A Pattern Despotism--Some Moorish Peculiarities--A Hell upon
Earth--Fighting for Bread--An Air-Bath--Surprises of Tangier--On
Slavery--The Writer's Idea of a Moorish Squire--The Ladder of
Knowledge--Gulping Forbidden Liquor--Division of Time--Singular
Customs--The Shereef of Wazan--The Christian who Captivated the
Moor--The Interview--Moslem Patronage of Spain--A Slap for
England--A Vision of Beauty--An English Desdemona: Her Plaint--One
for the Newspaper Men--The Ladies' Battle--Farewell--The English
Lady's Maid--Albert is Indisposed--The Writer Sums up on Morocco.
THE Government in Morocco would satisfy the most ardent admirer of
force. It is an unbridled despotism. The Sultan is head of the Church as
of the State, and master of the lives and property of his subjects. He
dispenses with ministers, and deliberates only with favourites. When
favourites displease him, he can order their heads to be taken off.
Favourites are careful not to displease him. The land is a _terra
incognita_ to Europeans, and is rich in beans, maize, and wool, which
are exported, and in wheat and barley, which are not always permitted to
be exported. Altogether the form of administration is very primitive and
simple. It is a rare privilege for a European to be admitted into the
Imperial presence, and indeed the only occasions, one might say, when
Europeans have the privilege are those furnished by the visits of
foreign Missions to submit credentials and presents. It is advisable for
a private traveller not to go to the chief city unless attached to one
of these official caravans; but by those who have money a journey to Fez
may be compassed with an escort. This escort consists of the Sultan's
very irregular soldiers, who are armed with very long and very rusty
matchlocks, of a pattern common nowadays in museums and curiosity shops.
Ostensibly the escort is intended to protect the traveller from the
regularly organized bands of robbers which infest the interior; but the
experience of the traveller is that when the robbers swoop down he has
to protect the escort. Christians are looked upon as dogs by all the
self-satisfied natives, and treated so by some of them when they can be
saucy with impunity. It was my lot to be called a dog by a small
fanatic, who hissed at me with the asperity and industry of a disturbed
gander, and pelted me with stones. But two can play at that game, and
that boy will think twice before he lapidates a full-grown Christian
again. But he will hate him for evermore, and when he has reached man's
estate will teach his son to repeat the doggerel: "The Christian to the
hook, the Jew to the spit, and the Moslem to see the sight."
The Sultan collects his revenue (estimated at half a million pounds
sterling a year, great part of which is derived from the Government
monopoly of the sale of opium) by the aid of his army; but as he never
nears the greater portion of his dominions, there must be some nice
pickings off that revenue by minor satraps before it reaches his sacred
hands. There is quite a phalanx of under-strappers of State in this
despotism. For instance, at Tangier there is a Bacha or Governor, a
Caliph or Vice-Governor, a Nadheer or Administrator of the Mosques, a
Mohtasseb or Administrator of the Markets, and a Moul-el-Dhoor or Chief
of the Night Police. There is a leaven of the guild system, too, as in
more advanced countries. Each trade has its Amin, each quarter its
Mokaderrin. There is a Kadi, or Minister of Worship and Justice, to whom
we paid our respects. Justice is quick in its action, and stern in the
penalties it inflicts. The legs and hands are cut off pilferers, heads
are cut off sometimes and preserved in salt and camphor, and the
bastinado is an ordinary punishment for lesser crimes. But the Moors
must be thick in the soles, nor is it astonishing, as the practice is to
chastise children by beating them on the feet. Mahomet Lamarty
volunteered to procure a criminal who would submit to the bastinado for
a peseta. In the market-place I compassionated an unfortunate thief
minus his right hand and left leg. We took a walk to the prison, which
is on the summit of the hill, Captain No. 1 thoughtfully providing
himself with a basket of bread. What a hell upon earth was that sordid,
stifling, noisome, gloomy keep, with its crowds of starving
sore-covered inmates. In filth it was a pig-sty, in smell a
monkey-house, in ventilation another Black-hole of Calcutta. Turn to the
next page, reader mine, if you are squeamish. Heaven be my witness, I
have no desire to minister to morbid tastes; but I have an object in
describing this dreadful _oubliette_, for it still exists--exists within
thirty-two miles of British territory, and it is a scandal that some
effort is not made to mitigate its horrors. Through the bars of a
padlocked door, from which spurt blasts of mephitic heat, we can descry
amid the steam of foul exhalations, as soon as our eyes become
accustomed to the dimness, a mob of seething, sweating, sweltering
captives, like in aspect as a whole to so many gaunt wild beasts. Some
are gibbering like fiends, others jabbering like idiots. They are there
young and old; a few--the maniacs those--are chained; all are crawled
over by vermin, most are crusted with excretions. The sight made me feel
faint at the time, the very recollection of it to this day makes my
flesh creep. We were fascinated by this peep at the Inferno. The moment
these caged wretches caught a glimpse of us they rushed to the door,
and on bended knees, or with hands uplifted, or with pinched cheeks
pressed against the bars, raised a clamour of entreaty. We drew back as
the rancid plague-current smote our faces, and questioned Mahomet by our
looks as to what all this meant.
"They want food," he explained.
These prisoners are allowed two loaves a day out of the revenues of the
Mosques; but two loaves, even if scrupulously given, which I doubt, are
but irritating pittance. They may make cushions or baskets, but their
remuneration is uncertain and slender. Those who are lucky get
sustenance from relatives in the town, but the majority are
half-starving, and are dependent for a full meal on the bounty of chance
visitors. We poked a loaf through the bars. It was ravenously snapped
at, torn into little bits, and devoured amid the howls of those who were
disappointed. Then a loaf was cast over the door. What a savage
scramble! The bread was caught, tossed in the air, jumped at, and
finally the emaciated rivals fell upon one another as in a football
scrimmage, and there was a moving huddle of limbs and a diabolical
chorus of shrieks and yells. That could not be done again; it was too
painful in result Mahomet undertook to distribute the remainder of our
stock through an inlet in the wall, and we drew away sick in head and
heart from that den of repulsive degradation, greed, brutality, cruelty,
selfishness, and all infuriate and debased passion--that damnable
magazine of disease physical and moral. It is undeniable that there were
many there whose faces were passport to the Court of Lucifer--murderers,
and dire malefactors; but better to have decapitated them than to have
committed them to the slow torture of this citadel of woe. There were
inmates who had been immured for years--inmates for debt whose hair had
whitened in the fetid imprisonment, whose laugh had in it a harsh
hollow-sounding jangle, and whose brows had fixed themselves into the
puckers of a sullen, hopeless, apathetic submission to fate. Their lack
of intelligence was a blessing. Had they been more sensitive they would
have been goaded into raging lunacy.
Let us to the outer freshness and make bold endeavour to fling off this
weight of nightmare which oppresses us. Passing by the ruinous gate
yonder with its wild-looking sentry, we reach the open space where
crouching hill-men are reposing on the stunted grass, and ungainly
camels, kneeling in a circle, are chewing the cud in patience, or
venting that uncanny half-whine, half-bellow, which is their only
attempt at conversation. Let us take a long look at the country beyond
with its gardens teeming with fruit and musical with bird-voices; walk
up to the crown of that slant and survey the valleys, the plateaux, the
brushwood, the flower-patches, spreading away to the hills that swell
afar until the peaks of the Atlas, cool with everlasting snow, close the
view. One is tempted to linger there lovingly, though darkness is
falling. There is a gift of blandness and briskness in the very
breathing of the air. When you have had your fill of the beauties on the
land side, turn to the sea, meet the evening breeze that comes floating
up with a flavour of iodine upon it, range round the sweeping vista,
from giant Calpe away over the Strait flecked with sails on to
Trafalgar, smiling peacefully as if it had never been a bay of blood,
and finish by the vision of the great globe of fire descending into the
Atlantic billows.
Our stay in Tangier was most gratifying because of its variety and
unending surprises. Existence there was out of the beaten track, and
kept curiosity on the constant alert. It was a treat to pretend to be
Legree, and to negotiate for a strong likely growing nigger-boy. I
discovered I could have bought one for ten pounds sterling, a perfect
bargain, warranted free from vice or blemish; but as I was not prepared
to stop in Africa just then, I did not close with the offer. It may be a
shocking admission to make, but if I were to settle down in Morocco, I
confess, I should most certainly keep slaves. There is a deal of
sentimental drivel spouted about the condition of slaves. Those I have
seen seemed very happy. In Morocco they are well treated; and if
desirous to change masters the law empowers them to make a demand to
that effect. It is true that a slave's oath is not deemed valid, but
Cuffy bears the slight with praiseworthy equanimity. I am sure if Cuffy
were in my service he would never ask to leave it, and I would teach him
to appraise his word as much as any other man's oath (except his
master's), by my patented plan for negro-training, based on Mr. Rarey's
theories. As the land about Tangier was rated at prairie value--an acre
could be had for a dollar--I might have been induced to invest in a
holding of a couple of hundred thousands of acres, but that my ship had
not yet come within hail of the port. What a healthy, free, aristocratic
life, combining feudal dignity with educated zest, a wise man could lead
there--if he had an establishment of, say, three hundred slaves, a
private band, a bevy of dancing girls, Bruzeaud for _chef_, an extensive
library, sixteen saddle-horses, and relays of jolly fellows from
Gibraltar to help him chase the wild boar and tame bores, eat
couscoussu, and drink green-tea well sweetened. He should Moorify
himself, but he need not change his religion, and if he went about it
rightly, I am sure, like the village pastor, he could make himself to
all the country dear. Take the educational question, for example. If he
were diplomatic he would pay the school-fees of the urchins of Tangier.
These are not extravagant--a few heads of barley daily, equivalent to
the sod of turf formerly carried by the pupils to the hedge academies in
dear Ireland, and a halfpenny on Friday. He should affect an interest in
the Koran, and make it a point of applauding the Koran-learned boy when
he is promenaded on horseback and named a bachelor. He might--indeed he
should--follow the career of his _protege_ at the Mhersa, where he
studies the principles of arithmetic, the rudiments of history, the
elements of geometry, and the theology of Sidi-Khalil, until he emerges
in a few years a Thaleb, or lettered man. Perhaps the Thaleb may go
farther, and become an Adoul or notary, a Fekky or doctor, nay--who
knows?--an Alem or sage. Ah! how pleasant that Moorish squire might be
by his own ruddy fire of rushes, palm branches, and sun-dried leaves;
and what a profit he might make by judicious speculation in
jackal-skins, oil, pottery, carpets, and leather stained with the
pomegranate bark! He would have his mills turned by water or by horses;
he would eat his bread with its liberal admixture of bran; he would rear
his storks and rams. The professors who charm snakes and munch
live-coals would all be hangers-on of his house; and he would have
periodical concerts by those five musicians who played such desert
lullabies for us--conspicuously one patriarch whose double-bass was made
from an orange-tree--and would not forget to supplement their honorarium
of five dollars with jorums of white wine. Sly special pleaders! They
argue with the German play-wright: "_Mahomet verbot den Wein, doch vom
Champagner sprach er nicht._"
From the Frenchman at the hotel, whose knowledge of Morocco was
"extensive and peculiar," I acquired much of my information on the
manners and customs of the people. Watches are only worn and looked at
for amusement. Instead of by hours, time is thus noted: El Adhen, an
hour before sunrise; Fetour (repast) el Hassoua, or sunrise; Dah el Aly,
ten in the morning; El Only, a quarter past twelve; El Dhoor, half-past
one; El Asser, from a quarter past three to a quarter to four; El
Moghreb, sunset; El Acha, half-an-hour after sunset; and El Hameir,
gun-shot. Meals are taken at Dah el Aly, El Asser, and El Moghreb. The
houses are built with elevated lateral chambers, but there is a narrow
staircase leading to the Doeria, a reception-room, where visitors can be
welcomed without passing the ground-floor. The walls are plastered, and
covered with arabesques or verses of the Koran incrusted in colours. The
wells inside the houses are only used for cleansing linen; water for
drinking purposes is sought outside.
Among many singular customs--singular to us--I noted that a popular
remedy for illness is to play music and to recite prayers to scare away
the devil. An enlightened Moor might think the practices of the Peculiar
People quite as strange, and question the infallibility of cure-all
pills at thirteen-pence-halfpenny the box. The dead in Morocco are
hurried to their graves at a hand-gallop. That, I submit, is no more
unreasonable than many English funeral usages, such as incurring debt
for the pomp of mourning. At Moorish weddings the bride is carried in
procession in a palanquin to her husband's house amid a _fantasia_ of
gunpowder--the reckless rejoicing discharges of ancient muskets in the
streets. Well, white favours, gala coaches, and _feux de joie_ at
marriages of the great are not entirely unknown among us. Nobody sees
the Moorish wife for a year, not even her mother-in-law, which I
consider a not wholly unkind dispensation. The Moorish wife paints her
toe-nails, which, after all, is a harmless vanity, and less obtrusive
than that of the ladies who impart artificial redness to their lips.
And, lastly, the Moorish wife waits on her husband. Personally, I fail
to discover anything blamable in that act, though I must concede that it
is eccentric, very eccentric. These allusions to the Moorish wife in
general lead up naturally to one in particular in whom I took a
professional interest, for she was as remarkable in her way as Lady
Ellenborough or Lady Hester Stanhope, or that strong-minded Irishwoman
who married the Moslem, Prince Izid Aly, and whose son reigned after his
father's death.
The Shereef has been mentioned. He is the great man of the district,
with an authority only second to that of the Sultan himself. Claiming
to be a lineal descendant of Mahomet, he is entitled to wear the green
turban. His name at full length is long, but not so long as that of most
Spanish Infantes--Abd-es-Selam ben Hach el Arbi. He is a saint and a
miracle-worker. He has been seen simultaneously at Morocco, Wazan, and
Tangier, according to the belief of his co-religionists, wherein he
beats the record of Sir Boyle Roche's bird, which was only in two places
at once. Like Jacob, he has wrestled with angels. He is head of the
Muley-Taib society, a powerful secret organization, which has its
ramifications throughout the Islamitic world. He draws fees from the
mosques, and has gifts bestowed upon him in profusion by his admirers,
who feel honoured when he accepts them. Exalted and wide-spreading is
his repute where the Moslem holds sway, and unassailable is his
orthodoxy, yet he has had the temerity to take to himself a Christian
wife. This lady had been a governess in an American family at Tangier.
There the Shereef made her acquaintance, wooed and won her. They were
married at the residence of the British Minister Plenipotentiary; the
officers of a British man-of-war were present at the ceremony, and
slippers and a shower of rice, as at home, followed the bride on leaving
the building. The Shereef and, if possible, the Shereefa were personages
to be seen, and Mahomet Lamarty was the very man to help us to the
favour. His Highness lived four miles away, and we formed a cavalcade
one afternoon and set off for his garden, the ladies accompanying us. We
passed through cultivated fields of barley and _dra_ (a kind of millet),
crossed the river Wadliahoodi, and ascended a road which faced abruptly
towards the hills. An agreeable road it was, and not lonesome; we had
the carol of birds and the piping of bull-frogs to lighten the way, and
leafy branches made reverence overhead. There were abundance of fruit
and such beautiful shrubs that I rail at myself for not being botanist
enough to be able to enlarge upon them. There were orange-groves, yellow
broom, dog-rose, and apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums,
pomegranates, figs, and vines. It was such an oasis as a very young
Etonian in the warmth of a midsummer vacation might have likened to
Heaven. The range of hills of El Jebel rose left and right, and at parts
presented a steep cliff to the ocean. This ridge is about twelve miles
in width, and its fertile slopes amply merit to be lauded as the best
fruit-producers in the empire, "as bounteous as Paradise itself."
Mahomet Lamarty, who was our guide, entered the Shereef's grounds to
prepare for our introduction; and now the ladies, who had insisted on
coming with us, rebelled, and said point-blank they would not salute the
Shereefa as "Your Highness." They were impatient to see her, but they
declined to give countenance to a Christian who had demeaned herself by
wedding a heathen.
"The visit was of your own seeking, ladies," I said; "if you are not
willing to treat Her Highness with deference, better stay outside."
They were not equal to that sacrifice after riding four miles.
"Who'll start the conversation?" said Captain No. 1. "You start it" (to
me) "like a good fellow, and I'll take up the running."
Captain No. 2 said he would hang about for us outside.
Mahomet beckoned to us and we ventured into the garden. Coming down a
pathway we saw an austere, swarthy, obese man of the middle height. He
was white-gloved, and wore a red fez, a sort of Zouave upper garment of
blue, with burnous, baggy trousers, white stockings, and Turkish
slippers. It was the Shereef. I had agreed to open the interview, but
when it came to the trial my Arabic (I had been only studying it for two
hours) abandoned me. Mahomet did the needful. I thanked His Highness for
his kindness in admitting us to his demesne, and he smiled a modest,
solemn smile, and looked greeting from his small eyes. When he
discovered that I had been travelling in Spain, he asked me--always
through Mahomet--what they were doing there. On having my reply--that
they were tasting the miseries of civil war--translated to him, he shook
his head, shrugged his shoulders, and slowly ejaculated:
"Unhappy Spain! Silly, unfortunate people! That is the way with them
always. They are at perpetual strife one with another."
And then Mahomet interposed with a parenthesis of his own depreciatory
of the Spaniards, whom he loathed and despised. He had fought against
them in the war of 1839-1860, and the Shereef had also headed his
countrymen, and had shown great courage and coolness in action. His
presence had infused a high spirit of enthusiasm into the undisciplined
troops.
"Bismillah!" grunted Mahomet. "The Spaniard is beneath contempt. He was
almost licked in one battle. He was four months here, and how far did he
get into the interior?"
Mahomet conveniently forgot the defeat of Guad-el-ras, the occupation of
Tetuan, and the indemnity of four hundred millions of reals which was
exacted as the price of peace; but he was literally correct, the
victorious O'Donnell did not flaunt his flag beyond a very exiguous
strip of the territory of Sidi-Muley-Mahomet.
We were walking as we talked, and by this time had reached the brow of a
wooded rise which commanded an uninterrupted prospect of the ocean. The
flowery cistus flourished on the eminence, and cork-trees, chestnuts,
and willows shielded us from the fierceness of the sun. Behind and
around were a succession of richly-planted gardens. We halted, and the
Shereef, scanning the horizon in the direction of the Rock, suddenly put
a question to me which almost took my breath away:
"Do they buy commissions over the way still?"
"No; that system has been abolished."
"It is well," he remarked, with a scarcely suppressed sneer. "It was
incredible that a great nation and a fighting nation should make a
traffic of the command of men, as if a clump of spears were a kintal of
maize," and as he relapsed into silence a soldierly fire gleamed in his
irides, his frame seemed to straighten and swell, and the nature of the
prophet retired before that of the warrior.
From where we stood we could ferret out a house with a veranda in front,
built on a terrace and begirt with trees. That was the residence of His
Highness; but we turned our eyes in another direction, lest we should be
suspected of rude curiosity by this courteous African. I was trying to
divine the tally of years our host had numbered. No Arab knows his own
age, and here it may be useful to tell the reader wherein the
distinction lies between the Moor and the Arab. Virtually they are the
same; but the name of Moor is given to those who dwell in cities, of
Arab to those who roam the plains. Mahomet came to my aid. His Highness
had whiskers when Tangier was bombarded by Prince de Joinville. That was
in August, 1844, a good nine-and-twenty years before, so that
Abd-es-Salam must have long doubled the cape of forty, which would leave
him considerably the senior of his Frankish wife.
We turned at a noise--the creak of a rustic wooden gate on its hinges; a
figure approached. And then it was given to me to gaze upon Her Highness
the Shereefa of Wazan. She was not called Zuleika, but Emily--her maiden
name had been Keene, and she came not from the rose-bordered bowers of
Bendemeer's stream, nightingale-haunted, but from the prosaic levels of
South London, where her father was governor of a gaol. Truly she was a
vision of gratefulness in that paynim tract--a rich brunette, with
large black eyes, long black ringletted tresses, and a well-filled shape
with goodly bust. Her attire was neat and graceful and not Oriental. She
was clad in a riding-habit of ruby brocaded velvet, with jacket to
match, had a cloud of lace round her throat, and an Alpine hat with
cock's feather poised on her well-set head. She might serve as the model
for a Spanish Ann Chute. Bracelets on her plump wrists and rings on her
taper fingers caught the sunshine as she occasionally twirled her
cutting-whip. Her voice was bell-like and melodious, with the faintest
accent of decision, and her manner, after an opening flush of
embarrassment, was cordial and debonair. The embarrassment was because
of her inability to extend to us the hospitality she desired. She
explained that she had to receive us in the garden as the house was
undergoing repairs. After the customary commonplaces, she freely entered
into conversation, and took opportunity at once to deny that she was a
renegade; she wore European costume, as we saw, and attended the rites
of the English Church, for it was one of the stipulations of the
marriage contract that she should have perfect liberty to follow her own
faith.
"I wish every English girl were as happily married as I," she said, "and
had as loving a husband."
It was gratifying, therefore, to note that she found herself as women
wish to be who love their lords. She had been married on the 27th of
January, and as the Shereef had entered into his present residence but
recently, they were still at sixes and sevens. It was his habit to spend
the winter in the country and the summer in town. She had been but two
years in Morocco, and had not yet mastered Arabic.
"His Highness understands English?" She shook her head, and quickly
interpreting a lifting of my eyelids, she smilingly added, "Spanish was
the medium of our courtship." And then, as we promenaded the garden
path, she became communicative, and dwelt with pardonable expansion on
the virtues of her lord and master, who followed behind side by side
with the portly Yorkshireman. His charity, she said, was unbounded.
Slaves were frequently sent to him as presents, but he kept none. He was
modest on his own merits, and yet he was the most enlightened of Moors.
He had visited Marseilles, a war-ship having been put at his disposal by
the French Government, and was most anxious to take a tour to Paris and
Vienna, and above all to England. It was his desire that railways should
be constructed in Morocco, and he was glad when he was told that there
was some likelihood of a telegraph cable being laid to Tangier.
"Then," interrupted I, "with your Highness's influence on the tribes
around, exercised through your husband, there should be a fair prospect
of pushing civilization here."
"Ah, yes!" she exclaimed, with a glow on her cheeks, "that is one of my
dearest hopes, that is my great ambition. I believe that my marriage,
which has been cruelly commented upon in England, may effect good both
for these poor misunderstood Moors and my own country people."
"Is the Shereef on friendly terms with the Sultan?"
"No, I am sorry to say there is a feud between them at the moment. The
Sultan objects to my husband for using an English saddle."
"Hum!" (to myself mentally) "if the august Muley cannot brook an English
saddle, what must he think of an English wife? Or do these Moslems, like
some Christians I know, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Mayhap it
is even so. The pigeon-prompted camel-driver, who built up his creed
with plentiful blood-cement, saw fit to add a new chapter to the Koran,
when he fell in love with the Coptic maiden, Mary."
The Shereefa told me that her father and mother had come out to see her.
They were averse to the alliance at first, but were satisfied that she
had done the right thing when she told them how content she was, and
with what high-bred consideration for her wishes in the matter of
religion her husband had behaved. Their intention was to stop for four
days, but they extended their visit to fourteen. "And now," she
continued, "I can use to my lord the words of Ruth to Naomi, 'Whither
thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people
shall be my people'"--a pause--"yes, and 'thy God my God,' for there is
but one"--archly--"the matter of the Prophet we shall leave aside."
I admired the lady's pluck, and if I were that Moorish squire I have
tried to sketch, I should esteem it an honour to have her on my visiting
list. But I am a theological oddity, and my wallet of prejudices, it is
to be feared, is sadly unfurnished. I never could rise to that
sublimated self-sufficiency of intellect that I could consign any
fellow-creature to everlasting pains for the audacity of differing in
dogma with myself. I have met good and bad of every creed, Mahometans I
could respect--whose word was their bond--and so-called Christians and
Christian ministers with a most uncharitable spiritual pride, whom I
could not respect. The liver of the persecutor was denied me. Were the
fires of Smithfield to be rekindled, my prayers would be sent up for the
floods of Heaven to quench them, and for the lightnings of Heaven to
annihilate the fiends who had piled the faggots.
"By-the-bye," said the Shereefa, "do you know any of those people who
write for the papers in London?"
I admitted that I had that misfortune.
"Some of them are fools as well as cowards," she went on. "They have
written articles about me full of ignorance and malice. Have they no
consideration for the feelings of others?"
"I am afraid, your Highness, some of them are more brilliant than
conscientious; they would rather point an epigram than sacrifice style
to truth or good-nature."
"One of them in particular," she said, and there was an irritated ring
in her voice, "has singled me out for attack, and given me in derision a
name which he believes to be Mahometan, but which is really Jewish."
And with her cutting-whip she viciously snapped off the heads of some
poppies. The episode of Tarquin's answer to the emissary of Sextus
occurred to me, and I felt that if my colleague, Horace St. J----, were
there, he would have passed a very bad quarter of an hour.
The females of our party joined us, and I formally presented them,
taking a malicious pleasure in emphasizing the "your Highness." The
Shereefa received them right graciously, but it was easy to notice that
a chill came over the conversation. They were careful never to use the
title to their English sister. In fact, it was a tacit ladies' battle.
It was time to leave, and the Shereefa presented her visitors with two
nosegays, gathered by her own hands. The act had in it something very
royal, with the smallest trace of sly condescension. The Shereef
accompanied us to the outer gate. On the way I motioned to Captain No. 1
to offer him a cigar. He did; his Highness accepted it, bowed, and
gravely put it in his pocket. As we stood on the road at parting, a
peasant was passing with a load of twigs on his shoulders. He cast them
off, threw himself on his knees, kissed the hem of the holy man's
garments, and the back of his proffered hand.
We were descending the hill when a rustle in the bushes attracted me,
and a white face peeped out and a voice besought me in English to stop.
It was the Shereefa's London lady's-maid. She could not resist the
temptation of enjoying a few sentences with one of her own race. From
her I learned that there were twenty-seven Moorish women in her master's
household; that there was a tank at Wazan large enough to float a ship;
that her master had been married before, and had two sons and a lovely
Mahometan child, a daughter, to whom the Shereefa was teaching English
and the piano; "but remember, please," and here she grew important, and
had all the dignity of a retainer, with a great sense of what was due to
her caste and the proprieties, "that my mistress's children, if she have
any, will be Europeans!"
As we got back to our hotel the muezzins were summoning the faithful to
their vesper orisons, and Albert was moaning ruefully under the
sideboard. Mrs. Captain had out her sweetly pretty pet at once, and
covered him with caresses and endearments.
"Somebody has given him something that has disagreed with him. Was it
you?" she said to me, and there was that in her tone which made me quake
in my shoes.
Meekly and truthfully I protested that I had not; I had fed him in the
morning in her own presence; the darling was in his usual health and
spirits when we left, but--intercede for me, Puck, and you aerial imps
of mischief, for no other spirit will--I could not help murmuring in
audible soliloquy, "The carcase of that mongoose, which was on the
square outside this morning, is no longer there."
The scene that followed, to borrow the hackneyed phrase, beggars
description. The house was turned upside down; to my mental vision arose
sal volatile and burnt feathers, swoons and hysterics. Mahomet's dove
alone can tell how all might have ended had not the Frenchman suggested
a bolus. Captain No. 1 and I were commissioned to inquire into the
mystery of the disappearance of that baleful mongoose. When we got out
of earshot of the hotel there was the popping of a cork, and we emptied
effervescing beakers to the speedy recovery of Albert the Beloved.
Certes, that bull-dog had a very bad fit of dyspepsia; but the bolus did
him a world of good, and before we retired to rest we had the felicity
to hear him crunching a bone. Peace spread its wings over our pillows.
The next day we took a trip to the lighthouse on Cape Spartel, the women
labouring in the field making curious inspection of the cavalcade as it
wended by, but quickly turning away their faces as we males tried to
snatch a look at them. The road was no better than a rugged track on a
stony plateau. There was a spacious view from the Phare, which was an
iron and stone building put up at the cost of three or four of the
European Powers (I forget which now), the keepers being chosen from each
of the contributory nations. The Sultan had given the site, but refused
to hand over a blankeel towards the expenses, arguing that as he had no
fleet, he had no personal object in making provision against wrecks. We
were well mounted, but these Barbary cattle have a nasty trick of
lashing out, so that it is prudent to give a wide range to their
hind-hoofs. Mahomet, riding with very short stirrups, led the party. My
saddle was an ancient, rude, and rotten contrivance, and as I loitered
on the road home, giving myself up to idle fantasy, my friends got on
far ahead. Waking from my day-dream I gave the nag the heel, and as it
sprang forward at a canter the girth turned completely round, and I was
pitched over in unpleasant nearness to a hedge of cactus. The ground was
soft, and I was not much bruised; but when I rose the nag had
disappeared round a corner, and I was left alone in the African
twilight. Presently a sinewy fiery-eyed Moor came with panther-step in
sight leading me back the nag. He had a basket of oranges on his back,
and gave me one with a respectful salaam as I vaulted on my Arab steed
and galloped Tangier-ward bareback.
Judging from the scanty rags upon him, this man was of the poorest, yet
he asked for nothing; there were sympathy, innate politeness and
independence withal in his bearing. To him I abandoned the saddle; it
was the least he might have for his friendly act. Talking over this
incident with the Frenchman at Bruzeaud's, who knew the country, he told
me that the Moor was intelligent, honest, faithful to his engagements,
and had a go in him that, under advantageous circumstances, would
enable him to spring again to his former height of power and riches. But
he struck me as happy, although some of his social customs recalled the
feudal age, and he lived under the always-present contingency of
decapitation. May it be long before speculation rears the horrid front
of a joint-stock hotel in Tangier, or the prospectors go divining for
copper, coal, iron, silver and gold. I could wish the Moorish women,
however, would wash their children's heads occasionally, and not take
them up by the ankles when they spank them. After a sojourn in every way
pleasurable--pshaw! Albert's illness was a trifle, and we soon resigned
ourselves to the miseries of the prisoners on the hill--we ate our last
morsel of the Jewish pasch-bread of flour and juice of orange, cracked
our last bottle of champagne, and took our leave of the Dark Continent
with lightsome heart. The impression this little by-journey left upon me
was so agreeable that I could not avoid the enticement to communicate it
to the reader. If I have wandered from romantic Spain, it was only to
take him to a land more romantic still.