Strange Trio—The Mulatto—The Peace-offering—Moors of Granada—Vive la
Guadeloupe—The Moors—Pascual Fava—Blind Algerine—The Retreat.
Three men were seated in the wustuddur of Joanna Correa, when I entered;
singular-looking men they all were, though perhaps three were never
gathered together more unlike to each other in all points. The first on
whom I cast my eye was a man about sixty, dressed in a grey kerseymere
coat with short lappets, yellow waistcoat, and wide coarse canvas
trousers; upon his head was a very broad dirty straw hat, and in his hand
he held a thick cane with ivory handle; his eyes were bleared and
squinting, his face rubicund, and his nose much carbuncled. Beside him
sat a good-looking black, who perhaps appeared more negro than he really
was, from the circumstance of his being dressed in spotless white
jean—jerkin, waistcoat, and pantaloons being all of that material: his
head gear consisted of a blue Montero cap. His eyes sparkled like
diamonds, and there was an indescribable expression of good humour and
fun upon his countenance. The third man was a Mulatto, and by far the
most remarkable personage of the group: he might be between thirty and
forty; his body was very long, and though uncouthly put together,
exhibited every mark of strength and vigour; it was cased in a ferioul of
red wool, a kind of garment which descends below the hips. His long
muscular and hairy arms were naked from the elbow, where the sleeves of
the ferioul terminate; his under limbs were short in comparison with his
body and arms; his legs were bare, but he wore blue kandrisa as far as
the knee; every feature of his face was ugly, exceedingly and bitterly
ugly, and one of his eyes was sightless, being covered with a white film.
By his side on the ground was a large barrel, seemingly a water-cask,
which he occasionally seized with a finger and thumb, and waved over his
head as if it had been a quart pot. Such was the trio who now occupied
the wustuddur of Joanna Correa: and I had scarcely time to remark what I
have just recorded, when that good lady entered from a back court with
her handmaid Johar, or the pearl, an ugly fat Jewish girl with an immense
mole on her cheek.
“_Que Dios remate tu nombre_,” exclaimed the Mulatto; “may Allah blot out
your name, Joanna, and may he likewise blot out that of your maid Johar.
It is more than fifteen minutes that I have been seated here, after
having poured out into the tinaja the water which I brought from the
fountain, and during all that time I have waited in vain for one single
word of civility from yourself or from Johar. _Usted no tiene modo_, you
have no manner with you, nor more has Johar. This is the only house in
Tangier where I am not received with fitting love and respect, and yet I
have done more for you than for any other person. Have I not filled your
tinaja with water when other people have gone without a drop? When even
the consul and the interpreter of the consul had no water to slake their
thirst, have you not had enough to wash your wustuddur? And what is my
return? When I arrive in the heat of the day, I have not one kind word
spoken to me, nor so much as a glass of makhiah offered to me; must I
tell you all that I do for you, Joanna? Truly I must, for you have no
manner with you. Do I not come every morning just at the third hour; and
do I not knock at your door; and do you not arise and let me in, and then
do I not knead your bread in your presence, whilst you lie in bed, and
because I knead it, is not yours the best bread in Tangier? For am I not
the strongest man in Tangier, and the most noble also?” Here he
brandished his barrel over his head, and his face looked almost
demoniacal. “Hear me, Joanna,” he continued, “you know that I am the
strongest man in Tangier, and I tell you again, for the thousandth time,
that I am the most noble. Who are the consuls? Who is the Pasha? They
are pashas and consuls now, but who were their fathers? I know not, nor
do they. But do I not know who my fathers were? Were they not Moors of
Garnata (_Granada_), and is it not on that account that I am the
strongest man in Tangier? Yes, I am of the old Moors of Garnata, and my
family has lived here, as is well known, since Garnata was lost to the
Nazarenes, and now I am the only one of my family of the blood of the old
Moors in all this land, and on that account I am of nobler blood than the
sultan, for the sultan is not of the blood of the Moors of Garnata. Do
you laugh, Joanna? Does your maid Johar laugh? Am I not Hammin Widdir,
_el hombre mas valido de Tanger_? And is it not true that I am of the
blood of the Moors of Garnata? Deny it, and I will kill you both, you
and your maid Johar.”
“You have been eating hashish and majoon, Hammin,” said Joanna Correa,
“and the Shaitan has entered into you, as he but too frequently does. I
have been busy, and so has Johar, or we should have spoken to you before;
however, mai doorshee (_it does not signify_), I know how to pacify you
now and at all times, will you take some gin-bitters, or a glass of
common makhiah?”
“May you burst, O Joanna,” said the Mulatto, “and may Johar also burst; I
mean, may you both live many years, and know neither pain nor sorrow. I
will take the gin-bitters, O Joanna, because they are stronger than the
makhiah, which always appears to me like water; and I like not water,
though I carry it. Many thanks to you, Joanna, here is health to you,
Joanna, and to this good company.”
She had handed him a large tumbler filled to the brim; he put it to his
nostrils, snuffed in the flavour, and then applying it to his mouth,
removed it not whilst one drop of the fluid remained. His features
gradually relaxed from their former angry expression, and looking
particularly amiable at Joanna, he at last said:
“I hope that within a little time, O Joanna, you will be persuaded that I
am the strongest man in Tangier, and that I am sprung from the blood of
the Moors of Garnata, as then you will no longer refuse to take me for a
husband, you and your maid Johar, and to become Moors. What a glory to
you, after having been married to a Genoui, and given birth to
Genouillos, to receive for a husband a Moor like me, and to bear him
children of the blood of Garnata. What a glory too for Johar, how much
better than to marry a vile Jew, even like Hayim Ben Atar, or your cook
Sabia, both of whom I could strangle with two fingers, for am I not
Hammin Widdir Moro de Garnata, _el hombre mas valido be Tanger_?” He
then shouldered his barrel and departed.
“Is that Mulatto really what he pretends to be?” said I to Joanna; “is he
a descendant of the Moors of Granada?”
“He always talks about the Moors of Granada when he is mad with majoon or
aguardiente,” interrupted, in bad French, the old man whom I have before
described, and in the same croaking voice which I had heard chanting in
the morning. “Nevertheless it may be true, and if he had not heard
something of the kind from his parents, he would never have imagined such
a thing, for he is too stupid. As I said before, it is by no means
impossible: many of the families of Granada settled down here when their
town was taken by the Christians, but the greater part went to Tunis.
When I was there, I lodged in the house of a Moor who called himself
Zegri, and was always talking of Granada and the things which his
forefathers had done there. He would moreover sit for hours singing
romances of which I understood not one word, praised be the mother of
God, but which he said all related to his family; there were hundreds of
that name in Tunis, therefore why should not this Hammin, this drunken
water-carrier, be a Moor of Granada also? He is ugly enough to be
emperor of all the Moors. O the accursed canaille, I have lived amongst
them for my sins these eight years, at Oran and here. Monsieur, do you
not consider it to be a hard case for an old man like myself, who am a
Christian, to live amongst a race who know not God, nor Christ, nor
anything holy?”
“What do you mean,” said I, “by asserting that the Moors know not God?
There is no people in the world who entertain sublimer notions of the
uncreated eternal God than the Moors, and no people have ever shown
themselves more zealous for his honour and glory; their very zeal for the
glory of God has been and is the chief obstacle to their becoming
Christians. They are afraid of compromising his dignity by supposing
that he ever condescended to become man. And with respect to Christ,
their ideas even of him are much more just than those of the Papists,
they say he is a mighty prophet, whilst, according to the others, he is
either a piece of bread or a helpless infant. In many points of religion
the Moors are wrong, dreadfully wrong, but are the Papists less so? And
one of their practices sets them immeasurably below the Moors in the eyes
of any unprejudiced person: they bow down to idols, Christian idols if
you like, but idols still, things graven of wood and stone and brass, and
from these things, which can neither hear, nor speak, nor feel, they ask
and expect to obtain favours.”
“_Vive la France_, _Vive la Guadeloupe_,” said the black, with a good
French accent. “In France and in Guadeloupe there is no superstition,
and they pay as much regard to the Bible as to the Koran; I am now
learning to read in order that I may understand the writings of Voltaire,
who, as I am told, has proved that both the one and the other were
written with the sole intention of deceiving mankind. _O vive la
France_! where will you find such an enlightened country as France; and
where will you find such a plentiful country as France? Only one in the
world, and that is Guadeloupe. Is it not so, Monsieur Pascual? Were you
ever at Marseilles? _Ah quel bon pays est celui-la pour les vivres_,
_pour les petits poulets_, _pour les poulardes_, _pour les perdrix_,
_pour les perdreaux_, _pour les alouettes_, _pour les becasses_, _pour
les becassines_, _enfin_, _pour tout_.”
“Pray, sir, are you a cook?” demanded I.
“_Monsieur_, _je le suis pour vous rendre service_, _mon nom c’est
Gerard_, _et j’ai l’honneur d’etre chef de cuisine chez monsieur le
consul Hollandois_. _A present je prie permission de vous saluer_; _il
faut que j’aille a la maison pour faire le diner de mon maitre_.”
At four I went to dine with the British consul. Two other English
gentlemen were present, who had arrived at Tangier from Gibraltar about
ten days previously for a short excursion, and were now detained longer
than they wished by the Levant wind. They had already visited the
principal towns in Spain, and proposed spending the winter either at
Cadiz or Seville. One of them, Mr. ---, struck me as being one of the
most remarkable men I had ever conversed with; he travelled not for
diversion nor instigated by curiosity, but merely with the hope of doing
spiritual good, chiefly by conversation. The consul soon asked me what I
thought of the Moors and their country. I told him that what I had
hitherto seen of both highly pleased me. He said that were I to live
amongst them ten years, as he had done, he believed I should entertain a
very different opinion; that no people in the world were more false and
cruel; that their government was one of the vilest description, with
which it was next to an impossibility for any foreign power to hold
amicable relations, as it invariably acted with bad faith, and set at
nought the most solemn treaties. That British property and interests
were every day subjected to ruin and spoliation, and British subjects
exposed to unheard-of vexations, without the slightest hope of redress
being afforded, save recourse was had to force, the only argument to
which the Moors were accessible. He added, that towards the end of the
preceding year an atrocious murder had been perpetrated in Tangier: a
Genoese family of three individuals had perished, all of whom were
British subjects, and entitled to the protection of the British flag.
The murderers were known, and the principal one was even now in prison
for the fact, yet all attempts to bring him to condign punishment had
hitherto proved abortive, as he was a Moor, and his victims Christians.
Finally he cautioned me, not to take walks beyond the wall unaccompanied
by a soldier, whom he offered to provide for me should I desire it, as
otherwise I incurred great risk of being ill-treated by the Moors of the
interior whom I might meet, or perhaps murdered, and he instanced the
case of a British officer who not long since had been murdered on the
beach for no other reason than being a Nazarene, and appearing in a
Nazarene dress. He at length introduced the subject of the Gospel, and I
was pleased to learn that, during his residence in Tangier, he had
distributed a considerable quantity of Bibles amongst the natives in the
Arabic language, and that many of the learned men, or Talibs, had read
the holy volume with great interest, and that by this distribution,
which, it is true, was effected with much caution, no angry or unpleasant
feeling had been excited. He finally asked whether I had come with the
intention of circulating the Scripture amongst the Moors.
I replied that I had no opportunity of doing so, as I had not one single
copy either in the Arabic language or character. That the few Testaments
which were in my possession were in the Spanish language, and were
intended for circulation amongst the Christians of Tangier, to whom they
might be serviceable, as they all understood the language.
It was night, and I was seated in the wustuddur of Joanna Correa, in
company with Pascual Fava the Genoese. The old man’s favourite subject
of discourse appeared to be religion, and he professed unbounded love for
the Saviour, and the deepest sense of gratitude for his miraculous
atonement for the sins of mankind. I should have listened to him with
pleasure had he not smelt very strongly of liquor, and by certain
incoherence of language and wildness of manner given indications of being
in some degree the worse for it. Suddenly two figures appeared beneath
the doorway; one was that of a bare-headed and bare-legged Moorish boy of
about ten years of age, dressed in a gelaba; he guided by the hand an old
man, whom I at once recognised as one of the Algerines, the good Moslems
of whom the old Mahasni had spoken in terms of praise in the morning
whilst we ascended the street of the Siarrin. He was very short of
stature and dirty in his dress; the lower part of his face was covered
with a stubbly white beard; before his eyes he wore a large pair of
spectacles, from which he evidently received but little benefit, as he
required the assistance of the guide at every step. The two advanced a
little way into the wustuddur and there stopped. Pascual Fava no sooner
beheld them, than assuming a jovial air he started nimbly up, and leaning
on his stick, for he had a bent leg, limped to a cupboard, out of which
he took a bottle and poured out a glass of wine, singing in the broken
kind of Spanish used by the Moors of the coast:
“Argelino,
Moro fino,
No beber vino,
Ni comer tocino.”
(Algerine,
Moor so keen,
No drink wine,
No taste swine.)
He then handed the wine to the old Moor, who drank it off, and then, led
by the boy, made for the door without saying a word.
“_Hade mushe halal_,” (that is not lawful,) said I to him with a loud
voice.
“_Cul shee halal_,” (everything is lawful,) said the old Moor, turning
his sightless and spectacled eyes in the direction from which my voice
reached him. “Of everything which God has given, it is lawful for the
children of God to partake.”
“Who is that old man?” said I to Pascual Fava, after the blind and the
leader of the blind had departed. “Who is he!” said Pascual; “who is he!
He is a merchant now, and keeps a shop in the Siarrin, but there was a
time when no bloodier pirate sailed out of Algier. That old blind wretch
has cut more throats than he has hairs in his beard. Before the French
took the place he was the rais or captain of a frigate, and many was the
poor Sardinian vessel which fell into his hands. After that affair he
fled to Tangier, and it is said that he brought with him a great part of
the booty which he had amassed in former times. Many other Algerines
came hither also, or to Tetuan, but he is the strangest guest of them
all. He keeps occasionally very extraordinary company for a Moor, and is
rather over intimate with the Jews. Well, that’s no business of mine;
only let him look to himself. If the Moors should once suspect him, it
were all over with him. Moors and Jews, Jews and Moors! Oh my poor
sins, my poor sins, that brought me to live amongst them!—
“‘Ave Maris stella,
Dei Mater alma,
Atque semper virgo,
Felix cœli porta!’”
He was proceeding in this manner when I was startled by the sound of a
musket.
“That is the retreat,” said Pascual Fava. “It is fired every night in
the soc at half-past eight, and it is the signal for suspending all
business, and shutting up. I am now going to close the doors, and
whosoever knocks, I shall not admit them till I know their voice. Since
the murder of the poor Genoese last year, we have all been particularly
cautious.”
Thus had passed Friday, the sacred day of the Moslems, and the first
which I had spent in Tangier. I observed that the Moors followed their
occupations as if the day had nothing particular in it. Between twelve
and one, the hour of prayer in the mosque, the gates of the town were
closed, and no one permitted either to enter or go out. There is a
tradition, current amongst them, that on this day, and at this hour,
their eternal enemies, the Nazarenes, will arrive to take possession of
their country; on which account they hold themselves prepared against a
surprisal.
* * * * *
THE END.
* * * * *
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
Edinburgh & London
Footnotes
{8} “Om Frands Gonzales, og Rodrik Cid.
End siunges i Sierra Murene!”
_Krönike Riim_. By Severin Grundtvig. Copenhagen, 1829.
{90} Doing business, doing business—he has much business to do.
{93a} The Gypsy word for Antonio.
{93b} Devil.
{97} “Say nothing to him, my lad, he is a hog of an alguazil.”
{104} El Serrador, a Carlist partisan, who about this period was much
talked of in Spain.
{127} At the last attack on Warsaw, when the loss of the Russians
amounted to upwards of twenty thousand men, the soldiery mounted the
breach, repeating in measured chant, one of their popular songs: “Come,
let us cut the cabbage,” &c.
{128} Twelve ounces of bread, small pound, as given in the prison.
{138} Witch. Ger. Hexe.
{145} A compound of the modern Greek πέταλον, and the Sanskrit _kara_,
the literal meaning being _Lord_ of the horse-shoe (i.e. _maker_); it is
one of the private cognominations of “The Smiths,” an English Gypsy clan.
{146} Of these lines the following translation, in the style of the old
English ballad, will, perhaps, not be unacceptable:—
“What down the hill comes hurrying there?—
With a hey, with a ho, a sword, and a gun!
Quesada’s bones, which a hound doth bear.—
Hurrah, brave brothers!—the work is done.”
{163} “The king arrived, the king arrived, and disembarked at
Belem.”—_Miguelite song_.
{170} “How should I know?”
{171} Qu. The Epistle to the Romans.
{181} This was possibly the period when Admiral Duckworth attempted to
force the passage of the Dardanelles.
{196} “See the crossing! see what devilish crossing!”
{245} The ancient Lethe.
{274} _Inha_, when affixed to words, serves as a diminutive. It is much
in use amongst the Gallegans.
{359} Perhaps Waterloo.
{384} About thirty pounds.
{403} Κατα τόν τόπον και α τρόπος, as Antonio said.
{429} Nothing at all.
{459} A Rabbinical book, very difficult to be understood, though written
avowedly for the purpose of elucidating many points connected with the
religious ceremonies of the Hebrews.