SOUTH TO THE FORBIDDEN SUS
We Americans pride ourselves on being an exceptionally well informed
people, yet it is curious how erroneous are the opinions which we hold
on many subjects, and how tenaciously we cling to our misconceptions.
The great majority of our people believe, for example, that the foreign
missionary is a sanctimonious, psalm-singing, hypocritical individual,
with a sun-umbrella under one arm and a Bible under the other, who seeks
to force on the heathen clothing and Christianity, neither of which they
want, and who is regarded as a meddler and a nuisance by the officials of
the country in which he is stationed. Another case in point is that of
the French colonial, whom we picture as an unkempt, miserable being his
bare feet thrust into slippers, his soiled white suit several sizes too
large for him, who passes his time sipping absinthe in a café, perusing
“La Vie Parisienne,” and counting the days until he can return to _la
belle France_. These are not merely misconceptions; they are caricatures,
as unjust as they are untruthful.
Whenever I hear some one remark, “Well, we must admit that the British
are the only really successful colonizers,” I feel that I should like
to show him Casablanca. When the French bombarded and occupied it in
1907, Casablanca was a filthy, backward, and ill governed Moorish coast
town with a population of barely twenty thousand. Yet in less than two
decades of French rule its population has increased more than six hundred
per cent, and it is to-day one of the cleanest, best governed, and most
progressive cities in all Africa.
[Illustration: A REFUGE OF THE ROVERS
The river-mouth at Azemour, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, where the
corsair galleys lay]
Indeed, there are few cities of its size in the United States which
can surpass Casablanca in point of municipal improvements, for it has
miles of broad, paved, tree-planted streets; thoroughly modern lighting,
water, and sanitary systems; an excellent telephone service; stores
which are counterparts in miniature of the great _magasins_ in Paris;
several luxurious hotels; restaurants whose cuisine is vastly superior to
anything found in most American cities; a state opera-house; a municipal
theater; numerous beautiful parks; and a whole series of imposing public
buildings in the neo-Moorish style, which is harmonious, colorful, and
pleasing to the eye, if nothing more. In short, Casablanca epitomizes
the great work which the French have accomplished in Morocco, where
they have hauled the native out of the slough of ignorance, indolence,
and superstition, in which he has been wallowing for centuries, set him
upon his feet, and are teaching him to become a decent, law-abiding,
progressive citizen. What was formerly an open roadstead, dangerously
exposed to northwest winds, has been transformed by the construction of a
huge breakwater into a safe and spacious harbor which provides anchorage
for vessels of all save the largest size. There is still noticeable, of
course, an air of crudity and incompleteness, such as is characteristic
of all communities of rapid and sensational growth, notably those in
Florida and along the Pacific coast, for steam-shovels, road-scrapers,
and scaffoldings are much in evidence; streets are being broadened,
straightened, and surfaced; hundreds of crowded and insanitary native
hovels, hotbeds of disease, have been torn down and the sites not yet
reoccupied; ramshackle Oriental structures still stand cheek by jowl with
steel and concrete office-buildings.
The commercial life of the city focuses in the spacious square known
as the Place de France, from the center of which rises a lofty
Oriental clock-tower. Starting at the clock-tower, an extremely
broad thoroughfare, lined by banks, steamship agencies, curio shops,
restaurants, cafés, and consulates, runs down to the _débarcadère_,
where passengers land who arrive by sea. This east and west thoroughfare
divides the commercial city into two sections. To the north lies the
European business quarter, with its banks, stores, office-buildings, and
hotels, nearly all of modern construction. Immediately to the south,
surrounded by an ancient crenelated wall, are the _souks_, which here
consist not of covered passageways, as is the case in most Moroccan
cities, but of a tangle of narrow, crooked, cobble-paved streets, just
wide enough for two carriages to pass, the trash-filled shops being kept
for the most part by Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, and Indians. Though here
are to be found none of the charming examples of Moorish art which make
bazaar-shopping in Fez and Marrákesh so delightful, the curio dealers,
who appear to have imported their stocks from Japan and Germany, drive a
roaring trade, particularly when war-ships and tourist-steamers are in
the harbor.
At the back of the business quarter is the new town, devoted in the
main to public buildings and apartment-houses, with numerous pleasant
parks and fine, broad streets. Conspicuous on a busy corner is the new
post-office, an enormous mosque-like building which looks more like a
Moorish place of prayer than a place for handling letters. On the steps
are native letter-writers, ready to serve the illiterate by writing
epistles of love, sympathy, business, or abuse for a small consideration;
while at a desk just within the door sits a youth speaking a dozen
languages who is supposed to be a human postal-guide, supplying any
information which may be demanded of him—usually incorrectly. The various
bureaus of the local French administration are pleasantly housed in a
long, low building of white plaster which might have been transported
bodily from southern California; and in the park close by is a really
fine equestrian group, depicting a French cavalryman grasping the hand of
a Moroccan spahi, which commemorates the aid given to France by Morocco
during the Great War. It is good art, and, what is more important, it is
good diplomacy.
Perhaps the most striking and significant of the reforms which the
French have effected in Casablanca are illustrated by the lengths to
which they have gone in safeguarding the health of the native in matters
concerned with food and women. The great public market is the largest,
best arranged, and cleanest I have ever seen; for the noise, odors,
dirt, and general confusion which are such unpleasant features of many
of our American market-places, and of nearly all European, are here
wholly absent. The whole place is as immaculate as the operating-room of
a hospital, and the public health is further safeguarded by a vigilant
corps of sanitary inspectors, who ruthlessly order into the garbage-pails
any tainted meats or over-ripe fruits and vegetables.
In the northern outskirts of the city is the abattoir, its tiled
decorations giving it a Moorish atmosphere hardly to be looked for in
such a building, which has been constructed on the most approved lines
under the supervision of slaughter-house experts from Chicago and Kansas
City. I didn’t visit the upper floors, where the killing is carried on,
because in my life I have witnessed more than a sufficiency of bloody
scenes; but the lower floors were so scrupulously clean, even though it
was a busy day, as the decks of a war-ship. What with the thoroughly
scrubbed concrete floors, and the white tiled walls, and the neat white
smocks of the butchers and their assistants, it is a place where a
beast of any discrimination should positively enjoy being slaughtered.
The animals which are here transformed with neatness and despatch into
steaks, chops, and cutlets consist of cattle, sheep, and a few mules
and horses. Such few pigs as there are in Morocco die of disease or old
age, never by the knife of the butcher, for pork is anathema to all
Moslems. In the words of Mr. Armour—or was it Mr. Swift?—every portion of
an animal which enters the Casablanca slaughter-house is utilized save
the squeal; and it would not be surprising were the French, with their
well known reputation for thrift, to conserve even that in the form of
phonograph records!
[Illustration: THE RED CITY
All the buildings of Marrákesh are of a red-brown adobe called _tabiya_,
so that the city looks like a great pool of coagulated blood spread upon
the russet plain. But beyond the ramparts the orange-gardens form a broad
band of vivid green, and beyond them, a dozen miles to the southward, the
snow-capped peaks of the High Atlas “stand up like the thrones of kings”]
Somewhat further to the east, and more convenient of access from the
town, is a community dedicated to the practice of the oldest profession
in the world. It is what would be known in America as a “red-light
district”—the quarter of the prostitutes. Instead of attempting to stamp
out vice, which would be utterly impossible in an Oriental country
like Morocco—there is a native proverb to the effect that the Moorish
temperament consists of five parts, and that four of them are passion—the
French have wisely decided to isolate it and, by official supervision,
keep venereal maladies down to a minimum. Like the Yoshiwara of Yokohama,
the prostitute quarter of Casablanca is a self-contained community,
with its own bazaars for the sale of food and merchandise, the whole
encircled by a wall with police _goumiers_ at the gate. The “daughters
of pleasure” are of every Mediterranean nationality—Berber, Arab,
Moresque, Ouled-Naïl, Senegalese, Egyptian, Greek, Spanish, Syrian, even
Circassian. You pay your money and you take your choice, or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say that you make your choice first and pay the
lady afterward. The range is amazing. Every sensual whim, every national
taste, is catered to. Here you can find mountains of female flesh from
the Jewish quarter of Tunis and visions of slim brown loveliness from
the mountains of the Ouled-Naïl; hard-faced hussies from Tangier and
lustrous-eyed houris from Marrákesh; strapping, coal-black negresses
from the Niger country and dainty damsels from Mogador and Saffi, their
Spanish blood betraying itself in their pink and olive skins and their
bewitching eyes. It should be understood, of course, that this quarter
is patronized almost wholly by Europeans and natives of the lower
class, particularly by the soldiery, the more well-to-do finding their
lady-loves among the hordes of French, Spanish, and Italian _filles de
joie_ who carry on their trade within the city. The regulations governing
the quarter are very strict. Each girl is examined at frequent intervals
by a government physician, and, if she is found to have contracted a
venereal disease, her “ticket”—that is, her license—is taken away from
her until she is cured. The whole town is new from the ground up, the
narrow lanes, whose cobbles are scrubbed until they shine, being lined
with quaint, charmingly decorated little houses, which might be the
studios of artists, with tiled roofs, blue or bright-green doors, and
softly tinted walls of rough-cast plaster. The French architect whose
creation it is evidently put his heart into the task.
Because of its excellent communications by sea, land, and air,
Casablanca is the commercial, just as Rabat is the political, capital of
Morocco. It is four days from Bordeaux by the steamers of the Compagnie
Générale Transatlantique; overnight from Tangier and about two and a
half days from Marseilles by the vessels of the Paquet Line; and it is
a port of call for the Belgian mail-boats which ply between Antwerp
and Matadi, in the Congo. (When Mrs. Powell and I came up from Central
Africa and Senegal in 1925 we disembarked at Casablanca, that being my
third visit to Morocco.) A service of fast trains is now in operation
between Casablanca and Rabat, fifty miles away; and the narrow-gage
line to Marrákesh is shortly to be standardized, if it has not been
done already. Excellent motor roads run northeast to Rabat, Mequinez,
and Fez; southeast along the coast to Mazagan, Safi, and Mogador; and
south to Marrákesh, which can also be reached by a longer and poorer but
very interesting road via Kasbah Tadla, which cannot be taken, however,
without special permission from the military authorities. Telephonic
communications with the other cities of Morocco, and the cable service
with France, are good and remarkably inexpensive. There is also a daily
airplane service between Casablanca and Paris via Málaga and Toulouse,
letters bearing an air-post stamp which are dropped into the box at the
general post-office in Casablanca in the morning being delivered in Paris
on the afternoon of the next day. I forget the price of an airplane
ticket from Casablanca to the French capital, but, if I remember rightly,
it is no more expensive than first-class travel by train and boat.
* * * * *
Should your stay in Morocco be limited, you had best take the great
trunk highway which runs from Casablanca almost due south to Marrákesh,
a distance of 160 miles; but, if time is no particular object, and you
can spend a night or so en route, I should advise you to follow the coast
road through Azemour, Mazagan, Safi, and Mogador, glimpses of these
picturesque and interesting cities amply compensating the traveler for
the additional distance and fatigue.
Azemour, in turn a Carthaginian colony, a Roman outpost, and a Portuguese
trading-station, and containing remains of all three occupations, lies
half a hundred miles to the southwest of Casablanca and a mile and a
half inland, where the Um-er-Rabi’a, here wide, deep, red, and rapid,
comes swirling down from its birthplace in the High Atlas to meet its
mother, the ocean. The impetuous Um-er-Rabi’a—the name means Mother of
Grass—the second most important river of Morocco, is as long and wide as
the Thames, but quite unnavigable because of the bar at its mouth and
its numerous waterfalls. Azemour, the Arabic for “wild olives,” which
stands on its southern bank, once marked the southernmost outpost of
the sultanate of Fez, but in 1513 it was captured by the Portuguese;
Ferdinand Magellan, the first circumnavigator of the globe, who was an
officer of the expedition, was wounded during the assault on the town and
lamed for life.
Just beyond, set on the edge of a curving bay, unusual on this coast,
is Mazagan, the port of Marrákesh and the outlet for the products of
the rich region known as the Dukála. It was built at the beginning of
the sixteenth century by the Portuguese, then at the height of their
sea-power, but they abandoned it to the Moors in 1769, the settlers
moving to Brazil, where they established another colony, New Mazagan, on
the banks of the Pará. The massive ramparts and crenelated battlements
raised by the Portuguese give to Mazagan a very un-Moorish atmosphere,
which is accentuated during the hot season by the thousands of Europeans
who flock there for the sea bathing, its splendid _plage_ of pearl-white
sand being dotted with hotels, casinos, bathing-cabins, and gaily colored
umbrellas. Incidentally, Mazagan is noted throughout Morocco for its
oysters, crabs, and lobsters, so those who are fond of seafood would do
well to stop for lunch at one of the restaurants perched on stilts above
the sands.
Next, as we push down the coast, comes Safi, the principal outlet
for central Morocco’s wool and grain. It has no harbor worthy of the
name, vessels being compelled to anchor in the open roadstead, whence
communication with the shore is very difficult and dangerous when a
northwest gale is blowing. The most conspicuous building in the town, and
the only one worth visiting, is an old palace built by one of the Filali
sultans—I think it was Mohammed XVII—whose beautifully tiled courtyards
justify a brief inspection.
By far the most beautiful and interesting of the Moroccan coast towns,
however, is Mogador, capital of the province of Háhá. Its dazzlingly
white houses, encircled by an ancient wall, crown a little rocky
peninsula jutting into the sea, which, when the wind comes from certain
quarters, almost turns the place into an island, as in the case of
Mont-Saint-Michel. On the landward side is a broad belt of gray-white
sand-dunes—a miniature Sahara were it not studded with frequent patches
of fragrant broom—and beyond, far as the eye can see, stretches the
green mass of the Great Argan Forest, a densely wooded area one hundred
and fifty miles long by thirty wide. Approached from this side, Mogador
bursts on the view like a magic city hovering between sea and sky, which
has led the Arabs, with their addiction for romantic nomenclature, to
name it Es-Sueira—the Picture City. The name by which it is known to
Europeans is a contraction of Sidi M’godol, a local saint who won a wide
reputation by his ascetic piety. It is one of the cleanest towns in the
empire and has one of the best harbors, driving a profitable trade in
almonds, gums, olive-oil, and goatskins with England, France, and the
Canary Islands. Mogador, in fact, provides a novel and most interesting
gateway to southern Morocco, and one of which those in quest of the
picturesque and unusual might profitably take advantage, for it has a
weekly service of British cargo steamers, clean and comfortable, coming
direct from London by way of the other Moorish ports.
[Illustration: THE MINARETS OF MARRÁKESH—
Which we were taught in our school-days to call “Morocco City”—are built
for the most part of sun-dried, red-brown bricks and faced with glorious
old tiles. When bathed in the rosy radiance of the westering sun they
look like towers of bright pink coral inlaid with enamels in the colors
of a peacock’s tail]
From Sidi M’godol’s city we turned sharply inland, the hood of the
Renault now headed toward Marrákesh, due east and, as the road runs,
something over a hundred miles away. For the first half-dozen miles our
way wound amid a wilderness of sand-hills, their wind-smoothed surfaces
casting an intolerable glare beneath the African sun; and our minds
harked back to when, long weeks before, we had pitched our tents amid
just such dunes in the Grand Erg Oriental of the Sahara. Here, however,
the dunes were of but brief duration, and then our road plunged abruptly
into the cool green depths of the Great Argan Forest. The argan, which is
found nowhere else in the world, belongs to the _Sapotaceæ_ family and
is a distant cousin of the gutta-percha tree. Its fruit, which ripens
between May and August, is a nut somewhat resembling an olive and is a
favorite food of camels, mules, goats, sheep, and cattle; from its kernel
the natives extract an oil much used in the cookery of southern Morocco.
But horses, like Europeans, refuse to touch the fruit in any form because
of its nauseous flavor. Horses are highly intelligent animals.
And so, after a few delightful hours in the forest, and many hot and
tiresome ones upon a dusty plain, dotted with clusters of conical
thatched huts, called _nuállas_, like those of Central Africa, each
village encircled by a _zariba_ of thorn-bush to keep off marauders, we
topped a little rise just as the sun was dropping out of sight beyond
the horizon’s rim, and looked down upon red Marrákesh. There are certain
cities which cannot be approached for the first time by a traveler who
has any imagination in his soul without a feeling of solemnity and
deep anticipation. Such are Rome, Athens, Constantinople, Jerusalem,
Damascus, Baghdad, Samarkand, Delhi, Peking; and to that list Marrákesh
may fittingly be added. The Morocco City of our childhood, as the school
geographies of those days erroneously called it; built nine hundred years
ago by Yusuf ibn Tashfin and until very recent times all but inaccessible
to unbelievers; the seat of monarchs whose splendors rivaled those
of Harun al Rashid; associated since its beginning with cruelty and
oppression; long notorious as a center of the slave-trade; its hectic
history written with sword-points dipped in blood; it has ever been a
city of mystery and high romance, beckoning alluringly to the adventurous
traveler.
It lies in the center of a spacious plain—Bled el Hamra, “the Red”—barely
a dozen miles from the underfalls of the High Atlas, whose mighty
ranges sweep round it to the south and southeast in a tremendous arc,
purple-flanked and topped with snow. As befits an imperial city—for it
is one of the four capitals of the empire—Marrákesh is surrounded by
a lofty wall, broken at regular intervals by huge square towers, wall
and towers alike now crumbling into ruin. The city is encompassed and
interspersed by luxuriant orange-groves and gorgeous gardens, and both
within and without the walls are numerous broad open spaces of sun-baked
earth, like Indian _maidans_. Rearing itself majestically above the
expanse of crowded, flat-roofed houses, few of which are more than two
stories in height, forming a landmark which can be seen from afar, is
the Kutubia tower, a striking memorial of the architectural genius of
the early Moors and one of the most famous monuments of its kind in the
world. Without the town, forming a broad band of vivid green between it
and the encircling plain, are acres of date-palm groves; hidden amid
the greenery are low-walled gardens from which rises the fragrance of
apricot, pomegranate, and orange blossoms; little rivulets, grandchildren
of the Tensift, meander amid the stately trees; and from their nests atop
the roofs and walls and towers white storks gaze benevolently down upon
the passer-by.
It is fitting that Marrákesh should be called “the Red,” for, with the
exception of the Kutubia mosque and a certain gate brought in pieces from
Spain, there is not, it is asserted, a single stone building in the city,
and even bricks are sparingly employed. The almost universal building
material is a rammed concrete of red earth and stone called _tabiya_, and
consequently everything in the city and its immediate vicinity—houses,
walls, mosques, towers, ramparts, even the soil itself—is of a deep
red-brown hue which changes beneath the afterglow to a gloriously rich
and rosy shade of coral.
In Marrákesh, as in Fez, the Transatlantique has two hotels; one in the
heart of the city, the other in the southern outskirts. The former, made
over from an old Moorish palace, leaves much to be desired in the way
of comfort, at least so far as the rooms are concerned; but the latter,
known as the Mamounia Palace, recently completed and open only during the
“high season,” is a really magnificent establishment, in fact the best
application of the Moorish style to modern purposes that I have seen,
which in beauty of decoration and completeness of equipment is the equal
of any of the great tourist caravansaries of Florida or California.
The most conspicuous object in the city, dominating and dwarfing all
else, is the splendid minaret of the Kutubia mosque already mentioned,
both it and the similar but inferior Tower of Hassan at Rabat being of
the same type as the contemporary Giralda at Seville; and, if tradition
may be trusted, the same architect, Jabir, was responsible for all three.
Its massive walls are of hand-hewn stone, mellowed by time and weather
to a lovely shade of terra-cotta; inlaid in the upper portions of the
four façades are enameled tiles of the “lost” shade of Persian blue, the
equal of which for loveliness of color I have never seen save only in the
Ulug-beg at Samarkand. Its cupola is thatched with very ancient glazed
tiles of a beautiful jade green; and impaled on the slender spire itself
are three glittering balls that, according to the Moors, are of solid
gold, though the French _controleur civil_ assured me that they are but
gilded copper. The mosque to which the Kutubia belongs is a large brick
structure, the interior a forest of marble columns, which was built by
Abd-el-Mumin, the first of the Almohade rulers, under whom the Moorish
Empire reached the zenith of its fame and glory at the close of the
twelfth century.
The life of Marrákesh, which has not far from one hundred and fifty
thousand inhabitants, focuses in the great central market-place, still
called the Sinners’ Concourse, because there, within the memory of men
still young, were held the wholesale executions by which the sultans
punished revolt and put fear into the hearts of their subjects. It
is the scene of that well known painting entitled “The Justice of the
Khalif”—I think it is by Gérôme, but I am not certain—in which a Moorish
ruler is depicted seated on his white horse, beneath the green umbrella,
surrounded by his viziers, chieftains, and slaves, while stretched in
long rows on the bloodied ground are the headless corpses of those who
dared oppose his will.
[Illustration: WHERE THE HEADS OF REBELS
Provided grisly ornaments for the Aguenaou Gate of Marrákesh in the not
far distant past]
To my way of thinking, the _souks_ of Marrákesh, which comprise the
district known as the Kaisariyeh, are the most interesting in all North
Africa, and this despite the fact that the city, unlike Fez, has only
one manufacture of importance, that of Morocco leather, which is here
dyed in every color of the spectrum and made up into articles of every
conceivable kind. The workmanship is generally inferior, however, and
I should strongly advise any one in quest of leather goods—pillows,
portfolios, and the like—to visit the studio of a well known French
artist and his charming wife (I forget their names, but every one knows
them) in the little house they have built just outside the western
gate of the town. The house itself is a gem of modern Moorish domestic
architecture; and the garden, with its masses of brilliant flowers, its
pool, and its kiosks, is a place of sheer delight.
Hard by the street of the leather-merchants, just beyond the _souk_
where are manufactured the vividly colored cords of silk or wool used
to support the leathern pouches which all Moors wear slung over their
shoulders in lieu of pockets, is the armorers’ bazaar. Here weapons
of every sort—rifles, pistols, simitars, and daggers—are displayed in
bewildering variety. During a preceding visit to Marrákesh I had invested
somewhat heavily in the short curved knives, with damascened blades,
ivory or jeweled hilts, and sheaths of embossed silver, which are the
favorite weapons of the Southland. Being a collector of blade weapons,
I am not particularly interested in fire-arms, however, or was not
until a Syrian acquaintance showed me a pair of long-barreled Moorish
rifles which had been offered for sale that day by a tribal chieftain
from the Sus. The barrels were nearly eight feet in length, bound with
countless bands of hand-wrought silver, each of which was exquisitely
arabesqued or bore an Arabic inscription. The stock of one was of some
rare old wood, incrusted with silver and inlaid with ivory; the other
was even richer, being set with colored enamels and semiprecious stones.
Such pieces seldom come upon the market, for they were family heirlooms
which had been handed down through many generations. The asking price
was exorbitant, but I was determined to become their owner even if it
necessitated my returning to America second-class. The negotiations,
conducted by my obliging friend the Syrian, consumed the better part of
a week, but the night before our departure he brought them to me at our
hotel, having succeeded in beating down their owner to the limit I had
fixed. To-day they repose in a glass case in an American museum, but of
the hundreds who view them daily I suppose there are few indeed who pause
to think of the desperate affrays in which they spoke with tongues of
flame, of the unbelievers against whom they were leveled, of the turbaned
sheikhs who once bore them on their red saddle-bows as they rode on their
raids across the desert. To the unimaginative they are, I suppose, but
queer old guns.
By reason of its situation at the mouths of the passes which lead through
the Atlas to the Sahara, Marrákesh was for centuries an important center
of the slave-trade, in fact the greatest market in northwest Africa for
the “black ivory” brought across the desert by caravan from the Niger
country and the Sudan. This accounts, of course, for the great number of
coal-black faces seen in the city’s streets and for the negroid features
of so many of the southern Moors. With the coming of the French the open
traffic in human beings was perforce abandoned, but that should not
be taken as meaning that slavery in Morocco no longer exists, for the
institution still survives, though in a restricted and less ostentatious
form. Most of the wealthy Moors own slaves, as do all the great caïds
and pashas, a fact of which the French are perfectly aware, though for
reasons of policy they close their eyes to it. They have, however,
succeeded in effectually breaking up the trans-Saharan slave-trade, and,
with the sealing of this great source of supply, slaves are becoming
increasingly difficult to secure and have advanced enormously in price.
There are several dealers in Marrákesh—and the same is true of Fez—who
are always in a position to supply trusted customers with negro slaves,
both male and female, at a price, though I was told that the Circassian
slave-girls, always at a premium because of their beauty, can no longer
be obtained. The prospective purchaser tells the slave dealer what he
wants, and the latter goes about the business of supplying his customer’s
requirements just as an employment agency supplies its patrons with
domestics. When I was in Marrákesh in 1925 a French official of the
Bureau Arabe told me that the market price for a young girl of good
physique was about three thousand francs, which was equivalent to about
one hundred and fifty dollars at the rate of exchange then prevailing.
Many American men, it might be remarked, spend as much as that on one of
their lady-friends in the course of a single evening—and usually get less
value for their money.
Let me make it amply clear, however, that the conditions described in
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” do not now exist in Morocco, whatever may once have
been the case. A slave who is dissatisfied with the treatment she (or
he) is receiving can always demand to be sold, and, furthermore, can
refuse to be sold to a prospective purchaser of whom he does not approve.
All this is, of course, very exasperating to the old-fashioned Moors,
who were brought up to believe, like the planters of the pre-war South,
that their slaves were as much their property as their horses and their
dogs, and that they were at liberty to treat them as they pleased and to
dispose of them as they chose.
“Allah only knows what the world is coming to,” they complain bitterly,
“when a slave-girl begins talking about her ‘rights’! In our fathers’
time, when a girl talked thus, she got a touch of the bastinado. Why,
if this sort of thing keeps on, Morocco will soon become as impossible
a country to live in as the country of the Frangi, where, it is said, a
cook actually has the insolence to demand that she be permitted to go out
on Sunday afternoons. By the beard of the Prophet, we Moors are coming to
a pretty pass when we permit such a state of things!”
[Illustration: THE PUPPET AND THE MAN WHO PULLED THE STRINGS
Marshal Lyautey, formerly French resident-general in Morocco, entertains
Sultan Mulai Yusef at _déjeuner_]
[Illustration: THE EMPIRE BUILDER
Marshal Lyautey, the maker of modern Morocco, and one of the greatest pro
consuls of our time, issues orders to his chief of staff]
This seems as good a place as another to speak of the position occupied
by Moorish women. To begin with, it should be explained that polygamy
is by no means as universal in Morocco, or, for that matter, in any
other Oriental country, as is commonly assumed, for, though a man may
legally have four wives and as many concubines as he pleases, the size
of his harem must of necessity conform to his financial condition. And,
even if a man can afford to maintain the full quota of wives permitted
him by Koranic law, he generally prefers to spend his substance on
concubines, for these do the work of the house, and, if they bear their
master no children, they may be sold like any other chattels. Polygamy,
generally speaking, is confined to the rich, or at least the comfortably
well-to-do, for the facility of divorce makes it much cheaper for a
man to change wives frequently than to keep several at the same time.
An American, by way of illustration, finds it more economical to keep
only one motor-car, and turn it in every year or so for a new one, than
to keep his garage filled with machines which stand idle a large share
of the time. The age-old question of feminine jealousy also proves a
deterrent to the maintenance of large matrimonial establishments, for
a man who does not treat all of his wives with equal generosity is not
likely to lead a very tranquil domestic life. The sultan, who is said to
have upward of five hundred women in his harem, must have his troubles!
In Morocco girls frequently marry at ten or twelve, and a man is looked
upon as a confirmed bachelor if he has not entered the state of matrimony
before he is out of his teens. Old maids are virtually unknown, for a
woman, be she ever so unattractive, is useful for doing the household
chores, though a girl of slender figure stands a far slimmer chance—if
I may be permitted the pun—of making a good match than does a fat one.
For flesh is considered a prerequisite of feminine beauty in Morocco,
and, writers of fiction to the contrary, a Moor wants no slim and dainty
damsels lying around his harem. To obviate so unfortunate a physical
defect, a young girl, upon approaching the marriageable age, is, like a
Strasbourg goose, subjected to a systematic course of stuffing. After
each meal an ambitious Moorish mother compels her daughter to swallow
a dozen or so of sausage-shaped boluses compounded of flour, honey,
eggs, and butter, thus producing the corpulency which the Moors consider
essential to a truly lovely woman. Because of this process of fattening,
and of total lack of exercise, a woman’s avoirdupois increases with her
years, so that by the time she has reached her middle twenties she is,
if Allah has been kind to her, a series of fleshy billows, waddling and
rolling along like a four-master under full sail.
When a man marries he gives the bride’s father a money present, but
this does not amount to a purchase of the girl, as some have asserted,
for she always brings to her new home furniture and household utensils
worth considerably more than the bridegroom’s gift, and, in case
of divorce, she retains possession of them. Until a woman becomes
a grandmother—usually at about thirty—and loses her beauty, she is
forbidden to so much as speak to any of the opposite sex save only her
husband, sons, father, and brothers; even an uncle or a cousin would
not dare to salute her on the street should he be able to recognize her
beneath her swathing of _burkha_, _haik_, and _barracan_. And the husband
who, upon returning home, finds a pair of women’s slippers outside the
_anderun_, may under no consideration enter, because he knows that some
one else’s wife or daughter is within.
Thus encloistered, with no outside interests whatsoever to occupy their
minds, it is not surprising that the thoughts of these prisoners of the
harem should turn to sensual things. Nor should it be assumed that, by
reason of the constant surveillance to which they are subjected, Moorish
women are invariably chaste, for husbands sometimes are called away,
slaves may be bribed or cajoled, windows may be reached by ladders, and
every door has its key. Where there is a will there is usually a way. The
truth of the matter is, as Mr. Budgett Meakin has remarked, that nothing
short of the unexpurgated edition of the “Thousand and One Nights” can
convey an adequate idea of what goes on within those whited sepulchers,
the high, blank walls of Moorish homes.
All women save the wives of the rich possess sufficient skill in sewing
or embroidery to be able to support themselves in case of need, for,
strictly speaking, a husband is required to supply his wife only with a
head-kerchief and slippers. As a rule, Moorish wives have very little
money, and it is a common thing for wives to steal from their husbands
in order to purchase clothes and even food. Candor compels me to admit,
however, that such incidents are not unheard of in more highly civilized
countries.
In Morocco divorce is a very simple matter—at least for the husband. When
he tires of a wife all he has to say is, “Woman, I divorce thee! Get thou
hence!” whereupon she has no option but to return to her own family. In
theory, it is true, she may get a divorce from him, but this is extremely
difficult in practice. All women, divorced or otherwise, are regarded
as widows, and may remarry six months after the death of a husband or
three months after a divorce. The husband may repent and take his wife
back a first and a second time, but after she has been divorced three
times he may not marry her again until she has been wedded to some one
else and divorced. The Moors, who are an impulsive, hot-tempered race,
frequently divorce their wives on the flimsiest grounds. For example,
when a man swears by the _haram_—that is, by the forbidden—and does not
fulfil his oath, he has to divorce his wife. Miss Sophie Denison, the
English medical missionary in Fez of whom I have already spoken, told me
of a young Moor of her acquaintance, newly wedded and genuinely in love
with his wife, who, while strolling with a friend one day, took his oath
over some trifling matter. Unable to keep his vow, he returned home and
divorced his bride of a few weeks. The story does not end tragically,
however, for when the prescribed interval had elapsed he remarried her.
* * * * *
A short distance without the splendid Aguenaou Gate of Marrákesh, one
of the finest in all Morocco, are the gardens of the Aguedal, the
pleasure-place of the Moorish sultans. It is in reality an enormous
orchard, two and a quarter miles long and a mile and a half wide,
surrounded by a lofty, bastioned wall, its fruit-trees—oranges, lemons,
figs, and olives—set out in ordered rows. In the center is a reservoir,
or tank, as it would be called in Persia, about six hundred feet square
and edged with a marble coping. Toward one end of the inclosure is a
second pool, somewhat larger than the central one. On the edge of the
smaller of the two pools is a Moorish pavilion with a spacious marble
terrace, where, on hot summer evenings, the women of the imperial harem
sometimes come to bathe and to enjoy the comparative coolness, for during
the summer Marrákesh becomes unendurably hot, the mercury frequently
rising to 110° in the shade. Personally, I think that the Aguedal is
vastly overrated, for, when we were there, the buildings were in a state
of disrepair, the roads leading through the gardens were deep in dust,
and the lake reflected the scorching rays of the African sun like a
sheet of burnished copper. Toward nightfall, however, when the heat of
the day has passed and the pavilions and the trees are mirrored in the
peacock-tinted waters, it must be very lovely.
[Illustration: OVERLORDS OF THE SOUTHLAND
In the hot season, when the sand scorches the feet and the sky is a
brazen dome, they wear atop their turbans enormous hats of straw, their
flopping brims reinforced with strips of colored leather
The Grand Caïds are modern counterparts of the feudal barons of the
Middle Ages, riding abroad on splendidly caparisoned horses with hordes
of armed retainers at their heels]
Journeying south from Casablanca the observant traveler can hardly fail
to note the steady decrease in the numbers of French soldiers, until,
by the time Marrákesh is reached, the European fighting-man has almost
disappeared. For, as has been remarked, the whole of the Southland is
under the rule of the Grand Caïds, and its towns are garrisoned by their
own soldiery—ruffianly looking nondescripts, for the most part, though
the well drilled household troops of El Glaoui, the most powerful of the
native chieftains, wear uniforms which vie in gorgeousness with those of
the Shereefian Guard.
The military forces in Morocco consist normally of twenty-two regiments
of infantry, six regiments of cavalry, and twelve battalions of
artillery, which, with the special service organizations, give a total
of 22,000 French troops and 47,000 Moroccans. To these must be added
a force of native auxiliary troops, including the Shereefian Guard,
having a strength of approximately 24,000 men, so that it will be seen
that even in peace-time some 93,000 soldiers are employed to garrison
the country, though this number was trebled, if not quadrupled, during
the fighting in the Riff. Two divisions recruited from native Moroccans
served with marked distinction in the Great War and are now quartered on
the Rhine, where they have been a cause of much dissension, the Germans
claiming that they are colored troops, to which the French retort that
the Moroccans are Berbers and, therefore, Caucasians. That France has
found in Morocco a valuable source of man-power goes without saying, and
this the French intend to exploit to the fullest degree; but to assert,
as has one American writer, that “the population of Morocco could furnish
her [France] possibly a million of glad and willing defenders in case of
need” is, of course, absurd. The total population of French Morocco, as
estimated by the French themselves, is something under five and a half
millions, yet Belgium, with a population nearly half again as large, even
when fighting for her very existence, was never able to place anything
like a million men in the field. Though such statements are doubtless
good propaganda they are grossly misleading.
Though in Marrákesh there is a French garrison—composed almost wholly
of spahis and Senegalese—and a considerable staff of army officers
and civil officials, pains are taken to see that the military are in
evidence as little as possible. This is due, no doubt, to a desire to
conciliate El Glaoui, the great overlord of the Southland, who wields a
power which is almost despotic. If a native jeweler has a gem which he
covets, he takes it, and pays for it or not as he pleases; if he hears of
a beautiful girl, he sends his slaves to her home and without so much as
a by-your-leave has her brought to his harem, and her family do not dare
to voice a protest; if a man defies him he has him bastinadoed or thrown
into the terrible dungeons of the prison called Hib Misbah; if the tribes
under his jurisdiction revolt, as occasionally happens, he drowns the
rebellion in a sea of blood. Like all great Moorish gentlemen, El Glaoui
is a charming host, gracious, generous to a fault, and thoughtful of his
guests’ comfort, but there is that in his smoldering eyes and relentless
mouth which warns one that it would not be safe to cross him.
It may be asked, in this connection, whether the people of Morocco, as
a whole, are really contented under French rule and desire to see it
continued. I do not think so, though in saying this I realize that I
am taking issue with the opinions so loudly expressed by the members
of several self-styled “American missions,” who have been invited to
Morocco by the French government for purposes of propaganda and who have
been flattered with free motor trips, reviews, dinners, and decorations.
It is true that the agricultural population of the country is awakening
to a realization that French rule means for them strict justice and
freedom from oppression; the merchant class views the protectorate with
favor because it spells peace and increased prosperity; the Grand Caïds
will remain loyal to France just so long as they find it profitable to
do so. Yet among the mass of the people, particularly in the hinterland,
there exists, if not actual discontent, at least a feeling of sullen
resentment that the land of their fathers should be ruled by foreigners
and unbelievers. That the people of Morocco are vastly better off under
the rule of France than they were under their own sultans, no fair-minded
person can deny, but the same may be said with equal truth of Egypt and
the Philippines, where England and the United States respectively have
conferred enormous benefits on the native populations. Yet both the
Egyptians and the Filipinos want to rule themselves, and the Moroccans,
unless I am very much mistaken, want the same. For colonial powers have
found, over and over again, that to impose their rule on native peoples,
no matter how just and kindly and beneficial that rule may be, is to
incur, as Kipling puts it,
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard.
Sultan Mulai Yusef was in residence in Marrákesh during my last
visit save one to that city, and through the courtesy of the French
authorities it was arranged that I should meet him. The audience was to
take place in the imperial palace, a huge, wall-encircled congeries of
buildings near the Aguenaou Gate, at ten o’clock in the morning. I was
accompanied by the Vicomte de Trémaudan, an official of the French civil
administration who had volunteered to act as interpreter, and by an
American friend.
“The etiquette of the Shereefian court is very strict,” explained de
Trémaudan, “and must be punctiliously observed. Upon entering his
Majesty’s presence we are expected to stop and bow, to advance a little
way and bow again, and then to move forward a few more paces and bow a
third time.”
“I’ve met quite a number of kings and emperors in my time,” I remarked,
“not to mention a whole raft of shahs and sultans, and with all of
them one bow was quite sufficient; but if the sultan insists on his
guests performing the Daily Dozen as they approach him, why, I have no
objection.”
Alighting from our car at the entrance to the palace, where a detachment
of the Garde Noire presented arms, we were conducted by chamberlains
through an interminable series of courtyards, corridors, and anterooms,
between rows of saluting soldiers and salaaming slaves, emerging at
length into a vast marble-paved courtyard bathed in the hot African
sunshine. Assembled on a terrace at the farther end of the court, and
evidently awaiting us, was a group of white-clad figures, one of them,
apparently a person of importance, standing somewhat in front of the rest.
[Illustration: MOST PEOPLE THINK OF MOROCCO AS A SEMI-ARID COUNTRY
Yet this cork forest at Ain Leuh is only one of many such within the
empire. Nearly the whole of Morocco is mountainous—one of the Atlas peaks
is higher than any mountain in the United States outside of Alaska—and
many regions are rich in woodlands and streams]
“That is the sultan,” whispered de Trémaudan. “Now don’t forget what I
told you about bowing.”
“All right,” I responded. “As citizens of a true democracy we’ll do our
best to make an impression on royalty. Here goes.... One ... two ...
three....”
We stepped out with the precision of Prussian guardsmen. When half-way
down the court de Trémaudan whispered a word of command, at which we came
to a sudden halt, clicked our heels together, and bowed as a single man.
Ten yards on we repeated the performance. And, arriving opposite the
waiting figure, we did it all over again. Whereupon a French officer,
who had been watching us with considerable amusement, called out to de
Trémaudan:
“But this isn’t the sultan, _mon vieux_. This is the master of
ceremonies, who is waiting to conduct you to his Majesty.”
De Trémaudan’s face turned to the color of the ribbon which he wore
upon his breast, and I felt as once I did when, taking part in amateur
theatricals, I got too far down-stage and found myself outside the
descending curtain. But I had made all the obeisances I intended to; I
had no more flummeries left in my system; so, when we were shown into
an inner court and from a small pavilion Mulai Yusef himself advanced
to greet us, I bowed with the respect which is due to the head of any
government, be it Moroccan or American, whereupon the Prince of True
Believers shook me most democratically by the hand and pressed me into a
chair beside him.
I don’t know how old Mulai Yusef is, but I should guess that he is
somewhere in the middle forties, though it is difficult to tell the age
of an Oriental. As might be expected, he has none of the characteristic
features of the Moor, for he is not a Berber but an Arab. He is a man of
medium height, his portliness emphasized by his voluminous garments,
with a full, almost bloated face, sleepy-looking, kindly eyes which have
a glint of humor in them, full red lips, a wonderfully clear olive skin,
and, like all Moors of the upper class, a scraggly fringe of beard along
the line of the chin. He wore a _djellaba_ of some finely woven creamy
white material, the hood of which was drawn up so as to cover his head
and partly shield his features; beneath the hem of his garment showed
slippers of soft yellow leather. About his dress, in fact, there was
nothing whatsoever to distinguish him from any other Moorish gentleman.
The little kiosk, or pavilion, in which the sultan received us was
exquisitely decorated in the Moorish style, his Majesty sitting on
a broad divan in the native fashion, though we were provided with
incongruous-looking French chairs upholstered in yellow satin. During
the audience, which lasted perhaps three quarters of an hour, the
conversation touched on many things—the sultan’s hope of some day
visiting the United States (which, I have found, is a stock remark of
monarchs in talking to Americans), the beneficence of French rule in
Morocco, what I had seen in the empire, and where I was going. All
mention of political questions was noticeably avoided. So innocuous
was the conversation that I had the feeling that I was talking to a
puppet and that I could almost see the French official who stood in the
background dexterously manipulating the strings. Negro slaves served us
with tiny cups of thick black Arab coffee and Turkish cigarettes; the
sultan placed his hand upon my shoulder in a sort of benediction and
expressed the pious wish that Allah watch over us on our journey; and
we sidled from the presence in what strove to be a dignified compromise
between American informality and Eastern etiquette.
It was one of those glorious days of blue and gold, so rarely found
anywhere outside of Morocco and southern California, when we set out from
Marrákesh on the last lap of our long journey, our final objective the
forbidden Sus. The sky was an inverted bowl of bluest Chinese porcelain,
and before us a burnt-umber plain, flat as the top of a table, stretched
away, away, to where the Atlas Mountains “stand up like the thrones of
kings.” As we left the Red City behind us and took the ancient road by
which conquerors and caravans have come up from the Sahara since ever
time began, I found myself humming those lines of John McGroarty’s:
All in the golden weather
Forth let us fare to-day;
You and I together
Upon the King’s Highway....
It was late spring, the ideal season in which to see any country, and
the land was as gay with flowers as a woman’s Easter bonnet. Nowhere
else have I seen flowers grow as they do in Morocco; for, instead of
being interspersed, the various species hold aloof from one another, each
confining itself to certain ground, which gives to the landscape the
appearance of a vast, old-fashioned coverlet. Dark blue, purple, yellow,
white, and scarlet—iris, bugloss, marigold, lily, and poppy—occurred
in patches of several acres; as we approached the lower slopes of the
mountains whole hills and valleys were blue with borage and convolvulus.
At times the road wound across a carpet of green and yellow mignonette;
at others it was banked by drifts of asphodel, white lilies, daisies,
lavender, thyme, and broom. On one occasion, while Tomine was repairing
a puncture, Mrs. Powell and my daughter picked thirty varieties of
wild flowers in half as many minutes. After seeing this amazing floral
splendor one understands whence the Moors obtained the inspiration for
their chromatic art; but, like most really beautiful things, it is of
brief duration, and under the scorching sun of Africa it soon sinks into
the russet monotony of withered herbage.
It is said that when Sidi Okba made his great march from the Nile to
the Atlantic he and his warriors rode in the shade of trees all the
way. But even if this statement once were true—and the Arabs are fond
of exaggeration—it is true no longer. Nevertheless, Morocco is by no
means destitute of arboreal beauty. The cork-tree, which once provided
the country with an important industry, has lost ground enormously,
the Moroccans being unable to keep pace with Portuguese and Spanish
competition; but it is still found in great numbers in the Ma’mora
forest, twenty miles in length, which lies between the Sebu and the
Bou Ragrag, and there is a similar and even larger forest not far from
Mequinez. I have already spoken of the vast argan forest, nearly five
thousand square miles in extent, to the east of Mogador; while on the
lower slopes of the mountains the mimosa, the aloe, and the prickly pear
are abundant, and higher up evergreens, pines, and junipers, cypresses
and cedars, clothe the mountain valleys in mantles of vivid green. Of the
individual trees, none is more remarkable than the arar, a cypress-like
tree which is found both in the Moroccan and the Algerian Atlas. From its
beautiful and enduring timber was built the roof of the famous cathedral
at Cordova; it has been identified with the citrus-wood of the ancient
Romans; and it furnishes a valuable variety of gum.
[Illustration: THE STRONGHOLD OF THE CAÏD GOUNDAFI, OVERLORD OF THE
FORBIDDEN SUS
The _kasbahs_ of the Grand Caïds, like the castles of the old robber
barons, invariably occupy positions of great natural strength, usually
commanding mountain passes. The massive rose-red walls of the Kasbah
Goundafi tower above the narrow defile in the High Atlas through which
runs the trade-route between Marrákesh and the Sus]
For some reason most people think of Morocco as an extremely hot country,
yet, save in the far south, it is not even a subtropical one, having,
in fact, much the same climate as the lands on the opposite side of the
Mediterranean, to which its flora and its general physical character bear
a striking resemblance. It has been described as a cold country with a
hot sun, and this is true on the whole, though it is manifestly unsafe
to generalize regarding a region so extensive in area and so varied in
altitude. The coast, shielded by the maritime ranges from the hot winds
of the Sahara and fanned by cool breezes from the sea, has a climate akin
to that of the Riviera, but without the chilling mistrals and the sudden
changes in temperature which make life on the Côte d’Azur so trying at
times. Inland Morocco becomes extremely disagreeable, however, during the
summer heat and winter rains, the best times for visiting the interior
being from late September to early December and from the end of April
to mid-June. Like California, it is a country of extremes, for, looking
across the orange-groves from the windows of my room in Marrákesh, when
the thermometer stood at nearly 100 in the shade, I have seen snow
gleaming on the Atlas, less than a score of miles away.
The Atlas, which forms the backbone of the country, is known to the Moors
as Idráren Dráren—Mountains of Mountains. And it is appropriately named,
for as I have remarked elsewhere, it has a greater average height than
the Alps, its series of tremendous peaks culminating in Mount Tinzar,
which has an estimated height of fifteen thousand feet, being higher,
therefore, than any peak in the United States outside of Alaska. The
Moroccan Atlas consists of five distinct ranges varying in length and
height but running more or less parallel to one another. Southernmost
of the five is Djebel Saghru, or Anti-Atlas, which forms Morocco’s
first line of natural defense against the Sahara. Since the dawn of
history caravans of slaves, spices, ostrich-feathers, ivory, and gold
from Central Africa and the Niger countries have entered Morocco by the
passes of the Anti-Atlas, one of them being a gap barely five paces in
width, the strata of variegated marbles which form its walls having been
polished to a gleaming brilliancy by the camels and bales of merchandise
which have rubbed against them through countless centuries.
The main range, known as the High Atlas, which we were now approaching,
is by far the longest and loftiest of the five chains. Its southern
flanks, being exposed to the hot, dry winds of the Sahara, are almost
totally destitute of vegetation; but the slopes facing toward the north
are covered with splendid forests of oak, cedar, cork, and pine and
inclose numerous well watered valleys of great fertility, in which
half-savage Berber tribes, their miserable villages clinging precariously
to the hillsides, cultivate tiny irrigated fields with the implements
used in the days of Abraham.
For a distance of a hundred miles or more that portion of the High Atlas
lying to the south of Marrákesh is a huge blank wall, unpierced by any
passes practicable for motor-cars or even caravans; but further to the
west a road of sorts crosses the Bibawan Pass at a height of 4150 feet
and drops down into the valley of the upper Sus; while beyond it the
Goundafi Pass, considerably lower but more rugged and difficult, gives
access to the Susi capital of Tarundant.
Perhaps I have not made it sufficiently clear that our destination
was the valley between the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas traversed by
the River Sus, from which it takes its name and whose ever-flowing
stream is sufficient to turn the whole district into a garden. Once an
independent kingdom, peopled by a race of warlike and highly fanatical
Berber mountaineers, believed to be immensely rich in mines of gold and
copper, long closed to trade by imperial decree, and still too unruly
to be opened to Europeans, the Sus is one of the most inaccessible,
picturesque, and interesting regions in the empire. Caravans laden
with copper-ware, olive-oil, butter, saffron, wax, goatskins,
dates, dried roses, gold-dust—how their mere enumeration stirs the
imagination!—regularly make the four days’ journey over the rugged
Goundafi Pass from Tarundant to Marrákesh; and a handful of French
officials are now scattered through the district, which is gradually
becoming pacified, but it is still regarded as unsafe for foreigners and
is officially forbidden to colonists or travelers, permission to visit
it being obtainable only from the French resident-general at Rabat, who
passes the request on to the Grand Caïds who are the real masters of the
country.
It is a region of savagery and grandeur; the soaring, snow-capped
peaks, the ramparts of purple rock, the narrow roads bordered by dizzy
precipices, the dark and gloomy forests of cypress, pine, and cedar, the
leafy glens, the tumbling streams and sparkling waterfalls, the stone
villages perched each on its mountain-top, all reminded us of the Grand
Kabylia, which the Sus resembles, though on a vastly greater and more
impressive scale. The Susi, who speak a Berber dialect called Shillah,
are a hard-bitten, wiry race, distinguished in dress by their short
cloaks of a brown and white striped homespun and by the fact that they
do not as a rule wear turbans. Fierce fighters, shrewd traders, skilled
workers in the copper mined from their native mountains, they lead hard,
squalid, and frugal lives, being prodigal only in powder and human life.
Now we were in the dominions of the Caïd Goundafi, the great feudal
chieftain who is overlord of the Sus; and it was thanks to him that,
at the request of General Daugan, the French commander at Marrákesh,
our journey was made not only safe but reasonably comfortable. For
there are no hotels in the Sus, and, unless Gandoufi makes arrangements
for the traveler to be put up at his _kasbahs_, one is faced with the
alternatives of passing a sleepless night in a vermin-infested hovel or
of making himself as comfortable as he can in the open.
These _kasbahs_, which are to be found not only in the fastnesses of the
High Atlas but throughout central and southern Morocco, are in reality
feudal strongholds, half-palace and half-fortress. They are usually
situated far from the beaten paths of travel, occupying positions of
great natural strength; for, like the French and English castles of the
Middle Ages, they were originally designed with a view to defense against
the incursions of the border tribes. With their crenelated ramparts and
keeps and bastions, their drawbridges and courtyards, their loopholed
walls and massive towers, they are immensely imposing and frequently
of astounding size, one of those which we visited bearing a striking
resemblance to Windsor Castle. To emerge from a gloomy defile, whose
rocky walls rise sheer on either hand, and be confronted by one of these
stupendous strongholds frowning down from its lofty site upon the valley
below, produces an impression not far removed from awe. The traveler has
the feeling that he has been magically transported back into the dim and
distant past, “when knights were bold and barons held their sway,” the
impression of an earlier age being heightened when he sees a cavalcade of
brilliantly garbed horsemen issuing from the bastioned gate and catches
on the battlements the glint of steel.
[Illustration: A SEAT OF FEUDAL POWER
Hidden away in the remote fastnesses of the High Atlas are the _kasbahs_
of the Grand Caïds—African counterparts of the baronial castles of the
Middle Ages]
And so, following the winding Sus, we swung down through the green
and ever-broadening valley to where, set on a lofty eminence above
the river’s mouth, the white battlements of Agadir—the Santa Cruz de
Berbería of the Spaniards, the Gate of the Sudan—look out upon the broad
Atlantic. Barbary lay behind us; our long journey was at an end. As I
stood upon the hill-slopes looking down upon the cluster of square white
houses which form the little town, it struck me that Agadir, remote as
it is, was in a way symbolic of all North Africa. Its Berber inhabitants
converted by the Arabs to Islam, it has been occupied in turn by
Portuguese, by Spaniards, and by French, yet the Arabs alone have left
any lasting impression. Coveted by the Germans because of its mineral
wealth, it almost precipitated a great European war. Whether it will
remain isolated, barbarous, and forbidden, or whether it will be opened
up to civilization, only the future can determine. But I was too tired to
speculate on African problems, so I left the Dark Continent to settle its
own troubles and turned my attention to the evening meal. When darkness
had fallen we climbed to the ancient fort atop the hill, my wife and I,
and, ensconcing ourselves in an angle of the seaward ramparts, gazed out
across the silent, star-lit ocean to where, four thousand miles away, lay
America—and home. At our backs the ghostly bulk of the High Atlas reared
itself skyward in a mighty and mysterious wall. From somewhere amid the
shadows of the sleeping town below came the throb of desert drums.
So we sat, just she and I, on the fort,
That crumbling shell of transient power,
While o’erhead the vast armadas of all time went wheeling by
And we watched their flashing signals hour on hour.
A SHORT GLOSSARY OF ARABIC WORDS AND PHRASES COMMONLY USED IN BARBARY
_Adar-ya-yan!_ Command used to bring a camel to its knees.
_Afrit_ Spirit, ghost.
_Agal_ The cord, commonly of wool but sometimes of gold, for binding the
head-cloth in place.
_Ahl Kitab_ The People of the Book; that is, Christians or Jews.
_Allah_ God.
_Allahu Akbar!_ God is great!
_Andak!_ Stop! Halt!
_Anderun_ That portion of a house or tent occupied by the women.
_’Arasi_ Pleasure-gardens.
_Aselamu aleikum_ Greeting to you!
_Asha_ The evening prayer.
_Asr_ The afternoon prayer.
_’Atara_ Sweet-smelling.
_Bab_ Gate.
_Barek balek!_ Look out! Make way!
_Bairaq_ A tribal flag or banner, an ensign of rank.
_Barracan_ Woman’s outer garment.
_Barrak_ To form animals into line or square.
_Bassourab_ The striped, hooped camel-tent, shaped somewhat like a
balloon, in which women travel.
_Basha_ The Arab’s pronunciation of “Pasha,” as there is no _p_ in the
Arabic alphabet.
_Bey_ The hereditary title of the rulers of Tunisia; the governor of a
Turkish province.
_Berkouks_ Pellets of sweetened rice.
_Bilhana!_ Wishing you joy!
_Bilshifa!_ Wishing you health!
_Bismillah!_ In the name of Allah!
_Bled_ Plain.
_Bokra_ To-morrow.
_Borj_ Tower.
_Burghal_ A dish of mince-meat and porridge.
_Burkha_ An outer garment, with slits for the eyes, which envelops a
woman from head to foot.
_Burnous_ A cloak-like garment with a hood attached.
_Cadi_, or _Kadi_ A judge; a magistrate who tries cases involving the
Koranic law.
_Caïd_ or _Kaïd_ A prince, a governor, a tribal ruler.
_Caftan_ A long gown with sleeves, usually of silk.
_Chéchia_ Tunisian fez.
_Cherchem_ Beans.
_Cous-cous_ A lamb stuffed with almonds and raisins and roasted whole.
_Dahir_ Decree.
_Dar_ Palace.
_Dhuhr_ The midday prayer.
_Diffa_ A meal, banquet, feast.
_Djamaa_ Mosque.
_Djebel_ A mountain, or range of mountains.
_Djemel_ A baggage camel.
_Djerid_ Palm-frond; also applied to a region in southern Tunisia.
_Djinn_ An evil spirit.
_Douar_ A large encampment.
_Eblis_ The Moslem infernal regions; hell.
_Ekhwan_ The elders of a tribe.
_El_ The.
_Emir_ A prince, an independent chieftain, a title given to certain
descendants of Mohammed.
_Emshi!_ Go away! Clear out!
_Emshi besselema!_ A farewell salutation, equivalent to “Good night.”
_Erg_ Sand-dune.
_Faddhl_ To converse, gossip.
_Fakous_ Cucumber.
_Fantasia_ An exhibition of horsemanship and “powder play,” similar to
the Spanish _rodeo_.
_Fatha_ The opening verse of the Koran.
_Fatta_ A dish of eggs and carrots.
_Fedjr_ The morning prayer.
_Feisha_ An amulet or charm.
_Fesquia_ Reservoir.
_Fil-fil_ The soft boots worn in the desert.
_Fondouk_ or _Fondak_ A cheap inn, a lodging-place for caravan-men.
_Foum_ Mouth.
_Franzawi_ French, a Frenchman.
_Gandoura_ A long garment, usually of cotton, resembling a night-gown.
_Ghar_ A subterranean dwelling in the Matmata country.
_Giaour_ An infidel, an unbeliever.
_Gibli_ A sand-laden desert wind.
_Girba_ A water-skin, four usually being carried on each camel of a
caravan.
_Goumier_ or _Goum_ A native policeman, a light horseman; in Barbary the
_goumiers_ form a force of mounted constabulary.
_Hadj_ A pilgrimage, as to Mecca.
_Hadji_ A pilgrim, distinguished by a green scarf about his turban when
he has made the Mecca pilgrimage.
_Haik_ The combined head-cloth and veil worn by the desert tribes; also
the veil worn by women in the towns.
_Hakim_ A physician.
_Hamad_ A stony plain, a steppe.
_Hamdullilah!_ It shall be so!
_Hamla_ Baggage camels.
_Hamman_ A bath, a bathing establishment.
_Hamra_ Red.
_Haram_ The forbidden. Synonymous with _harem_.
_Harem_ The wives and concubines of a Moslem or the apartments allotted
to them. Pronounced _ha-réem_.
_Harka_ A band of fighting-men, varying in number.
_Haya alla Salat! Haya alla Falah!_ The Moslem call to prayer.
_Hejin_ A racing-camel.
_Hejira_ Flight; specifically, the flight of Mohammed from Mecca,
September 13, A.D. 622.
_Henna_, or _Hinna_ A thorn-shrub and the reddish stain made from it.
_Hezaam_ A woman’s veil.
_Houri_ A nymph of the Mohammedan paradise, a beautiful and seductive
woman.
_Imam_ A priest; also a descendant of Mohammed who exercises both
princely and priestly powers.
_Inshallah!_ The will of God!
_Islam_ The Mohammedan religion; the whole body of Mohammedans, or the
countries which they occupy.
_Jalib_ A well.
_Jehad_ A holy war.
_Jellabia_ A smock-like garment, worn under the burnous.
_Ka’aba_ The great sanctuary at Mecca, the Moslem holy of holies.
_Kadi_ or _Cadi_ A judge; a magistrate who tries cases involving the
Koranic law.
_Kaibabs_ Bits of mutton roasted on a skewer.
_Kaïd_ or _Caïd_ A prince, a governor, a tribal ruler.
_Kantara_ Bridge.
_Kasbah_ A fortress or castle.
_Kasr_ A castle.
_Kahena_ Priestess.
_Keffieh_ A head-cloth.
_Kebir_ Strong.
_Khalif_, or _Caliph_ A title of the successors of Mohammed both as
temporal and spiritual rulers; now used by the sultans of Morocco.
_Khalifa_ A representative or viceroy of the Khalif.
_Khallas!_ It is finished!
_Khalouk_ Rouge.
_Khams_ A charm, usually taking the form of the hand of Fatima.
_Khamsin_ Fifty; also a sand-laden desert wind which, it is claimed,
blows intermittently for fifty days.
_Khoorg_ A sack or basket used for carrying dates and fodder on the march.
_Khouan_ A holy man.
_Kief halak!_ How do you do? How are you?
_Kohl_ A preparation of soot used by women to darken the eyelids.
_Koran_ The Mohammedan Scriptures, containing the professed revelations
to Mohammed.
_Koubba_ A tomb, usually of a holy man; a shrine.
_Kubla_, or _Kibla_ The point at Mecca toward which Mohammedans turn in
prayer.
_Leben_ Curdled sheep’s, goat’s, or camel’s milk.
_Litham_ The face-cloth, usually blue, worn by Touareg warriors.
_Madresseh_ or _Mederseh_ Theological school or college, usually
connected with a mosque.
_Maghreb_, or _Moghreb_ The West.
_Magzhen_ Government, administration.
_Mansour_ Victor, conqueror.
_Mansoura_ The victorious.
_Marabout_ A holy man, a saint. The name is also applied to a shrine,
usually built over a saint’s tomb.
_Masjid_ A mosque, a place of worship.
_Mehara_ A highly bred racing-camel.
_Mehari_ Plural of _mehara_.
_Mehariste_ A rider of a mehara; that is, a soldier of the Camel Corps.
_Mellah_ The name applied to the quarter occupied by the Jews in certain
towns.
_Mejless_ A tribal council.
_Mektub!_ It is written!
_Meskoutine_ Accursed.
_Mihrab_ The niche in a mosque indicating the direction of Mecca.
_Mimbar_ Pulpit.
_Mirabit_ A militant monk; the genesis of _marabout_.
_Mish’ab_ A camel-stick.
_Mogh’reb_ or _Magh’reb_ The West; also the sunset prayer.
_Mou’abbir_ A pious and learned man.
_Muezzin_ A caller to prayer.
_Mullah_ or _Mollah_ A priest.
_Nargileh_ A pipe, in which the smoke is drawn through water.
_Nasria_ A bottle-shaped reservoir.
_Nazrani_ A Christian.
_Nuálla_ The conical thatched hut of central Morocco.
_Nuksh hadida_ Moorish sculptured plaster-work.
_Nullah_ A dried up watercourse.
_N’zala_ The square empty place in the center of a village.
_Pasha_ A Turkish title of rank, still used in Algeria and Morocco.
_Quaita_ A reed instrument, a cross between a whistle and a flute.
_Rabit_ A monastery fortress.
_Rahmat ullahi Allahim!_ The peace of God be upon him!
_Ramadan_ The ninth month of the Mohammedan calendar; the great annual
fast of the Moslems.
_Rezel_ Gazelle.
_Rhorfa_ A house in Medenine, in southern Tunisia.
_Roumi_ A European, a Christian.
_Sahab_ Companion, particularly of the Prophet.
_Sahrij_ A pool, an artificial lagoon.
_Salaam_ An obeisance; a low bow with the hand on the forehead.
_Salaam aleikum!_ Greeting to you!
_Salaam aleikum was Rahmat Allah!_ Greeting to you and the peace of Allah!
_Serai_ A place for keeping wives and concubines; usually a portion of a
palace.
_Shaduf_ The sweep and bucket used to draw water from a well.
_Sharaqua_ To rise, as the sun; whence _Sirocco_, a wind from the east,
the desert.
_Sharq_ The East.
_Shat_ or _Chott_ A canal, estuary, salt lake.
_Shehada_ The Moslem profession of faith: _Ash hadu illa illaha ill
Allah, wa ash hadu inna Mohammed an rasool Allah_.
_Sheikh_ The chief of a tribe or clan; also the chief magistrate of a
village. Pronounced “_shake_.”
_Sheikh-ul-Islam_ The highest ecclesiastical authority in Islam.
_Sheitan_ The Evil One.
_Shereef_ A member of an Arab princely family descended from Mohammed
through his daughter Fatima. It is one of the titles of the sultan of
Morocco, and the term “shereefian” is applied to his government.
_Sherifa_ A female descendant of Mohammed.
_Sidi_ A lord, a prince.
_Sitt_ A lady.
_Sokhab_ A tiara of small coins worn by desert women, as the Ouled-Naïl.
_Souk_ A bazaar, a market-place.
_Spahi_ A native cavalryman (Tunisian, Algerian, or Moroccan) in the
French service.
_Sura_ A verse of the Koran.
_Taiyib!_ Well! Good!
_Tarboosh_ A cylindrical cap of red or brown felt, higher and straighter
than the Turkish fez.
_Tel_ A hill.
_Tell_ The name applied to that portion of Barbary lying between the
coastal plains and the high mountains.
_Tobh_ The single garment worn by Arab women of the poorer classes.
_Ulema_ The official interpreters of the Koranic law.
_Vizir_, or _Wazir_ A councilor of state; a cabinet minister.
_Wadi_, or _Wad_ River or small stream. The French spell it _oued_.
_Wahran_ A ravine.
_Wakf_ A religious or benevolent foundation.
_Wakil_ A councilor.
_Wazir_ The same as _vizir_.
_Ya_ Yes.
_Zariba_ A thorny hedge, natural or artificial.
_Zawia_, or _Zaouia_ A monastery; originally the house of a
religio-military brotherhood.
_Zemzimayah_ A water-bottle.
_Zouave_ A French infantryman wearing a uniform modeled on the dress of
the Zouaoua, a tribe living in the mountains of the Grand Kabylia.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The historical sketch of Carthage and its people in this chapter is
largely drawn from “African Shores of the Mediterranean,” by C. F. and L.
S. Grant.
[2] See “In the Desert,” by L. March Phillips.
[3] See Colonel Powell’s “The Last Frontier.”
[4] See “In the Desert” by L. March Phillips.
[5] For a full account of Eaton’s remarkable exploit the reader is
referred to Colonel Powell’s “Gentlemen Rovers.”
INDEX
Abd-el-Aziz, Sultan, 348, 353
Abd-el-Kader, 159, 295 _et seq._, 331
Abd-el-Krim, 367 _et seq._
Abd-el-Mumin, Sultan, 436
Abd-er-Rahman, Sultan, 347
Abdallah-ibn-Abad, 212
Abou Bekr, Arab conqueror, 106
Abul Hassan, Sultan, 331-332
Adjim (Djerba), 142
Adrar, of the Iforas, 163, 174
Ægusa, Battle of, 63
Æsculapius, 59
Africa, Roman province of, 79
Agadir (Morocco), 350, 457-458
Agrigentum, Battle of, 62
Ahaggar Plateau (Sahara), 173
Ahmed Pasha, bey of Constantine, 252-253
Air, hills of (Sahara), 174, 218
Aïssa, Marabout, 234, 402
Aïssaoua, sect, rites of, Biskra, 233 _et seq._
Mequinez, 402
Alaoui Museum, near Tunis, 47 _et seq._
Alaric the Goth, 79
Alcázar, or Al Kasar (Morocco), 364
Algeciras (Spain), 8, 423
Algeciras Conference, 351 _et seq._
Algeria, 215 _et seq._
agriculture, 316 _et seq._
conquest, 159, 313 _et seq._
government, 311 _et seq._
inhabitants, 314
minerals, 318
motoring, 307 _et seq._
railways, 306
roads, 305 _et seq._
Tell, 311
Algiers (Algeria), 278 _et seq._
Arab city, 281
El Biar, suburb of, 298-9
French city, 280
gardens, 299
Great Mosque, 283
Jardin d’Essai, 300
mosque of Sidi er Rahman, 283
museum, 301
Mustapha Supérieur, 298 _et seq._
New Mosque, 283
Notre Dame d’Afrique, Church of, 303
occupation of, French, 293 _et seq._
palace of deys, 282
palace of governor-general, 299
Alhucemas (Spanish Morocco), 366
Ali V, Sultan, 334
Alides, dynasty of, 347
Alix, General, 356
Almohades, dynasty of, 331, 346, 408, 436
Almoravides, dynasty of, 337, 346
Americans in the Foreign Legion, 336 _et seq._
Americans in the Riff, 368-369
Amor Abbada, Moslem saint, 109
Amr ibn al Asi, Arab conqueror, 106
Andalusians, 16, 34
Anti-Atlas Mountains, 454-455
Arab invasion of North Africa, 80, 106 _et seq._, 114, 243, 341 _et
seq._
Argan Forest, Great (Morocco), 432-433
_Argo_, 151
Argonauts, 136, 150-151
Army in Morocco, French, 445-456
Arouj, corsair chief, 284, 331
Atlas Mountains, 10, 239, 451 _et seq._
Augustus, Emperor, 78, 121, 309
Aurés Mountains, 150, 189, 240, 253
Azan, Colonel Paul, 335
Azemour (Morocco), 431
Azrou (Morocco), 378
Babor, Mount, 267
Balearic Islands, 69
Bamaku (French Sudan), 184
Barb horses, 405
Barbarossa, corsair chief, 20, 252, 269, 284 _et seq._, 320, 331
Barbary, climate, 9, 10
topography, 10, 238-239
Barbers of Tunis, 41
Bardo, palace of, near Tunis, 46 _et seq._
_Bataillons d’Afrique_, 326
Batna (Algeria), 241
Bekri, Arab geographer, 155
Belisarius, 80, 114
Beni-Abbés (Morocco), 168
Beni-Isguen (Algerian Sahara), 217
Beni-M’zab, 212 _et seq._
Berbers, 57, 61, 101, 117, 125, 139, 340 _et seq._
Bey of Tunis, 45
Beylerbeys, Turkish, 286
Bibawan Pass (Morocco), 454
Biskra (Algeria), 10, 152, 216 _et seq._
Aïssaoua, performances of, 233 _et seq._
climate, 224
“Garden of Allah,” 226 _et seq._
Ouled-Naïl, dancing-girls of, 230 _et seq._
Villa Landon, 226 _et seq._
Bizerta (Tunisia), 14 _et seq._
Blake, Admiral Robert, 290
Bled el Hamra (Morocco), 434
Bled Kebira (Tunisia), 122, 124 _et seq._
Blue Gardens at Rabat, 410
Boabdil, king of Granada, 330, 347
Bokharis, 402
Bône (Algeria), 291, 294
Bonnier, Colonel, French explorer, 167
Bordeaux, routes from, 7
Borku (French Equatorial Africa), 174
Bou-Hamara, 348, 354
Bou-Kornein, peaks of (Tunisia), 44, 60, 65
Bou-Ragrag, river (Morocco), 409
Bou-Zarea Hills (Algeria), 303
Bougie (Algeria), 264 _et seq._
British policy in Morocco, 349 _et seq._, 370 _et seq._, 385
Bugeaud, Marshal, 296
Bu-Maza, “goat-man,” 297
Byrsa, 57 _et seq._, 84
Byzacium, 115
Byzantines in Africa, 79, 106, 114, 243
Cæsar, Julius, 78
Cæsarea (Algeria), 108
Caïds, Grand, 357 _et seq._, 362, 445, 455
Caius Gracchus, 78
Calcius Herculis, 240
Cambē, 56
Camels, 208 _et seq._, 218
Cameroons, 164, 352
Canaanites, 57
Cannæ, Battle of, 67
Cape Spartel, 344
Caracalla, Emperor, 408
Caravans, 208
Carpets, Tunisian, 36
Carthage, 17-18, 24, 32, 56 _et seq._
agora, 85
Admiralty Palace, 84, 86, 89
amphitheater, 89-90
aqueduct, 87, 105
area, 82
Byrsa, 57 _et seq._, 84
Cathedral of St. Louis, 94
cemeteries, 93
circus, 89 _et seq._
Cothon, 84 _et seq._, 88-89
Eschmoun, Temple of, 59, 88
forum, 85
harbors, 84 _et seq._, 88-89
Megara, suburb of, 84
Museum, Lavigerie, 86, 95-96
Odéon, 89
population of Punic City, 82
Punic remains, 86
racing, 91 _et seq._
Roman remains, 86 _et seq._, 89 _et seq._
sarcophagi, Punic, 96
Scorpianus, house of, 92
_tabulæ execrationis_, 92-93
Casablanca (Morocco), 353, 424 _et seq._
abattoir, 427-8
communications with Europe, 430
markets, 427
new town, 426-427
Place de France, 426
prostitutes’ quarter, 428-429
_souks_, 426
Cato, Marcus, 72, 78
Cervantes, Miguel de, 288
Ceuta (Spanish Morocco), 365 _et seq._, 370-371, 403
Chabet Pass (Algeria), 264 _et seq._
Charles II, king of England, 290
Charles V, king of Spain, 20, 42
Cherchel (Algeria), 309-310
Chergui, island of (Tunisia), 121
Chotts; see Shats, 149 _et seq._
Christian slaves, Tunisia, 42-43
Algiers, 288 _et seq._
Christians persecuted, Carthage, 79, 85, 89
El Djem, 116
Cirta, 250 _et seq._
Cisneros, Cardinal Ximenes de, 320
Citroen, André, 181
Citroen tractor expeditions, 181 _et seq._
Clausel, Marshal, 253, 331
Cleopatra, 309
Colomb-Béchar (Algeria), 184, 223, 323
Color line in French North Africa, 166
Compagnie Générale Transatlantique services to North Africa, 7, 266,
430
hotel at Constantine, 259
hotel at El Hamma, 144, 148
hotel at El Oued, 194
hotel at Fez, 382
hotel at Marrákesh, 435-436
hotel at Mequinez, 401
hotel at Michelet, 274
hotel at Taza, 379
hotel at Tenes, 310
hotel at Tlemcen, 331
hotel at Tozeur, 156
Congo, French, 160
Constantine (Algeria), 247 _et seq._
Arab town, 257
cathedral, 257
Corniche Road, 249
Djamaa-el-Kebir, 256
gorges of the Rummel, 248 _et seq._
history, 250 _et seq._
Hôtel Transatlantique, 259
Jews of, 258-9
_kasbah_, 256
museum, 257
palace of Ahmed Pasha, 255-256
Place de la Brèche, 258
_souks_, 258
Coppolani, French explorer, 166
Cork industry, 452
Corsairs, Algerine, 255, 269, 284 _et seq._
Moorish, 417 _et seq._
Tunisian, 42-43
Cucumbers, 119
Daia (Algeria), 323
Dakar (Senegal), 184
Damrémont, General, 253
Darfur (Sudan), 174
Dates, 155-156
Daugan, General, 359
d’Aumale, Duc, 296
de Brazza, Savargnan, 160, 166
Decatur, Stephen, 291
de Chambrun, General Vicomte, 388
Defoe, Daniel, 289
de Foucauld, Vicomte Charles, 167 _et seq._
Delattre, Father, 95
de Lesseps, Ferdinand, 152
de l’Isle, Brière, 166
Denison, Miss Sophie, 385, 394, 443
de Trémaudan, Vicomte Louis, 448
Dido, 17, 24, 56
Divorce in Morocco, 443-444
Djebel Amur, 215
Djebel Saghru, 454
Djebel Zaghouan, 102, 104
Djelfa (Algeria), 219
Djerba, island of, 122, 135 _et seq._
character of, 137 _et seq._
costumes, 139
Hara Srira, 139-140
Houmt-Souk, 140 _et seq._
inhabitants, 138
Jews in, 139-140
Skull Fort, 141
synagogue, 139-140
wild flowers, 138
Djerid, Tunisian, 149, 154
Djidjelli (Algeria), 266
Djorf (Tunisia), 142
Djurjura Mountains, 249, 264, 269, 273
Dodds, General, 166
Donatists, 243, 251
Douls, Camille, 166
Dourneaux Duperré, 166
Dra’a, river, 365
Dragut, corsair chief, 114, 141
Dunes, sand, 174 _et seq._, 186 _et seq._
Dutch bombard Algiers, 291
Duveyrier, Henri, 166
Eaton, William, 290
Edward VII, King, 349
El Araish (Morocco), 366
El Bahira, lake of, 19, 44, 83
El Beloui, “the Barber,” 110-111
El Biar (Algeria), 298-299
El Djem (Tunisia), 115 _et seq._, 126
El Eubbad (Algeria), 333
El Glaoui, khalifa of Marrákesh, 362, 446
El Golea, oasis of, 160, 174
El Hamma (Tunisia), 144 _et seq._
El Hiba, Moorish pretender, 357
El Juf, oasis of, 163
El Kahena, Berber chieftainess, 117, 125
El Kantara (Algeria), 222, 240-241
El Kantara (Tunisia), 136
El Oued (Tunisia), 194
El Roghi, Moorish pretender, 385
En-Nasr, Berber ruler, 268
Ennedi Mountains, 174
Entente Cordiale, 349
Eschmoun, god of the Carthaginians, 59
Es Sueira (Morocco), 432
Exmouth, Lord, 291
Faidherbe, General, 166
Falconry, 200
Fan, dey of Algiers slaps French consul with, 293
Fatimite wars, 155
Felicitas, St., martyrdom of, 79, 90
Ferdinand V, king of Spain, 269
Ferryville (Tunisia), 15
Fez (Morocco), 380 _et seq._
climate, 390
Companions of the Sick, 389-390
drainage system, 380
Great Prayer, 396 _et seq._
history, 381
hotels, 382
Karueein Mosque, 383
leather-work, 387
massacre of, 355
mederseh, 383
military camp, 395
Mulai Idris, mosque of, 384
museum, 384-385
palace of Bou Djeloud, 390
Palais Jamaï, 382
population, 381
situation, 380
_souks_, 386 _et seq._
Treaty of, 355
Ville Moderne, 395
women, 390 _et seq._
Fezzes, manufacture of, 381
Filali dynasty, 347
Flaminius, Roman consul, 67
Flatters, Colonel, 166
Foreign Legion, 162, 323 _et seq._, 336 _et seq._
Fort National (Algeria), 273-274
Foum-es-Sahara; see El Kantara (Algeria)
Foureau, Fernand, 161-162, 166
French policy, Algeria, 311 _et seq._
Morocco, 349 _et seq._
Tunisia, 26-7, 49, 312 _et seq._
Gabés (Tunisia), 117, 122, 136, 152
Gabés, gulf of, 112, 119, 121, 151
Gafsa (Tunisia), 156
Galleys, Carthaginian, 61 _et seq._
corsair, 287
Gallifet, General, 160
Gambetta, French statesman, 94
“Garden of Allah,” 222
Garden of the Hesperides, 366
Gazelle hunting in the Sahara, 200
Gelaa Matmata (Tunisia), 125-126
Genseric, 79, 215
German colonies in Africa mandated to France, 164
German policy in Morocco, 349 _et seq._
Ghadames (Sahara), 166
Gharbi, island of (Tunisia), 121
Ghardaia (Algeria), 156, 212 _et seq._
_Ghars_ of Matmata, 127 _et seq._
Ghiata Mountains (Morocco), 378
Gibraltar, 370-371
Goletta; see La Goulette
Gordian, Emperor, 116
Goths in North Africa, 79
Goundafi, Grand Caïd of the Sus, 363, 456
Goundafi, pass of (Morocco), 454
Gouraud, General, 356
Grand Caïds, 445
Grand Erg Occidental, 173-174
Grand Erg Oriental, 173-174, 179 _et seq._
Grande Mademoiselle, 403 _et seq._
Great Prayer near Fez, 396 _et seq._
Greeks in North Africa, 80
Guemar, oasis of (Algerian Sahara), 197
Guinea, French, 160
Guraya, Mount (Algeria), 267
Hadrian, Emperor, 87, 105, 316
Hadrumetum, 56, 113
Haedo, Spanish historian, 302
Hafsides, dynasty of, 268
Háhá, province of (Morocco), 432
Hamadchas, sect of, 406
Hamilcar, 61, 63, 65 _et seq._
Hammamet, gulf of, 112
Hamman Meskoutine (Algeria), 260 _et seq._
Hammon, god of Carthaginians, 59-60
Hannibal, 63 _et seq._, 121
Hanno, 63-64
Hara Srira (Djerba), 139-140
Hasdrubal, 65, 77
Hasdrubal Giscon, 68
Hassan, Arab conqueror, 80, 85
Hassan, Sultan, 348
Hassan Tower at Rabat, 408
Hatchet, defile of the (Tunisia), 65
Hercules, Pillars of, 18
Herodotus, 123
Hesperides, Gardens of the, 56
Hichens, Robert, 226
Hippo Zarytus, 56
Hoggar Plateau (Sahara), 173
Hohenzollern, William, 350
Homer’s description of Djerba, 137, 142
Horace, 103
Horses, Barb, 405
Houmt-Souk (Djerba), 136, 140 _et seq._
Hounds, Saluki, 200
Hussein Pasha, dey of Algiers, 292 _et seq._
Iarbas, King, 56
Icosium, 283
Idráren Dráren Mountains, 453
Idris, Mulai, 345, 381
Idris II, Mulai, 345
Idrisi dynasty, 346 _et seq._
Ifni, Spanish colony of, 364-365
Igidi (Sahara), 173-174
Imperial Road to Tafilalt, 378
Innaouene, river, 379
In Salah, oasis of, 168
Isly, Battle of, 297
Isly, Duke of, 296
Italian interests in Tunisia, 14
Italian policy in Morocco, 371 _et seq._
Ivory Coast, 160, 184
Jabir, Moorish architect, 436
Jackson, James, English traveler, 405
Jarabub (Tripolitania), 198
Jason and the Argonauts, 136, 150-151
Jewelry, Kabyle, 276
Jews, Algeria, 258-259, 316
Morocco, 342
Tunisia, 53
Jol, 309
Joubert, French explorer, 166
Juba I, king of Mauretania, 103
Juba II, king of Mauretania, 309
Jugurtha, 251
Julia Cæsarea, 309
Jusserand, Jean Jules, 27
Justinian, Emperor, 80
Kabyles, 270 _et seq._
Kabylia, Grand, 11, 263 _et seq._
Kabylia, Lesser, 269
Kabylia, rebellion, 297
Kairouan (Tunisia), 49, 80, 100 _et seq._
carpets, 36, 111
Djamaa Amor Abbada (Mosque of the Saber), 109
Djamaa Sidi Okba, 105, 107
Djamaa Sidi Sahab (Mosque of the Barber), 110
El Beloui, tomb of, 111
history of, 106 _et seq._
hotel, 107
Kasbah Tadla (Morocco), 430
_Kasbahs_ in the High Atlas, 456-457
Kayes (Senegal), 184
Kedija, Mount, 274
Kef (Tunisia), 103
Key of David, 132
Khair-ed-Din, corsair chief, 252, 284 _et seq._
Kherrata (Algeria), 264
Koceila, Berber chief, 117
Kolea (Algeria), 308
Ksar-er-Rabit in Sousse, 115
Kubr-er-Rumia (Tomb of the Christian Woman), 308
Laghouat (Algeria), 159, 219
La Goulette (Tunisia), 19 _et seq._, 44, 80
Lalla Maghnia (Algeria), 313, 374
La Marsa (Tunisia), 44
Lambessa (Algeria), 241
Lamoricière, General, 297
Lamy, Lieutenant, French explorer, 166
Larache (Morocco), 366
Largeau, Victor, French explorer, 166
Laroussi, Si Sayah, Grand Marabout of the Tidjania, 199
Lavigerie, Cardinal, 94-95, 220-221
Leather-work, Fez, 387
Marrákesh, 437
Tunis, 38-39
Légion Etrangère, 323 _et seq._, 336 _et seq._
Lella Setta Hills (Algeria), 329
Leptis (Tripolitania), 70
Libya, 58, 133, 151
Libyan Desert, 175
Lipara, Battle of, 62
London, Declaration of, 349-350
_Lotophagi_ (Lotus-Eaters), 141
Lotus, quest of, 141 _et seq._
Louis IX, king of France, 80, 94
Louis XIII, king of France, 403
Louis XIV, king of France, 404
Lyautey, Marshal, 168, 355, 357
Maclean, Caïd Sir Harry, English soldier of fortune, 352
Macta, Battle of the, 295
Madrid, Treaty of, 363
Magellan, Ferdinand, 431
Maghreb-el-Aska, 339
Mahomet XVI, Sultan, 347
Ma’mora, forest of (Morocco), 452
Mansoura, ruins of, 334
Marabouts, 115, 147, 197 _et seq._
Marchand, Major, French explorer, 178
Marinides, dynasty of, 346
Mark Antony, 369
Marrákesh (Morocco), 434 _et seq._
Aguedal, 444
Aguenaou Gate, 444
architecture, 435
Bled el Hamra, 434
climate, 444
hotels, 435-436
Kutubia Tower, 435-436
leather-work, 437
mosque of Abd-el-Mumin, 436
Sinners’ Concourse, 436
_souks_, 437
visit to sultan, 447 _et seq._
Marseilles, 7, 11 _et seq._
Martel, Charles, “Hammer of God,” 345
Mascara (Algeria), 323
Masinissa, king of Numidia, 65, 69, 248, 251, 309
Matmata Plateau (Tunisia), 121, 123 _et seq._
Mauretania, 163, 167, 173, 344
Mazagan (Morocco), 431-432
M’Donnell, Ida, escape, 291
Medenine (Tunisia), 121, 130 _et seq._
Medjerda, river, 117
Medrassen (Algeria), 245
Megara, 78, 84
Meggarine, Battle of, 159
_Méharistes_, 154, 201
Mekinez; see Mequinez
Melilla (Spanish Morocco), 365
Meninx, 137
Mequinez (Morocco), 400 _et seq._
Aïssa, tomb of, 402
Bab Bardain, 401
hotel, 401
Mansour Gate, 401
palace of Mulai Ismail, 402 _et seq._
school for princes, military, 405
school of native arts, 402
stables of Mulai Ismail, 404
Mercenaries, War of, 64, 103
Mers-el-Kebir (Algeria), 320
Metabia, Arab tribe, 215
Metaloui (Tunisia), 156
Metameur (Tunisia), 134
Michelet (Algeria), 274
Michigan, University of, excavations at Carthage, 99
Micipisa, 251
Miknasa, dynasty of the, 346
Mjerda River, 313
Mogador (Morocco), 432
Montpensier, Duchesse de, 403 _et seq._
Morocco
Abd-el-Krim, 367 _et seq._
airplane services, 430
British policy, 348 _et seq._, 370 _et seq._
capitals, 400
climate, 9, 453
conquest by the French, 163-164, 314
divorce, 443-444
forests, 452
French policy, 349 _et seq._, 414, 416, 446-447
German policy, 349, 358
government, 312, 359 _et seq._
Grand Caïds, 357 _et seq._, 362
history, 339 _et seq._
inhabitants, 340 _et seq._
Italian policy, 371 _et seq._
Jews, 342
military forces, French, 445
Moors, 343 _et seq._
Moroccan troops in Great War, 359
polygamy, 441
population, 343-344, 446
protectorate declared by France, 355
railways, 376-377, 430
Riff, 353, 355 _et seq._, 364
roads, 306, 377-378
slavery, 437 _et seq._
Spanish policy, 349 _et seq._
Spanish zone, 363 _et seq._
steamer communication, 430
Sultan Mulai Yusef, 356, 361, 414 _et seq._
Tangier, 364 _et seq._
topography, 453-454
wild flowers, 451-452
women, position, 440 _et seq._
Motoring, Algeria, 307 _et seq._
Morocco, 306, 377-378
Sahara, 156 _et seq._
Tunisia, 117, 124
Mozabites, 212 _et seq._
Mtouggui, khalifa of High Atlas, 300
Mulai Hafid, Sultan, 353
Mulai Idris (Morocco), 405
Mulai Ismail, Sultan, 402 _et seq._
Mulai Yusef, Sultan, 163, 356, 414 _et seq._, 447 _et seq._
Murabti, dynasty of, 346
Mussolini, Benito, 371
Mustapha Inférieur, 274
Mustapha Supérieur, 298
Neal, Admiral Sir Harry, 292
Nefta, oasis of, 193-194
New Carthage (Cartagena), 66
Oases, Saharan, 154
Okba ibn Nafi, Sidi, 106 _et seq._, 229-230
Omar, Arab khalif, 106
Oran (Algeria), 318 _et seq._
Othman ibn Affan, 106
Oued Biskra, 222
Oued Rir, revolt, 159, 204
Ouergha, valley of (Morocco), 368
Oujda (Morocco), 352, 374
Ouled-Naïl, dancing-girls of, 230 _et seq._
Ouled-Naïl Mountains, 219
Ourgla (or Wargla), oasis of, 156, 159, 213
Outih, 56
Ovid, 91
Palet, Lieutenant, French explorer, 166
Payne, John Howard, author of “Home, Sweet Home,” 55
Penon, at Algiers, 285-286
Perdicaris, Ion, kidnapping, 348
_Pères Blancs_, 221
Perfume-sellers of Tunis, 33 _et seq._
Perpetua, St., martyrdom, 79, 90
Perrégaux, General, 253
Pétain, Marshal, 368
Phenicians, 56 _et seq._
_Philadelphia_, U.S.S., in war with Barbary corsairs, 291
Philip II, king of Spain, 365
Philippeville (Algeria), 260
Piali Pasha, 141
Pillars of Hercules, 366
Polygamy in Morocco, 441
Pomaria, 330
Portuguese in Morocco, 431, 457
Preble, Commodore, 291
Ptolemy, 155
Punic Wars, 61 _et seq._
Quintus Fabius Maximus, 67
Quiza, 319
Rabat (Morocco), 408 _et seq._
Blue Gardens, 410
Borj-el-Hassan (Hassan Tower), 408
modern city, 412
museum, 409
palace of Sultan Yakoub, 409
school of native arts, 409
_souks_, 411
Railways, Algeria, 306
Morocco, 376-377, 430
Sahara, 184-185
Tunisia, 155-156
Raisuli, Moroccan bandit, 348, 352
Ramadan, observance, 44-45, 206
Redemptionists, order of, 289
Regulus, Marcus Attilius, 17, 63
Renault, Louis, automobile manufacturer, 183
Renault twelve-wheel cars in Sahara, 156, 179 _et seq._
Rhodes, Cecil, 221
_Rhorfa_ of Medenine, 131 _et seq._
Riff (Morocco), 353, 364 _et seq._
Rio de Oro, Spanish colony, 365
Roads, Algeria, 305 _et seq._
Morocco, 377-378
Tunisia, 117-118
Romans, Algeria, 241 _et seq._, 265, 268
Tunisia, 60 _et seq._, 115 _et seq._, 144, 155
Roosevelt, Theodore, 348, 351
Roudaire, Colonel François, 152
Routes to North Africa, 7-8
Rovers, Sallee, 409, 417 _et seq._
Rummel, gorges of, at Constantine, 249-250
Saddlery of Tunis, 38-39
Saffron Islands, or Zaffarines (Morocco), 366
Safi (Morocco), 432
Sahara, 195 _et seq._
agriculture, 196-197
Algerian, 311-312
area, 171
climate, 9, 195-196
color, 190
conquest, 158 _et seq._
date cultivation, 155-156
oases, 154, 176 _et seq._
railways proposed, 184-185
scheme for flooding, 152
topography, 172
trade routes, 193
Tunisian, 149
wells, 176 _et seq._
Sahel, Algerian, 279
Tunisian, 113, 115, 117
St. Gerónimo, buried alive, 301 _et seq._
St. Louis, death on last Crusade, 17
St. Vincent de Paul, captured by corsairs, 43
Salah Reis, corsair chief, 269, 309
“Salammbô,” Flaubert’s, 64, 103
Salé (Morocco), 409, 417
Salisbury, Lord, 161
Sallee Rovers, 409
Saluki gazelle-hounds, 200
Sand-storms, 191 _et seq._
Santa Cruz de Berbería (Morocco), 457
Say (French Sudan), 161
Say, Louis, French explorer, 166
Sbeitla, Battle of, 110
Scipio Africanus, 17, 68 _et seq._, 74 _et seq._
Sebkha-en-Rouan, 83
Sebkhet-es-Sedjoumi, 19, 44
Selene, Princess, daughter of Cleopatra, 309
Selim, Sultan, 252, 285
Selkirk, Alexander, 289
Sempronius Gracchus, 121
Senegambia (French West Africa), 160
Senussi, 198
Septimius Severus, 247
Setif (Algeria), 264
Shat-el-Djerid, 152, 155
Shat-el-Fejej, 152
Shat Gharsa, 152, 155
Shat Melrir, 152, 222
Shats, 149 _et seq._, 153 _et seq._
Sidi Abdallah (Tunisia), 15
Sidi-bel-Abbès (Algeria), 323 _et seq._
Sidi Bou Medine, 333
Sidi-Brahim, Battle of, 297
Sidi-Ferruch (Algeria), 293
Sidi M’godol, 433
Sidi Okba (Algeria), 229
Sidi Okba; see Okba ibn Nafi
Sidi Salah (Tunisia), 120
Skull Fort in Djerba, 141
Slave-trade, 214, 437-438
Slaves in Barbary, Christian, 288 _et seq._
Solomon, Byzantine, general, 243
Somaliland, French, 164
Sophonisba, 68
Sousse (Tunisia), 56, 107, 113 _et seq._
Spain invaded by Carthaginians, 65 _et seq._
Spanish policy in Morocco, 349 _et seq._
Spanish rule in North Africa, 140, 252, 269, 284 _et seq._, 320-321,
343, 353, 363 _et seq._
Staoueli, Battle of, 293
Staoueli wine made by Trappist monks, 318
Steeg, Théodore, French resident-general in Morocco, 360
Stone Age, relics, in Morocco, 344
Sudan, French, 161
Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan, 286
Sus (Morocco), 451 _et seq._, 455 _et seq._
Susi, characteristics, 455-456
Syphax, king of the Massæsylians, 68-69, 251
Syracuse to Tripoli, route, 8
Syrtes, 123, 150-151
Tababort, Mount, 267
Tabarca (Tunisia), 79
Tacape, 122
Tafilalt (Morocco), 378
Tafna, Treaty of, 295, 331
Tamanrasset (Sahara), 168
Tangier (Morocco), 364 _et seq._, 372, 419 _et seq._
Tanguin, Battle of, 296
Tanith, Carthaginian, goddess, 18, 59-60, 89
Taourirt (Morocco), 379
Taparura, 119
Tarik, Berber general, 345
Tarundant (Morocco), 454-455
Tasili Plateau, 173
Taza (Morocco), 378-379
Tchad, Lake, 166, 178, 184, 193
Tebessa, 241
Tell, Algerian, 238
Tell, Tunisian, 112
Temacin (Algeria), 207
Tenes (Algeria), 310-311
Tensift River (Morocco), 435
Tertullian, 90
Tetuan (Spanish-Morocco), 366
Thamugas, 242 _et seq._
Thapsus, Battle of, 78, 103
Thines, 24
Thysdrus, 115 _et seq._
Tibesti Plateau (Sahara), 174
Tidikelt, oasis of, 154, 166
Tidjania (Algerian Sahara), 199
Timbuktu (French Sudan), 154, 161, 167, 169, 178, 184, 193, 208
Timgad, 241 _et seq._
arch of Trajan, 245
baths, 245
forum, 244
library, 244-245
Timhadit (Morocco), 378
Tinzar, Mount (Morocco), 453
Tisouros, 155
Tizi-Ouzou (Algeria), 273
Tlemcen (Algeria), 329 _et seq._
Togoland (West Africa), 164, 352
Tomb of Christian Woman, 308
Touareg, 161 _et seq._, 168 _et seq._, 177, 201
Trade routes across Sahara, 207-208
Trajan, Emperor, 114
Transat; see Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
Trinitarians, order of, 289
Tripoli, American naval demonstration, 291
Tripolitania, 8, 106
Triton, sea-god, 150
Tritonis, Lake, 150
Troglodytes of Southern Tunisia, 123 _et seq._
Tuat, oasis of, 154
Tummo Mountains, 174
Tunis, 20 _et seq._
Alaoui Museum, 47 _et seq._
aqueduct, Roman, 44, 87
arrival at, 20 _et seq._
Bab Cartagena, 55
Bab-el-Bahar, 28
Bab Souika, 40, 52
barbers, 40-41
Bardo, palace of, 45 _et seq._
Belvedere, park of, 44
bey of, 44, 48, 51-52
Bou-Kornein, peaks of, 44 _et seq._
cemetery, Jewish, 54-55
cemetery of St. George, 55
_chéchias_, manufacture, 40
Dar-el-Bey, palace of, 43-44
Djamaa-es-Zeitouna, 50
Djamaa Sidi Mahrez, 52
executions, 45
hats, 39
Jewesses, 53 _et seq._
_kasbah_, 42-43
leather goods, 38
loot of Carthage, 32
Medina, 28
mosaics, ancient, 49
mosques, 50 _et seq._
Night of the Prophet, 51
Payne, John Howard, author of “Home, Sweet Home,” 55
perfume-sellers, 33 _et seq._
Porte de France, 42
porters, 29
Ramadan, observance, 44-45
routes, 8
saddlery, 38-39
slippers, 40
Souk des Etoffes, 36
Souk-el-Attarin, 33
Souk-el-Blagdjia, 40
_souks_, 30 _et seq._, 51
women, 52
Tunisia, 102 _et seq._
agriculture, 103-104, 112
area, 111 _et seq._
character of country, 102, 111 _et seq._
conquest, 314
declaration of French protectorate, 160
Djerid, 149, 154
French policy, 26-27, 49, 311 _et seq._
government, 312
hot springs, 146
olive culture, 113, 120
railways, 155-156
roads, 117-118
Roman remains, 115
Sahara, Tunisian, 149, 155
Sahel, 113, 115
Shats, 149 _et seq._
sponge-fishing, 119, 121, 138
Tell, 112
topography, 112
Turks in Algeria, 284 _et seq._, 331
Tussid, Mount, 174
Ulric, Admiral, 291
Ulysses, 136, 142
Um-er-Rabi’a, Moroccan river, 431
United States at war with corsairs, 291
Utica, 56, 69, 72
Vagas, Martin, Spanish commander, 285
Valée, Marshal, 253, 296
Van de Capellen, Admiral, 291
Vandals in Africa, 79, 87, 114, 243, 330, 344
Vienna Congress, 291
Villa Cisneros (Rio de Oro), 365
Volubilis, 344, 401, 404, 407-408
Von Bülow, German chancellor, 351
Wadai (French Equatorial Africa), 174
Wad Fas (Morocco), 380
Wadi Martil (Morocco), 366
Wadi M’zab (Algerian Sahara), 214
Wahabis in Djerba, 139
War Mountains, 174
Wargla; see Ourgla
Wattasi dynasty, 347
Weapons, Tunis, 37
Marrákesh, 437-438
White Fathers, order of, 86, 94-95, 221
Wild flowers, Djerba, 138
Morocco, 451-452
Women, Algiers, 282
Djerba, 139
El Hamma, 147
Fez, 390 _et seq._
Marrákesh, 440 _et seq._
Tunis, 52
Xanthippus, 17, 63
Yakoub, Sultan, 334, 408
Yarmorasen, Sultan, 330, 332
Yazid, Sultan, 347
Yusuf ibn Tashfin, Sultan, 434
Zab, 222
Zaffarines (Spanish Morocco), 366
Zaghouan (Tunisia), 87, 104
Zama, Battle of, 70
Zarzis (Tunisia), 136
Zenata Berbers, 330
Ziban (Algeria), 222
Zinder (Niger Territory), 161, 166, 193
Zouaves, 279
Zuara (Tripolitania), 8