respectfully.
"The pity," he replied. "For a plentiful supply such as my house
(family) desires, I would give a whole piece of fine blue cloth--the
last that is left me. Perhaps some fruit remains yet in the plantations
by the river. Can the boy go seek it?"
"I will send him, my lord," replied Aminah, delighted beyond measure at
the idea of getting a piece of the cloth that cowries could not buy.
"He must be back before the second day at sunrise," said the Moor, and
resumed his walk.
So Marzuk set off at daybreak on the following morning with many
warnings of the ill that would befall if his return were delayed. He
passed through the town, leaving it by the southern gate before anybody
but the guard was awake, and was soon knee-deep in the meadows that the
Niger keeps ever green.
He tramped along merrily enough, quite unconscious that two Arabs had
followed him from the huts beyond the southern wall. The ospreys were
everywhere--Marzuk saw nothing but the white birds, and the shining
river, and the butterflies, blue and gold, that fluttered over the
meadows.
On a sudden he heard footsteps, and saw the Arabs hurrying in his
direction. He stood to see them pass, and as they reached him they
turned suddenly and flung themselves upon him. There was no struggle,
only the white birds heard one choked cry of terror, and some few rose
from the meadow to the comparative safety of a neighbouring tree.
His captors carefully gagged Marzuk, and bound legs and arms tightly
with cords of palmetto, then he was rolled in sacking and carried back
to a hut. When the Arabs returned to the city they carried what seemed
to be a bale of raw cotton slung on a pole between them, and they made
unchallenged way to the caravan quarter, beyond the city's northern
gate.
Within the vast enclosure of thorn and cactus that inclosed the
caravanserai only the last great bales of merchandise remained for the
camels, and among these Marzuk was left to pant for breath in an
atmosphere that would have stifled any but a negro. Towards the
afternoon, when he had seen his latest acquisition safely stored, Hadj
Abdullah sought the market-place by the mosque.
"Oh, mother," said he to Aminah, "has the lad returned with the
cheese-fruit?"
"No, my master," she replied angrily. "I am cursed in the boy. He goes
on errands and returns when he likes."
"I am sorry, mother," replied Hadj Abdullah, "for by Allah's grace
to-morrow's sunrise will see us on the road again."
From the mosques of the city the Mueddin called for the prayer said by
devout Moslems at the hour of the false dawn. On walls and battlements
the early wakened doves were fluttering sleepily, the guards at the
gates still slept, the life of the city had not stirred. But beyond the
caravan quarter the camels and mules of Hadj Abdullah were moving out
slowly in single file.
There were seventy or eighty camels in all and ten mules, some of which
carried Arab women who sat in the comfort born of habit, smoking pipes
of the native tobacco.
First on the road were six camels, each carrying two children in what
had been salt-panniers.
Marzuk, whose thongs had been loosened, and whose thirst had been
assuaged, was but one of the twelve whom Hadj Abdullah had bought
secretly or stolen, and, beyond the men engaged by him and the natives
he had bribed, none knew aught of the camel's freight.
Frightened as never in his life before, bruised and sickened by the
camel's irregular stride, his flesh scarred and his bones aching from
the pressure of the raw hide thongs that had bound his limbs, faint for
lack of food, and with nerves strained almost to breaking point, Marzuk
was never in doubt about what had befallen him. He had been captured to
be sold as a slave.
From the resting-place of the caravan the last camel had started on the
road to Morocco, across eight hundred miles of desert, steering a
north-north-westerly course over a track marked by the skeletons of men
and beasts that had fallen by the way.
In her mud hut Aminah, never suspecting the truth, thought angrily and
fearfully of the absent boy, and prayed that he might safely escape the
hippopotami coming for their nightly prowl along the river banks.
As day succeeded day, other caravans arrived from the desert, but never
a sign of the lad from the riverside came to relieve a mind grown weary
now from anxiety and self-reproach. Weeks passed, and months, until
Aminah knew that her prayers had failed to prevent evil spirits
sacrificing her boy to the wild beasts of the river. And then she grew
old suddenly, and within the year her place in the market was vacant.
Hadj Abdullah's caravan made slow progress. The dwarf forest left
behind, the sand waves of the Sahara stretched out before them, and in
traversing this dry and burning sea the caravan endured days and weeks
of travelling that taxed men and beasts to the uttermost.
Once a day, at sunset, the caravan halted, and then Marzuk and his
eleven companions were taken from their panniers and fed. The Hadj
feared to travel by starlight, save when forced to it by anticipation of
an attack by the veiled brigands of the desert, lest the track should be
missed.
Marzuk's companion, a girl younger than himself, proved unable to endure
the camel's irregular stride, the scanty food, and the blinding
sunlight. Before they had been two weeks on the road she could not eat.
One morning she broke out into a fit of screaming that passed gradually
into moans, and then stopped abruptly. In the evening, when the baskets
were lowered, Hadj Abdullah was summoned in haste, but he could do no
more than curse the man who had sold the child to him for half a bar of
salt, and had sworn that she was sound and fit for the caravan journey.
A little hole was scooped out in the sand; the tally of the caravan had
been reduced by one. Next morning the burdens were rearranged, and
Marzuk was carried in a basket with another lad, the camel that had
carried him being requisitioned to carry one of the drivers who had
fallen sick.
For many years the hardships of the journey remained fresh and vivid in
Marzuk's memory. Oases were long days apart, the brackish water was
always hot and never plentiful, they saw no living things unless a viper
ran across their path, or a few desert antelopes showed for a moment on
the horizon. Sometimes, when the eyes ached behind tight-closed lids
from the cruel glare of sky and sand, Marzuk would wake with a start at
his companion's cry--"See, Marzuk! they are taking us home again". Then
they saw Timbuctoo spread before them, the mosques clearly to be
distinguished, the tall palm trees and clay-built houses seemingly but a
few miles away. The camels would raise their heads and lengthen their
stride. But the visionary city would come no nearer, and gradually it
would fade before their longing eyes--the mirage that had set it down
amid the sands had vanished into aching sun-scorched space.
Weeks passed slowly, so slowly that Marzuk's pannier mate, a weakling
at best, succumbed to the trials of the road, and was left to rest
under a little mound of sand that the first wind would level. Marzuk,
too, began to lose strength, and passed long hours in a state of
semi-consciousness, but he had been reared well and generously, and
before he had time to break down altogether, the oasis of Tindouf was
reached.
The back of the weary journey was broken. Thereafter oases were more
frequent, the caravan passed great weekly markets, the country of the
Touaregs was quite left behind, and the natives met were men of fair
skin, though sunburnt. The Atlas Mountains appeared on the eastern
horizon, filling Marzuk with brief terror, for he had never seen snow,
or imagined hills like those that filled the far distance. To the little
black boy from Timbuctoo, the great mountain range appeared as the
awesome wall of a new world, but his curiosity helped him to pluck up
spirit and prepare to face whatever the future might have in store. The
Draa country was left behind, the Sus country reached and passed,
Tarudant being seen hull down on the western horizon, like a ship far
out at sea; and one fine morning, when rosy light peeping over the
snow-filled caverns of the higher Atlas found the caravan already upon
the road, the Moors raised their voices and praised a saint whose name
the lad had never heard.
Marzuk rubbed sleepy eyes and saw in the plains a long way before them a
great city in a forest of palm. Countless minarets glittered in the
early light, the sun lighted some river of size and importance.
"Oh, my master!" cried Marzuk to the Moor who led a camel by his side,
"is that a real city?"
"Truly," was the grave reply, "it is Marrakesh[5] itself."
II.
The long file of camels came at last to rest outside the Dukala gate and
Hadj Abdullah placed his praying carpet on the ground, turned towards
Mecca and returned thanks. No brigand had claimed dues of his
merchandise, and out of the twelve children he had bought or stolen
eight remained alive--a higher average than most travellers could
record.
Marzuk, used from early days to fend for himself, with no special ties,
and a feeling of confidence in his own capacities that none but a
Soudanee would have felt under similar circumstances, gazed about him in
deep wonderment. Before him stretched a city far exceeding Timbuctoo in
area and importance, a place surrounded by a wall that seemed without
end; he saw more palms in one direction than his native place boasted on
all sides together, and the minarets of countless mosques standing
slender and erect as the palms themselves.
That night they slept within Morocco City, in a great fandak
indescribably filthy. The tired mules were brought in with the slaves,
the camels remaining in the outer market in charge of their owner. Hadj
Abdullah hired his beasts in Morocco City, paying a sum equivalent to
two pounds a head for the journey out and home. In the fandak he
addressed a brief warning to the children. They would have three days'
rest and all the food they could eat, and on the evening of the third
day they would be sold. Let them do their best and all would be well
with them, if they were rebellious--he closed his mouth abruptly, but
his silence was significant enough.
Left in charge of the keeper of the fandak, the children lay at their
ease in the reeking straw, and gave their three days to eating and
drinking and singing odds and ends of songs they had heard at home. No
sound of the city reached them, save at the hours of prayer, when from
every minaret the faithful were called to acknowledge the Unity of
Allah. On the afternoon of the third day they were taken to the baths by
a strange man, and each child was arrayed in clean white linen garments,
supplemented in the case of the girls by kerchiefs of many colours.
"Follow me, O slaves," said the Moor, when they were all ready to
return. He led them unresisting through the heart of the city, through
the bazaars with their roofs of palm branches and box-like shops, past
the arcades of the workers in brass and linen and leather and
sweatmeats, to a corner where the passage ended in a heavily barred
gate.
The gatekeeper drew the bolts, and showed through the open door a bare
circular market-place with a broken and dilapidated arcade stretching
down the centre of it, and booths all round the walls. Marzuk cast one
desperate look round, as a bird at the door of a cage, but the fear of
Hadj Abdullah was upon him. In another moment they had been shepherded
through the gate-way and commanded to stand still while their guardian
went to a Moorish official, who sat cross-legged on a carpet, and gave
the numbers and description of the party.
"Five boys, three girls, Timbuctoo," repeated the official, and wrote
the details laboriously on a slip of paper with a bamboo pen.
"Follow," commanded the Moor, and the children marched obediently to one
of the huts or booths built out from the wall like covered pens.
"Go within, and stay there until the market is opened. Let none stir
beyond the entrance," he said curtly, and seeing them safely housed,
went off.
Marzuk left his companions whose terror annoyed him, and going to the
mouth of the pen looked out at the scene.
He saw at once that he and his little party were not alone in the
slave-market. Nearly a dozen of the other pens were tenanted for the
most part by adults, who could be heard chattering or singing happily
enough, and in one pen, at least, quarelling violently. Certainly, they
were in no way cast down, and their indifference helped to bring further
confidence to Marzuk, who beckoned the most distressed of the party--a
little nine-year-old girl--to come to his side and look out.
It was the eve of a great sale. The "Court Elevated by Allah" was about
to leave the southern capital for the North; the great Wazeers would be
seeking to make the last changes in, or additions to, their harems and
households before leaving home. On this account Hadj Abdullah had not
kept the slaves longer to fatten them, preferring to take the prices
that would rule at a big sale for inferior goods, than what he would get
for better material when the city was half empty.
The sun was beginning to decline, and a faint freshness was coming into
the sultry air. The last batch of slaves had been entered; a group of
auctioneers surrounded the Government official in charge of the market,
and speculated hopefully upon the prices that would rule. The keeper of
the gate flung it back, and Marzuk saw the arrival of the earliest
buyers.
They came in singly for the most part--Moors whose wealth was indicated
by their portly presence, and by their outer robes of white and blue
cloth woven in the north of England. They walked into the market-place
and sat down at their ease on the ground against the unoccupied pens, or
the long arcade that bisected the market-circle. Some were very old men
with white beards, and a few were of forbidding appearance; but most
were fat and well-favoured, True Believers to whom life came easily.
The last buyer had arrived. There must have been thirty or forty in all,
and Marzuk knew that the sale was about to begin. A very old slave
walked over the dusty ground, with a goatskin watering-can, and
sprinkled it liberally. The dilal (auctioneer) who had brought them to
the pen came up hurriedly, counted them with raised fore-finger as
though they had been sheep, and told them to be ready to follow him,
using the native tongue of Guinea, since Marzuk alone of the little
company had as much as a smattering of Arabic.
His instructions understood, the auctioneer hurried away to the centre
of the market-place, where the other dilals surrounded their chief. He
looked at the sun as though to tell the hour; it was sinking behind the
saint's tomb on the edge of the market-wall. He gave a signal; the
selling brethren formed themselves into a line, with their chief in the
centre. Then the venerable leader lifted up his voice and prayed. He
praised Allah; dilals and buyers said "Amen". He cursed Satan; the
company reiterated the curse. He employed the blessing of Sidi
bel-Abbas, the city's patron saint, friend of sellers and buyers. Might
he bless the market, the dilals and the patrons. Might he send
prosperity to one and all. The dilals stood with closed eyes and
extended hands and said "Amen."
Their chief's prayer came to an end. Quickly as possible the dilals
hurried to the pens they presided over.
"Come forward, all," cried the one in charge of Marzuk's pen, and the
frightened children needed no second bidding.
"Do as you see the others doing," said the dilal, as, with deft fingers,
he rearranged the shawls of the girls and set the boy's robes straight.
Marzuk seized his little girl friend by the hand; she took the hand of
another girl; the dilal stood in the centre of the line of children,
four on either side of him. Meanwhile, the other auctioneers had
arranged their slaves in much the same way, and the companies stepped
forward to walk slowly round the market.
They moved round the circle of the market, and the dilals called loudly
upon intending buyers.
"O, Abdel Karim," cried a burly Moor, as Marzuk's dilal passed him for
the first time, "let me see the lad who has your right hand."
Marzuk was pushed forward. Coarsely, rather than unkindly, the Moor laid
his fat hands upon the boy, felt his muscles, opened his mouth to note
the state of his teeth, and asked a dozen questions that the boy's
Arabic could not have compassed had he been attending. But it happened
that at the moment when he was thrust into the old man's arms Marzuk
looked up, just as a company of white ospreys swept high over the
market, and in a moment he saw the Niger rising before him, and the
scented fields he knew so well. Brave though he was, his eyes were
flooded, and the words could not pass his throat.
"Newly arrived from the South," admitted the dilal rather impatiently,
in explanation of what he feared would be one of the outbursts that the
market saw so often; "but he is strong and well, and knows a few words."
"Forty dollars, Salesman," said the Moor briefly; "let me see the girl."
Marzuk's little companion was pushed forward and, too frightened to
speak, kissed the old man's hand. He handled her with an approach to
gentleness, asking the auctioneer all he wanted to know.
"Forty dollars also," he said, when the last word was spoken.
Forthwith the dilal shifted the children for whom no bid had been yet
made from the right to the left hand, and took the first vacant place in
the line of auctioneers and slaves, proclaiming with a loud voice: "For
the boy and the girl, forty dollars each".
A quarter of an hour passed, while the salesman marched round and round
with his charges, and in that brief period two smaller children passed
from the left to the right hand side of the dilal. They were the
remaining girls, for whom seventy dollars were offered, an amount
working out in English money at ten pounds.
"A bad price--a bad price," muttered the auctioneer sadly, and then he
withdrew from the line and returned to the pen. "Wait here," he said to
the four boys who had not yet been asked for; "wait till the rest are
sold."
Then he hurried back to the line of auctioneers with Marzuk and the
three girls, proclaiming the price and merits of his wares as loudly as
possible. Several times Marzuk was summoned by an intending purchaser,
and his price went slowly up to fifty-five dollars, while his companion
stayed at forty-eight.
For the other two girl children, a bright, intelligent pair, and not
without good looks of a kind, there was a very brisk bidding; three
country Kaids were bent upon purchasing them. The three sat along the
arcade some twenty yards from one another, and raised the price of the
two little girls three, four, sometimes five dollars at a time, the
auctioneer thanking them with a "Praise be to Allah the One!" every time
the price was augmented.
At last the Kaid from a town on the far side of the Atlas Mountains
raised the price to one hundred and thirty-five dollars at which figure
the bidding ceased, and the two children were handed over to their new
master.
Greatly elated at the thought of his commission, which, though but two
and a half per cent., would be quite appreciable, the auctioneer took
Marzuk in one hand and the girl in the other, and marched briskly round,
declaring their merits and the last bid.
The girl caught up her companion in price, and, passing from hand to
hand, was chosen at last by one of the Kaids, who had failed to purchase
the pair of girls, at eighty-two dollars. Marzuk saw her frightened eye
and quivering lip, she looked once at him and burst into a violent
paroxysm of sobbing.
But there was never a big sale in the Sok-el-Abeed without tears in
plenty. They were of no more moment to the crowd than the water that the
carriers from the south country sprinkled over the sandy market-place.
The auctioneer fetched another boy from the pen and walked round with
him and Marzuk.
The latter felt now that the end was coming, he knew that his purchase
lay between a fat white-bearded Moor from the country and the keeper of
the fandak. He heard the price raised slowly to seventy-five dollars, at
which the keeper of the fandak declared with an angry word that he would
go no higher.
* * * * *
It was to no hard servitude that Marzuk was taken in the early days when
he went for the first time to a master's house. He was appointed to wait
upon his master's son, a lad of little more than his own age, and if a
few blows and some ill-usage were his portion from time to time, he was
troubled but little so long as food was good and plentiful.
When the two boys grew towards manhood, their relations became more
intimate and friendly, and Marzuk, who had been told off to the fields
at every harvest time, was raised to a rather more responsible position,
and called upon to superintend the labour of the others. They worked on
the land, ploughing and reaping, cultivating the orchards and digging
water-pits, or they carried the produce of their master's fields to the
markets of the city.
Here he succeeded, and was sent by his master to the far country markets
with corn and oil, sometimes taking journeys of two or three weeks'
duration. Once again his record was satisfactory, and he was further
promoted to carry letters and messages to the great country chiefs, with
whom his master had commercial or social relations.
So it happened that he escaped the harder fate that waits upon slaves
who are idle or vicious or so unfortunate as to find a bad master.
Marzuk learned to ride fearlessly, and to know the great tracks that
pass for roads in Morocco, and stretch between the far scattered cities.
His master's house held many slaves--they were regarded as a source of
wealth, and were encouraged to do their best. In earlier days, when
slaves were very cheap, they had not fared so well, but now that a
master must pay heavily, he would not waste man or woman as he could
afford to do in times when Mulai Ismail ruled and England held Tangier.
To-day Marzuk is the chief of his master's household, a strong,
intelligent fellow, who rejoices in the whitest of djellabas and the
largest size of yellow slippers, carries a long rosary, and rules his
master's other servants with a rod of iron.
Marzuk has picked up a great deal of Arabic; he has become a Mohammedan,
and looks forward to the day when he will be manumitted, and will be
able to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Thereafter he will embark his small
store of dollars in trade, and with his knowledge of markets and
capacity for sustained work he should end by employing slaves of his
own.
* * * * *
I have set down the main features of his story as he told them to me in
his master's house, in days not long gone past when I was a guest there,
and entered, so far as I might, into the fascinating life of the East,
and I cannot refrain from adding that Marzuk stands to-day on a far
higher rung in the ladder of civilisation and progress than he would
have reached if the curse of slavery had not fallen on him in far
Timbuctoo.
And therein (a wholesome reflection for the more arrogant among us)
slavery, as understood and practised in the world of Islam, differs
mightily from slavery as understood and practised in Christian lands a
few years ago.
I make no mention of the sort of slavery still existing, under European
auspices, on the Congo, and in many of the cities of every country of
Europe. Allah forbid that sleek, smiling Marzuk, upon whose ample
shoulders the burden of labour has fallen so lightly, should ever know
the bitterness of such sad lives as these.
-----
Footnote 5:
Marrakesh, known in England as Morocco City, is the southern capital
of the Moorish Empire.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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AUTUMN, 1908
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