IN THE SHADOW OF THE SHEREEFIAN UMBRELLA
Morocco is unique among the countries of the world in that it has four
capitals—Fez, Mequinez, Marrákesh, Rabat—and the names of all save the
last, which is the seat of the French administration as well as one of
the imperial residences, are spelled in various ways and have various
pronunciations. Take, for example, the case of the second city I have
mentioned. If you are English you will call it Meknes; if French,
Mekinez; if Spanish, Mequinez; but the Moroccans themselves speak of it
as Miknasa.
Seen from a distance, Mequinez—which is the orthography which I happen
to like best and to which I am accustomed—gives promise of being an
Arabian Nights sort of city, a place of mystery and enchantment; for
its crumbling walls, mellowed by years and weather to a lovely reddish
brown, broken at frequent intervals by massive, foursquare towers, and
pierced by nine imposing gates, rise abruptly on the east from the edge
of a broad ravine, which separates the ancient native city from the
modern town which has been erected by the French. Towering above the
flat-roofed houses, like fingers pointing toward heaven, are numerous
beautifully proportioned minarets, their faces inlaid with mosaics of
blue-green-and-yellow faience tiling; and in the outskirts white palaces
and villas peep coyly from amid the gray green of the olive-groves
and the more vivid foliage of the orange-gardens. Yet within the walls
disappointment awaits the visitor, for the buildings are, on the whole,
quite unimpressive; there are no mosques which can compare with those
of Tunis, Kairouan, and Tlemcen; and the place is wholly lacking in the
picturesque and colorful street scenes which constitute the chief charm
of Fez. The sights of Mequinez may, indeed, be numbered on the fingers
of a single hand, the finest of them, perhaps, being the panorama of the
city as viewed from the terrace of the Hôtel Transatlantique, on the
eastern bank of the ravine, in the early morning or at sunset.
[Illustration: THE HARKAS COME DOWN FROM THE HILLS
_Real_ sheikhs; not the Hollywood kind
The _bairaq_, or standard, of a Berber tribe]
Most of the nine gateways which give access to the city are quite
mediocre; but one, the Bab Bardain, has some fine old tilings, and the
decorations of another, the Mansour Gate, are superb. The latter, one of
the most imposing city entrances in all Morocco, consists of a colossal
ogive arch flanked by huge square towers into the bases of which are set
marble columns appropriated by the Moorish builders from the Roman ruins
at Volubilis. The façades of both gate and towers are set with lustrous
jade-green tiles overlaid with amazingly intricate arabesque designs in
blue and yellow, so that the structure, when the sun strikes upon it,
seems to be incrusted with enamel. On a sort of frieze above the arch a
pious Arabic inscription stands forth in bold black characters. It is
just the sort of a gate from which, to complete the picture, should come
riding Harun al Rashid or Suleiman the Magnificent; but the first time I
set eyes upon it an enormous yellow autobus, crowded with frowzy-looking
native passengers and piled high with their heterogeneous possessions,
was _en panne_ beneath the arch, defiling the air with the noxious fumes
from its exhaust and completely blocking traffic.
Five minutes of brisk walking through the narrow, abominably rough
streets of the inner city bring one to the weed-grown cemetery which
contains the venerated tomb of Mohammed ben Aïssa, patron saint of
Mequinez and founder of that strange mystic fraternity known as the
Aïssaoua, whose members, scattered throughout North Africa, emphasize
their piety by eating broken glass, swallowing live serpents, gashing
themselves with knives, and indulging in other such-like pleasantries.
From the cemetery the _controleur civil_, who had constituted himself
our cicerone and guide, conducted us to a salesroom which has been
established by the French for the encouragement of native handicrafts,
where we purchased a few specimens of Miknasa embroidery and leather-work
which were superior to anything we saw in the extremely mediocre _souks_.
He also promised to introduce us to a very holy man, a “living saint,”
who has won a great local reputation by refusing to accept alms, but the
saint was not at home. This was very disappointing, as my acquaintance
with saints is confined to those who have been planted for some centuries
under several feet of earth and marble, and I certainly had never had the
privilege of meeting a Moslem holy man who not only did not ask for money
but actually declined it when it was offered to him. No wonder that this
unique character enjoyed the honor of canonization while still living!
The one outstanding feature of Mequinez, however, is the enormous ruined
palace commenced in 1634 by Sultan Mulai Ismail and never completed,
and the adjoining mosque, which serves as the royal builder’s tomb.
Ismail the Bloodthirsty, as he was dubbed by his terrorized subjects,
was one of the most remarkable figures which the shereefian dynasties
have produced. A man of wonderful vitality, as was proved by the many
hundreds of sons and countless daughters who were born to him in a harem
surpassing that of Solomon, his reign lasted for five-and-fifty years,
during which his fierce grasp on the empire never relaxed and his lust
for blood and women never slackened. Having, as he supposed, driven the
English from Tangier, he besieged the Spanish stronghold of Ceuta for
more than a quarter of a century in the hope of driving the last infidel
from the soil of Morocco; but otherwise his military operations were
confined to the extermination of internal enemies, which he accomplished
effectively and bloodily with the aid of his negro household troops, the
Bokharis—a Moorish version of the Turkish Janizaries—and of a foreign
legion composed of renegade soldiers of fortune and adventurers from many
countries. With his negro guards and foreign mercenaries ready to execute
unhesitatingly his every behest, Ismail ruled with an iron and bloody
hand an empire which stretched from the shores of the Mediterranean to
Timbuktu and from the coast of the Atlantic to the frontiers of Egypt.
Perhaps the most picturesque incident in a life which was filled with
wars, intrigues, and amours was Ismail’s infatuation for the Duchesse de
Montpensier, niece of Louis XIII and cousin of Le Roi Soleil—La Grande
Mademoiselle, as she was called—then at the height of her fame and
loveliness and the greatest catch in Europe. His interest in the princess
was aroused when the French ambassador at the shereefian court showed
him a miniature of her. Charmed by her delicate and patrician beauty,
the sultan, whose slightest wish was law within his own vast domains,
determined to add her to his matrimonial establishment, which was at the
time somewhat short of blondes. Even Louis XIV hesitated to antagonize
a monarch so powerful as Ismail by bluntly refusing his request for his
cousin’s hand, while the princess herself, though amused and doubtless
intrigued by the imperial proposal, had no intention of exchanging the
luxuries of the Louvre and Versailles for the uncertainties of a harem in
Barbary.
“Tell your princess,” the sultan instructed the French ambassador when
informed of her misgivings, “that here in Mequinez I will build her a
palace compared with which your boasted Versailles shall be a pigsty.”
The Prince of True Believers lost no time in making good his word.
Thousands of Christian slaves, captured by the Sallee rovers, provided
the labor; rare marbles were ready to hand in the ruins of Volubilis
a few miles away; the richly tiled walls and exquisite carvings were
executed by the most skilful Moorish craftsmen. Before the work was
completed, however, Ismail passed to the Moslem paradise, but the ruins
which remain testify to the stupendous size of the palace which he
was erecting for the Roumi princess who would not have him. The outer
walls of the building, which are twenty-five feet thick and four miles
in circumference, inclose a bewildering congeries of palaces, kiosks,
offices, barracks, passages, courtyards, arcades, and gardens. Hard by
stood the imperial stables, with accommodations for eleven thousand
horses, which surely would have put the _écuries_ of the king of France
to shame. As for the Grande Mademoiselle, she eventually married an
impecunious young Gascon named de Lazun, whom she left, however, when,
upon his return from the hunt, he threw himself into a chair and shouted
at her, “Pull off my boots, Louise d’Orléans!”
A mile or so beyond the ruins of Ismail’s palace is a military school
established by the French for native princes, a sort of miniature
West Point, where the sons of caïds, pashas, emirs, and sheikhs are
fitted for commissions in the army. It is a small but beautifully kept
establishment, though I imagine that those who have slept on the narrow
iron beds allotted to cadets at the great military university on the
Hudson would be somewhat astonished at the pillow-heaped divans on which
the young nobles rest from their arduous exercises; but the discipline
is very rigid, and those who successfully complete the course are
fully qualified to take their place at the head of squadrons of spahi
cavalry. Connected with the school is a _haras_ and remount depot, where
horses imported from France, Ireland, and Hungary are crossed with that
hot-blooded desert breed, the Barb, to which Barbary gave its name. It
is interesting to note, by the way, that a very large proportion of the
horses now on the English turf trace their descent from the Godolphin
Barb, the famous sire which was brought into England from Morocco during
the reign of George II.
Less than an hour by motor-car to the north of Mequinez, by a steep
and winding road which can be perilously slippery in wet weather, is
the ancient and curious town of Mulai Idris en Zarhon, which might be
described as the Mount Vernon of Morocco in that it is the burial-place
of Mulai Idris ben Abdallah, founder of the Moorish Empire and first
ruler of the shereefian line, around whose highly venerated shrine
the place has grown. Because of its extreme sanctity, which annually
draws thousands of pilgrims from all corners of the Islamic world,
it was forbidden to unbelievers until the French occupation; and the
only European who is known to have entered its gates before 1912 was
an English traveler, James Jackson, who managed to pay it a hurried
visit in disguise in 1801. It is one of the most picturesquely situated
communities in all North Africa, its square white buildings, crowded
together and dominated by the shrine of the sultan-saint, clinging to
the precipitous slopes of a spur of the Zarhon Range, which here runs
down into a wild and romantic glen. The town is walled, and access to it
is through an extremely narrow gate, the last few hundred yards of road
being so extremely steep that I questioned whether even our powerful
Renault would be able to make the grade. There is little of interest
in the place save the shrine itself, which is considered so sacrosanct
that non-Moslems may not even approach, much less enter it. There are no
Europeans in Mulai Idris, and we did not remain there very long, for the
inhabitants are extremely fanatical, and the atmosphere was anything but
friendly. This attitude of intolerance was unpleasantly illustrated when,
at a bend in the road, half a mile outside the gate, I ordered Tomine
to stop the car in order that I might obtain a photograph of the city,
which, perched on its lofty crag, with the purple masses of the Middle
Atlas for a background, looked very lovely in the golden glow of late
afternoon. But a group of natives, who had hurried up when I unslung my
camera, became so menacing that in order to avert an unpleasant episode I
continued on my way—not, however, until I had surreptitiously snapped a
picture.
Twice yearly, in the spring and in the fall, Mulai Idris is the scene of
great religious festivals, when the town is thronged with eager pilgrims,
many of whom come from as far away as Turkey and the Red Sea countries.
On these occasions take place the revolting performances of the
Hamadchas, an African order of dervishes, who, after working themselves
into a state of religious frenzy during which they are supposed to be
unconscious of their actions and insensible to pain, bite off the heads
of living serpents, handle red-hot iron, gash themselves horribly with
knives, and hold glowing coals on their tongues. I have witnessed similar
exhibitions many times during the course of my wanderings in Western and
Middle Asia, but I remember most distinctly one which I saw a good many
years ago in a small town near Tetuan. After the usual program had been
completed, one of the fanatics, a half-demented creature with sunken eyes
and a great shock of long hair, whose finger-nails had been permitted to
grow until they were as long and sharp as knife-blades, took his place
in the center of a circle formed by his rocking, moaning colleagues, and
proceeded to pluck the flesh from his lower legs in chunks until the
muscles and ligaments were laid bare and the bones themselves showed
white and ghastly through the welter of blood and mangled flesh. At
length, weakened by loss of blood, he sank senseless amid the widening
pool of crimson.... It was not a pleasant sight.
If you visit Mulai Idris you will, of course, keep on to the ruins of
Volubilis, which are barely a mile away, on the lower slopes of the
Djebel Zarhon. Personally—I might as well confess it frankly—I am rather
bored by ruins, unless, of course, they are on the grand scale, like
those of Carthage or Timgad, where enough remains to give one an adequate
idea of what the living city was like. But Volubilis, which was the
westernmost outpost of the Roman Empire, demands more of a strain on
the imagination, for here all that remains above ground is a score or
so of shattered marble columns, some stones which are said to mark the
site of the forum, and a massively constructed triumphal arch, in a
fair state of preservation, which was erected about two centuries after
the Crucifixion in honor of Caracalla, who, you will recall, built a
bathing establishment of imposing size in Rome. The only work of art of
importance thus far unearthed at Volubilis is a very fine bronze figure
of a dog, now kept in the little museum at the entrance to the ruins.
* * * * *
Mequinez is separated from Rabat, the third of the great imperial cities,
by just a hundred miles of smooth, hard highway, and Tomine, who was fond
of stepping on the gas whenever I would permit him, covered those hundred
miles in just two hours. One of the pleasant features of motoring in
Morocco is that, once outside the cities, you can travel as fast as you
please, for the great trunk-roads are nearly straight, there are little
traffic and no traffic cops, and the villages are few and far between.
Long ere the buildings of Rabat came in view we could see the red-brown
bulk of the Borj-el-Hassan, the splendid but uncompleted tower erected
by Sultan Yakub, or El Mansur, as he is better known, rising from beyond
the intervening plain, its red-brown bulk—for it is a little too heavy to
be truly graceful—silhouetted against the Atlantic’s shimmering expanse.
There it has stood, majestic and aloof, for upward of seven hundred
years, a fitting monument to the creative genius of those fierce Berber
kings, the Almohades, who, in the Alcázar, the Giralda, and the Alhambra,
left such glorious reminders of their rule in Spain.
[Illustration: A PLACE OF WALLED DELIGHT
The Blue Garden, at Rabat, whose ancient crenelated ramparts look across
the Bou Ragrag to Salé, the stronghold of the Sallee rovers. But you
should see the garden by moonlight, when the air is heavy with the
fragrance of orange-blossoms and throbs to the music of zither, flute,
and viol]
When, in 1184, Yakub el Mansur founded Rabat at that point on the
western seaboard of Morocco where the waters of the Bou Ragrag enter the
Atlantic, Salé, on the opposite bank of the little river, was already an
ancient city and one of evil repute, notorious throughout the length and
breadth of Christendom as the stronghold of the dreaded Sallee rovers.
Until very recent years Salé was a far larger town than Rabat, but since
Rabat became the seat of administration of the French protectorate the
situation has been completely reversed, Salé having only about half as
many inhabitants as its younger sister. The combined populations of the
two towns now probably number not far from seventy-five thousand, ten
per cent of whom are Europeans. Though the French are dredging the bar
which obstructs the mouth of the river and are making other efforts to
improve “the port of the two banks,” it can never be anything save a
third-rate harbor; yet in pirate days it must have afforded a much safer
haven for shipping than it does at present, or, as is more likely, the
bar permitted the passage of the shallow-draft galleys employed by the
corsairs while proving an insuperable obstacle to the larger war-vessels
which pursued them.
Rabat consists of two parts: the old walled town beside the sea, whose
dilapidated ramparts, now used as promenades, inclose the _kasbah_,
the _souks_, and most of the mosques; and the mushroom modern city
which has sprung up under the ægis of the French on the slopes of the
low hills to the east. By no means rich in historical monuments, and
possessing few really fine examples of Moorish architecture save the
Hassan tower just mentioned, Rabat nevertheless has a fascination all
its own. Of the palace of Sultan Yakub only the foundations remain, but
its spacious walls inclose an admirably arranged if small museum and a
school of native art, where, under French supervision, instruction is
given in dyeing with vegetable colors, wood-carving and painting, and
illuminating on vellum—arts for which Rabat was once famous, but which
are now almost lost. Perhaps the most beautiful feature of the city is
the famous Blue Gardens, within the precincts of the former palace, where
flowers in every shade of blue, from deepest indigo to palest cerulean,
form rectangles of glorious color against the rose-brown _tapia_ of the
ancient walls. Forming a pleasing relief to the prevailing blue of the
blossoms are the broad pathways of rolled red sand, the effect thus
produced being equaled by few formal gardens in the world and surpassed
by none.
A few paces from the Hôtel Transatlantique, by a narrow lane which
winds down between high blank walls to a mysterious green door, is a
little Moorish café, tucked away on a narrow terrace formed by an angle
of the ancient fortifications, whose ramparts here fall sheer away to
the waters of the Bou Ragrag. It is much frequented after sunset by
natives of the upper class and by Europeans of discrimination, for its
mint tea, thick black coffee, and meringue-like pastries are the most
delicious in all Morocco; native musicians draw soft, haunting melodies
from instruments of reed and string; and even on the sultriest nights
it is swept by cooling breezes from the broad Atlantic. Here Romance
walks o’ nights, for the tea-tables are set in bastions from whose
embrasures the culverins of a Moorish despot once defied the sea-power
of England, France, and Spain; across the river, not a pistol-shot away,
is Salé, long the seat of pirate power; the lean black galleys of the
rovers swung at anchor in the harbor in between; and a few score rods
to the west, where the river broadens out to meet the sea, the great
combers come sweeping in from the Atlantic to break in foam and thunder
on the bar. Scattered here and there about the gardens, cross-legged on
the cushioned benches, are wealthy Moors, their white garments showing
ghostly in the purple velvet darkness, the dull glow of their cigarettes
lighting up the grave aristocratic faces framed by the snowy hoods. When
the full moon casts a broad bar of silver athwart the darkened waters,
when the palm-fronds whisper softly in the gentle night breeze, when the
scents of jasmine and orange-blossom rise in waves of fragrance from
the gardens just below, when the African night throbs to the strains,
half plaintive, half barbaric, of zither, flute, and viol, then this
Moorish pleasure-garden is quite the most enchanting spot I know. Were I
a bridegroom I should take Her there, of all the Lovely Places, on the
honeymoon.
The _souks_ of Rabat, though by no means so extensive or picturesque
as those of Fez and Marrákesh, contain certain characteristic articles
which are not to be found elsewhere, at least in any variety. Such, for
example, are the Rabat scarfs and curtains—lengths of white and filmy
muslin heavily embroidered at the ends in barbarically hued silks. Here,
too, and nowhere else, is to be had the carved and painted woodwork for
which the city is noted—low tables, bookcases, wall-shelves, gun-racks,
decorated with elaborate arabesque designs in the mellowed reds, blues,
greens, and yellows employed in the adornment of Moorish mosques.
The carpets of Rabat likewise enjoy a wide reputation because of the
thickness of their pile, the softness of their colors—usually browns or
grays—and the fact that they are colored with the ancient vegetable dyes.
On the slopes which rise gently from the landward side of the native
city to the summit of a low range of hills, in an environ which might
be designated for the sake of convenience as New Rabat, the French have
established the seat of government of the protectorate. Here is the
administrative center of all Morocco, and here the various branches of
government, including the treasury-general and the ministries of war,
agriculture, and public instruction, as well as the Shereefian Scientific
Institute and the Institute of Higher Moroccan Studies, are housed in
brand-new, commodious, and stately buildings. All these are grouped about
the imposing palace of the French resident-general, while set on a little
knoll, a quarter of a mile away, are the great white buildings of the
imperial palace, one wing of which contains the offices of the ministry
of the interior.
New Rabat is a made-to-order capital, and in building it the French
followed the example of the South Africans at Pretoria and of the
Australians at Yass-Canberra by starting with the bare site and building
from the ground up. Hence there are none of the ugly and incongruous
buildings which mar the beauty of so many capitals, including our own.
Instead, everything is fresh, harmonious, and strictly up to date. The
dull and depressing style of architecture which characterizes so many
public structures in France, the rococo ornateness of others, and those
fantastic and atrocious vagaries in which French architects have indulged
along the Riviera are all happily absent from New Rabat, whose buildings
are all in a modified Moorish style, of reinforced concrete, with white
or tinted walls and tiled roofs. The first impression is that it is all a
trifle too theatrical—a Florida land development and the Oriental section
of a world’s fair combined—but this is doubtless due to the newness of
the place, for it was not commenced until after the Armistice. With
due allowance made for this, however, the general effect is singularly
pleasing, for the situation, with the Atlantic and the old walled city in
the foreground and with the mulberry masses of the Middle Atlas looming
in the western distance, is superb; the architecture, though exotic to
Western eyes, is on the whole restrained; the Moorish note which has been
introduced suits the setting and provides the needed color; and in a
few years crudeness will be relieved by masses of foliage, for the soil
responds quickly to hose and hoe.
Dotting the pleasant slopes beyond the administrative buildings
are numerous charming villas, embowered in flowers and strongly
reminiscent of southern California, in which the officials of the
French administration and the officers of the garrison dwell. Running
through the town in every direction are broad avenues planted with young
trees which will eventually provide an abundance of shade; thanks to
the lavish use of water and unremitting care the broad stretches of
greensward are able to defy the fiery African sun; and masses of scarlet
geraniums and purple bougainvillea provide splashes of vivid color. With
its white-walled, red-roofed houses set amid blazing gardens, with its
cypress and eucalyptus trees, with the sparkling sea in front and the
bare brown hills behind, the residential district of the new city bears a
striking resemblance to Santa Barbara.
Set high on the hillside, dominating all else, is the French residency,
flanked on either side by low, rambling office buildings, with which
it is connected by pergolas smothered in flowers. It is an enormous
structure, somewhat too suggestive of an exposition building, perhaps, or
of a Florida hotel, but quite imposing and, on the whole, in excellent
taste. The state reception and dining rooms have some effective mural
paintings depicting various phases of Moroccan scenery and life, as well
as a magnificent collection of Moorish weapons presented by various caïds
and chieftains to the former resident-general, Marshal Lyautey; the cozy
and homelike private apartments, occupying the upper floors, command
entrancing views of mountain, plain, river, and sea. The residency wholly
lacks the dignity of Malacañan, the palace of the governor-general of
the Philippines in Manila, but it fulfils its purpose admirably, though
I doubt if it impresses very deeply the descendants of the men who built
the Alcázar and the Alhambra.
Though Sultan Mulai Yusef has palaces in Fez, Mequinez, and Marrákesh,
not to mention numerous _kasbahs_ in the Atlas, at all of which he stays
for longer or shorter periods each year, his favorite residence is at
Rabat, doubtless because it is there that he receives the flattery so
dear to his Oriental soul, and also, perhaps, at the suggestion of the
French resident-general, who likes to have his imperial protégé where he
can keep a paternal eye on him. While the sultan, as I have explained
in an earlier chapter, is head of both church and state, his temporal
power is merely nominal under the restrictions imposed by the French
protectorate, whereas his influence as the spiritual leader of his
people, who venerate him as a descendant and successor of the Prophet,
has to be reckoned with. Thus, while certain of the Berber tribes,
including those of the Riff, steadfastly refuse to recognize his claims
to the sultanate on the ground that he is an Arab and a usurper, they
nevertheless bow to the spiritual authority which he possesses by virtue
of his position as khalif. It is easy to understand how the spiritual
influence exercised by the sultan-khalif makes him a highly useful
instrument of government in the hands of the French as long as the
protectorate is conducted as it is at present. This explains why they
surround him with all the pomp and ceremony traditionally associated with
the shereefian throne, and see to it that his prestige, which is vitally
essential to the success of their policy, is scrupulously respected and
safeguarded.
When Mulai Yusef moves, as he does frequently, from one of the imperial
residences to another, he travels in truly Oriental state, accompanied
by a vast entourage of ministers, officials of the court, religious
functionaries, guards, slaves, and concubines. Of the latter he is
said to have upward of half-a-thousand, but he naturally does not take
the whole of his enormous harem establishment with him—only a favored
few. He and his glittering court are transported in a great number of
high-powered, luxuriously fitted cars, the imperial procession tearing
along at terrific speed between rows of salaaming subjects while the
traffic looks out for itself.
Foreigners can always obtain at least a passing glimpse of the sultan on
the occasions of the three great religious festivals of the Mohammedan
calendar—the birthday of the Prophet, the Grand and the Lesser Bairam—as
well as every Friday, which is the Moslem day of worship, when he goes
to mosque in state, the one which he usually attends while in residence
at Rabat being only a few hundred yards from the palace. The ceremony of
going to mosque corresponds to the _selamlik_ of the Turkish sultans,
though it is a tawdry and insignificant affair as compared with the
impressive military spectacle which was staged weekly at Yildiz Kiosk
when Abdul Hamid sat on the Ottoman throne and Turkey was still Turkey.
Nevertheless it is a picturesque and colorful show, an interesting
survival of the splendor which once surrounded Oriental rulers but which
has now almost disappeared; for King Fuad of Egypt goes to the weekly
prayer in a limousine, and Mustapha Kemal, the president of Turkey, wears
a bowler-hat and swings a Malacca cane when he attends mosque, if he
attends at all.
But in Morocco the French, in order to enhance the dignity of their
puppet in the eyes of his subjects, signalize Mulai Yusef’s hebdomadary
devotions by a display which is a cross between a circus procession, a
parade of Shriners, and the Lord Mayor’s Show. The cortège is headed
by a battalion of the famous Black Guard, with its field music, the
gigantic negroes who compose this corps of household infantry wearing
the fantastic uniforms associated with the zouaves, but with certain
embellishments of their own, including a waistcoat of canary yellow and
a small, tightly rolled turban which looks like something between a
piece of striped peppermint candy and a doughnut. By way of according
equal respect to the two branches of the dual government, the band plays
French and Moorish airs alternately. Immediately behind the foot-guards,
on gray horses perfectly matched, comes a squadron of spahis, beturbaned
and becloaked, riding beneath a forest of lances from whose steel-shod
tips flutters a cloud of green and scarlet pennons. Next a string of
magnificent Barb chargers, riderless and richly caparisoned in trappings
of red and gold, each led by a groom in the livery of the imperial
household. Another squadron of spahis, this time on gleaming bays, and
at last, guarded by slaves and eunuchs, the khalif himself, seated in
a miniature brougham which was presented to one of his predecessors by
Queen Victoria. At the carriage door walks the imperial almoner, whose
business it is to increase the popularity of his master by distributing
alms in the form of small pieces of silver to the poor who line the
route. Bringing up the rear of the procession is a whole cavalcade
of ministers of state, officials of the household, and religious
dignitaries, some on horses and some astride of beautiful Andalusian
mules, with negro slaves trotting at their stirrups.
[Illustration: THE PEACE OF ALLAH
Tucked away in a quiet back-water of Rabat, beyond the turmoil of the
bustling city which is the seat of Morocco’s government, a quaint old
mosque, with crumbling, lichen-covered walls and an ancient olive-tree
above its gate, dozes in the sun]
After the services in the mosque, which are usually of brief duration,
the sultan makes his selection from the led horses, whereupon a quartet
of brawny Nubians fairly boost him into the high-peaked scarlet saddle.
An attendant raises above his head the great green umbrella which is the
symbol of the shereefian power, the drummers beat the prescribed number
of ruffles and the long roll, the buglers sound a fanfare, the native
onlookers salaam until their turbans touch the ground, and his Imperial
Majesty Mulai Yusef, Emperor of Morocco, Prince of True Believers,
Vice-Regent of God on Earth, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, Grand
Cross of St. Michael and St. George, thirty-sixth lineal descendant of
Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, rides slowly back to his great
white palace to amuse himself with his wives and his concubines until
another Friday rolls around. And at a desk in the residency, a quarter of
a mile away, a quiet-mannered Frenchman, who detests ceremony and never
puts on a uniform if he can help it, is directing the affairs of the
empire.
* * * * *
Though there is nothing of particular interest to see there, one should
pay a brief visit to Salé, the ancient corsair city on the north bank
of the Bou Ragrag, directly opposite Rabat, with which it is connected
by a bridge a mile or so up-river. Its renown is due to its association
with the Sallee rovers (Sallee is the medieval spelling; the English
call the place Salli and the French Salé), who were even fiercer and
more daring than their colleagues of the Mediterranean. It is well to
keep in mind that while, from the European point of view, the pirates
of the Barbary coast were a set of bloodthirsty robbers, from the
standpoint of the Moors they were pious warriors battling for the faith,
who had volunteered to punish the Nazarenes for their rejection of the
teachings of the Prophet, and, incidentally, for having ejected their
coreligionists from Spain. The honor in which their memory is held may
be better realized by comparison with that of the Crusaders, in which
the positions were exactly reversed. Nor, despite the glamour in which
we have enveloped the Crusaders as champions of Christendom, were they
appreciably more chivalrous than the rovers or more humane. Unlike the
buccaneers of the Spanish Main, who fought only for themselves, the
rovers approached as nearly to an organized navy as anything Morocco ever
possessed, and their vessels were at times fitted out at the expense
of the state, to whom their prizes therefore belonged. Whereas the
corsairs of Algiers and Tunis confined their operations mainly to the
Mediterranean, the sea-adventurers of Sallee harried the Atlantic coasts
of Spain and France and even ventured as far north as Devon and Cornwall,
carrying off the populations of whole villages.
The rovers attained the zenith of their power in the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, during which period hundreds of
thousands of Christians suffered captivity, unspeakable tortures, and
death in Morocco rather than abjure their faith, the sole condition on
which a measure of freedom within the empire was offered to them. All
Christendom was horrified by the tales of cruelty and outrage brought
back by captives who had been ransomed or had managed to escape, and
collections were made at church doors throughout Europe for the purpose
of purchasing the freedom of Christian slaves in Barbary. Frequent
missions for that purpose were undertaken by devoted members of
religious brotherhoods, not a few of whom themselves became martyrs to
the cause. It must be remembered that the lot of the Christian slave in
Morocco was infinitely worse than that of the negro, who indifferently
embraced Islam, and was at once admitted to equality in all matters save
that of freedom; for the Christians were generally employed under the
lash of the taskmaster in the construction of fortifications and public
buildings—it might be said that the mortar used in some of the grandest
structures in Morocco was mixed with Christian blood—or as rowers
shackled to the benches of the galleys, thousands of them dying in their
chains. But for those European women, often of gentle birth, who fell
into the hands of the Moors, was reserved the most awful fate of all.
* * * * *
If, by this time, you have had enough of Barbary, you may leave us at
Rabat and motor northward—a long day’s journey—to Tangier, whence there
is a triweekly service of small and abominably dirty Spanish steamers to
Algeciras. At present, on account of the somewhat disturbed condition of
the Spanish zone, Tangier is isolated from the rest of Morocco, but when
the Riff has been pacified for good and all, and when the railway from
Tangier to Rabat is in regular operation, the former city will become one
of the principal gateways to Barbary, being particularly convenient for
those who disembark from the transatlantic steamers at Gibraltar or who
come down from Spain.
As the seaport nearest to Europe, Tangier was the town in the empire
in which, until the coming of the French, the effects of progress were
most marked; and it is still the place of residence of the ministers
and consuls-general accredited to the shereefian court by the foreign
powers, these forming the nucleus of a highly cosmopolitan society
which has expanded into an influential community enjoying privileges
and immunities unknown to natives who do not enjoy foreign protection.
Here, by virtue of the rights conferred by early treaties, foreigners
continue to enjoy an extraterritorial status, as they still do in China
and as they did until very recently in Turkey and Siam. Thus, foreigners
in Tangier who are accused of crimes are tried by their own ministers or
consuls-general; and, if convicted, they are either confined in consular
prisons, or in the case of serious crimes, sent home to serve out their
sentences.
As might be expected, this arrangement has resulted in some curious
situations. They still tell the story over Tangier dinner-tables of a
certain foreign minister—for obvious reasons I shall not disclose his
nationality or name—who became infatuated with a very beautiful woman,
whose snowy purity, however, was slightly tinged with lavender. One
night the wife of the minister died in great agony—the result of poison
in her coffee, it was said. It was common knowledge that she had been
poisoned by her husband and his paramour—but who was going to prove it?
And, even if it could be proved, who, pray, was empowered to try the
case? The Moorish courts had no jurisdiction over foreigners, and the
foreign ministers had no jurisdiction over one another. And the minister
in question could hardly be expected to sit as judge upon himself! So
nothing ever came of the matter, for Tangerine morals are as easy as an
old shoe. Having inherited his wife’s fortune, the minister promptly
married the other woman and retired from the diplomatic service. The last
I heard of the pair, they were living, outwardly quite happy, somewhere
on the Riviera.
[Illustration: THE SHADOW OF GOD ON EARTH
Surrounded by the Garde Noire, his Shereefian Majesty drives to mosque in
a carriage presented to one of his predecessors by Queen Victoria
Astride a white charger, beneath the green umbrella which is the symbol
of Moorish majesty, the sultan reviews his household troops]
Tangier, which has a population of about fifty thousand, more than half
of whom are Christians or Jews, nestles between two eminences at the
head of a spacious bay, which forms the best harbor in Morocco, though
vessels of any size have to anchor a mile or so offshore and disembark
their passengers in small boats, which in rough weather is an extremely
unpleasant, not to say hazardous, proceeding. Viewed from the sea, the
town presents a very picturesque appearance, its white houses rising
from the harbor’s edge like linen-covered seats in a theater, with the
citadel, the remains of the mole built by the British during their
occupation in the seventeenth century, and York Castle to the right,
the commercial quarter in the central valley formed by the two hills,
and at the left the road which runs along the shore to Tetuan, with the
European hotels above and a crescent of sandy beach below. As in all
Eastern towns, the streets are exceedingly narrow and crooked, lined by
cupboards in lieu of shops, and with cafés, wine-shops, and drinking-dens
at almost every corner, for the foreign population of Tangier has an
unquenchable thirst. Formerly the city was intolerably filthy, poorly
lighted, and none too safe at night; but since the establishment of an
international control, modern sanitary, water, and lighting systems have
been introduced, and its narrow ways are vigilantly patrolled by an
efficient gendarmarie under French and British officers.
Like the gateways to all barbaric countries—Djibouti, the port for
Abyssinia, is another case in point—Tangier is a hotbed of plot,
conspiracy, intrigue, and gossip, much frequented by those engaged in
shady international transactions or who otherwise sail close to the
wind. In the old days, when the extradition laws were not recognized
by Morocco, it was a favorite refuge for fugitives from justice from
Europe and the two Americas, the terrace of the Hotel Cecil being
dotted at the tea-hour with beautifully groomed men and women of the
most engaging manners who had left their own countries under a cloud
and quite abruptly because they had been too quick on the trigger,
because they had signed to checks names that were not their own, had
departed with other people’s money or other people’s husbands or wives.
Here they dwelt in comfortable if not contented exile, dining at the
legations if they were not too notorious—for a hostess cannot be unduly
exclusive in a place where society is as limited as in Tangier—playing
poker in the cool seclusion of the Cecil’s card-room, or riding into
the back-country on picnics or pig-sticking expeditions, but ever and
anon turning longing, homesick eyes toward Gibraltar, where liners from
America and England swing at their moorings beneath the shadow of the
Rock. Until very recently, at least, life in Tangier was seldom dull,
being punctuated by such episodes as the theatrical visit of the kaiser,
Raisuli’s abduction of Ion Perdicaris, numerous naval demonstrations, and
the unofficial negotiations with the envoys of Abd-el-Krim, while the
presence of gun-runners, smugglers, rebel emissaries, war correspondents,
and concession-hunters lent a pleasant atmosphere of romance and
adventure to the town. But, now that the war in the Riff has ended and
the international status of the town has been definitely fixed, it is to
be presumed that Tangier will settle down to an uneventful and prosaic
existence, dwelling contentedly enough in the memories of its stirring
past.
* * * * *
If, as I have already remarked, you are weary of African travel, if you
are surfeited with Moors, and mosques, and minarets, and marabouts,
and mosaics, and places whose names begin with M, then you can board a
steamer at Tangier which will land you a few hours later at Algeciras,
whence the Sud Express will bear you in some six-and-thirty hours to the
boulevards of Paris. But I trust that you will see fit to stay in my
company a little longer, for I would take you south to Casablanca, the
amazing city into which the French have transformed a squalid Spanish
settlement in less than a decade; to Mazagan and Mogador and other
coast-towns with magic names; to red Marrákesh; to the country where the
Grand Caïds rule in feudal splendor; to medieval castles tucked away in
the fastnesses of the High Atlas; and over the ranges to the forbidden
Sus.