barrier the thorny lotus can be. I was
+extricated with difficulty by means of Omar's gun-barrels and Saïd's
+hands; but not without one nest and eggs--they apparently belonged to a
+variety of sparrow.
+
+A well with one tree, a spot of shade in the arid plain, intervened
+farther on. The mules drank. An Arab rode up, lean, walnut-coloured;
+slipped off his high-peaked red saddle, hobbled his mule, and lay down
+under the tree. Hot as it was, we pushed on. This plain is said to remind
+travellers of the stony part of the Sahara. In the air was a scent of
+burnt grass and flowers--a _honey_ smell: every time a breeze came we
+were duly grateful. The mules clattered on over the stones until Sidi
+Moktar came in sight--a saint-house of the deepest sanctity, near which a
+country market is held one day a week. Up to this cluster of what Omar
+dignified by the name of _shops_ we rode, and, dismounting, stooped our
+heads, and took possession of one of the minute mud-booths, the servants
+going into another next door. We could sit upright, though not stand, and
+there was shade in the shape of a thatched covering, while after the
+glare and flare of the sun outside it was as cool as a cellar.
+
+From one to three we rested there, drank green tea after lunch, studied
+maps, took notes. But the sun was as hot as ever when we took to the open
+road again, plain before us, the Atlas dimly to be seen. Some oddly
+formed hills, from four to five hundred feet high, flat-topped, presently
+appeared: one, from its contour, is called _Hank-el-Jemmel_ (Camel's
+Back). We rode past them. A layer of coarse chalcedony covers the flat
+summits, which would offer resistance when, ages ago, the Atlas wall was
+scooped into ridge and ravine, and the plain below washed bare, except
+for isolated remnants, such as these table-hills. We picked up fragments
+of chalcedony and small blocks of volcanic rock, or basalt.
+
+About five o'clock we reached an Arab _douar_, or village, and decided to
+camp near it for the night. Twenty or thirty conical huts, made of
+branches and grass and anything which keeps out the sun, black camel's
+hair or a worn-out garment; the whole surrounded by a great hedge, or
+_zareba_, of the thorny lotus, not growing, but piled up, one hole left
+in the fence for exit, and closed at night by simply piling extra thorns
+in the space; a company of howling dogs,--such is an Arab douar, and it
+is probably unequalled for filth, though when the parasites become too
+many, even the thick-skinned Bedouin moves out, and a new douar is put up
+somewhere else. There was no choice as regards camping near such a spot:
+it may have been unsafe in the open--at any rate no servants could ever
+be induced to sleep except under the protection of a village or a kasbah.
+
+It was five o'clock. An old sheikh or headman came out from between the
+thorn-barrier, welcomed us, and led the way inside to a perfectly
+impossible open space, a dunghill, amongst the huts, where we might camp;
+it was overrun with fowls, and covered with filth of every description.
+Therefore, though assured that we should be much safer within the zareba,
+and deeply against the wishes of the servants, we insisted upon leading
+the way outside, and choosing a spot as far removed from the fence as
+possible, though only too near for our own comfort. As soon as the tents
+were pitched and the sun had set, such a noise of goats (which had just
+been driven inside the douar) bleating, and donkeys braying, and dogs
+barking, and children crying, arose, as we prayed it might not be our lot
+often to hear at the end of a hard day.
+
+An admiring throng had gathered round us while the tent was in course of
+erection, and we were sitting on the grass. One old woman squatted before
+us, cross-legged, not a yard from our feet, and _gazed_; she wore nothing
+but one woollen garment, apparently a square held together on the
+shoulders by steel pins: her skinny arms, legs, and feet were bare, of
+course. We did not encourage "the masses," but kept them at arm's-length
+with sticks.
+
+That was a noisy night: half the douar was apparently being entertained
+in the servants' tent, which for safety was pitched all too close to our
+own, and they talked far on into the small hours in mumbling undertones,
+to the sound of which we finally slept, nor waked till a glorious dawn in
+a cloudless sky roused us at five o'clock. The herds were then wending
+their way out of the douar, filing across the plain, the mysterious
+delicate light of sunrise on the backs of the sheep and goats. By seven
+o'clock the sun was too hot to sit in for choice. We had already
+breakfasted in the conical shadow cast by the tent, a group of children
+watching every operation, some of them wearing the quaintest necklaces,
+of argan nuts strung together, and lumps of yellow sulphur sewn into
+perforated squares of leather: these were eagerly untied and handed over
+to us for a _bellune_ (2½d.).
+
+At eight o'clock we had left the douar behind, and were heading for
+Sheshaoua, south of the Camel's Back, along a trail more stony and
+desert-like than any before: even the few thorn-bushes did not flourish;
+perhaps the white snails, with which they were so thickly covered that
+the branches looked all in blossom, did not agree with them--snails which
+are beloved of partridges. We met no man nor animal, till at last a
+_rekass_ passed us, a runner carrying the mail to Mogador, jogging along
+the two hundred and seventy miles' journey, for which he would be paid,
+there and back again, thirteen shillings. His stick was tucked under his
+clothes, down his back, for the sake of ventilation; his waistband was
+tightened; his palm-leaf wallet was on his back, with letters, possibly
+some bread, a match or two, and some hemp, inside. He was a long-limbed
+fellow, bronzed and bearded, with the vacant, glassy eyes of a
+kif-smoker; for kif kept him going often instead of food, and helped him
+to swing along day after day, untiring, like a camel, sleeping little,
+praying occasionally at a saint's tomb, fording the streams, trotting
+over the plains, his eyes fixed on the horizon--"eating the miles," as
+Arabs say. This particular rekass left Marrakesh on Monday morning at
+ten, and reached Mogador on Wednesday afternoon at three, doing his two
+hundred and seventy miles in forty-nine hours.
+
+When Sir William Kirby Green died suddenly on an embassy in Marrakesh, a
+rekass carried the news to Mazagan, a hundred and sixty miles, in
+thirty-two hours; but the Vice-Consul told me that upon reaching his
+office the man fell down--he could not stand to tell the news.
+
+We rode on, praying for a breeze which never came: the sun literally
+sizzled on the baked desert, the rocks gave out an oven-like heat, and
+the rarefied air oscillated over the wastes. It was too hazy for more
+than glimpses of the Atlas and their snows: as far as we could see
+stretched only illimitable drab-coloured plain, broken by the flat-topped
+hills. At last we stumbled along to the top of a ridge; and there,
+strange and delightful sight, away in the distance lay a green basin,
+trees, no mirage, but the valley of Sheshaoua.
+
+Sheshaoua is a district ruled by a powerful governor, whose great kasbah
+lies somewhere about the centre, dominating a large village. The district
+is watered by a stream from the Atlas Mountains, which accounts for its
+fertility; for, except where irrigation is possible, there can be no
+cultivation in this sahara: wide ditches conduct the stream across the
+length and breadth of the province, resulting in a green ribbon upon the
+face of the plain, the fields being edged with little hard mud-banks,
+keeping the water evenly distributed over the surface when the crops need
+flooding.
+
+To have lived upon sun-burn is to appreciate the colour green: the march
+lost its monotony and some of its heat, when green lay in front and came
+nearer with every stride. Two hours and a half were short: the end of
+that time found us riding between corn-fields, crossing streamlet after
+streamlet watering the vegetation, and at last jogging over real turf,
+instead of clattering on stones, which had made talking difficult for the
+last day or two; now the path was actually soft and earthy. A long string
+of camels kept pace with us for a time on a parallel trail; then a douar
+came into sight, afterwards two saint-houses and a ruined kasbah. That
+half of these castles are ruined is not to be wondered at, considering
+that they are mud-built, and that tribal disputes and invasions are
+interminable. Some of those same crumbling tapia walls which we passed
+supported immense earthen jars, standing out against the sky--jars which
+are stored with corn or butter, and sealed up: nine months' old butter
+has the reputation of an old wine.
+
+Shady trees, standing for the most part by the stream, hung over our
+path, but would have made damp camping-grounds, and we rode on through a
+marsh, up one ridge, down the opposite side, and at last into the
+principal village of Sheshaoua, not far from which, on a hillside to the
+north-east, lay one of the familiar country market-places, with its
+collection of little shelters for the sellers, its upright branches on
+which to hang meat--Thursday's market this. A ruined, red-walled kasbah
+faced it, apparently inhabited by storks alone, busy building their great
+rough nests: some were in the village.
+
+Sheshaoua was no douar, but a high-walled collection of houses,
+overlooked by the modern kasbah on the hill. Thither we rode, up the
+steep slope, to call on the kaid, Sekassam Belcady, and ask permission to
+pitch the tents in one of the gardens which fringed the stream below.
+This the khaylifa granted at once (the kaid himself being at Fez with the
+Sultan), pressing on us the alternative of putting up inside the kasbah
+itself; but the open air had stronger attractions, and we wound our way
+downhill to the stream, on the other side of which the kaid's own garden
+lay. There being no bridge, the stream deep, and the banks steep, the
+mules were driven over by themselves, and R. and I followed one by one on
+Omar's back--on and into a natural garden fit for the gods, one of
+Nature's own parterres, and a paradise at that.
+
+On dry ground, underneath orange-trees covered with blossom, we lunched
+and lay down: of flowers, except wild ones, there were none, nor any
+attempt at cultivation; the terraces were dense in greenery and shade,
+interlaced with branches, intersected by streamlets, perfumed with
+orange flowers; water murmured; nightingales answered each other from
+every corner; wood-pigeons cooed content; most musical of all, the
+bulbul's throbbing, passionate note--not loud--was heard for the first
+time. Yes; we might have said: "If there is a heaven upon earth, it is
+this, it is this, it is this."
+
+The snake creeps into most paradises: suddenly a thunder-storm invaded
+ours; heavy rain began even to penetrate the thick lace of leaves and
+branches over our heads, and, walking to the opening at the edge of the
+wood, it was clear that heavy storms were working up from the north-east;
+nor did the day improve. Having sat through two downpours, with every
+sign of more to follow, when another pressing invitation came from the
+khaylifa to spend the night in the kasbah, it seemed foolish to do other
+than accept; for bad weather under tents, which like ours did not claim
+to be waterproof, has no attractions. Further, the khaylifa had stated
+that the guest-house was new, and had never been occupied.
+
+Thither we hurried through the rain. The inside of the "castle" was
+blocked by a collection of filthy-looking sheds or rooms, which seemed to
+be full of Arabs and negroes and women--wives of the khaylifa--all of
+them squalid and mannerless: the paths between were littered with refuse.
+A country kaid, judging from the state of his kasbah, is possessed of no
+refinement, and has less sense of decency and comfort, as European ideas
+go, than many members of the labouring class at home.
+
+The appearance of the guest-house was, however, reassuring: the long
+lofty room into which we were shown had been newly whitewashed, the
+ceiling painted red and green; its double doors and two windows opened
+into a little courtyard, and rooms beyond housed the servants. A sheep
+was being skinned in an adjoining shed: we were to be feasted.
+
+Meantime, few, if any, of the kaid's retainers could have abstained from
+visiting us, to judge by the levée which we held for more than an hour:
+perhaps the black slaves were most interesting, but they were also
+hardest to remove, from the scene of such a phenomenon, as two
+Englishwomen within their own walls. Probably no such thing had happened
+within the memory of man; for Sheshaoua is off the beaten track to
+Marrakesh, nor do travellers as a rule sleep out of their tents.
+
+While we had tea, under a battery of eyes, and further annoyed by the
+chatter at the open door and windows, a _mona_ (a present from the
+governor) arrived, and was set down at our feet. It was not the
+time--just after tea--to eat an immense dish of _coos-coosoo_, or a
+steaming pile of hot mutton and raisins, cooked in oil, which lay on the
+round trenchers, when the great beehive-like straw covers were raised:
+some of the hot cakes accompanying them might be managed, but the rest
+was handed over to the expectant servants, to whom coos-coosoo is as
+roast beef to the British labourer, though less stimulating, for it only
+consists of wheat or millet or maize flour, granulated, steamed, and
+eaten hot, sometimes crowned with chicken.
+
+Following hard on the mona came a message from the khaylifa asking for
+medicine. Graphically answering my question as to what was the matter
+with him, the messenger stroked his waist: we found a pill, which was
+carried off with much gratitude.
+
+A short time elapsed, and then, to our horror, four slaves arrived,
+carrying great preparations for tea--brass trays, urn, and the whole
+paraphernalia--mint and sweetness filling the room. Again the servants
+benefited; and even a third time, after we were actually in bed; for the
+door was bombarded, and three women came in, and laid a great almond
+pudding, of much delicacy, covered with stripes of grated cinnamon, at
+our feet.
+
+That night was the one bad experience of our time in Morocco. Though the
+guest-room was new and apparently clean, some matting had been laid on
+the floor, which we had not removed, and with the darkness its occupants
+came out in such numbers that, in spite of "Keating" round the legs of
+each bed, the long hours were taken up in warfare, and we never slept.
+Next day the room was scoured out, and the lively matting ejected, while
+we were strolling round Sheshaoua between heavy showers of rain, which
+reduced the clay country to a state of quagmire. However, Sunday, after a
+peaceful night both inside and out of doors, broke fresh and clear: all
+the great loose thunder-clouds had packed themselves into long cloudlets
+with ruled horizontal bases; and in clear, rarefied air, standing up
+almost unearthly in their beauty, the Atlas range from end to end, was to
+be seen at last. Chiselled peak after peak, upon which no traveller has
+ever set foot, glistened in the sun, apparently about ten miles off, in
+reality more like thirty or forty. It was one of those mornings which
+have been thoroughly washed, and the swirling pea-soup river bore witness
+to the operation as surely as the air of purity which the whole country
+wore. All was radiant: down below, the orange grove of our arrival rang
+with nightingales and bulbuls; there was a scent of heaven, an undertone
+of racing waters.
+
+[Illustration: SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE PASS ON THE MARCH.
+
+[_To face p. 308._]
+
+Just as we were packed up to start, the khaylifa sent and expressed
+thanks for our medicine, and asked that as a favour we would see his
+wives, one of whom was ill. They were found in mud rooms, dark and dirty,
+most uninteresting in themselves. One stout "lady" had a swelled neck,
+the other had cataract: both wished to be prescribed for. I recommended,
+through Omar, bathing the swelled neck: it was necessary from a
+cleanliness point of view. From the same point of view I shook hands
+hurriedly and departed, climbed into the saddle, and was soon far away
+from the kasbah at Sheshaoua.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A PARTING MONA--FORDING SHESHAOUA RIVER--JARS OF FOOD--FIRST SIGHT OF
+MARRAKESH--A PERILOUS CROSSING--RIDE INTO MARRAKESH--THE SLAVE MARKET.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+    "We who are old, old and gay,
+           O so old!
+     Thousands of years, thousands of years,
+           If all were told:
+
+     Give to these children, new from the world,
+           Rest far from men.
+     Is anything better, anything better?
+           Tell us it then:
+
+     Us who are old, old and gay,
+           O so old!
+     Thousands of years, thousands of years,
+           If all were told."
+
+    W. B. YEATS.
+
+
+WE were once more upon the march; and yet all links with the kasbah were
+not broken, for we had gone but a short way when a servant ran after us,
+carrying a familiar dish, known from afar--a parting mona. Laid at our
+feet, we tasted, as courtesy demanded, a coos-coosoo made of grated
+almonds, powdered sugar, and cream--a sweet which cloys at an early hour
+in the day, though to Moorish servants, at any and every moment of their
+lives, it is as caviare to the few. A circle was formed round the dish:
+in two minutes, all that was left, was "an aching china blank."
+
+Quantity rather than quality distinguishes Moorish cookery. The rich
+man's dishes are more or less like the poor man's, only that he has six
+times as many; indeed, there are said to be dishes of coos-coosoo which
+seven men can barely carry. The Sultan's own cuisine is quite simple,
+better served, and more of it perhaps, than his subjects', but otherwise
+exactly the same.
+
+Having disposed of the mona, our cavalcade started, and we rode down to
+the Sheshaoua River, still in heavy flood, but fordable since the fine
+night. The waters roared past between the crumbling banks: we saw in one
+place waggon-loads of red soil suddenly subside with a vast noise into
+the cataract which had undermined it. Upon the brink the men stripped
+themselves; then, wading into the torrent, hauled across mules, camel,
+and donkey one by one: we took our feet out of the stirrups, and managed
+to keep dry; the camel behaved admirably.
+
+[Illustration: TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE.
+
+[_To face p. 314._]
+
+It was an uneventful day, across a bleak and stony country. Towards
+evening we passed a ruined kasbah, rose-red in the sunset. Riding due
+east, our long sharp shadows pointed ahead: there was a peace over all
+things. The shadowed heights on the right, scooped into blue gullies and
+mighty crests, carried a veil of cloud on their tops: the good little red
+path we were on, was without a stone. As the sun dropped we swung along
+into a dim grey beyond, to the muffled tramp, tramp of the mules' hoofs,
+_shuffle-shuffle through the night_, while a cool breeze got up, and a
+flight of birds high above us called aloud as they passed over. Ah! but
+how good it was!--no telegrams, no conventionalities, no possessions
+worth worry or consideration. Strange, the influence which such a simple
+life has upon the mind: letters, and newspapers, and the topics of the
+day, and the world in general, have little interest for the time being,
+and get buried in the wastepaper-basket of trivialities, while the
+weather, and the state of the track, and little things in Nature,
+assume gigantic proportions and fill the mind.
+
+We camped that night near another red ruined kasbah, whose long line of
+crumbling tapia walls against the Atlas Mountains stretched itself out
+like a watch-dog beside the forbidden hills. In the morning Arabs were
+more importunate than ever, one woman thrusting her head between the
+flaps of the canvas while we were dressing. A deal, meantime, went on in
+the kitchen-tent over a lamb, Omar feeling its neck and tail, and
+subsequently buying it for five shillings, after which it was silently
+dispatched on the far side, skinned, cut up; and the donkey bore a
+pannierful of meat that day.
+
+Our blue jay of the ruined kasbah at Sok-el-Tleta turned up again on the
+march, beautiful as ever, and no less tame; but all the birds shared that
+distinction, and were of a confiding nature delightful to see.
+
+Before Frouga, one of our next camping-grounds, was reached, we passed a
+kasbah which six years ago was in the possession of a kaid, who may or
+may not be still alive, in prison. His province, at any rate, rose
+against him to a man at the late Sultan's death, and wrecked his castle,
+the Government disposing of him after he had escaped to Marrakesh. The
+orchards of almond-trees, with thriving beans planted underneath them,
+and the fat fields of barley, spoke volumes for the prosperity of his
+days. It takes much provocation to induce country people to rise and
+rebel against their kaid; for rebellion, if unsuccessful, brings down
+such awful vengeance on the heads of the tribesmen: therefore his hard
+case was probably just punishment.
+
+Another river, the Asif-el-Mel, had to be forded on the same day. It was
+a bad crossing, we were warned by one sheikh not to attempt it, and
+neither of our men knew the ford; but some Arabs turned up, and they
+helped to get the mules safely across. R. and I had each four men with
+us: we tied our boots, stockings, camera and glasses round our necks, and
+rode over, careful not to look down at the race of the torrent, which has
+turned horsemen giddy often enough,--a raging river rather more than
+breast-high is not a thing to be trifled with. On the banks beyond lay a
+large and flourishing village, chiefly remarkable on account of its
+_Mellah_ (Jews' Quarter),--a strange thing to find so far from
+civilization; and yet it was not, for the interior of Morocco is full of
+wandering Israelites, who, living and dying in remote Arab and Berber
+settlements, become naturalized to a certain extent, yet ever "keep
+themselves to themselves," housed only in their own "quarter," under lock
+and key after sundown, and subjected to a few irksome regulations. Some
+of them become rich on the profits of the "middle man," buying skins and
+produce of all sorts from the country people, and passing them through to
+the coast towns: such men may be worth from £3,000 to £5,000.
+
+It is hard to conceive a race settling from choice amongst the squalor
+and filth of the lowest type of Arab, but as a matter of fact, the Jewish
+Quarter violated, over and above all the rest of the village put
+together, every tradition of cleanliness. The Berber villages of the
+north, dirty enough in all conscience, absolutely shone in comparison
+with the Arab douars in the south, or with their larger settlements,
+those semi-villages, whose flat-roofed huts were stacked with earthen or
+basket-work jars. These bottle-shaped jars, full of what Mohammed calls
+"the liquor of the bee," cream-cheese, barley, etc., were plastered with
+mud, and waterproof: when they occurred in twos and threes on every roof,
+the effect was striking.
+
+It would have been a monotonous ride to Frouga except for the Atlas
+Mountains on our right, which we had been steadily nearing for days: now
+comparatively close, their gleaming snow-peaks were never without
+interest, and Omar told tales of travellers' experiences up in one or two
+of the passes. The principal roads across the chain to Taroudant,
+Ras-el-Ouad, and the Sus, pass through Frouga, and make it an important
+place. It possesses an _inzella_, or sort of fondâk, where men and
+transport are safe for the night under the protection of the kaid of the
+district.
+
+We pitched our tents among little fields of beans and barley, planted
+with olive-trees, close to a mosque, and awoke when _es-sbar_ (sunrise)
+was called in sonorous tones from the top of the dome: a cuckoo answered
+the mueddzin, and a pair of little doves began to coo persistently.
+
+The gardens of Frouga are celebrated--full of vines planted like
+hop-gardens, of prickly pear, figs, pears, apricots, and corn, in between
+the fruit-trees. And yet the owners are not rich: the governors of the
+district see to that; for supposing a man becomes richer than the
+governor, X., he goes to the Government and says, "If you make me
+governor instead of X., I will bring you more money than he does, and
+here is a present at the same time." The Government accepts the bribe,
+and gives the man a letter stating that he is made governor instead of X.
+The man collects his friends and ousts X., perhaps imprisoning him for
+life. A governor, therefore, never allows a man under him to possess
+capital. He may be rich in cattle and gardens, but he will have to pay
+the governor out of his profits from thirty to ninety shillings at stated
+times all the year round, and never have any "spare cash." If he refuses
+to pay, he is turned out of his own home and acres, which fall into the
+governor's hands. Naturally he prefers to cling to his gardens.
+
+Beyond Frouga lay some of the most fertile land in Morocco. We passed
+wonderful crops of barley and wheat, which in an average year, for every
+bushel sown, yield forty bushels. Moors say that corn in Morocco is known
+to yield, not forty, but a hundred-fold. In England fifteen-fold is
+considered an average crop. Morocco grows two crops each year: there is a
+spring harvest and an autumn harvest. It would seem, therefore, that if
+agriculture were encouraged, and light railways laid down to the coast,
+money would pour into the country--especially supposing that, instead of
+wheat, such a crop as linseed was grown. Russian and American competition
+would probably diminish the profits to be made out of wheat, but a soil
+and a climate like Morocco might grow anything and everything. At present
+fraud and dishonesty seem the soul of trade: the Jew brokers cheat the
+Moors; the Moors sand their sheep's wool to make it heavy, mix paraffin
+candles with their beeswax, put all manner of things into oil, and so on.
+But a single example shows the spirit of the country. A friend of ours
+found his horses becoming poor, yet he saw their corn taken out to them
+every evening: he examined it; it was quite good. After a time it
+occurred to him to look inside the horses' mouths, and he found the gums
+cut and lacerated in order to prevent their eating their barley, which,
+after it had lain a certain time on the ground untouched, was confiscated
+by the servants.
+
+[Illustration: MARRAKESH.
+
+[_To face p. 318._]
+
+Meanwhile, each day as we marched on, brought us nearer to our bourn, and
+at last we found ourselves on a wide flat plain, unbroken, except by the
+trail which we followed, consisting of six or eight narrow paths, winding
+on side by side like railway rails--a splendid "high road" for
+Morocco. Truly it is a spare-room country. The snaking track might take
+up acres and acres of rich land. What matter! There is room.
+
+It was still very hot: smoked spectacles kept off a certain amount of
+glare, and I wore two hats, a straw on top of a felt, having neglected to
+bring a solar topi; but even so the sun was unnecessarily generous,
+glowing on the splendid polish which some of the Arabs carried on their
+sepia-coloured skulls, and making it impossible to follow the crested
+larks, singing their heads off, up in the brilliant sky.
+
+At last we felt a breeze, topped a low rise: an old greybeard all in
+white jogged up towards us on a donkey, a man running behind; a village
+lay below; but our eyes only went to one spot in the wide blue plain,
+which was spread out like a praying-carpet before us. That spot lay
+twenty-five miles off--a single tower, the Kutobea in Morocco City.
+
+"Marrakesh!" cried Omar and Saïd simultaneously.
+
+We rode on, across dry plain, over old river-beds, through patches of
+olive-trees, pink oleander, and castor-oil plant; leaving Arab douars
+behind; meeting with white cow-birds which recalled Tetuan; passing men
+with merchandise on camels and donkeys, strings of country people, and
+wanderers of all sorts; stopping to rest near wells where swallows were
+building in the brickwork and donkeys stood asleep in the shade; watching
+Arabs beating out corn with sticks, men ploughing, until we were once
+more amongst "greenery" and in a fertile stretch of country. Surely there
+was a river near. We passed fine crops of maize; onions were doing
+famously; fields of bearded wheat rustled in a life-giving breeze. And
+then the Wad-el-Nyfs, the largest river we had to cross, came into sight.
+Saïd at the outset precipitated himself into a great hole, and was well
+ducked: eventually we all landed safely on the other side, though the
+start was far from reassuring, some Arabs on the bank telling us it was
+"not good" to cross, and wading down into the torrent, for us to see that
+the water took them up to their necks almost at once, sweeping them
+down-stream. Before we rode into the water every man divested himself of
+each particle of clothing which he wore; and R. got across with two
+dark-skinned individuals clinging on to her legs, one on each side of the
+mule, a third hanging on to its bridle, and a fourth at its tail; while I
+followed also with four attendants. Not long ago, a party of missionaries
+was fording one of these very rivers, and neglected to have men at the
+mules' heads, one of which stumbled and threw its rider into the rapid
+stream: she was drowned. It was not deep at the time, or more precaution
+would have been taken: on the other hand, the stream is always like a
+mill-race, an accident can happen in a moment, and therefore a rule
+should be made, and never under any circumstances broken, to the effect
+that every rider have a man at the mule's head, and more than one,
+according to the state of the river.
+
+We had a long hot ride to Tamsloect: the breeze, which was westerly, was
+useless to us; the track led over stony yellow hills; now and again we
+caught glimpses of the Kutobea standing up very far away; and all the
+time the great snow-fields, on the vast mountains, close upon our right,
+looked tantalizingly near and cold. Occasionally we watered the mules at
+a stream: tortoises were swimming about in one of these. But on the whole
+it was a singularly uneventful and a very sultry ride, until at last long
+lines of red mud walls, many gardens, three mosque towers, and some tall,
+dark, green cypress-trees proclaimed Tamsloect--an important village,
+possessing a Friday market, an unequalled view of the Atlas, and a saint,
+Mulai Abdullah Ben Hassi.
+
+An Arab, Hadj Cadour, is one of the great men in Tamsloect; and to him,
+having an introduction, we went. The best hours spent in Morocco were
+those lived with certain of the Moors themselves, sharing for a short
+time their simple and yet fantastic life, learning something of their
+innate courtesy and generous hospitality. Hadj Cadour was a host of the
+old aristocratic school. He was out at his garden-house when we reached
+the village, entertaining friends at a tea party; and upon our message
+reaching him, he sent back a man on a white horse to point out another of
+his gardens close at hand, where he suggested that the tents should be
+pitched, while R. and I rode out and joined his tea party.
+
+Leaving Omar to superintend the camp, we started off after the rider on
+the white horse: he led the way through the village, finally into a
+labyrinth of gardens, where we brushed through bearded wheat such as I
+have never seen before nor since, which luxuriated with olives,
+fruit-trees of all sorts, and pale pink monthly roses. Presently in the
+midst of the semi-wilderness a little white house intervened, half buried
+in trees, and close to it, in the shade, under an olive, was gathered
+Hadj Cadour's tea party, six or eight dignified Arabs, in those perfectly
+washed and blanched garments which so fit their solemn, dignified
+manners, their sad and intellectual type of faces: not that Moors are
+necessarily either of the two last; but they look it--that is all.
+
+A great tea-kettle, as usual, loomed in the background; carpets and thick
+red Morocco leather cushions made seats for the members of the charmed
+circle: we reclined there with the rest, talking, as far as a few Arabic
+words would carry us, of our starting-point, our destination, the road,
+the rivers, the weather, Hadj Cadour helping us out, one and all
+interested and anxious to be understood and to understand. Our host
+dispensed _sherrub de minat_, the wine of the country, made from grapes;
+the little dome-shaped pewter teapot was there, with its fond
+associations of Morocco, together with the copper tray and circle of
+diminutive painted glasses; a gorgeous indolent sun poured down beyond
+the patch of shade; the hum and hover of insects vibrated in the air; and
+presently musicians were summoned--girls wearing pale green jellabs and
+silver ornaments, with yellow handkerchiefs twisted round their heads,
+men in bright colours. Sitting down between us, each was given a glass of
+sherrub de minat, and by-and-by they began to play. Weird and wild music
+it was, that of the _tareegea_, the _gimbi_, and the _tahr_, quaint
+native instruments of the roughest construction, and yet, as music,
+possessing fascination not a little.
+
+The long kif-pipes were lighted, green tea and wine were sipped, the
+white figures stretched themselves on the cushions, and a great and
+dreamy content came over the faces under the white turbans. There was
+nowhere a trace of boredom such as mars so many European
+entertainments--rather the thing was loved for itself, and every man felt
+it and entered into its spirit. Now and then the musicians broke into a
+strange song, and the guests beat their hands and murmured in chorus;
+then again they would seem half intoxicated, in a harmless fashion, with
+kif and wine and music, and would appear to be absent in a world of their
+own. The music had a lilt in it, and often a suggestion of something half
+tamed, desperate, swung along with the cadences; and thin wreaths of
+smoke from the long pipes blew up through the olive branches, and an
+Arabic sentence dropped now and again on the ear: the hot, slow, sleepy
+afternoon waned. . . .
+
+Poetry bulks so largely in the Arabic nature. Emotional and yet simple,
+that nature is, to a certain extent, appealed to by the refined. The
+sordid and vulgar have no attractions for it. There is no language more
+poetical than the Arabic language, where "snow" is called "hair of the
+mountain" and "rainbow" is "bride of the rain." "Red mullet" is "the
+sultan of fishes": "maiden-hair fern" is translated by "little cane of
+the well." Ordinary Arabic words show an extraordinary gift of
+description: the word for "secretly" means literally "under the matting,"
+and "never" is expressed thus, "when the charcoal takes root and the salt
+buds."
+
+Uncontrolled ascendency of imagination marks the Arab, and endows his
+nature with a fascination all its own: an outdoor life is his heritage,
+and the things of Nature are a part of himself. "Spring" he calls
+"grass"; "summer" is "gleaning"; "autumn" is "fruit"; "winter" is
+"rainy."
+
+If only he could keep pure his race, Morocco had never stood among the
+nations where she stands now. The steady infusion of African blood is
+becoming her ruin: the sensual negro type, spreading rapidly, is eating
+its way into the heart of the people. When it is remembered that
+thousands upon thousands of slaves are imported into Morocco from the
+interior of Africa every year, that they become eventually "free," their
+children inheriting equal rights with other children, it is no longer a
+matter of wonder that the Moorish race shows signs of deterioration, that
+its people are effete. It is after meeting with men such as Hadj Cadour
+and many others, who hark back to the old type of chief and horseman and
+the desert life, touched with the old vein of poetry and chivalry, that
+one regrets the things which are. But we had spent an afternoon which was
+one worth recollecting; and when we had parted from that little circle
+under the shady olive, and were jogging back to our tents, it was to
+remember that there are still good things in Morocco.
+
+The tents we found ready for us in a delightful spot enclosed by a wall:
+a tank lay in the centre of the garden, around it a few paths, and a
+great deal of mint. But a terrible ordeal awaited us--green tea and a
+great spread, provided by the brother of Hadj Cadour, who had also
+arranged carpets as seats around the tank. Again next morning, just after
+we had finished breakfast, this hospitable individual sent into our tent
+two steaming hot chickens fried brown in argan oil, with half a dozen
+round cakes of fine flour; and when, immediately afterwards, we rode to
+his house to say farewell and tender our thanks, he proffered green tea
+once more.
+
+Heavy drops of rain awoke us in the middle of the night; but just as an
+ominous patter was coming through the old canvas and sounding on the
+bed-clothes, the shower stopped. Again later it came on, with thunder.
+Omar changed the smart clothes which he had put on in view of a triumphal
+entry into Marrakesh; we packed and got off as quickly as we could,
+expecting more rain; many good-byes were said; Hadj Cadour sent a servant
+with us to the gates; and we rode out of Tamsloect.
+
+[Illustration: THE OPEN GATE.
+
+[_To face p. 324._]
+
+Outside, towards the east, its gardens were numerous: great black poplars
+and palms grew freely. For an hour we rode alongside a district which
+belonged entirely to Mulai el Hadj, the great man of Tamsloect, and a
+holy Shar[=i]f to boot. This man is rich, and because he is a holy
+Shar[=i]f he can never be dispossessed of his wealth. His white house
+and cypress-trees stand out prominently in the village we had just left;
+throughout his gardens he has built a succession of water-towers, which
+irrigate his land; he is British-protected, and as important a man in the
+south as the French-protected Wazeer of Wazan is in the north.
+
+All this time we were riding steadily towards Marrakesh, interest
+increasing with every step as we neared the city, to visit which we had
+left Mogador about ten days before.
+
+That last day's march was not an interesting one: the great Atlas, upon
+which we had now turned our backs, were no longer to be seen, on account
+of clouds which the last night's storm had brought upon them; the plain
+over which we rode possessed a deadly monotony, for we were not entering
+Marrakesh upon its best side, where gardens upon gardens of palm-trees
+stretch beyond the city gates for miles and miles, but our road from
+Tamsloect was prosaic and dull. Certainly we crossed some of the
+wonderful underground canals, which carry water five and ten miles, from
+springs in the country, into the city--about whose origin nothing
+whatever is known, tradition remaining silent as to any builder. These
+great works are merely water-ways tunnelled through the solid earth, not
+at any great distance from the surface: along their courses the streams
+are conducted for great distances. There are openings at intervals which
+ventilate the tunnels: these are kept clean and easily examined by means
+of the same. The whole arrangement is very rough, very primitive, but
+perfectly answers the purpose for which it was made.
+
+The crops which we left behind us at every mile looked well, and it was
+to be hoped would soon make good the failure of the preceding crop: that
+failure had accounted for the skinny children and lean women whom we had
+met, and was the reason of the country people's continuous digging for
+ayerna root, and washing the same by the roadside and in so many
+villages.
+
+Meanwhile, Marrakesh and its adobe walls, of a sad yellow-pink tone, grew
+nearer and nearer, till at last the long line of crumbling tapia was but
+a short distance off, and the Báb-el-Roub, a massive gateway, plainly to
+be seen. Just outside the walls, Mr. Miller, one of the missionaries, met
+us: he had one piece of news, which carried with it regret wherever it
+was heard across the length and breadth of the British Empire--the death
+of Cecil Rhodes. Under the Báb-el-Roub we rode into the city of crumbling
+walls and silent sandy roadways: somewhat of a deserted city, the great
+southern capital appeared to be at first; but then we were nowhere near
+its heart, and the half of it is gardens and quiet houses, while a small
+part only, is wholly full of vitality: the whole is crumbling to pieces,
+and strange of all strangest cities ever seen.
+
+We rode straight to Kaid Maclean's house, lent us by Lady Maclean--the
+best house in Morocco City, over-looking one of the many market-places,
+and that open space in which story-tellers and snake-charmers, surrounded
+by a dense circle of admirers, cater to an attentive throng. The house
+was empty, and we "camped" in several of the rooms, lunching in a long
+gallery which looked straight out on to the Atlas Mountains: the mules
+went into a capacious stable; the servants made themselves comfortable in
+the kitchens. It is hard to find house-room in Marrakesh: of course a
+hotel is unheard of, nor is camping-ground to be met with easily. There
+are no foreign consuls in this far-off city, and no English element
+beyond the two or three missionaries who live there. Travellers have
+generally to depend upon the loan of some house for the time being, from
+a holy Shar[=i]f or Moor of some standing; but the house may be anywhere,
+and comfortable or otherwise. Since the Sultan was at Fez, his army and
+his commander-in-chief, Kaid Maclean, were at Fez too: hence the reason
+of the Macleans' house standing empty, within which we were so fortunate
+as to find ourselves.
+
+Marrakesh cannot be described: it must be seen. It is more suggestive,
+more intangible, more elusive--that is to say, its Eastern medley of a
+population is so, and its crumbling tapia-walled houses are so--than any
+other Moorish city. More ghosts should stalk the half-deserted yellow
+roadways of Marrakesh, more mysteries be shrouded within the windowless
+walls, than a man of Western civilization could conceive.
+
+It is a vast city--other writers have chronicled the number of square
+miles which it accounts for--and yet, in spite of its size, the sum-total
+of souls it contains is not overwhelming. There are gardens everywhere,
+stretch after stretch of palm-trees, acre after acre of fruit-trees, and
+wedged among them all, lie the flat roofs, swarm the endless throng which
+spells humanity; and the oddest, most varied humanity--Arabs and negroes,
+men from the Sus, from the Sahara, from Draa, Berber hillmen, tribesmen
+from the Atlas, a tumultuous multitude, a hive of bees of whom no census
+has ever been made. We were among them all, the first time we rode
+through the city. No one walks in Marrakesh: as a matter of fact I did
+later on, often enough, sometimes alone, getting somewhat jostled in the
+narrow ways--beyond that in no way inconvenienced. But every one who can,
+is on a mule or a long-tailed countrybred, pushing along at a foot's
+pace, crying out now and then, and avoiding this pair of black toes,
+that coffee-coloured bare heel.
+
+Beyond the wall, covered with nails, whereon heads are fastened after
+rebellions have been quenched and the time of punishment and warning has
+come, we rode into the land of little shops. Here, in another instance,
+Marrakesh is unique: the narrow streets were in great part entirely
+roofed in overhead either by vines or by bamboos; the brilliant sunlight
+streamed through the spaces between the vines and canes, and chequered
+the seething white throng which eternally passed underneath it. From an
+open street we plunged into the cool shade of one of these arcades. And
+how it moved! Nothing ever stood still in the Marrakesh soks. Life
+"travels" for ever and for ever there. Between the shops, themselves
+teeming with bustle and incident, moved up and down, the throng of white,
+draped, dignified figures, calling, heaving, struggling, jostling
+sometimes, chattering always, blotched with shifting yellow sunlight and
+black shadow cast by the lattice roof overhead. It was a transformation
+scene; it was a weird dream--weird to the point of seeming unreal, unlike
+men and the haunts of men, though all the time rampant with _humans_.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE KUTOBEA, MARRAKESH.
+
+[_To face p. 328._]
+
+When the Sultan went to Fez, a party of soldiers and goldsmiths and
+craftsmen of all sorts went with him from the city of Marrakesh, in
+number over forty thousand souls. But the exodus made no appreciable
+difference in the soks. Not only the numbers, but the types of the stream
+of faces between which we rode were all striking, and each one so far
+removed from anything at all European. Humanity can indeed be separated
+from humanity by gulfs impassable, or gulfs which may alone be bridged
+over by a violation of nature, on the part of the man upon the east
+bank or upon the west bank.
+
+The palm-trees wave above Marrakesh, turtle-backed mosques and tall
+towers rise among the gardens and gleam in the sun, but above and beyond
+every other feature of the far-away fantastic southern capital one
+watch-tower rises over everything and rears itself into the sky--the
+Kutobea, built, according to tradition, by Fabir for the Sultan El
+Mansur. It stands in a vast empty space close to the Great Mosque: few
+people pass that way--their footfalls are almost unheard in the soft
+sand; and the lonely tower cuts the clear quiet sky. The Kutobea is built
+of dark red stone. There is a pattern, alternately raised and sunk, on
+the faces of the minaret, the sunk part cut deep, the raised part carved
+and standing out. A broad band of wonderful black and green iridescent
+tiles, snakes round the top like some opulent spotted serpent. Part of it
+has dropped away: the gilded brass balls, the cupola, are here and there
+tarnished; but the sun sets, and his indulgent rays swamp every defect,
+burnish and polish and gild corner-stone and fretted marble and
+emerald-green tile alike, until the "to-day" of the Kutobea is as
+triumphant as its "yesterday" of many hundred years. The design of the
+tower itself--the minaret--is said to have come from Constantinople, as
+did the Giralda at Seville, which it so resembles.
+
+Of the mosque, beside the Kutobea, nothing was to be seen except its
+walls, and through an open door avenues of pillars. The huge building has
+an Arabic name meaning "The Mosque of the Books"; for what reason--who
+can tell?--tradition is silent.
+
+Marrakesh itself is supposed to have been built upon the site of an
+immensely old structure, the ancient Martok. As it is now,
+Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin founded it in 1072, a city which covers almost as much
+ground as Paris--a purely African city. Fez, Tetuan, Tangier, have
+Spanish blood in them: Marrakesh is African to the core. Arabs here are
+in a minority: the spare Saharowi type, the shaved lip and cheeks and
+pointed chin-tuft of the Berber race, men from the mysterious sandy
+steppes below Cape Bojador, Soudanese blacks, men from Wadnoon--one and
+all congregate in this city. Even the music and songs are, naturally
+enough, all African, with the strange interval, the rhythm which halts
+and races where no European music ever halted or raced; and the tom-tom,
+the gimbri, the ear-piercing Moorish flute, all fall upon the English ear
+as things intensely strange and strongly fascinating.
+
+Marrakesh boasts no aristocracy: it is a city of the people. It has few
+Shar[=i]fs: it is a land of "traders," speculating, toiling, intriguing;
+between its yellow adobe walls, and its whitewashed dazzling walls,
+amidst its dense metallic semi-tropical vegetation, up and down its sandy
+silent ways, they live and die. Its fountains are beautiful:
+_Shrab-u-Schuf_ (Drink and admire) is inscribed on one of them. But it is
+not by its architecture that Marrakesh stands and falls; rather by a
+personality all its own--by its many ruined walls, by its deserted
+streets, by the hot pulse of life throbbing imperiously through its
+arteries crowded to suffocation with humanity, by its flaring African
+sunlight, by the figures which can never be other than picturesque, by a
+thousand impressions which can never die. And by reason of all this
+Marrakesh is great.
+
+Once upon a time it was impossible for an Englishman to see the Slave
+Market. Owing partly to the radical hatred of Europeans, partly to the
+suspicious and seclusive nature of the Moor, the presence of foreigners
+in the sacred Slave Market was tabooed. Not that the Nazarene was "taken
+up" or turned back if he showed his face inside the courtyard: on the
+contrary, he was allowed to walk in, and apparently no eye was aware of
+his presence. And yet in a few moments he would find himself alone. The
+Slave Market had vanished, had melted away: a line of disappearing backs
+was all which was to be seen. Supposing a Moor had connived at this
+attempt on the part of a Nazarene to see slaves being sold, that Moor
+disappeared, by order of the Sultan, and there was a funeral later on in
+the day.
+
+However, while we were in Marrakesh, less rigorous orders were in vogue.
+Having come prepared to see the market disguised in native dress if
+necessary, we found that we were able to go there without much
+difficulty, and only escorted by one of the missionaries and a servant.
+Though slaves are bought and sold through the length and breadth of
+Morocco, it is not possible in any other city than Marrakesh for the
+European to see or know much about it. In the coast towns the sales are
+conducted privately. In Fez it is probable that they might be attended by
+others than Moors; but at the time of writing I take it that no wise
+European, if such should be there at all in these unquiet times, would
+venture to put himself into a position likely to attract all the bullets
+and knives in Fez in his direction.
+
+Just at sunset--6.30, I think--the Slave Market in Marrakesh opens, and
+we went in. To some ears it would no doubt have sounded the strangest
+anomaly, that prayer to the Most High God, with which the sale was
+prefaced; but a Mussulman hallows every action, right or wrong, with a
+petition; besides which slavery is lawful and good in his eyes, is
+approved of and permitted by Mohammed in the written book of the
+Kor[=a]n; is, in short, a part of the scheme of Nature which it were a
+serious mistake not to use and enjoy. So the line of auctioneers formed
+up, held out their hands, prayed, invoked a blessing over the
+proceedings, mumbling in sonorous tones for a few moments. Then silence.
+It was over: the sale began. There is nothing more easy than to be
+theatrical and emotional in describing scenes of this sort--one has read
+of them scores of times: words such as "degrading" and "harrowing" rise
+up in the mind's eye, coupled with violent epithets and stinging clauses.
+And yet, finding oneself in the centre of another just such a scene, one
+realized how impossible the thing was, to understand, or to feel,
+beforehand, and how curiously it played upon the emotions. Walking into
+the market with a sobriety, with a cold, critical interest such as a Nero
+may have felt towards his victims, one divined early in the proceedings
+that the scene tended unduly to intensify emotion. Truly no men think
+alike: a vast chasm yawns between the natures of the slave-trader and the
+European: that chasm is a universal education. To realize all which
+separates a native of Africa from a Frenchman or an Englishman, and the
+difficulties which lie in the way of promoting an understanding between
+the two, visit such a place as the Slave Market in Marrakesh.
+
+Groups of slaves, more or less gorgeously dressed, some in rags where
+nothing better could be afforded, were sitting far back in little
+covered-in recesses which lined the square. All round the square stood,
+or sat upon their heels, intending purchasers, for the most part
+middle-aged elderly men, sleek and fat, in turbans and soft linen, white
+beyond reproach. Each auctioneer, the prayer over, advanced to the groups
+of slaves, and led out one or perhaps two or three, and paraded them
+round and round the square under the eyes of the buyers. At last a bid
+was made: the auctioneer walked on, pushing the slaves in front of him,
+and calling out the amount of the bid. A higher bid was made: he shouted
+out that bid, and still walked on. Then a purchaser signed to him that he
+wished to look at the slaves. The auctioneer at once marshalled the women
+or woman slave (there were many more women than men) up to the Moor who
+wished to examine her. She squatted in front of him, while he looked at
+her teeth, felt her arms, neck, and legs, and in a low voice asked her a
+string of private questions. After a time the woman was allowed to get
+up, the auctioneer called out the latest bid for her, and walked her on.
+Probably some one else would examine her "points," and another and
+another; and her price would go up till the auctioneer should have got
+what he wanted, and the woman would be handed over to her new master.
+
+Some of the slaves walked round with a profoundly indifferent air--none
+of them looked in wild spirits; but, on the other hand, it was "Kismet"
+rather than misery which was written on their faces. It is a rare thing
+for any slave to object violently or to make any scene: as a rule they
+knelt down obediently enough in front of the fat Mohammedans, who thrust
+their fingers into their mouths, took them by the chin, and treated them
+with great familiarity. But, oddly enough, on one of the nights we
+attended the market a scene did occur. A middle-aged woman, absolutely
+refused to walk round--we were told probably because she had been parted
+from her child, and could not bear to be sold. The poor creature wept
+wildly, and hid her face in the red cloth round her head. She was,
+however, in the end forced along like a recalcitrant mule, her cloth
+torn off, herself made to kneel down at the bidding of a group of
+traders, and undergo the usual examination. Some of the young girls
+looked shame-faced, shuffling along behind or in front of the auctioneers
+with bent heads. The sad middle-aged woman fetched in the end seven
+pounds ten shillings. A little child was going for three pounds ten. A
+girl of thirteen--that is, at her very best--was selling for fifteen
+pounds: she was of course unusually attractive.
+
+The slave trade of Africa receives an apparent stamp of legality from the
+fact that religious warfare and the taking of prisoners in war and making
+them slaves are looked upon as Divine institutions. There is no
+obligation on the Mussulman to release slaves, and as long as wars and
+raids last, the mass of slaves in Mohammedan countries tends rather to
+increase than otherwise, their progeny ever adding to the original
+number. There is no restriction as to the number of slaves or concubines
+which a Moor may have: it entirely depends upon his purse. His women are
+his luxury, and an expensive one. A concubine may be sold at any moment,
+and the position is thus precarious and varied: it has one saving clause,
+which I have already explained--the woman who bears a son to her master
+is free, and at his death his property will be divided between the sons
+of concubines equally with the sons of his wife and wives. Mussulman
+raids still continue against the negroes of Central Africa, against
+tribes in Persia, in Afghanistan, and other parts of the world; indeed,
+as long as Mohammedanism lasts, there is very little chance of the
+abolition of slavery.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE WAD-EL-AZELL.
+
+[_To face p. 334._]
+
+One afternoon we went over the garden belonging to the late basha of
+Marrakesh--Ben Dowd--almost the only garden I have ever seen in Morocco
+which had in it flowers; and these were roses from Spain, valuable and
+beautiful, the pride of the basha. There was a charming summer-house half
+built, and a conservatory nearly finished, in different parts of the
+garden. In the midst of his prosperity, only eight months before, Ben
+Dowd had been arrested and put into prison. It was the old tale of
+jealousy. The Grand Wazeer was afraid of the basha, and in order to
+secure himself from harm succeeded in having Ben Dowd deposed and put
+entirely out of harm's way. Though an explanation is always forthcoming
+for violent proceedings such as the above, it would be unwise to assume
+in Morocco that the explanation had a grain of truth in it. Wheels within
+wheels; intrigue after intrigue; lie, topped by lie, make up the sum of
+Moorish diplomacy, and render the coil of politics in that country an
+absolutely fascinating study, not because it is so surreptitious, but
+because it is clever as well as cunning, and all the time involves bigger
+interests than ever appear on the tapis--interests which concern France,
+Austria, England, Germany, and other Powers, all of whom struggle for a
+finger in the seething pie.
+
+To return to Ben Dowd. He was "detained" in a house--not ignominiously
+committed to the common gaol, an unusual respite--allowed twelve
+shillings a day, and his wife's company. He was in Fez with these
+restrictions at the time we were looking over his gardens; and half of
+his wives were left behind at his own house, costing him a pound a day,
+we were told, in the face of which his allowance seemed inadequate.
+
+When the Government seized him, no money was found in his house; but
+three hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods in the shape of carpets,
+mirrors, gilt bedsteads, etc., were confiscated. His post, however, is
+still vacant: he is a good man, and possibly the Government will repent
+of its hasty step, and in due time restore such a valuable servant to
+favour. On the other hand, Ben Dowd may be ruined for life.
+
+The bashas and kaids of Morocco were all gnashing their teeth, while we
+were at Marrakesh, over the new system of taxation, which the Sultan and
+a certain progressive member of his Government, are endeavouring to
+introduce into the country. The main idea in these new regulations is,
+that governors will be paid specified salaries by the Government--that
+they will collect taxes as usual, but send the amount of money collected
+intact to Court, not, as has been the custom hitherto, docking off the
+half, it may be, and pocketing it as their own pay. Again, each province
+has been lately inspected by a certain number of trustworthy men, who
+have fixed its rate of taxation. The countryman is to pay so much upon
+his possessions--for example, ninepence for a cow, three shillings for a
+horse, twopence-halfpenny for an olive-tree, three shillings for a camel,
+no more and no less--instead of having the utmost squeezed out of him,
+which has been the practice of the governors up till now.
+
+The scheme sounds excellent. A letter has been read aloud in every city
+and country market-place, apprising the people of the new law, and they
+are delighted in proportion, but scarcely believe that the Government
+will be strong enough to enforce it. Indeed, it is hardly probable that
+the new taxation system can succeed unless two important steps are first
+taken--the tribes must be disarmed, and a new set of governors be
+appointed to take the place of the old. As long as the tribesmen are
+armed, there can never be law and order, any more than there can be
+settled peace upon the Indian frontier under the same conditions. At one
+moment the tribes will side with the Government, at another they will
+take the part of a governor, at another they will attack a neighbouring
+tribe. It is all very well to tax such men justly and to treat them like
+civilized beings, instead of trampling them underfoot, preventing their
+becoming rich, and holding them to be ignorant devils; but they are not
+civilized, unfortunately--they have not sufficient education to know when
+they are well off and to profit by it. Every man of them has a gun, and
+bloodshed and plunder are life itself to him. Treat him well, he bides
+his time, grows rich with the rest of his tribe; together they descend
+upon their neighbours, avenge an old wrong, loot to their hearts'
+content, perhaps attack the Sultan himself. But disarm one and all such
+men, and in the far future a peaceable agricultural folk may reign in
+their stead. It would be a work of time, but it has been effected before
+in the annals of history.
+
+The second condition, which would go far towards the working of the new
+system of taxation, is the appointment of new governors. The salary which
+the governors are to receive, is a comparatively small one, compared with
+the vast sums which they have been in the habit of accumulating, by means
+of extortion and by defrauding the Government. It is hardly fair to
+expect a man to cut down his expenses, give up half his wives, sell his
+slaves, and fall in the estimation of those under him. The thing must
+assuredly lead to dispute, born of peculation, and fighting must be the
+inevitable result. But if, on the other hand, new men are appointed, who
+from the first suit their expenditure to their means, a more peaceful
+working basis will be established.
+
+The old Oriental policy of the "balance of jealousies" will doubtless
+play its useful part: that is to say, each governor will watch his
+next-door neighbour like a cat watching a mouse; and if he detect any
+underhand dealings, or evasions, or infringements of the new law, he will
+report at once to the Sultan, and thereby gain _kudos_, perhaps a
+substantial reward, for himself. In this way the Government may receive
+support at the hands of the men whom it is keeping in order.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE THURSDAY MARKET--WE MIGHT HAVE GONE TO GLAOUIA--LEAVE MARRAKESH AND
+SET OUT ON OUR LAST MARCH FOR THE COAST--FLOWERS IN MOROCCO--ON THE WRONG
+TRAIL--ARAB TENTS--GOOD-BYE TO EL MOGHREB.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     The best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a
+     fortunate voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find
+     them. They are the end and the reward of life. They keep us
+     worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to
+     the absent.
+
+
+THE great Thursday Market is one of those things in Marrakesh which, once
+seen, is stamped deeper than a hundred other memories upon the mind. It
+is held in a sun-baked open space outside the Gate of the Thursday
+Market, just beyond the city walls, within view of the plains and a
+distant low range of mountains. Thousands and thousands of tall palms,
+groves of them, wave in the wind all over the surrounding country: a few
+great watercourses, worn and eaten out of the red soil, burrow between
+the forests on their way down to the great river.
+
+To reach the market we rode out along a road thronged with people selling
+all sorts of goods, from splendid old flintlock guns from the Sus chased
+with silver and gold and going at three pounds, to striped carpets strong
+and violent in colouring at seven-and-sixpence each, and second-hand
+clothes of the most varied description. At last, topping a little hill,
+we rode down into the market: it is, more correctly speaking, a horse
+fair,--mules were also for sale. The horses down in the south are without
+doubt very different from the poor little ponies bred up in the north;
+but even these, in comparison, for instance, with a thoroughbred hunter
+at home, fell far short of what my defective imagination had led me to
+expect of Arab stallions in Morocco. For the most part there was nothing
+for sale except great heavy brutes with small heads and proud arched
+necks. Every one of them fell away in the hindquarters.
+
+As usual the sale was prefaced by a prayer: hard bargaining, sharp
+practice, and much or little swindling, inseparable from horse-dealing,
+must all of it, first of all, be watered by prayer. Therefore the
+horsemen formed into a line; the central figure chanted some verses from
+the Kor[=a]n; the rest held out their hands palms upwards, then joined in
+a sort of Amen, the instant afterwards sticking their spurs into their
+horses and dashing forward, charging in a line over the plain between two
+rows of spectators, and pulling the horses up on to their haunches at the
+end, red with spur-marks and white with foam. This was repeated two or
+three times, the short space in which the riders pulled up out of a full
+gallop being sometimes almost incredible; then a great circle was formed
+of would-be purchasers and onlookers, and the horses were ridden into the
+circle and then round and round to display themselves, each rider at the
+same time _auctioning his own horse_, yelling out the bids for it, as
+they rose, at the top of his voice. When the last bid was made, and he
+could get no more, the rider, after shouting the price, added that he
+"would not consult the absent one," meaning thereby that the owner of the
+horse, whether himself or not, would raise no objection to the animal's
+being sold for that price. Unless this sentence had been pronounced, the
+purchaser could not have been certain that the owner would not say
+afterwards he did not intend to sell for that sum. Most of the horses
+fetched from three pounds twelve to four pounds ten.
+
+Mules were sold in the same way--the prayer, the parade round the circle,
+each rider seated almost on his mule's tail, urging him on, with hands
+and heels, to pace his best, the mule's nose up in the heavens. Some of
+them were splendid animals, which I would have given anything to have
+possessed--perfectly made, looking more intelligent than many humans, and
+full of pluck and staying power: these fetched rather more than double,
+what the best horse in the whole market sold for. But in criticising the
+horses, I speak of what I saw on this occasion: there may be, and no
+doubt are, fine arabs to be had in Southern Morocco--at least so I am
+told--but I came across only what may be called "a cart-horse stamp."
+
+And yet they look very fine, these same sensible-looking beasts, with
+their great eyes, and flowing manes and tails, and proud carriage. There
+is something, too, eternally fascinating in the beautiful seat of an Arab
+on his horse--not of a fat sheikh or a rich basha or a thriving merchant,
+but that of the lean and wiry Arab horseman born and bred, who, as he
+thunders past at full gallop, puts himself into a dozen positions, is at
+home in them all, shoots behind him, above him, below him, without
+drawing rein, turning in any direction, while he makes the whole air ring
+with his wild cries. The Moorish saddle of course helps his grip; but
+beyond that, there is something cat-like in the lithe swing of his body,
+and it is that body's right and natural function to be upon a horse. The
+white turban, the flowing white garments, the gorgeously coloured saddle,
+the great silvered stirrups, are all part of the whole--and an attractive
+whole--born of the limitless desert, the great far-reaching sky, the
+pure wind: it is Arabian, that is all--_and so much_.
+
+Meanwhile, camels were selling in another corner of the market, being
+made to lie down and rise and generally show themselves off: they were
+fetching from three pounds ten upwards. Cows, goats, and sheep were less
+interesting; but the throng of men which filled up the fair was, as ever,
+more than a study. Above and beyond all, stood out the wild inhabitants
+of the Atlas, and men from the Sus, wearing black camel's-hair jellabs
+with a great russet-red or saffron-yellow patch let into the backs of
+them. The origin of this striking "badge" is not known, but the jellabs
+themselves looked absolutely in keeping with the lawless ruffians, on
+whose shoulders they hung, and the wild blotch of bizarre colour was
+"just themselves."
+
+Bay, is the colour which in a horse the Moor chooses first--the pearl of
+colours, sober and most hardy; while a light chestnut brings ill luck,
+though a dark chestnut is the colour of the wind, can "travel," and was
+Mohammed's favourite. A horse must have the colour of its saddle in
+harmony with itself--an apple-green saddle for a black horse, scarlet for
+a white, the whole beautifully worked and embossed in silk, and when on
+the horse's back, should be set, perhaps, upon as many as _nine_
+different coloured saddle-cloths, one on top of each other.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE SULTAN'S GARDEN.
+
+[_To face p. 344._]
+
+Of all filthy quarters in the filthiest of cities, I think the Jewish
+Quarter in Marrakesh has a fair chance of ranking first,--outside it,
+rubbish, a manure-heap eighty feet high, which no one troubles to remove;
+inside the walls, black mud, feet deep, streets which are sewers,
+collections of dead dogs, rotting vegetables, refuse of all sorts;
+amongst it all, a dirty people, callous beyond belief as regards
+sanitation, with sore heads, sore eyes, matted rags. Not a butcher's
+shop which is not black with flies and "high" with rotten meat: flies lie
+upon every article of food.
+
+And in the very vortex of this muck-heap--astounding to the
+traveller--are content to live wealthy Jews, happy to flourish all their
+lives shoulder to shoulder with unutterable squalor.
+
+We went over a house belonging to a Jew millionaire, well built, lavishly
+decorated, as luxurious as money and Morocco would permit, evidently the
+pride of the whole family. Probably few of them went far outside the city
+walls: they were born to the Mellah. His success as a trader might have
+given the head of the house a country place in England, shady lawns, a
+carriage and pair to drive in: he preferred his own muck-heap. But I
+cannot conceive upon what he spent his money, other than the
+glorification of the inside of his house.
+
+The Sultan's palace looked deserted: it is long, however, since he left
+it, and high time he was in Fez again; for Fez is more in touch with
+Europe--Fez means a shade more progression and civilization than life in
+Morocco City. Round the palace lay bales of goods which had been ordered
+by him and sent out from England--things such as waggons, motor-cars
+possibly, which are supposed so much to shock his narrow-minded subjects.
+They imagine that his Shar[=i]fian Majesty wastes vast sums of money;
+whereas for a great monarch, the ruler of an empire, his private bills
+are probably absurdly small. He may have fireworks let off every night
+for ten minutes, horrifying Marrakesh; but the cost of his amusements,
+considering his position, must be curiously reasonable: so one
+considered, as one looked at the "parcels" awaiting his return to the
+capital, which lay in the immense courtyard outside his palace, where
+"powder play" is held, and where he receives foreign ambassadors,
+marching through the great gateway which leads to his own private rooms,
+over which is inscribed in Arabic an odd sentence; it reads literally,
+"What God wills: there is no power but God."
+
+The days passed, and our time in Marrakesh drew to an end. In spite of
+all that had been told us in Tangier, of the difficulties and dangers
+which would attend an expedition into the Atlas Mountains, in spite of
+the verdict that we should not be given a permit, should be "stopped and
+not allowed to continue the journey," we found that, once upon the scene
+of action, there would have been little difficulty in getting at least as
+far as Glaouia, and in pushing up through one or two other passes.
+
+The ride to Glaouia might take five or six days: there were several other
+places and a district or two which would have been worth visiting ten
+times over. The missionaries in Marrakesh were willing to make all
+arrangements: one of them would have gone with us, and under that escort
+it would have been possible to travel into the Atlas without risk. We
+should have gone "privately," without troubling any one, without
+formality; and in all probability no one would have troubled about us:
+that, after all, is the only way to travel satisfactorily in Morocco, not
+with half a dozen soldiers and a vast noise.
+
+But for this year at any rate our travels in Morocco had reached their
+limit. R. was not strong enough to face more marching: the hot sun, long
+rides, and general "roughing it" had told upon her, and the
+responsibility of taking her on farther afield, into remote regions of
+uncertain climate, was too great.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE RIVER TENSIF OUTSIDE MARRAKESH.
+
+[_To face p. 346._]
+
+Early one morning we set forth upon our last march, back again to the
+coast, by the track which leads eventually to Mazagan, a seaport some
+distance farther north than Mogador. Here we hoped to pick up a steamer,
+and proceed, _viâ_ Tangier, across to Gibraltar, where it would be
+possible to get a P. & O. boat and head for home.
+
+The march to Mazagan was easy, and contained little incident. After
+leaving the plains of Marrakesh and its waving palm-trees, and seeing the
+tall Kutobea disappear at last, we found ourselves in the "Little
+Mountains," and along the rough road began to fall in continually with
+parties of tribesmen, Arab country people, all mounted, who had been
+commandeered to accompany the Sultan as far as Fez, and who were now
+coming back to their homes. Splendid bronzed fellows they were, dark
+brick-dust colour, wrapped in long white cloaks, with the hood of an
+under garment pulled down over their faces: sometimes a white cloth
+swathed their heads; their chins were hidden in soft folds which reached
+up to their hawk-eyes, veiling the face, like true sons of the desert, as
+a protection against sun and wind. Guns were slung across their
+shoulders: they wore long yellow riding-boots and spurs, with half a
+dozen saddle-cloths; and all rode horses, strong little beasts, well
+groomed, some hog-maned, but usually with great locks of hair sweeping
+over their necks, and their tails almost touching the ground behind. On
+grey or white countrybreds as a rule, they wound along the mountain path
+in single file, these tall white-cloaked horsemen, in nowise differing
+from their ancestors of a thousand years ago--Arabs of unbroken descent:
+as they emerged from between the wild hills it would have been hard to
+find a more picturesque sight.
+
+One of the few peaceful camping-grounds between Marrakesh and Mazagan was
+at a little distance outside an Arab village of about thirty little
+pointed thatched huts, enclosed within a zareba of thorn-bushes: it was
+called Smeera.
+
+We camped near some trees and water: the fig-trees were full of crows,
+which came in to roost in thousands, and The Little Owl (_Athene noctua_)
+haunted the place. In the early half-light of the morning this
+wise-looking little bird was found, when we awoke, to be sitting upon the
+edge of the flap of the tent in the doorway, gazing in upon us with round
+yellow eyes; nor was it the least nervous.
+
+I recollect how, the evening before, there sat outside Smeera, as so
+often may be seen outside the like villages, away beyond the huts and the
+zareba, where it was very quiet, upon some flat grey stones, eight or
+twelve village men--Arabs. Sitting there in the sunset, wrapped in their
+white hooded mantles, this conclave of wise white owls, easily to be
+mistaken for grey stones, so rigid are their backs--of what do they talk
+as the hours go by? There is no joke nor song nor a drop of liquor going,
+as in a "public," where our labourers at home would naturally congregate.
+But this charmed circle sits on, staring into the west: the tall bearded
+wheat rustles in the wind close to them; the illimitable plain stretches
+away to the horizon, flat as their own uneventful lives; the sun drops
+behind the soft straight line of Earth; they do not move,--wondrous
+picturesque figures, long white folds, peaked hoods, sitting, their knees
+drawn up to their chins, for how long? What is time to an Arab?
+
+One evening our camel never turned up, and we fully expected to have had
+to sleep without beds or any other of the night's usual adjuncts. We had
+started that morning at seven, had ridden till twelve, had halted for an
+hour and a half, starting again at half-past one, and riding till
+half-past five; and all the way, after a mile out of Sok-el-Tleta, where
+we watered the mules at a pond and the trail forked, we were on the wrong
+road.
+
+Only the man with the camel knew the Mazagan line of march thoroughly
+well: he had explained it beforehand to Omar. Omar made a mistake, and
+the camel and attendants were behind ourselves. However, news travels
+oddly fast in uncivilized countries, and the camel-driver heard after a
+time that the "advance squadron" was on the wrong trail. He set out after
+us, and ran and walked, and caught us at three o'clock in the afternoon.
+The wretched camel followed his steps all the way, with Mulai Ombach in
+charge of our baggage, three donkeys, and a boy, who were afraid of being
+cut off from us, and dared not risk a night by themselves. The
+camel-driver put us right, Omar and Saïd were well cursed, and we began a
+toilsome journey across rough country, hoping to hit the right trail in
+time.
+
+We found ourselves in the wildest and dirtiest of Arab encampments now
+and again, where infuriated dogs, unaccustomed to visitors, rushed out
+and almost bit us upon our mules, amidst a hail of stones from Omar and
+Saïd. A valley luxuriating knee-deep in flowers--the Flower Valley we
+called it--was the one redeeming feature of that march. There are certain
+times for seeing the wild flowers in Morocco--perhaps April in the south
+is the best month: so far we had not been as much struck by them as
+report would lead one to expect. And yet they were most beautiful.
+Picture corn-fields full of love-in-a-mist; orchards of fig-trees, with
+the grass ablaze with golden pyrethrums; red mallow standing up in the
+barley; the ground carpeted with blue-and-white convolvulus; masses of
+carmine-coloured convolvulus densely festooned over the thorn-hedges; on
+the barest, stoniest of soil stretches of cistus, pale pink to faded
+mauve; asphodels everywhere; sometimes the wild spring form of the
+cultivated artichoke, the small variety of the ice-plant, the larkspur,
+the lupin, and several varieties of lavender. All these we met with, over
+and over again: rarer plants were to be found for the looking. R.
+collected specimens of them all, to be classified by the authorities at
+Kew Gardens on our return.
+
+The Flower Valley yielded one or two which we had not seen before, and we
+would have lingered there, but that time was precious and we had no
+notion of our exact whereabouts. It was a case of going on and on and
+meeting no one: evening began to draw near, and still we were off the
+right track, while our baggage might be anywhere. There was nothing for
+it but to push forward and trust to luck: in time we cut into innumerable
+little paths, which snaked side by side in the same direction across the
+plain, pointing towards the coast, and these we surmised to be the trail
+to Mazagan, which proved to be correct. But at that moment, though we
+were anything but certain, it had become absolutely necessary to halt for
+the night. It was dark, and the mules were done. An Arab village lay on a
+hillside not far off, and we made for it.
+
+Omar and Saïd had with them on their mules our tent and two or three
+necessaries for cooking: we had therefore a roof over our heads, and in
+time a fire was made, odds and ends were scraped up, and we ate a meal of
+sorts sitting on the ground beside a candle stuck on a stone. The night
+grew very cold: there was, however, a bit of thin carpet, which we
+proposed to wrap ourselves in to sleep. Now and then one of us looked out
+between the flaps of the tent into the darkness and watched--a case of
+"Sister Ann! Sister Ann! do you see any one coming?"
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF OUR LAST CAMPS. LOADING THE CAMEL.
+
+[_To face p. 350._]
+
+We had, however, grown tired of looking out, and were just arranging
+ourselves on the ground, when familiar noises sounded outside, and
+Omar's voice crying joyfully, "Le chameau arrive!"
+
+Perhaps, above all else which was interesting on the road to Mazagan, the
+little Arab settlements, composed entirely of tents, interested us most.
+In them, was lived the truly nomad, gipsy life of the wandering Arab, who
+is a herdsman by heritage, and in following that vocation _a roamer par
+excellence_. They live, these Arabs, in tents: the sides are made of
+straw and wattle hurdles; over the top is stretched an immense piece of
+brown or black camel's-hair cloth. The tents are barely five feet high in
+the middle, less at the edges: squat brown mushrooms they look, or
+something like the keels of boats turned bottom upwards. All of them were
+open in front, "very public" the world would say; which primitive and
+open-air mode of living was indeed their great feature. Some of them were
+divided off down the middle by a hurdle, thus forming two "rooms": the
+hurdles were occasionally faggots, without straw. Around the tents lay
+the flocks, chewing the cud or browsing on the scanty grass-land:
+children ran out to us with bowls of milk: when the grass gave out within
+reach all round, the tents were taken down, the hillsides deserted, and
+the families wandered in search of pastures new, carrying a few chickens,
+some pots and pans, two or three bundles of rags, and leaving behind a
+good many parasites and a bare patch.
+
+Thus Arab life in Southern Morocco--a thriftless, desultory existence,
+yet with the charm of continual change and of living with the earth. "To
+take no thought for the morrow" is the practice of all Moors, whether
+Arabs or Berbers: no Moor spends money on anything which will not bring
+him in immediate profit, and this accounts for the fact that trees and
+forests are never planted, or schemes started for working mines, or
+roads made, or bridges built; even if the capital were forthcoming, what
+would be the use of spending money only to be repaid little by little,
+year by year?--a man may die before he profits for all his trouble!
+
+After all, argues the Moor, who could wish to alter Morocco? Is it not
+perfect as it is?--veritably, "_the tail of the peacock_," the sun of the
+universe!
+
+Its very imperfections are among those things which in this fanatical
+Mohammedan land so fascinate the traveller. Its sad colours, its air
+steeped in mystery, its courtly unknowable people, its wild tribes, its
+white shut houses, its concealed women, its mad fanaticism, its
+magnificent stoicism--one and all are sufficient to hold the European,
+and to call him back again long after El Moghreb has forgotten his face.
+Another of those chains has been forged which bind certain places and
+certain countries to a soul, each henceforth belonging the one to the
+other, and each gaining a little something thereby; nor can the links of
+these chains be broken, since unseen possessions, such as they, are among
+those things which no power on earth can touch, which can neither be
+given nor taken away.
+
+              It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun,
+                Or South to the blind Horn's hate;
+              Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay,
+                Or West to the Golden Gate,
+              Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,
+                And the wildest tales are true,
+    And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail;
+    And life runs large on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.
+
+
+_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
+
+
+
+
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+MESSRS. HUTCHINSON & CO.'S
+NEW BOOKS.
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+ON THE "POLAR STAR"
+IN THE ARCTIC SEA.
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+The Story of the First Italian Expedition to the North Pole.
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+Translated by WILLIAM LE QUEUX.
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+Full-page Photogravure Plates, Panoramas, Maps, etc._, 42s. _net._
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+THE SAILOR KING:
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+By the COUNTESS OF WARWICK.
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+_In 2 large volumes, cloth gilt and gilt top_, 32s. _net. With about 150
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+THE LIFE OF THE
+MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA.
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+By C. E. BLACK.
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+_In 1 large handsome volume, cloth gilt, fully illustrated,_ 16s. _net._
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+CELEBRITIES AND I.
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+     agreeable reading."--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+     "Decidedly entertaining, and, moreover, not without a certain
+     measure of instructiveness."--_Globe._
+
+     "Will be drawn upon for its many anecdotes at hundreds of dinner
+     tables during the winter."--_Leeds Mercury._
+
+     "Miss Henriette Corkran shows the way as a writer of
+     reminiscences. A charming volume."--_World._
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+     "Possesses in a high degree the power to charm and
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+MEMOIRS OF A SOCIAL ATOM
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+By W. E. ADAMS.
+
+_In 2 large handsome volumes, cloth gilt_, 24s. _net_.
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+       *       *       *       *       *
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+SIDE LIGHTS ON THE COURT OF FRANCE.
+
+By LT.-COL. ANDREW C. P. HAGGARD, D.S.O.
+
+_In 1 handsome cloth gilt volume_, 12s.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROYAL PALACES AND THEIR MEMORIES.
+
+By SARAH A. TOOLEY.
+
+_In 1 large handsome volume, cloth gilt,_ 16s. _net._
+
+With 48 Full-page Plates and a Photogravure Frontispiece.
+
+     "Mrs. Tooley serves up her vast amount of information in a most
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+     the printing is in keeping with the cover."--_St. James's
+     Gazette._
+
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+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WOBURN LIBRARY OF NATURAL HISTORY.
+
+Edited by his Grace the DUKE OF BEDFORD, K.G.
+
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+_Each volume in crown 4to, handsome cloth gilt and gilt top, fully
+illustrated with Coloured and other Plates,_ 12s. 6d. _net._
+
+THE FIRST VOLUME NOW READY.
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+WILD FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY SIDE.
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+By F. E. HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.,
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+Author of "Familiar Wild Flowers," etc.
+
+_With 36 Fine Coloured Plates by the Author._
+
+     "A charming book, illustrated with very attractive drawings. A
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+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OTHER VOLUMES IN THE PRESS.
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+
+By Sir HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G.,
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+_With 16 Coloured Plates from Drawings by the Author, and with many other
+Illustrations from the Author's Drawings and from Photographs._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISH.
+
+By the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart., F.R.S.,
+
+Author of "Salmon and Sea Trout."
+
+_With numerous Coloured Plates and other Illustrations._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NEW SIX-SHILLING NOVELS.
+
+_Each in cloth gilt._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALAIN TANGER'S WIFE. By J. H. VOXALL, M.P.
+
+     "The interest is infectious; there is no denying the charm of the
+     story."
+
+     DAILY MAIL.
+
+
+FERELITH. By LORD KILMARNOCK.
+
+     "An entirely new plot, and assuredly one of the most startling
+     ones ever invented. The tale itself is told with a quiet dignity
+     and restraint."--_Newcastle Leader._
+
+
+SOULS. By "RITA."
+
+     "Brightly and cleverly written; full of amusing episodes and
+     dialogue."--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+
+THE SEVEN SECRETS. By WM. LE QUEUX.
+
+     "No reader can fail to admire the ingenuity with which Mr. W. Le
+     Queux has constructed the plot of his latest novel, the secret of
+     which is admirably preserved."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+
+THE GOLDEN KINGDOM. By ANDREW BALFOUR.
+
+
+     "Mr. Balfour proves himself in 'The Golden Kingdom' to be a
+     capital storyteller. He is a Stevensonian both in matter and in
+     manner, but with considerable ingenuity of his own in devising
+     situations, and considerable ability in the developing and
+     setting forth of a tale of romantic adventure."--_Athenæum._
+
+
+THE LADY OF THE CAMEO. By TOM GALLON.
+
+
+THE ETERNAL WOMAN. By DOROTHEA GERARD.
+
+
+CHASMA. By H. W. G. HYRST.
+
+
+A PARSON'S LASS. By GODFREY BURCHETT.
+
+
+THE VICE-CHANCELLOR'S WARD. By CHRISTIAN TEARLE.
+
+
+THE MAN WITH THE WOODEN FACE. By MRS. FRED REYNOLDS.
+
+
+
+LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+2. This text contains diacritical marks and symbols, where possible these
+are represented in the text by the following symbols.
+
+Diacritical mark              above  below
+--------------------------   ------  ------
+macron (straight line)         [=x]   [x=]
+
+3. List of corrections:
+
+Page 24, "colourness" changed to "colourless"
+
+Page 37, "venalty" changed to "venality"
+
+Page 57, "matresses" changed to "mattresses"
+
+Page 58, "exemple" changed to "example"
+
+Page 70, "Hillali" changed to "Hilalli"
+
+Page 94, "a.m." changed to "p.m."
+
+Page 187, "Morocoo" changed to "Morocco"
+
+Page 197, "trumpter" changed to "trumpeter"
+
+Page 255, "farthur" changed to "farther"
+
+Page 262, "staple" changed to "stable"
+
+Page 324, "floor" changed to "flour"
+
+Page 345, "votex" changed to "vortex"
+
+Page 346, "dozon" changed to "dozen"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's In the Tail of the Peacock, by Isabel Savory
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Tail of the Peacock, by Isabel Savory
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In the Tail of the Peacock
+
+Author: Isabel Savory
+
+Release Date: February 7, 2009 [EBook #28016]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE TAIL OF THE PEACOCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski, the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+and the booksmiths at http://www.eBookForge.net
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+
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii"></a>[<a href="./images/iii.png">iii</a>]</span></p>
+
+<h1>IN THE TAIL OF THE PEACOCK</h1>
+
+<h2>By ISABEL SAVORY.</h2>
+
+<h3>Author of "<i>A Sportswoman in India</i>"</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>WITH 48 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS<br />
+AND A PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT</h4>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">"The Earth is a peacock: Morocco is the tail of it"</p>
+
+<p class="tr"><i>Moorish Proverb</i></p>
+
+<h1>&#x2766;</h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>London: HUTCHINSON &amp; CO.</h4>
+<h4>Paternoster Row&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&#x2767;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&#x2767;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;1903</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-01.png"><img src="./images/ill-01_th.png" alt="Isabel Savory" title="Isabel Savory" /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Isabel Savory</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv"></a>[<a href="./images/iv.png">iv</a>]</span></p>
+
+<h4>PRINTED BY<br />
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,<br />
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY</h4>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v"></a>[<a href="./images/v.png">v</a>]</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><i>PREFACE</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><i><span class="smcap">This</span> book contains no thrilling adventures, chronicles,
+no days devoted to sport. It will probably interest
+only those minds which are content with "the C Major of
+this life," and which find in other than scenes of peril and
+excitement their hearts' desire.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Such as care to wander through its pages must have
+learnt to enjoy idleness, nor find weeks spent beneath the
+sun and stars too long&mdash;that is to say, the fascination of
+a wandering, irresponsible life should be known to them:
+waste and solitary places must not appal, nor trifling
+incident weary, while human natures remotely removed
+from their own, alternately delight and repel. Those who
+understand not these things, will find but a dull chronicle
+within the following pages.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>If to live is to know more, and to know more only to love
+more, the least eventful day may possess a minimum of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi"></a>[<a href="./images/vi.png">vi</a>]</span>
+value, and even quiet monotones and grey vistas be found
+and lost in a glamour born of themselves.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In this loud and insistent world the silent places are
+often overlooked, and yet they are never empty.</i></p>
+
+<p class="tr"><i>ISABEL SAVORY.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Westfield Old Hall,</span><br />
+&emsp;&emsp;<span class="smcap">East Dereham.</span><br />
+&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<i>February, 1903.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii"></a>[<a href="./images/vii.png">vii</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><th align='left'>&nbsp;</th><th align='left'>&nbsp;</th><th align='left'><span class="smcap">Page</span></th></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;I</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tangier&mdash;Country People&mdash;The Pilgrimage to Mecca&mdash;Moorish Prisons&mdash;We Ride to Cape Spartel&mdash;Decide to Leave Tangier and Push Inland</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;II</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Camp Outfit&mdash;A Night at a Caravanserai&mdash;Tetuan&mdash;The British Vice-Consul&mdash;Moorish Shops&mdash;We Visit a Moorish House and Family</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;III</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Difficulties of "Lodgings" in Morocco&mdash;A Spanish Fonda&mdash;A Moorish Tea Party&mdash;Poison in the Cup&mdash;Slaves in Morocco&mdash;El Doollah&mdash;Moorish Cemetery&mdash;Ride to Semsar&mdash;Shopping in Tetuan&mdash;Provisions in the City</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;IV</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Fast of R&aacute;madhan&mdash;Mohammed&mdash;His Life and Influence&mdash;The Flood at Saffi&mdash;A Walk Outside Tetuan&mdash;The French Consul's Garden-House&mdash;Jews in Morocco&mdash;European Protection</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii"></a>[<a href="./images/viii.png">viii</a>]</span><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;V</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Plans for Christmas at Gibraltar&mdash;A Rough Night&mdash;The Steamer which would not Wait&mdash;An Ignominious Return to Tetuan&mdash;A Rascally Jew&mdash;The Aborigines and the Present Occupants of Morocco&mdash;The Sultan, Court, Government, and Moorish Army</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;VI</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">We Look Over a Moorish Courtyard House with a View to Taking It&mdash;We Rent Jinan Dolero in Spite of Opposition&mdash;An Englishman Murdered&mdash;Our Garden-House&mdash;The Idiosyncrasies of Moorish Servants&mdash;A Native Guard&mdash;The Riff Country</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;VII</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Country People Fording the River&mdash;We Call on Ci Hamed Ghralmia&mdash;An Expedition across the River in Search of the Blue Pool&mdash;Moorish Belief in Ginns&mdash;The Basha&mdash;Powder Play&mdash;Tetuan Prison</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;VIII</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Missionaries at Tetuan&mdash;Poisoning in Morocco&mdash;Fatima's Reception&mdash;Divorce&mdash;An Expedition into the Anjeras&mdash;An Emerald Oasis</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;IX</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">We Leave Tetuan&mdash;A Wet Night under the Stars&mdash;S`lam Deserts Us&mdash;We Sail for Mogador&mdash;The Palm-Tree House&mdash;Sus and Wadnoon Countries&mdash;The Sahara&mdash;The Atlas Mountains</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix"></a>[<a href="./images/ix.png">ix</a>]</span><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;X</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">On the March Once More&mdash;Buying Mules&mdash;A Bad Road&mdash;First Camp&mdash;Argan-Trees&mdash;Coos-Coosoo&mdash;A Terrible Night&mdash;Doctoring the Khaylifa&mdash;Roughing it Under Canvas</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;XI</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Parting Mona&mdash;Fording Sheshaoua River&mdash;Jars of Food&mdash;First Sight of Marrakesh&mdash;A Perilous Crossing&mdash;Ride into Marrakesh&mdash;The Slave Market</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' valign='top'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">Chapter&nbsp;XII</span></a></td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Thursday Market&mdash;We Might have gone to Glaouia&mdash;Leave Marrakesh and set out on Our Last March for the Coast&mdash;Flowers in Morocco&mdash;On the Wrong Trail&mdash;Arab Tents&mdash;Good-Bye to El Moghreb</span></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_339">339</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x"></a>[<a href="./images/x.png">x</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi"></a>[<a href="./images/xi.png">xi</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p class="ctr"><i>Except where otherwise stated, the Illustrations are from photographs by ROSE A. BAINBRIDGE.</i></p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="List of Illustrations">
+<tr><th align='left'>&nbsp;</th><th align='right'>&nbsp;</th><th align='right'><span class="smcap">Page</span></th></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Photogravure Portrait</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_iii"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Road to Fez</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">R. on a Pack</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Two Sheikhs</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tangier</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ourselves and Baggage</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Clouds Over Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alarbi Abresha's House</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Our Camp Outside Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Veiled Figure Outside the Gate</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Mohammedan Cemetery</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Out Shopping</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Shops in Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Cluster of Country Women</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Typical Moorish Street</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Street in the Jews' Quarter, Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Refuse Going Out of Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Moorish Prison Gate</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Peep of Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii"></a>[<a href="./images/xii.png">xii</a>]</span>A Saint-House, Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jinan Dolero</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Our Servants, S`lam and Tahara</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Two Women from the Riff Country</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Selling Earthenware Pots</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Ferry-Boat on Market Day</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Author Fording the Wad-el-Martine</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Basha Going to Pray</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Feddan, Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Charming Snakes</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Moors at Home</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Straw for Sale</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Group in the Feddan, Tetuan</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Breezy Camping-Ground on a Roof-Top</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Illustrative of the Way We Rode in Morocco</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Lighters Loading</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">After Rain in Mogador</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Where Manchester Goods are Sold, Mogador</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Our Camp at Ain-el-Hadger</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Blindfolded Camel Working a Water-Wheel</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ships of the Desert We Pass on the March</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Transporting Our Baggage</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Marrakesh</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Open Gate</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Kutobea, Marrakesh</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_328">328</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Wad-el-Azell</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Sultan's Garden</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The River Tensif Outside Marrakesh</span></td><td align='right'><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">One of Our Last Camps. Loading the Camel</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>[<a href="./images/1.png">1</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">Tangier&mdash;Country People&mdash;The Pilgrimage to Mecca&mdash;Moorish Prisons&mdash;We Ride to Cape Spartel&mdash;Decide to Leave Tangier and Push Inland.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>[<a href="./images/2.png">2</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>[<a href="./images/3.png">3</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER I</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The vague and hazy ideals which the white light of an
+English upbringing relegates to dreamland and dismisses as idle
+fancies, rise up in the glare of African sunlight, alive, tangible,
+unashamed; the things that are, not the things that might
+be:&mdash;the vivid colouring, the hot crowding, the stately men
+and veiled women, the despotism and stoicism, the unchanging
+picturesqueness of the Thousand and One Nights, the dramatic
+inevitability of the Old Testament.&mdash;A. J. D.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was no desert in Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>If a country has not been "read up" beforehand,
+the imagination has free play and forms many false conclusions:
+yet though it suffer on the one hand rude
+awakenings, it is on the other compensated by certain
+new lights&mdash;indelible and unique impressions&mdash;which come
+only in the train of things <i>inconnu</i>. So though we found
+no desert, there are other things in Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>It is one of the few countries in the world, and they
+grow fewer each year, which is still unexplored&mdash;unknown.
+Thousands of square miles in Morocco have never been
+crossed by a European, or at any rate none have returned
+to tell the tale: maps mark only blank spaces, and have
+no names for villages, no records of mountains or rivers:
+there are no roads, still less railways, in the country:
+the only means of transport along the wild, worn tracks
+is by camels, mules, and donkeys: he who will not ride
+perforce walks.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>[<a href="./images/4.png">4</a>]</span>
+The bare fringe alone of Morocco, its coast towns, and
+the choice, let us say, of two roads connecting them with
+its capitals, Fez and Morocco City, are open to travellers;
+beyond these limits it is difficult and dangerous for
+Europeans to venture. Of even its coasts towns England
+knows little enough: a daily paper printed in 1902 describes
+one flourishing seaport of thirty thousand inhabitants as
+"a village." There is more vagueness, in fact, about a
+country three times the size of Great Britain and four
+days' journey from London than of many a remote corner
+in the heart of Asia.</p>
+
+<p>The reason is at hand. An old Arabic proverb, "The
+earth is a peacock: Morocco is the tail of it," typifies
+the entire satisfaction of its inhabitants with their native
+land. What is, is good; why "civilize" and "progress"?
+As far as possible there shall no European enter therein.
+Realizing that, were new blood allowed to come into
+Morocco, its own effete and uneducated people would have
+no chance in the race of life, and end by hopelessly knuckling
+under to the European, the country isolates itself;
+nor is it likely that the jealous Powers of Europe will
+allow any one of their number to disturb that isolation
+and pluck the tempting fruit.</p>
+
+<p>And so to-day Morocco drowses in an atmosphere of
+<i>laissez faire</i>, a decadent nation, a collection of lawless
+tribes, who have changed little for the last two thousand
+years, living still much after the manner of Old Testament
+days. They are devout Mussulmans. They believe the
+world to be flat, and to come to an end with the west
+coast of Morocco. Their country they call <i>El Moghreb
+el Aksa</i>, which means, "The Extreme West," or "The
+Land of the Setting Sun": "Morocco" and "Moors"
+are entirely European words, and never used by the
+Moors themselves&mdash;the one being a corruption of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>[<a href="./images/5.png">5</a>]</span>
+name of their capital city, the other having been given
+them by the Spaniards.</p>
+
+<p>Morocco should be fascinating on the face of it: a
+great country running into hundreds of thousands of
+square miles, the only independent Mussulman state of
+North Africa, with six million followers of the great
+Prophet, and a perfect climate, soil, and water-supply to
+boot, needs no extolling. And yet its chiefest fascination
+lies in things which, from some points of view, ought
+not to be.</p>
+
+<p>Its remote removal from all appertaining to the twentieth
+century, its strangely simple, untaught life, the solemn,
+stately men, the veiled women and their eyes, the steely
+blue cactus, the white cities and the glaring light, the
+mystery and the fatalism which intensify the air, are alike
+oddly inevitable and incomprehensible to a European.
+The other side of the closed door has always constituted,
+for the wandering vagrants among mankind, their hearts'
+desire. For them there is still Morocco; and the door
+will be shut in their faces again and again by a people
+and a faith and customs which they can never understand.
+And though it be useless they will still go on, because
+it seems the best thing.</p>
+
+<p>About six weeks before 1902 was due, Rose A. Bainbridge
+and myself left behind us the last outpost of England&mdash;Gibraltar&mdash;with
+its cluster of civilization round the bottom
+of the great Rock. Four hours brought us across the
+Straits; and seen from the deck of the dirty little <i>Gibel
+Musa</i>, on to which we had changed from a P. &amp; O.
+at Gibraltar, Morocco shaped itself into a rugged country,
+ridge behind ridge of low hills and jagged mountains
+cutting the sky-line. A long white sand-bank lying back
+in a bay on the African shore, broken at one end by
+irregular vegetation, gradually developed upon its slopes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>[<a href="./images/6.png">6</a>]</span>
+a yellowish-white, fantastic city, which resolved itself
+into Tangier.</p>
+
+<p>Landing at Tangier among vociferating Moors has
+been described often enough, and needs no further enlargement.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, November 13, 1901, found us sitting
+over coffee and an omelette out of doors, on a little
+balcony opening off the hotel Villa Valentina, over-looking
+the road to Fez, and facing the broad, blue
+Straits which divided us from Europe.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a June morning at home, soft and balmy:
+the city dropped from us down to the beach, and the
+sun poured upon the flat-roofed houses, coloured yellow
+to pale cream or washed-out blue, alternating with a
+lavish coat of glaring whitewash.</p>
+
+<p>Tangier is an example of structure without architecture;
+at the same time there is a certain fitness in the
+crude Moorish buildings, whose flat expanse of wall
+is unbroken either by windows or ornament: they are
+simple and "reserved." Gleaming in high light under
+an equally light sky, they huddle almost one on top
+of the other, built upon every available square yard
+inside the "papery" old city wall, which looks as if
+cannon would blow it away. Patches of blue sea break
+the white city outline, and the towers of the mosques
+rise above it all: their tesselated surfaces, tiled in shades
+of green and polished by the years, shimmer in the
+sunshine like peacocks' tails.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-02.png"><img src="./images/ill-02_th.png" alt="THE ROAD TO FEZ." title="THE ROAD TO FEZ." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Road to Fez.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three gateways pierce the drab-coloured city wall,
+their horseshoe-shaped arches washed over with salmon-pink.
+The same plaster-work arch repeats itself occasionally
+in the rough stone- and mortar-work of the houses,
+all of an inferior quality, short-lived and rebuilt again
+and again on the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of successive years, until they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>[<a href="./images/7.png">7</a>]</span>
+stand in time right above the cobble-stones of the narrow
+streets.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the city wall a few private houses and two
+hotels lie back among eucalyptus, palms, and bushy
+stone-pines: several of the legations which represent the
+European Powers have modern houses, lost in greenery
+of sorts. Behind these, again, a suburb of jerry-built
+Spanish houses, with the scum of Spain, is inclined to grow,
+which offshoot of fifth-rate Europe gives at last upon the
+rolling pastures and windswept hills of the open country.</p>
+
+<p>Our breakfast-table brought us face to face with every
+traveller who passed along the great sandy track leading
+eventually to Fez, which people in Morocco call a road,
+beaten to-day and for the last two thousand years by the
+feet of generations of camels, mules, donkeys, horses, cattle,
+and mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Though the wayfarers, plodding through the dusty
+hoof-marks, were desultory, it was quiet for few hours even
+at night, and under our windows we waked to an eternal
+shuffling in the soft sand, the champing of bits, and
+guttural Arabic tones.</p>
+
+<p>R. and I leaned over the balcony. Women passed us
+wrapped in voluminous whity-yellow garments&mdash;<i>haiks</i>&mdash;black
+eyes and red slippers alone showing. Date-coloured
+boys passed us, wearing red fezes and dirty-white turbans.
+Countrymen passed us in great, coarse, brown woollen
+cloaks&mdash;<i>jellabs</i>&mdash;the hood pulled right on over the head,
+short wide sleeves, the front joined all down, and having
+scarred bare legs and feet coming out from underneath.
+These drove strings of diminutive donkeys, a couple of
+water-barrels balanced across the back of each&mdash;supplies
+of water for Tangier when the rain-water tanks are giving
+out: there are few wells in the city.</p>
+
+<p>More women, veiled to the eyes, passed us, in delightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>[<a href="./images/8.png">8</a>]</span>
+shoes&mdash;milk-coloured leather, embroidered with green:
+an African woman, black as a boot, with thick negro
+lips and yellow metal bracelets on her charcoal-sticks of
+arms. More donkeys passed us, carrying vegetables to
+market, driven by countrywomen in yellowish-white haiks,
+vast straw hats, and the inevitable veil. Two men passed
+us with an immense open box containing thousands of eggs,
+hung between them by a pole on the shoulder of each&mdash;export
+for England: forty-eight millions were sent off in
+1902, and this morning's omelette might not be our first
+Morocco egg. A Moor of some means came by, riding
+at a hard-held ambling walk his star-gazing white mule:
+the high-peaked saddle and bridle were of scarlet cloth,
+the stirrup-leathers of scarlet twisted wool; he wore a
+creamy woollen haik, falling in soft folds down to his
+yellow slippers, a turban whose snowy disc of enormous
+size framed his cinnamon-coloured face in symmetrical
+folds of spotless white, and the top of a scarlet fez showed
+in the centre of it.</p>
+
+<p>Almost opposite us a beggar had sat himself down at
+the edge of the road, under the shelter of the high cane
+fence&mdash;a grimy old greybeard, tanned and worn like a
+walnut, in a tattered jellab and shady turban. "For the
+love of God; for the love of God," he rolled out incessantly
+in Arabic, ending in a throaty gobble like a
+turkey; and the country people threw him, as they passed,
+of their bundles&mdash;here an orange, there a lump of charcoal&mdash;whatever
+it might be it was crammed into the hood of
+the jellab; and the sing-song and the gobble began again.
+In a Mohammedan country it is counted a duty as well
+as a holy deed to encourage beggars: almsgiving represents
+to the faithful Mussulman equivalent gain in
+Paradise; and no one starves in Morocco, though occasionally
+dismissed with a wave of the hand and "God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>[<a href="./images/9.png">9</a>]</span>
+provide for you." Mad people are regarded as saints, and
+credited with the gift of prophecy. It is an exceedingly
+holy thing to walk about naked. A holy man in Fez
+was in the habit of sitting at a missionary's gate stark
+naked; eventually this proceeding had to be put a stop
+to, because the holy man would insist upon holding the
+horses of the missionary's afternoon callers.</p>
+
+<p>Our beggar sat in the same spot day after day, hour
+after hour, fatuitously happy, blissfully content. "God is
+great, and what is written is written": remorse, regrets, are
+alike unknown to Mussulmen; and it is this which dignifies
+their religion and themselves. Life passes lightly over
+them, and chisels few lines and puckers in the serene
+patriarchal faces&mdash;they may be scamps of the first water,
+for all one can tell; it sits lightly upon them.</p>
+
+<p>A small boy in a white tunic and red fez, who called
+himself Larbi, was playing about near the beggar:
+being able to speak a little English, he made himself
+useful to visitors, and was rapidly exchanging his good
+qualities for the drawbacks of the hanger-on: he came
+out with us for a day or two, smoked several cigarettes
+in the course of the afternoon, and picked us useless
+bunches of ordinary flowers. Remonstrance was futile,
+but when no more little silver coins were forthcoming
+he left off shadowing us.</p>
+
+<p>We found our own way down to the great <i>sok</i>, or
+market-place, in the wake of some donkeys carrying
+live cackling fowls, fastened by a bit of string and their
+feet to any part of the donkey and its baskets which
+came handy. On each side of the road and everywhere
+in Tangier the obstinate steely-grey cactus, or prickly
+pear, dominates the landscape: its fat fleshy leaves make
+as good a protection as the sharp-pointed aloe round
+the irregular plots of cultivated ground. Alternating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>[<a href="./images/10.png">10</a>]</span>
+with them, tall bound cane fences swish and rattle in
+the wind.</p>
+
+<p>Steely-grey and a yellow-bleached white describe the
+vegetation of Tangier, set in its white sand-dunes. Morocco
+is far from having lot or part in the gorgeous East, as
+tradition says. To begin with, from the end of August
+to the end of April hazy days greatly predominate, and
+thirty inches of rain are put in: naturally the country
+and people take their cue from the general colour of
+the sky, from its white-yellow light, in which a wan sun
+is yet able to produce a glare. Morocco is yellow-white,
+and the Moors themselves run from the colour of cinnamon,
+through shades of coffee and old gold, to biscuit and
+skim-milk. Their houses and their clothes take on the
+same whites and greys, yellows and browns, and the sand
+and the scrub again and again repeat the tale. Perhaps
+it has a saddening effect, borne out in the colourless
+monotone of the lives of its countrywomen.</p>
+
+<p>Presently we passed a skin-yard, salted goat-skins, drying
+by the hundred under the sun, spread upon the ground,
+upon the flat roofs, wherever a skin could lie, curling
+with dryness, the empty legs of the late owners standing
+stiff and upright, like petrified stockings, pointing
+dismally to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>We overtook a string of camels as we neared the sok,
+strolling along and regarding the skies, R. and myself
+with an exaggerated superciliousness. They were laden
+with dates, carpets, and slippers from Fez, and, together
+with mules and donkeys, constitute the vans and railway-trucks
+of Morocco, substituting over the face of the land
+a dilatory calm in the place of speed and bustle.</p>
+
+<p>But at first it was a real effort to take in a tenth part
+of surroundings so different from those of England; and
+when we found ourselves in the sok&mdash;the <i>hub</i> of Moorish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>[<a href="./images/11.png">11</a>]</span>
+life&mdash;it was to be jostled by donkey-drivers shouting
+"Baarak! Baarak!" by black water-carriers from the Sus
+country, by veiled women, by negroes from Timbuctoo,
+by mules and camels, by men walking, men riding,
+without one sight or sound familiar, in a dream-world
+of intense life, recalling nothing so much as the Old
+Testament. It was worth the journey out from home
+to see this sok&mdash;an open space crawling with brown-and-white,
+cloaked and hooded humanity, mixed up with
+four-legged beasts, also brown, and the whole more like
+a magnified ant-hill on the flat than anything human.
+In front of the squatted country people their stock-in-trade
+lay in piles, gorgeous in tone: oranges and oranges
+and more oranges, selling at one thousand seven hundred
+for a shilling; scarlet chillies&mdash;hot blots of colour; pink
+onions; red carrots; white salt, collected down on the
+beach; green pumpkins blotched with yellow; besides
+grain of all sorts, basketsful of charcoal, bundles of
+wood, dried fruit, flat round loaves of bread, cabbages,
+and what not. The sound of a perpetual muffin-bell was
+ringing backwards and forwards&mdash;the <i>bhisti</i> of Tangier,
+with his hairy goatskinful of water across his back, and
+two bright brass bowls hung by a chain round his neck,
+a bell in one hand, with the other dealing out drinks
+of water for a Moorish copper coin of which a penny
+contains fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>We elbowed our way through the <i>B&aacute;b-el-Sok</i>, or Gate
+of the Market-place, into the city, and found ourselves
+in a long, narrow, straight street, dropping down to the
+<i>marsa</i>, or harbour. The irregular, light colour-washed
+houses jut out promiscuously over the minute cupboard-like
+shops crammed with oddments of every sort and
+hue, and leaving scanty room for the owner to squat
+on some carpet or mattress, until it strikes him that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>[<a href="./images/12.png">12</a>]</span>
+is time to eat or go to prayers, and he locks up the
+double doors of his "store cupboard" and strolls away.</p>
+
+<p>Looking down this attenuated Piccadilly of Tangier,
+over the white turbans and red fezes of the multitude,
+right away at the far end a field of blue sea was to be
+seen: half-way between, the faithful were beginning to
+pass into the big mosque one by one for midday prayers,
+each leaving his shoes behind him and stepping over the
+high doorstep barefoot on to the marble floor beyond,
+thence disappearing behind the ponderous green iron
+doors, where the great line is drawn between Europeans
+and Asiatics, debarring from entry any except Mussulmen.</p>
+
+<p>The Villa Valentina breakfasted at 12.45, and cut the
+morning short. We were out again later with a guide&mdash;Hadj
+Riffi he called himself&mdash;bent on a visit to the <i>Kasbah</i>,
+or fortress of the city.</p>
+
+<p>Hadj Riffi provided a donkey and pack, which of all
+substitutes for saddles is most foolish, intended only for
+loads of all sorts to be slung across them; but packs
+are easy to slip off and on, and have answered their
+purpose in Morocco since the days when in Jud&aelig;a Mary
+rode on one to Bethlehem.</p>
+
+<p>Conducted through the queer, intricate city, we wound
+along maze-like alleys three or four feet wide, ever
+the old aromatic smell of the East, almost impossible to
+recall, yet recognized again in an instant's flash, and
+born of the Oriental world we jostled against&mdash;of Berbers,
+Arabs, negroes, men from the Sahara, men from the
+mountains of the Riff, Turks, Greeks, Levantines, Syrians,
+even an occasional Hindoo, all wanderers up and down
+the earth, unable to resist the call of the open road,
+engendered by nomadic habits of old.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-03.png"><img src="./images/ill-03_th.png" alt="R. ON A PACK." title="R. ON A PACK." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">R. on a Pack.</p>
+
+<p>One word on the inhabitants of the country. The
+Berbers are the aborigines of Morocco, and live more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>[<a href="./images/13.png">13</a>]</span>
+or less in the hills and mountains, into which they were
+driven by the Arabs in the seventh century, when they
+overran Morocco. The Arabs, on the other hand, live
+in the plains; and Arabs and Berbers practically halve
+the country between them. Both peoples divide into
+numerous tribes, of which the men from the Riff are
+a Berber tribe. The negroes in Morocco are merely
+slaves imported from the south. One and all the Arab
+and Berber tribes are called indiscriminately by
+Europeans "Moors." The other wanderers in Tangier
+filter through the land from their own countries: who
+can tell why or wherefore? Hadj Riffi himself had
+obeyed his Prophet Mohammed in so far as to make
+the pilgrimage to Mecca. A journey the prospect of
+which would horrify a tradesman at home is undertaken
+by an earnest-minded shop-keeping Moor as a matter
+of course. What are the twelve uncomfortable days by
+sea to Jeddah? Or the journey thence to Mecca, lying
+stretched in a long pannier on one side of a camel,
+balanced by a second pilgrim in a pannier on the other
+side, and over the whole an awning spread? But this
+luxurious travelling is for the rich pilgrim, who swings
+silently along day after day, under the burning sun or
+the cold stars, across the tideless sea of sand, towards
+an illimitable horizon. Hadj Riffi "footed it," spent
+three days at Mecca, at this time transformed into a
+city of a myriad tents, among which it is easy enough to
+be lost, teeming with pilgrims&mdash;Chinese, Hindoos, Circassians,
+Georgians, Bosnians&mdash;most of them unable to understand
+each other, beyond a verse or two from the Kor&#257;n
+and a few pious ejaculations.</p>
+
+<p>Hadj Riffi and his fellow-Moors prayed three days
+at Mecca, and performed the ceremonies round the
+celebrated <i>K&#257;aba</i>, the chief shrine and holiest of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>[<a href="./images/14.png">14</a>]</span>
+holy places, built by Adam and Eve after the pattern
+of their own Sanctum Sanctorum in the Garden of Eden.</p>
+
+<p>The far-famed Black Stone, presented to the masons
+by the Angel Gabriel, built into the east corner of the
+outer wall of the K&#257;aba, is a semicircular fragment
+of volcanic basalt, sprinkled with coloured crystals,
+about six by eight inches large, bordered with silver,
+and the surface of it reddish brown, undulating, and
+polished.</p>
+
+<p>Having kissed the Black Stone and performed other
+rites, the Moors went three days' journey to the Prophet's
+Mountain to pray; then they took themselves back to
+Morocco, but on their way, missing a steamer, were
+obliged to travel by land through Tunis, which took
+them five months, and, running short of money, lived,
+Hadj Riffi said, largely on roots.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime he urged our donkey along, breaking
+his discourse with "Arrah! Arrah!" until at last it was
+cajoled under the gateway and into the Kasbah. This
+fortress, reported a good specimen of Moorish architecture,
+could impress nobody: it has no regular garrison; the
+batteries are antiquated, the artillery hopelessly inefficient.
+The crumbling battlements are overgrown with rank
+grass and fig-trees, though tradition has it they were
+once brass, when the city was built of gold and silver.</p>
+
+<p>Tangier is immensely old, and has seen many conquerors,
+many demolitions. Arabs, Greeks, Carthaginians,
+Romans, Goths, Spaniards, and Portuguese have all in
+their turn besieged and taken, ruled and deserted, the
+white city. England has had her turn too. When
+Charles II. married Catherine of Braganza, Tangier and
+Bombay formed part of her dowry and passed into British
+hands. The Portuguese, to whom Tangier then belonged,
+withdrew; the English entered, repaired the city wall,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>[<a href="./images/15.png">15</a>]</span>
+built forts, and in the course of three years a great mole
+across the harbour at a cost of &pound;31,000. Trade increased
+rapidly under the protection of the plucky Tangier
+Regiment (now the Queen's Royal West Surrey). An
+English mayor and corporation&mdash;six aldermen and
+twelve Common Council men&mdash;were established in the
+little colony, and attended church in scarlet and purple.</p>
+
+<p>And then the Home Government made a mistake.
+The slovenly Tangier board in London wasted money,
+sent adventurers out to Tangier as governors. An exposure
+of their mismanagement followed, which induced
+the Home Government to throw up a troublesome charge,
+and to evacuate as valuable a port as England ever
+possessed, in a country which, unlike India, is admirably
+adapted for European colonization, and blessed with every
+natural advantage Creation can offer.</p>
+
+<p>The mole and fortifications were blown up, Lord
+Dartmouth and his garrison marched out of Tangier
+on February 6, 1684, and the Moors took possession of
+a heap of fragmentary ruins. With Tangier in our hands
+we could have confidently commanded the passage of
+the Straits for seventy miles, nor would there have been
+a risk to Gibraltar of having all her supplies cut off
+in the event of Spain and Morocco being hostile to us.
+Fresh-comers to Morocco regret these things: in a few
+weeks the spirit of the country induces a lazy tolerance
+and a general apathy towards the past as well as towards
+the present state of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>We found inside the Kasbah an entirely Moorish element&mdash;one
+sacred spot where no "Christians" may live. A
+children's school was making a deafening noise on our
+right, and we looked in to see a group of small boys
+sitting round an ancient, turbaned Moor, who was sewing
+at a jellab and paying small attention to his pupils: one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>[<a href="./images/16.png">16</a>]</span>
+and all were on their heels, lighted by the open door,
+there being of course no windows; and each held in his
+two hands a board inscribed with Arabic characters, which
+he swayed backwards and forwards as he swayed his
+body in time with sentences from the Kor&#257;n, learnt thus
+by heart and chanted in a high sing-song key. There were
+no girls. Boys alone are taught anything; and in general
+their education begins and ends, as above, with the Kor&#257;n.
+Few Moors can write or read: there are no books in
+Morocco, except the Kor&#257;n and a religious treatise or two,
+to tempt them to learn. As for geography, an intelligent
+Moor will know by name England, France, and Germany,
+not Russia, and that his own country is the biggest, the
+best, and the most powerful.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the noisy little school, which did not approve
+of being stared at, we came to the empty palace, with its
+great horse-shoe doorway, painted blue-white and carved
+in a rudimentary way, called in Arabic "The little garden,"
+descriptive of its inside courtyard, planted with oranges,
+figs, and palms.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on stands the forge of the fortress: "for the
+slippers for the horses," Hadj Riffi explained. The blacksmith
+wore an apron of a whole goat-skin; he pared down
+the hoof with an instrument like a shovel, helped by the
+horse's owner or any chance onlooker, for Moors "hunt
+in packs," and only a mere Christian does anything by
+himself. The shoe is a complete circle of iron, has three
+nails on each side, and in some places a bar across the
+centre.</p>
+
+<p>At last we reached the prison, the principal feature of
+the Kasbah. Much has been written about Moorish
+prisons, to be put down by ignorant critics as exaggerated.
+English visitors have shown up their horrors, only to
+be forbidden now by a stringent order to go inside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>[<a href="./images/17.png">17</a>]</span>
+It is hard to say what happens behind the scenes, but
+torture is lightly thought of in Morocco; "cruelty," as
+Europeans understand it, has no place nor meaning in
+ignorant, fanatical minds; and an unpleasant inference
+is therefore to be drawn.</p>
+
+<p>Of course many of the prisoners are confined, in all
+good faith, for offences, and will be released in time;
+but there are also Moors, in high positions socially,
+or possessed formerly of means, who "wither and agonize"
+year after year in captivity, their only fault that they
+were rich or influential in bygone days, thus tempting
+a jealous rival to remove them out of his path, or a
+greedy Government to confine them and feed upon their
+money. If they ever come out, it will be because a
+wealthy friend has chosen to pay the Government for their
+release, or because it has happened to occur to the
+ministers at Court to send for them; and half of them
+will reappear but scarred remnants of the men who
+went in. Descriptions of tortures which were unknown
+even in the Middle Ages in England may well be omitted:
+tortures which result in blind and tongueless creatures,
+without hands; bled of every penny they once possessed,
+and maimed in order to induce them to reveal the spot
+where their money was hidden, or the friends' names
+with whom they traded.</p>
+
+<p>We looked in through a small iron grating in the
+door about two feet square, revealing a space open to
+the skies, with roofed recesses in the walls round the
+four sides, where the prisoners had huddled themselves
+in their rags. At night they are chained by the leg.
+An Oriental does not require "a bed," but he is provided
+with no substitute in prison, still less with food and drink,
+for which he is dependent on friends or relations willing
+to supply him. Of late years, in certain prisons, a small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>[<a href="./images/18.png">18</a>]</span>
+loaf of bread per day is given to each man. He has the
+great advantage of being able to talk all day to his fellow-prisoners;
+but in the case of a refined man such close
+intercourse has its drawbacks, more especially when
+a raving lunatic happens to be chained by an iron
+collar round his neck to one of the pillars. Madmen
+and all alike, without respect of persons, veritably rot
+to death, cheek by jowl, in a Moorish prison. Disease,
+starvation, and injuries tend to shorten their captivity.
+Whoever has smelt the smell within those walls will
+endorse the adjective "kindly" Death, than which there
+surely can be no more welcome visitor.</p>
+
+<p>A few of the sound prisoners, sitting on the ground,
+were weaving baskets, some of which we bought through
+the keeper of the prison; then turned away, struck by the
+stoicism among the prisoners themselves in a situation
+of such uncertainty. Was it to end in death or release?
+Who knows? They merely shrug their shoulders, and
+ejaculate, "Ift shallah" (God will show).</p>
+
+<p>Passing the soldiers guarding the outside of the prison,
+and out under a second gateway of the Kasbah, we
+stumbled down what is called one of the Sultan's "highways,"
+something very rocky and not far off the
+perpendicular. R. chose her own feet, much to Hadj
+Riffi's annoyance. Though the ways are such that
+no donkey can be ridden without stumbling among
+cobble-stones and pitfalls, and thereby running a risk
+of pitching the rider off the insecure pack into a refuse-heap,
+it was impossible for a European, in his eyes,
+to walk and to maintain his dignity at the same time.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-04.png"><img src="./images/ill-04_th.png" alt="TWO SHEIKHS." title="TWO SHEIKHS." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Two Sheikhs.</p>
+
+<p>That no Moor runs when he can walk, or walks when
+he can ride, or stands when he can sit, or sits when he
+can lie down, is a saying fulfilled to the letter. And what
+poor man, however heavily he loads his small donkey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>[<a href="./images/19.png">19</a>]</span>
+with garden produce, forgoes mounting himself on top
+of all, and making the little beast stagger along, at a
+fair pace too, to market? The life of such a man is
+not eventful, but what there is of it is good: he sings
+as he jogs along in a monotonous tone, and has a word
+for every soul he meets, and a laugh too, curses his donkey&mdash;he
+is never quiet&mdash;and lands the produce of his little
+melon-patch in the market. The melons are sold by
+degrees, much gossip is interspersed, possibly he washes
+and prays, then eats, and sleeps a little; more gossip,
+until the sun tells him it is time to get outside the city
+gates; and then off he jogs again, singing, talking, back
+to the little reed-thatched hut, fenced in by its hedge
+of cactus. Life is too full of&mdash;call it resignation or
+content&mdash;to leave room for disturbing speculations, and
+he is born of a race which never repines: there is Allah
+and the One Faith, and the sun to lie down beneath
+and meditate and sleep. Not that the typical countryman
+is idle&mdash;far from it: he is hard-working, without any
+beer to do it upon.</p>
+
+<p>It is a matter of more speculation as to what the
+courteous, solemn men, in turbans like carved snow, whom
+one meets walking along the beach telling their beads,
+or sees sitting in sunshine reading aloud in a low voice,
+steadily praising Allah, occupy themselves with from
+month to month; or the sleek sheikh&mdash;a countryman
+of some means, with smooth coffee-coloured face and a
+haik whiter than an iced birthday cake&mdash;perched between
+the peaks of his red cloth saddle, under which his hard,
+hammer-headed mule paces at an intermittent amble.</p>
+
+<p>Probably the sheikh has ridden out of the city to
+inspect his crops. His house, with his wife, he has locked
+up: the keys are in his pocket. He swings along a
+sandy track bordered with cactus, reaches his garden door,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>[<a href="./images/20.png">20</a>]</span>
+which is painted Reckitt's blue, unlocks it, and, tying
+his mule up inside to a fruit-tree, proceeds to inspect
+his vines and prune casually some of the ashy-white
+branches of his fig-trees. Then he sets two ragged countrywomen
+to work to cut his vines and hoe his beans. He
+may read a few verses of the Kor&#257;n later on. He may
+sleep. Eventually he ambles home. Other days he spends
+among his friends in the city, sitting in their little shops
+and gossiping consumedly. He may hire an empty shop
+of his own for the same purpose, and turn it into what
+might be called "a club." He will pray regularly; will
+play chess and draughts sitting in the front of a shop;
+will drink green tea. Whatever he does is done without
+haste, and towards evening he strolls serenely, with many
+interruptions, in the direction of his own house.</p>
+
+<p>The climate of Morocco has never any of the brisk,
+freezing "grip" of a hard English winter, but rather tends
+towards encouraging indolence. In Tangier itself energetic
+English visitors find little superabundant scope for
+action: naturally enough, the residents, whom an enervating
+summer or two shears of much of the vitality with
+which they first landed, end in settling down into an
+enjoyable, mild routine. There is, however, shooting and
+a little pig-sticking for who will; but guns may not be
+brought into the country, and no European would be
+allowed to exploit its <i>nullahs</i>: if not killed, he would
+be turned back and escorted into trodden ways.</p>
+
+<p>The principal day's excursion from Tangier is out to
+Cape Spartel and back again: before we left the place
+we started early one morning with this end in view,
+taking a donkey and boy carrying a camera, lunch, etc.&mdash;first
+along a cobbled roadway of which Tangier is
+immensely proud, across the river by a new bridge, and
+up the Mountain. The Mountain is the summer abode<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>[<a href="./images/21.png">21</a>]</span>
+of Tangier, and shady houses and gardens civilize what
+was once a wild hill, in the days when our great British
+minister, Sir John Hay, did an unprecedented thing, and
+built himself a house there.</p>
+
+<p>Forty years ago no Christian was safe outside Tangier
+without a guard, and it is largely to Sir John Hay's
+fearless trust in the honour of the Moor that the change
+is due. It may still be unwise to walk in lonely places
+after dark, or to become involved in a street row; for if
+one ruffian is excited to throw a stone, thirty will follow
+suit, and Europeans have thus been stoned to death.
+But those who live out in the Mountain and visitors to
+Spartel have nothing to fear in these days in the shape
+of attack and robbery.</p>
+
+<p>It was about ten o'clock when we left behind us the
+leggy remains of a Roman aqueduct over the river, and,
+having climbed the Mountain, broke into open ground,
+stretching far away at the top. The cobbled road resolved
+itself into an unsophisticated path; the stiff cane fences,
+shutting out all but the tree-tops in the gardens from
+view, came to an end; and we were in a breeze off the
+Atlantic, on undulating hills covered with short scrub,
+gum-cistus, arbutus, tall white heather, oleander, and pink-and-white
+convolvulus.</p>
+
+<p>The track led us up and down, and grew more stony
+as we went on, gradually rising, till we were about a
+thousand feet above the sea. Looking back, Tangier lay
+far below, and beyond it in the distance white cragged
+mountains glinted in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>It was a glorious day, November 24: a fresh breeze,
+tempered as it so seldom is in England at that time of
+year. Our path wound round the hills and dipped towards
+the sea. From the stretches of heather through which we
+brushed we could hear below us the surf breaking on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>[<a href="./images/22.png">22</a>]</span>
+rocks: it might have been a corner of the west coast of
+Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>After eight miles' up-and-down tramp, the lighthouse at
+the end of the great cape, Spartel, the north-west corner
+of the African Continent, came into sight. This lighthouse
+was built at the instigation of the eleven Powers,
+but actually by the Sultan. The Powers&mdash;Great Britain,
+France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Portugal,
+Italy, Russia, America, and Brazil&mdash;share the cost of its
+maintenance, and that of the whole road from Tangier
+to the lighthouse, which follows the line of telegraph-posts,
+the cable being laid to Spartel. The lighthouse is French
+built; its fixed intermittent white light can be seen thirty-six
+miles away, and it stands 312 feet above sea-level.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting down at its base, looking out to sea, we watched
+the black spines of rock underneath us, set in whirlpools
+of foam&mdash;the Dark Continent showing the last of its teeth.
+On our left the coast trended away into the hazy distance:
+to our right across the blue Straits lay the yellow sands
+of the bay where Trafalgar was fought, and the irregular
+little town of Tarifa, backed by purple Spanish hills.</p>
+
+<p>The evenings were short, and we were soon on our
+homeward way. The stunted bushes on each side of
+the path, disturbed by the devastating woodcutters, could
+hardly hold a lion in the present day. Yet in the course
+of Sir John Hay's forty odd years of administration in
+Morocco two were seen in these same woods, and he
+shot there himself a striped <i>Hy&aelig;na rufus</i>, a great shaggy
+animal with a bristling mane. One of the two lions
+ought to have been shot, but he doubled back, and was
+heard of afterwards travelling at a swinging trot between
+Tangier and Tetuan. He killed an ox in the valley
+the next day, and disappeared in the direction of the snow-topped
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>[<a href="./images/23.png">23</a>]</span>
+In this twentieth century lions in the north of Morocco
+would be a rare sight: towards the south the mountain-fastnesses
+hold them still, together with leopards, wild
+cats, etc.; but, like everywhere else, big game moves off
+as civilization moves on.</p>
+
+<p>There remains the wild boar. The Moors hunt him
+with greyhounds, Europeans shoot him, and Englishmen
+have introduced pig-sticking. The largest pig Sir John
+Hay speared scaled twenty stone clean, and measured
+six foot four from snout to tail. But even pig are getting
+scarce. The Tent Club in Tangier organizes expeditions,
+and parties go out under canvas for a few days at a time:
+the result is nothing very great.</p>
+
+<p>When it is a question of shooting pig, the Moors,
+born sportsmen, join one and all&mdash;small farmers and
+peasants&mdash;purely from the love of sport. Some act as
+beaters, wearing leathern aprons and greaves&mdash;such as
+the Greek peasantry wore&mdash;to protect their legs. They
+carry bill-hooks to cut their way through the thickets, and
+bring along a tribe of native dogs, which do good service&mdash;a
+cross between a collie and a jackal, veteran poachers,
+which prowl through the scrub, winding a boar at any
+distance. The thickets where pig lie are for the most
+part backed by the sea, and bordered by lake and marsh
+or plain, in which case it is not difficult to inveigle the
+driven boar to break where the guns are posted. A
+haunch of wild pig judiciously roasted, with a <i>soup&ccedil;on</i>
+of wine in the gravy, is one of the delicacies of Morocco.
+As many as fifteen boars have been accounted for in a
+couple of days' shooting.</p>
+
+<p>The sun went down; the soft air grew colder: we walked
+quickly back through the outskirts of Tangier, between
+gardens full of plumbago, dituria, geraniums, hibiscus,
+pointsettias, narcissus, frescia, and roses of all sorts, besides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>[<a href="./images/24.png">24</a>]</span>
+other flowers. Anything would grow in a soil which
+has been known to bear three crops of potatoes in one
+year, and where corn is sometimes sown and reaped all
+within the space of forty days.</p>
+
+<p>An enterprising English market-gardener is this year
+growing vegetables and fruit for the London market,
+expecting to have green peas in Covent Garden in
+December, the duty on peas and tomatoes having been
+lowered to 5 per cent. This man acts as agent to a
+land-owner. Fortunes, indeed, might be made, if it were
+not a question of <span class="smcap">find the land</span>; for while land cannot
+now be bought in Morocco by Europeans, the few fortunates
+who own inherited acres price them high, and,
+hoping for a boom in the course of the next fifteen years,
+demand &pound;400 an acre.</p>
+
+<p>As we turned into the Villa Valentina a wonderful
+opal light warmed the white city and the sand-hills&mdash;they
+were no longer cold nor <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'colourness'">colourless</ins>; while banks of "rose"
+sunset-clouds were reflected "rose" in a grey-green sea.</p>
+
+<p>Tangier has two sides to it&mdash;one native, the other
+European. The European side is all which appears on
+the surface, and it swamps the other. Given each of the
+eleven Powers, with its minister, its minister's family, its
+secretary, its attach&eacute;, its interpreter, its student; add
+to these a handful of English residents, a handful of
+English and American visitors, and a handful of varied
+nationalities thrown in; back them up with the necessary
+foundation of purveyors, and lower down still a substratum
+of leeches and black-sheep, greedy Jews, needy Spaniards,
+introducing drink and tobacco and gambling,&mdash;and there
+you have before you all the elements of a highly civilized
+town on the Mediterranean shore. It may be Tangier:
+it is not Morocco.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-05.png"><img src="./images/ill-05_th.png" alt="TANGIER." title="TANGIER." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Tangier.</p>
+
+<p>The Moorish aristocracy themselves speak of the place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>[<a href="./images/25.png">25</a>]</span>
+as "Christian-ridden Tangier," and will have none of it:
+the Sultan says it "no longer belongs to him." Its trade
+is <i>nil</i>, and what there is of it is in the hands of the Jews,
+who boast eleven synagogues, schools, and a Grand Rabbi
+at the head of all.</p>
+
+<p>We brought introductions with us to various people,
+and met with every hospitality in Tangier. Sir Arthur
+and Lady Nicolson, representing Great Britain, do all in
+their power for visitors; and the colony of mixed nationalities
+fills its off hours together, most successfully, with
+a round of picnics, afternoon rides, tea parties, and other
+amusements, implied by "wintering at Tangier"; from
+all of which any knowledge of Morocco, or association
+with Moors, is far removed indeed.</p>
+
+<p>A seaport which has neither roads nor railways to
+connect it with the surrounding country, is isolated a
+week's journey from the nearest capital town, and whose
+links with the outer world all tend seawards through
+steamers to foreign countries, can never constitute a
+study of the land to which it belongs only by right of
+position.</p>
+
+<p>But Morocco itself had brought us to the north of
+Africa. Tangier could only be a base for future operations,
+and consequently a fortnight of Tangier sufficed,
+finding us bent upon moving on, before the heavy rains
+broke, and the swollen rivers made travelling impossible.
+Travelling in Morocco is never at the best of times
+luxurious. "Say explore, rather than travel," somebody
+writes, speaking of Morocco; and many were the injunctions
+and warnings which the post brought us from
+friends at home&mdash;above all, to expect no ransoms, in the
+event of capture by lawless tribes.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that a <i>Wanderjahr</i> in Morocco has not the
+luxuries of travel in India; and Englishmen who would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>[<a href="./images/26.png">26</a>]</span>
+break new ground must wear Moorish dress, talk Arabic,
+and prepare to face considerable risks, with the off-chance
+of writing in some such strain as Davidson: "To-day
+I have parted with all my hair except one long tuft
+over my right ear. I never expect to become white
+again. My beard is very long. My legs covered with
+bites of vermin. My cheek-bones prominent, and my
+teeth sharp from having very little to do."</p>
+
+<p>Not that R. and myself had such adventures in view;
+but we believed that even as humble followers in the
+tracks of others we should find no lack of interest in
+a country so little known, among a people of "The Arabian
+Nights," under conditions which tempt the Unexpected
+to stalk out from behind every corner.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>[<a href="./images/27.png">27</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">Camp Outfit&mdash;A Night at a Caravanserai&mdash;Tetuan&mdash;The British Vice-Consul&mdash;Moorish Shops&mdash;We Visit a Moorish House and Family.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>[<a href="./images/28.png">28</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>[<a href="./images/29.png">29</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER II</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Tetuan</i>&mdash;the tiger-cat! so curiously beautiful. Recollections of
+it hang in the gallery of one's memory, not so much as pictures,
+but as Correggio-like masses of vivid colouring and intangible
+spirals of perfume.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> place we had set our hearts upon visiting, to
+begin with, was the northern capital, Fez&mdash;only
+to find, on going into particulars, that insurmountable
+barriers blocked the way. Even if we escaped the
+December rains on the ride there, they would break
+sooner or later, making sleeping out under canvas impossible:
+the flooded rivers might mean a long delay&mdash;probably
+a week or more&mdash;on the banks; bridges in
+Morocco are harder to find than diamonds on the seashore,
+and when a river is in flood there remains only to sit down
+in front of it until the waters abate.</p>
+
+<p>The "road" to Fez, after the tropical rains, soon becomes
+a slough of clay and water, ploughed up by mules
+and donkeys, and so slippery that nothing can keep its legs.
+We decided, therefore, to leave Fez till the spring, when
+the rains would be over, and to visit for the present a
+city called Tetuan, only two days' journey from Tangier,
+camping out as long as we felt inclined, and returning
+to the Villa Valentina in a week, or when the weather
+should drive us back. But the gods thought otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>Tetuan was, by report, in the most beautiful part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>[<a href="./images/30.png">30</a>]</span>
+Morocco: its situation reminded travellers of Jerusalem;
+it was among the Anjera and Riff Mountains; and though,
+of course, travel was impossible within the forbidden land
+of the Riff, it was likely we should gather some interesting
+crumbs of information, and come across a few of the famous
+tribesmen, while we were staying on the borders. Above
+all, it was a Moorish city, and counted an aristocratic one
+at that: no European element spoilt its originality. On
+the face of it Tetuan had attractions.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly we made preparations to be off.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing to be done was to get hold of a man
+who could cook, act as guide, interpreter, and muleteer:
+plenty of them presented themselves, and we closed with
+a certain Mohammed, who had been with Colonel H&mdash;&mdash;.
+Every third Moor is named Mohammed, or some corruption
+of it&mdash;eldest sons invariably.</p>
+
+<p>Next we ransacked Tangier for commissariat and
+camp outfit. Out of a dirty little Spanish shop two men's
+saddles of antiquated English make, with rolls, were unearthed,
+and hired in preference to some prehistoric side-saddles,
+with moth-eaten doe-skin seats and horned third
+pommels.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-06.png"><img src="./images/ill-06_th.png" alt="TETUAN." title="TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Tetuan.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>Then we obtained a permit from the English Consul,
+for the sum of seven-and-sixpence, authorizing us to apply
+to the governor of the Kasbah for one of the Moorish
+soldiers quartered in Tangier, who should act as our escort
+to Tetuan. The Sultan of Morocco undertakes to protect
+British subjects travelling in his dominions as far as
+possible, provided they supply themselves with an adequate
+escort and avoid roads through unsafe territory.
+The various tribes from among themselves sometimes
+provide an armed guard to see travellers safely across
+their own country, handing them on at the borders to the
+next tribe, who sends its mounted escort to meet them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>[<a href="./images/31.png">31</a>]</span>
+The headman arranges for the safety of Europeans, and
+his tribe answers for their lives. But this plan involves
+prearrangement, publicity, and fuss. Now from Tangier
+to Tetuan the road by daylight is perfectly safe&mdash;though
+it happens that, at the time of writing, the body of a
+peasant, presumably out after sunset, has been found
+robbed and murdered close to it. Therefore one soldier
+was all we should want; and at last this bodyguard was
+supplied, a ragged Moor, with a lean mule and a French
+rifle&mdash;all for five shillings per day.</p>
+
+<p>We next visited a general "stores," lined with the
+familiar Cadbury, Keiller, and Huntley &amp; Palmer tins:
+there we invested in corned beef, tinned soup, potted
+meats, cheese, salt, macaroni, marmalade, tea, coffee, sugar,
+candles, soap, matches, etc. Things not to be forgotten
+were nails, hammer, rope, methylated spirit and etna. A
+revolver for its moral effect is necessary, and may be
+invaluable in a tight corner. We provided ourselves with
+two tents, one for the servants and a larger one for
+ourselves; a set of camp furniture, including kitchen pots
+and pans; and an enamel breakfast and dining service,
+which, if time had mattered little, would have been well
+exchanged for an aluminium set out from England, as
+lighter and more convenient.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed hired four mules and another man&mdash;Ali&mdash;himself
+taking charge of the cooking department, providing
+meat, bread, vegetables, fruit, etc.: then with our
+<i>bundobust</i> complete, and a letter of introduction from
+Sir Arthur Nicolson to the British Vice-Consul at Tetuan,
+we started on November 28.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of the hottest mornings we had had, not
+a fleck of cloud in the sky, and what air there was due
+east: the sea lay flat as a blue pool, and five or six
+white sails might have been swans on its glassy surface.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>[<a href="./images/32.png">32</a>]</span>
+Mohammed appeared early in the sandy road underneath
+our windows. To avoid waking people in the hotel, we
+handed our diminutive kit out through the window to him&mdash;only
+a couple of waterproof rolls, which held rugs and bare
+necessities; then locking up the bulk of our worldly goods
+behind us, slipped out of the Villa Valentina, mounted
+our mules, and were off across the white sand-dunes
+bordering the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Tetuan lies forty-four miles to the south-east of Tangier:
+people with much time and little energy have made a
+three days' march of it. A range of hills rather more
+than half-way makes a natural division, and on the
+top of this watershed a <i>fond&acirc;k</i> (caravanserai) stands for
+the use of travellers during the night: here it is usual
+to camp.</p>
+
+<p>We were an odd little procession as we left Tangier.
+Our mounted soldier, Cadour, led the way, in a brown
+weather-worn jellab, which he pulled right up over his
+head like a Franciscan friar: his legs were bare, his feet
+thrust into a pair of old yellow shoes. He carried his
+gun across his saddle in front of him, inside one arm: it
+was in a frayed brown canvas case, which had holes in
+each end, out of which both stock and barrel respectively
+protruded. With his other hand he jogged incessantly
+at the mule's mouth. Take him all in all, a soldier's
+was the last trade he outwardly impersonated. Behind
+him rode R. and myself, shaking down by degrees
+into our saddles, glad not to have before us eight or
+ten hours' jog across rough country on provincial side-saddles,
+which, apart from the strained position, are inconvenient
+for slipping off and on again. Behind us followed
+the two baggage-mules with our tents, etc.: loaded as
+they were, Mohammed and Ali had climbed upon the tops
+of their great packs. A mule carries as much as he can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>[<a href="./images/33.png">33</a>]</span>
+get along under in Morocco: the man climbs up afterwards,
+and does not count.</p>
+
+<p>Two hundredweight, with a Moor on top, is a fair load
+for a long journey, marching seven hours every day.
+Enough barley should be carried for each night's fodder:
+the ordinary mule and pony live on barley and broken
+straw, beans when in season, and grass in the spring to
+fatten them. Sevenpence a day will feed a mule, and
+hire comes to three shillings a day. Good mules are not
+bought easily, and are worth, on account of their toughness,
+more than ponies, fetching &pound;12 any day. Ours were but
+second-rate hirelings, and we made up our minds to buy
+later on, when starting on a long expedition. A mule
+should be chosen chiefly for its pacing powers, doing
+four and a half miles an hour on an average for seven
+hours a day, without turning a hair or tiring the rider,
+whose comfort depends on an easy pace. The longer the
+overlap of the hind-shoe print over the fore-shoe print,
+the better the pace. Moorish horses are wiry little beasts,
+but you seldom see a handsome one: either they are
+ewe-necked or they fall away in the hindquarters; their
+feet are allowed to grow too long, and their legs are ruined
+through tight hobbling. Nor is there much inducement to
+a Moor to breed a handsome foal, liable to be stolen from
+him, if seen by a governor or agent of the Sultan's.
+Naturally he breeds the inferior animal he has a chance
+of keeping, and puts a valuable mare to a common stallion,
+branding and otherwise disfiguring a colt which by bad
+luck turns out good-looking.</p>
+
+<p>The slender desert-horse, the <i>habb-er-reeh</i> (gust of
+wind, as they call him), with the small aristocratic head,
+a nose which will go into a tea-cup, perfect shoulders,
+and diminutive sloping hindquarters, is seldom met
+with and hardly ever used, except quite in the south<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>[<a href="./images/34.png">34</a>]</span>
+of the country, where he is given camel's milk to
+drink.</p>
+
+<p>People as a rule start off on their day's march with the
+dawn, after a light breakfast of coffee, beaten-up eggs, and
+dry biscuits; halt about ten o'clock, supposing they are
+near water; and, if necessary, do two or three hours more,
+comfortably, before sunset. But we had made a late start,
+and the sun was far up as we jogged along one after
+the other, leaving behind the sands, the orange gardens,
+and the gimcrack Spanish houses, at every step the open
+country widening in front of us.</p>
+
+<p>We followed a narrow path, one of the countless footpaths
+which zigzag in and out, and wind away to every
+point of the compass, like ants' tracks from an ant-hill.
+Donkeys, mules, countrywomen, eternally pass and re-pass
+along the polished ways, with the everlasting burdens
+of charcoal, faggots, vegetables, and flour: life in some
+form moving along them there always is.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the edge of the horizon, clumps of dwarf
+palm and coarse grass slanted in the breeze: here and
+there grey rocks stuck up on the hillside like fossilized
+bones, and met the blue sky. A stream was meandering,
+hidden under deep banks, on our right. We wound along
+the wide valley, doing our best to keep the mules going
+at a respectable pace, and finding that there was quite
+an art in accomplishing it on a hireling. Cadour cut in
+behind, and supplemented our sticks and heels with Arabic
+words of much effect, his own mule's mouth suffering
+badly from his jogging, remorseless hand.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-07.png"><img src="./images/ill-07_th.png" alt="OURSELVES AND BAGGAGE." title="OURSELVES AND BAGGAGE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Ourselves and Baggage.</p>
+
+<p>A raven, "a blot in heaven, flying high," sailed over
+our heads up in the blue, and then, leisurely dropping,
+sat on a rock and croaked at us. Morocco is a country
+of circling kites and keen-eyed hawks, whose easy, buoyant
+flight and vibrating "hover" in the hot air are things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>[<a href="./images/35.png">35</a>]</span>
+of undying fascination. Now and again a puff of east
+wind&mdash;life-giving&mdash;would stir the whole countryside and
+pass on, leaving us glowing under a sun which warmed
+every cranny, and made the section of air just above
+the flat fields rock with heat. Two countrywomen toiled
+towards us under their bundles&mdash;a couple of figures
+swathed in yellowy white; they gazed at us as people
+gaze who have few interests in their lives, then smiled
+and spoke, gesticulated, and laughed again: a herd of
+goats was outlined on the hill above; the goat-herd
+called to another far-off brown-clad figure, and the
+echoes filtered down to us: a rabbit dashed up out of
+a palm-bush and scuttled away: and then there was
+silence profound, and we paced on eastwards, talking
+and singing a song sometimes, while the sun climbed
+right-handed.</p>
+
+<p>There is no life like it&mdash;that life of the open air and
+its absolute freedom. Monotonous it would certainly be
+to many people: small and uneventful matters, and a
+palette set in greys and browns, charm but a few, for
+whom solitary rides and waste places are "things in
+common," and chance meetings and little incidents by
+the way suffice.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three miles outside Tangier stretch rich
+undulating lands between low hills: a few divisionless
+fields bear witness to both primitive and erratic farming,
+and give that regretful air to the landscape which land
+not "done well by" always imparts.</p>
+
+<p>The writer has lately read a somewhat pessimistic
+letter upon the state of Morocco. Morocco is a decadent
+empire, it is true: primarily, because the two races to
+whom the country belongs live, and have always lived
+from time immemorial, under a tribal system; and
+secondarily, because those same races, Arab and Berber,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>[<a href="./images/36.png">36</a>]</span>
+hate one another with a racial hatred. These two
+reasons by themselves augur badly for the land they
+live upon, implying a state of armed neutrality, no
+cohesion, and no settled peace.</p>
+
+<p>Under a tribal system the tribe is the unit, not the
+individual&mdash;"one for all, and all for one": it follows
+that transgression and retribution are both upon a
+wholesale scale, and alike disastrous towards the consolidation
+of a united nation.</p>
+
+<p>The government in a country cursed by the tribal
+system must in the very nature of things be despotic:
+lawless tribes need the tyrant's hand of iron. To the
+fact of his being a despot the Sultan owes his security,
+coupled with one other reason. Arabs and Berbers
+alike are fanatics: religion is the air they breathe, the
+salt of life. The Sultan is descended direct from the
+One Great Prophet; consequently the Sultan is acknowledged
+as lord. His policy is an Oriental one: tribe
+is played off against tribe, one European power against
+the other European power; the empire is isolated;
+innovations are prohibited, lest European civilization
+should oust Moorish eccentricities. So much for the
+Oriental policy of "the balance of jealousies."</p>
+
+<p>Despotism breeds despotism. While every Moor below
+the Sultan ranks as equal, the fact remains that Government
+officials are all in their own sphere little despots,
+governing districts many days' journey from Court, with
+every chance of robbing and oppressing those under
+them, until the day of reckoning comes, when the Court,
+hearing how fat their fine bird has grown, summons him
+to the capital, and the process of plucking and imprisoning
+their wealthy servant follows.</p>
+
+<p>Life exists upon life, from the <i>sheikhs</i> (farmers), who
+live upon what they can squeeze out of the peasants, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>[<a href="./images/37.png">37</a>]</span>
+the <i>bashas</i> (governors), who exist on tithes, taxes, and
+extortion wrung from the sheikhs and townspeople, up
+to higher officials, who receive no salaries, and line their
+pockets by a process of bleeding the bashas and
+others . . . . . . thus <i>ad lib</i>. Even the gaolers&mdash;also
+unpaid&mdash;earn their living by extorting money from the
+prisoners. The whole system of government reacts
+upon itself; for the <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'venalty'">venality</ins> of the officials drives the
+tribes to redress their wrongs at intervals by raids and
+open rebellion, to punish whom there follows slaughter
+upon slaughter, and the country is laid waste.</p>
+
+<p>Hence the principal reasons&mdash;wheels within wheels&mdash;which
+account for the Morocco of 1902: its prehistoric
+customs, its uncultivated acres.</p>
+
+<p>No reformer, no missionary, will alter the condition
+of Morocco. The Moors themselves have made it what
+it is; but since for an Ethiopian to change his skin is
+no light matter, there is small probability of the Moors
+themselves unmaking it.</p>
+
+<p>A gloomy prospect, yet one which, taking the case
+of the people and looking upon it from a "happiness"
+point of view, must not be altogether judged from a
+European standpoint. The likes and dislikes of Moors
+are not the likes and dislikes of Europeans, and most
+of them view their good times and bad times with equal
+calm, as merely the will of Allah. Besides which, anything
+in the shape of law and order and daily routine rasps
+their raw nature. Just as a Moor prefers to eat to
+repletion when there is food, and to go without when
+there is not, so he would choose a desultory and irresponsible
+life, alternating between perfect freedom and
+excessive tyranny, to any regular humdrum form of
+government which Europe could offer him.</p>
+
+<p>The country people we met, if hard-worked, had at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>[<a href="./images/38.png">38</a>]</span>
+the same time cheerful enough faces: their enjoyment
+of life probably equals that of the English labourer.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, it is possible that, when the day comes&mdash;as
+it must come&mdash;that an effete and inadequate people
+goes to the wall, and civilized blood occupies their room,
+it may bring good, but that good will be tinged with
+regret&mdash;certainly in the eyes of those selfish mortals to
+whom one country, neither wire-fenced nor scored by
+railways, nor swept nor garnished, but coloured to-day by
+the smoke of many thousand years, still offers palmy days.
+Thus giving thanks to Allah for things as they are, after
+the manner of the country, we jogged along, looking out
+for a halting-ground: it was between twelve and one
+o'clock, and time to stretch our legs.</p>
+
+<p>The river and some oleander-bushes, with green lawns
+between them, offered all we wanted. Cadour took off
+his brown jellab, and spread it for us to sit upon. There
+we lunched and waited for an hour. Some oxen were
+ploughing close to us, driven in a desultory way by a
+figure clad in a pair of once white drawers, and a once
+white tunic with a leather belt. All which this husbandman
+wanted being corn enough to supply himself, and
+no surplus to fall into the sheikh's hands, the field was
+naturally small. A well-to-do farmer might rise to growing
+a little maize or cummin or millet or fenugreek for exportation,
+perhaps some broad-beans, chick-peas, or canary-seed;
+but the duties are heavy. Wheat and barley have
+been forbidden export: the infidel shall not eat bread of
+the true believer's corn.</p>
+
+<p>Our Arabic at that time was <i>nil</i>; there was no chance
+of a word with the ploughman unless through Mohammed.
+Such a mere scratch of a furrow as he made, into which
+the grain would be casually thrown, with never a harrow
+or substitution for one! Allah provides, and there is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>[<a href="./images/39.png">39</a>]</span>
+reason to interfere with his arrangements: "B`ism Allah."
+Thus will the fields be reaped, the corn ground, the bread
+made, the loaf eaten, with the same old invocation muttered
+beforehand: "B`ism Allah" (In the name of God).</p>
+
+<p>The two little oxen drew the patriarchal plough, hewn
+out of a log of wood, and shod with an iron point, entirely
+by means of their heads, to which it was fastened with
+dried grass-fibres across their foreheads and round their
+horns, making a sort of large straw bonnet on top of
+all which they held high in the air or sideways, with expressions
+of extreme disgust. In the middle of the field,
+yoked by the bonnet to a second plough and a fellow-ox,
+the companion had inconsiderately lain down, to the great
+inconvenience of its foolish partner, which remained
+standing, with its head forced into the most unpleasant
+angle downwards, and the stoical expression of a true
+Mussulman underneath its bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>On the opposite side of the stream some sheep, suggestive
+of the lean, tough mutton we fed upon, were
+searching round for anything in the shape of pasture:
+flocks of small cows and calves were on the same quest
+between the palmetto-bushes: somewhere a boy in charge
+was no doubt asleep.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Mohammed was impatient to be off: the
+bits were put back into the mules' mouths, we got into our
+saddles again, and pushed on. In wet weather the track
+must be a bad one to follow: innumerable streamlets,
+which have eaten out deep gullies in the clay, have to be
+crossed, making the going hard upon heavily laden beasts,
+and after heavy rains impossible. We slipped about a
+little. Mohammed and his man had their hands full with
+the two baggage-mules, which they had long ago given up
+trying to ride. The slopes became more bleak: far away
+in the distance Cadour pointed out our destination, a white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>[<a href="./images/40.png">40</a>]</span>
+speck on the top of a range of hills, to be seen for a
+moment and lost sight of the next, as we dipped down
+on to lower ground. Another hour brought it very little
+nearer: fresh irregularities between opened up continually,
+meaning <i>d&eacute;tours</i> to the right or left. A few plover wailed
+over some marsh: in such places partridge, hares, golden
+grouse, and quail ought to be found; but since every male
+possesses a gun of sorts, from the peasant hoeing beans
+upwards, and is not troubled with game laws or ideas
+upon preserving, they become rarer.</p>
+
+<p>We passed clump after clump of white narcissus in full
+bloom, and marigolds in yellow patches; but as we neared
+the hills the country grew wilder, and short scrub, palmetto,
+and cistus took the place of coarse grass.</p>
+
+<p>At last we were at the foot of the pass, and the end of
+our march was all uphill, steep in places, the scrub turning
+into respectable bushes, with almost a "jungly" aspect.
+The baggage-mules were pushed and urged ahead. At
+last, about five o'clock, the sun setting, we reached our
+camping-ground, up in the teeth of a rising wind.</p>
+
+<p>Standing by itself, the caravanserai&mdash;called a <i>fond&acirc;k</i> in
+Morocco&mdash;was a white-walled enclosure, with a great open
+space in the middle and colonnades all round the insides
+of the four walls, where men and mules huddled and slept
+unconcernedly. There is also one room to be had; but
+filthy, of course, such quarters always are, and dear at any
+price (the rate for accommodation is not large). One look
+into the walled enclosure, crowded with transport animals
+and their drivers, was enough, and we turned to see to the
+pitching of the tents outside.</p>
+
+<p>The panorama of hills in the west had a red, lurid light,
+such as Julius Ollsson loves to paint: across the stormy
+glow trailed a few white wisps of smoke where the peasants
+were burning wood on the hillside for charcoal. Making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>[<a href="./images/41.png">41</a>]</span>
+a <i>d&eacute;tour</i> of the fond&acirc;k while there was light to see, we
+chose the west side for our camp, apparently the most
+sheltered; but the place is a temple of the four winds and
+gusty upon a breathless day.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite dark before the men had things ready,
+hampered as they were by the gale which was getting
+up and the want of light. We tried to keep warm, and
+watched the first star come out from a knoll; at last took
+refuge in our wind-shaken tent, unpacked, and sat ourselves
+down with outstretched legs, wrapped in a medley
+of garments, round the little camp-table, lit by the flicker
+of two candle-lanterns, the flaps of the tents snugly
+fastened together from within, awaiting Mohammed's first
+culinary effort.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by from out of the chaotic kitchen-tent, pitched
+in the dark, filled with confused commissariat, and further
+blocked by Cadour, Ali, and their small effects, Mohammed
+emerged, and handed in through an opening in our tent
+chicken and eggs cooked in Moorish fat. After a long
+interval tea followed, and fruit. We sat listening to the
+wind, writing up a diary and talking till bed seemed
+the best and only warm place. The gale woke me after
+an hour or two: the tent, torn by raging gusts, threatened
+to give at every moment. I got up and took a look
+outside. A wild, gustful night indeed, of glimmering stars
+and a great white half-moon&mdash;cold too: the mountains
+stood out sharp; there was little cloud; round our tent
+a guard of men from the fond&acirc;k&mdash;always supplied, for the
+safety of travellers&mdash;were sleeping on the ground, heads
+and all wrapped up in their jellabs,&mdash;the moon shone on
+the queer bundles, and on our five mules, picketed opposite
+the tent door, backs to the wind, munching their barley.
+Neither of us got much sleep; roused periodically by
+the hammering in afresh of our strained tent-pegs, by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[<a href="./images/42.png">42</a>]</span>
+men's voices, which would relapse into silence for half
+an hour, and then break out again; above all, by the
+flapping and rattling of the canvas. For a moment there
+was a lull, and we heard the mules feeding and the
+thousand sounds of the night; then a wild blast almost
+carried the tent away, and the monotonous undertone of
+voices would begin once more.</p>
+
+<p>We were up early, spent little time over dressing in
+a stiff breeze, and turned out to look at the weather.
+Banks of cloud lay piled up in the wind, but rain never
+comes with the <i>sharki</i> (east wind). The sun was up&mdash;no
+chance of seeing it for the present.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed boiled eggs and tea, and in another twenty
+minutes we were ready to quit our exposed camping-ground.</p>
+
+<p>From the fond&acirc;k to Tetuan the distance is only fifteen
+miles, half a day's journey. The day before we had done
+twenty-eight miles, and ought to have started at dawn,
+avoiding the pitching of our tents in the dark. To-day
+we were off betimes.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold, and I walked the first hour or two, Cadour
+and R. riding behind with my mule, coming slowly
+down the steep, rocky ridge into the valley in which
+Tetuan lies. It was a bad bit of riding, a continuous
+descent, and the baggage-mules fell far behind: the
+rocky ravine was uncultivated and treeless, scrub and
+rocks only on the bare mountains. Sometimes a crest
+would have a saw edge against the sky, suggesting fir
+woods; but as a matter of fact every tree worth having
+which is not planted by a saint's tomb, and therefore
+holy, has long ago been made into fire-wood, no coal
+finding its way into the interior of Morocco, and mining
+being a thing unknown.</p>
+
+<p>At last the slopes gave on to more level ground<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[<a href="./images/43.png">43</a>]</span>
+and strips of cultivation: we had our first view of
+Tetuan, at that distance little more than a streak of
+white lying in the shelter of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>It was better going; and R. having jogged on some
+way ahead, I waited for Cadour, climbed into my saddle,
+and caught her up. Here and there, perched on each
+side of us, far above in the mountains, wherever an
+oasis of green lay between sheltering cliffs, a village
+had sprung up, an irregular cluster of brown-and-white
+huts, thatched with cane, weathered to shades of brown,
+the whole pile hedged with grey aloes and cactus, on
+the steep mountain-side&mdash;also brown&mdash;where, unless
+looked for, they could easily have been passed over
+altogether.</p>
+
+<p>These were the only signs of man; for Tetuan shared
+the speciality of the fond&acirc;k the night before, in vanishing
+behind intervening hills and never growing any nearer.
+But the mules this time were fresher, or we had learnt
+the art of keeping them up to the mark; they broke into
+a canter, and scampered across the rich-looking flats
+bordering the river W&aacute;d Mart&icirc;l. The W&aacute;d Mart&icirc;l is
+the proud possessor of one of the seven bridges which
+the Empire of Morocco can show&mdash;a somewhat quaint
+construction, but a <i>bon&acirc;-fide</i> stone bridge: no carriage
+could have crossed it; the middle cobble-stones were so
+steep and rough that they amounted to rocks. But
+Morocco knows not carriages, and at least it was a
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>Once across, Tetuan was not more than a few
+miles off.</p>
+
+<p>Seen from any height, it is one of the whitest cities
+in the world, and the whitewashed walls lend themselves
+to flat shadow as blue as the sky above. Tetuan has
+been described as "a cluster of flat-backed white mice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[<a href="./images/44.png">44</a>]</span>
+shut up in a fortress in case they should escape": it
+has also been likened to Jerusalem, with "the hills round
+about." For my own part, it was like nothing I had
+seen, nor was prepared then and there to classify&mdash;this
+heap of chalk, this white city. Not a particle of smoke
+floated over it: purity and sunlight alone were suggested
+by the outside of the platter. The Moor has a weakness
+for whitewashed houses, for long white garments, for
+veiled women: there shall be no outer windows in his
+house, nor in his own private life. Ugliness there may
+be, enough and to spare, inside these white cities&mdash;it
+oozes out sometimes; but as far as possible let a haik
+and a blank wall enshroud it all in mystery.</p>
+
+<p>None can fix the age of Tetuan: once upon a time the
+city was on the seashore&mdash;now seven miles of flats lie
+between, and crawling mules and donkeys link the two,
+working backwards and forwards, week in, week out,
+jogging down with empty packs to the cargo-steamers,
+and labouring back across deep-flooded country half the
+year, under solid burdens, to the city. From the flat roof-tops
+the weekly visit of a merchant-vessel is duly looked
+for, and a long black steamer lies at anchor for the day in
+the narrow ribbon of blue sea seen to the east, near the
+white Customs House, which stands back from the beach.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-08.png"><img src="./images/ill-08_th.png" alt="CLOUDS OVER TETUAN." title="CLOUDS OVER TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Clouds Over Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>Southwards Tetuan faces the Riff country, range after
+range of mountains, inhabited by that indomitable tribe,
+whose "highlands" are closed to Europeans. The river
+W&aacute;d Mart&icirc;l, between Tetuan and <i>the Riff</i>, winds across the
+seven miles of flats to the sea, and is fordable in two or
+three places except in heavy rains; and days "in the
+mountains"&mdash;safe within sight of the city&mdash;promised us
+many an expedition, and opened up another world of
+heights foreshadowed and gulfs forbidden, where the hours
+were all too short.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>[<a href="./images/45.png">45</a>]</span>
+Behind Tetuan to the north, the mountainous Anjera
+country, wild, bare hills abut upon the very city wall.</p>
+
+<p>The name <i>Tetuan</i> means in Arabic "The eyes of the
+springs," and all over the city water gushes out of the
+limestone rock&mdash;the hardest water, I submit, that ever
+mortal tried to drink. Such a supply is worth a kingdom
+to an Eastern city. Every tank, fountain, and <i>hummum</i>
+(Turkish bath) has its never-failing supply, gratis, from
+the heart of the hills. The little streets are watered by it,
+and the sewage carried off on the lower side of the city
+in a strong current, which&mdash;still useful&mdash;works primitive
+corn-mills under the wall on the south side, where a sack
+receives the flour from a couple of flat revolving stones.
+A miller was robbed the other night asleep by his sack:
+the door burst open, and he expected a bullet, but was
+let off with a clout on the head and the confiscation of
+his sack.</p>
+
+<p>Having ground the corn, sewage and all is conducted
+over the land, and enriches the fertile apricot- and peach-orchards,
+corn-fields and vineyards. The great orange-gardens
+lie beyond in the rich river-deposit. There is no
+want of fruit round Tetuan: May sees pomegranates,
+apricots, peaches, figs, prickly pears, in due course;
+September brings the grape season; acres upon acres of
+gardens are covered with green muscats ripening on the
+dry ground, and protected from the sun by branches
+strewn over the plants.</p>
+
+<p>West of the city, upon which side we rode in, there are
+fewer orchards and more fields. Since crossing the W&aacute;d
+Mart&icirc;l a string of travellers had caught us up and passed
+us: a soldier as escort led the way; a rich Jew ambled
+on a fat brown mule hard behind; a muleteer and three
+starved mules laden with Isaac's worldly goods brought
+up the rear.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>[<a href="./images/46.png">46</a>]</span>
+The muleteer, a happy fellow in a brown jellab, sang all
+the way, as he rode sideways on his beast. He begged a
+match from Cadour, produced a ragged cigarette from
+inside his turban, and lit it skilfully in the wind: he
+probably lived chiefly on cigarettes, kif, and green tea,
+eating when there was bread; he was lean and sun-dried as
+a shred of tobacco, would sleep in snatches and often, his
+jellab-hood over his face to keep off the sun or the dew.</p>
+
+<p>We got very near a pair of snowy <i>ibis</i>, or cow-birds,
+as they are called, attending on two grazing cows. White
+as geese, parading about on black stilt-like legs, which
+raise them a foot or more off the ground, they have
+yellow bills and a slightly puffed throat, in flight extending
+their long legs behind them. Cow-birds wage war on the
+parasites of mules, donkeys, oxen, and sheep, hopping
+about the fields and dropping down on to their backs:
+they are never shot.</p>
+
+<p>Morocco is by no means short of bird life. Only that
+morning, as we rode along, we saw several pairs of whinchats,
+any number of crested larks, some plover, pied
+and grey wagtails, starlings, and a sand-martin. Starlings
+in Morocco fly literally in clouds like smoke, blackening
+the sky wherever they are surging and wheeling. A single
+shot into the middle of a flock has brought down from
+sixty to seventy of them.</p>
+
+<p>We jogged up the last yard of rocky path, and found
+ourselves in front of Tetuan in rather less than four hours
+after leaving the fond&acirc;k, to the satisfaction of Cadour:
+it was an improvement on the day before. This ornament
+of the cavalry had now come out in a clean white turban,
+in view of entering the city: he puzzled us at this point
+by leading the way off the road to a white wall in the
+middle of the field, behind which travellers occasionally
+camp, devout people pray, and sheep are slaughtered at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[<a href="./images/47.png">47</a>]</span>
+time of the Great Feast. Here he produced our luncheon.
+But we, in the innocence of our hearts, would "lunch
+at a caf&eacute;" in Tetuan, after calling at the British Consulate
+and leaving our letters of introduction: this, with signs and
+a Spanish word or two, was brought home to Cadour,
+and we turned back, skirted the white city wall, reached
+a gate built in an angle, and rode in under the archway,
+passing a few figures in jellabs reclining and talking
+beside a great stone water-trough, which was running
+with fresh water.</p>
+
+<p>Following one of the worst-paved streets upon Allah's
+earth, whose slippery rocks and pools of brown manure-water
+offered no tempting footpath, the first Union Jack
+we had seen for many a long day appeared above a wall
+and spoke <i>Britain</i>: towards it we made our way. A
+soldier in a long dark blue cloak and high-peaked red
+fez was sitting at the Consul's office door: he took our
+letters of introduction, and, without our being able to
+explain ourselves in Arabic, insisted on ushering us
+straight into the presence of the Consul&mdash;Mr. W. S.
+Bewicke.</p>
+
+<p>We found him surrounded with papers and cigarette-ends:
+he would most hospitably take no denial in the
+matter of lunch, but made us come into the house at
+once. His long, narrow dining-room was flanked by
+a small kitchen; above, the same shaped, long, narrow
+sitting-room was flanked by a small bedroom; a flight
+of narrow, steep stairs divided all four rooms, and completed
+the Consulate: this simple plan is usual in a Moorish
+house of the sort, and admirably adapted for the Eastern
+habits of the people. The Consul considered it inadequate.
+A sunny, walled garden lay in front; big orange- and
+banana-trees, both covered with fruit, shaded precious
+seedlings; a large tank, filled with gold-fish, took up much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>[<a href="./images/48.png">48</a>]</span>
+space under the windows; and in the background a high
+cane fence penned in turkeys, geese, ducks, and chickens,
+scratching and squabbling under orange-trees. There are
+no grassy lawns in these gardens: they <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'are are'">are</ins> devoted
+to fruit, shrubs, and flowers, bisected into equal divisions
+by tiled or grass paths.</p>
+
+<p>People in Morocco, as all the world over, collect curiosities
+<i>nolens volens</i>. Mr. Bewicke's dining-room was no
+exception. Guns from the Riff, eight feet long; brass
+powder-horns, knives, daggers, pistols, engraved and inlaid
+with silver, ivory, and coral; a long brass horn, once blown
+from the top of the mosque, sacred and difficult to get;
+copper vessels, pots, pans, jugs, bowls; blue china from
+Fez; quaint Jewish candelabra and lamps; brown and
+white native pottery,&mdash;all found a place.</p>
+
+<p>A young Riffian named Mohr acted as butler, a coffee-and-cream-coloured
+boy, with a girlish face and a head
+with a close weekly shave, all except one long love-lock,
+which, combed out, fell over one ear in a glossy brown
+curl. It is worn by all Riffs as good Mussulmans, and
+serves a double purpose, that of scalp-lock when the head
+is decapitated by enemies and borne by the lock instead
+of by the mouth, and that of handle, by which Azrael,
+the Angel of Death, carries the body to heaven on the
+last day. Mohr wore a Riff turban of brown string,
+several yards long, wound round and round his head, a
+white tunic and belt: his legs were bare; and leaving his
+yellow slippers behind him on the threshold, he moved
+noiselessly round the table with gracious manners, and,
+when he spoke, made nonchalant gestures with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Had we come a few days earlier, we should have fallen
+in with a thousand men from the Beni Has`san tribe, who
+had come down to pay their respects to the new <i>basha</i>
+(governor) of Tetuan, and to offer him presents.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>[<a href="./images/49.png">49</a>]</span>
+They had fired off a good deal of blank powder, and
+a stray bullet or two into the Consul's garden door;
+had rushed about the <i>feddan</i> (market-place), discharging
+their guns; and had thrown stones at some one. On
+their way to Tetuan the thousand odd had pillaged
+right and left, stealing fruit and robbing houses. Finding
+some women washing, they stole the clothes, and report
+said two women as well. At last twenty of them were
+caught and put into prison, after which the nine hundred
+and eighty marched back to their own country.</p>
+
+<p>Lunch over, we walked with Mr. Bewicke into the
+city. While Tangier might be called an an&aelig;mic copy
+of a Moorish town, Tetuan has the strength of a <i>bon&acirc;-fide</i>
+life-study, and all that is curiously beautiful, strangely
+obscure, is unsparingly suggested. The longer a European
+lives there, the more the paradoxes in Moorish life force
+themselves upon him, and the more tangible grow certain
+intuitions which his surroundings convey.</p>
+
+<p>It is not only such contradictions as lie on the surface&mdash;the
+squalor of some filthy fond&acirc;k, the emaciated
+raw-skinned donkeys, the bent-backed women, rubbing
+shoulders with the white-scented robes, the sleek mules,
+the luxurious tiled houses&mdash;these a blind man could see:
+the under-currents which will puzzle an Englishman more
+the longer he lives there are known to those only who have
+dwelt much in Morocco, and they belong by every right
+to a life which is drawn to the letter in "The Arabian
+Nights."</p>
+
+<p>The ramifications of the narrow streets in Tetuan would
+take a quarter of a lifetime to master, and then an unexplored
+alley might be found, though it is easy to walk
+across the entire length or breadth of the city in ten
+minutes. Down a dozen intricacies we dived with Mr.
+Bewicke, through a labyrinth, half dark in places, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>[<a href="./images/50.png">50</a>]</span>
+houses built overhead shut out the sun. Looking along
+the narrow streets, the buildings jostle one another, and
+the flat blank walls slope backwards out of the upright,
+at every turn a haphazard colour-scheme in white and
+mauve and chocolate, in blue and ochre and cream.</p>
+
+<p>Here a long dark tunnel opens into sunlight and shops
+on each side, with great vines trailed on trellis-work&mdash;like
+a pergola&mdash;overhead, and sunlight in blotches on
+the cobbled paving below: there, just beyond, the <i>Slipper
+Quarter</i>, and we find ourselves in the thick of the tap-tap
+of the mallets on the hard-hammered leather&mdash;dozens
+of busy little shops on each side, lined with yellow matting,
+and hung from top to floor with rows of lemon-yellow
+slippers for the men, rose-red slippers for women, embroidered
+slippers for the wealthy, crimson slippers for
+slaves, slippers with heel-pieces and slippers without. In
+each shop a man and boys at work: the white turbans
+and dark faces bending over the leather, the coloured
+jellabs which they wear, the busy hard-white-wood mallets
+in the deft brown hands, even the waxed thread, the red
+jelly which glues the soles together, the gimlets, the sharp
+scissors, have a passing fascination for the wandering
+Moor himself, who sits down lazily in front and talks to
+the workers. Still more for ourselves. Leather bags
+are being sewn next door and ornamented with work
+in coloured leather and silks. Within hearing of the
+"tap-tap" lies the skin-yard, and the skins are scraped
+and tanned and dyed and turned into slippers all in the
+same square acre or two, whence they depart many of
+them for Egypt and supply the Cairo bazaars.</p>
+
+<p>A few steps farther, and there is a steady clanking of
+hammers on anvils, beating out hot iron&mdash;the <i>Blacksmiths'
+Quarter</i>. Not the old turbaned blacksmiths nor boys
+with shaved heads, in tunics grimed with age, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[<a href="./images/51.png">51</a>]</span>
+leather aprons sewn with red leather, nor the primitive
+bellows and quaint iron points, all being beaten out
+for the ploughs, are the features of the Blacksmiths'
+Quarter; but the sheep. Every forge has its sheep,
+every shop its pen like a rabbit-hutch, made out of the
+side of a box, where the sheep lives when it is not lying
+just at the threshold of the shop in the sun, beside a
+half-finished meal of bran in a box. Sheep after sheep,
+tame and fat, take up half the room in the street: there
+are sometimes a few hens, often a tortoiseshell cat curled
+up on a sack, but to every shop there is always a sheep
+fattening, as no other animal in Morocco fattens, against
+the <i>Aid-el-Kebeer</i> (the Great Feast), when every family
+kills and eats its own mutton.</p>
+
+<p>The little shops in Tetuan group themselves together
+more or less. There is another quarter where sieves are
+made, a corner where baskets and the countrywomen's
+huge straw hats are plaited, another where carpenters
+congregate, and an open square where rugs, carpets, and
+curios cram the shops, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>We left the warm heat from the glowing cinders and
+the cascade of sparks, and walked on into the <i>feddan</i>
+(market-place), which was teeming with women from the
+hills and villages round, come in to sell provisions.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Jews' Quarter</i> lies on one side of the feddan, shut
+in by a gate at night and locked&mdash;a squalid, noisy, over-populated
+spot, where the worst-kept donkeys and most
+filth are to be met with. Tetuan is a clean city: on
+every animal killed the "butchers" have to pay a tax;
+the tax goes towards the sweeping of the streets
+once a week, and towards their paving&mdash;that is, if the
+basha is conscientious: the last basha ate and drank
+the tax.</p>
+
+<p>A gutter runs down the middle of the streets, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>[<a href="./images/52.png">52</a>]</span>
+chickens are killed, and the heads and uneatable parts
+of flesh, fish, and fowl thrown. Mules and donkeys walk
+along the gutter, while foot-people flatten themselves
+against the walls. A well-laden mule fairly absorbs the
+width of the little streets.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of these wretched transport animals is
+not due so much to wanton cruelty as to neglect, and
+to a callousness bred of long familiarity. A Moor will
+not trouble to prevent his beasts having sore backs and
+fistulated withers and raw hindquarters, any more than
+he sees that his children are warmly clad and suitably
+fed. Fond of both, he is foolish and apathetic, treating
+his mules roughly, cramming them with unnecessary
+food or neglecting them, and invariably working them
+till they drop.</p>
+
+<p>One or two little caf&eacute;s we passed round the feddan,
+and banished any connection between them and lunch
+for ever and a day.</p>
+
+<p>A little room in the shade hung with yellow matting,
+no chairs, but a wide divan at the far end, where a few
+Moors sat cross-legged or reclined, smoking long pipes
+of soothing kif, and eating the pernicious haschisch&mdash;this
+constitutes a caf&eacute;. A few of the Moors are playing cards;
+the rest look on. A dome-shaped pewter teapot, filled
+with a brew of steaming tea, stands on a low table, with
+a painted glass beside it half full of mint, which a freckled
+boy in a coarse jellab fills up from the teapot to the
+brim and puts to his lips; then he lights a cheap cigarette.
+A great urn, with an oil lamp under it, stands in one
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>No self-respecting Moor patronizes these caf&eacute;s: he is
+the most fanatical of Mohammedans in a land reputed
+to be more strictly religious than any Eastern country.
+In public he observes his Prophet's laws, only indulging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[<a href="./images/53.png">53</a>]</span>
+<i>sub rosa</i> in smoking&mdash;"eating the shameful," as it is
+called.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed knew very well that Eastern peoples drink
+to get drunk, and smoke and eat opium for the purpose
+of intoxicating their senses. <i>Kif</i>, a herb something like
+hemp, produces this effect on the brain. He therefore
+forbade both.</p>
+
+<p>When a Moorish "swell" wants to amuse himself, instead
+of passing the time at a caf&eacute; he goes out for the day into
+the country. There is generally an expression of perfect
+satisfaction with life as he finds it, on his lineless biscuit-coloured
+face and in his brown agate eyes&mdash;a content seldom
+expressed under the top-hats in the Park. Time is to
+him no "race": he drifts easily down the years; knows
+no other home than, it may be, Tetuan; nor is conscious
+that Tetuan sleeps, as it has slept for ages, curled up,
+underneath the towering hills, white, petrified, like Lot's
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>Still down more streets, and on towards the Belgravia
+of the city we walked, leaving steaming little hot-fritter
+shops, where <i>sfins</i> are fried in oil and eaten with honey,
+where cream tarts may possibly be made and honeyed
+cakes, and crisp pastry prepared with attar of roses, and
+candied musk lemons, and dates mixed with almond
+paste. We left the fried-fish shops and fried spitted-meat
+shops behind, whence emerge <i>kabobs</i>&mdash;second only
+to <i>coos-coosoo</i>&mdash;and a smell indescribable; and we wound
+down tortuous alleys, past quiet windowless houses, whose
+great painted doors, yellow and brown, studded with
+enormous nails and knockers, spoke respectability.</p>
+
+<p>Never a straight street for six yards. Here an angle
+with a door; turn down under an archway: there a
+tiny branching alley, which we follow: here another door;
+plunge down the opposite way. A woman passes us with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>[<a href="./images/54.png">54</a>]</span>
+a friend, walking as only women in Morocco walk&mdash;figures
+in creamy haiks of the finest wool, which swathe them
+entirely from top to toe like a sheet, a pair of eyes
+barely showing between the folds. At the bottom of
+the haiks a flash of colour obtrudes, tomato in one, beetle-green
+in the other, and filmy muslin over both, which in
+their turn allow a glimpse of ankles wrapped round in
+snowy linen folds&mdash;rose-pink, gold-embroidered slippers
+completing the whole, suggestive of a tea party.</p>
+
+<p>A yard farther and we pass <i>El-Jama-el-Kebeer</i> (the
+Big Mosque), which, unlike that at Tangier, stands with its
+doors wide open, but in front of which no infidel may linger.
+There was a vision of a cool tiled courtyard and splashing
+fountains of white marble and clean yellow matting, of
+endless tiled pillars vanishing into shade. There are
+saint-houses in the city where women are allowed to
+pray, but only upon one night in the whole year in
+El-Jama-el-Kebeer&mdash;a field-day among the wives and concubines,
+who flit like white moths through the darkness
+in flocks to worship, carrying red-and-blue lanterns.</p>
+
+<p>At last we reached the house of the Moor upon whom
+Mr. Bewicke intended us to call&mdash;a specimen of the best
+Moorish houses.</p>
+
+<p>Alarbi Abresha has been nicknamed "the Duke of
+Westminster"&mdash;the wealthiest man in Tetuan. A slave
+responded to the hammer of the great knocker, demanded
+who knocked, and then opened the door. Alarbi Abresha
+was out; but his son, a youth badly marked with small-pox,
+received us, dressed in a jellab of pale blue, tasselled,
+and worked in white. Mr. Bewicke asked after <i>the house</i>.
+No one in Morocco inquires after the wife or family
+distinctively.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-09.png"><img src="./images/ill-09_th.png" alt="ALARBI ABRESHA'S HOUSE." title="ALARBI ABRESHA'S HOUSE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Alarbi Abresha's House.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>A long passage led us into a large <i>patio</i> (courtyard), in
+which orange-trees were growing. It was open to the sky,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>[<a href="./images/55.png">55</a>]</span>
+the floor tiled with shining tesselated tile-work; a marble
+fountain rippled in the middle: the dado round the four
+walls, the three rows of pillars which on all sides supported
+the gallery above&mdash;all were tiled in the same mosaic of
+small saffron-yellow, powder-blue, and white tiles, which
+are baked, coloured, and glazed in primitive potteries outside
+the city, and made only in Tetuan and Fez. A
+Moorish house is the essence of purity and light, with its
+whitewashed walls, its absence of all stifling furniture,
+and its capability of being sluiced down from top to
+bottom every day with rivers of water by barefooted
+slaves.</p>
+
+<p>"The Duke" had spared no dollars to make his house
+beautiful. Of the triple row of arches, supported by the
+pillars round the patio, the outside row was a plain horse-shoe,
+the inner toothed, the inmost carved. Through an
+avenue of pillars the rooms all round the patio look out
+upon the fountain and the orange-trees. Slaves occupied
+them. The kitchen also and the hummum are always on
+the ground floor. We were taken up to the first floor by
+the tiled staircase, with a plaster fan-shell ceiling, and were
+shown into the best room&mdash;the room belonging to the
+master of the house. The tiled floor was hidden by an
+ugly modern French carpet in strips: white and coloured
+mattresses were laid all round the walls upon the floor
+instead of chairs. Two immense brass bedsteads stood in
+recesses, blue silk four-posters; a great cushioned mattress
+on the carpet beside the bed is reported to be used by the
+wife; a slave will often sleep in the same room. The lower
+half of the whitewashed walls was hung with ancient
+silk brocaded hangings, a long-forgotten relic of the old
+wandering life as nomad Arabs, and still used by Arabs for
+the insides of their tents. The richer the owner, the better
+his silk hangings: the design is invariably a succession<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[<a href="./images/56.png">56</a>]</span>
+of horse-shoe arches, more or less embroidered, and
+giving the rooms a warm, luxurious air. In the mosques
+very fine mats are used; in ordinary houses, caf&eacute;s, and
+shops, yellow matting lines the walls. Above the old
+hangings the Duke had hung a line of immense and
+tawdry gilt-framed mirrors. There were clocks in the
+room to the number of ten, some of them going; two
+inlaid cabinets; three cases of artificial flowers under
+glass; a great wooden coffer&mdash;the wife's property&mdash;holding
+a wardrobe of clothes; a gun on one of the walls;
+a rosary; a thermometer made in Germany: these were
+the only knick-knacks. Moorish rooms combine bedroom
+with sitting-room, but are devoid of washing-apparatus,
+tables, chairs, books, or pictures. Bathing is done in the
+hummum or in the courtyard of the mosque; of books
+there are none; while pictures Mohammed forbade, as inclined
+to lead to idolatry. Query: have many artists been
+lost to the world in fourteen hundred years among a sect
+numbering a hundred millions?</p>
+
+<p>The ceiling and woodwork of the room were painted in
+barbaric, gaudy hues, which mellow with age and "tone"
+like a faded Kashmir shawl. A row of tiled pillars divided
+the room lengthwise, and raised the inner half a step
+above the outer: it was immensely lofty, lighted by the
+great double doors only, which stood wide open on to the
+patio. Glass is not used in Morocco: the windowless
+rooms are aired by the unfastened doors which look on
+to the patio, itself open to the winds of heaven. The
+outside world can have little idea of the life going on
+within the courtyard house: there is much seclusion
+therein, in fitting harmony with the spirit of Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>Fireplaces do not exist, though from December to
+March the thermometer has sometimes, on single occasions,
+touched freezing-point at night. Earthenware pans of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[<a href="./images/57.png">57</a>]</span>
+charcoal, used for cooking, can be carried upstairs for
+warmth.</p>
+
+<p>The other rooms in Alarbi Abresha's house were all
+more or less replicas of the best room shorn of its
+gilt. As the laws of the Medes and Persians, so is the
+arrangement of the <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'matresses'">mattresses</ins> (<i>divans</i>) round the walls
+inside a Moorish house.</p>
+
+<p>A Moor does not spend his day indoors. He eats
+and sleeps at home, but is otherwise sitting talking with
+his friends in the city, or in his shop, or out at his
+garden-house or fields.</p>
+
+<p>He eats in any one of the divanned rooms in which he
+happens to be at the time, his rule being to "sleep where
+you will and eat where you will." A slave carries in his
+dish of meat on a tray, and puts it on a table four inches
+in front of the divan. Beef, mutton, and chicken are
+cooked in oil till they fall apart and can be eaten with the
+fingers. He eats vegetables and fruit, murmurs a "B`ism
+Allah" beforehand and a "Hamdoollah" (God be praised)
+at the end; washes his hands; drinks green tea, or begins
+his meal with it and bread of fine white flour. His wife
+has the refusal of the dish after her lord, never eating with
+him; and the slaves follow her. As many as five dishes
+may be brought up at a meal; and the master of the
+house, sampling each, chooses which he will eat, and sends
+the rest away. If he has a guest, it is the height of
+politeness to select small pieces off the dish and put them
+within the guest's reach, or, still better, into his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Moors, unless they are wealthy men, eat "by the
+eye"&mdash;that is, not according to what they require, but
+according to that they see set before them: frequent
+hiccups express gratification at hospitality received, accompanied
+by "Hamdoollah." The amount which a
+Moor can eat is prodigious. There was a man at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[<a href="./images/58.png">58</a>]</span>
+Fez who was reverenced as a saint by his neighbours,
+because he had been known to eat a hundredweight of
+<i>coos-coosoo</i> (porridge) and a whole sheep at a sitting.</p>
+
+<p>Alarbi Abresha, Junior, meanwhile, took us on into
+his father's guest-house, a suite of magnificent rooms,
+decorated in execrable taste, the barbaric glories of the
+old Moorish style giving place to modern French vulgarity.
+A courtyard house can be a strange mixture. Its
+woodwork, possibly <i>arrar</i>, a cypress of beautiful grain,
+scented like cedar, cinnamon-coloured, and immensely
+hard (out of which the Roman patricians cut their
+precious tables, valued at their weight in gold if as much
+as four feet wide: beams of arrar put into the C&oacute;rdovo
+Mosque by the Moors a thousand years ago still exist);
+its old silk hangings; its tiles, kept polished like jet, and
+never desecrated by anything harder than a slippered
+sole,&mdash;all alike are the finest relics of a taste which ruled
+in the construction of the Alhambra, where Mauresque
+design is seen at its best. The aristocrats of Tetuan
+are descendants of the old Andalusian families, who, having
+left Morocco and invaded Spain, settled there, built the
+Alhambra, were in the course of time driven back over
+the seas, and took refuge in Tetuan and other coast towns.
+Their very title-deeds, together with the keys of their
+houses in Granada, are still in the possession of their
+descendants in Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>While the best work in the courtyard houses of
+to-day harks back to the brave days of Spain, the
+Moor of the twentieth century has less of the vitality
+and originality which distinguished his forefathers, and
+he is apt to mix cheap up-to-date decoration with the
+patio and the windowless wall, of which the Duke's
+guest-house may stand for an <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'exemple'">example</ins>.</p>
+
+<p>When the great door had shut behind us, and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>[<a href="./images/59.png">59</a>]</span>
+were outside in the street again, it seemed both narrow
+and prosaic after the sunny patio, with the yellow-fringed
+orange-trees almost branching into the rooms, and
+the fitful accompaniment of running water, dear to the
+Moorish ear.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the afternoon Mohammed, Ali, mules,
+and baggage put in an appearance, and we found them
+waiting in the feddan, anxious to put our tents up in
+the middle of the noisy, crowded sok, where the wind,
+which had dropped but little, was whirling dust round
+in clouds, and where we should have been the centre
+of a staring throng&mdash;at the same time, an ideal place
+in the servants' eyes, suggesting caf&eacute;s and conversation
+the whole night through. The camping-ground which
+"the infidel" selects is an insoluble puzzle to the Moor,
+and they went off mystified and disappointed, under orders
+from the Consul to pitch the tents outside the city.</p>
+
+<p>Later on we followed, by a street redolent and sweet
+with honey, of which a great quantity had just come in
+from the Riff country, leading to <i>B&aacute;b-el-Aukla</i> (the Gate of
+Wisdom), so called because the elders of the city, the wise
+men, used to sit outside on some of the great rocks: a fine
+two-storied, square-shaped gateway, with a pointed arch
+and toothed ornament above it. Three little windows
+overlook the arch; the black noses of small cannon
+protrude in a long row out of the white parapeted
+walls; a flagstaff tops the whole, and flies the crimson
+streamer of Morocco. A line of sea-green tiling beneath
+the cannon breaks the flat wall, where the heads of
+turbulent tribesmen hang occasionally, sent over from
+some neighbouring raid by the Sultan's orders, and first
+salted by the Jews in the city, <i>nolens volens</i>. The
+cobbles were slippery under the gate. The huge, heavy
+wooden doors, studded with iron bolts, are barred and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>[<a href="./images/60.png">60</a>]</span>
+locked every night half an hour after sunset. Inside,
+looking back, just at the parting of two streets, a great
+white wall faced us, topped with green tiles, grass-grown;
+below, a horse-shoe arch, somewhat in relief, belted with
+coloured tiles, defaced by age, contained a long solid
+stone trough, into which two spouts of water gushed&mdash;never
+dry in this city of springs. Mules and donkeys
+and country-folk all stop and drink, and the front of
+the trough is carved.</p>
+
+<p>B&aacute;b-el-Aukla is the finest gate in the city.</p>
+
+<p>Go where you will in Tetuan, at every turn water
+bubbles into time-worn and artistically moulded troughs
+and basins, under quaint arches, tiled in blue and brown
+and white. In the narrow winding street-ways, between
+the houses, half dark, still the bubbling of water is heard,
+and the shining wet trough seen.</p>
+
+<p>As we left the city and walked down the sandy road
+which leads to the sea, our tents lay a quarter of a mile
+off, two white spots, pitched on grass just off the road,
+the mules picketed by them.</p>
+
+<p>We had a somewhat light meal at six o'clock, Mohammed's
+chicken turning out like hammered leather. He was no
+cook.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-10.png"><img src="./images/ill-10_th.png" alt="OUR CAMP OUTSIDE TETUAN." title="OUR CAMP OUTSIDE TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Our Camp Outside Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>An Arabic proverb says, "What is past is gone, and
+the future is distant; and to thee is the hour in which
+thou art." It was obviously never intended by the Creator
+that mankind should make plans. Morocco may have
+its drawbacks, but it is at least one of those few and
+blessed spots where it is waste of time to plan: life is
+a matter of to-day, and</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>To-morrow?&mdash;Why, To-morrow I may be</p>
+<p>Myself with Yesterday's Seven Thousand Years.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Thus some time that evening, when, after coping un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>[<a href="./images/61.png">61</a>]</span>successfully
+with the chicken, it struck R. and myself
+that Tetuan had attractions over and above the head
+of Tangier, we settled then and there to stay on at
+Tetuan as long as we liked the place, though the weather
+looked very much like rain, not at all like camping out,
+and we had no clothes with us to speak of.</p>
+
+<p>Overcoming or ignoring these difficulties, we finally
+decided to pay off our three men, send them back by
+themselves to Tangier with the tents and camp outfit,
+write to the Villa Valentina, pay our bill, have our boxes
+packed up and sent over to us at Tetuan by muleteer,
+and move ourselves into the Spanish <i>fonda</i> (inn) inside
+the city. Thus were we left for the next six days with
+one clean collar apiece.</p>
+
+<p>In Tangier there had been some speculation on the
+elasticity of the Spartan wardrobes which we had brought
+out from England, at a moment when the dread of a vast
+impedimenta happened to lie strong upon us. In Tetuan
+such panics bury themselves. The slimmest wardrobe
+will suffice. A country's own materials, whether home-spun
+of Kashmir or sheep-skin coat of Afghanistan,
+naturally meet its requirements best: deficiencies are
+easily supplied, and later on we lived in mufti off the
+backs of Tetuan sheep.</p>
+
+<p>Lying in bed in the early morning before it was light,
+duck were to be heard calling up the river; and, breakfast
+over, we strolled down to the banks, where the thick
+green orange-trees on the opposite side bore a crop of
+cow-birds, sitting like a covey of white cockatoos on the
+tips of the branches among the golden oranges, so thick
+and snowy that the tree might well have burst into
+abnormal flower.</p>
+
+<p>By nine o'clock the camp was struck, and we had
+burnt our ships: the last of the five mules, three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>[<a href="./images/62.png">62</a>]</span>
+men, and baggage tailed off out of sight along the road
+to Tangier.</p>
+
+<p>Under a cloudy sky, prophesying rain, we walked
+into the city to look for quarters: better, perhaps, a
+fonda in Tetuan than a tent at the fond&acirc;k in wet
+weather.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>[<a href="./images/63.png">63</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">Difficulties of "Lodgings" in Morocco&mdash;A Spanish Fonda&mdash;A Moorish Tea Party&mdash;Poison in the Cup&mdash;Slaves in Morocco&mdash;El Doollah&mdash;Moorish Cemetery&mdash;Ride to Semsar&mdash;Shopping in Tetuan&mdash;Provisions in the City.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>[<a href="./images/64.png">64</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>[<a href="./images/65.png">65</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER III</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This by God's grace is <i>El Moghreb</i>&mdash;Morocco&mdash;and here a wise
+man is surprised at nothing that he sees and believes nothing that
+he hears.</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is not easy to find a lodging in Morocco: there are
+no <i>d&acirc;k bungalows</i>&mdash;no large white English residences,
+with the familiar and hospitable <i>Burra Sahib</i>, a retinue
+of servants, spare horses, and a spacious bedroom at
+the disposal of the unexpected guest. Hotels, except at
+Tangier, are impossible for any length of time, unless to
+the vagaries of Spanish or Jewish cookery the heart can
+harden itself.</p>
+
+<p>We steeled our souls, assisted by the grateful sense
+of freedom from all petty society functions, which in the
+nature of things are unknown in a city where one vice-consul,
+six women missionaries, and a post-office alone
+represent the British flag&mdash;where there is no English
+doctor, no English church.</p>
+
+<p>Tetuan met all our needs: the only question was where
+to live.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately outside its walls lies a land of gardens and
+orchards. Every Moor who can afford it has a garden,
+wherein he cultivates grapes and fruit-trees,&mdash;a dim reflection
+of that Paradise of his, which must be chequered
+with acres of shade cast by great rocks and gigantic olive-trees;
+which must be abundantly watered by running<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>[<a href="./images/66.png">66</a>]</span>
+brooks of milk, honey, and wine; whose soil shall be flour,
+white as snow. The Moor's Garden of Eden reserved for
+the faithful after death bespeaks abundance and repose,
+differing but little from a certain Heaven of Epicures,
+wherein <i>p&acirc;t&eacute;s de fois gras</i> were eaten to the sound of
+trumpets. Somewhere in his garden outside Tetuan he
+builds himself a garden-house, to which in the summer he
+migrates with his wife and slaves and the children of both,
+his divans, carpets, and kitchen utensils: the town house
+is locked up and stands empty while he spends four or
+five months under his vines and figs.</p>
+
+<p>At the time we arrived in Tetuan&mdash;early December&mdash;not
+a garden-house but still lay empty; and naturally in
+their direction our longing eyes turned&mdash;an impossible
+desire, it was said, thereby clinching the resolve to make
+a superhuman effort to bring it to pass: between living in
+the city and a garden there could be no choice. In the
+meantime a Spanish fonda must constitute a make-shift
+until that came which is laid down for those who wait.</p>
+
+<p>Inside Tetuan two hotels presented themselves. With
+fonda number one we could not come to terms; it was
+not attractive-looking: we took a high-handed line and
+left. Fonda number two, after much haggling in Spanish,
+agreed to take us both at the modest sum of seven-and-sixpence
+a day, all included. No sooner was the bargain
+struck than a messenger arrived post-haste from fonda
+number one, to say that they would take us at our own
+terms. Their golden opportunity was lost. Report said
+fonda number one might be a trifle cleaner, but fonda
+number two had the better cook: the inside man carried
+the day in favour of number two.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-11.png"><img src="./images/ill-11_th.png" alt="A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE." title="A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Veiled Figure Outside the Gate.</p>
+
+<p>It was one among many flat-roofed whitewashed houses
+in the Moorish Quarter, in a street barely six feet wide.
+There was no outlook except from the roof-top, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>[<a href="./images/67.png">67</a>]</span>
+the washing dried: there were no windows, the rooms
+depending for light upon double doors opening on to
+the tiny tiled patio&mdash;except in our own case, where the
+second room allotted to us was built over the top of
+the street, and had two windows cut in the walls by
+the Spanish occupants, neither of which quite shut, and
+provided us with an ample supply of air. The room
+beyond possessed dilapidated doors, which gave upon the
+patio. The patio was, of course, open to all the rain of
+heaven as well as to all the sun: it was the principal
+sitting-room of the family, where, downstairs, on fine days,
+they plucked chickens, made bread, washed, sat and received
+callers, did needlework and chattered; on wet days
+creeping disconsolately round the lake of water in the
+middle of the tiled floor, where the rain dropped&mdash;splash&mdash;taking
+refuge on one sheltered seat in company with
+three dogs, a cat, and a tame chicken, or retiring into the
+dark little rooms which surrounded the lake.</p>
+
+<p>The family comprised Spanish parents, married daughter
+and husband, three unmarried sisters, a brother, and a
+lodger&mdash;an old Spanish music-master. The fonda was run
+by the married daughter, a lady with a temper, who made
+everybody else work: her mother and one sister cooked;
+the second sister was busy with a trousseau and a young
+man; the third and prettiest&mdash;Amanda&mdash;waited on us.
+On the whole we were not uncomfortable, in spite of the
+Spanish element. Our rooms were clean: one afternoon
+we found a chicken sunning itself in a patch of sunlight
+on the floor of one&mdash;nothing worse. Dinner was sometimes,
+and Amanda was always, lacking in certain points
+to a critical eye. Sometimes it was a skirt, sometimes a
+petticoat, she wore: except on high days, it was doubtful
+and dependent upon chance threads and pins. All
+Amanda's blouses were low-necked, whatever the time of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>[<a href="./images/68.png">68</a>]</span>
+day: the stains and slits and remnants of torn frills were
+unique. She wore her sleeves turned up, and silver bangles
+on her arms. Amanda never buttoned her boots, and
+often put in an appearance with bare feet.</p>
+
+<p>But Amanda was redeemed by her head-dress and her
+manners. She wound a crimson shawl gracefully over
+her dark head, after the fashion of a mantilla, with an
+effect beyond reproach. Amanda had a gracious way of
+putting things: she bore herself with infinite dignity, and
+a <i>je-ne-sais-quoi</i> which pointed to a mixed ancestry; she
+had well-shaped hands.</p>
+
+<p>At seven o'clock in the evening her knock preceded
+preparations for dinner, while she munched something or
+hummed a tune meanwhile. Seas of thin soup invariably
+preceded a dish of shapeless masses of "soup-meat,"
+garnished with boiled peas. The third course consisted
+of chicken or partridge: on less happy occasions foreign
+and "shudderous" dishes appeared; a peculiar jelly shell-fish
+was the lowest ebb&mdash;that and pork we resented.
+Last of all, a tall glass fruit-dish would arrive, the standard
+sweet&mdash;<i>flan</i> (caramel pudding). Then a long pause.
+Finally, Amanda's step, with a great plate of hot toast
+and a tall tin coffee-pot: black coffee was the best part
+of the meal.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two after settling into the fonda we were
+asked to our first entertainment in a Moorish house.
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli wanted Mr. Bewicke and ourselves
+to "tea" with him.</p>
+
+<p>As in the case of "the Duke's" house, so here, all the
+womenkind were hidden away on account of the Consul.
+Mohammedans are jealous and suspicious of their wives
+and daughters to a degree, and strongly resent, if not
+prevent, an Englishman's going up on to the flat roof,
+lest he have a view of fair occupants beyond or below.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>[<a href="./images/69.png">69</a>]</span>
+Nevertheless, the wives always contrive to peep out of
+some loophole and see all there is to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli received us all three alone, as a
+matter of course, and led us upstairs to his best room.
+Like many others among the better class of Moors, our
+host had a shop and himself sold groceries. At the
+same time his sister is the wife of one of the Ministers;
+and as there is no respect of persons in Morocco, Hadj
+Mukhtar Hilalli might be called upon himself any day
+to fill a high official position, and be obliged to go, raising
+money, if he had not wherewithal to support the post,
+which, if a lucrative one, would soon repay the outlay.</p>
+
+<p>Trade at Tetuan, and apparently everywhere else over
+Morocco, is not what it once was: the old flintlocks,
+inlaid with silver wire and lumps of pink coral, are
+unknown since the last gun-maker died; snuff-nuts, even
+slippers, do but a small business. Living is more
+expensive than it was: it cost Hadj Mukhtar three
+shillings a day to feed himself and the whole household,
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>The room into which we went&mdash;our host leaving his
+yellow slippers in the doorway, and motioning us all
+to sit down on the divans round the walls&mdash;was hung
+with a silk dado, tiled in mosaic, and overlooked a good-sized
+patio with a running fountain.</p>
+
+<p>Our dirty boots compared unfavourably with the Hadj's
+clean, bare feet, which, as he sat down cross-legged on
+the white and embroidered cushions, were hidden underneath
+his voluminous garments; whereas ours, not to
+the manner born, contracted cramp, unless stuck out in
+an ungainly way.</p>
+
+<p>A gorgeously upholstered bed filled up one corner of the
+room; a gun hung on the wall. There was nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>Three little sons of the house and Mr. Bewicke's soldier-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>[<a href="./images/70.png">70</a>]</span>servant
+having followed us in and seated themselves,
+preparations for tea&mdash;already waiting, arranged in front
+of the divans on four brass trays, standing on four low
+tables a few inches high&mdash;began.</p>
+
+<p>Hadj Mukhtar <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Hillali'">Hilalli</ins>, sitting on his heels in front
+of his tea-table, making tea with his thin brown hands,
+and presiding over it all with true Oriental dignity, was
+a veritable Moses or Aaron reincarnated. Women and
+men alike mature rapidly in this country, putting on
+flesh and becoming matronly and aldermanic without at
+the same time growing lined or aged: a wealthy man of
+twenty-five is portly and slow of movement&mdash;the result
+of Eastern habits coupled with the climate.</p>
+
+<p>Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, barely forty years old by his
+own account, had a white beard and moustache, no
+wrinkles, eyes of mild blue and benign expression, equally
+guileless and unfathomable.</p>
+
+<p>Talking in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, he drew the tray
+close to the low divan in front of him, saw that his sons
+provided cushions for our backs, and proceeded to wash
+the green tea in a bright nickel pear-shaped teapot,
+with water from the great brass urn which stood over
+a charcoal-burner: the washed tea was then transferred
+into a twin teapot, which the Hadj generously filled with
+immense lumps of sugar out of a glass dish standing
+on a tray by itself, stacked high with great blocks split
+off the cone with a hatchet. Heavy with lump sugar,
+a handful of mint and bay leaves was also crammed into
+the little remaining space in the teapot, the boiling water
+out of the urn was turned on over all, filling up every
+chink, the lid shut down upon the steaming fragrant
+brew, and the teapot set back upon the brass tray,
+the centre of a ring of tiny gilt and painted glasses.</p>
+
+<p>The eldest son&mdash;a boy of fourteen, dressed in red,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>[<a href="./images/71.png">71</a>]</span>
+and wearing a leather belt embroidered with blue, and
+a fez-bag fastened thereto to match, whose head had
+evidently had its weekly shave that afternoon&mdash;lit a lamp
+underneath a little incense-burner, filling it with sticks
+of sweet-scented wood, till an odoriferous blue smoke rose
+from it. With much care he carried the burner to us,
+and put it inside our coats, thoroughly impregnating
+every thickness with warmth and odours of cedar-wood.
+It was taken last of all to Mr. Bewicke's soldier, who
+manipulated it correctly as a Moor, putting it inside his
+flowing apparel, and sitting down with every fold closed
+in round him like a miniature tent, the burner smoking
+away inside. A scent-spray was then handed, with
+which we anointed ourselves in Moorish fashion, inside
+our hats, up our sleeves, and round our necks.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli poured out tea with a
+great elevation of the teapot, raising his arm and showing
+greens and blues mixed to perfection underneath his <i>k`sa</i>&mdash;a
+white woollen or silk robe worn only by gentlemen&mdash;which,
+semi-transparent and gauze-like, fell in white waves
+over his shoulders on to the divan. Under the k`sa was
+a long garment with wide sleeves and buttoned all down
+the front&mdash;a <i>kaftan</i>&mdash;of sea-green cloth, embroidered with
+gold. The kaftan just revealed a waistcoat of a shade
+of blue, with gold and green buttons and embroidery.
+Underneath this, and above his white cotton shirt and
+drawers, he probably wore a woollen jacket. But greens
+and blues and gold were alone visible. Sometimes several
+kaftans or several jellabs are worn one on top of the other,
+all colours mixed, particularly if the owner is travelling.
+Moors are a wool-clad people for the most part, due to
+the wet winter climate: the men's brown woollen hooded
+jellabs keep out the rain more or less, and the women's
+white woollen haiks answer the same purpose.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>[<a href="./images/72.png">72</a>]</span>
+The Hadj turned up his sleeves as he made tea, the
+underside of them being embroidered for this purpose.
+It was ready by this time, and brought us on a brass
+tray by the eldest son. Though the little glasses are not
+capable of holding much, the violent sweetness and the
+flavour of mint prevent the uninitiated from doing justice
+to the regulation three cups which courtesy demands
+should be drunk. But it grows, even upon the European,
+that steaming golden-brown beverage, fresh and fragrant
+with sweet thymes, while something in the climate of
+Morocco tends to make sugar acceptable after a few weeks.
+We supplied ourselves with sponge cake, pounds of which
+were piled on a brass tray in front of us: sweet biscuits,
+toasted nuts, almonds, and raisins abounded on the same
+lavish scale; while a wicker basket, like a large waste-paper
+basket, was full of thirty or forty round cakes of bread,
+several sizes larger than a Bath bun, made of the finest
+semolina flour, flavoured with aniseed and baked a warm
+biscuit colour.</p>
+
+<p>The Hadj pressed third cups upon us, but with the
+innate breeding of every Moor understood the limited
+capacity born of early days in Morocco. A Moor is
+nothing if not courteous, and, whatever his real feelings,
+conceals them under polite speeches. He will, as somebody
+has said, "cut your throat <i>most politely, most politely</i>,"
+or with profound urbanity offer you a cup of poison.</p>
+
+<p>Our host had sipped a first cup before allowing the tea
+to be handed round&mdash;a custom observed to assure the guest
+that the teapot was free from poison, and that no deadly
+drink was offered us, containing seeds which should
+propagate a horrible disease in the intestines, destroying
+life sooner or later. Poisoning is only too common among
+the Moors themselves, cases occurring almost every day in
+the country.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>[<a href="./images/73.png">73</a>]</span>
+Once, when Sir John Hay was having an angry discussion
+with a governor&mdash;Mokhta&mdash;coffee was brought in.
+Mokhta, as usual, took the cup intended for the Englishman,
+and put it to his lips, making a noise as though sipping it,
+but which sounded suspiciously like blowing into it, and
+then offering it to Sir John. Not fancying the bubbled
+coffee, he declined, saying to Mokhta, "I could not drink
+before you. Pray keep that cup yourself," and helping
+himself at the same time to the second cup, which he
+drank. Mokhta put down the cup which he had offered
+Sir John, and did not drink it.</p>
+
+<p>Some one in Tetuan dies every year of poisoning. Wives
+frequently kill their husbands. No two brothers, both in
+ministerial offices at Court, would dream of sitting down
+and eating together without precautions beforehand, on
+account of <i>the marked pieces</i> in the dish. One brother, as
+he dines, may invite the other, who happens to enter, to
+join him in the meal; but he will reply, "I have already
+dined." <i>He dare not.</i></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli talked away in Arabic
+to Mr. Bewicke, who translated for us. He said that
+Menebbi, the Minister of War who went over to England
+with the last embassy, and who is practically Prime
+Minister, lost a considerable amount of influence during
+the short two months he was away, but that he was
+rapidly gaining ground, and might be said to be completely
+restored to favour again. Menebbi is the only one of
+the Sultan's Ministers who is likely to help him to reform
+the Government of Morocco. A clever, crafty brain, the
+whole Court under his thumb, it yet needed but an absence
+of eight weeks to generate in that hotbed of Eastern
+intrigue such a tissue of false evidence and lies as nearly
+cost Menebbi his position, if not his life. His enemies
+possessed the Sultan's ear; every Menebbi had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>[<a href="./images/74.png">74</a>]</span>
+removed from the army; he had probably not a single
+friend left in Morocco. With the fickleness of their race,
+his name was cursed at every street corner; and when
+spoken of, the people said, "There <i>is</i> no Menebbi." Hurrying
+back from England, the tidings of his fall reached
+Menebbi when he landed at Mazagan: he was to be
+arrested. But the man they had to deal with was one
+of those few who make a full use of every opportunity
+life ever offers. From Mazagan to Morocco City, where
+the Court was, a distance of a hundred and forty miles,
+he had a relay of mules and horses posted, and he rode
+without stopping. There were dead and sorry beasts
+left on the road that day. Menebbi rode up to the
+cannon's mouth, so to speak: he need never have gone
+to Morocco City, but that would have meant his sinking
+into private life and his banishment from Court; he
+preferred to "play to the uttermost," and he staked life
+and fortune on the card he held. Things in Morocco
+City hung on an eyelash: the great man galloped in
+from Mazagan, went straight to the palace, never paused
+a moment, straight to the Sultan's private door, straight
+into the presence itself. And who shall say what
+Menebbi said to the Sultan through that night which
+he passed with him&mdash;what false accusations he refuted,
+what diplomacy he used? Next day Menebbi was
+not at prayers; he was "sick": in other words, he
+had tidings of a plot to kill him on his way to the
+mosque. However, in time he righted himself: now
+his enemies are under his heel, and Menebbi breathes
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The Hadj spoke of the great wish the Sultan has to visit
+England&mdash;an impossibility, for in the eyes of his fanatical
+subjects he would be countenancing the unbelievers, and
+his throne would be handed over to a successor: the throne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>[<a href="./images/75.png">75</a>]</span>
+to which he succeeded, for the first time in the history
+of Morocco, without having to fight his way to it&mdash;a fact
+owed to the Wazeer's sagacity. Keeping the death of the
+old Sultan secret for a few days, the Wazeer meantime
+bribed and forced the Ministers to accept the young
+heir as Sultan, hurried to Fez, summoned every citizen
+to the mosque, had the doors locked, proclaimed the
+news of the Sultan's death, and surprised or forced
+the whole mosqueful into swearing allegiance to the
+present ruler.</p>
+
+<p>So far the Sultan knows only two or three places
+in his whole kingdom, and has practically spent his
+life at one&mdash;Morocco City, or <i>Marrakesh</i>, as the Moors
+call it. Nor would his journeys be reckoned blessings
+by the unfortunate country through which he passed.
+Only able to move with an army, that army, without
+any commissariat or transport, feeding itself upon its
+march, wipes corn and food off the face of the land
+as a sponge wipes a slate. "Where the Sultan's horse
+treads the corn ceases to grow." He seldom travels
+with less than thirty thousand followers; and, supposing
+he is passing through a turbulent tribe, fights his way
+as he goes, leaving ruin and desolation behind. "They
+make a desert, and they call it peace."</p>
+
+<p>Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli had travelled considerably farther
+afield than his sovereign; he knew Genoa, Marseilles,
+Egypt, and of course Mecca. The Mussulman pilgrims
+passing through Constantinople on their way to Mecca
+this year are, he told us, very numerous, the Sultan
+having ordered the fares on the Massousieh Company's
+steamers to be reduced one-half for them. He thought
+that about two thousand Moors would be leaving Tangier
+in the early spring for the pilgrimage, returning some
+three months later. Neither the Hadj's sons nor Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>[<a href="./images/76.png">76</a>]</span>
+Bewicke's soldier joined in the conversation, but continued
+steadily to consume tea, all eyes and ears.</p>
+
+<p>At last the trays were removed; and there being no
+co-religious eye to shock, Hadj Mukhtar indulged in a
+cigarette, while we puzzled him with a few tricks of
+balance and reach, which pleased him quite as much
+as his boys: everybody tried their hands, and finally
+the Hadj sent his eldest son for an old, heavy sword,
+and, squatting on the floor, showed us a clever piece
+of leverage with it and his thumb, which it was in vain
+to try and imitate.</p>
+
+<p>Watching our failures, he produced a snuff-box, a
+small cocoanut-shell, ornamented with little silver and
+coral knobs, with a narrow ivory mouthpiece, a stopper,
+and an ivory pin fastened to the cocoanut-shell to stir
+up the snuff inside&mdash;Tetuan snuff&mdash;noted for its pungent
+flavour. Hadj Mukhtar jerked the grains through the
+narrow mouthpiece into the hollow of the back of his
+thumb, where all Moors lay it, then lifted his hand up to
+his nose.</p>
+
+<p>Near the door hung his rosary of ninety-nine beads,
+reminding the pious Mussulman of the ninety-nine
+attributes of God. Each of the ninety-nine beads
+corresponds to the name of some holy man, and as
+the bead is passed along with the hand the saint's name
+is murmured. Curious that the use of rosaries in the
+Spanish Church is said to have been borrowed first of
+all from the Spanish Moors.</p>
+
+<p>The eldest son of our host was, his father told us,
+looking forward to beginning the Fast of R&aacute;madhan
+this year&mdash;fasting, as he was only a novice, for half the
+day instead of the whole of it: evidently as much
+importance and excitement were attached to the prospect
+as later on would attend the boy's marriage. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>[<a href="./images/77.png">77</a>]</span>
+same boy of fourteen is learning to write in Latin
+characters, for a Moor a most unusual and advanced
+step: at present he was only wearing a little red fez
+cap, not having reached the age of turbans, with all
+their dignified symmetry. The Kor&#257;n was all the
+literature the boy would ever know. Strange that a
+strong and sober people should have for ages confined
+their studies to the Kor&#257;n, an occasional Arab poet,
+and a sacred treatise or two. There is, as I have
+already said, no literature, no art, no science, in Morocco,
+and no architecture&mdash;the Kor&#257;n forbidding, it is said,
+research or study in any line except that of religion.
+Geography is entirely unknown. Like Moors in general,
+Hadj Mukhtar may have heard of London and Paris,
+and might know the names Germany and Russia, besides
+Mecca; but none of the former would have any connection
+or "place" in his mind, and Morocco must be,
+he is confident, the finest country under the sun. If it
+were brought home to him that his country is in a
+decadent condition, he would reply that at least it
+is good enough for him as it is; and that if Europeans
+were allowed to exploit it and to settle therein, the
+end would be prosperity for the Western civilization,
+and a knuckling-under on the part of the Moorish&mdash;which
+is true.</p>
+
+<p>We talked on upon one and another subject till it grew
+late, but before we left our host took R. and myself
+to see his wife, downstairs, in a smaller room. Five
+wives are allowed by Mohammed, but few Moors in
+Tetuan were rich enough to afford as many, and contented
+themselves with slaves. We were not impressed
+by the very plain, sallow-faced lady, with a black fringe
+and hard brown eyes, who shook hands with us, and from
+her likeness to the eldest boy was probably his mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>[<a href="./images/78.png">78</a>]</span>
+The second son was evidently by a slave: there was no
+mistaking that likeness&mdash;a fat, happy individual, the greatest
+contrast to another slave, who, though well dressed, was
+pale and miserable-looking. Two or three other corpulent,
+smiling blackamoors made up the sum-total of the party
+in the downstairs room&mdash;most comfortable, lounging on
+the cushions, they looked, no mean advertisements of
+Hadj Mukhtar's "table." The principal and favourite wife
+possessed a noisy sewing-machine, which she proudly
+displayed.</p>
+
+<p>Every Moor's establishment has its slaves&mdash;so many,
+according to his income: in Tetuan they are sold privately,
+and frequently exchanged one for the other, while the
+wives are as easily divorced. Every year something like
+three thousand slaves come into Morocco, chiefly from
+the Soudan: a few are stolen from Moorish tribes; the
+rest are brought in by Moorish traders, who catch them
+in various ways, such as scattering sweetmeats, or in hard
+times corn, round the villages, up to neighbouring coverts,
+just as a poacher at home entices pheasants with raisins,
+then pouncing out and carrying them off.</p>
+
+<p>As there are no such things as Moorish women-servants,
+negresses and slaves of various types step into
+the gap, and the evil of this influx of black blood is seen
+in the deterioration of a fine race, and the increase of
+the type which tends towards thick lips, low foreheads,
+and sensual tastes. The slavery of Christians in Morocco,
+once common, has been by treaty abolished since the
+day when the savage Sultan Mulai Ismael had eleven
+thousand Christian slaves in Mequinez employed in
+building his walls, whose bodies, when they succumbed,
+were mixed in with the stones and mud of the buildings.
+Slaves are not ill treated in the present day, though now
+and again one may be flogged to death as the result of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>[<a href="./images/79.png">79</a>]</span>
+fault or the malice and slander of a jealous fellow-slave:
+as a rule they live happily; and if a female slave bears a
+male child to her master, by a law in the Kor&#257;n both
+mother and son are <i>ipso facto</i> freed, though they continue
+to live on in the same house.</p>
+
+<p>The last thing Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli showed us was his
+hummum, cunningly arranged to flank the kitchen fire at
+the back. A tiny room; but four of his wives and slaves
+could, he explained, take their bath in it at once. There
+was a small stone slab inside as a seat, and hot air
+came in by means of a pipe in one corner. The <i>hummum</i>,
+or Turkish bath, is partly enjoined by the Kor&#257;n and
+partly taken for its own enjoyment; it is a feature of
+every Moorish house of any pretension, and largely used
+by men and women.</p>
+
+<p>The evening was a dark one, and we picked our way
+back to the fonda by the light of lanterns: it is impossible
+to go out at night in Tetuan without carrying
+one; the streets are wholly unlit, and the refuse-heaps
+and central gutters unpleasant traps.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning R. and I strolled out of the city in
+the direction of Ceuta by way of the <i>B&aacute;b-el-M`kabar</i>
+(the Gate of the Tombs). Just beyond this gateway congregates
+in the road <i>el doollah</i> (the drove)&mdash;that is to say,
+the mules and donkeys belonging to any one in Tetuan
+who has no work for them on that particular day. They
+are all left by their owners at this spot in the care of
+a tall, tattered Moor, whose business in life is to look
+after them; and there they lie in the sandy road or lean
+up against the hot wall or each other, one of the saddest
+sights on God's earth, some of them infant two-year-olds,
+all of them overworked and starved. About midday
+the drover drives his charges off to the nearest grass&mdash;such
+as it is&mdash;and the ragged squad troops along the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>[<a href="./images/80.png">80</a>]</span>
+stony track without bridles and without spirit to abuse
+its freedom. They have none of them packs or saddles,
+unless their sore backs are too deeply aggravated to allow
+of exposure to the flies and dust; and in due time, one
+by one, the old or the dying drop tacitly out of the
+ranks; a couple of days&mdash;the scavenging dogs' work is
+done&mdash;and only a tangled knot of bones is kicked away
+from the roadside by the feet of the living generation,
+which have picked up the scantiest feed, and are straying
+back citywards again in the late afternoon, to be called
+for outside the B&aacute;b-el-M`kabar each by its owner.</p>
+
+<p>El doollah had not started; and leaving them all in
+the road below us, we passed the little knots of countrywomen
+who sit by the B&aacute;b-el-M`kabar selling myrtle for
+laying upon the graves, and wound our way uphill through
+the old Mussulman cemetery, with its quaint domed
+tombs and toothed, arched doorways, cracked, decayed,
+and yellow with lichen, half hidden among the tangle of
+bushes and wild flowers on the rough slope.</p>
+
+<p>The older of the tombs are probably those of the first
+Moors who fled from Spain in the days of that great
+<i>trek</i> back to Morocco: a much later and very conspicuous
+dome belongs to a brave lady, who, not a hundred years
+ago, did her best to defend Tetuan against the Spaniards,
+fighting side by side with the Moorish troops, and, in
+the course of the siege, accounting for half a dozen
+Spaniards, thereby earning for herself in due course a
+Joan of Arc reputation and a public sepulchre.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-12.png"><img src="./images/ill-12_th.png" alt="A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY." title="A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Mohammedan Cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>The cemetery was overgrown with <i>ayerna</i> root, one of
+the commonest weeds in Morocco, poisonous when it is
+eaten raw, though it is possible, after boiling the root for
+ten or twelve hours, spreading it out to dry in the sun,
+and grinding it in a mill, to make a sort of bitter bread
+out of the flour, and to subsist upon that. This the poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>[<a href="./images/81.png">81</a>]</span>
+do to a great extent, whenever corn runs short and they
+have nothing but roots and grasses to fall back upon:
+their pale yellow faces and emaciated bodies tell a tale
+of the ayerna root. We grubbed some up with a little
+difficulty in the stiff clay soil with nothing but sticks
+to help. Fifteen inches down we found the root, a small
+whitish bulb, the size of a bluebell root.</p>
+
+<p>There is much desolation about the old cemetery, with
+its crumbling ruins; but the sun struck a key-note of
+splendour, and turned the lichened stones into nuggets
+of gold.</p>
+
+<p>A black raven sat on a grey rock above us and croaked;
+below lay the white city&mdash;white beyond all English ideas
+of whiteness. Two tall minarets, with simple straight
+lines, only a mosaic of green tiling let into their flat faces,
+cut the peaks of the mountains beyond. At a quarter
+past twelve a little white flag slowly mounted to the top
+of each mosque; an infinitesimally small black figure
+appeared against the sky; then leaning over the parapet
+and looking down upon the humming city, a cry broke
+from the figure, and was carried over to us upon the wind&mdash;a
+cry which rose and fell, most musical, most sonorous:
+"Allah Ho Akbar&mdash;Allah Ho Akbar." The black dot
+moved round the parapet, and east and west and north
+and south chanted the great summons to the Faithful
+to prayer. And then the little white flag was hauled
+down.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the river the neutral-coloured
+villages could be picked out by their white saint-houses.
+Morocco is stuck as full of saints' tombs&mdash;fuller&mdash;than
+England of dissenting chapels. They stud the land.
+Moors rid themselves of much valuable energy in the
+erection, by countless thousands, of tombs to the memory
+of the eccentric or pious dead; and distances are measured,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>[<a href="./images/82.png">82</a>]</span>
+tracks marked, not from church to church as in Spain,
+nor from village to village as in England, but from saint-house
+to saint-house, each of which is village-green, club,
+or public-house rolled into one, where the men gossip,
+the pious read, travellers halt, offerings are brought the
+dead saint, and sick children arrive to be healed&mdash;all
+at a little whitewashed building with a dome like an oven
+outside, and a horse-shoe arch, an olive- or a fig- or a palm-tree,
+a flag-staff hung with morsels of rag, and often a
+spring of water. At four cross-tracks, instead of sign-posts,
+heaps of stones, cairns, are to be found, placed
+in such a way as to indicate the direction in which the
+next saint's tomb lies.</p>
+
+<p>A saint-house or two spot the green plain below the
+cemetery, which merges into the seven miles of flats
+stretching from the city to the sea, the haunt of wild
+duck, plover, and snipe, among wastes of coarse grass,
+marsh, and red tangle. Coils of grey river lie upon the
+flats: the very flatness over which the stream snakes is
+at once most strong&mdash;serene.</p>
+
+<p>As we walked down the hillside, a brown figure upon
+a flat-topped tomb was silhouetted against the plain: he
+raised himself, and then again prostrated his body to
+the earth, his face set to the distant belt of blue sea,
+worshipping towards Mecca.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon we visited Semsar, a village two or
+three hours' ride from Tetuan, up in the mountains to
+the west. R. had a sedate brown mule with no idea of
+exerting himself: my mount was a clever little grey,
+nervous and rather handy with his heels, nearly kicking
+me more than once when I dismounted or mounted carelessly.
+We rode, as usual, on the high-peaked Moorish
+saddles, covered with scarlet cloth, such as every Moor
+uses&mdash;the stirrup-leathers of twisted scarlet silk, several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>[<a href="./images/83.png">83</a>]</span>
+thick saddle-cloths underneath, the girths never drawn,
+the saddle only kept from slipping over head or tail by
+scarlet britching and breastplate. It is impossible to
+mount unless the stirrup is held. After repeating the sacramental
+word "B`ism Allah" (a Moor mounts and dismounts
+in the name of God), with a man at his stirrups, he sinks
+without an effort into his saddle, amidst a furbelow of
+white robes, which he has afterwards arranged carefully
+for him. Possibly for this reason he gets on and off
+as seldom as possible, hugging the convenient maxim,
+common among the Moors, that mounting and dismounting
+fatigue an animal more than carrying a burden. He
+rides with his knees up to his chin: he is a natural horseman,
+and looks at home in his practically girthless and
+quite shapeless saddle, which must have given him a
+pang, if ever he galloped for his life in front of his enemies,
+and reflected that his safety was dependent upon the
+breastplate. A man, before now, has, as he rode, unwound
+his waistcloth, and twisted it round his horse's neck, for
+further security against the saddle's slipping back.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bewicke and his soldier rode with us: the latter
+a dark, lean-faced, unwholesome-looking man, unable,
+like so many of his countrymen, to grow any hair on
+his face&mdash;an obsequious individual too, inspiring little
+trust; below his long blue cloak he wore brown riding-boots,
+embroidered with orange, and fastening up the
+back with orange-thread buttons.</p>
+
+<p>My little grey bustled along; but once or twice, when
+the road fell away into a steep drop, his weak hind legs
+gave under him, and he "sat down": we soon learnt
+the effect which merely shaking the feet in the great
+angular stirrups has on mules whose sides have often
+been in touch with the sharp points, and jogged forward
+wherever the bad road allowed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>[<a href="./images/84.png">84</a>]</span>
+We had left the city by another of its six gates&mdash;the
+<i>B&aacute;b-el-Toot</i> (Mulberry Gate), the old name pointing back
+to an energetic past, when mulberries, silk-worms, and
+silk-weaving flourished around Tetuan&mdash;when the cultivation
+of sugar-cane, cotton, and rice in Morocco was
+more than a memory.</p>
+
+<p>Following for a time the road to Tangier, we branched
+off to the right, and took a rough path winding upwards,
+passing a spring where women wash clothes, three parts
+walled in, to prevent their being seen.</p>
+
+<p>A little higher up and one of the countless saints'
+tombs came in sight&mdash;better known in this case as
+the Robbers' Tower, where brigands congregate at sunset,
+and from an excellent coign of vantage keep a look-out
+on the Tangier road, to drop on any unfortunate
+so foolhardy as to be on it late in the day. After
+dark no Moor from Tetuan would walk near this saint-house.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few weeks after this very ride a man was
+murdered on the Tangier road, why or wherefore no
+one knew, except that his body was found, brought
+into Tetuan, and buried without further investigation,
+since his relatives were neither rich nor powerful enough
+to institute a search and demand compensation.</p>
+
+<p>Robbery in Morocco is almost sanctioned by Providence;
+it is made so simple. The lonely tracks, the absence
+of police, the inconveniences of travelling, and the innumerable
+wells scattered over the country, almost sunk
+for the reception of inconvenient bodies&mdash;one and all
+tempt a man to turn brigand; and yet Europeans are
+seldom attacked, in view of the fine imposed upon the
+tribe in whose territory a crime is committed.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the borders, where several tribes meet, are always
+unsafe country, one tribe disposing of bodies which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>[<a href="./images/85.png">85</a>]</span>
+have done to death by depositing them in the territory of
+the next tribe. But even in "Christian-ridden" Tangier
+a German was knifed three years ago walking home,
+as was his custom, at dusk. He happened to have no
+money on him. His murderer was given up to justice&mdash;that
+is, the basha of Tangier said some one must die,
+and together with the fine the tribe outside Tangier
+produced a man, who was duly executed, though whether
+he was the murderer . . . . . .</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, we were leaving the millet-fields behind
+us&mdash;stubbles, an occasional stalk three feet high, no
+lying for birds&mdash;and were in a country of wild lavender
+and stunted bushes: these consisted chiefly of cistus or else
+palmetto, a little dwarf palm, the fruit of which is eaten
+by goats, and the root by natives as a vegetable, while
+its fibrous leaves make rope and baskets and a hundred
+things. A bleak undulating country, which ran up into
+rocky blue gorges and grey peaks on the right hand.
+The path was almost blocked at one point by an
+immense cairn on the top of a ridge&mdash;a holy pile, upon
+which the devout Moor in passing casts a stone, because
+from this spot the mountain can be made out on which
+the venerated shrine of Mulai Abdesalam lies, in Beni
+Anos, the goal of thousands of pilgrims each year.
+Though it is within a day's ride of Tangier, the country
+for miles around is forbidden to any European, and two
+Englishmen only have penetrated into the sacred city of
+Shesh&aacute;wan, which lies in the same district. Mr. Walter
+B. Harris and Mr. Somers, at different times, got inside,
+but only at sunset, and after lying in hiding all night
+had to flee for their lives at dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually we reached wilder and more rocky country,
+recalling Scotland as far as the open moorland went. If
+fir-trees were planted on the sheltered slopes, the fir-pins<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>[<a href="./images/86.png">86</a>]</span>
+should, in conjunction with the natural soil, form land
+capable of growing vines&mdash;an idle dream in the Morocco
+of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Between two hills in front of us towered a cliff of rocky
+red limestone, which might once have formed the bed
+of some vast stream. Semsar lay where the waters should
+have struck the rock beneath as they fell: a more sheltered
+village could not be, facing south-east. The cliff above
+is still riddled with the remains of an old silver-mine,
+worked years ago by the Portuguese: the ladders and
+scaffolding inside have fallen to pieces, and after penetrating
+along dark tunnels on hands and knees for a certain distance
+an open shaft intervenes, and further exploration
+is impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Semsar, nestled into its crevice, takes more or less the
+local brown; but among the thatched huts, rising one above
+the other like an uneven pile of mud terraces, a few walls
+were whitewashed, and of course a white village mosque
+stood guard over all on the top of a hillock. There is
+something a trifle "animal" in these villages, rough
+clusters of bee's-comb or ant-heaps or beavers' lodgings
+as they might be, assuming exactly the shade of their
+surroundings, as nests the colour of their hiding-places,
+or as the kh&#257;ki-coloured sand-lizard, desert-lark, and
+sand-grouse of the great Sahara take on the yellow-ochre
+tone of that desert.</p>
+
+<p>A friend belonging to Mr. Bewicke's soldier had ridden
+out behind us. He owned a garden at hand, and asked
+if we would go in and look at it. We stooped low under
+a white stone doorway, an imposing structure, invariably
+the entrance to every garden: the door generally painted
+Reckitt's blue, and kept locked with a key eight inches
+long, while on each side of the gateway the cane fence is
+tumbling to pieces and offering useful gaps to marauders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>[<a href="./images/87.png">87</a>]</span>&mdash;a
+curious inversion of the rule in Spain, where to this
+day they bar the window heavily and leave the door open.</p>
+
+<p>Though to all appearance the owner was a hard-working
+Moor, the garden at any rate bore no great signs of
+expenditure of labour. We found ourselves in an overgrown
+wilderness of orange-trees, peaches, pears, figs,
+plums, damsons, cherries, white mulberries, quinces, jasmine,
+all overgrown and stabbed by the interloping prickly
+pear&mdash;a good fruit, too, in its way, and a "useful beast"
+as a hedge.</p>
+
+<p>Half of his oranges were always stolen, the owner said;
+the remaining half brought him in from sixty to ninety
+shillings a year, selling perhaps at a shilling or two the
+thousand. He had evidently not the capital to get the
+half of what such fruitful soil could give with Gibraltar
+at hand for export, nor the means of securing to himself
+any money he made; and it is poor work putting
+money into the hands of the nearest extortionate sheikh.
+Yet his garden was, and is to every Moor, a source of
+great satisfaction and content: truly a field of the
+slothful, a garden where the mystic finds rest and heart's
+ease, and the two things which appeal most to sun-baked
+men&mdash;shade and water. It is enough in such a
+spot to drowse away the sunny hours amidst the hum
+of bees, the rattle of the tree-beetle; to muse upon
+some book of whose drift only a faint idea is intelligible,
+content to leave its problems in the limbo of the insoluble,
+where most of life's questions seethe harmlessly enough;
+then, turning, give thanks to Allah, who has made gardens
+for mankind, and doze again.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on the path led us across streams banked
+with maiden-hair fern like rank grass. Water had worn
+the rock into grotesque shapes, a cavernous arch in one
+place, the banks, like a tunnel, almost meeting over our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>[<a href="./images/88.png">88</a>]</span>
+heads in another. Immense blocks of stone barred the
+way; it was not easy riding, but the mules climbed up
+and down rocky staircases with much tact, while we sat
+holding our breath.</p>
+
+<p>Over one of these obstructions the breastplate of
+my saddle, which had only been fastened to begin with
+by three stitches of string, burst, and I found myself
+almost over the grey's tail: such a common occurrence
+that no Moor goes out without string and packing-needle
+handy; but this was past mending on the road,
+and I changed on to the soldier's mule, whose top-heavy
+saddle was no fit at all, and, shifting all over its back,
+required careful balance on the rider's part.</p>
+
+<p>The road was only a few feet wide, and so overgrown
+that, as we jogged one after the other, trying to dodge
+grey arms of fig-trees, lying on the mules' necks under
+dark masses of foliage which shut out half the light,
+hatless, the stiffest bullfinch at home would have been
+ears of corn compared with what we went through.</p>
+
+<p>At last, however, it came to an end, and the trail
+opened out into the village of Semsar. Nobody was to
+be seen; dogs barked as usual; some kids bleated inside
+a hut. We rode by the crazy hovels; a woman carrying
+water emerged, and a boy with a baby. Beyond the last
+brown erection we came to a saint's tomb. This meant
+the village green without any "green." Two or three
+country people sat in the usual meeting-place among
+trodden-down weeds, talking and smoking their long pipes,
+congregated round one busy man, who was chopping a
+log into a plough with an axe. Around the tomb was
+a group of olive-trees, preserved leaf and stick and all,
+not a branch even of dead wood off the ground removed,
+by reason of the sanctity of the spot. However small a
+grove, it would otherwise have been cut down, as afford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>[<a href="./images/89.png">89</a>]</span>ing
+cover to robbers and <i>ginns</i> (evil spirits). Thanks to
+saints' tombs the traveller in Morocco still meets with
+clumps and occasional woods of olives. The sunshine
+glowed on their hoary twisted branches, and flecked the
+gnarled trunks; the grey foliage cast patches of dense
+shadow on the brown earth under the mammoths, whose
+broken lines and odd elbows supported such masses of
+quiet colour and solemn shade. We wound our way
+to the left among the huts. Of any road between them
+there was none; the mules could barely climb over some
+of the boulders among the refuse.</p>
+
+<p>Once quit of the "green," we saw no one again, and
+got much mixed as to direction. Finally, we struck a
+path with a descent into a pool and below a fig tree,
+which, having made ourselves small, we circumvented,
+and discovered that it meandered in time to the outside
+of the village. Following, we wound southwards by a
+gorge along a rocky stream, which has the reputation
+of rising suddenly after rain, and not long ago drowned
+three mules.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping-stones are not provided in Morocco, and it
+is generally a case of plunging through a stream to
+reach the opposite side. Near a city with good fortune
+a Jew may pass, the chance may be worth waiting for;
+but no Mohammedan Moor would carry an infidel across
+on his superior back.</p>
+
+<p>In time a different path led us back to Tetuan, and
+we rode in by the Mulberry Gate at sunset, as the
+mueddzin was calling upon true believers to worship.</p>
+
+<p>On fine days we made many such excursions, and
+exploited the country for miles round. Showery and
+doubtful days were devoted to the city and shopping.</p>
+
+<p>Shopping in a foreign city tends towards the accumulation
+of white elephants, which, safely landed in England,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>[<a href="./images/90.png">90</a>]</span>
+work havoc in an English home. Long flint guns from
+the Riff, and old blue dishes from Fez, and orange-striped
+rugs from Rabat look strangely out of place with
+wall-papers and oil paintings. The East will never sit
+down with the West, and the adjuncts of either are bound
+to "fight." And yet we shopped.</p>
+
+<p>There are fewer more interesting ways of studying
+the outside life of the people; a little gossip and less
+reliable information are all thrown in to the bargain. The
+little Tetuan shops are a species of club, for each Moor
+has certain shops at which he habitually sits and may
+be found with more or less certainty. While the owner
+and his goods remain inside the shop, there is room for
+two people outside on the sill or doorstep, and a couple
+of fat leather cushions are provided for them. Even
+Mr. Bewicke was in the habit of sitting every day at
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli's shop and hearing the news,
+between four and seven o'clock every evening.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-13.png"><img src="./images/ill-13_th.png" alt="OUT SHOPPING." title="OUT SHOPPING." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Out Shopping.</p>
+
+<p>He interpreted for us in our early days. We spent a
+whole morning buying <i>humbells</i> (striped carpets) at a shop
+where the owner was sitting on the floor playing chess
+with a friend and drinking green tea. All over Tetuan
+draughts and chess are played constantly on little boards,
+either on the doorstep or inside the shop. The game had
+its origin, like bridge and polo, eastwards of England,
+and was introduced into Europe after the Crusades,
+together with baths and other civilized habits. Our
+shopman looked exceedingly bored at the interruption.
+However, after much bargaining, we bought a humbell,
+having to point to everything we wished to buy, for no
+Moor likes a Christian to come inside his shop, because
+of his dirty boots. A Moor is either in a pair of clean
+yellow slippers, or else they are on the doorsill, and his
+feet are bare: he tosses all his silks, towels, embroideries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>[<a href="./images/91.png">91</a>]</span>
+carpets, on the floor, and sits among them, while the
+purchaser stands outside, points to the shelves and heap,
+and trusts to the owner's divining which particular silk
+handkerchief is wanted.</p>
+
+<p>In another shop we found a second humbell, chiefly
+black and orange, the property of a taciturn individual
+in a snow-white <i>selham</i> (hooded cloak), a turban to match,
+with scarlet peak, a dark blue garment underneath the
+selham, and a complexion like cream and roses. He lay
+at full length on a pile of many carpets. We stopped
+in front of the shop. Neither rising, bowing, nor bustling
+about to show off his goods, the white figure lay still,
+looking dreamily through and beyond us. We were
+bores. In reply to a question of price, a long sum was
+murmured. At last we expressed a decided wish to
+inspect the humbell, and, slowly rising, he condescended
+to lift it from a shelf, his looks suggesting that he would
+prefer being left alone. Again we asked his lowest price.
+Twenty-one shillings. We offered sixteen. Without
+deigning to answer, he solemnly folded up the humbell
+and put it away, then folded one by one the goods which
+littered the floor, and stacked them above the humbell on
+the same shelf. Still standing in front of the shop, we
+repeated our offer of sixteen shillings. He shook his
+head decidedly, made a deprecating gesture, and prepared
+to sink again on his couch. Mr. Bewicke forbade us to
+offer more; we walked away. A voice said in Arabic,
+"It is yours," and the humbell was thrown after us; the
+sixteen shillings were received with a sigh as the shopkeeper
+resumed his couch.</p>
+
+<p>Tetuan makes many artistic "towels," which form the
+ordinary dress of the countrywomen underneath their old
+enfolding yellowish-white woollen haiks; but for quite
+the majority a towel as skirt and a towel as cape are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>[<a href="./images/92.png">92</a>]</span>
+sufficient for all purposes. There is the rare addition of
+a pair of cotton drawers.</p>
+
+<p>The strong substance and fast scarlet dyes make these
+towels no mean substitutes for curtains, except that, like
+native goods in general, they seldom quite match, and
+distract the soul which demands "pairs" in all and
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>A Jew we visited in the Jews' Quarter had a fine carpet
+for sale, made farther south, something like a Persian,
+the ground whitish, with harmonious reds and greens.
+For a long time we sat and tried to bargain in his
+odd little den up a dilapidated staircase and nearly
+pitch dark: he wanted &pound;5. The pattern was a little
+small. We came away without it. Some of the old
+<i>kaftans</i> (robes of coloured cloth or satin or silk brocade,
+embroidered with gold or silver, buttoned down the front
+and with wide sleeves) were well worth buying: none are
+made like them nowadays, for common material is used;
+unfortunately the best are often in tatters.</p>
+
+<p>We visited the Slipper Market, and, sitting on the doorstep
+of one of the shops, gave directions for two pairs&mdash;blue
+velvet embroidered with gold, and milk-coloured leather
+embroidered with green. Size, price, and colour were duly
+discussed; rain came on, we sat on the doorsill sheltering,
+and the basha&mdash;Tetuan's governor&mdash;was criticised. The
+slipper-maker had not a good word for him. To begin
+with, it seems he has no money, is of no family, and
+aristocratic Tetuan refuses to "hob-nob" with him. He
+dislikes Tetuan after Fez, whence he was transferred, and
+where he made more money. The other day a neighbouring
+tribe sent him a present of so many dollars. At the
+same time they owed him certain taxes, in lieu of which
+he accepted the money, but pointed out that the present
+must follow in due course. None ever arrived, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>[<a href="./images/93.png">93</a>]</span>
+basha sent his brother-in-law and a soldier to the tribesmen
+to ask an explanation of its non-appearance. The
+brother-in-law was tactless, incensed the tribesmen, and
+provoked them to bastinado him, whereupon the soldier
+lost his head, and fired his gun off into the air. He was
+promptly disembowelled.</p>
+
+<p>The brother-in-law returned to the basha, stiff, but
+alive; and the country people give it as their verdict that
+the basha is a rapacious man. They threaten that they
+will no longer bring their produce into Tetuan to market,
+but will hold their own markets at some place chosen by
+themselves out in the country, and Tetuan shall come out
+to buy. Such a proceeding would be most inconvenient;
+for Tetuan is dependent for all its supplies on the country
+people, who hold their markets on Sundays, Wednesdays,
+and Fridays in the feddan, where they sit upon the ground
+packed in hundreds, their chickens, eggs, butter, and produce
+in general in their laps and at their feet. Their beef
+and mutton are but second-rate, and the shapeless lumps
+of lean, tough meat take double as long as an English
+joint to cook, and make but a poor show in the end, hacked
+by the unskilful butchers past all recognition. Goat and
+fish are to be had, sometimes partridges, hares, and rabbits,
+occasionally a haunch of wild boar. Fish came in on
+certain days when the wind was favourable: there was
+then a rush on the fish market, and almost a free fight
+over the great panniers full of shining silvery sardines, and
+over the bodies of the sellers seated on the ground. The
+successful carried off a handful each, and the caf&eacute;s and
+fish shops were soon frying sardines for dear life, while
+the little streets were thick with the steam of native oil
+and butter. Some big fish, four and five feet long, came
+into market sometimes, and a small boy would be hired
+by a purchaser to carry one home across his shoulder, its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>[<a href="./images/94.png">94</a>]</span>
+great head hanging down behind, and underneath a pair
+of thin brown legs like little sticks hurrying along the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>Bread in Morocco is "passing heavy," flavoured with
+aniseed and full of grit. Vegetables are to be had in
+abundance.</p>
+
+<p>The slippers, which had been promised in three days,
+appeared in three weeks. Whenever we passed the shop
+we asked after them: always the same answer&mdash;<i>M&#257;nana</i>
+(To-morrow). "No, there was no butter to be had to-day,
+but <i>m&#257;nana</i>." "No, the pillows were not finished yet, but
+<i>m&#257;nana</i>." "The boots left to be soled were not ready,
+but <i>m&#257;nana</i>." Tetuan lives upon <i>m&#257;nana</i>: it is the reincarnation
+of <span class="smcap">jam yesterday, and jam to-morrow,
+but never jam to-day</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Equally exasperating was the habit of every shopkeeper
+of locking up his shop and going off to pray or eat or
+chat. If a shop had to be revisited and purchases
+exchanged, the owner was invariably out, and the door
+fastened with lock and key. At 12.15 <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'a.m.'">p.m.</ins> nobody could
+ever be found, but was presumably at the mosque. Again
+and again we visited the same shop: one day the owner
+was at a friend's shop, the next at home, and so on. We
+gave him up, to see his sleek cross-legged figure seated
+inside the little cupboard the very next time we passed.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-14.png"><img src="./images/ill-14_th.png" alt="SHOPS IN TETUAN." title="SHOPS IN TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Shops in Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>Walking by a saint-house on the outskirts of the city,
+devout and impoverished women were often to be seen
+there, visiting the shrine and carrying with them small
+vessels of food, which they placed on the ground for the
+spirit of the holy man to eat. The window of the shrine
+was tied with a hundred scraps of rag and dead flowers,
+bits of wood, and paper and oddments of all sorts.
+Empty earthenware bowls later on, and pariah dogs skulking
+around, licking their lips, told a tale; but if asked if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>[<a href="./images/95.png">95</a>]</span>
+they really thought their saint would come up out of
+his grave and eat the food prepared for him, it was open
+to the Mussulman to answer the Christian, "And do
+you really believe that your dead friends come and smell
+the flowers you plant on their graves?"</p>
+
+<p>Small-pox kills a great many Moors, and an incredible
+number are marked by the disease. It is looked upon
+much as measles are in England: cases are never isolated,
+and children are all expected to have it. Each year it is
+prevalent, and people may be passed in the street with
+it out upon them; but every four years it breaks out
+seriously, and a large percentage of the population dies.</p>
+
+<p>Last of all, in our shopping days a few things we
+bought by auction. No auctioneer is employed as in
+European countries, but the owner and seller himself
+perambulates the street or courtyard with his goods&mdash;a
+mule, or a frying-pan, or a carpet&mdash;calling out each
+successive bid which he receives on his article, pushing
+his way and jostling the motley mob of market people,
+peasants and loungers, silks and rags, until he has got
+his price, and hands over to its new owner his late
+possession.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>[<a href="./images/96.png">96</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>[<a href="./images/97.png">97</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">The Fast of R&aacute;madhan&mdash;Mohammed&mdash;His Life and Influence&mdash;The Flood at Saffi&mdash;A Walk Outside Tetuan&mdash;The French Consul's Garden-House&mdash;Jews in Morocco&mdash;European Protection.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>[<a href="./images/98.png">98</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>[<a href="./images/99.png">99</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER IV</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Manage with bread and butter till God brings the jam.</p>
+<p class="tr"><i>Old Moorish proverb.</i></p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> had not been long at the fonda before the
+Fast of R&aacute;madhan began. R&aacute;madhan, ordained
+by Mohammed, takes place in the ninth month of every
+Mohammedan year, and lasts for twenty-eight days,
+during which time the Faithful fast from dawn, when it
+is light enough to distinguish between a black and white
+thread, to sunset. It alters by a few days every year
+according to the moon, and when it falls during summer
+in scorching hot countries the agonies of thirst endured
+mean a penance indeed.</p>
+
+<p>R&aacute;madhan begins when the new moon is first seen.
+Tidings were sent from Tangier to say that it had been
+observed there, which tidings Tetuan handed on to the
+farthest mountain villages: a gun was fired from the
+Kasbah at sunset, horns were sounded, and R&aacute;madhan
+began. It sometimes happens that Tetuan does not see
+the new moon till the day after Tangier has seen it at
+the beginning of the fast, in which case the Tetuan
+people are guilty of "eating the head of R&aacute;madhan":
+this year it was not so. During the twenty-eight days
+of the fast, every night, or rather every early morning at
+2 a.m., the householder was awakened by the crashing
+of his knocker on his door and a shout bidding him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>[<a href="./images/100.png">100</a>]</span>
+"Rise and eat": the mueddzin at the same time from
+the top of the mosque called the hour of prayer, and
+long brass horns brayed to the same effect.</p>
+
+<p>The month was almost over before we had learnt to
+sleep through it all. As the fonda was in the Moorish
+Quarter our door was not exempt. Far away up the
+street the knockers clanked, nearer and nearer every
+moment, then the man's footsteps, then our own knocker
+sounded like a sledge-hammer, and "Rise and eat" followed:
+the man went on to the next door, and back again
+shortly up the opposite side of the street. And every
+Mussulman arose in the dark and had a large meal.
+Again at sunrise the big gun boomed from the Kasbah,
+the concussion shaking our ill-built room, and we woke
+once more.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-15.png"><img src="./images/ill-15_th.png" alt="A CLUSTER OF COUNTRY WOMEN." title="A CLUSTER OF COUNTRY WOMEN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Cluster of Country Women.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the original motive of fasting and abstinence
+in the Old Testament was the promotion of sanitary
+conditions. It is not good to eat pig in hot countries:
+thus pork was "unclean," and is to-day in Morocco.
+Nor is the consumption of much spirituous liquor wise
+when the thermometer marks a hundred and one: hence
+the Kor&#257;n forbids the use of strong drinks. The same
+motive underlies the fast, which rests and relieves systems
+over-fattened and little exercised. But the "all or nothing"
+theory which governs the uneducated and knows no
+moderation runs a benefit into an abuse. R&aacute;madhan
+had its disadvantages. Tetuan was revelling at night and
+in a sodden sleep through the day; work was slipshod
+and at sixes and sevens; men were irritable and quarrelsome;
+every one looked indisposed; and the excuse for
+it all was always R&aacute;madhan. Worst of all, the countrywomen
+still tramped four and five hours into market
+with loads, and children a month old, only half nourished
+at the time of the fast.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>[<a href="./images/101.png">101</a>]</span>
+But R&aacute;madhan came to an end at last: Morocco breathed
+again. The day before the fast was over everybody
+was smiling, and Tetuan had but one hope, that the new
+moon would be seen that night, and thus the month of
+penance come to an end. After the letter from Tangier
+had been received next morning, which said that the new
+moon had been seen there, the gun from the fort thundered,
+the basha went in gorgeous state to the <i>Jama-el-Kebeer</i>
+(Big Mosque) on a white mule, all caparisoned in blue,
+and read aloud the letter, the city was uproarious, and
+the mountains echoed again, for soldiers were sent post-haste
+up the valleys, and fired all day at intervals to
+notify to the fathermost villages that R&aacute;madhan was over.</p>
+
+<p>And the next day! The first day of the <i>Aid-el-Sereer</i>
+(Little Feast)! Everybody was in shining white, if
+not new, apparel, and all Tetuan was abroad. That
+among a people clad so largely in white and in gorgeous
+colours means a great deal, and the streets of Tetuan
+might have competed with the Park on the Sunday before
+Ascot. The Moorish crowd was almost entirely a male
+one, dressed like peacocks: satins embroidered with gold
+and silver prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>And if the snowy haiks and turbans and the resplendent
+shades of the kaftans were the first point about the feast,
+the sweetmeat stalls were the second. A Moor is a born
+sweet-tooth, and at every corner of the streets a board
+was stacked with creamy mixtures in which walnuts were
+embedded, with generously browned toffee full of almonds,
+with carmine-coloured sticks, with magenta squares of
+sweet peppermint, with blocks of nougat inches thick.
+And the joys of the feast seemed amply to compensate
+for the fast.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed ordained many minor feasts and fasts.
+R&aacute;madhan stands out chief of the one: <i>Aid-el-Kebeer</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[<a href="./images/102.png">102</a>]</span>
+(Great Feast), falling two months and six days afterwards,
+is chief of the other.</p>
+
+<p>The three reforms which Mohammed instituted were
+temperance, cleanliness, and monotheism, at a time when
+reform was badly needed. He was born in Mecca five
+hundred and seventy years after Christ, an Arab of the
+tribe of Beni Has`sim. Christianity was not unknown
+around him in his day.</p>
+
+<p>Always somewhat of a visionary and introspective turn
+of mind, when he was about forty years old he became
+deeply interested in the subject of religion. Living in
+the imaginative East, in a hotbed of mysticism and superstition,
+it was easy for him to conceive himself a chosen
+vessel of the Almighty, and to assume by degrees the
+r&ocirc;le of prophet, in the honest belief that the words he
+uttered came direct from that God whose mouthpiece he
+conceived himself to be. A small band of followers by
+degrees collected round him, and in the ordinary course
+of events his end would have been that of a saint with
+a tombstone white; but, added to the saint's fanaticisms,
+Mohammed possessed the talents of a leader, and the
+ambition which accompanies those talents.</p>
+
+<p>Men and more men were attracted to him; he instituted
+among them a ceremonial of prayer, feasts, and fasts, and
+built a mosque at Medina, in which they worshipped.
+Persecution from their fellow-countrymen followed as a
+matter of course, and Mohammed's disciples, who began
+to call themselves Mohammedans, turned to him as their
+chief. The one "able man," he naturally assumed the
+position of a theocratic ruler, and led them against their
+enemies; while the words he spoke were committed to
+memory, constituting later on the Kor&#257;n.</p>
+
+<p>As a general Mohammed was successful: battle after
+battle was fought and won, reverses were amply com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>[<a href="./images/103.png">103</a>]</span>pensated
+for, and men flocked to his standard, while
+deputations from surrounding tribes poured in upon him,
+acknowledging his supremacy, and asking for instruction
+in his creed.</p>
+
+<p>That creed was admirably adapted to suit the manners,
+opinions, and vices of the East: it was extraordinarily
+simple, it proposed but few truths in which belief
+was necessary, and it laid no severe restraints upon the
+natural desires of men; above all, its warlike tendencies
+captivated the men of its day, and war, which at first
+had been necessary in self-defence, was still carried on,
+and gradually came to be looked upon by Mohammed
+and his followers as a lawful means towards spreading
+their religion. In the name of a <i>Holy War</i> the conquerors
+offered their defeated enemies the option of death or
+embracing the new religion, while the women and children
+taken in battle were sold as slaves, after the manner
+of the time.</p>
+
+<p>And the Prophet's influence deepened and extended.
+Meanwhile, his sayings, or "the Kor&#257;n," were written
+down from time to time by one or other of his followers,
+on palm leaves, on stone tablets, on the shoulder-plates
+of goats and camels, and even tattooed on men's breasts;
+while his ritual was strictly carried out&mdash;prayer with
+absolution, frequent washing, fasting, almsgiving, the
+pilgrimage to Mecca, and the recital of the formula
+"There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his
+prophet."</p>
+
+<p>Prayer was offered up five times a day, as now, by
+every true believer&mdash;at sunrise, at midday, at three in
+the afternoon, at sunset, and two hours after sunset:
+the <i>adzan</i> (call to prayers) was chanted at each time
+by the mueddzin from the minarets of the mosques. The
+first thing in the morning at sunrise the call ran, "God<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>[<a href="./images/104.png">104</a>]</span>
+is great; God is great. Mohammed is his prophet.
+Prayer is better than sleep. Come to prayer; come to
+prayer." The believer, obeying the summons, washes,
+enters the mosque, and repeats from four to eight short
+prayers, with genuflections between each.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed strictly obeyed the forms of his doctrine,
+and himself performed the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca
+and the ceremonies round the K&#257;aba. He was familiar
+with at least part of the Gospels, but his knowledge was
+possibly scant and distorted: he was unfriendly towards
+Christians. For the Old Testament he had a profound
+respect.</p>
+
+<p>As far as can be gathered he was a sober and meditative
+man: he sought neither state nor riches for himself,
+when either might have been his for the asking. He
+looked upon women from a point of view not unlike the
+characters in the Old Testament&mdash;a distinctly Eastern
+one. He possessed five wives, and probably concubines&mdash;bondwomen
+in much the same position as Hagar of old.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed instituted the veiling of women, with corresponding
+restrictions on domestic intercourse, as a check
+upon undue sexual licence&mdash;the curse of hot climates.</p>
+
+<p>There is no reason to believe that Mohammed was
+not honest in the conviction that his mission was divine,
+and that, if he countenanced vindictive revenge, rapine,
+and lust as a means towards the furtherance of his
+teaching, he justified the act in his own mind by what
+he believed to be revelations from a spirit other than
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>A great character has perforce its great faults, and
+the courage and ambition which made so mighty a leader
+were naturally enough the rock upon which that leader
+split, blinding his eyes and distorting his point of view,
+leading him into compromise and error. But though self-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>[<a href="./images/105.png">105</a>]</span>deceived
+and fanatical, it is improbable that Mohammed
+was insincere. By the spirit of his day he must be
+judged. His day believed in him.</p>
+
+<p>He died early in the seventh century, sixty-three years
+old, saying, "Verily I have fulfilled my mission. I have
+left that amongst you, a plain command, the Book of
+God, and manifest ordinances, which, if ye hold fast, ye
+shall never go astray." Within two years of his death
+the Mohammedan armies had overrun Syria; Egypt
+was in their possession, and the whole northern coast
+of Africa.</p>
+
+<p>The scraps which contained in writing the sayings of
+the dead Prophet were all collected by his chief
+amanuensis: his followers appointed three judges to
+overlook the work. The new collection was written in
+Mohammed's own pure Meccan dialect, and every spurious
+copy was burnt. So carefully was this done that there
+is but one and the same Kor&#257;n throughout the vast
+Mohammedan world.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammedanism satisfied the East for two reasons:
+first, because it was a warlike religion, and therefore
+appealed to warlike tribes; secondly, because, deeply
+underlying it, was the strong, calm spirit of fatalism, that
+world-old foundation-stone on which many a man has
+come to anchor. The very word Mussulman means,
+"One who has surrendered himself and his will to God."</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="poem">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Islam</span> is the belief in</td><td align='left'>one God,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>one Prophet (Mohammed),</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>the immortality of the soul,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>the resurrection of the dead,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>the day of judgment,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>angels,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>a devil.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>There are no subtle intricacies in such a creed, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>[<a href="./images/106.png">106</a>]</span>
+mysterious contradictions to puzzle the uneducated mind;
+it amply satisfies a simple people; and probably no other
+dogma makes so many converts.</p>
+
+<p>In Morocco to-day the Mohammedan religion is interwoven
+with the whole fabric of life. To the Moor Allah
+is always present, is behind every decree of the Sultan,
+and enters into the smallest detail of his own private life
+to such a degree that barely a single action is performed
+without invoking the sacred name. Religion is, according
+to the temper of the individual Moor, "a passion, or a
+persuasion, or an excuse, but never a check": for a man
+may commit any sin under heaven, and "Allah is
+merciful; Mohammed is his prophet; all will be forgiven."
+And this is not hypocritical: the larger soul includes the
+smaller&mdash;that is all.</p>
+
+<p>It follows as a natural sequence that, because Allah is
+as much part of a Moor's life as the air he breathes, he
+is forgotten. The repetition of words bulks so largely in
+Mohammedanism, that, as with the Jews of old, the letter
+of the law has killed the spirit. The evil of Mohammed's
+religion lies in its essential antagonism towards progress
+and civilization: scientific investigation is forbidden; a
+proverb runs, "Only fools and the very young speak the
+truth." Thus Mohammedanism will never advance or
+regenerate Morocco; for these tenets are Government
+policy.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time there is in Mohammedan society a
+certain negative virtue which contrasts strongly with the
+gross immorality existing in Christian countries. The
+conditions of what is lawful for a Mohammedan are wide
+enough to content, and extremes offer no temptation.
+Polygamy, divorce, and slavery are all allowed, and war
+upon unbelievers is enjoined as a duty. And yet "social
+evils" and the lowest depths to which humanity falls are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>[<a href="./images/107.png">107</a>]</span>
+almost unknown in Morocco; while what is held to be
+sin is rigorously punished&mdash;adultery by stoning (a father
+has no hesitation in shooting his daughter himself),
+robbery by mutilation, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Unlike many Christian churches, a Moorish mosque is
+never closed: the sanctuary is always open. It is council-chamber,
+meeting-place, and for travellers at night
+resting-place. There are no priests in the European
+sense; but the <i>basha</i> (governor) or the <i>kadi</i> (judge) reads
+prayers on Fridays, a sermon follows, and letters or
+decrees from the Sultan are given out in the mosque after
+service.</p>
+
+<p>The treatment of Mohammedan women, against which
+so much has been written, is after all Oriental, and nothing
+more. The Kor&#257;n speaks of woman as an inferior
+being, an incomplete creation, needing no education, to be
+rigorously and jealously guarded all her life, and who after
+death may or may not be admitted into the Mohammedan
+heaven. Her function, if rich, is to bear children, and to
+be treated like a petted lap-dog: if poor, to work as a
+labourer. But interrogate the wife of a rich Moor on the
+subject, and she will not have the slightest wish to educate
+herself, but will affirm emphatically, "We have children
+and enough to eat. Why should we want to learn
+anything?"</p>
+
+<p>It is manifestly absurd to compare Mohammedanism
+with Christianity, which are each the outcome of a distinct
+race, divided by that greatest barrier&mdash;a racial gulf.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity, it must be confessed, bearing in mind the
+Christian renegades with whom the Moor has traded, is
+looked upon by him for the most part as a thing beneath
+contempt. It had five hundred years, before Mohammed
+was born, in which to impress itself on the East. It signally
+failed. And yet only a few years after Mohammed's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[<a href="./images/108.png">108</a>]</span>
+death his religion had taken by storm Egypt, Turkey,
+Arabia, Persia, Turkestan, parts of India, the Malay
+Peninsula, the north coast of Africa, and parts of China,
+introducing monotheism, and impressing temperance
+and cleanliness on uncivilized millions, but never
+advancing beyond that point. It is borne in upon one
+that, in spite of missionary effort, Morocco will change
+its religion for that of Christianity when, as its own
+proverb says, "The charcoal takes root and the salt buds."
+The East, when it adopts other tenets, will exchange
+its own for a wider and a more universal cult than
+that which modern sects and parties are endeavouring
+and failing to introduce to-day.</p>
+
+<p>While we were in our small quarters at the fonda,
+the weather by no means came up to the high standard
+it is said to reach in December. A few sunny days,
+when we could bask out of doors, were grudgingly
+sandwiched between many wet ones, and again and
+again the R&aacute;madhan sunrise gun awoke us to gouts
+of almost tropical rain, a fiery sunrise followed by an
+hour's brilliant sunshine, the herald of a shamelessly
+distorted April day. The little gutters down the middle
+of the streets ran like torrents, carrying off chickens'
+heads and cabbage-stalks; hail scoured the pebbles;
+outside the city "the dry land was over your boots";
+the road to the sea was impassable, and the rivers between
+Tangier and Tetuan were unfordable; snow lay in patches
+on the mountains; half the vale was inundated; the
+river could be heard a mile away; both our windows
+leaked; and down in the little patio, where the family
+sat, the waters were out.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-16.png"><img src="./images/ill-16_th.png" alt="A TYPICAL MOORISH STREET." title="A TYPICAL MOORISH STREET." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Typical Moorish Street.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>From the west coast at Saffi terrible reports arrived
+of the havoc the weather had made of the city. The
+lowest barometer ever seen had preceded sheets of rain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>[<a href="./images/109.png">109</a>]</span>
+and a solid <i>hamla</i> (flood) had entered the gates from the
+valley above, filling the narrow streets in a few moments
+to a depth of seven and eight feet, and carrying everything
+before it: men, women, children, and cattle were swept
+in a torrent through the water-gate out to sea, sometimes
+a hand stretched out above the eddies. Then the gate
+became blocked with floating <i>debris</i> and bodies, and the
+flood rose to ten feet in the principal street. The townspeople
+who survived took refuge on their roofs. The vice-governor
+was drowned. Houses, shops, mills, and mosques
+were gutted as if by fire; furniture and household goods
+were ruined; the Saffi shopkeepers were beggared. For
+many weeks after the survivors starved upon roots, in
+spite of a subscription raised in Tangier to relieve them.</p>
+
+<p>The rain apparently was something like a waterspout.
+Happily Tetuan was exempt from waterspouts, and on
+days when the rain gave over for a time we rode, or,
+picking our way along the muddy streets, drank tea
+with some Moor.</p>
+
+<p>One dull afternoon we sampled the state of the roads
+outside, R. on a donkey, and Mr. Bewicke and myself
+on foot. Walking out by the Gate of the Tombs, we
+bore to the left, and dived into the narrowest of narrow
+lanes, shut in with tall cane fences and high mud-banks
+crowned with prickly pear, the shape of whose fat,
+fleshy leaves recalls moles' paws.</p>
+
+<p>The donkey was an unusually large one, and its
+pack rolled more than packs in general: before we saw
+the last of Tetuan its rider had many a fall off her
+unsteady perch; and if there is truth in the Moorish
+saying that "one does not become a horseman till
+one is broken," R. may claim to have qualified. It
+shied and bucked and came on its nose over rocks;
+but this time Mr. Bewicke's boy, Mohr, directed its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>[<a href="./images/110.png">110</a>]</span>
+ways, and thoroughly enjoyed cudgelling it along with
+a stick, helped by its rider's switch, cut from a quince-tree,
+which often as not hit Mohr instead of the ass.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by we met a countryman, his wife, and a
+donkey. The woman, who wore little except two
+striped towels, and a handkerchief round her head,
+staggered along under a great load of faggots. She
+was stunted and wrinkled, removed mentally but few
+degrees from the three-year-old weather-beaten donkey
+which minced along in front of her, also loaded with
+faggots. The woman had strips of rough leather
+bandaged round her legs to protect them from thorns.
+Her feet were bare. Her husband sauntered last of
+all, presumably looking after the donkey: he had no
+load. Another time the donkey also might be exempt,
+while the woman was still burdened; and the man, when
+asked why, if he would not carry the load himself, he
+did not at least put it upon the donkey, would reply,
+"Because it is too heavy for the ass."</p>
+
+<p>A little farther on and a magnificent Riffi passed us,
+walking along at a smart pace into the city, his face
+"old oak" colour, framed in a turban of dark red-brown
+strings of wool. He wore a chocolate-coloured jellab,
+embroidered at the edge with white, and sewn with
+tufts of red, violet, yellow, and green-coloured silks:
+a tall, wiry fellow, with a back like a ram-rod, a thin
+face, and keen, defiant eyes. The light glittered on
+his long, brass-plated Riffi gun: a red leather pouch
+full of bullets hung at his side. He was a great
+contrast to the labourer who passed us afterwards, also
+bound for the city&mdash;an old and grizzled monkey-faced
+man, with his head tied round with a ragged red cloth
+gun-case. His jellab hung in tatters, but he also carried
+a gun, and by a string a brace of partridges and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>[<a href="./images/111.png">111</a>]</span>
+wild duck, which "bag," after some bargaining, became
+ours for the sum of one-and-sixpence.</p>
+
+<p>Among the brown jellabs and varied turbans European
+clothes were forcibly out of their place: a people like
+the Moors, childlike, patriarchal, whose lives embody
+one of the oldest and perhaps best ideas of a simple
+existence, may well hate the sight, on the face of their
+select country, of prosaic tailoring and hideous head-gear.
+The traveller in his boots, where boots are things unknown,
+passes the muffled women with their silent gait,
+the picturesque ruffians with their swinging stride, and
+is unable to help feeling not at home and something of a
+blot on the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>The lane we wandered up had been, and was still
+in places, a watercourse, and we struggled along the
+steep chasms gouged out of the soft soil, and clambered
+over rocks which had withstood the torrent.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by a red door intervened on our left, fitted into
+an imposing whitewashed arched gateway, with a mounting-block
+on each side, and the great brass ring-shaped
+knocker in the middle of the door which the Moors have
+left all over Spain&mdash;the garden-house of the French Consul.
+In another four months, when all aristocratic Tetuan would
+migrate in a body into their "summer-houses," and by
+their mutual presence reassure each other as to their
+safety, the Consul would move out of the city: at present
+he would look on such a step as sheer madness.</p>
+
+<p>An old negro slave, with a beard like cotton-wool, was
+at work in the garden, and, opening the door, let us in
+to look round. A wide gravel path led up to the dazzling
+walls of the house, spotless as a sheet of glazed cream-laid
+note-paper, the window-frames and door picked out with
+Reckitt's blue. A white railing in front edged the terrace,
+the steps of which were tanned by the damp salt air a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>[<a href="./images/112.png">112</a>]</span>
+fine rusty ochre. The house inside was built on the
+invariable Moorish lines&mdash;kitchen and inferior rooms on
+the ground floor, one great lofty room above, and the
+flat roof over all. A garden-room flanked the house on
+the south-east, the front open to the garden, pillared and
+arched with the old white plastered "horse-shoe." In underneath
+the arches were shade and cool tiling, and outside
+more tiled ground suggested steaming brews of fragrant
+green tea, tiny glasses, low tables, and long divans spread
+under the sky.</p>
+
+<p>It was a grey day, and height beyond height on into
+the Riff country was cloud-capped, while <i>shar d'jebel</i> (the
+hair of the mountain, as the Moors call snow) whitened
+a few furrowed peaks. The flats lay below to the left,
+and a horizontal blue pencil line was scored beyond them.
+Cow-birds stalked about the garden among some new
+vines which the old negro was putting in.</p>
+
+<p>We sat down on the terrace, looking at the view, and
+the silence of the place was above all things most striking.
+A cavalcade of mules tailed away in the distance in single
+file along the faint track to the sea; the packed white
+city lay to the right, but no voices reached us; here
+cart-wheels, railway-trains, threshing-machines, and busy
+farm life were not. It would have been hard to age
+and wrinkle in such a spot&mdash;Adam and Eve might have
+felt at home.</p>
+
+<p>It was also a weedy one, this Paradise: a tangle of
+greenery spread underneath the oranges, hanging like
+yellow trimming on a green fabric, choking the vines and
+a few scarlet geraniums. Labour, in such indolent and
+self-possessed acres, was a crude and gauche idea.</p>
+
+<p>The greybeard with the marmoset face and leathern
+apron let us out at the red door: he had a history. His
+master, a prosperous Moor, once offered to free him:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[<a href="./images/113.png">113</a>]</span>
+the old slave refused the offer, on the score that he was
+quite content as he was. However, his master urged him
+to accept, and he was eventually given his freedom. But
+later on the master lost all his money, and ruin was
+before him. His old slave came back. "See here, my
+master; here am I. Take me; sell me"; and he finally
+persuaded the man to sell him. He seemed contented
+enough as the property of the French Consul, who is a
+Moor.</p>
+
+<p>We passed a party of closely veiled women, as we
+strolled citywards, taking advantage of a break in the
+wet weather to visit their gardens, carrying a great
+key, and accompanied by two or three ink-black slaves,
+fine upstanding women, well fed and clothed, looking
+good-tempered to a fault, whose children, by the same
+husband and master, would rank equally with those of
+the wives.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammedan women, though veiled and supervised,
+have at least their gardens to saunter out to and visit
+when the tracks allow. Jewesses in Morocco deserve
+infinitely more pity. Their one recreation seemed to
+consist in walking as far as the Jewish cemetery, ten
+minutes outside the Gate of the Tombs, and attending
+to the gravestones of their friends.</p>
+
+<p>The cemetery is gradually absorbing one side of a
+rough red-earthed hill; it has no fence of any description
+round it, and the flat pale-blue and white tombstones
+spread over the ground look in the distance like so much
+washing out to dry. The stones are all alike, oblong
+lozenges, inscribed in Hebrew.</p>
+
+<p>Here, especially on Fridays, the women's day, Jewesses
+congregate, flocking along the cemetery road&mdash;the
+mourners in ponderous black skirts, vast breadths of
+crimson silk let into the fronts and embroidered with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>[<a href="./images/114.png">114</a>]</span>
+gold, white shawls over head and forehead, a yellow sash-end
+edged with red appearing behind, and completing
+their mourning. Some of the shawls are family heirlooms,
+and only parted with for five-pound notes.</p>
+
+<p>Loud checks and gaudy colours adorn the Rahels,
+Donahs, Zulicas, and Miriams not in mourning, as well
+as the white shawls; and the procession troops to the
+cemetery, sallow, sad-eyed daughters of Jacob, talking a
+mixture of Arabic and Spanish, with a few English and
+Shillah words thrown in.</p>
+
+<p>Of all life's unfortunates, the Jew in Morocco was once,
+next to the negro in the West Indies, the most persecuted
+and degraded of God's creatures.</p>
+
+<p>In Tangier and the seaport towns, where the Christian
+representatives countenance and support him, the Jew,
+subject to certain restrictions, is in the present day a
+flourishing member of the community; but in the interior
+his fate is still a hard one.</p>
+
+<p>There is a Jewish tradition that when Shalmaneser,
+King of Assyria, conquered the Israelites, the tribe of
+Naphthali took refuge in the interior of Africa, and spread
+to Morocco. Jewish tombstones are certainly to be
+found dating as far back as twelve hundred years, and
+one synagogue possesses fragments of the Old Testament
+written on parchment, while there is a population of
+from four to five thousand Jews in the Atlas Mountains
+who have lived there since time immemorial.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the wandering Jew merely drifted into Morocco
+just as he drifts all over the universe, and he would
+have taken refuge in North Africa more particularly
+when Spanish persecution became intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>Once in Morocco, the Moors permitted the Jews to
+remain because they were useful to them; but upon
+certain conditions. They are confined to a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>[<a href="./images/115.png">115</a>]</span>
+quarter of the city&mdash;the Jews' Quarter, the Ghetto in
+fact&mdash;which is shut and locked by a gate at sunset, barring
+them from the outer world. In their own quarter they
+may do as they like, except ride a horse; the horse
+is considered too noble an animal to be ridden by the
+Jew: outside they may not ride at all, not even a mule,
+but are obliged to trudge barefoot through the slush of
+the rest of the city, summer and winter. They are compelled
+to wear one costume&mdash;a long black gabardine and
+a black skull-cap. Few Jewesses care to leave their
+quarters by themselves, for fear of insult. No synagogues
+or public places of worship are allowed them, and they
+must address Moors as <i>Sidi</i>, or "My lord."</p>
+
+<p>But these customs are fast dying out. There is one
+which universally obtains: the Jews' Quarter is known
+as the <i>Mellah</i>; Mellah means "salt" in Arabic,&mdash;the Jews
+are compelled to salt the heads of conquered tribes
+killed in battle, and of criminals, which are afterwards
+nailed on the city walls as trophies and warnings.</p>
+
+<p>In Tetuan the Jews are influential and well treated:
+many of them wear European clothes. On Saturday&mdash;the
+Jewish Sabbath&mdash;a young masher (a Mordejai, or
+Baruch, or Isaac) would boast a pair of brand-new yellow
+shoes and white socks, but wear at the same time a
+dove-coloured gabardine down to his heels and a mauve
+sash round his waist. Claret-coloured gabardines were
+fashionable, and a black skull-cap inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>Though Tetuan was lax and liberal in its treatment
+of the Israelites, wealthy families of whom it possessed,
+the Mellah was at once the noisiest and filthiest quarter
+of the city, teeming with children (unlike the Moorish
+quarters, where there are few), who played and fought,
+laughed and cried, by fifties down the three principal
+arteries of the quarter, whose few feet of walking-space<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>[<a href="./images/116.png">116</a>]</span>
+were lined with small and dirty greengrocers' and butchers'
+shops, their stock-in-trade encrusted with flies. On hot days
+the Mellah stank; on wet it was deep in black slime.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time it ran close to the Jama-el-Kebeer;
+and when a hundred years ago the Sultan who had built
+the big mosque sent his envoy to examine it, all was
+approved of except the proximity of the Jews' Quarter.
+"Can a mosque be admired near Jews?" was speedily
+answered by the Tetuanites, who turned the Israelites
+neck and crop out of house and home, giving them
+another piece of ground walled in and sufficiently removed.</p>
+
+<p>The sons of Abraham are only tolerated all the world
+over. As a nation, Moors loathe them. To a pig, which
+they count "unclean," they give the epithet of <i>jew</i>:
+out pig-sticking, when the pig breaks, the beaters shout,
+"The jew! the jew!" To begin with, having forced his
+presence on an unwilling people, the Jew retains his own
+exclusiveness, neither marries a Moor nor eats with a
+Moor, nor treats him as anything else except unclean.
+Not only this, but by unscrupulous cunning Jews contrive
+to exercise a maddening oppression over a people
+with whom they have chosen to cast in their lot, swindling,
+extorting money, and playing a hundred low tricks upon
+the very race on the produce of whose labour they live:
+at the same time their exasperating patience and cringing
+humility, court contempt and insult.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-17.png"><img src="./images/ill-17_th.png" alt="A STREET IN THE JEWS' QUARTER, TETUAN." title="A STREET IN THE JEWS' QUARTER, TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Street in the Jews' Quarter, Tetuan.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>The poorest Moor in Tetuan is a gentleman: the
+richest Jew is not. But he has his good points: a
+great sense of brotherhood, a strong bond of freemasonry
+among the Jewish nation, undaunted energy, and an unshaken
+faith in their religion are all admirable points in
+themselves. Energy in Tetuan was concentrated in the
+Mellah. The best workmen were all Jews. A hundred
+things were sold by them which no Moor made.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>[<a href="./images/117.png">117</a>]</span>
+Thus in their Ghetto live the Chosen People, the
+Separate People, of strange and ancient customs,&mdash;leaving
+the hair uncut for a year after a relative's death, sitting
+on the floor, and not on a chair, for a week after; twisting
+a pocket-handkerchief round the waist on the Sabbath
+in order to save "the work" of carrying it; slitting the
+button-hole of the waistcoat in time of distress instead
+of "rending the garment"; eating <i>adafina</i> on the Sabbath,
+an indigestible dish of hard-boiled eggs, meat, and potatoes
+prepared overnight and left on the fire till next morning.</p>
+
+<p>There is no end to ceremonials throughout a Jew's
+life: the first at his circumcision, the next when his
+hair is cut for the first time, the next when he goes to
+the synagogue for the first time, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>When a Jew was buried in Tetuan, the uncoffined
+body, wrapped in sheets on a wooden bier, might only
+be borne out of the city by the <i>B&aacute;b-el-Je'f</i>, literally the
+Gate of the Unclean Dead&mdash;that is, the Jews' Gate.</p>
+
+<p>The mourners howled and the male relatives cried
+aloud; friends followed, talking and smoking cigarettes.
+It happened sometimes that the grave was not ready when
+the cort&egrave;ge reached the cemetery, and that the party
+would sit down on the hillside while it was lengthened
+and deepened; from time to time the body would be
+measured with a walking-stick, and the result compared
+with the grave.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to write about the Jews and omit one
+certain point. Before the traveller has lived a week
+in Morocco he begins to hear of <i>protection</i>, and he
+carries with him vague words&mdash;"protected Jews" and
+"protected Moors"&mdash;which one sentence can explain.
+<i>Protection</i> means that a European living in Morocco, a
+Portuguese, a Frenchman, an Englishman&mdash;it matters
+not&mdash;has it in his power to make the Jew or the Moor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>[<a href="./images/118.png">118</a>]</span>
+desiring protection a nominal citizen of that country,
+Portugal or France or what not, and can allow him
+the rights of a citizen and the protection of the same;
+while it follows that the Sultan and the Moorish Government
+have no more power to touch him than they have
+to touch a French or an English subject, the protected
+Jew or Moor being outside their jurisdiction, and only
+answerable to the consul of that country which has given
+him protection, whether Germany, France, or any other.
+The advantage of protection is to guarantee thereby
+the safety of property. It was instituted a hundred
+years and more ago, to obviate the difficulties and
+dangers incurred by Europeans in trading with Jews
+and Moors in a country so badly governed as Morocco.
+Supposing that a European went into partnership and
+traded with a Jew or a Moor who was unprotected, in
+course of time, when the Jew or Moor became rich,
+the Moorish Government would hear of it, and set to
+work systematically to bleed him. Naturally the European
+partner would lose money in the general robbery. Therefore
+<i>protection</i>.</p>
+
+<p>There is scarcely a Jew of property in Morocco who
+is not protected, and there are hundreds and hundreds
+of protected Moors; but though many Moors have enjoyed
+security for themselves and their belongings by this
+means, others less fortunate, more especially some years
+ago, have only escaped the talons of Moorish despotism
+to fall into the clutches of European swindlers, adventurers
+who have dared&mdash;themselves somewhat beyond the
+reach of their own home government&mdash;to fleece the
+unsuspecting Mohammedan, bribing some basha to imprison
+him for the rest of his days.</p>
+
+<p>A European consul has before now "sold" his Moorish
+protected partner&mdash;that is, he tells him that, if he does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[<a href="./images/119.png">119</a>]</span>
+not produce so much money within a certain time, protection
+will be withdrawn. The wiser course for the
+Moor is to pay the sum. If protection is withdrawn,
+the Moorish Government and the European blackleg will
+divide his worldly goods between them.</p>
+
+<p>Such risks are minimized every year, and protection
+is greatly sought after by Moors and Jews. From the
+French they get it easily enough. The system is a bad
+one: that it prevails at all is a proof of the corruption of
+the Moorish Government.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>[<a href="./images/120.png">120</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[<a href="./images/121.png">121</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">Plans for Christmas at Gibraltar&mdash;A Rough Night&mdash;The Steamer which would not Wait&mdash;An Ignominious Return to Tetuan&mdash;A Rascally Jew&mdash;The Aborigines and the Present Occupants of Morocco&mdash;The Sultan, Court, Government, and Moorish Army.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>[<a href="./images/122.png">122</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>[<a href="./images/123.png">123</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER V</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Why curse? <i>Mektub.</i> (It is written.)</p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> spite of the attentions of Amanda, as December drew
+on and the weather showed no signs of clearing, we
+began to hanker after a week at Gibraltar, which should
+combine Christmas and the purchase of camp outfit for
+use when the rains passed over. It was not difficult to
+tear ourselves away from the fonda; for it became less
+easy to tolerate the proximity of the old Spanish band-master,
+with his bad tobacco and long-winded stories;
+nor were our landlady and family over-refined. We
+had not come to Morocco to live amongst the scum of
+Spain: could Tetuan be swept clean of the Spanish
+element, it were better for it. In fine, amusing and even
+interesting though our quarters had been for the time,
+circumstances pointed towards a move into others, the
+interval being spent in a run across to Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>The steamers which call at Martine, down on the seashore,
+and bring goods to be carted up to Tetuan, six
+miles inland, are as mysterious as they are rare. One is
+supposed to call on alternate Tuesdays, weather permitting;
+another occasionally calls in the intervening weeks; none
+come direct from Gibraltar, though all are supposed to
+go straight back there after touching at Ceuta. But there
+are many buts. Worst of all, the river at Martine has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>[<a href="./images/124.png">124</a>]</span>
+formed a bar, and Martine is a "bar port": this prevents
+landing in a strong wind.</p>
+
+<p>We pinned our faith upon the Tuesday boat, not
+realizing its uncertainty; for if the boat had not enough
+cargo on board to make it worth while her calling, or if
+she had too much and time was short, or if the weather
+was bad, she had no hesitation in missing Martine and
+Tetuan out of that fortnight's round altogether.</p>
+
+<p>We did not want to ride forty-four miles to Tangier
+with the "roads" in the state they were, even if it had
+been practicable; nor almost as far and a worse track
+to Ceuta: either would have meant sleeping a night in
+the fond&acirc;k up in the hills, or in a Spanish lodging-house
+of doubtful repute: therefore we planned to go by boat
+from Martine, engaged rooms for a week in Gibraltar
+beforehand, and, with the optimism born of ignorance,
+doubted not but that we should get away on the steamer.</p>
+
+<p>Packing up overnight and breakfasting at eight, we
+were soon ready to mount our mules and ride down
+to the shore to catch our boat. It was a matter of two
+and a half hours from Tetuan down to Martine: the
+track need not be described&mdash;this speaks for itself. Our
+luggage, tied with complicated rope-knots, was judiciously
+balanced upon one mule, and we had said good-bye to
+Amanda and family when a message arrived from the
+steamships agency to say that the steamer was not in.</p>
+
+<p>After taking counsel, however, the luggage was dispatched
+down to Martine; a muleteer badly marked with
+small-pox climbed on the top of our worldly goods, and
+the mule jogged off: we would follow when the steamer
+was sighted.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-18.png"><img src="./images/ill-18_th.png" alt="REFUSE GOING OUT OF TETUAN." title="REFUSE GOING OUT OF TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Refuse Going Out of Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>Walking into the feddan in search of information
+about her, every Moor or Jew only replied with shrugged
+shoulders and extended palms. Who could tell? She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>[<a href="./images/125.png">125</a>]</span>
+might come in at eleven, she might not. "Ift shallah"
+(Allah will show). As she had two hundred and forty
+tons of cargo to unload, the agents thought she might
+stay till the following day before starting for Gibraltar:
+on the other hand, the previous night had been a rough
+one, and it was quite possible she had passed Martine
+altogether, and did not intend to call for another fortnight.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sunny morning: there was nothing to be said
+but "Mektub" (It is written), and nothing to be done
+except sit in the sun and await events, after the fashion
+of the brown figures in jellabs also sitting in the sun
+against the south wall of the feddan where it is highest
+and nearly always dusty.</p>
+
+<p>Wandering up and down, Spaniards were to be seen
+in one caf&eacute; shuffling filthy cards and drinking spirits,
+while in another, behind a great vine which held in its
+arms a rustic trellis porch and seats, Moors lay on their
+elbows, tumblers of tea swimming in mint in front of
+them and long kif-pipes. A Riffi sat on a stool in the
+sun, leaning against the vine, nursing his gun; his single
+long black lock fell down by his ear, glossy and tied in
+a knot at the end. Next door a gunsmith was at work
+in his little shop sand-papering a gun-stock: a sheep
+was penned inside against the Great Feast, and more
+sheep in the grocer's beyond. On the opposite side of
+the great square a Jew was selling enamel ware to one
+of the five lady missionaries. Then meat came hurrying
+by, just killed outside the Mulberry Gate and still warm.
+Red-and-white shapeless carcases were balanced on a
+donkey's back, kept steady by a sanguinary Moor who
+sloped along behind: the donkey knew its own way well,
+across the wide feddan, down a narrow street, and into
+the meat market. Thither hurried the lady missionary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>[<a href="./images/126.png">126</a>]</span>
+to buy a joint. If cooked before it has time to get cold
+the meat is tender, otherwise it must be hung.</p>
+
+<p>It did not seem long before the bell on the top of the
+Spanish Consulate rang out twelve o'clock. There was
+no sign of any steamer&mdash;the steamships agent had given
+her up; and not wishing our luggage to lie on the beach
+all night&mdash;for gumption was not one of the characteristics
+written on our pock-marked boy's face&mdash;we sent a
+messenger off on the two hours and a half ride down
+to Martine to summon him back.</p>
+
+<p>About one o'clock, just as we were sitting down to
+lunch in Mr. Bewicke's room, the news arrived that the
+steamer was signalled. All doubt was at an end: we
+lunched complacently, allowed time for coffee and a
+button-hole out of the garden, mounted the mules,
+Mr. Bewicke his white pony; the gardener, Madunnah,
+following behind on foot, carrying our sticks and
+umbrellas, which burden was increased half-way through
+the city by a bracket, but lately coloured in garish
+tones, vermilion prevailing&mdash;it bled somewhat, but was
+to serve as a Christmas present at Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>Over the cobbles, under the Gate of Wisdom, out on
+to the sandy track, and along the sea road we rode, the
+mules refusing at first to pass some sacks of grain which
+lay in the middle of the path waiting to go down to the
+beach. There is a gate tax on every loaded animal
+which passes under the Gate of Wisdom, to avoid which
+the sacks are carried just out of the city on men's backs,
+set down, and picked up in time by mules.</p>
+
+<p>The first mile or so was not worse going than usual.
+Coming from the right by a trail which led across the
+river, a string of women bore towards us, bringing wood
+into the city from villages miles away&mdash;scrub off the
+mountain-side. Their rough heads were bound round<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>[<a href="./images/127.png">127</a>]</span>
+with weather-stained coloured handkerchiefs: listless eyes
+looked straight out from under lined foreheads. On each
+side of their doubled-up backs protruded rough wood-ends&mdash;these
+kept in place by a rope over the shoulder, grasped
+in knotted hands above copper-coloured muscular arms.
+The bit of towelling round the loins, brushed by the
+wind, left bare a species of knees and legs, carved by
+two thousand years of toil into humanized Norman piers,
+buttressed with muscle, in which ankles have no lot
+nor part, which have carried and still carry unreasonable
+loads from childhood to the grave. These women
+walked in single file, as do the mules and donkeys. And
+this is partly due to the space which the wide bundles
+take up on each side, partly to bad paths, and partly
+to entire lack of initiative. Why should they strike out
+a line of their own, these "cattle" and "beasts of burden,"
+as they call themselves? The old way comes easier.</p>
+
+<p>Thus life has moved across Morocco, without deviation,
+down immeasurable years, and moves so to-day, along
+innumerable trails worn afresh by bare feet after every
+rain-storm, footprint into footprint, padded hard and
+smooth, narrow and polished.</p>
+
+<p>The flats, after so much wet weather, were under
+water, and the lower down the road dropped, the deeper
+the country grew. Our mules struggled along at a slow
+walk, and we constantly diverged off the track, circling
+to this side or the other whenever a field looked
+an improvement upon our muddy quagmire, generally
+to find that it was very little better and sometimes
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>About half-way we met our luggage and messenger.
+The pock-marked boy had taken our effects to the shore,
+had found no steamer, waited a short time, then calculated
+that he would be late getting back to the city, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>[<a href="./images/128.png">128</a>]</span>
+ran risks of robbers, to say nothing of <i>ginns</i> (spirits)
+lurking in the wells by the road, so turned his face
+homewards.</p>
+
+<p>We were in total ignorance, and so of course was he,
+all this time as to the movements of the steamer: once
+out of the city, the level of the road is such that nothing
+can be seen of the sea until a couple of hours' riding,
+lands people right on the beach itself. With every hope
+that she still lay at anchor, we turned our "pock-mark"
+round, and the poor mule faced the bad road down to
+Martine for the second time that day.</p>
+
+<p>Madunnah handed over the bracket to crown our
+baggage, and plodded bravely on, often well up to his
+bare knees in mud and water. A brace of duck forged
+across the sky above our heads; some plover called and
+called again mournfully, wheeling above the irresponsive
+marshes and brown fallows; a string of mules moved
+like mites over a cheese in the sandy distance. We
+passed the Wad-el-Martine in heavy flood, its yellow
+yeasty depths swirling between the soft red banks.</p>
+
+<p>At last a couple of stone bridges came into sight,
+isolated in a waste of water, remnants of the old
+Portuguese road, and in normal times affording a dry
+path over two dykes. We plunged through unseen holes
+and among stony pitfalls up to the lonely landmarks
+and dry ground for a few yards; then more floods; but
+after that the last mile or two became easy enough, the
+land rose, and dry sandy dunes, with tough bents flattened
+in the wind, conduced towards a jog, almost a canter.
+Goats, picking up a bare living, scattered as we hurried
+along, past the white Customs House and an old wharf
+on the river, away to the beach. Behind us the mountains
+were black and purple, heavy rain-clouds were
+gathering, and directly we topped the crest of the sandy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>[<a href="./images/129.png">129</a>]</span>
+shore a strong east wind met us full in the teeth straight
+off the sea. But there as large as life lay the steamer,
+a long way out, on account of the bar and the wind,
+with a choppy sea running between.</p>
+
+<p>A cargo-boat was vainly trying to cross the bar, towed
+by a long green boat which six Moors were rowing.
+She made no headway, shipped water which deluged
+the cargo, and seemed half aground on the bar. No
+other boat or boatmen seemed to be available: the
+steamer was not within hail. Certainly there were three
+more cargo-boats lying in shelter in a corner of the
+river-estuary a little way off the land, but some men
+in one of them seemed half asleep&mdash;at any rate, they
+were out of our reach, and deaf to our shouts and
+gesticulations to the effect that we wanted to be rowed
+on board the steamer.</p>
+
+<p>We waited and waited; Madunnah yelled himself hoarse;
+but the cargo-boat still rolled on the bar, lashed by the
+waves, and the men still strained at their oars and paid
+no heed to our cries. Twice we thought they meant
+coming to our signals, but each time they were only
+trying fresh man&oelig;uvres.</p>
+
+<p>Rain came on, a sharp easterly scud; the pock-marked
+boy drew his jellab over his head; the mules turned their
+backs to the squall; but Madunnah still stood at the
+edge of the waves, gesticulating wildly with our sticks
+and umbrellas at the impassive rowers. Sunset was
+upon us. At a fire of driftwood on the beach a short
+distance off R. and I tried to warm ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the long green boat left the cargo and pulled
+towards us: the sea was rising, and looked anything but
+encouraging; breakers were showing their white teeth
+on the bar; but the green boat drew nearer and came in
+at last, or nearly so&mdash;for she stopped short off the shore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>[<a href="./images/130.png">130</a>]</span>
+and, half aground, lost her rudder. Still none of the crew
+paid the faintest attention as we hailed them in Arabic,
+English, and Spanish across the few yards of water which
+put them just out of our reach. They had something
+else to do except attend to three mad Britishers&mdash;let
+them rave.</p>
+
+<p>The cargo-boat, deserted by the long green boat, had
+stuck worse than ever: darkness was coming on, and she
+was in a bad case. The men in the "long green"
+roused the half-sleeping Moors in the companion boat,
+and it was evident that both meant going out together
+to tow the belated cargo in.</p>
+
+<p>Our voices carried less as the wind rose, and it was
+evident even to Madunnah that words were wasted. The
+rain drove in torrents; it was bitterly cold, and growing
+darker every moment; as the two boats turned their heads
+towards the wave-swept cargo we realized that it was
+night, that all chance of getting on board was at an
+end for that day at least, and we set our backs to
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>There still remained one alternative and a last chance
+of getting to Gibraltar for Christmas Day: the steamer
+might not leave till the following morning, and, taking
+shelter for the night in the Customs House on the beach,
+we ought to be able to get on board at daybreak. We
+turned off to the left through blinding gushes of rain,
+and headed for this refuge.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-19.png"><img src="./images/ill-19_th.png" alt="A MOORISH PRISON GATE." title="A MOORISH PRISON GATE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Moorish Prison Gate.</p>
+
+<p>The Customs House was much like a caravanserai:
+an open space in the middle was enclosed by sheds for
+mules and asses; a rough stair led to the living-rooms,
+above the sheds, which opened on to a flat white roof.
+We stumbled up on to the roof; then in under a low doorway
+into a little wooden lean-to, where an old Jew caretaker
+was living. The rest of the place was given over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>[<a href="./images/131.png">131</a>]</span>
+to a family of Israelites, who had come down to "the
+seaside" from Tetuan for change of air.</p>
+
+<p>Much to our relief, the old Jew caretaker assured us that
+the steamer would be landing cargo till noon on the following
+day: he offered us everything he had in his power for
+that night, and promised to see us off in a boat the next
+day. Committing us to his care, Mr. Bewicke left us and
+rode back to Tetuan with the mules and Madunnah; our
+baggage was stowed away under shelter; and the old Jew,
+finding a light and improvising two seats out of boxes
+and matting, sat us down at his little table, with a bit
+of frayed linoleum on it and a glass.</p>
+
+<p>The roof leaked and the rain beat on to the linoleum,
+but we were in snug quarters after the beach, and our
+friendly host began boiling up a great black kettle in
+a tiny inner room, assisted by a Moor. He was very
+rheumatic, the old man, also very deaf, and Martine
+must have been a damp spot for him (the river and marshes
+close at hand, and east or west wind, both of them heavy
+with moisture&mdash;nothing would dry, hung out in the air at
+Tetuan); nor were his quarters rain-proof.</p>
+
+<p>He hobbled backwards and forwards, muffled up in a
+worn grey handkerchief, with a fortnight's white stubble
+on his chin, and an aged greenish overcoat down to his
+slippers.</p>
+
+<p>From the recesses of a bunk in the next shelter, where
+he slept, he produced some pink china cups; then returned
+with a plate of bread, hardened to the consistency of
+biscuit, and smelling strongly of aniseed. After that he
+made tea in a little brown earthenware teapot&mdash;sweet green
+tea with mint&mdash;and we soon thawed under a succession of
+cups. Still he stumbled about, hunting out of a cupboard
+a small basket of eggs, and in the next room a great
+stirring and beating-up followed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>[<a href="./images/132.png">132</a>]</span>
+By-and-by the Moor who had been assisting him
+appeared with an omelette; it was dark brown, mixed
+thick with aniseed, chopped ham, and parsley; nor was
+it easy to dispose of it.</p>
+
+<p>Our kind host ended up by pressing gin on us.</p>
+
+<p>Warmed and fed, but unfortunately unable to sustain
+a conversation with him either in Arabic or Spanish, and
+having exhausted the few words at our command, the next
+best thing was to make ourselves comfortable for the night.
+Lighting a candle, the old Jew paddled across the wet
+roof, and we followed him, dimly distinguishing beasts
+feeding in the stalls down below, to a small room on the
+far side, where some sort of preparation had been made
+for us: a rug was spread on the stone floor, and a bedstead
+had a blanket laid upon it, while our baggage was piled
+in a corner. Putting on overcoats and rugs, we sat down
+on one of our trunks&mdash;it is unwise to place confidence
+in unknown beds in Morocco; but when, driven by sheer
+weariness, we lay down as we were on the blanket, we
+slept unmolested.</p>
+
+<p>A Jew on the other side of a thin partition which did
+not reach the ceiling, snored heavily and awoke us at
+intervals. About six next morning, what sounded very
+like the steamer's whistle blew repeatedly, but we paid
+little attention to it, the old Jew and Mr. Bewicke having
+both assured us the boat would leave about twelve o'clock.
+Morning had dawned when we burst open the wooden
+shutters of a little window much swelled with damp, and
+looked out across the sand-dunes at the sea.</p>
+
+<p>There lay the black hull of the steamer at anchor: the
+wind of the night before had dropped; a flaring sunrise
+and stormy sky lowered behind the Riff Mountains, which
+were black.</p>
+
+<p>Dressing was short work. The Moor handed us in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>[<a href="./images/133.png">133</a>]</span>
+at the door a tin basin of water, and in a short time
+we were ready for the next move. At that point R.
+craned up to look out of the high window. When she
+spoke, I could hardly believe her words. . . . <i>The steamer
+had weighed anchor and was moving.</i></p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking it: the black hull had swung
+round, and was making for the open sea, with a flag
+of smoke trailing behind her; and away she went to
+Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>We rushed out upon the flat roof and up a rotten
+ladder minus three rungs&mdash;all unheeding&mdash;which gave
+access to the roof above our room, gaining nothing thereby
+except a panoramic view, with the departing boat in
+the middle distance. Already she stood well out to
+sea: the Customs House was a quarter of a mile from
+the beach: there was nothing to be done: to blame our
+kind old host would have been as ungrateful as it was
+useless, and regrets were equally unavailing. True it
+is that the wise man fends for himself and makes no
+arrangements second-hand in Morocco, where every one
+is <i>casual</i> and every plan is <i>casual</i>. Had we found out
+when the ship's papers were going on board, and arranged
+with the agent to call us and take us in his boat, we
+should have eaten plum pudding in Gibraltar. Apparently
+the steamer had been signalling for the last hour to
+the effect that she was going, that the weather was bad
+and the sea rough outside, and that she would not venture
+to stay and dispatch her cargo&mdash;none of which facts
+the deaf and decrepit old Jew had grasped. He hobbled
+out, and would hardly believe his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>We sat down to some weak green tea and the same
+dry aniseed-flavoured bread as the night before, and, thus
+fortified, reviewed our course of action, which had few complications,
+there being no other steamer before Christmas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>[<a href="./images/134.png">134</a>]</span>
+and the ride to Ceuta or Tangier barred by reason
+of the flooded streams and general state of the country.
+The "open road" pointed towards Tetuan and our old
+quarters in the Spanish fonda, of which we had taken
+only the day before such joyful leave. It was inevitable,
+that next move; and should be made quickly, to judge
+by the look of the weather&mdash;the clouds were growing
+lower and blacker every half-hour.</p>
+
+<p>Animals were a difficulty&mdash;our mules had gone back
+to the city the night before; but it would have been
+hard work wading across the flooded acres for seven
+miles; and there was our luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually we raised a seedy little rat of a pony, which
+R. rode; a ragged donkey, on which half our goods
+was balanced; while the other half went on a mule, with
+me on the top of all. We turned our backs on the
+hospitable white Customs House and the ill-favoured sea
+with a muttered imprecation.</p>
+
+<p>In Tetuan a wealthy man was building a house. It
+was at a standstill for want of plaster. The plaster
+had already come in on the steamer <i>three</i> times, and
+three times she had gone away without unloading it.
+The boat we had lost had made a fourth endeavour, and
+we learnt afterwards that Mr. N&mdash;&mdash;'s ill-fated plaster
+had formed the cargo in the wave-washed boat of the
+evening before. Wet through, it set as hard as a stone
+in the sacks, and was useless: it lay like rocks on the
+beach. The bar at Martine has been tolerated for unknown
+ages: there is no reason to think that the Moor
+will rouse himself into making an effort and trying to
+facilitate the landing of passengers and cargo.</p>
+
+<p>We left upon our right as we rode along, some
+hundreds of yards from the sea, the remains of what
+years upon years ago was a fort, built somewhat as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>[<a href="./images/135.png">135</a>]</span>
+forts will be built in the near future&mdash;with a view to
+concealment. The outside wall facing the Mediterranean
+was crescent-shaped, and but four feet high at most, the
+sand sloping up nearly to the top, and overgrown with
+vegetation, so that little or no fort showed at all. There
+were a few loop-holes, through which men could shoot
+from the inside lying down; there was a well in the
+centre of the fort, and a small bomb-proof building, with
+an arched roof many feet thick, where powder had been
+kept. A primitive construction, this harmless-looking
+little crescent facing the sea&mdash;once upon a time bristling
+with dare-devil Moors and their long guns.</p>
+
+<p>Half-way to Tetuan we passed <i>the</i> cart, the first and
+last I saw in the place: its antediluvian body was set
+on two demented wheels, which rolled out of the upright
+like a tipsy sailor. The cart was Government property:
+five mules of different sizes, drew it up in a string from
+the sea to the city, through the quagmire, laden with
+flour and kerosene oil and stores of all descriptions,
+a couple of Moors toiling alongside.</p>
+
+<p>R.'s "rat" was not too surefooted, and some of the
+floods were deep: once it came on its nose, but a second
+time sat down in a hole in the middle of a sheet of
+water, leaving nothing for its rider but to slip off and
+wade out, walking afterwards wherever the track allowed,
+to raise a little circulation underneath drenched clothes.
+A certain melancholy possessed the flats as well as our
+vexed selves that stormy and ill-fortuned morning. In
+places the tops of the grass-blades alone showed in a
+green watery waste, except where tall dark rushes made
+a heavier mass, or where the tufts of red-brown tangle lay
+in warm lines. The sea behind us was an angry purple; the
+Riff Mountains were steel-blue; the nearer hills now black,
+now gold in fitful sun-gleams, now crossed by a rainbow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>[<a href="./images/136.png">136</a>]</span>
+Only in the north there was a great break, and a light
+like brass, behind Ape's Hill. Tradition has it that a
+subterranean passage leads thence underneath the Straits
+to the Rock of Gibraltar, and is used by the monkeys as
+a means of transit from Africa to Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Our miserable beasts were several hours toiling up to
+Tetuan: the rain came on, and with the wind straight
+off the snows it was as cold a ride as I remember.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we went to the French Steamship
+Company's office for the purpose of recovering our passage
+money from the agent, who had insisted upon our buying
+tickets beforehand. This fat, greasy Tangier Jew, of no
+chin, and flabby, suet-pudding face, flatly refused in plausible
+French to return us our cash, gesticulating, contradicting
+himself, pretending to misunderstand us, all in the same
+breath, and needing nothing so much as a good kicking.
+Since the money would only go into his own pocket,
+we fought the point, and, after being most insolent, he
+was obliged to promise that if the French Consular
+Agent in Tetuan judged it right, he would hand over the
+money.</p>
+
+<p>To the French Consular Agent we went: a Moor,
+whose office was in the French Post Office&mdash;a solemn,
+dignified man in a flowing blue jellab, over the same in
+white, both hoods drawn up over his head, showing a
+long olive face of the true Arab type, black eyes, black
+beard and moustache. He wore white socks and yellow
+slippers&mdash;a most courteous individual. On hearing our
+case, he simply sent for the Steamships Company Agent,
+and told him to hand over the money. We sat and
+waited with Mr. Bewicke, who was interpreting for us.
+Presently a step, and, much out of breath, the plausible
+Jew himself arrived, in a long great coat and billy-cock.
+He took a seat, and stated his case in Arabic to the French<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>[<a href="./images/137.png">137</a>]</span>
+Consular Agent. There could have been no greater contrast
+than between the vulgar excited Israelite and the
+stately Mohammedan. The Moor sat with folded arms:
+occasionally he raised one hand to emphasize a quiet
+monosyllable. But alas for the steadfastness of his race!
+Perhaps he disliked being mixed up in the matter. At
+any rate, having said that the money was to be refunded,
+he allowed the Jew to argue the point, and, we gathered,
+was telling him finally that the whole question had better
+be referred to the company itself&mdash;a dim and visionary
+Steamships Company on the other side of the Mediterranean:
+it augured badly for us.</p>
+
+<p>But at this point R. spoke in French, and reminded
+the Jew that he had promised to refund the money if
+the French Consul so judged, that the Consul had given
+judgment, and that if the Jew still refused he was no
+longer a man of his word. Strange to say, this quickened
+a dormant conscience underneath all the dishonesty, or
+it pricked the Jew's pride; at any rate, after a torrent of
+protestations, from his tight waistcoat-pocket he produced
+a pile of dollars, and handed them over to us. The money
+had taken an hour to draw: as far as actual value went
+it was not worth it.</p>
+
+<p>The French Consular Agent, the dignified Moor, had to
+all intents and purposes failed us at the critical moment,
+since he would not exert his lawful authority over a
+French-protected Jew. But a Moor's faults may be
+summed up in one word&mdash;<i>weak</i>. As in the above
+instance, refusing to face circumstances or to follow one
+definite line of action to the end, he invariably acts on
+the principle of "going roundabout." In the course of
+time evasion has come to appear to him the best line to
+pursue, and he has sunk like a stone into a slough of
+compromise, a tarn of apathy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>[<a href="./images/138.png">138</a>]</span>
+Such weakness, incompatible with Moorish fanaticism
+and courage, is due probably to tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>Living under a tyrannical government and religion, both
+of which, welded together, form the one dominant factor
+of his life, the Moor is afraid of each, and stands in
+dread of the ruin it is in their power to work in his life.
+Not only this, but he lives in fear of his countrymen and
+their long guns, of his wives and their poisons, of evil
+spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Morocco, as has been said, accepted Mohammedanism
+of necessity, not from choice, at the hands of the conquering
+Arabs, and it is accepted to-day, as the corrupt
+Government is accepted, with a shrug of the shoulders
+and "What God wills cannot but be." Weakened by
+blind submission, and at the same time holding nothing
+for which they have fought or wrought&mdash;no truths made
+adamant in the furnace of persecution, no Magna Charta
+won on the sword-point of patriotism, all of which are
+so much tonic and discipline to a nation, breeding grit,
+developing backbone&mdash;the Moorish people are paralyzed
+by a despotism which allows no originality of thought
+and action; they are no longer capable of "running
+straight," but, suave and polite to a fault, lack that species
+of courage which conduces towards plain-speaking.</p>
+
+<p>After all, who and what are to blame except the people
+themselves? One writer curses the religion, another
+curses the Government. <i>Cui bono?</i> Climate and the
+fertility of soil may have influenced the races called
+Moorish, but the Moor himself is alone responsible for
+his Government and his religion.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-20.png"><img src="./images/ill-20_th.png" alt="A Peep of Tetuan" title="A Peep of Tetuan" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="sc">A Peep of Tetuan.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>Historians from time to time have had something to
+say about these tribes, and tradition boasts a legion tales
+respecting them; but the most able writer upon Morocco in
+old times was Leo Africanus, a Moor himself, who, when all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>[<a href="./images/139.png">139</a>]</span>
+his countrymen were expelled from Spain in 1492, fled
+to Fez.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-five years later he was captured by Christian
+pirates and taken to Rome. He became a Christian, and
+he published his great and reliable history about the time
+that Henry VIII. was successful in Flanders and Scotland,
+when Wolsey obtained a cardinal's hat, and Catherine
+of Arragon had not been ousted by Anne Boleyn.</p>
+
+<p>The aborigines of Morocco were without doubt Berbers,
+and to-day Berbers occupy four-fifths of the country, in
+spite of the invasions of other nations. First on the list
+of the invaders came the Ph&oelig;nicians, the earliest civilizing
+agency. The Romans followed eighty years after C&aelig;sar
+had landed in Britain, and annexed Morocco, Christianizing
+its people. Next to invade the country were the Vandals,
+who turned out the Romans, remained among the Berbers
+for over a hundred years, leaving red hair and blue eyes
+behind them. Then six hundred and ninety-eight years
+after the birth of Christ the deluge of Mohammedan
+conquest burst over Morocco, and hordes of Arabs, burning
+with a fanatical missionary spirit, swept over the
+land. At the end of eleven years the resistance of the
+Berbers was overcome, and they adopted Mohammedanism
+as lightly as they had adopted Christianity under the
+Roman rule.</p>
+
+<p>About two years afterwards a body of them crossed
+over into Spain under the one-eyed chieftain Tarik, and
+laid the foundation of the Moorish supremacy in Europe.
+Thither this band of pioneer Berbers was followed by
+the Arabs: the two races mingled and built up together
+an empire in Spain said to surpass all its contemporaries
+in learning and refinement. The Spanish named them
+indiscriminately <i>Mauros</i>, and <i>Moors</i> they have been ever
+since; but the name Moor can be traced back as far as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>[<a href="./images/140.png">140</a>]</span>
+23 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, when Pliny and Strabo speak of the <i>Maurusii</i>
+and <i>Mauri</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A reflection of their empire's greatness shone even in
+Morocco itself: libraries and universities were founded
+in Fez and Morocco City. But at the same time the
+benighted country knew no settled peace; it was torn
+with civil war between the Arab and Berber tribes, until
+the Berbers finally mastered the Arabs, and forced them
+to confine themselves to certain districts.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in Spain the Moorish Empire, which for
+seven hundred years had remained firmly established,
+keeping alive Greek philosophy, building the Alhambra
+and making an indelible impression upon the Spanish
+nation, crumbled and fell, or, more properly speaking,
+was expelled from Spain after a year of bitter persecution.
+Thousands of Moorish refugees flocked back across the
+Straits to the land of their progenitors, and settled in
+Tetuan, Tangier, and the cities on the coast, buoyed up
+with the lingering hope of returning, when fickle Fortune
+smiled again, to the glories of their old houses in Granada,
+and to that land which had chosen to cast them out.</p>
+
+<p>As may be imagined, the government of Morocco soon
+fell into their more capable hands: they amalgamated
+more or less with the Arabs and Berbers&mdash;their own
+kith and kin&mdash;and the country became known to Europe
+as Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>In due time a certain Moor, a <i>Shar&#299;f</i>&mdash;that is, a direct
+descendant of the Prophet Mohammed&mdash;as head of the
+Mohammedan Church, gradually united under himself
+Arabs and Berbers alike, and was acknowledged as their
+Feudal Lord, Religious Chief, and Sultan. The present
+Sultan is of the same holy line: hence his title of
+<i>Shar&#299;fian Majesty</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A Berber and an Arab may easily be distinguished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>[<a href="./images/141.png">141</a>]</span>
+from each other. Berbers, taken as a whole, have square
+frames, high cheek-bones, small eyes, and are great
+walkers, not horsemen. The mountains are to them
+what the plains are to the Arabs, and they prefer an
+agricultural life to any other.</p>
+
+<p>Leo Africanus describes them, and his picture in all
+essentials holds good to-day: "They are strong, terrible,
+robust men, who fear neither cold nor snow; their dress
+a tunic of wool over bare flesh, and above the tunic a
+mantle, round their legs twisted thongs, never anything
+on the head. They rear sheep, mules, and asses; and
+they are the greatest thieves, traitors, and assassins in
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>From personal experience let this ryder be added:
+that they make good servants, faithful up to a certain
+point, to be trusted up to a certain point; but they are
+rascals.</p>
+
+<p>In Tetuan many more Berbers are to be met with
+than Arabs: the Riff tribe is Berber, and Tetuan is full
+of Riffis.</p>
+
+<p>Until the last thirty years the Berbers owned only
+a nominal allegiance to the Sultan; to-day he could
+pass through little of their territory without an army at
+his back, and into the Riff country he has never been
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Berbers there is plenty of throat-cutting
+as a legal punishment, and murder on the score of
+private vengeance, while Government oppression is rampant.
+As for travellers journeying across their country,
+only certain "roads" are "open" and safe: a Christian,
+with proper precaution, is seldom attacked on the way
+to Fez or Morocco City&mdash;a Jew occasionally. Off the
+beaten track and anywhere in the Riff country his life
+would not be worth a <i>flus</i> (small copper coin).</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>[<a href="./images/142.png">142</a>]</span>
+The Arabs have given the Berbers a name of their
+own&mdash;<i>Shillah</i>, which means "Outcast," referring back
+to the days when they drove them out of the plains
+up into the mountains; and it has stuck to them ever
+since.</p>
+
+<p>Travellers descant upon <i>the noble Shillah race</i>. The
+dialect which they speak is called Shillah: the Riffis
+at Tetuan spoke Shillah among themselves, but soon
+picked up Arabic of a sort, and a little Spanish.</p>
+
+<p>The Arab differs in every respect from the Berber.
+One of the finest types among mankind, he has a tall,
+spare frame, aquiline nose, fine eyes. He is kind, hospitable,
+dignified, abstemious, a poet, a gentleman, and a
+horseman. He is capable of great things, and of all
+Orientals has most impressed himself upon the world.
+At the same time he is too often treacherous and blood-thirsty,
+inclined to be sensual and inquisitive.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps his faults have led to the extolling of the
+noble Shillah race at the Arab's expense. On this
+subject Mr. Cunninghame Graham writes, that certain
+travellers in Morocco must have "been humiliated at
+finding in the Arabs a finer type than their own, and
+have turned to the Shillah race with the relief that
+the earthen teapot must find when taken away from
+the drawing-room companionship of Dresden china and
+put back again on the kitchen dresser." For myself
+"earthen teapot" and "Dresden china" have both much
+fascination. I would trust either just as far as I could
+see him.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Morocco is populated by two antipathetic races,
+who neither singly nor jointly have or can consolidate
+it into a thriving empire. The Arab cared only to convert
+a conquered people to Mohammedanism and to push his
+individual fortune, heedless of assimilating individuals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>[<a href="./images/143.png">143</a>]</span>
+into one nation, as did the Romans. Great Arab chiefs
+there have been, but never a patriot. With the fatalistic
+spirit of the East, and a tendency to see life only from
+the personal standpoint, it followed that, when a holy
+war no longer fired the wandering and independent
+shepherds to fight and forced them to obey, they became
+"slack," remained stationary, or retrograded.</p>
+
+<p>The Arab would not advance civilization in Morocco,
+nor would the wild and lawless Berber; the Moorish
+refugees from Spain had sadly degenerated; to crown
+all, civil war led to the destruction of the libraries and
+universities in Fez and Morocco City, and education was
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>Ignorance begat worse government; decline and poverty
+followed one after the other. Corruption among the
+rulers spread downwards and ran through the country,
+until the whole body politic was unsound, and is so to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Though the name of the Sultan, as Head of the Church,
+is held in reverence, yet many of the tribes would resist
+to the uttermost any attempt on his part to subdue them
+by force of arms, so unsettled is his empire.</p>
+
+<p>He holds himself to be far superior to the Sultan of
+Turkey, who is not descended from the Prophet, but who,
+on the other hand, is the guardian of the sacred city of
+Mecca, and who possesses superior forces.</p>
+
+<p>Second in rank to the Sultan of Morocco follow his
+ministers&mdash;the Chief Minister, the Foreign Minister, the
+Chief Adviser, the Minister of the Interior, and the
+Minister of Finance. Their duties are to carry out
+the Sultan's wishes, and, receiving no pay, they look to
+enriching themselves at the expense of their respective
+billets.</p>
+
+<p>A body of secretaries come after the ministers, who
+write and dispatch the Sultan's decrees to distant cities,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>[<a href="./images/144.png">144</a>]</span>
+where their letters are read aloud in the mosques to the
+people by the governors. A special body of messengers
+is employed under the secretaries.</p>
+
+<p>Each district and city has its <i>kaid</i> or <i>basha</i> (its
+governor), whose duty is to read the Sultan's letter aloud
+and carry out his instructions, who oversees the city
+market, prices food, detects false weight, deals with robbers
+and murderers, and sees that the peace is kept.</p>
+
+<p>As well as basha every city has its <i>kadi</i>, or judge
+of civil law, who settles all questions of land, of grants,
+divorces, etc.</p>
+
+<p>We visited the Court of Civil Justice at Tetuan, a tiny
+room, carpeted with yellow matting, where the white-haired
+kadi, attired in white, sat like a magnificent white
+rabbit on a large red cushion on the floor, beside him
+a table six inches high, with learned-looking books, ink,
+parchment, and thin slips of wood for pens.</p>
+
+<p>Below the basha or kaid come <i>sheikhs</i> (village elders),
+who may be called gentlemen farmers. They collect
+the taxes directly from the country people. A province
+is taxed according to what it produces: no one pays the
+sum demanded of him, nor at the time it is demanded,
+but eventually every householder in the district is judiciously
+squeezed to the uttermost farthing, and half of
+what he pays goes into the sheikh's pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Morocco conceals its wealth in times of visitations such
+as these: money and corn alike are buried in the ground.
+Some of the people are imprisoned, some tortured, and
+eventually all disgorge, and are left with barely enough
+for their every-day wants.</p>
+
+<p>It is a system typical of the East and its slipshod,
+rough-and-ready dealings: its great element of simplicity
+harks back to a life in tents, where red tape was unknown.</p>
+
+<p>The highest officials are in the habit of transacting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>[<a href="./images/145.png">145</a>]</span>
+business at their street doors or in their stables: the
+basha invariably sits in some gateway near his house,
+hearing and judging matters which two or three
+gesticulating claimants explain to him. Private matters
+are public property: the man in the street chats with
+the Minister of Finance&mdash;for are not all men equal?
+The minister may have sold groceries at one time, before
+he was called upon to fill a position at Court. Who can
+tell what a day may not bring forth?</p>
+
+<p>The Sultan&mdash;who is known as "The Lofty Portal,
+the Exalted of God, the Noble Presence"&mdash;has a body
+of servants and retainers round him: first of all "The
+Learned Ones," men who advise him, but make a point
+of ascertaining his wishes before they give an opinion,
+and are of no use at all except in conducting negotiations;
+next the officer who carries the great pearl-and-gold-embroidered
+parasol over his head; next an officer
+who flicks away flies; then a master of ceremonies, a
+headsman, a flogger, a shooter, a water-bearer, a tent-layer,
+a tea-maker, a standard-bearer, and a "taster"
+to see that no poison is given.</p>
+
+<p>More closely connected than any of these with the
+Sultan is of course his harem, of both black and
+white women, who have been honoured by admission
+into the much-sought-after precincts. Some of them
+are Circassians, supplied by Constantinople: all are
+the best which money can buy, or ease and position
+tempt. When their numbers have been greatly swelled,
+certain of them are drafted on as presents to kaids
+and bashas.</p>
+
+<p>The offspring of the Sultan's numerous wives are
+brought up in isolated sanctuaries, each boy in company
+with a slave of his own age, whom he calls brother.
+Girls inherit no rank.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>[<a href="./images/146.png">146</a>]</span>
+One and all are married when they reach maturity,
+at a State function which takes place each year, the
+Sultan choosing their consorts. He gives his favourite
+son&mdash;whom he has named as his successor&mdash;a high
+command in the army or an important governorship:
+as long as the boy is too young for either, the Sultan
+associates him with himself in official receptions.</p>
+
+<p>All possible rivals to the Sultan are disposed of,
+chiefly by banishment.</p>
+
+<p>Guarding the intriguing and inflammable harem are
+eunuchs, imported at great expense from Abyssinia,
+and responsible for the Sultan's wives and concubines,
+whom "wise women" prepare to meet their lord. The
+late Sultan was in the habit of having his harem
+paraded in his garden on Thursdays, in order to select
+the most attractive, and spend Friday&mdash;the Mohammedan
+Sunday&mdash;in her company.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious fact that the Imperial Treasure, which
+is distributed between Fez, Morocco City, and Mequinez,
+of which no details are ever made public, can only
+be opened by agreement between the keeper, the
+governor of the palace, the trusted eunuch, and the
+head woman in charge of the harem. The secrets of
+its treasures are jealously guarded. It is probably
+impoverished.</p>
+
+<p>Every one who approaches the Court is expected to
+make the Sultan a present, and his collection of offerings
+would stock a museum.</p>
+
+<p>In the time of George I. we read of the Sultan's being
+sent "a rich crimson velvet sedan or chair for the favourite
+Sultana, and ten pounds of the finest tea at thirty shillings
+a pound." In the present day telephones, heliographs,
+gramophones, bicycles, motor-cars, guns, fireworks, and the
+latest inventions of all kinds find their way into Morocco.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>[<a href="./images/147.png">147</a>]</span>
+In return the staple Moorish offering has always been,
+and still is, Arab horses, with richly embroidered saddles
+and bridles.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to estimate the strength of the Moorish
+army. The only regulars are under European instruction,
+Sir Harry Maclean (known as Kaid Maclean) acting as
+commander-in-chief. Their pay is something like a penny
+half-penny a day for infantry, fourpence for cavalry, a
+shilling for commanding offices. The ranks consist of
+private, sergeant, captain, centurion, and colonel, each
+officer having a lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>Every Moor capable of bearing arms in Morocco is
+liable to be <i>pressed</i> for service.</p>
+
+<p>In May, when the country is dry, each basha or kaid
+is ordered to collect troops in his own district: then is
+Tetuan deserted, and every boy and young man absents
+himself. How the lady missionaries hid their house-boy!
+Tetuan sent off two hundred men, under a colonel, while
+we were there, which were to help punish certain rebellious
+tribes. Often these expeditions are for the purpose of
+raising taxes. In any case the tribes against which the
+Sultan's troops are sent are said to be "eaten up." Long
+before it happened it was known and talked of.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes; the Beni M`Saira would be eaten up in
+April."</p>
+
+<p>The Tetuan two hundred were sent to help eat up the
+Beni M`Saira tribe, some of whom had abducted two
+Spanish children a year ago. The children had driven
+their pigs on to land belonging to the tribe&mdash;a thing
+abhorred of by Mohammedans, to whom pigs are unclean.
+Expostulation was not heeded, and the Beni M`Saira
+resorted to strong measures, and kidnapped the children.
+They were sold from family to family beyond hope of
+recovery, and it would be hard to say what was their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>[<a href="./images/148.png">148</a>]</span>
+fate. Of course they were never seen again. Tales were
+circulated which said that the girl had been turned into
+a dancing-girl, and taught to dance upon hot ashes, or
+she may have become slave and concubine to some Moor.
+She was sixteen years old, and the lady missionaries at
+Tetuan knew her well, and her ten-year-old brother.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish Government had complained to the
+Sultan, and now a year after the offence the Beni
+M`Saira were to be eaten up; there was to be a general
+raid upon their country: men would be killed, women
+taken as slaves, villages burnt, and corn destroyed. The
+worst part of the whole business is the fate of the
+prisoners on these occasions. These unfortunate men,
+suffering scarcely for their own misdeeds, are sent in
+chains to far-distant city prisons, whence they seldom
+emerge alive.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel of the Tetuan contingent was an example
+of the rapid rises and the vicissitudes of life in Morocco.
+Only the other day he had been harbour-master down
+at Martine, but was accused of smuggling and turned
+out of that berth; he then took a caf&eacute; and sold drinks
+in Tetuan, when suddenly the Sultan's pleasure took
+the shape of making him a full-blown colonel in his
+troops. As in the days of Joseph, the chief butler is
+sent for out of prison and made much of: the baker
+is sent for and hanged.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-21.png"><img src="./images/ill-21_th.png" alt="A SAINT-HOUSE, TETUAN." title="A SAINT-HOUSE, TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Saint-House, Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>The lucky colonel and his two hundred left Tetuan
+in bad weather: their pay was such that many of them,
+before starting, sold the bullets supplied them, in order
+to buy food with the money, preferring to fight without
+ammunition rather than on empty stomachs; but only
+<i>one quarter</i> of them got as far as El K`sar&mdash;the rest
+deserted on the road, to escape hunger and exhaustion
+from rain and cold.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>[<a href="./images/149.png">149</a>]</span>
+The Oolad Moosa tribe were eaten up not long ago;
+their land was harried, their fruit-trees destroyed, and
+themselves killed, imprisoned, and enslaved. I was told
+by a Spaniard that he had seen five camel-loads of the
+heads of tribesmen brought into Larache while he was
+there. The Sultan offered three shillings per head. His
+soldiers sent up not a few heads which belonged to their
+own companions-in-arms. Consignments were sent off to
+various cities throughout Morocco, where the Jews, as
+usual, salted them, and they were set up over the gates
+and on the walls.</p>
+
+<p>There is little or no artillery in his Shar&#299;fian Majesty's
+army, though the few cannon he has, render him all-powerful
+against his rebellious tribesmen, who are only
+armed with rifles (principally French), which are smuggled
+into the country.</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers are supplied with the same rifles and European
+swords: the native curved dagger is also used.</p>
+
+<p>Pitched battles are seldom heard of. The troops entrench
+themselves strongly, gallop out in parties against
+the foe, fire a volley into his line, and gallop back again
+to reload. Pillage is the great element in this species
+of guerilla warfare.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with the army are the <i>Makhaznia</i>
+(mounted police): they are practically cavalry. A few
+were quartered in Tetuan, and the basha employed them
+to take men prisoners and preserve peace and take
+messages and so on. The Makhaznia are paid for whatever
+they do by any one who employs them, and they
+often act as soldier-escort to Europeans.</p>
+
+<p>The Government of Morocco has but one hinge&mdash;a
+golden one. Thirty thousand pounds was paid by the
+late governor of Morocco City for his billet, and a capable
+man would still make his fortune before he retired, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>[<a href="./images/150.png">150</a>]</span>
+means of bribes and presents from every one in connection
+with him, and a little undue pressure and taxation here
+and there. But no governor is exempt from that war-cry
+in Morocco, "Pay! pay! pay!" And if he or
+a basha wish for the Sultan's favour, which in order
+to remain in office is most desirable, he will forward a
+present regularly to Court, though at every feast he is
+obliged to send another in addition. When a Sultan
+imprisons a minister, he confiscates all his money.</p>
+
+<p>Bribes largely contribute towards filling the coffers of
+Government officials, from toadies down to unfortunate
+sufferers. A man has to buy himself out of prison: it
+costs a murderer about four pounds. Those who cannot
+afford to pay do not come out.</p>
+
+<p>Not long ago a poor man whom we knew was suddenly
+appointed to fill a lucrative post under Government. He
+dare not refuse it, but he was head over ears in debt,
+and of course a large sum of money was due in return
+for the appointment. He borrowed from the Jews and
+took up office. In one year he had paid all his debts,
+he had paid the Jews, and built himself a luxurious
+house. And who can wonder at it? Customs-house
+officers can all retire after <i>three years</i> (if they choose),
+and live well. It is calculated that the Government gets
+exactly half of the duties.</p>
+
+<p>Tetuan had a favourite tale of bribery. A man wanted
+to make sure of a case he was bringing before the basha.
+He knew that the basha had a weakness for mirrors.
+He was a poor man, but he bought the best looking-glass
+he could afford, and dispatched it. The case came on;
+the basha gave it against him.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried the poor, discomfited loser; "did you
+not receive the mirror?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the basha coolly; "but immediately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>[<a href="./images/151.png">151</a>]</span>
+afterwards a very fine mule came along, and <i>he kicked
+the looking-glass into a thousand fragments</i>."</p>
+
+<p>So when a man is disappointed of his due, they say,
+"The mule has kicked the glass."</p>
+
+<p>Another man had a brother in prison whom he wished
+to buy out: he took the basha a mule, and presented
+himself with his present.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall not bribe me," said the basha. "Soldier!
+put this man into prison with his brother, and put the
+mule into my stable."</p>
+
+<p>The man's family had a heavy bribe to raise.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>[<a href="./images/152.png">152</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>[<a href="./images/153.png">153</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">We Look Over a Moorish Courtyard House with a View to Taking It&mdash;We Rent Jinan Dolero in Spite of Opposition&mdash;An Englishman Murdered&mdash;Our Garden-House&mdash;The Idiosyncrasies of Moorish Servants&mdash;A Native Guard&mdash;The Riff Country.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>[<a href="./images/154.png">154</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>[<a href="./images/155.png">155</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER VI</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Ah! Moon of my delight, who know'st no wane</p>
+<p>The Moon of Heaven is rising once again:</p>
+<p>How oft hereafter rising shall she look</p>
+<p>Through this same garden after me&mdash;<i>in vain!</i></p>
+</div></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Christmas Day</span> in a Mohammedan city passed
+with nothing to mark it except deluges of rain.
+The fonda had not grown upon us; and when two
+Moorish houses in the city at last presented themselves,
+the result of weeks of inquiry, we decided to take one, if,
+as was apparently the case, a garden-house outside the
+city was not to be had for love or money. The Moors
+all told us it was impossible. The fact is, that they are
+chary of letting their houses to unbelievers: the thing
+is not encouraged in the land; indeed, they are liable to
+be imprisoned for doing so, unless they have "protection"
+from a foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>All sorts of complications have arisen out of permission
+granted to Europeans to settle in the country: it depends
+on the European; he does something foolish, and legal
+or social or religious difficulties arise, and a storm in a
+teacup may end in serious dispute and a heavy indemnity
+to pay. So, naturally enough, the Sultan's advisers
+are averse to extending the limits of property owned
+by Europeans, and the barriers which they put in the
+way, debar ordinary people from running up villas and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>[<a href="./images/156.png">156</a>]</span>
+committing outrages such as half the world endures in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>In Morocco it is necessary first of all to obtain the consent
+of the Government for the purchase of land. Interest
+can sometimes do it, and the pill must be heavily gilt.
+The next obstacle lies with Moorish jurisdiction, which,
+with forethought, sets forth that all disputes relating to
+property shall be referred to native courts and settled
+by Moorish law. This opens a door to barefaced bribery
+and intimidation: some one will be fleeced. Last of all,
+Moorish workmen building for an Englishman or any
+foreigner are liable to persecution and arrest. Thus foreign
+labour must be employed. And how is foreign labour to
+be had? A Jew or Spaniard may not be available. It
+is scarcely less difficult to rent a house in Morocco, unless
+it is in Tangier.</p>
+
+<p>Of the two which were thus unexpectedly offered us
+one was out of the question&mdash;it was damp; but the other,
+standing empty in a long narrow alley in the middle
+of the city, was as sound as houses built of rubbish and
+thin bricks can be, and we went to look over it, well
+prepared to ignore petty defects.</p>
+
+<p>It was entered, as usual, by a wide yellow door, studded
+with giant nails and a resounding knocker: a courtyard
+house&mdash;a most quaint and original construction in which
+to spend two or three months. From the ochre-coloured
+door we walked into a tiny tiled patio open to the sky,
+too small and insignificant for a fountain or an orange-tree: the
+kitchen and one other room where servants
+could sleep opened out of it, lighted only by their wide
+doors, which were never shut. So much for the ground
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>A tiny tiled staircase led to the first floor. Four narrow
+rooms, windowless, flanked the four sides of the square,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>[<a href="./images/157.png">157</a>]</span>
+and looked down into the little court below. Each room
+had double doors standing open for light and air. From
+the house-top above the first floor, on to which we went
+last, there was at least a view of a thousand flat white
+roofs, of pencil-shaped minarets, of turtle-backed mosques;
+but at the same time the sun itself could not be more
+dazzling to look at than was the impossible whitewash
+which besmeared all the roofs, and we soon left for our
+first floor, in whose four little dark rooms we proposed to
+live. Standing on the gallery which ran outside them,
+and leaning on the balustrade looking down into the
+minute patio, it was a case of the view below into that,
+and the view above up at the sky, and no more&mdash;a
+limited, and on wet days gloomy, prospect. Added to
+that, the orgies worked in the kitchen by a Moorish cook
+could not do other than proclaim themselves all over the
+first floor. True, the little patio embodied the Moorish
+conception of <i>al-fresco</i> seclusion, and a depth of shadow
+lay in the inner rooms within the thin shell of the white
+walls. And yet&mdash;and yet&mdash;the lines of old-fashioned
+Eliza Cook returned insistently, and refused to be
+silenced:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Double the labour of my task,</p>
+<p>Lessen my poor and scanty fare,</p>
+<p>But give, oh! give me what I ask&mdash;</p>
+<p>The sunlight and the mountain air.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And in the end the vote was given against the little
+windowless dwelling in the Moorish Quarter. No doubt a
+courtyard house is bizarre, but it has its imperfections.</p>
+
+<p>A Scotch proverb has it that "Where twa are seeking,
+they are sure to find." In time we found. A certain
+Moor of Tetuan, named Ali Slowee, a Spanish protected
+subject, was guardian, uncle, and stepfather to a boy
+named Dolero. Dolero owned a garden-house outside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>[<a href="./images/158.png">158</a>]</span>
+the city, called <i>Jinan Dolero</i> (The Garden of Dolero). Ali
+Slowee heard of our wants and offered us his nephew's
+house, provided we undertook to give it up at the end
+of March. Than the unexpected, when it does come,
+nothing is so good. After a little difference over the
+rent (our landlord began by asking two pounds five
+a month, and came down to thirty shillings) all was
+settled, and New Year's Day, 1902, found us living in a
+whitewashed garden-house in Morocco, out in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Moors have extravagant ideas of the sums English
+people will pay. Mr. Bewicke was offered a house and
+garden for seven pounds ten a month: some time after
+the landlord asked three pounds; eventually he came
+down to thirty-nine shillings.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-22.png"><img src="./images/ill-22_th.png" alt="JINAN DOLERO." title="JINAN DOLERO." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Jinan Dolero.</p>
+
+<p>Having handed a month's rent over to Ali Slowee,
+he had Jinan Dolero done up, whitewashed at least,
+outside and in, from top to toe&mdash;a rite performed on
+every opportunity all the year round in Morocco, like
+spring-cleanings at home. Tiles were mended, windows
+repainted, glass put in, and we followed,&mdash;the simplest
+thing in the world; "furnishing" takes no time in Morocco.
+Three mules carried out all we put into the empty little
+house&mdash;all our effects, that is to say, from the fonda. A
+few rugs were unrolled, camp-beds, table, and chairs
+put together, some nails driven into the walls, and in
+one hour we were "in." Gibraltar supplied the camp
+furniture; necessaries were raked together in Tetuan,
+including the dome-shaped pewter teapot, and the painted
+tins, pink and green and blue, for tea, coffee, and sugar,
+which mark the tramp of the European across Morocco,
+and are both of them for ever associated with sweet
+green tea and turbans. Mattresses we had made, and
+made ourselves, of moss, brought in by the countrywomen
+and dried; and an Englishman, A&mdash;&mdash; (one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>[<a href="./images/159.png">159</a>]</span>
+the few who have become Mohammedans and settled in
+Morocco), lent several more, which made divans round
+our walls.</p>
+
+<p>A&mdash;&mdash; has a little house close to Jinan Dolero, and
+occupies himself with his garden outside the city. He
+dresses like a Moor. In spite of it all, he is not
+welcomed among them as a brother, but goes by the
+name of "The Renegade." They probably divine that
+he adopts their religion as a part of the customs of the
+country with which he identifies himself, less for the
+sake of Mohammedanism itself than for the life which
+that religion inculcates.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently men in such a position rarely benefit the
+country in which they settle, and often do harm, ending
+by paying the penalty of meddling with the manners
+and customs of another race.</p>
+
+<p>Now, at the time of writing this chapter, A&mdash;&mdash; has
+paid in full. Only a few months after we left Tetuan
+he was shot one evening in his garden and killed on
+the spot, apparently from close quarters, probably from
+behind the hedge. The servants had gone home and
+found his body next morning. If they are to be believed,
+no one heard a shot. Men have been imprisoned and
+men will suffer death for the murder, no doubt; but
+whether the actual murderer is shot or goes scot-free,
+and what his inducement for committing the crime,
+probably half Tetuan will know and half Tetuan will
+tell, <i>and tell a lie</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Some say that A&mdash;&mdash; was shot for the sake of his
+gun and his money. Others that he was shot by some
+Riffi brothers because he was in the habit of talking
+to their sister. Others that the murder was connected
+with his having lived at one time with a Moorish
+woman, from whom he eventually separated.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>[<a href="./images/160.png">160</a>]</span>
+No one will ever know.</p>
+
+<p>Jinan Dolero would have been called in the Riviera
+"a villa": it was a typical Moorish garden-house.
+We lived upstairs, after the manner of the country, in
+the airiest and lightest of small whitewashed sitting-rooms:
+its three windows, set certainly with head-splitting
+glass, looked south, east, and west, on sea,
+mountains, and city. The second larger room, in which
+we slept, had a thick white pillar in the very middle
+of it, supporting the ceiling. A store-room on the same
+floor did duty as larder, and a staircase led up on to
+the flat white roof.</p>
+
+<p>Underneath us were kitchen, mules' stable, and two
+rooms for our two servants: a little staircase led down
+to them and on to the hall and front door. The floors
+were all tiled: a dip in the corner of each room and
+a hole in the wall carried off the water when they were
+sluiced down. Innocent of spouting, the water merely
+streamed down the outside wall. Each window reached
+to the floor, and an inartistic iron grille removed all
+danger of falling out. It was the sunniest house in
+the world, and an airy one, for the passage and rooms
+had loop-holes, a foot high and four inches wide, cut
+in the wall, through which air freely circulated. On
+the ground floor the windows were <i>nil</i>, but more loop-holes
+let in ample light. One was constructed on
+each side our hall door, that before unbarring at night
+we might know what manner of visitor we had, and
+even fire a charge through the aperture if the occasion
+warranted.</p>
+
+<p>Our garden was another Moorish wilderness, another
+"Field of the Slothful," thick in a waste of weeds,
+blue borage, and yellow marigolds. But it was also
+a vineyard. Dead-looking branches of vines trailed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>[<a href="./images/161.png">161</a>]</span>
+among the weeds, which later on were cut down with
+a sickle and turned into green meat for cows. Splendid
+muscats, we were told, our vines would produce: branches
+are spread over them in the summer as a slight protection
+from the sun, but the grapes are left on the ground
+and often soiled; nor has a Moor the slightest idea of
+picking them, or of preserving their bloom. Besides
+the vines, there were fruit-trees in Jinan Dolero. Pink
+almonds blossomed first; the leaf and the flower of
+apricots followed; apples, peaches, and pears came almost
+at the same time; and we lived in a pink world. The
+fig-tree softened its hard heart last of all, and its ashy-grey
+arms burst into tender green leaf and infant figs;
+at the same time the pomegranates shot into warm red
+leaflets. There were lemons which were ripe on the
+trees on New Year's Day, and made many a lemon-squash:
+there was double narcissus in flower everywhere;
+it sprouted up in the grass paths which divided our
+garden, and got badly trodden down: there were rows
+and rows of beans, which scented the air: last of all,
+there were some red geraniums in flower.</p>
+
+<p>A hedge of prickly pear ran down the east side of the
+enclosure, a tall cane fence effectually hedged in the
+rest, and the whole was entered by the inevitable locked
+and barred door, and whitewashed doorway, the long
+key of which, was a care in life, till we learnt that in
+Morocco every precaution is taken up to a certain point;
+matters are then handed over to Providence, and man,
+forbearing to meddle further, sits down and awaits their
+development.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, with all their locks and bolts, garden doors were
+often left open, and the cane fences were full of gaps.
+But none of our lemons were stolen&mdash;not, at least, after
+we got rid of the guard of soldiers which for the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>[<a href="./images/162.png">162</a>]</span>
+week the basha insisted on sending to Jinan Dolero
+every night. They ate them.</p>
+
+<p>Fine days were never long enough in the little garden-house
+facing the mountains: in the mornings an opal
+light; the sunrise stalking across their summits, while
+a cloud of white mist would sweep down the valley
+out to the blue sea-line; all day bright light and
+dazzle, a wind soft and yet racy; at night an abrupt
+sunset, leaving for a few moments a rose-pink after-glow,
+followed by an intense silence.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing in the morning, we always wandered
+in our garden down the grassy paths among the dew;
+measured the rain-gauge; looked at the sky; watched
+the birds, of which a flight, chiefly flocks of finches,
+invariably travelled over the little terraces of fruit-trees
+towards the river, taking our garden on the way, and
+feeding there for a while. A white jasmine almost hid
+our white steps and pillars: a rose grew with lavish
+prodigality; as Jinan Dolero stood there, in the middle of
+the Garden of the Slothful, a certain imperious dignity
+was given to the little white-walled structure by means
+of its magnificent situation.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we breakfasted in the garden: we were
+never in to lunch on fine days, but rode and walked all
+over the country, occasionally with the lady missionaries
+or Mr. Bewicke, but oftener alone with the big grey
+donkey and a boy. There were Moors to see in Tetuan,
+and always something of interest: we came away from
+that corner of Morocco without having got through half
+of what might have been done. To live in a country,
+adopting some of its ways and imbibing a little of its
+spirit, is the only satisfactory way to "travel." Hotels
+with home conventionalities and English tourists never
+amount to the same thing. Either camp out or settle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>[<a href="./images/163.png">163</a>]</span>
+down for a month or two in a hut, with one of the country
+people to cook. There must be sport, or agriculture,
+or village characters, or architecture, or botany, or
+geology to study: bird-life and bird-watching are never-ending
+interests; the fields are never empty. Only by
+living its own life, can the country and its ways unfold
+themselves, and become understood and cared for, by the
+traveller who has time for, and a love of, such things.</p>
+
+<p>As a whole, and seen in January before spring has
+begun, around Tetuan it is a tired and brownish-looking
+country: its colour is bleached and dried out of it, and
+it has the air of a sun-dried, wind-blown land, patched
+with pieces of brilliant greenery where corn has been
+sown near water. And yet it possesses the charm of
+strength and repose which simplicity gives; for it has
+been worried by man but little, rather allowed to straggle
+through the centuries at its own sweet will.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening every Friday, to mark the Mussulman's
+Sabbath, the sunset gun boomed and echoed among the
+opposite mountains. Watching the grey turreted walls
+of the Kasbah bitten out against a primrose sky, with
+watch in hand, at last the weekly flash of red, then a
+puff of brown smoke shot out of the wall, and last of
+all, a reverberating roar, tossed backwards and forwards
+among the hills. It is long before the "thunder" dies
+away, and we watch a gigantic smoke-ring, sprung from
+the mouth of the gun, float lazily out to the south; while
+the mueddzin's cry from the top of the mosque rises
+and falls on the waves of sound, drifting now clear, now
+faint, over the garden.</p>
+
+<p>When the sun dropped, the frogs began, from the
+cracks in the moist clay soil where they sat, all
+over our acre and a half, croaking in a wet, guttural
+chorus&mdash;the whole garden called; and the rattle of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>[<a href="./images/164.png">164</a>]</span>
+the tree-beetle which followed was one of those tropical
+sounds which recall the East. The frogs were tiny
+brown fellows, hard to get at. The owls would begin
+after the frogs&mdash;a brown owl, which flew noiselessly
+in the twilight among the fruit-trees and on to the
+edge of the roof, hooting long and low or chuckling
+oddly. Then stillness, and wonderful starlight nights,
+all through January. That month no rain fell. In
+February we had seven and a quarter inches, and more
+in March.</p>
+
+<p>Having found Jinan Dolero, and furnished it after a
+fashion, we still lacked servants, and they seemed to be
+almost as difficult to meet with as houses&mdash;that is,
+trustworthy ones. Again, however, we were fortunate.
+A soldier-servant who had lived with a missionary
+happened to have nothing to do, and agreed to come to
+us with his young wife, Tahara. They both of them
+knew something of European ways, and were scrupulously
+honest. They brought a few oddments, a little
+looking-glass, a mattress on which they slept upon the
+floor of the room near the kitchen, and a few cooking-pots
+and pans of their own. We overcame their objection
+to sleeping outside the city at that time of year; but
+I believe they never liked it up to the last, though
+they comforted themselves with two guns (one of which
+belonged to the man, and one he borrowed) and the
+fact of a revolver as well, being all under the same roof
+with them.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-23.png"><img src="./images/ill-23_th.png" alt="OUR SERVANTS, S`LAM AND TAHARA." title="OUR SERVANTS, S`LAM AND TAHARA." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Our Servants, S`lam and Tahara.</p>
+
+<p>They were both of them Riffis, and their own home
+was in the Riff country, two days' journey into the
+mountains from Tetuan. His name was S`lam Ben
+Haddon Riffi of Bekiona, son of Haddon and of
+Fettouch Ben Haddon of Bekiona. S`lam's wife was
+Tahara. He had served for a year in the French army<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>[<a href="./images/165.png">165</a>]</span>
+in Algeria, in the 2nd Regiment of Tirailleurs Alg&eacute;riens;
+and having picked up a little French, we learnt, with
+a few Arabic words, to understand each other. He and
+Tahara spoke Shillah to each other.</p>
+
+<p>S`lam was about twenty-six years old, Tahara about
+twenty. He was a sinewy, long-legged ruffian, well over
+six feet, and holding himself creditably. He had a pair
+of fierce, dark, restless eyes, little beard or moustache, the
+front half of his head shaved, and a few locks left long at
+the back in token of his being a "brave" and having slain
+his man in a blood-feud. The Riffi turban, of strings of
+dark red wool, was wound round his head; a white shirt
+showed at his neck; he wore a black waistcoat, a white
+tunic down to his knees, and red knicks, below which
+came his long hairy shanks, ending in a pair of yellow
+slippers.</p>
+
+<p>A scarlet leather bag, hung by a red cord over his
+shoulders, a leather belt, and his gun, finished off our
+Moorish servant, who shot us partridges, roasted chickens,
+and was as good a hand at buttered eggs and coffee as
+I have ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>Out of doors he always wore his brown jellab, embroidered
+with silk tufts of green and yellow and white.</p>
+
+<p>Tahara was a pretty, pale, dark girl, with curious
+cabalistic Riffi marks tattooed in blue on her forehead
+and chin. She bound round her head an orange-coloured
+silk handkerchief; wore, except when at work, an embroidered
+yellow waistcoat, a pale blue kaftan down to her
+ankles, a sprigged, white muslin, loose garment, all over
+that; and a creamy woollen haik, when she went out or
+was cold, covered everything.</p>
+
+<p>S`lam acted as butler, Tahara kept our rooms in
+order, and they were joint cooks. Their standing dish
+was mutton stewed in vegetables, or a chicken; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>[<a href="./images/166.png">166</a>]</span>
+given time, four hours in the pot, on the pan of charcoal,
+it was quite a success. But they learnt many
+things in a Dutch oven lent by the missionaries, besides
+stews. They had eccentricities&mdash;as when S`lam prepared
+to put the toast-rack itself on the charcoal fire, with the
+bread in it, thus to "toast": the toast-rack we made ourselves,
+too, out of some old wire. They kept chickens,
+which S`lam brought home from market, either in their
+bedrooms for the night, or else in the kitchen, until
+their crops were empty and they could be killed.</p>
+
+<p>Every morning S`lam was dispatched to the city
+with a basket, instructions, and two or three shillings.
+He stayed there an unconscionable time, visiting his
+mother, and sitting sunning himself in the doorway of
+a little Moorish caf&eacute;, returning laden before lunch. He
+never went into the city without his gun and best jellab,
+striding along with his long legs&mdash;a most picturesque
+figure. After dinner every evening he rendered his
+account, stalking into the sitting-room when we called,
+pulling up a chair, and sitting down at the table opposite
+R. From his leather bag, change was produced, and
+if the change was wrong, there was agony; but that
+only happened once or twice. A scrap of paper was
+brought out covered with Arabic writing, items of the day's
+expenditure, which read more or less as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Cost of food">
+<tr><td align='left'>Chicken</td><td align='left'>7<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Milk</td><td align='left'>1<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Four eggs</td><td align='left'>2&frac12;<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mutton</td><td align='left'>6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Apples</td><td align='left'>2<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vegetables</td><td align='left'>2<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Bread three times a week</td><td align='left'>4&frac12;<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Butter twice a week</td><td align='left'>9&frac12;<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Charcoal for cooking purposes, and oil for lamps, added<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>[<a href="./images/167.png">167</a>]</span>
+three shillings to our moderate weekly expenditure. Living
+is cheap enough in Morocco, nor are servants' wages heavy.
+S`lam and Tahara had eighteen shillings a month and
+their food, which was simple indeed&mdash;a loaf each of
+native bread a day, green tea, lump sugar, and odds and
+ends from our meals. Our rent, it will be remembered,
+came to thirty shillings a month. Morocco suits "reduced
+circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>Once a week, one of the little donkeys, which passed
+along our "lane" in droves, carrying charcoal into the
+sok, was waylaid, brought into the garden, and its three
+pannierfuls commandeered for us and stored in the mules'
+stable, where Tahara did the washing in a great tub
+bought from Mr. Bewicke.</p>
+
+<p>Milk was left every morning by a Moor, who took it
+in for sale to the sok.</p>
+
+<p>When the accounts were all settled up, S`lam would
+swing out of the room with a "Bon soir tout-le-monde,"
+unless he stayed to give R. a lesson in Arabic, which
+he could write as well as read&mdash;an unusual thing, and
+marking him for a scholar in his country.</p>
+
+<p>Blood-feuds among the Riff tribe are common enough.
+S`lam's father was shot when S`lam was a boy. As soon
+as he grew up, S`lam shot the man. He had left the Riff
+in consequence: he was a "marked man," they said; but
+he began to talk of going back again, and while he was
+with us he bought a new French rifle. In the Riff he might
+be potted at, he might not: he would risk that. The
+brother or son of the man whom he had shot would never
+trouble to journey far for the purpose of shooting him.
+Why should they? All in good time. Some day, when
+he came their way, they would put a bullet into him.
+Only women die in their beds in the Riff. "Sudden
+death, Good Lord, grant us."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>[<a href="./images/168.png">168</a>]</span>
+Men in the Riff who have blood-feuds will not go out
+of their houses in the early mornings without first sending
+the women and children to look if the coast is clear:
+neither will they walk up a hedgerow nor in a wood, but
+across the fields, keeping well in the open, since murder
+is always committed out of sight, decently, and in good
+order.</p>
+
+<p>A man living in Tetuan now, has a blood-feud with
+an enemy, who has been in consequence obliged to move
+to Tangier. Sometimes he comes over, secretly, by night,
+to see his mother, and lies hidden in her house till the
+sok is full of market people in the middle of the day,
+when he can go out into the crowd without running great
+risk,&mdash;though in the sok a quarrel sometimes arises; in
+a flash, guns are up at men's shoulders&mdash;bang&mdash;bang&mdash;and
+bullets ping into the soft walls, if not into some one or
+other. Only lately a boy was shot twice in the thigh,
+happening to be in the way in a scuffle.</p>
+
+<p>S`lam and Tahara were often amusing, if not interesting:
+never commonplace or "well-meaning." One corner of
+the roof of Jinan Dolero had been left unwhitewashed,
+the whitewashers' ladder was still there, and one morning
+S`lam came to say in his best French, "Deux mesdames.
+Pour arranger en haut."</p>
+
+<p>The two madams were the whitewashers&mdash;two black
+madams, clad in a couple of striped towels each, Ali
+Slowee's slaves, bought for, say, &pound;7 each. A very ragged
+countrywoman who came and weeded the garden, and
+seemed almost devoid of intelligence, was also a madam.</p>
+
+<p>S`lam was deft with a needle; he borrowed one of ours
+and a thimble, sat himself down in the kitchen, and
+stitched away at a large white garment "pour Maman,"
+he said&mdash;sat up half the night, finished it, and took it to
+her next day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>[<a href="./images/169.png">169</a>]</span>
+He did not make a bad man-servant; but he was fond
+of tempting Fate by carrying trays, laden with china and
+glass, balanced on one hand; then he would stoop down
+and pick up a kettle in the other, there would be an
+ominous clatter, if not crash, in the tray amongst our
+crockery, and S`lam would murmur reproachfully under
+his breath, "O tray! tray!"</p>
+
+<p>He bought a new jellab for wearing on visits to the
+sok; and after it had been proudly shown us, it was
+found, neatly folded up, placed on a hat-box in our bedroom.
+When we asked why it was there, he was taken
+aback. "Mightn't he keep it there? It was new: it
+was very clean."</p>
+
+<p>One evening, when he came in to settle accounts, he
+said that he wished to write a letter. Would we give him
+a sheet of paper and envelope? They were produced.
+We were not quite prepared for it, when he at once
+drew up a chair, sat down at the table, and politely
+asked for a pencil. But it was impossible to snub so
+simple and well-meaning a child. I sharpened a pencil,
+and S`lam wrote diligently for quite half an hour, without
+a pause, from right to left, wonderful spidery characters:
+it was a long letter to his old master down in Morocco
+City. He held his string-turbaned head on one side,
+and was without embarrassment as he sat between R.
+and myself (one of us worked, the other wrote); indeed,
+S`lam might have spent his evenings in a drawing-room
+all his life. When the letter was finished, he accepted
+a stamp most gratefully, wished us "Bon soir," and
+departed.</p>
+
+<p>Tahara had her eccentricities too, of which one was
+an extraordinary aptitude for annexing wherewithal to
+tie round her head in place of her own yellow silk scarf,
+which was kept for high days. One week one of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>[<a href="./images/170.png">170</a>]</span>
+table-napkins was raised to this honour; the next one of
+our clean bedroom towels had taken its place round her
+dark locks.</p>
+
+<p>I made her a present of a flannel shirt to wear, but
+the second day S`lam had appropriated that, and wore
+it in place of his waistcoat, unbuttoned.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently, in the eyes of the Tetuan world, we were
+taking a most unprecedented and foolhardy step in
+sleeping outside the city in the winter: the Ceuta "road"
+near us was said to be famous for robbery and murder.
+For some reason or other a reputation clung to us of
+being fabulously rich. The Moors warned, the missionaries
+seriously expostulated with us. None of them
+would have done it, and Mr. Bewicke was put down as
+mad for countenancing such an action. But we had
+two men in the house at night; for, besides S`lam, a
+labourer was induced to sleep in the mules' stable for
+our protection, and we had a couple of rifles and a
+revolver. Now, since the news of the murder of A&mdash;&mdash;,
+one wonders . . . . . But <i>he</i> was alone: <i>we</i> had the
+safety of numbers.</p>
+
+<p>To show how jealous Moors can be, and what precautions
+they take about their women, S`lam never
+allowed the labourer inside the garden gate unless he
+himself had come in. The man sat and waited on the
+bank. Then, after he was installed in the stable, the
+door between the kitchen and stable was locked and
+bolted. When we went out, Tahara was made to bolt
+every door; and if any one came to the house, she would
+only call down to them out of our bedroom window.</p>
+
+<p>The first night we slept in our garden-house and for
+several nights after, the basha took upon himself to send
+us out a guard of soldiers, who were responsible for our
+safety. We never asked this favour, and were annoyed;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>[<a href="./images/171.png">171</a>]</span>
+for they slept under our windows, talked and coughed the
+whole night, lay on the bulbs in a flower-bed, and stole
+the lemons. Seeing, however, that we did not pay them
+anything at all for the attention, the basha soon grew
+tired of sending them, much to our relief; for when, to
+prevent their depredations, we locked them outside the
+garden door, they broke down our fence, scrambled into
+the garden, and lay under the prickly pears, as being a
+safer place than the lane outside.</p>
+
+<p>There has never such a thing been known, as a guard
+without a cough, or who do not talk. If told to be silent,
+they reply that they must talk to keep awake; for if
+they fell asleep, how could they guard? Occasionally,
+to show how much on the alert they are, guards will
+discharge their guns in the dead of night. Altogether
+Moorish soldiers at close quarters are not conducive to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>We had an excitement one night, but it turned out
+to be groundless. Guns were fired from the garden-house
+below ours, repeatedly, about 10 p.m., and S`lam
+got into a fever of excitement, brought his rifle up into
+our sitting-room, and sat watching at one of the windows.
+He thought it was tribesmen come down from the hills
+to rob. At last the firing stopped, and R. and I went
+to bed; but S`lam was up all night, and Tahara brought
+their mattress upstairs and slept in our sitting-room for
+safety. It turned out to be Moors who had come out
+to sleep for one night, and were amusing themselves by
+firing rifles from the loop-holes and out in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>There is an advantage in being in a country where
+game is not sacred. For instance, one evening after
+tea, standing on the steps outside our "bungalow," in
+the hush which came just after sunset, R. and I were
+startled by a familiar call over in the garden next ours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>[<a href="./images/172.png">172</a>]</span>
+S`lam was strolling about, and confirmed our supposition&mdash;a
+partridge. We went indoors and forgot about it; but
+ten minutes later the report of a gun brought us out again,
+and there was S`lam crashing over the great bamboo fence
+into "next door" with his rifle, scudding across our
+neighbour's beans, then stooping down over something;
+a second later and he was back again, across the
+palisade like a lamplighter, and striding triumphantly up
+our path with a partridge dangling from his hand&mdash;a
+red-legged Frenchman, which we hung long. This
+acquisition to the larder had to be applauded perforce, in
+spite of its being shot sitting, and on some one else's acres.
+As luck would have it, S`lam's great bullet, about the size
+commonly used for big game, had gone through its head:
+he na&iuml;vely explained the advantages of shooting birds
+through the head. But I think he was a fair shot. Most
+Riffis are.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose that the Riff tribe is more or less an anomaly.
+Think, if you can, of a clan or a tribe who are pirates,
+wreckers, who encourage slavery, who count the vendetta
+an admirable custom, who have no laws, no governors,
+who acknowledge as their supreme head a Sultan who
+has never from all ages ventured within their borders&mdash;a
+tribe who have, as it has been said, "no fear, no anything,
+save and excepting their faith in One God and Mohammed
+as his Prophet, their own daggers, a Martini-Henry if
+they can get one, and failing that, a ten-foot-long Riff
+gun, coral-studded, ivory-butted, brass-bound, and deadly
+to handle"&mdash;a people who live in a country without
+roads, <i>and all within a few hours of Gibraltar</i>: have they
+their parallel, except among adventurers in the Far East,
+and those but a few upon distant seas?</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-24.png"><img src="./images/ill-24_th.png" alt="TWO WOMEN FROM THE RIFF COUNTRY." title="TWO WOMEN FROM THE RIFF COUNTRY." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Two Women from the Riff Country.</p>
+
+<p>To explore the unknown Riff country would be interesting
+indeed. No book has been written upon it except<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>[<a href="./images/173.png">173</a>]</span>
+from hearsay, and no European has penetrated across
+its length and breadth. The Riffis want no foreign interlopers
+among their sacred hills, and would "knife" the
+first who showed his face. It is but two days' journey
+eastwards from Tetuan, this select and exclusive country,
+and it extends about a hundred and fifty miles, with
+a population, it is reported, of one hundred and fifty
+thousand souls. Strange to think that no European
+pioneer, nor gentleman-rover, has ever exploited the Riff.</p>
+
+<p>The law of the vendetta, is the law and the ten
+commandments of the Riffi, which, if he fail to keep,
+renders him in the eyes of his country-folk damned to
+all eternity, to be ostracised among men. A widow
+will teach her baby-son to shoot, and studiously prepare
+him for his one great duty, that as early as possible
+he may put a bullet into the murderer of his father.
+And thus the feud is nourished. Even the great-great-grandson
+of a man who has taken a life years upon
+years ago is not safe. He will probably meet with a
+dagger or the muzzle of a long gun one day.</p>
+
+<p>But a people who inculcate such severe and cursory
+measures have their redeeming-points. It is a fact that
+cursing and swearing, so common among Moors, and
+polygamy and adultery, are seldom, if ever, met with in
+the Riff: for if one Riffi insults another, it is at the
+peril of his life; while the stain of immorality is wiped
+out at once by death.</p>
+
+<p>The gun, pistol, or dagger is the Riffi's summary
+judge and jury. He submits to no authority. Questions
+on land, on inheritance, all legal questions, are settled
+in each village by the keeper of the mosque. He arranges
+marriages.</p>
+
+<p>The Riffis are therefore a moral people: a man has
+but one wife; the women do not veil, and yet familiarity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>[<a href="./images/174.png">174</a>]</span>
+is not tolerated between the sexes; a young man will
+go out of his way to avoid passing close by a young
+woman whom he sees in the distance, lest he be suspected
+of behaving lightly to her.</p>
+
+<p>The Riffis are an indomitable race, one which has
+never been conquered, magnificent raw material out of
+which to shape a battalion of infantry. Though acknowledged
+as the Kaliph of the Prophet and their religious
+head, the Sultan, as has been said, has never dared to
+put his head in this independent hornets' nest.</p>
+
+<p>They are an industrious tribe, growing crops assiduously
+and rearing cattle: their valleys are fertile and well
+farmed for an uncivilized country. But these details
+must be taken for what they are worth. S`lam could
+say nothing but good of the Riff: how cheap living
+was, and how abundant food,&mdash;except when rain failed,
+and then there followed disastrous famine, and starving
+Riffis would come down to Tetuan, and lie in the caves
+outside the city, and live on roots, doing any work which
+offered; and some of them would die, in spite of the
+missionaries' kindness and unremitting efforts.</p>
+
+<p>There are many legends about the Riffis: they boast
+one tribe among themselves who are said to be descended
+from the Romans; and there is no reason against the
+assumption, since the Romans were in Morocco after
+C&aelig;sar's day. Another family claims to be descended from
+the inhabitants of Sodom. Some of them are quite fair&mdash;regular
+"carrots": Vandal blood may run in their veins.
+While, again, some people say there are Celts among
+them, with Irish characteristics and Irish words. Possibly.
+Pirates and rovers are apt to introduce foreign strains.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate they have nothing in common with the
+Arabs, but are as unlike that race as a Scotchman is
+unlike an Italian. Berber is of course their common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>[<a href="./images/175.png">175</a>]</span>
+origin, and they are identical with the Kabyles of Algeria,
+the Touariks of the Sahara, and the Guanches of the
+Canary Isles. Shillah, the Berber dialect which they
+speak&mdash;one of the many dialects belonging to that race&mdash;is
+not a written language; but an educated Riffi learns
+to write and read at his village <i>jama</i> (mosque school);
+he uses the Arabic character in writing, and he learns
+to read the Kor&#257;n.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in one great point, like the Arabs, the Riffi, in
+common with the Berber race, lacks the power of cohesion
+and the spirit of patriotism, which should have welded
+all Berbers into one powerful people. Internal strife, that
+curse of Africa, has split them up into isolated units, and
+they stand at the same point they stood at a thousand
+years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Nor have the Riffis, in common with the Moors,
+reached the point of discarding "petticoats and drapery"&mdash;that
+is to say, they wear the brown, hooded, woollen jellab,
+and the white woollen haik&mdash;a sheet of material without
+seam, which they cast round themselves something
+like a Roman toga. Perhaps a cotton tunic is worn
+underneath.</p>
+
+<p>Part of the sleeves, the hood, and front of the jellab are
+often beautifully embroidered in coloured silks. On the
+border of the cloth thin leaves of dried grass are laid,
+which are worked over and over with coloured silk, and
+make a thick, handsome edging. The coloured leather
+belts which they wear; the large embroidered leather
+pouches, with deep-cut leather fringes, which hold bullets
+and powder and money and hemp-tobacco; their shaved
+heads, with one long oiled and combed or plaited lock;
+their turbans, red or brown, of strings of wool,&mdash;all
+complete a Riffi, and a very fine-looking fellow he
+can be.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>[<a href="./images/176.png">176</a>]</span>
+The labour element, which as a whole is antagonistic
+to the spirit of Morocco, crops up here and there, less
+in the casually fanned fields than in out-of-the-way
+corners. The Potters' Caves just outside Tetuan constitute
+one of those corners. There is always work going on
+in the caves, and smoke coming out of one or other of
+the many kilns, all the year round. Morocco and Moorish
+architecture would be nowhere without the potteries.
+Those infinitesimal little tiles which fit together and
+make such artistic colour-patterns, lining the <i>al-fresco</i>
+patios, facing the walls of the rooms, the pillars and
+doorways and flooring, the houses throughout, are every
+one of them kneaded and cut and baked there: crocks
+to wash in, pans for charcoal, immense water-pots, small
+water-pots, bowls and shallow basins, dishes of all sizes,
+and saucers down to the smallest, even ink-bottles, all
+come into being there.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the city by <i>B&aacute;b-el-Nooadtha</i> (the Gate of
+Sheaves), a little winding path leads to the caves, which
+lie among thickets of prickly pear, at the foot of the
+Anjera Hills, out of which they have been hollowed,
+probably by the action of water. Immense ramifications
+they are&mdash;great dark halls, roofed <i>au naturel</i> in
+corrugated rock with fissured sides, where maiden-hair
+fern hangs cool and green. Here in the dark shadows
+are a little company of workmen, chiefly in brown jellabs
+and leathern aprons, one cutting squares out of the soft
+clay with a penknife&mdash;he has a pattern to help him keep
+them exact; another cuts diamonds, another stars: piled
+up together, they look like little pastry shapes in brown,
+beside the workmen, who are all sitting cross-legged on
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>A little farther on two more men are dipping the
+top surfaces of the diamonds into an earthenware bowl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>[<a href="./images/177.png">177</a>]</span>
+full of yellow "cream," which will glaze and colour them,
+all in one. This sulphur-colour, and a blue, and a white,
+are generally used for the tiles&mdash;no other shades, as a rule.
+A boy in a corner is at work at one of the first processes,
+treading out a vast circle of yellowish clay into
+the consistency of stiff dough. A rather superior old
+Moor in a white turban, perhaps the master-workman,
+is deftly cutting out rosettes. In the front of the cave
+a little brown donkey, with pasterns as weak as a reed,
+is standing under the weight of four great earthenware
+pots full of water, two balanced on each side its pack.
+A boy empties them one by one of the water, pouring
+it into a natural basin scooped out in the ground, well
+puddled with clay, and therefore without a leak. The
+water is wanted to mix with the "dough." Then the
+donkey patters off for another load, the boy sitting sideways
+on its pack and shaking his heels&mdash;that makes
+it go.</p>
+
+<p>To the left stands a kiln in process of being packed
+with millions of the clay dice, which, baked hard, dove-tailed
+together, and forming a smooth, polished surface,
+will keep many a room cool. The kiln next door to it,
+is full of pots and pans of all shapes and sizes, but its
+opening is plastered up with clay, and they are not to
+be seen. Into the great fiery furnace underneath, a man
+is thrusting dry brown bushes, and dried prickly pear,
+and whatever rubbish will burn. Much of it has been
+hacked off the hillside by women, and has come on their
+backs many a mile. There is a crackling sound, smoke
+comes out, and a pink flame glows behind the man's
+body. The tiles ought to bake all right.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the same boy inside the cave has got his
+clay into good order&mdash;it is about two inches thick, and
+something the size of a big round table; then he stoops<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>[<a href="./images/178.png">178</a>]</span>
+down, and, with a knife held in both hands, scores the
+clay across, much as toffee is scored; which done, each
+square, about a foot in diameter, is carried off to be cut
+up into little shapes or to go upon the potter's wheel.</p>
+
+<p>The potter sat in his little pit, working the wheel with
+his foot&mdash;as Carlyle says, "one of the venerablest objects,
+old as the Prophet Ezekiel and far older. Rude lumps
+of clay, how they spin themselves up, by mere quick
+whirling, into beautiful circular dishes."</p>
+
+<p>The potter thumped his wet clay; then, as the wheel
+turned, pressed and moulded it with clever clay-encrusted
+hands: the sleeves were turned back from his bony
+chocolate-coloured arms. He had a grey goatee and a
+quiet smile, a dirty turban round his head, a white tunic
+mostly clay, and underneath a claret-coloured garment
+showed at the neck.</p>
+
+<p>He was a spare, wizened old man: perhaps his work,
+like Dante's, had made him "lean for many years." The
+faster his wheel revolved, the truer apparently was the shape
+of the vessel he turned out. His country might accept
+the lesson&mdash;that labour, like the wheel, conduces towards a
+good end. I fancy that a decadent people, who will neither
+work nor spin, but choose to rest and lie at ease, give
+the potter Destiny no chance. He has no wheel, this
+potter&mdash;for Morocco will not labour, nor be broken, nor
+disciplined; and so he is reduced to a mere kneading and
+baking, without the means he fain would employ; and he
+turns out a mere makeshift&mdash;his production at best is
+"not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambling,
+squint-cornered, amorphous botch&mdash;a mere enamelled vessel
+of dishonour."</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-25.png"><img src="./images/ill-25_th.png" alt="SELLING EARTHENWARE POTS." title="SELLING EARTHENWARE POTS." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Selling Earthenware Pots.</p>
+
+<p>The great pot which the potter slowly evolved out of
+the soft brown clay under our eyes was not perfect: he
+made it entirely by eye, and it matched the rest of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>[<a href="./images/179.png">179</a>]</span>
+group to the ordinary observer; yet it had a distinct
+"lean." Did it grumble to itself, that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">vessel of the more ungainly make?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>as human vessels complain sometimes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>They sneer at me for leaning all awry;</p>
+<p>What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Beyond the potter the ground was covered with an
+army of his soft mud-coloured vessels, all sorted and
+arranged in groups which matched, dozen after dozen, far
+back into the inner shadows of the cave, like some weird
+and interminable china shop. I gave the old man a
+cigarette, which he puffed at over his wheel.</p>
+
+<p>In the next cave a white-bearded Aaron was solemnly
+dipping dishes into a bowl of blue colour and glaze, and
+placing each with his finger and thumb on a board by him
+among countless fellows, while with his other hand he
+gravely swirled the liquid to prevent its setting. Others
+next him were again cutting out shapes; and three potters
+were hard at work, one moulding the bodies of pots,
+another the necks, another the lids, while a fourth put all
+three together.</p>
+
+<p>And thus they laboured on. Their slippers lay in the
+mouths of the caves beside their brown jellabs; and the
+smell of the moist clay and the drip of water up amongst
+the green fern mixed with the cool air.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Almighty Potter, on whose wheel of blue</p>
+<p>The world is fashioned, and is broken too,</p>
+<p>Why to the race of men is heaven so dire?</p>
+<p>In what, O wheel, have I offended you?</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>[<a href="./images/180.png">180</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>[<a href="./images/181.png">181</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">Country People Fording the River&mdash;We Call on Ci Hamed Ghralmia&mdash;An Expedition across the River in Search of the Blue Pool&mdash;Moorish Belief in Ginns&mdash;The Basha&mdash;Powder Play&mdash;Tetuan Prison.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>[<a href="./images/182.png">182</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>[<a href="./images/183.png">183</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER VII</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Set not thy heart on any good or gain&mdash;</p>
+<p>Life means but pleasure, or it means but pain;</p>
+<p>When Time lets slip a little perfect hour,</p>
+<p>Oh! take it&mdash;for it will not come again.</p>
+</div></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Many</span> walks began by degrees to tell upon our
+boots, for the cobble-stones of Tetuan and the
+rocks of Morocco in general are meant less for boots
+than for bare feet, which they do not seem to damage.
+In time, stress of circumstances drove us to a curly black-headed
+Jew bootmaker, whose most expensive pair of
+thick black boots cost nine shillings. Another Israelite
+made us suits of rough brown jellab material, for the sum
+of &pound;1 each&mdash;stuff which wore for ever.</p>
+
+<p>The mountains on the opposite side of the river were
+our El Dorado, but the river would not go down in January
+and allow of our fording it; rain followed rain, and it was
+higher than ever. One market day we walked down to
+watch the people from the other side come across, on
+their way into the sok, laden with country produce. Years
+ago a bridge had been built over the Wad-el-Martine, but,
+like other Moorish architecture, it was not built to last,
+and the immense floods which swing down the Wad-el-Martine
+in winter-time soon left only a broken pier
+or two, to point out that a bridge had been thought of.
+The money to build it was supplied by Government: half
+of it went into the pocket of the builder; a little went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>[<a href="./images/184.png">184</a>]</span>
+towards the bridge, which naturally could only be built
+of rubbish, without proper foundations. Now that there is
+no bridge, it is once more, as it had been for ages upon
+ages, a case of ferrying across by the big ferry-boat, or of
+fording. Since ferrying means money, and fording only
+a wetting, most of the market-goers ford.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sight to see the countrywomen wading through,
+one after another like a string of ducks, trying to keep
+dry: the water came just about up to their bodies, and
+the white haik and piece of towelling for a skirt could be
+bundled up somehow&mdash;a very few wore short white cotton
+drawers. Their legs were remarkable for an enormous
+development of muscle in unusual places. Once across,
+they wrung out anything which had been wetted, shivering
+somewhat; then arranged their voluminous haiks afresh
+over the mysterious great bundles on their backs, and,
+padding off in single file, made for the city. What those
+bundles, which bent their backs half double, had inside
+them it was impossible to certify: often part of it was a
+baby, judging by a round shape like a head under the
+haik, and the fact that, when it had a knock, there was
+a cry: the rest might be chickens, oranges, vegetables,
+baskets of eggs, baskets of coos-coosoo, heads of brooms
+made of bamboo, honey, and so on. Some of the chickens
+dangled in front of the women by strings tied to their
+waists: the chickens were alive, of course.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-26.png"><img src="./images/ill-26_th.png" alt="A FERRY-BOAT ON MARKET DAY." title="A FERRY-BOAT ON MARKET DAY." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Ferry-Boat on Market Day.</p>
+
+<p>On the tops of their heads the women wore enormous
+straw hats, with brims large enough to act as umbrellas
+and to keep the rain off their shoulders. The ferry-boat,
+packed with them <i>and</i> these straw hats, was worth seeing,
+like a grand-stand in a shower hidden by umbrellas.
+The weights which the women carry for hours at a
+time are almost incredible; but they begin as tiny girls,
+lopping along after their mothers at a half-run under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>[<a href="./images/185.png">185</a>]</span>
+tiny bundles, with the same bent backs; and habit is
+second nature.</p>
+
+<p>After the string of women came along a youth, with
+two small donkeys, laden with panniers full of green
+vegetables. The donkeys jibbed upon the brink; many
+"Arrahs" and curses and much cudgelling with a
+stick got them started; the panniers swayed horribly,
+and threatened to turn completely round, as the current
+pushed the donkeys over this side and that. Once in,
+they made pluckily for the opposite shore; but the stream
+carried them down; the water was well up their bodies;
+the distracted boy plunged and struggled behind first
+this one and then the other, whichever seemed in most
+danger&mdash;for the ford was none too wide. Urging them
+to keep up-stream, he clung on to one refractory pannier.
+The water rose higher and almost took them off their
+feet; but that was the worst place; now it was better.
+The leading donkey was in safety in shallower water,
+nearing dry land; but the other poor fellow seemed less
+strong, and was not able to make half such a good fight
+of it&mdash;its load may have been heavier. In spite of the
+boy it got lower and lower down-stream: suddenly there
+was an upheaval and a splash; its head went under
+altogether, pack and everything in a hole. Then the
+boy surpassed himself; for, deep as it was, he was there
+in a moment, got hold of the donkey behind, and pushed
+and half lifted, at no small risk to himself, and pulled,
+until the little fellow, after several relapses, found his
+feet. Finally, he waded out, and stood, like a drowned rat,
+on the bank, pack and all streaming; then he collected
+himself after a pause, and doddered off towards the
+sok. The boy shook himself and his soaked clothes,
+clutched his stick, and ran after his donkeys.</p>
+
+<p>A well-to-do Moor, possibly a sheikh, was the next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>[<a href="./images/186.png">186</a>]</span>
+to go for the ford. He probably farmed, and his sleek
+mule was full of green corn and "beans." They were
+things of colour, the pair of them: all the mule's appointments
+scarlet, himself a glossy brown; while his master,
+in dark blue, sat tight on his scarlet saddle, his bright
+chased stirrups flashing, so short as to bring his feet
+right up the mule's side&mdash;his turban, white as snow, with
+the red peak of the fez underneath, the deepest blot of
+colour, against the sky. A white garment waved out
+in the breeze under the blue jellab; he sat straight as
+a withy, feeling the mule's mouth with a hard hand,
+and bringing its nose into the air. There were some
+bravado and a great deal of assurance in the whole.
+The world used him well. Moors ride everywhere, if they
+possess anything with four legs. Why should they give
+themselves the fatigue of walking? But besides that,
+they are horsemen and most at home on a horse, while
+their country is not one to travel in on foot.</p>
+
+<p>Having decided that the river was fordable, and that
+we ought to be able to ride across it, we walked back
+by way of the city, and went in to tea with a Moor,
+ordering a donkey to be sent out the next day to
+Jinan Dolero, which should take us across to our
+El Dorado. The Moor who entertained us was a certain
+Ci Hamed Ghralmia, the eldest son of a Government
+official who had fattened physically and financially on
+the Customs, and whose fine house represented so many
+perquisites and bribes, and so much pared off the lump
+sum which went annually up to the Sultan.</p>
+
+<p>It was as luxurious a house as Eastern could wish:
+soft Rabat carpets, old Fez silk hangings, round the
+four-post beds, standing back in recesses in the room into
+which our host led us,&mdash;hangings such as even Fez can
+no longer produce; such silk is not made. One piece,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>[<a href="./images/187.png">187</a>]</span>
+which was quite as handsome in its way, was made years
+ago in Tetuan, from Tetuan silk-worms, reared on the
+slopes outside the Mulberry Gate&mdash;spun, dyed, and woven
+in Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>Couches and divans filled up the corners; glowing colours
+and fine snowy linen abounded. It was a house in which
+to spend a sleepy Sabbath afternoon on a hot day, if it
+must be spent indoors. Cool air blew through the high
+rooms; the splash and ripple of fountains rose and fell
+in the cool marble patio below, and echoed up the tiled
+staircase; while back, far in the shade of the secluded
+rooms, among avenues of pillars, vistas of light and
+shade, women like butterflies, in mauve and yellow and
+white, rose from some soft scented divan and flitted across.
+And in the centre of it all, a little king, Ci Hamed
+Ghralmia&mdash;a pale, caf&eacute;-au-lait complexioned man, who
+looked as if life had never shown him one of its angles.
+He was fat and lineless: soft white hands, fleshy ankles,
+no knots of muscle in so well-turned-out a mould of
+cream, not a spot, not a flush, no sign of liver; the lips
+slightly suggested sensuality, and there was a line of
+cruelty round the mouth, but no further indication of
+self-indulgence; he might have lived on sugar and chicken
+coos-coosoo all his life, and altered in nothing but size
+since he was a year old, except for a beard on the soft
+white chin, and his eyes, which were infinitely cunning.
+Brown and cold, like polished marbles, they had not
+reached that stage of cunning which veils its cunning,
+but would still gleam at the sight of money and express
+satisfaction over a well-made bargain. They were suspicious,
+as the ignorant generally are, and believed in
+little that they saw. The old Biblical characters who
+walk <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Morocoo'">Morocco</ins> to-day have most of them the same failing:
+they are sly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>[<a href="./images/188.png">188</a>]</span>
+Ci Hamed Ghralmia was an "advanced" Moor&mdash;that
+is to say, in the afternoons, lying on his divan, he read
+Arabic books. He had bought some French knick-knacks
+too. He told us that he rented a shop, in which he sat
+in the mornings and chatted to his friends, using it
+not in any way to dispose of any goods, of which it was
+devoid, but as a sort of "club" or meeting-place. Then
+in the afternoons he occasionally rode out on his mule.
+He had a garden, I think, outside the city. Or he played
+chess with a friend, or read. Perhaps he would use his
+<i>hummum</i> (Turkish bath); he would pray at his own
+particular mosque, regularly, so many times a day; and
+he would drink much green tea, and consume sugar,
+and sleep inordinately.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years of this life in Tetuan found Ci Hamed
+Ghralmia still a contented man&mdash;supremely so. Wrapped
+in the finest white wool and muslin clothes, he lay along
+a divan opposite to us upon one elbow, the picture of
+ease, and talked away. No Moor was ever anything
+but self-composed. Upon our camera's coming out, he
+was much interested; and to prove his progressive and
+enlightened state of mind, let us photograph him just as
+he lay there&mdash;a vast, voluminous white chrysalis. Then
+he took us to see his wives and slaves&mdash;a large party
+of them. They were allowed to come out on to the
+staircase and talk to us; but when the interview had
+lasted five minutes, Ci Hamed Ghralmia clapped his
+hands twice&mdash;we had seen enough&mdash;every wife and every
+slave vanished like magic.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-27.png"><img src="./images/ill-27_th.png" alt="THE AUTHOR FORDING THE WAD-EL-MARTINE." title="THE AUTHOR FORDING THE WAD-EL-MARTINE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Author Fording the Wad-el-Martine.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we made one of many expeditions
+up into the hills on the opposite side of the river, towards
+the south, and in the direction, though somewhat west,
+of the Riff. We rode in turns, it being somewhat of a
+rest to scramble along on foot, to say nothing of exercise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>[<a href="./images/189.png">189</a>]</span>
+The big grey donkey had our lunch, a camera, some
+field-glasses, and a box for botanical specimens slung
+about him. We had a fairly intelligent boy&mdash;Mohammed,
+a Riffi&mdash;and managed to understand a word or two he
+said. It had been explained to him by S`lam that we
+wished to get to the Blue Pool if possible. Arrived at
+the river, we found nobody&mdash;not being market day, it
+was utterly deserted. The current was still swirling in a
+forbidding fashion, but Mohammed led the donkey straight
+in with R.; he tucked up his clothes, held his yellow
+slippers high in one hand, and after some goading they
+landed on the opposite bank. Mohammed left his slippers,
+rode back through the river for me, and in due time I
+was deposited on the shingle. Off we set&mdash;first by a
+narrow path, thick on each side with scented violets,
+and closed in with the usual ten-foot-high cane fence.
+More streams had to be forded, but they were small and
+the donkey strong; so, to save time, I sat above his tail,
+behind R., and he carried us across in one journey.</p>
+
+<p>So far we were still down on the flats; the hills towered
+in front of us; and among the streams, and where the
+river in its vagaries had often flowed, there was deposited
+many a rich bed of fruitful mud, turned into valuable
+land, the very soil <i>par excellence</i> for oranges. And they
+were all around us&mdash;garden after garden, acre after acre,
+foliage studded with gold knobs by the million. And
+among them, and as far as the eye could reach, up into
+the gorge between the hills, picturesque white garden-houses
+showed through rifts in the half-tropical foliage,
+or over hedges of prickly pear and oleander. Fig-trees,
+a hundred years old, made faded grey blotches
+amongst the vivid greenery; the pink bloom of apricot
+was stainless against stained-yellow walls. In such a
+place, the inexorable realism of the age in which we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>[<a href="./images/190.png">190</a>]</span>
+live, was shaken&mdash;spirits there surely were which should
+appear.</p>
+
+<p>We passed an old countrywoman with a tiny donkey
+carrying two great panniers full of green-stuffs: she was
+in difficulties, having a wrestle to make it cross a little
+stream. Mohammed went to her assistance. Once over,
+she climbed on its small back with the help of a stone,
+putting her foot on its neck to get into her place.</p>
+
+<p>And now, leaving the orange gardens and their wealth,
+our path took an upward turn into a more rugged
+country, a less fruitful soil. We left a field of pale blue
+flax on the left&mdash;a "blue pool" indeed; and about this
+point the donkey's pack, which had no breastplate, slipped
+over its tail; but Mohammed's knife, and some string,
+and the britching, put all to rights for the time being.
+Later on a stirrup-leather broke.</p>
+
+<p>Following our winding path, we reached at last a
+white saint-house, which dominated a little hill overgrown
+with gnarled grey olives, and acted guardian
+over a large and flourishing village which lay below,&mdash;at
+least it was a collection of mud huts, and more of
+them than usual, but, like so many of these "villages,"
+seemed to all intents and purposes deserted&mdash;a city of
+the dead. Many of the inhabitants were out no doubt,
+but those who were in were not tempted by curiosity
+to stare at us: without windows there can be no signs
+of the rites which are carried on inside the houses. All
+we saw were dogs, fierce brutes, which stones alone kept
+at a distance, where they sat showing their teeth and
+bristling their crests ominously.</p>
+
+<p>The saint-house, of course, was forbidden ground: we
+went as close as common sense permitted, and from
+under the shady olives looked back at Tetuan down
+below us, a snow-white streak in the valley.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>[<a href="./images/191.png">191</a>]</span>
+Some rags were hanging upon a bush near us. It
+is an interesting and curious practice, that of hanging
+votive rags upon the bushes around chapels and holy
+shrines: no less venerable is the performance of
+pilgrimages to the same. Both practices go back into
+the dim ages. They are in use to this day amongst
+the Shintoists of Japan, and the inhabitants of Northern
+Asia, India, the Orkneys, and remote corners of Ireland,
+where sickly children are dipped in streams, or passed
+through holes in stones or trees so many times running,
+going against the way of the sun, in order to produce the
+effect of making the sick child as strong as a lion. Then
+an offering must be made to the saint, and a rag is torn
+off somebody's garment, and tied to a bush near his
+grave, to show that they would have done more for the
+good saint if they had had the power.</p>
+
+<p>Rag-trees, burdened with the tattered offerings of the
+devout and impecunious tribes-people, flourish throughout
+Morocco,&mdash;signs hanging out, and blown by the wind,
+in the face of travellers; warnings of the deep-rooted
+superstition entangled in the innermost heart-cells of
+its people, to be disturbed at imminent peril.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the saint-house and village, we struck a path
+upwards into a wild gorge, at the bottom of which a
+brawling torrent was tumbling. It turned many rude
+mills, and there were lush fields of corn on its banks.
+Far away in the grey distance now, to the north, we
+could see a dark wedge of rock, almost on the sky-line
+beyond the Anjera and other hills of Morocco: <i>the</i>
+Rock&mdash;Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>At this point we lunched. Mohammed was provided,
+and dropped behind a rock: the donkey grazed. A
+little boy, minding goats, came up with a fascinating
+pocket-knife, but would not let it go out of his hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>[<a href="./images/192.png">192</a>]</span>
+A clear stream gave us drink&mdash;it was warm; bees hummed
+in the balmy air; there was an aromatic scent; clouds
+hung round the hills; the panorama below was essentially
+peaceful and "Christian."</p>
+
+<p>And then we went on in search of the far-famed Blue
+Pool. But though we reached where the river lay in
+still pools, blue beyond all known blues, we found no
+more&mdash;only traces of a great flood and landslips, which,
+I suspect, had washed away the lake people had talked
+of. We found enough to bring us back on other days,
+and to understand why the missionaries take up their
+tents and camp in the mountains in the summer.</p>
+
+<p>We returned by a path farther west, and passed a great
+olive wood full of black shadows. The scrub on the
+hillsides holds pig&mdash;there are plenty of them; and the
+boars become more or less antagonistic at certain times
+in the year. We were told tales of people who had met
+with terrifying adventures, but personally our expeditions
+had no such thrilling incidents connected with them.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been unwise to stay out after sunset,
+and that time always saw us back at Jinan Dolero. It
+is said to be the most unsafe hour; for men are coming
+into Tetuan, and if they can waylay and rob or murder
+a traveller, and make their way into the city before the
+gates shut, half an hour after sunset, and sleep there, who
+shall suspect them of dark deeds done outside in the
+evening? Besides, Mohammed would never have consented
+to be out late, on account of the firm belief which
+Moors have in evil spirits. There is a special race of
+beings, they hold, in many respects like men, in others
+like spirits, called <i>ginns</i>. Their principal abode is the
+under-world, but they come up on to the earth, and are
+fond of lurking in wells and in dark corners, even in
+houses. Rooms are often haunted by ginns: men are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>[<a href="./images/193.png">193</a>]</span>
+surrounded by ginns. Some of the more enlightened
+Moors are inclined to represent ginns as merely superstitious
+imaginations and hallucinations on the part of
+the ignorant; but probably in his heart of hearts, no
+Moor but has a secret desire to propitiate ginns, and
+a secret dread of falling in with them.</p>
+
+<p>Ginns eat and drink and propagate their species, and
+even form sexual connections with men. A man whose
+wife is any way odd or mysterious has married of course
+a ginn. Ginns are fond of inhabiting rivers, woods, the
+sea, ruins, springs, drains, and caves; they come out at
+night more than by day, and in certain streets no Moor
+will walk at night. Nor will a Moor sleep alone in a
+room. Ginns, when they appear, take the forms of men,
+goats, cats, dogs, almost any animal in fact, and also
+monsters.</p>
+
+<p>Whirlwinds, and shooting stars, and dear times, and
+famine, and epidemics, are all caused by ginns. It is
+the ginns who have eaten all the food in the city when
+prices are exorbitant. If a man falls down in the dark,
+it is a ginn: a sudden illness or an accident is the work
+of a ginn. There are good ginns, but bad ginns are
+more common. The worst of them all is <i>Iblis</i> (the
+devil). Iblis tempts men to wickedness. All iniquity is
+the fault of Iblis.</p>
+
+<p>In order to keep the bad ginns at a distance, certain
+precautions may be taken. Salt and steel are antidotes.
+Salt in the hand when going out at night, salt in the
+pillow when sleeping, are measures which should be used.
+In building a house some people put salt and wheat and
+an egg into the ground, and kill a goat on the threshold.
+On sinking a well (the stronghold of ginns) a goat or
+sheep must always be killed.</p>
+
+<p>The best talisman against ginns is the repetition of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>[<a href="./images/194.png">194</a>]</span>
+certain passages in the Kor&#257;n: when passing a dark spot,
+say the "Ajatu-l-kursi": as for neglecting to say "B`ism
+Allah" (In the name of God) before going for a ride, or
+before doing any sort or kind of action, why, that is to
+have a ginn as your companion on your horse, and at
+your elbow, whatever you may be doing. As every place
+has its "owners," its good or bad ginns, on striking a
+light and going into a room Moors say, "Good-evening
+to you, O ye owners of the place." And if a tent is to
+be pitched, first of all the protection of good ginns must
+be solicited in that spot.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing a ginn gets hold of a man, and he is ill,
+there are certain doctors, magicians, among the Moors
+who can cast the ginn out. They practice a regular
+"ginn-cult," and celebrate annual feasts, going outside
+Tetuan to a certain spring near the Moorish cemetery,
+and killing a bullock, a black goat, a black donkey, and
+some chickens.</p>
+
+<p>The word <i>ginn</i> originally meant "the secret," "the
+mysterious," "the hidden"; and the belief in ginns is
+part of the actual creed of Mohammedans, Arabs, and
+Berbers alike. But Moors have a hundred superstitions.
+They believe that all animals had a language once upon
+a time,&mdash;that the horse prays to Allah when he stretches
+out his leg; that the donkey which falls down, asks
+Allah that the same may happen to his master. They
+say that the donkey was once a man whom Allah
+changed into his present shape because he washed himself
+with milk; that the stork was a <i>kadi</i>, or judge, who
+was made a stork because he passed unjust sentences
+upon his fellow-men. It is therefore a sin to kill a
+stork, or a crow, or a toad, or a white spider, or a white
+chicken. A white spider once spun its web over a cave
+where Mohammed hid: his enemies saw it, thought there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>[<a href="./images/195.png">195</a>]</span>fore
+that no one could have recently entered the cave,
+and passed on.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to say, that about Death&mdash;the
+Great Secret&mdash;there are numerous superstitions. There
+were too many funerals in Tetuan: early in the afternoon
+one was often encountered at the Gate of the Tombs;
+death would only have taken place that morning, without
+much inquiry as to its cause, and whether by fair means
+or foul nobody knew and few cared. The procession
+came swinging along, stately men in flowing garments,
+white and dark, chanting the weird funeral hymn or
+"lament"&mdash;always the same mournful, monotonous cadence,
+rising and falling in the narrow streets, and at last out
+into the air. And then once through the B&aacute;b-el-M`kabar,
+the great company in white turn into the Moorish burial-ground,
+and arrange themselves in a long line against
+the hillside, and the chant becomes general, almost a
+great cry, full of the strange fascination of certain Eastern
+music, withal so unintelligible to Europeans.</p>
+
+<p>The body, loosely wrapped in white, lies on an open
+bier. After a sort of service on that rough hillside
+against the walls of the city, the procession winds on
+again to the shallow grave: a last chant, and the body
+goes into the earth, and is quickly covered. A scribe,
+or reader, is left behind when every one has gone: he
+reads pieces out of the Kor&#257;n over the grave, and
+chants. Friends, mourners perhaps, will come out on
+other days, and sit round the tomb, reading the Kor&#257;n
+together, and singing the weird, sad melodies. You may
+see them. But I have never seen a Moor give way to
+the slightest outward expression of grief.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammedans firmly believe, of course, in a Paradise
+to which the good are admitted: their conception as to
+this land of the hereafter, largely consisting of gardens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>[<a href="./images/196.png">196</a>]</span>
+and shade, adds a bridge, by which means alone access
+to Paradise is gained. The bridge (<i>Al Sirat</i>) is finer
+than a hair and sharper than a sword: the wicked invariably
+turn giddy and fall off into the pit of Hell, while
+the righteous negotiate it in safety.</p>
+
+<p>A rich man, when he is buried, is provided with a vault.
+The body is laid on its right side, its sightless eyes turned
+to Mecca. During the first night, Mohammedans hold
+that the soul remains in the body for the purpose of
+being interrogated by two angels before it can be admitted
+into Paradise. They appear, and the body is roused to
+a sitting posture and to temporary life. It replies to
+the dread examination. If this ends unsatisfactorily, the
+angels torture and beat the body, until the sepulchre
+closes in upon it. But if they approve the soul's replies,
+they bid the man sleep on in peace in the protection
+of God.</p>
+
+<p>Travellers complain of a want of "pageant" in Morocco.
+Ostentatious funerals and processions of all sorts, public
+demonstrations over trifles, the worship of gilt and glitter,
+and the emotional spirit called <i>loyalty</i>, of the present
+day, do not exist in El Moghreb. There is a spirit of
+simplicity about its shows; they do not breathe of money:
+old as their customs are, there is vigour in them and a
+certain amount of use, for the people have not outgrown
+them, do not make of them so many lay figures on which
+to display signs of their own great wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The Day of the Great Feast up at Court with the
+Sultan, that is <i>the pageant</i> in all Morocco. We missed it.</p>
+
+<p>Connected with the bashas and kaids, who are the only
+great men in the country or in the cities, there is little
+or no respect or formality. Only on Sundays a sort of
+"flash in the pan" reminds the Moor that he has a little
+despot in his midst, who is more or less lord of his life;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>[<a href="./images/197.png">197</a>]</span>
+and the drums are heard all over the city, the soldiers
+turn out, for the basha goes to pray at <i>El Aoli</i> (noon)
+in his own particular mosque opposite his house.</p>
+
+<p>On Friday, the Sabbath, the biggest <i>sok</i> (market) in all
+the week, a little black flag was flown from the mosque-tops
+early in the morning to remind Tetuan of the holy
+day. The basha was inside the cool mosque, praying, at
+the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected,
+though the same event happened every Friday. No
+Moor is ever busy, ever hurries, but can always wait.
+At a quarter to one a bugler on the east side of the
+street, who had been sitting in the sun with his bugle,
+got up and blew a call to fall in. About sixty soldiers,
+who had all strolled off after the great man had disappeared
+into the mosque, sauntered up from different
+directions. If they were a ragged and indifferently drilled
+company, there was colour in the ranks at least. Every
+man wore a short scarlet flannel tunic, a pair of white
+cotton drawers, and a red fez: one drummer had a tunic
+of beetle-green. As they lined the street, short sturdy
+men, with hairy legs and coffee-coloured faces, their bright
+bayonets flashing in the sun, the drums thumping and
+the <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'trumpter'">trumpeter</ins> running up and down the scale, the dazzling
+sunlight gave a trace of splendour to the medley of
+scarlet and steel against the whitewashed walls.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody waited expectant. A stout man in white
+came out of the mosque, ordered the small boys away,
+and saw that there was ample room for the basha to
+pass across the street and into his own house. Then
+the ordinary crowd of worshippers began to file out of
+the building&mdash;prayers over: green-blue kaftans lined with
+crimson silk, filmy white robes, snowy turbans, moved
+slowly along&mdash;a dignified, impressive crowd. There was
+a pause before the basha appeared, a man arranging his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>[<a href="./images/198.png">198</a>]</span>
+two yellow slippers side by side upon the doorstep of
+the mosque. Another moment and the great, voluminous,
+expected figure filled the doorway. A twist of his
+ankles and he was in his slippers, the bugle sounded,
+the ragged squad presented arms somewhat untidily, a
+line of servants bowed themselves low and respectfully
+before him, and the basha moved slowly across the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>Leading his own troops, dispensing justice, an after-type
+of those great Arabs who sprang from the sands
+of Arabia and Africa, shook Europe, and flourished in
+Spain, a basha should be no tyrant, but a courteous
+gentleman, a noble of "The Arabian Nights." But there
+was no aristocratic trace about Asydaibdalkdar. Carrying
+his rosary in his hand, clothed entirely in white, his
+features bore traces of servility and sensuality, the result
+of poisoning the Arab and Berber blood with the strain
+from Central Africa. Slavery is proving fatal to the
+Moorish race. Unlike the well-bred Moor, the basha's
+face was deeply lined: cruelty, cunning, pigheadedness,
+all fought for the upper hand in his swarthy countenance.
+He walked in under his own gateway into a courtyard
+beyond: there he sat down in a corner upon a seat&mdash;a
+great figure, much like some Indian god&mdash;while his
+underlings came forward, stood in a semicircle, bowed
+low, and saluted him; followed by his soldiers, who
+marched in single file into the courtyard, round it, past
+their chief, and out again&mdash;this three times, to the sound
+of drums; then, headed by the officer in command, they
+trooped off to the barracks, the basha's gateway was
+locked, and Church Parade was over.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-28.png"><img src="./images/ill-28_th.png" alt="THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY." title="THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Basha Going to Pray.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour all the gates of the city had been
+barred and bolted, while prayers were going on&mdash;there
+being a superstition among the Moors, arising from an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>[<a href="./images/199.png">199</a>]</span>
+old prophecy, that on a certain morning of a Mohammedan
+Sabbath, Christians will gain possession of the cities while
+the kaids and bashas are in the mosques.</p>
+
+<p>Two hundred soldiers are allowed by Government to the
+governor of Tetuan, by means of which he is to maintain
+law and order. However, a hundred only were maintained,
+and the pay of the remaining half went into somebody's
+pocket. There was apparently little for them to do;
+drill was a thing unheard of, and they spent most of
+the day hanging round the basha's house or doing
+errands for him.</p>
+
+<p>On the feast days there was <i>Lab-el-Barod</i>&mdash;the famous
+"Powder Play" of Morocco; and then the soldiers all
+turned out into the <i>feddan</i> (the great market-square),
+and showed what Lab-el-Barod meant: to me rather
+a foolish game, with but one interesting point&mdash;that it
+is the imitation of the old Arab tribal battle. To-day
+the Moors gallop forward, stand up in their saddles, fire
+their guns under their horses' necks, over their tails&mdash;all
+this at full gallop&mdash;throw their guns into the air
+and catch them, and last of all pull up in an incredibly
+short space, dragging their horses right on to their
+haunches, which evolutions are imitations of what their
+ancestors did with spear and javelin. Lab-el-Barod prevailed
+in Spain till the middle of the eighteenth century,
+and it is still played in the East with reeds. There
+is of course a picturesque element in it&mdash;white turbans,
+white garments streaming in the wind, scarlet saddles,
+flashing steel, hard-held horses with yards of tail, and
+above all, the lithe figures in perfect balance whatever
+their positions; but the performance is often too "ragged"
+to be impressive, and it strenuously demands flats of
+desert as a background.</p>
+
+<p>The basha would always come out and look on when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>[<a href="./images/200.png">200</a>]</span>
+there was one of these "field days" at Tetuan: his
+figure was not adapted to his participation therein, being
+perfectly in keeping with his walk in life, and that walk
+consisted in his sitting from six o'clock to ten o'clock
+in the morning, and from three o'clock to six o'clock
+in the afternoon, in a small open room off the street
+opposite his house, in a reclining position upon cushions,
+before him an excited group (as often as not), contradicting,
+swearing, gesticulating, abusing, all at the same
+moment&mdash;one of whom is carried off by the soldiers to
+be flogged, another is sent to prison, or, if the seekers
+after justice wax more troublesome than ordinary, they
+may all be thrown into prison by the heels together to
+calm them. At the same time the basha absorbs bribes,
+and sweeps loaves of sugar, packets of candles, and
+pounds of tea into his net. These are the ordinary
+bribes.</p>
+
+<p>When he was appointed basha, a royal letter from
+the Sultan was sent to Tetuan and read aloud in the
+mosque: then he entered upon his duties. He must
+needs go warily from day to day; and even then luck
+may desert him at any moment, and a summons may
+arrive from the Sultan&mdash;he is to go to Court at once.
+I recollect in what abject terror, one basha, who was sent
+for at a day's notice, set out upon his journey, only to
+find, when he got to Court, that he was to have a more
+lucrative billet and a higher post of honour. Many who
+have departed in terror, all unknowing of the future, have
+found, when they reached Fez or Morocco City, where-ever
+the Sultan might be, that their worst fears were
+realized. Either placed under arrest, tortured, imprisoned,
+or bastinadoed, the little wealth they had accumulated
+is extorted from them, under the pretext of there being
+arrears in taxes or other dues, which must be made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>[<a href="./images/201.png">201</a>]</span>
+good. The wooden jellab is used for the purpose of
+extorting confession in the case of imaginary wealth
+supposed to be hidden (and much often is hidden): it is
+made of wood, resembling in shape a long cloak, and
+placed in an upright position; the inside is lined with
+iron points, which prevent the body from resting against
+it without suffering. Inside this "jellab" the basha is
+squeezed, standing up, and he remains there on a sparse
+diet of bread and water till he divulges.</p>
+
+<p>Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of War were
+sent to the prison in Tetuan soon after the accession of
+the present Sultan; but that was for plotting against his
+life. In the common gaol, heavily chained, under the
+same roof with the herd of common prisoners, all they
+were allowed was a curtain across one corner, behind which
+they sat. The Prime Minister died there. The Minister
+of War is there to-day, March 1902, and, after over seven
+years' confinement, getting fat. Some members of the
+Rahamna tribe are there also. This tribe, which belongs
+to the far south, near Morocco City, about eight years ago
+was in a state of rebellion, to quell which the Sultan
+sent his army with orders to <i>eat them up</i>. Their fat lands
+and fine gardens were ruined; men, women, and children
+killed and taken prisoners; while six hundred of them were
+sent to the Tetuan prison, and a great number&mdash;I do not
+know exactly&mdash;went to Rabat. That was eight years ago.
+Sixty of them are in Tetuan prison now, the remnant of
+six hundred. There is a kaid among them who is very
+ill, dying: the eight years have done for him.</p>
+
+<p>Since this was written, an order has come from the
+Sultan for the release of the Rahamna tribesmen. In
+Rabat, unfortunately, almost all who were in the Kasbah
+prison died long ago. Its insanitary condition has earned
+for it the name of <i>Dar-el-Mout</i> (the House of Death).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>[<a href="./images/202.png">202</a>]</span>
+But in the other prison there were survivors. These came
+out with traces of the late governor's butchery.</p>
+
+<p>For trying to send a written petition to the Sultan three
+years ago, which set forth their condition, and prayed that
+after five years' confinement they might be considered to
+have paid for their rebellious deeds, and be allowed to
+return to their own land for the last years of their lives,
+the late governor, Ba Hamed, gave orders that their
+hands should be mutilated. A knife was drawn across the
+back of the wrist, cutting the extensor tendons of the
+hand: the hand was packed with salt, and sewn up in
+wet cow-hide. When this was taken off or wore off, it was
+not recognizable as a hand.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Hanbury, who did her best to institute reforms
+in Moorish prisons, and succeeded in Tangier, left at
+her death a sum of money, out of which &pound;5 came to
+Tetuan to be spent on their behalf. It fell into the hands
+of the lady missionaries, and they spent it in making
+jellabs for the prisoners to wear, whose garments are
+worse than filthy. Unfortunately &pound;5 was not nearly
+enough to clothe all; it only provided a jellab for one
+out of every three of the prisoners, and the poor wretches
+fought like dogs for them.</p>
+
+<p>"They will wear them in turns," the gaoler said. He
+and another Moor had superintended the distribution of
+them; and to their lasting disgrace, deaf to argument and
+remonstrance on the part of the missionaries, they each
+appropriated a jellab to himself, saying, "This is my
+share; this goes to me." They were of coarse material,
+such as neither gaoler nor under-gaoler would ever wear
+themselves: all they would do would be to take them
+into market and convert them into money.</p>
+
+<p>"Moors have <i>no</i> feelings," people say, and say wrongly;
+but that, to a great extent, it is true take just one instance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>[<a href="./images/203.png">203</a>]</span>&mdash;the
+state of the prisons and prisoners. It was enough in
+the distance to "wind" the Tetuan prison. There remains
+the reflection&mdash;call it comforting if you like&mdash;that a people
+who consent to endure such filth, and misery, and harsh
+treatment, are not affected by them in the same way in
+which a highly civilized people would be affected.</p>
+
+<p>It is absurd to blame the Moorish Government; it is
+absurd to say, "The people are obliged to endure." No
+people can be forced to endure: a point comes beyond
+endurance, and they rebel, choosing death rather. The
+vigorous and progressive race endures least. Therefore
+on the Moors' own heads be the state of their prisons,
+the treatment of their prisoners: to that cursed spirit of
+<i>laissez-faire</i> half the blame is due; the rest comes of
+their indifference to suffering, to bad smells and dirt and
+a sedentary existence. It is manifestly unfair to blame
+certain ministers and officials. Taking into consideration
+the manners and customs, hopes and fears, of the Moorish
+people, their prisons probably suit them right well, and
+they need no pity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was not always easy to get provisions, except life's
+bare necessities, in Tetuan. Provision Stores, which were
+long out of their goods, always had the same answer when
+asked for them&mdash;"M&#257;nana" (To-morrow); and to-morrow
+never came. But it is unwise to "hustle the East": men
+have died trying to find a way of doing so. Therefore we
+chewed with philosophy the cud of the Moorish proverb:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"<i>Manage with bread and butter till God brings the jam.</i>"</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>On the whole we fared not amiss, while our establishment,
+with its two Riffi servants, man and wife, worked
+well, until an occurrence took place which shook it to its
+very foundations, and left us to the end with a question
+which will never be solved.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>[<a href="./images/204.png">204</a>]</span>
+One evening, about half-past five, just as we had settled
+ourselves down after tea to read, there was an unusual
+stir on the stairs. A minute later and the door burst
+open. Tahara staggered in, followed by S`lam, who seemed
+very much excited and alarmed. The woman was deathly
+pale; her eyes were ringed with black. R. and I, seeing
+she was ill, jumped to the conclusion that something or
+other was very wrong with her, and tried to make her sit
+down, or lie down, at once, on our divan. In a confused
+scene which followed, the only words we grasped were,
+"Tabiba, tabiba" (Doctor), and S`lam, at our instigation,
+rushed downstairs to go off to Tetuan, and to bring back
+with him Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;, one of the lady missionaries.
+Tahara was almost beside herself, apparently with terror,
+and for a few moments one was inclined to doubt her
+sanity. We tried vainly to quiet her, almost holding her
+on the divan; but there was evidently something on her
+mind which every moment threw her into fresh agitations,
+and&mdash;<i>ah! what would we not have given to have understood
+Arabic!</i> for Tahara knew no French, like S`lam,
+and could barely say half a dozen words in English; her
+Spanish, of which she knew a few words, was Greek to
+us too.</p>
+
+<p>"Signorita! signorita! tabiba!" she kept repeating,
+wailing, and then a torrent of Shillah and Arabic and
+Spanish would follow, and we were at our wits' end. At
+last R. managed to quiet her a little, and by-and-by to
+make her try to help us to understand, by saying slowly
+in Arabic two or three words which would be intelligible
+to us, together with the word or so of English which
+she herself knew. Then we gathered that her one desire
+was that I should go to the tabiba's. But why? We
+told her that S`lam had gone. She burst out into fresh
+agonies and shrieks: "S`lam not go! S`lam not go!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>[<a href="./images/205.png">205</a>]</span>
+Then she got up, and apparently wished to go downstairs&mdash;the
+last thing we thought she ought to do; but all
+our efforts to keep her still seemed rather futile; and from
+what she was trying to make us understand, there was
+more behind than we had an idea of. She went, almost
+ran, down into her and S`lam's bedroom, we following
+hard behind. Inside the room she tip-toed up to a recess
+high in the wall, almost out of her reach, and with difficulty
+lifted down a small bundle of rags. This she unrolled,
+fold after fold, before our eyes, while a thousand guesses
+as to what was coming rushed through the brain; the
+last rag came off, and a small blue bottle, about four
+inches high, lay in her hand. She held it up to the light.
+It was half full of a colourless liquid like water. We
+read the label&mdash;"Prussic Acid. Poison"; and an ugly
+fear took the place of vague conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has eaten this?" R. asked in scanty Arabic.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna" (I), replied Tahara.</p>
+
+<p>The remedy of hot boiled milk rushed into both our
+heads at once, but Tahara was again beginning in a fresh
+agony, which was now more persistent than only terrified;
+and choking off her stream of words, we managed to
+gather, that what she wanted was to go herself with me
+into the city, at once, to Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;. Now a few
+drops of prussic acid of course meant that she had
+not long to live, and yet there were no symptoms of
+poisoning so far as we could gather at present. She
+might have taken it in a diluted form certainly. The
+whole thing was possibly wild imagination on her part.
+At any rate Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; would understand her, and that
+we could not do.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried on my boots, questioning as to whether the
+woman really meant that S`lam had poisoned her. R.
+helped Tahara wind her long white woollen haik round<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>[<a href="./images/206.png">206</a>]</span>
+her. In two minutes I was ready. Tahara slipped into
+her slippers, and, with the white shrouded figure clinging
+to me, in the fast-deepening dusk we started.</p>
+
+<p>It took fully twenty minutes to walk from Jinan Dolero
+to the house in the middle of the city where the lady
+missionaries lived and had a dispensary. Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; had
+had some medical experience, and was a clever woman.
+She understood, probably as far as any European can
+understand, the Moorish character; and it was with
+some confidence&mdash;possibly on the part of us both&mdash;that
+we set out. But the way seemed lengthy; I knew that
+S`lam would be there long before we could arrive:
+through the city there are at least three intricate ways
+by which the house is reached, and my heart sank as
+I reflected that there was every chance of Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; and
+S`lam's taking another way than our own, and thus missing
+us. Meanwhile, it was growing darker every moment.
+Would the city gate still be open when we reached
+it? Was it not certain to be shut when we wanted to
+return?</p>
+
+<p>Tahara hung on to my arm and hand. There had
+been rain, and we both slipped about in the dark, and
+splashed into unseen pools; she took off her pink slippers
+and carried them in one hand, and paddled along on
+her bare feet at a Moorish woman's top speed, still
+shaking with terror. Three or four times, dark as it was,
+she stopped and put out her tongue for me to look at it.
+It seemed very pink, and I did my utmost to reassure
+her, having disturbing visions of her collapsing altogether
+on the grass; for if she was to be understood rightly and
+believed, she had pains in her body, and breathing seemed
+an effort.</p>
+
+<p>We were crossing the cemetery now by one of the
+intricate paths which intersect it. There seemed not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>[<a href="./images/207.png">207</a>]</span>
+soul within sight or sound. Every Moor would be inside
+his house or hut. I hoped Tahara would pull herself
+together and last as far as Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;'s.</p>
+
+<p>She said she was <i>bueno</i>, meaning good, better, and
+spoke again of the bottle which she was carrying carefully
+hidden in her waistband. Then, as far as I could understand,
+she wished me to know that the poison had something
+to do with the signoritas&mdash;ourselves&mdash;and our food.
+This was a most unpleasant reflection: I devoutly hoped
+that R. would not begin dinner before I got back, and
+comforted myself with the assurance that it was unlikely,
+there being no one to get it ready. We had no outside
+man at that time sleeping in the house.</p>
+
+<p>"S`lam <i>no</i> good; S`lam <i>no</i> good," Tahara kept repeating.
+And, to tell the truth, our long-legged ruffian
+rose before my eyes as no mean embodiment of a stage
+villain. The Riffis are notoriously treacherous and put
+no value whatever on life; at the same time I knew that
+they made good and faithful servants up to a certain
+point, and I shrank from distrusting a man who had so
+far served us well. And yet, how much does one know
+of them? Nothing. We had had suspicions that all was
+not going smoothly with the two servants: though they
+had been married so lately there was friction between
+them; Tahara had been heard crying at night, and had
+looked red-eyed. It was likely, therefore, that there had
+been a quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>S`lam's old mother may have made mischief. She was
+madly jealous of Tahara, whom S`lam had married without
+letting her know. He had gone over to Tangier;
+had arranged the marriage with Tahara's brother, who was
+living at Tangier with her; had brought her off, hardly
+a happy or willing bride, for he told us that she cried
+the whole of the journey; and had sprung her upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>[<a href="./images/208.png">208</a>]</span>
+his old mother at Tetuan. In his bachelor days S`lam's
+earnings had gone to the old woman. Now they were
+spent on his wife and himself. Therefore Maman saw
+nothing that was good in Tahara, and would have
+given much, no doubt, to see the last of her.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the city gate drew near. Tahara was moving
+along firmly with her hand in mine. The gate was still
+open!&mdash;that was a relief. We hurried through, and, seeing
+a group of soldiers waiting outside, I judged that it was
+just about to be shut. We were none too soon: the bars
+behind us clanged into their places. I much wished that
+R. was not henceforth cut off from all communication
+with me, and left outside the city entirely by herself:
+there were the two guns and revolver; after all, the house
+was no more likely to be molested on this night than
+on any other.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-29.png"><img src="./images/ill-29_th.png" alt="THE FEDDAN, TETUAN." title="THE FEDDAN, TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Feddan, Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>The narrow streets were nearly pitch dark; shadowy
+figures passed us at first; and Tahara drew her haik all
+over her face, leaving only a slit for the eyes, and put
+on her slippers once more. Occasionally a little shop
+had its hard-working inmate, sewing at slippers by the
+light of an oil lamp; but for the most part all was black
+darkness. How long the intricate streets seemed! We
+stumbled on the rough cobbles and slid into the muddy
+gutter. Tahara's slippers again impeded her, and off they
+came. I wished devoutly I knew where Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; was,
+and could make straight for her, probably hurrying at
+that moment for Jinan Dolero, somewhere in the maze
+of streets and houses. We crossed the great open
+feddan, all deserted, and I strained my eyes for a glimpse
+of her tall figure beside that of S`lam's&mdash;in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Late as it was, children were about; they collected
+gradually behind us and followed us, nor was it easy at
+that time of night to drive them off. Tahara, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>[<a href="./images/209.png">209</a>]</span>
+still struggling on, was leaning heavily on my arm. The
+sooner we get to the Mission House the better.</p>
+
+<p>Two more narrow lanes, a last winding alley, and the
+welcome door of the tabiba's&mdash;never more welcome.</p>
+
+<p>I called to Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; as I led Tahara into the courtyard.
+Her answering voice was all I would have prayed
+for at that moment. She was just starting with S`lam.
+Leading Tahara to the door, we found him on the
+threshold, with his old mother, whom he must have
+gone first to fetch&mdash;Maman, whom R. and I had
+ever distrusted: feeling that she was after no good the
+first time she came to the house, we had limited her
+visits.</p>
+
+<p>I told S`lam to stay outside. He did not seem
+astonished at seeing his wife and myself, asking not a
+single question of either. Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; took Tahara upstairs
+into her bedroom, and I followed, explaining that Tahara
+did not want any one else to come in. For a moment or
+two, after we got her up into the room, all her old terror
+seemed to return; she was unable to speak, and collapsed
+upon the floor&mdash;a ghastly colour. Briefly explaining to
+Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; that Tahara believed herself to be poisoned, we
+knelt down on the floor and examined her. There were
+no apparent symptoms of poisoning&mdash;none; she was only
+cold and terrified beyond words. Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; did her
+best to calm her, and laughed away her fears, hoping to
+get rid of the state of panic which her condition suggested
+more than any poisoning.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing to be done was to persuade Tahara
+to explain matters to Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;. This might have been
+easy enough at Jinan Dolero with S`lam out of the way;
+but here, feeling that he and Maman were under the
+very windows, her terror was abject, and I almost gave
+up hope of getting a syllable out of her.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>[<a href="./images/210.png">210</a>]</span>
+We shut every window, we shut the door, we pulled
+down the blinds, to satisfy her; we even stopped up
+the ventilation-holes; and then she still hesitated and
+trembled.</p>
+
+<p>At last, crouched on the floor, Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; kneeling by
+her, Tahara, with her mouth at Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;'s ear, murmured
+her tale in Arabic, while I wished I could understand.
+<i>S`lam had given her poison. People in the city had
+spoken against her and said evil things about her. S`lam
+was jealous. He had been very angry. They had quarrelled,
+and he had poisoned her. But he must never, never, on
+any account, know that she had been to the tabiba's to
+tell the tale. If S`lam suspected that Tahara knew he
+had tried to poison her, and had told us of it&mdash;well, her
+life was not worth a flus.</i> Even I knew that. Then
+in a fresh agony of terror she crouched on the floor. I
+told her to show Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; the bottle. Now to part with
+the bottle, or to run the faintest risk of S`lam's seeing
+it, was evidently a nightmare to the poor girl. If he
+ever found out that she had taken it and brought it to
+Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; . . .</p>
+
+<p>We wasted many precious moments in trying to persuade
+Tahara to take it out of her belt, where it lay
+concealed, and show it to Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;. She looked at the
+curtains, at the door. Could S`lam possibly see? At last,
+more or less by force, I got possession of it, handed it to
+Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; with one hand, and kept Tahara still on the
+floor with the other.</p>
+
+<p>The stopper of the bottle, Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; thought, had a
+suspicious smell, but she gave it as her verdict that the
+bottle itself contained nothing but water. She recognized
+it at once as having belonged to S`lam's late master, who
+always kept drugs in his house, and the name of whose
+English chemist was on the label.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>[<a href="./images/211.png">211</a>]</span>
+Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; poured a teaspoonful into a tumbler, and
+returned the bottle to Tahara, who was getting rabid at
+the delay. The teaspoonful we decided should be given
+to one of Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;'s little chickens which she was
+rearing. I said I would come in the morning and hear
+her report.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Tahara had refolded and hidden the precious
+bottle as it was before, and Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; had managed more
+or less to reassure her, promising her that she was not
+poisoned this time, and laughing at her panic. The pain
+of which she had complained had no doubt a natural
+cause: giddiness might come on through bending over the
+charcoal fire cooking dinner, Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; told her. Now
+Tahara's only terror was that S`lam should ever find out
+what had happened. The bottle must be taken home&mdash;must
+be replaced exactly where it had been found.</p>
+
+<p>Unsatisfactory as such a course was, there was some risk
+in pursuing any other. S`lam, if he found out that his
+wife had betrayed him or had suspected him and come
+to us, might shoot her like a dog, in a passion, and be
+inside the borders of the Riff in a few hours. And who
+would blame him, if he gave as his reason for his whole
+line of conduct that his wife had been unfaithful to him,
+false though such a statement might be?</p>
+
+<p>A girl in Tetuan a few years ago was <i>suspected</i> of having
+been seduced. Her father took her and her mother out
+to the Mussulman cemetery, within sight and hearing of
+the city&mdash;the girl was sixteen: he shot her on the road,
+and he and the mother dug a grave and buried her by
+the roadside. They went home, and no one said a word.
+The man still lives in Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; evidently shared Tahara's fears, and was
+anxious to allay any suspicions which S`lam might begin
+to entertain. First, however, she found out from Tahara<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>[<a href="./images/212.png">212</a>]</span>
+that S`lam had no intention of poisoning the signoritas
+(<i>us</i>)&mdash;that was <i>quite</i> a mistake&mdash;at least so the girl assured
+her. Then, having once more reassured Tahara about
+her own health, Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; led her downstairs; there
+she explained to S`lam and to his old mother that the
+girl was very nervous, that she had not felt well, was to
+take a pill that night (one had been given her), and
+was to keep quiet to-morrow, in which case she ought
+soon to be quite right.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; wanted to walk out with me and to sleep
+at Jinan Dolero, evidently not liking our passing a night
+alone under such suspicious circumstances; but I was
+convinced there was no cause for fear, and I think we
+both knew that the less we made of what had happened
+the better; so, borrowing a lantern, I started back for
+Jinan Dolero, Tahara clinging to my arm, S`lam lighting
+the way, and the old mother following.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the city gate, it was shut. I had a strange
+wait alone with Tahara and Maman, while S`lam fetched
+a soldier to unbar the gate. The basha's leave had to
+be got, and the basha sent to the English Vice-Consul
+to ask if it was his will that the gate should be opened
+for a British subject. Eventually we got through, all except
+Maman, who said good-night and went home.</p>
+
+<p>It was a cheering sight to see at last a little light
+far away in the valley where our house lay&mdash;the only
+light visible. R. had left the curtains undrawn. In good
+time we reached the garden-house. I took Tahara straight
+into the bedroom, S`lam going to the kitchen to prepare
+dinner. The little bottle in its wrappings was immediately
+replaced in its niche, and Tahara ate some food which
+we brought her. S`lam, as usual, waited on us: he was
+oddly obsequious and deprecating in his manner, and I
+could not quite understand it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>[<a href="./images/213.png">213</a>]</span>
+The night passed quietly. Early next morning
+Maman appeared, which neither of us liked, but she
+had come ostensibly to ask after Tahara, who had quite
+recovered. I walked into the city, and went to the Mission
+House to see Miss Z&mdash;&mdash;. The chicken was quite as well
+as Tahara, and the liquid which at least one of them had
+taken was probably water. Even so, the mystery was
+not cleared up. If it was water, why did S`lam keep it
+wrapped up, and why did Tahara think it was poison?
+It was half empty. If Tahara had ever seen it full,
+somebody must have drunk a dose. Of course S`lam's
+old master had not left a bottle of prussic acid about,
+and then not missed it. He probably emptied the bottle
+and then threw it away; it might have had a drop or two
+left in it, and the bottle may have been filled up with
+water; but that was pure conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>The poisons Moors so easily get, and which S`lam or
+his mother could supply themselves with, are generally
+in a powder form. I do not know how they would mix
+with water: they are generally slow in working, sometimes
+weeks in taking effect. There was no reason why Tahara
+should not be poisoned by such a drug, and yet feel no
+ill effects for the present. Thus we argued. Poisoning
+in Morocco is such an every-day occurrence that it was
+a most ordinary suspicion on Tahara's part. After all,
+there might be nothing in it, but merely a fear grounded
+on all sorts of reasons and assumptions. It is only a
+matter of sitting down and thinking to conjure up plenty
+of fears in Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling that it was not pleasant to have a bottle
+marked "Poison" in the house, and not to be positive
+as to its contents, I resolved to empty and wash it
+out, sending the so-called "water" to an analyst at
+Tangier, and refilling the bottle with <i>bon&acirc;-fide</i> water before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>[<a href="./images/214.png">214</a>]</span>
+replacing it. The chicken test was not thoroughly
+satisfactory. As matters stood, Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; decided to
+come out that afternoon to our house, while S`lam should
+be sent away on an errand, in order that Tahara might
+be interrogated and the thing ended.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-30.png"><img src="./images/ill-30_th.png" alt="CHARMING SNAKES." title="CHARMING SNAKES." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Charming Snakes.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived home, I found that S`lam had been dispatched
+to the city to market, and that Maman had gone with
+him. Alas! the little bottle had disappeared; it was no
+longer in the niche which could be seen every time the
+door was passed. Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; arrived in the afternoon.
+By that time some other occult influence had come to
+work in Tahara's mind, and directly Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; spoke
+to her it was evident that she was hedging. As long
+as she was terrified and had lost her head she blurted
+out the truth; but given time to think the matter over,
+a thousand side-issues weighed with her, and she was
+no more inclined to trust us than she would have been
+to trust a Moorish woman, who is brought up to lies,
+intrigue, and diplomacy, and fed upon such axioms as
+"When you have nothing else to tell, tell the truth."
+<i>The bottle</i>, she said, <i>had been taken away by S`lam and
+his mother. It belonged to his mother. It was poison
+to poison people in the Riff.</i> A little later on she said
+<i>it had nothing whatever to do with S`lam, and that it
+had only water in it&mdash;that S`lam had told her so. That
+she had never seen him put anything into her food. That
+he was "good." That she only had a bad pain last
+night. That she did not know why the bottle had been
+brought there.</i> And so on. Her one prayer was that
+the signoritas would forget all that had happened. But
+for days she would not let us: by creeping up when
+S`lam was out of the way and putting her finger on
+her lips, by anxious questionings and gesticulations, the
+thing was never allowed to rest. She felt, probably, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>[<a href="./images/215.png">215</a>]</span>
+she was past one danger&mdash;there was no more to fear
+in that direction for the present; but that if her Riffi
+husband ever suspected she had "given him away," he
+would soon dispose of so troublesome an incubus.</p>
+
+<p>And so we found the matter had come to a deadlock:
+more we shall not know. It was typical of the Moors
+and their ways. It was, I cannot help thinking, rather
+a shady business. Taking into consideration S`lam's
+manner towards us for days after, added to those intuitions
+which one has and cannot put into words, it struck
+us that S`lam himself did not think the bottle had only
+water in it.</p>
+
+<p>Ask no questions in this strange land. Lies are the
+portion meted out to the inquirer: it is not well to know
+too much. "Knowledge and virtue and a horse's mouth
+should not pass through too many hands," and "If you
+question knowledge, it falls from its estate"&mdash;thus the
+Moors.</p>
+
+<p>I shall hear from Miss Z&mdash;&mdash; of Tahara's future welfare,
+unless she is moved from Tetuan. If she comes to an
+untimely end within the next year or so, our suspicions
+were not groundless. For the present we "forget," of
+course. For the whole affair&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Oh no, we never mention it;</p>
+<p>Its feet are never heard!</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>[<a href="./images/216.png">216</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>[<a href="./images/217.png">217</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">Missionaries at Tetuan&mdash;Poisoning in Morocco&mdash;Fatima's Reception&mdash;Divorce&mdash;An Expedition into the Anjeras&mdash;An Emerald Oasis.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>[<a href="./images/218.png">218</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>[<a href="./images/219.png">219</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER VIII</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>The friendship of man is like the shade of the acacia. Yet
+while the friendship lives, it lives. When God wills it to die, it
+dies!</i>" mused Dicky, with a significant smile. "Friendship walks
+on thin ice in the East."</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Three</span> times a week, from ten o'clock to twelve
+o'clock in the morning, the lady missionaries opened
+their dispensary, which, as there was no man missionary
+in Tetuan, was in women's hands alone, Miss Banks at
+the head. Though, unfortunately, she was not an M.D.
+nor a qualified surgeon, the good which she and her
+staff did was incalculable. The first day on which the
+dispensary was open after R&aacute;madhan over sixty Moors
+came to be doctored. The day I went, there were forty-four;
+and the two rooms&mdash;one for men, one for women&mdash;were
+as full as they would hold, while a large surplus
+stood waiting their turn outside. Most of them were of
+the lower class of Moors: the better class of women
+would ask Miss Banks to visit them in their own
+houses; the better class of men would not go to lady
+missionaries.</p>
+
+<p>The patients sat round the rooms in a circle. Miss
+Banks went to each in turn, and made a note of the
+case in a book. This over, she retired to an inner room;
+and, among scales, and glass measures, and drugs, and
+tins, and bottles by the score, proceeded to make up
+all the various medicines. Meanwhile, two others of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>[<a href="./images/220.png">220</a>]</span>
+staff took up positions in the middle of the circles of
+men and women, and read the Bible to them in Arabic
+and talked to them. They seemed to listen attentively,
+and one or two nodded occasionally in agreement with
+what was said.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, though everybody was doctored and provided
+with medicine gratis, they had to sit and listen for a
+certain time to Christian views, <i>nolens volens</i>; and this is
+the chief opportunity which missionaries have of preaching
+to the Mohammedan world.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the patients who had been before brought
+medicine-bottles and ointment-boxes to be refilled. If
+not, the bottles had to be paid for. In the first instance
+they were given in with the medicine; but bottles
+are things of great value to the labouring Moor, and
+it was found that the people came purely for the sake
+of getting them&mdash;once outside the house, the medicine
+was thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>One woman paid for her bottle in kind&mdash;four eggs.
+Some of the bottles were absurdly small; others the
+reverse, for one woman appeared carrying a great earthenware
+water-pot standing three feet high.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter," she said to Miss Banks, "I want
+medicine."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I cannot give you medicine in such a
+huge pot."</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter, I have been three days on the road,
+and I want <i>much</i> medicine."</p>
+
+<p>Another woman, who looked old and decrepit, begged
+and prayed that a bottle might be given her. Miss Banks
+was adamant. The woman whined and entreated from
+ten till half-past eleven: "I am too poor to buy one.
+Look at me; I am ill," and so on&mdash;until at last one
+of the other missionaries begged Miss Banks to give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>[<a href="./images/221.png">221</a>]</span>
+her a bottle and send her away. Still she refused
+to break her rule. The last patient got up to go.
+It was twelve o'clock. The old woman thrust her
+hand into the rag round her waist, pulled out a bottle,
+and handed it to Miss Banks to be filled.</p>
+
+<p>The cases we saw were numerous. A mother with
+two little boys whose heads had to be examined: they
+were dispatched with a box of ointment (sulphur and
+oil) and a bottle of medicine. A boy with swelled glands
+had them painted. A woman had her chest painted, a
+man various parts of him. Pills, ointment, powders, etc.,
+were distributed, with manifold instructions, repeated again
+and again, until the patient's clod-like brain had been
+penetrated and set in motion. Even then one would
+turn round at the door and say, "Then I am to eat
+this ointment?"</p>
+
+<p>A woman was given some salts wrapped in paper,
+to be mixed with water and taken the next morning
+fasting. She did not come again for a month, and she
+brought with her a large earthen pot half full of water
+and paper. She had mixed the salts in this with their
+wrapping, and had been drinking a mouthful daily, but
+felt no better.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Banks gave a woman in good circumstances a
+bottle of medicine which was to last her eight days, and
+be taken after food; also some liniment for external
+use. An urgent summons came two days later: the
+woman was dying. "I thought it did me so much good
+that last night I took all the rest, and then I drank the
+liniment," she said. She recovered.</p>
+
+<p>A man did the same with pills&mdash;was so much pleased
+with the effect of one that he devoured the rest all
+at once. They invariably ate the paper in which pills or
+powders were wrapped.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>[<a href="./images/222.png">222</a>]</span>
+On one occasion Miss Banks went to see a girl whom
+she was attending, and who seemed worse. The answer,
+when asked if she was having her medicine regularly,
+was, "Oh no! she's so ill just now. When she's a little
+better, we shall give it to her."</p>
+
+<p>Supposing that a patient dies, or a man who has once
+been a patient dies, the people have no hesitation in
+saying to the missionaries when they meet them in the
+street, "Oh! So-and-so's taken your medicine, and it's
+killed him."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to trust Moors with medicines which
+could damage them; this seriously handicaps a doctor:
+in extreme cases the dose must be administered by the
+doctor personally.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the dispensary, the missionaries had day schools
+for the children, night schools for boys, and mothers'
+meetings for women. Here, again, the mothers who
+attended the meetings were given the material of the
+clothes which they made for nothing; but they were
+obliged to sit down and listen to a Bible lesson first. It
+was one way, it was an opportunity, of bringing Christianity
+before Mohammedans.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-31.png"><img src="./images/ill-31_th.png" alt="MOORS AT HOME." title="MOORS AT HOME." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Moors at Home.</p>
+
+<p>Thus through the meetings and the schools and the
+dispensary the missionaries knew many of the women
+in Tetuan, and there were few houses into which they
+had not been at one time or another. Sometimes it
+was possible to read to the people in their homes,
+sometimes to talk. But with the men they seldom
+came in contact. Never with an educated Moor. He
+would despise women in general, despise Christianity
+past words, and decline to argue on such a point with
+a man.</p>
+
+<p>People are apt to forget that Mohammedanism is a faith
+to which many millions of earnest and intelligent men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>[<a href="./images/223.png">223</a>]</span>
+and women have pinned their salvation. To talk and
+argue with these&mdash;it is almost a truism to say&mdash;a missionary
+must be "up" in that subject which they have at
+their finger-tips&mdash;namely, their religion. This means that
+he or she must have a complete knowledge of the Kor&#257;n;
+must know the traditions relating to Mohammed and
+his companions; must be able to converse about the
+divinity and the innumerable saints of Islam; must have
+read various religious treatises; and, above and beyond all,
+must understand to the smallest point the habits of the
+Mohammedan himself, know his life, be able to follow his
+thoughts, understand his actions, and be in sympathy with
+his recreations as well as with his work, otherwise the
+missionary treads on the Mohammedan's toes fifty times
+a day, and provokes amusement, mingled with contempt,
+of which resentment is born.</p>
+
+<p>Needless to say, few missionaries in Morocco, except
+at the end of their life's work, possess these qualifications.
+Only a limited number know the Arabic language: they
+speak it colloquially of course, but the immense difficulties,
+which a thorough knowledge of it entails, debar most of
+them from satisfactory study. After years upon years of
+hard work, an Arabian scholar frankly avowed to me that
+he had but skimmed the surface of the depths of the
+Arabic language.</p>
+
+<p>As far as the old idea of missionary work goes&mdash;of
+preaching to an attentive throng of Mohammedans and
+baptizing converts&mdash;Morocco ranks nowhere. The missionary
+who comes out to El Moghreb does incalculable good
+in curing the hereditary disease and taint with which an
+Eastern nation is rife, and many influence the surrounding
+people by the example of a good life and contact with
+a civilized mind: he or she is to be profoundly admired
+for the determination with which one end and one aim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>[<a href="./images/224.png">224</a>]</span>
+are held in view from first to last, and to the furtherance
+of which the whole of life is made subservient; and yet
+the shadows of disappointment must darken that missionary's
+path sometimes, unless he or she is a philosopher.
+For we met with none who could point us out a single
+convert, openly declaring himself to be one. In Tetuan,
+after twelve years' work, there was not one. Two women
+there were, who acknowledged to the missionaries, that
+they preferred Christianity to Mohammedanism, and who
+in private make use of Christian forms of prayer, but
+they would not "declare" their belief.</p>
+
+<p>It is said, and no doubt truly, that there would be
+many converts to Christianity in Morocco among the
+lowest class, if it were not for the persecution of the
+Government, and the strong anti-Christian feeling which
+exists amongst those in authority. The religion and the
+Government are one; the Sultan is the religious head, a
+direct descendant from Mohammed; consequently Mohammedanism
+is <i>enforced</i>. A woman who declared herself
+a Christian would have her children taken from her; a
+man would be flogged round the city and boycotted, if
+he was not killed. Thus the prospects of the would-be
+convert are not happy: all which the missionaries have
+to offer him is, on the one hand martyrdom, on the
+other a miserable line of compromise&mdash;a life, that is to
+say, of concealment and deceit towards those nearest
+him, for though Christian at heart, he must yet remain
+Mohammedan to the world. This latter course of compromise
+is the line which is followed, and it is the course
+which is tacitly inculcated by the missionaries. I heard
+of no martyrs, nor Christian Moors openly declared, living
+in Morocco at peace with mankind.</p>
+
+<p>There is a hitch somewhere. Christianity is in danger
+of being dragged in the dust. If it were possible for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>[<a href="./images/225.png">225</a>]</span>
+missionaries to make their doctrines appeal to the powerful
+and more enlightened class among the Moors, influencing
+the country to such an extent that it should adopt
+Christianity of its own accord, this could never be so.
+But it is not possible. In the present state of Morocco
+the idea is laughable. It is hardly to be expected that
+the most fanatical and conservative nation ever evolved,
+will cast its religion, like a snake its skin, at the bidding
+of a body of despised Europeans. Before such a revolution
+could take place, the character of such a nation must
+entirely change; the Moor must be broadened and given
+a scientific training, if he is ever to become of a "progressive"
+turn of mind, desiring other ideals than those
+of his forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the missionary must be adequately
+equipped for the fray, must be a "strong man," must
+possess some of the qualifications of a leader.</p>
+
+<p>The first point is the all-important one: that more
+knowledge should be given to Mohammedans&mdash;scientific
+knowledge; that they should be fired to improve their
+own condition and that of their country, making themselves
+capable of mixing as equals with men who stand
+for the highest products of civilization the world so far
+knows.</p>
+
+<p>Then, educated and self-educating, their creed, whatever
+it is, will be the outcome of their secular training. It
+matters little what the belief, so long as the individual
+is free as air to adopt it or not at his own discretion.</p>
+
+<p>It would appear, then, that Morocco needs schools,
+colleges, and men of unusual calibre to deal with them.
+The doctor-missionaries do a vast amount of good; but
+it would seem that effort directed in fresh channels should
+meet with better results, and that so far there has been
+a tendency to "begin at the wrong end."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>[<a href="./images/226.png">226</a>]</span>
+It is easy to sit down and criticise; it is easy to map
+out new paths, the difficulties connected with which, few
+critics can realize. While we see that many of the old
+by-ways are tortuous and lead to error, and that many
+of them only result in waste of energy, let us at the
+same time not forget to give all honour to those who
+set out to dig them, for even "defeat, is great."</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon I walked round with Miss Banks, visiting
+patients. We started from the Mission House with a
+basket of medicines, ointment, thermometer, paint-brush,
+etc., and dived into the little, narrow, crowded streets of
+countless windowless houses. The first call we paid was
+at the house of a Moor in the capacity of "gentleman
+farmer": of course he was out. Miss Banks knocked;
+there was a movement on the other side, but no answer.
+She called through the keyhole, "Anna. Tabiba" (I.
+Doctor); and a discreet slave, trained by a jealous and
+distrustful master, opened at the sound of her voice.
+We walked into a three-cornered, tiled patio: the lady
+of the house came to meet us in a pink jellab, shook
+Miss Banks's hand and kissed her own, shook mine and
+again carried hers to her lips; then led us into a room
+opening on to the courtyard, with divans, in white, all
+round upon the tiled floor next the wall.</p>
+
+<p>We all three sat down cross-legged on the cushions,
+and our hostess related her symptoms to Miss Banks.
+She had a bad cough, and seemed glad to have her
+chest painted with iodine. She was the daughter of
+her husband's cowman; and if, according to English
+ideas, somewhat below him in rank, was no worse
+educated than the first lady in the land. It is odd
+that, while Moors are gentlemen born, their woman-kind,
+narrowed and degraded, are in no sense aristocratic.
+They will stand upstairs and shout "Come!" to any one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>[<a href="./images/227.png">227</a>]</span>
+who is calling upon them and waiting below. "Sit
+down," they will say imperatively: it is always the
+imperative. If they are asked to show anything, they
+will bring it and almost throw it at the visitor's head.
+They have no "breeding."</p>
+
+<p>Our hostess was thin, and not at all typical of a
+Moorish wife; for a Moor likes a waist which he can
+barely clasp with both arms, and women, when they
+desire to attract, fatten themselves at once. A woman
+who is engaged, is crammed with sweet fattening pills
+and farinaceous food.</p>
+
+<p>At one end of the room we sat in, was a gorgeous
+four-poster bed, hung with scarlet, and covered with
+embroideries, the posts painted bright green, and a great
+gilt crown on the top of all. When no furniture is
+bought except divans and a bed, all the dollars can
+be piled on the bed. We left a bottle of mixture out
+of the basket and a doll for the only child, which would
+be treasured, for a bunch of rags is the nearest Moorish
+approach to a doll.</p>
+
+<p>From this house we went on to our hostess' old home,
+where her father, the cowman, lived. The patio there
+was cold and bare, and seemed the general living-room;
+some wood was stacked in one corner; there was a well
+in another; there was an overpowering smell of "drains"
+everywhere; while in the third corner a poor, miserable
+little girl sat huddled up, with frightened eyes. Several
+families lived together in this small house, and no fewer
+than six women crowded round the girl to explain her
+symptoms to Miss Banks. It was only too apparent
+what was wrong, when she uncovered her neck. Syphilis,
+hereditary&mdash;a terrible evil, to be found all over Morocco, the
+result of Mohammedan customs and bad food. Considering
+that women are divorced and remarried over and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>[<a href="./images/228.png">228</a>]</span>
+over again, and that the conditions under which they
+live are so unhealthy, it is small wonder if disease in
+some form or other does not show itself. Examples are
+to be met with in almost any street&mdash;the features of the
+face obliterated, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>The poor child, whom Miss Banks was treating, had
+been married. Now that this disease had broken out,
+her husband would probably divorce her. If she were
+cured, she might marry again. Her friends had brought
+her all the way from Shesaw&#257;n to Tetuan to be cured,
+and a Jew doctor had offered to put her right for the
+sum of &pound;4.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said her friends, "suppose she dies? What shall
+we get for our money then?"</p>
+
+<p>So they sent to the English tabiba, who cures for
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Banks left ointment and medicine. Cases can be
+cured if the patient will persevere long enough with the
+medicine; but many of them are too far gone when they
+first come.</p>
+
+<p>An old man upstairs in the same house, but of a different
+family, claimed her attention next. Three weeks ago he
+was perfectly well. He went to a caf&eacute; one evening, drank
+a cup of coffee, came home, was seized with pain, and
+became completely paralyzed. It pointed to poison, but
+he had no enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Mercury is very largely used as a poison, and is given
+in different forms. Little is thought of ending life by
+this means, unless there happen to be influential relations
+who object to their relatives being in this summary
+manner "put out of the way."</p>
+
+<p>There is a girl now in Tetuan who keeps a shop.
+Her father and mother kept it before her, but she said
+that they were both so old, had lived so long, and had had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>[<a href="./images/229.png">229</a>]</span>
+their day, that she felt something must be done to secure
+her own turn, and that speedily. Therefore she gave them
+both some poison. There was a funeral. She took over
+the shop.</p>
+
+<p>Another woman was anxious to poison her husband
+because he was about to take a second wife. She prepared
+him the dish with the poisoned pieces. Suddenly she
+saw her child run into the house and join his father at
+the meal. Careless of betraying herself, she rushed to her
+Benjamin with cries of alarm,&mdash;too late; he had eaten, and
+he succumbed that night. The husband died at the end
+of a year from the effects of the same poison. Some of
+the drugs which Moors use take even longer to destroy
+life, but it is only a matter of time. The woman was
+put in prison, but she came out after twelve months, and
+another man has taken her to wife.</p>
+
+<p>Some missionary and poisoning experiences are amusing.
+People often came and asked for poison to administer
+to somebody who happened to annoy them.</p>
+
+<p>A slave appeared once and said, "I have a mistress:
+she's very old, isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the missionary.</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't enjoy life now much, does she?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't think she does much."</p>
+
+<p>"Would she enjoy being with the Lord much more
+than living on like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the missionary, "she would be far happier
+with the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the slave, "give me some poison to send
+her to Him."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Miss Banks looked at her patient, who might
+or might not have had his life tampered with; but there
+was little she could do then. We left that house and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>[<a href="./images/230.png">230</a>]</span>
+walked on into the poorest part of the city, down a little
+alley which was hard to find, in search of a certain door
+which was still harder. After two or three mistakes, we
+hit upon the right one, and knocked at an old, battered,
+rat-eaten entrance falling to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna. Tabiba," called Miss Banks; and the door was
+opened by a countryman, a Riffi, rough-looking, only a
+coarse jellab over him, but with a kind expression on
+his face. The space inside was something like a chicken-pen.
+We stooped under a very low doorway in the farther
+wall, and went into a little shed-like lean-to, where the
+inhabitants evidently lived entirely. A boy of thirteen
+was lying on the ground, covered with a piece of sacking.
+The father squatted down beside him. Two girls
+were grinding beans close to them in a hand-mill&mdash;the
+old mill of . . . "the one shall be taken, and the other
+left."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Banks and I seated ourselves on a wooden
+rail, which was part of a manger or a sheep-pen. These
+Riffis had been forced by famine to abandon their home
+and come down into Tetuan, where at first they had
+lived in a cave, on roots principally. The father would
+go out and hoe when he could get work&mdash;every land-owner
+has hoeing to be done; but lately he had had
+fever. The boy had an abscess, and could not move.
+In spite of it he smiled cheerfully, and was delighted
+with a new red jellab which Miss Banks brought him.
+Poor little chap! he did not live to wear it. I gave
+him a trifle to buy food. Beyond the dried beans in
+course of being ground, and half a lemon, there was no
+sign of anything to eat. Beans and lemons to fight an
+abscess!</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-32.png"><img src="./images/ill-32_th.png" alt="STRAW FOR SALE." title="STRAW FOR SALE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Straw for Sale.</p>
+
+<p>After Miss Banks had attended to the child, we took
+our way to the house of a Moorish doctor, who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>[<a href="./images/231.png">231</a>]</span>
+been unable to cure himself, and had sent in desperation
+for his European rival.</p>
+
+<p>He was lying on a divan upstairs, himself the colour
+of oatmeal porridge, with his wife attending to him; and
+he had a terrible sore on his thigh. This was duly
+attended to. The long fast of R&aacute;madhan might partly
+account for his state of health. In spite of his faith in
+Miss Banks, which he would sooner have died than acknowledged,
+he had unbounded confidence in his own
+skill as a doctor.</p>
+
+<p>We asked him if he could read.</p>
+
+<p>"Read? No. Why should he read? What was the
+use of reading? The thing you wanted to do was to
+<i>remember</i>. Now he, if he was doctoring any one, he
+would try first this herb and then that. This herb no
+good. Try another. Another no good. Another no
+good. He might try twelve herbs, and all no good.
+And the thirteenth herb would be good. And then he
+would <i>remember</i> that herb. Why! all his doctoring he
+taught himself . . ."</p>
+
+<p>A rough sort of doctoring it is too, consisting of two
+remedies&mdash;a violent purge, or else burning with a hot
+iron. Every sore place is burnt; and for all sorts of
+illnesses, in cases of rheumatism, etc., etc., the patient is
+scored, perhaps all over his chest or back&mdash;"fired" like
+a horse. Sores are always cauterized. Bullets are never
+extracted. Wounds are bound up with earth and rags.
+A serious gunshot wound, means death. Certainly there
+is a wide field for women doctors in Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>From this house we went on to one where the father,
+mother, and children were all having a meal&mdash;a poverty-stricken
+family again, where one of the children was
+wasting away with fever. The rest of the party were
+sitting round an earthenware pan, which was full of mallow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>[<a href="./images/232.png">232</a>]</span>
+leaves, stewed in native oil, with red pepper and garlic
+in huge quantities. They were dipping in their fingers,
+fishing out the greasy mallow and garlic, and laying it
+on their brown native bread and eating it. They insisted
+upon our joining them. It is no excuse to say "I have
+dined lately," for a Moor eats at any time, when there
+happens to be food. Miss Banks tasted the stew with a
+heroism worthy the noblest end.</p>
+
+<p>We went on to the house of a man who has one of
+the best shops in Tetuan. It was consequently comfortable,
+and delightfully fresh-looking. The master of the
+house was in bed with fever&mdash;that is to say, we found him
+reclining on a divan on the floor, beside a gorgeous bed,
+with a lily-white turban fresh from the wash-tub wound
+round his head. We sat down on the divan running round
+the room, and Miss Banks was glad to hear that her
+patient had at last consented to take quinine. He was
+worn-looking, with small black beard and moustache.
+Moors, like every effete people, are unable to grow a great
+quantity of hair on their faces.</p>
+
+<p>After visiting her cases Miss Banks suggested something
+of a change, and we turned into the best part of Tetuan,
+to pay a call upon one of the first families in Morocco, the
+head of which is now dead. B&mdash;&mdash; was probably the most
+wealthy and enlightened Moor in the city: he was once
+employed by Government, and he made his little pile;
+but he had never married&mdash;or, rather, his only marriage
+had ended in a speedy divorce; and most of his life he
+had been able to afford to keep a galaxy of slaves, whom
+he had freed in time, and whose offspring represent the
+family to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The name of the chief of his slaves, and the mistress
+of the dead man's house at the present moment, is Fatima.
+Fatima has a history. B&mdash;&mdash; possessed twenty white slaves:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>[<a href="./images/233.png">233</a>]</span>
+they were chiefly stolen from villages in the south, and
+they passed into his hands; but his treasures were two
+beautiful Circassian women from Turkey, one of whom
+he sent to the late Sultan (who is the mother of the
+present Sultan), the other he kept for himself&mdash;Fatima.
+Fatima early showed a disposition far from humble, and
+B&mdash;&mdash; spoilt her. At last he made her head of his house
+and all his slaves. One day she caused two of these
+women to be beaten in such a manner that one of them
+died. The other vowed revenge; went to B&mdash;&mdash;, and
+told him that she had seen Fatima looking through a
+window at a man in the garden below. Considering that
+a woman of superior class must not look out of her
+window, though the prospect be an arid yard, the statement
+was calculated to rouse B&mdash;&mdash;. Brought up on such
+proverbs as "When the bee hums and the buttermilk
+ferments, place, O brother, a halter on thy little daughter,"
+and to consider women "the nearest roads to hell," B&mdash;&mdash;
+took prompt and drastic measures. He chained Fatima
+up to a pillar for three months, and fed her on bread and
+water. Her eldest daughter was to be married. Fatima
+was released and told she might attend the wedding, but
+only as the equal of the lowest slave, and dressed as such.
+She said that she had been accustomed to mixing with
+the first-born of Tetuan as an equal, and she would go
+among them as nothing else. To break Fatima's pride,
+B&mdash;&mdash; married a wife; but the wiles of his old favourite
+were too strong for him, and he gave her presents,
+including a gold bracelet. The indignant wife, furious
+at her husband's attentions to a mere slave, got a divorce
+and left B&mdash;&mdash;; whereupon he fell into the arms of
+Fatima, and she graciously consented to become once
+more head of his house. She is now the proudest
+woman in Tetuan, inclined to look upon the missionaries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>[<a href="./images/234.png">234</a>]</span>
+and European women in general as dust under her feet.
+Her ignorance is unbounded. "India!" she said to Miss
+Hubbard. "You say all India belongs to you English.
+You may well wish it did. You've only got one
+port."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, we had reached the door of this famous
+lady's house, and were clanging the great knocker. It
+was superior to any door we had "wakened" that afternoon&mdash;made
+of pale, cinnamon-coloured wood, and immensely
+wide, carved up above and brightened with
+great fork-like hinges and nail-heads as large as pennies.
+A vastly stout slave, smart in proportion, opened the
+door, and said something in Arabic to Miss Banks, which,
+translated, intimated that a large tea party was going on
+within. She led us along far-reaching, wide passages,
+which at length opened out into an extensive patio, paved
+with great black and white marble tiles, like a giant chess-board.
+A double row of finely tiled pillars supported
+the roof, and a fountain shot up water in the centre of
+all. The style of the building suggested that the dead
+man had known how to spend some of his money, and
+to make for himself a place refined and romantic rather
+than gorgeous.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping down the cool aisles between the pillars, the
+slave took us towards a room opening out of the patio;
+and such a room!&mdash;hung with embroideries, surrounded
+with luxurious divans worked in scarlet and white, carpeted
+with deep-piled carpets, and yet no more than
+a mere setting for the fantastic butterfly world which
+seemed let loose inside. Tetuan's most aristocratic women,
+scented favourites of Moorish society, kept in lavender
+and reared on sugar and orange-flower water, are not
+among those things which one easily forgets. About
+twelve of them or more&mdash;enough to dazzle and not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>[<a href="./images/235.png">235</a>]</span>
+bewilder, furnish to perfection yet avoid a crush&mdash;were
+half reclining on the divans round the room. Fatima
+was on our immediate left as we entered; a holy
+Shar&#299;fa on the right; the daughter of another Shar&#299;f
+sat beyond her. The circle was one of Sanctity and
+Rank.</p>
+
+<p>We shook hands with the mistress of the house, and
+were motioned to take our seats on the divan exactly
+opposite her.</p>
+
+<p>Fatima was no disappointment. She suggested much,
+and more than fulfilled the promise of her history. She
+was pale and dark, with a little head like a snake's,
+thin sarcastic lips, and eyes full of smouldering devil.
+Two silver trays stood in front of her, covered with
+fragile porcelain cups and thin gilded cut-glass, with a
+silver-topped box full of fragrant mint, another quaint
+box containing fine green tea, an enormous cut-glass
+sugar-basin heaped with small rocks of white sugar,
+two silver embossed and steaming teapots, some scent-sprinklers
+and incense-burners of silver. At her elbow, on
+the floor, was the largest silver urn I ever saw, capable of
+supplying half a dozen school feasts; down the room, in
+a line, upon the carpets, stood round baskets, three feet in
+diameter, filled with palest cream-coloured bracelet-shaped
+loaves of bread, made of too fine and white a flour and
+too perfectly baked for any but the upper ten to indulge
+in. The centre basket contained perhaps fifty cakes&mdash;nothing
+on a small scale here&mdash;made of thin flaked pastry,
+iced over with sugar, filled with a confectionery of
+almonds, and quinces, and raisins, and orange-flower
+water, and an essence, one drop of which cost five
+shillings. These take a day to make, and are only
+met with in an elaborate <i>m&eacute;nage</i>. Other tarts, lavishly
+coated with a snow of white sugar, contained jams<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>[<a href="./images/236.png">236</a>]</span>
+and nuts and all the sweet things dear to the Moorish
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>The movements of Fatima's small hands among the
+cups, covered with rings, each polished nail just touched
+with a half-moon of dark red henna, were born of <i>dolce
+far niente</i>, backed by a long line famous for their beauty:
+her restless black eyes alternately gleamed with cruelty
+and cunning; flashed with passion; grew sad as it is given
+to few eyes to grow.</p>
+
+<p>Many embroidered buttons, as edgings in front, betokened
+garment within garment, which she wore, all of
+them at last confined by a broad, richly worked belt; her
+kaftan was of lemon-yellow, shining with silver borderings;
+the muslin "overall" was the thinnest atmosphere of white;
+there were many necklaces, chiefly pearl, round her neck,
+and, most characteristic of all, a tiny yellow silk handkerchief
+was knotted once round her throat; on her
+black head, colour ran riot in silks of all shades, tied
+and twisted and arranged as only a Moorish hand
+knows; her feet were wrapped in a soft pale yellow
+shawl, embroidered. She did not get up when we
+came in.</p>
+
+<p>Multiply Fatima twelve times, in colours more opulent
+and more bizarre than her own, instead of her lithe
+figure, picture stone upon stone of sleek flesh, and some
+idea of the epicureanism of the scene is arrived at.
+Sitting on each side of us were two of the fattest women
+I have ever seen.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-33.png"><img src="./images/ill-33_th.png" alt="A GROUP IN THE FEDDAN, TETUAN." title="A GROUP IN THE FEDDAN, TETUAN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Group in the Feddan, Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Fatima signed to a slave to carry across the
+cups of tea which she had poured out, together with thin
+china plates; then we were supplied with the fine sweet
+bread. Miss Banks explained that I was not a <i>tabiba</i>
+(doctor). Fatima told her I was to ask about anything
+which I did not understand, and with interpretations we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>[<a href="./images/237.png">237</a>]</span>
+carried on trifling conversation. It was like stepping into
+"The Arabian Nights" come to life. These women seldom
+go out of doors, or, if they do, nothing is to be seen of them
+except a figure in an immense creamy woollen haik from
+top to toe, heavily veiled: possibly a pair of haunting
+eyes and beautiful slippers suggest an attractive "beyond."
+But here were we "i' the centre of the labyrinth," where
+mere men can never go; in a maze of hot imperious
+colour; in a world of ivory-tinted faces, flowing lines,
+and stately gestures; among <i>abandon</i> such as one little
+dreams of in a Mohammedan double-locked world.</p>
+
+<p>They lie at the ends of the pole, the women of
+Morocco: the countrywomen, beasts of burden; the
+wives of the rich, sumptuously fed and caparisoned
+lap-dogs.</p>
+
+<p>Amidst such a show of silk and embroidery no English-woman,
+in the utilitarian coat and skirt best fitted for
+travel, could feel other than out of place, nor resist the
+weak desire that the imperious Fatima and her circle
+should have another impression of our countrywomen
+made upon their ignorant minds than that given by
+short skirts and nailed boots&mdash;say, Covent Garden one
+night when the opera has drawn all the diamonds in
+town.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the Moorish French Consul, in the
+Tetuan post-office, saw R. writing a card in there
+once.</p>
+
+<p>"What a great thing it is," he said to Mr. Bewicke,
+"that your women can write and can arrange things for
+themselves. I go away; my wife cannot write to me.
+Our women are just like animals."</p>
+
+<p>As far as I could gather, a Moorish woman does not
+think for herself until she is divorced. Her father, mother,
+or brother marries her to whomsoever he or she chooses;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>[<a href="./images/238.png">238</a>]</span>
+but when once she is divorced, she is free to marry
+after her own heart, and no one can interfere with her.
+Divorce was of course allowed by Mohammed. It is
+so common that no wife is surprised at being divorced
+a year after marriage, or six months, even a week. If
+she does not get up in time in the morning, her husband
+can divorce her, or if she becomes ill, or for a hundred
+petty reasons. Therefore upon the marriage-lines is
+always entered the sum of money which a wife brings
+her husband; a poor woman will bring from thirty
+shillings to three pounds, a rich woman from a hundred
+to three hundred pounds; and whatever the sum be, the
+husband must refund it to the wife when he divorces
+her. The actual getting of the divorce is simplicity itself.
+Man and wife go before the deputy of the governor of
+the city or province and state their case. The deputy
+will probably say, "Very well. Pay the woman such-and-such
+a sum mentioned in the agreement, and go your
+several ways."</p>
+
+<p>A man, however, often changes his mind, and marries
+the woman whom he has divorced; and perhaps they
+are divorced a second time and married a third time.
+But he may not marry her the third time unless she
+has meanwhile been married by another man and divorced
+from him.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the Moorish husbands leave their wives&mdash;the
+Riffis, for instance, going back into the Riff. If they are
+away over a year and send no money to the wife,
+she can claim a divorce: going before the deputy
+with a witness or two, it is soon arranged; she then
+probably marries a second husband. Were it not for
+this arrangement, Tetuan would be full of deserted
+wives.</p>
+
+<p>It must be most difficult to try to "preach" either to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>[<a href="./images/239.png">239</a>]</span>
+the men or women. The men would not have it. I
+knew one missionary who used to sit in their shops
+and talk to them, but directly he veered round within a
+point of "religion" that talk was over. The women
+were less difficult in that respect; they would discuss
+the point: one woman I heard say something as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I turn a Christian? See&mdash;I may steal,
+I may lie, I may commit murder; my sins may reach as
+high as from earth to heaven, and at the day of my
+death <i>God is merciful</i>. He will forgive me all, because
+I witness to Mohammed as his Prophet. Your religion
+is a narrow little religion; mine covers everything. You
+go home and go away by yourself and <i>witness to
+Mohammed</i> as his Prophet, and all your sins will be
+forgiven."</p>
+
+<p>It is a sign of their being low down in the intellectual
+scale when the members of society talk for the
+most part of "persons," just as it is a sign of a higher
+tone when the conversation runs chiefly upon "ideas."
+Among the women at Fatima's tea party there was no
+sort or kind of exchange of thought of any description,
+nor was there general conversation. They talked in a
+desultory way to each other about their children, their
+clothes, their food, their money, and each other&mdash;sometimes
+they included Miss Banks, but never touched an
+interesting point.</p>
+
+<p>If a woman unable to read or write only meets
+women also unable to read or write, and knows but
+one man, her husband, who feeds her and values her
+much like a tame doe-rabbit, it is unreasonable to
+expect to find in her much intelligence and energy.
+Wives, when asked if they did not wish to do more,
+would not like to read or write or work, only laughed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>[<a href="./images/240.png">240</a>]</span>
+derisively. The idea was absurd: they could not understand
+any one wishing to exert herself in a novel and
+unnecessary way.</p>
+
+<p>On my left, still sat the stoutest woman in the room&mdash;the
+holy Shar&#299;fa. She lost her snuff-box, and roused
+herself to hunt all over her enormous person for it&mdash;a
+work of time; but a friend had borrowed it, and it
+was passed back to her. She sat on the divan, cross-legged
+like some gigantic idol of ancient Egypt, many
+yards in circumference at the base, her fat little hands
+folded across the embroideries and gold-worked buttons
+and worked edges of the many gorgeous waistcoats and
+kaftans, which seemed piled one on top of each other
+on her immense frame. Her head, the size of two footballs
+rolled into one, was swathed in violet and scarlet
+silk: straight whiskers of hair, dyed jet-black, were
+combed a few inches down each cheek, and then cut
+short. The whole "idol" sat very still, speaking but
+rarely, and then in a harsh croak like some oracular and
+forbidding bird: "it" had the appearance of being comfortably
+gorged.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Fatima signed or murmured to the slaves,
+and the sweetmeats were carried round, and the fragile
+cups refilled; and there went up a great aroma of sweet
+mint tea.</p>
+
+<p>Through the wide doorway the patio and its colonnades
+of many pillars lay cool and shaded; cages of singing
+canary-birds hung from the ceiling; the fountain rippled
+in the middle; a tall girl in green and white sauntered
+across in her slippered feet, carrying a tray; a gaily
+dressed slave passed silently; and the whole thing might
+have been a dream. . . .</p>
+
+<p>Past the patio lay the courtyard, all one large garden,
+with tiled walks and red-gold oranges and heavy foliage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>[<a href="./images/241.png">241</a>]</span>
+set against the blue sky. Broad date-palms, mimosa, and
+climbing creepers sometimes shook in a breath of wind.
+The clear tanks, full of ever-running water and lined with
+maiden-hair fern, moved with gold-fish, which matched
+the oranges; a pet monkey played amongst the lemons
+on a lemon-tree; a green parrot nodded to us from a
+bower of pink almond blossom.</p>
+
+<p>We wandered round the sleepy, silent courtyard, and
+in and out the chequered greenery, hot with windless,
+sun-filled air, back through the black-and-white courts,
+until at last the great outside door shut upon Fatima,
+her tea party, and the eternal mysticism of the East:&mdash;we
+were without the gates of Paradise, and in an atmosphere
+of rude realism once more.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after that afternoon of many calls with Miss
+Banks, a day up in the Anjera Hills, to the north of
+Tetuan, gave some idea of the strip of country which
+lay between us, and the sea, and Gibraltar. This country
+possessed the fascination of being little known. No one
+troubled to go up there, except its own wild inhabitants.
+Our own Consul had never been. The missionaries had
+not climbed so high, nor so far, this side the river.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Tetuan <i>sok</i> (market) is greatly dependent
+upon the country people belonging to the Beni Salam
+tribe, who live up in the Anjeras; and from the flat white
+roof of our garden-house we had watched through a
+pair of glasses on market mornings, strings of women,
+winding by a precipitous path down the hillside, which
+is abrupt and mountainous, themselves dropping as it
+were from an upper world. They scrambled slowly
+down, one after the other, descending many hundreds
+upon hundreds of feet; then filed slantwise over the
+slopes, right into the rocky Mussulman cemetery, across
+that, and thence into the city by the B&aacute;b-el-M`kabar.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>[<a href="./images/242.png">242</a>]</span>
+The relations of these tribesmen between themselves and
+the city are more or less friendly, and it is comparatively
+safe to wander about the mountains as long as the
+"enemy," as the Moors call the sun, has not set. We
+were most anxious to visit the country whence these
+market-goers came, appearing first upon the crest-line,
+then against the rough hillside, like a string of industrious
+white ants crawling down the wall of a house; therefore
+we engaged a youth with a downy beard and hairy legs
+and the big grey donkey&mdash;the most active of his race&mdash;and
+set off one morning at half-past nine, prepared to
+climb into a Top World, like Jack of the Beanstalk, by
+means of a path which was less smooth "going" than
+his supernatural ladder.</p>
+
+<p>There was a strong north-west wind, and it was hardly
+an occasion for "aloft"; but there was no haze; the
+clouds were scudding away to South Australia; it was
+a day for a view.</p>
+
+<p>Taking the broken road towards the city, we branched
+off to the right, crossed a stream, and began the ascent.
+No one could ride at this point. R. tried a tow
+by means of the donkey's tail, and met with a remonstrating
+kick. Certainly, if this could be called "one
+of the Sultan's highways," it was an odd specimen. We
+scrambled up the east side of the range of hills, sometimes
+by a succession of rocky staircases, sometimes
+sliding (backwards chiefly) on loose shale: how the
+donkey contrived to look after its four feet must remain
+a problem, but the Morocco ass is brought up from
+birth upon stony ground, with na&iuml;ve and simple notions
+upon the subject of paths.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long time before our heads showed up above
+the top of Jack's Beanstalk (so to speak), and we met
+with a gale, at which the donkey's hair stood on end,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>[<a href="./images/243.png">243</a>]</span>
+and which occupied all our attention for a minute. We
+had seen Tetuan disappear far below us behind the
+elbow of a hill; the topmost point of the Gib. Rock
+had loomed into sight; Ceuta looked as if one might
+have thrown a stone upon it; and the Riff Mountains
+were next door, clear and blue. We had passed some
+red fritillaries and the bee-orchid, a little wild mauve
+crocus, and some magnificent clumps of white heath,
+which smelt of almonds and honey; had seen several
+pairs of stone-chats with their white collars; had sat
+down for many "breathers"; and at last were at the
+top, in a wind which flattened every palmetto-bush plumb
+against the hillside. It was a breezy spot for riding
+(and here one <i>could</i> ride, for the grey donkey was on <i>terra
+firma</i> once more); therefore we cut short a survey of the
+country below us, hurried off the crest-line, and followed
+the path which led straight away into the heart of the
+Anjera country. It was a good track when once the
+top had been reached, exactly the right width for one
+individual, and used by thirty or forty every market
+day&mdash;three times a week. At the time when the cave-men
+lived in England, <i>single file</i> was a standing principle
+in Morocco, and the practice still holds good.</p>
+
+<p>The path was beaten hard, by bare feet, in the rich
+dark red soil, and had taken a shiny polish; the wind
+was held off us by boulders and small hillocks; we got
+along at a steady pace. On each side mountains and
+only mountains were to be seen, peak beyond peak, slope
+after slope, covered with short wind-tossed scrub and
+sharp, hard rock, except at any great height or in the
+prevailing wind; there ledge after ledge lay peeled by
+the weather, blistering in the sun, the scarified faces of
+the cliffs worn at the summits into pinnacles of gaunt
+stone. No mark of humanity, except the single red<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>[<a href="./images/244.png">244</a>]</span>
+path, suggested that civilization ever troubled these heights,
+and there was hardly anything worth the notice of a goat
+in the shape of fodder.</p>
+
+<p>The path rose and fell, skirting now this shoulder
+and now a gully, but keeping for the most part on high
+ground, here and there winding upwards across the sharp
+spine of a ridge, and, by way of some awkward staircase,
+once more landing us on the level. More often
+than not, the donkey had only himself to carry; the
+boy probably thought us mad, but there was no understanding
+what the other would fain have said. Except
+for the wind&mdash;and even that dropped&mdash;a great silence lay
+on the proud heights; they defied man to interfere with
+their grizzled <i>d&eacute;bris</i>: the birds had forgotten to sing:
+all around was that certain awed solemnity, always to
+be found, in the companionship of the everlasting hills.
+But the air was champagne; the heather was mad
+in the breeze; the sky where it met the rocks, an
+intoxicating blue. And how the clouds "travelled"!
+Though, in spite of that, the hills never spoke: like
+the Sphinx, whose repose no dance of lizards nor flashes
+of sunlight can disturb, they are "too great to appease,
+too high to appal, too far to call." Occasionally a dip
+in the hollow back of a mountain showed the sea beyond:
+there are few seas bluer than the blue Mediterranean can
+be, and this was one of its days.</p>
+
+<p>The polished track led us on: still no sign of
+a village, nor any evidences of civilization. At last
+from the top of a ridge we looked over and down into
+a calm green oasis, "a lodge in some vast wilderness,"
+secluded, sheltered, where it would have been good to
+pitch a tent and camp for many moons. We swung
+along downwards, dropped under the lee of the hill, and
+our path skirted the fringe of the green oasis. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>[<a href="./images/245.png">245</a>]</span>
+was not many acres in extent; it was covered with
+short scant grass; it would have made an ideal polo-ground.</p>
+
+<p>Water lay over a small corner of it, and beyond a
+shadow of doubt it had once been the bottom of a
+lake; indeed, the Beni Salam tribe believe that water still
+lies underneath the turf. Here the first sign of humanity
+showed itself: two goatherds drove their flock down
+to the water, and one of them carried in the hood
+of his brown jellab a few hours' old kid; they soon
+passed on and disappeared among the boulders and
+heath.</p>
+
+<p>The long level lines of the green oasis were broken
+at the edge by diminutive bones of rock protruding
+through the grass. Sunk in the hollow of the hills, there
+was little or no wind; the sun glowed indolently down
+on the green lawn, tempting us to stay; but the foot-prints
+in the red soil pointed forward, and we turned
+our backs upon the flat stretches of sunny turf and left
+the waveless tarn behind.</p>
+
+<p>No more emerald oasis, but grey-green scrub and
+stones on the mountain-sides: we were up again in a
+stern and desolate defile, waste beyond waste strewn
+with rocks. The distances were oddly deceptive in the
+rare, clear air: a saddle between two peaks looked
+miles away&mdash;we were upon it in half an hour; again,
+a turret of rock apparently within a stone's-throw was
+a weary climb. And still the red trail snaked on
+before us. Even the big grey donkey began to lose
+its interest and to require "encouragement" from the
+Moorish boy.</p>
+
+<p>We speculated as to whether we should ever reach a
+village before it was time to make tracks for the world
+below, while the sun was well up. At last, in front of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>[<a href="./images/246.png">246</a>]</span>
+us, a long low saddle intervened, with rising ground on
+each side: this we determined to scale, once mounted
+on top see all there was to be seen, and go no
+farther. And toil brought its unexpected and exceeding
+great reward. Standing on the crest-line, shading
+our eyes with our hands, mountain beyond mountain
+lay in the distance&mdash;the Anjeras, the hills of Spain, the
+Mediterranean, Gibraltar; while in the foreground clustered
+four villages, brown mud-coloured huts upon the
+brownish slopes, and only picked out of their surroundings
+by means of the one little whitewashed spot of a
+mosque. Below us a river had carved a gorge in the
+red soil and tumbled over worn boulders beside the
+nearest village, but it was more or less hidden from
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Much as we wanted to go on, it was impossible.
+First, there was not time. Secondly, the donkey would
+have had as much as was good for him by the time he
+got back. Therefore we chose a warm, sheltered spot,
+backed by sun-baked rocks and scented with cropped
+tussocks of yellow gorse; and there we lunched, the
+boy and donkey slipping out of sight, and leaving us
+alone, with the hills, and the sound of the wind.</p>
+
+<p>It must be a long tramp into Tetuan, even for hill
+people born to the life of the open road,&mdash;four hours
+into the city with heavy loads of charcoal, faggots,
+chickens, eggs, butter, vegetables; four hours back again
+with oil, sugar, salt, tea, and every sort of necessary
+which is not home grown. And three times a week.
+And only women. We met a string of them as we set
+our faces homewards, like "toiling cattle straining across
+a thousand hills"; but they all had a word to say and a
+smile, as they sloped along at a steady swing.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting when we left the good upper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>[<a href="./images/247.png">247</a>]</span>
+world of silence and the winds; by-and-by the crest-line
+intervened between ourselves and the strong serene
+heights&mdash;they were seen no more; and we came "hand
+over hand down the Beanstalk" which led to the white
+city below.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>[<a href="./images/248.png">248</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>[<a href="./images/249.png">249</a>]</span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">We Leave Tetuan&mdash;A Wet Night under the Stars&mdash;S`lam Deserts Us&mdash;We Sail for Mogador&mdash;The Palm-Tree House&mdash;Sus and Wadnoon Countries&mdash;The Sahara&mdash;The Atlas Mountains.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>[<a href="./images/250.png">250</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>[<a href="./images/251.png">251</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER IX</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>The stream of life runs, ah! so swiftly by,</p>
+<p>A gleaming race 'twixt bank and bank&mdash;we fly,</p>
+<p>Faces alight and little trailing songs,</p>
+<p>Then plunge into the gulf, and so good-bye.</p>
+</div></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">About</span> the month of April, Morocco takes its head
+from under its wing; the bad weather turns its
+back on the country; the tracks dry up and are fit for
+travellers to take to once more. The time had come
+for the sake of which we had borne with the rains, and
+we longed to be off, to know something more of this
+strange and fascinating land.</p>
+
+<p>May is a better month than April, up in the north,
+for travelling; April is often dashed with the tail-end of
+the rains; but our desire was to go down into the
+far south, and May and June in the south are both too
+hot to enjoy camping out. April is quite warm enough;
+indeed, Morocco City "stokes up" early in April;
+therefore we made it the middle of March when we said
+good-bye to Jinan Dolero and set our faces Tangier-wards,
+there to await some steamer which should take
+us down the coast. The odds and ends which had
+furnished us at Tetuan and were not wanted had to be
+sold&mdash;a very simple matter. The day before we left
+our white garden-house, S`lam and some <i>mesdames</i>, as
+in his best French he always spoke to us of his ragged
+countrywomen, carried them into the sok, as they were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>[<a href="./images/252.png">252</a>]</span>
+on their backs; and they were sold to the highest bidder
+among the market-goers.</p>
+
+<p>To transport ourselves and our belongings over to
+Tangier, a Jew muleteer was requisitioned, who provided
+men and mules for the two days' journey. After long
+consultations we decided to take S`lam with us on
+our travels in the capacity of personal servant and head
+cook&mdash;partly because he could cook, partly because, in
+spite of the Tahara-and-bottle-of-water-or-poison episode,
+we liked him, and he had been a good servant according
+to his lights. After all, he was probably as trustworthy,
+and more so, than any man we could pick up in a hurry
+down south&mdash;at least, everybody warned us that they
+were a set of rascals there, of whom we were to beware.
+Finally, he was used to us and we were used to him.
+So S`lam set out with our cavalcade, and we proposed
+to keep him while we were at Tangier, take him by
+boat to Mogador, and after our march was over return
+him to Tetuan. But, while "man proposes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I was sorry for Tahara. She was left behind with her
+old enemy&mdash;S`lam's mother. He left the mother money,
+but Tahara not one flus. He said, too, that when he
+came back from Morocco City he should go straight off
+to the Riff and get work there; and Tahara would be
+left again. Such is the custom of the country: the
+husband may go off for a year, at intervals returning
+to his wife, whom he leaves generally under some sort
+of supervision. So poor little Tahara, who had no voice
+in her marriage, but had wept all the way to Tetuan under
+the escort of her bridegroom and brother, was left penniless
+in the old mother's clutches. She had no relatives near
+to help her, otherwise I have no doubt that she would
+have got a divorce. We could only ask Z&mdash;&mdash; to keep
+an eye on her, for interference in the Moorish domestic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>[<a href="./images/253.png">253</a>]</span>
+hearth on the part of a European would be a fool's work
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>It was March 19 when we began to wander once
+more, having handed the keys of Jinan Dolero back
+to its owner and cleared out the little white house.
+Unfortunately we pitched on the <i>Aid-el-Kebeer</i> (the
+Great Feast), starting the very day before it was
+due; and, in consequence of the Mohammedan-World
+being upside-down with joyful anticipation, could get no
+good mules, nor induce any one but a Jew to leave
+Tetuan at such a time. S`lam looked forward to feasting
+with his brother at Tangier, and started off with a
+good grace. A more serious miss than either Moorish
+servants or reliable mounts was perhaps a tent. There
+was none to be had in Tetuan at just that time, and a
+night had to be passed upon the way. However, there
+was no help for it: we set off as we were, and arrived
+towards sunset at the half-way caravanserai, the little
+white-walled fond&acirc;k on the top of the hills, where we
+passed such a windy night, on our way over from
+Tangier in December, under canvas.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good ride, and our mules travelled badly:
+saddles and bridles were tumbling to pieces too. For
+the last mile or so we both walked and sent the
+baggage on ahead. From a bend round the crest of
+a hill we said farewell to an uneven white streak set
+at the foot of the distant hills&mdash;Tetuan&mdash;and saw it no
+more. The fond&acirc;k was in front of us, four lonely walls
+exposed to every change of weather, and no life stirring
+outside. We walked through the arched gateway into
+the square, which is surrounded with Norman arches, and
+found a company of mules and donkeys, of owners and
+drivers, taking shelter for the night: our own baggage
+animals were already hobbled in a line in front of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>[<a href="./images/254.png">254</a>]</span>
+arches, under which the muleteers sit, and drink, and
+smoke, and sleep the hours away, till the first streak of
+dawn.</p>
+
+<p>We scrambled up an uneven stone staircase at the
+corner of the square, and investigated the two little
+rooms at the disposal of travellers. One look: there
+were suggestions of the insect world in both. We recrossed
+the thresholds and sought further: the flat white
+roof above the arches round the square, if windswept,
+was too airy to be anything but fresh and wholesome,&mdash;it
+should meet all our demands. Here then, out in
+the open, under the sky, our two beds were arranged,
+in the lee of a few yards of parapet which had been
+built to shelter the west corner of the roof. S`lam had
+a small pan of charcoal also up on the roof in our
+corner, over which to get something hot for us to eat;
+and as soon as the odd little meal was finished we
+turned in.</p>
+
+<p>The precipitous twilight had shadowed down sufficiently
+to undress in more or less privacy even upon
+a housetop; over our beds we spread a thin woollen
+carpet to keep off the dew; the moon, which was beginning
+its last quarter, faced us full, in a sky picked
+out with a few stars, against which the dark outline
+of the hills was cut clear; there was hardly a
+fleck of cloud in that best roof under which a man
+can sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-34.png"><img src="./images/ill-34_th.png" alt="A BREEZY CAMPING-GROUND ON A ROOF-TOP." title="A BREEZY CAMPING-GROUND ON A ROOF-TOP." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Breezy Camping-Ground on a Roof-Top.</p>
+
+<p>Below, down in the square, the picketed mules
+stamped and munched barley; the muleteers' voices,
+back under the arches in the colonnade, arose and fell,
+round a fire where green tea was brewing and much
+kif was in course of being smoked; occasionally an owl
+hooted. Waking from time to time, the moon was always
+staring down (I shall never forget that moon); but at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>[<a href="./images/255.png">255</a>]</span>
+each interval it had moved <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'farthur'">farther</ins> round overhead. At
+last it sank behind the field of vision, and up "in that
+inverted bowl we call the sky" the remote and passionless
+stars had it all to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past three in the morning we were awakened
+suddenly by the patter of rain on our faces, great single
+drops, which quickened into a hurrying shower; while
+gusts of wind from the south-west rose and swept round
+the corner of the low parapet against which we had put
+the heads of the beds. One glance showed that the
+sky was overcast; it was very dark, most of the stars
+were hidden, and there was an ominous sound of rain in
+the wind. The fond&acirc;k is notably a wet resting-place,
+for it lies on the top of the watershed which divides the
+plains of Tetuan and Tangier, and it draws the clouds
+like a magnet.</p>
+
+<p>One of us put up a sun-umbrella, which had been useful
+on the hot ride the day before; it kept an end of one bed
+more or less dry, and fortunately the shower did not last
+long, while underneath warm bedding it was possible to
+keep dry for a time. The wind rose, however, and forced
+itself in at every fold of the bedclothes. We had carefully
+arranged all our kit under the parapet close to the beds,
+partly to prevent its being stolen, which sometimes happens
+if left out of the owner's reach, partly to prevent its rolling
+or blowing off the unprotected edge of the roof.</p>
+
+<p>The sunset of the night before had not foretold wind;
+but wind there began rapidly to be, and by-and-by the
+lid of one of our cooking-pots bowled along the roof,
+fell over the edge, and rattled on the stones in the square
+below: a cloth belonging to the cuisine took flight next
+over the outer wall, and was seen no more. We lay
+speculating on what might follow. Then another shower
+began; but the clouds were lifting a little, and it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>[<a href="./images/256.png">256</a>]</span>
+short if it was sharp; while underneath the blankets there
+was not much to complain of.</p>
+
+<p>At four o'clock a sound of life began down below;
+the muleteers were all up and stirring in the square.
+Lights were lit, for since the moon and stars had been
+obscured, the night had turned from brilliant light into
+one of shadows and blackness. Was there to be more
+rain? Nothing else mattered. In this fine interval&mdash;for
+the last shower was stopping&mdash;it seemed wise to get
+up and dress and have our bedding rolled together:
+neither of us was going to move into the rooms. Certainly
+dressing was a chilly opportunity. The evening before
+had been warm; but the rain freshened the air, and the
+wind made it still more brisk. It was darker than ever&mdash;too
+windy to have kept a light going; and clothes,
+discovered with some difficulty in the shadows in hiding-places
+under rugs and pillows where they had been
+stowed the evening before to escape the dew, were hurried
+into in the dark anyhow and any way, half blown inside-out
+in the wind.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past four S`lam came up on to the roof-top
+with a light (which was promptly extinguished) and a
+pail of cold fresh water, in which we had an acceptable
+wash. He rolled up our bedding, and brought an earthenware
+pan of burning charcoal, which was stowed away in
+a corner of the stone stairway out of the wind, and on
+which the kettle soon began to boil. At this point two
+remaining stars were put out by the advancing dawn&mdash;a
+wan and shivering dawn. Sitting in the lee of the
+parapet, five o'clock saw us ready, and supplied with
+hot tea and eggs. Not long after, the rain-clouds blew
+over and the day broke clear.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the muleteers had loaded up and vanished
+with the first streak of daylight, in order to be in Tetuan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>[<a href="./images/257.png">257</a>]</span>
+in time for the great feast that day; the inner square
+of the caravanserai was deserted; our own five mules
+were all that was left. It was not a long business loading
+them: the last rope was knotted, and the muleteers drove
+them off. We followed, riding out under the gateway,
+whereon is written in Arabic a sentence to the effect that
+Mulai Abdurrahman built the fond&acirc;k in 1256, according
+to Mohammedan reckoning of time.</p>
+
+<p>The sky was grey and menacing: too many of the
+little single clouds called "wet dogs" drifted across it.
+Having started at half-past five, not till three o'clock
+that afternoon did we reach Tangier; halting once on
+the march, at ten o'clock, and that only for half an
+hour for lunch. A heavy storm cut that halt short,
+for the rest of the day the "wet dogs" were true to
+themselves, and we were deluged. Vivid lightning flashed
+and cracking peals of thunder rolled over the plain; it
+was one of those March days which make March no
+month for camping out in Northern Morocco. Added to
+that, the track was in a shocking state&mdash;up to the girths
+in mud and water and clay of a sticky and treacherous
+nature. The mules slipped back at every step. We
+had many small rivulets to cross, and were obliged to
+make great detours in order to circumvent them at all.
+Even then our baggage was in the greatest peril, for the
+mules could barely keep their feet; and once down in
+some of the deepest quagmires, there would have been
+the utmost difficulty in getting them up again, or in
+rescuing our unfortunate kit. And the rain came
+through everything, bedding and all being fairly drenched.
+The mules which carried the baggage were of course
+much the best of our beasts: R.'s and my mounts
+were indeed sorry for themselves. The last hour was
+the darkest, during which R.'s mule fell down for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>[<a href="./images/258.png">258</a>]</span>
+sixth or seventh time&mdash;it was slippery and rough&mdash;and
+we had the worst piece of country of all to cross, where
+we found one unfortunate mule bogged in a sort of mud
+stream. Though a soaking does not greatly signify when
+dry clothes and a roof lie at the journey's end, nine hours
+at a foot's pace, through mud and water, wet and weary,
+will take the heart out of most people. We tailed into
+Tangier, a dilapidated, worn string of bedraggled vagrants,
+and rode to the Continental. An hour later, clean and
+dry, in comfortable chairs, with hot coffee, there was
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, S`lam was not at all fulfilling our expectations;
+and since we left the fond&acirc;k, far from distinguishing
+himself on the march, he failed over and over again to
+rise to the occasion, excellent servant though he had
+been in the garden-house near his own city. While
+the muleteers walked all the way from Tetuan, driving
+the baggage-mules and urging on our own, S`lam by
+arrangement rode on the top of a light load; and there
+he sat, huddled up on the mule, wet and discontented,
+dawdling behind, last of all, in the cavalcade, and anything
+but living up to his character of soldier-servant
+and escort. By virtue of his late service in the Algerian
+army and his rifle, he should have been admirably
+adapted to fill that capacity; but less like a soldier,
+and more like a whimpering dog, man never looked.
+Nor did he look after our things, allowing them to
+be badly exposed to the rain, and taking no precautions
+for protecting anything. In the face of condemnation
+he sulked.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Tangier, nearly a week elapsed before a
+Hungarian boat put in, by which we could sail for
+Mogador. S`lam was of course due daily at the hotel
+to report himself and to execute orders. It was on one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>[<a href="./images/259.png">259</a>]</span>
+of these occasions, upon the very morning before we
+were due to start for Mogador, that he sprung upon
+us his intention of going straight back to Tetuan. This
+announcement came rather like a bolt from the blue.
+We had congratulated ourselves upon taking down into
+the interior a more or less tried and faithful knave,
+where knaves of such a description were proverbially
+scarce; and now our henchman announced that he had
+no longer any wish or any intention of accompanying
+us to Morocco City.</p>
+
+<p>The reasons or excuses which he gave were: first,
+that his wages were insufficient; and, secondly, that
+"a courier" had been sent over to him from Tetuan to
+tell him that his mother and his wife were quarrelling
+to such a degree that Tahara had threatened to go
+back to her native Riff country with her brother unless
+S`lam returned, and if she took that step it would mean
+a divorce.</p>
+
+<p>His wages had been already raised considerably, because
+the post he was now to fill had more duties connected
+with it: they might have been further increased. The
+other excuse may or may not have been true; but as
+the two women had never done anything else except
+quarrel, the situation was a foregone conclusion. The
+old mother may have been trying to poison Tahara again.
+But would S`lam trouble to prevent that? Whatever his
+motive, it was more than annoying that at the last
+moment he should throw us over, leaving no time in
+which to look out for a new man, and a reliable man,
+without whom, in a country as lawless as Morocco, it
+would be a little rash, on the part of two people only,
+to travel.</p>
+
+<p>But an unwilling servant is not to be endured. We
+gave S`lam his release, stipulating only that he should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>[<a href="./images/260.png">260</a>]</span>
+return the dollars advanced him for his wife and mother
+not many days before.</p>
+
+<p>To this he protested that he had no money, not a
+peseta left&mdash;every coin had either been spent at the
+feast or had been left at Tetuan.</p>
+
+<p>In this case, the best plan would be, we said, for S`lam
+to take with him a letter to the Consul at Tetuan explaining
+to him what had happened; then as S`lam earned
+money, he might pay it into the Consul's hands for us,
+until he had made good the sum advanced him. At
+this S`lam looked blank: he said such a letter would
+mean <i>prison</i> for him. We stood firm. It was a rude
+shock to our faith when his hand found its way into the
+leather bag at his side under his jellab, and he pulled
+out and threw on the table two-thirds of the money which
+had been given him.</p>
+
+<p>It was suggested that he should pay the whole sum.</p>
+
+<p>No! he was penniless.</p>
+
+<p>Then in that case he could sell the new jellab he had
+just bought.</p>
+
+<p>He scoffed at the idea.</p>
+
+<p>In reply to our order to come to the hotel the first
+thing the following morning and see our baggage safely
+on board the steamer, he said that he should leave Tangier
+at daybreak, and that it was quite impossible for him
+to attend upon us, evidently expecting that his prepaid
+wages would be amicably allowed to slide. But not in
+the face of this final desertion. We reiterated the former
+course&mdash;a letter to the Consul at Tetuan; again he pleaded
+abject poverty; but meeting only with inclemency, once
+more plunged his hand into his bag, and pulled out
+dollars amounting exactly to the sum which he had been
+advanced.</p>
+
+<p>So much for his poverty. We were now, he explained,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>[<a href="./images/261.png">261</a>]</span>
+"quits." "All was right between us." He "would not
+like to leave us with a trace of ill feeling remaining
+between us and himself."</p>
+
+<p>He <i>did</i> leave us, however, with his tail fairly between
+his legs, and, if he had been kicked out of the hotel,
+could not have gone forth more sadly.</p>
+
+<p>What motive he had for going back to Tetuan, or
+what whim seized him in Tangier, remained a mystery.
+Impulsive as a child, he had been at first madly keen,
+so he said, to go with us to the world's end; then, as
+the time approached, in the same ratio his ardour evaporated;
+until, finally, he had no more desire left, and on
+the march over to Tangier grew more indifferent and
+morose at every step. While we were in Tangier he
+was like a fish out of water. And yet he had been
+once to Fez and to Morocco City: he was a travelled
+man. Possibly he had a more remunerative billet in
+view, or was homesick, or jealous about Tahara. After
+all, whatever the reason, his line of conduct was only
+distinctly Moorish, and characteristic of a race in which,
+as a whole, no wise man places great reliance. A Moorish
+servant will not rob his European master: perquisites are
+a <i>sine qua non</i>, of course. Probably his lies are no blacker
+than those of European servants; but the Moor, in place
+of that quality of faithfulness which can ennoble an English
+rascal, has a cold-blooded current in his veins. His
+manners may be charming&mdash;he is a plausible devil; but
+lean upon him, and he turns out to be as jerry-built as
+his own crumbling whitewashed walls.</p>
+
+<p>It is with somewhat of a feeling of banishment into the
+unknown, that the passenger by the little coast-steamer
+takes his departure from Tangier, and sees first its white
+houses and yellow sands, and last of all Spartel lighthouse,
+disappear as the boat ploughs southwards. Once upon a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>[<a href="./images/262.png">262</a>]</span>
+time Gibraltar had constituted in our minds the outposts,
+so to speak, of civilization; but since we had spent three
+months in such an unexplored spot as the Tetuan vale
+and mountains, without society of the conventional type,
+or library, or church, or any other adjuncts, Tangier, when
+we came back to it, appeared in the light of a Paris. And
+now Tangier was again to be left behind; and on one of
+the little coasting-steamers, which deliver cargo at ports
+on the way, we meant to travel down to Mogador. To
+have marched the same distance would have meant perhaps
+a month on the road, going by Fez and taking it easily;
+therefore we saved much time by taking the steamer.
+Though by all report it was not likely to be at all a
+comfortable journey, it could only last four days at most;
+and few travellers but can stand four days' discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>We did not start without a few warnings and cautions
+from various friends, who seemed inclined to think that
+we were doing an unprecedented thing in thus setting
+off alone into the interior without even a reliable servant,
+which since the desertion of S`lam was the case. That
+could not be helped. We hoped for the best as regarded
+finding men in Mogador.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-35.png"><img src="./images/ill-35_th.png" alt="ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE WAY WE RODE IN MOROCCO." title="ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE WAY WE RODE IN MOROCCO." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Illustrative of the Way We Rode in Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Arthur Nicolson had provided us with letters of
+introduction to the British Consul in Mogador, and to a
+Moor in Morocco City, where it is unnecessary to say there
+are no representatives of the English Government. I had
+written to him on the subject of getting up to Glaouia, in the
+Atlas Mountains, and had received the following reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Miss Savory</span>,&mdash;</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"As the Court is away from Morocco City, I hardly
+think it would be wise for you to attempt a visit to Glaouia.
+Matters are never very <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'staple'">stable</ins> when the seat of Government
+is away, and I do not think the Government would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>[<a href="./images/263.png">263</a>]</span>
+disposed to give you a permit at present. There would,
+however, be no objection whatever to your going to Morocco
+City, and I think you will find the journey interesting.</p></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"Yours very truly,</p>
+<p>"<span class="smcap">A. Nicolson</span>."</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This letter was a blow. But when we finally reached
+Morocco City we found that the thing could be done&mdash;that
+we could get up to Glaouia either under the protection
+of the English missionaries or with a certain
+Jewish trader who lives in Morocco City. The fact of the
+matter is, that to travel "officially," as it were, in Morocco
+is a fatal mistake. It means a written permission from
+the Sultan, an army of followers, a commotion wherever
+a halt is made, and a great deal of hospitality. The
+Sultan does not encourage Europeans to travel out of the
+ordinary line of route, on account of the superstitious and
+fanatical spirit of his people, which would be roused to
+wrath against him, were he to countenance the invasion
+of their sacred land by infidels. Consequently, when he
+gives a permit, he writes upon the document to the effect
+that the Christian is committed to the care of Kaid
+So-and-so, and Kaid So-and-so is to see that no ill happens
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>When the Christian traveller arrives at the district
+belonging to this kaid, through which he wishes to pass,
+he goes to the castle and delivers the permit. The kaid
+reads it, and knows what it means: the Sultan only wishes
+the Christian to be kept to frequented roads. Therefore
+the Christian is offered every hospitality, and the kaid
+almost weeps as he explains that it is impossible for the
+traveller to proceed&mdash;the tribesmen are dangerous, are in
+revolt along the line the Christian wishes to go. The
+traveller says he will take his chance. His servants,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>[<a href="./images/264.png">264</a>]</span>
+primed by the kaid, refuse to go with him on the score
+of the danger. If he manages to get away with one trusty
+follower, the kaid sends soldiers after them, fetches them
+back to the castle&mdash;to save their lives, he says, and his own
+life, which would be forfeited if a hair of their heads was
+injured. The Christian, after his rebellious conduct, may
+be forced to return discomforted to the coast towns, or
+he may be allowed to march on in another direction,
+keeping on the beaten track. Thus the Moorish Government
+will politely frustrate enterprising spirit on the part
+of the infidel. But if the traveller is content with other
+than a royal progression through the country, if he will
+travel quietly and without ostentation, dressed according
+to the habits of the people, and be prepared to "rough it,"
+the chances are, that he may get to places which he could
+never have reached while impeded by a Government
+escort.</p>
+
+<p>But the way above all others to travel in Morocco
+is to secure the help of a missionary and to go with
+him. Medicine is the golden key which opens every
+gate; and a Moor will do anything for a <i>tabiba</i> (doctor),
+which is what a missionary practically is to him. The
+missionary arrives at a remote village, and the countryside
+flocks to him to have its teeth pulled out, its sores
+doctored, its fevers cured; and if the tabiba wishes to
+go on farther, by whatever path, who shall gainsay him,
+while he carries life and health in his hands? He understands
+their dialect a little, he dresses as they do, and he
+brings no overbearing servants to eat up their substance.
+Nor is he a spy, but only some harmless fanatic, some
+quaint Nazarene, who thinks to win heaven by thus
+walking the earth and doing good.</p>
+
+<p>Thus several missionaries have penetrated to places in
+Morocco, from entering which, Europeans are debarred:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>[<a href="./images/265.png">265</a>]</span>
+they have not "advertised" themselves nor written books
+upon what they have seen. But the thing has been
+done, and not only by men. Women missionaries have
+been where no Christian is supposed to be allowed. Indeed,
+it should be easier for women, in one way, to travel in
+forbidden territory than men, because their sex is not
+credited with the sense which could do harm; and the
+idea of a woman spying, or thinking to exploit the country,
+discover mines, and so on, would be absolutely laughable
+to a Moor. Probably women, with a large stock of
+medicines and a knowledge of the country dialect, could
+travel in the unknown "Beyond" with comparatively little
+risk.</p>
+
+<p>There is one other way for the Englishman to see
+something of the less-known districts of Morocco, and
+that is to travel under the protection of a holy Shar&#299;f.
+Shar&#299;fs are, like the Sultan, descendants of Mohammed,
+and they possess the holy <i>baraka</i>&mdash;that is, the birthright
+of the Shar&#299;fian line. They are little gods, and they
+have immunity from the laws of God and man. Their
+advice is sought for and followed by the ordinary country
+people on every question, and their decision is invariably
+accepted as final. There is no such thing as an aristocratic
+class or nobility in Morocco; and yet the Shar&#299;fs answer
+in a way to the same idea, for they possess a religious
+authority which sets them far above their countrymen,
+and constitutes them, in a sense, lords over the people.
+Besides, they act greatly as mediums between the secular
+governors and the tribes, and judge upon various matters.
+It is possible for a holy Shar&#299;f to sin, but quite impossible
+for him to be punished, the obvious argument being that
+"the fire of hell cannot touch a saint in whose veins
+runs the blood of the holy Prophet."</p>
+
+<p>The Shar&#299;fian families form an entire class by them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>[<a href="./images/266.png">266</a>]</span>selves.
+They are fed and clothed and housed by a convenient
+system of religious taxation, and large presents
+are made them, while after death their tombs become
+objects of visit to all devout Mohammedans.</p>
+
+<p>A holy Shar&#299;f generally rides a horse, and he dresses
+in white, with a blue cloth cloak, or else a white woollen
+over-garment. He wears a pair of yellow slippers, or
+perhaps riding-boots, called <i>temag</i>, buttoned all up the
+back with green silk buttons, and embroidered down the
+side with silk and silver thread. A scarlet fez and a
+white turban complete him.</p>
+
+<p>Shar&#299;fs never shave under the chin, since the days
+when a certain sultan was being shaved thus by a barber
+who had it in his mind to cut the royal throat. But a
+little boy passing saw the evil design in the barber's
+eye. With great presence of mind he rushed into the
+shop, crying to the Sultan, "O Most Holy One! the Great
+Mosque has fallen down!" Both sultan and barber leapt
+up and rushed out: the boy explained matters to the
+sultan, and the barber was killed.</p>
+
+<p>But neither Shar&#299;f nor missionary-doctor had we
+any hope of meeting at Mogador, able and willing
+to travel into the Atlas Mountains with us. We started
+with plenty of chances open in front, but with nothing
+certain whereon to rely. Telegraph station and all such
+vanities were left behind us at Tangier: letters could
+not reach us till we ourselves reached Morocco City,
+ten or twelve days being the time they would take to
+arrive there from Tangier. Our agents&mdash;Cook &amp; Son&mdash;in
+the latter place, had instructions to open all wires,
+and in an urgent case to forward to us by a <i>rekass</i>
+(a runner), who might do the distance in as short a time
+as seven or eight days. A wire sent thus, by a rekass,
+might cost three or four pounds, according to the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>[<a href="./images/267.png">267</a>]</span>
+the man took: the faster he did the journey, the more
+he should be paid.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of its hotels Tangier does not possess a single
+shop where English newspapers or books can be bought.
+Our literature had by this time reached a low ebb; and
+on board the Hungarian boat, at a time when one
+generally reads omnivorously because there is nothing
+else to do, we had but a couple of standard books to
+fall back upon&mdash;a history of the country was one, the
+other a volume of Lecky. The history was fairly committed
+to heart before travelling days were done.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, when at last we got off in the little
+Hungarian steamer, she did not leave much to be desired.
+For three days we had hung on at the Continental Hotel,
+waiting for the hourly expected arrival of the boat,
+beginning almost to despair of her ever coming in.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, patience was rewarded, and one afternoon, with
+all our baggage, we went on board. We had everything
+wanted for camping out except tents, and these were to
+be hired at Mogador. A great wooden kitchen-box held
+pots, pans, knives, etc., and a case contained potted
+meats, soups, biscuits, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>R. and myself were the only women on board when
+we left Tangier: eight men joined us at dinner that
+night, at one long table in the small saloon, and we were
+said to fill the boat. She was very small, only eighteen
+hundred tons, and there was not much room for walking
+about on her; but we never went out of sight of the
+coast, and, sitting on a couple of chairs, could see through
+the glasses whatever was going on on the beach&mdash;which, I
+must add, was little enough, at a time when the smallest
+incidents become of importance. The greater part of
+the <i>Arpad</i> was given up to cargo. We landed green
+tea in quantities at Mazagan, and black-wood, cane-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>[<a href="./images/268.png">268</a>]</span>seated
+chairs for the Jews and Spaniards living there,
+as well as bales of goods and casks; but we took
+nothing on board, and the <i>Arpad</i> became more and
+more like an empty egg-shell, with a decided inclination
+to roll, on the swell which invariably sets down that
+coast.</p>
+
+<p>The captain, a small dark Hungarian, when we left
+Tangier, changed into a thin tweed suit and straw hat:
+he did not understand English. There was no stewardess;
+but the steward, who did all the waiting at table, spoke
+a little German. One of our fellow-passengers was an
+Englishman, born in Morocco, without any desire to
+leave it&mdash;his horizon Gibraltar: he was Dutch Consul
+at Mazagan. Another man was a grain merchant in
+Mazagan. All were interesting, and could tell us a great
+deal about the country. Certainly the coast-line, as seen
+from the deck of the <i>Arpad</i>, was monotonous, desolate,
+uninviting to a degree: a long low shore, kh&#257;ki-coloured,
+treeless, without sign of life, did not raise in us regrets
+that we had come by sea, especially when told that
+what we saw, was a fairly correct sample of most of
+the country we should have ridden through.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-36.png"><img src="./images/ill-36_th.png" alt="LIGHTERS LOADING." title="LIGHTERS LOADING." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Lighters Loading.</p>
+
+<p>On the entire six hundred miles' length of coast south
+of Cape Spartel, and down which we were steaming,
+there is not a single lighthouse, bell, beacon, or buoy
+to mark a reef or shoal, nor is there any harbour,
+and no steamer dares to lie close in-shore off a port
+at night. Therefore, as there are several ports at which
+cargo has generally to be landed or taken on board,
+steamers go on the line of steaming all night, and lying
+outside a port in the daytime, while boats carry cargo
+between them and the shore. Rabat, Casablanca, Mazagan&mdash;we
+stopped at them all, and got accustomed to the
+eternal clank of the crane hoisting bales in and out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>[<a href="./images/269.png">269</a>]</span>
+the boats; to rolling on to the backs and down into the
+troughs of the Atlantic combers.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we reached Mogador early on the morning
+of Good Friday, 1902, and said good-bye to the uneasy
+<i>Arpad</i> and its primitive <i>m&eacute;nage</i> without regret: irregular,
+white-walled Mogador, set in its rock-locked harbour, lay
+in front of us. It was the hot south&mdash;there was no doubt
+about that. The Riviera is called "the sunny south,"
+and Tangier is warmer than the Riviera; but penetrate
+inland into Africa, go down as far as Mogador, and it
+is another thing altogether. Here there is no <i>trace</i> of
+Europe, but a great sense of being far away in letter
+and spirit from England&mdash;farther away than Bombay,
+and many another place, which out-distances it in miles
+again and again.</p>
+
+<p>We saw Mogador first in a grey light: heavy thunder-clouds
+hung above; dim and visionary hills lay behind;
+a regiment of camels paraded the wet sands in front,
+and lay in the sun underneath the battlemented walls;
+black flags floated from the mosque-tops, for it was the
+Mussulman Sunday. For the rest Mogador is a city of
+sea and sand&mdash;sand, sand, and yet more sand: it takes
+two hours' riding to get to anything else except sand.</p>
+
+<p>With the grey waves washing round two sides of it,
+and two sides blown and sanded by desert wastes, white-walled
+Mogador has a somewhat saddened aspect, as of
+lifeless bleached bones, apart from the fact that it is so
+far removed from the outer world.</p>
+
+<p>And infinitely remote, it certainly is. A telegram
+takes about a fortnight to reach England; so that an
+answer by wire to a wire can be expected in about a
+month. A letter sent by a special courier to Tangier
+takes eight days&mdash;a distance of four hundred miles:
+by this means a wire could be sent to England in nine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>[<a href="./images/270.png">270</a>]</span>
+days. The steamers to Mogador are most irregular,
+because, in view of there being no safe anchorage, a
+boat will not put in in bad weather. Cargo, passengers,
+and mails are often and often enough not landed at
+all, and the inhabitants of the city see but the stern of
+the vanished steamer with all their letters on board, not
+to return perhaps for a week. When the English Consul
+married, and his furniture was sent out from England,
+the <i>Forward</i> boat, which brought it, came in sight of
+Mogador, and, being a rough day, went off to Madeira
+and on its round by the Canary Isles, back to London
+again, without touching at the sad white city at all. In
+this way things are apt to be lost: it has happened
+with passengers.</p>
+
+<p>A rowing-boat landed us on green seaweedy rocks,
+and we walked up the old shell-encrusted water-stairs,
+and under the arch of the Water-port Gate, above which
+is carved in Arabic, "The glorious King, my lord
+Mohammed, ordered the building of this gate by his
+servant Hamed, son of Hammoo, 1184."</p>
+
+<p>Once on a time, Agadir, a city on the coast, much
+farther south, was the great port and commercial centre
+of Southern Morocco; but it was far removed from the
+Sultan's grasp, the tax-gatherer could pursue the even
+tenor of his ways without interruption, and the kaid
+afford to be dictatorial and troublesome. Then the
+heavy hand fell, and the Sultan's armies closed the
+seaport, offering its throng of prosperous merchants
+the alternative of going to prison or of taking up their
+abode in Mogador. This they did, and Mogador arose;
+while to work the lighters (the cargo-boats), and to
+generally serve the merchants, a company of Berbers
+was transported with them from the Sus and Agadir
+to the new seaport.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>[<a href="./images/271.png">271</a>]</span>
+Beyond the Water-port Gate we met a line of heavily
+laden camels, with a company of athletic Berber drivers
+from the Sus, in quaint long tunics of butcher-blue,
+and lank black hair: many of the men veiled themselves;
+they all looked as wild as hawks, different from
+any type hitherto seen.</p>
+
+<p>The familiar Hebrew broker, in dark blue or black
+gabardine and greasy skull-cap, was strongly <i>en evidence</i>;
+while as to the state of the dogs we met, of them must
+the Moorish proverb be written, "If fasting be a title to
+Paradise, let the dog walk in first."</p>
+
+<p>Our baggage had all to pass through the Customs
+House inside the Water-port Gate; and there we walked,
+through great white-walled courtyards, whose vistas, of
+arch beyond arch, suggested Temple courts. Donkeys
+laden with skins were hurrying across them. Now and
+then a train of camels swung along, carrying gum
+or wax or argan oil or almonds. In a good almond
+year as many as a thousand camels have sometimes
+come into Mogador in one day. The Customs House
+officer was at breakfast, and we awaited his coming by
+our baggage. At last there was a stir among the many
+hands who had carried our things up from the boat,
+and the most solemn and dignified individual conceivable
+slowly sailed upon the scene, way being made for his
+flowing robes, which were white as a sheet of best glazed
+"cream-laid" before the pen marks it. I handed him
+our pass-paper from the Customs House officer at Tangier,
+feeling like a humble subject laying a petition before
+a monarch: he slowly unfolded it, and more slowly
+searched for and produced a pair of spectacles in a
+silver case. Lastly, having read the document and reviewed
+our pile, he "passed" it with an impressive wave
+of his hand. He then took a seat, a Moor minion on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>[<a href="./images/272.png">272</a>]</span>
+each side: we filed solemnly past him, shaking him by
+the hand. A new-born infant has not such a guileless
+face as that bland Arab.</p>
+
+<p>We took up quarters in the Suera Hotel, managed by
+a capable Scotchwoman and her husband, who had
+once farmed on the veldt. Early next day I rode to
+Palm-tree House on a little horse belonging to the
+hotel: out by the Beach Gate, we cantered along the
+sands close to the sea, crossed the river, left the patron
+saint-house of Mogador on our left hand, bore upwards
+across the sandy dunes, and struck inland over hard
+calcareous rock, where, in the teeth of the wind, the
+sand never lies. It was blowing, that day, a hot desert
+wind, which in a naturally hot place only makes
+one the hotter: with the wind, came a good deal of
+fine sand, on a really windy day making riding almost
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>Palm-tree House is a hotel four miles south-east
+of Mogador, in the loneliest of situations, with the advantage
+of a view and an open, wild country all round:
+it has none of the drawbacks of the city; it is breezy,
+wild, and bare. Having reached the top of the dunes,
+we struck off in more or less of a bee-line for Palm-tree
+House, still riding over soft sand, where nothing
+but miles upon miles of <i>r`tam</i> (white broom) grew,
+lovely when in flower, of which we were destined to
+see almost more than enough before we left Southern
+Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>The horses ploughed their way through the white track;
+two or three butterflies hovered about the r`tam; chameleons
+scuttled occasionally over the path; a tortoise
+crept along. There were not a few locusts about
+either, looking like handsome little dragon-flies on the
+wing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>[<a href="./images/273.png">273</a>]</span>
+A last canter along one of the rough rides through
+the scrub led us up to the house, planted well on a
+rising sand-hill, a view of the sea in front, the hills
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>There are no palm-trees, and there is no garden, nor
+is there any water, I was told, on the spot; but for all
+that, Palm-tree House might have been a satisfactory
+lodge wherein to put up. The stunted bush and the
+sand fringed the very walls. It had the country to itself,
+and there was nothing <i>but</i> itself which could spoil that
+country. It was cool and airy and oddly quiet. Inside,
+tiles and open patios and big panelled rooms gave all
+that could be desired: outside, there was an impression
+of simplicity and freedom.</p>
+
+<p>The stables were a great point, and the bobbery
+pack, which hunt pig for five months all through
+the winter, accounted in one season for something
+like nineteen full-grown boar, ten tuskers, and nine
+sows.</p>
+
+<p>Palm-tree House belonged for more than twenty years
+to a British merchant, who simply provided accommodation
+for any sportsman liking to come out and
+put up for a week or so outside Mogador: it has still
+the air of a shooting-box. The host, in breeches and
+gaiters and a great felt wideawake, rode up while we
+were there, and offered us every hospitality&mdash;a tall wiry
+man, with good hands and seat.</p>
+
+<p>Had time been of no object, we should have moved
+on into Palm-tree House. It would be a spot to visit
+at any season, for the climate scarcely varies all the
+year round: the difference between summer and winter
+is not more than five degrees.</p>
+
+<p>Back again in the city and strolling round it that
+same afternoon, the conviction was borne in upon us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>[<a href="./images/274.png">274</a>]</span>
+that of all saddening spots Mogador was possibly the
+saddest&mdash;that is, to the traveller, from an outside point
+of view: residents may have another tale to tell. But
+without vegetation or cultivation within sight, suggestive
+of life and change and labour, with the monotonous
+roar of the grey breakers beating its seaward walls,
+and wastes of blown white sand to landward, Mogador
+is the picture of a city which has lost all heart, and
+settled down into grim apathy, without a vestige of joy
+or activity outside its walls. The overcrowding of the
+Jews in the Mellah is a shocking evil, already stamping
+the rising generation with disease.</p>
+
+<p>Earlier by three-quarters of an hour than Tetuan at
+the same time of year, the city gates at Mogador were
+shut at six o'clock, and picnic parties of Moorish or
+European traders were hurried back in broad daylight.
+We met the basha gravely pacing the sands on a white
+mule with scarlet trappings&mdash;of all stout officials, in a
+country where it is a sin and a shame on the part of
+one in office to be thin, the stoutest. His broad body
+overshadowed the big mule, and his two little legs might
+have been a pair of ninepins below a vast cask draped
+in white.</p>
+
+<p>To the south of Mogador lies first the Sus country
+and then Wadnoon, dividing the Morocco which is partly
+known to Europeans, from the Sahara, which nobody
+knows. The Sus may be said to be practically unknown,
+and it is distinctly "forbidden" land, through which only
+two or three travellers have ever passed&mdash;Oskar Lenz,
+Gatell, Gerhard Rohlfs, and possibly a missionary; but
+they were all disguised and went in terror of their
+lives; nor have they left satisfactory records of their
+experiences.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-37.png"><img src="./images/ill-37_th.png" alt="AFTER RAIN IN MOGADOR." title="AFTER RAIN IN MOGADOR." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">After Rain in Mogador.</p>
+
+<p>And yet the Sus is comparatively close to Mogador,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>[<a href="./images/275.png">275</a>]</span>
+with which it trades; mules from the Sus were always
+in the Mogador market; camels were coming in every
+week with wool, camels' hair, goat-skins, hides, beeswax,
+a little gold dust, ostrich feathers, gum-arabic, cattle,
+and all the produce of the Sahara; while the Berbers
+from the Sus were interesting above any Riffis or tribesmen
+with whom we had hitherto met.</p>
+
+<p>Their country is supposed to contain rich mines: it is
+said to be fertile and thickly populated; it is not loyal&mdash;on
+the contrary, it is ill-affected to its liege lord, the
+Sultan; it is fanatical to a degree, and largely swayed
+by a form of government best expressed by its title&mdash;Council
+of Forty. In return for their own goods the
+Berbers from the Sus carry back into their country all
+sorts of Manchester goods, powder, tea, sugar, cheap
+German cutlery, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>These same Berbers, of unknown origin, were, so the
+Kor&#257;n tells us, packed up by King David, in olden
+times, in sacks, and carried out of Syria on camels,
+since he wished to see them no more. Arrived somewhere
+near the Atlas Mountains, their leader called out
+in the Berber tongue "Sus!" which means "Let down!"
+"Empty out!" So the exiles were turned out of their
+sacks, and the country in which they settled is called
+Sus to this day.</p>
+
+<p>Wadnoon trades to a great extent with the Soudan,
+and Mogador receives an immense amount of its ostrich
+feathers: slaves are the most important article of commerce
+in Wadnoon, and Morocco is the chief market
+for this traffic in humanity, the slaves being brought
+chiefly to Morocco City.</p>
+
+<p>But if a fever lays hold of the traveller for penetrating
+into the unknown Sus, what must be felt of
+the great Sahara, that waveless inland sea of sand, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>[<a href="./images/276.png">276</a>]</span>
+its eternal stretches of depressionless wastes reaching
+on, past horizon after horizon? Perhaps an occasional
+oasis, green as young corn; a well; a feathery date-palm;
+a melon-patch. But rare are these things, and
+for the most part the Sahara is an endless desert which
+few Europeans could cross and live. Its ancient lore,
+its mystic traditions, give it a fascination all its own.
+Imagine the ostrich-hunting on its borders; picture the
+natives riding their unequalled breed of horses, the <i>wind-drinkers</i>,
+which carry their masters a hundred miles a day,
+and which, ridden after the birds up-wind, gradually tire
+them down, until they can be knocked on the head with
+a bludgeon; the Arabs too, themselves, with the unforgettable
+manners possessed by such as Abraham, and
+handed down from time immemorial; last of all, Timbuctoo,
+the Queen of the Desert, the fabled home of
+the voracious cassowary,&mdash;does not the picture imperiously
+summon the traveller "over the hills and far
+away"? Very far away; for Timbuctoo is twelve
+hundred miles from Mogador, and a journey there
+would mean at least forty days across the Sahara,
+through a country belonging to peoples in no way
+friendly towards "infidels," where oases are few and
+far between.</p>
+
+<p>Some day we may know the Sahara under other
+conditions, for a scheme was started years ago with
+the intention of flooding the great desert by means of a
+canal from the Atlantic Ocean, which should carry water
+on to El Joof, an immense depression well below sea-level
+somewhere in the centre. Thus, where all is now
+sand, would lie a vast sea: we should "boat" to
+Timbuctoo. So far, however, the scheme has begun and
+ended in words.</p>
+
+<p>But though the great Sahara is desert pure and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>[<a href="./images/277.png">277</a>]</span>
+simple, it is a mistake to imagine it devoid of life.
+Even as there has never yet been found a collection
+of aborigines without its totem, neither are there
+any extensive parts of the globe where life of some
+sort does not exist. The Sahara is little known, chiefly
+because the oases in the centre are occupied by intensely
+hostile and warlike tribes, whose animosity is
+chiefly directed towards the French, whom they hate
+with a deadly hatred. But the edges of the great desert
+have been visited, and on the northern limits two
+animals are found&mdash;the addax antelope, and Loder's
+gazelle. The wide-spread hoofs of the addax antelope
+enable it to travel over sand at a great pace. It is a
+large and ungainly beast with spiral horns. Probably
+it follows in the wake of the rains wherever they go;
+but what happens to it in the dry season is unknown.
+Similarly with Loder's gazelle: though more or less
+a desert animal, it is a mystery how it remains alive
+through the long rainless months, in places apparently
+without water, and on wastes of rolling, wind-drifted
+sand.</p>
+
+<p>Of the natural inhabitants of desert country, the Sahara
+is by no means devoid: sand-lizards, jumping-mice, sand-grouse,
+sand-vipers, desert-larks, and even a family of
+snakes belonging to the boas, are to be found. The kh&#257;ki-coloured
+sand-grouse are most difficult to see on the yellow
+face of the country: the sand-rats and sand-moles all
+take on the colour of their surroundings, and thus hide and
+protect themselves: one and all exist in some marvellous
+manner where it would seem that existence could only
+be miraculous. The skink is met with, beloved of the
+Romans, who imported desert-skinks into Rome in Pliny's
+day, and held them a valuable remedy for consumption,
+chopped up into a sort of white wine: the trade was brisk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a>[<a href="./images/278.png">278</a>]</span>
+in 1581. To-day the Arabs consider it a remedy, and eat
+it as a food. It acts very much in the same way as do
+flat-fish in the bottom of the sea, sinking itself under the
+sand, allowing the sand to lie over its back and cover it,
+like a flounder, only leaving its sharp eyes out of cover,
+and sometimes the spines on its back.</p>
+
+<p>For the maintenance of all this animal life, it is quite
+possible that rain may occasionally fall even upon desert,
+and disappear with lightning-like rapidity; for on the
+borders of certain African deserts in the north a phenomenon
+very much like the description of the Mosaic manna occurs
+when the plains have been wetted with rain. The
+surface is seen next morning "covered with little white
+globes like tiny puff-balls, the size of a bird-cherry,
+or spilled globes of some large grain." It is gathered
+and eaten by the Arabs, but, like an unsubstantial
+fungus growth, melts or rots in the course of a day
+or two.</p>
+
+<p>Enough of the Sahara. Meeting with men in Mogador
+who had come straight from the mysterious country, veiled,
+untamed, and remotely removed from European touch, our
+interest was naturally kindled in that Back of the Beyond.
+There is no need for the traveller to penetrate so far as
+either the Sahara or the Sus. Long before he reaches
+them, and in order to do so, he must cross the Atlas
+Mountains by one of the wild passes, and the great chain
+of the Atlas is still unsurveyed and practically unknown.
+Sir Joseph Hooker and Dr. Ball explored a part of its
+valleys many years ago: no one since then has made a
+satisfactory attempt to learn details. The chain is supposed
+to be about thirteen thousand feet high, and it is about
+twenty miles from Morocco City; but the character of
+the lawless chiefs and tribesmen who inhabit it, so far
+prevents intrusion and exploration.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a>[<a href="./images/279.png">279</a>]</span>
+In a few days we were to see it&mdash;the mighty, solitary
+wall, on which the ancients believed the world to rest,
+described by Pliny, rising abruptly out of the plains,
+snowclad, one of the world's finest sights: the Atlas had
+largely brought us to Southern Morocco.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>[<a href="./images/280.png">280</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>[<a href="./images/281.png">281</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">On the March Once More&mdash;Buying Mules&mdash;A Bad Road&mdash;First Camp&mdash;Argan-Trees&mdash;Coos-Coosoo&mdash;A Terrible Night&mdash;Doctoring the Khaylifa&mdash;Roughing it Under Canvas.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a>[<a href="./images/282.png">282</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>[<a href="./images/283.png">283</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER X</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And all this time you (at home) are drinking champagne (well,
+most of it, anyway), and sleeping in soft beds with delicious white
+sheets, and smoking Turkish cigarettes, and wearing clean clothes,
+with nice stiff collars and shirt-cuffs, and having great warm baths
+in marble bath-rooms and sweet-smelling soap . . . and sitting
+side by side at table, first a man and then a woman&mdash;the same old
+arrangement, I suppose&mdash;knives to the right and forks to the left,
+as usual.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> hot desert wind in Mogador showed no signs
+of changing: there was no enlivening sun, and the
+sad white seaport could only charm in a morbid manner:
+to be out under the skies, in the open, away from the
+city and sealed houses and the <i>eyes</i>, was a thing to be
+sought after, and that quickly. Southern Morocco is like
+the East in that it is all eyes. The watchful East&mdash;it
+may be lazy, but nothing escapes its eyes. They gleam
+between the folds of the veil; they look from out of
+a smooth face, mild and yet as little to be read as the
+deep sea. And who knows what lies at the bottom of
+those quiet pools?</p>
+
+<p>There need be no waste of time in Morocco, even as
+there is no convention: having decided to start&mdash;<i>start</i>.
+The 31st of March saw us away, leaving Mogador with
+the intention of marching to <i>Marrakesh</i>, which is the
+Moorish name for Morocco City, the southern capital of
+the empire. In order to see more of the country we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a>[<a href="./images/284.png">284</a>]</span>
+marched by a zigzag route, crossing, but not following,
+the beaten track; thus we were once or twice in villages
+where European women had not been seen: we met no
+one, and we camped in odd, out-of-the way corners, objects
+of huge interest to the wandering Arabs with whom we
+fell in.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Maddon, the British Consul at Mogador, to whom
+we brought letters of introduction from Sir Arthur Nicolson,
+helped us in several ways, and in his turn provided us
+with letters to an Arab in Marrakesh. We managed to
+buy two mules: one was from the Sus, with a backbone
+like a sword-fish and every rib showing, but he was as
+hard as nails, and would pace along all day without any
+trouble; the other was a lazy beast, fat and older; but
+they both of them proved useful animals, answering our
+purpose for the time being. We meant to sell, when we
+left the country: hiring is expensive work. Of course
+it was "just a dear time to buy": it always is. The Jew
+broker, through whom we bought the mules from the
+Susi to whom they belonged, asked seven pounds ten
+for each of them, but came down to six pounds fifteen.
+We sold them some weeks later for five guineas each:
+hiring would have cost a great deal more. Ordinarily
+they are to be bought for five pounds and less in Mogador.
+No Susi will trade direct with a European, and every
+bargain goes through Israel's hands, which means a big
+percentage pocketed by the Jew.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-38.png"><img src="./images/ill-38_th.png" alt="WHERE MANCHESTER GOODS ARE SOLD, MOGADOR." title="WHERE MANCHESTER GOODS ARE SOLD, MOGADOR." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Where Manchester Goods are Sold, Mogador.</p>
+
+<p>Our hotel-keeper, the Scotch lady, provided us with
+reliable servants, one of whom turned out to be invaluable.
+Mulai Omar was, as his name indicates, a
+saint by heredity. Algeria was his birthplace. He was
+twenty-four years old; and having lived in a French
+possession, spoke French, not like S`lam, but perfectly.
+He was a well-educated little fellow, enterprising, ener<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>[<a href="./images/285.png">285</a>]</span>getic;
+interpreted Arabic and Shillah for us; acted as cook,
+in which capacity he was first-rate; generally organized
+the camp; and was our personal servant. Mulai Omar
+was quite a man to know, and a friend to trust. He
+was unattractive-looking&mdash;small, dark, and dirty; wore a
+red fez, a short black monkey-jacket, and immense, full,
+white cotton drawers. Sa&iuml;d, our second servant, intended
+to look after the mules, was a lazy Arab, who acted
+the fine gentleman, and was never without a cigarette
+in his mouth. He helped Omar more or less, and was
+responsible for much loss of temper on our parts, before
+we parted. Another saint by heredity, Mulai Ombach,
+looked after our camel, which carried the heavy baggage.
+Our fourth and last man, Mohammed, drove a donkey,
+nominally for the purpose of carrying provender for the
+mules and camel, but which often as not bore either
+Mulai Ombach or Mohammed himself. The two principal
+servants, Omar and Sa&iuml;d, rode two mules, which carried
+light loads as well.</p>
+
+<p>We hired a couple of Moorish men's saddles for our
+own use, red-clothed, high-peaked, and well stuffed;
+also two big tents&mdash;one for the servants, one for ourselves.
+Our commissariat was not hard to manage,
+helped out with stores we had brought from Tangier;
+for bearing in mind Napoleon's truism that "the army
+marches on its stomach," we had laid in an ample
+supply.</p>
+
+<p>Eleven o'clock saw us finally under way on the
+morning of the 31st. We had intended to start at nine;
+but any one who has ever travelled and camped out
+knows the difficulty of getting away upon that first
+morning&mdash;the final wrench between the servants and their
+old surroundings, the dozen petty obstacles. In this case
+one of the mules hired for baggage turned out to be in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a>[<a href="./images/286.png">286</a>]</span>
+a wretched condition when it came to the hotel, and
+another had to be found in its place&mdash;no easy matter.
+The camel was started off at half-past ten with our beds,
+bedding, cuisine necessaries, part of the tents, and chairs
+and table; but, to our disgust, Mulai Ombach, its driver,
+stopped short at the bazaar, and there we found them
+both when we rode through the city. They were hurried
+up, and the whole party seen safely through the city
+gates; but once outside, the camel was so slow that we
+left them behind, R. and myself jogging ahead with Mulai
+Omar and Sa&iuml;d, trusting that the heavy baggage would
+catch us up at lunch-time. One more delay&mdash;outside
+the Jewish cemetery was standing, waiting for us, the
+wife of Sa&iuml;d: many tears were flowing, and sobs to be
+heard under the haik. Sa&iuml;d produced some dollars, which
+were no doubt intended to last her during her husband's
+absence: he then rode on without attempting a farewell,
+and we were really off at last.</p>
+
+<p>For the first five miles we hugged the coast in a
+northerly direction, keeping close to the sea: the tide
+was high; in one place, where we made a short cut,
+resulting in rather a nasty bit of riding, we were actually
+in the waves, slipping over black rock, with deep pools
+on each side. It was a grey day, not hot, and the
+hard flat sands, across which we rode for the most part,
+were excellent going.</p>
+
+<p>The only wayfarers we met, tramped along behind
+camels. Untrustworthy brutes these animals are, especially
+the bubbling ones, out of whose way we most cautiously
+kept; for though a camel seldom bites, when he does
+it is serious. He never forgets an injury. A man in
+Mogador ill-treated one badly a few years ago: it went
+into the interior for a year, and came back to Mogador,
+and met and knew the man at once, taking him by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a>[<a href="./images/287.png">287</a>]</span>
+nape of the neck, as is its habit, and tearing the back
+of his skull off.</p>
+
+<p>The sandy dunes on our right were covered with
+<i>r`tam</i> (white broom), slender, waving, silver-green stems,
+in seed just then. Only r`tam could grow in such
+poor soil. When we turned inland we found ourselves
+amongst dense undergrowth, a small forest, consisting
+chiefly of <i>tugga</i> (a sort of juniper), of myrtle, <i>sidra</i>
+bushes, and other shrubs, intersected by narrow paths,
+along one of which we paced in single file, the limestone
+which crops up all over the country making our
+pace a slow one. It was the middle of the day when
+we found ourselves in the thick of this jungle. Omar
+pointed out a little sandy clearing, and in amongst the
+bushes, out of earshot of the track, we halted for lunch.
+The mules had their packs taken off, and rolled themselves
+in the sand. A carpet was spread on a bank; and
+there, with the sea still to be seen behind us, the thickets
+echoing with familiar blackbirds, and every space glowing
+with thyme, iris, lavender, and other flowers, we spent
+the first of many lazy hours of the sort. Alas! our
+camel was still behind us, and never turned up: that
+was a wretched piece of <i>bundobust</i>. But long before we
+quitted Morocco we vowed never to have a camel for
+baggage again.</p>
+
+<p>Only half-an-hour's halt we allowed ourselves; then
+saddled up, and were off again. Still through "jungle,"
+and by a sandy path the trail led us, blocked often by
+stones and rocks, truly one of those</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>.&emsp;.&emsp;.&emsp;sad highways, left at large</p>
+<p>To ruts and stones and lovely Nature's skill,</p>
+<p>Who is no pavior.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The flowers became more interesting at every step; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>[<a href="./images/288.png">288</a>]</span>
+there was little time to get off and collect specimens,
+though the path was so narrow that, riding along, pink
+climbing convolvulus and tall lavender could easily be
+gathered off the bushes. For any unknown specimen
+some one dismounted, and it was stowed away in an
+empty tin kettle for safety.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by we dropped down into a narrow valley,
+green and cultivated: a lonely palm-tree or two stuck
+up&mdash;the "feather duster struck by lightning" of Mark
+Twain. A fine crop of beans was growing on our right,
+Indian corn and barley to the left: the land looked full
+of heart, rich, and unlike even the Tetuan country. We
+came across a man or two working in a dirty white
+tunic in the fields, and left behind some wretched huts
+down by a spring. About this time we lost Omar's
+dog, which was to have been our guard&mdash;a rather lame
+lurcher, which thought better of footing it all the way to
+Marrakesh.</p>
+
+<p>The country was full of magpies&mdash;not nearly so smart
+as our Warwickshire mags, brownish about the tail, and
+with less white; yet they could scarcely have been
+in bad plumage at that time of year. In a narrow
+pathway we stood aside to let a camel pass: since we
+had left the coast wayfarers had grown rare for the
+most part. The place at which we had halted for lunch
+was El Faidar, within sight of one of Morocco's countless
+little white saint-houses&mdash;Sidi Bousuktor. Now, after a
+long climb over a ridge, we looked down from the top
+into a valley&mdash;Ain-el-Hadger; and Omar pointed out in
+the distance the spot he suggested we should camp at
+for the night. Descending the ridge was the roughest
+piece of riding on the road to Marrakesh: the shale gave
+way under the mules' feet; great rocks projected on the
+track. None of us dismounted, however: Tetuan had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a>[<a href="./images/289.png">289</a>]</span>
+hardened our hearts and accustomed us to awkward
+corners, and the mules were clever. Slowly we slipped
+and slid down into the most luxuriant green vale,
+set in the scrub-covered hills, carpeted with fields of
+young corn, olive-trees, gardens, fruit-trees, and flowers
+abundantly.</p>
+
+<p>To the north, upon our left, lay the Iron Mountains,
+no very great height, somewhere about two thousand
+feet, and famous for iron in the days of the Romans
+and Carthaginians, who both probably worked them.
+Now they are mined no more, and only known as the
+favourite quarters of wild boar, signs of whose existence
+we saw for ourselves, in patches of ground rooted and
+torn up.</p>
+
+<p>We rode down through these fruitful acres as the sun
+was getting low: here and there lay a little white farmer's
+house; birds were everywhere&mdash;suddenly we heard a
+cuckoo, then a nightingale.</p>
+
+<p>At a place where three little glens met we passed a
+tall look-out tower, standing sentry over each one, from
+the top of which the Ain-el-Hadger people could easily
+see an enemy coming. In England it would have been
+a ruin: in Morocco it was in active use,&mdash;it is still "the
+Middle Ages" in Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving a garden on the left, surrounded by a high
+tapia wall, we crossed a little streamlet into the brook
+which waters the valley, and reached at last a corner
+surrounded with grey olives, deep in lush grass, and
+overlooked by the inevitable quaint white-domed saint-house
+on the top of a rocky hillock. It was an ideal
+spot. Omar and Sa&iuml;d laid their two guns under a
+tree (they rode with them across their knees, ancient
+flint-locks, and carried bullets in bags at their sides,
+Omar possessing a French rifle as well); we off-saddled,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a>[<a href="./images/290.png">290</a>]</span>
+unloaded the two men's mules, and unpacked what there
+was to unpack, the camel having practically everything.
+R. and I strolled about and photographed. A countryman
+brought us three fowls and some eggs. The sun
+set. Still the wretched camel had not come. Dew fell
+heavily, and Omar made a famous fire and supplied us
+with hot green tea. At last there were voices; a great
+form loomed in the darkness and swung towards us; the
+donkey followed. It was not long before the camel
+was unloaded, our big tent up, table and chairs and
+beds put together, and though dinner was late it was
+the more acceptable, The Saint proving a chef. A
+pannierful of bread was part of the camel's luggage, and
+intended to last us until we got to Marrakesh: vegetables
+we had in plenty for the first two or three days.
+And Omar worked wonders with the means at his
+disposal. Early we turned in: the stars were out; the
+frogs croaked in the streamlets. With the tent-flap
+tied back, and looking out into the quiet night, we
+slept as sound as tramps on the roadside at home.</p>
+
+<p>I woke at 2 a.m. The guard had stopped talking,
+and were all asleep and snoring round the tents, except
+one old greybeard, who was sitting up by the fire.
+Four Ain-el-Hadger men had come to act as guard
+for the night, bringing their guns and long knives with
+them. It was oddly light&mdash;the "false dawn" of Omar
+Khayy&#257;m; but there were no stars.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-39.png"><img src="./images/ill-39_th.png" alt="OUR CAMP AT AIN-EL-HADGER." title="OUR CAMP AT AIN-EL-HADGER." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Our Camp at Ain-el-Hadger.</p>
+
+<p>Such a dawn woke us at five! Every bird for
+miles around was singing: blackbirds sounded like England,
+wood-pigeons cooed, cuckoos insisted, and among
+them all, strange and Indian, a hoopoe called. The
+sun climbed up behind the saint-house and solitary
+palm; the olives began to cast shadows; the grass
+was silver with dew. We breakfasted soon after six,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a>[<a href="./images/291.png">291</a>]</span>
+our table out on the green lawn. Such air and scents
+of moist earth! It was chilly too. The mules fed
+busily in the long wet grass; behind the kitchen-tent
+the camel lay, chewing; an old sheikh turned up on
+a donkey, and joined the servants at breakfast round
+the fire, at one of those meals which were all green
+tea and tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we were starting a party of fifteen sheikhs
+and countrymen rode up on their way to a distant
+"powder play" at the f&ecirc;te of some saint, two days'
+journey off. Passing our camp, they turned into a
+little three-cornered field of much poppies and little
+corn, and proceeded to bivouac for an hour or two.
+Tailing one after another through a gap in the hedge,
+on the finest barbs Southern Morocco can produce,
+heavy, but handsome in their way (particularly a white
+with flowing mane and tail, and two iron-greys), they
+pulled up underneath some dense green fig-trees, and
+dismounted in the shade, leaving their scarlet cloth
+saddles to match the poppies.</p>
+
+<p>There was colour running riot indeed. Several of the
+stately figures, all in white, walked up to the saint-house
+to pray: one great man waddled down to the stream (to
+be great is to be fat, in Morocco), and a few began
+to groom their horses. The guns were piled: the sun
+glinted on them and on the silver-chased stirrups, and
+blazed on the snowy garments, on the poppies, and
+the saddles, one of which was blue, another yellow.
+We were in the land of Arabs: the Berbers were
+left behind at Mogador, and these tall lean horsemen,
+burnt coffee-coloured, were all descendants of the sons
+of the desert.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the camp was scattered: the camel had
+risen from its knees and paced off under its medley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a>[<a href="./images/292.png">292</a>]</span>
+load some time before, attended by Mulai Ombach,
+Mohammed, and the donkey.</p>
+
+<p>The Ain-el-Hadger guard had each received a trifle
+for his night's services; Sa&iuml;d had groomed and brought
+up our mules; we mounted, and, followed by himself and
+Omar, perched on the top of the two packs, their guns
+sticking out at one side, rode away. The first few miles
+were not marked by anything of particular interest: the
+collections of huts and bare walls which sometimes adorned
+the hillsides were far away; the curious piles of stones in
+the fields, almost like scarecrows, were only landmarks.
+But after a time we rode into the country of the argan-tree,
+that most interesting and unique specimen, which
+flourishes in this corner of Morocco, covering an area
+about two hundred miles long and forty wide, and growing
+nowhere else in the known world. Southern Morocco
+would be lost indeed without argan oil, which is used
+for cooking purposes as a substitute for butter, and of
+which we had with us a large supply. The oil is extracted
+from the fruit of the tree: at the end of March it should
+be fit to gather, looking much like a large olive, and
+possessed of a green fleshy husk, greedily eaten by
+camels, goats, sheep, and oxen. Thus, as well as gathering
+the nuts themselves off the ground, the country people
+allow their flocks to feed upon the fruit: having driven
+them home, the animals chew the cud, disgorging the
+argan nuts, which are collected, and eventually cracked
+by women and children in order to obtain oil.</p>
+
+<p>The average height of the tree is twenty-five feet, but
+its rugged side branches will cover a space of seventy
+feet. Gnarled and twisted, the bark is a little like
+crocodile-skin, and forms in squares: the trunk has a
+way of folding upon itself, too, as it grows&mdash;slowly; for
+a large tree may be three hundred years old, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a>[<a href="./images/293.png">293</a>]</span>
+consequence its wood is immensely hard. The argan
+is more or less tropical: though a tree has been known
+to live against a south wall in England, it was killed
+by the first severe winter.</p>
+
+<p>Among the argans, little oxen were ploughing the
+red rich soil of the vale through which we rode; it was
+watered by a brook, and real hedges of pomegranate,
+out in brilliant flower, divided the fields. In one of
+these some Arabs were digging carrots; in another
+homely potatoes, the first we had seen, were doing remarkably
+well.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the camel and attendants had been overtaken
+and left far behind, and since we had passed our
+heavy baggage no other forms of life seemed to be
+travelling along the same trail as our own: certainly a
+countryman joined himself to us, partly to point out
+our direction, partly for the sake of company; he held
+his stick behind his shoulders and stepped out well, but
+not for long. And after he had left we only saw a few
+women in the distance. These were often on donkeys,
+and some carried water-pots on their heads; but not one
+of them was "a beast of burden" in the sense of the
+women round Tetuan&mdash;not one crouched under an overpowering
+load of faggots or charcoal.</p>
+
+<p>As we jogged on, the great barley-fields, all in ear,
+though still green, might have led us to believe we were
+in England, except that in the next sheltered spot a
+white saint-house would be found, with its dome and
+its palm-tree, perhaps a shady olive grove, allowed to
+flourish for the sake of the holy place. Yes, it was
+Africa.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on, an Arab village lay close to the track, no
+windows in its yellowish flat walls, apparently no roofs:
+a stoned arched entrance was filled up with thorn-bushes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>[<a href="./images/294.png">294</a>]</span>
+and the tops of the walls piled with the same to prevent
+outsiders from molesting the inmates. This warlike
+tendency was again shown in another watch-tower, built,
+like the last, at the conjunction of two valleys.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the bare and uninteresting-looking Iron
+Mountains were disappearing from view: another ridge,
+which met them at right angles, spotted with argan-trees,
+looked in the distance like a tea or coffee plantation
+on Eastern hills&mdash;that too faded from sight; and we rode
+on&mdash;now through a blaze of flowers, for every hedge
+flamed pink and yellow, and even the dry thorns were
+blotted with colour&mdash;now past fields of mauve poppies
+and scarlet poppies and stretches of stainless blue. A
+white saint-house stood out against the colour, its dome
+like dazzling chalk, it shadows blue: we looked back
+at it from under an argan-tree, in the shade of which
+we rested for ten minutes, picking up a few nuts, and
+drinking long and deep out of Omar's stone water-jar.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from this spot we came upon <i>Sok-el-Had</i> (the
+Sunday Market)&mdash;that is, a place where every Sunday a
+country market is held, and to which the whole countryside
+flocks to do its marketing. This was Tuesday,
+and therefore Sok-el-Had was forlorn and deserted, its
+rows of little mud huts and its meat-hangers empty,
+not a soul within miles. They are as old as Morocco,
+these places known by the name of the week-day on
+which the market is held&mdash;places so strangely deserted
+upon any other day.</p>
+
+<p>Still we rode on for several hours, past Sheikh Boujiman
+Ben Hamed's white house, while the sun blazed on the
+bare path, and the argans stood too far apart to cast
+consecutive shade. It was with much satisfaction that
+we saw our next camping-ground in the distance about
+one o'clock: we had started early, and a long lazy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>[<a href="./images/295.png">295</a>]</span>
+afternoon was a good prospect. <i>Sok-el-Tleta</i> is named
+once more after its market&mdash;Tuesday Market. Even as
+Sok-el-Had was forlorn, so Sok-el-Tleta in proportion
+teemed with life. Held on the open hillside, upon a
+great bare space worn brown by cycles of Tuesday
+markets, the prevailing colour brown and white, hundreds
+of mules, hundreds of Arabs, the sight was one not to
+be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>We dismounted, and followed Omar into the thick of
+the fray, surrounded at once by a staring and interested
+crowd. It was an extraordinary scene. Streets were
+formed by rows upon rows of little mud cubicles, thatched
+over, inside which, on a mud shelf, the vendor sat, with
+his goods spread out for sale round him. Slippers were
+being mended; blacksmith's work was being done; cottons
+and stuffs were selling, sugar, groceries of all sorts, brand-new
+slippers and new clothes, vegetables and meat. Meat
+was the centre of the whirlpool, and round the carcases
+and shapeless joints the largest crowd: it hung on
+upright stakes and branches stuck in the ground, and
+the effect was that of a nightmare wood, in which the
+weird trees were bearing gory and dreadful fruit. It
+was all life and stir, that bare hillside; and by half-past
+one o'clock the whole thing had melted away, and there
+was no sign of a human being moving.</p>
+
+<p>Mulai Omar was well known in Sok-el-Tleta, his wife's
+relatives living there: because he was a saint his clothes
+and slippers were kissed by every one who met us as
+we rode along to our camp beyond the Tuesday Market.
+We passed women and children digging for ayerna
+root: the corn not being yet ripe, they were short of
+food. The root of this weed, though eatable, is most
+unwholesome, and unless carefully prepared, people grow
+thinner and more yellow upon it daily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a>[<a href="./images/296.png">296</a>]</span>
+But all our interest in a few moments was focussed
+upon a most imposing ruin, a real Windsor Castle of
+a rudimentary type, which commanded a hilltop on a
+table-land on the right, great walls rearing themselves
+up to the sky, towers defending every corner, a turreted
+gate-house the entrance, and the whole loop-holed, grim-looking
+enough. Obviously the kaid who built such
+a kasbah was a great man: his garden, a beautiful overgrown
+wilderness, gone like his castle to rack and ruin,
+lay below at Sok-el-Tleta, wisely situated, for vegetation
+would have been badly exposed upon the hilltop.</p>
+
+<p>About twenty-seven years ago the kaid who built
+the kasbah&mdash;chiefly by forced labour on the part of all
+the country people for miles round, though skilled workmen
+came from Mogador and were paid&mdash;was attacked
+by the Arab tribes from end to end of his province of
+Shedma, and after a six-months' siege was forced to fly
+to Marrakesh, where he died in prison, the tribesmen
+demolishing the castle for hidden treasure, till every
+wall had yielded its secret. Probably he oppressed his
+province like every other kaid, and was well hated. We
+went inside, and it was a foregone conclusion that we
+should camp there upon the grass. The governor's own
+halls were in a block in the centre, room after room,
+most intricate. Our tents were pitched in the vast sunny
+courtyard. We wandered about, exploring the odd corners,
+all the afternoon: not a vestige of timber or decoration
+remained. Handsome little red-brown kestrels with grey
+heads hovered over us and sat on the old walls, uttering
+their querulous cry: a beautiful blue jay, with cinnamon
+back and black-tipped wings and tail, was nesting in
+a hole among the bricks, and let us come close to
+him. A <i>sib-sib</i> scampered along an old window-ledge,
+a little animal like a squirrel, grey with striped back, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>[<a href="./images/297.png">297</a>]</span>
+stripes running from head to tail: it ruffled out its tail
+at will.</p>
+
+<p>The camel turned up at five, having been nine hours
+on the road. Later on a <i>mona</i> (a present) was brought
+us, consisting of butter, in a lordly dish set round with
+pink roses. So in the deserted walls of the kasbah we
+passed the night. Ghosts ought to have haunted those
+horrible death-traps, the <i>matamors</i>, of which there are
+said to be a hundred. The ground seemed riddled with
+these "wells," intended for the storage of grain, but used
+by sheikhs and kaids as their private prisons, whence
+at their will they draft on luckless captives to the
+public gaols: an old enemy is quite harmless in a
+matamor, with a square stone over the top, for the rest
+of his life.</p>
+
+<p>The wonderful cisterns were another feature of the
+kasbah, immense tanks underground, concreted and still
+water-tight&mdash;at the end of every dry season cleaned out
+and whitewashed, now half full of stinking rain-water
+and decay.</p>
+
+<p>We got off at seven the next morning, struck the
+main road from Mogador, left it, and found ourselves in
+quite an agricultural country, green barley-fields, planted
+all over at intervals with figs and pomegranates, even
+hedges of a sort. Then again we were in the argan forest&mdash;the
+last of it, and the best: beautiful trees, with their
+knarled, twisted branches. I thought of yews on the
+Surrey hills. Here coarse grass grew between, something
+like a park at home: goats clambered up into the forks,
+feasting on the green fruit. But all too soon the argans
+came to an end, and we saw this phenomenon of Morocco
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was the exchange of the argan forest for the
+everlasting <i>r`tam</i> (white broom) and a sun-baked, arid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>[<a href="./images/298.png">298</a>]</span>
+wilderness, a welcome one. It always meant stones and
+sand and a general grilling, the r`tam, as it waved like
+pampas-grass to the far horizon. By-and-by palmetto
+cropped up, the fan-shaped dwarf palm, which makes
+ropes and twine, baskets, mats, dish-covers, leggings, hats,
+and girths. Here it grew in the middle of wretched little
+attempts at corn-fields&mdash;a drawback to farming, though
+from want of water farming might well have been let
+alone. Topping a rise, the whole undulating country
+was r`tam and palmetto: occasionally a flock of goats
+moved on its face, tended by thin mahogany-coloured
+Arab boys in dirty woollen tunics.</p>
+
+<p>When a single olive-tree appeared, we hailed its shade
+for lunch. The mules, hobbled together, grazed: Omar
+and Sa&iuml;d lay at a short distance, drinking green tea
+and smoking near the little fire they had lit. Botanical
+specimens had to be dried.</p>
+
+<p>That night we camped outside the kasbah belonging
+to the most powerful kaid in the whole district: an
+immense reddish-yellow pile it was, built of <i>tapia</i>&mdash;that
+is, of mud, gravel, and water principally, poured into
+bottomless cases on the wall itself, and left to set. The
+kasbah had lived through a siege or two, and looked as
+if it would "ruin" quickly. From the arched gateway
+a crowd of squalid retainers emerged to stare at sun-helmets
+and Englishwomen: living like medi&aelig;val times
+within the castle's protecting walls, the "feudal system"
+practically obtains in Morocco in the present day.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! the governor, Kaid Mohammed, was at Fez: his
+<i>khaylifa</i> (lieutenant) received us inside the filthy and
+squalid kasbah, seated on a doorstep&mdash;a better-dressed
+man than his retainers, curtailed perhaps in intellectual
+allowance, who gave us leave to camp outside.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-40.png"><img src="./images/ill-40_th.png" alt="A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL." title="A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">A Blindfolded Camel Working a Water-Wheel.</p>
+
+<p>That evening we watched a blindfolded camel turning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>[<a href="./images/299.png">299</a>]</span>
+a water-wheel, and some wretched prisoners, with irons
+on their feet, who shuffled out of the gate and drew
+water. A black slave brought Kaid Mohammed's horses
+to water one by one; then made each roll on a sandy
+patch of ground, off which he first carefully picked every
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>The sun streamed in at our tent door next morning, but
+we were at breakfast before it had more than left the
+horizon, and soon on our way through a rough country
+of scrub and olives&mdash;a capital country for pig (which are
+shot in numbers), and practicable for spearing them, one
+would think. Jogging along little paths, with a cool
+breeze in our faces, which invariably went round with
+the sun, we came by-and-by to a valley, green and
+wooded with olives, where barley was growing, looking
+as if it had been kept under glass, it was such an even
+crop, and rooted in the richest soil. Crack&mdash;crack&mdash;ping!
+and a stone whistled over our heads: this meant Arab
+boys scaring birds with slings, made of dried grass, and
+probably after David's pattern.</p>
+
+<p>From out of an Arab village a little black child ran
+with a bowl of very sour milk, which, however, Omar
+and Sa&iuml;d appreciated: the child wore one filthy whitish
+garment and a bead necklace, a little inky-black pigtail
+completing it.</p>
+
+<p>This was a day of all days, in that we had our first
+view of the Atlas Mountains&mdash;those mountains which we
+had come so far to see. There they were, first seen from
+a certain ridge, mighty peaks, snow-covered, filling one
+with an intense desire to travel into their fastnesses: a
+haze, however, hid the greater part of the range.</p>
+
+<p>A countryman joined us for a short distance, to whom
+Omar gave a cigarette-paper and a pinch of tobacco.
+Again all cultivation was exchanged for uncompromising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a>[<a href="./images/300.png">300</a>]</span>
+plain, stones, stones, and a soil like iron, on which nothing
+grew except the thorny zizyphus lotus, with the double
+row of thorns, one pointing forward, the other back, out
+of which the Soudanese make their zarebas. A colony of
+bottle-shaped nests, made of dried grass, in these thorn-bushes,
+tempted me to try for some eggs. The attempt
+proved what a barrier the thorny lotus can be. I was
+extricated with difficulty by means of Omar's gun-barrels
+and Sa&iuml;d's hands; but not without one nest and eggs&mdash;they
+apparently belonged to a variety of sparrow.</p>
+
+<p>A well with one tree, a spot of shade in the arid plain,
+intervened farther on. The mules drank. An Arab
+rode up, lean, walnut-coloured; slipped off his high-peaked
+red saddle, hobbled his mule, and lay down under the
+tree. Hot as it was, we pushed on. This plain is said
+to remind travellers of the stony part of the Sahara. In
+the air was a scent of burnt grass and flowers&mdash;a <i>honey</i>
+smell: every time a breeze came we were duly grateful.
+The mules clattered on over the stones until Sidi Moktar
+came in sight&mdash;a saint-house of the deepest sanctity, near
+which a country market is held one day a week. Up
+to this cluster of what Omar dignified by the name of
+<i>shops</i> we rode, and, dismounting, stooped our heads,
+and took possession of one of the minute mud-booths,
+the servants going into another next door. We could
+sit upright, though not stand, and there was shade in
+the shape of a thatched covering, while after the glare
+and flare of the sun outside it was as cool as a cellar.</p>
+
+<p>From one to three we rested there, drank green tea
+after lunch, studied maps, took notes. But the sun was
+as hot as ever when we took to the open road again,
+plain before us, the Atlas dimly to be seen. Some oddly
+formed hills, from four to five hundred feet high, flat-topped,
+presently appeared: one, from its contour, is called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a>[<a href="./images/301.png">301</a>]</span>
+<i>Hank-el-Jemmel</i> (Camel's Back). We rode past them. A
+layer of coarse chalcedony covers the flat summits, which
+would offer resistance when, ages ago, the Atlas wall was
+scooped into ridge and ravine, and the plain below washed
+bare, except for isolated remnants, such as these table-hills.
+We picked up fragments of chalcedony and small
+blocks of volcanic rock, or basalt.</p>
+
+<p>About five o'clock we reached an Arab <i>douar</i>, or village,
+and decided to camp near it for the night. Twenty or
+thirty conical huts, made of branches and grass and
+anything which keeps out the sun, black camel's hair or
+a worn-out garment; the whole surrounded by a great
+hedge, or <i>zareba</i>, of the thorny lotus, not growing, but
+piled up, one hole left in the fence for exit, and closed
+at night by simply piling extra thorns in the space;
+a company of howling dogs,&mdash;such is an Arab douar,
+and it is probably unequalled for filth, though when the
+parasites become too many, even the thick-skinned
+Bedouin moves out, and a new douar is put up somewhere
+else. There was no choice as regards camping
+near such a spot: it may have been unsafe in the open&mdash;at
+any rate no servants could ever be induced to sleep
+except under the protection of a village or a kasbah.</p>
+
+<p>It was five o'clock. An old sheikh or headman came
+out from between the thorn-barrier, welcomed us, and
+led the way inside to a perfectly impossible open space,
+a dunghill, amongst the huts, where we might camp; it
+was overrun with fowls, and covered with filth of every
+description. Therefore, though assured that we should
+be much safer within the zareba, and deeply against the
+wishes of the servants, we insisted upon leading the way
+outside, and choosing a spot as far removed from the
+fence as possible, though only too near for our own
+comfort. As soon as the tents were pitched and the sun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a>[<a href="./images/302.png">302</a>]</span>
+had set, such a noise of goats (which had just been driven
+inside the douar) bleating, and donkeys braying, and
+dogs barking, and children crying, arose, as we prayed
+it might not be our lot often to hear at the end of a
+hard day.</p>
+
+<p>An admiring throng had gathered round us while the
+tent was in course of erection, and we were sitting on
+the grass. One old woman squatted before us, cross-legged,
+not a yard from our feet, and <i>gazed</i>; she wore
+nothing but one woollen garment, apparently a square
+held together on the shoulders by steel pins: her skinny
+arms, legs, and feet were bare, of course. We did not
+encourage "the masses," but kept them at arm's-length
+with sticks.</p>
+
+<p>That was a noisy night: half the douar was apparently
+being entertained in the servants' tent, which for
+safety was pitched all too close to our own, and they
+talked far on into the small hours in mumbling undertones,
+to the sound of which we finally slept, nor waked
+till a glorious dawn in a cloudless sky roused us at
+five o'clock. The herds were then wending their way
+out of the douar, filing across the plain, the mysterious
+delicate light of sunrise on the backs of the sheep and
+goats. By seven o'clock the sun was too hot to sit in
+for choice. We had already breakfasted in the conical
+shadow cast by the tent, a group of children watching
+every operation, some of them wearing the quaintest
+necklaces, of argan nuts strung together, and lumps of
+yellow sulphur sewn into perforated squares of leather:
+these were eagerly untied and handed over to us for
+a <i>bellune</i> (2&frac12;<i>d.</i>).</p>
+
+<p>At eight o'clock we had left the douar behind, and
+were heading for Sheshaoua, south of the Camel's Back,
+along a trail more stony and desert-like than any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a>[<a href="./images/303.png">303</a>]</span>
+before: even the few thorn-bushes did not flourish;
+perhaps the white snails, with which they were so thickly
+covered that the branches looked all in blossom, did
+not agree with them&mdash;snails which are beloved of
+partridges. We met no man nor animal, till at last a
+<i>rekass</i> passed us, a runner carrying the mail to Mogador,
+jogging along the two hundred and seventy miles'
+journey, for which he would be paid, there and back
+again, thirteen shillings. His stick was tucked under his
+clothes, down his back, for the sake of ventilation; his
+waistband was tightened; his palm-leaf wallet was on
+his back, with letters, possibly some bread, a match or two,
+and some hemp, inside. He was a long-limbed fellow,
+bronzed and bearded, with the vacant, glassy eyes of a
+kif-smoker; for kif kept him going often instead of
+food, and helped him to swing along day after day, untiring,
+like a camel, sleeping little, praying occasionally
+at a saint's tomb, fording the streams, trotting over the
+plains, his eyes fixed on the horizon&mdash;"eating the miles,"
+as Arabs say. This particular rekass left Marrakesh
+on Monday morning at ten, and reached Mogador on
+Wednesday afternoon at three, doing his two hundred
+and seventy miles in forty-nine hours.</p>
+
+<p>When Sir William Kirby Green died suddenly on an
+embassy in Marrakesh, a rekass carried the news to
+Mazagan, a hundred and sixty miles, in thirty-two hours;
+but the Vice-Consul told me that upon reaching his
+office the man fell down&mdash;he could not stand to tell
+the news.</p>
+
+<p>We rode on, praying for a breeze which never came:
+the sun literally sizzled on the baked desert, the rocks
+gave out an oven-like heat, and the rarefied air oscillated
+over the wastes. It was too hazy for more than glimpses
+of the Atlas and their snows: as far as we could see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>[<a href="./images/304.png">304</a>]</span>
+stretched only illimitable drab-coloured plain, broken by
+the flat-topped hills. At last we stumbled along to the
+top of a ridge; and there, strange and delightful sight,
+away in the distance lay a green basin, trees, no mirage,
+but the valley of Sheshaoua.</p>
+
+<p>Sheshaoua is a district ruled by a powerful governor,
+whose great kasbah lies somewhere about the centre,
+dominating a large village. The district is watered by
+a stream from the Atlas Mountains, which accounts for
+its fertility; for, except where irrigation is possible, there
+can be no cultivation in this sahara: wide ditches
+conduct the stream across the length and breadth of
+the province, resulting in a green ribbon upon the face
+of the plain, the fields being edged with little hard
+mud-banks, keeping the water evenly distributed over
+the surface when the crops need flooding.</p>
+
+<p>To have lived upon sun-burn is to appreciate the
+colour green: the march lost its monotony and some
+of its heat, when green lay in front and came nearer
+with every stride. Two hours and a half were short:
+the end of that time found us riding between corn-fields,
+crossing streamlet after streamlet watering the
+vegetation, and at last jogging over real turf, instead
+of clattering on stones, which had made talking difficult
+for the last day or two; now the path was actually soft
+and earthy. A long string of camels kept pace with us
+for a time on a parallel trail; then a douar came into
+sight, afterwards two saint-houses and a ruined kasbah.
+That half of these castles are ruined is not to be wondered
+at, considering that they are mud-built, and that tribal
+disputes and invasions are interminable. Some of those
+same crumbling tapia walls which we passed supported
+immense earthen jars, standing out against the sky&mdash;jars
+which are stored with corn or butter, and sealed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a>[<a href="./images/305.png">305</a>]</span>
+up: nine months' old butter has the reputation of an
+old wine.</p>
+
+<p>Shady trees, standing for the most part by the stream,
+hung over our path, but would have made damp camping-grounds,
+and we rode on through a marsh, up one
+ridge, down the opposite side, and at last into the
+principal village of Sheshaoua, not far from which, on a
+hillside to the north-east, lay one of the familiar country
+market-places, with its collection of little shelters for the
+sellers, its upright branches on which to hang meat&mdash;Thursday's
+market this. A ruined, red-walled kasbah
+faced it, apparently inhabited by storks alone, busy
+building their great rough nests: some were in the village.</p>
+
+<p>Sheshaoua was no douar, but a high-walled collection
+of houses, overlooked by the modern kasbah on the
+hill. Thither we rode, up the steep slope, to call on
+the kaid, Sekassam Belcady, and ask permission to pitch
+the tents in one of the gardens which fringed the
+stream below. This the khaylifa granted at once (the
+kaid himself being at Fez with the Sultan), pressing
+on us the alternative of putting up inside the kasbah
+itself; but the open air had stronger attractions, and we
+wound our way downhill to the stream, on the other
+side of which the kaid's own garden lay. There being
+no bridge, the stream deep, and the banks steep, the
+mules were driven over by themselves, and R. and I
+followed one by one on Omar's back&mdash;on and into a
+natural garden fit for the gods, one of Nature's own
+parterres, and a paradise at that.</p>
+
+<p>On dry ground, underneath orange-trees covered with
+blossom, we lunched and lay down: of flowers, except
+wild ones, there were none, nor any attempt at cultivation;
+the terraces were dense in greenery and shade,
+interlaced with branches, intersected by streamlets, per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a>[<a href="./images/306.png">306</a>]</span>fumed
+with orange flowers; water murmured; nightingales
+answered each other from every corner; wood-pigeons
+cooed content; most musical of all, the bulbul's throbbing,
+passionate note&mdash;not loud&mdash;was heard for the first time.
+Yes; we might have said: "If there is a heaven upon
+earth, it is this, it is this, it is this."</p>
+
+<p>The snake creeps into most paradises: suddenly a thunder-storm
+invaded ours; heavy rain began even to penetrate
+the thick lace of leaves and branches over our heads, and,
+walking to the opening at the edge of the wood, it was
+clear that heavy storms were working up from the north-east;
+nor did the day improve. Having sat through
+two downpours, with every sign of more to follow, when
+another pressing invitation came from the khaylifa to
+spend the night in the kasbah, it seemed foolish to do
+other than accept; for bad weather under tents, which
+like ours did not claim to be waterproof, has no attractions.
+Further, the khaylifa had stated that the guest-house was
+new, and had never been occupied.</p>
+
+<p>Thither we hurried through the rain. The inside of
+the "castle" was blocked by a collection of filthy-looking
+sheds or rooms, which seemed to be full of Arabs and
+negroes and women&mdash;wives of the khaylifa&mdash;all of them
+squalid and mannerless: the paths between were littered
+with refuse. A country kaid, judging from the state
+of his kasbah, is possessed of no refinement, and
+has less sense of decency and comfort, as European
+ideas go, than many members of the labouring class
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of the guest-house was, however, reassuring:
+the long lofty room into which we were shown
+had been newly whitewashed, the ceiling painted red and
+green; its double doors and two windows opened into a
+little courtyard, and rooms beyond housed the servants.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"></a>[<a href="./images/307.png">307</a>]</span>
+A sheep was being skinned in an adjoining shed: we
+were to be feasted.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, few, if any, of the kaid's retainers could
+have abstained from visiting us, to judge by the lev&eacute;e
+which we held for more than an hour: perhaps the black
+slaves were most interesting, but they were also hardest
+to remove, from the scene of such a phenomenon, as two
+Englishwomen within their own walls. Probably no such
+thing had happened within the memory of man; for
+Sheshaoua is off the beaten track to Marrakesh, nor do
+travellers as a rule sleep out of their tents.</p>
+
+<p>While we had tea, under a battery of eyes, and further
+annoyed by the chatter at the open door and windows,
+a <i>mona</i> (a present from the governor) arrived, and was
+set down at our feet. It was not the time&mdash;just after
+tea&mdash;to eat an immense dish of <i>coos-coosoo</i>, or a steaming
+pile of hot mutton and raisins, cooked in oil, which lay
+on the round trenchers, when the great beehive-like straw
+covers were raised: some of the hot cakes accompanying
+them might be managed, but the rest was handed over
+to the expectant servants, to whom coos-coosoo is as
+roast beef to the British labourer, though less stimulating,
+for it only consists of wheat or millet or maize flour,
+granulated, steamed, and eaten hot, sometimes crowned
+with chicken.</p>
+
+<p>Following hard on the mona came a message from
+the khaylifa asking for medicine. Graphically answering
+my question as to what was the matter with him, the
+messenger stroked his waist: we found a pill, which was
+carried off with much gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>A short time elapsed, and then, to our horror, four
+slaves arrived, carrying great preparations for tea&mdash;brass
+trays, urn, and the whole paraphernalia&mdash;mint and sweetness
+filling the room. Again the servants benefited; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>[<a href="./images/308.png">308</a>]</span>
+even a third time, after we were actually in bed; for
+the door was bombarded, and three women came in, and
+laid a great almond pudding, of much delicacy, covered
+with stripes of grated cinnamon, at our feet.</p>
+
+<p>That night was the one bad experience of our time
+in Morocco. Though the guest-room was new and apparently
+clean, some matting had been laid on the floor,
+which we had not removed, and with the darkness its
+occupants came out in such numbers that, in spite of
+"Keating" round the legs of each bed, the long hours were
+taken up in warfare, and we never slept. Next day the
+room was scoured out, and the lively matting ejected,
+while we were strolling round Sheshaoua between heavy
+showers of rain, which reduced the clay country to a state
+of quagmire. However, Sunday, after a peaceful night
+both inside and out of doors, broke fresh and clear: all
+the great loose thunder-clouds had packed themselves into
+long cloudlets with ruled horizontal bases; and in clear,
+rarefied air, standing up almost unearthly in their beauty,
+the Atlas range from end to end, was to be seen at last.
+Chiselled peak after peak, upon which no traveller has
+ever set foot, glistened in the sun, apparently about ten
+miles off, in reality more like thirty or forty. It was one
+of those mornings which have been thoroughly washed, and
+the swirling pea-soup river bore witness to the operation
+as surely as the air of purity which the whole country wore.
+All was radiant: down below, the orange grove of our
+arrival rang with nightingales and bulbuls; there was a
+scent of heaven, an undertone of racing waters.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-41.png"><img src="./images/ill-41_th.png" alt="SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE PASS ON THE MARCH." title="SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE PASS ON THE MARCH." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Ships of the Desert We Pass on the March.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we were packed up to start, the khaylifa sent
+and expressed thanks for our medicine, and asked that
+as a favour we would see his wives, one of whom was
+ill. They were found in mud rooms, dark and dirty,
+most uninteresting in themselves. One stout "lady"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>[<a href="./images/309.png">309</a>]</span>
+had a swelled neck, the other had cataract: both wished
+to be prescribed for. I recommended, through Omar,
+bathing the swelled neck: it was necessary from a
+cleanliness point of view. From the same point of view
+I shook hands hurriedly and departed, climbed into the
+saddle, and was soon far away from the kasbah at
+Sheshaoua.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>[<a href="./images/310.png">310</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>[<a href="./images/311.png">311</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">A Parting Mona&mdash;Fording Sheshaoua River&mdash;Jars of Food&mdash;First Sight of Marrakesh&mdash;A Perilous Crossing&mdash;Ride into Marrakesh&mdash;The Slave Market.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"></a>[<a href="./images/312.png">312</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"></a>[<a href="./images/313.png">313</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER XI</h4>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>"We who are old, old and gay,</p>
+<p class="i2">O so old!</p>
+<p class="ihalf">Thousands of years, thousands of years,</p>
+<p class="i2">If all were told:</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="ihalf">Give to these children, new from the world,</p>
+<p class="i2">Rest far from men.</p>
+<p class="ihalf">Is anything better, anything better?</p>
+<p class="i2">Tell us it then:</p>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<p class="ihalf">Us who are old, old and gay,</p>
+<p class="i2">O so old!</p>
+<p class="ihalf">Thousands of years, thousands of years,</p>
+<p class="i2">If all were told."</p>
+<p class="tr"><span class="smcap">W. B. Yeats.</span></p>
+</div></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> were once more upon the march; and yet all
+links with the kasbah were not broken, for we
+had gone but a short way when a servant ran after us,
+carrying a familiar dish, known from afar&mdash;a parting
+mona. Laid at our feet, we tasted, as courtesy demanded,
+a coos-coosoo made of grated almonds, powdered
+sugar, and cream&mdash;a sweet which cloys at an early
+hour in the day, though to Moorish servants, at any
+and every moment of their lives, it is as caviare to
+the few. A circle was formed round the dish: in two
+minutes, all that was left, was "an aching china blank."</p>
+
+<p>Quantity rather than quality distinguishes Moorish
+cookery. The rich man's dishes are more or less like
+the poor man's, only that he has six times as many;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>[<a href="./images/314.png">314</a>]</span>
+indeed, there are said to be dishes of coos-coosoo which
+seven men can barely carry. The Sultan's own cuisine
+is quite simple, better served, and more of it perhaps, than
+his subjects', but otherwise exactly the same.</p>
+
+<p>Having disposed of the mona, our cavalcade started,
+and we rode down to the Sheshaoua River, still in heavy
+flood, but fordable since the fine night. The waters
+roared past between the crumbling banks: we saw in
+one place waggon-loads of red soil suddenly subside
+with a vast noise into the cataract which had undermined
+it. Upon the brink the men stripped themselves;
+then, wading into the torrent, hauled across mules,
+camel, and donkey one by one: we took our feet out
+of the stirrups, and managed to keep dry; the camel
+behaved admirably.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-42.png"><img src="./images/ill-42_th.png" alt="TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE." title="TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Transporting Our Baggage.</p>
+
+<p>It was an uneventful day, across a bleak and stony
+country. Towards evening we passed a ruined kasbah,
+rose-red in the sunset. Riding due east, our long sharp
+shadows pointed ahead: there was a peace over all
+things. The shadowed heights on the right, scooped into
+blue gullies and mighty crests, carried a veil of cloud
+on their tops: the good little red path we were on,
+was without a stone. As the sun dropped we swung
+along into a dim grey beyond, to the muffled tramp,
+tramp of the mules' hoofs, <i>shuffle-shuffle through the night</i>,
+while a cool breeze got up, and a flight of birds high
+above us called aloud as they passed over. Ah! but
+how good it was!&mdash;no telegrams, no conventionalities, no
+possessions worth worry or consideration. Strange, the
+influence which such a simple life has upon the mind:
+letters, and newspapers, and the topics of the day, and the
+world in general, have little interest for the time being, and
+get buried in the wastepaper-basket of trivialities, while
+the weather, and the state of the track, and little things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"></a>[<a href="./images/315.png">315</a>]</span>
+in Nature, assume gigantic proportions and fill the
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>We camped that night near another red ruined kasbah,
+whose long line of crumbling tapia walls against the Atlas
+Mountains stretched itself out like a watch-dog beside
+the forbidden hills. In the morning Arabs were more
+importunate than ever, one woman thrusting her head
+between the flaps of the canvas while we were dressing.
+A deal, meantime, went on in the kitchen-tent over a
+lamb, Omar feeling its neck and tail, and subsequently
+buying it for five shillings, after which it was silently
+dispatched on the far side, skinned, cut up; and the
+donkey bore a pannierful of meat that day.</p>
+
+<p>Our blue jay of the ruined kasbah at Sok-el-Tleta
+turned up again on the march, beautiful as ever, and no
+less tame; but all the birds shared that distinction, and
+were of a confiding nature delightful to see.</p>
+
+<p>Before Frouga, one of our next camping-grounds, was
+reached, we passed a kasbah which six years ago was in
+the possession of a kaid, who may or may not be still
+alive, in prison. His province, at any rate, rose against
+him to a man at the late Sultan's death, and wrecked
+his castle, the Government disposing of him after he had
+escaped to Marrakesh. The orchards of almond-trees,
+with thriving beans planted underneath them, and the
+fat fields of barley, spoke volumes for the prosperity of
+his days. It takes much provocation to induce country
+people to rise and rebel against their kaid; for rebellion,
+if unsuccessful, brings down such awful vengeance on
+the heads of the tribesmen: therefore his hard case was
+probably just punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Another river, the Asif-el-Mel, had to be forded on
+the same day. It was a bad crossing, we were warned
+by one sheikh not to attempt it, and neither of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a>[<a href="./images/316.png">316</a>]</span>
+men knew the ford; but some Arabs turned up, and they
+helped to get the mules safely across. R. and I had
+each four men with us: we tied our boots, stockings,
+camera and glasses round our necks, and rode over,
+careful not to look down at the race of the torrent, which
+has turned horsemen giddy often enough,&mdash;a raging river
+rather more than breast-high is not a thing to be trifled
+with. On the banks beyond lay a large and flourishing
+village, chiefly remarkable on account of its <i>Mellah</i> (Jews'
+Quarter),&mdash;a strange thing to find so far from civilization;
+and yet it was not, for the interior of Morocco is full
+of wandering Israelites, who, living and dying in remote
+Arab and Berber settlements, become naturalized to a
+certain extent, yet ever "keep themselves to themselves,"
+housed only in their own "quarter," under lock and key
+after sundown, and subjected to a few irksome regulations.
+Some of them become rich on the profits of the "middle
+man," buying skins and produce of all sorts from the
+country people, and passing them through to the coast
+towns: such men may be worth from &pound;3,000 to &pound;5,000.</p>
+
+<p>It is hard to conceive a race settling from choice amongst
+the squalor and filth of the lowest type of Arab, but as
+a matter of fact, the Jewish Quarter violated, over and
+above all the rest of the village put together, every
+tradition of cleanliness. The Berber villages of the north,
+dirty enough in all conscience, absolutely shone in comparison
+with the Arab douars in the south, or with their
+larger settlements, those semi-villages, whose flat-roofed
+huts were stacked with earthen or basket-work jars.
+These bottle-shaped jars, full of what Mohammed calls
+"the liquor of the bee," cream-cheese, barley, etc., were
+plastered with mud, and waterproof: when they occurred
+in twos and threes on every roof, the effect was striking.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been a monotonous ride to Frouga except<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>[<a href="./images/317.png">317</a>]</span>
+for the Atlas Mountains on our right, which we had been
+steadily nearing for days: now comparatively close, their
+gleaming snow-peaks were never without interest, and
+Omar told tales of travellers' experiences up in one or
+two of the passes. The principal roads across the chain
+to Taroudant, Ras-el-Ouad, and the Sus, pass through
+Frouga, and make it an important place. It possesses
+an <i>inzella</i>, or sort of fond&acirc;k, where men and transport
+are safe for the night under the protection of the kaid
+of the district.</p>
+
+<p>We pitched our tents among little fields of beans
+and barley, planted with olive-trees, close to a mosque,
+and awoke when <i>es-sbar</i> (sunrise) was called in sonorous
+tones from the top of the dome: a cuckoo answered
+the mueddzin, and a pair of little doves began to coo
+persistently.</p>
+
+<p>The gardens of Frouga are celebrated&mdash;full of vines
+planted like hop-gardens, of prickly pear, figs, pears,
+apricots, and corn, in between the fruit-trees. And yet
+the owners are not rich: the governors of the district
+see to that; for supposing a man becomes richer than
+the governor, X., he goes to the Government and says, "If
+you make me governor instead of X., I will bring you
+more money than he does, and here is a present at
+the same time." The Government accepts the bribe, and
+gives the man a letter stating that he is made governor
+instead of X. The man collects his friends and ousts
+X., perhaps imprisoning him for life. A governor, therefore,
+never allows a man under him to possess capital.
+He may be rich in cattle and gardens, but he will have
+to pay the governor out of his profits from thirty to
+ninety shillings at stated times all the year round, and
+never have any "spare cash." If he refuses to pay, he
+is turned out of his own home and acres, which fall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>[<a href="./images/318.png">318</a>]</span>
+into the governor's hands. Naturally he prefers to cling
+to his gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond Frouga lay some of the most fertile land in
+Morocco. We passed wonderful crops of barley and wheat,
+which in an average year, for every bushel sown, yield
+forty bushels. Moors say that corn in Morocco is known to
+yield, not forty, but a hundred-fold. In England fifteen-fold
+is considered an average crop. Morocco grows two
+crops each year: there is a spring harvest and an autumn
+harvest. It would seem, therefore, that if agriculture were
+encouraged, and light railways laid down to the coast,
+money would pour into the country&mdash;especially supposing
+that, instead of wheat, such a crop as linseed was grown.
+Russian and American competition would probably
+diminish the profits to be made out of wheat, but a soil
+and a climate like Morocco might grow anything and
+everything. At present fraud and dishonesty seem the soul
+of trade: the Jew brokers cheat the Moors; the Moors
+sand their sheep's wool to make it heavy, mix paraffin
+candles with their beeswax, put all manner of things into
+oil, and so on. But a single example shows the spirit
+of the country. A friend of ours found his horses becoming
+poor, yet he saw their corn taken out to them
+every evening: he examined it; it was quite good. After
+a time it occurred to him to look inside the horses'
+mouths, and he found the gums cut and lacerated in
+order to prevent their eating their barley, which, after
+it had lain a certain time on the ground untouched,
+was confiscated by the servants.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-43.png"><img src="./images/ill-43_th.png" alt="MARRAKESH." title="MARRAKESH." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">Marrakesh.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, each day as we marched on, brought us
+nearer to our bourn, and at last we found ourselves on
+a wide flat plain, unbroken, except by the trail which
+we followed, consisting of six or eight narrow paths,
+winding on side by side like railway rails&mdash;a splendid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a>[<a href="./images/319.png">319</a>]</span>
+"high road" for Morocco. Truly it is a spare-room
+country. The snaking track might take up acres and
+acres of rich land. What matter! There is room.</p>
+
+<p>It was still very hot: smoked spectacles kept off a
+certain amount of glare, and I wore two hats, a straw
+on top of a felt, having neglected to bring a solar topi;
+but even so the sun was unnecessarily generous, glowing
+on the splendid polish which some of the Arabs carried
+on their sepia-coloured skulls, and making it impossible
+to follow the crested larks, singing their heads off, up
+in the brilliant sky.</p>
+
+<p>At last we felt a breeze, topped a low rise: an old
+greybeard all in white jogged up towards us on a
+donkey, a man running behind; a village lay below; but
+our eyes only went to one spot in the wide blue plain,
+which was spread out like a praying-carpet before us.
+That spot lay twenty-five miles off&mdash;a single tower, the
+Kutobea in Morocco City.</p>
+
+<p>"Marrakesh!" cried Omar and Sa&iuml;d simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>We rode on, across dry plain, over old river-beds,
+through patches of olive-trees, pink oleander, and castor-oil
+plant; leaving Arab douars behind; meeting with
+white cow-birds which recalled Tetuan; passing men
+with merchandise on camels and donkeys, strings of
+country people, and wanderers of all sorts; stopping
+to rest near wells where swallows were building in the
+brickwork and donkeys stood asleep in the shade; watching
+Arabs beating out corn with sticks, men ploughing,
+until we were once more amongst "greenery" and in
+a fertile stretch of country. Surely there was a river
+near. We passed fine crops of maize; onions were doing
+famously; fields of bearded wheat rustled in a life-giving
+breeze. And then the Wad-el-Nyfs, the largest river
+we had to cross, came into sight. Sa&iuml;d at the outset<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a>[<a href="./images/320.png">320</a>]</span>
+precipitated himself into a great hole, and was well ducked:
+eventually we all landed safely on the other side, though
+the start was far from reassuring, some Arabs on the
+bank telling us it was "not good" to cross, and wading
+down into the torrent, for us to see that the water took
+them up to their necks almost at once, sweeping them
+down-stream. Before we rode into the water every
+man divested himself of each particle of clothing which
+he wore; and R. got across with two dark-skinned individuals
+clinging on to her legs, one on each side of
+the mule, a third hanging on to its bridle, and a fourth
+at its tail; while I followed also with four attendants.
+Not long ago, a party of missionaries was fording one
+of these very rivers, and neglected to have men at the
+mules' heads, one of which stumbled and threw its rider
+into the rapid stream: she was drowned. It was not
+deep at the time, or more precaution would have been
+taken: on the other hand, the stream is always like a
+mill-race, an accident can happen in a moment, and
+therefore a rule should be made, and never under any
+circumstances broken, to the effect that every rider have
+a man at the mule's head, and more than one, according
+to the state of the river.</p>
+
+<p>We had a long hot ride to Tamsloect: the breeze,
+which was westerly, was useless to us; the track led over
+stony yellow hills; now and again we caught glimpses
+of the Kutobea standing up very far away; and all the
+time the great snow-fields, on the vast mountains, close
+upon our right, looked tantalizingly near and cold. Occasionally
+we watered the mules at a stream: tortoises were
+swimming about in one of these. But on the whole it
+was a singularly uneventful and a very sultry ride, until
+at last long lines of red mud walls, many gardens, three
+mosque towers, and some tall, dark, green cypress-trees<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"></a>[<a href="./images/321.png">321</a>]</span>
+proclaimed Tamsloect&mdash;an important village, possessing
+a Friday market, an unequalled view of the Atlas, and
+a saint, Mulai Abdullah Ben Hassi.</p>
+
+<p>An Arab, Hadj Cadour, is one of the great men in
+Tamsloect; and to him, having an introduction, we went.
+The best hours spent in Morocco were those lived with
+certain of the Moors themselves, sharing for a short
+time their simple and yet fantastic life, learning something
+of their innate courtesy and generous hospitality.
+Hadj Cadour was a host of the old aristocratic school.
+He was out at his garden-house when we reached the
+village, entertaining friends at a tea party; and upon our
+message reaching him, he sent back a man on a white
+horse to point out another of his gardens close at hand,
+where he suggested that the tents should be pitched,
+while R. and I rode out and joined his tea party.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Omar to superintend the camp, we started off
+after the rider on the white horse: he led the way through
+the village, finally into a labyrinth of gardens, where we
+brushed through bearded wheat such as I have never
+seen before nor since, which luxuriated with olives, fruit-trees
+of all sorts, and pale pink monthly roses. Presently
+in the midst of the semi-wilderness a little white house
+intervened, half buried in trees, and close to it, in the
+shade, under an olive, was gathered Hadj Cadour's tea
+party, six or eight dignified Arabs, in those perfectly
+washed and blanched garments which so fit their solemn,
+dignified manners, their sad and intellectual type of
+faces: not that Moors are necessarily either of the two
+last; but they look it&mdash;that is all.</p>
+
+<p>A great tea-kettle, as usual, loomed in the background;
+carpets and thick red Morocco leather cushions made
+seats for the members of the charmed circle: we reclined
+there with the rest, talking, as far as a few Arabic words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"></a>[<a href="./images/322.png">322</a>]</span>
+would carry us, of our starting-point, our destination, the
+road, the rivers, the weather, Hadj Cadour helping us
+out, one and all interested and anxious to be understood
+and to understand. Our host dispensed <i>sherrub de minat</i>,
+the wine of the country, made from grapes; the little
+dome-shaped pewter teapot was there, with its fond
+associations of Morocco, together with the copper tray
+and circle of diminutive painted glasses; a gorgeous indolent
+sun poured down beyond the patch of shade; the
+hum and hover of insects vibrated in the air; and presently
+musicians were summoned&mdash;girls wearing pale green jellabs
+and silver ornaments, with yellow handkerchiefs twisted
+round their heads, men in bright colours. Sitting down
+between us, each was given a glass of sherrub de minat,
+and by-and-by they began to play. Weird and wild
+music it was, that of the <i>tareegea</i>, the <i>gimbi</i>, and the
+<i>tahr</i>, quaint native instruments of the roughest construction,
+and yet, as music, possessing fascination not
+a little.</p>
+
+<p>The long kif-pipes were lighted, green tea and wine
+were sipped, the white figures stretched themselves on the
+cushions, and a great and dreamy content came over the
+faces under the white turbans. There was nowhere a
+trace of boredom such as mars so many European entertainments&mdash;rather
+the thing was loved for itself, and every
+man felt it and entered into its spirit. Now and then
+the musicians broke into a strange song, and the guests
+beat their hands and murmured in chorus; then again
+they would seem half intoxicated, in a harmless fashion,
+with kif and wine and music, and would appear to be
+absent in a world of their own. The music had a lilt
+in it, and often a suggestion of something half tamed,
+desperate, swung along with the cadences; and thin
+wreaths of smoke from the long pipes blew up through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323"></a>[<a href="./images/323.png">323</a>]</span>
+the olive branches, and an Arabic sentence dropped now
+and again on the ear: the hot, slow, sleepy afternoon
+waned. . . .</p>
+
+<p>Poetry bulks so largely in the Arabic nature. Emotional
+and yet simple, that nature is, to a certain extent, appealed
+to by the refined. The sordid and vulgar have no
+attractions for it. There is no language more poetical
+than the Arabic language, where "snow" is called "hair
+of the mountain" and "rainbow" is "bride of the rain."
+"Red mullet" is "the sultan of fishes": "maiden-hair
+fern" is translated by "little cane of the well." Ordinary
+Arabic words show an extraordinary gift of description:
+the word for "secretly" means literally "under the
+matting," and "never" is expressed thus, "when the
+charcoal takes root and the salt buds."</p>
+
+<p>Uncontrolled ascendency of imagination marks the Arab,
+and endows his nature with a fascination all its own:
+an outdoor life is his heritage, and the things of Nature
+are a part of himself. "Spring" he calls "grass";
+"summer" is "gleaning"; "autumn" is "fruit"; "winter"
+is "rainy."</p>
+
+<p>If only he could keep pure his race, Morocco had never
+stood among the nations where she stands now. The
+steady infusion of African blood is becoming her ruin: the
+sensual negro type, spreading rapidly, is eating its way
+into the heart of the people. When it is remembered
+that thousands upon thousands of slaves are imported into
+Morocco from the interior of Africa every year, that they
+become eventually "free," their children inheriting equal
+rights with other children, it is no longer a matter of
+wonder that the Moorish race shows signs of deterioration,
+that its people are effete. It is after meeting with men
+such as Hadj Cadour and many others, who hark back
+to the old type of chief and horseman and the desert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"></a>[<a href="./images/324.png">324</a>]</span>
+life, touched with the old vein of poetry and chivalry,
+that one regrets the things which are. But we had
+spent an afternoon which was one worth recollecting;
+and when we had parted from that little circle under
+the shady olive, and were jogging back to our tents, it
+was to remember that there are still good things in
+Morocco.</p>
+
+<p>The tents we found ready for us in a delightful spot
+enclosed by a wall: a tank lay in the centre of the garden,
+around it a few paths, and a great deal of mint. But a
+terrible ordeal awaited us&mdash;green tea and a great spread,
+provided by the brother of Hadj Cadour, who had also
+arranged carpets as seats around the tank. Again next
+morning, just after we had finished breakfast, this hospitable
+individual sent into our tent two steaming hot
+chickens fried brown in argan oil, with half a dozen
+round cakes of fine <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'floor'">flour</ins>; and when, immediately afterwards,
+we rode to his house to say farewell and tender
+our thanks, he proffered green tea once more.</p>
+
+<p>Heavy drops of rain awoke us in the middle of the
+night; but just as an ominous patter was coming through
+the old canvas and sounding on the bed-clothes, the
+shower stopped. Again later it came on, with thunder.
+Omar changed the smart clothes which he had put on
+in view of a triumphal entry into Marrakesh; we packed
+and got off as quickly as we could, expecting more rain;
+many good-byes were said; Hadj Cadour sent a servant
+with us to the gates; and we rode out of Tamsloect.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-44.png"><img src="./images/ill-44_th.png" alt="THE OPEN GATE." title="THE OPEN GATE." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Open Gate.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, towards the east, its gardens were numerous:
+great black poplars and palms grew freely. For an hour
+we rode alongside a district which belonged entirely to
+Mulai el Hadj, the great man of Tamsloect, and a holy
+Shar&#299;f to boot. This man is rich, and because he is a
+holy Shar&#299;f he can never be dispossessed of his wealth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"></a>[<a href="./images/325.png">325</a>]</span>
+His white house and cypress-trees stand out prominently
+in the village we had just left; throughout his gardens
+he has built a succession of water-towers, which irrigate
+his land; he is British-protected, and as important a
+man in the south as the French-protected Wazeer of
+Wazan is in the north.</p>
+
+<p>All this time we were riding steadily towards Marrakesh,
+interest increasing with every step as we neared
+the city, to visit which we had left Mogador about ten
+days before.</p>
+
+<p>That last day's march was not an interesting one:
+the great Atlas, upon which we had now turned our
+backs, were no longer to be seen, on account of clouds
+which the last night's storm had brought upon them;
+the plain over which we rode possessed a deadly monotony,
+for we were not entering Marrakesh upon its best side,
+where gardens upon gardens of palm-trees stretch beyond
+the city gates for miles and miles, but our road from
+Tamsloect was prosaic and dull. Certainly we crossed
+some of the wonderful underground canals, which carry
+water five and ten miles, from springs in the country,
+into the city&mdash;about whose origin nothing whatever is
+known, tradition remaining silent as to any builder. These
+great works are merely water-ways tunnelled through the
+solid earth, not at any great distance from the surface:
+along their courses the streams are conducted for great
+distances. There are openings at intervals which ventilate
+the tunnels: these are kept clean and easily examined
+by means of the same. The whole arrangement is very
+rough, very primitive, but perfectly answers the purpose
+for which it was made.</p>
+
+<p>The crops which we left behind us at every mile
+looked well, and it was to be hoped would soon make
+good the failure of the preceding crop: that failure had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326"></a>[<a href="./images/326.png">326</a>]</span>
+accounted for the skinny children and lean women whom
+we had met, and was the reason of the country people's
+continuous digging for ayerna root, and washing the
+same by the roadside and in so many villages.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Marrakesh and its adobe walls, of a sad
+yellow-pink tone, grew nearer and nearer, till at last the
+long line of crumbling tapia was but a short distance
+off, and the B&aacute;b-el-Roub, a massive gateway, plainly
+to be seen. Just outside the walls, Mr. Miller, one of
+the missionaries, met us: he had one piece of news, which
+carried with it regret wherever it was heard across the
+length and breadth of the British Empire&mdash;the death of
+Cecil Rhodes. Under the B&aacute;b-el-Roub we rode into the
+city of crumbling walls and silent sandy roadways: somewhat
+of a deserted city, the great southern capital appeared
+to be at first; but then we were nowhere near its heart,
+and the half of it is gardens and quiet houses, while a
+small part only, is wholly full of vitality: the whole is
+crumbling to pieces, and strange of all strangest cities
+ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>We rode straight to Kaid Maclean's house, lent us by
+Lady Maclean&mdash;the best house in Morocco City, over-looking
+one of the many market-places, and that open
+space in which story-tellers and snake-charmers, surrounded
+by a dense circle of admirers, cater to an attentive throng.
+The house was empty, and we "camped" in several
+of the rooms, lunching in a long gallery which looked
+straight out on to the Atlas Mountains: the mules went
+into a capacious stable; the servants made themselves
+comfortable in the kitchens. It is hard to find house-room
+in Marrakesh: of course a hotel is unheard of,
+nor is camping-ground to be met with easily. There
+are no foreign consuls in this far-off city, and no English
+element beyond the two or three missionaries who live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327"></a>[<a href="./images/327.png">327</a>]</span>
+there. Travellers have generally to depend upon the
+loan of some house for the time being, from a holy Shar&#299;f
+or Moor of some standing; but the house may be anywhere,
+and comfortable or otherwise. Since the Sultan
+was at Fez, his army and his commander-in-chief, Kaid
+Maclean, were at Fez too: hence the reason of the
+Macleans' house standing empty, within which we were
+so fortunate as to find ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Marrakesh cannot be described: it must be seen.
+It is more suggestive, more intangible, more elusive&mdash;that
+is to say, its Eastern medley of a population is so,
+and its crumbling tapia-walled houses are so&mdash;than any
+other Moorish city. More ghosts should stalk the half-deserted
+yellow roadways of Marrakesh, more mysteries
+be shrouded within the windowless walls, than a man
+of Western civilization could conceive.</p>
+
+<p>It is a vast city&mdash;other writers have chronicled the
+number of square miles which it accounts for&mdash;and yet,
+in spite of its size, the sum-total of souls it contains
+is not overwhelming. There are gardens everywhere,
+stretch after stretch of palm-trees, acre after acre of fruit-trees,
+and wedged among them all, lie the flat roofs,
+swarm the endless throng which spells humanity; and
+the oddest, most varied humanity&mdash;Arabs and negroes,
+men from the Sus, from the Sahara, from Draa, Berber
+hillmen, tribesmen from the Atlas, a tumultuous multitude,
+a hive of bees of whom no census has ever been
+made. We were among them all, the first time we rode
+through the city. No one walks in Marrakesh: as a
+matter of fact I did later on, often enough, sometimes
+alone, getting somewhat jostled in the narrow ways&mdash;beyond
+that in no way inconvenienced. But every one
+who can, is on a mule or a long-tailed countrybred,
+pushing along at a foot's pace, crying out now and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"></a>[<a href="./images/328.png">328</a>]</span>
+then, and avoiding this pair of black toes, that coffee-coloured
+bare heel.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the wall, covered with nails, whereon heads
+are fastened after rebellions have been quenched and
+the time of punishment and warning has come, we rode
+into the land of little shops. Here, in another instance,
+Marrakesh is unique: the narrow streets were in great
+part entirely roofed in overhead either by vines or by
+bamboos; the brilliant sunlight streamed through the
+spaces between the vines and canes, and chequered the
+seething white throng which eternally passed underneath
+it. From an open street we plunged into the cool shade
+of one of these arcades. And how it moved! Nothing
+ever stood still in the Marrakesh soks. Life "travels"
+for ever and for ever there. Between the shops, themselves
+teeming with bustle and incident, moved up
+and down, the throng of white, draped, dignified figures,
+calling, heaving, struggling, jostling sometimes, chattering
+always, blotched with shifting yellow sunlight and
+black shadow cast by the lattice roof overhead. It
+was a transformation scene; it was a weird dream&mdash;weird
+to the point of seeming unreal, unlike men and
+the haunts of men, though all the time rampant with
+<i>humans</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-45.png"><img src="./images/ill-45_th.png" alt="THE KUTOBEA, MARRAKESH." title="THE KUTOBEA, MARRAKESH." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Kutobea, Marrakesh.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>When the Sultan went to Fez, a party of soldiers
+and goldsmiths and craftsmen of all sorts went with
+him from the city of Marrakesh, in number over forty
+thousand souls. But the exodus made no appreciable
+difference in the soks. Not only the numbers, but the
+types of the stream of faces between which we rode
+were all striking, and each one so far removed from
+anything at all European. Humanity can indeed be
+separated from humanity by gulfs impassable, or gulfs
+which may alone be bridged over by a violation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329"></a>[<a href="./images/329.png">329</a>]</span>
+nature, on the part of the man upon the east bank or
+upon the west bank.</p>
+
+<p>The palm-trees wave above Marrakesh, turtle-backed
+mosques and tall towers rise among the gardens and gleam
+in the sun, but above and beyond every other feature of
+the far-away fantastic southern capital one watch-tower
+rises over everything and rears itself into the sky&mdash;the
+Kutobea, built, according to tradition, by Fabir for the
+Sultan El Mansur. It stands in a vast empty space close
+to the Great Mosque: few people pass that way&mdash;their footfalls
+are almost unheard in the soft sand; and the lonely
+tower cuts the clear quiet sky. The Kutobea is built
+of dark red stone. There is a pattern, alternately raised
+and sunk, on the faces of the minaret, the sunk part
+cut deep, the raised part carved and standing out. A
+broad band of wonderful black and green iridescent
+tiles, snakes round the top like some opulent spotted
+serpent. Part of it has dropped away: the gilded brass
+balls, the cupola, are here and there tarnished; but
+the sun sets, and his indulgent rays swamp every defect,
+burnish and polish and gild corner-stone and fretted
+marble and emerald-green tile alike, until the "to-day"
+of the Kutobea is as triumphant as its "yesterday" of
+many hundred years. The design of the tower itself&mdash;the
+minaret&mdash;is said to have come from Constantinople,
+as did the Giralda at Seville, which it so resembles.</p>
+
+<p>Of the mosque, beside the Kutobea, nothing was to
+be seen except its walls, and through an open door
+avenues of pillars. The huge building has an Arabic
+name meaning "The Mosque of the Books"; for what
+reason&mdash;who can tell?&mdash;tradition is silent.</p>
+
+<p>Marrakesh itself is supposed to have been built
+upon the site of an immensely old structure, the
+ancient Martok. As it is now, Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin founded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330"></a>[<a href="./images/330.png">330</a>]</span>
+it in 1072, a city which covers almost as much ground
+as Paris&mdash;a purely African city. Fez, Tetuan, Tangier,
+have Spanish blood in them: Marrakesh is African to
+the core. Arabs here are in a minority: the spare
+Saharowi type, the shaved lip and cheeks and pointed
+chin-tuft of the Berber race, men from the mysterious
+sandy steppes below Cape Bojador, Soudanese blacks,
+men from Wadnoon&mdash;one and all congregate in this
+city. Even the music and songs are, naturally enough,
+all African, with the strange interval, the rhythm which
+halts and races where no European music ever halted
+or raced; and the tom-tom, the gimbri, the ear-piercing
+Moorish flute, all fall upon the English ear as things
+intensely strange and strongly fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>Marrakesh boasts no aristocracy: it is a city of the
+people. It has few Shar&#299;fs: it is a land of "traders,"
+speculating, toiling, intriguing; between its yellow adobe
+walls, and its whitewashed dazzling walls, amidst its dense
+metallic semi-tropical vegetation, up and down its sandy
+silent ways, they live and die. Its fountains are beautiful:
+<i>Shrab-u-Schuf</i> (Drink and admire) is inscribed on
+one of them. But it is not by its architecture that
+Marrakesh stands and falls; rather by a personality all
+its own&mdash;by its many ruined walls, by its deserted streets,
+by the hot pulse of life throbbing imperiously through
+its arteries crowded to suffocation with humanity, by its
+flaring African sunlight, by the figures which can never
+be other than picturesque, by a thousand impressions
+which can never die. And by reason of all this
+Marrakesh is great.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time it was impossible for an Englishman
+to see the Slave Market. Owing partly to the
+radical hatred of Europeans, partly to the suspicious and
+seclusive nature of the Moor, the presence of foreigners<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"></a>[<a href="./images/331.png">331</a>]</span>
+in the sacred Slave Market was tabooed. Not that the
+Nazarene was "taken up" or turned back if he showed
+his face inside the courtyard: on the contrary, he was
+allowed to walk in, and apparently no eye was aware
+of his presence. And yet in a few moments he would
+find himself alone. The Slave Market had vanished, had
+melted away: a line of disappearing backs was all
+which was to be seen. Supposing a Moor had connived
+at this attempt on the part of a Nazarene to see slaves
+being sold, that Moor disappeared, by order of the
+Sultan, and there was a funeral later on in the day.</p>
+
+<p>However, while we were in Marrakesh, less rigorous
+orders were in vogue. Having come prepared to see
+the market disguised in native dress if necessary, we
+found that we were able to go there without much
+difficulty, and only escorted by one of the missionaries
+and a servant. Though slaves are bought and sold
+through the length and breadth of Morocco, it is not
+possible in any other city than Marrakesh for the
+European to see or know much about it. In the coast
+towns the sales are conducted privately. In Fez it is
+probable that they might be attended by others than
+Moors; but at the time of writing I take it that no wise
+European, if such should be there at all in these unquiet
+times, would venture to put himself into a position
+likely to attract all the bullets and knives in Fez in
+his direction.</p>
+
+<p>Just at sunset&mdash;6.30, I think&mdash;the Slave Market in
+Marrakesh opens, and we went in. To some ears it
+would no doubt have sounded the strangest anomaly,
+that prayer to the Most High God, with which the
+sale was prefaced; but a Mussulman hallows every
+action, right or wrong, with a petition; besides which
+slavery is lawful and good in his eyes, is approved of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332"></a>[<a href="./images/332.png">332</a>]</span>
+and permitted by Mohammed in the written book of
+the Kor&#257;n; is, in short, a part of the scheme of Nature
+which it were a serious mistake not to use and enjoy.
+So the line of auctioneers formed up, held out their hands,
+prayed, invoked a blessing over the proceedings, mumbling
+in sonorous tones for a few moments. Then silence.
+It was over: the sale began. There is nothing more
+easy than to be theatrical and emotional in describing
+scenes of this sort&mdash;one has read of them scores of times:
+words such as "degrading" and "harrowing" rise up
+in the mind's eye, coupled with violent epithets and
+stinging clauses. And yet, finding oneself in the centre
+of another just such a scene, one realized how impossible
+the thing was, to understand, or to feel, beforehand, and
+how curiously it played upon the emotions. Walking
+into the market with a sobriety, with a cold, critical
+interest such as a Nero may have felt towards his victims,
+one divined early in the proceedings that the scene tended
+unduly to intensify emotion. Truly no men think alike:
+a vast chasm yawns between the natures of the slave-trader
+and the European: that chasm is a universal
+education. To realize all which separates a native of
+Africa from a Frenchman or an Englishman, and the
+difficulties which lie in the way of promoting an understanding
+between the two, visit such a place as the
+Slave Market in Marrakesh.</p>
+
+<p>Groups of slaves, more or less gorgeously dressed,
+some in rags where nothing better could be afforded,
+were sitting far back in little covered-in recesses which
+lined the square. All round the square stood, or sat
+upon their heels, intending purchasers, for the most part
+middle-aged elderly men, sleek and fat, in turbans and
+soft linen, white beyond reproach. Each auctioneer, the
+prayer over, advanced to the groups of slaves, and led<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333"></a>[<a href="./images/333.png">333</a>]</span>
+out one or perhaps two or three, and paraded them
+round and round the square under the eyes of the buyers.
+At last a bid was made: the auctioneer walked on, pushing
+the slaves in front of him, and calling out the amount
+of the bid. A higher bid was made: he shouted out that
+bid, and still walked on. Then a purchaser signed to him
+that he wished to look at the slaves. The auctioneer at
+once marshalled the women or woman slave (there were
+many more women than men) up to the Moor who wished
+to examine her. She squatted in front of him, while he
+looked at her teeth, felt her arms, neck, and legs, and
+in a low voice asked her a string of private questions.
+After a time the woman was allowed to get up, the
+auctioneer called out the latest bid for her, and walked
+her on. Probably some one else would examine her
+"points," and another and another; and her price would
+go up till the auctioneer should have got what he
+wanted, and the woman would be handed over to her
+new master.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the slaves walked round with a profoundly
+indifferent air&mdash;none of them looked in wild spirits; but,
+on the other hand, it was "Kismet" rather than misery
+which was written on their faces. It is a rare thing
+for any slave to object violently or to make any scene:
+as a rule they knelt down obediently enough in front
+of the fat Mohammedans, who thrust their fingers
+into their mouths, took them by the chin, and treated
+them with great familiarity. But, oddly enough, on
+one of the nights we attended the market a scene
+did occur. A middle-aged woman, absolutely refused
+to walk round&mdash;we were told probably because she had
+been parted from her child, and could not bear to be
+sold. The poor creature wept wildly, and hid her face
+in the red cloth round her head. She was, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334"></a>[<a href="./images/334.png">334</a>]</span>
+in the end forced along like a recalcitrant mule, her cloth
+torn off, herself made to kneel down at the bidding of
+a group of traders, and undergo the usual examination.
+Some of the young girls looked shame-faced, shuffling
+along behind or in front of the auctioneers with bent
+heads. The sad middle-aged woman fetched in the end
+seven pounds ten shillings. A little child was going
+for three pounds ten. A girl of thirteen&mdash;that is, at her
+very best&mdash;was selling for fifteen pounds: she was of
+course unusually attractive.</p>
+
+<p>The slave trade of Africa receives an apparent stamp
+of legality from the fact that religious warfare and the
+taking of prisoners in war and making them slaves are
+looked upon as Divine institutions. There is no obligation
+on the Mussulman to release slaves, and as long as
+wars and raids last, the mass of slaves in Mohammedan
+countries tends rather to increase than otherwise, their
+progeny ever adding to the original number. There is
+no restriction as to the number of slaves or concubines
+which a Moor may have: it entirely depends upon his
+purse. His women are his luxury, and an expensive one.
+A concubine may be sold at any moment, and the
+position is thus precarious and varied: it has one saving
+clause, which I have already explained&mdash;the woman who
+bears a son to her master is free, and at his death his
+property will be divided between the sons of concubines
+equally with the sons of his wife and wives. Mussulman
+raids still continue against the negroes of Central Africa,
+against tribes in Persia, in Afghanistan, and other parts
+of the world; indeed, as long as Mohammedanism lasts,
+there is very little chance of the abolition of slavery.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-46.png"><img src="./images/ill-46_th.png" alt="THE WAD-EL-AZELL." title="THE WAD-EL-AZELL." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Wad-el-Azell.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>One afternoon we went over the garden belonging to
+the late basha of Marrakesh&mdash;Ben Dowd&mdash;almost the only
+garden I have ever seen in Morocco which had in it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335"></a>[<a href="./images/335.png">335</a>]</span>
+flowers; and these were roses from Spain, valuable and
+beautiful, the pride of the basha. There was a charming
+summer-house half built, and a conservatory nearly
+finished, in different parts of the garden. In the midst
+of his prosperity, only eight months before, Ben Dowd
+had been arrested and put into prison. It was the old
+tale of jealousy. The Grand Wazeer was afraid of the
+basha, and in order to secure himself from harm succeeded
+in having Ben Dowd deposed and put entirely out of
+harm's way. Though an explanation is always forthcoming
+for violent proceedings such as the above, it would
+be unwise to assume in Morocco that the explanation had
+a grain of truth in it. Wheels within wheels; intrigue after
+intrigue; lie, topped by lie, make up the sum of Moorish
+diplomacy, and render the coil of politics in that country
+an absolutely fascinating study, not because it is so
+surreptitious, but because it is clever as well as cunning,
+and all the time involves bigger interests than ever appear
+on the tapis&mdash;interests which concern France, Austria,
+England, Germany, and other Powers, all of whom struggle
+for a finger in the seething pie.</p>
+
+<p>To return to Ben Dowd. He was "detained" in a
+house&mdash;not ignominiously committed to the common gaol,
+an unusual respite&mdash;allowed twelve shillings a day, and
+his wife's company. He was in Fez with these restrictions
+at the time we were looking over his gardens; and half
+of his wives were left behind at his own house, costing
+him a pound a day, we were told, in the face of which
+his allowance seemed inadequate.</p>
+
+<p>When the Government seized him, no money was found
+in his house; but three hundred thousand dollars' worth
+of goods in the shape of carpets, mirrors, gilt bedsteads,
+etc., were confiscated. His post, however, is still vacant:
+he is a good man, and possibly the Government will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"></a>[<a href="./images/336.png">336</a>]</span>
+repent of its hasty step, and in due time restore such
+a valuable servant to favour. On the other hand, Ben
+Dowd may be ruined for life.</p>
+
+<p>The bashas and kaids of Morocco were all gnashing
+their teeth, while we were at Marrakesh, over the new
+system of taxation, which the Sultan and a certain progressive
+member of his Government, are endeavouring to
+introduce into the country. The main idea in these new
+regulations is, that governors will be paid specified salaries
+by the Government&mdash;that they will collect taxes as usual,
+but send the amount of money collected intact to Court,
+not, as has been the custom hitherto, docking off the
+half, it may be, and pocketing it as their own pay.
+Again, each province has been lately inspected by a
+certain number of trustworthy men, who have fixed its
+rate of taxation. The countryman is to pay so much
+upon his possessions&mdash;for example, ninepence for a cow,
+three shillings for a horse, twopence-halfpenny for an
+olive-tree, three shillings for a camel, no more and no
+less&mdash;instead of having the utmost squeezed out of
+him, which has been the practice of the governors up
+till now.</p>
+
+<p>The scheme sounds excellent. A letter has been read
+aloud in every city and country market-place, apprising the
+people of the new law, and they are delighted in proportion,
+but scarcely believe that the Government will be
+strong enough to enforce it. Indeed, it is hardly probable
+that the new taxation system can succeed unless two important
+steps are first taken&mdash;the tribes must be disarmed,
+and a new set of governors be appointed to take the place
+of the old. As long as the tribesmen are armed, there
+can never be law and order, any more than there can
+be settled peace upon the Indian frontier under the
+same conditions. At one moment the tribes will side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337"></a>[<a href="./images/337.png">337</a>]</span>
+with the Government, at another they will take the part
+of a governor, at another they will attack a neighbouring
+tribe. It is all very well to tax such men justly and
+to treat them like civilized beings, instead of trampling
+them underfoot, preventing their becoming rich, and
+holding them to be ignorant devils; but they are not
+civilized, unfortunately&mdash;they have not sufficient education
+to know when they are well off and to profit by it.
+Every man of them has a gun, and bloodshed and plunder
+are life itself to him. Treat him well, he bides his time,
+grows rich with the rest of his tribe; together they
+descend upon their neighbours, avenge an old wrong,
+loot to their hearts' content, perhaps attack the Sultan
+himself. But disarm one and all such men, and in the
+far future a peaceable agricultural folk may reign in their
+stead. It would be a work of time, but it has been
+effected before in the annals of history.</p>
+
+<p>The second condition, which would go far towards the
+working of the new system of taxation, is the appointment
+of new governors. The salary which the governors are
+to receive, is a comparatively small one, compared with
+the vast sums which they have been in the habit of
+accumulating, by means of extortion and by defrauding
+the Government. It is hardly fair to expect a man to cut
+down his expenses, give up half his wives, sell his slaves,
+and fall in the estimation of those under him. The thing
+must assuredly lead to dispute, born of peculation, and
+fighting must be the inevitable result. But if, on the
+other hand, new men are appointed, who from the first
+suit their expenditure to their means, a more peaceful
+working basis will be established.</p>
+
+<p>The old Oriental policy of the "balance of jealousies"
+will doubtless play its useful part: that is to say, each
+governor will watch his next-door neighbour like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338"></a>[<a href="./images/338.png">338</a>]</span>
+cat watching a mouse; and if he detect any underhand
+dealings, or evasions, or infringements of the new law,
+he will report at once to the Sultan, and thereby gain
+<i>kudos</i>, perhaps a substantial reward, for himself. In this
+way the Government may receive support at the hands of
+the men whom it is keeping in order.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339"></a>[<a href="./images/339.png">339</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p class="sc">The Thursday Market&mdash;We Might have gone to Glaouia&mdash;Leave Marrakesh and set out on Our Last March for the Coast&mdash;Flowers in Morocco&mdash;On the Wrong Trail&mdash;Arab Tents&mdash;Good-Bye to El Moghreb.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340"></a>[<a href="./images/340.png">340</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341"></a>[<a href="./images/341.png">341</a>]</span></p>
+<h4>CHAPTER XII</h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He
+is a fortunate voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to
+find them. They are the end and the reward of life. They
+keep us worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we are
+only nearer to the absent.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> great Thursday Market is one of those things
+in Marrakesh which, once seen, is stamped deeper
+than a hundred other memories upon the mind. It is
+held in a sun-baked open space outside the Gate of
+the Thursday Market, just beyond the city walls, within
+view of the plains and a distant low range of mountains.
+Thousands and thousands of tall palms, groves of them,
+wave in the wind all over the surrounding country: a
+few great watercourses, worn and eaten out of the red
+soil, burrow between the forests on their way down to
+the great river.</p>
+
+<p>To reach the market we rode out along a road thronged
+with people selling all sorts of goods, from splendid old
+flintlock guns from the Sus chased with silver and gold
+and going at three pounds, to striped carpets strong and
+violent in colouring at seven-and-sixpence each, and
+second-hand clothes of the most varied description. At
+last, topping a little hill, we rode down into the market:
+it is, more correctly speaking, a horse fair,&mdash;mules were
+also for sale. The horses down in the south are without
+doubt very different from the poor little ponies bred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342"></a>[<a href="./images/342.png">342</a>]</span>
+up in the north; but even these, in comparison, for
+instance, with a thoroughbred hunter at home, fell far
+short of what my defective imagination had led me to
+expect of Arab stallions in Morocco. For the most
+part there was nothing for sale except great heavy
+brutes with small heads and proud arched necks. Every
+one of them fell away in the hindquarters.</p>
+
+<p>As usual the sale was prefaced by a prayer: hard
+bargaining, sharp practice, and much or little swindling,
+inseparable from horse-dealing, must all of it, first of
+all, be watered by prayer. Therefore the horsemen
+formed into a line; the central figure chanted some
+verses from the Kor&#257;n; the rest held out their hands
+palms upwards, then joined in a sort of Amen, the instant
+afterwards sticking their spurs into their horses
+and dashing forward, charging in a line over the plain
+between two rows of spectators, and pulling the horses
+up on to their haunches at the end, red with spur-marks
+and white with foam. This was repeated two or three
+times, the short space in which the riders pulled up
+out of a full gallop being sometimes almost incredible;
+then a great circle was formed of would-be purchasers
+and onlookers, and the horses were ridden into the
+circle and then round and round to display themselves,
+each rider at the same time <i>auctioning his own horse</i>,
+yelling out the bids for it, as they rose, at the top of
+his voice. When the last bid was made, and he could
+get no more, the rider, after shouting the price, added
+that he "would not consult the absent one," meaning
+thereby that the owner of the horse, whether himself
+or not, would raise no objection to the animal's being sold
+for that price. Unless this sentence had been pronounced,
+the purchaser could not have been certain that the
+owner would not say afterwards he did not intend to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343"></a>[<a href="./images/343.png">343</a>]</span>
+sell for that sum. Most of the horses fetched from
+three pounds twelve to four pounds ten.</p>
+
+<p>Mules were sold in the same way&mdash;the prayer, the
+parade round the circle, each rider seated almost on
+his mule's tail, urging him on, with hands and heels, to
+pace his best, the mule's nose up in the heavens. Some
+of them were splendid animals, which I would have
+given anything to have possessed&mdash;perfectly made, looking
+more intelligent than many humans, and full of pluck
+and staying power: these fetched rather more than
+double, what the best horse in the whole market sold for.
+But in criticising the horses, I speak of what I saw on
+this occasion: there may be, and no doubt are, fine arabs
+to be had in Southern Morocco&mdash;at least so I am told&mdash;but
+I came across only what may be called "a cart-horse
+stamp."</p>
+
+<p>And yet they look very fine, these same sensible-looking
+beasts, with their great eyes, and flowing manes
+and tails, and proud carriage. There is something, too,
+eternally fascinating in the beautiful seat of an Arab
+on his horse&mdash;not of a fat sheikh or a rich basha or
+a thriving merchant, but that of the lean and wiry Arab
+horseman born and bred, who, as he thunders past at
+full gallop, puts himself into a dozen positions, is at
+home in them all, shoots behind him, above him, below
+him, without drawing rein, turning in any direction, while
+he makes the whole air ring with his wild cries. The
+Moorish saddle of course helps his grip; but beyond
+that, there is something cat-like in the lithe swing of
+his body, and it is that body's right and natural function
+to be upon a horse. The white turban, the flowing white
+garments, the gorgeously coloured saddle, the great
+silvered stirrups, are all part of the whole&mdash;and an attractive
+whole&mdash;born of the limitless desert, the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344"></a>[<a href="./images/344.png">344</a>]</span>
+far-reaching sky, the pure wind: it is Arabian, that is
+all&mdash;<i>and so much</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, camels were selling in another corner of
+the market, being made to lie down and rise and generally
+show themselves off: they were fetching from three
+pounds ten upwards. Cows, goats, and sheep were less
+interesting; but the throng of men which filled up the
+fair was, as ever, more than a study. Above and beyond
+all, stood out the wild inhabitants of the Atlas, and
+men from the Sus, wearing black camel's-hair jellabs
+with a great russet-red or saffron-yellow patch let into
+the backs of them. The origin of this striking "badge"
+is not known, but the jellabs themselves looked absolutely
+in keeping with the lawless ruffians, on whose shoulders
+they hung, and the wild blotch of bizarre colour was
+"just themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Bay, is the colour which in a horse the Moor chooses
+first&mdash;the pearl of colours, sober and most hardy; while
+a light chestnut brings ill luck, though a dark chestnut
+is the colour of the wind, can "travel," and was
+Mohammed's favourite. A horse must have the colour
+of its saddle in harmony with itself&mdash;an apple-green
+saddle for a black horse, scarlet for a white, the whole
+beautifully worked and embossed in silk, and when on the
+horse's back, should be set, perhaps, upon as many as <i>nine</i>
+different coloured saddle-cloths, one on top of each other.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-47.png"><img src="./images/ill-47_th.png" alt="THE SULTAN'S GARDEN." title="THE SULTAN'S GARDEN." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The Sultan's Garden.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>Of all filthy quarters in the filthiest of cities, I think
+the Jewish Quarter in Marrakesh has a fair chance of
+ranking first,&mdash;outside it, rubbish, a manure-heap eighty
+feet high, which no one troubles to remove; inside the
+walls, black mud, feet deep, streets which are sewers, collections
+of dead dogs, rotting vegetables, refuse of all sorts;
+amongst it all, a dirty people, callous beyond belief as
+regards sanitation, with sore heads, sore eyes, matted rags.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345"></a>[<a href="./images/345.png">345</a>]</span>
+Not a butcher's shop which is not black with flies and "high"
+with rotten meat: flies lie upon every article of food.</p>
+
+<p>And in the very <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'votex'">vortex</ins> of this muck-heap&mdash;astounding
+to the traveller&mdash;are content to live wealthy Jews, happy
+to flourish all their lives shoulder to shoulder with unutterable
+squalor.</p>
+
+<p>We went over a house belonging to a Jew millionaire,
+well built, lavishly decorated, as luxurious as money and
+Morocco would permit, evidently the pride of the whole
+family. Probably few of them went far outside the city
+walls: they were born to the Mellah. His success as
+a trader might have given the head of the house a
+country place in England, shady lawns, a carriage and
+pair to drive in: he preferred his own muck-heap. But
+I cannot conceive upon what he spent his money, other
+than the glorification of the inside of his house.</p>
+
+<p>The Sultan's palace looked deserted: it is long, however,
+since he left it, and high time he was in Fez again; for Fez
+is more in touch with Europe&mdash;Fez means a shade more
+progression and civilization than life in Morocco City.
+Round the palace lay bales of goods which had been
+ordered by him and sent out from England&mdash;things such
+as waggons, motor-cars possibly, which are supposed so
+much to shock his narrow-minded subjects. They imagine
+that his Shar&#299;fian Majesty wastes vast sums of money;
+whereas for a great monarch, the ruler of an empire, his
+private bills are probably absurdly small. He may have
+fireworks let off every night for ten minutes, horrifying
+Marrakesh; but the cost of his amusements, considering
+his position, must be curiously reasonable: so one considered,
+as one looked at the "parcels" awaiting his return
+to the capital, which lay in the immense courtyard outside
+his palace, where "powder play" is held, and where he
+receives foreign ambassadors, marching through the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346"></a>[<a href="./images/346.png">346</a>]</span>
+gateway which leads to his own private rooms, over which
+is inscribed in Arabic an odd sentence; it reads literally,
+"What God wills: there is no power but God."</p>
+
+<p>The days passed, and our time in Marrakesh drew to
+an end. In spite of all that had been told us in Tangier,
+of the difficulties and dangers which would attend an
+expedition into the Atlas Mountains, in spite of the
+verdict that we should not be given a permit, should
+be "stopped and not allowed to continue the journey," we
+found that, once upon the scene of action, there would have
+been little difficulty in getting at least as far as Glaouia,
+and in pushing up through one or two other passes.</p>
+
+<p>The ride to Glaouia might take five or six days: there
+were several other places and a district or two which would
+have been worth visiting ten times over. The missionaries
+in Marrakesh were willing to make all arrangements:
+one of them would have gone with us, and under that
+escort it would have been possible to travel into the
+Atlas without risk. We should have gone "privately,"
+without troubling any one, without formality; and in all
+probability no one would have troubled about us: that,
+after all, is the only way to travel satisfactorily in Morocco,
+not with half a <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'dozon'">dozen</ins> soldiers and a vast noise.</p>
+
+<p>But for this year at any rate our travels in Morocco
+had reached their limit. R. was not strong enough to
+face more marching: the hot sun, long rides, and general
+"roughing it" had told upon her, and the responsibility
+of taking her on farther afield, into remote regions of
+uncertain climate, was too great.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-48.png"><img src="./images/ill-48_th.png" alt="THE RIVER TENSIF OUTSIDE MARRAKESH." title="THE RIVER TENSIF OUTSIDE MARRAKESH." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">The River Tensif Outside Marrakesh.</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><i>Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier.</i></p>
+
+<p>Early one morning we set forth upon our last march,
+back again to the coast, by the track which leads
+eventually to Mazagan, a seaport some distance farther
+north than Mogador. Here we hoped to pick up a
+steamer, and proceed, <i>vi&acirc;</i> Tangier, across to Gibraltar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347"></a>[<a href="./images/347.png">347</a>]</span>
+where it would be possible to get a P. &amp; O. boat and
+head for home.</p>
+
+<p>The march to Mazagan was easy, and contained little
+incident. After leaving the plains of Marrakesh and
+its waving palm-trees, and seeing the tall Kutobea
+disappear at last, we found ourselves in the "Little
+Mountains," and along the rough road began to fall
+in continually with parties of tribesmen, Arab country
+people, all mounted, who had been commandeered to
+accompany the Sultan as far as Fez, and who were
+now coming back to their homes. Splendid bronzed
+fellows they were, dark brick-dust colour, wrapped in
+long white cloaks, with the hood of an under garment
+pulled down over their faces: sometimes a white cloth
+swathed their heads; their chins were hidden in soft
+folds which reached up to their hawk-eyes, veiling the
+face, like true sons of the desert, as a protection against
+sun and wind. Guns were slung across their shoulders:
+they wore long yellow riding-boots and spurs, with
+half a dozen saddle-cloths; and all rode horses, strong
+little beasts, well groomed, some hog-maned, but usually
+with great locks of hair sweeping over their necks, and their
+tails almost touching the ground behind. On grey or white
+countrybreds as a rule, they wound along the mountain
+path in single file, these tall white-cloaked horsemen, in
+nowise differing from their ancestors of a thousand years
+ago&mdash;Arabs of unbroken descent: as they emerged from
+between the wild hills it would have been hard to find
+a more picturesque sight.</p>
+
+<p>One of the few peaceful camping-grounds between
+Marrakesh and Mazagan was at a little distance outside
+an Arab village of about thirty little pointed thatched
+huts, enclosed within a zareba of thorn-bushes: it was
+called Smeera.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348"></a>[<a href="./images/348.png">348</a>]</span>
+We camped near some trees and water: the fig-trees
+were full of crows, which came in to roost in thousands,
+and The Little Owl (<i>Athene noctua</i>) haunted the place.
+In the early half-light of the morning this wise-looking
+little bird was found, when we awoke, to be sitting upon the
+edge of the flap of the tent in the doorway, gazing in upon
+us with round yellow eyes; nor was it the least nervous.</p>
+
+<p>I recollect how, the evening before, there sat outside
+Smeera, as so often may be seen outside the like
+villages, away beyond the huts and the zareba, where
+it was very quiet, upon some flat grey stones, eight or
+twelve village men&mdash;Arabs. Sitting there in the sunset,
+wrapped in their white hooded mantles, this conclave of
+wise white owls, easily to be mistaken for grey stones,
+so rigid are their backs&mdash;of what do they talk as the
+hours go by? There is no joke nor song nor a drop
+of liquor going, as in a "public," where our labourers at
+home would naturally congregate. But this charmed circle
+sits on, staring into the west: the tall bearded wheat
+rustles in the wind close to them; the illimitable plain
+stretches away to the horizon, flat as their own uneventful
+lives; the sun drops behind the soft straight line
+of Earth; they do not move,&mdash;wondrous picturesque
+figures, long white folds, peaked hoods, sitting, their
+knees drawn up to their chins, for how long? What
+is time to an Arab?</p>
+
+<p>One evening our camel never turned up, and we fully
+expected to have had to sleep without beds or any
+other of the night's usual adjuncts. We had started that
+morning at seven, had ridden till twelve, had halted for
+an hour and a half, starting again at half-past one, and
+riding till half-past five; and all the way, after a mile
+out of Sok-el-Tleta, where we watered the mules at a
+pond and the trail forked, we were on the wrong road.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349"></a>[<a href="./images/349.png">349</a>]</span>
+Only the man with the camel knew the Mazagan line of
+march thoroughly well: he had explained it beforehand to
+Omar. Omar made a mistake, and the camel and attendants
+were behind ourselves. However, news travels oddly
+fast in uncivilized countries, and the camel-driver heard
+after a time that the "advance squadron" was on the
+wrong trail. He set out after us, and ran and walked,
+and caught us at three o'clock in the afternoon. The
+wretched camel followed his steps all the way, with
+Mulai Ombach in charge of our baggage, three donkeys,
+and a boy, who were afraid of being cut off from us,
+and dared not risk a night by themselves. The camel-driver
+put us right, Omar and Sa&iuml;d were well cursed,
+and we began a toilsome journey across rough country,
+hoping to hit the right trail in time.</p>
+
+<p>We found ourselves in the wildest and dirtiest of
+Arab encampments now and again, where infuriated dogs,
+unaccustomed to visitors, rushed out and almost bit us
+upon our mules, amidst a hail of stones from Omar and
+Sa&iuml;d. A valley luxuriating knee-deep in flowers&mdash;the
+Flower Valley we called it&mdash;was the one redeeming
+feature of that march. There are certain times for seeing
+the wild flowers in Morocco&mdash;perhaps April in the south
+is the best month: so far we had not been as much
+struck by them as report would lead one to expect. And
+yet they were most beautiful. Picture corn-fields full of
+love-in-a-mist; orchards of fig-trees, with the grass ablaze
+with golden pyrethrums; red mallow standing up in
+the barley; the ground carpeted with blue-and-white
+convolvulus; masses of carmine-coloured convolvulus
+densely festooned over the thorn-hedges; on the barest,
+stoniest of soil stretches of cistus, pale pink to faded
+mauve; asphodels everywhere; sometimes the wild spring
+form of the cultivated artichoke, the small variety of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350"></a>[<a href="./images/350.png">350</a>]</span>
+the ice-plant, the larkspur, the lupin, and several
+varieties of lavender. All these we met with, over and
+over again: rarer plants were to be found for the looking.
+R. collected specimens of them all, to be classified by
+the authorities at Kew Gardens on our return.</p>
+
+<p>The Flower Valley yielded one or two which we
+had not seen before, and we would have lingered there,
+but that time was precious and we had no notion of
+our exact whereabouts. It was a case of going on and
+on and meeting no one: evening began to draw near,
+and still we were off the right track, while our baggage
+might be anywhere. There was nothing for it but to
+push forward and trust to luck: in time we cut into
+innumerable little paths, which snaked side by side in
+the same direction across the plain, pointing towards
+the coast, and these we surmised to be the trail to
+Mazagan, which proved to be correct. But at that
+moment, though we were anything but certain, it had
+become absolutely necessary to halt for the night. It
+was dark, and the mules were done. An Arab village
+lay on a hillside not far off, and we made for it.</p>
+
+<p>Omar and Sa&iuml;d had with them on their mules our
+tent and two or three necessaries for cooking: we had
+therefore a roof over our heads, and in time a fire was
+made, odds and ends were scraped up, and we ate a
+meal of sorts sitting on the ground beside a candle stuck
+on a stone. The night grew very cold: there was, however,
+a bit of thin carpet, which we proposed to wrap
+ourselves in to sleep. Now and then one of us looked
+out between the flaps of the tent into the darkness and
+watched&mdash;a case of "Sister Ann! Sister Ann! do you
+see any one coming?"</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-49.png"><img src="./images/ill-49_th.png" alt="ONE OF OUR LAST CAMPS. LOADING THE CAMEL." title="ONE OF OUR LAST CAMPS. LOADING THE CAMEL." /></a></p>
+<p class="sc">One of Our Last Camps. Loading the Camel.</p>
+
+<p>We had, however, grown tired of looking out, and were
+just arranging ourselves on the ground, when familiar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351"></a>[<a href="./images/351.png">351</a>]</span>
+noises sounded outside, and Omar's voice crying joyfully,
+"Le chameau arrive!"</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, above all else which was interesting on the
+road to Mazagan, the little Arab settlements, composed
+entirely of tents, interested us most. In them, was lived
+the truly nomad, gipsy life of the wandering Arab, who
+is a herdsman by heritage, and in following that vocation
+<i>a roamer par excellence</i>. They live, these Arabs, in
+tents: the sides are made of straw and wattle hurdles;
+over the top is stretched an immense piece of brown
+or black camel's-hair cloth. The tents are barely five
+feet high in the middle, less at the edges: squat brown
+mushrooms they look, or something like the keels of
+boats turned bottom upwards. All of them were open
+in front, "very public" the world would say; which
+primitive and open-air mode of living was indeed their
+great feature. Some of them were divided off down
+the middle by a hurdle, thus forming two "rooms":
+the hurdles were occasionally faggots, without straw.
+Around the tents lay the flocks, chewing the cud or
+browsing on the scanty grass-land: children ran out to
+us with bowls of milk: when the grass gave out within
+reach all round, the tents were taken down, the hillsides
+deserted, and the families wandered in search of pastures
+new, carrying a few chickens, some pots and pans, two
+or three bundles of rags, and leaving behind a good
+many parasites and a bare patch.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Arab life in Southern Morocco&mdash;a thriftless, desultory
+existence, yet with the charm of continual change
+and of living with the earth. "To take no thought for
+the morrow" is the practice of all Moors, whether Arabs
+or Berbers: no Moor spends money on anything which
+will not bring him in immediate profit, and this accounts
+for the fact that trees and forests are never planted, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352"></a>[<a href="./images/352.png">352</a>]</span>
+schemes started for working mines, or roads made,
+or bridges built; even if the capital were forthcoming,
+what would be the use of spending money only to be
+repaid little by little, year by year?&mdash;a man may die before
+he profits for all his trouble!</p>
+
+<p>After all, argues the Moor, who could wish to alter
+Morocco? Is it not perfect as it is?&mdash;veritably, "<i>the
+tail of the peacock</i>," the sun of the universe!</p>
+
+<p>Its very imperfections are among those things which
+in this fanatical Mohammedan land so fascinate the
+traveller. Its sad colours, its air steeped in mystery,
+its courtly unknowable people, its wild tribes, its white
+shut houses, its concealed women, its mad fanaticism,
+its magnificent stoicism&mdash;one and all are sufficient to
+hold the European, and to call him back again long after
+El Moghreb has forgotten his face. Another of those
+chains has been forged which bind certain places and
+certain countries to a soul, each henceforth belonging
+the one to the other, and each gaining a little something
+thereby; nor can the links of these chains be
+broken, since unseen possessions, such as they, are among
+those things which no power on earth can touch, which can
+neither be given nor taken away.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun,</p>
+<p class="i6">Or South to the blind Horn's hate;</p>
+<p class="i4">Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay,</p>
+<p class="i6">Or West to the Golden Gate,</p>
+<p class="i4">Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,</p>
+<p class="i6">And the wildest tales are true,</p>
+<p>And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail;</p>
+<p>And life runs large on the Long Trail&mdash;the trail that is always new.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h4><i>Printed by Hazell, Watson &amp; Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.</i></h4>
+
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+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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+
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+
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+
+<p class="ctr"><i>With numerous Coloured Plates and other Illustrations.</i></p>
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+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The interest is infectious; there is no denying the charm of the story."</p>
+
+<p class="tr"><span class="smcap">Daily Mail</span>.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4><b>FERELITH.</b> By <span class="smcap">Lord Kilmarnock.</span></h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"An entirely new plot, and assuredly one of the most startling ones ever invented.
+The tale itself is told with a quiet dignity and restraint."&mdash;<i>Newcastle Leader.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<h4><b>SOULS.</b> By <span class="smcap">"Rita."</span></h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Brightly and cleverly written; full of amusing episodes and dialogue."&mdash;<i>Daily
+Telegraph.</i></p></div>
+
+
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+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"No reader can fail to admire the ingenuity with which Mr. W. Le Queux has
+constructed the plot of his latest novel, the secret of which is admirably preserved."&mdash;<i>Manchester
+Guardian.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<h4><b>THE GOLDEN KINGDOM.</b> By <span class="smcap">Andrew Balfour.</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mr. Balfour proves himself in 'The Golden Kingdom' to be a capital storyteller.
+He is a Stevensonian both in matter and in manner, but with considerable
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+
+
+<h4><b>THE LADY OF THE CAMEO.</b> By <span class="smcap">Tom Gallon.</span></h4>
+
+
+<h4><b>THE ETERNAL WOMAN.</b> By <span class="smcap">Dorothea Gerard.</span></h4>
+
+
+<h4><b>CHASMA.</b>  By <span class="smcap">H. W. G. Hyrst.</span></h4>
+
+
+<h4><b>A PARSON'S LASS.</b>  By  <span class="smcap">Godfrey Burchett.</span></h4>
+
+
+<h4><b>THE VICE-CHANCELLOR'S WARD.</b>  By <span class="smcap">Christian Tearle.</span></h4>
+
+
+<h4><b>THE MAN WITH THE WOODEN FACE.</b> By <span class="smcap">Mrs. Fred Reynolds.</span></h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">London:</span> HUTCHINSON &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Paternoster Row.</span></h4>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3>
+<p>Corrections which have been made are indicated by dotted lines under
+the corrected text.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins class="err"
+title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's In the Tail of the Peacock, by Isabel Savory
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Tail of the Peacock, by Isabel Savory
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In the Tail of the Peacock
+
+Author: Isabel Savory
+
+Release Date: February 7, 2009 [EBook #28016]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE TAIL OF THE PEACOCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski, the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+and the booksmiths at http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Isabel Savory]
+
+
+
+IN THE TAIL OF
+THE PEACOCK
+
+By ISABEL SAVORY.
+
+Author of "_A Sportswoman in India_"
+
+
+WITH 48 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
+AND A PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT
+
+"The Earth is a peacock: Morocco is the tail of it"
+
+_Moorish Proverb_
+
+London: HUTCHINSON & CO.
+Paternoster Row 1903
+
+
+PRINTED BY
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY
+
+
+
+
+_PREFACE_
+
+
+_THIS book contains no thrilling adventures, chronicles, no days devoted
+to sport. It will probably interest only those minds which are content
+with "the C Major of this life," and which find in other than scenes of
+peril and excitement their hearts' desire._
+
+_Such as care to wander through its pages must have learnt to enjoy
+idleness, nor find weeks spent beneath the sun and stars too long--that
+is to say, the fascination of a wandering, irresponsible life should be
+known to them: waste and solitary places must not appal, nor trifling
+incident weary, while human natures remotely removed from their own,
+alternately delight and repel. Those who understand not these things,
+will find but a dull chronicle within the following pages._
+
+_If to live is to know more, and to know more only to love more, the
+least eventful day may possess a minimum of value, and even quiet
+monotones and grey vistas be found and lost in a glamour born of
+themselves._
+
+_In this loud and insistent world the silent places are often overlooked,
+and yet they are never empty._
+
+_ISABEL SAVORY._
+
+WESTFIELD OLD HALL,
+EAST DEREHAM.
+_February, 1903._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+                                                                PAGE
+TANGIER--COUNTRY PEOPLE--THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA--MOORISH
+PRISONS--WE RIDE TO CAPE SPARTEL--DECIDE TO LEAVE
+TANGIER AND PUSH INLAND                                             1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMP OUTFIT--A NIGHT AT A CARAVANSERAI--TETUAN--THE
+BRITISH VICE-CONSUL--MOORISH SHOPS--WE VISIT A MOORISH
+HOUSE AND FAMILY                                                   27
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DIFFICULTIES OF "LODGINGS" IN MOROCCO--A SPANISH FONDA--A
+MOORISH TEA PARTY--POISON IN THE CUP--SLAVES IN
+MOROCCO--EL DOOLLAH--MOORISH CEMETERY--RIDE TO SEMSAR--SHOPPING
+IN TETUAN--PROVISIONS IN THE CITY                                  63
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FAST OF RAMADHAN--MOHAMMED--HIS LIFE AND INFLUENCE--THE
+FLOOD AT SAFFI--A WALK OUTSIDE TETUAN--THE
+FRENCH CONSUL'S GARDEN-HOUSE--JEWS IN MOROCCO--EUROPEAN
+PROTECTION                                                         97
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS AT GIBRALTAR--A ROUGH NIGHT--THE
+STEAMER WHICH WOULD NOT WAIT--AN IGNOMINIOUS RETURN
+TO TETUAN--A RASCALLY JEW--THE ABORIGINES AND THE
+PRESENT OCCUPANTS OF MOROCCO--THE SULTAN, COURT,
+GOVERNMENT, AND MOORISH ARMY                                      121
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WE LOOK OVER A MOORISH COURTYARD HOUSE WITH A VIEW TO
+TAKING IT--WE RENT JINAN DOLERO IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION--AN
+ENGLISHMAN MURDERED--OUR GARDEN-HOUSE--THE
+IDIOSYNCRASIES OF MOORISH SERVANTS--A NATIVE GUARD--THE
+RIFF COUNTRY                                                      153
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COUNTRY PEOPLE FORDING THE RIVER--WE CALL ON CI HAMED
+GHRALMIA--AN EXPEDITION ACROSS THE RIVER IN SEARCH OF
+THE BLUE POOL--MOORISH BELIEF IN GINNS--THE BASHA--POWDER
+PLAY--TETUAN PRISON                                               181
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MISSIONARIES AT TETUAN--POISONING IN MOROCCO--FATIMA'S
+RECEPTION--DIVORCE--AN EXPEDITION INTO THE ANJERAS--AN
+EMERALD OASIS                                                     217
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WE LEAVE TETUAN--A WET NIGHT UNDER THE STARS--S`LAM DESERTS
+US--WE SAIL FOR MOGADOR--THE PALM-TREE HOUSE--SUS
+AND WADNOON COUNTRIES--THE SAHARA--THE ATLAS
+MOUNTAINS                                                         249
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE--BUYING MULES--A BAD ROAD--FIRST
+CAMP--ARGAN-TREES--COOS-COOSOO--A TERRIBLE NIGHT--DOCTORING
+THE KHAYLIFA--ROUGHING IT UNDER CANVAS                            281
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A PARTING MONA--FORDING SHESHAOUA RIVER--JARS OF FOOD--FIRST
+SIGHT OF MARRAKESH--A PERILOUS CROSSING--RIDE
+INTO MARRAKESH--THE SLAVE MARKET                                  311
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE THURSDAY MARKET--WE MIGHT HAVE GONE TO GLAOUIA--LEAVE
+MARRAKESH AND SET OUT ON OUR LAST MARCH FOR
+THE COAST--FLOWERS IN MOROCCO--ON THE WRONG TRAIL--ARAB
+TENTS--GOOD-BYE TO EL MOGHREB                                     339
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+_Except where otherwise stated, the Illustrations are from photographs by
+ROSE A. BAINBRIDGE._
+
+
+                                         FACING
+                                           PAGE
+
+PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT            _Frontispiece_
+
+THE ROAD TO FEZ                               6
+
+R. ON A PACK                                 12
+
+TWO SHEIKHS                                  18
+
+TANGIER                                      24
+
+TETUAN                                       30
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+OURSELVES AND BAGGAGE                        34
+
+CLOUDS OVER TETUAN                           44
+
+ALARBI ABRESHA'S HOUSE                       54
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+OUR CAMP OUTSIDE TETUAN                      60
+
+A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE             66
+
+A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY                        80
+
+OUT SHOPPING                                 90
+
+SHOPS IN TETUAN                              94
+
+A CLUSTER OF COUNTRY WOMEN                  100
+
+A TYPICAL MOORISH STREET                    108
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+A STREET IN THE JEWS' QUARTER, TETUAN       116
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+REFUSE GOING OUT OF TETUAN                  124
+
+A MOORISH PRISON GATE                       130
+
+A PEEP OF TETUAN                            138
+    _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+A SAINT-HOUSE, TETUAN                       148
+
+JINAN DOLERO                                158
+
+OUR SERVANTS, S`LAM AND TAHARA              164
+
+TWO WOMEN FROM THE RIFF COUNTRY             172
+
+SELLING EARTHENWARE POTS                    178
+
+A FERRY-BOAT ON MARKET DAY                  184
+
+THE AUTHOR FORDING THE WAD-EL-MARTINE       188
+
+THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY                     198
+
+THE FEDDAN, TETUAN                          208
+
+CHARMING SNAKES                             214
+
+MOORS AT HOME                               222
+
+STRAW FOR SALE                              230
+
+A GROUP IN THE FEDDAN, TETUAN               236
+
+A BREEZY CAMPING-GROUND ON A ROOF-TOP       254
+
+ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE WAY WE RODE IN MOROCCO  262
+
+LIGHTERS LOADING                            268
+
+AFTER RAIN IN MOGADOR                       274
+
+WHERE MANCHESTER GOODS ARE SOLD, MOGADOR    284
+
+OUR CAMP AT AIN-EL-HADGER                   290
+
+A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL   298
+
+SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE PASS ON THE MARCH    308
+
+TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE                    314
+
+MARRAKESH                                   318
+
+THE OPEN GATE                               324
+
+THE KUTOBEA, MARRAKESH                      328
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+THE WAD-EL-AZELL                            334
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+THE SULTAN'S GARDEN                         344
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+THE RIVER TENSIF OUTSIDE MARRAKESH          346
+  _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._
+
+ONE OF OUR LAST CAMPS. LOADING THE CAMEL    350
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+TANGIER--COUNTRY PEOPLE--THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA--MOORISH PRISONS--WE
+RIDE TO CAPE SPARTEL--DECIDE TO LEAVE TANGIER AND PUSH INLAND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+     The vague and hazy ideals which the white light of an English
+     upbringing relegates to dreamland and dismisses as idle fancies,
+     rise up in the glare of African sunlight, alive, tangible,
+     unashamed; the things that are, not the things that might
+     be:--the vivid colouring, the hot crowding, the stately men and
+     veiled women, the despotism and stoicism, the unchanging
+     picturesqueness of the Thousand and One Nights, the dramatic
+     inevitability of the Old Testament.--A. J. D.
+
+
+THERE was no desert in Morocco.
+
+If a country has not been "read up" beforehand, the imagination has free
+play and forms many false conclusions: yet though it suffer on the one
+hand rude awakenings, it is on the other compensated by certain new
+lights--indelible and unique impressions--which come only in the train of
+things _inconnu_. So though we found no desert, there are other things in
+Morocco.
+
+It is one of the few countries in the world, and they grow fewer each
+year, which is still unexplored--unknown. Thousands of square miles in
+Morocco have never been crossed by a European, or at any rate none have
+returned to tell the tale: maps mark only blank spaces, and have no names
+for villages, no records of mountains or rivers: there are no roads,
+still less railways, in the country: the only means of transport along
+the wild, worn tracks is by camels, mules, and donkeys: he who will not
+ride perforce walks.
+
+The bare fringe alone of Morocco, its coast towns, and the choice, let us
+say, of two roads connecting them with its capitals, Fez and Morocco
+City, are open to travellers; beyond these limits it is difficult and
+dangerous for Europeans to venture. Of even its coasts towns England
+knows little enough: a daily paper printed in 1902 describes one
+flourishing seaport of thirty thousand inhabitants as "a village." There
+is more vagueness, in fact, about a country three times the size of Great
+Britain and four days' journey from London than of many a remote corner
+in the heart of Asia.
+
+The reason is at hand. An old Arabic proverb, "The earth is a peacock:
+Morocco is the tail of it," typifies the entire satisfaction of its
+inhabitants with their native land. What is, is good; why "civilize" and
+"progress"? As far as possible there shall no European enter therein.
+Realizing that, were new blood allowed to come into Morocco, its own
+effete and uneducated people would have no chance in the race of life,
+and end by hopelessly knuckling under to the European, the country
+isolates itself; nor is it likely that the jealous Powers of Europe will
+allow any one of their number to disturb that isolation and pluck the
+tempting fruit.
+
+And so to-day Morocco drowses in an atmosphere of _laissez faire_, a
+decadent nation, a collection of lawless tribes, who have changed little
+for the last two thousand years, living still much after the manner of
+Old Testament days. They are devout Mussulmans. They believe the world to
+be flat, and to come to an end with the west coast of Morocco. Their
+country they call _El Moghreb el Aksa_, which means, "The Extreme West,"
+or "The Land of the Setting Sun": "Morocco" and "Moors" are entirely
+European words, and never used by the Moors themselves--the one being a
+corruption of the name of their capital city, the other having been
+given them by the Spaniards.
+
+Morocco should be fascinating on the face of it: a great country running
+into hundreds of thousands of square miles, the only independent
+Mussulman state of North Africa, with six million followers of the great
+Prophet, and a perfect climate, soil, and water-supply to boot, needs no
+extolling. And yet its chiefest fascination lies in things which, from
+some points of view, ought not to be.
+
+Its remote removal from all appertaining to the twentieth century, its
+strangely simple, untaught life, the solemn, stately men, the veiled
+women and their eyes, the steely blue cactus, the white cities and the
+glaring light, the mystery and the fatalism which intensify the air, are
+alike oddly inevitable and incomprehensible to a European. The other side
+of the closed door has always constituted, for the wandering vagrants
+among mankind, their hearts' desire. For them there is still Morocco; and
+the door will be shut in their faces again and again by a people and a
+faith and customs which they can never understand. And though it be
+useless they will still go on, because it seems the best thing.
+
+About six weeks before 1902 was due, Rose A. Bainbridge and myself left
+behind us the last outpost of England--Gibraltar--with its cluster of
+civilization round the bottom of the great Rock. Four hours brought us
+across the Straits; and seen from the deck of the dirty little _Gibel
+Musa_, on to which we had changed from a P. & O. at Gibraltar, Morocco
+shaped itself into a rugged country, ridge behind ridge of low hills and
+jagged mountains cutting the sky-line. A long white sand-bank lying back
+in a bay on the African shore, broken at one end by irregular vegetation,
+gradually developed upon its slopes a yellowish-white, fantastic city,
+which resolved itself into Tangier.
+
+Landing at Tangier among vociferating Moors has been described often
+enough, and needs no further enlargement.
+
+The next morning, November 13, 1901, found us sitting over coffee and an
+omelette out of doors, on a little balcony opening off the hotel Villa
+Valentina, over-looking the road to Fez, and facing the broad, blue
+Straits which divided us from Europe.
+
+It was like a June morning at home, soft and balmy: the city dropped from
+us down to the beach, and the sun poured upon the flat-roofed houses,
+coloured yellow to pale cream or washed-out blue, alternating with a
+lavish coat of glaring whitewash.
+
+Tangier is an example of structure without architecture; at the same time
+there is a certain fitness in the crude Moorish buildings, whose flat
+expanse of wall is unbroken either by windows or ornament: they are
+simple and "reserved." Gleaming in high light under an equally light sky,
+they huddle almost one on top of the other, built upon every available
+square yard inside the "papery" old city wall, which looks as if cannon
+would blow it away. Patches of blue sea break the white city outline, and
+the towers of the mosques rise above it all: their tesselated surfaces,
+tiled in shades of green and polished by the years, shimmer in the
+sunshine like peacocks' tails.
+
+[Illustration: THE ROAD TO FEZ.
+
+[_To face p. 6._]
+
+Two or three gateways pierce the drab-coloured city wall, their
+horseshoe-shaped arches washed over with salmon-pink. The same
+plaster-work arch repeats itself occasionally in the rough stone- and
+mortar-work of the houses, all of an inferior quality, short-lived and
+rebuilt again and again on the _debris_ of successive years, until
+they stand in time right above the cobble-stones of the narrow
+streets.
+
+Outside the city wall a few private houses and two hotels lie back among
+eucalyptus, palms, and bushy stone-pines: several of the legations which
+represent the European Powers have modern houses, lost in greenery of
+sorts. Behind these, again, a suburb of jerry-built Spanish houses, with
+the scum of Spain, is inclined to grow, which offshoot of fifth-rate
+Europe gives at last upon the rolling pastures and windswept hills of the
+open country.
+
+Our breakfast-table brought us face to face with every traveller who
+passed along the great sandy track leading eventually to Fez, which
+people in Morocco call a road, beaten to-day and for the last two
+thousand years by the feet of generations of camels, mules, donkeys,
+horses, cattle, and mankind.
+
+Though the wayfarers, plodding through the dusty hoof-marks, were
+desultory, it was quiet for few hours even at night, and under our
+windows we waked to an eternal shuffling in the soft sand, the champing
+of bits, and guttural Arabic tones.
+
+R. and I leaned over the balcony. Women passed us wrapped in voluminous
+whity-yellow garments--_haiks_--black eyes and red slippers alone
+showing. Date-coloured boys passed us, wearing red fezes and dirty-white
+turbans. Countrymen passed us in great, coarse, brown woollen
+cloaks--_jellabs_--the hood pulled right on over the head, short wide
+sleeves, the front joined all down, and having scarred bare legs and feet
+coming out from underneath. These drove strings of diminutive donkeys, a
+couple of water-barrels balanced across the back of each--supplies of
+water for Tangier when the rain-water tanks are giving out: there are few
+wells in the city.
+
+More women, veiled to the eyes, passed us, in delightful
+shoes--milk-coloured leather, embroidered with green: an African woman,
+black as a boot, with thick negro lips and yellow metal bracelets on her
+charcoal-sticks of arms. More donkeys passed us, carrying vegetables to
+market, driven by countrywomen in yellowish-white haiks, vast straw hats,
+and the inevitable veil. Two men passed us with an immense open box
+containing thousands of eggs, hung between them by a pole on the shoulder
+of each--export for England: forty-eight millions were sent off in 1902,
+and this morning's omelette might not be our first Morocco egg. A Moor of
+some means came by, riding at a hard-held ambling walk his star-gazing
+white mule: the high-peaked saddle and bridle were of scarlet cloth, the
+stirrup-leathers of scarlet twisted wool; he wore a creamy woollen haik,
+falling in soft folds down to his yellow slippers, a turban whose snowy
+disc of enormous size framed his cinnamon-coloured face in symmetrical
+folds of spotless white, and the top of a scarlet fez showed in the
+centre of it.
+
+Almost opposite us a beggar had sat himself down at the edge of the road,
+under the shelter of the high cane fence--a grimy old greybeard, tanned
+and worn like a walnut, in a tattered jellab and shady turban. "For the
+love of God; for the love of God," he rolled out incessantly in Arabic,
+ending in a throaty gobble like a turkey; and the country people threw
+him, as they passed, of their bundles--here an orange, there a lump of
+charcoal--whatever it might be it was crammed into the hood of the
+jellab; and the sing-song and the gobble began again. In a Mohammedan
+country it is counted a duty as well as a holy deed to encourage beggars:
+almsgiving represents to the faithful Mussulman equivalent gain in
+Paradise; and no one starves in Morocco, though occasionally dismissed
+with a wave of the hand and "God provide for you." Mad people are
+regarded as saints, and credited with the gift of prophecy. It is an
+exceedingly holy thing to walk about naked. A holy man in Fez was in the
+habit of sitting at a missionary's gate stark naked; eventually this
+proceeding had to be put a stop to, because the holy man would insist
+upon holding the horses of the missionary's afternoon callers.
+
+Our beggar sat in the same spot day after day, hour after hour,
+fatuitously happy, blissfully content. "God is great, and what is written
+is written": remorse, regrets, are alike unknown to Mussulmen; and it is
+this which dignifies their religion and themselves. Life passes lightly
+over them, and chisels few lines and puckers in the serene patriarchal
+faces--they may be scamps of the first water, for all one can tell; it
+sits lightly upon them.
+
+A small boy in a white tunic and red fez, who called himself Larbi, was
+playing about near the beggar: being able to speak a little English, he
+made himself useful to visitors, and was rapidly exchanging his good
+qualities for the drawbacks of the hanger-on: he came out with us for a
+day or two, smoked several cigarettes in the course of the afternoon, and
+picked us useless bunches of ordinary flowers. Remonstrance was futile,
+but when no more little silver coins were forthcoming he left off
+shadowing us.
+
+We found our own way down to the great _sok_, or market-place, in the
+wake of some donkeys carrying live cackling fowls, fastened by a bit of
+string and their feet to any part of the donkey and its baskets which
+came handy. On each side of the road and everywhere in Tangier the
+obstinate steely-grey cactus, or prickly pear, dominates the landscape:
+its fat fleshy leaves make as good a protection as the sharp-pointed aloe
+round the irregular plots of cultivated ground. Alternating with them,
+tall bound cane fences swish and rattle in the wind.
+
+Steely-grey and a yellow-bleached white describe the vegetation of
+Tangier, set in its white sand-dunes. Morocco is far from having lot or
+part in the gorgeous East, as tradition says. To begin with, from the end
+of August to the end of April hazy days greatly predominate, and thirty
+inches of rain are put in: naturally the country and people take their
+cue from the general colour of the sky, from its white-yellow light, in
+which a wan sun is yet able to produce a glare. Morocco is yellow-white,
+and the Moors themselves run from the colour of cinnamon, through shades
+of coffee and old gold, to biscuit and skim-milk. Their houses and their
+clothes take on the same whites and greys, yellows and browns, and the
+sand and the scrub again and again repeat the tale. Perhaps it has a
+saddening effect, borne out in the colourless monotone of the lives of
+its countrywomen.
+
+Presently we passed a skin-yard, salted goat-skins, drying by the hundred
+under the sun, spread upon the ground, upon the flat roofs, wherever a
+skin could lie, curling with dryness, the empty legs of the late owners
+standing stiff and upright, like petrified stockings, pointing dismally
+to heaven.
+
+We overtook a string of camels as we neared the sok, strolling along and
+regarding the skies, R. and myself with an exaggerated superciliousness.
+They were laden with dates, carpets, and slippers from Fez, and, together
+with mules and donkeys, constitute the vans and railway-trucks of
+Morocco, substituting over the face of the land a dilatory calm in the
+place of speed and bustle.
+
+But at first it was a real effort to take in a tenth part of surroundings
+so different from those of England; and when we found ourselves in the
+sok--the _hub_ of Moorish life--it was to be jostled by donkey-drivers
+shouting "Baarak! Baarak!" by black water-carriers from the Sus country,
+by veiled women, by negroes from Timbuctoo, by mules and camels, by men
+walking, men riding, without one sight or sound familiar, in a
+dream-world of intense life, recalling nothing so much as the Old
+Testament. It was worth the journey out from home to see this sok--an
+open space crawling with brown-and-white, cloaked and hooded humanity,
+mixed up with four-legged beasts, also brown, and the whole more like a
+magnified ant-hill on the flat than anything human. In front of the
+squatted country people their stock-in-trade lay in piles, gorgeous in
+tone: oranges and oranges and more oranges, selling at one thousand seven
+hundred for a shilling; scarlet chillies--hot blots of colour; pink
+onions; red carrots; white salt, collected down on the beach; green
+pumpkins blotched with yellow; besides grain of all sorts, basketsful of
+charcoal, bundles of wood, dried fruit, flat round loaves of bread,
+cabbages, and what not. The sound of a perpetual muffin-bell was ringing
+backwards and forwards--the _bhisti_ of Tangier, with his hairy
+goatskinful of water across his back, and two bright brass bowls hung by
+a chain round his neck, a bell in one hand, with the other dealing out
+drinks of water for a Moorish copper coin of which a penny contains
+fifteen.
+
+We elbowed our way through the _Bab-el-Sok_, or Gate of the Market-place,
+into the city, and found ourselves in a long, narrow, straight street,
+dropping down to the _marsa_, or harbour. The irregular, light
+colour-washed houses jut out promiscuously over the minute cupboard-like
+shops crammed with oddments of every sort and hue, and leaving scanty
+room for the owner to squat on some carpet or mattress, until it strikes
+him that it is time to eat or go to prayers, and he locks up the double
+doors of his "store cupboard" and strolls away.
+
+Looking down this attenuated Piccadilly of Tangier, over the white
+turbans and red fezes of the multitude, right away at the far end a field
+of blue sea was to be seen: half-way between, the faithful were beginning
+to pass into the big mosque one by one for midday prayers, each leaving
+his shoes behind him and stepping over the high doorstep barefoot on to
+the marble floor beyond, thence disappearing behind the ponderous green
+iron doors, where the great line is drawn between Europeans and Asiatics,
+debarring from entry any except Mussulmen.
+
+The Villa Valentina breakfasted at 12.45, and cut the morning short. We
+were out again later with a guide--Hadj Riffi he called himself--bent on
+a visit to the _Kasbah_, or fortress of the city.
+
+Hadj Riffi provided a donkey and pack, which of all substitutes for
+saddles is most foolish, intended only for loads of all sorts to be slung
+across them; but packs are easy to slip off and on, and have answered
+their purpose in Morocco since the days when in Judaea Mary rode on one to
+Bethlehem.
+
+Conducted through the queer, intricate city, we wound along maze-like
+alleys three or four feet wide, ever the old aromatic smell of the East,
+almost impossible to recall, yet recognized again in an instant's flash,
+and born of the Oriental world we jostled against--of Berbers, Arabs,
+negroes, men from the Sahara, men from the mountains of the Riff, Turks,
+Greeks, Levantines, Syrians, even an occasional Hindoo, all wanderers up
+and down the earth, unable to resist the call of the open road,
+engendered by nomadic habits of old.
+
+[Illustration: R. ON A PACK.
+
+[_To face p. 12._]
+
+One word on the inhabitants of the country. The Berbers are the
+aborigines of Morocco, and live more or less in the hills and
+mountains, into which they were driven by the Arabs in the seventh
+century, when they overran Morocco. The Arabs, on the other hand, live in
+the plains; and Arabs and Berbers practically halve the country between
+them. Both peoples divide into numerous tribes, of which the men from the
+Riff are a Berber tribe. The negroes in Morocco are merely slaves
+imported from the south. One and all the Arab and Berber tribes are
+called indiscriminately by Europeans "Moors." The other wanderers in
+Tangier filter through the land from their own countries: who can tell
+why or wherefore? Hadj Riffi himself had obeyed his Prophet Mohammed in
+so far as to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. A journey the prospect of
+which would horrify a tradesman at home is undertaken by an
+earnest-minded shop-keeping Moor as a matter of course. What are the
+twelve uncomfortable days by sea to Jeddah? Or the journey thence to
+Mecca, lying stretched in a long pannier on one side of a camel, balanced
+by a second pilgrim in a pannier on the other side, and over the whole an
+awning spread? But this luxurious travelling is for the rich pilgrim, who
+swings silently along day after day, under the burning sun or the cold
+stars, across the tideless sea of sand, towards an illimitable horizon.
+Hadj Riffi "footed it," spent three days at Mecca, at this time
+transformed into a city of a myriad tents, among which it is easy enough
+to be lost, teeming with pilgrims--Chinese, Hindoos, Circassians,
+Georgians, Bosnians--most of them unable to understand each other, beyond
+a verse or two from the Kor[=a]n and a few pious ejaculations.
+
+Hadj Riffi and his fellow-Moors prayed three days at Mecca, and performed
+the ceremonies round the celebrated _K[=a]aba_, the chief shrine and
+holiest of all holy places, built by Adam and Eve after the pattern of
+their own Sanctum Sanctorum in the Garden of Eden.
+
+The far-famed Black Stone, presented to the masons by the Angel Gabriel,
+built into the east corner of the outer wall of the K[=a]aba, is a
+semicircular fragment of volcanic basalt, sprinkled with coloured
+crystals, about six by eight inches large, bordered with silver, and the
+surface of it reddish brown, undulating, and polished.
+
+Having kissed the Black Stone and performed other rites, the Moors went
+three days' journey to the Prophet's Mountain to pray; then they took
+themselves back to Morocco, but on their way, missing a steamer, were
+obliged to travel by land through Tunis, which took them five months,
+and, running short of money, lived, Hadj Riffi said, largely on roots.
+
+In the meantime he urged our donkey along, breaking his discourse with
+"Arrah! Arrah!" until at last it was cajoled under the gateway and into
+the Kasbah. This fortress, reported a good specimen of Moorish
+architecture, could impress nobody: it has no regular garrison; the
+batteries are antiquated, the artillery hopelessly inefficient. The
+crumbling battlements are overgrown with rank grass and fig-trees, though
+tradition has it they were once brass, when the city was built of gold
+and silver.
+
+Tangier is immensely old, and has seen many conquerors, many demolitions.
+Arabs, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Spaniards, and Portuguese
+have all in their turn besieged and taken, ruled and deserted, the white
+city. England has had her turn too. When Charles II. married Catherine of
+Braganza, Tangier and Bombay formed part of her dowry and passed into
+British hands. The Portuguese, to whom Tangier then belonged, withdrew;
+the English entered, repaired the city wall, built forts, and in the
+course of three years a great mole across the harbour at a cost of
+L31,000. Trade increased rapidly under the protection of the plucky
+Tangier Regiment (now the Queen's Royal West Surrey). An English mayor
+and corporation--six aldermen and twelve Common Council men--were
+established in the little colony, and attended church in scarlet and
+purple.
+
+And then the Home Government made a mistake. The slovenly Tangier board
+in London wasted money, sent adventurers out to Tangier as governors. An
+exposure of their mismanagement followed, which induced the Home
+Government to throw up a troublesome charge, and to evacuate as valuable
+a port as England ever possessed, in a country which, unlike India, is
+admirably adapted for European colonization, and blessed with every
+natural advantage Creation can offer.
+
+The mole and fortifications were blown up, Lord Dartmouth and his
+garrison marched out of Tangier on February 6, 1684, and the Moors took
+possession of a heap of fragmentary ruins. With Tangier in our hands we
+could have confidently commanded the passage of the Straits for seventy
+miles, nor would there have been a risk to Gibraltar of having all her
+supplies cut off in the event of Spain and Morocco being hostile to us.
+Fresh-comers to Morocco regret these things: in a few weeks the spirit of
+the country induces a lazy tolerance and a general apathy towards the
+past as well as towards the present state of affairs.
+
+We found inside the Kasbah an entirely Moorish element--one sacred spot
+where no "Christians" may live. A children's school was making a
+deafening noise on our right, and we looked in to see a group of small
+boys sitting round an ancient, turbaned Moor, who was sewing at a jellab
+and paying small attention to his pupils: one and all were on their
+heels, lighted by the open door, there being of course no windows; and
+each held in his two hands a board inscribed with Arabic characters,
+which he swayed backwards and forwards as he swayed his body in time with
+sentences from the Kor[=a]n, learnt thus by heart and chanted in a high
+sing-song key. There were no girls. Boys alone are taught anything; and
+in general their education begins and ends, as above, with the Kor[=a]n.
+Few Moors can write or read: there are no books in Morocco, except the
+Kor[=a]n and a religious treatise or two, to tempt them to learn. As for
+geography, an intelligent Moor will know by name England, France, and
+Germany, not Russia, and that his own country is the biggest, the best,
+and the most powerful.
+
+Leaving the noisy little school, which did not approve of being stared
+at, we came to the empty palace, with its great horse-shoe doorway,
+painted blue-white and carved in a rudimentary way, called in Arabic "The
+little garden," descriptive of its inside courtyard, planted with
+oranges, figs, and palms.
+
+Farther on stands the forge of the fortress: "for the slippers for the
+horses," Hadj Riffi explained. The blacksmith wore an apron of a whole
+goat-skin; he pared down the hoof with an instrument like a shovel,
+helped by the horse's owner or any chance onlooker, for Moors "hunt in
+packs," and only a mere Christian does anything by himself. The shoe is a
+complete circle of iron, has three nails on each side, and in some places
+a bar across the centre.
+
+At last we reached the prison, the principal feature of the Kasbah. Much
+has been written about Moorish prisons, to be put down by ignorant
+critics as exaggerated. English visitors have shown up their horrors,
+only to be forbidden now by a stringent order to go inside. It is hard
+to say what happens behind the scenes, but torture is lightly thought of
+in Morocco; "cruelty," as Europeans understand it, has no place nor
+meaning in ignorant, fanatical minds; and an unpleasant inference is
+therefore to be drawn.
+
+Of course many of the prisoners are confined, in all good faith, for
+offences, and will be released in time; but there are also Moors, in high
+positions socially, or possessed formerly of means, who "wither and
+agonize" year after year in captivity, their only fault that they were
+rich or influential in bygone days, thus tempting a jealous rival to
+remove them out of his path, or a greedy Government to confine them and
+feed upon their money. If they ever come out, it will be because a
+wealthy friend has chosen to pay the Government for their release, or
+because it has happened to occur to the ministers at Court to send for
+them; and half of them will reappear but scarred remnants of the men who
+went in. Descriptions of tortures which were unknown even in the Middle
+Ages in England may well be omitted: tortures which result in blind and
+tongueless creatures, without hands; bled of every penny they once
+possessed, and maimed in order to induce them to reveal the spot where
+their money was hidden, or the friends' names with whom they traded.
+
+We looked in through a small iron grating in the door about two feet
+square, revealing a space open to the skies, with roofed recesses in the
+walls round the four sides, where the prisoners had huddled themselves in
+their rags. At night they are chained by the leg. An Oriental does not
+require "a bed," but he is provided with no substitute in prison, still
+less with food and drink, for which he is dependent on friends or
+relations willing to supply him. Of late years, in certain prisons, a
+small loaf of bread per day is given to each man. He has the great
+advantage of being able to talk all day to his fellow-prisoners; but in
+the case of a refined man such close intercourse has its drawbacks, more
+especially when a raving lunatic happens to be chained by an iron collar
+round his neck to one of the pillars. Madmen and all alike, without
+respect of persons, veritably rot to death, cheek by jowl, in a Moorish
+prison. Disease, starvation, and injuries tend to shorten their
+captivity. Whoever has smelt the smell within those walls will endorse
+the adjective "kindly" Death, than which there surely can be no more
+welcome visitor.
+
+A few of the sound prisoners, sitting on the ground, were weaving
+baskets, some of which we bought through the keeper of the prison; then
+turned away, struck by the stoicism among the prisoners themselves in a
+situation of such uncertainty. Was it to end in death or release? Who
+knows? They merely shrug their shoulders, and ejaculate, "Ift shallah"
+(God will show).
+
+Passing the soldiers guarding the outside of the prison, and out under a
+second gateway of the Kasbah, we stumbled down what is called one of the
+Sultan's "highways," something very rocky and not far off the
+perpendicular. R. chose her own feet, much to Hadj Riffi's annoyance.
+Though the ways are such that no donkey can be ridden without stumbling
+among cobble-stones and pitfalls, and thereby running a risk of pitching
+the rider off the insecure pack into a refuse-heap, it was impossible for
+a European, in his eyes, to walk and to maintain his dignity at the same
+time.
+
+[Illustration: TWO SHEIKHS.
+
+[_To face p. 18._]
+
+That no Moor runs when he can walk, or walks when he can ride, or stands
+when he can sit, or sits when he can lie down, is a saying fulfilled to
+the letter. And what poor man, however heavily he loads his small
+donkey with garden produce, forgoes mounting himself on top of all,
+and making the little beast stagger along, at a fair pace too, to market?
+The life of such a man is not eventful, but what there is of it is good:
+he sings as he jogs along in a monotonous tone, and has a word for every
+soul he meets, and a laugh too, curses his donkey--he is never quiet--and
+lands the produce of his little melon-patch in the market. The melons are
+sold by degrees, much gossip is interspersed, possibly he washes and
+prays, then eats, and sleeps a little; more gossip, until the sun tells
+him it is time to get outside the city gates; and then off he jogs again,
+singing, talking, back to the little reed-thatched hut, fenced in by its
+hedge of cactus. Life is too full of--call it resignation or content--to
+leave room for disturbing speculations, and he is born of a race which
+never repines: there is Allah and the One Faith, and the sun to lie down
+beneath and meditate and sleep. Not that the typical countryman is
+idle--far from it: he is hard-working, without any beer to do it upon.
+
+It is a matter of more speculation as to what the courteous, solemn men,
+in turbans like carved snow, whom one meets walking along the beach
+telling their beads, or sees sitting in sunshine reading aloud in a low
+voice, steadily praising Allah, occupy themselves with from month to
+month; or the sleek sheikh--a countryman of some means, with smooth
+coffee-coloured face and a haik whiter than an iced birthday
+cake--perched between the peaks of his red cloth saddle, under which his
+hard, hammer-headed mule paces at an intermittent amble.
+
+Probably the sheikh has ridden out of the city to inspect his crops. His
+house, with his wife, he has locked up: the keys are in his pocket. He
+swings along a sandy track bordered with cactus, reaches his garden
+door, which is painted Reckitt's blue, unlocks it, and, tying his mule
+up inside to a fruit-tree, proceeds to inspect his vines and prune
+casually some of the ashy-white branches of his fig-trees. Then he sets
+two ragged countrywomen to work to cut his vines and hoe his beans. He
+may read a few verses of the Kor[=a]n later on. He may sleep. Eventually
+he ambles home. Other days he spends among his friends in the city,
+sitting in their little shops and gossiping consumedly. He may hire an
+empty shop of his own for the same purpose, and turn it into what might
+be called "a club." He will pray regularly; will play chess and draughts
+sitting in the front of a shop; will drink green tea. Whatever he does is
+done without haste, and towards evening he strolls serenely, with many
+interruptions, in the direction of his own house.
+
+The climate of Morocco has never any of the brisk, freezing "grip" of a
+hard English winter, but rather tends towards encouraging indolence. In
+Tangier itself energetic English visitors find little superabundant scope
+for action: naturally enough, the residents, whom an enervating summer or
+two shears of much of the vitality with which they first landed, end in
+settling down into an enjoyable, mild routine. There is, however,
+shooting and a little pig-sticking for who will; but guns may not be
+brought into the country, and no European would be allowed to exploit its
+_nullahs_: if not killed, he would be turned back and escorted into
+trodden ways.
+
+The principal day's excursion from Tangier is out to Cape Spartel and
+back again: before we left the place we started early one morning with
+this end in view, taking a donkey and boy carrying a camera, lunch,
+etc.--first along a cobbled roadway of which Tangier is immensely proud,
+across the river by a new bridge, and up the Mountain. The Mountain is
+the summer abode of Tangier, and shady houses and gardens civilize what
+was once a wild hill, in the days when our great British minister, Sir
+John Hay, did an unprecedented thing, and built himself a house there.
+
+Forty years ago no Christian was safe outside Tangier without a guard,
+and it is largely to Sir John Hay's fearless trust in the honour of the
+Moor that the change is due. It may still be unwise to walk in lonely
+places after dark, or to become involved in a street row; for if one
+ruffian is excited to throw a stone, thirty will follow suit, and
+Europeans have thus been stoned to death. But those who live out in the
+Mountain and visitors to Spartel have nothing to fear in these days in
+the shape of attack and robbery.
+
+It was about ten o'clock when we left behind us the leggy remains of a
+Roman aqueduct over the river, and, having climbed the Mountain, broke
+into open ground, stretching far away at the top. The cobbled road
+resolved itself into an unsophisticated path; the stiff cane fences,
+shutting out all but the tree-tops in the gardens from view, came to an
+end; and we were in a breeze off the Atlantic, on undulating hills
+covered with short scrub, gum-cistus, arbutus, tall white heather,
+oleander, and pink-and-white convolvulus.
+
+The track led us up and down, and grew more stony as we went on,
+gradually rising, till we were about a thousand feet above the sea.
+Looking back, Tangier lay far below, and beyond it in the distance white
+cragged mountains glinted in the sun.
+
+It was a glorious day, November 24: a fresh breeze, tempered as it so
+seldom is in England at that time of year. Our path wound round the hills
+and dipped towards the sea. From the stretches of heather through which
+we brushed we could hear below us the surf breaking on the rocks: it
+might have been a corner of the west coast of Scotland.
+
+After eight miles' up-and-down tramp, the lighthouse at the end of the
+great cape, Spartel, the north-west corner of the African Continent, came
+into sight. This lighthouse was built at the instigation of the eleven
+Powers, but actually by the Sultan. The Powers--Great Britain, France,
+Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Russia, America, and
+Brazil--share the cost of its maintenance, and that of the whole road
+from Tangier to the lighthouse, which follows the line of
+telegraph-posts, the cable being laid to Spartel. The lighthouse is
+French built; its fixed intermittent white light can be seen thirty-six
+miles away, and it stands 312 feet above sea-level.
+
+Sitting down at its base, looking out to sea, we watched the black spines
+of rock underneath us, set in whirlpools of foam--the Dark Continent
+showing the last of its teeth. On our left the coast trended away into
+the hazy distance: to our right across the blue Straits lay the yellow
+sands of the bay where Trafalgar was fought, and the irregular little
+town of Tarifa, backed by purple Spanish hills.
+
+The evenings were short, and we were soon on our homeward way. The
+stunted bushes on each side of the path, disturbed by the devastating
+woodcutters, could hardly hold a lion in the present day. Yet in the
+course of Sir John Hay's forty odd years of administration in Morocco two
+were seen in these same woods, and he shot there himself a striped _Hyaena
+rufus_, a great shaggy animal with a bristling mane. One of the two lions
+ought to have been shot, but he doubled back, and was heard of afterwards
+travelling at a swinging trot between Tangier and Tetuan. He killed an ox
+in the valley the next day, and disappeared in the direction of the
+snow-topped mountains.
+
+In this twentieth century lions in the north of Morocco would be a rare
+sight: towards the south the mountain-fastnesses hold them still,
+together with leopards, wild cats, etc.; but, like everywhere else, big
+game moves off as civilization moves on.
+
+There remains the wild boar. The Moors hunt him with greyhounds,
+Europeans shoot him, and Englishmen have introduced pig-sticking. The
+largest pig Sir John Hay speared scaled twenty stone clean, and measured
+six foot four from snout to tail. But even pig are getting scarce. The
+Tent Club in Tangier organizes expeditions, and parties go out under
+canvas for a few days at a time: the result is nothing very great.
+
+When it is a question of shooting pig, the Moors, born sportsmen, join
+one and all--small farmers and peasants--purely from the love of sport.
+Some act as beaters, wearing leathern aprons and greaves--such as the
+Greek peasantry wore--to protect their legs. They carry bill-hooks to cut
+their way through the thickets, and bring along a tribe of native dogs,
+which do good service--a cross between a collie and a jackal, veteran
+poachers, which prowl through the scrub, winding a boar at any distance.
+The thickets where pig lie are for the most part backed by the sea, and
+bordered by lake and marsh or plain, in which case it is not difficult to
+inveigle the driven boar to break where the guns are posted. A haunch of
+wild pig judiciously roasted, with a _soupcon_ of wine in the gravy, is
+one of the delicacies of Morocco. As many as fifteen boars have been
+accounted for in a couple of days' shooting.
+
+The sun went down; the soft air grew colder: we walked quickly back
+through the outskirts of Tangier, between gardens full of plumbago,
+dituria, geraniums, hibiscus, pointsettias, narcissus, frescia, and roses
+of all sorts, besides other flowers. Anything would grow in a soil which
+has been known to bear three crops of potatoes in one year, and where
+corn is sometimes sown and reaped all within the space of forty days.
+
+An enterprising English market-gardener is this year growing vegetables
+and fruit for the London market, expecting to have green peas in Covent
+Garden in December, the duty on peas and tomatoes having been lowered to
+5 per cent. This man acts as agent to a land-owner. Fortunes, indeed,
+might be made, if it were not a question of FIND THE LAND; for while land
+cannot now be bought in Morocco by Europeans, the few fortunates who own
+inherited acres price them high, and, hoping for a boom in the course of
+the next fifteen years, demand L400 an acre.
+
+As we turned into the Villa Valentina a wonderful opal light warmed the
+white city and the sand-hills--they were no longer cold nor colourless;
+while banks of "rose" sunset-clouds were reflected "rose" in a grey-green
+sea.
+
+Tangier has two sides to it--one native, the other European. The European
+side is all which appears on the surface, and it swamps the other. Given
+each of the eleven Powers, with its minister, its minister's family, its
+secretary, its attache, its interpreter, its student; add to these a
+handful of English residents, a handful of English and American visitors,
+and a handful of varied nationalities thrown in; back them up with the
+necessary foundation of purveyors, and lower down still a substratum of
+leeches and black-sheep, greedy Jews, needy Spaniards, introducing drink
+and tobacco and gambling,--and there you have before you all the elements
+of a highly civilized town on the Mediterranean shore. It may be Tangier:
+it is not Morocco.
+
+[Illustration: TANGIER.
+
+[_To face p. 24._]
+
+The Moorish aristocracy themselves speak of the place as
+"Christian-ridden Tangier," and will have none of it: the Sultan says it
+"no longer belongs to him." Its trade is _nil_, and what there is of it
+is in the hands of the Jews, who boast eleven synagogues, schools, and a
+Grand Rabbi at the head of all.
+
+We brought introductions with us to various people, and met with every
+hospitality in Tangier. Sir Arthur and Lady Nicolson, representing Great
+Britain, do all in their power for visitors; and the colony of mixed
+nationalities fills its off hours together, most successfully, with a
+round of picnics, afternoon rides, tea parties, and other amusements,
+implied by "wintering at Tangier"; from all of which any knowledge of
+Morocco, or association with Moors, is far removed indeed.
+
+A seaport which has neither roads nor railways to connect it with the
+surrounding country, is isolated a week's journey from the nearest
+capital town, and whose links with the outer world all tend seawards
+through steamers to foreign countries, can never constitute a study of
+the land to which it belongs only by right of position.
+
+But Morocco itself had brought us to the north of Africa. Tangier could
+only be a base for future operations, and consequently a fortnight of
+Tangier sufficed, finding us bent upon moving on, before the heavy rains
+broke, and the swollen rivers made travelling impossible. Travelling in
+Morocco is never at the best of times luxurious. "Say explore, rather
+than travel," somebody writes, speaking of Morocco; and many were the
+injunctions and warnings which the post brought us from friends at
+home--above all, to expect no ransoms, in the event of capture by lawless
+tribes.
+
+It is true that a _Wanderjahr_ in Morocco has not the luxuries of travel
+in India; and Englishmen who would break new ground must wear Moorish
+dress, talk Arabic, and prepare to face considerable risks, with the
+off-chance of writing in some such strain as Davidson: "To-day I have
+parted with all my hair except one long tuft over my right ear. I never
+expect to become white again. My beard is very long. My legs covered with
+bites of vermin. My cheek-bones prominent, and my teeth sharp from having
+very little to do."
+
+Not that R. and myself had such adventures in view; but we believed that
+even as humble followers in the tracks of others we should find no lack
+of interest in a country so little known, among a people of "The Arabian
+Nights," under conditions which tempt the Unexpected to stalk out from
+behind every corner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMP OUTFIT--A NIGHT AT A CARAVANSERAI--TETUAN--THE BRITISH
+VICE-CONSUL--MOORISH SHOPS--WE VISIT A MOORISH HOUSE AND FAMILY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+     _Tetuan_--the tiger-cat! so curiously beautiful. Recollections of
+     it hang in the gallery of one's memory, not so much as pictures,
+     but as Correggio-like masses of vivid colouring and intangible
+     spirals of perfume.
+
+
+THE place we had set our hearts upon visiting, to begin with, was the
+northern capital, Fez--only to find, on going into particulars, that
+insurmountable barriers blocked the way. Even if we escaped the December
+rains on the ride there, they would break sooner or later, making
+sleeping out under canvas impossible: the flooded rivers might mean a
+long delay--probably a week or more--on the banks; bridges in Morocco are
+harder to find than diamonds on the seashore, and when a river is in
+flood there remains only to sit down in front of it until the waters
+abate.
+
+The "road" to Fez, after the tropical rains, soon becomes a slough of
+clay and water, ploughed up by mules and donkeys, and so slippery that
+nothing can keep its legs. We decided, therefore, to leave Fez till the
+spring, when the rains would be over, and to visit for the present a city
+called Tetuan, only two days' journey from Tangier, camping out as long
+as we felt inclined, and returning to the Villa Valentina in a week, or
+when the weather should drive us back. But the gods thought otherwise.
+
+Tetuan was, by report, in the most beautiful part of Morocco: its
+situation reminded travellers of Jerusalem; it was among the Anjera and
+Riff Mountains; and though, of course, travel was impossible within the
+forbidden land of the Riff, it was likely we should gather some
+interesting crumbs of information, and come across a few of the famous
+tribesmen, while we were staying on the borders. Above all, it was a
+Moorish city, and counted an aristocratic one at that: no European
+element spoilt its originality. On the face of it Tetuan had attractions.
+
+Accordingly we made preparations to be off.
+
+The first thing to be done was to get hold of a man who could cook, act
+as guide, interpreter, and muleteer: plenty of them presented themselves,
+and we closed with a certain Mohammed, who had been with Colonel H----.
+Every third Moor is named Mohammed, or some corruption of it--eldest sons
+invariably.
+
+Next we ransacked Tangier for commissariat and camp outfit. Out of a
+dirty little Spanish shop two men's saddles of antiquated English make,
+with rolls, were unearthed, and hired in preference to some prehistoric
+side-saddles, with moth-eaten doe-skin seats and horned third pommels.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 30._]
+
+Then we obtained a permit from the English Consul, for the sum of
+seven-and-sixpence, authorizing us to apply to the governor of the Kasbah
+for one of the Moorish soldiers quartered in Tangier, who should act as
+our escort to Tetuan. The Sultan of Morocco undertakes to protect British
+subjects travelling in his dominions as far as possible, provided they
+supply themselves with an adequate escort and avoid roads through unsafe
+territory. The various tribes from among themselves sometimes provide an
+armed guard to see travellers safely across their own country, handing
+them on at the borders to the next tribe, who sends its mounted escort to
+meet them. The headman arranges for the safety of Europeans, and his
+tribe answers for their lives. But this plan involves prearrangement,
+publicity, and fuss. Now from Tangier to Tetuan the road by daylight is
+perfectly safe--though it happens that, at the time of writing, the body
+of a peasant, presumably out after sunset, has been found robbed and
+murdered close to it. Therefore one soldier was all we should want; and
+at last this bodyguard was supplied, a ragged Moor, with a lean mule and
+a French rifle--all for five shillings per day.
+
+We next visited a general "stores," lined with the familiar Cadbury,
+Keiller, and Huntley & Palmer tins: there we invested in corned beef,
+tinned soup, potted meats, cheese, salt, macaroni, marmalade, tea,
+coffee, sugar, candles, soap, matches, etc. Things not to be forgotten
+were nails, hammer, rope, methylated spirit and etna. A revolver for its
+moral effect is necessary, and may be invaluable in a tight corner. We
+provided ourselves with two tents, one for the servants and a larger one
+for ourselves; a set of camp furniture, including kitchen pots and pans;
+and an enamel breakfast and dining service, which, if time had mattered
+little, would have been well exchanged for an aluminium set out from
+England, as lighter and more convenient.
+
+Mohammed hired four mules and another man--Ali--himself taking charge of
+the cooking department, providing meat, bread, vegetables, fruit, etc.:
+then with our _bundobust_ complete, and a letter of introduction from Sir
+Arthur Nicolson to the British Vice-Consul at Tetuan, we started on
+November 28.
+
+It was one of the hottest mornings we had had, not a fleck of cloud in
+the sky, and what air there was due east: the sea lay flat as a blue
+pool, and five or six white sails might have been swans on its glassy
+surface. Mohammed appeared early in the sandy road underneath our
+windows. To avoid waking people in the hotel, we handed our diminutive
+kit out through the window to him--only a couple of waterproof rolls,
+which held rugs and bare necessities; then locking up the bulk of our
+worldly goods behind us, slipped out of the Villa Valentina, mounted our
+mules, and were off across the white sand-dunes bordering the sea.
+
+Tetuan lies forty-four miles to the south-east of Tangier: people with
+much time and little energy have made a three days' march of it. A range
+of hills rather more than half-way makes a natural division, and on the
+top of this watershed a _fondak_ (caravanserai) stands for the use of
+travellers during the night: here it is usual to camp.
+
+We were an odd little procession as we left Tangier. Our mounted soldier,
+Cadour, led the way, in a brown weather-worn jellab, which he pulled
+right up over his head like a Franciscan friar: his legs were bare, his
+feet thrust into a pair of old yellow shoes. He carried his gun across
+his saddle in front of him, inside one arm: it was in a frayed brown
+canvas case, which had holes in each end, out of which both stock and
+barrel respectively protruded. With his other hand he jogged incessantly
+at the mule's mouth. Take him all in all, a soldier's was the last trade
+he outwardly impersonated. Behind him rode R. and myself, shaking down by
+degrees into our saddles, glad not to have before us eight or ten hours'
+jog across rough country on provincial side-saddles, which, apart from
+the strained position, are inconvenient for slipping off and on again.
+Behind us followed the two baggage-mules with our tents, etc.: loaded as
+they were, Mohammed and Ali had climbed upon the tops of their great
+packs. A mule carries as much as he can get along under in Morocco: the
+man climbs up afterwards, and does not count.
+
+Two hundredweight, with a Moor on top, is a fair load for a long journey,
+marching seven hours every day. Enough barley should be carried for each
+night's fodder: the ordinary mule and pony live on barley and broken
+straw, beans when in season, and grass in the spring to fatten them.
+Sevenpence a day will feed a mule, and hire comes to three shillings a
+day. Good mules are not bought easily, and are worth, on account of their
+toughness, more than ponies, fetching L12 any day. Ours were but
+second-rate hirelings, and we made up our minds to buy later on, when
+starting on a long expedition. A mule should be chosen chiefly for its
+pacing powers, doing four and a half miles an hour on an average for
+seven hours a day, without turning a hair or tiring the rider, whose
+comfort depends on an easy pace. The longer the overlap of the hind-shoe
+print over the fore-shoe print, the better the pace. Moorish horses are
+wiry little beasts, but you seldom see a handsome one: either they are
+ewe-necked or they fall away in the hindquarters; their feet are allowed
+to grow too long, and their legs are ruined through tight hobbling. Nor
+is there much inducement to a Moor to breed a handsome foal, liable to be
+stolen from him, if seen by a governor or agent of the Sultan's.
+Naturally he breeds the inferior animal he has a chance of keeping, and
+puts a valuable mare to a common stallion, branding and otherwise
+disfiguring a colt which by bad luck turns out good-looking.
+
+The slender desert-horse, the _habb-er-reeh_ (gust of wind, as they call
+him), with the small aristocratic head, a nose which will go into a
+tea-cup, perfect shoulders, and diminutive sloping hindquarters, is
+seldom met with and hardly ever used, except quite in the south of the
+country, where he is given camel's milk to drink.
+
+People as a rule start off on their day's march with the dawn, after a
+light breakfast of coffee, beaten-up eggs, and dry biscuits; halt about
+ten o'clock, supposing they are near water; and, if necessary, do two or
+three hours more, comfortably, before sunset. But we had made a late
+start, and the sun was far up as we jogged along one after the other,
+leaving behind the sands, the orange gardens, and the gimcrack Spanish
+houses, at every step the open country widening in front of us.
+
+We followed a narrow path, one of the countless footpaths which zigzag in
+and out, and wind away to every point of the compass, like ants' tracks
+from an ant-hill. Donkeys, mules, countrywomen, eternally pass and
+re-pass along the polished ways, with the everlasting burdens of
+charcoal, faggots, vegetables, and flour: life in some form moving along
+them there always is.
+
+Towards the edge of the horizon, clumps of dwarf palm and coarse grass
+slanted in the breeze: here and there grey rocks stuck up on the hillside
+like fossilized bones, and met the blue sky. A stream was meandering,
+hidden under deep banks, on our right. We wound along the wide valley,
+doing our best to keep the mules going at a respectable pace, and finding
+that there was quite an art in accomplishing it on a hireling. Cadour cut
+in behind, and supplemented our sticks and heels with Arabic words of
+much effect, his own mule's mouth suffering badly from his jogging,
+remorseless hand.
+
+[Illustration: OURSELVES AND BAGGAGE.
+
+[_To face p. 34._]
+
+A raven, "a blot in heaven, flying high," sailed over our heads up in
+the blue, and then, leisurely dropping, sat on a rock and croaked at
+us. Morocco is a country of circling kites and keen-eyed hawks, whose
+easy, buoyant flight and vibrating "hover" in the hot air are
+things of undying fascination. Now and again a puff of east
+wind--life-giving--would stir the whole countryside and pass on,
+leaving us glowing under a sun which warmed every cranny, and made the
+section of air just above the flat fields rock with heat. Two
+countrywomen toiled towards us under their bundles--a couple of
+figures swathed in yellowy white; they gazed at us as people gaze who
+have few interests in their lives, then smiled and spoke,
+gesticulated, and laughed again: a herd of goats was outlined on the
+hill above; the goat-herd called to another far-off brown-clad figure,
+and the echoes filtered down to us: a rabbit dashed up out of a
+palm-bush and scuttled away: and then there was silence profound, and
+we paced on eastwards, talking and singing a song sometimes, while the
+sun climbed right-handed.
+
+There is no life like it--that life of the open air and its absolute
+freedom. Monotonous it would certainly be to many people: small and
+uneventful matters, and a palette set in greys and browns, charm but a
+few, for whom solitary rides and waste places are "things in common," and
+chance meetings and little incidents by the way suffice.
+
+Two or three miles outside Tangier stretch rich undulating lands between
+low hills: a few divisionless fields bear witness to both primitive and
+erratic farming, and give that regretful air to the landscape which land
+not "done well by" always imparts.
+
+The writer has lately read a somewhat pessimistic letter upon the state
+of Morocco. Morocco is a decadent empire, it is true: primarily, because
+the two races to whom the country belongs live, and have always lived
+from time immemorial, under a tribal system; and secondarily, because
+those same races, Arab and Berber, hate one another with a racial
+hatred. These two reasons by themselves augur badly for the land they
+live upon, implying a state of armed neutrality, no cohesion, and no
+settled peace.
+
+Under a tribal system the tribe is the unit, not the individual--"one for
+all, and all for one": it follows that transgression and retribution are
+both upon a wholesale scale, and alike disastrous towards the
+consolidation of a united nation.
+
+The government in a country cursed by the tribal system must in the very
+nature of things be despotic: lawless tribes need the tyrant's hand of
+iron. To the fact of his being a despot the Sultan owes his security,
+coupled with one other reason. Arabs and Berbers alike are fanatics:
+religion is the air they breathe, the salt of life. The Sultan is
+descended direct from the One Great Prophet; consequently the Sultan is
+acknowledged as lord. His policy is an Oriental one: tribe is played off
+against tribe, one European power against the other European power; the
+empire is isolated; innovations are prohibited, lest European
+civilization should oust Moorish eccentricities. So much for the Oriental
+policy of "the balance of jealousies."
+
+Despotism breeds despotism. While every Moor below the Sultan ranks as
+equal, the fact remains that Government officials are all in their own
+sphere little despots, governing districts many days' journey from Court,
+with every chance of robbing and oppressing those under them, until the
+day of reckoning comes, when the Court, hearing how fat their fine bird
+has grown, summons him to the capital, and the process of plucking and
+imprisoning their wealthy servant follows.
+
+Life exists upon life, from the _sheikhs_ (farmers), who live upon what
+they can squeeze out of the peasants, to the _bashas_ (governors), who
+exist on tithes, taxes, and extortion wrung from the sheikhs and
+townspeople, up to higher officials, who receive no salaries, and line
+their pockets by a process of bleeding the bashas and others . . . . . .
+thus _ad lib_. Even the gaolers--also unpaid--earn their living by
+extorting money from the prisoners. The whole system of government reacts
+upon itself; for the venality of the officials drives the tribes to
+redress their wrongs at intervals by raids and open rebellion, to punish
+whom there follows slaughter upon slaughter, and the country is laid
+waste.
+
+Hence the principal reasons--wheels within wheels--which account for the
+Morocco of 1902: its prehistoric customs, its uncultivated acres.
+
+No reformer, no missionary, will alter the condition of Morocco. The
+Moors themselves have made it what it is; but since for an Ethiopian to
+change his skin is no light matter, there is small probability of the
+Moors themselves unmaking it.
+
+A gloomy prospect, yet one which, taking the case of the people and
+looking upon it from a "happiness" point of view, must not be altogether
+judged from a European standpoint. The likes and dislikes of Moors are
+not the likes and dislikes of Europeans, and most of them view their good
+times and bad times with equal calm, as merely the will of Allah. Besides
+which, anything in the shape of law and order and daily routine rasps
+their raw nature. Just as a Moor prefers to eat to repletion when there
+is food, and to go without when there is not, so he would choose a
+desultory and irresponsible life, alternating between perfect freedom and
+excessive tyranny, to any regular humdrum form of government which Europe
+could offer him.
+
+The country people we met, if hard-worked, had at the same time cheerful
+enough faces: their enjoyment of life probably equals that of the English
+labourer.
+
+On the whole, it is possible that, when the day comes--as it must
+come--that an effete and inadequate people goes to the wall, and
+civilized blood occupies their room, it may bring good, but that good
+will be tinged with regret--certainly in the eyes of those selfish
+mortals to whom one country, neither wire-fenced nor scored by railways,
+nor swept nor garnished, but coloured to-day by the smoke of many
+thousand years, still offers palmy days. Thus giving thanks to Allah for
+things as they are, after the manner of the country, we jogged along,
+looking out for a halting-ground: it was between twelve and one o'clock,
+and time to stretch our legs.
+
+The river and some oleander-bushes, with green lawns between them,
+offered all we wanted. Cadour took off his brown jellab, and spread it
+for us to sit upon. There we lunched and waited for an hour. Some oxen
+were ploughing close to us, driven in a desultory way by a figure clad in
+a pair of once white drawers, and a once white tunic with a leather belt.
+All which this husbandman wanted being corn enough to supply himself, and
+no surplus to fall into the sheikh's hands, the field was naturally
+small. A well-to-do farmer might rise to growing a little maize or cummin
+or millet or fenugreek for exportation, perhaps some broad-beans,
+chick-peas, or canary-seed; but the duties are heavy. Wheat and barley
+have been forbidden export: the infidel shall not eat bread of the true
+believer's corn.
+
+Our Arabic at that time was _nil_; there was no chance of a word with the
+ploughman unless through Mohammed. Such a mere scratch of a furrow as he
+made, into which the grain would be casually thrown, with never a harrow
+or substitution for one! Allah provides, and there is no reason to
+interfere with his arrangements: "B`ism Allah." Thus will the fields be
+reaped, the corn ground, the bread made, the loaf eaten, with the same
+old invocation muttered beforehand: "B`ism Allah" (In the name of God).
+
+The two little oxen drew the patriarchal plough, hewn out of a log of
+wood, and shod with an iron point, entirely by means of their heads, to
+which it was fastened with dried grass-fibres across their foreheads and
+round their horns, making a sort of large straw bonnet on top of all
+which they held high in the air or sideways, with expressions of extreme
+disgust. In the middle of the field, yoked by the bonnet to a second
+plough and a fellow-ox, the companion had inconsiderately lain down, to
+the great inconvenience of its foolish partner, which remained standing,
+with its head forced into the most unpleasant angle downwards, and the
+stoical expression of a true Mussulman underneath its bonnet.
+
+On the opposite side of the stream some sheep, suggestive of the lean,
+tough mutton we fed upon, were searching round for anything in the shape
+of pasture: flocks of small cows and calves were on the same quest
+between the palmetto-bushes: somewhere a boy in charge was no doubt
+asleep.
+
+By this time Mohammed was impatient to be off: the bits were put back
+into the mules' mouths, we got into our saddles again, and pushed on. In
+wet weather the track must be a bad one to follow: innumerable
+streamlets, which have eaten out deep gullies in the clay, have to be
+crossed, making the going hard upon heavily laden beasts, and after heavy
+rains impossible. We slipped about a little. Mohammed and his man had
+their hands full with the two baggage-mules, which they had long ago
+given up trying to ride. The slopes became more bleak: far away in the
+distance Cadour pointed out our destination, a white speck on the top of
+a range of hills, to be seen for a moment and lost sight of the next, as
+we dipped down on to lower ground. Another hour brought it very little
+nearer: fresh irregularities between opened up continually, meaning
+_detours_ to the right or left. A few plover wailed over some marsh: in
+such places partridge, hares, golden grouse, and quail ought to be found;
+but since every male possesses a gun of sorts, from the peasant hoeing
+beans upwards, and is not troubled with game laws or ideas upon
+preserving, they become rarer.
+
+We passed clump after clump of white narcissus in full bloom, and
+marigolds in yellow patches; but as we neared the hills the country grew
+wilder, and short scrub, palmetto, and cistus took the place of coarse
+grass.
+
+At last we were at the foot of the pass, and the end of our march was all
+uphill, steep in places, the scrub turning into respectable bushes, with
+almost a "jungly" aspect. The baggage-mules were pushed and urged ahead.
+At last, about five o'clock, the sun setting, we reached our
+camping-ground, up in the teeth of a rising wind.
+
+Standing by itself, the caravanserai--called a _fondak_ in Morocco--was a
+white-walled enclosure, with a great open space in the middle and
+colonnades all round the insides of the four walls, where men and mules
+huddled and slept unconcernedly. There is also one room to be had; but
+filthy, of course, such quarters always are, and dear at any price (the
+rate for accommodation is not large). One look into the walled enclosure,
+crowded with transport animals and their drivers, was enough, and we
+turned to see to the pitching of the tents outside.
+
+The panorama of hills in the west had a red, lurid light, such as Julius
+Ollsson loves to paint: across the stormy glow trailed a few white wisps
+of smoke where the peasants were burning wood on the hillside for
+charcoal. Making a _detour_ of the fondak while there was light to see,
+we chose the west side for our camp, apparently the most sheltered; but
+the place is a temple of the four winds and gusty upon a breathless day.
+
+It was quite dark before the men had things ready, hampered as they were
+by the gale which was getting up and the want of light. We tried to keep
+warm, and watched the first star come out from a knoll; at last took
+refuge in our wind-shaken tent, unpacked, and sat ourselves down with
+outstretched legs, wrapped in a medley of garments, round the little
+camp-table, lit by the flicker of two candle-lanterns, the flaps of the
+tents snugly fastened together from within, awaiting Mohammed's first
+culinary effort.
+
+By-and-by from out of the chaotic kitchen-tent, pitched in the dark,
+filled with confused commissariat, and further blocked by Cadour, Ali,
+and their small effects, Mohammed emerged, and handed in through an
+opening in our tent chicken and eggs cooked in Moorish fat. After a long
+interval tea followed, and fruit. We sat listening to the wind, writing
+up a diary and talking till bed seemed the best and only warm place. The
+gale woke me after an hour or two: the tent, torn by raging gusts,
+threatened to give at every moment. I got up and took a look outside. A
+wild, gustful night indeed, of glimmering stars and a great white
+half-moon--cold too: the mountains stood out sharp; there was little
+cloud; round our tent a guard of men from the fondak--always supplied,
+for the safety of travellers--were sleeping on the ground, heads and all
+wrapped up in their jellabs,--the moon shone on the queer bundles, and on
+our five mules, picketed opposite the tent door, backs to the wind,
+munching their barley. Neither of us got much sleep; roused periodically
+by the hammering in afresh of our strained tent-pegs, by the men's
+voices, which would relapse into silence for half an hour, and then break
+out again; above all, by the flapping and rattling of the canvas. For a
+moment there was a lull, and we heard the mules feeding and the thousand
+sounds of the night; then a wild blast almost carried the tent away, and
+the monotonous undertone of voices would begin once more.
+
+We were up early, spent little time over dressing in a stiff breeze, and
+turned out to look at the weather. Banks of cloud lay piled up in the
+wind, but rain never comes with the _sharki_ (east wind). The sun was
+up--no chance of seeing it for the present.
+
+Mohammed boiled eggs and tea, and in another twenty minutes we were ready
+to quit our exposed camping-ground.
+
+From the fondak to Tetuan the distance is only fifteen miles, half a
+day's journey. The day before we had done twenty-eight miles, and ought
+to have started at dawn, avoiding the pitching of our tents in the dark.
+To-day we were off betimes.
+
+It was cold, and I walked the first hour or two, Cadour and R. riding
+behind with my mule, coming slowly down the steep, rocky ridge into the
+valley in which Tetuan lies. It was a bad bit of riding, a continuous
+descent, and the baggage-mules fell far behind: the rocky ravine was
+uncultivated and treeless, scrub and rocks only on the bare mountains.
+Sometimes a crest would have a saw edge against the sky, suggesting fir
+woods; but as a matter of fact every tree worth having which is not
+planted by a saint's tomb, and therefore holy, has long ago been made
+into fire-wood, no coal finding its way into the interior of Morocco, and
+mining being a thing unknown.
+
+At last the slopes gave on to more level ground and strips of
+cultivation: we had our first view of Tetuan, at that distance little
+more than a streak of white lying in the shelter of the hills.
+
+It was better going; and R. having jogged on some way ahead, I waited for
+Cadour, climbed into my saddle, and caught her up. Here and there,
+perched on each side of us, far above in the mountains, wherever an oasis
+of green lay between sheltering cliffs, a village had sprung up, an
+irregular cluster of brown-and-white huts, thatched with cane, weathered
+to shades of brown, the whole pile hedged with grey aloes and cactus, on
+the steep mountain-side--also brown--where, unless looked for, they could
+easily have been passed over altogether.
+
+These were the only signs of man; for Tetuan shared the speciality of the
+fondak the night before, in vanishing behind intervening hills and never
+growing any nearer. But the mules this time were fresher, or we had
+learnt the art of keeping them up to the mark; they broke into a canter,
+and scampered across the rich-looking flats bordering the river Wad
+Martil. The Wad Martil is the proud possessor of one of the seven bridges
+which the Empire of Morocco can show--a somewhat quaint construction, but
+a _bona-fide_ stone bridge: no carriage could have crossed it; the middle
+cobble-stones were so steep and rough that they amounted to rocks. But
+Morocco knows not carriages, and at least it was a bridge.
+
+Once across, Tetuan was not more than a few miles off.
+
+Seen from any height, it is one of the whitest cities in the world, and
+the whitewashed walls lend themselves to flat shadow as blue as the sky
+above. Tetuan has been described as "a cluster of flat-backed white
+mice, shut up in a fortress in case they should escape": it has also
+been likened to Jerusalem, with "the hills round about." For my own part,
+it was like nothing I had seen, nor was prepared then and there to
+classify--this heap of chalk, this white city. Not a particle of smoke
+floated over it: purity and sunlight alone were suggested by the outside
+of the platter. The Moor has a weakness for whitewashed houses, for long
+white garments, for veiled women: there shall be no outer windows in his
+house, nor in his own private life. Ugliness there may be, enough and to
+spare, inside these white cities--it oozes out sometimes; but as far as
+possible let a haik and a blank wall enshroud it all in mystery.
+
+None can fix the age of Tetuan: once upon a time the city was on the
+seashore--now seven miles of flats lie between, and crawling mules and
+donkeys link the two, working backwards and forwards, week in, week out,
+jogging down with empty packs to the cargo-steamers, and labouring back
+across deep-flooded country half the year, under solid burdens, to the
+city. From the flat roof-tops the weekly visit of a merchant-vessel is
+duly looked for, and a long black steamer lies at anchor for the day in
+the narrow ribbon of blue sea seen to the east, near the white Customs
+House, which stands back from the beach.
+
+[Illustration: CLOUDS OVER TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 44._]
+
+Southwards Tetuan faces the Riff country, range after range of mountains,
+inhabited by that indomitable tribe, whose "highlands" are closed to
+Europeans. The river Wad Martil, between Tetuan and _the Riff_, winds
+across the seven miles of flats to the sea, and is fordable in two or
+three places except in heavy rains; and days "in the mountains"--safe
+within sight of the city--promised us many an expedition, and opened up
+another world of heights foreshadowed and gulfs forbidden, where the
+hours were all too short.
+
+Behind Tetuan to the north, the mountainous Anjera country, wild, bare
+hills abut upon the very city wall.
+
+The name _Tetuan_ means in Arabic "The eyes of the springs," and all over
+the city water gushes out of the limestone rock--the hardest water, I
+submit, that ever mortal tried to drink. Such a supply is worth a kingdom
+to an Eastern city. Every tank, fountain, and _hummum_ (Turkish bath) has
+its never-failing supply, gratis, from the heart of the hills. The little
+streets are watered by it, and the sewage carried off on the lower side
+of the city in a strong current, which--still useful--works primitive
+corn-mills under the wall on the south side, where a sack receives the
+flour from a couple of flat revolving stones. A miller was robbed the
+other night asleep by his sack: the door burst open, and he expected a
+bullet, but was let off with a clout on the head and the confiscation of
+his sack.
+
+Having ground the corn, sewage and all is conducted over the land, and
+enriches the fertile apricot- and peach-orchards, corn-fields and
+vineyards. The great orange-gardens lie beyond in the rich river-deposit.
+There is no want of fruit round Tetuan: May sees pomegranates, apricots,
+peaches, figs, prickly pears, in due course; September brings the grape
+season; acres upon acres of gardens are covered with green muscats
+ripening on the dry ground, and protected from the sun by branches strewn
+over the plants.
+
+West of the city, upon which side we rode in, there are fewer orchards
+and more fields. Since crossing the Wad Martil a string of travellers had
+caught us up and passed us: a soldier as escort led the way; a rich Jew
+ambled on a fat brown mule hard behind; a muleteer and three starved
+mules laden with Isaac's worldly goods brought up the rear.
+
+The muleteer, a happy fellow in a brown jellab, sang all the way, as he
+rode sideways on his beast. He begged a match from Cadour, produced a
+ragged cigarette from inside his turban, and lit it skilfully in the
+wind: he probably lived chiefly on cigarettes, kif, and green tea, eating
+when there was bread; he was lean and sun-dried as a shred of tobacco,
+would sleep in snatches and often, his jellab-hood over his face to keep
+off the sun or the dew.
+
+We got very near a pair of snowy _ibis_, or cow-birds, as they are
+called, attending on two grazing cows. White as geese, parading about on
+black stilt-like legs, which raise them a foot or more off the ground,
+they have yellow bills and a slightly puffed throat, in flight extending
+their long legs behind them. Cow-birds wage war on the parasites of
+mules, donkeys, oxen, and sheep, hopping about the fields and dropping
+down on to their backs: they are never shot.
+
+Morocco is by no means short of bird life. Only that morning, as we rode
+along, we saw several pairs of whinchats, any number of crested larks,
+some plover, pied and grey wagtails, starlings, and a sand-martin.
+Starlings in Morocco fly literally in clouds like smoke, blackening the
+sky wherever they are surging and wheeling. A single shot into the middle
+of a flock has brought down from sixty to seventy of them.
+
+We jogged up the last yard of rocky path, and found ourselves in front of
+Tetuan in rather less than four hours after leaving the fondak, to the
+satisfaction of Cadour: it was an improvement on the day before. This
+ornament of the cavalry had now come out in a clean white turban, in view
+of entering the city: he puzzled us at this point by leading the way off
+the road to a white wall in the middle of the field, behind which
+travellers occasionally camp, devout people pray, and sheep are
+slaughtered at the time of the Great Feast. Here he produced our
+luncheon. But we, in the innocence of our hearts, would "lunch at a cafe"
+in Tetuan, after calling at the British Consulate and leaving our letters
+of introduction: this, with signs and a Spanish word or two, was brought
+home to Cadour, and we turned back, skirted the white city wall, reached
+a gate built in an angle, and rode in under the archway, passing a few
+figures in jellabs reclining and talking beside a great stone
+water-trough, which was running with fresh water.
+
+Following one of the worst-paved streets upon Allah's earth, whose
+slippery rocks and pools of brown manure-water offered no tempting
+footpath, the first Union Jack we had seen for many a long day appeared
+above a wall and spoke _Britain_: towards it we made our way. A soldier
+in a long dark blue cloak and high-peaked red fez was sitting at the
+Consul's office door: he took our letters of introduction, and, without
+our being able to explain ourselves in Arabic, insisted on ushering us
+straight into the presence of the Consul--Mr. W. S. Bewicke.
+
+We found him surrounded with papers and cigarette-ends: he would most
+hospitably take no denial in the matter of lunch, but made us come into
+the house at once. His long, narrow dining-room was flanked by a small
+kitchen; above, the same shaped, long, narrow sitting-room was flanked by
+a small bedroom; a flight of narrow, steep stairs divided all four rooms,
+and completed the Consulate: this simple plan is usual in a Moorish house
+of the sort, and admirably adapted for the Eastern habits of the people.
+The Consul considered it inadequate. A sunny, walled garden lay in front;
+big orange- and banana-trees, both covered with fruit, shaded precious
+seedlings; a large tank, filled with gold-fish, took up much space under
+the windows; and in the background a high cane fence penned in turkeys,
+geese, ducks, and chickens, scratching and squabbling under orange-trees.
+There are no grassy lawns in these gardens: they are devoted to fruit,
+shrubs, and flowers, bisected into equal divisions by tiled or grass
+paths.
+
+People in Morocco, as all the world over, collect curiosities _nolens
+volens_. Mr. Bewicke's dining-room was no exception. Guns from the Riff,
+eight feet long; brass powder-horns, knives, daggers, pistols, engraved
+and inlaid with silver, ivory, and coral; a long brass horn, once blown
+from the top of the mosque, sacred and difficult to get; copper vessels,
+pots, pans, jugs, bowls; blue china from Fez; quaint Jewish candelabra
+and lamps; brown and white native pottery,--all found a place.
+
+A young Riffian named Mohr acted as butler, a coffee-and-cream-coloured
+boy, with a girlish face and a head with a close weekly shave, all except
+one long love-lock, which, combed out, fell over one ear in a glossy
+brown curl. It is worn by all Riffs as good Mussulmans, and serves a
+double purpose, that of scalp-lock when the head is decapitated by
+enemies and borne by the lock instead of by the mouth, and that of
+handle, by which Azrael, the Angel of Death, carries the body to heaven
+on the last day. Mohr wore a Riff turban of brown string, several yards
+long, wound round and round his head, a white tunic and belt: his legs
+were bare; and leaving his yellow slippers behind him on the threshold,
+he moved noiselessly round the table with gracious manners, and, when he
+spoke, made nonchalant gestures with his hands.
+
+Had we come a few days earlier, we should have fallen in with a thousand
+men from the Beni Has`san tribe, who had come down to pay their respects
+to the new _basha_ (governor) of Tetuan, and to offer him presents.
+
+They had fired off a good deal of blank powder, and a stray bullet or two
+into the Consul's garden door; had rushed about the _feddan_
+(market-place), discharging their guns; and had thrown stones at some
+one. On their way to Tetuan the thousand odd had pillaged right and left,
+stealing fruit and robbing houses. Finding some women washing, they stole
+the clothes, and report said two women as well. At last twenty of them
+were caught and put into prison, after which the nine hundred and eighty
+marched back to their own country.
+
+Lunch over, we walked with Mr. Bewicke into the city. While Tangier might
+be called an anaemic copy of a Moorish town, Tetuan has the strength of a
+_bona-fide_ life-study, and all that is curiously beautiful, strangely
+obscure, is unsparingly suggested. The longer a European lives there, the
+more the paradoxes in Moorish life force themselves upon him, and the
+more tangible grow certain intuitions which his surroundings convey.
+
+It is not only such contradictions as lie on the surface--the squalor of
+some filthy fondak, the emaciated raw-skinned donkeys, the bent-backed
+women, rubbing shoulders with the white-scented robes, the sleek mules,
+the luxurious tiled houses--these a blind man could see: the
+under-currents which will puzzle an Englishman more the longer he lives
+there are known to those only who have dwelt much in Morocco, and they
+belong by every right to a life which is drawn to the letter in "The
+Arabian Nights."
+
+The ramifications of the narrow streets in Tetuan would take a quarter of
+a lifetime to master, and then an unexplored alley might be found, though
+it is easy to walk across the entire length or breadth of the city in ten
+minutes. Down a dozen intricacies we dived with Mr. Bewicke, through a
+labyrinth, half dark in places, where houses built overhead shut out the
+sun. Looking along the narrow streets, the buildings jostle one another,
+and the flat blank walls slope backwards out of the upright, at every
+turn a haphazard colour-scheme in white and mauve and chocolate, in blue
+and ochre and cream.
+
+Here a long dark tunnel opens into sunlight and shops on each side, with
+great vines trailed on trellis-work--like a pergola--overhead, and
+sunlight in blotches on the cobbled paving below: there, just beyond, the
+_Slipper Quarter_, and we find ourselves in the thick of the tap-tap of
+the mallets on the hard-hammered leather--dozens of busy little shops on
+each side, lined with yellow matting, and hung from top to floor with
+rows of lemon-yellow slippers for the men, rose-red slippers for women,
+embroidered slippers for the wealthy, crimson slippers for slaves,
+slippers with heel-pieces and slippers without. In each shop a man and
+boys at work: the white turbans and dark faces bending over the leather,
+the coloured jellabs which they wear, the busy hard-white-wood mallets in
+the deft brown hands, even the waxed thread, the red jelly which glues
+the soles together, the gimlets, the sharp scissors, have a passing
+fascination for the wandering Moor himself, who sits down lazily in front
+and talks to the workers. Still more for ourselves. Leather bags are
+being sewn next door and ornamented with work in coloured leather and
+silks. Within hearing of the "tap-tap" lies the skin-yard, and the skins
+are scraped and tanned and dyed and turned into slippers all in the same
+square acre or two, whence they depart many of them for Egypt and supply
+the Cairo bazaars.
+
+A few steps farther, and there is a steady clanking of hammers on anvils,
+beating out hot iron--the _Blacksmiths' Quarter_. Not the old turbaned
+blacksmiths nor boys with shaved heads, in tunics grimed with age, and
+leather aprons sewn with red leather, nor the primitive bellows and
+quaint iron points, all being beaten out for the ploughs, are the
+features of the Blacksmiths' Quarter; but the sheep. Every forge has its
+sheep, every shop its pen like a rabbit-hutch, made out of the side of a
+box, where the sheep lives when it is not lying just at the threshold of
+the shop in the sun, beside a half-finished meal of bran in a box. Sheep
+after sheep, tame and fat, take up half the room in the street: there are
+sometimes a few hens, often a tortoiseshell cat curled up on a sack, but
+to every shop there is always a sheep fattening, as no other animal in
+Morocco fattens, against the _Aid-el-Kebeer_ (the Great Feast), when
+every family kills and eats its own mutton.
+
+The little shops in Tetuan group themselves together more or less. There
+is another quarter where sieves are made, a corner where baskets and the
+countrywomen's huge straw hats are plaited, another where carpenters
+congregate, and an open square where rugs, carpets, and curios cram the
+shops, and so on.
+
+We left the warm heat from the glowing cinders and the cascade of sparks,
+and walked on into the _feddan_ (market-place), which was teeming with
+women from the hills and villages round, come in to sell provisions.
+
+The _Jews' Quarter_ lies on one side of the feddan, shut in by a gate at
+night and locked--a squalid, noisy, over-populated spot, where the
+worst-kept donkeys and most filth are to be met with. Tetuan is a clean
+city: on every animal killed the "butchers" have to pay a tax; the tax
+goes towards the sweeping of the streets once a week, and towards their
+paving--that is, if the basha is conscientious: the last basha ate and
+drank the tax.
+
+A gutter runs down the middle of the streets, where chickens are killed,
+and the heads and uneatable parts of flesh, fish, and fowl thrown. Mules
+and donkeys walk along the gutter, while foot-people flatten themselves
+against the walls. A well-laden mule fairly absorbs the width of the
+little streets.
+
+The condition of these wretched transport animals is not due so much to
+wanton cruelty as to neglect, and to a callousness bred of long
+familiarity. A Moor will not trouble to prevent his beasts having sore
+backs and fistulated withers and raw hindquarters, any more than he sees
+that his children are warmly clad and suitably fed. Fond of both, he is
+foolish and apathetic, treating his mules roughly, cramming them with
+unnecessary food or neglecting them, and invariably working them till
+they drop.
+
+One or two little cafes we passed round the feddan, and banished any
+connection between them and lunch for ever and a day.
+
+A little room in the shade hung with yellow matting, no chairs, but a
+wide divan at the far end, where a few Moors sat cross-legged or
+reclined, smoking long pipes of soothing kif, and eating the pernicious
+haschisch--this constitutes a cafe. A few of the Moors are playing cards;
+the rest look on. A dome-shaped pewter teapot, filled with a brew of
+steaming tea, stands on a low table, with a painted glass beside it half
+full of mint, which a freckled boy in a coarse jellab fills up from the
+teapot to the brim and puts to his lips; then he lights a cheap
+cigarette. A great urn, with an oil lamp under it, stands in one corner.
+
+No self-respecting Moor patronizes these cafes: he is the most fanatical
+of Mohammedans in a land reputed to be more strictly religious than any
+Eastern country. In public he observes his Prophet's laws, only
+indulging _sub rosa_ in smoking--"eating the shameful," as it is called.
+
+Mohammed knew very well that Eastern peoples drink to get drunk, and
+smoke and eat opium for the purpose of intoxicating their senses. _Kif_,
+a herb something like hemp, produces this effect on the brain. He
+therefore forbade both.
+
+When a Moorish "swell" wants to amuse himself, instead of passing the
+time at a cafe he goes out for the day into the country. There is
+generally an expression of perfect satisfaction with life as he finds it,
+on his lineless biscuit-coloured face and in his brown agate eyes--a
+content seldom expressed under the top-hats in the Park. Time is to him
+no "race": he drifts easily down the years; knows no other home than, it
+may be, Tetuan; nor is conscious that Tetuan sleeps, as it has slept for
+ages, curled up, underneath the towering hills, white, petrified, like
+Lot's wife.
+
+Still down more streets, and on towards the Belgravia of the city we
+walked, leaving steaming little hot-fritter shops, where _sfins_ are
+fried in oil and eaten with honey, where cream tarts may possibly be made
+and honeyed cakes, and crisp pastry prepared with attar of roses, and
+candied musk lemons, and dates mixed with almond paste. We left the
+fried-fish shops and fried spitted-meat shops behind, whence emerge
+_kabobs_--second only to _coos-coosoo_--and a smell indescribable; and we
+wound down tortuous alleys, past quiet windowless houses, whose great
+painted doors, yellow and brown, studded with enormous nails and
+knockers, spoke respectability.
+
+Never a straight street for six yards. Here an angle with a door; turn
+down under an archway: there a tiny branching alley, which we follow:
+here another door; plunge down the opposite way. A woman passes us with
+a friend, walking as only women in Morocco walk--figures in creamy haiks
+of the finest wool, which swathe them entirely from top to toe like a
+sheet, a pair of eyes barely showing between the folds. At the bottom of
+the haiks a flash of colour obtrudes, tomato in one, beetle-green in the
+other, and filmy muslin over both, which in their turn allow a glimpse of
+ankles wrapped round in snowy linen folds--rose-pink, gold-embroidered
+slippers completing the whole, suggestive of a tea party.
+
+A yard farther and we pass _El-Jama-el-Kebeer_ (the Big Mosque), which,
+unlike that at Tangier, stands with its doors wide open, but in front of
+which no infidel may linger. There was a vision of a cool tiled courtyard
+and splashing fountains of white marble and clean yellow matting, of
+endless tiled pillars vanishing into shade. There are saint-houses in the
+city where women are allowed to pray, but only upon one night in the
+whole year in El-Jama-el-Kebeer--a field-day among the wives and
+concubines, who flit like white moths through the darkness in flocks to
+worship, carrying red-and-blue lanterns.
+
+At last we reached the house of the Moor upon whom Mr. Bewicke intended
+us to call--a specimen of the best Moorish houses.
+
+Alarbi Abresha has been nicknamed "the Duke of Westminster"--the
+wealthiest man in Tetuan. A slave responded to the hammer of the great
+knocker, demanded who knocked, and then opened the door. Alarbi Abresha
+was out; but his son, a youth badly marked with small-pox, received us,
+dressed in a jellab of pale blue, tasselled, and worked in white. Mr.
+Bewicke asked after _the house_. No one in Morocco inquires after the
+wife or family distinctively.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+ALARBI ABRESHA'S HOUSE.
+
+[_To face p. 54._]
+
+A long passage led us into a large _patio_ (courtyard), in which
+orange-trees were growing. It was open to the sky, the floor tiled
+with shining tesselated tile-work; a marble fountain rippled in the
+middle: the dado round the four walls, the three rows of pillars which on
+all sides supported the gallery above--all were tiled in the same mosaic
+of small saffron-yellow, powder-blue, and white tiles, which are baked,
+coloured, and glazed in primitive potteries outside the city, and made
+only in Tetuan and Fez. A Moorish house is the essence of purity and
+light, with its whitewashed walls, its absence of all stifling furniture,
+and its capability of being sluiced down from top to bottom every day
+with rivers of water by barefooted slaves.
+
+"The Duke" had spared no dollars to make his house beautiful. Of the
+triple row of arches, supported by the pillars round the patio, the
+outside row was a plain horse-shoe, the inner toothed, the inmost carved.
+Through an avenue of pillars the rooms all round the patio look out upon
+the fountain and the orange-trees. Slaves occupied them. The kitchen also
+and the hummum are always on the ground floor. We were taken up to the
+first floor by the tiled staircase, with a plaster fan-shell ceiling, and
+were shown into the best room--the room belonging to the master of the
+house. The tiled floor was hidden by an ugly modern French carpet in
+strips: white and coloured mattresses were laid all round the walls upon
+the floor instead of chairs. Two immense brass bedsteads stood in
+recesses, blue silk four-posters; a great cushioned mattress on the
+carpet beside the bed is reported to be used by the wife; a slave will
+often sleep in the same room. The lower half of the whitewashed walls was
+hung with ancient silk brocaded hangings, a long-forgotten relic of the
+old wandering life as nomad Arabs, and still used by Arabs for the
+insides of their tents. The richer the owner, the better his silk
+hangings: the design is invariably a succession of horse-shoe arches,
+more or less embroidered, and giving the rooms a warm, luxurious air. In
+the mosques very fine mats are used; in ordinary houses, cafes, and
+shops, yellow matting lines the walls. Above the old hangings the Duke
+had hung a line of immense and tawdry gilt-framed mirrors. There were
+clocks in the room to the number of ten, some of them going; two inlaid
+cabinets; three cases of artificial flowers under glass; a great wooden
+coffer--the wife's property--holding a wardrobe of clothes; a gun on one
+of the walls; a rosary; a thermometer made in Germany: these were the
+only knick-knacks. Moorish rooms combine bedroom with sitting-room, but
+are devoid of washing-apparatus, tables, chairs, books, or pictures.
+Bathing is done in the hummum or in the courtyard of the mosque; of books
+there are none; while pictures Mohammed forbade, as inclined to lead to
+idolatry. Query: have many artists been lost to the world in fourteen
+hundred years among a sect numbering a hundred millions?
+
+The ceiling and woodwork of the room were painted in barbaric, gaudy
+hues, which mellow with age and "tone" like a faded Kashmir shawl. A row
+of tiled pillars divided the room lengthwise, and raised the inner half a
+step above the outer: it was immensely lofty, lighted by the great double
+doors only, which stood wide open on to the patio. Glass is not used in
+Morocco: the windowless rooms are aired by the unfastened doors which
+look on to the patio, itself open to the winds of heaven. The outside
+world can have little idea of the life going on within the courtyard
+house: there is much seclusion therein, in fitting harmony with the
+spirit of Morocco.
+
+Fireplaces do not exist, though from December to March the thermometer
+has sometimes, on single occasions, touched freezing-point at night.
+Earthenware pans of charcoal, used for cooking, can be carried upstairs
+for warmth.
+
+The other rooms in Alarbi Abresha's house were all more or less replicas
+of the best room shorn of its gilt. As the laws of the Medes and
+Persians, so is the arrangement of the mattresses (_divans_) round the
+walls inside a Moorish house.
+
+A Moor does not spend his day indoors. He eats and sleeps at home, but is
+otherwise sitting talking with his friends in the city, or in his shop,
+or out at his garden-house or fields.
+
+He eats in any one of the divanned rooms in which he happens to be at the
+time, his rule being to "sleep where you will and eat where you will." A
+slave carries in his dish of meat on a tray, and puts it on a table four
+inches in front of the divan. Beef, mutton, and chicken are cooked in oil
+till they fall apart and can be eaten with the fingers. He eats
+vegetables and fruit, murmurs a "B`ism Allah" beforehand and a
+"Hamdoollah" (God be praised) at the end; washes his hands; drinks green
+tea, or begins his meal with it and bread of fine white flour. His wife
+has the refusal of the dish after her lord, never eating with him; and
+the slaves follow her. As many as five dishes may be brought up at a
+meal; and the master of the house, sampling each, chooses which he will
+eat, and sends the rest away. If he has a guest, it is the height of
+politeness to select small pieces off the dish and put them within the
+guest's reach, or, still better, into his mouth.
+
+Moors, unless they are wealthy men, eat "by the eye"--that is, not
+according to what they require, but according to that they see set before
+them: frequent hiccups express gratification at hospitality received,
+accompanied by "Hamdoollah." The amount which a Moor can eat is
+prodigious. There was a man at Fez who was reverenced as a saint by his
+neighbours, because he had been known to eat a hundredweight of
+_coos-coosoo_ (porridge) and a whole sheep at a sitting.
+
+Alarbi Abresha, Junior, meanwhile, took us on into his father's
+guest-house, a suite of magnificent rooms, decorated in execrable taste,
+the barbaric glories of the old Moorish style giving place to modern
+French vulgarity. A courtyard house can be a strange mixture. Its
+woodwork, possibly _arrar_, a cypress of beautiful grain, scented like
+cedar, cinnamon-coloured, and immensely hard (out of which the Roman
+patricians cut their precious tables, valued at their weight in gold if
+as much as four feet wide: beams of arrar put into the Cordovo Mosque by
+the Moors a thousand years ago still exist); its old silk hangings; its
+tiles, kept polished like jet, and never desecrated by anything harder
+than a slippered sole,--all alike are the finest relics of a taste which
+ruled in the construction of the Alhambra, where Mauresque design is seen
+at its best. The aristocrats of Tetuan are descendants of the old
+Andalusian families, who, having left Morocco and invaded Spain, settled
+there, built the Alhambra, were in the course of time driven back over
+the seas, and took refuge in Tetuan and other coast towns. Their very
+title-deeds, together with the keys of their houses in Granada, are still
+in the possession of their descendants in Tetuan.
+
+While the best work in the courtyard houses of to-day harks back to the
+brave days of Spain, the Moor of the twentieth century has less of the
+vitality and originality which distinguished his forefathers, and he is
+apt to mix cheap up-to-date decoration with the patio and the windowless
+wall, of which the Duke's guest-house may stand for an example.
+
+When the great door had shut behind us, and we were outside in the
+street again, it seemed both narrow and prosaic after the sunny patio,
+with the yellow-fringed orange-trees almost branching into the rooms, and
+the fitful accompaniment of running water, dear to the Moorish ear.
+
+In the course of the afternoon Mohammed, Ali, mules, and baggage put in
+an appearance, and we found them waiting in the feddan, anxious to put
+our tents up in the middle of the noisy, crowded sok, where the wind,
+which had dropped but little, was whirling dust round in clouds, and
+where we should have been the centre of a staring throng--at the same
+time, an ideal place in the servants' eyes, suggesting cafes and
+conversation the whole night through. The camping-ground which "the
+infidel" selects is an insoluble puzzle to the Moor, and they went off
+mystified and disappointed, under orders from the Consul to pitch the
+tents outside the city.
+
+Later on we followed, by a street redolent and sweet with honey, of which
+a great quantity had just come in from the Riff country, leading to
+_Bab-el-Aukla_ (the Gate of Wisdom), so called because the elders of the
+city, the wise men, used to sit outside on some of the great rocks: a
+fine two-storied, square-shaped gateway, with a pointed arch and toothed
+ornament above it. Three little windows overlook the arch; the black
+noses of small cannon protrude in a long row out of the white parapeted
+walls; a flagstaff tops the whole, and flies the crimson streamer of
+Morocco. A line of sea-green tiling beneath the cannon breaks the flat
+wall, where the heads of turbulent tribesmen hang occasionally, sent over
+from some neighbouring raid by the Sultan's orders, and first salted by
+the Jews in the city, _nolens volens_. The cobbles were slippery under
+the gate. The huge, heavy wooden doors, studded with iron bolts, are
+barred and locked every night half an hour after sunset. Inside, looking
+back, just at the parting of two streets, a great white wall faced us,
+topped with green tiles, grass-grown; below, a horse-shoe arch, somewhat
+in relief, belted with coloured tiles, defaced by age, contained a long
+solid stone trough, into which two spouts of water gushed--never dry in
+this city of springs. Mules and donkeys and country-folk all stop and
+drink, and the front of the trough is carved.
+
+Bab-el-Aukla is the finest gate in the city.
+
+Go where you will in Tetuan, at every turn water bubbles into time-worn
+and artistically moulded troughs and basins, under quaint arches, tiled
+in blue and brown and white. In the narrow winding street-ways, between
+the houses, half dark, still the bubbling of water is heard, and the
+shining wet trough seen.
+
+As we left the city and walked down the sandy road which leads to the
+sea, our tents lay a quarter of a mile off, two white spots, pitched on
+grass just off the road, the mules picketed by them.
+
+We had a somewhat light meal at six o'clock, Mohammed's chicken turning
+out like hammered leather. He was no cook.
+
+[Illustration: OUR CAMP OUTSIDE TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 60._]
+
+An Arabic proverb says, "What is past is gone, and the future is distant;
+and to thee is the hour in which thou art." It was obviously never
+intended by the Creator that mankind should make plans. Morocco may have
+its drawbacks, but it is at least one of those few and blessed spots
+where it is waste of time to plan: life is a matter of to-day, and
+
+    To-morrow?--Why, To-morrow I may be
+    Myself with Yesterday's Seven Thousand Years.
+
+Thus some time that evening, when, after coping unsuccessfully with
+the chicken, it struck R. and myself that Tetuan had attractions over and
+above the head of Tangier, we settled then and there to stay on at Tetuan
+as long as we liked the place, though the weather looked very much like
+rain, not at all like camping out, and we had no clothes with us to speak
+of.
+
+Overcoming or ignoring these difficulties, we finally decided to pay off
+our three men, send them back by themselves to Tangier with the tents and
+camp outfit, write to the Villa Valentina, pay our bill, have our boxes
+packed up and sent over to us at Tetuan by muleteer, and move ourselves
+into the Spanish _fonda_ (inn) inside the city. Thus were we left for the
+next six days with one clean collar apiece.
+
+In Tangier there had been some speculation on the elasticity of the
+Spartan wardrobes which we had brought out from England, at a moment when
+the dread of a vast impedimenta happened to lie strong upon us. In Tetuan
+such panics bury themselves. The slimmest wardrobe will suffice. A
+country's own materials, whether home-spun of Kashmir or sheep-skin coat
+of Afghanistan, naturally meet its requirements best: deficiencies are
+easily supplied, and later on we lived in mufti off the backs of Tetuan
+sheep.
+
+Lying in bed in the early morning before it was light, duck were to be
+heard calling up the river; and, breakfast over, we strolled down to the
+banks, where the thick green orange-trees on the opposite side bore a
+crop of cow-birds, sitting like a covey of white cockatoos on the tips of
+the branches among the golden oranges, so thick and snowy that the tree
+might well have burst into abnormal flower.
+
+By nine o'clock the camp was struck, and we had burnt our ships: the last
+of the five mules, three men, and baggage tailed off out of sight along
+the road to Tangier.
+
+Under a cloudy sky, prophesying rain, we walked into the city to look for
+quarters: better, perhaps, a fonda in Tetuan than a tent at the fondak in
+wet weather.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DIFFICULTIES OF "LODGINGS" IN MOROCCO--A SPANISH FONDA--A MOORISH TEA
+PARTY--POISON IN THE CUP--SLAVES IN MOROCCO--EL DOOLLAH--MOORISH
+CEMETERY--RIDE TO SEMSAR--SHOPPING IN TETUAN--PROVISIONS IN THE CITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+     This by God's grace is _El Moghreb_--Morocco--and here a wise man
+     is surprised at nothing that he sees and believes nothing that he
+     hears.
+
+
+IT is not easy to find a lodging in Morocco: there are no _dak
+bungalows_--no large white English residences, with the familiar and
+hospitable _Burra Sahib_, a retinue of servants, spare horses, and a
+spacious bedroom at the disposal of the unexpected guest. Hotels, except
+at Tangier, are impossible for any length of time, unless to the vagaries
+of Spanish or Jewish cookery the heart can harden itself.
+
+We steeled our souls, assisted by the grateful sense of freedom from all
+petty society functions, which in the nature of things are unknown in a
+city where one vice-consul, six women missionaries, and a post-office
+alone represent the British flag--where there is no English doctor, no
+English church.
+
+Tetuan met all our needs: the only question was where to live.
+
+Immediately outside its walls lies a land of gardens and orchards. Every
+Moor who can afford it has a garden, wherein he cultivates grapes and
+fruit-trees,--a dim reflection of that Paradise of his, which must be
+chequered with acres of shade cast by great rocks and gigantic
+olive-trees; which must be abundantly watered by running brooks of milk,
+honey, and wine; whose soil shall be flour, white as snow. The Moor's
+Garden of Eden reserved for the faithful after death bespeaks abundance
+and repose, differing but little from a certain Heaven of Epicures,
+wherein _pates de fois gras_ were eaten to the sound of trumpets.
+Somewhere in his garden outside Tetuan he builds himself a garden-house,
+to which in the summer he migrates with his wife and slaves and the
+children of both, his divans, carpets, and kitchen utensils: the town
+house is locked up and stands empty while he spends four or five months
+under his vines and figs.
+
+At the time we arrived in Tetuan--early December--not a garden-house but
+still lay empty; and naturally in their direction our longing eyes
+turned--an impossible desire, it was said, thereby clinching the resolve
+to make a superhuman effort to bring it to pass: between living in the
+city and a garden there could be no choice. In the meantime a Spanish
+fonda must constitute a make-shift until that came which is laid down for
+those who wait.
+
+Inside Tetuan two hotels presented themselves. With fonda number one we
+could not come to terms; it was not attractive-looking: we took a
+high-handed line and left. Fonda number two, after much haggling in
+Spanish, agreed to take us both at the modest sum of seven-and-sixpence a
+day, all included. No sooner was the bargain struck than a messenger
+arrived post-haste from fonda number one, to say that they would take us
+at our own terms. Their golden opportunity was lost. Report said fonda
+number one might be a trifle cleaner, but fonda number two had the better
+cook: the inside man carried the day in favour of number two.
+
+[Illustration: A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE.
+
+[_To face p. 66._]
+
+It was one among many flat-roofed whitewashed houses in the Moorish
+Quarter, in a street barely six feet wide. There was no outlook except
+from the roof-top, where the washing dried: there were no windows, the
+rooms depending for light upon double doors opening on to the tiny tiled
+patio--except in our own case, where the second room allotted to us was
+built over the top of the street, and had two windows cut in the walls by
+the Spanish occupants, neither of which quite shut, and provided us with
+an ample supply of air. The room beyond possessed dilapidated doors,
+which gave upon the patio. The patio was, of course, open to all the rain
+of heaven as well as to all the sun: it was the principal sitting-room of
+the family, where, downstairs, on fine days, they plucked chickens, made
+bread, washed, sat and received callers, did needlework and chattered; on
+wet days creeping disconsolately round the lake of water in the middle of
+the tiled floor, where the rain dropped--splash--taking refuge on one
+sheltered seat in company with three dogs, a cat, and a tame chicken, or
+retiring into the dark little rooms which surrounded the lake.
+
+The family comprised Spanish parents, married daughter and husband, three
+unmarried sisters, a brother, and a lodger--an old Spanish music-master.
+The fonda was run by the married daughter, a lady with a temper, who made
+everybody else work: her mother and one sister cooked; the second sister
+was busy with a trousseau and a young man; the third and
+prettiest--Amanda--waited on us. On the whole we were not uncomfortable,
+in spite of the Spanish element. Our rooms were clean: one afternoon we
+found a chicken sunning itself in a patch of sunlight on the floor of
+one--nothing worse. Dinner was sometimes, and Amanda was always, lacking
+in certain points to a critical eye. Sometimes it was a skirt, sometimes
+a petticoat, she wore: except on high days, it was doubtful and dependent
+upon chance threads and pins. All Amanda's blouses were low-necked,
+whatever the time of day: the stains and slits and remnants of torn
+frills were unique. She wore her sleeves turned up, and silver bangles on
+her arms. Amanda never buttoned her boots, and often put in an appearance
+with bare feet.
+
+But Amanda was redeemed by her head-dress and her manners. She wound a
+crimson shawl gracefully over her dark head, after the fashion of a
+mantilla, with an effect beyond reproach. Amanda had a gracious way of
+putting things: she bore herself with infinite dignity, and a
+_je-ne-sais-quoi_ which pointed to a mixed ancestry; she had well-shaped
+hands.
+
+At seven o'clock in the evening her knock preceded preparations for
+dinner, while she munched something or hummed a tune meanwhile. Seas of
+thin soup invariably preceded a dish of shapeless masses of "soup-meat,"
+garnished with boiled peas. The third course consisted of chicken or
+partridge: on less happy occasions foreign and "shudderous" dishes
+appeared; a peculiar jelly shell-fish was the lowest ebb--that and pork
+we resented. Last of all, a tall glass fruit-dish would arrive, the
+standard sweet--_flan_ (caramel pudding). Then a long pause. Finally,
+Amanda's step, with a great plate of hot toast and a tall tin coffee-pot:
+black coffee was the best part of the meal.
+
+A day or two after settling into the fonda we were asked to our first
+entertainment in a Moorish house. Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli wanted Mr. Bewicke
+and ourselves to "tea" with him.
+
+As in the case of "the Duke's" house, so here, all the womenkind were
+hidden away on account of the Consul. Mohammedans are jealous and
+suspicious of their wives and daughters to a degree, and strongly resent,
+if not prevent, an Englishman's going up on to the flat roof, lest he
+have a view of fair occupants beyond or below. Nevertheless, the wives
+always contrive to peep out of some loophole and see all there is to be
+seen.
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli received us all three alone, as a matter of course,
+and led us upstairs to his best room. Like many others among the better
+class of Moors, our host had a shop and himself sold groceries. At the
+same time his sister is the wife of one of the Ministers; and as there is
+no respect of persons in Morocco, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli might be called
+upon himself any day to fill a high official position, and be obliged to
+go, raising money, if he had not wherewithal to support the post, which,
+if a lucrative one, would soon repay the outlay.
+
+Trade at Tetuan, and apparently everywhere else over Morocco, is not what
+it once was: the old flintlocks, inlaid with silver wire and lumps of
+pink coral, are unknown since the last gun-maker died; snuff-nuts, even
+slippers, do but a small business. Living is more expensive than it was:
+it cost Hadj Mukhtar three shillings a day to feed himself and the whole
+household, he said.
+
+The room into which we went--our host leaving his yellow slippers in the
+doorway, and motioning us all to sit down on the divans round the
+walls--was hung with a silk dado, tiled in mosaic, and overlooked a
+good-sized patio with a running fountain.
+
+Our dirty boots compared unfavourably with the Hadj's clean, bare feet,
+which, as he sat down cross-legged on the white and embroidered cushions,
+were hidden underneath his voluminous garments; whereas ours, not to the
+manner born, contracted cramp, unless stuck out in an ungainly way.
+
+A gorgeously upholstered bed filled up one corner of the room; a gun hung
+on the wall. There was nothing else.
+
+Three little sons of the house and Mr. Bewicke's soldier-servant having
+followed us in and seated themselves, preparations for tea--already
+waiting, arranged in front of the divans on four brass trays, standing on
+four low tables a few inches high--began.
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, sitting on his heels in front of his tea-table,
+making tea with his thin brown hands, and presiding over it all with true
+Oriental dignity, was a veritable Moses or Aaron reincarnated. Women and
+men alike mature rapidly in this country, putting on flesh and becoming
+matronly and aldermanic without at the same time growing lined or aged: a
+wealthy man of twenty-five is portly and slow of movement--the result of
+Eastern habits coupled with the climate.
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, barely forty years old by his own account, had a
+white beard and moustache, no wrinkles, eyes of mild blue and benign
+expression, equally guileless and unfathomable.
+
+Talking in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, he drew the tray close to the low divan
+in front of him, saw that his sons provided cushions for our backs, and
+proceeded to wash the green tea in a bright nickel pear-shaped teapot,
+with water from the great brass urn which stood over a charcoal-burner:
+the washed tea was then transferred into a twin teapot, which the Hadj
+generously filled with immense lumps of sugar out of a glass dish
+standing on a tray by itself, stacked high with great blocks split off
+the cone with a hatchet. Heavy with lump sugar, a handful of mint and bay
+leaves was also crammed into the little remaining space in the teapot,
+the boiling water out of the urn was turned on over all, filling up every
+chink, the lid shut down upon the steaming fragrant brew, and the teapot
+set back upon the brass tray, the centre of a ring of tiny gilt and
+painted glasses.
+
+The eldest son--a boy of fourteen, dressed in red, and wearing a leather
+belt embroidered with blue, and a fez-bag fastened thereto to match,
+whose head had evidently had its weekly shave that afternoon--lit a lamp
+underneath a little incense-burner, filling it with sticks of
+sweet-scented wood, till an odoriferous blue smoke rose from it. With
+much care he carried the burner to us, and put it inside our coats,
+thoroughly impregnating every thickness with warmth and odours of
+cedar-wood. It was taken last of all to Mr. Bewicke's soldier, who
+manipulated it correctly as a Moor, putting it inside his flowing
+apparel, and sitting down with every fold closed in round him like a
+miniature tent, the burner smoking away inside. A scent-spray was then
+handed, with which we anointed ourselves in Moorish fashion, inside our
+hats, up our sleeves, and round our necks.
+
+Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli poured out tea with a great elevation of
+the teapot, raising his arm and showing greens and blues mixed to
+perfection underneath his _k`sa_--a white woollen or silk robe worn only
+by gentlemen--which, semi-transparent and gauze-like, fell in white waves
+over his shoulders on to the divan. Under the k`sa was a long garment
+with wide sleeves and buttoned all down the front--a _kaftan_--of
+sea-green cloth, embroidered with gold. The kaftan just revealed a
+waistcoat of a shade of blue, with gold and green buttons and embroidery.
+Underneath this, and above his white cotton shirt and drawers, he
+probably wore a woollen jacket. But greens and blues and gold were alone
+visible. Sometimes several kaftans or several jellabs are worn one on top
+of the other, all colours mixed, particularly if the owner is travelling.
+Moors are a wool-clad people for the most part, due to the wet winter
+climate: the men's brown woollen hooded jellabs keep out the rain more or
+less, and the women's white woollen haiks answer the same purpose.
+
+The Hadj turned up his sleeves as he made tea, the underside of them
+being embroidered for this purpose. It was ready by this time, and
+brought us on a brass tray by the eldest son. Though the little glasses
+are not capable of holding much, the violent sweetness and the flavour of
+mint prevent the uninitiated from doing justice to the regulation three
+cups which courtesy demands should be drunk. But it grows, even upon the
+European, that steaming golden-brown beverage, fresh and fragrant with
+sweet thymes, while something in the climate of Morocco tends to make
+sugar acceptable after a few weeks. We supplied ourselves with sponge
+cake, pounds of which were piled on a brass tray in front of us: sweet
+biscuits, toasted nuts, almonds, and raisins abounded on the same lavish
+scale; while a wicker basket, like a large waste-paper basket, was full
+of thirty or forty round cakes of bread, several sizes larger than a Bath
+bun, made of the finest semolina flour, flavoured with aniseed and baked
+a warm biscuit colour.
+
+The Hadj pressed third cups upon us, but with the innate breeding of
+every Moor understood the limited capacity born of early days in Morocco.
+A Moor is nothing if not courteous, and, whatever his real feelings,
+conceals them under polite speeches. He will, as somebody has said, "cut
+your throat _most politely, most politely_," or with profound urbanity
+offer you a cup of poison.
+
+Our host had sipped a first cup before allowing the tea to be handed
+round--a custom observed to assure the guest that the teapot was free
+from poison, and that no deadly drink was offered us, containing seeds
+which should propagate a horrible disease in the intestines, destroying
+life sooner or later. Poisoning is only too common among the Moors
+themselves, cases occurring almost every day in the country.
+
+Once, when Sir John Hay was having an angry discussion with a
+governor--Mokhta--coffee was brought in. Mokhta, as usual, took the cup
+intended for the Englishman, and put it to his lips, making a noise as
+though sipping it, but which sounded suspiciously like blowing into it,
+and then offering it to Sir John. Not fancying the bubbled coffee, he
+declined, saying to Mokhta, "I could not drink before you. Pray keep that
+cup yourself," and helping himself at the same time to the second cup,
+which he drank. Mokhta put down the cup which he had offered Sir John,
+and did not drink it.
+
+Some one in Tetuan dies every year of poisoning. Wives frequently kill
+their husbands. No two brothers, both in ministerial offices at Court,
+would dream of sitting down and eating together without precautions
+beforehand, on account of _the marked pieces_ in the dish. One brother,
+as he dines, may invite the other, who happens to enter, to join him in
+the meal; but he will reply, "I have already dined." _He dare not._
+
+Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli talked away in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, who
+translated for us. He said that Menebbi, the Minister of War who went
+over to England with the last embassy, and who is practically Prime
+Minister, lost a considerable amount of influence during the short two
+months he was away, but that he was rapidly gaining ground, and might be
+said to be completely restored to favour again. Menebbi is the only one
+of the Sultan's Ministers who is likely to help him to reform the
+Government of Morocco. A clever, crafty brain, the whole Court under his
+thumb, it yet needed but an absence of eight weeks to generate in that
+hotbed of Eastern intrigue such a tissue of false evidence and lies as
+nearly cost Menebbi his position, if not his life. His enemies possessed
+the Sultan's ear; every Menebbi had been removed from the army; he had
+probably not a single friend left in Morocco. With the fickleness of
+their race, his name was cursed at every street corner; and when spoken
+of, the people said, "There _is_ no Menebbi." Hurrying back from England,
+the tidings of his fall reached Menebbi when he landed at Mazagan: he was
+to be arrested. But the man they had to deal with was one of those few
+who make a full use of every opportunity life ever offers. From Mazagan
+to Morocco City, where the Court was, a distance of a hundred and forty
+miles, he had a relay of mules and horses posted, and he rode without
+stopping. There were dead and sorry beasts left on the road that day.
+Menebbi rode up to the cannon's mouth, so to speak: he need never have
+gone to Morocco City, but that would have meant his sinking into private
+life and his banishment from Court; he preferred to "play to the
+uttermost," and he staked life and fortune on the card he held. Things in
+Morocco City hung on an eyelash: the great man galloped in from Mazagan,
+went straight to the palace, never paused a moment, straight to the
+Sultan's private door, straight into the presence itself. And who shall
+say what Menebbi said to the Sultan through that night which he passed
+with him--what false accusations he refuted, what diplomacy he used? Next
+day Menebbi was not at prayers; he was "sick": in other words, he had
+tidings of a plot to kill him on his way to the mosque. However, in time
+he righted himself: now his enemies are under his heel, and Menebbi
+breathes again.
+
+The Hadj spoke of the great wish the Sultan has to visit England--an
+impossibility, for in the eyes of his fanatical subjects he would be
+countenancing the unbelievers, and his throne would be handed over to a
+successor: the throne to which he succeeded, for the first time in the
+history of Morocco, without having to fight his way to it--a fact owed to
+the Wazeer's sagacity. Keeping the death of the old Sultan secret for a
+few days, the Wazeer meantime bribed and forced the Ministers to accept
+the young heir as Sultan, hurried to Fez, summoned every citizen to the
+mosque, had the doors locked, proclaimed the news of the Sultan's death,
+and surprised or forced the whole mosqueful into swearing allegiance to
+the present ruler.
+
+So far the Sultan knows only two or three places in his whole kingdom,
+and has practically spent his life at one--Morocco City, or _Marrakesh_,
+as the Moors call it. Nor would his journeys be reckoned blessings by the
+unfortunate country through which he passed. Only able to move with an
+army, that army, without any commissariat or transport, feeding itself
+upon its march, wipes corn and food off the face of the land as a sponge
+wipes a slate. "Where the Sultan's horse treads the corn ceases to grow."
+He seldom travels with less than thirty thousand followers; and,
+supposing he is passing through a turbulent tribe, fights his way as he
+goes, leaving ruin and desolation behind. "They make a desert, and they
+call it peace."
+
+Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli had travelled considerably farther afield than his
+sovereign; he knew Genoa, Marseilles, Egypt, and of course Mecca. The
+Mussulman pilgrims passing through Constantinople on their way to Mecca
+this year are, he told us, very numerous, the Sultan having ordered the
+fares on the Massousieh Company's steamers to be reduced one-half for
+them. He thought that about two thousand Moors would be leaving Tangier
+in the early spring for the pilgrimage, returning some three months
+later. Neither the Hadj's sons nor Mr. Bewicke's soldier joined in the
+conversation, but continued steadily to consume tea, all eyes and ears.
+
+At last the trays were removed; and there being no co-religious eye to
+shock, Hadj Mukhtar indulged in a cigarette, while we puzzled him with a
+few tricks of balance and reach, which pleased him quite as much as his
+boys: everybody tried their hands, and finally the Hadj sent his eldest
+son for an old, heavy sword, and, squatting on the floor, showed us a
+clever piece of leverage with it and his thumb, which it was in vain to
+try and imitate.
+
+Watching our failures, he produced a snuff-box, a small cocoanut-shell,
+ornamented with little silver and coral knobs, with a narrow ivory
+mouthpiece, a stopper, and an ivory pin fastened to the cocoanut-shell to
+stir up the snuff inside--Tetuan snuff--noted for its pungent flavour.
+Hadj Mukhtar jerked the grains through the narrow mouthpiece into the
+hollow of the back of his thumb, where all Moors lay it, then lifted his
+hand up to his nose.
+
+Near the door hung his rosary of ninety-nine beads, reminding the pious
+Mussulman of the ninety-nine attributes of God. Each of the ninety-nine
+beads corresponds to the name of some holy man, and as the bead is passed
+along with the hand the saint's name is murmured. Curious that the use of
+rosaries in the Spanish Church is said to have been borrowed first of all
+from the Spanish Moors.
+
+The eldest son of our host was, his father told us, looking forward to
+beginning the Fast of Ramadhan this year--fasting, as he was only a
+novice, for half the day instead of the whole of it: evidently as much
+importance and excitement were attached to the prospect as later on would
+attend the boy's marriage. This same boy of fourteen is learning to
+write in Latin characters, for a Moor a most unusual and advanced step:
+at present he was only wearing a little red fez cap, not having reached
+the age of turbans, with all their dignified symmetry. The Kor[=a]n was
+all the literature the boy would ever know. Strange that a strong and
+sober people should have for ages confined their studies to the Kor[=a]n,
+an occasional Arab poet, and a sacred treatise or two. There is, as I
+have already said, no literature, no art, no science, in Morocco, and no
+architecture--the Kor[=a]n forbidding, it is said, research or study in
+any line except that of religion. Geography is entirely unknown. Like
+Moors in general, Hadj Mukhtar may have heard of London and Paris, and
+might know the names Germany and Russia, besides Mecca; but none of the
+former would have any connection or "place" in his mind, and Morocco must
+be, he is confident, the finest country under the sun. If it were brought
+home to him that his country is in a decadent condition, he would reply
+that at least it is good enough for him as it is; and that if Europeans
+were allowed to exploit it and to settle therein, the end would be
+prosperity for the Western civilization, and a knuckling-under on the
+part of the Moorish--which is true.
+
+We talked on upon one and another subject till it grew late, but before
+we left our host took R. and myself to see his wife, downstairs, in a
+smaller room. Five wives are allowed by Mohammed, but few Moors in Tetuan
+were rich enough to afford as many, and contented themselves with slaves.
+We were not impressed by the very plain, sallow-faced lady, with a black
+fringe and hard brown eyes, who shook hands with us, and from her
+likeness to the eldest boy was probably his mother. The second son was
+evidently by a slave: there was no mistaking that likeness--a fat, happy
+individual, the greatest contrast to another slave, who, though well
+dressed, was pale and miserable-looking. Two or three other corpulent,
+smiling blackamoors made up the sum-total of the party in the downstairs
+room--most comfortable, lounging on the cushions, they looked, no mean
+advertisements of Hadj Mukhtar's "table." The principal and favourite
+wife possessed a noisy sewing-machine, which she proudly displayed.
+
+Every Moor's establishment has its slaves--so many, according to his
+income: in Tetuan they are sold privately, and frequently exchanged one
+for the other, while the wives are as easily divorced. Every year
+something like three thousand slaves come into Morocco, chiefly from the
+Soudan: a few are stolen from Moorish tribes; the rest are brought in by
+Moorish traders, who catch them in various ways, such as scattering
+sweetmeats, or in hard times corn, round the villages, up to neighbouring
+coverts, just as a poacher at home entices pheasants with raisins, then
+pouncing out and carrying them off.
+
+As there are no such things as Moorish women-servants, negresses and
+slaves of various types step into the gap, and the evil of this influx of
+black blood is seen in the deterioration of a fine race, and the increase
+of the type which tends towards thick lips, low foreheads, and sensual
+tastes. The slavery of Christians in Morocco, once common, has been by
+treaty abolished since the day when the savage Sultan Mulai Ismael had
+eleven thousand Christian slaves in Mequinez employed in building his
+walls, whose bodies, when they succumbed, were mixed in with the stones
+and mud of the buildings. Slaves are not ill treated in the present day,
+though now and again one may be flogged to death as the result of fault
+or the malice and slander of a jealous fellow-slave: as a rule they live
+happily; and if a female slave bears a male child to her master, by a law
+in the Kor[=a]n both mother and son are _ipso facto_ freed, though they
+continue to live on in the same house.
+
+The last thing Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli showed us was his hummum, cunningly
+arranged to flank the kitchen fire at the back. A tiny room; but four of
+his wives and slaves could, he explained, take their bath in it at once.
+There was a small stone slab inside as a seat, and hot air came in by
+means of a pipe in one corner. The _hummum_, or Turkish bath, is partly
+enjoined by the Kor[=a]n and partly taken for its own enjoyment; it is a
+feature of every Moorish house of any pretension, and largely used by men
+and women.
+
+The evening was a dark one, and we picked our way back to the fonda by
+the light of lanterns: it is impossible to go out at night in Tetuan
+without carrying one; the streets are wholly unlit, and the refuse-heaps
+and central gutters unpleasant traps.
+
+Next morning R. and I strolled out of the city in the direction of Ceuta
+by way of the _Bab-el-M`kabar_ (the Gate of the Tombs). Just beyond this
+gateway congregates in the road _el doollah_ (the drove)--that is to say,
+the mules and donkeys belonging to any one in Tetuan who has no work for
+them on that particular day. They are all left by their owners at this
+spot in the care of a tall, tattered Moor, whose business in life is to
+look after them; and there they lie in the sandy road or lean up against
+the hot wall or each other, one of the saddest sights on God's earth,
+some of them infant two-year-olds, all of them overworked and starved.
+About midday the drover drives his charges off to the nearest grass--such
+as it is--and the ragged squad troops along the stony track without
+bridles and without spirit to abuse its freedom. They have none of them
+packs or saddles, unless their sore backs are too deeply aggravated to
+allow of exposure to the flies and dust; and in due time, one by one, the
+old or the dying drop tacitly out of the ranks; a couple of days--the
+scavenging dogs' work is done--and only a tangled knot of bones is kicked
+away from the roadside by the feet of the living generation, which have
+picked up the scantiest feed, and are straying back citywards again in
+the late afternoon, to be called for outside the Bab-el-M`kabar each by
+its owner.
+
+El doollah had not started; and leaving them all in the road below us, we
+passed the little knots of countrywomen who sit by the Bab-el-M`kabar
+selling myrtle for laying upon the graves, and wound our way uphill
+through the old Mussulman cemetery, with its quaint domed tombs and
+toothed, arched doorways, cracked, decayed, and yellow with lichen, half
+hidden among the tangle of bushes and wild flowers on the rough slope.
+
+The older of the tombs are probably those of the first Moors who fled
+from Spain in the days of that great _trek_ back to Morocco: a much later
+and very conspicuous dome belongs to a brave lady, who, not a hundred
+years ago, did her best to defend Tetuan against the Spaniards, fighting
+side by side with the Moorish troops, and, in the course of the siege,
+accounting for half a dozen Spaniards, thereby earning for herself in due
+course a Joan of Arc reputation and a public sepulchre.
+
+[Illustration: A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY.
+
+[_To face p. 80._]
+
+The cemetery was overgrown with _ayerna_ root, one of the commonest weeds
+in Morocco, poisonous when it is eaten raw, though it is possible, after
+boiling the root for ten or twelve hours, spreading it out to dry in the
+sun, and grinding it in a mill, to make a sort of bitter bread out of the
+flour, and to subsist upon that. This the poor do to a great extent,
+whenever corn runs short and they have nothing but roots and grasses to
+fall back upon: their pale yellow faces and emaciated bodies tell a tale
+of the ayerna root. We grubbed some up with a little difficulty in the
+stiff clay soil with nothing but sticks to help. Fifteen inches down we
+found the root, a small whitish bulb, the size of a bluebell root.
+
+There is much desolation about the old cemetery, with its crumbling
+ruins; but the sun struck a key-note of splendour, and turned the
+lichened stones into nuggets of gold.
+
+A black raven sat on a grey rock above us and croaked; below lay the
+white city--white beyond all English ideas of whiteness. Two tall
+minarets, with simple straight lines, only a mosaic of green tiling let
+into their flat faces, cut the peaks of the mountains beyond. At a
+quarter past twelve a little white flag slowly mounted to the top of each
+mosque; an infinitesimally small black figure appeared against the sky;
+then leaning over the parapet and looking down upon the humming city, a
+cry broke from the figure, and was carried over to us upon the wind--a
+cry which rose and fell, most musical, most sonorous: "Allah Ho
+Akbar--Allah Ho Akbar." The black dot moved round the parapet, and east
+and west and north and south chanted the great summons to the Faithful to
+prayer. And then the little white flag was hauled down.
+
+On the other side of the river the neutral-coloured villages could be
+picked out by their white saint-houses. Morocco is stuck as full of
+saints' tombs--fuller--than England of dissenting chapels. They stud the
+land. Moors rid themselves of much valuable energy in the erection, by
+countless thousands, of tombs to the memory of the eccentric or pious
+dead; and distances are measured, tracks marked, not from church to
+church as in Spain, nor from village to village as in England, but from
+saint-house to saint-house, each of which is village-green, club, or
+public-house rolled into one, where the men gossip, the pious read,
+travellers halt, offerings are brought the dead saint, and sick children
+arrive to be healed--all at a little whitewashed building with a dome
+like an oven outside, and a horse-shoe arch, an olive- or a fig- or a
+palm-tree, a flag-staff hung with morsels of rag, and often a spring of
+water. At four cross-tracks, instead of sign-posts, heaps of stones,
+cairns, are to be found, placed in such a way as to indicate the
+direction in which the next saint's tomb lies.
+
+A saint-house or two spot the green plain below the cemetery, which
+merges into the seven miles of flats stretching from the city to the sea,
+the haunt of wild duck, plover, and snipe, among wastes of coarse grass,
+marsh, and red tangle. Coils of grey river lie upon the flats: the very
+flatness over which the stream snakes is at once most strong--serene.
+
+As we walked down the hillside, a brown figure upon a flat-topped tomb
+was silhouetted against the plain: he raised himself, and then again
+prostrated his body to the earth, his face set to the distant belt of
+blue sea, worshipping towards Mecca.
+
+That afternoon we visited Semsar, a village two or three hours' ride from
+Tetuan, up in the mountains to the west. R. had a sedate brown mule with
+no idea of exerting himself: my mount was a clever little grey, nervous
+and rather handy with his heels, nearly kicking me more than once when I
+dismounted or mounted carelessly. We rode, as usual, on the high-peaked
+Moorish saddles, covered with scarlet cloth, such as every Moor uses--the
+stirrup-leathers of twisted scarlet silk, several thick saddle-cloths
+underneath, the girths never drawn, the saddle only kept from slipping
+over head or tail by scarlet britching and breastplate. It is impossible
+to mount unless the stirrup is held. After repeating the sacramental word
+"B`ism Allah" (a Moor mounts and dismounts in the name of God), with a
+man at his stirrups, he sinks without an effort into his saddle, amidst a
+furbelow of white robes, which he has afterwards arranged carefully for
+him. Possibly for this reason he gets on and off as seldom as possible,
+hugging the convenient maxim, common among the Moors, that mounting and
+dismounting fatigue an animal more than carrying a burden. He rides with
+his knees up to his chin: he is a natural horseman, and looks at home in
+his practically girthless and quite shapeless saddle, which must have
+given him a pang, if ever he galloped for his life in front of his
+enemies, and reflected that his safety was dependent upon the
+breastplate. A man, before now, has, as he rode, unwound his waistcloth,
+and twisted it round his horse's neck, for further security against the
+saddle's slipping back.
+
+Mr. Bewicke and his soldier rode with us: the latter a dark, lean-faced,
+unwholesome-looking man, unable, like so many of his countrymen, to grow
+any hair on his face--an obsequious individual too, inspiring little
+trust; below his long blue cloak he wore brown riding-boots, embroidered
+with orange, and fastening up the back with orange-thread buttons.
+
+My little grey bustled along; but once or twice, when the road fell away
+into a steep drop, his weak hind legs gave under him, and he "sat down":
+we soon learnt the effect which merely shaking the feet in the great
+angular stirrups has on mules whose sides have often been in touch with
+the sharp points, and jogged forward wherever the bad road allowed.
+
+We had left the city by another of its six gates--the _Bab-el-Toot_
+(Mulberry Gate), the old name pointing back to an energetic past, when
+mulberries, silk-worms, and silk-weaving flourished around Tetuan--when
+the cultivation of sugar-cane, cotton, and rice in Morocco was more than
+a memory.
+
+Following for a time the road to Tangier, we branched off to the right,
+and took a rough path winding upwards, passing a spring where women wash
+clothes, three parts walled in, to prevent their being seen.
+
+A little higher up and one of the countless saints' tombs came in
+sight--better known in this case as the Robbers' Tower, where brigands
+congregate at sunset, and from an excellent coign of vantage keep a
+look-out on the Tangier road, to drop on any unfortunate so foolhardy as
+to be on it late in the day. After dark no Moor from Tetuan would walk
+near this saint-house.
+
+Only a few weeks after this very ride a man was murdered on the Tangier
+road, why or wherefore no one knew, except that his body was found,
+brought into Tetuan, and buried without further investigation, since his
+relatives were neither rich nor powerful enough to institute a search and
+demand compensation.
+
+Robbery in Morocco is almost sanctioned by Providence; it is made so
+simple. The lonely tracks, the absence of police, the inconveniences of
+travelling, and the innumerable wells scattered over the country, almost
+sunk for the reception of inconvenient bodies--one and all tempt a man to
+turn brigand; and yet Europeans are seldom attacked, in view of the fine
+imposed upon the tribe in whose territory a crime is committed.
+
+Thus the borders, where several tribes meet, are always unsafe country,
+one tribe disposing of bodies which they have done to death by
+depositing them in the territory of the next tribe. But even in
+"Christian-ridden" Tangier a German was knifed three years ago walking
+home, as was his custom, at dusk. He happened to have no money on him.
+His murderer was given up to justice--that is, the basha of Tangier said
+some one must die, and together with the fine the tribe outside Tangier
+produced a man, who was duly executed, though whether he was the
+murderer. . . . . .
+
+Meanwhile, we were leaving the millet-fields behind us--stubbles, an
+occasional stalk three feet high, no lying for birds--and were in a
+country of wild lavender and stunted bushes: these consisted chiefly of
+cistus or else palmetto, a little dwarf palm, the fruit of which is eaten
+by goats, and the root by natives as a vegetable, while its fibrous
+leaves make rope and baskets and a hundred things. A bleak undulating
+country, which ran up into rocky blue gorges and grey peaks on the right
+hand. The path was almost blocked at one point by an immense cairn on the
+top of a ridge--a holy pile, upon which the devout Moor in passing casts
+a stone, because from this spot the mountain can be made out on which the
+venerated shrine of Mulai Abdesalam lies, in Beni Anos, the goal of
+thousands of pilgrims each year. Though it is within a day's ride of
+Tangier, the country for miles around is forbidden to any European, and
+two Englishmen only have penetrated into the sacred city of Sheshawan,
+which lies in the same district. Mr. Walter B. Harris and Mr. Somers, at
+different times, got inside, but only at sunset, and after lying in
+hiding all night had to flee for their lives at dawn.
+
+Gradually we reached wilder and more rocky country, recalling Scotland as
+far as the open moorland went. If fir-trees were planted on the sheltered
+slopes, the fir-pins should, in conjunction with the natural soil, form
+land capable of growing vines--an idle dream in the Morocco of to-day.
+
+Between two hills in front of us towered a cliff of rocky red limestone,
+which might once have formed the bed of some vast stream. Semsar lay
+where the waters should have struck the rock beneath as they fell: a more
+sheltered village could not be, facing south-east. The cliff above is
+still riddled with the remains of an old silver-mine, worked years ago by
+the Portuguese: the ladders and scaffolding inside have fallen to pieces,
+and after penetrating along dark tunnels on hands and knees for a certain
+distance an open shaft intervenes, and further exploration is impossible.
+
+Semsar, nestled into its crevice, takes more or less the local brown; but
+among the thatched huts, rising one above the other like an uneven pile
+of mud terraces, a few walls were whitewashed, and of course a white
+village mosque stood guard over all on the top of a hillock. There is
+something a trifle "animal" in these villages, rough clusters of
+bee's-comb or ant-heaps or beavers' lodgings as they might be, assuming
+exactly the shade of their surroundings, as nests the colour of their
+hiding-places, or as the kh[=a]ki-coloured sand-lizard, desert-lark, and
+sand-grouse of the great Sahara take on the yellow-ochre tone of that
+desert.
+
+A friend belonging to Mr. Bewicke's soldier had ridden out behind us. He
+owned a garden at hand, and asked if we would go in and look at it. We
+stooped low under a white stone doorway, an imposing structure,
+invariably the entrance to every garden: the door generally painted
+Reckitt's blue, and kept locked with a key eight inches long, while on
+each side of the gateway the cane fence is tumbling to pieces and
+offering useful gaps to marauders--a curious inversion of the rule in
+Spain, where to this day they bar the window heavily and leave the door
+open.
+
+Though to all appearance the owner was a hard-working Moor, the garden at
+any rate bore no great signs of expenditure of labour. We found ourselves
+in an overgrown wilderness of orange-trees, peaches, pears, figs, plums,
+damsons, cherries, white mulberries, quinces, jasmine, all overgrown and
+stabbed by the interloping prickly pear--a good fruit, too, in its way,
+and a "useful beast" as a hedge.
+
+Half of his oranges were always stolen, the owner said; the remaining
+half brought him in from sixty to ninety shillings a year, selling
+perhaps at a shilling or two the thousand. He had evidently not the
+capital to get the half of what such fruitful soil could give with
+Gibraltar at hand for export, nor the means of securing to himself any
+money he made; and it is poor work putting money into the hands of the
+nearest extortionate sheikh. Yet his garden was, and is to every Moor, a
+source of great satisfaction and content: truly a field of the slothful,
+a garden where the mystic finds rest and heart's ease, and the two things
+which appeal most to sun-baked men--shade and water. It is enough in such
+a spot to drowse away the sunny hours amidst the hum of bees, the rattle
+of the tree-beetle; to muse upon some book of whose drift only a faint
+idea is intelligible, content to leave its problems in the limbo of the
+insoluble, where most of life's questions seethe harmlessly enough; then,
+turning, give thanks to Allah, who has made gardens for mankind, and doze
+again.
+
+Farther on the path led us across streams banked with maiden-hair fern
+like rank grass. Water had worn the rock into grotesque shapes, a
+cavernous arch in one place, the banks, like a tunnel, almost meeting
+over our heads in another. Immense blocks of stone barred the way; it
+was not easy riding, but the mules climbed up and down rocky staircases
+with much tact, while we sat holding our breath.
+
+Over one of these obstructions the breastplate of my saddle, which had
+only been fastened to begin with by three stitches of string, burst, and
+I found myself almost over the grey's tail: such a common occurrence that
+no Moor goes out without string and packing-needle handy; but this was
+past mending on the road, and I changed on to the soldier's mule, whose
+top-heavy saddle was no fit at all, and, shifting all over its back,
+required careful balance on the rider's part.
+
+The road was only a few feet wide, and so overgrown that, as we jogged
+one after the other, trying to dodge grey arms of fig-trees, lying on the
+mules' necks under dark masses of foliage which shut out half the light,
+hatless, the stiffest bullfinch at home would have been ears of corn
+compared with what we went through.
+
+At last, however, it came to an end, and the trail opened out into the
+village of Semsar. Nobody was to be seen; dogs barked as usual; some kids
+bleated inside a hut. We rode by the crazy hovels; a woman carrying water
+emerged, and a boy with a baby. Beyond the last brown erection we came to
+a saint's tomb. This meant the village green without any "green." Two or
+three country people sat in the usual meeting-place among trodden-down
+weeds, talking and smoking their long pipes, congregated round one busy
+man, who was chopping a log into a plough with an axe. Around the tomb
+was a group of olive-trees, preserved leaf and stick and all, not a
+branch even of dead wood off the ground removed, by reason of the
+sanctity of the spot. However small a grove, it would otherwise have been
+cut down, as affording cover to robbers and _ginns_ (evil spirits).
+Thanks to saints' tombs the traveller in Morocco still meets with clumps
+and occasional woods of olives. The sunshine glowed on their hoary
+twisted branches, and flecked the gnarled trunks; the grey foliage cast
+patches of dense shadow on the brown earth under the mammoths, whose
+broken lines and odd elbows supported such masses of quiet colour and
+solemn shade. We wound our way to the left among the huts. Of any road
+between them there was none; the mules could barely climb over some of
+the boulders among the refuse.
+
+Once quit of the "green," we saw no one again, and got much mixed as to
+direction. Finally, we struck a path with a descent into a pool and below
+a fig tree, which, having made ourselves small, we circumvented, and
+discovered that it meandered in time to the outside of the village.
+Following, we wound southwards by a gorge along a rocky stream, which has
+the reputation of rising suddenly after rain, and not long ago drowned
+three mules.
+
+Stepping-stones are not provided in Morocco, and it is generally a case
+of plunging through a stream to reach the opposite side. Near a city with
+good fortune a Jew may pass, the chance may be worth waiting for; but no
+Mohammedan Moor would carry an infidel across on his superior back.
+
+In time a different path led us back to Tetuan, and we rode in by the
+Mulberry Gate at sunset, as the mueddzin was calling upon true believers
+to worship.
+
+On fine days we made many such excursions, and exploited the country for
+miles round. Showery and doubtful days were devoted to the city and
+shopping.
+
+Shopping in a foreign city tends towards the accumulation of white
+elephants, which, safely landed in England, work havoc in an English
+home. Long flint guns from the Riff, and old blue dishes from Fez, and
+orange-striped rugs from Rabat look strangely out of place with
+wall-papers and oil paintings. The East will never sit down with the
+West, and the adjuncts of either are bound to "fight." And yet we
+shopped.
+
+There are fewer more interesting ways of studying the outside life of the
+people; a little gossip and less reliable information are all thrown in
+to the bargain. The little Tetuan shops are a species of club, for each
+Moor has certain shops at which he habitually sits and may be found with
+more or less certainty. While the owner and his goods remain inside the
+shop, there is room for two people outside on the sill or doorstep, and a
+couple of fat leather cushions are provided for them. Even Mr. Bewicke
+was in the habit of sitting every day at Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli's shop and
+hearing the news, between four and seven o'clock every evening.
+
+[Illustration: OUT SHOPPING.
+
+[_To face p. 90._]
+
+He interpreted for us in our early days. We spent a whole morning buying
+_humbells_ (striped carpets) at a shop where the owner was sitting on the
+floor playing chess with a friend and drinking green tea. All over Tetuan
+draughts and chess are played constantly on little boards, either on the
+doorstep or inside the shop. The game had its origin, like bridge and
+polo, eastwards of England, and was introduced into Europe after the
+Crusades, together with baths and other civilized habits. Our shopman
+looked exceedingly bored at the interruption. However, after much
+bargaining, we bought a humbell, having to point to everything we wished
+to buy, for no Moor likes a Christian to come inside his shop, because of
+his dirty boots. A Moor is either in a pair of clean yellow slippers, or
+else they are on the doorsill, and his feet are bare: he tosses all his
+silks, towels, embroideries, carpets, on the floor, and sits among
+them, while the purchaser stands outside, points to the shelves and heap,
+and trusts to the owner's divining which particular silk handkerchief is
+wanted.
+
+In another shop we found a second humbell, chiefly black and orange, the
+property of a taciturn individual in a snow-white _selham_ (hooded
+cloak), a turban to match, with scarlet peak, a dark blue garment
+underneath the selham, and a complexion like cream and roses. He lay at
+full length on a pile of many carpets. We stopped in front of the shop.
+Neither rising, bowing, nor bustling about to show off his goods, the
+white figure lay still, looking dreamily through and beyond us. We were
+bores. In reply to a question of price, a long sum was murmured. At last
+we expressed a decided wish to inspect the humbell, and, slowly rising,
+he condescended to lift it from a shelf, his looks suggesting that he
+would prefer being left alone. Again we asked his lowest price.
+Twenty-one shillings. We offered sixteen. Without deigning to answer, he
+solemnly folded up the humbell and put it away, then folded one by one
+the goods which littered the floor, and stacked them above the humbell on
+the same shelf. Still standing in front of the shop, we repeated our
+offer of sixteen shillings. He shook his head decidedly, made a
+deprecating gesture, and prepared to sink again on his couch. Mr. Bewicke
+forbade us to offer more; we walked away. A voice said in Arabic, "It is
+yours," and the humbell was thrown after us; the sixteen shillings were
+received with a sigh as the shopkeeper resumed his couch.
+
+Tetuan makes many artistic "towels," which form the ordinary dress of the
+countrywomen underneath their old enfolding yellowish-white woollen
+haiks; but for quite the majority a towel as skirt and a towel as cape
+are sufficient for all purposes. There is the rare addition of a pair of
+cotton drawers.
+
+The strong substance and fast scarlet dyes make these towels no mean
+substitutes for curtains, except that, like native goods in general, they
+seldom quite match, and distract the soul which demands "pairs" in all
+and everything.
+
+A Jew we visited in the Jews' Quarter had a fine carpet for sale, made
+farther south, something like a Persian, the ground whitish, with
+harmonious reds and greens. For a long time we sat and tried to bargain
+in his odd little den up a dilapidated staircase and nearly pitch dark:
+he wanted L5. The pattern was a little small. We came away without it.
+Some of the old _kaftans_ (robes of coloured cloth or satin or silk
+brocade, embroidered with gold or silver, buttoned down the front and
+with wide sleeves) were well worth buying: none are made like them
+nowadays, for common material is used; unfortunately the best are often
+in tatters.
+
+We visited the Slipper Market, and, sitting on the doorstep of one of the
+shops, gave directions for two pairs--blue velvet embroidered with gold,
+and milk-coloured leather embroidered with green. Size, price, and colour
+were duly discussed; rain came on, we sat on the doorsill sheltering, and
+the basha--Tetuan's governor--was criticised. The slipper-maker had not a
+good word for him. To begin with, it seems he has no money, is of no
+family, and aristocratic Tetuan refuses to "hob-nob" with him. He
+dislikes Tetuan after Fez, whence he was transferred, and where he made
+more money. The other day a neighbouring tribe sent him a present of so
+many dollars. At the same time they owed him certain taxes, in lieu of
+which he accepted the money, but pointed out that the present must follow
+in due course. None ever arrived, and the basha sent his brother-in-law
+and a soldier to the tribesmen to ask an explanation of its
+non-appearance. The brother-in-law was tactless, incensed the tribesmen,
+and provoked them to bastinado him, whereupon the soldier lost his head,
+and fired his gun off into the air. He was promptly disembowelled.
+
+The brother-in-law returned to the basha, stiff, but alive; and the
+country people give it as their verdict that the basha is a rapacious
+man. They threaten that they will no longer bring their produce into
+Tetuan to market, but will hold their own markets at some place chosen by
+themselves out in the country, and Tetuan shall come out to buy. Such a
+proceeding would be most inconvenient; for Tetuan is dependent for all
+its supplies on the country people, who hold their markets on Sundays,
+Wednesdays, and Fridays in the feddan, where they sit upon the ground
+packed in hundreds, their chickens, eggs, butter, and produce in general
+in their laps and at their feet. Their beef and mutton are but
+second-rate, and the shapeless lumps of lean, tough meat take double as
+long as an English joint to cook, and make but a poor show in the end,
+hacked by the unskilful butchers past all recognition. Goat and fish are
+to be had, sometimes partridges, hares, and rabbits, occasionally a
+haunch of wild boar. Fish came in on certain days when the wind was
+favourable: there was then a rush on the fish market, and almost a free
+fight over the great panniers full of shining silvery sardines, and over
+the bodies of the sellers seated on the ground. The successful carried
+off a handful each, and the cafes and fish shops were soon frying
+sardines for dear life, while the little streets were thick with the
+steam of native oil and butter. Some big fish, four and five feet long,
+came into market sometimes, and a small boy would be hired by a purchaser
+to carry one home across his shoulder, its great head hanging down
+behind, and underneath a pair of thin brown legs like little sticks
+hurrying along the street.
+
+Bread in Morocco is "passing heavy," flavoured with aniseed and full of
+grit. Vegetables are to be had in abundance.
+
+The slippers, which had been promised in three days, appeared in three
+weeks. Whenever we passed the shop we asked after them: always the same
+answer--_M[=a]nana_ (To-morrow). "No, there was no butter to be had
+to-day, but _m[=a]nana_." "No, the pillows were not finished yet, but
+_m[=a]nana_." "The boots left to be soled were not ready, but
+_m[=a]nana_." Tetuan lives upon _m[=a]nana_: it is the reincarnation of
+JAM YESTERDAY, AND JAM TO-MORROW, BUT NEVER JAM TO-DAY.
+
+Equally exasperating was the habit of every shopkeeper of locking up his
+shop and going off to pray or eat or chat. If a shop had to be revisited
+and purchases exchanged, the owner was invariably out, and the door
+fastened with lock and key. At 12.15 p.m. nobody could ever be found, but
+was presumably at the mosque. Again and again we visited the same shop:
+one day the owner was at a friend's shop, the next at home, and so on. We
+gave him up, to see his sleek cross-legged figure seated inside the
+little cupboard the very next time we passed.
+
+[Illustration: SHOPS IN TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 94._]
+
+Walking by a saint-house on the outskirts of the city, devout and
+impoverished women were often to be seen there, visiting the shrine and
+carrying with them small vessels of food, which they placed on the ground
+for the spirit of the holy man to eat. The window of the shrine was tied
+with a hundred scraps of rag and dead flowers, bits of wood, and paper
+and oddments of all sorts. Empty earthenware bowls later on, and pariah
+dogs skulking around, licking their lips, told a tale; but if asked if
+they really thought their saint would come up out of his grave and eat
+the food prepared for him, it was open to the Mussulman to answer the
+Christian, "And do you really believe that your dead friends come and
+smell the flowers you plant on their graves?"
+
+Small-pox kills a great many Moors, and an incredible number are marked
+by the disease. It is looked upon much as measles are in England: cases
+are never isolated, and children are all expected to have it. Each year
+it is prevalent, and people may be passed in the street with it out upon
+them; but every four years it breaks out seriously, and a large
+percentage of the population dies.
+
+Last of all, in our shopping days a few things we bought by auction. No
+auctioneer is employed as in European countries, but the owner and seller
+himself perambulates the street or courtyard with his goods--a mule, or a
+frying-pan, or a carpet--calling out each successive bid which he
+receives on his article, pushing his way and jostling the motley mob of
+market people, peasants and loungers, silks and rags, until he has got
+his price, and hands over to its new owner his late possession.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FAST OF RAMADHAN--MOHAMMED--HIS LIFE AND INFLUENCE--THE FLOOD AT
+SAFFI--A WALK OUTSIDE TETUAN--THE FRENCH CONSUL'S GARDEN-HOUSE--JEWS IN
+MOROCCO--EUROPEAN PROTECTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+    Manage with bread and butter till God brings the jam.
+      _Old Moorish proverb._
+
+
+WE had not been long at the fonda before the Fast of Ramadhan began.
+Ramadhan, ordained by Mohammed, takes place in the ninth month of every
+Mohammedan year, and lasts for twenty-eight days, during which time the
+Faithful fast from dawn, when it is light enough to distinguish between a
+black and white thread, to sunset. It alters by a few days every year
+according to the moon, and when it falls during summer in scorching hot
+countries the agonies of thirst endured mean a penance indeed.
+
+Ramadhan begins when the new moon is first seen. Tidings were sent from
+Tangier to say that it had been observed there, which tidings Tetuan
+handed on to the farthest mountain villages: a gun was fired from the
+Kasbah at sunset, horns were sounded, and Ramadhan began. It sometimes
+happens that Tetuan does not see the new moon till the day after Tangier
+has seen it at the beginning of the fast, in which case the Tetuan people
+are guilty of "eating the head of Ramadhan": this year it was not so.
+During the twenty-eight days of the fast, every night, or rather every
+early morning at 2 a.m., the householder was awakened by the crashing of
+his knocker on his door and a shout bidding him "Rise and eat": the
+mueddzin at the same time from the top of the mosque called the hour of
+prayer, and long brass horns brayed to the same effect.
+
+The month was almost over before we had learnt to sleep through it all.
+As the fonda was in the Moorish Quarter our door was not exempt. Far away
+up the street the knockers clanked, nearer and nearer every moment, then
+the man's footsteps, then our own knocker sounded like a sledge-hammer,
+and "Rise and eat" followed: the man went on to the next door, and back
+again shortly up the opposite side of the street. And every Mussulman
+arose in the dark and had a large meal. Again at sunrise the big gun
+boomed from the Kasbah, the concussion shaking our ill-built room, and we
+woke once more.
+
+[Illustration: A CLUSTER OF COUNTRY WOMEN.
+
+[_To face p. 100._]
+
+No doubt the original motive of fasting and abstinence in the Old
+Testament was the promotion of sanitary conditions. It is not good to eat
+pig in hot countries: thus pork was "unclean," and is to-day in Morocco.
+Nor is the consumption of much spirituous liquor wise when the
+thermometer marks a hundred and one: hence the Kor[=a]n forbids the use
+of strong drinks. The same motive underlies the fast, which rests and
+relieves systems over-fattened and little exercised. But the "all or
+nothing" theory which governs the uneducated and knows no moderation runs
+a benefit into an abuse. Ramadhan had its disadvantages. Tetuan was
+revelling at night and in a sodden sleep through the day; work was
+slipshod and at sixes and sevens; men were irritable and quarrelsome;
+every one looked indisposed; and the excuse for it all was always
+Ramadhan. Worst of all, the countrywomen still tramped four and five
+hours into market with loads, and children a month old, only half
+nourished at the time of the fast.
+
+But Ramadhan came to an end at last: Morocco breathed again. The day
+before the fast was over everybody was smiling, and Tetuan had but one
+hope, that the new moon would be seen that night, and thus the month of
+penance come to an end. After the letter from Tangier had been received
+next morning, which said that the new moon had been seen there, the gun
+from the fort thundered, the basha went in gorgeous state to the
+_Jama-el-Kebeer_ (Big Mosque) on a white mule, all caparisoned in blue,
+and read aloud the letter, the city was uproarious, and the mountains
+echoed again, for soldiers were sent post-haste up the valleys, and fired
+all day at intervals to notify to the fathermost villages that Ramadhan
+was over.
+
+And the next day! The first day of the _Aid-el-Sereer_ (Little Feast)!
+Everybody was in shining white, if not new, apparel, and all Tetuan was
+abroad. That among a people clad so largely in white and in gorgeous
+colours means a great deal, and the streets of Tetuan might have competed
+with the Park on the Sunday before Ascot. The Moorish crowd was almost
+entirely a male one, dressed like peacocks: satins embroidered with gold
+and silver prevailed.
+
+And if the snowy haiks and turbans and the resplendent shades of the
+kaftans were the first point about the feast, the sweetmeat stalls were
+the second. A Moor is a born sweet-tooth, and at every corner of the
+streets a board was stacked with creamy mixtures in which walnuts were
+embedded, with generously browned toffee full of almonds, with
+carmine-coloured sticks, with magenta squares of sweet peppermint, with
+blocks of nougat inches thick. And the joys of the feast seemed amply to
+compensate for the fast.
+
+Mohammed ordained many minor feasts and fasts. Ramadhan stands out chief
+of the one: _Aid-el-Kebeer_ (Great Feast), falling two months and six
+days afterwards, is chief of the other.
+
+The three reforms which Mohammed instituted were temperance, cleanliness,
+and monotheism, at a time when reform was badly needed. He was born in
+Mecca five hundred and seventy years after Christ, an Arab of the tribe
+of Beni Has`sim. Christianity was not unknown around him in his day.
+
+Always somewhat of a visionary and introspective turn of mind, when he
+was about forty years old he became deeply interested in the subject of
+religion. Living in the imaginative East, in a hotbed of mysticism and
+superstition, it was easy for him to conceive himself a chosen vessel of
+the Almighty, and to assume by degrees the role of prophet, in the honest
+belief that the words he uttered came direct from that God whose
+mouthpiece he conceived himself to be. A small band of followers by
+degrees collected round him, and in the ordinary course of events his end
+would have been that of a saint with a tombstone white; but, added to the
+saint's fanaticisms, Mohammed possessed the talents of a leader, and the
+ambition which accompanies those talents.
+
+Men and more men were attracted to him; he instituted among them a
+ceremonial of prayer, feasts, and fasts, and built a mosque at Medina, in
+which they worshipped. Persecution from their fellow-countrymen followed
+as a matter of course, and Mohammed's disciples, who began to call
+themselves Mohammedans, turned to him as their chief. The one "able man,"
+he naturally assumed the position of a theocratic ruler, and led them
+against their enemies; while the words he spoke were committed to memory,
+constituting later on the Kor[=a]n.
+
+As a general Mohammed was successful: battle after battle was fought and
+won, reverses were amply compensated for, and men flocked to his
+standard, while deputations from surrounding tribes poured in upon him,
+acknowledging his supremacy, and asking for instruction in his creed.
+
+That creed was admirably adapted to suit the manners, opinions, and vices
+of the East: it was extraordinarily simple, it proposed but few truths in
+which belief was necessary, and it laid no severe restraints upon the
+natural desires of men; above all, its warlike tendencies captivated the
+men of its day, and war, which at first had been necessary in
+self-defence, was still carried on, and gradually came to be looked upon
+by Mohammed and his followers as a lawful means towards spreading their
+religion. In the name of a _Holy War_ the conquerors offered their
+defeated enemies the option of death or embracing the new religion, while
+the women and children taken in battle were sold as slaves, after the
+manner of the time.
+
+And the Prophet's influence deepened and extended. Meanwhile, his
+sayings, or "the Kor[=a]n," were written down from time to time by one or
+other of his followers, on palm leaves, on stone tablets, on the
+shoulder-plates of goats and camels, and even tattooed on men's breasts;
+while his ritual was strictly carried out--prayer with absolution,
+frequent washing, fasting, almsgiving, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the
+recital of the formula "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his
+prophet."
+
+Prayer was offered up five times a day, as now, by every true
+believer--at sunrise, at midday, at three in the afternoon, at sunset,
+and two hours after sunset: the _adzan_ (call to prayers) was chanted at
+each time by the mueddzin from the minarets of the mosques. The first
+thing in the morning at sunrise the call ran, "God is great; God is
+great. Mohammed is his prophet. Prayer is better than sleep. Come to
+prayer; come to prayer." The believer, obeying the summons, washes,
+enters the mosque, and repeats from four to eight short prayers, with
+genuflections between each.
+
+Mohammed strictly obeyed the forms of his doctrine, and himself performed
+the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca and the ceremonies round the K[=a]aba. He
+was familiar with at least part of the Gospels, but his knowledge was
+possibly scant and distorted: he was unfriendly towards Christians. For
+the Old Testament he had a profound respect.
+
+As far as can be gathered he was a sober and meditative man: he sought
+neither state nor riches for himself, when either might have been his for
+the asking. He looked upon women from a point of view not unlike the
+characters in the Old Testament--a distinctly Eastern one. He possessed
+five wives, and probably concubines--bondwomen in much the same position
+as Hagar of old.
+
+Mohammed instituted the veiling of women, with corresponding restrictions
+on domestic intercourse, as a check upon undue sexual licence--the curse
+of hot climates.
+
+There is no reason to believe that Mohammed was not honest in the
+conviction that his mission was divine, and that, if he countenanced
+vindictive revenge, rapine, and lust as a means towards the furtherance
+of his teaching, he justified the act in his own mind by what he believed
+to be revelations from a spirit other than his own.
+
+A great character has perforce its great faults, and the courage and
+ambition which made so mighty a leader were naturally enough the rock
+upon which that leader split, blinding his eyes and distorting his point
+of view, leading him into compromise and error. But though self-deceived
+and fanatical, it is improbable that Mohammed was insincere. By the
+spirit of his day he must be judged. His day believed in him.
+
+He died early in the seventh century, sixty-three years old, saying,
+"Verily I have fulfilled my mission. I have left that amongst you, a
+plain command, the Book of God, and manifest ordinances, which, if ye
+hold fast, ye shall never go astray." Within two years of his death the
+Mohammedan armies had overrun Syria; Egypt was in their possession, and
+the whole northern coast of Africa.
+
+The scraps which contained in writing the sayings of the dead Prophet
+were all collected by his chief amanuensis: his followers appointed three
+judges to overlook the work. The new collection was written in Mohammed's
+own pure Meccan dialect, and every spurious copy was burnt. So carefully
+was this done that there is but one and the same Kor[=a]n throughout the
+vast Mohammedan world.
+
+Mohammedanism satisfied the East for two reasons: first, because it was a
+warlike religion, and therefore appealed to warlike tribes; secondly,
+because, deeply underlying it, was the strong, calm spirit of fatalism,
+that world-old foundation-stone on which many a man has come to anchor.
+The very word Mussulman means, "One who has surrendered himself and his
+will to God."
+
+    ISLAM is the belief in one God,
+                           one Prophet (Mohammed),
+                           the immortality of the soul,
+                           the resurrection of the dead,
+                           the day of judgment,
+                           angels,
+                           a devil.
+
+There are no subtle intricacies in such a creed, no mysterious
+contradictions to puzzle the uneducated mind; it amply satisfies a simple
+people; and probably no other dogma makes so many converts.
+
+In Morocco to-day the Mohammedan religion is interwoven with the whole
+fabric of life. To the Moor Allah is always present, is behind every
+decree of the Sultan, and enters into the smallest detail of his own
+private life to such a degree that barely a single action is performed
+without invoking the sacred name. Religion is, according to the temper of
+the individual Moor, "a passion, or a persuasion, or an excuse, but never
+a check": for a man may commit any sin under heaven, and "Allah is
+merciful; Mohammed is his prophet; all will be forgiven." And this is not
+hypocritical: the larger soul includes the smaller--that is all.
+
+It follows as a natural sequence that, because Allah is as much part of a
+Moor's life as the air he breathes, he is forgotten. The repetition of
+words bulks so largely in Mohammedanism, that, as with the Jews of old,
+the letter of the law has killed the spirit. The evil of Mohammed's
+religion lies in its essential antagonism towards progress and
+civilization: scientific investigation is forbidden; a proverb runs,
+"Only fools and the very young speak the truth." Thus Mohammedanism will
+never advance or regenerate Morocco; for these tenets are Government
+policy.
+
+At the same time there is in Mohammedan society a certain negative virtue
+which contrasts strongly with the gross immorality existing in Christian
+countries. The conditions of what is lawful for a Mohammedan are wide
+enough to content, and extremes offer no temptation. Polygamy, divorce,
+and slavery are all allowed, and war upon unbelievers is enjoined as a
+duty. And yet "social evils" and the lowest depths to which humanity
+falls are almost unknown in Morocco; while what is held to be sin is
+rigorously punished--adultery by stoning (a father has no hesitation in
+shooting his daughter himself), robbery by mutilation, and so on.
+
+Unlike many Christian churches, a Moorish mosque is never closed: the
+sanctuary is always open. It is council-chamber, meeting-place, and for
+travellers at night resting-place. There are no priests in the European
+sense; but the _basha_ (governor) or the _kadi_ (judge) reads prayers on
+Fridays, a sermon follows, and letters or decrees from the Sultan are
+given out in the mosque after service.
+
+The treatment of Mohammedan women, against which so much has been
+written, is after all Oriental, and nothing more. The Kor[=a]n speaks of
+woman as an inferior being, an incomplete creation, needing no education,
+to be rigorously and jealously guarded all her life, and who after death
+may or may not be admitted into the Mohammedan heaven. Her function, if
+rich, is to bear children, and to be treated like a petted lap-dog: if
+poor, to work as a labourer. But interrogate the wife of a rich Moor on
+the subject, and she will not have the slightest wish to educate herself,
+but will affirm emphatically, "We have children and enough to eat. Why
+should we want to learn anything?"
+
+It is manifestly absurd to compare Mohammedanism with Christianity, which
+are each the outcome of a distinct race, divided by that greatest
+barrier--a racial gulf.
+
+Christianity, it must be confessed, bearing in mind the Christian
+renegades with whom the Moor has traded, is looked upon by him for the
+most part as a thing beneath contempt. It had five hundred years, before
+Mohammed was born, in which to impress itself on the East. It signally
+failed. And yet only a few years after Mohammed's death his religion had
+taken by storm Egypt, Turkey, Arabia, Persia, Turkestan, parts of India,
+the Malay Peninsula, the north coast of Africa, and parts of China,
+introducing monotheism, and impressing temperance and cleanliness on
+uncivilized millions, but never advancing beyond that point. It is borne
+in upon one that, in spite of missionary effort, Morocco will change its
+religion for that of Christianity when, as its own proverb says, "The
+charcoal takes root and the salt buds." The East, when it adopts other
+tenets, will exchange its own for a wider and a more universal cult than
+that which modern sects and parties are endeavouring and failing to
+introduce to-day.
+
+While we were in our small quarters at the fonda, the weather by no means
+came up to the high standard it is said to reach in December. A few sunny
+days, when we could bask out of doors, were grudgingly sandwiched between
+many wet ones, and again and again the Ramadhan sunrise gun awoke us to
+gouts of almost tropical rain, a fiery sunrise followed by an hour's
+brilliant sunshine, the herald of a shamelessly distorted April day. The
+little gutters down the middle of the streets ran like torrents, carrying
+off chickens' heads and cabbage-stalks; hail scoured the pebbles; outside
+the city "the dry land was over your boots"; the road to the sea was
+impassable, and the rivers between Tangier and Tetuan were unfordable;
+snow lay in patches on the mountains; half the vale was inundated; the
+river could be heard a mile away; both our windows leaked; and down in
+the little patio, where the family sat, the waters were out.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+A TYPICAL MOORISH STREET.
+
+[_To face p. 108._]
+
+From the west coast at Saffi terrible reports arrived of the havoc the
+weather had made of the city. The lowest barometer ever seen had preceded
+sheets of rain, and a solid _hamla_ (flood) had entered the gates from
+the valley above, filling the narrow streets in a few moments to a depth
+of seven and eight feet, and carrying everything before it: men, women,
+children, and cattle were swept in a torrent through the water-gate out
+to sea, sometimes a hand stretched out above the eddies. Then the gate
+became blocked with floating _debris_ and bodies, and the flood rose to
+ten feet in the principal street. The townspeople who survived took
+refuge on their roofs. The vice-governor was drowned. Houses, shops,
+mills, and mosques were gutted as if by fire; furniture and household
+goods were ruined; the Saffi shopkeepers were beggared. For many weeks
+after the survivors starved upon roots, in spite of a subscription raised
+in Tangier to relieve them.
+
+The rain apparently was something like a waterspout. Happily Tetuan was
+exempt from waterspouts, and on days when the rain gave over for a time
+we rode, or, picking our way along the muddy streets, drank tea with some
+Moor.
+
+One dull afternoon we sampled the state of the roads outside, R. on a
+donkey, and Mr. Bewicke and myself on foot. Walking out by the Gate of
+the Tombs, we bore to the left, and dived into the narrowest of narrow
+lanes, shut in with tall cane fences and high mud-banks crowned with
+prickly pear, the shape of whose fat, fleshy leaves recalls moles' paws.
+
+The donkey was an unusually large one, and its pack rolled more than
+packs in general: before we saw the last of Tetuan its rider had many a
+fall off her unsteady perch; and if there is truth in the Moorish saying
+that "one does not become a horseman till one is broken," R. may claim to
+have qualified. It shied and bucked and came on its nose over rocks; but
+this time Mr. Bewicke's boy, Mohr, directed its ways, and thoroughly
+enjoyed cudgelling it along with a stick, helped by its rider's switch,
+cut from a quince-tree, which often as not hit Mohr instead of the ass.
+
+By-and-by we met a countryman, his wife, and a donkey. The woman, who
+wore little except two striped towels, and a handkerchief round her head,
+staggered along under a great load of faggots. She was stunted and
+wrinkled, removed mentally but few degrees from the three-year-old
+weather-beaten donkey which minced along in front of her, also loaded
+with faggots. The woman had strips of rough leather bandaged round her
+legs to protect them from thorns. Her feet were bare. Her husband
+sauntered last of all, presumably looking after the donkey: he had no
+load. Another time the donkey also might be exempt, while the woman was
+still burdened; and the man, when asked why, if he would not carry the
+load himself, he did not at least put it upon the donkey, would reply,
+"Because it is too heavy for the ass."
+
+A little farther on and a magnificent Riffi passed us, walking along at a
+smart pace into the city, his face "old oak" colour, framed in a turban
+of dark red-brown strings of wool. He wore a chocolate-coloured jellab,
+embroidered at the edge with white, and sewn with tufts of red, violet,
+yellow, and green-coloured silks: a tall, wiry fellow, with a back like a
+ram-rod, a thin face, and keen, defiant eyes. The light glittered on his
+long, brass-plated Riffi gun: a red leather pouch full of bullets hung at
+his side. He was a great contrast to the labourer who passed us
+afterwards, also bound for the city--an old and grizzled monkey-faced
+man, with his head tied round with a ragged red cloth gun-case. His
+jellab hung in tatters, but he also carried a gun, and by a string a
+brace of partridges and a wild duck, which "bag," after some bargaining,
+became ours for the sum of one-and-sixpence.
+
+Among the brown jellabs and varied turbans European clothes were forcibly
+out of their place: a people like the Moors, childlike, patriarchal,
+whose lives embody one of the oldest and perhaps best ideas of a simple
+existence, may well hate the sight, on the face of their select country,
+of prosaic tailoring and hideous head-gear. The traveller in his boots,
+where boots are things unknown, passes the muffled women with their
+silent gait, the picturesque ruffians with their swinging stride, and is
+unable to help feeling not at home and something of a blot on the
+landscape.
+
+The lane we wandered up had been, and was still in places, a watercourse,
+and we struggled along the steep chasms gouged out of the soft soil, and
+clambered over rocks which had withstood the torrent.
+
+By-and-by a red door intervened on our left, fitted into an imposing
+whitewashed arched gateway, with a mounting-block on each side, and the
+great brass ring-shaped knocker in the middle of the door which the Moors
+have left all over Spain--the garden-house of the French Consul. In
+another four months, when all aristocratic Tetuan would migrate in a body
+into their "summer-houses," and by their mutual presence reassure each
+other as to their safety, the Consul would move out of the city: at
+present he would look on such a step as sheer madness.
+
+An old negro slave, with a beard like cotton-wool, was at work in the
+garden, and, opening the door, let us in to look round. A wide gravel
+path led up to the dazzling walls of the house, spotless as a sheet of
+glazed cream-laid note-paper, the window-frames and door picked out with
+Reckitt's blue. A white railing in front edged the terrace, the steps of
+which were tanned by the damp salt air a fine rusty ochre. The house
+inside was built on the invariable Moorish lines--kitchen and inferior
+rooms on the ground floor, one great lofty room above, and the flat roof
+over all. A garden-room flanked the house on the south-east, the front
+open to the garden, pillared and arched with the old white plastered
+"horse-shoe." In underneath the arches were shade and cool tiling, and
+outside more tiled ground suggested steaming brews of fragrant green tea,
+tiny glasses, low tables, and long divans spread under the sky.
+
+It was a grey day, and height beyond height on into the Riff country was
+cloud-capped, while _shar d'jebel_ (the hair of the mountain, as the
+Moors call snow) whitened a few furrowed peaks. The flats lay below to
+the left, and a horizontal blue pencil line was scored beyond them.
+Cow-birds stalked about the garden among some new vines which the old
+negro was putting in.
+
+We sat down on the terrace, looking at the view, and the silence of the
+place was above all things most striking. A cavalcade of mules tailed
+away in the distance in single file along the faint track to the sea; the
+packed white city lay to the right, but no voices reached us; here
+cart-wheels, railway-trains, threshing-machines, and busy farm life were
+not. It would have been hard to age and wrinkle in such a spot--Adam and
+Eve might have felt at home.
+
+It was also a weedy one, this Paradise: a tangle of greenery spread
+underneath the oranges, hanging like yellow trimming on a green fabric,
+choking the vines and a few scarlet geraniums. Labour, in such indolent
+and self-possessed acres, was a crude and gauche idea.
+
+The greybeard with the marmoset face and leathern apron let us out at the
+red door: he had a history. His master, a prosperous Moor, once offered
+to free him: the old slave refused the offer, on the score that he was
+quite content as he was. However, his master urged him to accept, and he
+was eventually given his freedom. But later on the master lost all his
+money, and ruin was before him. His old slave came back. "See here, my
+master; here am I. Take me; sell me"; and he finally persuaded the man to
+sell him. He seemed contented enough as the property of the French
+Consul, who is a Moor.
+
+We passed a party of closely veiled women, as we strolled citywards,
+taking advantage of a break in the wet weather to visit their gardens,
+carrying a great key, and accompanied by two or three ink-black slaves,
+fine upstanding women, well fed and clothed, looking good-tempered to a
+fault, whose children, by the same husband and master, would rank equally
+with those of the wives.
+
+Mohammedan women, though veiled and supervised, have at least their
+gardens to saunter out to and visit when the tracks allow. Jewesses in
+Morocco deserve infinitely more pity. Their one recreation seemed to
+consist in walking as far as the Jewish cemetery, ten minutes outside the
+Gate of the Tombs, and attending to the gravestones of their friends.
+
+The cemetery is gradually absorbing one side of a rough red-earthed hill;
+it has no fence of any description round it, and the flat pale-blue and
+white tombstones spread over the ground look in the distance like so much
+washing out to dry. The stones are all alike, oblong lozenges, inscribed
+in Hebrew.
+
+Here, especially on Fridays, the women's day, Jewesses congregate,
+flocking along the cemetery road--the mourners in ponderous black skirts,
+vast breadths of crimson silk let into the fronts and embroidered with
+gold, white shawls over head and forehead, a yellow sash-end edged with
+red appearing behind, and completing their mourning. Some of the shawls
+are family heirlooms, and only parted with for five-pound notes.
+
+Loud checks and gaudy colours adorn the Rahels, Donahs, Zulicas, and
+Miriams not in mourning, as well as the white shawls; and the procession
+troops to the cemetery, sallow, sad-eyed daughters of Jacob, talking a
+mixture of Arabic and Spanish, with a few English and Shillah words
+thrown in.
+
+Of all life's unfortunates, the Jew in Morocco was once, next to the
+negro in the West Indies, the most persecuted and degraded of God's
+creatures.
+
+In Tangier and the seaport towns, where the Christian representatives
+countenance and support him, the Jew, subject to certain restrictions, is
+in the present day a flourishing member of the community; but in the
+interior his fate is still a hard one.
+
+There is a Jewish tradition that when Shalmaneser, King of Assyria,
+conquered the Israelites, the tribe of Naphthali took refuge in the
+interior of Africa, and spread to Morocco. Jewish tombstones are
+certainly to be found dating as far back as twelve hundred years, and one
+synagogue possesses fragments of the Old Testament written on parchment,
+while there is a population of from four to five thousand Jews in the
+Atlas Mountains who have lived there since time immemorial.
+
+Perhaps the wandering Jew merely drifted into Morocco just as he drifts
+all over the universe, and he would have taken refuge in North Africa
+more particularly when Spanish persecution became intolerable.
+
+Once in Morocco, the Moors permitted the Jews to remain because they were
+useful to them; but upon certain conditions. They are confined to a
+certain quarter of the city--the Jews' Quarter, the Ghetto in
+fact--which is shut and locked by a gate at sunset, barring them from the
+outer world. In their own quarter they may do as they like, except ride a
+horse; the horse is considered too noble an animal to be ridden by the
+Jew: outside they may not ride at all, not even a mule, but are obliged
+to trudge barefoot through the slush of the rest of the city, summer and
+winter. They are compelled to wear one costume--a long black gabardine
+and a black skull-cap. Few Jewesses care to leave their quarters by
+themselves, for fear of insult. No synagogues or public places of worship
+are allowed them, and they must address Moors as _Sidi_, or "My lord."
+
+But these customs are fast dying out. There is one which universally
+obtains: the Jews' Quarter is known as the _Mellah_; Mellah means "salt"
+in Arabic,--the Jews are compelled to salt the heads of conquered tribes
+killed in battle, and of criminals, which are afterwards nailed on the
+city walls as trophies and warnings.
+
+In Tetuan the Jews are influential and well treated: many of them wear
+European clothes. On Saturday--the Jewish Sabbath--a young masher (a
+Mordejai, or Baruch, or Isaac) would boast a pair of brand-new yellow
+shoes and white socks, but wear at the same time a dove-coloured
+gabardine down to his heels and a mauve sash round his waist.
+Claret-coloured gabardines were fashionable, and a black skull-cap
+inevitable.
+
+Though Tetuan was lax and liberal in its treatment of the Israelites,
+wealthy families of whom it possessed, the Mellah was at once the
+noisiest and filthiest quarter of the city, teeming with children (unlike
+the Moorish quarters, where there are few), who played and fought,
+laughed and cried, by fifties down the three principal arteries of the
+quarter, whose few feet of walking-space were lined with small and dirty
+greengrocers' and butchers' shops, their stock-in-trade encrusted with
+flies. On hot days the Mellah stank; on wet it was deep in black slime.
+
+Once upon a time it ran close to the Jama-el-Kebeer; and when a hundred
+years ago the Sultan who had built the big mosque sent his envoy to
+examine it, all was approved of except the proximity of the Jews'
+Quarter. "Can a mosque be admired near Jews?" was speedily answered by
+the Tetuanites, who turned the Israelites neck and crop out of house and
+home, giving them another piece of ground walled in and sufficiently
+removed.
+
+The sons of Abraham are only tolerated all the world over. As a nation,
+Moors loathe them. To a pig, which they count "unclean," they give the
+epithet of _jew_: out pig-sticking, when the pig breaks, the beaters
+shout, "The jew! the jew!" To begin with, having forced his presence on
+an unwilling people, the Jew retains his own exclusiveness, neither
+marries a Moor nor eats with a Moor, nor treats him as anything else
+except unclean. Not only this, but by unscrupulous cunning Jews contrive
+to exercise a maddening oppression over a people with whom they have
+chosen to cast in their lot, swindling, extorting money, and playing a
+hundred low tricks upon the very race on the produce of whose labour they
+live: at the same time their exasperating patience and cringing humility,
+court contempt and insult.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+A STREET IN THE JEWS' QUARTER, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 116._]
+
+The poorest Moor in Tetuan is a gentleman: the richest Jew is not. But he
+has his good points: a great sense of brotherhood, a strong bond of
+freemasonry among the Jewish nation, undaunted energy, and an unshaken
+faith in their religion are all admirable points in themselves. Energy in
+Tetuan was concentrated in the Mellah. The best workmen were all Jews. A
+hundred things were sold by them which no Moor made.
+
+Thus in their Ghetto live the Chosen People, the Separate People, of
+strange and ancient customs,--leaving the hair uncut for a year after a
+relative's death, sitting on the floor, and not on a chair, for a week
+after; twisting a pocket-handkerchief round the waist on the Sabbath in
+order to save "the work" of carrying it; slitting the button-hole of the
+waistcoat in time of distress instead of "rending the garment"; eating
+_adafina_ on the Sabbath, an indigestible dish of hard-boiled eggs, meat,
+and potatoes prepared overnight and left on the fire till next morning.
+
+There is no end to ceremonials throughout a Jew's life: the first at his
+circumcision, the next when his hair is cut for the first time, the next
+when he goes to the synagogue for the first time, and so on.
+
+When a Jew was buried in Tetuan, the uncoffined body, wrapped in sheets
+on a wooden bier, might only be borne out of the city by the
+_Bab-el-Je'f_, literally the Gate of the Unclean Dead--that is, the Jews'
+Gate.
+
+The mourners howled and the male relatives cried aloud; friends followed,
+talking and smoking cigarettes. It happened sometimes that the grave was
+not ready when the cortege reached the cemetery, and that the party would
+sit down on the hillside while it was lengthened and deepened; from time
+to time the body would be measured with a walking-stick, and the result
+compared with the grave.
+
+It is impossible to write about the Jews and omit one certain point.
+Before the traveller has lived a week in Morocco he begins to hear of
+_protection_, and he carries with him vague words--"protected Jews" and
+"protected Moors"--which one sentence can explain. _Protection_ means
+that a European living in Morocco, a Portuguese, a Frenchman, an
+Englishman--it matters not--has it in his power to make the Jew or the
+Moor desiring protection a nominal citizen of that country, Portugal or
+France or what not, and can allow him the rights of a citizen and the
+protection of the same; while it follows that the Sultan and the Moorish
+Government have no more power to touch him than they have to touch a
+French or an English subject, the protected Jew or Moor being outside
+their jurisdiction, and only answerable to the consul of that country
+which has given him protection, whether Germany, France, or any other.
+The advantage of protection is to guarantee thereby the safety of
+property. It was instituted a hundred years and more ago, to obviate the
+difficulties and dangers incurred by Europeans in trading with Jews and
+Moors in a country so badly governed as Morocco. Supposing that a
+European went into partnership and traded with a Jew or a Moor who was
+unprotected, in course of time, when the Jew or Moor became rich, the
+Moorish Government would hear of it, and set to work systematically to
+bleed him. Naturally the European partner would lose money in the general
+robbery. Therefore _protection_.
+
+There is scarcely a Jew of property in Morocco who is not protected, and
+there are hundreds and hundreds of protected Moors; but though many Moors
+have enjoyed security for themselves and their belongings by this means,
+others less fortunate, more especially some years ago, have only escaped
+the talons of Moorish despotism to fall into the clutches of European
+swindlers, adventurers who have dared--themselves somewhat beyond the
+reach of their own home government--to fleece the unsuspecting
+Mohammedan, bribing some basha to imprison him for the rest of his days.
+
+A European consul has before now "sold" his Moorish protected
+partner--that is, he tells him that, if he does not produce so much
+money within a certain time, protection will be withdrawn. The wiser
+course for the Moor is to pay the sum. If protection is withdrawn, the
+Moorish Government and the European blackleg will divide his worldly
+goods between them.
+
+Such risks are minimized every year, and protection is greatly sought
+after by Moors and Jews. From the French they get it easily enough. The
+system is a bad one: that it prevails at all is a proof of the corruption
+of the Moorish Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS AT GIBRALTAR--A ROUGH NIGHT--THE STEAMER WHICH WOULD
+NOT WAIT--AN IGNOMINIOUS RETURN TO TETUAN--A RASCALLY JEW--THE ABORIGINES
+AND THE PRESENT OCCUPANTS OF MOROCCO--THE SULTAN, COURT, GOVERNMENT, AND
+MOORISH ARMY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+     Why curse? _Mektub._ (It is written.)
+
+
+IN spite of the attentions of Amanda, as December drew on and the weather
+showed no signs of clearing, we began to hanker after a week at
+Gibraltar, which should combine Christmas and the purchase of camp outfit
+for use when the rains passed over. It was not difficult to tear
+ourselves away from the fonda; for it became less easy to tolerate the
+proximity of the old Spanish band-master, with his bad tobacco and
+long-winded stories; nor were our landlady and family over-refined. We
+had not come to Morocco to live amongst the scum of Spain: could Tetuan
+be swept clean of the Spanish element, it were better for it. In fine,
+amusing and even interesting though our quarters had been for the time,
+circumstances pointed towards a move into others, the interval being
+spent in a run across to Gibraltar.
+
+The steamers which call at Martine, down on the seashore, and bring goods
+to be carted up to Tetuan, six miles inland, are as mysterious as they
+are rare. One is supposed to call on alternate Tuesdays, weather
+permitting; another occasionally calls in the intervening weeks; none
+come direct from Gibraltar, though all are supposed to go straight back
+there after touching at Ceuta. But there are many buts. Worst of all, the
+river at Martine has formed a bar, and Martine is a "bar port": this
+prevents landing in a strong wind.
+
+We pinned our faith upon the Tuesday boat, not realizing its uncertainty;
+for if the boat had not enough cargo on board to make it worth while her
+calling, or if she had too much and time was short, or if the weather was
+bad, she had no hesitation in missing Martine and Tetuan out of that
+fortnight's round altogether.
+
+We did not want to ride forty-four miles to Tangier with the "roads" in
+the state they were, even if it had been practicable; nor almost as far
+and a worse track to Ceuta: either would have meant sleeping a night in
+the fondak up in the hills, or in a Spanish lodging-house of doubtful
+repute: therefore we planned to go by boat from Martine, engaged rooms
+for a week in Gibraltar beforehand, and, with the optimism born of
+ignorance, doubted not but that we should get away on the steamer.
+
+Packing up overnight and breakfasting at eight, we were soon ready to
+mount our mules and ride down to the shore to catch our boat. It was a
+matter of two and a half hours from Tetuan down to Martine: the track
+need not be described--this speaks for itself. Our luggage, tied with
+complicated rope-knots, was judiciously balanced upon one mule, and we
+had said good-bye to Amanda and family when a message arrived from the
+steamships agency to say that the steamer was not in.
+
+After taking counsel, however, the luggage was dispatched down to
+Martine; a muleteer badly marked with small-pox climbed on the top of our
+worldly goods, and the mule jogged off: we would follow when the steamer
+was sighted.
+
+[Illustration: REFUSE GOING OUT OF TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 124._]
+
+Walking into the feddan in search of information about her, every Moor or
+Jew only replied with shrugged shoulders and extended palms. Who could
+tell? She might come in at eleven, she might not. "Ift shallah" (Allah
+will show). As she had two hundred and forty tons of cargo to unload, the
+agents thought she might stay till the following day before starting for
+Gibraltar: on the other hand, the previous night had been a rough one,
+and it was quite possible she had passed Martine altogether, and did not
+intend to call for another fortnight.
+
+It was a sunny morning: there was nothing to be said but "Mektub" (It is
+written), and nothing to be done except sit in the sun and await events,
+after the fashion of the brown figures in jellabs also sitting in the sun
+against the south wall of the feddan where it is highest and nearly
+always dusty.
+
+Wandering up and down, Spaniards were to be seen in one cafe shuffling
+filthy cards and drinking spirits, while in another, behind a great vine
+which held in its arms a rustic trellis porch and seats, Moors lay on
+their elbows, tumblers of tea swimming in mint in front of them and long
+kif-pipes. A Riffi sat on a stool in the sun, leaning against the vine,
+nursing his gun; his single long black lock fell down by his ear, glossy
+and tied in a knot at the end. Next door a gunsmith was at work in his
+little shop sand-papering a gun-stock: a sheep was penned inside against
+the Great Feast, and more sheep in the grocer's beyond. On the opposite
+side of the great square a Jew was selling enamel ware to one of the five
+lady missionaries. Then meat came hurrying by, just killed outside the
+Mulberry Gate and still warm. Red-and-white shapeless carcases were
+balanced on a donkey's back, kept steady by a sanguinary Moor who sloped
+along behind: the donkey knew its own way well, across the wide feddan,
+down a narrow street, and into the meat market. Thither hurried the lady
+missionary to buy a joint. If cooked before it has time to get cold the
+meat is tender, otherwise it must be hung.
+
+It did not seem long before the bell on the top of the Spanish Consulate
+rang out twelve o'clock. There was no sign of any steamer--the steamships
+agent had given her up; and not wishing our luggage to lie on the beach
+all night--for gumption was not one of the characteristics written on our
+pock-marked boy's face--we sent a messenger off on the two hours and a
+half ride down to Martine to summon him back.
+
+About one o'clock, just as we were sitting down to lunch in Mr. Bewicke's
+room, the news arrived that the steamer was signalled. All doubt was at
+an end: we lunched complacently, allowed time for coffee and a
+button-hole out of the garden, mounted the mules, Mr. Bewicke his white
+pony; the gardener, Madunnah, following behind on foot, carrying our
+sticks and umbrellas, which burden was increased half-way through the
+city by a bracket, but lately coloured in garish tones, vermilion
+prevailing--it bled somewhat, but was to serve as a Christmas present at
+Gibraltar.
+
+Over the cobbles, under the Gate of Wisdom, out on to the sandy track,
+and along the sea road we rode, the mules refusing at first to pass some
+sacks of grain which lay in the middle of the path waiting to go down to
+the beach. There is a gate tax on every loaded animal which passes under
+the Gate of Wisdom, to avoid which the sacks are carried just out of the
+city on men's backs, set down, and picked up in time by mules.
+
+The first mile or so was not worse going than usual. Coming from the
+right by a trail which led across the river, a string of women bore
+towards us, bringing wood into the city from villages miles away--scrub
+off the mountain-side. Their rough heads were bound round with
+weather-stained coloured handkerchiefs: listless eyes looked straight out
+from under lined foreheads. On each side of their doubled-up backs
+protruded rough wood-ends--these kept in place by a rope over the
+shoulder, grasped in knotted hands above copper-coloured muscular arms.
+The bit of towelling round the loins, brushed by the wind, left bare a
+species of knees and legs, carved by two thousand years of toil into
+humanized Norman piers, buttressed with muscle, in which ankles have no
+lot nor part, which have carried and still carry unreasonable loads from
+childhood to the grave. These women walked in single file, as do the
+mules and donkeys. And this is partly due to the space which the wide
+bundles take up on each side, partly to bad paths, and partly to entire
+lack of initiative. Why should they strike out a line of their own, these
+"cattle" and "beasts of burden," as they call themselves? The old way
+comes easier.
+
+Thus life has moved across Morocco, without deviation, down immeasurable
+years, and moves so to-day, along innumerable trails worn afresh by bare
+feet after every rain-storm, footprint into footprint, padded hard and
+smooth, narrow and polished.
+
+The flats, after so much wet weather, were under water, and the lower
+down the road dropped, the deeper the country grew. Our mules struggled
+along at a slow walk, and we constantly diverged off the track, circling
+to this side or the other whenever a field looked an improvement upon our
+muddy quagmire, generally to find that it was very little better and
+sometimes worse.
+
+About half-way we met our luggage and messenger. The pock-marked boy had
+taken our effects to the shore, had found no steamer, waited a short
+time, then calculated that he would be late getting back to the city,
+and ran risks of robbers, to say nothing of _ginns_ (spirits) lurking in
+the wells by the road, so turned his face homewards.
+
+We were in total ignorance, and so of course was he, all this time as to
+the movements of the steamer: once out of the city, the level of the road
+is such that nothing can be seen of the sea until a couple of hours'
+riding, lands people right on the beach itself. With every hope that she
+still lay at anchor, we turned our "pock-mark" round, and the poor mule
+faced the bad road down to Martine for the second time that day.
+
+Madunnah handed over the bracket to crown our baggage, and plodded
+bravely on, often well up to his bare knees in mud and water. A brace of
+duck forged across the sky above our heads; some plover called and called
+again mournfully, wheeling above the irresponsive marshes and brown
+fallows; a string of mules moved like mites over a cheese in the sandy
+distance. We passed the Wad-el-Martine in heavy flood, its yellow yeasty
+depths swirling between the soft red banks.
+
+At last a couple of stone bridges came into sight, isolated in a waste of
+water, remnants of the old Portuguese road, and in normal times affording
+a dry path over two dykes. We plunged through unseen holes and among
+stony pitfalls up to the lonely landmarks and dry ground for a few yards;
+then more floods; but after that the last mile or two became easy enough,
+the land rose, and dry sandy dunes, with tough bents flattened in the
+wind, conduced towards a jog, almost a canter. Goats, picking up a bare
+living, scattered as we hurried along, past the white Customs House and
+an old wharf on the river, away to the beach. Behind us the mountains
+were black and purple, heavy rain-clouds were gathering, and directly we
+topped the crest of the sandy shore a strong east wind met us full in
+the teeth straight off the sea. But there as large as life lay the
+steamer, a long way out, on account of the bar and the wind, with a
+choppy sea running between.
+
+A cargo-boat was vainly trying to cross the bar, towed by a long green
+boat which six Moors were rowing. She made no headway, shipped water
+which deluged the cargo, and seemed half aground on the bar. No other
+boat or boatmen seemed to be available: the steamer was not within hail.
+Certainly there were three more cargo-boats lying in shelter in a corner
+of the river-estuary a little way off the land, but some men in one of
+them seemed half asleep--at any rate, they were out of our reach, and
+deaf to our shouts and gesticulations to the effect that we wanted to be
+rowed on board the steamer.
+
+We waited and waited; Madunnah yelled himself hoarse; but the cargo-boat
+still rolled on the bar, lashed by the waves, and the men still strained
+at their oars and paid no heed to our cries. Twice we thought they meant
+coming to our signals, but each time they were only trying fresh
+manoeuvres.
+
+Rain came on, a sharp easterly scud; the pock-marked boy drew his jellab
+over his head; the mules turned their backs to the squall; but Madunnah
+still stood at the edge of the waves, gesticulating wildly with our
+sticks and umbrellas at the impassive rowers. Sunset was upon us. At a
+fire of driftwood on the beach a short distance off R. and I tried to
+warm ourselves.
+
+Suddenly the long green boat left the cargo and pulled towards us: the
+sea was rising, and looked anything but encouraging; breakers were
+showing their white teeth on the bar; but the green boat drew nearer and
+came in at last, or nearly so--for she stopped short off the shore, and,
+half aground, lost her rudder. Still none of the crew paid the faintest
+attention as we hailed them in Arabic, English, and Spanish across the
+few yards of water which put them just out of our reach. They had
+something else to do except attend to three mad Britishers--let them
+rave.
+
+The cargo-boat, deserted by the long green boat, had stuck worse than
+ever: darkness was coming on, and she was in a bad case. The men in the
+"long green" roused the half-sleeping Moors in the companion boat, and it
+was evident that both meant going out together to tow the belated cargo
+in.
+
+Our voices carried less as the wind rose, and it was evident even to
+Madunnah that words were wasted. The rain drove in torrents; it was
+bitterly cold, and growing darker every moment; as the two boats turned
+their heads towards the wave-swept cargo we realized that it was night,
+that all chance of getting on board was at an end for that day at least,
+and we set our backs to the sea.
+
+There still remained one alternative and a last chance of getting to
+Gibraltar for Christmas Day: the steamer might not leave till the
+following morning, and, taking shelter for the night in the Customs House
+on the beach, we ought to be able to get on board at daybreak. We turned
+off to the left through blinding gushes of rain, and headed for this
+refuge.
+
+[Illustration: A MOORISH PRISON GATE.
+
+[_To face p. 130._]
+
+The Customs House was much like a caravanserai: an open space in the
+middle was enclosed by sheds for mules and asses; a rough stair led to
+the living-rooms, above the sheds, which opened on to a flat white roof.
+We stumbled up on to the roof; then in under a low doorway into a little
+wooden lean-to, where an old Jew caretaker was living. The rest of the
+place was given over to a family of Israelites, who had come down to
+"the seaside" from Tetuan for change of air.
+
+Much to our relief, the old Jew caretaker assured us that the steamer
+would be landing cargo till noon on the following day: he offered us
+everything he had in his power for that night, and promised to see us off
+in a boat the next day. Committing us to his care, Mr. Bewicke left us
+and rode back to Tetuan with the mules and Madunnah; our baggage was
+stowed away under shelter; and the old Jew, finding a light and
+improvising two seats out of boxes and matting, sat us down at his little
+table, with a bit of frayed linoleum on it and a glass.
+
+The roof leaked and the rain beat on to the linoleum, but we were in snug
+quarters after the beach, and our friendly host began boiling up a great
+black kettle in a tiny inner room, assisted by a Moor. He was very
+rheumatic, the old man, also very deaf, and Martine must have been a damp
+spot for him (the river and marshes close at hand, and east or west wind,
+both of them heavy with moisture--nothing would dry, hung out in the air
+at Tetuan); nor were his quarters rain-proof.
+
+He hobbled backwards and forwards, muffled up in a worn grey
+handkerchief, with a fortnight's white stubble on his chin, and an aged
+greenish overcoat down to his slippers.
+
+From the recesses of a bunk in the next shelter, where he slept, he
+produced some pink china cups; then returned with a plate of bread,
+hardened to the consistency of biscuit, and smelling strongly of aniseed.
+After that he made tea in a little brown earthenware teapot--sweet green
+tea with mint--and we soon thawed under a succession of cups. Still he
+stumbled about, hunting out of a cupboard a small basket of eggs, and in
+the next room a great stirring and beating-up followed.
+
+By-and-by the Moor who had been assisting him appeared with an omelette;
+it was dark brown, mixed thick with aniseed, chopped ham, and parsley;
+nor was it easy to dispose of it.
+
+Our kind host ended up by pressing gin on us.
+
+Warmed and fed, but unfortunately unable to sustain a conversation with
+him either in Arabic or Spanish, and having exhausted the few words at
+our command, the next best thing was to make ourselves comfortable for
+the night. Lighting a candle, the old Jew paddled across the wet roof,
+and we followed him, dimly distinguishing beasts feeding in the stalls
+down below, to a small room on the far side, where some sort of
+preparation had been made for us: a rug was spread on the stone floor,
+and a bedstead had a blanket laid upon it, while our baggage was piled in
+a corner. Putting on overcoats and rugs, we sat down on one of our
+trunks--it is unwise to place confidence in unknown beds in Morocco; but
+when, driven by sheer weariness, we lay down as we were on the blanket,
+we slept unmolested.
+
+A Jew on the other side of a thin partition which did not reach the
+ceiling, snored heavily and awoke us at intervals. About six next
+morning, what sounded very like the steamer's whistle blew repeatedly,
+but we paid little attention to it, the old Jew and Mr. Bewicke having
+both assured us the boat would leave about twelve o'clock. Morning had
+dawned when we burst open the wooden shutters of a little window much
+swelled with damp, and looked out across the sand-dunes at the sea.
+
+There lay the black hull of the steamer at anchor: the wind of the night
+before had dropped; a flaring sunrise and stormy sky lowered behind the
+Riff Mountains, which were black.
+
+Dressing was short work. The Moor handed us in at the door a tin basin
+of water, and in a short time we were ready for the next move. At that
+point R. craned up to look out of the high window. When she spoke, I
+could hardly believe her words. . . . _The steamer had weighed anchor and
+was moving._
+
+There was no mistaking it: the black hull had swung round, and was making
+for the open sea, with a flag of smoke trailing behind her; and away she
+went to Gibraltar.
+
+We rushed out upon the flat roof and up a rotten ladder minus three
+rungs--all unheeding--which gave access to the roof above our room,
+gaining nothing thereby except a panoramic view, with the departing boat
+in the middle distance. Already she stood well out to sea: the Customs
+House was a quarter of a mile from the beach: there was nothing to be
+done: to blame our kind old host would have been as ungrateful as it was
+useless, and regrets were equally unavailing. True it is that the wise
+man fends for himself and makes no arrangements second-hand in Morocco,
+where every one is _casual_ and every plan is _casual_. Had we found out
+when the ship's papers were going on board, and arranged with the agent
+to call us and take us in his boat, we should have eaten plum pudding in
+Gibraltar. Apparently the steamer had been signalling for the last hour
+to the effect that she was going, that the weather was bad and the sea
+rough outside, and that she would not venture to stay and dispatch her
+cargo--none of which facts the deaf and decrepit old Jew had grasped. He
+hobbled out, and would hardly believe his eyes.
+
+We sat down to some weak green tea and the same dry aniseed-flavoured
+bread as the night before, and, thus fortified, reviewed our course of
+action, which had few complications, there being no other steamer before
+Christmas, and the ride to Ceuta or Tangier barred by reason of the
+flooded streams and general state of the country. The "open road" pointed
+towards Tetuan and our old quarters in the Spanish fonda, of which we had
+taken only the day before such joyful leave. It was inevitable, that next
+move; and should be made quickly, to judge by the look of the
+weather--the clouds were growing lower and blacker every half-hour.
+
+Animals were a difficulty--our mules had gone back to the city the night
+before; but it would have been hard work wading across the flooded acres
+for seven miles; and there was our luggage.
+
+Eventually we raised a seedy little rat of a pony, which R. rode; a
+ragged donkey, on which half our goods was balanced; while the other half
+went on a mule, with me on the top of all. We turned our backs on the
+hospitable white Customs House and the ill-favoured sea with a muttered
+imprecation.
+
+In Tetuan a wealthy man was building a house. It was at a standstill for
+want of plaster. The plaster had already come in on the steamer _three_
+times, and three times she had gone away without unloading it. The boat
+we had lost had made a fourth endeavour, and we learnt afterwards that
+Mr. N----'s ill-fated plaster had formed the cargo in the wave-washed
+boat of the evening before. Wet through, it set as hard as a stone in the
+sacks, and was useless: it lay like rocks on the beach. The bar at
+Martine has been tolerated for unknown ages: there is no reason to think
+that the Moor will rouse himself into making an effort and trying to
+facilitate the landing of passengers and cargo.
+
+We left upon our right as we rode along, some hundreds of yards from the
+sea, the remains of what years upon years ago was a fort, built somewhat
+as forts will be built in the near future--with a view to concealment.
+The outside wall facing the Mediterranean was crescent-shaped, and but
+four feet high at most, the sand sloping up nearly to the top, and
+overgrown with vegetation, so that little or no fort showed at all. There
+were a few loop-holes, through which men could shoot from the inside
+lying down; there was a well in the centre of the fort, and a small
+bomb-proof building, with an arched roof many feet thick, where powder
+had been kept. A primitive construction, this harmless-looking little
+crescent facing the sea--once upon a time bristling with dare-devil Moors
+and their long guns.
+
+Half-way to Tetuan we passed _the_ cart, the first and last I saw in the
+place: its antediluvian body was set on two demented wheels, which rolled
+out of the upright like a tipsy sailor. The cart was Government property:
+five mules of different sizes, drew it up in a string from the sea to the
+city, through the quagmire, laden with flour and kerosene oil and stores
+of all descriptions, a couple of Moors toiling alongside.
+
+R.'s "rat" was not too surefooted, and some of the floods were deep: once
+it came on its nose, but a second time sat down in a hole in the middle
+of a sheet of water, leaving nothing for its rider but to slip off and
+wade out, walking afterwards wherever the track allowed, to raise a
+little circulation underneath drenched clothes. A certain melancholy
+possessed the flats as well as our vexed selves that stormy and
+ill-fortuned morning. In places the tops of the grass-blades alone showed
+in a green watery waste, except where tall dark rushes made a heavier
+mass, or where the tufts of red-brown tangle lay in warm lines. The sea
+behind us was an angry purple; the Riff Mountains were steel-blue; the
+nearer hills now black, now gold in fitful sun-gleams, now crossed by a
+rainbow. Only in the north there was a great break, and a light like
+brass, behind Ape's Hill. Tradition has it that a subterranean passage
+leads thence underneath the Straits to the Rock of Gibraltar, and is used
+by the monkeys as a means of transit from Africa to Europe.
+
+Our miserable beasts were several hours toiling up to Tetuan: the rain
+came on, and with the wind straight off the snows it was as cold a ride
+as I remember.
+
+The next morning we went to the French Steamship Company's office for the
+purpose of recovering our passage money from the agent, who had insisted
+upon our buying tickets beforehand. This fat, greasy Tangier Jew, of no
+chin, and flabby, suet-pudding face, flatly refused in plausible French
+to return us our cash, gesticulating, contradicting himself, pretending
+to misunderstand us, all in the same breath, and needing nothing so much
+as a good kicking. Since the money would only go into his own pocket, we
+fought the point, and, after being most insolent, he was obliged to
+promise that if the French Consular Agent in Tetuan judged it right, he
+would hand over the money.
+
+To the French Consular Agent we went: a Moor, whose office was in the
+French Post Office--a solemn, dignified man in a flowing blue jellab,
+over the same in white, both hoods drawn up over his head, showing a long
+olive face of the true Arab type, black eyes, black beard and moustache.
+He wore white socks and yellow slippers--a most courteous individual. On
+hearing our case, he simply sent for the Steamships Company Agent, and
+told him to hand over the money. We sat and waited with Mr. Bewicke, who
+was interpreting for us. Presently a step, and, much out of breath, the
+plausible Jew himself arrived, in a long great coat and billy-cock. He
+took a seat, and stated his case in Arabic to the French Consular Agent.
+There could have been no greater contrast than between the vulgar excited
+Israelite and the stately Mohammedan. The Moor sat with folded arms:
+occasionally he raised one hand to emphasize a quiet monosyllable. But
+alas for the steadfastness of his race! Perhaps he disliked being mixed
+up in the matter. At any rate, having said that the money was to be
+refunded, he allowed the Jew to argue the point, and, we gathered, was
+telling him finally that the whole question had better be referred to the
+company itself--a dim and visionary Steamships Company on the other side
+of the Mediterranean: it augured badly for us.
+
+But at this point R. spoke in French, and reminded the Jew that he had
+promised to refund the money if the French Consul so judged, that the
+Consul had given judgment, and that if the Jew still refused he was no
+longer a man of his word. Strange to say, this quickened a dormant
+conscience underneath all the dishonesty, or it pricked the Jew's pride;
+at any rate, after a torrent of protestations, from his tight
+waistcoat-pocket he produced a pile of dollars, and handed them over to
+us. The money had taken an hour to draw: as far as actual value went it
+was not worth it.
+
+The French Consular Agent, the dignified Moor, had to all intents and
+purposes failed us at the critical moment, since he would not exert his
+lawful authority over a French-protected Jew. But a Moor's faults may be
+summed up in one word--_weak_. As in the above instance, refusing to face
+circumstances or to follow one definite line of action to the end, he
+invariably acts on the principle of "going roundabout." In the course of
+time evasion has come to appear to him the best line to pursue, and he
+has sunk like a stone into a slough of compromise, a tarn of apathy.
+
+Such weakness, incompatible with Moorish fanaticism and courage, is due
+probably to tyranny.
+
+Living under a tyrannical government and religion, both of which, welded
+together, form the one dominant factor of his life, the Moor is afraid of
+each, and stands in dread of the ruin it is in their power to work in his
+life. Not only this, but he lives in fear of his countrymen and their
+long guns, of his wives and their poisons, of evil spirits.
+
+Morocco, as has been said, accepted Mohammedanism of necessity, not from
+choice, at the hands of the conquering Arabs, and it is accepted to-day,
+as the corrupt Government is accepted, with a shrug of the shoulders and
+"What God wills cannot but be." Weakened by blind submission, and at the
+same time holding nothing for which they have fought or wrought--no
+truths made adamant in the furnace of persecution, no Magna Charta won on
+the sword-point of patriotism, all of which are so much tonic and
+discipline to a nation, breeding grit, developing backbone--the Moorish
+people are paralyzed by a despotism which allows no originality of
+thought and action; they are no longer capable of "running straight,"
+but, suave and polite to a fault, lack that species of courage which
+conduces towards plain-speaking.
+
+After all, who and what are to blame except the people themselves? One
+writer curses the religion, another curses the Government. _Cui bono?_
+Climate and the fertility of soil may have influenced the races called
+Moorish, but the Moor himself is alone responsible for his Government and
+his religion.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+A PEEP OF TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 138._]
+
+Historians from time to time have had something to say about these
+tribes, and tradition boasts a legion tales respecting them; but the most
+able writer upon Morocco in old times was Leo Africanus, a Moor himself,
+who, when all his countrymen were expelled from Spain in 1492, fled to
+Fez.
+
+Twenty-five years later he was captured by Christian pirates and taken to
+Rome. He became a Christian, and he published his great and reliable
+history about the time that Henry VIII. was successful in Flanders and
+Scotland, when Wolsey obtained a cardinal's hat, and Catherine of Arragon
+had not been ousted by Anne Boleyn.
+
+The aborigines of Morocco were without doubt Berbers, and to-day Berbers
+occupy four-fifths of the country, in spite of the invasions of other
+nations. First on the list of the invaders came the Phoenicians, the
+earliest civilizing agency. The Romans followed eighty years after Caesar
+had landed in Britain, and annexed Morocco, Christianizing its people.
+Next to invade the country were the Vandals, who turned out the Romans,
+remained among the Berbers for over a hundred years, leaving red hair and
+blue eyes behind them. Then six hundred and ninety-eight years after the
+birth of Christ the deluge of Mohammedan conquest burst over Morocco, and
+hordes of Arabs, burning with a fanatical missionary spirit, swept over
+the land. At the end of eleven years the resistance of the Berbers was
+overcome, and they adopted Mohammedanism as lightly as they had adopted
+Christianity under the Roman rule.
+
+About two years afterwards a body of them crossed over into Spain under
+the one-eyed chieftain Tarik, and laid the foundation of the Moorish
+supremacy in Europe. Thither this band of pioneer Berbers was followed by
+the Arabs: the two races mingled and built up together an empire in Spain
+said to surpass all its contemporaries in learning and refinement. The
+Spanish named them indiscriminately _Mauros_, and _Moors_ they have been
+ever since; but the name Moor can be traced back as far as 23 A.D., when
+Pliny and Strabo speak of the _Maurusii_ and _Mauri_.
+
+A reflection of their empire's greatness shone even in Morocco itself:
+libraries and universities were founded in Fez and Morocco City. But at
+the same time the benighted country knew no settled peace; it was torn
+with civil war between the Arab and Berber tribes, until the Berbers
+finally mastered the Arabs, and forced them to confine themselves to
+certain districts.
+
+Meanwhile, in Spain the Moorish Empire, which for seven hundred years had
+remained firmly established, keeping alive Greek philosophy, building the
+Alhambra and making an indelible impression upon the Spanish nation,
+crumbled and fell, or, more properly speaking, was expelled from Spain
+after a year of bitter persecution. Thousands of Moorish refugees flocked
+back across the Straits to the land of their progenitors, and settled in
+Tetuan, Tangier, and the cities on the coast, buoyed up with the
+lingering hope of returning, when fickle Fortune smiled again, to the
+glories of their old houses in Granada, and to that land which had chosen
+to cast them out.
+
+As may be imagined, the government of Morocco soon fell into their more
+capable hands: they amalgamated more or less with the Arabs and
+Berbers--their own kith and kin--and the country became known to Europe
+as Morocco.
+
+In due time a certain Moor, a _Shar[=i]f_--that is, a direct descendant
+of the Prophet Mohammed--as head of the Mohammedan Church, gradually
+united under himself Arabs and Berbers alike, and was acknowledged as
+their Feudal Lord, Religious Chief, and Sultan. The present Sultan is of
+the same holy line: hence his title of _Shar[=i]fian Majesty_.
+
+A Berber and an Arab may easily be distinguished from each other.
+Berbers, taken as a whole, have square frames, high cheek-bones, small
+eyes, and are great walkers, not horsemen. The mountains are to them what
+the plains are to the Arabs, and they prefer an agricultural life to any
+other.
+
+Leo Africanus describes them, and his picture in all essentials holds
+good to-day: "They are strong, terrible, robust men, who fear neither
+cold nor snow; their dress a tunic of wool over bare flesh, and above the
+tunic a mantle, round their legs twisted thongs, never anything on the
+head. They rear sheep, mules, and asses; and they are the greatest
+thieves, traitors, and assassins in the world."
+
+From personal experience let this ryder be added: that they make good
+servants, faithful up to a certain point, to be trusted up to a certain
+point; but they are rascals.
+
+In Tetuan many more Berbers are to be met with than Arabs: the Riff tribe
+is Berber, and Tetuan is full of Riffis.
+
+Until the last thirty years the Berbers owned only a nominal allegiance
+to the Sultan; to-day he could pass through little of their territory
+without an army at his back, and into the Riff country he has never been
+at all.
+
+Among the Berbers there is plenty of throat-cutting as a legal
+punishment, and murder on the score of private vengeance, while
+Government oppression is rampant. As for travellers journeying across
+their country, only certain "roads" are "open" and safe: a Christian,
+with proper precaution, is seldom attacked on the way to Fez or Morocco
+City--a Jew occasionally. Off the beaten track and anywhere in the Riff
+country his life would not be worth a _flus_ (small copper coin).
+
+The Arabs have given the Berbers a name of their own--_Shillah_, which
+means "Outcast," referring back to the days when they drove them out of
+the plains up into the mountains; and it has stuck to them ever since.
+
+Travellers descant upon _the noble Shillah race_. The dialect which they
+speak is called Shillah: the Riffis at Tetuan spoke Shillah among
+themselves, but soon picked up Arabic of a sort, and a little Spanish.
+
+The Arab differs in every respect from the Berber. One of the finest
+types among mankind, he has a tall, spare frame, aquiline nose, fine
+eyes. He is kind, hospitable, dignified, abstemious, a poet, a gentleman,
+and a horseman. He is capable of great things, and of all Orientals has
+most impressed himself upon the world. At the same time he is too often
+treacherous and blood-thirsty, inclined to be sensual and inquisitive.
+
+Perhaps his faults have led to the extolling of the noble Shillah race at
+the Arab's expense. On this subject Mr. Cunninghame Graham writes, that
+certain travellers in Morocco must have "been humiliated at finding in
+the Arabs a finer type than their own, and have turned to the Shillah
+race with the relief that the earthen teapot must find when taken away
+from the drawing-room companionship of Dresden china and put back again
+on the kitchen dresser." For myself "earthen teapot" and "Dresden china"
+have both much fascination. I would trust either just as far as I could
+see him.
+
+Thus Morocco is populated by two antipathetic races, who neither singly
+nor jointly have or can consolidate it into a thriving empire. The Arab
+cared only to convert a conquered people to Mohammedanism and to push his
+individual fortune, heedless of assimilating individuals into one
+nation, as did the Romans. Great Arab chiefs there have been, but never a
+patriot. With the fatalistic spirit of the East, and a tendency to see
+life only from the personal standpoint, it followed that, when a holy war
+no longer fired the wandering and independent shepherds to fight and
+forced them to obey, they became "slack," remained stationary, or
+retrograded.
+
+The Arab would not advance civilization in Morocco, nor would the wild
+and lawless Berber; the Moorish refugees from Spain had sadly
+degenerated; to crown all, civil war led to the destruction of the
+libraries and universities in Fez and Morocco City, and education was no
+more.
+
+Ignorance begat worse government; decline and poverty followed one after
+the other. Corruption among the rulers spread downwards and ran through
+the country, until the whole body politic was unsound, and is so to-day.
+
+Though the name of the Sultan, as Head of the Church, is held in
+reverence, yet many of the tribes would resist to the uttermost any
+attempt on his part to subdue them by force of arms, so unsettled is his
+empire.
+
+He holds himself to be far superior to the Sultan of Turkey, who is not
+descended from the Prophet, but who, on the other hand, is the guardian
+of the sacred city of Mecca, and who possesses superior forces.
+
+Second in rank to the Sultan of Morocco follow his ministers--the Chief
+Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Chief Adviser, the Minister of the
+Interior, and the Minister of Finance. Their duties are to carry out the
+Sultan's wishes, and, receiving no pay, they look to enriching themselves
+at the expense of their respective billets.
+
+A body of secretaries come after the ministers, who write and dispatch
+the Sultan's decrees to distant cities, where their letters are read
+aloud in the mosques to the people by the governors. A special body of
+messengers is employed under the secretaries.
+
+Each district and city has its _kaid_ or _basha_ (its governor), whose
+duty is to read the Sultan's letter aloud and carry out his instructions,
+who oversees the city market, prices food, detects false weight, deals
+with robbers and murderers, and sees that the peace is kept.
+
+As well as basha every city has its _kadi_, or judge of civil law, who
+settles all questions of land, of grants, divorces, etc.
+
+We visited the Court of Civil Justice at Tetuan, a tiny room, carpeted
+with yellow matting, where the white-haired kadi, attired in white, sat
+like a magnificent white rabbit on a large red cushion on the floor,
+beside him a table six inches high, with learned-looking books, ink,
+parchment, and thin slips of wood for pens.
+
+Below the basha or kaid come _sheikhs_ (village elders), who may be
+called gentlemen farmers. They collect the taxes directly from the
+country people. A province is taxed according to what it produces: no one
+pays the sum demanded of him, nor at the time it is demanded, but
+eventually every householder in the district is judiciously squeezed to
+the uttermost farthing, and half of what he pays goes into the sheikh's
+pocket.
+
+Morocco conceals its wealth in times of visitations such as these: money
+and corn alike are buried in the ground. Some of the people are
+imprisoned, some tortured, and eventually all disgorge, and are left with
+barely enough for their every-day wants.
+
+It is a system typical of the East and its slipshod, rough-and-ready
+dealings: its great element of simplicity harks back to a life in tents,
+where red tape was unknown.
+
+The highest officials are in the habit of transacting business at their
+street doors or in their stables: the basha invariably sits in some
+gateway near his house, hearing and judging matters which two or three
+gesticulating claimants explain to him. Private matters are public
+property: the man in the street chats with the Minister of Finance--for
+are not all men equal? The minister may have sold groceries at one time,
+before he was called upon to fill a position at Court. Who can tell what
+a day may not bring forth?
+
+The Sultan--who is known as "The Lofty Portal, the Exalted of God, the
+Noble Presence"--has a body of servants and retainers round him: first of
+all "The Learned Ones," men who advise him, but make a point of
+ascertaining his wishes before they give an opinion, and are of no use at
+all except in conducting negotiations; next the officer who carries the
+great pearl-and-gold-embroidered parasol over his head; next an officer
+who flicks away flies; then a master of ceremonies, a headsman, a
+flogger, a shooter, a water-bearer, a tent-layer, a tea-maker, a
+standard-bearer, and a "taster" to see that no poison is given.
+
+More closely connected than any of these with the Sultan is of course his
+harem, of both black and white women, who have been honoured by admission
+into the much-sought-after precincts. Some of them are Circassians,
+supplied by Constantinople: all are the best which money can buy, or ease
+and position tempt. When their numbers have been greatly swelled, certain
+of them are drafted on as presents to kaids and bashas.
+
+The offspring of the Sultan's numerous wives are brought up in isolated
+sanctuaries, each boy in company with a slave of his own age, whom he
+calls brother. Girls inherit no rank.
+
+One and all are married when they reach maturity, at a State function
+which takes place each year, the Sultan choosing their consorts. He gives
+his favourite son--whom he has named as his successor--a high command in
+the army or an important governorship: as long as the boy is too young
+for either, the Sultan associates him with himself in official
+receptions.
+
+All possible rivals to the Sultan are disposed of, chiefly by banishment.
+
+Guarding the intriguing and inflammable harem are eunuchs, imported at
+great expense from Abyssinia, and responsible for the Sultan's wives and
+concubines, whom "wise women" prepare to meet their lord. The late Sultan
+was in the habit of having his harem paraded in his garden on Thursdays,
+in order to select the most attractive, and spend Friday--the Mohammedan
+Sunday--in her company.
+
+It is a curious fact that the Imperial Treasure, which is distributed
+between Fez, Morocco City, and Mequinez, of which no details are ever
+made public, can only be opened by agreement between the keeper, the
+governor of the palace, the trusted eunuch, and the head woman in charge
+of the harem. The secrets of its treasures are jealously guarded. It is
+probably impoverished.
+
+Every one who approaches the Court is expected to make the Sultan a
+present, and his collection of offerings would stock a museum.
+
+In the time of George I. we read of the Sultan's being sent "a rich
+crimson velvet sedan or chair for the favourite Sultana, and ten pounds
+of the finest tea at thirty shillings a pound." In the present day
+telephones, heliographs, gramophones, bicycles, motor-cars, guns,
+fireworks, and the latest inventions of all kinds find their way into
+Morocco.
+
+In return the staple Moorish offering has always been, and still is, Arab
+horses, with richly embroidered saddles and bridles.
+
+It is impossible to estimate the strength of the Moorish army. The only
+regulars are under European instruction, Sir Harry Maclean (known as Kaid
+Maclean) acting as commander-in-chief. Their pay is something like a
+penny half-penny a day for infantry, fourpence for cavalry, a shilling
+for commanding offices. The ranks consist of private, sergeant, captain,
+centurion, and colonel, each officer having a lieutenant.
+
+Every Moor capable of bearing arms in Morocco is liable to be _pressed_
+for service.
+
+In May, when the country is dry, each basha or kaid is ordered to collect
+troops in his own district: then is Tetuan deserted, and every boy and
+young man absents himself. How the lady missionaries hid their house-boy!
+Tetuan sent off two hundred men, under a colonel, while we were there,
+which were to help punish certain rebellious tribes. Often these
+expeditions are for the purpose of raising taxes. In any case the tribes
+against which the Sultan's troops are sent are said to be "eaten up."
+Long before it happened it was known and talked of.
+
+"Ah, yes; the Beni M`Saira would be eaten up in April."
+
+The Tetuan two hundred were sent to help eat up the Beni M`Saira tribe,
+some of whom had abducted two Spanish children a year ago. The children
+had driven their pigs on to land belonging to the tribe--a thing abhorred
+of by Mohammedans, to whom pigs are unclean. Expostulation was not
+heeded, and the Beni M`Saira resorted to strong measures, and kidnapped
+the children. They were sold from family to family beyond hope of
+recovery, and it would be hard to say what was their fate. Of course
+they were never seen again. Tales were circulated which said that the
+girl had been turned into a dancing-girl, and taught to dance upon hot
+ashes, or she may have become slave and concubine to some Moor. She was
+sixteen years old, and the lady missionaries at Tetuan knew her well, and
+her ten-year-old brother.
+
+The Spanish Government had complained to the Sultan, and now a year after
+the offence the Beni M`Saira were to be eaten up; there was to be a
+general raid upon their country: men would be killed, women taken as
+slaves, villages burnt, and corn destroyed. The worst part of the whole
+business is the fate of the prisoners on these occasions. These
+unfortunate men, suffering scarcely for their own misdeeds, are sent in
+chains to far-distant city prisons, whence they seldom emerge alive.
+
+The colonel of the Tetuan contingent was an example of the rapid rises
+and the vicissitudes of life in Morocco. Only the other day he had been
+harbour-master down at Martine, but was accused of smuggling and turned
+out of that berth; he then took a cafe and sold drinks in Tetuan, when
+suddenly the Sultan's pleasure took the shape of making him a full-blown
+colonel in his troops. As in the days of Joseph, the chief butler is sent
+for out of prison and made much of: the baker is sent for and hanged.
+
+[Illustration: A SAINT-HOUSE, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 148._]
+
+The lucky colonel and his two hundred left Tetuan in bad weather: their
+pay was such that many of them, before starting, sold the bullets
+supplied them, in order to buy food with the money, preferring to fight
+without ammunition rather than on empty stomachs; but only _one quarter_
+of them got as far as El K`sar--the rest deserted on the road, to escape
+hunger and exhaustion from rain and cold.
+
+The Oolad Moosa tribe were eaten up not long ago; their land was harried,
+their fruit-trees destroyed, and themselves killed, imprisoned, and
+enslaved. I was told by a Spaniard that he had seen five camel-loads of
+the heads of tribesmen brought into Larache while he was there. The
+Sultan offered three shillings per head. His soldiers sent up not a few
+heads which belonged to their own companions-in-arms. Consignments were
+sent off to various cities throughout Morocco, where the Jews, as usual,
+salted them, and they were set up over the gates and on the walls.
+
+There is little or no artillery in his Shar[=i]fian Majesty's army,
+though the few cannon he has, render him all-powerful against his
+rebellious tribesmen, who are only armed with rifles (principally
+French), which are smuggled into the country.
+
+Soldiers are supplied with the same rifles and European swords: the
+native curved dagger is also used.
+
+Pitched battles are seldom heard of. The troops entrench themselves
+strongly, gallop out in parties against the foe, fire a volley into his
+line, and gallop back again to reload. Pillage is the great element in
+this species of guerilla warfare.
+
+In connection with the army are the _Makhaznia_ (mounted police): they
+are practically cavalry. A few were quartered in Tetuan, and the basha
+employed them to take men prisoners and preserve peace and take messages
+and so on. The Makhaznia are paid for whatever they do by any one who
+employs them, and they often act as soldier-escort to Europeans.
+
+The Government of Morocco has but one hinge--a golden one. Thirty
+thousand pounds was paid by the late governor of Morocco City for his
+billet, and a capable man would still make his fortune before he retired,
+by means of bribes and presents from every one in connection with him,
+and a little undue pressure and taxation here and there. But no governor
+is exempt from that war-cry in Morocco, "Pay! pay! pay!" And if he or a
+basha wish for the Sultan's favour, which in order to remain in office is
+most desirable, he will forward a present regularly to Court, though at
+every feast he is obliged to send another in addition. When a Sultan
+imprisons a minister, he confiscates all his money.
+
+Bribes largely contribute towards filling the coffers of Government
+officials, from toadies down to unfortunate sufferers. A man has to buy
+himself out of prison: it costs a murderer about four pounds. Those who
+cannot afford to pay do not come out.
+
+Not long ago a poor man whom we knew was suddenly appointed to fill a
+lucrative post under Government. He dare not refuse it, but he was head
+over ears in debt, and of course a large sum of money was due in return
+for the appointment. He borrowed from the Jews and took up office. In one
+year he had paid all his debts, he had paid the Jews, and built himself a
+luxurious house. And who can wonder at it? Customs-house officers can all
+retire after _three years_ (if they choose), and live well. It is
+calculated that the Government gets exactly half of the duties.
+
+Tetuan had a favourite tale of bribery. A man wanted to make sure of a
+case he was bringing before the basha. He knew that the basha had a
+weakness for mirrors. He was a poor man, but he bought the best
+looking-glass he could afford, and dispatched it. The case came on; the
+basha gave it against him.
+
+"What!" cried the poor, discomfited loser; "did you not receive the
+mirror?"
+
+"Yes," replied the basha coolly; "but immediately afterwards a very fine
+mule came along, and _he kicked the looking-glass into a thousand
+fragments_."
+
+So when a man is disappointed of his due, they say, "The mule has kicked
+the glass."
+
+Another man had a brother in prison whom he wished to buy out: he took
+the basha a mule, and presented himself with his present.
+
+"You shall not bribe me," said the basha. "Soldier! put this man into
+prison with his brother, and put the mule into my stable."
+
+The man's family had a heavy bribe to raise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WE LOOK OVER A MOORISH COURTYARD HOUSE WITH A VIEW TO TAKING IT--WE RENT
+JINAN DOLERO IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION--AN ENGLISHMAN MURDERED--OUR
+GARDEN-HOUSE--THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF MOORISH SERVANTS--A NATIVE GUARD--THE
+RIFF COUNTRY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+    Ah! Moon of my delight, who know'st no wane
+    The Moon of Heaven is rising once again:
+    How oft hereafter rising shall she look
+    Through this same garden after me--_in vain!_
+
+
+CHRISTMAS DAY in a Mohammedan city passed with nothing to mark it except
+deluges of rain. The fonda had not grown upon us; and when two Moorish
+houses in the city at last presented themselves, the result of weeks of
+inquiry, we decided to take one, if, as was apparently the case, a
+garden-house outside the city was not to be had for love or money. The
+Moors all told us it was impossible. The fact is, that they are chary of
+letting their houses to unbelievers: the thing is not encouraged in the
+land; indeed, they are liable to be imprisoned for doing so, unless they
+have "protection" from a foreigner.
+
+All sorts of complications have arisen out of permission granted to
+Europeans to settle in the country: it depends on the European; he does
+something foolish, and legal or social or religious difficulties arise,
+and a storm in a teacup may end in serious dispute and a heavy indemnity
+to pay. So, naturally enough, the Sultan's advisers are averse to
+extending the limits of property owned by Europeans, and the barriers
+which they put in the way, debar ordinary people from running up villas
+and committing outrages such as half the world endures in silence.
+
+In Morocco it is necessary first of all to obtain the consent of the
+Government for the purchase of land. Interest can sometimes do it, and
+the pill must be heavily gilt. The next obstacle lies with Moorish
+jurisdiction, which, with forethought, sets forth that all disputes
+relating to property shall be referred to native courts and settled by
+Moorish law. This opens a door to barefaced bribery and intimidation:
+some one will be fleeced. Last of all, Moorish workmen building for an
+Englishman or any foreigner are liable to persecution and arrest. Thus
+foreign labour must be employed. And how is foreign labour to be had? A
+Jew or Spaniard may not be available. It is scarcely less difficult to
+rent a house in Morocco, unless it is in Tangier.
+
+Of the two which were thus unexpectedly offered us one was out of the
+question--it was damp; but the other, standing empty in a long narrow
+alley in the middle of the city, was as sound as houses built of rubbish
+and thin bricks can be, and we went to look over it, well prepared to
+ignore petty defects.
+
+It was entered, as usual, by a wide yellow door, studded with giant nails
+and a resounding knocker: a courtyard house--a most quaint and original
+construction in which to spend two or three months. From the
+ochre-coloured door we walked into a tiny tiled patio open to the sky,
+too small and insignificant for a fountain or an orange-tree: the kitchen
+and one other room where servants could sleep opened out of it, lighted
+only by their wide doors, which were never shut. So much for the ground
+floor.
+
+A tiny tiled staircase led to the first floor. Four narrow rooms,
+windowless, flanked the four sides of the square, and looked down into
+the little court below. Each room had double doors standing open for
+light and air. From the house-top above the first floor, on to which we
+went last, there was at least a view of a thousand flat white roofs, of
+pencil-shaped minarets, of turtle-backed mosques; but at the same time
+the sun itself could not be more dazzling to look at than was the
+impossible whitewash which besmeared all the roofs, and we soon left for
+our first floor, in whose four little dark rooms we proposed to live.
+Standing on the gallery which ran outside them, and leaning on the
+balustrade looking down into the minute patio, it was a case of the view
+below into that, and the view above up at the sky, and no more--a
+limited, and on wet days gloomy, prospect. Added to that, the orgies
+worked in the kitchen by a Moorish cook could not do other than proclaim
+themselves all over the first floor. True, the little patio embodied the
+Moorish conception of _al-fresco_ seclusion, and a depth of shadow lay in
+the inner rooms within the thin shell of the white walls. And yet--and
+yet--the lines of old-fashioned Eliza Cook returned insistently, and
+refused to be silenced:--
+
+    Double the labour of my task,
+    Lessen my poor and scanty fare,
+    But give, oh! give me what I ask--
+    The sunlight and the mountain air.
+
+And in the end the vote was given against the little windowless dwelling
+in the Moorish Quarter. No doubt a courtyard house is bizarre, but it has
+its imperfections.
+
+A Scotch proverb has it that "Where twa are seeking, they are sure to
+find." In time we found. A certain Moor of Tetuan, named Ali Slowee, a
+Spanish protected subject, was guardian, uncle, and stepfather to a boy
+named Dolero. Dolero owned a garden-house outside the city, called
+_Jinan Dolero_ (The Garden of Dolero). Ali Slowee heard of our wants and
+offered us his nephew's house, provided we undertook to give it up at the
+end of March. Than the unexpected, when it does come, nothing is so good.
+After a little difference over the rent (our landlord began by asking two
+pounds five a month, and came down to thirty shillings) all was settled,
+and New Year's Day, 1902, found us living in a whitewashed garden-house
+in Morocco, out in the country.
+
+Moors have extravagant ideas of the sums English people will pay. Mr.
+Bewicke was offered a house and garden for seven pounds ten a month: some
+time after the landlord asked three pounds; eventually he came down to
+thirty-nine shillings.
+
+[Illustration: JINAN DOLERO.
+
+[_To face p. 158._]
+
+Having handed a month's rent over to Ali Slowee, he had Jinan Dolero done
+up, whitewashed at least, outside and in, from top to toe--a rite
+performed on every opportunity all the year round in Morocco, like
+spring-cleanings at home. Tiles were mended, windows repainted, glass put
+in, and we followed,--the simplest thing in the world; "furnishing" takes
+no time in Morocco. Three mules carried out all we put into the empty
+little house--all our effects, that is to say, from the fonda. A few rugs
+were unrolled, camp-beds, table, and chairs put together, some nails
+driven into the walls, and in one hour we were "in." Gibraltar supplied
+the camp furniture; necessaries were raked together in Tetuan, including
+the dome-shaped pewter teapot, and the painted tins, pink and green and
+blue, for tea, coffee, and sugar, which mark the tramp of the European
+across Morocco, and are both of them for ever associated with sweet green
+tea and turbans. Mattresses we had made, and made ourselves, of moss,
+brought in by the countrywomen and dried; and an Englishman, A---- (one
+of the few who have become Mohammedans and settled in Morocco), lent
+several more, which made divans round our walls.
+
+A---- has a little house close to Jinan Dolero, and occupies himself with
+his garden outside the city. He dresses like a Moor. In spite of it all,
+he is not welcomed among them as a brother, but goes by the name of "The
+Renegade." They probably divine that he adopts their religion as a part
+of the customs of the country with which he identifies himself, less for
+the sake of Mohammedanism itself than for the life which that religion
+inculcates.
+
+Apparently men in such a position rarely benefit the country in which
+they settle, and often do harm, ending by paying the penalty of meddling
+with the manners and customs of another race.
+
+Now, at the time of writing this chapter, A---- has paid in full. Only a
+few months after we left Tetuan he was shot one evening in his garden and
+killed on the spot, apparently from close quarters, probably from behind
+the hedge. The servants had gone home and found his body next morning. If
+they are to be believed, no one heard a shot. Men have been imprisoned
+and men will suffer death for the murder, no doubt; but whether the
+actual murderer is shot or goes scot-free, and what his inducement for
+committing the crime, probably half Tetuan will know and half Tetuan will
+tell, _and tell a lie_.
+
+Some say that A---- was shot for the sake of his gun and his money.
+Others that he was shot by some Riffi brothers because he was in the
+habit of talking to their sister. Others that the murder was connected
+with his having lived at one time with a Moorish woman, from whom he
+eventually separated.
+
+No one will ever know.
+
+Jinan Dolero would have been called in the Riviera "a villa": it was a
+typical Moorish garden-house. We lived upstairs, after the manner of the
+country, in the airiest and lightest of small whitewashed sitting-rooms:
+its three windows, set certainly with head-splitting glass, looked south,
+east, and west, on sea, mountains, and city. The second larger room, in
+which we slept, had a thick white pillar in the very middle of it,
+supporting the ceiling. A store-room on the same floor did duty as
+larder, and a staircase led up on to the flat white roof.
+
+Underneath us were kitchen, mules' stable, and two rooms for our two
+servants: a little staircase led down to them and on to the hall and
+front door. The floors were all tiled: a dip in the corner of each room
+and a hole in the wall carried off the water when they were sluiced down.
+Innocent of spouting, the water merely streamed down the outside wall.
+Each window reached to the floor, and an inartistic iron grille removed
+all danger of falling out. It was the sunniest house in the world, and an
+airy one, for the passage and rooms had loop-holes, a foot high and four
+inches wide, cut in the wall, through which air freely circulated. On the
+ground floor the windows were _nil_, but more loop-holes let in ample
+light. One was constructed on each side our hall door, that before
+unbarring at night we might know what manner of visitor we had, and even
+fire a charge through the aperture if the occasion warranted.
+
+Our garden was another Moorish wilderness, another "Field of the
+Slothful," thick in a waste of weeds, blue borage, and yellow marigolds.
+But it was also a vineyard. Dead-looking branches of vines trailed among
+the weeds, which later on were cut down with a sickle and turned into
+green meat for cows. Splendid muscats, we were told, our vines would
+produce: branches are spread over them in the summer as a slight
+protection from the sun, but the grapes are left on the ground and often
+soiled; nor has a Moor the slightest idea of picking them, or of
+preserving their bloom. Besides the vines, there were fruit-trees in
+Jinan Dolero. Pink almonds blossomed first; the leaf and the flower of
+apricots followed; apples, peaches, and pears came almost at the same
+time; and we lived in a pink world. The fig-tree softened its hard heart
+last of all, and its ashy-grey arms burst into tender green leaf and
+infant figs; at the same time the pomegranates shot into warm red
+leaflets. There were lemons which were ripe on the trees on New Year's
+Day, and made many a lemon-squash: there was double narcissus in flower
+everywhere; it sprouted up in the grass paths which divided our garden,
+and got badly trodden down: there were rows and rows of beans, which
+scented the air: last of all, there were some red geraniums in flower.
+
+A hedge of prickly pear ran down the east side of the enclosure, a tall
+cane fence effectually hedged in the rest, and the whole was entered by
+the inevitable locked and barred door, and whitewashed doorway, the long
+key of which, was a care in life, till we learnt that in Morocco every
+precaution is taken up to a certain point; matters are then handed over
+to Providence, and man, forbearing to meddle further, sits down and
+awaits their development.
+
+Thus, with all their locks and bolts, garden doors were often left open,
+and the cane fences were full of gaps. But none of our lemons were
+stolen--not, at least, after we got rid of the guard of soldiers which
+for the first week the basha insisted on sending to Jinan Dolero every
+night. They ate them.
+
+Fine days were never long enough in the little garden-house facing the
+mountains: in the mornings an opal light; the sunrise stalking across
+their summits, while a cloud of white mist would sweep down the valley
+out to the blue sea-line; all day bright light and dazzle, a wind soft
+and yet racy; at night an abrupt sunset, leaving for a few moments a
+rose-pink after-glow, followed by an intense silence.
+
+The first thing in the morning, we always wandered in our garden down the
+grassy paths among the dew; measured the rain-gauge; looked at the sky;
+watched the birds, of which a flight, chiefly flocks of finches,
+invariably travelled over the little terraces of fruit-trees towards the
+river, taking our garden on the way, and feeding there for a while. A
+white jasmine almost hid our white steps and pillars: a rose grew with
+lavish prodigality; as Jinan Dolero stood there, in the middle of the
+Garden of the Slothful, a certain imperious dignity was given to the
+little white-walled structure by means of its magnificent situation.
+
+Sometimes we breakfasted in the garden: we were never in to lunch on fine
+days, but rode and walked all over the country, occasionally with the
+lady missionaries or Mr. Bewicke, but oftener alone with the big grey
+donkey and a boy. There were Moors to see in Tetuan, and always something
+of interest: we came away from that corner of Morocco without having got
+through half of what might have been done. To live in a country, adopting
+some of its ways and imbibing a little of its spirit, is the only
+satisfactory way to "travel." Hotels with home conventionalities and
+English tourists never amount to the same thing. Either camp out or
+settle down for a month or two in a hut, with one of the country people
+to cook. There must be sport, or agriculture, or village characters, or
+architecture, or botany, or geology to study: bird-life and bird-watching
+are never-ending interests; the fields are never empty. Only by living
+its own life, can the country and its ways unfold themselves, and become
+understood and cared for, by the traveller who has time for, and a love
+of, such things.
+
+As a whole, and seen in January before spring has begun, around Tetuan it
+is a tired and brownish-looking country: its colour is bleached and dried
+out of it, and it has the air of a sun-dried, wind-blown land, patched
+with pieces of brilliant greenery where corn has been sown near water.
+And yet it possesses the charm of strength and repose which simplicity
+gives; for it has been worried by man but little, rather allowed to
+straggle through the centuries at its own sweet will.
+
+In the evening every Friday, to mark the Mussulman's Sabbath, the sunset
+gun boomed and echoed among the opposite mountains. Watching the grey
+turreted walls of the Kasbah bitten out against a primrose sky, with
+watch in hand, at last the weekly flash of red, then a puff of brown
+smoke shot out of the wall, and last of all, a reverberating roar, tossed
+backwards and forwards among the hills. It is long before the "thunder"
+dies away, and we watch a gigantic smoke-ring, sprung from the mouth of
+the gun, float lazily out to the south; while the mueddzin's cry from the
+top of the mosque rises and falls on the waves of sound, drifting now
+clear, now faint, over the garden.
+
+When the sun dropped, the frogs began, from the cracks in the moist clay
+soil where they sat, all over our acre and a half, croaking in a wet,
+guttural chorus--the whole garden called; and the rattle of the
+tree-beetle which followed was one of those tropical sounds which recall
+the East. The frogs were tiny brown fellows, hard to get at. The owls
+would begin after the frogs--a brown owl, which flew noiselessly in the
+twilight among the fruit-trees and on to the edge of the roof, hooting
+long and low or chuckling oddly. Then stillness, and wonderful starlight
+nights, all through January. That month no rain fell. In February we had
+seven and a quarter inches, and more in March.
+
+Having found Jinan Dolero, and furnished it after a fashion, we still
+lacked servants, and they seemed to be almost as difficult to meet with
+as houses--that is, trustworthy ones. Again, however, we were fortunate.
+A soldier-servant who had lived with a missionary happened to have
+nothing to do, and agreed to come to us with his young wife, Tahara. They
+both of them knew something of European ways, and were scrupulously
+honest. They brought a few oddments, a little looking-glass, a mattress
+on which they slept upon the floor of the room near the kitchen, and a
+few cooking-pots and pans of their own. We overcame their objection to
+sleeping outside the city at that time of year; but I believe they never
+liked it up to the last, though they comforted themselves with two guns
+(one of which belonged to the man, and one he borrowed) and the fact of a
+revolver as well, being all under the same roof with them.
+
+[Illustration: OUR SERVANTS, S`LAM AND TAHARA.
+
+[_To face p. 164._]
+
+They were both of them Riffis, and their own home was in the Riff
+country, two days' journey into the mountains from Tetuan. His name was
+S`lam Ben Haddon Riffi of Bekiona, son of Haddon and of Fettouch Ben
+Haddon of Bekiona. S`lam's wife was Tahara. He had served for a year in
+the French army in Algeria, in the 2nd Regiment of Tirailleurs
+Algeriens; and having picked up a little French, we learnt, with a few
+Arabic words, to understand each other. He and Tahara spoke Shillah to
+each other.
+
+S`lam was about twenty-six years old, Tahara about twenty. He was a
+sinewy, long-legged ruffian, well over six feet, and holding himself
+creditably. He had a pair of fierce, dark, restless eyes, little beard or
+moustache, the front half of his head shaved, and a few locks left long
+at the back in token of his being a "brave" and having slain his man in a
+blood-feud. The Riffi turban, of strings of dark red wool, was wound
+round his head; a white shirt showed at his neck; he wore a black
+waistcoat, a white tunic down to his knees, and red knicks, below which
+came his long hairy shanks, ending in a pair of yellow slippers.
+
+A scarlet leather bag, hung by a red cord over his shoulders, a leather
+belt, and his gun, finished off our Moorish servant, who shot us
+partridges, roasted chickens, and was as good a hand at buttered eggs and
+coffee as I have ever seen.
+
+Out of doors he always wore his brown jellab, embroidered with silk tufts
+of green and yellow and white.
+
+Tahara was a pretty, pale, dark girl, with curious cabalistic Riffi marks
+tattooed in blue on her forehead and chin. She bound round her head an
+orange-coloured silk handkerchief; wore, except when at work, an
+embroidered yellow waistcoat, a pale blue kaftan down to her ankles, a
+sprigged, white muslin, loose garment, all over that; and a creamy
+woollen haik, when she went out or was cold, covered everything.
+
+S`lam acted as butler, Tahara kept our rooms in order, and they were
+joint cooks. Their standing dish was mutton stewed in vegetables, or a
+chicken; and given time, four hours in the pot, on the pan of charcoal,
+it was quite a success. But they learnt many things in a Dutch oven lent
+by the missionaries, besides stews. They had eccentricities--as when
+S`lam prepared to put the toast-rack itself on the charcoal fire, with
+the bread in it, thus to "toast": the toast-rack we made ourselves, too,
+out of some old wire. They kept chickens, which S`lam brought home from
+market, either in their bedrooms for the night, or else in the kitchen,
+until their crops were empty and they could be killed.
+
+Every morning S`lam was dispatched to the city with a basket,
+instructions, and two or three shillings. He stayed there an
+unconscionable time, visiting his mother, and sitting sunning himself in
+the doorway of a little Moorish cafe, returning laden before lunch. He
+never went into the city without his gun and best jellab, striding along
+with his long legs--a most picturesque figure. After dinner every evening
+he rendered his account, stalking into the sitting-room when we called,
+pulling up a chair, and sitting down at the table opposite R. From his
+leather bag, change was produced, and if the change was wrong, there was
+agony; but that only happened once or twice. A scrap of paper was brought
+out covered with Arabic writing, items of the day's expenditure, which
+read more or less as follows:--
+
+Chicken                    7d.
+Milk                       1d.
+Four eggs                 21/2d.
+Mutton                     6d.
+Apples                     2d.
+Vegetables                 2d.
+Bread three times a week  41/2d.
+Butter twice a week       91/2d.
+
+Charcoal for cooking purposes, and oil for lamps, added three shillings
+to our moderate weekly expenditure. Living is cheap enough in Morocco,
+nor are servants' wages heavy. S`lam and Tahara had eighteen shillings a
+month and their food, which was simple indeed--a loaf each of native
+bread a day, green tea, lump sugar, and odds and ends from our meals. Our
+rent, it will be remembered, came to thirty shillings a month. Morocco
+suits "reduced circumstances."
+
+Once a week, one of the little donkeys, which passed along our "lane" in
+droves, carrying charcoal into the sok, was waylaid, brought into the
+garden, and its three pannierfuls commandeered for us and stored in the
+mules' stable, where Tahara did the washing in a great tub bought from
+Mr. Bewicke.
+
+Milk was left every morning by a Moor, who took it in for sale to the
+sok.
+
+When the accounts were all settled up, S`lam would swing out of the room
+with a "Bon soir tout-le-monde," unless he stayed to give R. a lesson in
+Arabic, which he could write as well as read--an unusual thing, and
+marking him for a scholar in his country.
+
+Blood-feuds among the Riff tribe are common enough. S`lam's father was
+shot when S`lam was a boy. As soon as he grew up, S`lam shot the man. He
+had left the Riff in consequence: he was a "marked man," they said; but
+he began to talk of going back again, and while he was with us he bought
+a new French rifle. In the Riff he might be potted at, he might not: he
+would risk that. The brother or son of the man whom he had shot would
+never trouble to journey far for the purpose of shooting him. Why should
+they? All in good time. Some day, when he came their way, they would put
+a bullet into him. Only women die in their beds in the Riff. "Sudden
+death, Good Lord, grant us."
+
+Men in the Riff who have blood-feuds will not go out of their houses in
+the early mornings without first sending the women and children to look
+if the coast is clear: neither will they walk up a hedgerow nor in a
+wood, but across the fields, keeping well in the open, since murder is
+always committed out of sight, decently, and in good order.
+
+A man living in Tetuan now, has a blood-feud with an enemy, who has been
+in consequence obliged to move to Tangier. Sometimes he comes over,
+secretly, by night, to see his mother, and lies hidden in her house till
+the sok is full of market people in the middle of the day, when he can go
+out into the crowd without running great risk,--though in the sok a
+quarrel sometimes arises; in a flash, guns are up at men's
+shoulders--bang--bang--and bullets ping into the soft walls, if not into
+some one or other. Only lately a boy was shot twice in the thigh,
+happening to be in the way in a scuffle.
+
+S`lam and Tahara were often amusing, if not interesting: never
+commonplace or "well-meaning." One corner of the roof of Jinan Dolero had
+been left unwhitewashed, the whitewashers' ladder was still there, and
+one morning S`lam came to say in his best French, "Deux mesdames. Pour
+arranger en haut."
+
+The two madams were the whitewashers--two black madams, clad in a couple
+of striped towels each, Ali Slowee's slaves, bought for, say, L7 each. A
+very ragged countrywoman who came and weeded the garden, and seemed
+almost devoid of intelligence, was also a madam.
+
+S`lam was deft with a needle; he borrowed one of ours and a thimble, sat
+himself down in the kitchen, and stitched away at a large white garment
+"pour Maman," he said--sat up half the night, finished it, and took it to
+her next day.
+
+He did not make a bad man-servant; but he was fond of tempting Fate by
+carrying trays, laden with china and glass, balanced on one hand; then he
+would stoop down and pick up a kettle in the other, there would be an
+ominous clatter, if not crash, in the tray amongst our crockery, and
+S`lam would murmur reproachfully under his breath, "O tray! tray!"
+
+He bought a new jellab for wearing on visits to the sok; and after it had
+been proudly shown us, it was found, neatly folded up, placed on a
+hat-box in our bedroom. When we asked why it was there, he was taken
+aback. "Mightn't he keep it there? It was new: it was very clean."
+
+One evening, when he came in to settle accounts, he said that he wished
+to write a letter. Would we give him a sheet of paper and envelope? They
+were produced. We were not quite prepared for it, when he at once drew up
+a chair, sat down at the table, and politely asked for a pencil. But it
+was impossible to snub so simple and well-meaning a child. I sharpened a
+pencil, and S`lam wrote diligently for quite half an hour, without a
+pause, from right to left, wonderful spidery characters: it was a long
+letter to his old master down in Morocco City. He held his
+string-turbaned head on one side, and was without embarrassment as he sat
+between R. and myself (one of us worked, the other wrote); indeed, S`lam
+might have spent his evenings in a drawing-room all his life. When the
+letter was finished, he accepted a stamp most gratefully, wished us "Bon
+soir," and departed.
+
+Tahara had her eccentricities too, of which one was an extraordinary
+aptitude for annexing wherewithal to tie round her head in place of her
+own yellow silk scarf, which was kept for high days. One week one of our
+table-napkins was raised to this honour; the next one of our clean
+bedroom towels had taken its place round her dark locks.
+
+I made her a present of a flannel shirt to wear, but the second day S`lam
+had appropriated that, and wore it in place of his waistcoat, unbuttoned.
+
+Apparently, in the eyes of the Tetuan world, we were taking a most
+unprecedented and foolhardy step in sleeping outside the city in the
+winter: the Ceuta "road" near us was said to be famous for robbery and
+murder. For some reason or other a reputation clung to us of being
+fabulously rich. The Moors warned, the missionaries seriously
+expostulated with us. None of them would have done it, and Mr. Bewicke
+was put down as mad for countenancing such an action. But we had two men
+in the house at night; for, besides S`lam, a labourer was induced to
+sleep in the mules' stable for our protection, and we had a couple of
+rifles and a revolver. Now, since the news of the murder of A----, one
+wonders . . . . . But _he_ was alone: _we_ had the safety of numbers.
+
+To show how jealous Moors can be, and what precautions they take about
+their women, S`lam never allowed the labourer inside the garden gate
+unless he himself had come in. The man sat and waited on the bank. Then,
+after he was installed in the stable, the door between the kitchen and
+stable was locked and bolted. When we went out, Tahara was made to bolt
+every door; and if any one came to the house, she would only call down to
+them out of our bedroom window.
+
+The first night we slept in our garden-house and for several nights
+after, the basha took upon himself to send us out a guard of soldiers,
+who were responsible for our safety. We never asked this favour, and were
+annoyed; for they slept under our windows, talked and coughed the whole
+night, lay on the bulbs in a flower-bed, and stole the lemons. Seeing,
+however, that we did not pay them anything at all for the attention, the
+basha soon grew tired of sending them, much to our relief; for when, to
+prevent their depredations, we locked them outside the garden door, they
+broke down our fence, scrambled into the garden, and lay under the
+prickly pears, as being a safer place than the lane outside.
+
+There has never such a thing been known, as a guard without a cough, or
+who do not talk. If told to be silent, they reply that they must talk to
+keep awake; for if they fell asleep, how could they guard? Occasionally,
+to show how much on the alert they are, guards will discharge their guns
+in the dead of night. Altogether Moorish soldiers at close quarters are
+not conducive to sleep.
+
+We had an excitement one night, but it turned out to be groundless. Guns
+were fired from the garden-house below ours, repeatedly, about 10 p.m.,
+and S`lam got into a fever of excitement, brought his rifle up into our
+sitting-room, and sat watching at one of the windows. He thought it was
+tribesmen come down from the hills to rob. At last the firing stopped,
+and R. and I went to bed; but S`lam was up all night, and Tahara brought
+their mattress upstairs and slept in our sitting-room for safety. It
+turned out to be Moors who had come out to sleep for one night, and were
+amusing themselves by firing rifles from the loop-holes and out in the
+garden.
+
+There is an advantage in being in a country where game is not sacred. For
+instance, one evening after tea, standing on the steps outside our
+"bungalow," in the hush which came just after sunset, R. and I were
+startled by a familiar call over in the garden next ours. S`lam was
+strolling about, and confirmed our supposition--a partridge. We went
+indoors and forgot about it; but ten minutes later the report of a gun
+brought us out again, and there was S`lam crashing over the great bamboo
+fence into "next door" with his rifle, scudding across our neighbour's
+beans, then stooping down over something; a second later and he was back
+again, across the palisade like a lamplighter, and striding triumphantly
+up our path with a partridge dangling from his hand--a red-legged
+Frenchman, which we hung long. This acquisition to the larder had to be
+applauded perforce, in spite of its being shot sitting, and on some one
+else's acres. As luck would have it, S`lam's great bullet, about the size
+commonly used for big game, had gone through its head: he naively
+explained the advantages of shooting birds through the head. But I think
+he was a fair shot. Most Riffis are.
+
+I suppose that the Riff tribe is more or less an anomaly. Think, if you
+can, of a clan or a tribe who are pirates, wreckers, who encourage
+slavery, who count the vendetta an admirable custom, who have no laws, no
+governors, who acknowledge as their supreme head a Sultan who has never
+from all ages ventured within their borders--a tribe who have, as it has
+been said, "no fear, no anything, save and excepting their faith in One
+God and Mohammed as his Prophet, their own daggers, a Martini-Henry if
+they can get one, and failing that, a ten-foot-long Riff gun,
+coral-studded, ivory-butted, brass-bound, and deadly to handle"--a people
+who live in a country without roads, _and all within a few hours of
+Gibraltar_: have they their parallel, except among adventurers in the Far
+East, and those but a few upon distant seas?
+
+[Illustration: TWO WOMEN FROM THE RIFF COUNTRY.
+
+[_To face p. 172._]
+
+To explore the unknown Riff country would be interesting indeed. No book
+has been written upon it except from hearsay, and no European has
+penetrated across its length and breadth. The Riffis want no foreign
+interlopers among their sacred hills, and would "knife" the first who
+showed his face. It is but two days' journey eastwards from Tetuan, this
+select and exclusive country, and it extends about a hundred and fifty
+miles, with a population, it is reported, of one hundred and fifty
+thousand souls. Strange to think that no European pioneer, nor
+gentleman-rover, has ever exploited the Riff.
+
+The law of the vendetta, is the law and the ten commandments of the
+Riffi, which, if he fail to keep, renders him in the eyes of his
+country-folk damned to all eternity, to be ostracised among men. A widow
+will teach her baby-son to shoot, and studiously prepare him for his one
+great duty, that as early as possible he may put a bullet into the
+murderer of his father. And thus the feud is nourished. Even the
+great-great-grandson of a man who has taken a life years upon years ago
+is not safe. He will probably meet with a dagger or the muzzle of a long
+gun one day.
+
+But a people who inculcate such severe and cursory measures have their
+redeeming-points. It is a fact that cursing and swearing, so common among
+Moors, and polygamy and adultery, are seldom, if ever, met with in the
+Riff: for if one Riffi insults another, it is at the peril of his life;
+while the stain of immorality is wiped out at once by death.
+
+The gun, pistol, or dagger is the Riffi's summary judge and jury. He
+submits to no authority. Questions on land, on inheritance, all legal
+questions, are settled in each village by the keeper of the mosque. He
+arranges marriages.
+
+The Riffis are therefore a moral people: a man has but one wife; the
+women do not veil, and yet familiarity is not tolerated between the
+sexes; a young man will go out of his way to avoid passing close by a
+young woman whom he sees in the distance, lest he be suspected of
+behaving lightly to her.
+
+The Riffis are an indomitable race, one which has never been conquered,
+magnificent raw material out of which to shape a battalion of infantry.
+Though acknowledged as the Kaliph of the Prophet and their religious
+head, the Sultan, as has been said, has never dared to put his head in
+this independent hornets' nest.
+
+They are an industrious tribe, growing crops assiduously and rearing
+cattle: their valleys are fertile and well farmed for an uncivilized
+country. But these details must be taken for what they are worth. S`lam
+could say nothing but good of the Riff: how cheap living was, and how
+abundant food,--except when rain failed, and then there followed
+disastrous famine, and starving Riffis would come down to Tetuan, and lie
+in the caves outside the city, and live on roots, doing any work which
+offered; and some of them would die, in spite of the missionaries'
+kindness and unremitting efforts.
+
+There are many legends about the Riffis: they boast one tribe among
+themselves who are said to be descended from the Romans; and there is no
+reason against the assumption, since the Romans were in Morocco after
+Caesar's day. Another family claims to be descended from the inhabitants
+of Sodom. Some of them are quite fair--regular "carrots": Vandal blood
+may run in their veins. While, again, some people say there are Celts
+among them, with Irish characteristics and Irish words. Possibly. Pirates
+and rovers are apt to introduce foreign strains.
+
+At any rate they have nothing in common with the Arabs, but are as unlike
+that race as a Scotchman is unlike an Italian. Berber is of course their
+common origin, and they are identical with the Kabyles of Algeria, the
+Touariks of the Sahara, and the Guanches of the Canary Isles. Shillah,
+the Berber dialect which they speak--one of the many dialects belonging
+to that race--is not a written language; but an educated Riffi learns to
+write and read at his village _jama_ (mosque school); he uses the Arabic
+character in writing, and he learns to read the Kor[=a]n.
+
+Yet in one great point, like the Arabs, the Riffi, in common with the
+Berber race, lacks the power of cohesion and the spirit of patriotism,
+which should have welded all Berbers into one powerful people. Internal
+strife, that curse of Africa, has split them up into isolated units, and
+they stand at the same point they stood at a thousand years ago.
+
+Nor have the Riffis, in common with the Moors, reached the point of
+discarding "petticoats and drapery"--that is to say, they wear the brown,
+hooded, woollen jellab, and the white woollen haik--a sheet of material
+without seam, which they cast round themselves something like a Roman
+toga. Perhaps a cotton tunic is worn underneath.
+
+Part of the sleeves, the hood, and front of the jellab are often
+beautifully embroidered in coloured silks. On the border of the cloth
+thin leaves of dried grass are laid, which are worked over and over with
+coloured silk, and make a thick, handsome edging. The coloured leather
+belts which they wear; the large embroidered leather pouches, with
+deep-cut leather fringes, which hold bullets and powder and money and
+hemp-tobacco; their shaved heads, with one long oiled and combed or
+plaited lock; their turbans, red or brown, of strings of wool,--all
+complete a Riffi, and a very fine-looking fellow he can be.
+
+The labour element, which as a whole is antagonistic to the spirit of
+Morocco, crops up here and there, less in the casually fanned fields than
+in out-of-the-way corners. The Potters' Caves just outside Tetuan
+constitute one of those corners. There is always work going on in the
+caves, and smoke coming out of one or other of the many kilns, all the
+year round. Morocco and Moorish architecture would be nowhere without the
+potteries. Those infinitesimal little tiles which fit together and make
+such artistic colour-patterns, lining the _al-fresco_ patios, facing the
+walls of the rooms, the pillars and doorways and flooring, the houses
+throughout, are every one of them kneaded and cut and baked there: crocks
+to wash in, pans for charcoal, immense water-pots, small water-pots,
+bowls and shallow basins, dishes of all sizes, and saucers down to the
+smallest, even ink-bottles, all come into being there.
+
+Leaving the city by _Bab-el-Nooadtha_ (the Gate of Sheaves), a little
+winding path leads to the caves, which lie among thickets of prickly
+pear, at the foot of the Anjera Hills, out of which they have been
+hollowed, probably by the action of water. Immense ramifications they
+are--great dark halls, roofed _au naturel_ in corrugated rock with
+fissured sides, where maiden-hair fern hangs cool and green. Here in the
+dark shadows are a little company of workmen, chiefly in brown jellabs
+and leathern aprons, one cutting squares out of the soft clay with a
+penknife--he has a pattern to help him keep them exact; another cuts
+diamonds, another stars: piled up together, they look like little pastry
+shapes in brown, beside the workmen, who are all sitting cross-legged on
+the ground.
+
+A little farther on two more men are dipping the top surfaces of the
+diamonds into an earthenware bowl full of yellow "cream," which will
+glaze and colour them, all in one. This sulphur-colour, and a blue, and a
+white, are generally used for the tiles--no other shades, as a rule. A
+boy in a corner is at work at one of the first processes, treading out a
+vast circle of yellowish clay into the consistency of stiff dough. A
+rather superior old Moor in a white turban, perhaps the master-workman,
+is deftly cutting out rosettes. In the front of the cave a little brown
+donkey, with pasterns as weak as a reed, is standing under the weight of
+four great earthenware pots full of water, two balanced on each side its
+pack. A boy empties them one by one of the water, pouring it into a
+natural basin scooped out in the ground, well puddled with clay, and
+therefore without a leak. The water is wanted to mix with the "dough."
+Then the donkey patters off for another load, the boy sitting sideways on
+its pack and shaking his heels--that makes it go.
+
+To the left stands a kiln in process of being packed with millions of the
+clay dice, which, baked hard, dove-tailed together, and forming a smooth,
+polished surface, will keep many a room cool. The kiln next door to it,
+is full of pots and pans of all shapes and sizes, but its opening is
+plastered up with clay, and they are not to be seen. Into the great fiery
+furnace underneath, a man is thrusting dry brown bushes, and dried
+prickly pear, and whatever rubbish will burn. Much of it has been hacked
+off the hillside by women, and has come on their backs many a mile. There
+is a crackling sound, smoke comes out, and a pink flame glows behind the
+man's body. The tiles ought to bake all right.
+
+Meanwhile, the same boy inside the cave has got his clay into good
+order--it is about two inches thick, and something the size of a big
+round table; then he stoops down, and, with a knife held in both hands,
+scores the clay across, much as toffee is scored; which done, each
+square, about a foot in diameter, is carried off to be cut up into little
+shapes or to go upon the potter's wheel.
+
+The potter sat in his little pit, working the wheel with his foot--as
+Carlyle says, "one of the venerablest objects, old as the Prophet Ezekiel
+and far older. Rude lumps of clay, how they spin themselves up, by mere
+quick whirling, into beautiful circular dishes."
+
+The potter thumped his wet clay; then, as the wheel turned, pressed and
+moulded it with clever clay-encrusted hands: the sleeves were turned back
+from his bony chocolate-coloured arms. He had a grey goatee and a quiet
+smile, a dirty turban round his head, a white tunic mostly clay, and
+underneath a claret-coloured garment showed at the neck.
+
+He was a spare, wizened old man: perhaps his work, like Dante's, had made
+him "lean for many years." The faster his wheel revolved, the truer
+apparently was the shape of the vessel he turned out. His country might
+accept the lesson--that labour, like the wheel, conduces towards a good
+end. I fancy that a decadent people, who will neither work nor spin, but
+choose to rest and lie at ease, give the potter Destiny no chance. He has
+no wheel, this potter--for Morocco will not labour, nor be broken, nor
+disciplined; and so he is reduced to a mere kneading and baking, without
+the means he fain would employ; and he turns out a mere makeshift--his
+production at best is "not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked,
+shambling, squint-cornered, amorphous botch--a mere enamelled vessel of
+dishonour."
+
+[Illustration: SELLING EARTHENWARE POTS.
+
+[_To face p. 178._]
+
+The great pot which the potter slowly evolved out of the soft brown clay
+under our eyes was not perfect: he made it entirely by eye, and it
+matched the rest of the group to the ordinary observer; yet it had a
+distinct "lean." Did it grumble to itself, that
+
+    vessel of the more ungainly make?
+
+as human vessels complain sometimes:--
+
+    They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
+    What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?
+
+Beyond the potter the ground was covered with an army of his soft
+mud-coloured vessels, all sorted and arranged in groups which matched,
+dozen after dozen, far back into the inner shadows of the cave, like some
+weird and interminable china shop. I gave the old man a cigarette, which
+he puffed at over his wheel.
+
+In the next cave a white-bearded Aaron was solemnly dipping dishes into a
+bowl of blue colour and glaze, and placing each with his finger and thumb
+on a board by him among countless fellows, while with his other hand he
+gravely swirled the liquid to prevent its setting. Others next him were
+again cutting out shapes; and three potters were hard at work, one
+moulding the bodies of pots, another the necks, another the lids, while a
+fourth put all three together.
+
+And thus they laboured on. Their slippers lay in the mouths of the caves
+beside their brown jellabs; and the smell of the moist clay and the drip
+of water up amongst the green fern mixed with the cool air.
+
+    Almighty Potter, on whose wheel of blue
+    The world is fashioned, and is broken too,
+    Why to the race of men is heaven so dire?
+    In what, O wheel, have I offended you?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COUNTRY PEOPLE FORDING THE RIVER--WE CALL ON CI HAMED GHRALMIA--AN
+EXPEDITION ACROSS THE RIVER IN SEARCH OF THE BLUE POOL--MOORISH BELIEF IN
+GINNS--THE BASHA--POWDER PLAY--TETUAN PRISON.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+    Set not thy heart on any good or gain--
+    Life means but pleasure, or it means but pain;
+    When Time lets slip a little perfect hour,
+    Oh! take it--for it will not come again.
+
+
+MANY walks began by degrees to tell upon our boots, for the cobble-stones
+of Tetuan and the rocks of Morocco in general are meant less for boots
+than for bare feet, which they do not seem to damage. In time, stress of
+circumstances drove us to a curly black-headed Jew bootmaker, whose most
+expensive pair of thick black boots cost nine shillings. Another
+Israelite made us suits of rough brown jellab material, for the sum of L1
+each--stuff which wore for ever.
+
+The mountains on the opposite side of the river were our El Dorado, but
+the river would not go down in January and allow of our fording it; rain
+followed rain, and it was higher than ever. One market day we walked down
+to watch the people from the other side come across, on their way into
+the sok, laden with country produce. Years ago a bridge had been built
+over the Wad-el-Martine, but, like other Moorish architecture, it was not
+built to last, and the immense floods which swing down the Wad-el-Martine
+in winter-time soon left only a broken pier or two, to point out that a
+bridge had been thought of. The money to build it was supplied by
+Government: half of it went into the pocket of the builder; a little
+went towards the bridge, which naturally could only be built of rubbish,
+without proper foundations. Now that there is no bridge, it is once more,
+as it had been for ages upon ages, a case of ferrying across by the big
+ferry-boat, or of fording. Since ferrying means money, and fording only a
+wetting, most of the market-goers ford.
+
+It was a sight to see the countrywomen wading through, one after another
+like a string of ducks, trying to keep dry: the water came just about up
+to their bodies, and the white haik and piece of towelling for a skirt
+could be bundled up somehow--a very few wore short white cotton drawers.
+Their legs were remarkable for an enormous development of muscle in
+unusual places. Once across, they wrung out anything which had been
+wetted, shivering somewhat; then arranged their voluminous haiks afresh
+over the mysterious great bundles on their backs, and, padding off in
+single file, made for the city. What those bundles, which bent their
+backs half double, had inside them it was impossible to certify: often
+part of it was a baby, judging by a round shape like a head under the
+haik, and the fact that, when it had a knock, there was a cry: the rest
+might be chickens, oranges, vegetables, baskets of eggs, baskets of
+coos-coosoo, heads of brooms made of bamboo, honey, and so on. Some of
+the chickens dangled in front of the women by strings tied to their
+waists: the chickens were alive, of course.
+
+[Illustration: A FERRY-BOAT ON MARKET DAY.
+
+[_To face p. 184._]
+
+On the tops of their heads the women wore enormous straw hats, with brims
+large enough to act as umbrellas and to keep the rain off their
+shoulders. The ferry-boat, packed with them _and_ these straw hats, was
+worth seeing, like a grand-stand in a shower hidden by umbrellas. The
+weights which the women carry for hours at a time are almost incredible;
+but they begin as tiny girls, lopping along after their mothers at a
+half-run under tiny bundles, with the same bent backs; and habit is
+second nature.
+
+After the string of women came along a youth, with two small donkeys,
+laden with panniers full of green vegetables. The donkeys jibbed upon the
+brink; many "Arrahs" and curses and much cudgelling with a stick got them
+started; the panniers swayed horribly, and threatened to turn completely
+round, as the current pushed the donkeys over this side and that. Once
+in, they made pluckily for the opposite shore; but the stream carried
+them down; the water was well up their bodies; the distracted boy plunged
+and struggled behind first this one and then the other, whichever seemed
+in most danger--for the ford was none too wide. Urging them to keep
+up-stream, he clung on to one refractory pannier. The water rose higher
+and almost took them off their feet; but that was the worst place; now it
+was better. The leading donkey was in safety in shallower water, nearing
+dry land; but the other poor fellow seemed less strong, and was not able
+to make half such a good fight of it--its load may have been heavier. In
+spite of the boy it got lower and lower down-stream: suddenly there was
+an upheaval and a splash; its head went under altogether, pack and
+everything in a hole. Then the boy surpassed himself; for, deep as it
+was, he was there in a moment, got hold of the donkey behind, and pushed
+and half lifted, at no small risk to himself, and pulled, until the
+little fellow, after several relapses, found his feet. Finally, he waded
+out, and stood, like a drowned rat, on the bank, pack and all streaming;
+then he collected himself after a pause, and doddered off towards the
+sok. The boy shook himself and his soaked clothes, clutched his stick,
+and ran after his donkeys.
+
+A well-to-do Moor, possibly a sheikh, was the next to go for the ford.
+He probably farmed, and his sleek mule was full of green corn and
+"beans." They were things of colour, the pair of them: all the mule's
+appointments scarlet, himself a glossy brown; while his master, in dark
+blue, sat tight on his scarlet saddle, his bright chased stirrups
+flashing, so short as to bring his feet right up the mule's side--his
+turban, white as snow, with the red peak of the fez underneath, the
+deepest blot of colour, against the sky. A white garment waved out in the
+breeze under the blue jellab; he sat straight as a withy, feeling the
+mule's mouth with a hard hand, and bringing its nose into the air. There
+were some bravado and a great deal of assurance in the whole. The world
+used him well. Moors ride everywhere, if they possess anything with four
+legs. Why should they give themselves the fatigue of walking? But besides
+that, they are horsemen and most at home on a horse, while their country
+is not one to travel in on foot.
+
+Having decided that the river was fordable, and that we ought to be able
+to ride across it, we walked back by way of the city, and went in to tea
+with a Moor, ordering a donkey to be sent out the next day to Jinan
+Dolero, which should take us across to our El Dorado. The Moor who
+entertained us was a certain Ci Hamed Ghralmia, the eldest son of a
+Government official who had fattened physically and financially on the
+Customs, and whose fine house represented so many perquisites and bribes,
+and so much pared off the lump sum which went annually up to the Sultan.
+
+It was as luxurious a house as Eastern could wish: soft Rabat carpets,
+old Fez silk hangings, round the four-post beds, standing back in
+recesses in the room into which our host led us,--hangings such as even
+Fez can no longer produce; such silk is not made. One piece, which was
+quite as handsome in its way, was made years ago in Tetuan, from Tetuan
+silk-worms, reared on the slopes outside the Mulberry Gate--spun, dyed,
+and woven in Tetuan.
+
+Couches and divans filled up the corners; glowing colours and fine snowy
+linen abounded. It was a house in which to spend a sleepy Sabbath
+afternoon on a hot day, if it must be spent indoors. Cool air blew
+through the high rooms; the splash and ripple of fountains rose and fell
+in the cool marble patio below, and echoed up the tiled staircase; while
+back, far in the shade of the secluded rooms, among avenues of pillars,
+vistas of light and shade, women like butterflies, in mauve and yellow
+and white, rose from some soft scented divan and flitted across. And in
+the centre of it all, a little king, Ci Hamed Ghralmia--a pale,
+cafe-au-lait complexioned man, who looked as if life had never shown him
+one of its angles. He was fat and lineless: soft white hands, fleshy
+ankles, no knots of muscle in so well-turned-out a mould of cream, not a
+spot, not a flush, no sign of liver; the lips slightly suggested
+sensuality, and there was a line of cruelty round the mouth, but no
+further indication of self-indulgence; he might have lived on sugar and
+chicken coos-coosoo all his life, and altered in nothing but size since
+he was a year old, except for a beard on the soft white chin, and his
+eyes, which were infinitely cunning. Brown and cold, like polished
+marbles, they had not reached that stage of cunning which veils its
+cunning, but would still gleam at the sight of money and express
+satisfaction over a well-made bargain. They were suspicious, as the
+ignorant generally are, and believed in little that they saw. The old
+Biblical characters who walk Morocco to-day have most of them the same
+failing: they are sly.
+
+Ci Hamed Ghralmia was an "advanced" Moor--that is to say, in the
+afternoons, lying on his divan, he read Arabic books. He had bought some
+French knick-knacks too. He told us that he rented a shop, in which he
+sat in the mornings and chatted to his friends, using it not in any way
+to dispose of any goods, of which it was devoid, but as a sort of "club"
+or meeting-place. Then in the afternoons he occasionally rode out on his
+mule. He had a garden, I think, outside the city. Or he played chess with
+a friend, or read. Perhaps he would use his _hummum_ (Turkish bath); he
+would pray at his own particular mosque, regularly, so many times a day;
+and he would drink much green tea, and consume sugar, and sleep
+inordinately.
+
+Thirty years of this life in Tetuan found Ci Hamed Ghralmia still a
+contented man--supremely so. Wrapped in the finest white wool and muslin
+clothes, he lay along a divan opposite to us upon one elbow, the picture
+of ease, and talked away. No Moor was ever anything but self-composed.
+Upon our camera's coming out, he was much interested; and to prove his
+progressive and enlightened state of mind, let us photograph him just as
+he lay there--a vast, voluminous white chrysalis. Then he took us to see
+his wives and slaves--a large party of them. They were allowed to come
+out on to the staircase and talk to us; but when the interview had lasted
+five minutes, Ci Hamed Ghralmia clapped his hands twice--we had seen
+enough--every wife and every slave vanished like magic.
+
+[Illustration: THE AUTHOR FORDING THE WAD-EL-MARTINE.
+
+[_To face p. 188._]
+
+The next morning we made one of many expeditions up into the hills on the
+opposite side of the river, towards the south, and in the direction,
+though somewhat west, of the Riff. We rode in turns, it being somewhat of
+a rest to scramble along on foot, to say nothing of exercise. The big
+grey donkey had our lunch, a camera, some field-glasses, and a box for
+botanical specimens slung about him. We had a fairly intelligent
+boy--Mohammed, a Riffi--and managed to understand a word or two he said.
+It had been explained to him by S`lam that we wished to get to the Blue
+Pool if possible. Arrived at the river, we found nobody--not being market
+day, it was utterly deserted. The current was still swirling in a
+forbidding fashion, but Mohammed led the donkey straight in with R.; he
+tucked up his clothes, held his yellow slippers high in one hand, and
+after some goading they landed on the opposite bank. Mohammed left his
+slippers, rode back through the river for me, and in due time I was
+deposited on the shingle. Off we set--first by a narrow path, thick on
+each side with scented violets, and closed in with the usual
+ten-foot-high cane fence. More streams had to be forded, but they were
+small and the donkey strong; so, to save time, I sat above his tail,
+behind R., and he carried us across in one journey.
+
+So far we were still down on the flats; the hills towered in front of us;
+and among the streams, and where the river in its vagaries had often
+flowed, there was deposited many a rich bed of fruitful mud, turned into
+valuable land, the very soil _par excellence_ for oranges. And they were
+all around us--garden after garden, acre after acre, foliage studded with
+gold knobs by the million. And among them, and as far as the eye could
+reach, up into the gorge between the hills, picturesque white
+garden-houses showed through rifts in the half-tropical foliage, or over
+hedges of prickly pear and oleander. Fig-trees, a hundred years old, made
+faded grey blotches amongst the vivid greenery; the pink bloom of apricot
+was stainless against stained-yellow walls. In such a place, the
+inexorable realism of the age in which we live, was shaken--spirits
+there surely were which should appear.
+
+We passed an old countrywoman with a tiny donkey carrying two great
+panniers full of green-stuffs: she was in difficulties, having a wrestle
+to make it cross a little stream. Mohammed went to her assistance. Once
+over, she climbed on its small back with the help of a stone, putting her
+foot on its neck to get into her place.
+
+And now, leaving the orange gardens and their wealth, our path took an
+upward turn into a more rugged country, a less fruitful soil. We left a
+field of pale blue flax on the left--a "blue pool" indeed; and about this
+point the donkey's pack, which had no breastplate, slipped over its tail;
+but Mohammed's knife, and some string, and the britching, put all to
+rights for the time being. Later on a stirrup-leather broke.
+
+Following our winding path, we reached at last a white saint-house, which
+dominated a little hill overgrown with gnarled grey olives, and acted
+guardian over a large and flourishing village which lay below,--at least
+it was a collection of mud huts, and more of them than usual, but, like
+so many of these "villages," seemed to all intents and purposes
+deserted--a city of the dead. Many of the inhabitants were out no doubt,
+but those who were in were not tempted by curiosity to stare at us:
+without windows there can be no signs of the rites which are carried on
+inside the houses. All we saw were dogs, fierce brutes, which stones
+alone kept at a distance, where they sat showing their teeth and
+bristling their crests ominously.
+
+The saint-house, of course, was forbidden ground: we went as close as
+common sense permitted, and from under the shady olives looked back at
+Tetuan down below us, a snow-white streak in the valley.
+
+Some rags were hanging upon a bush near us. It is an interesting and
+curious practice, that of hanging votive rags upon the bushes around
+chapels and holy shrines: no less venerable is the performance of
+pilgrimages to the same. Both practices go back into the dim ages. They
+are in use to this day amongst the Shintoists of Japan, and the
+inhabitants of Northern Asia, India, the Orkneys, and remote corners of
+Ireland, where sickly children are dipped in streams, or passed through
+holes in stones or trees so many times running, going against the way of
+the sun, in order to produce the effect of making the sick child as
+strong as a lion. Then an offering must be made to the saint, and a rag
+is torn off somebody's garment, and tied to a bush near his grave, to
+show that they would have done more for the good saint if they had had
+the power.
+
+Rag-trees, burdened with the tattered offerings of the devout and
+impecunious tribes-people, flourish throughout Morocco,--signs hanging
+out, and blown by the wind, in the face of travellers; warnings of the
+deep-rooted superstition entangled in the innermost heart-cells of its
+people, to be disturbed at imminent peril.
+
+Leaving the saint-house and village, we struck a path upwards into a wild
+gorge, at the bottom of which a brawling torrent was tumbling. It turned
+many rude mills, and there were lush fields of corn on its banks. Far
+away in the grey distance now, to the north, we could see a dark wedge of
+rock, almost on the sky-line beyond the Anjera and other hills of
+Morocco: _the_ Rock--Gibraltar.
+
+At this point we lunched. Mohammed was provided, and dropped behind a
+rock: the donkey grazed. A little boy, minding goats, came up with a
+fascinating pocket-knife, but would not let it go out of his hand. A
+clear stream gave us drink--it was warm; bees hummed in the balmy air;
+there was an aromatic scent; clouds hung round the hills; the panorama
+below was essentially peaceful and "Christian."
+
+And then we went on in search of the far-famed Blue Pool. But though we
+reached where the river lay in still pools, blue beyond all known blues,
+we found no more--only traces of a great flood and landslips, which, I
+suspect, had washed away the lake people had talked of. We found enough
+to bring us back on other days, and to understand why the missionaries
+take up their tents and camp in the mountains in the summer.
+
+We returned by a path farther west, and passed a great olive wood full of
+black shadows. The scrub on the hillsides holds pig--there are plenty of
+them; and the boars become more or less antagonistic at certain times in
+the year. We were told tales of people who had met with terrifying
+adventures, but personally our expeditions had no such thrilling
+incidents connected with them.
+
+It would have been unwise to stay out after sunset, and that time always
+saw us back at Jinan Dolero. It is said to be the most unsafe hour; for
+men are coming into Tetuan, and if they can waylay and rob or murder a
+traveller, and make their way into the city before the gates shut, half
+an hour after sunset, and sleep there, who shall suspect them of dark
+deeds done outside in the evening? Besides, Mohammed would never have
+consented to be out late, on account of the firm belief which Moors have
+in evil spirits. There is a special race of beings, they hold, in many
+respects like men, in others like spirits, called _ginns_. Their
+principal abode is the under-world, but they come up on to the earth, and
+are fond of lurking in wells and in dark corners, even in houses. Rooms
+are often haunted by ginns: men are surrounded by ginns. Some of the
+more enlightened Moors are inclined to represent ginns as merely
+superstitious imaginations and hallucinations on the part of the
+ignorant; but probably in his heart of hearts, no Moor but has a secret
+desire to propitiate ginns, and a secret dread of falling in with them.
+
+Ginns eat and drink and propagate their species, and even form sexual
+connections with men. A man whose wife is any way odd or mysterious has
+married of course a ginn. Ginns are fond of inhabiting rivers, woods, the
+sea, ruins, springs, drains, and caves; they come out at night more than
+by day, and in certain streets no Moor will walk at night. Nor will a
+Moor sleep alone in a room. Ginns, when they appear, take the forms of
+men, goats, cats, dogs, almost any animal in fact, and also monsters.
+
+Whirlwinds, and shooting stars, and dear times, and famine, and
+epidemics, are all caused by ginns. It is the ginns who have eaten all
+the food in the city when prices are exorbitant. If a man falls down in
+the dark, it is a ginn: a sudden illness or an accident is the work of a
+ginn. There are good ginns, but bad ginns are more common. The worst of
+them all is _Iblis_ (the devil). Iblis tempts men to wickedness. All
+iniquity is the fault of Iblis.
+
+In order to keep the bad ginns at a distance, certain precautions may be
+taken. Salt and steel are antidotes. Salt in the hand when going out at
+night, salt in the pillow when sleeping, are measures which should be
+used. In building a house some people put salt and wheat and an egg into
+the ground, and kill a goat on the threshold. On sinking a well (the
+stronghold of ginns) a goat or sheep must always be killed.
+
+The best talisman against ginns is the repetition of certain passages in
+the Kor[=a]n: when passing a dark spot, say the "Ajatu-l-kursi": as for
+neglecting to say "B`ism Allah" (In the name of God) before going for a
+ride, or before doing any sort or kind of action, why, that is to have a
+ginn as your companion on your horse, and at your elbow, whatever you may
+be doing. As every place has its "owners," its good or bad ginns, on
+striking a light and going into a room Moors say, "Good-evening to you, O
+ye owners of the place." And if a tent is to be pitched, first of all the
+protection of good ginns must be solicited in that spot.
+
+Supposing a ginn gets hold of a man, and he is ill, there are certain
+doctors, magicians, among the Moors who can cast the ginn out. They
+practice a regular "ginn-cult," and celebrate annual feasts, going
+outside Tetuan to a certain spring near the Moorish cemetery, and killing
+a bullock, a black goat, a black donkey, and some chickens.
+
+The word _ginn_ originally meant "the secret," "the mysterious," "the
+hidden"; and the belief in ginns is part of the actual creed of
+Mohammedans, Arabs, and Berbers alike. But Moors have a hundred
+superstitions. They believe that all animals had a language once upon a
+time,--that the horse prays to Allah when he stretches out his leg; that
+the donkey which falls down, asks Allah that the same may happen to his
+master. They say that the donkey was once a man whom Allah changed into
+his present shape because he washed himself with milk; that the stork was
+a _kadi_, or judge, who was made a stork because he passed unjust
+sentences upon his fellow-men. It is therefore a sin to kill a stork, or
+a crow, or a toad, or a white spider, or a white chicken. A white spider
+once spun its web over a cave where Mohammed hid: his enemies saw it,
+thought therefore that no one could have recently entered the cave, and
+passed on.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, that about Death--the Great Secret--there
+are numerous superstitions. There were too many funerals in Tetuan: early
+in the afternoon one was often encountered at the Gate of the Tombs;
+death would only have taken place that morning, without much inquiry as
+to its cause, and whether by fair means or foul nobody knew and few
+cared. The procession came swinging along, stately men in flowing
+garments, white and dark, chanting the weird funeral hymn or
+"lament"--always the same mournful, monotonous cadence, rising and
+falling in the narrow streets, and at last out into the air. And then
+once through the Bab-el-M`kabar, the great company in white turn into the
+Moorish burial-ground, and arrange themselves in a long line against the
+hillside, and the chant becomes general, almost a great cry, full of the
+strange fascination of certain Eastern music, withal so unintelligible to
+Europeans.
+
+The body, loosely wrapped in white, lies on an open bier. After a sort of
+service on that rough hillside against the walls of the city, the
+procession winds on again to the shallow grave: a last chant, and the
+body goes into the earth, and is quickly covered. A scribe, or reader, is
+left behind when every one has gone: he reads pieces out of the Kor[=a]n
+over the grave, and chants. Friends, mourners perhaps, will come out on
+other days, and sit round the tomb, reading the Kor[=a]n together, and
+singing the weird, sad melodies. You may see them. But I have never seen
+a Moor give way to the slightest outward expression of grief.
+
+Mohammedans firmly believe, of course, in a Paradise to which the good
+are admitted: their conception as to this land of the hereafter, largely
+consisting of gardens and shade, adds a bridge, by which means alone
+access to Paradise is gained. The bridge (_Al Sirat_) is finer than a
+hair and sharper than a sword: the wicked invariably turn giddy and fall
+off into the pit of Hell, while the righteous negotiate it in safety.
+
+A rich man, when he is buried, is provided with a vault. The body is laid
+on its right side, its sightless eyes turned to Mecca. During the first
+night, Mohammedans hold that the soul remains in the body for the purpose
+of being interrogated by two angels before it can be admitted into
+Paradise. They appear, and the body is roused to a sitting posture and to
+temporary life. It replies to the dread examination. If this ends
+unsatisfactorily, the angels torture and beat the body, until the
+sepulchre closes in upon it. But if they approve the soul's replies, they
+bid the man sleep on in peace in the protection of God.
+
+Travellers complain of a want of "pageant" in Morocco. Ostentatious
+funerals and processions of all sorts, public demonstrations over
+trifles, the worship of gilt and glitter, and the emotional spirit called
+_loyalty_, of the present day, do not exist in El Moghreb. There is a
+spirit of simplicity about its shows; they do not breathe of money: old
+as their customs are, there is vigour in them and a certain amount of
+use, for the people have not outgrown them, do not make of them so many
+lay figures on which to display signs of their own great wealth.
+
+The Day of the Great Feast up at Court with the Sultan, that is _the
+pageant_ in all Morocco. We missed it.
+
+Connected with the bashas and kaids, who are the only great men in the
+country or in the cities, there is little or no respect or formality.
+Only on Sundays a sort of "flash in the pan" reminds the Moor that he has
+a little despot in his midst, who is more or less lord of his life; and
+the drums are heard all over the city, the soldiers turn out, for the
+basha goes to pray at _El Aoli_ (noon) in his own particular mosque
+opposite his house.
+
+On Friday, the Sabbath, the biggest _sok_ (market) in all the week, a
+little black flag was flown from the mosque-tops early in the morning to
+remind Tetuan of the holy day. The basha was inside the cool mosque,
+praying, at the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected,
+though the same event happened every Friday. No Moor is ever busy, ever
+hurries, but can always wait. At a quarter to one a bugler on the east
+side of the street, who had been sitting in the sun with his bugle, got
+up and blew a call to fall in. About sixty soldiers, who had all strolled
+off after the great man had disappeared into the mosque, sauntered up
+from different directions. If they were a ragged and indifferently
+drilled company, there was colour in the ranks at least. Every man wore a
+short scarlet flannel tunic, a pair of white cotton drawers, and a red
+fez: one drummer had a tunic of beetle-green. As they lined the street,
+short sturdy men, with hairy legs and coffee-coloured faces, their bright
+bayonets flashing in the sun, the drums thumping and the trumpeter
+running up and down the scale, the dazzling sunlight gave a trace of
+splendour to the medley of scarlet and steel against the whitewashed
+walls.
+
+Everybody waited expectant. A stout man in white came out of the mosque,
+ordered the small boys away, and saw that there was ample room for the
+basha to pass across the street and into his own house. Then the ordinary
+crowd of worshippers began to file out of the building--prayers over:
+green-blue kaftans lined with crimson silk, filmy white robes, snowy
+turbans, moved slowly along--a dignified, impressive crowd. There was a
+pause before the basha appeared, a man arranging his two yellow slippers
+side by side upon the doorstep of the mosque. Another moment and the
+great, voluminous, expected figure filled the doorway. A twist of his
+ankles and he was in his slippers, the bugle sounded, the ragged squad
+presented arms somewhat untidily, a line of servants bowed themselves low
+and respectfully before him, and the basha moved slowly across the
+street.
+
+Leading his own troops, dispensing justice, an after-type of those great
+Arabs who sprang from the sands of Arabia and Africa, shook Europe, and
+flourished in Spain, a basha should be no tyrant, but a courteous
+gentleman, a noble of "The Arabian Nights." But there was no aristocratic
+trace about Asydaibdalkdar. Carrying his rosary in his hand, clothed
+entirely in white, his features bore traces of servility and sensuality,
+the result of poisoning the Arab and Berber blood with the strain from
+Central Africa. Slavery is proving fatal to the Moorish race. Unlike the
+well-bred Moor, the basha's face was deeply lined: cruelty, cunning,
+pigheadedness, all fought for the upper hand in his swarthy countenance.
+He walked in under his own gateway into a courtyard beyond: there he sat
+down in a corner upon a seat--a great figure, much like some Indian
+god--while his underlings came forward, stood in a semicircle, bowed low,
+and saluted him; followed by his soldiers, who marched in single file
+into the courtyard, round it, past their chief, and out again--this three
+times, to the sound of drums; then, headed by the officer in command,
+they trooped off to the barracks, the basha's gateway was locked, and
+Church Parade was over.
+
+[Illustration: THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY.
+
+[_To face p. 198._]
+
+For half an hour all the gates of the city had been barred and bolted,
+while prayers were going on--there being a superstition among the Moors,
+arising from an old prophecy, that on a certain morning of a
+Mohammedan Sabbath, Christians will gain possession of the cities while
+the kaids and bashas are in the mosques.
+
+Two hundred soldiers are allowed by Government to the governor of Tetuan,
+by means of which he is to maintain law and order. However, a hundred
+only were maintained, and the pay of the remaining half went into
+somebody's pocket. There was apparently little for them to do; drill was
+a thing unheard of, and they spent most of the day hanging round the
+basha's house or doing errands for him.
+
+On the feast days there was _Lab-el-Barod_--the famous "Powder Play" of
+Morocco; and then the soldiers all turned out into the _feddan_ (the
+great market-square), and showed what Lab-el-Barod meant: to me rather a
+foolish game, with but one interesting point--that it is the imitation of
+the old Arab tribal battle. To-day the Moors gallop forward, stand up in
+their saddles, fire their guns under their horses' necks, over their
+tails--all this at full gallop--throw their guns into the air and catch
+them, and last of all pull up in an incredibly short space, dragging
+their horses right on to their haunches, which evolutions are imitations
+of what their ancestors did with spear and javelin. Lab-el-Barod
+prevailed in Spain till the middle of the eighteenth century, and it is
+still played in the East with reeds. There is of course a picturesque
+element in it--white turbans, white garments streaming in the wind,
+scarlet saddles, flashing steel, hard-held horses with yards of tail, and
+above all, the lithe figures in perfect balance whatever their positions;
+but the performance is often too "ragged" to be impressive, and it
+strenuously demands flats of desert as a background.
+
+The basha would always come out and look on when there was one of these
+"field days" at Tetuan: his figure was not adapted to his participation
+therein, being perfectly in keeping with his walk in life, and that walk
+consisted in his sitting from six o'clock to ten o'clock in the morning,
+and from three o'clock to six o'clock in the afternoon, in a small open
+room off the street opposite his house, in a reclining position upon
+cushions, before him an excited group (as often as not), contradicting,
+swearing, gesticulating, abusing, all at the same moment--one of whom is
+carried off by the soldiers to be flogged, another is sent to prison, or,
+if the seekers after justice wax more troublesome than ordinary, they may
+all be thrown into prison by the heels together to calm them. At the same
+time the basha absorbs bribes, and sweeps loaves of sugar, packets of
+candles, and pounds of tea into his net. These are the ordinary bribes.
+
+When he was appointed basha, a royal letter from the Sultan was sent to
+Tetuan and read aloud in the mosque: then he entered upon his duties. He
+must needs go warily from day to day; and even then luck may desert him
+at any moment, and a summons may arrive from the Sultan--he is to go to
+Court at once. I recollect in what abject terror, one basha, who was sent
+for at a day's notice, set out upon his journey, only to find, when he
+got to Court, that he was to have a more lucrative billet and a higher
+post of honour. Many who have departed in terror, all unknowing of the
+future, have found, when they reached Fez or Morocco City, where-ever the
+Sultan might be, that their worst fears were realized. Either placed
+under arrest, tortured, imprisoned, or bastinadoed, the little wealth
+they had accumulated is extorted from them, under the pretext of there
+being arrears in taxes or other dues, which must be made good. The
+wooden jellab is used for the purpose of extorting confession in the case
+of imaginary wealth supposed to be hidden (and much often is hidden): it
+is made of wood, resembling in shape a long cloak, and placed in an
+upright position; the inside is lined with iron points, which prevent the
+body from resting against it without suffering. Inside this "jellab" the
+basha is squeezed, standing up, and he remains there on a sparse diet of
+bread and water till he divulges.
+
+Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of War were sent to the prison
+in Tetuan soon after the accession of the present Sultan; but that was
+for plotting against his life. In the common gaol, heavily chained, under
+the same roof with the herd of common prisoners, all they were allowed
+was a curtain across one corner, behind which they sat. The Prime
+Minister died there. The Minister of War is there to-day, March 1902,
+and, after over seven years' confinement, getting fat. Some members of
+the Rahamna tribe are there also. This tribe, which belongs to the far
+south, near Morocco City, about eight years ago was in a state of
+rebellion, to quell which the Sultan sent his army with orders to _eat
+them up_. Their fat lands and fine gardens were ruined; men, women, and
+children killed and taken prisoners; while six hundred of them were sent
+to the Tetuan prison, and a great number--I do not know exactly--went to
+Rabat. That was eight years ago. Sixty of them are in Tetuan prison now,
+the remnant of six hundred. There is a kaid among them who is very ill,
+dying: the eight years have done for him.
+
+Since this was written, an order has come from the Sultan for the release
+of the Rahamna tribesmen. In Rabat, unfortunately, almost all who were in
+the Kasbah prison died long ago. Its insanitary condition has earned for
+it the name of _Dar-el-Mout_ (the House of Death). But in the other
+prison there were survivors. These came out with traces of the late
+governor's butchery.
+
+For trying to send a written petition to the Sultan three years ago,
+which set forth their condition, and prayed that after five years'
+confinement they might be considered to have paid for their rebellious
+deeds, and be allowed to return to their own land for the last years of
+their lives, the late governor, Ba Hamed, gave orders that their hands
+should be mutilated. A knife was drawn across the back of the wrist,
+cutting the extensor tendons of the hand: the hand was packed with salt,
+and sewn up in wet cow-hide. When this was taken off or wore off, it was
+not recognizable as a hand.
+
+Miss Hanbury, who did her best to institute reforms in Moorish prisons,
+and succeeded in Tangier, left at her death a sum of money, out of which
+L5 came to Tetuan to be spent on their behalf. It fell into the hands of
+the lady missionaries, and they spent it in making jellabs for the
+prisoners to wear, whose garments are worse than filthy. Unfortunately L5
+was not nearly enough to clothe all; it only provided a jellab for one
+out of every three of the prisoners, and the poor wretches fought like
+dogs for them.
+
+"They will wear them in turns," the gaoler said. He and another Moor had
+superintended the distribution of them; and to their lasting disgrace,
+deaf to argument and remonstrance on the part of the missionaries, they
+each appropriated a jellab to himself, saying, "This is my share; this
+goes to me." They were of coarse material, such as neither gaoler nor
+under-gaoler would ever wear themselves: all they would do would be to
+take them into market and convert them into money.
+
+"Moors have _no_ feelings," people say, and say wrongly; but that, to a
+great extent, it is true take just one instance--the state of the
+prisons and prisoners. It was enough in the distance to "wind" the Tetuan
+prison. There remains the reflection--call it comforting if you
+like--that a people who consent to endure such filth, and misery, and
+harsh treatment, are not affected by them in the same way in which a
+highly civilized people would be affected.
+
+It is absurd to blame the Moorish Government; it is absurd to say, "The
+people are obliged to endure." No people can be forced to endure: a point
+comes beyond endurance, and they rebel, choosing death rather. The
+vigorous and progressive race endures least. Therefore on the Moors' own
+heads be the state of their prisons, the treatment of their prisoners: to
+that cursed spirit of _laissez-faire_ half the blame is due; the rest
+comes of their indifference to suffering, to bad smells and dirt and a
+sedentary existence. It is manifestly unfair to blame certain ministers
+and officials. Taking into consideration the manners and customs, hopes
+and fears, of the Moorish people, their prisons probably suit them right
+well, and they need no pity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not always easy to get provisions, except life's bare necessities,
+in Tetuan. Provision Stores, which were long out of their goods, always
+had the same answer when asked for them--"M[=a]nana" (To-morrow); and
+to-morrow never came. But it is unwise to "hustle the East": men have
+died trying to find a way of doing so. Therefore we chewed with
+philosophy the cud of the Moorish proverb:--
+
+    "_Manage with bread and butter till God brings the jam._"
+
+On the whole we fared not amiss, while our establishment, with its two
+Riffi servants, man and wife, worked well, until an occurrence took place
+which shook it to its very foundations, and left us to the end with a
+question which will never be solved.
+
+One evening, about half-past five, just as we had settled ourselves down
+after tea to read, there was an unusual stir on the stairs. A minute
+later and the door burst open. Tahara staggered in, followed by S`lam,
+who seemed very much excited and alarmed. The woman was deathly pale; her
+eyes were ringed with black. R. and I, seeing she was ill, jumped to the
+conclusion that something or other was very wrong with her, and tried to
+make her sit down, or lie down, at once, on our divan. In a confused
+scene which followed, the only words we grasped were, "Tabiba, tabiba"
+(Doctor), and S`lam, at our instigation, rushed downstairs to go off to
+Tetuan, and to bring back with him Miss Z----, one of the lady
+missionaries. Tahara was almost beside herself, apparently with terror,
+and for a few moments one was inclined to doubt her sanity. We tried
+vainly to quiet her, almost holding her on the divan; but there was
+evidently something on her mind which every moment threw her into fresh
+agitations, and--_ah! what would we not have given to have understood
+Arabic!_ for Tahara knew no French, like S`lam, and could barely say half
+a dozen words in English; her Spanish, of which she knew a few words, was
+Greek to us too.
+
+"Signorita! signorita! tabiba!" she kept repeating, wailing, and then a
+torrent of Shillah and Arabic and Spanish would follow, and we were at
+our wits' end. At last R. managed to quiet her a little, and by-and-by to
+make her try to help us to understand, by saying slowly in Arabic two or
+three words which would be intelligible to us, together with the word or
+so of English which she herself knew. Then we gathered that her one
+desire was that I should go to the tabiba's. But why? We told her that
+S`lam had gone. She burst out into fresh agonies and shrieks: "S`lam not
+go! S`lam not go!" Then she got up, and apparently wished to go
+downstairs--the last thing we thought she ought to do; but all our
+efforts to keep her still seemed rather futile; and from what she was
+trying to make us understand, there was more behind than we had an idea
+of. She went, almost ran, down into her and S`lam's bedroom, we following
+hard behind. Inside the room she tip-toed up to a recess high in the
+wall, almost out of her reach, and with difficulty lifted down a small
+bundle of rags. This she unrolled, fold after fold, before our eyes,
+while a thousand guesses as to what was coming rushed through the brain;
+the last rag came off, and a small blue bottle, about four inches high,
+lay in her hand. She held it up to the light. It was half full of a
+colourless liquid like water. We read the label--"Prussic Acid. Poison";
+and an ugly fear took the place of vague conjecture.
+
+"Who has eaten this?" R. asked in scanty Arabic.
+
+"Anna" (I), replied Tahara.
+
+The remedy of hot boiled milk rushed into both our heads at once, but
+Tahara was again beginning in a fresh agony, which was now more
+persistent than only terrified; and choking off her stream of words, we
+managed to gather, that what she wanted was to go herself with me into
+the city, at once, to Miss Z----. Now a few drops of prussic acid of
+course meant that she had not long to live, and yet there were no
+symptoms of poisoning so far as we could gather at present. She might
+have taken it in a diluted form certainly. The whole thing was possibly
+wild imagination on her part. At any rate Miss Z---- would understand
+her, and that we could not do.
+
+I hurried on my boots, questioning as to whether the woman really meant
+that S`lam had poisoned her. R. helped Tahara wind her long white woollen
+haik round her. In two minutes I was ready. Tahara slipped into her
+slippers, and, with the white shrouded figure clinging to me, in the
+fast-deepening dusk we started.
+
+It took fully twenty minutes to walk from Jinan Dolero to the house in
+the middle of the city where the lady missionaries lived and had a
+dispensary. Miss Z---- had had some medical experience, and was a clever
+woman. She understood, probably as far as any European can understand,
+the Moorish character; and it was with some confidence--possibly on the
+part of us both--that we set out. But the way seemed lengthy; I knew that
+S`lam would be there long before we could arrive: through the city there
+are at least three intricate ways by which the house is reached, and my
+heart sank as I reflected that there was every chance of Miss Z---- and
+S`lam's taking another way than our own, and thus missing us. Meanwhile,
+it was growing darker every moment. Would the city gate still be open
+when we reached it? Was it not certain to be shut when we wanted to
+return?
+
+Tahara hung on to my arm and hand. There had been rain, and we both
+slipped about in the dark, and splashed into unseen pools; she took off
+her pink slippers and carried them in one hand, and paddled along on her
+bare feet at a Moorish woman's top speed, still shaking with terror.
+Three or four times, dark as it was, she stopped and put out her tongue
+for me to look at it. It seemed very pink, and I did my utmost to
+reassure her, having disturbing visions of her collapsing altogether on
+the grass; for if she was to be understood rightly and believed, she had
+pains in her body, and breathing seemed an effort.
+
+We were crossing the cemetery now by one of the intricate paths which
+intersect it. There seemed not a soul within sight or sound. Every Moor
+would be inside his house or hut. I hoped Tahara would pull herself
+together and last as far as Miss Z----'s.
+
+She said she was _bueno_, meaning good, better, and spoke again of the
+bottle which she was carrying carefully hidden in her waistband. Then, as
+far as I could understand, she wished me to know that the poison had
+something to do with the signoritas--ourselves--and our food. This was a
+most unpleasant reflection: I devoutly hoped that R. would not begin
+dinner before I got back, and comforted myself with the assurance that it
+was unlikely, there being no one to get it ready. We had no outside man
+at that time sleeping in the house.
+
+"S`lam _no_ good; S`lam _no_ good," Tahara kept repeating. And, to tell
+the truth, our long-legged ruffian rose before my eyes as no mean
+embodiment of a stage villain. The Riffis are notoriously treacherous and
+put no value whatever on life; at the same time I knew that they made
+good and faithful servants up to a certain point, and I shrank from
+distrusting a man who had so far served us well. And yet, how much does
+one know of them? Nothing. We had had suspicions that all was not going
+smoothly with the two servants: though they had been married so lately
+there was friction between them; Tahara had been heard crying at night,
+and had looked red-eyed. It was likely, therefore, that there had been a
+quarrel.
+
+S`lam's old mother may have made mischief. She was madly jealous of
+Tahara, whom S`lam had married without letting her know. He had gone over
+to Tangier; had arranged the marriage with Tahara's brother, who was
+living at Tangier with her; had brought her off, hardly a happy or
+willing bride, for he told us that she cried the whole of the journey;
+and had sprung her upon his old mother at Tetuan. In his bachelor days
+S`lam's earnings had gone to the old woman. Now they were spent on his
+wife and himself. Therefore Maman saw nothing that was good in Tahara,
+and would have given much, no doubt, to see the last of her.
+
+Meanwhile, the city gate drew near. Tahara was moving along firmly with
+her hand in mine. The gate was still open!--that was a relief. We hurried
+through, and, seeing a group of soldiers waiting outside, I judged that
+it was just about to be shut. We were none too soon: the bars behind us
+clanged into their places. I much wished that R. was not henceforth cut
+off from all communication with me, and left outside the city entirely by
+herself: there were the two guns and revolver; after all, the house was
+no more likely to be molested on this night than on any other.
+
+[Illustration: THE FEDDAN, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 208._]
+
+The narrow streets were nearly pitch dark; shadowy figures passed us at
+first; and Tahara drew her haik all over her face, leaving only a slit
+for the eyes, and put on her slippers once more. Occasionally a little
+shop had its hard-working inmate, sewing at slippers by the light of an
+oil lamp; but for the most part all was black darkness. How long the
+intricate streets seemed! We stumbled on the rough cobbles and slid into
+the muddy gutter. Tahara's slippers again impeded her, and off they came.
+I wished devoutly I knew where Miss Z---- was, and could make straight
+for her, probably hurrying at that moment for Jinan Dolero, somewhere in
+the maze of streets and houses. We crossed the great open feddan, all
+deserted, and I strained my eyes for a glimpse of her tall figure beside
+that of S`lam's--in vain.
+
+Late as it was, children were about; they collected gradually behind us
+and followed us, nor was it easy at that time of night to drive them off.
+Tahara, though still struggling on, was leaning heavily on my arm. The
+sooner we get to the Mission House the better.
+
+Two more narrow lanes, a last winding alley, and the welcome door of the
+tabiba's--never more welcome.
+
+I called to Miss Z---- as I led Tahara into the courtyard. Her answering
+voice was all I would have prayed for at that moment. She was just
+starting with S`lam. Leading Tahara to the door, we found him on the
+threshold, with his old mother, whom he must have gone first to
+fetch--Maman, whom R. and I had ever distrusted: feeling that she was
+after no good the first time she came to the house, we had limited her
+visits.
+
+I told S`lam to stay outside. He did not seem astonished at seeing his
+wife and myself, asking not a single question of either. Miss Z---- took
+Tahara upstairs into her bedroom, and I followed, explaining that Tahara
+did not want any one else to come in. For a moment or two, after we got
+her up into the room, all her old terror seemed to return; she was unable
+to speak, and collapsed upon the floor--a ghastly colour. Briefly
+explaining to Miss Z---- that Tahara believed herself to be poisoned, we
+knelt down on the floor and examined her. There were no apparent symptoms
+of poisoning--none; she was only cold and terrified beyond words. Miss
+Z---- did her best to calm her, and laughed away her fears, hoping to get
+rid of the state of panic which her condition suggested more than any
+poisoning.
+
+The next thing to be done was to persuade Tahara to explain matters to
+Miss Z----. This might have been easy enough at Jinan Dolero with S`lam
+out of the way; but here, feeling that he and Maman were under the very
+windows, her terror was abject, and I almost gave up hope of getting a
+syllable out of her.
+
+We shut every window, we shut the door, we pulled down the blinds, to
+satisfy her; we even stopped up the ventilation-holes; and then she still
+hesitated and trembled.
+
+At last, crouched on the floor, Miss Z---- kneeling by her, Tahara, with
+her mouth at Miss Z----'s ear, murmured her tale in Arabic, while I
+wished I could understand. _S`lam had given her poison. People in the
+city had spoken against her and said evil things about her. S`lam was
+jealous. He had been very angry. They had quarrelled, and he had poisoned
+her. But he must never, never, on any account, know that she had been to
+the tabiba's to tell the tale. If S`lam suspected that Tahara knew he had
+tried to poison her, and had told us of it--well, her life was not worth
+a flus._ Even I knew that. Then in a fresh agony of terror she crouched
+on the floor. I told her to show Miss Z---- the bottle. Now to part with
+the bottle, or to run the faintest risk of S`lam's seeing it, was
+evidently a nightmare to the poor girl. If he ever found out that she had
+taken it and brought it to Miss Z---- . . .
+
+We wasted many precious moments in trying to persuade Tahara to take it
+out of her belt, where it lay concealed, and show it to Miss Z----. She
+looked at the curtains, at the door. Could S`lam possibly see? At last,
+more or less by force, I got possession of it, handed it to Miss Z----
+with one hand, and kept Tahara still on the floor with the other.
+
+The stopper of the bottle, Miss Z---- thought, had a suspicious smell,
+but she gave it as her verdict that the bottle itself contained nothing
+but water. She recognized it at once as having belonged to S`lam's late
+master, who always kept drugs in his house, and the name of whose English
+chemist was on the label.
+
+Miss Z---- poured a teaspoonful into a tumbler, and returned the bottle
+to Tahara, who was getting rabid at the delay. The teaspoonful we decided
+should be given to one of Miss Z----'s little chickens which she was
+rearing. I said I would come in the morning and hear her report.
+
+Meanwhile, Tahara had refolded and hidden the precious bottle as it was
+before, and Miss Z---- had managed more or less to reassure her,
+promising her that she was not poisoned this time, and laughing at her
+panic. The pain of which she had complained had no doubt a natural cause:
+giddiness might come on through bending over the charcoal fire cooking
+dinner, Miss Z---- told her. Now Tahara's only terror was that S`lam
+should ever find out what had happened. The bottle must be taken
+home--must be replaced exactly where it had been found.
+
+Unsatisfactory as such a course was, there was some risk in pursuing any
+other. S`lam, if he found out that his wife had betrayed him or had
+suspected him and come to us, might shoot her like a dog, in a passion,
+and be inside the borders of the Riff in a few hours. And who would blame
+him, if he gave as his reason for his whole line of conduct that his wife
+had been unfaithful to him, false though such a statement might be?
+
+A girl in Tetuan a few years ago was _suspected_ of having been seduced.
+Her father took her and her mother out to the Mussulman cemetery, within
+sight and hearing of the city--the girl was sixteen: he shot her on the
+road, and he and the mother dug a grave and buried her by the roadside.
+They went home, and no one said a word. The man still lives in Tetuan.
+
+Miss Z---- evidently shared Tahara's fears, and was anxious to allay any
+suspicions which S`lam might begin to entertain. First, however, she
+found out from Tahara that S`lam had no intention of poisoning the
+signoritas (_us_)--that was _quite_ a mistake--at least so the girl
+assured her. Then, having once more reassured Tahara about her own
+health, Miss Z---- led her downstairs; there she explained to S`lam and
+to his old mother that the girl was very nervous, that she had not felt
+well, was to take a pill that night (one had been given her), and was to
+keep quiet to-morrow, in which case she ought soon to be quite right.
+
+Miss Z---- wanted to walk out with me and to sleep at Jinan Dolero,
+evidently not liking our passing a night alone under such suspicious
+circumstances; but I was convinced there was no cause for fear, and I
+think we both knew that the less we made of what had happened the better;
+so, borrowing a lantern, I started back for Jinan Dolero, Tahara clinging
+to my arm, S`lam lighting the way, and the old mother following.
+
+Arrived at the city gate, it was shut. I had a strange wait alone with
+Tahara and Maman, while S`lam fetched a soldier to unbar the gate. The
+basha's leave had to be got, and the basha sent to the English
+Vice-Consul to ask if it was his will that the gate should be opened for
+a British subject. Eventually we got through, all except Maman, who said
+good-night and went home.
+
+It was a cheering sight to see at last a little light far away in the
+valley where our house lay--the only light visible. R. had left the
+curtains undrawn. In good time we reached the garden-house. I took Tahara
+straight into the bedroom, S`lam going to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
+The little bottle in its wrappings was immediately replaced in its niche,
+and Tahara ate some food which we brought her. S`lam, as usual, waited on
+us: he was oddly obsequious and deprecating in his manner, and I could
+not quite understand it.
+
+The night passed quietly. Early next morning Maman appeared, which
+neither of us liked, but she had come ostensibly to ask after Tahara, who
+had quite recovered. I walked into the city, and went to the Mission
+House to see Miss Z----. The chicken was quite as well as Tahara, and the
+liquid which at least one of them had taken was probably water. Even so,
+the mystery was not cleared up. If it was water, why did S`lam keep it
+wrapped up, and why did Tahara think it was poison? It was half empty. If
+Tahara had ever seen it full, somebody must have drunk a dose. Of course
+S`lam's old master had not left a bottle of prussic acid about, and then
+not missed it. He probably emptied the bottle and then threw it away; it
+might have had a drop or two left in it, and the bottle may have been
+filled up with water; but that was pure conjecture.
+
+The poisons Moors so easily get, and which S`lam or his mother could
+supply themselves with, are generally in a powder form. I do not know how
+they would mix with water: they are generally slow in working, sometimes
+weeks in taking effect. There was no reason why Tahara should not be
+poisoned by such a drug, and yet feel no ill effects for the present.
+Thus we argued. Poisoning in Morocco is such an every-day occurrence that
+it was a most ordinary suspicion on Tahara's part. After all, there might
+be nothing in it, but merely a fear grounded on all sorts of reasons and
+assumptions. It is only a matter of sitting down and thinking to conjure
+up plenty of fears in Morocco.
+
+Feeling that it was not pleasant to have a bottle marked "Poison" in the
+house, and not to be positive as to its contents, I resolved to empty and
+wash it out, sending the so-called "water" to an analyst at Tangier, and
+refilling the bottle with _bona-fide_ water before replacing it. The
+chicken test was not thoroughly satisfactory. As matters stood, Miss
+Z---- decided to come out that afternoon to our house, while S`lam should
+be sent away on an errand, in order that Tahara might be interrogated and
+the thing ended.
+
+[Illustration: CHARMING SNAKES.
+
+[_To face p. 214._]
+
+Arrived home, I found that S`lam had been dispatched to the city to
+market, and that Maman had gone with him. Alas! the little bottle had
+disappeared; it was no longer in the niche which could be seen every time
+the door was passed. Miss Z---- arrived in the afternoon. By that time
+some other occult influence had come to work in Tahara's mind, and
+directly Miss Z---- spoke to her it was evident that she was hedging. As
+long as she was terrified and had lost her head she blurted out the
+truth; but given time to think the matter over, a thousand side-issues
+weighed with her, and she was no more inclined to trust us than she would
+have been to trust a Moorish woman, who is brought up to lies, intrigue,
+and diplomacy, and fed upon such axioms as "When you have nothing else to
+tell, tell the truth." _The bottle_, she said, _had been taken away by
+S`lam and his mother. It belonged to his mother. It was poison to poison
+people in the Riff._ A little later on she said _it had nothing whatever
+to do with S`lam, and that it had only water in it--that S`lam had told
+her so. That she had never seen him put anything into her food. That he
+was "good." That she only had a bad pain last night. That she did not
+know why the bottle had been brought there._ And so on. Her one prayer
+was that the signoritas would forget all that had happened. But for days
+she would not let us: by creeping up when S`lam was out of the way and
+putting her finger on her lips, by anxious questionings and
+gesticulations, the thing was never allowed to rest. She felt, probably,
+that she was past one danger--there was no more to fear in that
+direction for the present; but that if her Riffi husband ever suspected
+she had "given him away," he would soon dispose of so troublesome an
+incubus.
+
+And so we found the matter had come to a deadlock: more we shall not
+know. It was typical of the Moors and their ways. It was, I cannot help
+thinking, rather a shady business. Taking into consideration S`lam's
+manner towards us for days after, added to those intuitions which one has
+and cannot put into words, it struck us that S`lam himself did not think
+the bottle had only water in it.
+
+Ask no questions in this strange land. Lies are the portion meted out to
+the inquirer: it is not well to know too much. "Knowledge and virtue and
+a horse's mouth should not pass through too many hands," and "If you
+question knowledge, it falls from its estate"--thus the Moors.
+
+I shall hear from Miss Z---- of Tahara's future welfare, unless she is
+moved from Tetuan. If she comes to an untimely end within the next year
+or so, our suspicions were not groundless. For the present we "forget,"
+of course. For the whole affair--
+
+    Oh no, we never mention it;
+      Its feet are never heard!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MISSIONARIES AT TETUAN--POISONING IN MOROCCO--FATIMA'S
+RECEPTION--DIVORCE--AN EXPEDITION INTO THE ANJERAS--AN EMERALD OASIS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+     "_The friendship of man is like the shade of the acacia. Yet
+     while the friendship lives, it lives. When God wills it to die,
+     it dies!_" mused Dicky, with a significant smile. "Friendship
+     walks on thin ice in the East."
+
+
+THREE times a week, from ten o'clock to twelve o'clock in the morning,
+the lady missionaries opened their dispensary, which, as there was no man
+missionary in Tetuan, was in women's hands alone, Miss Banks at the head.
+Though, unfortunately, she was not an M.D. nor a qualified surgeon, the
+good which she and her staff did was incalculable. The first day on which
+the dispensary was open after Ramadhan over sixty Moors came to be
+doctored. The day I went, there were forty-four; and the two rooms--one
+for men, one for women--were as full as they would hold, while a large
+surplus stood waiting their turn outside. Most of them were of the lower
+class of Moors: the better class of women would ask Miss Banks to visit
+them in their own houses; the better class of men would not go to lady
+missionaries.
+
+The patients sat round the rooms in a circle. Miss Banks went to each in
+turn, and made a note of the case in a book. This over, she retired to an
+inner room; and, among scales, and glass measures, and drugs, and tins,
+and bottles by the score, proceeded to make up all the various medicines.
+Meanwhile, two others of the staff took up positions in the middle of
+the circles of men and women, and read the Bible to them in Arabic and
+talked to them. They seemed to listen attentively, and one or two nodded
+occasionally in agreement with what was said.
+
+Thus, though everybody was doctored and provided with medicine gratis,
+they had to sit and listen for a certain time to Christian views, _nolens
+volens_; and this is the chief opportunity which missionaries have of
+preaching to the Mohammedan world.
+
+Many of the patients who had been before brought medicine-bottles and
+ointment-boxes to be refilled. If not, the bottles had to be paid for. In
+the first instance they were given in with the medicine; but bottles are
+things of great value to the labouring Moor, and it was found that the
+people came purely for the sake of getting them--once outside the house,
+the medicine was thrown away.
+
+One woman paid for her bottle in kind--four eggs. Some of the bottles
+were absurdly small; others the reverse, for one woman appeared carrying
+a great earthenware water-pot standing three feet high.
+
+"My daughter," she said to Miss Banks, "I want medicine."
+
+"Yes, but I cannot give you medicine in such a huge pot."
+
+"My daughter, I have been three days on the road, and I want _much_
+medicine."
+
+Another woman, who looked old and decrepit, begged and prayed that a
+bottle might be given her. Miss Banks was adamant. The woman whined and
+entreated from ten till half-past eleven: "I am too poor to buy one. Look
+at me; I am ill," and so on--until at last one of the other missionaries
+begged Miss Banks to give her a bottle and send her away. Still she
+refused to break her rule. The last patient got up to go. It was twelve
+o'clock. The old woman thrust her hand into the rag round her waist,
+pulled out a bottle, and handed it to Miss Banks to be filled.
+
+The cases we saw were numerous. A mother with two little boys whose heads
+had to be examined: they were dispatched with a box of ointment (sulphur
+and oil) and a bottle of medicine. A boy with swelled glands had them
+painted. A woman had her chest painted, a man various parts of him.
+Pills, ointment, powders, etc., were distributed, with manifold
+instructions, repeated again and again, until the patient's clod-like
+brain had been penetrated and set in motion. Even then one would turn
+round at the door and say, "Then I am to eat this ointment?"
+
+A woman was given some salts wrapped in paper, to be mixed with water and
+taken the next morning fasting. She did not come again for a month, and
+she brought with her a large earthen pot half full of water and paper.
+She had mixed the salts in this with their wrapping, and had been
+drinking a mouthful daily, but felt no better.
+
+Miss Banks gave a woman in good circumstances a bottle of medicine which
+was to last her eight days, and be taken after food; also some liniment
+for external use. An urgent summons came two days later: the woman was
+dying. "I thought it did me so much good that last night I took all the
+rest, and then I drank the liniment," she said. She recovered.
+
+A man did the same with pills--was so much pleased with the effect of one
+that he devoured the rest all at once. They invariably ate the paper in
+which pills or powders were wrapped.
+
+On one occasion Miss Banks went to see a girl whom she was attending, and
+who seemed worse. The answer, when asked if she was having her medicine
+regularly, was, "Oh no! she's so ill just now. When she's a little
+better, we shall give it to her."
+
+Supposing that a patient dies, or a man who has once been a patient dies,
+the people have no hesitation in saying to the missionaries when they
+meet them in the street, "Oh! So-and-so's taken your medicine, and it's
+killed him."
+
+It is impossible to trust Moors with medicines which could damage them;
+this seriously handicaps a doctor: in extreme cases the dose must be
+administered by the doctor personally.
+
+Besides the dispensary, the missionaries had day schools for the
+children, night schools for boys, and mothers' meetings for women. Here,
+again, the mothers who attended the meetings were given the material of
+the clothes which they made for nothing; but they were obliged to sit
+down and listen to a Bible lesson first. It was one way, it was an
+opportunity, of bringing Christianity before Mohammedans.
+
+[Illustration: MOORS AT HOME.
+
+[_To face p. 222._]
+
+Thus through the meetings and the schools and the dispensary the
+missionaries knew many of the women in Tetuan, and there were few houses
+into which they had not been at one time or another. Sometimes it was
+possible to read to the people in their homes, sometimes to talk. But
+with the men they seldom came in contact. Never with an educated Moor. He
+would despise women in general, despise Christianity past words, and
+decline to argue on such a point with a man.
+
+People are apt to forget that Mohammedanism is a faith to which many
+millions of earnest and intelligent men and women have pinned their
+salvation. To talk and argue with these--it is almost a truism to say--a
+missionary must be "up" in that subject which they have at their
+finger-tips--namely, their religion. This means that he or she must have
+a complete knowledge of the Kor[=a]n; must know the traditions relating
+to Mohammed and his companions; must be able to converse about the
+divinity and the innumerable saints of Islam; must have read various
+religious treatises; and, above and beyond all, must understand to the
+smallest point the habits of the Mohammedan himself, know his life, be
+able to follow his thoughts, understand his actions, and be in sympathy
+with his recreations as well as with his work, otherwise the missionary
+treads on the Mohammedan's toes fifty times a day, and provokes
+amusement, mingled with contempt, of which resentment is born.
+
+Needless to say, few missionaries in Morocco, except at the end of their
+life's work, possess these qualifications. Only a limited number know the
+Arabic language: they speak it colloquially of course, but the immense
+difficulties, which a thorough knowledge of it entails, debar most of
+them from satisfactory study. After years upon years of hard work, an
+Arabian scholar frankly avowed to me that he had but skimmed the surface
+of the depths of the Arabic language.
+
+As far as the old idea of missionary work goes--of preaching to an
+attentive throng of Mohammedans and baptizing converts--Morocco ranks
+nowhere. The missionary who comes out to El Moghreb does incalculable
+good in curing the hereditary disease and taint with which an Eastern
+nation is rife, and many influence the surrounding people by the example
+of a good life and contact with a civilized mind: he or she is to be
+profoundly admired for the determination with which one end and one aim
+are held in view from first to last, and to the furtherance of which the
+whole of life is made subservient; and yet the shadows of disappointment
+must darken that missionary's path sometimes, unless he or she is a
+philosopher. For we met with none who could point us out a single
+convert, openly declaring himself to be one. In Tetuan, after twelve
+years' work, there was not one. Two women there were, who acknowledged to
+the missionaries, that they preferred Christianity to Mohammedanism, and
+who in private make use of Christian forms of prayer, but they would not
+"declare" their belief.
+
+It is said, and no doubt truly, that there would be many converts to
+Christianity in Morocco among the lowest class, if it were not for the
+persecution of the Government, and the strong anti-Christian feeling
+which exists amongst those in authority. The religion and the Government
+are one; the Sultan is the religious head, a direct descendant from
+Mohammed; consequently Mohammedanism is _enforced_. A woman who declared
+herself a Christian would have her children taken from her; a man would
+be flogged round the city and boycotted, if he was not killed. Thus the
+prospects of the would-be convert are not happy: all which the
+missionaries have to offer him is, on the one hand martyrdom, on the
+other a miserable line of compromise--a life, that is to say, of
+concealment and deceit towards those nearest him, for though Christian at
+heart, he must yet remain Mohammedan to the world. This latter course of
+compromise is the line which is followed, and it is the course which is
+tacitly inculcated by the missionaries. I heard of no martyrs, nor
+Christian Moors openly declared, living in Morocco at peace with mankind.
+
+There is a hitch somewhere. Christianity is in danger of being dragged in
+the dust. If it were possible for missionaries to make their doctrines
+appeal to the powerful and more enlightened class among the Moors,
+influencing the country to such an extent that it should adopt
+Christianity of its own accord, this could never be so. But it is not
+possible. In the present state of Morocco the idea is laughable. It is
+hardly to be expected that the most fanatical and conservative nation
+ever evolved, will cast its religion, like a snake its skin, at the
+bidding of a body of despised Europeans. Before such a revolution could
+take place, the character of such a nation must entirely change; the Moor
+must be broadened and given a scientific training, if he is ever to
+become of a "progressive" turn of mind, desiring other ideals than those
+of his forefathers.
+
+At the same time the missionary must be adequately equipped for the fray,
+must be a "strong man," must possess some of the qualifications of a
+leader.
+
+The first point is the all-important one: that more knowledge should be
+given to Mohammedans--scientific knowledge; that they should be fired to
+improve their own condition and that of their country, making themselves
+capable of mixing as equals with men who stand for the highest products
+of civilization the world so far knows.
+
+Then, educated and self-educating, their creed, whatever it is, will be
+the outcome of their secular training. It matters little what the belief,
+so long as the individual is free as air to adopt it or not at his own
+discretion.
+
+It would appear, then, that Morocco needs schools, colleges, and men of
+unusual calibre to deal with them. The doctor-missionaries do a vast
+amount of good; but it would seem that effort directed in fresh channels
+should meet with better results, and that so far there has been a
+tendency to "begin at the wrong end."
+
+It is easy to sit down and criticise; it is easy to map out new paths,
+the difficulties connected with which, few critics can realize. While we
+see that many of the old by-ways are tortuous and lead to error, and that
+many of them only result in waste of energy, let us at the same time not
+forget to give all honour to those who set out to dig them, for even
+"defeat, is great."
+
+One afternoon I walked round with Miss Banks, visiting patients. We
+started from the Mission House with a basket of medicines, ointment,
+thermometer, paint-brush, etc., and dived into the little, narrow,
+crowded streets of countless windowless houses. The first call we paid
+was at the house of a Moor in the capacity of "gentleman farmer": of
+course he was out. Miss Banks knocked; there was a movement on the other
+side, but no answer. She called through the keyhole, "Anna. Tabiba" (I.
+Doctor); and a discreet slave, trained by a jealous and distrustful
+master, opened at the sound of her voice. We walked into a
+three-cornered, tiled patio: the lady of the house came to meet us in a
+pink jellab, shook Miss Banks's hand and kissed her own, shook mine and
+again carried hers to her lips; then led us into a room opening on to the
+courtyard, with divans, in white, all round upon the tiled floor next the
+wall.
+
+We all three sat down cross-legged on the cushions, and our hostess
+related her symptoms to Miss Banks. She had a bad cough, and seemed glad
+to have her chest painted with iodine. She was the daughter of her
+husband's cowman; and if, according to English ideas, somewhat below him
+in rank, was no worse educated than the first lady in the land. It is odd
+that, while Moors are gentlemen born, their woman-kind, narrowed and
+degraded, are in no sense aristocratic. They will stand upstairs and
+shout "Come!" to any one who is calling upon them and waiting below.
+"Sit down," they will say imperatively: it is always the imperative. If
+they are asked to show anything, they will bring it and almost throw it
+at the visitor's head. They have no "breeding."
+
+Our hostess was thin, and not at all typical of a Moorish wife; for a
+Moor likes a waist which he can barely clasp with both arms, and women,
+when they desire to attract, fatten themselves at once. A woman who is
+engaged, is crammed with sweet fattening pills and farinaceous food.
+
+At one end of the room we sat in, was a gorgeous four-poster bed, hung
+with scarlet, and covered with embroideries, the posts painted bright
+green, and a great gilt crown on the top of all. When no furniture is
+bought except divans and a bed, all the dollars can be piled on the bed.
+We left a bottle of mixture out of the basket and a doll for the only
+child, which would be treasured, for a bunch of rags is the nearest
+Moorish approach to a doll.
+
+From this house we went on to our hostess' old home, where her father,
+the cowman, lived. The patio there was cold and bare, and seemed the
+general living-room; some wood was stacked in one corner; there was a
+well in another; there was an overpowering smell of "drains" everywhere;
+while in the third corner a poor, miserable little girl sat huddled up,
+with frightened eyes. Several families lived together in this small
+house, and no fewer than six women crowded round the girl to explain her
+symptoms to Miss Banks. It was only too apparent what was wrong, when she
+uncovered her neck. Syphilis, hereditary--a terrible evil, to be found
+all over Morocco, the result of Mohammedan customs and bad food.
+Considering that women are divorced and remarried over and over again,
+and that the conditions under which they live are so unhealthy, it is
+small wonder if disease in some form or other does not show itself.
+Examples are to be met with in almost any street--the features of the
+face obliterated, and so on.
+
+The poor child, whom Miss Banks was treating, had been married. Now that
+this disease had broken out, her husband would probably divorce her. If
+she were cured, she might marry again. Her friends had brought her all
+the way from Shesaw[=a]n to Tetuan to be cured, and a Jew doctor had
+offered to put her right for the sum of L4.
+
+"But," said her friends, "suppose she dies? What shall we get for our
+money then?"
+
+So they sent to the English tabiba, who cures for nothing.
+
+Miss Banks left ointment and medicine. Cases can be cured if the patient
+will persevere long enough with the medicine; but many of them are too
+far gone when they first come.
+
+An old man upstairs in the same house, but of a different family, claimed
+her attention next. Three weeks ago he was perfectly well. He went to a
+cafe one evening, drank a cup of coffee, came home, was seized with pain,
+and became completely paralyzed. It pointed to poison, but he had no
+enemies.
+
+Mercury is very largely used as a poison, and is given in different
+forms. Little is thought of ending life by this means, unless there
+happen to be influential relations who object to their relatives being in
+this summary manner "put out of the way."
+
+There is a girl now in Tetuan who keeps a shop. Her father and mother
+kept it before her, but she said that they were both so old, had lived so
+long, and had had their day, that she felt something must be done to
+secure her own turn, and that speedily. Therefore she gave them both some
+poison. There was a funeral. She took over the shop.
+
+Another woman was anxious to poison her husband because he was about to
+take a second wife. She prepared him the dish with the poisoned pieces.
+Suddenly she saw her child run into the house and join his father at the
+meal. Careless of betraying herself, she rushed to her Benjamin with
+cries of alarm,--too late; he had eaten, and he succumbed that night. The
+husband died at the end of a year from the effects of the same poison.
+Some of the drugs which Moors use take even longer to destroy life, but
+it is only a matter of time. The woman was put in prison, but she came
+out after twelve months, and another man has taken her to wife.
+
+Some missionary and poisoning experiences are amusing. People often came
+and asked for poison to administer to somebody who happened to annoy
+them.
+
+A slave appeared once and said, "I have a mistress: she's very old, isn't
+she?"
+
+"Yes," said the missionary.
+
+"She doesn't enjoy life now much, does she?"
+
+"No, I don't think she does much."
+
+"Would she enjoy being with the Lord much more than living on like this?"
+
+"Yes," said the missionary, "she would be far happier with the Lord."
+
+"Then," said the slave, "give me some poison to send her to Him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, Miss Banks looked at her patient, who might or might not have
+had his life tampered with; but there was little she could do then. We
+left that house and walked on into the poorest part of the city, down a
+little alley which was hard to find, in search of a certain door which
+was still harder. After two or three mistakes, we hit upon the right one,
+and knocked at an old, battered, rat-eaten entrance falling to pieces.
+
+"Anna. Tabiba," called Miss Banks; and the door was opened by a
+countryman, a Riffi, rough-looking, only a coarse jellab over him, but
+with a kind expression on his face. The space inside was something like a
+chicken-pen. We stooped under a very low doorway in the farther wall, and
+went into a little shed-like lean-to, where the inhabitants evidently
+lived entirely. A boy of thirteen was lying on the ground, covered with a
+piece of sacking. The father squatted down beside him. Two girls were
+grinding beans close to them in a hand-mill--the old mill of . . . "the
+one shall be taken, and the other left."
+
+Miss Banks and I seated ourselves on a wooden rail, which was part of a
+manger or a sheep-pen. These Riffis had been forced by famine to abandon
+their home and come down into Tetuan, where at first they had lived in a
+cave, on roots principally. The father would go out and hoe when he could
+get work--every land-owner has hoeing to be done; but lately he had had
+fever. The boy had an abscess, and could not move. In spite of it he
+smiled cheerfully, and was delighted with a new red jellab which Miss
+Banks brought him. Poor little chap! he did not live to wear it. I gave
+him a trifle to buy food. Beyond the dried beans in course of being
+ground, and half a lemon, there was no sign of anything to eat. Beans and
+lemons to fight an abscess!
+
+[Illustration: STRAW FOR SALE.
+
+[_To face p. 230._]
+
+After Miss Banks had attended to the child, we took our way to the house
+of a Moorish doctor, who had been unable to cure himself, and had sent
+in desperation for his European rival.
+
+He was lying on a divan upstairs, himself the colour of oatmeal porridge,
+with his wife attending to him; and he had a terrible sore on his thigh.
+This was duly attended to. The long fast of Ramadhan might partly account
+for his state of health. In spite of his faith in Miss Banks, which he
+would sooner have died than acknowledged, he had unbounded confidence in
+his own skill as a doctor.
+
+We asked him if he could read.
+
+"Read? No. Why should he read? What was the use of reading? The thing you
+wanted to do was to _remember_. Now he, if he was doctoring any one, he
+would try first this herb and then that. This herb no good. Try another.
+Another no good. Another no good. He might try twelve herbs, and all no
+good. And the thirteenth herb would be good. And then he would _remember_
+that herb. Why! all his doctoring he taught himself . . ."
+
+A rough sort of doctoring it is too, consisting of two remedies--a
+violent purge, or else burning with a hot iron. Every sore place is
+burnt; and for all sorts of illnesses, in cases of rheumatism, etc.,
+etc., the patient is scored, perhaps all over his chest or back--"fired"
+like a horse. Sores are always cauterized. Bullets are never extracted.
+Wounds are bound up with earth and rags. A serious gunshot wound, means
+death. Certainly there is a wide field for women doctors in Morocco.
+
+From this house we went on to one where the father, mother, and children
+were all having a meal--a poverty-stricken family again, where one of the
+children was wasting away with fever. The rest of the party were sitting
+round an earthenware pan, which was full of mallow leaves, stewed in
+native oil, with red pepper and garlic in huge quantities. They were
+dipping in their fingers, fishing out the greasy mallow and garlic, and
+laying it on their brown native bread and eating it. They insisted upon
+our joining them. It is no excuse to say "I have dined lately," for a
+Moor eats at any time, when there happens to be food. Miss Banks tasted
+the stew with a heroism worthy the noblest end.
+
+We went on to the house of a man who has one of the best shops in Tetuan.
+It was consequently comfortable, and delightfully fresh-looking. The
+master of the house was in bed with fever--that is to say, we found him
+reclining on a divan on the floor, beside a gorgeous bed, with a
+lily-white turban fresh from the wash-tub wound round his head. We sat
+down on the divan running round the room, and Miss Banks was glad to hear
+that her patient had at last consented to take quinine. He was
+worn-looking, with small black beard and moustache. Moors, like every
+effete people, are unable to grow a great quantity of hair on their
+faces.
+
+After visiting her cases Miss Banks suggested something of a change, and
+we turned into the best part of Tetuan, to pay a call upon one of the
+first families in Morocco, the head of which is now dead. B---- was
+probably the most wealthy and enlightened Moor in the city: he was once
+employed by Government, and he made his little pile; but he had never
+married--or, rather, his only marriage had ended in a speedy divorce; and
+most of his life he had been able to afford to keep a galaxy of slaves,
+whom he had freed in time, and whose offspring represent the family
+to-day.
+
+The name of the chief of his slaves, and the mistress of the dead man's
+house at the present moment, is Fatima. Fatima has a history. B----
+possessed twenty white slaves: they were chiefly stolen from villages in
+the south, and they passed into his hands; but his treasures were two
+beautiful Circassian women from Turkey, one of whom he sent to the late
+Sultan (who is the mother of the present Sultan), the other he kept for
+himself--Fatima. Fatima early showed a disposition far from humble, and
+B---- spoilt her. At last he made her head of his house and all his
+slaves. One day she caused two of these women to be beaten in such a
+manner that one of them died. The other vowed revenge; went to B----, and
+told him that she had seen Fatima looking through a window at a man in
+the garden below. Considering that a woman of superior class must not
+look out of her window, though the prospect be an arid yard, the
+statement was calculated to rouse B----. Brought up on such proverbs as
+"When the bee hums and the buttermilk ferments, place, O brother, a
+halter on thy little daughter," and to consider women "the nearest roads
+to hell," B----took prompt and drastic measures. He chained Fatima up to
+a pillar for three months, and fed her on bread and water. Her eldest
+daughter was to be married. Fatima was released and told she might attend
+the wedding, but only as the equal of the lowest slave, and dressed as
+such. She said that she had been accustomed to mixing with the first-born
+of Tetuan as an equal, and she would go among them as nothing else. To
+break Fatima's pride, B---- married a wife; but the wiles of his old
+favourite were too strong for him, and he gave her presents, including a
+gold bracelet. The indignant wife, furious at her husband's attentions to
+a mere slave, got a divorce and left B----; whereupon he fell into the
+arms of Fatima, and she graciously consented to become once more head of
+his house. She is now the proudest woman in Tetuan, inclined to look upon
+the missionaries and European women in general as dust under her feet.
+Her ignorance is unbounded. "India!" she said to Miss Hubbard. "You say
+all India belongs to you English. You may well wish it did. You've only
+got one port."
+
+Meanwhile, we had reached the door of this famous lady's house, and were
+clanging the great knocker. It was superior to any door we had "wakened"
+that afternoon--made of pale, cinnamon-coloured wood, and immensely wide,
+carved up above and brightened with great fork-like hinges and nail-heads
+as large as pennies. A vastly stout slave, smart in proportion, opened
+the door, and said something in Arabic to Miss Banks, which, translated,
+intimated that a large tea party was going on within. She led us along
+far-reaching, wide passages, which at length opened out into an extensive
+patio, paved with great black and white marble tiles, like a giant
+chess-board. A double row of finely tiled pillars supported the roof, and
+a fountain shot up water in the centre of all. The style of the building
+suggested that the dead man had known how to spend some of his money, and
+to make for himself a place refined and romantic rather than gorgeous.
+
+Stepping down the cool aisles between the pillars, the slave took us
+towards a room opening out of the patio; and such a room!--hung with
+embroideries, surrounded with luxurious divans worked in scarlet and
+white, carpeted with deep-piled carpets, and yet no more than a mere
+setting for the fantastic butterfly world which seemed let loose inside.
+Tetuan's most aristocratic women, scented favourites of Moorish society,
+kept in lavender and reared on sugar and orange-flower water, are not
+among those things which one easily forgets. About twelve of them or
+more--enough to dazzle and not bewilder, furnish to perfection yet avoid
+a crush--were half reclining on the divans round the room. Fatima was on
+our immediate left as we entered; a holy Shar[=i]fa on the right; the
+daughter of another Shar[=i]f sat beyond her. The circle was one of
+Sanctity and Rank.
+
+We shook hands with the mistress of the house, and were motioned to take
+our seats on the divan exactly opposite her.
+
+Fatima was no disappointment. She suggested much, and more than fulfilled
+the promise of her history. She was pale and dark, with a little head
+like a snake's, thin sarcastic lips, and eyes full of smouldering devil.
+Two silver trays stood in front of her, covered with fragile porcelain
+cups and thin gilded cut-glass, with a silver-topped box full of fragrant
+mint, another quaint box containing fine green tea, an enormous cut-glass
+sugar-basin heaped with small rocks of white sugar, two silver embossed
+and steaming teapots, some scent-sprinklers and incense-burners of
+silver. At her elbow, on the floor, was the largest silver urn I ever
+saw, capable of supplying half a dozen school feasts; down the room, in a
+line, upon the carpets, stood round baskets, three feet in diameter,
+filled with palest cream-coloured bracelet-shaped loaves of bread, made
+of too fine and white a flour and too perfectly baked for any but the
+upper ten to indulge in. The centre basket contained perhaps fifty
+cakes--nothing on a small scale here--made of thin flaked pastry, iced
+over with sugar, filled with a confectionery of almonds, and quinces, and
+raisins, and orange-flower water, and an essence, one drop of which cost
+five shillings. These take a day to make, and are only met with in an
+elaborate _menage_. Other tarts, lavishly coated with a snow of white
+sugar, contained jams and nuts and all the sweet things dear to the
+Moorish heart.
+
+The movements of Fatima's small hands among the cups, covered with rings,
+each polished nail just touched with a half-moon of dark red henna, were
+born of _dolce far niente_, backed by a long line famous for their
+beauty: her restless black eyes alternately gleamed with cruelty and
+cunning; flashed with passion; grew sad as it is given to few eyes to
+grow.
+
+Many embroidered buttons, as edgings in front, betokened garment within
+garment, which she wore, all of them at last confined by a broad, richly
+worked belt; her kaftan was of lemon-yellow, shining with silver
+borderings; the muslin "overall" was the thinnest atmosphere of white;
+there were many necklaces, chiefly pearl, round her neck, and, most
+characteristic of all, a tiny yellow silk handkerchief was knotted once
+round her throat; on her black head, colour ran riot in silks of all
+shades, tied and twisted and arranged as only a Moorish hand knows; her
+feet were wrapped in a soft pale yellow shawl, embroidered. She did not
+get up when we came in.
+
+Multiply Fatima twelve times, in colours more opulent and more bizarre
+than her own, instead of her lithe figure, picture stone upon stone of
+sleek flesh, and some idea of the epicureanism of the scene is arrived
+at. Sitting on each side of us were two of the fattest women I have ever
+seen.
+
+[Illustration: A GROUP IN THE FEDDAN, TETUAN.
+
+[_To face p. 236._]
+
+Meanwhile, Fatima signed to a slave to carry across the cups of tea which
+she had poured out, together with thin china plates; then we were
+supplied with the fine sweet bread. Miss Banks explained that I was not a
+_tabiba_ (doctor). Fatima told her I was to ask about anything which I
+did not understand, and with interpretations we carried on trifling
+conversation. It was like stepping into "The Arabian Nights" come to
+life. These women seldom go out of doors, or, if they do, nothing is to
+be seen of them except a figure in an immense creamy woollen haik from
+top to toe, heavily veiled: possibly a pair of haunting eyes and
+beautiful slippers suggest an attractive "beyond." But here were we "i'
+the centre of the labyrinth," where mere men can never go; in a maze of
+hot imperious colour; in a world of ivory-tinted faces, flowing lines,
+and stately gestures; among _abandon_ such as one little dreams of in a
+Mohammedan double-locked world.
+
+They lie at the ends of the pole, the women of Morocco: the countrywomen,
+beasts of burden; the wives of the rich, sumptuously fed and caparisoned
+lap-dogs.
+
+Amidst such a show of silk and embroidery no English-woman, in the
+utilitarian coat and skirt best fitted for travel, could feel other than
+out of place, nor resist the weak desire that the imperious Fatima and
+her circle should have another impression of our countrywomen made upon
+their ignorant minds than that given by short skirts and nailed
+boots--say, Covent Garden one night when the opera has drawn all the
+diamonds in town.
+
+I remember the Moorish French Consul, in the Tetuan post-office, saw R.
+writing a card in there once.
+
+"What a great thing it is," he said to Mr. Bewicke, "that your women can
+write and can arrange things for themselves. I go away; my wife cannot
+write to me. Our women are just like animals."
+
+As far as I could gather, a Moorish woman does not think for herself
+until she is divorced. Her father, mother, or brother marries her to
+whomsoever he or she chooses; but when once she is divorced, she is free
+to marry after her own heart, and no one can interfere with her. Divorce
+was of course allowed by Mohammed. It is so common that no wife is
+surprised at being divorced a year after marriage, or six months, even a
+week. If she does not get up in time in the morning, her husband can
+divorce her, or if she becomes ill, or for a hundred petty reasons.
+Therefore upon the marriage-lines is always entered the sum of money
+which a wife brings her husband; a poor woman will bring from thirty
+shillings to three pounds, a rich woman from a hundred to three hundred
+pounds; and whatever the sum be, the husband must refund it to the wife
+when he divorces her. The actual getting of the divorce is simplicity
+itself. Man and wife go before the deputy of the governor of the city or
+province and state their case. The deputy will probably say, "Very well.
+Pay the woman such-and-such a sum mentioned in the agreement, and go your
+several ways."
+
+A man, however, often changes his mind, and marries the woman whom he has
+divorced; and perhaps they are divorced a second time and married a third
+time. But he may not marry her the third time unless she has meanwhile
+been married by another man and divorced from him.
+
+Many of the Moorish husbands leave their wives--the Riffis, for instance,
+going back into the Riff. If they are away over a year and send no money
+to the wife, she can claim a divorce: going before the deputy with a
+witness or two, it is soon arranged; she then probably marries a second
+husband. Were it not for this arrangement, Tetuan would be full of
+deserted wives.
+
+It must be most difficult to try to "preach" either to the men or women.
+The men would not have it. I knew one missionary who used to sit in their
+shops and talk to them, but directly he veered round within a point of
+"religion" that talk was over. The women were less difficult in that
+respect; they would discuss the point: one woman I heard say something as
+follows:--
+
+"Why should I turn a Christian? See--I may steal, I may lie, I may commit
+murder; my sins may reach as high as from earth to heaven, and at the day
+of my death _God is merciful_. He will forgive me all, because I witness
+to Mohammed as his Prophet. Your religion is a narrow little religion;
+mine covers everything. You go home and go away by yourself and _witness
+to Mohammed_ as his Prophet, and all your sins will be forgiven."
+
+It is a sign of their being low down in the intellectual scale when the
+members of society talk for the most part of "persons," just as it is a
+sign of a higher tone when the conversation runs chiefly upon "ideas."
+Among the women at Fatima's tea party there was no sort or kind of
+exchange of thought of any description, nor was there general
+conversation. They talked in a desultory way to each other about their
+children, their clothes, their food, their money, and each
+other--sometimes they included Miss Banks, but never touched an
+interesting point.
+
+If a woman unable to read or write only meets women also unable to read
+or write, and knows but one man, her husband, who feeds her and values
+her much like a tame doe-rabbit, it is unreasonable to expect to find in
+her much intelligence and energy. Wives, when asked if they did not wish
+to do more, would not like to read or write or work, only laughed
+derisively. The idea was absurd: they could not understand any one
+wishing to exert herself in a novel and unnecessary way.
+
+On my left, still sat the stoutest woman in the room--the holy
+Shar[=i]fa. She lost her snuff-box, and roused herself to hunt all over
+her enormous person for it--a work of time; but a friend had borrowed it,
+and it was passed back to her. She sat on the divan, cross-legged like
+some gigantic idol of ancient Egypt, many yards in circumference at the
+base, her fat little hands folded across the embroideries and gold-worked
+buttons and worked edges of the many gorgeous waistcoats and kaftans,
+which seemed piled one on top of each other on her immense frame. Her
+head, the size of two footballs rolled into one, was swathed in violet
+and scarlet silk: straight whiskers of hair, dyed jet-black, were combed
+a few inches down each cheek, and then cut short. The whole "idol" sat
+very still, speaking but rarely, and then in a harsh croak like some
+oracular and forbidding bird: "it" had the appearance of being
+comfortably gorged.
+
+Meanwhile, Fatima signed or murmured to the slaves, and the sweetmeats
+were carried round, and the fragile cups refilled; and there went up a
+great aroma of sweet mint tea.
+
+Through the wide doorway the patio and its colonnades of many pillars lay
+cool and shaded; cages of singing canary-birds hung from the ceiling; the
+fountain rippled in the middle; a tall girl in green and white sauntered
+across in her slippered feet, carrying a tray; a gaily dressed slave
+passed silently; and the whole thing might have been a dream. . . .
+
+Past the patio lay the courtyard, all one large garden, with tiled walks
+and red-gold oranges and heavy foliage set against the blue sky. Broad
+date-palms, mimosa, and climbing creepers sometimes shook in a breath of
+wind. The clear tanks, full of ever-running water and lined with
+maiden-hair fern, moved with gold-fish, which matched the oranges; a pet
+monkey played amongst the lemons on a lemon-tree; a green parrot nodded
+to us from a bower of pink almond blossom.
+
+We wandered round the sleepy, silent courtyard, and in and out the
+chequered greenery, hot with windless, sun-filled air, back through the
+black-and-white courts, until at last the great outside door shut upon
+Fatima, her tea party, and the eternal mysticism of the East:--we were
+without the gates of Paradise, and in an atmosphere of rude realism once
+more.
+
+Soon after that afternoon of many calls with Miss Banks, a day up in the
+Anjera Hills, to the north of Tetuan, gave some idea of the strip of
+country which lay between us, and the sea, and Gibraltar. This country
+possessed the fascination of being little known. No one troubled to go up
+there, except its own wild inhabitants. Our own Consul had never been.
+The missionaries had not climbed so high, nor so far, this side the
+river.
+
+Now the Tetuan _sok_ (market) is greatly dependent upon the country
+people belonging to the Beni Salam tribe, who live up in the Anjeras; and
+from the flat white roof of our garden-house we had watched through a
+pair of glasses on market mornings, strings of women, winding by a
+precipitous path down the hillside, which is abrupt and mountainous,
+themselves dropping as it were from an upper world. They scrambled slowly
+down, one after the other, descending many hundreds upon hundreds of
+feet; then filed slantwise over the slopes, right into the rocky
+Mussulman cemetery, across that, and thence into the city by the
+Bab-el-M`kabar.
+
+The relations of these tribesmen between themselves and the city are more
+or less friendly, and it is comparatively safe to wander about the
+mountains as long as the "enemy," as the Moors call the sun, has not set.
+We were most anxious to visit the country whence these market-goers came,
+appearing first upon the crest-line, then against the rough hillside,
+like a string of industrious white ants crawling down the wall of a
+house; therefore we engaged a youth with a downy beard and hairy legs and
+the big grey donkey--the most active of his race--and set off one morning
+at half-past nine, prepared to climb into a Top World, like Jack of the
+Beanstalk, by means of a path which was less smooth "going" than his
+supernatural ladder.
+
+There was a strong north-west wind, and it was hardly an occasion for
+"aloft"; but there was no haze; the clouds were scudding away to South
+Australia; it was a day for a view.
+
+Taking the broken road towards the city, we branched off to the right,
+crossed a stream, and began the ascent. No one could ride at this point.
+R. tried a tow by means of the donkey's tail, and met with a
+remonstrating kick. Certainly, if this could be called "one of the
+Sultan's highways," it was an odd specimen. We scrambled up the east side
+of the range of hills, sometimes by a succession of rocky staircases,
+sometimes sliding (backwards chiefly) on loose shale: how the donkey
+contrived to look after its four feet must remain a problem, but the
+Morocco ass is brought up from birth upon stony ground, with naive and
+simple notions upon the subject of paths.
+
+It was a long time before our heads showed up above the top of Jack's
+Beanstalk (so to speak), and we met with a gale, at which the donkey's
+hair stood on end, and which occupied all our attention for a minute. We
+had seen Tetuan disappear far below us behind the elbow of a hill; the
+topmost point of the Gib. Rock had loomed into sight; Ceuta looked as if
+one might have thrown a stone upon it; and the Riff Mountains were next
+door, clear and blue. We had passed some red fritillaries and the
+bee-orchid, a little wild mauve crocus, and some magnificent clumps of
+white heath, which smelt of almonds and honey; had seen several pairs of
+stone-chats with their white collars; had sat down for many "breathers";
+and at last were at the top, in a wind which flattened every
+palmetto-bush plumb against the hillside. It was a breezy spot for riding
+(and here one _could_ ride, for the grey donkey was on _terra firma_ once
+more); therefore we cut short a survey of the country below us, hurried
+off the crest-line, and followed the path which led straight away into
+the heart of the Anjera country. It was a good track when once the top
+had been reached, exactly the right width for one individual, and used by
+thirty or forty every market day--three times a week. At the time when
+the cave-men lived in England, _single file_ was a standing principle in
+Morocco, and the practice still holds good.
+
+The path was beaten hard, by bare feet, in the rich dark red soil, and
+had taken a shiny polish; the wind was held off us by boulders and small
+hillocks; we got along at a steady pace. On each side mountains and only
+mountains were to be seen, peak beyond peak, slope after slope, covered
+with short wind-tossed scrub and sharp, hard rock, except at any great
+height or in the prevailing wind; there ledge after ledge lay peeled by
+the weather, blistering in the sun, the scarified faces of the cliffs
+worn at the summits into pinnacles of gaunt stone. No mark of humanity,
+except the single red path, suggested that civilization ever troubled
+these heights, and there was hardly anything worth the notice of a goat
+in the shape of fodder.
+
+The path rose and fell, skirting now this shoulder and now a gully, but
+keeping for the most part on high ground, here and there winding upwards
+across the sharp spine of a ridge, and, by way of some awkward staircase,
+once more landing us on the level. More often than not, the donkey had
+only himself to carry; the boy probably thought us mad, but there was no
+understanding what the other would fain have said. Except for the
+wind--and even that dropped--a great silence lay on the proud heights;
+they defied man to interfere with their grizzled _debris_: the birds had
+forgotten to sing: all around was that certain awed solemnity, always to
+be found, in the companionship of the everlasting hills. But the air was
+champagne; the heather was mad in the breeze; the sky where it met the
+rocks, an intoxicating blue. And how the clouds "travelled"! Though, in
+spite of that, the hills never spoke: like the Sphinx, whose repose no
+dance of lizards nor flashes of sunlight can disturb, they are "too great
+to appease, too high to appal, too far to call." Occasionally a dip in
+the hollow back of a mountain showed the sea beyond: there are few seas
+bluer than the blue Mediterranean can be, and this was one of its days.
+
+The polished track led us on: still no sign of a village, nor any
+evidences of civilization. At last from the top of a ridge we looked over
+and down into a calm green oasis, "a lodge in some vast wilderness,"
+secluded, sheltered, where it would have been good to pitch a tent and
+camp for many moons. We swung along downwards, dropped under the lee of
+the hill, and our path skirted the fringe of the green oasis. It was not
+many acres in extent; it was covered with short scant grass; it would
+have made an ideal polo-ground.
+
+Water lay over a small corner of it, and beyond a shadow of doubt it had
+once been the bottom of a lake; indeed, the Beni Salam tribe believe that
+water still lies underneath the turf. Here the first sign of humanity
+showed itself: two goatherds drove their flock down to the water, and one
+of them carried in the hood of his brown jellab a few hours' old kid;
+they soon passed on and disappeared among the boulders and heath.
+
+The long level lines of the green oasis were broken at the edge by
+diminutive bones of rock protruding through the grass. Sunk in the hollow
+of the hills, there was little or no wind; the sun glowed indolently down
+on the green lawn, tempting us to stay; but the foot-prints in the red
+soil pointed forward, and we turned our backs upon the flat stretches of
+sunny turf and left the waveless tarn behind.
+
+No more emerald oasis, but grey-green scrub and stones on the
+mountain-sides: we were up again in a stern and desolate defile, waste
+beyond waste strewn with rocks. The distances were oddly deceptive in the
+rare, clear air: a saddle between two peaks looked miles away--we were
+upon it in half an hour; again, a turret of rock apparently within a
+stone's-throw was a weary climb. And still the red trail snaked on before
+us. Even the big grey donkey began to lose its interest and to require
+"encouragement" from the Moorish boy.
+
+We speculated as to whether we should ever reach a village before it was
+time to make tracks for the world below, while the sun was well up. At
+last, in front of us, a long low saddle intervened, with rising ground
+on each side: this we determined to scale, once mounted on top see all
+there was to be seen, and go no farther. And toil brought its unexpected
+and exceeding great reward. Standing on the crest-line, shading our eyes
+with our hands, mountain beyond mountain lay in the distance--the
+Anjeras, the hills of Spain, the Mediterranean, Gibraltar; while in the
+foreground clustered four villages, brown mud-coloured huts upon the
+brownish slopes, and only picked out of their surroundings by means of
+the one little whitewashed spot of a mosque. Below us a river had carved
+a gorge in the red soil and tumbled over worn boulders beside the nearest
+village, but it was more or less hidden from sight.
+
+Much as we wanted to go on, it was impossible. First, there was not time.
+Secondly, the donkey would have had as much as was good for him by the
+time he got back. Therefore we chose a warm, sheltered spot, backed by
+sun-baked rocks and scented with cropped tussocks of yellow gorse; and
+there we lunched, the boy and donkey slipping out of sight, and leaving
+us alone, with the hills, and the sound of the wind.
+
+It must be a long tramp into Tetuan, even for hill people born to the
+life of the open road,--four hours into the city with heavy loads of
+charcoal, faggots, chickens, eggs, butter, vegetables; four hours back
+again with oil, sugar, salt, tea, and every sort of necessary which is
+not home grown. And three times a week. And only women. We met a string
+of them as we set our faces homewards, like "toiling cattle straining
+across a thousand hills"; but they all had a word to say and a smile, as
+they sloped along at a steady swing.
+
+The sun was setting when we left the good upper world of silence and the
+winds; by-and-by the crest-line intervened between ourselves and the
+strong serene heights--they were seen no more; and we came "hand over
+hand down the Beanstalk" which led to the white city below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WE LEAVE TETUAN--A WET NIGHT UNDER THE STARS--S`LAM DESERTS US--WE SAIL
+FOR MOGADOR--PALM-TREE HOUSE--SUS AND WADNOON COUNTRIES--THE SAHARA--THE
+ATLAS MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+    The stream of life runs, ah! so swiftly by,
+    A gleaming race 'twixt bank and bank--we fly,
+    Faces alight and little trailing songs,
+    Then plunge into the gulf, and so good-bye.
+
+
+ABOUT the month of April, Morocco takes its head from under its wing; the
+bad weather turns its back on the country; the tracks dry up and are fit
+for travellers to take to once more. The time had come for the sake of
+which we had borne with the rains, and we longed to be off, to know
+something more of this strange and fascinating land.
+
+May is a better month than April, up in the north, for travelling; April
+is often dashed with the tail-end of the rains; but our desire was to go
+down into the far south, and May and June in the south are both too hot
+to enjoy camping out. April is quite warm enough; indeed, Morocco City
+"stokes up" early in April; therefore we made it the middle of March when
+we said good-bye to Jinan Dolero and set our faces Tangier-wards, there
+to await some steamer which should take us down the coast. The odds and
+ends which had furnished us at Tetuan and were not wanted had to be
+sold--a very simple matter. The day before we left our white
+garden-house, S`lam and some _mesdames_, as in his best French he always
+spoke to us of his ragged countrywomen, carried them into the sok, as
+they were, on their backs; and they were sold to the highest bidder
+among the market-goers.
+
+To transport ourselves and our belongings over to Tangier, a Jew
+muleteer was requisitioned, who provided men and mules for the two
+days' journey. After long consultations we decided to take S`lam with
+us on our travels in the capacity of personal servant and head
+cook--partly because he could cook, partly because, in spite of the
+Tahara-and-bottle-of-water-or-poison episode, we liked him, and he had
+been a good servant according to his lights. After all, he was
+probably as trustworthy, and more so, than any man we could pick up in
+a hurry down south--at least, everybody warned us that they were a set
+of rascals there, of whom we were to beware. Finally, he was used to
+us and we were used to him. So S`lam set out with our cavalcade, and
+we proposed to keep him while we were at Tangier, take him by boat to
+Mogador, and after our march was over return him to Tetuan. But, while
+"man proposes----"
+
+I was sorry for Tahara. She was left behind with her old enemy--S`lam's
+mother. He left the mother money, but Tahara not one flus. He said, too,
+that when he came back from Morocco City he should go straight off to the
+Riff and get work there; and Tahara would be left again. Such is the
+custom of the country: the husband may go off for a year, at intervals
+returning to his wife, whom he leaves generally under some sort of
+supervision. So poor little Tahara, who had no voice in her marriage, but
+had wept all the way to Tetuan under the escort of her bridegroom and
+brother, was left penniless in the old mother's clutches. She had no
+relatives near to help her, otherwise I have no doubt that she would have
+got a divorce. We could only ask Z---- to keep an eye on her, for
+interference in the Moorish domestic hearth on the part of a European
+would be a fool's work indeed.
+
+It was March 19 when we began to wander once more, having handed the keys
+of Jinan Dolero back to its owner and cleared out the little white house.
+Unfortunately we pitched on the _Aid-el-Kebeer_ (the Great Feast),
+starting the very day before it was due; and, in consequence of the
+Mohammedan-World being upside-down with joyful anticipation, could get no
+good mules, nor induce any one but a Jew to leave Tetuan at such a time.
+S`lam looked forward to feasting with his brother at Tangier, and started
+off with a good grace. A more serious miss than either Moorish servants
+or reliable mounts was perhaps a tent. There was none to be had in Tetuan
+at just that time, and a night had to be passed upon the way. However,
+there was no help for it: we set off as we were, and arrived towards
+sunset at the half-way caravanserai, the little white-walled fondak on
+the top of the hills, where we passed such a windy night, on our way over
+from Tangier in December, under canvas.
+
+It was a good ride, and our mules travelled badly: saddles and bridles
+were tumbling to pieces too. For the last mile or so we both walked and
+sent the baggage on ahead. From a bend round the crest of a hill we said
+farewell to an uneven white streak set at the foot of the distant
+hills--Tetuan--and saw it no more. The fondak was in front of us, four
+lonely walls exposed to every change of weather, and no life stirring
+outside. We walked through the arched gateway into the square, which is
+surrounded with Norman arches, and found a company of mules and donkeys,
+of owners and drivers, taking shelter for the night: our own baggage
+animals were already hobbled in a line in front of the arches, under
+which the muleteers sit, and drink, and smoke, and sleep the hours away,
+till the first streak of dawn.
+
+We scrambled up an uneven stone staircase at the corner of the square,
+and investigated the two little rooms at the disposal of travellers. One
+look: there were suggestions of the insect world in both. We recrossed
+the thresholds and sought further: the flat white roof above the arches
+round the square, if windswept, was too airy to be anything but fresh and
+wholesome,--it should meet all our demands. Here then, out in the open,
+under the sky, our two beds were arranged, in the lee of a few yards of
+parapet which had been built to shelter the west corner of the roof.
+S`lam had a small pan of charcoal also up on the roof in our corner, over
+which to get something hot for us to eat; and as soon as the odd little
+meal was finished we turned in.
+
+The precipitous twilight had shadowed down sufficiently to undress in
+more or less privacy even upon a housetop; over our beds we spread a thin
+woollen carpet to keep off the dew; the moon, which was beginning its
+last quarter, faced us full, in a sky picked out with a few stars,
+against which the dark outline of the hills was cut clear; there was
+hardly a fleck of cloud in that best roof under which a man can sleep.
+
+[Illustration: A BREEZY CAMPING-GROUND ON A ROOF-TOP.
+
+[_To face p. 254._]
+
+Below, down in the square, the picketed mules stamped and munched barley;
+the muleteers' voices, back under the arches in the colonnade, arose and
+fell, round a fire where green tea was brewing and much kif was in course
+of being smoked; occasionally an owl hooted. Waking from time to time,
+the moon was always staring down (I shall never forget that moon); but
+at each interval it had moved farther round overhead. At last it sank
+behind the field of vision, and up "in that inverted bowl we call the
+sky" the remote and passionless stars had it all to themselves.
+
+About half-past three in the morning we were awakened suddenly by the
+patter of rain on our faces, great single drops, which quickened into a
+hurrying shower; while gusts of wind from the south-west rose and swept
+round the corner of the low parapet against which we had put the heads of
+the beds. One glance showed that the sky was overcast; it was very dark,
+most of the stars were hidden, and there was an ominous sound of rain in
+the wind. The fondak is notably a wet resting-place, for it lies on the
+top of the watershed which divides the plains of Tetuan and Tangier, and
+it draws the clouds like a magnet.
+
+One of us put up a sun-umbrella, which had been useful on the hot ride
+the day before; it kept an end of one bed more or less dry, and
+fortunately the shower did not last long, while underneath warm bedding
+it was possible to keep dry for a time. The wind rose, however, and
+forced itself in at every fold of the bedclothes. We had carefully
+arranged all our kit under the parapet close to the beds, partly to
+prevent its being stolen, which sometimes happens if left out of the
+owner's reach, partly to prevent its rolling or blowing off the
+unprotected edge of the roof.
+
+The sunset of the night before had not foretold wind; but wind there
+began rapidly to be, and by-and-by the lid of one of our cooking-pots
+bowled along the roof, fell over the edge, and rattled on the stones in
+the square below: a cloth belonging to the cuisine took flight next over
+the outer wall, and was seen no more. We lay speculating on what might
+follow. Then another shower began; but the clouds were lifting a little,
+and it was short if it was sharp; while underneath the blankets there
+was not much to complain of.
+
+At four o'clock a sound of life began down below; the muleteers were all
+up and stirring in the square. Lights were lit, for since the moon and
+stars had been obscured, the night had turned from brilliant light into
+one of shadows and blackness. Was there to be more rain? Nothing else
+mattered. In this fine interval--for the last shower was stopping--it
+seemed wise to get up and dress and have our bedding rolled together:
+neither of us was going to move into the rooms. Certainly dressing was a
+chilly opportunity. The evening before had been warm; but the rain
+freshened the air, and the wind made it still more brisk. It was darker
+than ever--too windy to have kept a light going; and clothes, discovered
+with some difficulty in the shadows in hiding-places under rugs and
+pillows where they had been stowed the evening before to escape the dew,
+were hurried into in the dark anyhow and any way, half blown inside-out
+in the wind.
+
+At half-past four S`lam came up on to the roof-top with a light (which
+was promptly extinguished) and a pail of cold fresh water, in which we
+had an acceptable wash. He rolled up our bedding, and brought an
+earthenware pan of burning charcoal, which was stowed away in a corner of
+the stone stairway out of the wind, and on which the kettle soon began to
+boil. At this point two remaining stars were put out by the advancing
+dawn--a wan and shivering dawn. Sitting in the lee of the parapet, five
+o'clock saw us ready, and supplied with hot tea and eggs. Not long after,
+the rain-clouds blew over and the day broke clear.
+
+Meanwhile, the muleteers had loaded up and vanished with the first streak
+of daylight, in order to be in Tetuan in time for the great feast that
+day; the inner square of the caravanserai was deserted; our own five
+mules were all that was left. It was not a long business loading them:
+the last rope was knotted, and the muleteers drove them off. We followed,
+riding out under the gateway, whereon is written in Arabic a sentence to
+the effect that Mulai Abdurrahman built the fondak in 1256, according to
+Mohammedan reckoning of time.
+
+The sky was grey and menacing: too many of the little single clouds
+called "wet dogs" drifted across it. Having started at half-past five,
+not till three o'clock that afternoon did we reach Tangier; halting once
+on the march, at ten o'clock, and that only for half an hour for lunch. A
+heavy storm cut that halt short, for the rest of the day the "wet dogs"
+were true to themselves, and we were deluged. Vivid lightning flashed and
+cracking peals of thunder rolled over the plain; it was one of those
+March days which make March no month for camping out in Northern Morocco.
+Added to that, the track was in a shocking state--up to the girths in mud
+and water and clay of a sticky and treacherous nature. The mules slipped
+back at every step. We had many small rivulets to cross, and were obliged
+to make great detours in order to circumvent them at all. Even then our
+baggage was in the greatest peril, for the mules could barely keep their
+feet; and once down in some of the deepest quagmires, there would have
+been the utmost difficulty in getting them up again, or in rescuing our
+unfortunate kit. And the rain came through everything, bedding and all
+being fairly drenched. The mules which carried the baggage were of course
+much the best of our beasts: R.'s and my mounts were indeed sorry for
+themselves. The last hour was the darkest, during which R.'s mule fell
+down for the sixth or seventh time--it was slippery and rough--and we
+had the worst piece of country of all to cross, where we found one
+unfortunate mule bogged in a sort of mud stream. Though a soaking does
+not greatly signify when dry clothes and a roof lie at the journey's end,
+nine hours at a foot's pace, through mud and water, wet and weary, will
+take the heart out of most people. We tailed into Tangier, a dilapidated,
+worn string of bedraggled vagrants, and rode to the Continental. An hour
+later, clean and dry, in comfortable chairs, with hot coffee, there was
+content.
+
+Meanwhile, S`lam was not at all fulfilling our expectations; and since we
+left the fondak, far from distinguishing himself on the march, he failed
+over and over again to rise to the occasion, excellent servant though he
+had been in the garden-house near his own city. While the muleteers
+walked all the way from Tetuan, driving the baggage-mules and urging on
+our own, S`lam by arrangement rode on the top of a light load; and there
+he sat, huddled up on the mule, wet and discontented, dawdling behind,
+last of all, in the cavalcade, and anything but living up to his
+character of soldier-servant and escort. By virtue of his late service in
+the Algerian army and his rifle, he should have been admirably adapted to
+fill that capacity; but less like a soldier, and more like a whimpering
+dog, man never looked. Nor did he look after our things, allowing them to
+be badly exposed to the rain, and taking no precautions for protecting
+anything. In the face of condemnation he sulked.
+
+Arrived at Tangier, nearly a week elapsed before a Hungarian boat put in,
+by which we could sail for Mogador. S`lam was of course due daily at the
+hotel to report himself and to execute orders. It was on one of these
+occasions, upon the very morning before we were due to start for Mogador,
+that he sprung upon us his intention of going straight back to Tetuan.
+This announcement came rather like a bolt from the blue. We had
+congratulated ourselves upon taking down into the interior a more or less
+tried and faithful knave, where knaves of such a description were
+proverbially scarce; and now our henchman announced that he had no longer
+any wish or any intention of accompanying us to Morocco City.
+
+The reasons or excuses which he gave were: first, that his wages were
+insufficient; and, secondly, that "a courier" had been sent over to him
+from Tetuan to tell him that his mother and his wife were quarrelling to
+such a degree that Tahara had threatened to go back to her native Riff
+country with her brother unless S`lam returned, and if she took that step
+it would mean a divorce.
+
+His wages had been already raised considerably, because the post he was
+now to fill had more duties connected with it: they might have been
+further increased. The other excuse may or may not have been true; but as
+the two women had never done anything else except quarrel, the situation
+was a foregone conclusion. The old mother may have been trying to poison
+Tahara again. But would S`lam trouble to prevent that? Whatever his
+motive, it was more than annoying that at the last moment he should throw
+us over, leaving no time in which to look out for a new man, and a
+reliable man, without whom, in a country as lawless as Morocco, it would
+be a little rash, on the part of two people only, to travel.
+
+But an unwilling servant is not to be endured. We gave S`lam his release,
+stipulating only that he should return the dollars advanced him for his
+wife and mother not many days before.
+
+To this he protested that he had no money, not a peseta left--every coin
+had either been spent at the feast or had been left at Tetuan.
+
+In this case, the best plan would be, we said, for S`lam to take with him
+a letter to the Consul at Tetuan explaining to him what had happened;
+then as S`lam earned money, he might pay it into the Consul's hands for
+us, until he had made good the sum advanced him. At this S`lam looked
+blank: he said such a letter would mean _prison_ for him. We stood firm.
+It was a rude shock to our faith when his hand found its way into the
+leather bag at his side under his jellab, and he pulled out and threw on
+the table two-thirds of the money which had been given him.
+
+It was suggested that he should pay the whole sum.
+
+No! he was penniless.
+
+Then in that case he could sell the new jellab he had just bought.
+
+He scoffed at the idea.
+
+In reply to our order to come to the hotel the first thing the following
+morning and see our baggage safely on board the steamer, he said that he
+should leave Tangier at daybreak, and that it was quite impossible for
+him to attend upon us, evidently expecting that his prepaid wages would
+be amicably allowed to slide. But not in the face of this final
+desertion. We reiterated the former course--a letter to the Consul at
+Tetuan; again he pleaded abject poverty; but meeting only with
+inclemency, once more plunged his hand into his bag, and pulled out
+dollars amounting exactly to the sum which he had been advanced.
+
+So much for his poverty. We were now, he explained, "quits." "All was
+right between us." He "would not like to leave us with a trace of ill
+feeling remaining between us and himself."
+
+He _did_ leave us, however, with his tail fairly between his legs, and,
+if he had been kicked out of the hotel, could not have gone forth more
+sadly.
+
+What motive he had for going back to Tetuan, or what whim seized him in
+Tangier, remained a mystery. Impulsive as a child, he had been at first
+madly keen, so he said, to go with us to the world's end; then, as the
+time approached, in the same ratio his ardour evaporated; until, finally,
+he had no more desire left, and on the march over to Tangier grew more
+indifferent and morose at every step. While we were in Tangier he was
+like a fish out of water. And yet he had been once to Fez and to Morocco
+City: he was a travelled man. Possibly he had a more remunerative billet
+in view, or was homesick, or jealous about Tahara. After all, whatever
+the reason, his line of conduct was only distinctly Moorish, and
+characteristic of a race in which, as a whole, no wise man places great
+reliance. A Moorish servant will not rob his European master: perquisites
+are a _sine qua non_, of course. Probably his lies are no blacker than
+those of European servants; but the Moor, in place of that quality of
+faithfulness which can ennoble an English rascal, has a cold-blooded
+current in his veins. His manners may be charming--he is a plausible
+devil; but lean upon him, and he turns out to be as jerry-built as his
+own crumbling whitewashed walls.
+
+It is with somewhat of a feeling of banishment into the unknown, that the
+passenger by the little coast-steamer takes his departure from Tangier,
+and sees first its white houses and yellow sands, and last of all Spartel
+lighthouse, disappear as the boat ploughs southwards. Once upon a time
+Gibraltar had constituted in our minds the outposts, so to speak, of
+civilization; but since we had spent three months in such an unexplored
+spot as the Tetuan vale and mountains, without society of the
+conventional type, or library, or church, or any other adjuncts, Tangier,
+when we came back to it, appeared in the light of a Paris. And now
+Tangier was again to be left behind; and on one of the little
+coasting-steamers, which deliver cargo at ports on the way, we meant to
+travel down to Mogador. To have marched the same distance would have
+meant perhaps a month on the road, going by Fez and taking it easily;
+therefore we saved much time by taking the steamer. Though by all report
+it was not likely to be at all a comfortable journey, it could only last
+four days at most; and few travellers but can stand four days'
+discomfort.
+
+We did not start without a few warnings and cautions from various
+friends, who seemed inclined to think that we were doing an unprecedented
+thing in thus setting off alone into the interior without even a reliable
+servant, which since the desertion of S`lam was the case. That could not
+be helped. We hoped for the best as regarded finding men in Mogador.
+
+[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE WAY WE RODE IN MOROCCO.
+
+[_To face p. 262._]
+
+Sir Arthur Nicolson had provided us with letters of introduction to the
+British Consul in Mogador, and to a Moor in Morocco City, where it is
+unnecessary to say there are no representatives of the English
+Government. I had written to him on the subject of getting up to Glaouia,
+in the Atlas Mountains, and had received the following reply:--
+
+    "DEAR MISS SAVORY,--
+
+     "As the Court is away from Morocco City, I hardly think it would
+     be wise for you to attempt a visit to Glaouia. Matters are never
+     very stable when the seat of Government is away, and I do not
+     think the Government would be disposed to give you a permit at
+     present. There would, however, be no objection whatever to your
+     going to Morocco City, and I think you will find the journey
+     interesting.
+
+    "Yours very truly,
+    "A. NICOLSON."
+
+This letter was a blow. But when we finally reached Morocco City we found
+that the thing could be done--that we could get up to Glaouia either
+under the protection of the English missionaries or with a certain Jewish
+trader who lives in Morocco City. The fact of the matter is, that to
+travel "officially," as it were, in Morocco is a fatal mistake. It means
+a written permission from the Sultan, an army of followers, a commotion
+wherever a halt is made, and a great deal of hospitality. The Sultan does
+not encourage Europeans to travel out of the ordinary line of route, on
+account of the superstitious and fanatical spirit of his people, which
+would be roused to wrath against him, were he to countenance the invasion
+of their sacred land by infidels. Consequently, when he gives a permit,
+he writes upon the document to the effect that the Christian is committed
+to the care of Kaid So-and-so, and Kaid So-and-so is to see that no ill
+happens to him.
+
+When the Christian traveller arrives at the district belonging to this
+kaid, through which he wishes to pass, he goes to the castle and delivers
+the permit. The kaid reads it, and knows what it means: the Sultan only
+wishes the Christian to be kept to frequented roads. Therefore the
+Christian is offered every hospitality, and the kaid almost weeps as he
+explains that it is impossible for the traveller to proceed--the
+tribesmen are dangerous, are in revolt along the line the Christian
+wishes to go. The traveller says he will take his chance. His servants,
+primed by the kaid, refuse to go with him on the score of the danger. If
+he manages to get away with one trusty follower, the kaid sends soldiers
+after them, fetches them back to the castle--to save their lives, he
+says, and his own life, which would be forfeited if a hair of their heads
+was injured. The Christian, after his rebellious conduct, may be forced
+to return discomforted to the coast towns, or he may be allowed to march
+on in another direction, keeping on the beaten track. Thus the Moorish
+Government will politely frustrate enterprising spirit on the part of the
+infidel. But if the traveller is content with other than a royal
+progression through the country, if he will travel quietly and without
+ostentation, dressed according to the habits of the people, and be
+prepared to "rough it," the chances are, that he may get to places which
+he could never have reached while impeded by a Government escort.
+
+But the way above all others to travel in Morocco is to secure the help
+of a missionary and to go with him. Medicine is the golden key which
+opens every gate; and a Moor will do anything for a _tabiba_ (doctor),
+which is what a missionary practically is to him. The missionary arrives
+at a remote village, and the countryside flocks to him to have its teeth
+pulled out, its sores doctored, its fevers cured; and if the tabiba
+wishes to go on farther, by whatever path, who shall gainsay him, while
+he carries life and health in his hands? He understands their dialect a
+little, he dresses as they do, and he brings no overbearing servants to
+eat up their substance. Nor is he a spy, but only some harmless fanatic,
+some quaint Nazarene, who thinks to win heaven by thus walking the earth
+and doing good.
+
+Thus several missionaries have penetrated to places in Morocco, from
+entering which, Europeans are debarred: they have not "advertised"
+themselves nor written books upon what they have seen. But the thing has
+been done, and not only by men. Women missionaries have been where no
+Christian is supposed to be allowed. Indeed, it should be easier for
+women, in one way, to travel in forbidden territory than men, because
+their sex is not credited with the sense which could do harm; and the
+idea of a woman spying, or thinking to exploit the country, discover
+mines, and so on, would be absolutely laughable to a Moor. Probably
+women, with a large stock of medicines and a knowledge of the country
+dialect, could travel in the unknown "Beyond" with comparatively little
+risk.
+
+There is one other way for the Englishman to see something of the
+less-known districts of Morocco, and that is to travel under the
+protection of a holy Shar[=i]f. Shar[=i]fs are, like the Sultan,
+descendants of Mohammed, and they possess the holy _baraka_--that is, the
+birthright of the Shar[=i]fian line. They are little gods, and they have
+immunity from the laws of God and man. Their advice is sought for and
+followed by the ordinary country people on every question, and their
+decision is invariably accepted as final. There is no such thing as an
+aristocratic class or nobility in Morocco; and yet the Shar[=i]fs answer
+in a way to the same idea, for they possess a religious authority which
+sets them far above their countrymen, and constitutes them, in a sense,
+lords over the people. Besides, they act greatly as mediums between the
+secular governors and the tribes, and judge upon various matters. It is
+possible for a holy Shar[=i]f to sin, but quite impossible for him to be
+punished, the obvious argument being that "the fire of hell cannot touch
+a saint in whose veins runs the blood of the holy Prophet."
+
+The Shar[=i]fian families form an entire class by themselves. They are
+fed and clothed and housed by a convenient system of religious taxation,
+and large presents are made them, while after death their tombs become
+objects of visit to all devout Mohammedans.
+
+A holy Shar[=i]f generally rides a horse, and he dresses in white, with a
+blue cloth cloak, or else a white woollen over-garment. He wears a pair
+of yellow slippers, or perhaps riding-boots, called _temag_, buttoned all
+up the back with green silk buttons, and embroidered down the side with
+silk and silver thread. A scarlet fez and a white turban complete him.
+
+Shar[=i]fs never shave under the chin, since the days when a certain
+sultan was being shaved thus by a barber who had it in his mind to cut
+the royal throat. But a little boy passing saw the evil design in the
+barber's eye. With great presence of mind he rushed into the shop, crying
+to the Sultan, "O Most Holy One! the Great Mosque has fallen down!" Both
+sultan and barber leapt up and rushed out: the boy explained matters to
+the sultan, and the barber was killed.
+
+But neither Shar[=i]f nor missionary-doctor had we any hope of meeting at
+Mogador, able and willing to travel into the Atlas Mountains with us. We
+started with plenty of chances open in front, but with nothing certain
+whereon to rely. Telegraph station and all such vanities were left behind
+us at Tangier: letters could not reach us till we ourselves reached
+Morocco City, ten or twelve days being the time they would take to arrive
+there from Tangier. Our agents--Cook & Son--in the latter place, had
+instructions to open all wires, and in an urgent case to forward to us by
+a _rekass_ (a runner), who might do the distance in as short a time as
+seven or eight days. A wire sent thus, by a rekass, might cost three or
+four pounds, according to the time the man took: the faster he did the
+journey, the more he should be paid.
+
+In spite of its hotels Tangier does not possess a single shop where
+English newspapers or books can be bought. Our literature had by this
+time reached a low ebb; and on board the Hungarian boat, at a time when
+one generally reads omnivorously because there is nothing else to do, we
+had but a couple of standard books to fall back upon--a history of the
+country was one, the other a volume of Lecky. The history was fairly
+committed to heart before travelling days were done.
+
+On the whole, when at last we got off in the little Hungarian steamer,
+she did not leave much to be desired. For three days we had hung on at
+the Continental Hotel, waiting for the hourly expected arrival of the
+boat, beginning almost to despair of her ever coming in.
+
+Finally, patience was rewarded, and one afternoon, with all our baggage,
+we went on board. We had everything wanted for camping out except tents,
+and these were to be hired at Mogador. A great wooden kitchen-box held
+pots, pans, knives, etc., and a case contained potted meats, soups,
+biscuits, and so forth.
+
+R. and myself were the only women on board when we left Tangier: eight
+men joined us at dinner that night, at one long table in the small
+saloon, and we were said to fill the boat. She was very small, only
+eighteen hundred tons, and there was not much room for walking about on
+her; but we never went out of sight of the coast, and, sitting on a
+couple of chairs, could see through the glasses whatever was going on on
+the beach--which, I must add, was little enough, at a time when the
+smallest incidents become of importance. The greater part of the _Arpad_
+was given up to cargo. We landed green tea in quantities at Mazagan, and
+black-wood, cane-seated chairs for the Jews and Spaniards living there,
+as well as bales of goods and casks; but we took nothing on board, and
+the _Arpad_ became more and more like an empty egg-shell, with a decided
+inclination to roll, on the swell which invariably sets down that coast.
+
+The captain, a small dark Hungarian, when we left Tangier, changed into a
+thin tweed suit and straw hat: he did not understand English. There was
+no stewardess; but the steward, who did all the waiting at table, spoke a
+little German. One of our fellow-passengers was an Englishman, born in
+Morocco, without any desire to leave it--his horizon Gibraltar: he was
+Dutch Consul at Mazagan. Another man was a grain merchant in Mazagan. All
+were interesting, and could tell us a great deal about the country.
+Certainly the coast-line, as seen from the deck of the _Arpad_, was
+monotonous, desolate, uninviting to a degree: a long low shore,
+kh[=a]ki-coloured, treeless, without sign of life, did not raise in us
+regrets that we had come by sea, especially when told that what we saw,
+was a fairly correct sample of most of the country we should have ridden
+through.
+
+[Illustration: LIGHTERS LOADING.
+
+[_To face p. 268._]
+
+On the entire six hundred miles' length of coast south of Cape Spartel,
+and down which we were steaming, there is not a single lighthouse, bell,
+beacon, or buoy to mark a reef or shoal, nor is there any harbour, and no
+steamer dares to lie close in-shore off a port at night. Therefore, as
+there are several ports at which cargo has generally to be landed or
+taken on board, steamers go on the line of steaming all night, and lying
+outside a port in the daytime, while boats carry cargo between them and
+the shore. Rabat, Casablanca, Mazagan--we stopped at them all, and got
+accustomed to the eternal clank of the crane hoisting bales in and out
+of the boats; to rolling on to the backs and down into the troughs of
+the Atlantic combers.
+
+Finally, we reached Mogador early on the morning of Good Friday, 1902,
+and said good-bye to the uneasy _Arpad_ and its primitive _menage_
+without regret: irregular, white-walled Mogador, set in its rock-locked
+harbour, lay in front of us. It was the hot south--there was no doubt
+about that. The Riviera is called "the sunny south," and Tangier is
+warmer than the Riviera; but penetrate inland into Africa, go down as far
+as Mogador, and it is another thing altogether. Here there is no _trace_
+of Europe, but a great sense of being far away in letter and spirit from
+England--farther away than Bombay, and many another place, which
+out-distances it in miles again and again.
+
+We saw Mogador first in a grey light: heavy thunder-clouds hung above;
+dim and visionary hills lay behind; a regiment of camels paraded the wet
+sands in front, and lay in the sun underneath the battlemented walls;
+black flags floated from the mosque-tops, for it was the Mussulman
+Sunday. For the rest Mogador is a city of sea and sand--sand, sand, and
+yet more sand: it takes two hours' riding to get to anything else except
+sand.
+
+With the grey waves washing round two sides of it, and two sides blown
+and sanded by desert wastes, white-walled Mogador has a somewhat saddened
+aspect, as of lifeless bleached bones, apart from the fact that it is so
+far removed from the outer world.
+
+And infinitely remote, it certainly is. A telegram takes about a
+fortnight to reach England; so that an answer by wire to a wire can be
+expected in about a month. A letter sent by a special courier to Tangier
+takes eight days--a distance of four hundred miles: by this means a wire
+could be sent to England in nine days. The steamers to Mogador are most
+irregular, because, in view of there being no safe anchorage, a boat will
+not put in in bad weather. Cargo, passengers, and mails are often and
+often enough not landed at all, and the inhabitants of the city see but
+the stern of the vanished steamer with all their letters on board, not to
+return perhaps for a week. When the English Consul married, and his
+furniture was sent out from England, the _Forward_ boat, which brought
+it, came in sight of Mogador, and, being a rough day, went off to Madeira
+and on its round by the Canary Isles, back to London again, without
+touching at the sad white city at all. In this way things are apt to be
+lost: it has happened with passengers.
+
+A rowing-boat landed us on green seaweedy rocks, and we walked up the old
+shell-encrusted water-stairs, and under the arch of the Water-port Gate,
+above which is carved in Arabic, "The glorious King, my lord Mohammed,
+ordered the building of this gate by his servant Hamed, son of Hammoo,
+1184."
+
+Once on a time, Agadir, a city on the coast, much farther south, was the
+great port and commercial centre of Southern Morocco; but it was far
+removed from the Sultan's grasp, the tax-gatherer could pursue the even
+tenor of his ways without interruption, and the kaid afford to be
+dictatorial and troublesome. Then the heavy hand fell, and the Sultan's
+armies closed the seaport, offering its throng of prosperous merchants
+the alternative of going to prison or of taking up their abode in
+Mogador. This they did, and Mogador arose; while to work the lighters
+(the cargo-boats), and to generally serve the merchants, a company of
+Berbers was transported with them from the Sus and Agadir to the new
+seaport.
+
+Beyond the Water-port Gate we met a line of heavily laden camels, with a
+company of athletic Berber drivers from the Sus, in quaint long tunics of
+butcher-blue, and lank black hair: many of the men veiled themselves;
+they all looked as wild as hawks, different from any type hitherto seen.
+
+The familiar Hebrew broker, in dark blue or black gabardine and greasy
+skull-cap, was strongly _en evidence_; while as to the state of the dogs
+we met, of them must the Moorish proverb be written, "If fasting be a
+title to Paradise, let the dog walk in first."
+
+Our baggage had all to pass through the Customs House inside the
+Water-port Gate; and there we walked, through great white-walled
+courtyards, whose vistas, of arch beyond arch, suggested Temple courts.
+Donkeys laden with skins were hurrying across them. Now and then a train
+of camels swung along, carrying gum or wax or argan oil or almonds. In a
+good almond year as many as a thousand camels have sometimes come into
+Mogador in one day. The Customs House officer was at breakfast, and we
+awaited his coming by our baggage. At last there was a stir among the
+many hands who had carried our things up from the boat, and the most
+solemn and dignified individual conceivable slowly sailed upon the scene,
+way being made for his flowing robes, which were white as a sheet of best
+glazed "cream-laid" before the pen marks it. I handed him our pass-paper
+from the Customs House officer at Tangier, feeling like a humble subject
+laying a petition before a monarch: he slowly unfolded it, and more
+slowly searched for and produced a pair of spectacles in a silver case.
+Lastly, having read the document and reviewed our pile, he "passed" it
+with an impressive wave of his hand. He then took a seat, a Moor minion
+on each side: we filed solemnly past him, shaking him by the hand. A
+new-born infant has not such a guileless face as that bland Arab.
+
+We took up quarters in the Suera Hotel, managed by a capable Scotchwoman
+and her husband, who had once farmed on the veldt. Early next day I rode
+to Palm-tree House on a little horse belonging to the hotel: out by the
+Beach Gate, we cantered along the sands close to the sea, crossed the
+river, left the patron saint-house of Mogador on our left hand, bore
+upwards across the sandy dunes, and struck inland over hard calcareous
+rock, where, in the teeth of the wind, the sand never lies. It was
+blowing, that day, a hot desert wind, which in a naturally hot place only
+makes one the hotter: with the wind, came a good deal of fine sand, on a
+really windy day making riding almost impossible.
+
+Palm-tree House is a hotel four miles south-east of Mogador, in the
+loneliest of situations, with the advantage of a view and an open, wild
+country all round: it has none of the drawbacks of the city; it is
+breezy, wild, and bare. Having reached the top of the dunes, we struck
+off in more or less of a bee-line for Palm-tree House, still riding over
+soft sand, where nothing but miles upon miles of _r`tam_ (white broom)
+grew, lovely when in flower, of which we were destined to see almost more
+than enough before we left Southern Morocco.
+
+The horses ploughed their way through the white track; two or three
+butterflies hovered about the r`tam; chameleons scuttled occasionally
+over the path; a tortoise crept along. There were not a few locusts about
+either, looking like handsome little dragon-flies on the wing.
+
+A last canter along one of the rough rides through the scrub led us up to
+the house, planted well on a rising sand-hill, a view of the sea in
+front, the hills behind.
+
+There are no palm-trees, and there is no garden, nor is there any water,
+I was told, on the spot; but for all that, Palm-tree House might have
+been a satisfactory lodge wherein to put up. The stunted bush and the
+sand fringed the very walls. It had the country to itself, and there was
+nothing _but_ itself which could spoil that country. It was cool and airy
+and oddly quiet. Inside, tiles and open patios and big panelled rooms
+gave all that could be desired: outside, there was an impression of
+simplicity and freedom.
+
+The stables were a great point, and the bobbery pack, which hunt pig for
+five months all through the winter, accounted in one season for something
+like nineteen full-grown boar, ten tuskers, and nine sows.
+
+Palm-tree House belonged for more than twenty years to a British
+merchant, who simply provided accommodation for any sportsman liking to
+come out and put up for a week or so outside Mogador: it has still the
+air of a shooting-box. The host, in breeches and gaiters and a great felt
+wideawake, rode up while we were there, and offered us every
+hospitality--a tall wiry man, with good hands and seat.
+
+Had time been of no object, we should have moved on into Palm-tree House.
+It would be a spot to visit at any season, for the climate scarcely
+varies all the year round: the difference between summer and winter is
+not more than five degrees.
+
+Back again in the city and strolling round it that same afternoon, the
+conviction was borne in upon us that of all saddening spots Mogador was
+possibly the saddest--that is, to the traveller, from an outside point of
+view: residents may have another tale to tell. But without vegetation or
+cultivation within sight, suggestive of life and change and labour, with
+the monotonous roar of the grey breakers beating its seaward walls, and
+wastes of blown white sand to landward, Mogador is the picture of a city
+which has lost all heart, and settled down into grim apathy, without a
+vestige of joy or activity outside its walls. The overcrowding of the
+Jews in the Mellah is a shocking evil, already stamping the rising
+generation with disease.
+
+Earlier by three-quarters of an hour than Tetuan at the same time of
+year, the city gates at Mogador were shut at six o'clock, and picnic
+parties of Moorish or European traders were hurried back in broad
+daylight. We met the basha gravely pacing the sands on a white mule with
+scarlet trappings--of all stout officials, in a country where it is a sin
+and a shame on the part of one in office to be thin, the stoutest. His
+broad body overshadowed the big mule, and his two little legs might have
+been a pair of ninepins below a vast cask draped in white.
+
+To the south of Mogador lies first the Sus country and then Wadnoon,
+dividing the Morocco which is partly known to Europeans, from the Sahara,
+which nobody knows. The Sus may be said to be practically unknown, and it
+is distinctly "forbidden" land, through which only two or three
+travellers have ever passed--Oskar Lenz, Gatell, Gerhard Rohlfs, and
+possibly a missionary; but they were all disguised and went in terror of
+their lives; nor have they left satisfactory records of their
+experiences.
+
+[Illustration: AFTER RAIN IN MOGADOR.
+
+[_To face p. 274._]
+
+And yet the Sus is comparatively close to Mogador, with which it
+trades; mules from the Sus were always in the Mogador market; camels were
+coming in every week with wool, camels' hair, goat-skins, hides, beeswax,
+a little gold dust, ostrich feathers, gum-arabic, cattle, and all the
+produce of the Sahara; while the Berbers from the Sus were interesting
+above any Riffis or tribesmen with whom we had hitherto met.
+
+Their country is supposed to contain rich mines: it is said to be fertile
+and thickly populated; it is not loyal--on the contrary, it is
+ill-affected to its liege lord, the Sultan; it is fanatical to a degree,
+and largely swayed by a form of government best expressed by its
+title--Council of Forty. In return for their own goods the Berbers from
+the Sus carry back into their country all sorts of Manchester goods,
+powder, tea, sugar, cheap German cutlery, and the like.
+
+These same Berbers, of unknown origin, were, so the Kor[=a]n tells us,
+packed up by King David, in olden times, in sacks, and carried out of
+Syria on camels, since he wished to see them no more. Arrived somewhere
+near the Atlas Mountains, their leader called out in the Berber tongue
+"Sus!" which means "Let down!" "Empty out!" So the exiles were turned out
+of their sacks, and the country in which they settled is called Sus to
+this day.
+
+Wadnoon trades to a great extent with the Soudan, and Mogador receives an
+immense amount of its ostrich feathers: slaves are the most important
+article of commerce in Wadnoon, and Morocco is the chief market for this
+traffic in humanity, the slaves being brought chiefly to Morocco City.
+
+But if a fever lays hold of the traveller for penetrating into the
+unknown Sus, what must be felt of the great Sahara, that waveless inland
+sea of sand, with its eternal stretches of depressionless wastes
+reaching on, past horizon after horizon? Perhaps an occasional oasis,
+green as young corn; a well; a feathery date-palm; a melon-patch. But
+rare are these things, and for the most part the Sahara is an endless
+desert which few Europeans could cross and live. Its ancient lore, its
+mystic traditions, give it a fascination all its own. Imagine the
+ostrich-hunting on its borders; picture the natives riding their
+unequalled breed of horses, the _wind-drinkers_, which carry their
+masters a hundred miles a day, and which, ridden after the birds up-wind,
+gradually tire them down, until they can be knocked on the head with a
+bludgeon; the Arabs too, themselves, with the unforgettable manners
+possessed by such as Abraham, and handed down from time immemorial; last
+of all, Timbuctoo, the Queen of the Desert, the fabled home of the
+voracious cassowary,--does not the picture imperiously summon the
+traveller "over the hills and far away"? Very far away; for Timbuctoo is
+twelve hundred miles from Mogador, and a journey there would mean at
+least forty days across the Sahara, through a country belonging to
+peoples in no way friendly towards "infidels," where oases are few and
+far between.
+
+Some day we may know the Sahara under other conditions, for a scheme was
+started years ago with the intention of flooding the great desert by
+means of a canal from the Atlantic Ocean, which should carry water on to
+El Joof, an immense depression well below sea-level somewhere in the
+centre. Thus, where all is now sand, would lie a vast sea: we should
+"boat" to Timbuctoo. So far, however, the scheme has begun and ended in
+words.
+
+But though the great Sahara is desert pure and simple, it is a mistake
+to imagine it devoid of life. Even as there has never yet been found a
+collection of aborigines without its totem, neither are there any
+extensive parts of the globe where life of some sort does not exist. The
+Sahara is little known, chiefly because the oases in the centre are
+occupied by intensely hostile and warlike tribes, whose animosity is
+chiefly directed towards the French, whom they hate with a deadly hatred.
+But the edges of the great desert have been visited, and on the northern
+limits two animals are found--the addax antelope, and Loder's gazelle.
+The wide-spread hoofs of the addax antelope enable it to travel over sand
+at a great pace. It is a large and ungainly beast with spiral horns.
+Probably it follows in the wake of the rains wherever they go; but what
+happens to it in the dry season is unknown. Similarly with Loder's
+gazelle: though more or less a desert animal, it is a mystery how it
+remains alive through the long rainless months, in places apparently
+without water, and on wastes of rolling, wind-drifted sand.
+
+Of the natural inhabitants of desert country, the Sahara is by no means
+devoid: sand-lizards, jumping-mice, sand-grouse, sand-vipers,
+desert-larks, and even a family of snakes belonging to the boas, are to
+be found. The kh[=a]ki-coloured sand-grouse are most difficult to see on
+the yellow face of the country: the sand-rats and sand-moles all take on
+the colour of their surroundings, and thus hide and protect themselves:
+one and all exist in some marvellous manner where it would seem that
+existence could only be miraculous. The skink is met with, beloved of the
+Romans, who imported desert-skinks into Rome in Pliny's day, and held
+them a valuable remedy for consumption, chopped up into a sort of white
+wine: the trade was brisk in 1581. To-day the Arabs consider it a
+remedy, and eat it as a food. It acts very much in the same way as do
+flat-fish in the bottom of the sea, sinking itself under the sand,
+allowing the sand to lie over its back and cover it, like a flounder,
+only leaving its sharp eyes out of cover, and sometimes the spines on its
+back.
+
+For the maintenance of all this animal life, it is quite possible that
+rain may occasionally fall even upon desert, and disappear with
+lightning-like rapidity; for on the borders of certain African deserts in
+the north a phenomenon very much like the description of the Mosaic manna
+occurs when the plains have been wetted with rain. The surface is seen
+next morning "covered with little white globes like tiny puff-balls, the
+size of a bird-cherry, or spilled globes of some large grain." It is
+gathered and eaten by the Arabs, but, like an unsubstantial fungus
+growth, melts or rots in the course of a day or two.
+
+Enough of the Sahara. Meeting with men in Mogador who had come straight
+from the mysterious country, veiled, untamed, and remotely removed from
+European touch, our interest was naturally kindled in that Back of the
+Beyond. There is no need for the traveller to penetrate so far as either
+the Sahara or the Sus. Long before he reaches them, and in order to do
+so, he must cross the Atlas Mountains by one of the wild passes, and the
+great chain of the Atlas is still unsurveyed and practically unknown. Sir
+Joseph Hooker and Dr. Ball explored a part of its valleys many years ago:
+no one since then has made a satisfactory attempt to learn details. The
+chain is supposed to be about thirteen thousand feet high, and it is
+about twenty miles from Morocco City; but the character of the lawless
+chiefs and tribesmen who inhabit it, so far prevents intrusion and
+exploration.
+
+In a few days we were to see it--the mighty, solitary wall, on which the
+ancients believed the world to rest, described by Pliny, rising abruptly
+out of the plains, snowclad, one of the world's finest sights: the Atlas
+had largely brought us to Southern Morocco.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE--BUYING MULES--A BAD ROAD--FIRST
+CAMP--ARGAN-TREES--COOS-COOSOO--A TERRIBLE NIGHT--DOCTORING THE
+KHAYLIFA--ROUGHING IT UNDER CANVAS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+     And all this time you (at home) are drinking champagne (well,
+     most of it, anyway), and sleeping in soft beds with delicious
+     white sheets, and smoking Turkish cigarettes, and wearing clean
+     clothes, with nice stiff collars and shirt-cuffs, and having
+     great warm baths in marble bath-rooms and sweet-smelling soap . . .
+     and sitting side by side at table, first a man and then a
+     woman--the same old arrangement, I suppose--knives to the right
+     and forks to the left, as usual.
+
+
+THE hot desert wind in Mogador showed no signs of changing: there was no
+enlivening sun, and the sad white seaport could only charm in a morbid
+manner: to be out under the skies, in the open, away from the city and
+sealed houses and the _eyes_, was a thing to be sought after, and that
+quickly. Southern Morocco is like the East in that it is all eyes. The
+watchful East--it may be lazy, but nothing escapes its eyes. They gleam
+between the folds of the veil; they look from out of a smooth face, mild
+and yet as little to be read as the deep sea. And who knows what lies at
+the bottom of those quiet pools?
+
+There need be no waste of time in Morocco, even as there is no
+convention: having decided to start--_start_. The 31st of March saw us
+away, leaving Mogador with the intention of marching to _Marrakesh_,
+which is the Moorish name for Morocco City, the southern capital of the
+empire. In order to see more of the country we marched by a zigzag
+route, crossing, but not following, the beaten track; thus we were once
+or twice in villages where European women had not been seen: we met no
+one, and we camped in odd, out-of-the way corners, objects of huge
+interest to the wandering Arabs with whom we fell in.
+
+Mr. Maddon, the British Consul at Mogador, to whom we brought letters of
+introduction from Sir Arthur Nicolson, helped us in several ways, and in
+his turn provided us with letters to an Arab in Marrakesh. We managed to
+buy two mules: one was from the Sus, with a backbone like a sword-fish
+and every rib showing, but he was as hard as nails, and would pace along
+all day without any trouble; the other was a lazy beast, fat and older;
+but they both of them proved useful animals, answering our purpose for
+the time being. We meant to sell, when we left the country: hiring is
+expensive work. Of course it was "just a dear time to buy": it always is.
+The Jew broker, through whom we bought the mules from the Susi to whom
+they belonged, asked seven pounds ten for each of them, but came down to
+six pounds fifteen. We sold them some weeks later for five guineas each:
+hiring would have cost a great deal more. Ordinarily they are to be
+bought for five pounds and less in Mogador. No Susi will trade direct
+with a European, and every bargain goes through Israel's hands, which
+means a big percentage pocketed by the Jew.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE MANCHESTER GOODS ARE SOLD, MOGADOR.
+
+[_To face p. 284._]
+
+Our hotel-keeper, the Scotch lady, provided us with reliable servants,
+one of whom turned out to be invaluable. Mulai Omar was, as his name
+indicates, a saint by heredity. Algeria was his birthplace. He was
+twenty-four years old; and having lived in a French possession, spoke
+French, not like S`lam, but perfectly. He was a well-educated little
+fellow, enterprising, energetic; interpreted Arabic and Shillah for
+us; acted as cook, in which capacity he was first-rate; generally
+organized the camp; and was our personal servant. Mulai Omar was quite a
+man to know, and a friend to trust. He was unattractive-looking--small,
+dark, and dirty; wore a red fez, a short black monkey-jacket, and
+immense, full, white cotton drawers. Said, our second servant, intended
+to look after the mules, was a lazy Arab, who acted the fine gentleman,
+and was never without a cigarette in his mouth. He helped Omar more or
+less, and was responsible for much loss of temper on our parts, before we
+parted. Another saint by heredity, Mulai Ombach, looked after our camel,
+which carried the heavy baggage. Our fourth and last man, Mohammed, drove
+a donkey, nominally for the purpose of carrying provender for the mules
+and camel, but which often as not bore either Mulai Ombach or Mohammed
+himself. The two principal servants, Omar and Said, rode two mules, which
+carried light loads as well.
+
+We hired a couple of Moorish men's saddles for our own use, red-clothed,
+high-peaked, and well stuffed; also two big tents--one for the servants,
+one for ourselves. Our commissariat was not hard to manage, helped out
+with stores we had brought from Tangier; for bearing in mind Napoleon's
+truism that "the army marches on its stomach," we had laid in an ample
+supply.
+
+Eleven o'clock saw us finally under way on the morning of the 31st. We
+had intended to start at nine; but any one who has ever travelled and
+camped out knows the difficulty of getting away upon that first
+morning--the final wrench between the servants and their old
+surroundings, the dozen petty obstacles. In this case one of the mules
+hired for baggage turned out to be in a wretched condition when it came
+to the hotel, and another had to be found in its place--no easy matter.
+The camel was started off at half-past ten with our beds, bedding,
+cuisine necessaries, part of the tents, and chairs and table; but, to our
+disgust, Mulai Ombach, its driver, stopped short at the bazaar, and there
+we found them both when we rode through the city. They were hurried up,
+and the whole party seen safely through the city gates; but once outside,
+the camel was so slow that we left them behind, R. and myself jogging
+ahead with Mulai Omar and Said, trusting that the heavy baggage would
+catch us up at lunch-time. One more delay--outside the Jewish cemetery
+was standing, waiting for us, the wife of Said: many tears were flowing,
+and sobs to be heard under the haik. Said produced some dollars, which
+were no doubt intended to last her during her husband's absence: he then
+rode on without attempting a farewell, and we were really off at last.
+
+For the first five miles we hugged the coast in a northerly direction,
+keeping close to the sea: the tide was high; in one place, where we made
+a short cut, resulting in rather a nasty bit of riding, we were actually
+in the waves, slipping over black rock, with deep pools on each side. It
+was a grey day, not hot, and the hard flat sands, across which we rode
+for the most part, were excellent going.
+
+The only wayfarers we met, tramped along behind camels. Untrustworthy
+brutes these animals are, especially the bubbling ones, out of whose way
+we most cautiously kept; for though a camel seldom bites, when he does it
+is serious. He never forgets an injury. A man in Mogador ill-treated one
+badly a few years ago: it went into the interior for a year, and came
+back to Mogador, and met and knew the man at once, taking him by the
+nape of the neck, as is its habit, and tearing the back of his skull off.
+
+The sandy dunes on our right were covered with _r`tam_ (white broom),
+slender, waving, silver-green stems, in seed just then. Only r`tam could
+grow in such poor soil. When we turned inland we found ourselves amongst
+dense undergrowth, a small forest, consisting chiefly of _tugga_ (a sort
+of juniper), of myrtle, _sidra_ bushes, and other shrubs, intersected by
+narrow paths, along one of which we paced in single file, the limestone
+which crops up all over the country making our pace a slow one. It was
+the middle of the day when we found ourselves in the thick of this
+jungle. Omar pointed out a little sandy clearing, and in amongst the
+bushes, out of earshot of the track, we halted for lunch. The mules had
+their packs taken off, and rolled themselves in the sand. A carpet was
+spread on a bank; and there, with the sea still to be seen behind us, the
+thickets echoing with familiar blackbirds, and every space glowing with
+thyme, iris, lavender, and other flowers, we spent the first of many lazy
+hours of the sort. Alas! our camel was still behind us, and never turned
+up: that was a wretched piece of _bundobust_. But long before we quitted
+Morocco we vowed never to have a camel for baggage again.
+
+Only half-an-hour's halt we allowed ourselves; then saddled up, and were
+off again. Still through "jungle," and by a sandy path the trail led us,
+blocked often by stones and rocks, truly one of those
+
+       . . . sad highways, left at large
+    To ruts and stones and lovely Nature's skill,
+    Who is no pavior.
+
+The flowers became more interesting at every step; but there was little
+time to get off and collect specimens, though the path was so narrow
+that, riding along, pink climbing convolvulus and tall lavender could
+easily be gathered off the bushes. For any unknown specimen some one
+dismounted, and it was stowed away in an empty tin kettle for safety.
+
+By-and-by we dropped down into a narrow valley, green and cultivated: a
+lonely palm-tree or two stuck up--the "feather duster struck by
+lightning" of Mark Twain. A fine crop of beans was growing on our right,
+Indian corn and barley to the left: the land looked full of heart, rich,
+and unlike even the Tetuan country. We came across a man or two working
+in a dirty white tunic in the fields, and left behind some wretched huts
+down by a spring. About this time we lost Omar's dog, which was to have
+been our guard--a rather lame lurcher, which thought better of footing it
+all the way to Marrakesh.
+
+The country was full of magpies--not nearly so smart as our
+Warwickshire mags, brownish about the tail, and with less white; yet
+they could scarcely have been in bad plumage at that time of year. In
+a narrow pathway we stood aside to let a camel pass: since we had left
+the coast wayfarers had grown rare for the most part. The place at
+which we had halted for lunch was El Faidar, within sight of one of
+Morocco's countless little white saint-houses--Sidi Bousuktor. Now,
+after a long climb over a ridge, we looked down from the top into a
+valley--Ain-el-Hadger; and Omar pointed out in the distance the spot
+he suggested we should camp at for the night. Descending the ridge was
+the roughest piece of riding on the road to Marrakesh: the shale gave
+way under the mules' feet; great rocks projected on the track. None of
+us dismounted, however: Tetuan had hardened our hearts and accustomed
+us to awkward corners, and the mules were clever. Slowly we slipped
+and slid down into the most luxuriant green vale, set in the
+scrub-covered hills, carpeted with fields of young corn, olive-trees,
+gardens, fruit-trees, and flowers abundantly.
+
+To the north, upon our left, lay the Iron Mountains, no very great
+height, somewhere about two thousand feet, and famous for iron in the
+days of the Romans and Carthaginians, who both probably worked them. Now
+they are mined no more, and only known as the favourite quarters of wild
+boar, signs of whose existence we saw for ourselves, in patches of ground
+rooted and torn up.
+
+We rode down through these fruitful acres as the sun was getting low:
+here and there lay a little white farmer's house; birds were
+everywhere--suddenly we heard a cuckoo, then a nightingale.
+
+At a place where three little glens met we passed a tall look-out tower,
+standing sentry over each one, from the top of which the Ain-el-Hadger
+people could easily see an enemy coming. In England it would have been a
+ruin: in Morocco it was in active use,--it is still "the Middle Ages" in
+Morocco.
+
+Leaving a garden on the left, surrounded by a high tapia wall, we crossed
+a little streamlet into the brook which waters the valley, and reached at
+last a corner surrounded with grey olives, deep in lush grass, and
+overlooked by the inevitable quaint white-domed saint-house on the top of
+a rocky hillock. It was an ideal spot. Omar and Said laid their two guns
+under a tree (they rode with them across their knees, ancient
+flint-locks, and carried bullets in bags at their sides, Omar possessing
+a French rifle as well); we off-saddled, unloaded the two men's mules,
+and unpacked what there was to unpack, the camel having practically
+everything. R. and I strolled about and photographed. A countryman
+brought us three fowls and some eggs. The sun set. Still the wretched
+camel had not come. Dew fell heavily, and Omar made a famous fire and
+supplied us with hot green tea. At last there were voices; a great form
+loomed in the darkness and swung towards us; the donkey followed. It was
+not long before the camel was unloaded, our big tent up, table and chairs
+and beds put together, and though dinner was late it was the more
+acceptable, The Saint proving a chef. A pannierful of bread was part of
+the camel's luggage, and intended to last us until we got to Marrakesh:
+vegetables we had in plenty for the first two or three days. And Omar
+worked wonders with the means at his disposal. Early we turned in: the
+stars were out; the frogs croaked in the streamlets. With the tent-flap
+tied back, and looking out into the quiet night, we slept as sound as
+tramps on the roadside at home.
+
+I woke at 2 a.m. The guard had stopped talking, and were all asleep and
+snoring round the tents, except one old greybeard, who was sitting up by
+the fire. Four Ain-el-Hadger men had come to act as guard for the night,
+bringing their guns and long knives with them. It was oddly light--the
+"false dawn" of Omar Khayy[=a]m; but there were no stars.
+
+[Illustration: OUR CAMP AT AIN-EL-HADGER.
+
+[_To face p. 290._]
+
+Such a dawn woke us at five! Every bird for miles around was singing:
+blackbirds sounded like England, wood-pigeons cooed, cuckoos insisted,
+and among them all, strange and Indian, a hoopoe called. The sun climbed
+up behind the saint-house and solitary palm; the olives began to cast
+shadows; the grass was silver with dew. We breakfasted soon after six,
+our table out on the green lawn. Such air and scents of moist earth! It
+was chilly too. The mules fed busily in the long wet grass; behind the
+kitchen-tent the camel lay, chewing; an old sheikh turned up on a donkey,
+and joined the servants at breakfast round the fire, at one of those
+meals which were all green tea and tobacco.
+
+Just as we were starting a party of fifteen sheikhs and countrymen rode
+up on their way to a distant "powder play" at the fete of some saint, two
+days' journey off. Passing our camp, they turned into a little
+three-cornered field of much poppies and little corn, and proceeded to
+bivouac for an hour or two. Tailing one after another through a gap in
+the hedge, on the finest barbs Southern Morocco can produce, heavy, but
+handsome in their way (particularly a white with flowing mane and tail,
+and two iron-greys), they pulled up underneath some dense green
+fig-trees, and dismounted in the shade, leaving their scarlet cloth
+saddles to match the poppies.
+
+There was colour running riot indeed. Several of the stately figures, all
+in white, walked up to the saint-house to pray: one great man waddled
+down to the stream (to be great is to be fat, in Morocco), and a few
+began to groom their horses. The guns were piled: the sun glinted on them
+and on the silver-chased stirrups, and blazed on the snowy garments, on
+the poppies, and the saddles, one of which was blue, another yellow. We
+were in the land of Arabs: the Berbers were left behind at Mogador, and
+these tall lean horsemen, burnt coffee-coloured, were all descendants of
+the sons of the desert.
+
+By this time the camp was scattered: the camel had risen from its knees
+and paced off under its medley load some time before, attended by Mulai
+Ombach, Mohammed, and the donkey.
+
+The Ain-el-Hadger guard had each received a trifle for his night's
+services; Said had groomed and brought up our mules; we mounted, and,
+followed by himself and Omar, perched on the top of the two packs, their
+guns sticking out at one side, rode away. The first few miles were not
+marked by anything of particular interest: the collections of huts and
+bare walls which sometimes adorned the hillsides were far away; the
+curious piles of stones in the fields, almost like scarecrows, were only
+landmarks. But after a time we rode into the country of the argan-tree,
+that most interesting and unique specimen, which flourishes in this
+corner of Morocco, covering an area about two hundred miles long and
+forty wide, and growing nowhere else in the known world. Southern Morocco
+would be lost indeed without argan oil, which is used for cooking
+purposes as a substitute for butter, and of which we had with us a large
+supply. The oil is extracted from the fruit of the tree: at the end of
+March it should be fit to gather, looking much like a large olive, and
+possessed of a green fleshy husk, greedily eaten by camels, goats, sheep,
+and oxen. Thus, as well as gathering the nuts themselves off the ground,
+the country people allow their flocks to feed upon the fruit: having
+driven them home, the animals chew the cud, disgorging the argan nuts,
+which are collected, and eventually cracked by women and children in
+order to obtain oil.
+
+The average height of the tree is twenty-five feet, but its rugged side
+branches will cover a space of seventy feet. Gnarled and twisted, the
+bark is a little like crocodile-skin, and forms in squares: the trunk has
+a way of folding upon itself, too, as it grows--slowly; for a large tree
+may be three hundred years old, and in consequence its wood is immensely
+hard. The argan is more or less tropical: though a tree has been known to
+live against a south wall in England, it was killed by the first severe
+winter.
+
+Among the argans, little oxen were ploughing the red rich soil of the
+vale through which we rode; it was watered by a brook, and real hedges of
+pomegranate, out in brilliant flower, divided the fields. In one of these
+some Arabs were digging carrots; in another homely potatoes, the first we
+had seen, were doing remarkably well.
+
+By this time the camel and attendants had been overtaken and left far
+behind, and since we had passed our heavy baggage no other forms of life
+seemed to be travelling along the same trail as our own: certainly a
+countryman joined himself to us, partly to point out our direction,
+partly for the sake of company; he held his stick behind his shoulders
+and stepped out well, but not for long. And after he had left we only saw
+a few women in the distance. These were often on donkeys, and some
+carried water-pots on their heads; but not one of them was "a beast of
+burden" in the sense of the women round Tetuan--not one crouched under an
+overpowering load of faggots or charcoal.
+
+As we jogged on, the great barley-fields, all in ear, though still green,
+might have led us to believe we were in England, except that in the next
+sheltered spot a white saint-house would be found, with its dome and its
+palm-tree, perhaps a shady olive grove, allowed to flourish for the sake
+of the holy place. Yes, it was Africa.
+
+Farther on, an Arab village lay close to the track, no windows in its
+yellowish flat walls, apparently no roofs: a stoned arched entrance was
+filled up with thorn-bushes, and the tops of the walls piled with the
+same to prevent outsiders from molesting the inmates. This warlike
+tendency was again shown in another watch-tower, built, like the last, at
+the conjunction of two valleys.
+
+Meanwhile, the bare and uninteresting-looking Iron Mountains were
+disappearing from view: another ridge, which met them at right angles,
+spotted with argan-trees, looked in the distance like a tea or coffee
+plantation on Eastern hills--that too faded from sight; and we rode
+on--now through a blaze of flowers, for every hedge flamed pink and
+yellow, and even the dry thorns were blotted with colour--now past fields
+of mauve poppies and scarlet poppies and stretches of stainless blue. A
+white saint-house stood out against the colour, its dome like dazzling
+chalk, it shadows blue: we looked back at it from under an argan-tree, in
+the shade of which we rested for ten minutes, picking up a few nuts, and
+drinking long and deep out of Omar's stone water-jar.
+
+Not far from this spot we came upon _Sok-el-Had_ (the Sunday
+Market)--that is, a place where every Sunday a country market is held,
+and to which the whole countryside flocks to do its marketing. This was
+Tuesday, and therefore Sok-el-Had was forlorn and deserted, its rows of
+little mud huts and its meat-hangers empty, not a soul within miles. They
+are as old as Morocco, these places known by the name of the week-day on
+which the market is held--places so strangely deserted upon any other
+day.
+
+Still we rode on for several hours, past Sheikh Boujiman Ben Hamed's
+white house, while the sun blazed on the bare path, and the argans stood
+too far apart to cast consecutive shade. It was with much satisfaction
+that we saw our next camping-ground in the distance about one o'clock: we
+had started early, and a long lazy afternoon was a good prospect.
+_Sok-el-Tleta_ is named once more after its market--Tuesday Market. Even
+as Sok-el-Had was forlorn, so Sok-el-Tleta in proportion teemed with
+life. Held on the open hillside, upon a great bare space worn brown by
+cycles of Tuesday markets, the prevailing colour brown and white,
+hundreds of mules, hundreds of Arabs, the sight was one not to be
+forgotten.
+
+We dismounted, and followed Omar into the thick of the fray, surrounded
+at once by a staring and interested crowd. It was an extraordinary scene.
+Streets were formed by rows upon rows of little mud cubicles, thatched
+over, inside which, on a mud shelf, the vendor sat, with his goods spread
+out for sale round him. Slippers were being mended; blacksmith's work was
+being done; cottons and stuffs were selling, sugar, groceries of all
+sorts, brand-new slippers and new clothes, vegetables and meat. Meat was
+the centre of the whirlpool, and round the carcases and shapeless joints
+the largest crowd: it hung on upright stakes and branches stuck in the
+ground, and the effect was that of a nightmare wood, in which the weird
+trees were bearing gory and dreadful fruit. It was all life and stir,
+that bare hillside; and by half-past one o'clock the whole thing had
+melted away, and there was no sign of a human being moving.
+
+Mulai Omar was well known in Sok-el-Tleta, his wife's relatives living
+there: because he was a saint his clothes and slippers were kissed by
+every one who met us as we rode along to our camp beyond the Tuesday
+Market. We passed women and children digging for ayerna root: the corn
+not being yet ripe, they were short of food. The root of this weed,
+though eatable, is most unwholesome, and unless carefully prepared,
+people grow thinner and more yellow upon it daily.
+
+But all our interest in a few moments was focussed upon a most imposing
+ruin, a real Windsor Castle of a rudimentary type, which commanded a
+hilltop on a table-land on the right, great walls rearing themselves up
+to the sky, towers defending every corner, a turreted gate-house the
+entrance, and the whole loop-holed, grim-looking enough. Obviously the
+kaid who built such a kasbah was a great man: his garden, a beautiful
+overgrown wilderness, gone like his castle to rack and ruin, lay below at
+Sok-el-Tleta, wisely situated, for vegetation would have been badly
+exposed upon the hilltop.
+
+About twenty-seven years ago the kaid who built the kasbah--chiefly by
+forced labour on the part of all the country people for miles round,
+though skilled workmen came from Mogador and were paid--was attacked by
+the Arab tribes from end to end of his province of Shedma, and after a
+six-months' siege was forced to fly to Marrakesh, where he died in
+prison, the tribesmen demolishing the castle for hidden treasure, till
+every wall had yielded its secret. Probably he oppressed his province
+like every other kaid, and was well hated. We went inside, and it was a
+foregone conclusion that we should camp there upon the grass. The
+governor's own halls were in a block in the centre, room after room, most
+intricate. Our tents were pitched in the vast sunny courtyard. We
+wandered about, exploring the odd corners, all the afternoon: not a
+vestige of timber or decoration remained. Handsome little red-brown
+kestrels with grey heads hovered over us and sat on the old walls,
+uttering their querulous cry: a beautiful blue jay, with cinnamon back
+and black-tipped wings and tail, was nesting in a hole among the bricks,
+and let us come close to him. A _sib-sib_ scampered along an old
+window-ledge, a little animal like a squirrel, grey with striped back,
+the stripes running from head to tail: it ruffled out its tail at will.
+
+The camel turned up at five, having been nine hours on the road. Later on
+a _mona_ (a present) was brought us, consisting of butter, in a lordly
+dish set round with pink roses. So in the deserted walls of the kasbah we
+passed the night. Ghosts ought to have haunted those horrible
+death-traps, the _matamors_, of which there are said to be a hundred. The
+ground seemed riddled with these "wells," intended for the storage of
+grain, but used by sheikhs and kaids as their private prisons, whence at
+their will they draft on luckless captives to the public gaols: an old
+enemy is quite harmless in a matamor, with a square stone over the top,
+for the rest of his life.
+
+The wonderful cisterns were another feature of the kasbah, immense tanks
+underground, concreted and still water-tight--at the end of every dry
+season cleaned out and whitewashed, now half full of stinking rain-water
+and decay.
+
+We got off at seven the next morning, struck the main road from Mogador,
+left it, and found ourselves in quite an agricultural country, green
+barley-fields, planted all over at intervals with figs and pomegranates,
+even hedges of a sort. Then again we were in the argan forest--the last
+of it, and the best: beautiful trees, with their knarled, twisted
+branches. I thought of yews on the Surrey hills. Here coarse grass grew
+between, something like a park at home: goats clambered up into the
+forks, feasting on the green fruit. But all too soon the argans came to
+an end, and we saw this phenomenon of Morocco no more.
+
+Nor was the exchange of the argan forest for the everlasting _r`tam_
+(white broom) and a sun-baked, arid wilderness, a welcome one. It always
+meant stones and sand and a general grilling, the r`tam, as it waved like
+pampas-grass to the far horizon. By-and-by palmetto cropped up, the
+fan-shaped dwarf palm, which makes ropes and twine, baskets, mats,
+dish-covers, leggings, hats, and girths. Here it grew in the middle of
+wretched little attempts at corn-fields--a drawback to farming, though
+from want of water farming might well have been let alone. Topping a
+rise, the whole undulating country was r`tam and palmetto: occasionally a
+flock of goats moved on its face, tended by thin mahogany-coloured Arab
+boys in dirty woollen tunics.
+
+When a single olive-tree appeared, we hailed its shade for lunch. The
+mules, hobbled together, grazed: Omar and Said lay at a short distance,
+drinking green tea and smoking near the little fire they had lit.
+Botanical specimens had to be dried.
+
+That night we camped outside the kasbah belonging to the most powerful
+kaid in the whole district: an immense reddish-yellow pile it was, built
+of _tapia_--that is, of mud, gravel, and water principally, poured into
+bottomless cases on the wall itself, and left to set. The kasbah had
+lived through a siege or two, and looked as if it would "ruin" quickly.
+From the arched gateway a crowd of squalid retainers emerged to stare at
+sun-helmets and Englishwomen: living like mediaeval times within the
+castle's protecting walls, the "feudal system" practically obtains in
+Morocco in the present day.
+
+Alas! the governor, Kaid Mohammed, was at Fez: his _khaylifa_
+(lieutenant) received us inside the filthy and squalid kasbah, seated on
+a doorstep--a better-dressed man than his retainers, curtailed perhaps in
+intellectual allowance, who gave us leave to camp outside.
+
+[Illustration: A BLINDFOLDED CAMEL WORKING A WATER-WHEEL.
+
+[_To face p. 298._]
+
+That evening we watched a blindfolded camel turning a water-wheel, and
+some wretched prisoners, with irons on their feet, who shuffled out of
+the gate and drew water. A black slave brought Kaid Mohammed's horses to
+water one by one; then made each roll on a sandy patch of ground, off
+which he first carefully picked every stone.
+
+The sun streamed in at our tent door next morning, but we were at
+breakfast before it had more than left the horizon, and soon on our way
+through a rough country of scrub and olives--a capital country for pig
+(which are shot in numbers), and practicable for spearing them, one would
+think. Jogging along little paths, with a cool breeze in our faces, which
+invariably went round with the sun, we came by-and-by to a valley, green
+and wooded with olives, where barley was growing, looking as if it had
+been kept under glass, it was such an even crop, and rooted in the
+richest soil. Crack--crack--ping! and a stone whistled over our heads:
+this meant Arab boys scaring birds with slings, made of dried grass, and
+probably after David's pattern.
+
+From out of an Arab village a little black child ran with a bowl of very
+sour milk, which, however, Omar and Said appreciated: the child wore one
+filthy whitish garment and a bead necklace, a little inky-black pigtail
+completing it.
+
+This was a day of all days, in that we had our first view of the Atlas
+Mountains--those mountains which we had come so far to see. There they
+were, first seen from a certain ridge, mighty peaks, snow-covered,
+filling one with an intense desire to travel into their fastnesses: a
+haze, however, hid the greater part of the range.
+
+A countryman joined us for a short distance, to whom Omar gave a
+cigarette-paper and a pinch of tobacco. Again all cultivation was
+exchanged for uncompromising plain, stones, stones, and a soil like
+iron, on which nothing grew except the thorny zizyphus lotus, with the
+double row of thorns, one pointing forward, the other back, out of which
+the Soudanese make their zarebas. A colony of bottle-shaped nests, made
+of dried grass, in these thorn-bushes, tempted me to try for some eggs.
+The attempt proved what a barrier the thorny lotus can be. I was
+extricated with difficulty by means of Omar's gun-barrels and Said's
+hands; but not without one nest and eggs--they apparently belonged to a
+variety of sparrow.
+
+A well with one tree, a spot of shade in the arid plain, intervened
+farther on. The mules drank. An Arab rode up, lean, walnut-coloured;
+slipped off his high-peaked red saddle, hobbled his mule, and lay down
+under the tree. Hot as it was, we pushed on. This plain is said to remind
+travellers of the stony part of the Sahara. In the air was a scent of
+burnt grass and flowers--a _honey_ smell: every time a breeze came we
+were duly grateful. The mules clattered on over the stones until Sidi
+Moktar came in sight--a saint-house of the deepest sanctity, near which a
+country market is held one day a week. Up to this cluster of what Omar
+dignified by the name of _shops_ we rode, and, dismounting, stooped our
+heads, and took possession of one of the minute mud-booths, the servants
+going into another next door. We could sit upright, though not stand, and
+there was shade in the shape of a thatched covering, while after the
+glare and flare of the sun outside it was as cool as a cellar.
+
+From one to three we rested there, drank green tea after lunch, studied
+maps, took notes. But the sun was as hot as ever when we took to the open
+road again, plain before us, the Atlas dimly to be seen. Some oddly
+formed hills, from four to five hundred feet high, flat-topped, presently
+appeared: one, from its contour, is called _Hank-el-Jemmel_ (Camel's
+Back). We rode past them. A layer of coarse chalcedony covers the flat
+summits, which would offer resistance when, ages ago, the Atlas wall was
+scooped into ridge and ravine, and the plain below washed bare, except
+for isolated remnants, such as these table-hills. We picked up fragments
+of chalcedony and small blocks of volcanic rock, or basalt.
+
+About five o'clock we reached an Arab _douar_, or village, and decided to
+camp near it for the night. Twenty or thirty conical huts, made of
+branches and grass and anything which keeps out the sun, black camel's
+hair or a worn-out garment; the whole surrounded by a great hedge, or
+_zareba_, of the thorny lotus, not growing, but piled up, one hole left
+in the fence for exit, and closed at night by simply piling extra thorns
+in the space; a company of howling dogs,--such is an Arab douar, and it
+is probably unequalled for filth, though when the parasites become too
+many, even the thick-skinned Bedouin moves out, and a new douar is put up
+somewhere else. There was no choice as regards camping near such a spot:
+it may have been unsafe in the open--at any rate no servants could ever
+be induced to sleep except under the protection of a village or a kasbah.
+
+It was five o'clock. An old sheikh or headman came out from between the
+thorn-barrier, welcomed us, and led the way inside to a perfectly
+impossible open space, a dunghill, amongst the huts, where we might camp;
+it was overrun with fowls, and covered with filth of every description.
+Therefore, though assured that we should be much safer within the zareba,
+and deeply against the wishes of the servants, we insisted upon leading
+the way outside, and choosing a spot as far removed from the fence as
+possible, though only too near for our own comfort. As soon as the tents
+were pitched and the sun had set, such a noise of goats (which had just
+been driven inside the douar) bleating, and donkeys braying, and dogs
+barking, and children crying, arose, as we prayed it might not be our lot
+often to hear at the end of a hard day.
+
+An admiring throng had gathered round us while the tent was in course of
+erection, and we were sitting on the grass. One old woman squatted before
+us, cross-legged, not a yard from our feet, and _gazed_; she wore nothing
+but one woollen garment, apparently a square held together on the
+shoulders by steel pins: her skinny arms, legs, and feet were bare, of
+course. We did not encourage "the masses," but kept them at arm's-length
+with sticks.
+
+That was a noisy night: half the douar was apparently being entertained
+in the servants' tent, which for safety was pitched all too close to our
+own, and they talked far on into the small hours in mumbling undertones,
+to the sound of which we finally slept, nor waked till a glorious dawn in
+a cloudless sky roused us at five o'clock. The herds were then wending
+their way out of the douar, filing across the plain, the mysterious
+delicate light of sunrise on the backs of the sheep and goats. By seven
+o'clock the sun was too hot to sit in for choice. We had already
+breakfasted in the conical shadow cast by the tent, a group of children
+watching every operation, some of them wearing the quaintest necklaces,
+of argan nuts strung together, and lumps of yellow sulphur sewn into
+perforated squares of leather: these were eagerly untied and handed over
+to us for a _bellune_ (21/2d.).
+
+At eight o'clock we had left the douar behind, and were heading for
+Sheshaoua, south of the Camel's Back, along a trail more stony and
+desert-like than any before: even the few thorn-bushes did not flourish;
+perhaps the white snails, with which they were so thickly covered that
+the branches looked all in blossom, did not agree with them--snails which
+are beloved of partridges. We met no man nor animal, till at last a
+_rekass_ passed us, a runner carrying the mail to Mogador, jogging along
+the two hundred and seventy miles' journey, for which he would be paid,
+there and back again, thirteen shillings. His stick was tucked under his
+clothes, down his back, for the sake of ventilation; his waistband was
+tightened; his palm-leaf wallet was on his back, with letters, possibly
+some bread, a match or two, and some hemp, inside. He was a long-limbed
+fellow, bronzed and bearded, with the vacant, glassy eyes of a
+kif-smoker; for kif kept him going often instead of food, and helped him
+to swing along day after day, untiring, like a camel, sleeping little,
+praying occasionally at a saint's tomb, fording the streams, trotting
+over the plains, his eyes fixed on the horizon--"eating the miles," as
+Arabs say. This particular rekass left Marrakesh on Monday morning at
+ten, and reached Mogador on Wednesday afternoon at three, doing his two
+hundred and seventy miles in forty-nine hours.
+
+When Sir William Kirby Green died suddenly on an embassy in Marrakesh, a
+rekass carried the news to Mazagan, a hundred and sixty miles, in
+thirty-two hours; but the Vice-Consul told me that upon reaching his
+office the man fell down--he could not stand to tell the news.
+
+We rode on, praying for a breeze which never came: the sun literally
+sizzled on the baked desert, the rocks gave out an oven-like heat, and
+the rarefied air oscillated over the wastes. It was too hazy for more
+than glimpses of the Atlas and their snows: as far as we could see
+stretched only illimitable drab-coloured plain, broken by the flat-topped
+hills. At last we stumbled along to the top of a ridge; and there,
+strange and delightful sight, away in the distance lay a green basin,
+trees, no mirage, but the valley of Sheshaoua.
+
+Sheshaoua is a district ruled by a powerful governor, whose great kasbah
+lies somewhere about the centre, dominating a large village. The district
+is watered by a stream from the Atlas Mountains, which accounts for its
+fertility; for, except where irrigation is possible, there can be no
+cultivation in this sahara: wide ditches conduct the stream across the
+length and breadth of the province, resulting in a green ribbon upon the
+face of the plain, the fields being edged with little hard mud-banks,
+keeping the water evenly distributed over the surface when the crops need
+flooding.
+
+To have lived upon sun-burn is to appreciate the colour green: the march
+lost its monotony and some of its heat, when green lay in front and came
+nearer with every stride. Two hours and a half were short: the end of
+that time found us riding between corn-fields, crossing streamlet after
+streamlet watering the vegetation, and at last jogging over real turf,
+instead of clattering on stones, which had made talking difficult for the
+last day or two; now the path was actually soft and earthy. A long string
+of camels kept pace with us for a time on a parallel trail; then a douar
+came into sight, afterwards two saint-houses and a ruined kasbah. That
+half of these castles are ruined is not to be wondered at, considering
+that they are mud-built, and that tribal disputes and invasions are
+interminable. Some of those same crumbling tapia walls which we passed
+supported immense earthen jars, standing out against the sky--jars which
+are stored with corn or butter, and sealed up: nine months' old butter
+has the reputation of an old wine.
+
+Shady trees, standing for the most part by the stream, hung over our
+path, but would have made damp camping-grounds, and we rode on through a
+marsh, up one ridge, down the opposite side, and at last into the
+principal village of Sheshaoua, not far from which, on a hillside to the
+north-east, lay one of the familiar country market-places, with its
+collection of little shelters for the sellers, its upright branches on
+which to hang meat--Thursday's market this. A ruined, red-walled kasbah
+faced it, apparently inhabited by storks alone, busy building their great
+rough nests: some were in the village.
+
+Sheshaoua was no douar, but a high-walled collection of houses,
+overlooked by the modern kasbah on the hill. Thither we rode, up the
+steep slope, to call on the kaid, Sekassam Belcady, and ask permission to
+pitch the tents in one of the gardens which fringed the stream below.
+This the khaylifa granted at once (the kaid himself being at Fez with the
+Sultan), pressing on us the alternative of putting up inside the kasbah
+itself; but the open air had stronger attractions, and we wound our way
+downhill to the stream, on the other side of which the kaid's own garden
+lay. There being no bridge, the stream deep, and the banks steep, the
+mules were driven over by themselves, and R. and I followed one by one on
+Omar's back--on and into a natural garden fit for the gods, one of
+Nature's own parterres, and a paradise at that.
+
+On dry ground, underneath orange-trees covered with blossom, we lunched
+and lay down: of flowers, except wild ones, there were none, nor any
+attempt at cultivation; the terraces were dense in greenery and shade,
+interlaced with branches, intersected by streamlets, perfumed with
+orange flowers; water murmured; nightingales answered each other from
+every corner; wood-pigeons cooed content; most musical of all, the
+bulbul's throbbing, passionate note--not loud--was heard for the first
+time. Yes; we might have said: "If there is a heaven upon earth, it is
+this, it is this, it is this."
+
+The snake creeps into most paradises: suddenly a thunder-storm invaded
+ours; heavy rain began even to penetrate the thick lace of leaves and
+branches over our heads, and, walking to the opening at the edge of the
+wood, it was clear that heavy storms were working up from the north-east;
+nor did the day improve. Having sat through two downpours, with every
+sign of more to follow, when another pressing invitation came from the
+khaylifa to spend the night in the kasbah, it seemed foolish to do other
+than accept; for bad weather under tents, which like ours did not claim
+to be waterproof, has no attractions. Further, the khaylifa had stated
+that the guest-house was new, and had never been occupied.
+
+Thither we hurried through the rain. The inside of the "castle" was
+blocked by a collection of filthy-looking sheds or rooms, which seemed to
+be full of Arabs and negroes and women--wives of the khaylifa--all of
+them squalid and mannerless: the paths between were littered with refuse.
+A country kaid, judging from the state of his kasbah, is possessed of no
+refinement, and has less sense of decency and comfort, as European ideas
+go, than many members of the labouring class at home.
+
+The appearance of the guest-house was, however, reassuring: the long
+lofty room into which we were shown had been newly whitewashed, the
+ceiling painted red and green; its double doors and two windows opened
+into a little courtyard, and rooms beyond housed the servants. A sheep
+was being skinned in an adjoining shed: we were to be feasted.
+
+Meantime, few, if any, of the kaid's retainers could have abstained from
+visiting us, to judge by the levee which we held for more than an hour:
+perhaps the black slaves were most interesting, but they were also
+hardest to remove, from the scene of such a phenomenon, as two
+Englishwomen within their own walls. Probably no such thing had happened
+within the memory of man; for Sheshaoua is off the beaten track to
+Marrakesh, nor do travellers as a rule sleep out of their tents.
+
+While we had tea, under a battery of eyes, and further annoyed by the
+chatter at the open door and windows, a _mona_ (a present from the
+governor) arrived, and was set down at our feet. It was not the
+time--just after tea--to eat an immense dish of _coos-coosoo_, or a
+steaming pile of hot mutton and raisins, cooked in oil, which lay on the
+round trenchers, when the great beehive-like straw covers were raised:
+some of the hot cakes accompanying them might be managed, but the rest
+was handed over to the expectant servants, to whom coos-coosoo is as
+roast beef to the British labourer, though less stimulating, for it only
+consists of wheat or millet or maize flour, granulated, steamed, and
+eaten hot, sometimes crowned with chicken.
+
+Following hard on the mona came a message from the khaylifa asking for
+medicine. Graphically answering my question as to what was the matter
+with him, the messenger stroked his waist: we found a pill, which was
+carried off with much gratitude.
+
+A short time elapsed, and then, to our horror, four slaves arrived,
+carrying great preparations for tea--brass trays, urn, and the whole
+paraphernalia--mint and sweetness filling the room. Again the servants
+benefited; and even a third time, after we were actually in bed; for the
+door was bombarded, and three women came in, and laid a great almond
+pudding, of much delicacy, covered with stripes of grated cinnamon, at
+our feet.
+
+That night was the one bad experience of our time in Morocco. Though the
+guest-room was new and apparently clean, some matting had been laid on
+the floor, which we had not removed, and with the darkness its occupants
+came out in such numbers that, in spite of "Keating" round the legs of
+each bed, the long hours were taken up in warfare, and we never slept.
+Next day the room was scoured out, and the lively matting ejected, while
+we were strolling round Sheshaoua between heavy showers of rain, which
+reduced the clay country to a state of quagmire. However, Sunday, after a
+peaceful night both inside and out of doors, broke fresh and clear: all
+the great loose thunder-clouds had packed themselves into long cloudlets
+with ruled horizontal bases; and in clear, rarefied air, standing up
+almost unearthly in their beauty, the Atlas range from end to end, was to
+be seen at last. Chiselled peak after peak, upon which no traveller has
+ever set foot, glistened in the sun, apparently about ten miles off, in
+reality more like thirty or forty. It was one of those mornings which
+have been thoroughly washed, and the swirling pea-soup river bore witness
+to the operation as surely as the air of purity which the whole country
+wore. All was radiant: down below, the orange grove of our arrival rang
+with nightingales and bulbuls; there was a scent of heaven, an undertone
+of racing waters.
+
+[Illustration: SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE PASS ON THE MARCH.
+
+[_To face p. 308._]
+
+Just as we were packed up to start, the khaylifa sent and expressed
+thanks for our medicine, and asked that as a favour we would see his
+wives, one of whom was ill. They were found in mud rooms, dark and dirty,
+most uninteresting in themselves. One stout "lady" had a swelled neck,
+the other had cataract: both wished to be prescribed for. I recommended,
+through Omar, bathing the swelled neck: it was necessary from a
+cleanliness point of view. From the same point of view I shook hands
+hurriedly and departed, climbed into the saddle, and was soon far away
+from the kasbah at Sheshaoua.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A PARTING MONA--FORDING SHESHAOUA RIVER--JARS OF FOOD--FIRST SIGHT OF
+MARRAKESH--A PERILOUS CROSSING--RIDE INTO MARRAKESH--THE SLAVE MARKET.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+    "We who are old, old and gay,
+           O so old!
+     Thousands of years, thousands of years,
+           If all were told:
+
+     Give to these children, new from the world,
+           Rest far from men.
+     Is anything better, anything better?
+           Tell us it then:
+
+     Us who are old, old and gay,
+           O so old!
+     Thousands of years, thousands of years,
+           If all were told."
+
+    W. B. YEATS.
+
+
+WE were once more upon the march; and yet all links with the kasbah were
+not broken, for we had gone but a short way when a servant ran after us,
+carrying a familiar dish, known from afar--a parting mona. Laid at our
+feet, we tasted, as courtesy demanded, a coos-coosoo made of grated
+almonds, powdered sugar, and cream--a sweet which cloys at an early hour
+in the day, though to Moorish servants, at any and every moment of their
+lives, it is as caviare to the few. A circle was formed round the dish:
+in two minutes, all that was left, was "an aching china blank."
+
+Quantity rather than quality distinguishes Moorish cookery. The rich
+man's dishes are more or less like the poor man's, only that he has six
+times as many; indeed, there are said to be dishes of coos-coosoo which
+seven men can barely carry. The Sultan's own cuisine is quite simple,
+better served, and more of it perhaps, than his subjects', but otherwise
+exactly the same.
+
+Having disposed of the mona, our cavalcade started, and we rode down to
+the Sheshaoua River, still in heavy flood, but fordable since the fine
+night. The waters roared past between the crumbling banks: we saw in one
+place waggon-loads of red soil suddenly subside with a vast noise into
+the cataract which had undermined it. Upon the brink the men stripped
+themselves; then, wading into the torrent, hauled across mules, camel,
+and donkey one by one: we took our feet out of the stirrups, and managed
+to keep dry; the camel behaved admirably.
+
+[Illustration: TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE.
+
+[_To face p. 314._]
+
+It was an uneventful day, across a bleak and stony country. Towards
+evening we passed a ruined kasbah, rose-red in the sunset. Riding due
+east, our long sharp shadows pointed ahead: there was a peace over all
+things. The shadowed heights on the right, scooped into blue gullies and
+mighty crests, carried a veil of cloud on their tops: the good little red
+path we were on, was without a stone. As the sun dropped we swung along
+into a dim grey beyond, to the muffled tramp, tramp of the mules' hoofs,
+_shuffle-shuffle through the night_, while a cool breeze got up, and a
+flight of birds high above us called aloud as they passed over. Ah! but
+how good it was!--no telegrams, no conventionalities, no possessions
+worth worry or consideration. Strange, the influence which such a simple
+life has upon the mind: letters, and newspapers, and the topics of the
+day, and the world in general, have little interest for the time being,
+and get buried in the wastepaper-basket of trivialities, while the
+weather, and the state of the track, and little things in Nature,
+assume gigantic proportions and fill the mind.
+
+We camped that night near another red ruined kasbah, whose long line of
+crumbling tapia walls against the Atlas Mountains stretched itself out
+like a watch-dog beside the forbidden hills. In the morning Arabs were
+more importunate than ever, one woman thrusting her head between the
+flaps of the canvas while we were dressing. A deal, meantime, went on in
+the kitchen-tent over a lamb, Omar feeling its neck and tail, and
+subsequently buying it for five shillings, after which it was silently
+dispatched on the far side, skinned, cut up; and the donkey bore a
+pannierful of meat that day.
+
+Our blue jay of the ruined kasbah at Sok-el-Tleta turned up again on the
+march, beautiful as ever, and no less tame; but all the birds shared that
+distinction, and were of a confiding nature delightful to see.
+
+Before Frouga, one of our next camping-grounds, was reached, we passed a
+kasbah which six years ago was in the possession of a kaid, who may or
+may not be still alive, in prison. His province, at any rate, rose
+against him to a man at the late Sultan's death, and wrecked his castle,
+the Government disposing of him after he had escaped to Marrakesh. The
+orchards of almond-trees, with thriving beans planted underneath them,
+and the fat fields of barley, spoke volumes for the prosperity of his
+days. It takes much provocation to induce country people to rise and
+rebel against their kaid; for rebellion, if unsuccessful, brings down
+such awful vengeance on the heads of the tribesmen: therefore his hard
+case was probably just punishment.
+
+Another river, the Asif-el-Mel, had to be forded on the same day. It was
+a bad crossing, we were warned by one sheikh not to attempt it, and
+neither of our men knew the ford; but some Arabs turned up, and they
+helped to get the mules safely across. R. and I had each four men with
+us: we tied our boots, stockings, camera and glasses round our necks, and
+rode over, careful not to look down at the race of the torrent, which has
+turned horsemen giddy often enough,--a raging river rather more than
+breast-high is not a thing to be trifled with. On the banks beyond lay a
+large and flourishing village, chiefly remarkable on account of its
+_Mellah_ (Jews' Quarter),--a strange thing to find so far from
+civilization; and yet it was not, for the interior of Morocco is full of
+wandering Israelites, who, living and dying in remote Arab and Berber
+settlements, become naturalized to a certain extent, yet ever "keep
+themselves to themselves," housed only in their own "quarter," under lock
+and key after sundown, and subjected to a few irksome regulations. Some
+of them become rich on the profits of the "middle man," buying skins and
+produce of all sorts from the country people, and passing them through to
+the coast towns: such men may be worth from L3,000 to L5,000.
+
+It is hard to conceive a race settling from choice amongst the squalor
+and filth of the lowest type of Arab, but as a matter of fact, the Jewish
+Quarter violated, over and above all the rest of the village put
+together, every tradition of cleanliness. The Berber villages of the
+north, dirty enough in all conscience, absolutely shone in comparison
+with the Arab douars in the south, or with their larger settlements,
+those semi-villages, whose flat-roofed huts were stacked with earthen or
+basket-work jars. These bottle-shaped jars, full of what Mohammed calls
+"the liquor of the bee," cream-cheese, barley, etc., were plastered with
+mud, and waterproof: when they occurred in twos and threes on every roof,
+the effect was striking.
+
+It would have been a monotonous ride to Frouga except for the Atlas
+Mountains on our right, which we had been steadily nearing for days: now
+comparatively close, their gleaming snow-peaks were never without
+interest, and Omar told tales of travellers' experiences up in one or two
+of the passes. The principal roads across the chain to Taroudant,
+Ras-el-Ouad, and the Sus, pass through Frouga, and make it an important
+place. It possesses an _inzella_, or sort of fondak, where men and
+transport are safe for the night under the protection of the kaid of the
+district.
+
+We pitched our tents among little fields of beans and barley, planted
+with olive-trees, close to a mosque, and awoke when _es-sbar_ (sunrise)
+was called in sonorous tones from the top of the dome: a cuckoo answered
+the mueddzin, and a pair of little doves began to coo persistently.
+
+The gardens of Frouga are celebrated--full of vines planted like
+hop-gardens, of prickly pear, figs, pears, apricots, and corn, in between
+the fruit-trees. And yet the owners are not rich: the governors of the
+district see to that; for supposing a man becomes richer than the
+governor, X., he goes to the Government and says, "If you make me
+governor instead of X., I will bring you more money than he does, and
+here is a present at the same time." The Government accepts the bribe,
+and gives the man a letter stating that he is made governor instead of X.
+The man collects his friends and ousts X., perhaps imprisoning him for
+life. A governor, therefore, never allows a man under him to possess
+capital. He may be rich in cattle and gardens, but he will have to pay
+the governor out of his profits from thirty to ninety shillings at stated
+times all the year round, and never have any "spare cash." If he refuses
+to pay, he is turned out of his own home and acres, which fall into the
+governor's hands. Naturally he prefers to cling to his gardens.
+
+Beyond Frouga lay some of the most fertile land in Morocco. We passed
+wonderful crops of barley and wheat, which in an average year, for every
+bushel sown, yield forty bushels. Moors say that corn in Morocco is known
+to yield, not forty, but a hundred-fold. In England fifteen-fold is
+considered an average crop. Morocco grows two crops each year: there is a
+spring harvest and an autumn harvest. It would seem, therefore, that if
+agriculture were encouraged, and light railways laid down to the coast,
+money would pour into the country--especially supposing that, instead of
+wheat, such a crop as linseed was grown. Russian and American competition
+would probably diminish the profits to be made out of wheat, but a soil
+and a climate like Morocco might grow anything and everything. At present
+fraud and dishonesty seem the soul of trade: the Jew brokers cheat the
+Moors; the Moors sand their sheep's wool to make it heavy, mix paraffin
+candles with their beeswax, put all manner of things into oil, and so on.
+But a single example shows the spirit of the country. A friend of ours
+found his horses becoming poor, yet he saw their corn taken out to them
+every evening: he examined it; it was quite good. After a time it
+occurred to him to look inside the horses' mouths, and he found the gums
+cut and lacerated in order to prevent their eating their barley, which,
+after it had lain a certain time on the ground untouched, was confiscated
+by the servants.
+
+[Illustration: MARRAKESH.
+
+[_To face p. 318._]
+
+Meanwhile, each day as we marched on, brought us nearer to our bourn, and
+at last we found ourselves on a wide flat plain, unbroken, except by the
+trail which we followed, consisting of six or eight narrow paths, winding
+on side by side like railway rails--a splendid "high road" for
+Morocco. Truly it is a spare-room country. The snaking track might take
+up acres and acres of rich land. What matter! There is room.
+
+It was still very hot: smoked spectacles kept off a certain amount of
+glare, and I wore two hats, a straw on top of a felt, having neglected to
+bring a solar topi; but even so the sun was unnecessarily generous,
+glowing on the splendid polish which some of the Arabs carried on their
+sepia-coloured skulls, and making it impossible to follow the crested
+larks, singing their heads off, up in the brilliant sky.
+
+At last we felt a breeze, topped a low rise: an old greybeard all in
+white jogged up towards us on a donkey, a man running behind; a village
+lay below; but our eyes only went to one spot in the wide blue plain,
+which was spread out like a praying-carpet before us. That spot lay
+twenty-five miles off--a single tower, the Kutobea in Morocco City.
+
+"Marrakesh!" cried Omar and Said simultaneously.
+
+We rode on, across dry plain, over old river-beds, through patches of
+olive-trees, pink oleander, and castor-oil plant; leaving Arab douars
+behind; meeting with white cow-birds which recalled Tetuan; passing men
+with merchandise on camels and donkeys, strings of country people, and
+wanderers of all sorts; stopping to rest near wells where swallows were
+building in the brickwork and donkeys stood asleep in the shade; watching
+Arabs beating out corn with sticks, men ploughing, until we were once
+more amongst "greenery" and in a fertile stretch of country. Surely there
+was a river near. We passed fine crops of maize; onions were doing
+famously; fields of bearded wheat rustled in a life-giving breeze. And
+then the Wad-el-Nyfs, the largest river we had to cross, came into sight.
+Said at the outset precipitated himself into a great hole, and was well
+ducked: eventually we all landed safely on the other side, though the
+start was far from reassuring, some Arabs on the bank telling us it was
+"not good" to cross, and wading down into the torrent, for us to see that
+the water took them up to their necks almost at once, sweeping them
+down-stream. Before we rode into the water every man divested himself of
+each particle of clothing which he wore; and R. got across with two
+dark-skinned individuals clinging on to her legs, one on each side of the
+mule, a third hanging on to its bridle, and a fourth at its tail; while I
+followed also with four attendants. Not long ago, a party of missionaries
+was fording one of these very rivers, and neglected to have men at the
+mules' heads, one of which stumbled and threw its rider into the rapid
+stream: she was drowned. It was not deep at the time, or more precaution
+would have been taken: on the other hand, the stream is always like a
+mill-race, an accident can happen in a moment, and therefore a rule
+should be made, and never under any circumstances broken, to the effect
+that every rider have a man at the mule's head, and more than one,
+according to the state of the river.
+
+We had a long hot ride to Tamsloect: the breeze, which was westerly, was
+useless to us; the track led over stony yellow hills; now and again we
+caught glimpses of the Kutobea standing up very far away; and all the
+time the great snow-fields, on the vast mountains, close upon our right,
+looked tantalizingly near and cold. Occasionally we watered the mules at
+a stream: tortoises were swimming about in one of these. But on the whole
+it was a singularly uneventful and a very sultry ride, until at last long
+lines of red mud walls, many gardens, three mosque towers, and some tall,
+dark, green cypress-trees proclaimed Tamsloect--an important village,
+possessing a Friday market, an unequalled view of the Atlas, and a saint,
+Mulai Abdullah Ben Hassi.
+
+An Arab, Hadj Cadour, is one of the great men in Tamsloect; and to him,
+having an introduction, we went. The best hours spent in Morocco were
+those lived with certain of the Moors themselves, sharing for a short
+time their simple and yet fantastic life, learning something of their
+innate courtesy and generous hospitality. Hadj Cadour was a host of the
+old aristocratic school. He was out at his garden-house when we reached
+the village, entertaining friends at a tea party; and upon our message
+reaching him, he sent back a man on a white horse to point out another of
+his gardens close at hand, where he suggested that the tents should be
+pitched, while R. and I rode out and joined his tea party.
+
+Leaving Omar to superintend the camp, we started off after the rider on
+the white horse: he led the way through the village, finally into a
+labyrinth of gardens, where we brushed through bearded wheat such as I
+have never seen before nor since, which luxuriated with olives,
+fruit-trees of all sorts, and pale pink monthly roses. Presently in the
+midst of the semi-wilderness a little white house intervened, half buried
+in trees, and close to it, in the shade, under an olive, was gathered
+Hadj Cadour's tea party, six or eight dignified Arabs, in those perfectly
+washed and blanched garments which so fit their solemn, dignified
+manners, their sad and intellectual type of faces: not that Moors are
+necessarily either of the two last; but they look it--that is all.
+
+A great tea-kettle, as usual, loomed in the background; carpets and thick
+red Morocco leather cushions made seats for the members of the charmed
+circle: we reclined there with the rest, talking, as far as a few Arabic
+words would carry us, of our starting-point, our destination, the road,
+the rivers, the weather, Hadj Cadour helping us out, one and all
+interested and anxious to be understood and to understand. Our host
+dispensed _sherrub de minat_, the wine of the country, made from grapes;
+the little dome-shaped pewter teapot was there, with its fond
+associations of Morocco, together with the copper tray and circle of
+diminutive painted glasses; a gorgeous indolent sun poured down beyond
+the patch of shade; the hum and hover of insects vibrated in the air; and
+presently musicians were summoned--girls wearing pale green jellabs and
+silver ornaments, with yellow handkerchiefs twisted round their heads,
+men in bright colours. Sitting down between us, each was given a glass of
+sherrub de minat, and by-and-by they began to play. Weird and wild music
+it was, that of the _tareegea_, the _gimbi_, and the _tahr_, quaint
+native instruments of the roughest construction, and yet, as music,
+possessing fascination not a little.
+
+The long kif-pipes were lighted, green tea and wine were sipped, the
+white figures stretched themselves on the cushions, and a great and
+dreamy content came over the faces under the white turbans. There was
+nowhere a trace of boredom such as mars so many European
+entertainments--rather the thing was loved for itself, and every man felt
+it and entered into its spirit. Now and then the musicians broke into a
+strange song, and the guests beat their hands and murmured in chorus;
+then again they would seem half intoxicated, in a harmless fashion, with
+kif and wine and music, and would appear to be absent in a world of their
+own. The music had a lilt in it, and often a suggestion of something half
+tamed, desperate, swung along with the cadences; and thin wreaths of
+smoke from the long pipes blew up through the olive branches, and an
+Arabic sentence dropped now and again on the ear: the hot, slow, sleepy
+afternoon waned. . . .
+
+Poetry bulks so largely in the Arabic nature. Emotional and yet simple,
+that nature is, to a certain extent, appealed to by the refined. The
+sordid and vulgar have no attractions for it. There is no language more
+poetical than the Arabic language, where "snow" is called "hair of the
+mountain" and "rainbow" is "bride of the rain." "Red mullet" is "the
+sultan of fishes": "maiden-hair fern" is translated by "little cane of
+the well." Ordinary Arabic words show an extraordinary gift of
+description: the word for "secretly" means literally "under the matting,"
+and "never" is expressed thus, "when the charcoal takes root and the salt
+buds."
+
+Uncontrolled ascendency of imagination marks the Arab, and endows his
+nature with a fascination all its own: an outdoor life is his heritage,
+and the things of Nature are a part of himself. "Spring" he calls
+"grass"; "summer" is "gleaning"; "autumn" is "fruit"; "winter" is
+"rainy."
+
+If only he could keep pure his race, Morocco had never stood among the
+nations where she stands now. The steady infusion of African blood is
+becoming her ruin: the sensual negro type, spreading rapidly, is eating
+its way into the heart of the people. When it is remembered that
+thousands upon thousands of slaves are imported into Morocco from the
+interior of Africa every year, that they become eventually "free," their
+children inheriting equal rights with other children, it is no longer a
+matter of wonder that the Moorish race shows signs of deterioration, that
+its people are effete. It is after meeting with men such as Hadj Cadour
+and many others, who hark back to the old type of chief and horseman and
+the desert life, touched with the old vein of poetry and chivalry, that
+one regrets the things which are. But we had spent an afternoon which was
+one worth recollecting; and when we had parted from that little circle
+under the shady olive, and were jogging back to our tents, it was to
+remember that there are still good things in Morocco.
+
+The tents we found ready for us in a delightful spot enclosed by a wall:
+a tank lay in the centre of the garden, around it a few paths, and a
+great deal of mint. But a terrible ordeal awaited us--green tea and a
+great spread, provided by the brother of Hadj Cadour, who had also
+arranged carpets as seats around the tank. Again next morning, just after
+we had finished breakfast, this hospitable individual sent into our tent
+two steaming hot chickens fried brown in argan oil, with half a dozen
+round cakes of fine flour; and when, immediately afterwards, we rode to
+his house to say farewell and tender our thanks, he proffered green tea
+once more.
+
+Heavy drops of rain awoke us in the middle of the night; but just as an
+ominous patter was coming through the old canvas and sounding on the
+bed-clothes, the shower stopped. Again later it came on, with thunder.
+Omar changed the smart clothes which he had put on in view of a triumphal
+entry into Marrakesh; we packed and got off as quickly as we could,
+expecting more rain; many good-byes were said; Hadj Cadour sent a servant
+with us to the gates; and we rode out of Tamsloect.
+
+[Illustration: THE OPEN GATE.
+
+[_To face p. 324._]
+
+Outside, towards the east, its gardens were numerous: great black poplars
+and palms grew freely. For an hour we rode alongside a district which
+belonged entirely to Mulai el Hadj, the great man of Tamsloect, and a
+holy Shar[=i]f to boot. This man is rich, and because he is a holy
+Shar[=i]f he can never be dispossessed of his wealth. His white house
+and cypress-trees stand out prominently in the village we had just left;
+throughout his gardens he has built a succession of water-towers, which
+irrigate his land; he is British-protected, and as important a man in the
+south as the French-protected Wazeer of Wazan is in the north.
+
+All this time we were riding steadily towards Marrakesh, interest
+increasing with every step as we neared the city, to visit which we had
+left Mogador about ten days before.
+
+That last day's march was not an interesting one: the great Atlas, upon
+which we had now turned our backs, were no longer to be seen, on account
+of clouds which the last night's storm had brought upon them; the plain
+over which we rode possessed a deadly monotony, for we were not entering
+Marrakesh upon its best side, where gardens upon gardens of palm-trees
+stretch beyond the city gates for miles and miles, but our road from
+Tamsloect was prosaic and dull. Certainly we crossed some of the
+wonderful underground canals, which carry water five and ten miles, from
+springs in the country, into the city--about whose origin nothing
+whatever is known, tradition remaining silent as to any builder. These
+great works are merely water-ways tunnelled through the solid earth, not
+at any great distance from the surface: along their courses the streams
+are conducted for great distances. There are openings at intervals which
+ventilate the tunnels: these are kept clean and easily examined by means
+of the same. The whole arrangement is very rough, very primitive, but
+perfectly answers the purpose for which it was made.
+
+The crops which we left behind us at every mile looked well, and it was
+to be hoped would soon make good the failure of the preceding crop: that
+failure had accounted for the skinny children and lean women whom we had
+met, and was the reason of the country people's continuous digging for
+ayerna root, and washing the same by the roadside and in so many
+villages.
+
+Meanwhile, Marrakesh and its adobe walls, of a sad yellow-pink tone, grew
+nearer and nearer, till at last the long line of crumbling tapia was but
+a short distance off, and the Bab-el-Roub, a massive gateway, plainly to
+be seen. Just outside the walls, Mr. Miller, one of the missionaries, met
+us: he had one piece of news, which carried with it regret wherever it
+was heard across the length and breadth of the British Empire--the death
+of Cecil Rhodes. Under the Bab-el-Roub we rode into the city of crumbling
+walls and silent sandy roadways: somewhat of a deserted city, the great
+southern capital appeared to be at first; but then we were nowhere near
+its heart, and the half of it is gardens and quiet houses, while a small
+part only, is wholly full of vitality: the whole is crumbling to pieces,
+and strange of all strangest cities ever seen.
+
+We rode straight to Kaid Maclean's house, lent us by Lady Maclean--the
+best house in Morocco City, over-looking one of the many market-places,
+and that open space in which story-tellers and snake-charmers, surrounded
+by a dense circle of admirers, cater to an attentive throng. The house
+was empty, and we "camped" in several of the rooms, lunching in a long
+gallery which looked straight out on to the Atlas Mountains: the mules
+went into a capacious stable; the servants made themselves comfortable in
+the kitchens. It is hard to find house-room in Marrakesh: of course a
+hotel is unheard of, nor is camping-ground to be met with easily. There
+are no foreign consuls in this far-off city, and no English element
+beyond the two or three missionaries who live there. Travellers have
+generally to depend upon the loan of some house for the time being, from
+a holy Shar[=i]f or Moor of some standing; but the house may be anywhere,
+and comfortable or otherwise. Since the Sultan was at Fez, his army and
+his commander-in-chief, Kaid Maclean, were at Fez too: hence the reason
+of the Macleans' house standing empty, within which we were so fortunate
+as to find ourselves.
+
+Marrakesh cannot be described: it must be seen. It is more suggestive,
+more intangible, more elusive--that is to say, its Eastern medley of a
+population is so, and its crumbling tapia-walled houses are so--than any
+other Moorish city. More ghosts should stalk the half-deserted yellow
+roadways of Marrakesh, more mysteries be shrouded within the windowless
+walls, than a man of Western civilization could conceive.
+
+It is a vast city--other writers have chronicled the number of square
+miles which it accounts for--and yet, in spite of its size, the sum-total
+of souls it contains is not overwhelming. There are gardens everywhere,
+stretch after stretch of palm-trees, acre after acre of fruit-trees, and
+wedged among them all, lie the flat roofs, swarm the endless throng which
+spells humanity; and the oddest, most varied humanity--Arabs and negroes,
+men from the Sus, from the Sahara, from Draa, Berber hillmen, tribesmen
+from the Atlas, a tumultuous multitude, a hive of bees of whom no census
+has ever been made. We were among them all, the first time we rode
+through the city. No one walks in Marrakesh: as a matter of fact I did
+later on, often enough, sometimes alone, getting somewhat jostled in the
+narrow ways--beyond that in no way inconvenienced. But every one who can,
+is on a mule or a long-tailed countrybred, pushing along at a foot's
+pace, crying out now and then, and avoiding this pair of black toes,
+that coffee-coloured bare heel.
+
+Beyond the wall, covered with nails, whereon heads are fastened after
+rebellions have been quenched and the time of punishment and warning has
+come, we rode into the land of little shops. Here, in another instance,
+Marrakesh is unique: the narrow streets were in great part entirely
+roofed in overhead either by vines or by bamboos; the brilliant sunlight
+streamed through the spaces between the vines and canes, and chequered
+the seething white throng which eternally passed underneath it. From an
+open street we plunged into the cool shade of one of these arcades. And
+how it moved! Nothing ever stood still in the Marrakesh soks. Life
+"travels" for ever and for ever there. Between the shops, themselves
+teeming with bustle and incident, moved up and down, the throng of white,
+draped, dignified figures, calling, heaving, struggling, jostling
+sometimes, chattering always, blotched with shifting yellow sunlight and
+black shadow cast by the lattice roof overhead. It was a transformation
+scene; it was a weird dream--weird to the point of seeming unreal, unlike
+men and the haunts of men, though all the time rampant with _humans_.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE KUTOBEA, MARRAKESH.
+
+[_To face p. 328._]
+
+When the Sultan went to Fez, a party of soldiers and goldsmiths and
+craftsmen of all sorts went with him from the city of Marrakesh, in
+number over forty thousand souls. But the exodus made no appreciable
+difference in the soks. Not only the numbers, but the types of the stream
+of faces between which we rode were all striking, and each one so far
+removed from anything at all European. Humanity can indeed be separated
+from humanity by gulfs impassable, or gulfs which may alone be bridged
+over by a violation of nature, on the part of the man upon the east
+bank or upon the west bank.
+
+The palm-trees wave above Marrakesh, turtle-backed mosques and tall
+towers rise among the gardens and gleam in the sun, but above and beyond
+every other feature of the far-away fantastic southern capital one
+watch-tower rises over everything and rears itself into the sky--the
+Kutobea, built, according to tradition, by Fabir for the Sultan El
+Mansur. It stands in a vast empty space close to the Great Mosque: few
+people pass that way--their footfalls are almost unheard in the soft
+sand; and the lonely tower cuts the clear quiet sky. The Kutobea is built
+of dark red stone. There is a pattern, alternately raised and sunk, on
+the faces of the minaret, the sunk part cut deep, the raised part carved
+and standing out. A broad band of wonderful black and green iridescent
+tiles, snakes round the top like some opulent spotted serpent. Part of it
+has dropped away: the gilded brass balls, the cupola, are here and there
+tarnished; but the sun sets, and his indulgent rays swamp every defect,
+burnish and polish and gild corner-stone and fretted marble and
+emerald-green tile alike, until the "to-day" of the Kutobea is as
+triumphant as its "yesterday" of many hundred years. The design of the
+tower itself--the minaret--is said to have come from Constantinople, as
+did the Giralda at Seville, which it so resembles.
+
+Of the mosque, beside the Kutobea, nothing was to be seen except its
+walls, and through an open door avenues of pillars. The huge building has
+an Arabic name meaning "The Mosque of the Books"; for what reason--who
+can tell?--tradition is silent.
+
+Marrakesh itself is supposed to have been built upon the site of an
+immensely old structure, the ancient Martok. As it is now,
+Yusuf-ibn-Tachfin founded it in 1072, a city which covers almost as much
+ground as Paris--a purely African city. Fez, Tetuan, Tangier, have
+Spanish blood in them: Marrakesh is African to the core. Arabs here are
+in a minority: the spare Saharowi type, the shaved lip and cheeks and
+pointed chin-tuft of the Berber race, men from the mysterious sandy
+steppes below Cape Bojador, Soudanese blacks, men from Wadnoon--one and
+all congregate in this city. Even the music and songs are, naturally
+enough, all African, with the strange interval, the rhythm which halts
+and races where no European music ever halted or raced; and the tom-tom,
+the gimbri, the ear-piercing Moorish flute, all fall upon the English ear
+as things intensely strange and strongly fascinating.
+
+Marrakesh boasts no aristocracy: it is a city of the people. It has few
+Shar[=i]fs: it is a land of "traders," speculating, toiling, intriguing;
+between its yellow adobe walls, and its whitewashed dazzling walls,
+amidst its dense metallic semi-tropical vegetation, up and down its sandy
+silent ways, they live and die. Its fountains are beautiful:
+_Shrab-u-Schuf_ (Drink and admire) is inscribed on one of them. But it is
+not by its architecture that Marrakesh stands and falls; rather by a
+personality all its own--by its many ruined walls, by its deserted
+streets, by the hot pulse of life throbbing imperiously through its
+arteries crowded to suffocation with humanity, by its flaring African
+sunlight, by the figures which can never be other than picturesque, by a
+thousand impressions which can never die. And by reason of all this
+Marrakesh is great.
+
+Once upon a time it was impossible for an Englishman to see the Slave
+Market. Owing partly to the radical hatred of Europeans, partly to the
+suspicious and seclusive nature of the Moor, the presence of foreigners
+in the sacred Slave Market was tabooed. Not that the Nazarene was "taken
+up" or turned back if he showed his face inside the courtyard: on the
+contrary, he was allowed to walk in, and apparently no eye was aware of
+his presence. And yet in a few moments he would find himself alone. The
+Slave Market had vanished, had melted away: a line of disappearing backs
+was all which was to be seen. Supposing a Moor had connived at this
+attempt on the part of a Nazarene to see slaves being sold, that Moor
+disappeared, by order of the Sultan, and there was a funeral later on in
+the day.
+
+However, while we were in Marrakesh, less rigorous orders were in vogue.
+Having come prepared to see the market disguised in native dress if
+necessary, we found that we were able to go there without much
+difficulty, and only escorted by one of the missionaries and a servant.
+Though slaves are bought and sold through the length and breadth of
+Morocco, it is not possible in any other city than Marrakesh for the
+European to see or know much about it. In the coast towns the sales are
+conducted privately. In Fez it is probable that they might be attended by
+others than Moors; but at the time of writing I take it that no wise
+European, if such should be there at all in these unquiet times, would
+venture to put himself into a position likely to attract all the bullets
+and knives in Fez in his direction.
+
+Just at sunset--6.30, I think--the Slave Market in Marrakesh opens, and
+we went in. To some ears it would no doubt have sounded the strangest
+anomaly, that prayer to the Most High God, with which the sale was
+prefaced; but a Mussulman hallows every action, right or wrong, with a
+petition; besides which slavery is lawful and good in his eyes, is
+approved of and permitted by Mohammed in the written book of the
+Kor[=a]n; is, in short, a part of the scheme of Nature which it were a
+serious mistake not to use and enjoy. So the line of auctioneers formed
+up, held out their hands, prayed, invoked a blessing over the
+proceedings, mumbling in sonorous tones for a few moments. Then silence.
+It was over: the sale began. There is nothing more easy than to be
+theatrical and emotional in describing scenes of this sort--one has read
+of them scores of times: words such as "degrading" and "harrowing" rise
+up in the mind's eye, coupled with violent epithets and stinging clauses.
+And yet, finding oneself in the centre of another just such a scene, one
+realized how impossible the thing was, to understand, or to feel,
+beforehand, and how curiously it played upon the emotions. Walking into
+the market with a sobriety, with a cold, critical interest such as a Nero
+may have felt towards his victims, one divined early in the proceedings
+that the scene tended unduly to intensify emotion. Truly no men think
+alike: a vast chasm yawns between the natures of the slave-trader and the
+European: that chasm is a universal education. To realize all which
+separates a native of Africa from a Frenchman or an Englishman, and the
+difficulties which lie in the way of promoting an understanding between
+the two, visit such a place as the Slave Market in Marrakesh.
+
+Groups of slaves, more or less gorgeously dressed, some in rags where
+nothing better could be afforded, were sitting far back in little
+covered-in recesses which lined the square. All round the square stood,
+or sat upon their heels, intending purchasers, for the most part
+middle-aged elderly men, sleek and fat, in turbans and soft linen, white
+beyond reproach. Each auctioneer, the prayer over, advanced to the groups
+of slaves, and led out one or perhaps two or three, and paraded them
+round and round the square under the eyes of the buyers. At last a bid
+was made: the auctioneer walked on, pushing the slaves in front of him,
+and calling out the amount of the bid. A higher bid was made: he shouted
+out that bid, and still walked on. Then a purchaser signed to him that he
+wished to look at the slaves. The auctioneer at once marshalled the women
+or woman slave (there were many more women than men) up to the Moor who
+wished to examine her. She squatted in front of him, while he looked at
+her teeth, felt her arms, neck, and legs, and in a low voice asked her a
+string of private questions. After a time the woman was allowed to get
+up, the auctioneer called out the latest bid for her, and walked her on.
+Probably some one else would examine her "points," and another and
+another; and her price would go up till the auctioneer should have got
+what he wanted, and the woman would be handed over to her new master.
+
+Some of the slaves walked round with a profoundly indifferent air--none
+of them looked in wild spirits; but, on the other hand, it was "Kismet"
+rather than misery which was written on their faces. It is a rare thing
+for any slave to object violently or to make any scene: as a rule they
+knelt down obediently enough in front of the fat Mohammedans, who thrust
+their fingers into their mouths, took them by the chin, and treated them
+with great familiarity. But, oddly enough, on one of the nights we
+attended the market a scene did occur. A middle-aged woman, absolutely
+refused to walk round--we were told probably because she had been parted
+from her child, and could not bear to be sold. The poor creature wept
+wildly, and hid her face in the red cloth round her head. She was,
+however, in the end forced along like a recalcitrant mule, her cloth
+torn off, herself made to kneel down at the bidding of a group of
+traders, and undergo the usual examination. Some of the young girls
+looked shame-faced, shuffling along behind or in front of the auctioneers
+with bent heads. The sad middle-aged woman fetched in the end seven
+pounds ten shillings. A little child was going for three pounds ten. A
+girl of thirteen--that is, at her very best--was selling for fifteen
+pounds: she was of course unusually attractive.
+
+The slave trade of Africa receives an apparent stamp of legality from the
+fact that religious warfare and the taking of prisoners in war and making
+them slaves are looked upon as Divine institutions. There is no
+obligation on the Mussulman to release slaves, and as long as wars and
+raids last, the mass of slaves in Mohammedan countries tends rather to
+increase than otherwise, their progeny ever adding to the original
+number. There is no restriction as to the number of slaves or concubines
+which a Moor may have: it entirely depends upon his purse. His women are
+his luxury, and an expensive one. A concubine may be sold at any moment,
+and the position is thus precarious and varied: it has one saving clause,
+which I have already explained--the woman who bears a son to her master
+is free, and at his death his property will be divided between the sons
+of concubines equally with the sons of his wife and wives. Mussulman
+raids still continue against the negroes of Central Africa, against
+tribes in Persia, in Afghanistan, and other parts of the world; indeed,
+as long as Mohammedanism lasts, there is very little chance of the
+abolition of slavery.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE WAD-EL-AZELL.
+
+[_To face p. 334._]
+
+One afternoon we went over the garden belonging to the late basha of
+Marrakesh--Ben Dowd--almost the only garden I have ever seen in Morocco
+which had in it flowers; and these were roses from Spain, valuable and
+beautiful, the pride of the basha. There was a charming summer-house half
+built, and a conservatory nearly finished, in different parts of the
+garden. In the midst of his prosperity, only eight months before, Ben
+Dowd had been arrested and put into prison. It was the old tale of
+jealousy. The Grand Wazeer was afraid of the basha, and in order to
+secure himself from harm succeeded in having Ben Dowd deposed and put
+entirely out of harm's way. Though an explanation is always forthcoming
+for violent proceedings such as the above, it would be unwise to assume
+in Morocco that the explanation had a grain of truth in it. Wheels within
+wheels; intrigue after intrigue; lie, topped by lie, make up the sum of
+Moorish diplomacy, and render the coil of politics in that country an
+absolutely fascinating study, not because it is so surreptitious, but
+because it is clever as well as cunning, and all the time involves bigger
+interests than ever appear on the tapis--interests which concern France,
+Austria, England, Germany, and other Powers, all of whom struggle for a
+finger in the seething pie.
+
+To return to Ben Dowd. He was "detained" in a house--not ignominiously
+committed to the common gaol, an unusual respite--allowed twelve
+shillings a day, and his wife's company. He was in Fez with these
+restrictions at the time we were looking over his gardens; and half of
+his wives were left behind at his own house, costing him a pound a day,
+we were told, in the face of which his allowance seemed inadequate.
+
+When the Government seized him, no money was found in his house; but
+three hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods in the shape of carpets,
+mirrors, gilt bedsteads, etc., were confiscated. His post, however, is
+still vacant: he is a good man, and possibly the Government will repent
+of its hasty step, and in due time restore such a valuable servant to
+favour. On the other hand, Ben Dowd may be ruined for life.
+
+The bashas and kaids of Morocco were all gnashing their teeth, while we
+were at Marrakesh, over the new system of taxation, which the Sultan and
+a certain progressive member of his Government, are endeavouring to
+introduce into the country. The main idea in these new regulations is,
+that governors will be paid specified salaries by the Government--that
+they will collect taxes as usual, but send the amount of money collected
+intact to Court, not, as has been the custom hitherto, docking off the
+half, it may be, and pocketing it as their own pay. Again, each province
+has been lately inspected by a certain number of trustworthy men, who
+have fixed its rate of taxation. The countryman is to pay so much upon
+his possessions--for example, ninepence for a cow, three shillings for a
+horse, twopence-halfpenny for an olive-tree, three shillings for a camel,
+no more and no less--instead of having the utmost squeezed out of him,
+which has been the practice of the governors up till now.
+
+The scheme sounds excellent. A letter has been read aloud in every city
+and country market-place, apprising the people of the new law, and they
+are delighted in proportion, but scarcely believe that the Government
+will be strong enough to enforce it. Indeed, it is hardly probable that
+the new taxation system can succeed unless two important steps are first
+taken--the tribes must be disarmed, and a new set of governors be
+appointed to take the place of the old. As long as the tribesmen are
+armed, there can never be law and order, any more than there can be
+settled peace upon the Indian frontier under the same conditions. At one
+moment the tribes will side with the Government, at another they will
+take the part of a governor, at another they will attack a neighbouring
+tribe. It is all very well to tax such men justly and to treat them like
+civilized beings, instead of trampling them underfoot, preventing their
+becoming rich, and holding them to be ignorant devils; but they are not
+civilized, unfortunately--they have not sufficient education to know when
+they are well off and to profit by it. Every man of them has a gun, and
+bloodshed and plunder are life itself to him. Treat him well, he bides
+his time, grows rich with the rest of his tribe; together they descend
+upon their neighbours, avenge an old wrong, loot to their hearts'
+content, perhaps attack the Sultan himself. But disarm one and all such
+men, and in the far future a peaceable agricultural folk may reign in
+their stead. It would be a work of time, but it has been effected before
+in the annals of history.
+
+The second condition, which would go far towards the working of the new
+system of taxation, is the appointment of new governors. The salary which
+the governors are to receive, is a comparatively small one, compared with
+the vast sums which they have been in the habit of accumulating, by means
+of extortion and by defrauding the Government. It is hardly fair to
+expect a man to cut down his expenses, give up half his wives, sell his
+slaves, and fall in the estimation of those under him. The thing must
+assuredly lead to dispute, born of peculation, and fighting must be the
+inevitable result. But if, on the other hand, new men are appointed, who
+from the first suit their expenditure to their means, a more peaceful
+working basis will be established.
+
+The old Oriental policy of the "balance of jealousies" will doubtless
+play its useful part: that is to say, each governor will watch his
+next-door neighbour like a cat watching a mouse; and if he detect any
+underhand dealings, or evasions, or infringements of the new law, he will
+report at once to the Sultan, and thereby gain _kudos_, perhaps a
+substantial reward, for himself. In this way the Government may receive
+support at the hands of the men whom it is keeping in order.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE THURSDAY MARKET--WE MIGHT HAVE GONE TO GLAOUIA--LEAVE MARRAKESH AND
+SET OUT ON OUR LAST MARCH FOR THE COAST--FLOWERS IN MOROCCO--ON THE WRONG
+TRAIL--ARAB TENTS--GOOD-BYE TO EL MOGHREB.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+     The best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a
+     fortunate voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find
+     them. They are the end and the reward of life. They keep us
+     worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to
+     the absent.
+
+
+THE great Thursday Market is one of those things in Marrakesh which, once
+seen, is stamped deeper than a hundred other memories upon the mind. It
+is held in a sun-baked open space outside the Gate of the Thursday
+Market, just beyond the city walls, within view of the plains and a
+distant low range of mountains. Thousands and thousands of tall palms,
+groves of them, wave in the wind all over the surrounding country: a few
+great watercourses, worn and eaten out of the red soil, burrow between
+the forests on their way down to the great river.
+
+To reach the market we rode out along a road thronged with people selling
+all sorts of goods, from splendid old flintlock guns from the Sus chased
+with silver and gold and going at three pounds, to striped carpets strong
+and violent in colouring at seven-and-sixpence each, and second-hand
+clothes of the most varied description. At last, topping a little hill,
+we rode down into the market: it is, more correctly speaking, a horse
+fair,--mules were also for sale. The horses down in the south are without
+doubt very different from the poor little ponies bred up in the north;
+but even these, in comparison, for instance, with a thoroughbred hunter
+at home, fell far short of what my defective imagination had led me to
+expect of Arab stallions in Morocco. For the most part there was nothing
+for sale except great heavy brutes with small heads and proud arched
+necks. Every one of them fell away in the hindquarters.
+
+As usual the sale was prefaced by a prayer: hard bargaining, sharp
+practice, and much or little swindling, inseparable from horse-dealing,
+must all of it, first of all, be watered by prayer. Therefore the
+horsemen formed into a line; the central figure chanted some verses from
+the Kor[=a]n; the rest held out their hands palms upwards, then joined in
+a sort of Amen, the instant afterwards sticking their spurs into their
+horses and dashing forward, charging in a line over the plain between two
+rows of spectators, and pulling the horses up on to their haunches at the
+end, red with spur-marks and white with foam. This was repeated two or
+three times, the short space in which the riders pulled up out of a full
+gallop being sometimes almost incredible; then a great circle was formed
+of would-be purchasers and onlookers, and the horses were ridden into the
+circle and then round and round to display themselves, each rider at the
+same time _auctioning his own horse_, yelling out the bids for it, as
+they rose, at the top of his voice. When the last bid was made, and he
+could get no more, the rider, after shouting the price, added that he
+"would not consult the absent one," meaning thereby that the owner of the
+horse, whether himself or not, would raise no objection to the animal's
+being sold for that price. Unless this sentence had been pronounced, the
+purchaser could not have been certain that the owner would not say
+afterwards he did not intend to sell for that sum. Most of the horses
+fetched from three pounds twelve to four pounds ten.
+
+Mules were sold in the same way--the prayer, the parade round the circle,
+each rider seated almost on his mule's tail, urging him on, with hands
+and heels, to pace his best, the mule's nose up in the heavens. Some of
+them were splendid animals, which I would have given anything to have
+possessed--perfectly made, looking more intelligent than many humans, and
+full of pluck and staying power: these fetched rather more than double,
+what the best horse in the whole market sold for. But in criticising the
+horses, I speak of what I saw on this occasion: there may be, and no
+doubt are, fine arabs to be had in Southern Morocco--at least so I am
+told--but I came across only what may be called "a cart-horse stamp."
+
+And yet they look very fine, these same sensible-looking beasts, with
+their great eyes, and flowing manes and tails, and proud carriage. There
+is something, too, eternally fascinating in the beautiful seat of an Arab
+on his horse--not of a fat sheikh or a rich basha or a thriving merchant,
+but that of the lean and wiry Arab horseman born and bred, who, as he
+thunders past at full gallop, puts himself into a dozen positions, is at
+home in them all, shoots behind him, above him, below him, without
+drawing rein, turning in any direction, while he makes the whole air ring
+with his wild cries. The Moorish saddle of course helps his grip; but
+beyond that, there is something cat-like in the lithe swing of his body,
+and it is that body's right and natural function to be upon a horse. The
+white turban, the flowing white garments, the gorgeously coloured saddle,
+the great silvered stirrups, are all part of the whole--and an attractive
+whole--born of the limitless desert, the great far-reaching sky, the
+pure wind: it is Arabian, that is all--_and so much_.
+
+Meanwhile, camels were selling in another corner of the market, being
+made to lie down and rise and generally show themselves off: they were
+fetching from three pounds ten upwards. Cows, goats, and sheep were less
+interesting; but the throng of men which filled up the fair was, as ever,
+more than a study. Above and beyond all, stood out the wild inhabitants
+of the Atlas, and men from the Sus, wearing black camel's-hair jellabs
+with a great russet-red or saffron-yellow patch let into the backs of
+them. The origin of this striking "badge" is not known, but the jellabs
+themselves looked absolutely in keeping with the lawless ruffians, on
+whose shoulders they hung, and the wild blotch of bizarre colour was
+"just themselves."
+
+Bay, is the colour which in a horse the Moor chooses first--the pearl of
+colours, sober and most hardy; while a light chestnut brings ill luck,
+though a dark chestnut is the colour of the wind, can "travel," and was
+Mohammed's favourite. A horse must have the colour of its saddle in
+harmony with itself--an apple-green saddle for a black horse, scarlet for
+a white, the whole beautifully worked and embossed in silk, and when on
+the horse's back, should be set, perhaps, upon as many as _nine_
+different coloured saddle-cloths, one on top of each other.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE SULTAN'S GARDEN.
+
+[_To face p. 344._]
+
+Of all filthy quarters in the filthiest of cities, I think the Jewish
+Quarter in Marrakesh has a fair chance of ranking first,--outside it,
+rubbish, a manure-heap eighty feet high, which no one troubles to remove;
+inside the walls, black mud, feet deep, streets which are sewers,
+collections of dead dogs, rotting vegetables, refuse of all sorts;
+amongst it all, a dirty people, callous beyond belief as regards
+sanitation, with sore heads, sore eyes, matted rags. Not a butcher's
+shop which is not black with flies and "high" with rotten meat: flies lie
+upon every article of food.
+
+And in the very vortex of this muck-heap--astounding to the
+traveller--are content to live wealthy Jews, happy to flourish all their
+lives shoulder to shoulder with unutterable squalor.
+
+We went over a house belonging to a Jew millionaire, well built, lavishly
+decorated, as luxurious as money and Morocco would permit, evidently the
+pride of the whole family. Probably few of them went far outside the city
+walls: they were born to the Mellah. His success as a trader might have
+given the head of the house a country place in England, shady lawns, a
+carriage and pair to drive in: he preferred his own muck-heap. But I
+cannot conceive upon what he spent his money, other than the
+glorification of the inside of his house.
+
+The Sultan's palace looked deserted: it is long, however, since he left
+it, and high time he was in Fez again; for Fez is more in touch with
+Europe--Fez means a shade more progression and civilization than life in
+Morocco City. Round the palace lay bales of goods which had been ordered
+by him and sent out from England--things such as waggons, motor-cars
+possibly, which are supposed so much to shock his narrow-minded subjects.
+They imagine that his Shar[=i]fian Majesty wastes vast sums of money;
+whereas for a great monarch, the ruler of an empire, his private bills
+are probably absurdly small. He may have fireworks let off every night
+for ten minutes, horrifying Marrakesh; but the cost of his amusements,
+considering his position, must be curiously reasonable: so one
+considered, as one looked at the "parcels" awaiting his return to the
+capital, which lay in the immense courtyard outside his palace, where
+"powder play" is held, and where he receives foreign ambassadors,
+marching through the great gateway which leads to his own private rooms,
+over which is inscribed in Arabic an odd sentence; it reads literally,
+"What God wills: there is no power but God."
+
+The days passed, and our time in Marrakesh drew to an end. In spite of
+all that had been told us in Tangier, of the difficulties and dangers
+which would attend an expedition into the Atlas Mountains, in spite of
+the verdict that we should not be given a permit, should be "stopped and
+not allowed to continue the journey," we found that, once upon the scene
+of action, there would have been little difficulty in getting at least as
+far as Glaouia, and in pushing up through one or two other passes.
+
+The ride to Glaouia might take five or six days: there were several other
+places and a district or two which would have been worth visiting ten
+times over. The missionaries in Marrakesh were willing to make all
+arrangements: one of them would have gone with us, and under that escort
+it would have been possible to travel into the Atlas without risk. We
+should have gone "privately," without troubling any one, without
+formality; and in all probability no one would have troubled about us:
+that, after all, is the only way to travel satisfactorily in Morocco, not
+with half a dozen soldiers and a vast noise.
+
+But for this year at any rate our travels in Morocco had reached their
+limit. R. was not strong enough to face more marching: the hot sun, long
+rides, and general "roughing it" had told upon her, and the
+responsibility of taking her on farther afield, into remote regions of
+uncertain climate, was too great.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by A. Cavilla, Tangier._]
+
+THE RIVER TENSIF OUTSIDE MARRAKESH.
+
+[_To face p. 346._]
+
+Early one morning we set forth upon our last march, back again to the
+coast, by the track which leads eventually to Mazagan, a seaport some
+distance farther north than Mogador. Here we hoped to pick up a steamer,
+and proceed, _via_ Tangier, across to Gibraltar, where it would be
+possible to get a P. & O. boat and head for home.
+
+The march to Mazagan was easy, and contained little incident. After
+leaving the plains of Marrakesh and its waving palm-trees, and seeing the
+tall Kutobea disappear at last, we found ourselves in the "Little
+Mountains," and along the rough road began to fall in continually with
+parties of tribesmen, Arab country people, all mounted, who had been
+commandeered to accompany the Sultan as far as Fez, and who were now
+coming back to their homes. Splendid bronzed fellows they were, dark
+brick-dust colour, wrapped in long white cloaks, with the hood of an
+under garment pulled down over their faces: sometimes a white cloth
+swathed their heads; their chins were hidden in soft folds which reached
+up to their hawk-eyes, veiling the face, like true sons of the desert, as
+a protection against sun and wind. Guns were slung across their
+shoulders: they wore long yellow riding-boots and spurs, with half a
+dozen saddle-cloths; and all rode horses, strong little beasts, well
+groomed, some hog-maned, but usually with great locks of hair sweeping
+over their necks, and their tails almost touching the ground behind. On
+grey or white countrybreds as a rule, they wound along the mountain path
+in single file, these tall white-cloaked horsemen, in nowise differing
+from their ancestors of a thousand years ago--Arabs of unbroken descent:
+as they emerged from between the wild hills it would have been hard to
+find a more picturesque sight.
+
+One of the few peaceful camping-grounds between Marrakesh and Mazagan was
+at a little distance outside an Arab village of about thirty little
+pointed thatched huts, enclosed within a zareba of thorn-bushes: it was
+called Smeera.
+
+We camped near some trees and water: the fig-trees were full of crows,
+which came in to roost in thousands, and The Little Owl (_Athene noctua_)
+haunted the place. In the early half-light of the morning this
+wise-looking little bird was found, when we awoke, to be sitting upon the
+edge of the flap of the tent in the doorway, gazing in upon us with round
+yellow eyes; nor was it the least nervous.
+
+I recollect how, the evening before, there sat outside Smeera, as so
+often may be seen outside the like villages, away beyond the huts and the
+zareba, where it was very quiet, upon some flat grey stones, eight or
+twelve village men--Arabs. Sitting there in the sunset, wrapped in their
+white hooded mantles, this conclave of wise white owls, easily to be
+mistaken for grey stones, so rigid are their backs--of what do they talk
+as the hours go by? There is no joke nor song nor a drop of liquor going,
+as in a "public," where our labourers at home would naturally congregate.
+But this charmed circle sits on, staring into the west: the tall bearded
+wheat rustles in the wind close to them; the illimitable plain stretches
+away to the horizon, flat as their own uneventful lives; the sun drops
+behind the soft straight line of Earth; they do not move,--wondrous
+picturesque figures, long white folds, peaked hoods, sitting, their knees
+drawn up to their chins, for how long? What is time to an Arab?
+
+One evening our camel never turned up, and we fully expected to have had
+to sleep without beds or any other of the night's usual adjuncts. We had
+started that morning at seven, had ridden till twelve, had halted for an
+hour and a half, starting again at half-past one, and riding till
+half-past five; and all the way, after a mile out of Sok-el-Tleta, where
+we watered the mules at a pond and the trail forked, we were on the wrong
+road.
+
+Only the man with the camel knew the Mazagan line of march thoroughly
+well: he had explained it beforehand to Omar. Omar made a mistake, and
+the camel and attendants were behind ourselves. However, news travels
+oddly fast in uncivilized countries, and the camel-driver heard after a
+time that the "advance squadron" was on the wrong trail. He set out after
+us, and ran and walked, and caught us at three o'clock in the afternoon.
+The wretched camel followed his steps all the way, with Mulai Ombach in
+charge of our baggage, three donkeys, and a boy, who were afraid of being
+cut off from us, and dared not risk a night by themselves. The
+camel-driver put us right, Omar and Said were well cursed, and we began a
+toilsome journey across rough country, hoping to hit the right trail in
+time.
+
+We found ourselves in the wildest and dirtiest of Arab encampments now
+and again, where infuriated dogs, unaccustomed to visitors, rushed out
+and almost bit us upon our mules, amidst a hail of stones from Omar and
+Said. A valley luxuriating knee-deep in flowers--the Flower Valley we
+called it--was the one redeeming feature of that march. There are certain
+times for seeing the wild flowers in Morocco--perhaps April in the south
+is the best month: so far we had not been as much struck by them as
+report would lead one to expect. And yet they were most beautiful.
+Picture corn-fields full of love-in-a-mist; orchards of fig-trees, with
+the grass ablaze with golden pyrethrums; red mallow standing up in the
+barley; the ground carpeted with blue-and-white convolvulus; masses of
+carmine-coloured convolvulus densely festooned over the thorn-hedges; on
+the barest, stoniest of soil stretches of cistus, pale pink to faded
+mauve; asphodels everywhere; sometimes the wild spring form of the
+cultivated artichoke, the small variety of the ice-plant, the larkspur,
+the lupin, and several varieties of lavender. All these we met with, over
+and over again: rarer plants were to be found for the looking. R.
+collected specimens of them all, to be classified by the authorities at
+Kew Gardens on our return.
+
+The Flower Valley yielded one or two which we had not seen before, and we
+would have lingered there, but that time was precious and we had no
+notion of our exact whereabouts. It was a case of going on and on and
+meeting no one: evening began to draw near, and still we were off the
+right track, while our baggage might be anywhere. There was nothing for
+it but to push forward and trust to luck: in time we cut into innumerable
+little paths, which snaked side by side in the same direction across the
+plain, pointing towards the coast, and these we surmised to be the trail
+to Mazagan, which proved to be correct. But at that moment, though we
+were anything but certain, it had become absolutely necessary to halt for
+the night. It was dark, and the mules were done. An Arab village lay on a
+hillside not far off, and we made for it.
+
+Omar and Said had with them on their mules our tent and two or three
+necessaries for cooking: we had therefore a roof over our heads, and in
+time a fire was made, odds and ends were scraped up, and we ate a meal of
+sorts sitting on the ground beside a candle stuck on a stone. The night
+grew very cold: there was, however, a bit of thin carpet, which we
+proposed to wrap ourselves in to sleep. Now and then one of us looked out
+between the flaps of the tent into the darkness and watched--a case of
+"Sister Ann! Sister Ann! do you see any one coming?"
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF OUR LAST CAMPS. LOADING THE CAMEL.
+
+[_To face p. 350._]
+
+We had, however, grown tired of looking out, and were just arranging
+ourselves on the ground, when familiar noises sounded outside, and
+Omar's voice crying joyfully, "Le chameau arrive!"
+
+Perhaps, above all else which was interesting on the road to Mazagan, the
+little Arab settlements, composed entirely of tents, interested us most.
+In them, was lived the truly nomad, gipsy life of the wandering Arab, who
+is a herdsman by heritage, and in following that vocation _a roamer par
+excellence_. They live, these Arabs, in tents: the sides are made of
+straw and wattle hurdles; over the top is stretched an immense piece of
+brown or black camel's-hair cloth. The tents are barely five feet high in
+the middle, less at the edges: squat brown mushrooms they look, or
+something like the keels of boats turned bottom upwards. All of them were
+open in front, "very public" the world would say; which primitive and
+open-air mode of living was indeed their great feature. Some of them were
+divided off down the middle by a hurdle, thus forming two "rooms": the
+hurdles were occasionally faggots, without straw. Around the tents lay
+the flocks, chewing the cud or browsing on the scanty grass-land:
+children ran out to us with bowls of milk: when the grass gave out within
+reach all round, the tents were taken down, the hillsides deserted, and
+the families wandered in search of pastures new, carrying a few chickens,
+some pots and pans, two or three bundles of rags, and leaving behind a
+good many parasites and a bare patch.
+
+Thus Arab life in Southern Morocco--a thriftless, desultory existence,
+yet with the charm of continual change and of living with the earth. "To
+take no thought for the morrow" is the practice of all Moors, whether
+Arabs or Berbers: no Moor spends money on anything which will not bring
+him in immediate profit, and this accounts for the fact that trees and
+forests are never planted, or schemes started for working mines, or
+roads made, or bridges built; even if the capital were forthcoming, what
+would be the use of spending money only to be repaid little by little,
+year by year?--a man may die before he profits for all his trouble!
+
+After all, argues the Moor, who could wish to alter Morocco? Is it not
+perfect as it is?--veritably, "_the tail of the peacock_," the sun of the
+universe!
+
+Its very imperfections are among those things which in this fanatical
+Mohammedan land so fascinate the traveller. Its sad colours, its air
+steeped in mystery, its courtly unknowable people, its wild tribes, its
+white shut houses, its concealed women, its mad fanaticism, its
+magnificent stoicism--one and all are sufficient to hold the European,
+and to call him back again long after El Moghreb has forgotten his face.
+Another of those chains has been forged which bind certain places and
+certain countries to a soul, each henceforth belonging the one to the
+other, and each gaining a little something thereby; nor can the links of
+these chains be broken, since unseen possessions, such as they, are among
+those things which no power on earth can touch, which can neither be
+given nor taken away.
+
+              It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun,
+                Or South to the blind Horn's hate;
+              Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay,
+                Or West to the Golden Gate,
+              Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,
+                And the wildest tales are true,
+    And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail;
+    And life runs large on the Long Trail--the trail that is always new.
+
+
+_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
+
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+_Each in cloth gilt._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ALAIN TANGER'S WIFE. By J. H. VOXALL, M.P.
+
+     "The interest is infectious; there is no denying the charm of the
+     story."
+
+     DAILY MAIL.
+
+
+FERELITH. By LORD KILMARNOCK.
+
+     "An entirely new plot, and assuredly one of the most startling
+     ones ever invented. The tale itself is told with a quiet dignity
+     and restraint."--_Newcastle Leader._
+
+
+SOULS. By "RITA."
+
+     "Brightly and cleverly written; full of amusing episodes and
+     dialogue."--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+
+THE SEVEN SECRETS. By WM. LE QUEUX.
+
+     "No reader can fail to admire the ingenuity with which Mr. W. Le
+     Queux has constructed the plot of his latest novel, the secret of
+     which is admirably preserved."--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+
+THE GOLDEN KINGDOM. By ANDREW BALFOUR.
+
+
+     "Mr. Balfour proves himself in 'The Golden Kingdom' to be a
+     capital storyteller. He is a Stevensonian both in matter and in
+     manner, but with considerable ingenuity of his own in devising
+     situations, and considerable ability in the developing and
+     setting forth of a tale of romantic adventure."--_Athenaeum._
+
+
+THE LADY OF THE CAMEO. By TOM GALLON.
+
+
+THE ETERNAL WOMAN. By DOROTHEA GERARD.
+
+
+CHASMA. By H. W. G. HYRST.
+
+
+A PARSON'S LASS. By GODFREY BURCHETT.
+
+
+THE VICE-CHANCELLOR'S WARD. By CHRISTIAN TEARLE.
+
+
+THE MAN WITH THE WOODEN FACE. By MRS. FRED REYNOLDS.
+
+
+
+LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+2. This text contains diacritical marks and symbols, where possible these
+are represented in the text by the following symbols.
+
+Diacritical mark              above  below
+--------------------------   ------  ------
+macron (straight line)         [=x]   [x=]
+
+3. List of corrections:
+
+Page 24, "colourness" changed to "colourless"
+
+Page 37, "venalty" changed to "venality"
+
+Page 57, "matresses" changed to "mattresses"
+
+Page 58, "exemple" changed to "example"
+
+Page 70, "Hillali" changed to "Hilalli"
+
+Page 94, "a.m." changed to "p.m."
+
+Page 187, "Morocoo" changed to "Morocco"
+
+Page 197, "trumpter" changed to "trumpeter"
+
+Page 255, "farthur" changed to "farther"
+
+Page 262, "staple" changed to "stable"
+
+Page 324, "floor" changed to "flour"
+
+Page 345, "votex" changed to "vortex"
+
+Page 346, "dozon" changed to "dozen"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's In the Tail of the Peacock, by Isabel Savory
+
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