MORE POWER; GOVERNOR OF TANGIER
“When I became Governor of Tangier, there was much trouble in the
neighbourhood because of the rebellion of Bou Hamara, an ignorant man
who pretended that he was the elder brother of the Sultan, one Mulai
Mohamed, son of Mulai Hassan, who was dead. He had been a secretary in
the houses of the great at Meknes, and there he had seen letters from
the Sultan, and the great seal which was attached to State documents. By
some means he had a copy made of this seal, that he might use it to
provide himself with money. He was a good Moslem and had some skill at
writing, and there are always foolish people who will believe the first
thing that is told them without proof. So, in the country to the East,
between Fez and Taza, he declared himself Sultan, and the tribes joined
him, because the government of Mulai Abdul Aziz was bad. The Sultan sent
a force against him, but it was defeated, and so I thought it wise to
make peace with him.
“Many letters passed between us, and, had it been necessary, I would
have upheld his claim, for he had agreed that I should be Governor of
all the Northern tribes, and independent in my zone. For many years he
ruled like a Sultan, but at last (not until 1912) he was captured and
brought in a cage to the court of Mulai Hafid, who had succeeded his
brother. They hung him on a wall in the sun, and the Sultan and his
ministers shot at him, seeing how near they could place the bullets
without hitting him, but by mistake he was wounded many times. At night,
when he was tired of the game, Mulai Hafid ordered his prisoner to be
put in the lion’s cage, but the lions were well-fed and would not touch
him! In the morning, men came to the Sultan and said, ‘My lord the King,
Bou Hamara is still alive. At this moment he is saying his prayers.’ The
Sultan ordered that the lions should be given no food all the day, and,
because of this, they devoured one of the man’s arms; but, to make an
end of him, he was shot by the soldiers of the guard.
“However, when I came to Tangier, Bou Hamara’s influence was still
great, and no caravan was safe. Men travelled in armed parties for
protection, and made no fire in their camps at night. A lighted window
was a good mark for a bullet, and thieves robbed in the by-ways of
Tangier. I put an end to all this, and under my protection no caravan
was robbed. He who was with the Sherif could go through the hills and
the plains without a gun and with a bag of money in his hand. The great
men of the jebala joined me, and my money flowed in the villages. It is
easy to make money if you are a Governor. You do not understand our
justice, because you do not realize the minds of the Arabs. You think
you give them a great thing with your civilization. You see a man
toiling slowly along the road, his jellaba crooked on a stick to make a
little shade above his head, and you go to him and say, ‘Do not walk in
the dust in this way. It will take you days to reach Fez. Here is a
train which will take you there in a few hours.’ ‘The blessing of Allah
on you,’ he will say, ‘but I have my donkey.’ ‘No, leave your donkey,’
you urge. ‘Here is a motor that will carry you more quickly than the
train, or an aeroplane which will do the journey in forty minutes!’
‘Allah make you strong,’ he will answer, ‘but I am not in a hurry.’
“It is the same with our justice. A man comes to you and asks you the
name of the Pasha of the town, for he has a complaint to make. You tell
him to go to one of your officials. ‘No,’ he will reply, ‘that man is
not a Pasha. He does not kill nor take bribes, nor do his slaves stand
in the court to give lashes. Of what use is he?’ How can a man approve
what he does not understand? When robbers were brought to me, and their
crime was proved, there was a slave ready with the axe. With one stroke
he severed a man’s arm, and the stump was plunged in pitch. If the black
bungled his stroke, he got a beating and learned to steady his aim. Now,
you depend on the evidence of men who can be bought, instead of on the
law and your own knowledge.”
While Raisuli expounded his philosophy in this way, we had been standing
just outside the door of the visitors’ house, to make the most of the
cool evening wind. Suddenly the Sherif led the way inside. The white
veranda was shadowed by the short twilight. Raisuli shuffled forward,
and his heelless yellow slippers made no mark on the spotless pavement.
Our riding-boots, on the contrary, left dark patches wherever we trod.
The Sherif paused on the further threshold and pointed to the floor we
had crossed. “That is like Morocco,” he said. “You cannot see the tracks
of Islam, for it is of the country and suited to its needs, but you,
wherever you go, leave a mark, for your ways are not ours.”
I protested in favour of civilisation, pointing out its obvious
benefits. “You give a man safety,” countered Raisuli, “but you take away
hope. In the old days, everything was possible. There was no limit to
what a man might become. The slave might be a minister or a general, the
scribe a sultan. Now a man’s life is safe, but for ever he is chained to
his labour and his poverty.” “What of the doctors?” I asked, after a
silence prolonged by my reflections. “That is how Spain will conquer the
country,” said Raisuli. “Already our doctors go into the harems when the
women bear children: and there is a Sherif, a friend of mine, whose
sight has been restored by an operation after six years of
blindness.[30] Truly it is a greater miracle to give light than
darkness.”
The Sherif lowered himself ponderously on to the piled mattresses. “I
myself have had a tooth pulled out by one of your doctors. He would have
thrown it away, but my servants sprang forward and took it from him. It
was a very old tooth, so they were able to divide it among them and each
wear a little bit, to bring them the ‘baraka.’”
El Raisuli is surrounded by a group of the most devoted men, who are
more like disciples than servants. They hang upon his words and follow
him about like dogs, looking at him with the same half-puzzled, half-
hopeful expression, as a dog, when it does not understand what its
master is doing. Three of them taste every dish before el Raisuli eats
of it, and others sleep across the door of his chamber. They regard him
with a veneration that is most heterodox in Islam, since the worship of
saints is forbidden. No food that the Sherif has touched is thrown away,
for it is supposed to have acquired curative powers, and the
neighbouring villagers pay heavily for the privilege of eating a few dry
crusts or sucking the bones from which el Raisuli has taken the meat.
“For a long time I ruled in the district of Tangier,” said the Sherif,
gazing fixedly before him, “but the Europeans complained of my reign. I
had brought security and peace to the country, but they feared a little
blood spilt in the market-place or a few heads stuck on a wall. So the
politicians of Tangier wrote to the Sultan. Mulai Abdul Aziz, wishing to
please them, for he did not know which way to look for money, sent an
army against me, under Khad Ba Hamed Khergui.
“I was at my house in Beni Mesauer at that time, and Ba Hamed sent
messengers to me, saying, ‘We have arrived at such-and-such a place, and
I would have speech with you.’ I told him, ‘If you come here alone I
will receive you, and, on my head and my eyes, you shall be safe.’ So he
came in the evening, when it was neither light nor dark. ‘Greeting, O my
brother,’ he said, and I knew he had come to make terms.
“We ate the flesh of a sheep roasted, and then he said to me, ‘It would
be a pity if there were a battle between us, for we should both lose
many men.’ I agreed with him, and he continued, ‘How many of my men,
think you, you could kill in the mountains?’ And I answered, ‘Many
hundreds, for you would be as the blind fighting against those who can
see.’ He said, ‘And how many do you think, oh, my master, that we should
kill of yours?—for certainly few of your men would die.’ I told him,
‘Perhaps fifty, perhaps sixty, if there is much fighting.’ At last he
asked, ‘And how much is a man’s life worth to you, Sidi?’ Then I saw
what he intended, and the matter was arranged. I paid him the blood-
money, so much for each man, and he agreed not to advance beyond a
certain place. In this way there was peace.”
The period of which el Raisuli was speaking was one of the most troubled
in Moroccan history. It was the eve of European intervention, and the
Sultan, ruined and held a prisoner by his ministers, was powerless. The
tribes imagined that he had betrayed Islam and sold himself to the
foreigners. On every side the Maghsen showed itself incapable of
protecting the Europeans within its borders. A Frenchman, Monsieur
Charbonier, was murdered in Anjera, and two young Spaniards imprisoned
in Beni Uriagel. The crew of a Spanish boat (the _Joven Remedias_) was
seized by the tribesmen, off Cap Jubi. In Casablanca Christians were
assaulted and robbed. Finally, Azeila was sacked by the mountaineers.
El Raisuli wished to add Sahel to his governorate of Tangier, and
Mohamed Torres (Minister for Foreign Affairs) held out hopes that he
would obtain the outpost, if he would go to Azeila to put down the
insurrection there.
Mohamed Ben Abdul Khalak had been Governor of the town, but he had many
enemies on account of his extortions, so the Beni Aros who had property
near Azeila plotted to destroy him. “There were no rifles in the city,”
said the Sherif, “for Abdul Khalak was a wise man and knew the danger of
a careless shot; but two men of the Beni Aros, Berrian and Uidan,
arrived at the gates one morning, with donkeys laden with bundles of
straw. The guard let them pass, thinking they were farmers from the
neighbouring villages, but inside the straw were rifles. These were
hidden in the house of a friend, and, afterwards, the tribesmen entered
without arms, as if for the market. One by one, they went secretly to
the place of meeting, and, at night, when the signal was given, they
rushed to the house of Abdul Khalak and took him prisoner. Then the
townsmen joined them, with rejoicing, and the Kaid was kept in a
dungeon, while the Beni Aros ruled the town.
“Remembering this trick, I said to myself, ‘A bird once snared will be
so busy avoiding the same trap that it may well fall into another’; so I
sent many rifles to Azeila by boat. They were hidden under fishing-nets
and smuggled into the town by means of a rope let down over the wall.
Then my followers went in with empty hands, not all at once but by twos
and threes. The rifles were hidden in a mosque whose Imam was my
friends, and, after some of my men had established themselves in this
mosque, and others had taken possession of a house overlooking the gate,
they sent me word that they were ready. During the night they cut all
communications in the town and, in the morning, they opened the doors to
my troops. So was Azeila taken for a second time, and my promise to
Mohamed Torres fulfilled, for I had said to him, ‘my mehallas shall
capture the town and restore the rule of Abdul Khalak.’”
Simultaneously, however, the Corps Diplomatique sent a strong note to
the Sultan, protesting against the frightful corporal punishments
inflicted by el Raisuli, the excessive taxation he imposed, and his
insistence on administering his own form of justice to Europeans within
his jurisdiction. It is notable that the German Minister was, from the
first, opposed to this step. On every possible occasion he upheld the
authority of el Raisuli and assured him that his government considered
the Sherif justified in all his actions. However, the insistence of the
French Minister won the day. By the Pact of Algeciras it had been
arranged that French police should patrol the International Zone outside
Tangier, but Raisuli would not allow them in El Fahs. This was perhaps
the beginning of the friction which has always existed between France
and el Raisuli.
Mohamed Torres was obliged to cancel the proffered bribe of Sahel, and,
on December 11th, 1906, he announced that two mehallas were on their way
from Fez to re-establish the authority of the Pasha of Tangier and to
banish el Raisuli. The Sherif took refuge in Zinat. From there he defied
the European Powers, whose war-ships lay in the harbour waiting to
enforce the Pact of Algeciras, and the Sultan, whose troops arrived
early in January, prepared to act with more decision and vigour than
usual.
“I had a great house at Zinat,” said el Raisuli. “It was a fortress
built against the rocks, with many little windows from which men could
shoot. On the flat roof snipers could lie hidden behind the parapet and,
from the towers, a watchman might see the whole plain. The army of the
Maghsen had camped below us, but out of range, men dressed as soldiers,
yet not knowing how to handle a rifle. The artillery was on the left and
the cavalry guarded the flanks. It was a fine sight in the early
morning, when the bugle sounded the advance. You could pick out the
cloaks of the officers and the flags of the generals, Sidi Mohamed
Guebbas, the Minister of War, and Sidi Mulai Abselam el Amarani. It was
like a toy army as, without discipline, it moved forward, the companies
so close one to another that they could have been mown down by a maxim
like corn before the scythe. No answering bugle came from Zinat, but,
from every hill-top behind us, to the far-away ridges of Beni Mesauer, a
column of smoke arose from the fires of the tribesmen.
“When the army was quite near, so that the faces of the men were
apparent, I said to my followers, ‘Now pick out each of you a man, and
see that he dies.’ The rifles spoke from every loophole and each rock
hid a sniper, but nothing was visible from below, for we used powder
which has no smoke. The army replied with a crash of musketry, but there
was nothing to aim at. They fired at the rocks and the trees, but most
of the bullets went skyward. Then the artillery began. Zut!”
The Sherif banged one hand into the other with a rare gesture. “A shell
whirred over our heads, to kill a few birds—and another—and another—
“Only one hit the house all day, but we took toll of those below. There
were too many cowards in that army, who ran about shouting and firing,
making much noise lest their lack of courage be discovered. The horsemen
galloped wildly, as when we make entertainment for a guest. Plomb!
Plomb! The shells made holes all round, but never near us. There was
much movement, but nobody advanced. At first the women had implored me
to leave. ‘Fly and save yourself, for your life is important,’ they
prayed, and kissed my knees; but I told them, ‘Be assured that nothing
can hurt me, for I have the ‘baraka.’ It is true that I have never fled
from any place before the bullets of an enemy. Where I have been at the
moment, there I have stayed, whether before the shells of a cannon or
the bombs of an aeroplane.
“At the end of that day no harm had been done us, save that a village
had been burned round the flank of the mountain. The soldiers were so
busy looting that they had no time to advance, and, at last, a slave-
woman ran out and cursed them. ‘Aie! are you maidens preparing for
marriage, that you carry away mattresses and furniture? Certainly you
are not warriors, and no woman will be desolate because of your
triggers!’ She stood on a rock, with her haik thrown back, but no one
dared fire on her, for they thought her a witch. She called on my men to
follow her, and, though I had said to them, ‘Let no man show himself,
and hold your fire till you have chosen your enemy,’ they leaped from
the wall and rushed down the rocks, as many as I can count on my fingers
of both hands. At this moment the army retired, for the General had been
hit, and a mule carried him out of the battle, so that these few men
followed, shooting at the backs of hundreds!”