THE SULTAN OF THE MOUNTAINS
[Illustration: Raisuli and Rosita Forbes at Tazrut]
THE SULTAN OF THE
MOUNTAINS
THE LIFE STORY OF RAISULI
By
ROSITA FORBES
_Author of_
“THE SECRET OF THE SAHARA: KUFARA”
“QUEST”, ETC.
[Decoration]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1924
COPYRIGHT, 1924
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
_Printed March, 1924_
PRINTED IN
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC.
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTO THE DAYS OF HAROUN ER RASHID 3
II. THE WILD LAND OF RAISULI 10
III. RAISULI HIMSELF 19
IV. PRIDE OF RACE 25
V. EARLY PROWESS IN WAR 33
VI. PRISON, TORTURE AND ESCAPE 41
VII. RAISULI’S TWO HOSTAGES 57
VIII. MORE POWER; GOVERNOR OF TANGIER 66
IX. PLOTTING AND COUNTER PLOTTING 75
X. DEALINGS WITH MULAI HAFID 90
XI. BUILDING THE PALACE AT AZEILA 98
XII. LEGENDS OF CRUELTY 105
XIII. STRAINED RELATIONS WITH SPAIN 120
XIV. ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS 136
XV. WAR WITH SPAIN 152
XVI. ARABIAN ASTUTENESS 168
XVII. RAISULI’S STRATEGY 183
XVIII. PLOTTING FOR PEACE 199
XIX. THE TREATY OF PEACE 215
XX. GOSSIP OF THE HAREM 230
XXI. MORE FIGHTING 244
XXII. JORDANA’S DEATH 261
XXIII. LEADER OF A HOLY WAR 276
XXIV. SIEGE AND RETREAT 291
XXV. POPULAR MYTHS AND SUPERSTITIONS 307
XXVI. PEACE AGAIN WITH SPAIN 323
XXVII. FAREWELL 337
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Raisuli and Rosita Forbes at Tazrut _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Map of Spanish Morocco 4
Escort sent by Raisuli to meet Rosita Forbes 10
Powder play by Arabs 10
Snake eater at Suq el Khemis 13
Court of Raisuli’s palace 16
General view of Raisuli’s compound 22
Dinner at Tazrut 22
Rosita Forbes amidst Raisuli’s people 32
A halt on the way to Tazrut 32
Raisuli’s prison in Tazrut 48
Xauen with the ancient castle 48
Entry to Raisuli’s palace 64
Raisuli 80
Mulai Sadiq in his home at Tetuan 96
Nephew of El Raisuli 96
Sacred tree in Raisuli’s palace 112
Raisuli’s original house at Tazrut 128
Raisuli’s present house in Tazrut 128
Mulai Ahmed el Raisuli 144
Raisuli’s house at Tazrut 160
Raisuli’s qubba at Tazrut 160
Mohammed el Khalid 176
Raisuli’s house at the Fondak of Ain Yerida 192
Raisuli’s house—the Zawia—at Tazrut 192
Facsimile of a letter from Raisuli 197
Tazrut 208
Mosque at Tazrut 208
Spanish escort in Beni Aras 234
A Spanish port 234
A view of Tetuan, showing tower of mosque 250
Door of mosque at Tetuan 266
Azeila from the air 282
Gallery of Raisuli’s palace 298
The Sorceress mentioned by Raisuli 314
Gate of Raisuli’s Palace 330
INTRODUCTION
The 14th century of Islam has produced a number of remarkable
personalities, but none is surrounded with such fabulous glamour as that
of Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli Sherif, warrior and philosopher, saint, tyrant
and psychologist. This Haroun er Raschid of Morocco is descended from
the Prophet through an older branch of the imperial house which now
reins in Fez.
By race, therefore, he is entitled to the respect of his people and he
makes the most of the superstitious awe which has surrounded him since
his childhood. Yet his personality is in no way the result of his great
descent. Raisuli is a man whose mind, critical and peculiarly
impersonal, must often have been at war with his spirit—a spirit steeped
in the mysticism of the “baraka,” the traditional blessing which
protects his house. Profoundly intelligent, with a knowledge of human
nature, whether European or Arab, which is the result of unusual powers
of observation, but which, to the Moor, appears supernatural, the
Sherif’s audacity is as much mental as physical. He believes in the luck
which invariably turns the most adverse circumstances to his final
advantage, and is not above staking his remarkable immunity from danger
against the credulity of his followers, but below this is the conviction
of divine right. His charm, as powerful as it is elusive, is a
revelation of the “baraka,” for it is purely spiritual and has no
connection with the concentrated energy of his mind.
Raisuli represents to the Moors the champion of Islam against the
Christian, of the old against the new; yet, from his youth, he foresaw
the inevitable intervention of Europe in Morocco and determined to
manipulate such intervention to his own ends. The project, though
ambitious, was not egoistic, for the Sherif conceives himself an
instrument of fate—“This is _my_ land and you are _my_ people. While I
live nothing shall be taken from me.” His ancient race is part of the
soil of the mountains, and the 1,500 Alani Sherifs, of whom he is the
head, are inseparable from the land they alternately oppress and
protect.
Since there are no years in desert or hills, Mulai Ahmed has little idea
of his age. A Spanish authority gives the date of his birth as 1868.
Raisuli suggests 1871. As a child he was a student and a lover of books,
with no other ambition than to write poetry and be a teacher of law and
theology.
Adventure first called to him in the guise of a woman seeking redress
against the bandits who had despoiled her house. The young Mulai Ahmed
went to the hills with a band whose original quixotry was soon merged in
lust of war and lust of gold—the two strongest passions in a primitive
heart. The Sultan, Mulai Hassan, heard of the tribute levied on his
caravans and ordered the arrest of the offenders. By treachery the
capture was accomplished, and, for five years, Raisuli existed in the
dungeons of Mogador. His imprisonment was probably the turning point of
his life, for, with the Moslem heritage of patience and simplicity, he
accepted his fate as “the will of Allah” and immersed himself in
meditation. It is incredible to the European mind that any human being
could support such tortures as the Sherif describes, but “What it is
written, that shall a man endure.” Released before he was thirty,
Raisuli had known the whole scale of suffering and emotion. His energy
of mind and body had crystallized into a determination to wrest from
circumstance a stable independence which should be the basis of his
power. From this date (about 1900) he judged everything as a means to
his ultimate end. The capture of Mr. Harris had neither financial nor
political significance, but the American, Perdicaris, was used as a pawn
in a great game. His seizure in 1904 forced 70,000 dollars from the
American Government and the province of El Fahs from the Sultan.
Cruelty like morality, is a matter of latitude, for even tyranny is
cherished if it is the result of tradition. Raisuli reduced his district
to exemplary peacefulness, but the European Powers, objecting to their
horizon being punctuated by decapitated heads, complained to the Sultan.
The Sherif, as usual, retired to his mountains, successfully resisted
the troops sent against him, and, in 1907, captured Sir Henry Maclean,
which allowed him to make the last trick in a game played for profit
rather than adventure. For the Englishman’s release, Raisuli acquired
£20,000 and the protection of Great Britain. That such a transaction was
but a step in his chosen career was proved when he waived his claim to
both assets and identified himself with Mulai Hafid’s rebellion. In 1908
he visited the new Sultan at Fez, and, in secret, they swore the oath
which affected the Sherif’s outlook as much as his subsequent
life—“Never to cease from protecting the Moslem land and the Moslem
people against the Christian.” It must have been a curious meeting
between two such different characters, whose only bond was their mutual
responsibility for the nation and the Faith in their charge. Both were
far-seeing, but, whereas Mulai Hafid was afraid of a future in which he
was destined to become the tool of France, Raisuli, arrogant because of
his strength, a little baffled, perhaps, by the casuistry of a more
subtle intelligence, saw only the need of unity among his co-
religionists in face of a menace from which profit might yet be
extracted. The compact between the _roi fainéant_ who spent his last
weeks of power haggling over the size of his pension, and the Sultan of
the mountains to whom money was no more than the handmaid of power was
sealed by the gift of the Western governorate, and it was never broken
by Raisuli. The Sherif repaired to Azeila, where, as Pasha, he attempted
to weld together different interests in the hopes of founding a united
party among the educated which would be able to benefit by the advent of
civilization.
Doubtless his projects were influenced by his friendship with Zugasti,
the Spanish Consul at Larache, but from the beginning of his political
life he chose Spain as the most suitable protector for his zone,
believing her “strong enough to help the Arabs, but not strong enough to
oppress them.” In accordance with the Sherif’s plan, Spanish troops
landed at Larache in June, 1911, and the importance of his help can
hardly be overestimated. It was a supreme step for a Moslem, the
appointed champion of his Faith, to introduce a Christian army within
the borders of the country he had sworn to hold inviolate, but Raisuli
never wavered from his determination to benefit by the inevitable advent
of Europe, rather than to oppose it. Had any other man but Silvestre,
typical conquistador, been sent to command the Protectorate’s forces,
the history of Morocco might have been different, but between two such
imperious natures friction was inevitable. Raisuli protested against the
General’s impatience, which made no allowance for circumstance and would
brook neither advice nor the reasoning of a greater experience.
Silvestre, dreaming of colonization rather than the gentle tutelage the
situation demanded, was baffled by passive resistance and bewildered by
the blunting of his most ardent weapons against walls of tradition and
suspicion.
At one moment, owing to the Sherif’s eloquence, there was a
rapprochement between the two men, during which the Spaniard strongly
recommended Mulai Ahmed for the vacant Kaliphate. Since this was the
only logical solution of the problem, it is possible that Raisuli’s
candidacy was tentatively approved by Madrid, but refused by France
always afraid of his influence and suspicious of his attitude towards
the Southern zone. The appointment of a puppet Kaliph, one Mulai el
Mehdi, a cousin of the Sultan, was regarded by Raisuli as a deliberate
betrayal, and the series of quarrels which ensued with Silvestre
culminated in the Sherif’s departure for Tangier in January, 1913. From
there he went to the hills and inaugurated a campaign which was
defensive rather than offensive. At one time the Ulema of Xauen offered
to proclaim him Sultan, on the ground that Mulai Adul Aziz was entirely
in the hands of France and that Islam acknowledged no Kaliph under
foreign protection. Raisuli refused, saying that he would resist the
advance of his enemy Silvestre, but would not lead Moslem against
Christian in a Jehad which must have disastrous results for his country.
It is probable that at this time he still hoped to arrive at a
satisfactory understanding with Spain, for he welcomed the High
Commissioner’s conciliatory despatches from Tetuan while opposing
Silvestre’s offensive from Larache. In May of 1915, owing to the
unfortunate mistake of a subordinate, one of the Sherif’s envoys and
intimate friends, Ali Alkali, was murdered while travelling with a
Spanish “laisser passer.” General Marina (the High Commissioner), who
had always been opposed to war, held himself responsible for the action,
and sent in his resignation, insisting that Silvestre should follow his
example.
The first action of the new High Commissioner, General Jordana, was to
make peace with the Sherif, and, by the Pact of Khotot (September,
1915), Raisuli was virtually left in possession of the hill country,
while Spain occupied the littoral. For some months the mountaineers
fought side by side with the Spanish army and the Tangier-Tetuan road
was opened to Europeans, but this was the second year of the Great War
and German intrigue was rife in Morocco.
The Sherif, determined that his country should benefit from whichever
side won, kept in touch with both parties. While he paid little
attention to the dazzling offers made by Mannisman, and categorically
refused to attack the French zone, he considered the possibility of
German protection for his son, made use of the Teuton arms and money
which flowed into North Africa and took refuge in procrastination
whenever Jordana wished to extend the active influence of the
Protectorate.
The European Armistice and the death of Jordana occurred almost
simultaneously (November, 1918). Consequently, at the very moment when
Raisuli, relieved from the necessity of propitiating Germany, would have
cooperated whole-heartedly with Spain, a new High Commissioner,
Berenguer, arrived (in January, 1919) with the avowed intention of
enforcing the authority of Spain by military occupation.
Raisuli gathered the tribes around him and succeeded in closing the
Tangier-Tetuan road until October, 1919, when the key to inland
communication, the famous Fondak of Ain Yerida was taken from him by a
combined attack of three columns. During the summer he had been declared
Sultan of the Jehad in a midnight ceremony before the tomb of his
ancestor, Sidi Abd es Salaam, and it is probable that during the
following year he had some 8,000 men behind him.
Xauen fell in October, 1920, and the Spanish armies, operating from
there and from Larache attempted to effect a junction in the Ahmas
Mountains south of the Sherif’s headquarters at Tazrut, thus completing
the circle which enclosed Raisuli. The nature of the country made this
impracticable, and, after a check at Akbar Kola, Berenguer advanced on
Tazrut from the north through Beni Aros. After a three days’ bombardment
the village was deserted and a few hundred mountaineers followed the
Sherif to his last refuge among the forests and caves of Bu Hashim. The
end of the war was in sight, when the “baraka,” or chance, intervened to
save Raisuli from his enemies.
In July, 1921, news came of the disaster of Melilla and Berenguer
hastened to the Eastern zone. Negotiations were begun with Raisuli, who
took advantage of the respite, which he knew would only be temporary, to
replenish his stores and ammunition. In September, the Spanish forces
renewed the attack, and during the winter they captured the last outpost
of the tribesmen, the Zawia of Teledi in the Ahmas. Still Raisuli held
out. His people were starving, for the crops had been destroyed with the
villages. Woman and children died from exposure and lack of food. All
his most intimate friends had been killed. Every day deputations came to
him imploring him to make peace. The illness, which is now expected to
prove fatal, caused the man hours of agony when he could neither stand
upright nor speak, but his answer was always the same: “It is Spain who
will make peace.” “You talk of miracles, Sidi.” “A miracle will happen.”
The miracle was the force of his personality which encouraged the
doubting, strengthened the weak, imbued them with a reflection of his
own faith. It is to the “baraka,” of course, that the Arabs attribute
the fall of the Spanish Government early in 1922 and Berenguer’s recall,
but it was on this that Raisuli, astute student of politics, had been
counting.
Burguete was appointed High Commissioner in the summer of 1922, and, as
soon as he arrived at Tetuan, he sent Zugasti and Cerdeira, lifelong
friends of the Sherif, to arrange a permanent peace. The conferences
began in August, 1922, and an agreement was arrived at by which Spain
was confirmed in her occupation of the whole Western zone. The Sherif
disbanded his forces and returned to Tazrut. His nephews and other
relatives were installed as Governors of the principal provinces, but
Raisuli would accept no position nor stipend for himself, maintaining
that his attitude had not changed since 1911. He would support the
Spanish Protectorate, but he would not acknowledge the authority of the
puppet Kaliph, Mulai el Mehdi.
True to this determination, Raisuli has never made his submission at
Tetuan, though, at the urgent request of the High Commissioner, he sent
some of his followers to represent him. He lives with the utmost
simplicity in his mountain village, praying, fasting and studying. He is
tired and his interests are mental rather than material, but the flame
still burns. The flicker of it is seen when the tribesmen come in from
the furthest limits of his country to consult him. He still manipulates
the threads of Moroccan politics in those huge hands which, living, will
never relax their hold.
Superficially Raisuli’s life appears one of wild adventure, of war,
cruelty and political ambition, but his own story reveals him as a man
of single purpose with considerable breadth of judgment. In so profound
a nature there is room for many cross currents. One of the strongest and
most secret of these is the mysticism which rises to the surface when he
describes such ceremonies as the oath at Fez, his initiation at the
hands of the Ulema of Xauen, his election as “Sultan el Jehad” on the
moonlit peak of Jebel Alan. It is this faith, passionate, simple,
indomitable, which marks him, in spite of his ruthless mentality, as a
spiritual pilgrim, a searcher after Truth.
ROSITA FORBES
THE SULTAN OF THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER I
INTO THE DAYS OF HAROUN ER RASHID
“You go to see my cousin el Raisuli—to write about him,” said Mulai
Sadiq at Tetuan. “For what reason? Between Africa and Europe there is a
barrier higher than these mountains. You cannot cross it.”
I had gone to see the old Sherif with regard to my journey to Tazrut,
for he acted as agent in Tetuan for his famous relative. His house was
most attractive with its little court lined with mosaic and surrounded
by white Moorish arches, from behind which peeped his slave-women, their
brilliant crimson dresses showing through long coats of white muslin to
match their turbans, corded with many-coloured silks. Mulai Sadiq is
thin and wiry, aged about sixty, bald, with a grey beard. He has an ill-
kept appearance, for he is an “alim” who considers that learning is very
much preferable to cleanliness. He was willing to talk for hours of the
adventures of ‘_the_ Sherif,’[1] of whom he is the antithesis, since his
face is intelligent and sympathetic and his hands talk even more
expressively than his lips. When he got excited he took off his turban
and thumped his fists on the ground, or flung them open above his head.
I found him sitting on the floor, surrounded by immense tomes, with many
others piled up behind him. He had to move a number before there was
room for me to sit down, and then, with his spectacles pushed forward on
his long nose, he began to talk about my journey.
“The Sherif will welcome you with great honour,” he said, “but it is a
long way and it is my duty to come with you, that you may travel in all
respect.” Thus it was arranged, and he went off to telephone to the
secretary of el Raisuli in primitive Tazrut!
The great Hispano-Suisa car flung itself on to the road as if it would
devour the strip of dusty white which fled before it. The old walls of
Tetuan disappeared. Away on the hillside a splash of green marked Samsa,
where legend tells of a Portuguese Queen imprisoned in a subterranean
maze. The dew was still on the sugar-cane, mist on the river. Peasants
were driving their flocks to market; the men rode on donkeys, idle hands
crossed on the pommel, the women, their haiks[2] bundled above their
knees to show stout leather leggings, their hats, the size of umbrellas,
hiding their faces, trudged behind their lords, bearing huge bundles of
firewood or sacks of grain. A figure swathed in a burnous, rifle slung
across his back, appeared on the skyline, and there was the watchword of
Morocco—a veiled country, alert and suspicious.
Up and up soared the road, an incredible feat of engineering, and never
for an instant did the driver slacken his pace. By precipices where the
wheels spun on the edge of eternity, by nightmare twists and spirals
where the path slipped eel-like from beneath us, the Spanish car took us
into the land for which Spain and Raisuli had fought their amazing
battle. Right and left rose the mountains, their first slopes thick with
scrub and grass, their summits barren. Here and there a police post
guarded the road, two or three men, shirts open to the sun, with their
horses, and a tent as brown as the rocks. Where the river Hayera
trickled through a wadi,[3] wild olives grew in profusion. Cactus lifted
its spikes above thickets of pink oleanders, the flower which the Arabs
say brings death to any who sleep in its perfume. A Moorish village, the
mud houses smothered under their weight of thatch, appeared among the
boulders which strewed the landscape. On the hillside the Qubba of a
saint drew white-robed figures to worship. A Sherif rode by on a mule
with scarlet-trappings, and a servant running in front, crying, “Make
way for the guest of God, the blessed one.”
[Illustration: Spanish Morocco]
The sun of Africa mellowed the scene, but, when a cloud crept over us,
it showed a sinister land where the villages hid among rocks of their
own colour and shape, so that one looked across a deserted prospect to
the hills that tore the sky. A watchful land where a dozen of Raisuli’s
snipers could hold up a Spanish column. Ben Karrish appeared as a
serrated white wall. Here, the Spanish post is built round an old house
of Raisuli’s to which the Sherif fled after the taking of Ain el Fondak.
A few yards away is the mosque where he prayed for the miraculous
intervention which his followers believe was afforded by the disaster of
Melilla. A boy offered me flowers, a compressed bundle of morning-glory
and yellow lilies. “There are but two good things in the world, flowers
and women,” he said.
“Won’t you put the women first?”
“Ullah, they are the same thing! My master, the Sherif, has never
refused the petition of a woman, but, Ullah, flowers are less trouble!”
Further on the road narrowed between wild vines and thickets of fig and
dardara. “Raisuli’s tribesmen used to hide there and pick off our men
like rabbits,” said the Spaniard who travelled with me. “Their chief is
a strategist—we made war against shadows, and lost thirty men to their
one.”
Across the hills in front toiled a line of great, grey beetles which
resolved themselves into lorries, packed with troops. The driver’s eye
brightened. “It is possible that we may see some little thing, after
all,” he vouchsafed, and spun past the nearest camion with two wheels
down the bank. For an hour we overtook the various units of two columns
_en route_ for Dar Yacoba and the trouble that was reported vaguely
“somewhere in the mountains to the East.”
A cloud of dust which looked like a battle surrounded a mountain battery
and a long line of mules laden with Maxim-guns. Far up among the purple
crags smoke appeared. “Is there really something doing?” murmured my
companions, but I was unresponsive. It seemed to me very much too hot
for any comfortable warfare.
One by one we left the marching columns and came into the purple
wilderness of Jebel Maja, whose height so impresses the Moors that they
say the daughter of Noah is buried on its topmost crag, the only one
that showed above the Flood. Far up on every hilltop appeared a fort,
its isolation emphasizing the inviolability of the land it watched.
Goats strayed across the road, but the herdsmen were invisible. Then
came the stir of guarded bridge-heads, and again the name of
Raisuli—“Here a man was killed on either side of him, when he stopped at
the height of the battle, a mark for the whole countryside, while his
horse drank.” Rows of tents on the edge of a cliff, rows of mules
tethered where those obstinate animals could have no desire to slip over
it, showed us Dar Yacoba.
Then came the last steep kilometres to Xauen, the one-time city of
mystery, of which men spoke in whispers, for it belongs to the Ahmas
tribe, crudest and most savage of mountain folk. Twenty years ago they
burned Christians in the market-place, and a certain street is still
called the “Way of the burned.” The men of Xauen had a secret language,
and, if a stranger could not give the password at their gate, the most
mercy he could expect was that his pickled head should adorn it,
suspended by the ears. Xauen understands neither clocks nor calendars,
and, when the Spanish troops entered in October, 1920, it was to find
they had stepped back into the sixteenth century, from which the Jews,
barefoot and bareheaded, hailed them with “Viva, viva, Elizabeth the
Second!”[4]
Xauen’s claim to mystery lies in the fact that it is so deeply embedded
in a cleft of the mountains as to be invisible till one is fifty yards
from the walls. “We have arrived,” said the driver, and I looked blankly
at the rocks and the deserted slopes. In another moment there was a town
before us. By magic, white houses climbed one above another, madnas,
tiled with the old faded green, soared from hedges of prickly-pear, and,
below this huddled mass of roof and court, slipping like a cascade from
the mountain-side, lay the great Berber castle, time-mellowed, sun-
bleached, relic of an Empire whose very history is lost. We left the
twentieth century outside the gate with the car, which could take us no
further, and, preceded by a black slave carrying my luggage, passed into
the days of Haroun er Rashid and the Thousand and one Nights. Veiled
women stole into doors that looked as if it was the first time they had
been opened since the beginning of time. Each arch, each window, was
carved exquisitely and differently. A muazzin[5] cried the noon prayer
from a mosque which overlooked the Qubba of a Rashid from Bagdad. The
dim musk-perfumed shops framed the grey beards of Xauen’s “ulema,” a
rosary between their fingers, their drapery flowing over the street.
One of these was a cousin of Raisuli’s, a man prematurely bent and worn.
“He has been called upon to defend the Sherif at moments when he would
rather have been listening to his singing birds,” murmured a Kaid. A
tiny scarlet door, with a lantern that once must have belonged to
Aladdin, led us into the Qadi’s house. Slender Moorish arches surrounded
a fountain, babbling to the swallows which perched in serried ranks upon
the balconies.
Our host received us in a room whose ornamentation was particularly
garish and crowded after the courts below. He had but two teeth, which
hung from his mouth like tusks, but his manners were beautiful and
unhurried. “The blessing of Allah, for you go to see the Sherif. He is a
great man and the last of them.”
Seated on cushions and leaning against a wall lined with strips of
satin, yellow, blue and red, we conversed gravely and with long
silences, as befitted a first visit. “With el Raisuli will pass much of
Morocco,” said our host. “You will not understand his ways—perhaps he
will not speak at all—but, Ullah, his mind works all the time while he
watches you. Nobody knows what he thinks, but he reads the minds of all
men. That is his power.”
“It is true,” said the Spaniard. “He is an astute psychologist.”
The complicated apparatus necessary for a tea of ceremony was brought in
by slaves, whose waistcoats paled the heaped-up colour in the room. Our
host beckoned to another greybeard and slowly, meticulously, the tea was
brewed with mint and spice and ambergris. “The Sherif likes mint—it is
his only pleasure. There must always be fresh stores in his house.
Otherwise he cares about nothing. He has no eye for beauty. He has never
known love for anyone or anything.” Someone interrupted, “His son, Sidi
Mohamed el Khalid. El Raisuli offered his whole fortune to anyone who
would save his life when he was ill of fever.” The Qadi made a movement
of protest. “It is his race which lives in his son—the Sherifs of Jebel
Alan. Besides, there is the curse. . . .” “What curse?” But somehow the
question was not answered. Sweet cakes and biscuits were pressed upon
us. Long-stemmed bottles of scent were offered that we might sprinkle
our clothes, but the name of Raisuli was no more mentioned.
In the coolness after the early sunset, while the mountain walls turned
slowly indigo, I explored the town. Its narrow streets ran downwards,
steeply cobbled, by way of the Mosque and the Square where the Jews
might not pass for fear of defiling its holiness. The suq, so narrow
that two could hardly walk abreast, was roofed with mats, till it
twisted abruptly to the cistern of ice-cold water that the Arabs believe
will cure most ills. A leper bent over it, his face distorted to the
semblance of a beast, and the Sheikh who was with me blessed him as we
passed. “In the great war,” he said, “a German came here by night in
disguise. He was the only European to see our town. Perhaps he came on
business for the Sherif.” The German, of course, was Mannismann, the
evil genius of North Africa.