GREEN TEA AND POLITICS
Whither resorting from the vernal Heat
Shall Old Acquaintance Old Acquaintance greet,
Under the Branch that leans above the Wall
To shed his Blossom over head and feet.
_The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám._
He was a grave personable Moor of middle age, and full of the dignity that
would seem to be the birthright of his race. His official position gave
him a certain knowledge of political developments without affecting his
serene outlook upon life. Whether he sat outside the Kasbah of his native
town and administered the law according to his lights, or, summoned to the
capital, rode attended so far as the Dar el Makhzan, there to take his
part in a council of the Sultan's advisers, or whether, removed for a time
from cares of office, he rested at ease among his cushions as he was doing
now, this Moorish gentleman's placid and unruffled features would lead the
Western observer to suppose that he was a very simple person with no sort
of interest in affairs. I had occasion to know him, however, for a
statesman, after the Moorish fashion--a keen if resigned observer of the
tragic-comedy of his country's politics, and a pious man withal, who had
visited Mecca in the month that is called Shawall, and had cast stones on
the hill of Arafat, as the custom is among True Believers. Some years had
passed since our first meeting, when I was the bearer of a letter of
introduction written by a high official in the intricate Arabic character.
It began: "Praise be to God! The blessing of Allah on our Lord Mohammed,
and his peace upon Friends and Followers." Irrelevant perhaps all this,
but the letter had opened the portals of his house to me, and had let
loose for my benefit thoughts not lightly to be expressed.
Now we sat side by side on cushions in his patio, partly shaded by a rose
tree that climbed over trellis-work and rioted in bud and blossom. We
drank green tea flavoured with mint from tiny glasses that were floridly
embossed in gilt. Beyond the patio there was a glimpse of garden ablaze
with colour; we could hear slaves singing by the great Persian
water-wheel, and the cooing of doves from the shaded heart of trees that
screened a granary.
"Since Mulai el Hasan died," said the Hadj quietly, "since that Prince of
Believers went to his Pavilion in Paradise, set among rivers in an orchard
of never-failing fruit, as is explained in the Most Perspicuous Book,[27]
troubles have swept over this land, even as El Jerad, the locust, comes
upon it before the west wind has risen to blow him out to sea."
He mused awhile, as though the music of the garden pleased him.
"Even before the time of my Lord el Hasan," he went on, "there had been
troubles enough. I can remember the war with Spain, though I was but a
boy. My father was among those who fell at Wad Ras on the way to Tanjah of
the Nazarenes. But then your country would not permit these Spanish dogs
to steal our land, and even lent the money to satisfy and keep them away.
This was a kindly deed, and Mulai Mohammed, our Victorious Master, opened
his heart to your Bashador[28] and took him to his innermost councils. And
I can remember that great Bashador of yours when he came to this city and
was received in the square by the Augdal gardens. Our Master the Sultan
came before him on a white horse[29] to speak gracious words under the
M'dhal, that shades the ruling House.
"A strong man was our Master the Sultan, and he listened carefully to all
your Bashador said, still knowing in his heart that this country is not as
the land of the Nazarenes, and could not be made like it in haste. His
wazeers feared change, the Ulema[30] opposed it so far as they dared, and
that you know is very far, and nothing could be done rapidly after the
fashion of the West. My Lord understood this well.
"Then that King of the Age and Prince of True Believers fulfilled his
destiny and died, and my Lord el Hasan, who was in the South, reigned in
his stead.[31] And the troubles that now cover the land began to grow and
spread."
He sipped his tea with grave pleasure. Two female slaves were peering at
the Infidel through the branches of a lemon tree, just beyond the patio,
but when their master dropped his voice the heads disappeared suddenly, as
though his words had kept them in place. In the depths of the garden
close, Oom el Hasan, the nightingale, awoke and trilled softly. We
listened awhile to hear the notes "ring like a golden jewel down a golden
stair."
[Illustration: A HOUSE INTERIOR, MARRAKESH]
"My Lord el Hasan," continued the Hadj, "was ever on horseback; with him
the powder was always speaking. First Fez rejected him, and he carried
fire and sword to that rebellious city. Then Er-Riff refused to pay
tribute and he enforced it--Allah make his kingdom eternal. Then this
ungrateful city rebelled against his rule and the army came south and fed
the spikes of the city gate with the heads of the unfaithful. Before he
had rested, Fez was insolent once again, and on the road north our Master,
the Ever Victorious, was (so to say, as the irreligious see it) defeated
by the Illegitimate men from Ghaita, rebels against Allah, all, and his
house[32] was carried away. There were more campaigns in the North and in
the South, and the Shareefian army ate up the land, so that there was a
famine more fatal than war. After that came more fighting, and again more
fighting. My lord sought soldiers from your people and from the French,
and he went south to the Sus and smote the rebellious kaids from Tarudant
to High. So it fell out that my Lord was never at peace with his servants,
but the country went on as before, with fighting in the north and the
south and the east and the west. The devil ships of the Nazarene nations
came again and again to the bay of Tanjah to see if the Prince of the
Faithful were indeed dead, as rumour so often stated. But he was strong,
my Lord el Hasan, and not easy to kill. In the time of a brief sickness
that visited him the French took the oases of Tuat, which belongs to the
country just so surely as does this our Marrakesh. They have been from
times remote a place of resting for the camels, like Tindouf in the Sus.
But our Master recovered his lordship with his health, and the French went
back from our land. After that my Lord el Hasan went to Tafilalt over the
Atlas, never sparing himself. And when he returned to this city, weary and
very sick, at the head of an army that lacked even food and clothing, the
Spaniards were at the gates of Er-Riff once more, and the tribes were out
like a fire of thorns over the northern roads. But because the span
allotted him by destiny was fulfilled, and also because he was worn out
and would not rest, my Lord Hasan died near Tadla; and Ba Ahmad, his
chief wazeer, hid his death from the soldiers until his son Abd-el-Aziz
was proclaimed."
There was a pause here, as though my host were overwhelmed with
reflections and was hard driven to give sequence to his narrative. "Our
present Lord was young," he continued at last thoughtfully; "he was a very
young man, and so Ba Ahmad spoke for him and acted for him, and threw into
prison all who might have stood before his face. Also, as was natural, he
piled up great stores of gold, and took to his hareem the women he
desired, and oppressed the poor and the rich, so that many men cursed him
privately. But for all that Ba Ahmad was a wise man and very strong. He
saw the might of the French in the East, and of the Bashadors who pollute
Tanjah in the North; he remembered the ships that came to the waters in
the West, and he knew that the men of these ships want to seize all the
foreign lands, until at last they rule the earth even as they rule the
sea. Against all the wise men of the Nazarenes who dwell in Tanjah the
wazeer fought in the name of the Exalted of God,[33] so that no one of
them could settle on this land to take it for himself and break into the
bowels of the earth. To be sure, in Wazzan and far in the Eastern country
the accursed French grew in strength and in influence, for they gave
protection, robbing the Sultan of his subjects. But they took little land,
they sent few to Court, the country was ours until the wazeer had
fulfilled his destiny and died. Allah pardon him, for he was a man, and
ruled this country, as his Master before him, with a rod of very steel."
"But," I objected, "you told me formerly that while he lived no man's life
or treasure was safe, that he extorted money from all, that he ground the
faces of the rich and the poor, that when he died in this city, the
Marrakshis said 'A dog is dead.' How now can you find words to praise
him?"
"The people cry out," explained the Hadj calmly; "they complain, but they
obey. In the Moghreb it is for the people to be ruled as it is for the
rulers to govern. Shall the hammers cease to strike because the anvil
cries out? Truly the prisons of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz were full while Ba
Ahmad ruled, but all who remained outside obeyed the law. No man can avoid
his fate, even my Lord el Hasan, a fighter all the days of his life, loved
peace and hated war. But his destiny was appointed with his birth, and he,
the peaceful one, drove men yoked neck and neck to fight for him, even a
whole tribe of the rebellious, as these eyes have seen. While Ba Ahmad
ruled from Marrakesh all the Moghreb trembled, but the roads were safe, as
in the days of Mulai Ismail,--may God have pardoned him,--the land knew
quiet seasons of sowing and reaping, the expeditions were but few, and it
is better for a country like ours that many should suffer than that none
should be at rest."
I remained silent, conscious that I could not hope to see life through my
host's medium. It was as though we looked at his garden through glasses of
different colour. And perhaps neither of us saw the real truth of the
problem underlying what we are pleased to call the Moorish Question.
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS]
"When the days of the Grand Wazeer were fulfilled," the Hadj continued
gravely, "his enemies came into power. His brother the War Minister and
his brother the Chamberlain died suddenly, and he followed them within the
week. No wise man sought too particularly to know the cause of their
death. Christians came to the Court Elevated by Allah, and said to my Lord
Abd-el-Aziz, 'Be as the Sultans of the West.' And they brought him their
abominations, the wheeled things that fall if left alone, but support a
man who mounts them, as I suppose, in the name of Shaitan; the picture
boxes that multiply images of True Believers and, being as the work of
painters,[34] are wisely forbidden by the Far Seeing Book; carriages drawn
by invisible djinoon, who scream and struggle in their fiery prison but
must stay and work, small sprites that dance and sing.[35] The Christians
knew that my Lord was but a young man, and so they brought these things,
and Abd-el-Aziz gave them of the country's riches, and conversed with them
familiarly, as though they had been of the house of a Grand Shareef.
But in the far east of the Moghreb the French closed the oases of Tuat and
Tidikelt without rebuke, and burnt Ksor and destroyed the Faithful with
guns containing green devils,[36] and said, 'We do all this that we may
venture abroad without fear of robbers.' Then my Lord sent the War
Minister, the kaid Maheddi el Menebhi, to London, and he saw your Sultan
face to face. And your Sultan's wazeers said to him, 'Tell the Lord of the
Moghreb to rule as we rule, to gather his taxes peaceably and without
force, to open his ports, to feed his prisoners, to follow the wisdom of
the West. If he will do this, assuredly his kingdom shall never be moved.'
Thereafter your Sultan's great men welcomed the kaid yet more kindly, and
showed him all that Allah the One had given them in his mercy, their
palaces, their workplaces, their devil ships that move without sails over
the face of the waters, and their unveiled women who pass without shame
before the faces of men. And though the kaid said nothing, he remembered
all these things.
"When he returned, and by the aid of your own Bashador in Tanjah prevailed
over the enemies who had set snares in his path while he fared abroad, he
stood up before my Lord and told him all he had seen. Thereupon my Lord
Abd-el-Aziz sought to change that which had gone before, to make a new
land as quickly as the father of the red legs[37] builds a new nest, or
the boar of the Atlas whom the hunter has disturbed finds a new lair. And
the land grew confused. It was no more the Moghreb, but it assuredly was
not as the lands of the West.
"In the beginning of the season of change the French were angry. 'All men
shall pay an equal tax throughout my land,' said the King of the Age, and
the Bashador of the French said, 'Our protected subjects shall not yield
even a handful of green corn to the gatherer.' Now when the people saw
that the tax-gatherers did not travel as they were wont to travel, armed
and ready to kill, they hardened their hearts and said, 'We will pay no
taxes at all, for these men cannot overcome us.' So the tribute was not
yielded, and the French Bashador said to the Sultan, 'Thou seest that
these people will not pay, but we out of our abundant wealth will give all
the money that is needed. Only sign these writings that set forth our
right to the money that is brought by Nazarenes to the seaports, and
everything will be well.'
"So the Sultan set his seal upon all that was brought before him, and the
French sent gold to his treasury and more French traders came to his
Court, and my Lord gave them the money that had come to him from their
country, for more of the foolish and wicked things they brought. Then he
left Marrakesh and went to Fez; and the Rogui, Bu Hamara,[38] rose up and
waged war against him."
The Hadj sighed deeply, and paused while fresh tea was brought by a
coal-black woman slave, whose colour was accentuated by the scarlet
_rida_ upon her head, and the broad silver anklets about her feet. When
she had retired and we were left alone once more, my host continued:--
"You know what happened after. My Lord Abd-el-Aziz made no headway against
the Rogui, who is surely assisted by devils of the air and by the devils
of France. North and south, east and west, the Moors flocked to him, for
they said, 'The Sultan has become a Christian.' And to-day my Lord has no
more money, and no strength to fight the Infidel, and the French come
forward, and the land is troubled everywhere. But this is clearly the
decree of Allah the All Wise, and if it is written that the days of the
Filali Shareefs are numbered, even my Lord will not avoid his fate."
I said nothing, for I had seen the latter part of Morocco's history
working itself out, and knew that the improved relations between Great
Britain and France had their foundation in the change of front that kept
our Foreign Office from doing for Morocco what it has done for other
states divided against themselves, and what it had promised Morocco,
without words, very clearly. Then, again, it was obvious to me, though I
could not hope to explain it to my host, that the Moor, having served his
time, had to go under before the wave of Western civilisation. Morocco has
held out longer than any other kingdom of Africa, not by reason of its own
strength, but because the rulers of Europe could not afford to see the
Mediterranean balance of power seriously disturbed. Just as Mulai Ismail
praised Allah publicly two centuries ago for giving him strength to drive
out the Infidel, when the British voluntarily relinquished their hold upon
Tangier, so successive Moorish Sultans have thought that they have held
Morocco for the Moors by their own power. And yet, in very sober truth,
Morocco has been no more than one of the pawns in the diplomatic game
these many years past.
We who know and love the country, finding in its patriarchal simplicity so
much that contrasts favourably with the hopeless vulgarity of our own
civilisation, must recognise in justice the great gulf lying between a
country's aspect in the eyes of the traveller and in the mind of the
politician.
[Illustration: A MARRAKSHI]
Before we parted, the Hadj, prefacing his remark with renewed assurance of
his personal esteem, told me that the country's error had been its
admission of strangers. Poor man, his large simple mind could not realise
that no power his master held could have kept them out. He told me on
another occasion that the great wazeers who had opposed the Sultan's
reforms were influenced by fear, lest Western ideas should alter the
status of their womenkind. They had heard from all their envoys to Europe
how great a measure of liberty is accorded to women, and were prepared to
rebel against any reform that might lead to compulsory alteration of the
system under which women live--too often as slaves and playthings--in
Morocco. My friend's summary of his country's recent history is by no
means complete, and, if he could revise it here would doubtless have
far more interest. But it seemed advisable to get the Moorish point of
view, and, having secured the curious elusive thing, to record it as
nearly as might be.
Sidi Boubikir seldom discussed politics. "I am in the South and the
trouble is in the North," said he. "Alhamdolillah,[39] I am all for my
Lord Abd-el-Aziz. In the reign of his grandfather I made money, when my
Lord his father ruled--upon him the Peace--I made money, and now to-day I
make money. Shall I listen then to Pretenders and other evil men? The
Sultan may have half my fortune."
I did not suggest what I knew to be true, that the Sultan would have been
more than delighted to take him at his word, for I remembered the incident
of the lampmaker's wager. A considerable knowledge of Moghrebbin Arabic,
in combination with hypnotic skill of a high order, would have been
required to draw from Boubikir his real opinions of the outlook. Not for
nothing was he appointed British political agent in South Morocco. The
sphinx is not more inscrutable.
One night his son came to the Dar al Kasdir and brought me an invitation
from Sidi Boubikir to dine with him on the following afternoon. Arrived
before the gate of his palace at the time appointed, two o'clock, we found
the old diplomat waiting to welcome us. He wore a fine linen djellaba of
dazzling whiteness, and carried a scarlet geranium in his hand. "You are
welcome," he said gravely, and led the way through a long corridor,
crying aloud as he went, "Make way, make way," for we were entering the
house itself, and it is not seemly that a Moorish woman, whether she be
wife or concubine, should look upon a stranger's face. Yet some few lights
of the hareem were not disposed to be extinguished altogether by
considerations of etiquette, and passed hurriedly along, as though bent
upon avoiding us and uncertain of our exact direction. The women-servants
satisfied their curiosity openly until my host suddenly commented upon the
questionable moral status of their mothers, and then they made haste to
disappear, only to return a moment later and peep round corners and
doorways, and giggle and scream--as if they had been Europeans of the same
class.
Sidi Boubikir passed from room to room of his great establishment and
showed some of its treasures. There were great piles of carpets and vast
quantities of furniture that must have looked out at one time in their
history upon the crowds that throng the Tottenham Court Road; I saw
chairs, sofas, bedsteads, clocks, and sideboards, all of English make.
Brought on camels through Dukala and R'hamna to Marrakesh, they were left
to fill up the countless rooms without care or arrangement, though their
owner's house must hold more than fifty women, without counting servants.
Probably when they were not quarrelling or dying their finger nails, or
painting their faces after a fashion that is far from pleasing to European
eyes, the ladies of the hareem passed their days lying on cushions,
playing the gimbri[40] or eating sweetmeats.
In one room on the ground-floor there was a great collection of
mechanical toys. Sidi Boubikir explained that the French Commercial
Attaché had brought a large number to the Sultan's palace, and that my
Lord Abd-el-Aziz had rejected the ones before us. With the curious
childish simplicity that is found so often among the Moors of high
position, Boubikir insisted upon winding up the clock-work apparatus of
nearly all the toys. Then one doll danced, another played a drum, a third
went through gymnastic exercises, and the toy orchestra played the
Marseillaise, while from every adjacent room veiled figures stole out
cautiously, as though this room in a Moorish house were a stage and the
shrouded visitors were the chorus entering mysteriously from unexpected
places. The old man's merriment was very real and hearty, so genuine, in
fact, that he did not notice how his women-folk were intruding until the
last note sounded. Then he turned round and the swathed figures
disappeared suddenly as ghosts at cockcrow.
Though it was clear that Sidi Boubikir seldom saw half the rooms through
which we hurried, the passion for building, that seizes all rich Moors,
held him fast. He was adding wing after wing to his vast premises, and
would doubtless order more furniture from London to fill the new rooms. No
Moor knows when it is time to call a halt and deem his house complete, and
so the country is full of palaces begun by men who fell from power or died
leaving the work unfinished. The Grand Wazeer Ba Ahmad left a palace
nearly as big as the Dar el Makhzan itself, and since he died the storks
that build upon the flat roofs have been its only occupants. So it is with
the gardens, whose many beauties he did not live to enjoy. I rode past
them one morning, noted all manner of fruit trees blossoming, heard birds
singing in their branches, and saw young storks fishing in the little
pools that the rains of winter had left. But there was not one gardener
there to tend the ground once so highly cultivated, and I was assured that
the terror of the wazeer's name kept even the hungry beggars from the
fruit in harvest time.
[Illustration: STREET IN MARRAKESH]
The home and its appointments duly exhibited, Sidi Boubikir led the way to
a diwan in a well-cushioned room that opened on to the garden. He clapped
his hands and a small regiment of women-servants, black and for the most
part uncomely, arrived to prepare dinner. One brought a ewer, another a
basin, a third a towel, and water was poured out over our hands. Then a
large earthenware bowl encased in strong basketwork was brought by a
fourth servant, and a tray of flat loaves of fine wheat by a fifth, and we
broke bread and said the "Bismillah,"[41] which stands for grace. The bowl
was uncovered and revealed a savoury stew of chicken with sweet lemon and
olives, a very pleasing sight to all who appreciate Eastern cooking. The
use of knives being a crime against the Faith, and the use of forks and
spoons unknown, we plunged the fingers of the right hand into the bowl and
sought what pleased us best, using the bread from time to time to deal
with the sauce of the stew. It was really a delicious dish, and when
later in the afternoon I asked my host for the recipe he said he would
give it to me if I would fill the bowl with Bank of England notes. I had
to explain that, in my ignorance of the full resources of Moorish cooking,
I had not come out with sufficient money.
So soon as the charm of the first bowl palled, it was taken away and
others followed in quick succession, various meats and eggs being served
with olives and spices and the delicate vegetables that come to Southern
Morocco in early spring. It was a relief to come to the end of our duties
and, our hands washed once more, to digest the meal with the aid of green
tea flavoured with mint. Strong drink being forbidden to the True
Believer, water only was served with the dinner, and as it was brought
direct from the Tensift River, and was of rich red colour, there was no
temptation to touch it. Sidi Boubikir was in excellent spirits, and told
many stories of his earlier days, of his dealings with Bashadors, his
quarrel with the great kaid Ben Daoud, the siege of the city by certain
Illegitimate men--enemies of Allah and the Sultan--his journey to
Gibraltar, and how he met one of the Rothschilds there and tried to do
business with him. He spoke of his investments in consols and the poor
return they brought him, and many other matters of equal moment.
It was not easy to realise that the man who spoke so brightly and lightly
about trivial affairs had one of the keenest intellects in the country,
that he had the secret history of its political intrigues at his fingers'
ends, that he was the trusted agent of the British Government, and lived
and throve surrounded by enemies. As far as was consistent with courtesy I
tried to direct his reminiscences towards politics, but he kept to purely
personal matters, and included in them a story of his attempt to bribe a
British Minister,[42] to whom, upon the occasion of the arrival of a
British Mission in Marrakesh, he went leading two mules laden with silver.
"And when I came to him," said the old man, "I said, 'By Allah's grace I
am rich, so I have brought you some share of my wealth.' But he would not
even count the bags. He called with a loud voice for his wife, and cried
to her, 'See now what this son of shame would do to me. He would give me
his miserable money.' And then in very great anger he drove me from his
presence and bade me never come near him again bearing a gift. What shall
be said of a man like that, to whom Allah had given the wisdom to become a
Bashador and the foolishness to reject a present? Two mules, remember, and
each one with as many bags of Spanish dollars as it could carry. Truly the
ways of your Bashadors are past belief." I agreed heartily with Sidi
Boubikir; a day's discourse had not made clear any other aspect of the
case.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] "In Paradise are rivers of incorruptible water; and rivers of milk,
the taste whereof changes not; and rivers of wine, pleasant unto those who
drink; and rivers of clarified honey; and in Paradise the faithful shall
have all kinds of fruits, and pardon from their God."--Al Koran; Sura 47,
"Mohammed."
[28] The late Sir John Drummond Hay, whose name is honourably remembered
to this day throughout the Moghreb.
[29] When a Sultan appears in public on a white horse, it is for sign that
he is pleased; a black horse, on the other hand, is ominous to them that
understand.
[30] Literally "Learned Ones," a theological cabinet, the number of whose
members is known to no man, the weight of whose decisions is felt
throughout Morocco.
[31] 1873-94.
[32] Hareem.
[33] One of the titles of a Sultan. The "Lofty Portal" ("Sublime Porte")
and the "Sublime Presence" are among the others.
[34] Mohammed said: "Every painter is in Hell Fire, and Allah will appoint
a person at the day of Resurrection to punish him for every picture he
shall have drawn, and he shall be punished in Hell. So, if ye must make
pictures, make them of trees and things without souls."
[35] The reader will recognise the Hadj's reference to bicycles, cameras,
motor-cars, and other mechanical toys.
[36] Melinite shells.
[37] The stork.
[38] Literally, "Father of the she-ass," the Pretender who conducted a
successful campaign against the Sultan in 1902 and 1903, and is still an
active enemy of the Filali dynasty.
[39] "The Praise to Allah."
[40] A Moorish lute.
[41] Literally, "In the name of God."
[42] The late Sir William Kirby Green.
THROUGH A SOUTHERN PROVINCE
[Illustration: AN ARAB STEED]