A Berber and an Arab may easily be distinguished from each other.

Berbers, taken as a whole, have square frames, high cheek-bones, small

eyes, and are great walkers, not horsemen. The mountains are to them what

the plains are to the Arabs, and they prefer an agricultural life to any

other.

Leo Africanus describes them, and his picture in all essentials holds

good to-day: "They are strong, terrible, robust men, who fear neither

cold nor snow; their dress a tunic of wool over bare flesh, and above the

tunic a mantle, round their legs twisted thongs, never anything on the

head. They rear sheep, mules, and asses; and they are the greatest

thieves, traitors, and assassins in the world."

From personal experience let this ryder be added: that they make good

servants, faithful up to a certain point, to be trusted up to a certain

point; but they are rascals.

In Tetuan many more Berbers are to be met with than Arabs: the Riff tribe

is Berber, and Tetuan is full of Riffis.

Until the last thirty years the Berbers owned only a nominal allegiance

to the Sultan; to-day he could pass through little of their territory

without an army at his back, and into the Riff country he has never been

at all.

Among the Berbers there is plenty of throat-cutting as a legal

punishment, and murder on the score of private vengeance, while

Government oppression is rampant. As for travellers journeying across

their country, only certain "roads" are "open" and safe: a Christian,

with proper precaution, is seldom attacked on the way to Fez or Morocco

City--a Jew occasionally. Off the beaten track and anywhere in the Riff

country his life would not be worth a _flus_ (small copper coin).

The Arabs have given the Berbers a name of their own--_Shillah_, which

means "Outcast," referring back to the days when they drove them out of

the plains up into the mountains; and it has stuck to them ever since.

Travellers descant upon _the noble Shillah race_. The dialect which they

speak is called Shillah: the Riffis at Tetuan spoke Shillah among

themselves, but soon picked up Arabic of a sort, and a little Spanish.

The Arab differs in every respect from the Berber. One of the finest

types among mankind, he has a tall, spare frame, aquiline nose, fine

eyes. He is kind, hospitable, dignified, abstemious, a poet, a gentleman,

and a horseman. He is capable of great things, and of all Orientals has

most impressed himself upon the world. At the same time he is too often

treacherous and blood-thirsty, inclined to be sensual and inquisitive.

Perhaps his faults have led to the extolling of the noble Shillah race at

the Arab's expense. On this subject Mr. Cunninghame Graham writes, that

certain travellers in Morocco must have "been humiliated at finding in

the Arabs a finer type than their own, and have turned to the Shillah

race with the relief that the earthen teapot must find when taken away

from the drawing-room companionship of Dresden china and put back again

on the kitchen dresser." For myself "earthen teapot" and "Dresden china"

have both much fascination. I would trust either just as far as I could

see him.

Thus Morocco is populated by two antipathetic races, who neither singly

nor jointly have or can consolidate it into a thriving empire. The Arab

cared only to convert a conquered people to Mohammedanism and to push his

individual fortune, heedless of assimilating individuals into one

nation, as did the Romans. Great Arab chiefs there have been, but never a

patriot. With the fatalistic spirit of the East, and a tendency to see

life only from the personal standpoint, it followed that, when a holy war

no longer fired the wandering and independent shepherds to fight and

forced them to obey, they became "slack," remained stationary, or

retrograded.

The Arab would not advance civilization in Morocco, nor would the wild

and lawless Berber; the Moorish refugees from Spain had sadly

degenerated; to crown all, civil war led to the destruction of the

libraries and universities in Fez and Morocco City, and education was no

more.

Ignorance begat worse government; decline and poverty followed one after

the other. Corruption among the rulers spread downwards and ran through

the country, until the whole body politic was unsound, and is so to-day.

Though the name of the Sultan, as Head of the Church, is held in

reverence, yet many of the tribes would resist to the uttermost any

attempt on his part to subdue them by force of arms, so unsettled is his

empire.

He holds himself to be far superior to the Sultan of Turkey, who is not

descended from the Prophet, but who, on the other hand, is the guardian

of the sacred city of Mecca, and who possesses superior forces.

Second in rank to the Sultan of Morocco follow his ministers--the Chief

Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Chief Adviser, the Minister of the

Interior, and the Minister of Finance. Their duties are to carry out the

Sultan's wishes, and, receiving no pay, they look to enriching themselves

at the expense of their respective billets.

A body of secretaries come after the ministers, who write and dispatch

the Sultan's decrees to distant cities, where their letters are read

aloud in the mosques to the people by the governors. A special body of

messengers is employed under the secretaries.

Each district and city has its _kaid_ or _basha_ (its governor), whose

duty is to read the Sultan's letter aloud and carry out his instructions,

who oversees the city market, prices food, detects false weight, deals

with robbers and murderers, and sees that the peace is kept.

As well as basha every city has its _kadi_, or judge of civil law, who

settles all questions of land, of grants, divorces, etc.

We visited the Court of Civil Justice at Tetuan, a tiny room, carpeted

with yellow matting, where the white-haired kadi, attired in white, sat

like a magnificent white rabbit on a large red cushion on the floor,

beside him a table six inches high, with learned-looking books, ink,

parchment, and thin slips of wood for pens.

Below the basha or kaid come _sheikhs_ (village elders), who may be

called gentlemen farmers. They collect the taxes directly from the

country people. A province is taxed according to what it produces: no one

pays the sum demanded of him, nor at the time it is demanded, but

eventually every householder in the district is judiciously squeezed to

the uttermost farthing, and half of what he pays goes into the sheikh's

pocket.

Morocco conceals its wealth in times of visitations such as these: money

and corn alike are buried in the ground. Some of the people are

imprisoned, some tortured, and eventually all disgorge, and are left with

barely enough for their every-day wants.

It is a system typical of the East and its slipshod, rough-and-ready

dealings: its great element of simplicity harks back to a life in tents,

where red tape was unknown.

The highest officials are in the habit of transacting business at their

street doors or in their stables: the basha invariably sits in some

gateway near his house, hearing and judging matters which two or three

gesticulating claimants explain to him. Private matters are public

property: the man in the street chats with the Minister of Finance--for

are not all men equal? The minister may have sold groceries at one time,

before he was called upon to fill a position at Court. Who can tell what

a day may not bring forth?

The Sultan--who is known as "The Lofty Portal, the Exalted of God, the

Noble Presence"--has a body of servants and retainers round him: first of

all "The Learned Ones," men who advise him, but make a point of

ascertaining his wishes before they give an opinion, and are of no use at

all except in conducting negotiations; next the officer who carries the

great pearl-and-gold-embroidered parasol over his head; next an officer

who flicks away flies; then a master of ceremonies, a headsman, a

flogger, a shooter, a water-bearer, a tent-layer, a tea-maker, a

standard-bearer, and a "taster" to see that no poison is given.

More closely connected than any of these with the Sultan is of course his

harem, of both black and white women, who have been honoured by admission

into the much-sought-after precincts. Some of them are Circassians,

supplied by Constantinople: all are the best which money can buy, or ease

and position tempt. When their numbers have been greatly swelled, certain

of them are drafted on as presents to kaids and bashas.

The offspring of the Sultan's numerous wives are brought up in isolated

sanctuaries, each boy in company with a slave of his own age, whom he

calls brother. Girls inherit no rank.

One and all are married when they reach maturity, at a State function

which takes place each year, the Sultan choosing their consorts. He gives

his favourite son--whom he has named as his successor--a high command in

the army or an important governorship: as long as the boy is too young

for either, the Sultan associates him with himself in official

receptions.

All possible rivals to the Sultan are disposed of, chiefly by banishment.

Guarding the intriguing and inflammable harem are eunuchs, imported at

great expense from Abyssinia, and responsible for the Sultan's wives and

concubines, whom "wise women" prepare to meet their lord. The late Sultan

was in the habit of having his harem paraded in his garden on Thursdays,

in order to select the most attractive, and spend Friday--the Mohammedan

Sunday--in her company.

It is a curious fact that the Imperial Treasure, which is distributed

between Fez, Morocco City, and Mequinez, of which no details are ever

made public, can only be opened by agreement between the keeper, the

governor of the palace, the trusted eunuch, and the head woman in charge

of the harem. The secrets of its treasures are jealously guarded. It is

probably impoverished.

Every one who approaches the Court is expected to make the Sultan a

present, and his collection of offerings would stock a museum.

In the time of George I. we read of the Sultan's being sent "a rich

crimson velvet sedan or chair for the favourite Sultana, and ten pounds

of the finest tea at thirty shillings a pound." In the present day

telephones, heliographs, gramophones, bicycles, motor-cars, guns,

fireworks, and the latest inventions of all kinds find their way into

Morocco.

In return the staple Moorish offering has always been, and still is, Arab

horses, with richly embroidered saddles and bridles.

It is impossible to estimate the strength of the Moorish army. The only

regulars are under European instruction, Sir Harry Maclean (known as Kaid

Maclean) acting as commander-in-chief. Their pay is something like a

penny half-penny a day for infantry, fourpence for cavalry, a shilling

for commanding offices. The ranks consist of private, sergeant, captain,

centurion, and colonel, each officer having a lieutenant.

Every Moor capable of bearing arms in Morocco is liable to be _pressed_

for service.

In May, when the country is dry, each basha or kaid is ordered to collect

troops in his own district: then is Tetuan deserted, and every boy and

young man absents himself. How the lady missionaries hid their house-boy!

Tetuan sent off two hundred men, under a colonel, while we were there,

which were to help punish certain rebellious tribes. Often these

expeditions are for the purpose of raising taxes. In any case the tribes

against which the Sultan's troops are sent are said to be "eaten up."

Long before it happened it was known and talked of.

"Ah, yes; the Beni M`Saira would be eaten up in April."

The Tetuan two hundred were sent to help eat up the Beni M`Saira tribe,

some of whom had abducted two Spanish children a year ago. The children

had driven their pigs on to land belonging to the tribe--a thing abhorred

of by Mohammedans, to whom pigs are unclean. Expostulation was not

heeded, and the Beni M`Saira resorted to strong measures, and kidnapped

the children. They were sold from family to family beyond hope of

recovery, and it would be hard to say what was their fate. Of course

they were never seen again. Tales were circulated which said that the

girl had been turned into a dancing-girl, and taught to dance upon hot

ashes, or she may have become slave and concubine to some Moor. She was

sixteen years old, and the lady missionaries at Tetuan knew her well, and

her ten-year-old brother.

The Spanish Government had complained to the Sultan, and now a year after

the offence the Beni M`Saira were to be eaten up; there was to be a

general raid upon their country: men would be killed, women taken as

slaves, villages burnt, and corn destroyed. The worst part of the whole

business is the fate of the prisoners on these occasions. These

unfortunate men, suffering scarcely for their own misdeeds, are sent in

chains to far-distant city prisons, whence they seldom emerge alive.

The colonel of the Tetuan contingent was an example of the rapid rises

and the vicissitudes of life in Morocco. Only the other day he had been

harbour-master down at Martine, but was accused of smuggling and turned

out of that berth; he then took a café and sold drinks in Tetuan, when

suddenly the Sultan's pleasure took the shape of making him a full-blown

colonel in his troops. As in the days of Joseph, the chief butler is sent

for out of prison and made much of: the baker is sent for and hanged.

[Illustration: A SAINT-HOUSE, TETUAN.

[_To face p. 148._]

The lucky colonel and his two hundred left Tetuan in bad weather: their

pay was such that many of them, before starting, sold the bullets

supplied them, in order to buy food with the money, preferring to fight

without ammunition rather than on empty stomachs; but only _one quarter_

of them got as far as El K`sar--the rest deserted on the road, to escape

hunger and exhaustion from rain and cold.

The Oolad Moosa tribe were eaten up not long ago; their land was harried,

their fruit-trees destroyed, and themselves killed, imprisoned, and

enslaved. I was told by a Spaniard that he had seen five camel-loads of

the heads of tribesmen brought into Larache while he was there. The

Sultan offered three shillings per head. His soldiers sent up not a few

heads which belonged to their own companions-in-arms. Consignments were

sent off to various cities throughout Morocco, where the Jews, as usual,

salted them, and they were set up over the gates and on the walls.

There is little or no artillery in his Shar[=i]fian Majesty's army,

though the few cannon he has, render him all-powerful against his

rebellious tribesmen, who are only armed with rifles (principally

French), which are smuggled into the country.

Soldiers are supplied with the same rifles and European swords: the

native curved dagger is also used.

Pitched battles are seldom heard of. The troops entrench themselves

strongly, gallop out in parties against the foe, fire a volley into his

line, and gallop back again to reload. Pillage is the great element in

this species of guerilla warfare.

In connection with the army are the _Makhaznia_ (mounted police): they

are practically cavalry. A few were quartered in Tetuan, and the basha

employed them to take men prisoners and preserve peace and take messages

and so on. The Makhaznia are paid for whatever they do by any one who

employs them, and they often act as soldier-escort to Europeans.

The Government of Morocco has but one hinge--a golden one. Thirty

thousand pounds was paid by the late governor of Morocco City for his

billet, and a capable man would still make his fortune before he retired,

by means of bribes and presents from every one in connection with him,

and a little undue pressure and taxation here and there. But no governor

is exempt from that war-cry in Morocco, "Pay! pay! pay!" And if he or a

basha wish for the Sultan's favour, which in order to remain in office is

most desirable, he will forward a present regularly to Court, though at

every feast he is obliged to send another in addition. When a Sultan

imprisons a minister, he confiscates all his money.

Bribes largely contribute towards filling the coffers of Government

officials, from toadies down to unfortunate sufferers. A man has to buy

himself out of prison: it costs a murderer about four pounds. Those who

cannot afford to pay do not come out.

Not long ago a poor man whom we knew was suddenly appointed to fill a

lucrative post under Government. He dare not refuse it, but he was head

over ears in debt, and of course a large sum of money was due in return

for the appointment. He borrowed from the Jews and took up office. In one

year he had paid all his debts, he had paid the Jews, and built himself a

luxurious house. And who can wonder at it? Customs-house officers can all

retire after _three years_ (if they choose), and live well. It is

calculated that the Government gets exactly half of the duties.

Tetuan had a favourite tale of bribery. A man wanted to make sure of a

case he was bringing before the basha. He knew that the basha had a

weakness for mirrors. He was a poor man, but he bought the best

looking-glass he could afford, and dispatched it. The case came on; the

basha gave it against him.

"What!" cried the poor, discomfited loser; "did you not receive the

mirror?"

"Yes," replied the basha coolly; "but immediately afterwards a very fine

mule came along, and _he kicked the looking-glass into a thousand

fragments_."

So when a man is disappointed of his due, they say, "The mule has kicked

the glass."

Another man had a brother in prison whom he wished to buy out: he took

the basha a mule, and presented himself with his present.

"You shall not bribe me," said the basha. "Soldier! put this man into

prison with his brother, and put the mule into my stable."

The man's family had a heavy bribe to raise.

CHAPTER VI

WE LOOK OVER A MOORISH COURTYARD HOUSE WITH A VIEW TO TAKING IT--WE RENT

JINAN DOLERO IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION--AN ENGLISHMAN MURDERED--OUR

GARDEN-HOUSE--THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF MOORISH SERVANTS--A NATIVE GUARD--THE

RIFF COUNTRY.

CHAPTER VI

Ah! Moon of my delight, who know'st no wane

The Moon of Heaven is rising once again:

How oft hereafter rising shall she look

Through this same garden after me--_in vain!_

CHRISTMAS DAY in a Mohammedan city passed with nothing to mark it except

deluges of rain. The fonda had not grown upon us; and when two Moorish

houses in the city at last presented themselves, the result of weeks of

inquiry, we decided to take one, if, as was apparently the case, a

garden-house outside the city was not to be had for love or money. The

Moors all told us it was impossible. The fact is, that they are chary of

letting their houses to unbelievers: the thing is not encouraged in the

land; indeed, they are liable to be imprisoned for doing so, unless they

have "protection" from a foreigner.

All sorts of complications have arisen out of permission granted to

Europeans to settle in the country: it depends on the European; he does

something foolish, and legal or social or religious difficulties arise,

and a storm in a teacup may end in serious dispute and a heavy indemnity

to pay. So, naturally enough, the Sultan's advisers are averse to

extending the limits of property owned by Europeans, and the barriers

which they put in the way, debar ordinary people from running up villas

and committing outrages such as half the world endures in silence.

In Morocco it is necessary first of all to obtain the consent of the

Government for the purchase of land. Interest can sometimes do it, and

the pill must be heavily gilt. The next obstacle lies with Moorish

jurisdiction, which, with forethought, sets forth that all disputes

relating to property shall be referred to native courts and settled by

Moorish law. This opens a door to barefaced bribery and intimidation:

some one will be fleeced. Last of all, Moorish workmen building for an

Englishman or any foreigner are liable to persecution and arrest. Thus

foreign labour must be employed. And how is foreign labour to be had? A

Jew or Spaniard may not be available. It is scarcely less difficult to

rent a house in Morocco, unless it is in Tangier.

Of the two which were thus unexpectedly offered us one was out of the

question--it was damp; but the other, standing empty in a long narrow

alley in the middle of the city, was as sound as houses built of rubbish

and thin bricks can be, and we went to look over it, well prepared to

ignore petty defects.

It was entered, as usual, by a wide yellow door, studded with giant nails

and a resounding knocker: a courtyard house--a most quaint and original

construction in which to spend two or three months. From the

ochre-coloured door we walked into a tiny tiled patio open to the sky,

too small and insignificant for a fountain or an orange-tree: the kitchen

and one other room where servants could sleep opened out of it, lighted

only by their wide doors, which were never shut. So much for the ground

floor.

A tiny tiled staircase led to the first floor. Four narrow rooms,

windowless, flanked the four sides of the square, and looked down into

the little court below. Each room had double doors standing open for

light and air. From the house-top above the first floor, on to which we

went last, there was at least a view of a thousand flat white roofs, of

pencil-shaped minarets, of turtle-backed mosques; but at the same time

the sun itself could not be more dazzling to look at than was the

impossible whitewash which besmeared all the roofs, and we soon left for

our first floor, in whose four little dark rooms we proposed to live.

Standing on the gallery which ran outside them, and leaning on the

balustrade looking down into the minute patio, it was a case of the view

below into that, and the view above up at the sky, and no more--a

limited, and on wet days gloomy, prospect. Added to that, the orgies

worked in the kitchen by a Moorish cook could not do other than proclaim

themselves all over the first floor. True, the little patio embodied the

Moorish conception of _al-fresco_ seclusion, and a depth of shadow lay in

the inner rooms within the thin shell of the white walls. And yet--and

yet--the lines of old-fashioned Eliza Cook returned insistently, and

refused to be silenced:--

Double the labour of my task,

Lessen my poor and scanty fare,

But give, oh! give me what I ask--

The sunlight and the mountain air.

And in the end the vote was given against the little windowless dwelling

in the Moorish Quarter. No doubt a courtyard house is bizarre, but it has

its imperfections.

A Scotch proverb has it that "Where twa are seeking, they are sure to

find." In time we found. A certain Moor of Tetuan, named Ali Slowee, a

Spanish protected subject, was guardian, uncle, and stepfather to a boy

named Dolero. Dolero owned a garden-house outside the city, called

_Jinan Dolero_ (The Garden of Dolero). Ali Slowee heard of our wants and

offered us his nephew's house, provided we undertook to give it up at the

end of March. Than the unexpected, when it does come, nothing is so good.

After a little difference over the rent (our landlord began by asking two

pounds five a month, and came down to thirty shillings) all was settled,

and New Year's Day, 1902, found us living in a whitewashed garden-house

in Morocco, out in the country.

Moors have extravagant ideas of the sums English people will pay. Mr.

Bewicke was offered a house and garden for seven pounds ten a month: some

time after the landlord asked three pounds; eventually he came down to

thirty-nine shillings.

[Illustration: JINAN DOLERO.

[_To face p. 158._]

Having handed a month's rent over to Ali Slowee, he had Jinan Dolero done

up, whitewashed at least, outside and in, from top to toe--a rite

performed on every opportunity all the year round in Morocco, like

spring-cleanings at home. Tiles were mended, windows repainted, glass put

in, and we followed,--the simplest thing in the world; "furnishing" takes

no time in Morocco. Three mules carried out all we put into the empty

little house--all our effects, that is to say, from the fonda. A few rugs

were unrolled, camp-beds, table, and chairs put together, some nails

driven into the walls, and in one hour we were "in." Gibraltar supplied

the camp furniture; necessaries were raked together in Tetuan, including

the dome-shaped pewter teapot, and the painted tins, pink and green and

blue, for tea, coffee, and sugar, which mark the tramp of the European

across Morocco, and are both of them for ever associated with sweet green

tea and turbans. Mattresses we had made, and made ourselves, of moss,

brought in by the countrywomen and dried; and an Englishman, A---- (one

of the few who have become Mohammedans and settled in Morocco), lent

several more, which made divans round our walls.

A---- has a little house close to Jinan Dolero, and occupies himself with

his garden outside the city. He dresses like a Moor. In spite of it all,

he is not welcomed among them as a brother, but goes by the name of "The

Renegade." They probably divine that he adopts their religion as a part

of the customs of the country with which he identifies himself, less for

the sake of Mohammedanism itself than for the life which that religion

inculcates.

Apparently men in such a position rarely benefit the country in which

they settle, and often do harm, ending by paying the penalty of meddling

with the manners and customs of another race.

Now, at the time of writing this chapter, A---- has paid in full. Only a

few months after we left Tetuan he was shot one evening in his garden and

killed on the spot, apparently from close quarters, probably from behind

the hedge. The servants had gone home and found his body next morning. If

they are to be believed, no one heard a shot. Men have been imprisoned

and men will suffer death for the murder, no doubt; but whether the

actual murderer is shot or goes scot-free, and what his inducement for

committing the crime, probably half Tetuan will know and half Tetuan will

tell, _and tell a lie_.

Some say that A---- was shot for the sake of his gun and his money.

Others that he was shot by some Riffi brothers because he was in the

habit of talking to their sister. Others that the murder was connected

with his having lived at one time with a Moorish woman, from whom he

eventually separated.

No one will ever know.

Jinan Dolero would have been called in the Riviera "a villa": it was a

typical Moorish garden-house. We lived upstairs, after the manner of the

country, in the airiest and lightest of small whitewashed sitting-rooms:

its three windows, set certainly with head-splitting glass, looked south,

east, and west, on sea, mountains, and city. The second larger room, in

which we slept, had a thick white pillar in the very middle of it,

supporting the ceiling. A store-room on the same floor did duty as

larder, and a staircase led up on to the flat white roof.

Underneath us were kitchen, mules' stable, and two rooms for our two

servants: a little staircase led down to them and on to the hall and

front door. The floors were all tiled: a dip in the corner of each room

and a hole in the wall carried off the water when they were sluiced down.

Innocent of spouting, the water merely streamed down the outside wall.

Each window reached to the floor, and an inartistic iron grille removed

all danger of falling out. It was the sunniest house in the world, and an

airy one, for the passage and rooms had loop-holes, a foot high and four

inches wide, cut in the wall, through which air freely circulated. On the

ground floor the windows were _nil_, but more loop-holes let in ample

light. One was constructed on each side our hall door, that before

unbarring at night we might know what manner of visitor we had, and even

fire a charge through the aperture if the occasion warranted.

Our garden was another Moorish wilderness, another "Field of the

Slothful," thick in a waste of weeds, blue borage, and yellow marigolds.

But it was also a vineyard. Dead-looking branches of vines trailed among

the weeds, which later on were cut down with a sickle and turned into

green meat for cows. Splendid muscats, we were told, our vines would

produce: branches are spread over them in the summer as a slight

protection from the sun, but the grapes are left on the ground and often

soiled; nor has a Moor the slightest idea of picking them, or of

preserving their bloom. Besides the vines, there were fruit-trees in

Jinan Dolero. Pink almonds blossomed first; the leaf and the flower of

apricots followed; apples, peaches, and pears came almost at the same

time; and we lived in a pink world. The fig-tree softened its hard heart

last of all, and its ashy-grey arms burst into tender green leaf and

infant figs; at the same time the pomegranates shot into warm red

leaflets. There were lemons which were ripe on the trees on New Year's

Day, and made many a lemon-squash: there was double narcissus in flower

everywhere; it sprouted up in the grass paths which divided our garden,

and got badly trodden down: there were rows and rows of beans, which

scented the air: last of all, there were some red geraniums in flower.

A hedge of prickly pear ran down the east side of the enclosure, a tall

cane fence effectually hedged in the rest, and the whole was entered by

the inevitable locked and barred door, and whitewashed doorway, the long

key of which, was a care in life, till we learnt that in Morocco every

precaution is taken up to a certain point; matters are then handed over

to Providence, and man, forbearing to meddle further, sits down and

awaits their development.

Thus, with all their locks and bolts, garden doors were often left open,

and the cane fences were full of gaps. But none of our lemons were

stolen--not, at least, after we got rid of the guard of soldiers which

for the first week the basha insisted on sending to Jinan Dolero every

night. They ate them.

Fine days were never long enough in the little garden-house facing the

mountains: in the mornings an opal light; the sunrise stalking across

their summits, while a cloud of white mist would sweep down the valley

out to the blue sea-line; all day bright light and dazzle, a wind soft

and yet racy; at night an abrupt sunset, leaving for a few moments a

rose-pink after-glow, followed by an intense silence.

The first thing in the morning, we always wandered in our garden down the

grassy paths among the dew; measured the rain-gauge; looked at the sky;

watched the birds, of which a flight, chiefly flocks of finches,

invariably travelled over the little terraces of fruit-trees towards the

river, taking our garden on the way, and feeding there for a while. A

white jasmine almost hid our white steps and pillars: a rose grew with

lavish prodigality; as Jinan Dolero stood there, in the middle of the

Garden of the Slothful, a certain imperious dignity was given to the

little white-walled structure by means of its magnificent situation.

Sometimes we breakfasted in the garden: we were never in to lunch on fine

days, but rode and walked all over the country, occasionally with the

lady missionaries or Mr. Bewicke, but oftener alone with the big grey

donkey and a boy. There were Moors to see in Tetuan, and always something

of interest: we came away from that corner of Morocco without having got

through half of what might have been done. To live in a country, adopting

some of its ways and imbibing a little of its spirit, is the only

satisfactory way to "travel." Hotels with home conventionalities and

English tourists never amount to the same thing. Either camp out or

settle down for a month or two in a hut, with one of the country people

to cook. There must be sport, or agriculture, or village characters, or

architecture, or botany, or geology to study: bird-life and bird-watching

are never-ending interests; the fields are never empty. Only by living

its own life, can the country and its ways unfold themselves, and become

understood and cared for, by the traveller who has time for, and a love

of, such things.

As a whole, and seen in January before spring has begun, around Tetuan it

is a tired and brownish-looking country: its colour is bleached and dried

out of it, and it has the air of a sun-dried, wind-blown land, patched

with pieces of brilliant greenery where corn has been sown near water.

And yet it possesses the charm of strength and repose which simplicity

gives; for it has been worried by man but little, rather allowed to

straggle through the centuries at its own sweet will.

In the evening every Friday, to mark the Mussulman's Sabbath, the sunset

gun boomed and echoed among the opposite mountains. Watching the grey

turreted walls of the Kasbah bitten out against a primrose sky, with

watch in hand, at last the weekly flash of red, then a puff of brown

smoke shot out of the wall, and last of all, a reverberating roar, tossed

backwards and forwards among the hills. It is long before the "thunder"

dies away, and we watch a gigantic smoke-ring, sprung from the mouth of

the gun, float lazily out to the south; while the mueddzin's cry from the

top of the mosque rises and falls on the waves of sound, drifting now

clear, now faint, over the garden.

When the sun dropped, the frogs began, from the cracks in the moist clay

soil where they sat, all over our acre and a half, croaking in a wet,

guttural chorus--the whole garden called; and the rattle of the

tree-beetle which followed was one of those tropical sounds which recall

the East. The frogs were tiny brown fellows, hard to get at. The owls

would begin after the frogs--a brown owl, which flew noiselessly in the

twilight among the fruit-trees and on to the edge of the roof, hooting

long and low or chuckling oddly. Then stillness, and wonderful starlight

nights, all through January. That month no rain fell. In February we had

seven and a quarter inches, and more in March.

Having found Jinan Dolero, and furnished it after a fashion, we still

lacked servants, and they seemed to be almost as difficult to meet with

as houses--that is, trustworthy ones. Again, however, we were fortunate.

A soldier-servant who had lived with a missionary happened to have

nothing to do, and agreed to come to us with his young wife, Tahara. They

both of them knew something of European ways, and were scrupulously

honest. They brought a few oddments, a little looking-glass, a mattress

on which they slept upon the floor of the room near the kitchen, and a

few cooking-pots and pans of their own. We overcame their objection to

sleeping outside the city at that time of year; but I believe they never

liked it up to the last, though they comforted themselves with two guns

(one of which belonged to the man, and one he borrowed) and the fact of a

revolver as well, being all under the same roof with them.

[Illustration: OUR SERVANTS, S`LAM AND TAHARA.

[_To face p. 164._]

They were both of them Riffis, and their own home was in the Riff

country, two days' journey into the mountains from Tetuan. His name was

S`lam Ben Haddon Riffi of Bekiona, son of Haddon and of Fettouch Ben

Haddon of Bekiona. S`lam's wife was Tahara. He had served for a year in

the French army in Algeria, in the 2nd Regiment of Tirailleurs

Algériens; and having picked up a little French, we learnt, with a few

Arabic words, to understand each other. He and Tahara spoke Shillah to

each other.

S`lam was about twenty-six years old, Tahara about twenty. He was a

sinewy, long-legged ruffian, well over six feet, and holding himself

creditably. He had a pair of fierce, dark, restless eyes, little beard or

moustache, the front half of his head shaved, and a few locks left long

at the back in token of his being a "brave" and having slain his man in a

blood-feud. The Riffi turban, of strings of dark red wool, was wound

round his head; a white shirt showed at his neck; he wore a black

waistcoat, a white tunic down to his knees, and red knicks, below which

came his long hairy shanks, ending in a pair of yellow slippers.

A scarlet leather bag, hung by a red cord over his shoulders, a leather

belt, and his gun, finished off our Moorish servant, who shot us

partridges, roasted chickens, and was as good a hand at buttered eggs and

coffee as I have ever seen.

Out of doors he always wore his brown jellab, embroidered with silk tufts

of green and yellow and white.

Tahara was a pretty, pale, dark girl, with curious cabalistic Riffi marks

tattooed in blue on her forehead and chin. She bound round her head an

orange-coloured silk handkerchief; wore, except when at work, an

embroidered yellow waistcoat, a pale blue kaftan down to her ankles, a

sprigged, white muslin, loose garment, all over that; and a creamy

woollen haik, when she went out or was cold, covered everything.

S`lam acted as butler, Tahara kept our rooms in order, and they were

joint cooks. Their standing dish was mutton stewed in vegetables, or a

chicken; and given time, four hours in the pot, on the pan of charcoal,

it was quite a success. But they learnt many things in a Dutch oven lent

by the missionaries, besides stews. They had eccentricities--as when

S`lam prepared to put the toast-rack itself on the charcoal fire, with

the bread in it, thus to "toast": the toast-rack we made ourselves, too,

out of some old wire. They kept chickens, which S`lam brought home from

market, either in their bedrooms for the night, or else in the kitchen,

until their crops were empty and they could be killed.

Every morning S`lam was dispatched to the city with a basket,

instructions, and two or three shillings. He stayed there an

unconscionable time, visiting his mother, and sitting sunning himself in

the doorway of a little Moorish café, returning laden before lunch. He

never went into the city without his gun and best jellab, striding along

with his long legs--a most picturesque figure. After dinner every evening

he rendered his account, stalking into the sitting-room when we called,

pulling up a chair, and sitting down at the table opposite R. From his

leather bag, change was produced, and if the change was wrong, there was

agony; but that only happened once or twice. A scrap of paper was brought

out covered with Arabic writing, items of the day's expenditure, which

read more or less as follows:--

Chicken 7d.

Milk 1d.

Four eggs 2½d.

Mutton 6d.

Apples 2d.

Vegetables 2d.

Bread three times a week 4½d.

Butter twice a week 9½d.

Charcoal for cooking purposes, and oil for lamps, added three shillings

to our moderate weekly expenditure. Living is cheap enough in Morocco,

nor are servants' wages heavy. S`lam and Tahara had eighteen shillings a

month and their food, which was simple indeed--a loaf each of native

bread a day, green tea, lump sugar, and odds and ends from our meals. Our

rent, it will be remembered, came to thirty shillings a month. Morocco

suits "reduced circumstances."

Once a week, one of the little donkeys, which passed along our "lane" in

droves, carrying charcoal into the sok, was waylaid, brought into the

garden, and its three pannierfuls commandeered for us and stored in the

mules' stable, where Tahara did the washing in a great tub bought from

Mr. Bewicke.

Milk was left every morning by a Moor, who took it in for sale to the

sok.

When the accounts were all settled up, S`lam would swing out of the room

with a "Bon soir tout-le-monde," unless he stayed to give R. a lesson in

Arabic, which he could write as well as read--an unusual thing, and

marking him for a scholar in his country.

Blood-feuds among the Riff tribe are common enough. S`lam's father was

shot when S`lam was a boy. As soon as he grew up, S`lam shot the man. He

had left the Riff in consequence: he was a "marked man," they said; but

he began to talk of going back again, and while he was with us he bought

a new French rifle. In the Riff he might be potted at, he might not: he

would risk that. The brother or son of the man whom he had shot would

never trouble to journey far for the purpose of shooting him. Why should

they? All in good time. Some day, when he came their way, they would put

a bullet into him. Only women die in their beds in the Riff. "Sudden

death, Good Lord, grant us."

Men in the Riff who have blood-feuds will not go out of their houses in

the early mornings without first sending the women and children to look

if the coast is clear: neither will they walk up a hedgerow nor in a

wood, but across the fields, keeping well in the open, since murder is

always committed out of sight, decently, and in good order.

A man living in Tetuan now, has a blood-feud with an enemy, who has been

in consequence obliged to move to Tangier. Sometimes he comes over,

secretly, by night, to see his mother, and lies hidden in her house till

the sok is full of market people in the middle of the day, when he can go

out into the crowd without running great risk,--though in the sok a

quarrel sometimes arises; in a flash, guns are up at men's

shoulders--bang--bang--and bullets ping into the soft walls, if not into

some one or other. Only lately a boy was shot twice in the thigh,

happening to be in the way in a scuffle.

S`lam and Tahara were often amusing, if not interesting: never

commonplace or "well-meaning." One corner of the roof of Jinan Dolero had

been left unwhitewashed, the whitewashers' ladder was still there, and

one morning S`lam came to say in his best French, "Deux mesdames. Pour

arranger en haut."

The two madams were the whitewashers--two black madams, clad in a couple

of striped towels each, Ali Slowee's slaves, bought for, say, £7 each. A

very ragged countrywoman who came and weeded the garden, and seemed

almost devoid of intelligence, was also a madam.

S`lam was deft with a needle; he borrowed one of ours and a thimble, sat

himself down in the kitchen, and stitched away at a large white garment

"pour Maman," he said--sat up half the night, finished it, and took it to

her next day.

He did not make a bad man-servant; but he was fond of tempting Fate by

carrying trays, laden with china and glass, balanced on one hand; then he

would stoop down and pick up a kettle in the other, there would be an

ominous clatter, if not crash, in the tray amongst our crockery, and

S`lam would murmur reproachfully under his breath, "O tray! tray!"

He bought a new jellab for wearing on visits to the sok; and after it had

been proudly shown us, it was found, neatly folded up, placed on a

hat-box in our bedroom. When we asked why it was there, he was taken

aback. "Mightn't he keep it there? It was new: it was very clean."

One evening, when he came in to settle accounts, he said that he wished

to write a letter. Would we give him a sheet of paper and envelope? They

were produced. We were not quite prepared for it, when he at once drew up

a chair, sat down at the table, and politely asked for a pencil. But it

was impossible to snub so simple and well-meaning a child. I sharpened a

pencil, and S`lam wrote diligently for quite half an hour, without a

pause, from right to left, wonderful spidery characters: it was a long

letter to his old master down in Morocco City. He held his

string-turbaned head on one side, and was without embarrassment as he sat

between R. and myself (one of us worked, the other wrote); indeed, S`lam

might have spent his evenings in a drawing-room all his life. When the

letter was finished, he accepted a stamp most gratefully, wished us "Bon

soir," and departed.

Tahara had her eccentricities too, of which one was an extraordinary

aptitude for annexing wherewithal to tie round her head in place of her

own yellow silk scarf, which was kept for high days. One week one of our

table-napkins was raised to this honour; the next one of our clean

bedroom towels had taken its place round her dark locks.

I made her a present of a flannel shirt to wear, but the second day S`lam

had appropriated that, and wore it in place of his waistcoat, unbuttoned.

Apparently, in the eyes of the Tetuan world, we were taking a most

unprecedented and foolhardy step in sleeping outside the city in the

winter: the Ceuta "road" near us was said to be famous for robbery and

murder. For some reason or other a reputation clung to us of being

fabulously rich. The Moors warned, the missionaries seriously

expostulated with us. None of them would have done it, and Mr. Bewicke

was put down as mad for countenancing such an action. But we had two men

in the house at night; for, besides S`lam, a labourer was induced to

sleep in the mules' stable for our protection, and we had a couple of

rifles and a revolver. Now, since the news of the murder of A----, one

wonders . . . . . But _he_ was alone: _we_ had the safety of numbers.

To show how jealous Moors can be, and what precautions they take about

their women, S`lam never allowed the labourer inside the garden gate

unless he himself had come in. The man sat and waited on the bank. Then,

after he was installed in the stable, the door between the kitchen and

stable was locked and bolted. When we went out, Tahara was made to bolt

every door; and if any one came to the house, she would only call down to

them out of our bedroom window.

The first night we slept in our garden-house and for several nights

after, the basha took upon himself to send us out a guard of soldiers,

who were responsible for our safety. We never asked this favour, and were

annoyed; for they slept under our windows, talked and coughed the whole

night, lay on the bulbs in a flower-bed, and stole the lemons. Seeing,

however, that we did not pay them anything at all for the attention, the

basha soon grew tired of sending them, much to our relief; for when, to

prevent their depredations, we locked them outside the garden door, they

broke down our fence, scrambled into the garden, and lay under the

prickly pears, as being a safer place than the lane outside.

There has never such a thing been known, as a guard without a cough, or

who do not talk. If told to be silent, they reply that they must talk to

keep awake; for if they fell asleep, how could they guard? Occasionally,

to show how much on the alert they are, guards will discharge their guns

in the dead of night. Altogether Moorish soldiers at close quarters are

not conducive to sleep.

We had an excitement one night, but it turned out to be groundless. Guns

were fired from the garden-house below ours, repeatedly, about 10 p.m.,

and S`lam got into a fever of excitement, brought his rifle up into our

sitting-room, and sat watching at one of the windows. He thought it was

tribesmen come down from the hills to rob. At last the firing stopped,

and R. and I went to bed; but S`lam was up all night, and Tahara brought

their mattress upstairs and slept in our sitting-room for safety. It

turned out to be Moors who had come out to sleep for one night, and were

amusing themselves by firing rifles from the loop-holes and out in the

garden.

There is an advantage in being in a country where game is not sacred. For

instance, one evening after tea, standing on the steps outside our

"bungalow," in the hush which came just after sunset, R. and I were

startled by a familiar call over in the garden next ours. S`lam was

strolling about, and confirmed our supposition--a partridge. We went

indoors and forgot about it; but ten minutes later the report of a gun

brought us out again, and there was S`lam crashing over the great bamboo

fence into "next door" with his rifle, scudding across our neighbour's

beans, then stooping down over something; a second later and he was back

again, across the palisade like a lamplighter, and striding triumphantly

up our path with a partridge dangling from his hand--a red-legged

Frenchman, which we hung long. This acquisition to the larder had to be

applauded perforce, in spite of its being shot sitting, and on some one

else's acres. As luck would have it, S`lam's great bullet, about the size

commonly used for big game, had gone through its head: he naïvely

explained the advantages of shooting birds through the head. But I think

he was a fair shot. Most Riffis are.

I suppose that the Riff tribe is more or less an anomaly. Think, if you

can, of a clan or a tribe who are pirates, wreckers, who encourage

slavery, who count the vendetta an admirable custom, who have no laws, no

governors, who acknowledge as their supreme head a Sultan who has never

from all ages ventured within their borders--a tribe who have, as it has

been said, "no fear, no anything, save and excepting their faith in One

God and Mohammed as his Prophet, their own daggers, a Martini-Henry if

they can get one, and failing that, a ten-foot-long Riff gun,

coral-studded, ivory-butted, brass-bound, and deadly to handle"--a people

who live in a country without roads, _and all within a few hours of

Gibraltar_: have they their parallel, except among adventurers in the Far

East, and those but a few upon distant seas?

[Illustration: TWO WOMEN FROM THE RIFF COUNTRY.

[_To face p. 172._]

To explore the unknown Riff country would be interesting indeed. No book

has been written upon it except from hearsay, and no European has

penetrated across its length and breadth. The Riffis want no foreign

interlopers among their sacred hills, and would "knife" the first who

showed his face. It is but two days' journey eastwards from Tetuan, this

select and exclusive country, and it extends about a hundred and fifty

miles, with a population, it is reported, of one hundred and fifty

thousand souls. Strange to think that no European pioneer, nor

gentleman-rover, has ever exploited the Riff.

The law of the vendetta, is the law and the ten commandments of the

Riffi, which, if he fail to keep, renders him in the eyes of his

country-folk damned to all eternity, to be ostracised among men. A widow

will teach her baby-son to shoot, and studiously prepare him for his one

great duty, that as early as possible he may put a bullet into the

murderer of his father. And thus the feud is nourished. Even the

great-great-grandson of a man who has taken a life years upon years ago

is not safe. He will probably meet with a dagger or the muzzle of a long

gun one day.

But a people who inculcate such severe and cursory measures have their

redeeming-points. It is a fact that cursing and swearing, so common among

Moors, and polygamy and adultery, are seldom, if ever, met with in the

Riff: for if one Riffi insults another, it is at the peril of his life;

while the stain of immorality is wiped out at once by death.

The gun, pistol, or dagger is the Riffi's summary judge and jury. He

submits to no authority. Questions on land, on inheritance, all legal

questions, are settled in each village by the keeper of the mosque. He

arranges marriages.

The Riffis are therefore a moral people: a man has but one wife; the

women do not veil, and yet familiarity is not tolerated between the

sexes; a young man will go out of his way to avoid passing close by a

young woman whom he sees in the distance, lest he be suspected of

behaving lightly to her.

The Riffis are an indomitable race, one which has never been conquered,

magnificent raw material out of which to shape a battalion of infantry.

Though acknowledged as the Kaliph of the Prophet and their religious

head, the Sultan, as has been said, has never dared to put his head in

this independent hornets' nest.

They are an industrious tribe, growing crops assiduously and rearing

cattle: their valleys are fertile and well farmed for an uncivilized

country. But these details must be taken for what they are worth. S`lam

could say nothing but good of the Riff: how cheap living was, and how

abundant food,--except when rain failed, and then there followed

disastrous famine, and starving Riffis would come down to Tetuan, and lie

in the caves outside the city, and live on roots, doing any work which

offered; and some of them would die, in spite of the missionaries'

kindness and unremitting efforts.

There are many legends about the Riffis: they boast one tribe among

themselves who are said to be descended from the Romans; and there is no

reason against the assumption, since the Romans were in Morocco after

Cæsar's day. Another family claims to be descended from the inhabitants

of Sodom. Some of them are quite fair--regular "carrots": Vandal blood

may run in their veins. While, again, some people say there are Celts

among them, with Irish characteristics and Irish words. Possibly. Pirates

and rovers are apt to introduce foreign strains.

At any rate they have nothing in common with the Arabs, but are as unlike

that race as a Scotchman is unlike an Italian. Berber is of course their

common origin, and they are identical with the Kabyles of Algeria, the

Touariks of the Sahara, and the Guanches of the Canary Isles. Shillah,

the Berber dialect which they speak--one of the many dialects belonging

to that race--is not a written language; but an educated Riffi learns to

write and read at his village _jama_ (mosque school); he uses the Arabic

character in writing, and he learns to read the Kor[=a]n.

Yet in one great point, like the Arabs, the Riffi, in common with the

Berber race, lacks the power of cohesion and the spirit of patriotism,

which should have welded all Berbers into one powerful people. Internal

strife, that curse of Africa, has split them up into isolated units, and

they stand at the same point they stood at a thousand years ago.

Nor have the Riffis, in common with the Moors, reached the point of

discarding "petticoats and drapery"--that is to say, they wear the brown,

hooded, woollen jellab, and the white woollen haik--a sheet of material

without seam, which they cast round themselves something like a Roman

toga. Perhaps a cotton tunic is worn underneath.

Part of the sleeves, the hood, and front of the jellab are often

beautifully embroidered in coloured silks. On the border of the cloth

thin leaves of dried grass are laid, which are worked over and over with

coloured silk, and make a thick, handsome edging. The coloured leather

belts which they wear; the large embroidered leather pouches, with

deep-cut leather fringes, which hold bullets and powder and money and

hemp-tobacco; their shaved heads, with one long oiled and combed or

plaited lock; their turbans, red or brown, of strings of wool,--all

complete a Riffi, and a very fine-looking fellow he can be.

The labour element, which as a whole is antagonistic to the spirit of

Morocco, crops up here and there, less in the casually fanned fields than

in out-of-the-way corners. The Potters' Caves just outside Tetuan

constitute one of those corners. There is always work going on in the

caves, and smoke coming out of one or other of the many kilns, all the

year round. Morocco and Moorish architecture would be nowhere without the

potteries. Those infinitesimal little tiles which fit together and make

such artistic colour-patterns, lining the _al-fresco_ patios, facing the

walls of the rooms, the pillars and doorways and flooring, the houses

throughout, are every one of them kneaded and cut and baked there: crocks

to wash in, pans for charcoal, immense water-pots, small water-pots,

bowls and shallow basins, dishes of all sizes, and saucers down to the

smallest, even ink-bottles, all come into being there.

Leaving the city by _Báb-el-Nooadtha_ (the Gate of Sheaves), a little

winding path leads to the caves, which lie among thickets of prickly

pear, at the foot of the Anjera Hills, out of which they have been

hollowed, probably by the action of water. Immense ramifications they

are--great dark halls, roofed _au naturel_ in corrugated rock with

fissured sides, where maiden-hair fern hangs cool and green. Here in the

dark shadows are a little company of workmen, chiefly in brown jellabs

and leathern aprons, one cutting squares out of the soft clay with a

penknife--he has a pattern to help him keep them exact; another cuts

diamonds, another stars: piled up together, they look like little pastry

shapes in brown, beside the workmen, who are all sitting cross-legged on

the ground.

A little farther on two more men are dipping the top surfaces of the

diamonds into an earthenware bowl full of yellow "cream," which will

glaze and colour them, all in one. This sulphur-colour, and a blue, and a

white, are generally used for the tiles--no other shades, as a rule. A

boy in a corner is at work at one of the first processes, treading out a

vast circle of yellowish clay into the consistency of stiff dough. A

rather superior old Moor in a white turban, perhaps the master-workman,

is deftly cutting out rosettes. In the front of the cave a little brown

donkey, with pasterns as weak as a reed, is standing under the weight of

four great earthenware pots full of water, two balanced on each side its

pack. A boy empties them one by one of the water, pouring it into a

natural basin scooped out in the ground, well puddled with clay, and

therefore without a leak. The water is wanted to mix with the "dough."

Then the donkey patters off for another load, the boy sitting sideways on

its pack and shaking his heels--that makes it go.

To the left stands a kiln in process of being packed with millions of the

clay dice, which, baked hard, dove-tailed together, and forming a smooth,

polished surface, will keep many a room cool. The kiln next door to it,

is full of pots and pans of all shapes and sizes, but its opening is

plastered up with clay, and they are not to be seen. Into the great fiery

furnace underneath, a man is thrusting dry brown bushes, and dried

prickly pear, and whatever rubbish will burn. Much of it has been hacked

off the hillside by women, and has come on their backs many a mile. There

is a crackling sound, smoke comes out, and a pink flame glows behind the

man's body. The tiles ought to bake all right.

Meanwhile, the same boy inside the cave has got his clay into good

order--it is about two inches thick, and something the size of a big

round table; then he stoops down, and, with a knife held in both hands,

scores the clay across, much as toffee is scored; which done, each

square, about a foot in diameter, is carried off to be cut up into little

shapes or to go upon the potter's wheel.

The potter sat in his little pit, working the wheel with his foot--as

Carlyle says, "one of the venerablest objects, old as the Prophet Ezekiel

and far older. Rude lumps of clay, how they spin themselves up, by mere

quick whirling, into beautiful circular dishes."

The potter thumped his wet clay; then, as the wheel turned, pressed and

moulded it with clever clay-encrusted hands: the sleeves were turned back

from his bony chocolate-coloured arms. He had a grey goatee and a quiet

smile, a dirty turban round his head, a white tunic mostly clay, and

underneath a claret-coloured garment showed at the neck.

He was a spare, wizened old man: perhaps his work, like Dante's, had made

him "lean for many years." The faster his wheel revolved, the truer

apparently was the shape of the vessel he turned out. His country might

accept the lesson--that labour, like the wheel, conduces towards a good

end. I fancy that a decadent people, who will neither work nor spin, but

choose to rest and lie at ease, give the potter Destiny no chance. He has

no wheel, this potter--for Morocco will not labour, nor be broken, nor

disciplined; and so he is reduced to a mere kneading and baking, without

the means he fain would employ; and he turns out a mere makeshift--his

production at best is "not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked,

shambling, squint-cornered, amorphous botch--a mere enamelled vessel of

dishonour."

[Illustration: SELLING EARTHENWARE POTS.

[_To face p. 178._]

The great pot which the potter slowly evolved out of the soft brown clay

under our eyes was not perfect: he made it entirely by eye, and it

matched the rest of the group to the ordinary observer; yet it had a

distinct "lean." Did it grumble to itself, that

vessel of the more ungainly make?

as human vessels complain sometimes:--

They sneer at me for leaning all awry;

What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?

Beyond the potter the ground was covered with an army of his soft

mud-coloured vessels, all sorted and arranged in groups which matched,

dozen after dozen, far back into the inner shadows of the cave, like some

weird and interminable china shop. I gave the old man a cigarette, which

he puffed at over his wheel.

In the next cave a white-bearded Aaron was solemnly dipping dishes into a

bowl of blue colour and glaze, and placing each with his finger and thumb

on a board by him among countless fellows, while with his other hand he

gravely swirled the liquid to prevent its setting. Others next him were

again cutting out shapes; and three potters were hard at work, one

moulding the bodies of pots, another the necks, another the lids, while a

fourth put all three together.

And thus they laboured on. Their slippers lay in the mouths of the caves

beside their brown jellabs; and the smell of the moist clay and the drip

of water up amongst the green fern mixed with the cool air.

Almighty Potter, on whose wheel of blue

The world is fashioned, and is broken too,

Why to the race of men is heaven so dire?

In what, O wheel, have I offended you?

CHAPTER VII

COUNTRY PEOPLE FORDING THE RIVER--WE CALL ON CI HAMED GHRALMIA--AN

EXPEDITION ACROSS THE RIVER IN SEARCH OF THE BLUE POOL--MOORISH BELIEF IN

GINNS--THE BASHA--POWDER PLAY--TETUAN PRISON.

CHAPTER VII

Set not thy heart on any good or gain--

Life means but pleasure, or it means but pain;

When Time lets slip a little perfect hour,

Oh! take it--for it will not come again.

MANY walks began by degrees to tell upon our boots, for the cobble-stones

of Tetuan and the rocks of Morocco in general are meant less for boots

than for bare feet, which they do not seem to damage. In time, stress of

circumstances drove us to a curly black-headed Jew bootmaker, whose most

expensive pair of thick black boots cost nine shillings. Another

Israelite made us suits of rough brown jellab material, for the sum of £1

each--stuff which wore for ever.

The mountains on the opposite side of the river were our El Dorado, but

the river would not go down in January and allow of our fording it; rain

followed rain, and it was higher than ever. One market day we walked down

to watch the people from the other side come across, on their way into

the sok, laden with country produce. Years ago a bridge had been built

over the Wad-el-Martine, but, like other Moorish architecture, it was not

built to last, and the immense floods which swing down the Wad-el-Martine

in winter-time soon left only a broken pier or two, to point out that a

bridge had been thought of. The money to build it was supplied by

Government: half of it went into the pocket of the builder; a little

went towards the bridge, which naturally could only be built of rubbish,

without proper foundations. Now that there is no bridge, it is once more,

as it had been for ages upon ages, a case of ferrying across by the big

ferry-boat, or of fording. Since ferrying means money, and fording only a

wetting, most of the market-goers ford.

It was a sight to see the countrywomen wading through, one after another

like a string of ducks, trying to keep dry: the water came just about up

to their bodies, and the white haik and piece of towelling for a skirt

could be bundled up somehow--a very few wore short white cotton drawers.

Their legs were remarkable for an enormous development of muscle in

unusual places. Once across, they wrung out anything which had been

wetted, shivering somewhat; then arranged their voluminous haiks afresh

over the mysterious great bundles on their backs, and, padding off in

single file, made for the city. What those bundles, which bent their

backs half double, had inside them it was impossible to certify: often

part of it was a baby, judging by a round shape like a head under the

haik, and the fact that, when it had a knock, there was a cry: the rest

might be chickens, oranges, vegetables, baskets of eggs, baskets of

coos-coosoo, heads of brooms made of bamboo, honey, and so on. Some of

the chickens dangled in front of the women by strings tied to their

waists: the chickens were alive, of course.

[Illustration: A FERRY-BOAT ON MARKET DAY.

[_To face p. 184._]

On the tops of their heads the women wore enormous straw hats, with brims

large enough to act as umbrellas and to keep the rain off their

shoulders. The ferry-boat, packed with them _and_ these straw hats, was

worth seeing, like a grand-stand in a shower hidden by umbrellas. The

weights which the women carry for hours at a time are almost incredible;

but they begin as tiny girls, lopping along after their mothers at a

half-run under tiny bundles, with the same bent backs; and habit is

second nature.

After the string of women came along a youth, with two small donkeys,

laden with panniers full of green vegetables. The donkeys jibbed upon the

brink; many "Arrahs" and curses and much cudgelling with a stick got them

started; the panniers swayed horribly, and threatened to turn completely

round, as the current pushed the donkeys over this side and that. Once

in, they made pluckily for the opposite shore; but the stream carried

them down; the water was well up their bodies; the distracted boy plunged

and struggled behind first this one and then the other, whichever seemed

in most danger--for the ford was none too wide. Urging them to keep

up-stream, he clung on to one refractory pannier. The water rose higher

and almost took them off their feet; but that was the worst place; now it

was better. The leading donkey was in safety in shallower water, nearing

dry land; but the other poor fellow seemed less strong, and was not able

to make half such a good fight of it--its load may have been heavier. In

spite of the boy it got lower and lower down-stream: suddenly there was

an upheaval and a splash; its head went under altogether, pack and

everything in a hole. Then the boy surpassed himself; for, deep as it

was, he was there in a moment, got hold of the donkey behind, and pushed

and half lifted, at no small risk to himself, and pulled, until the

little fellow, after several relapses, found his feet. Finally, he waded

out, and stood, like a drowned rat, on the bank, pack and all streaming;

then he collected himself after a pause, and doddered off towards the

sok. The boy shook himself and his soaked clothes, clutched his stick,

and ran after his donkeys.

A well-to-do Moor, possibly a sheikh, was the next to go for the ford.

He probably farmed, and his sleek mule was full of green corn and

"beans." They were things of colour, the pair of them: all the mule's

appointments scarlet, himself a glossy brown; while his master, in dark

blue, sat tight on his scarlet saddle, his bright chased stirrups

flashing, so short as to bring his feet right up the mule's side--his

turban, white as snow, with the red peak of the fez underneath, the

deepest blot of colour, against the sky. A white garment waved out in the

breeze under the blue jellab; he sat straight as a withy, feeling the

mule's mouth with a hard hand, and bringing its nose into the air. There

were some bravado and a great deal of assurance in the whole. The world

used him well. Moors ride everywhere, if they possess anything with four

legs. Why should they give themselves the fatigue of walking? But besides

that, they are horsemen and most at home on a horse, while their country

is not one to travel in on foot.

Having decided that the river was fordable, and that we ought to be able

to ride across it, we walked back by way of the city, and went in to tea

with a Moor, ordering a donkey to be sent out the next day to Jinan

Dolero, which should take us across to our El Dorado. The Moor who

entertained us was a certain Ci Hamed Ghralmia, the eldest son of a

Government official who had fattened physically and financially on the

Customs, and whose fine house represented so many perquisites and bribes,

and so much pared off the lump sum which went annually up to the Sultan.

It was as luxurious a house as Eastern could wish: soft Rabat carpets,

old Fez silk hangings, round the four-post beds, standing back in

recesses in the room into which our host led us,--hangings such as even

Fez can no longer produce; such silk is not made. One piece, which was

quite as handsome in its way, was made years ago in Tetuan, from Tetuan

silk-worms, reared on the slopes outside the Mulberry Gate--spun, dyed,

and woven in Tetuan.

Couches and divans filled up the corners; glowing colours and fine snowy

linen abounded. It was a house in which to spend a sleepy Sabbath

afternoon on a hot day, if it must be spent indoors. Cool air blew

through the high rooms; the splash and ripple of fountains rose and fell

in the cool marble patio below, and echoed up the tiled staircase; while

back, far in the shade of the secluded rooms, among avenues of pillars,

vistas of light and shade, women like butterflies, in mauve and yellow

and white, rose from some soft scented divan and flitted across. And in

the centre of it all, a little king, Ci Hamed Ghralmia--a pale,

café-au-lait complexioned man, who looked as if life had never shown him

one of its angles. He was fat and lineless: soft white hands, fleshy

ankles, no knots of muscle in so well-turned-out a mould of cream, not a

spot, not a flush, no sign of liver; the lips slightly suggested

sensuality, and there was a line of cruelty round the mouth, but no

further indication of self-indulgence; he might have lived on sugar and

chicken coos-coosoo all his life, and altered in nothing but size since

he was a year old, except for a beard on the soft white chin, and his

eyes, which were infinitely cunning. Brown and cold, like polished

marbles, they had not reached that stage of cunning which veils its

cunning, but would still gleam at the sight of money and express

satisfaction over a well-made bargain. They were suspicious, as the

ignorant generally are, and believed in little that they saw. The old

Biblical characters who walk Morocco to-day have most of them the same

failing: they are sly.

Ci Hamed Ghralmia was an "advanced" Moor--that is to say, in the

afternoons, lying on his divan, he read Arabic books. He had bought some

French knick-knacks too. He told us that he rented a shop, in which he

sat in the mornings and chatted to his friends, using it not in any way

to dispose of any goods, of which it was devoid, but as a sort of "club"

or meeting-place. Then in the afternoons he occasionally rode out on his

mule. He had a garden, I think, outside the city. Or he played chess with

a friend, or read. Perhaps he would use his _hummum_ (Turkish bath); he

would pray at his own particular mosque, regularly, so many times a day;

and he would drink much green tea, and consume sugar, and sleep

inordinately.

Thirty years of this life in Tetuan found Ci Hamed Ghralmia still a

contented man--supremely so. Wrapped in the finest white wool and muslin

clothes, he lay along a divan opposite to us upon one elbow, the picture

of ease, and talked away. No Moor was ever anything but self-composed.

Upon our camera's coming out, he was much interested; and to prove his

progressive and enlightened state of mind, let us photograph him just as

he lay there--a vast, voluminous white chrysalis. Then he took us to see

his wives and slaves--a large party of them. They were allowed to come

out on to the staircase and talk to us; but when the interview had lasted

five minutes, Ci Hamed Ghralmia clapped his hands twice--we had seen

enough--every wife and every slave vanished like magic.

[Illustration: THE AUTHOR FORDING THE WAD-EL-MARTINE.

[_To face p. 188._]

The next morning we made one of many expeditions up into the hills on the

opposite side of the river, towards the south, and in the direction,

though somewhat west, of the Riff. We rode in turns, it being somewhat of

a rest to scramble along on foot, to say nothing of exercise. The big

grey donkey had our lunch, a camera, some field-glasses, and a box for

botanical specimens slung about him. We had a fairly intelligent

boy--Mohammed, a Riffi--and managed to understand a word or two he said.

It had been explained to him by S`lam that we wished to get to the Blue

Pool if possible. Arrived at the river, we found nobody--not being market

day, it was utterly deserted. The current was still swirling in a

forbidding fashion, but Mohammed led the donkey straight in with R.; he

tucked up his clothes, held his yellow slippers high in one hand, and

after some goading they landed on the opposite bank. Mohammed left his

slippers, rode back through the river for me, and in due time I was

deposited on the shingle. Off we set--first by a narrow path, thick on

each side with scented violets, and closed in with the usual

ten-foot-high cane fence. More streams had to be forded, but they were

small and the donkey strong; so, to save time, I sat above his tail,

behind R., and he carried us across in one journey.

So far we were still down on the flats; the hills towered in front of us;

and among the streams, and where the river in its vagaries had often

flowed, there was deposited many a rich bed of fruitful mud, turned into

valuable land, the very soil _par excellence_ for oranges. And they were

all around us--garden after garden, acre after acre, foliage studded with

gold knobs by the million. And among them, and as far as the eye could

reach, up into the gorge between the hills, picturesque white

garden-houses showed through rifts in the half-tropical foliage, or over

hedges of prickly pear and oleander. Fig-trees, a hundred years old, made

faded grey blotches amongst the vivid greenery; the pink bloom of apricot

was stainless against stained-yellow walls. In such a place, the

inexorable realism of the age in which we live, was shaken--spirits

there surely were which should appear.

We passed an old countrywoman with a tiny donkey carrying two great

panniers full of green-stuffs: she was in difficulties, having a wrestle

to make it cross a little stream. Mohammed went to her assistance. Once

over, she climbed on its small back with the help of a stone, putting her

foot on its neck to get into her place.

And now, leaving the orange gardens and their wealth, our path took an

upward turn into a more rugged country, a less fruitful soil. We left a

field of pale blue flax on the left--a "blue pool" indeed; and about this

point the donkey's pack, which had no breastplate, slipped over its tail;

but Mohammed's knife, and some string, and the britching, put all to

rights for the time being. Later on a stirrup-leather broke.

Following our winding path, we reached at last a white saint-house, which

dominated a little hill overgrown with gnarled grey olives, and acted

guardian over a large and flourishing village which lay below,--at least

it was a collection of mud huts, and more of them than usual, but, like

so many of these "villages," seemed to all intents and purposes

deserted--a city of the dead. Many of the inhabitants were out no doubt,

but those who were in were not tempted by curiosity to stare at us:

without windows there can be no signs of the rites which are carried on

inside the houses. All we saw were dogs, fierce brutes, which stones

alone kept at a distance, where they sat showing their teeth and

bristling their crests ominously.

The saint-house, of course, was forbidden ground: we went as close as

common sense permitted, and from under the shady olives looked back at

Tetuan down below us, a snow-white streak in the valley.

Some rags were hanging upon a bush near us. It is an interesting and

curious practice, that of hanging votive rags upon the bushes around

chapels and holy shrines: no less venerable is the performance of

pilgrimages to the same. Both practices go back into the dim ages. They

are in use to this day amongst the Shintoists of Japan, and the

inhabitants of Northern Asia, India, the Orkneys, and remote corners of

Ireland, where sickly children are dipped in streams, or passed through

holes in stones or trees so many times running, going against the way of

the sun, in order to produce the effect of making the sick child as

strong as a lion. Then an offering must be made to the saint, and a rag

is torn off somebody's garment, and tied to a bush near his grave, to

show that they would have done more for the good saint if they had had

the power.

Rag-trees, burdened with the tattered offerings of the devout and

impecunious tribes-people, flourish throughout Morocco,--signs hanging

out, and blown by the wind, in the face of travellers; warnings of the

deep-rooted superstition entangled in the innermost heart-cells of its

people, to be disturbed at imminent peril.

Leaving the saint-house and village, we struck a path upwards into a wild

gorge, at the bottom of which a brawling torrent was tumbling. It turned

many rude mills, and there were lush fields of corn on its banks. Far

away in the grey distance now, to the north, we could see a dark wedge of

rock, almost on the sky-line beyond the Anjera and other hills of

Morocco: _the_ Rock--Gibraltar.

At this point we lunched. Mohammed was provided, and dropped behind a

rock: the donkey grazed. A little boy, minding goats, came up with a

fascinating pocket-knife, but would not let it go out of his hand. A

clear stream gave us drink--it was warm; bees hummed in the balmy air;

there was an aromatic scent; clouds hung round the hills; the panorama

below was essentially peaceful and "Christian."

And then we went on in search of the far-famed Blue Pool. But though we

reached where the river lay in still pools, blue beyond all known blues,

we found no more--only traces of a great flood and landslips, which, I

suspect, had washed away the lake people had talked of. We found enough

to bring us back on other days, and to understand why the missionaries

take up their tents and camp in the mountains in the summer.

We returned by a path farther west, and passed a great olive wood full of

black shadows. The scrub on the hillsides holds pig--there are plenty of

them; and the boars become more or less antagonistic at certain times in

the year. We were told tales of people who had met with terrifying

adventures, but personally our expeditions had no such thrilling

incidents connected with them.

It would have been unwise to stay out after sunset, and that time always

saw us back at Jinan Dolero. It is said to be the most unsafe hour; for

men are coming into Tetuan, and if they can waylay and rob or murder a

traveller, and make their way into the city before the gates shut, half

an hour after sunset, and sleep there, who shall suspect them of dark

deeds done outside in the evening? Besides, Mohammed would never have

consented to be out late, on account of the firm belief which Moors have

in evil spirits. There is a special race of beings, they hold, in many

respects like men, in others like spirits, called _ginns_. Their

principal abode is the under-world, but they come up on to the earth, and

are fond of lurking in wells and in dark corners, even in houses. Rooms

are often haunted by ginns: men are surrounded by ginns. Some of the

more enlightened Moors are inclined to represent ginns as merely

superstitious imaginations and hallucinations on the part of the

ignorant; but probably in his heart of hearts, no Moor but has a secret

desire to propitiate ginns, and a secret dread of falling in with them.

Ginns eat and drink and propagate their species, and even form sexual

connections with men. A man whose wife is any way odd or mysterious has

married of course a ginn. Ginns are fond of inhabiting rivers, woods, the

sea, ruins, springs, drains, and caves; they come out at night more than

by day, and in certain streets no Moor will walk at night. Nor will a

Moor sleep alone in a room. Ginns, when they appear, take the forms of

men, goats, cats, dogs, almost any animal in fact, and also monsters.

Whirlwinds, and shooting stars, and dear times, and famine, and

epidemics, are all caused by ginns. It is the ginns who have eaten all

the food in the city when prices are exorbitant. If a man falls down in

the dark, it is a ginn: a sudden illness or an accident is the work of a

ginn. There are good ginns, but bad ginns are more common. The worst of

them all is _Iblis_ (the devil). Iblis tempts men to wickedness. All

iniquity is the fault of Iblis.

In order to keep the bad ginns at a distance, certain precautions may be

taken. Salt and steel are antidotes. Salt in the hand when going out at

night, salt in the pillow when sleeping, are measures which should be

used. In building a house some people put salt and wheat and an egg into

the ground, and kill a goat on the threshold. On sinking a well (the

stronghold of ginns) a goat or sheep must always be killed.

The best talisman against ginns is the repetition of certain passages in

the Kor[=a]n: when passing a dark spot, say the "Ajatu-l-kursi": as for

neglecting to say "B`ism Allah" (In the name of God) before going for a

ride, or before doing any sort or kind of action, why, that is to have a

ginn as your companion on your horse, and at your elbow, whatever you may

be doing. As every place has its "owners," its good or bad ginns, on

striking a light and going into a room Moors say, "Good-evening to you, O

ye owners of the place." And if a tent is to be pitched, first of all the

protection of good ginns must be solicited in that spot.

Supposing a ginn gets hold of a man, and he is ill, there are certain

doctors, magicians, among the Moors who can cast the ginn out. They

practice a regular "ginn-cult," and celebrate annual feasts, going

outside Tetuan to a certain spring near the Moorish cemetery, and killing

a bullock, a black goat, a black donkey, and some chickens.

The word _ginn_ originally meant "the secret," "the mysterious," "the

hidden"; and the belief in ginns is part of the actual creed of

Mohammedans, Arabs, and Berbers alike. But Moors have a hundred

superstitions. They believe that all animals had a language once upon a

time,--that the horse prays to Allah when he stretches out his leg; that

the donkey which falls down, asks Allah that the same may happen to his

master. They say that the donkey was once a man whom Allah changed into

his present shape because he washed himself with milk; that the stork was

a _kadi_, or judge, who was made a stork because he passed unjust

sentences upon his fellow-men. It is therefore a sin to kill a stork, or

a crow, or a toad, or a white spider, or a white chicken. A white spider

once spun its web over a cave where Mohammed hid: his enemies saw it,

thought therefore that no one could have recently entered the cave, and

passed on.

It is hardly necessary to say, that about Death--the Great Secret--there

are numerous superstitions. There were too many funerals in Tetuan: early

in the afternoon one was often encountered at the Gate of the Tombs;

death would only have taken place that morning, without much inquiry as

to its cause, and whether by fair means or foul nobody knew and few

cared. The procession came swinging along, stately men in flowing

garments, white and dark, chanting the weird funeral hymn or

"lament"--always the same mournful, monotonous cadence, rising and

falling in the narrow streets, and at last out into the air. And then

once through the Báb-el-M`kabar, the great company in white turn into the

Moorish burial-ground, and arrange themselves in a long line against the

hillside, and the chant becomes general, almost a great cry, full of the

strange fascination of certain Eastern music, withal so unintelligible to

Europeans.

The body, loosely wrapped in white, lies on an open bier. After a sort of

service on that rough hillside against the walls of the city, the

procession winds on again to the shallow grave: a last chant, and the

body goes into the earth, and is quickly covered. A scribe, or reader, is

left behind when every one has gone: he reads pieces out of the Kor[=a]n

over the grave, and chants. Friends, mourners perhaps, will come out on

other days, and sit round the tomb, reading the Kor[=a]n together, and

singing the weird, sad melodies. You may see them. But I have never seen

a Moor give way to the slightest outward expression of grief.

Mohammedans firmly believe, of course, in a Paradise to which the good

are admitted: their conception as to this land of the hereafter, largely

consisting of gardens and shade, adds a bridge, by which means alone

access to Paradise is gained. The bridge (_Al Sirat_) is finer than a

hair and sharper than a sword: the wicked invariably turn giddy and fall

off into the pit of Hell, while the righteous negotiate it in safety.

A rich man, when he is buried, is provided with a vault. The body is laid

on its right side, its sightless eyes turned to Mecca. During the first

night, Mohammedans hold that the soul remains in the body for the purpose

of being interrogated by two angels before it can be admitted into

Paradise. They appear, and the body is roused to a sitting posture and to

temporary life. It replies to the dread examination. If this ends

unsatisfactorily, the angels torture and beat the body, until the

sepulchre closes in upon it. But if they approve the soul's replies, they

bid the man sleep on in peace in the protection of God.

Travellers complain of a want of "pageant" in Morocco. Ostentatious

funerals and processions of all sorts, public demonstrations over

trifles, the worship of gilt and glitter, and the emotional spirit called

_loyalty_, of the present day, do not exist in El Moghreb. There is a

spirit of simplicity about its shows; they do not breathe of money: old

as their customs are, there is vigour in them and a certain amount of

use, for the people have not outgrown them, do not make of them so many

lay figures on which to display signs of their own great wealth.

The Day of the Great Feast up at Court with the Sultan, that is _the

pageant_ in all Morocco. We missed it.

Connected with the bashas and kaids, who are the only great men in the

country or in the cities, there is little or no respect or formality.

Only on Sundays a sort of "flash in the pan" reminds the Moor that he has

a little despot in his midst, who is more or less lord of his life; and

the drums are heard all over the city, the soldiers turn out, for the

basha goes to pray at _El Aoli_ (noon) in his own particular mosque

opposite his house.

On Friday, the Sabbath, the biggest _sok_ (market) in all the week, a

little black flag was flown from the mosque-tops early in the morning to

remind Tetuan of the holy day. The basha was inside the cool mosque,

praying, at the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected,

though the same event happened every Friday. No Moor is ever busy, ever

hurries, but can always wait. At a quarter to one a bugler on the east

side of the street, who had been sitting in the sun with his bugle, got

up and blew a call to fall in. About sixty soldiers, who had all strolled

off after the great man had disappeared into the mosque, sauntered up

from different directions. If they were a ragged and indifferently

drilled company, there was colour in the ranks at least. Every man wore a

short scarlet flannel tunic, a pair of white cotton drawers, and a red

fez: one drummer had a tunic of beetle-green. As they lined the street,

short sturdy men, with hairy legs and coffee-coloured faces, their bright

bayonets flashing in the sun, the drums thumping and the trumpeter

running up and down the scale, the dazzling sunlight gave a trace of

splendour to the medley of scarlet and steel against the whitewashed

walls.

Everybody waited expectant. A stout man in white came out of the mosque,

ordered the small boys away, and saw that there was ample room for the

basha to pass across the street and into his own house. Then the ordinary

crowd of worshippers began to file out of the building--prayers over:

green-blue kaftans lined with crimson silk, filmy white robes, snowy

turbans, moved slowly along--a dignified, impressive crowd. There was a

pause before the basha appeared, a man arranging his two yellow slippers

side by side upon the doorstep of the mosque. Another moment and the

great, voluminous, expected figure filled the doorway. A twist of his

ankles and he was in his slippers, the bugle sounded, the ragged squad

presented arms somewhat untidily, a line of servants bowed themselves low

and respectfully before him, and the basha moved slowly across the

street.

Leading his own troops, dispensing justice, an after-type of those great

Arabs who sprang from the sands of Arabia and Africa, shook Europe, and

flourished in Spain, a basha should be no tyrant, but a courteous

gentleman, a noble of "The Arabian Nights." But there was no aristocratic

trace about Asydaibdalkdar. Carrying his rosary in his hand, clothed

entirely in white, his features bore traces of servility and sensuality,

the result of poisoning the Arab and Berber blood with the strain from

Central Africa. Slavery is proving fatal to the Moorish race. Unlike the

well-bred Moor, the basha's face was deeply lined: cruelty, cunning,

pigheadedness, all fought for the upper hand in his swarthy countenance.

He walked in under his own gateway into a courtyard beyond: there he sat

down in a corner upon a seat--a great figure, much like some Indian

god--while his underlings came forward, stood in a semicircle, bowed low,

and saluted him; followed by his soldiers, who marched in single file

into the courtyard, round it, past their chief, and out again--this three

times, to the sound of drums; then, headed by the officer in command,

they trooped off to the barracks, the basha's gateway was locked, and

Church Parade was over.

[Illustration: THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY.

[_To face p. 198._]

For half an hour all the gates of the city had been barred and bolted,

while prayers were going on--there being a superstition among the Moors,

arising from an old prophecy, that on a certain morning of a

Mohammedan Sabbath, Christians will gain possession of the cities while

the kaids and bashas are in the mosques.

Two hundred soldiers are allowed by Government to the governor of Tetuan,

by means of which he is to maintain law and order. However, a hundred

only were maintained, and the pay of the remaining half went into

somebody's pocket. There was apparently little for them to do; drill was

a thing unheard of, and they spent most of the day hanging round the

basha's house or doing errands for him.

On the feast days there was _Lab-el-Barod_--the famous "Powder Play" of

Morocco; and then the soldiers all turned out into the _feddan_ (the

great market-square), and showed what Lab-el-Barod meant: to me rather a

foolish game, with but one interesting point--that it is the imitation of

the old Arab tribal battle. To-day the Moors gallop forward, stand up in

their saddles, fire their guns under their horses' necks, over their

tails--all this at full gallop--throw their guns into the air and catch

them, and last of all pull up in an incredibly short space, dragging

their horses right on to their haunches, which evolutions are imitations

of what their ancestors did with spear and javelin. Lab-el-Barod

prevailed in Spain till the middle of the eighteenth century, and it is

still played in the East with reeds. There is of course a picturesque

element in it--white turbans, white garments streaming in the wind,

scarlet saddles, flashing steel, hard-held horses with yards of tail, and

above all, the lithe figures in perfect balance whatever their positions;

but the performance is often too "ragged" to be impressive, and it

strenuously demands flats of desert as a background.

The basha would always come out and look on when there was one of these

"field days" at Tetuan: his figure was not adapted to his participation

therein, being perfectly in keeping with his walk in life, and that walk

consisted in his sitting from six o'clock to ten o'clock in the morning,

and from three o'clock to six o'clock in the afternoon, in a small open

room off the street opposite his house, in a reclining position upon

cushions, before him an excited group (as often as not), contradicting,

swearing, gesticulating, abusing, all at the same moment--one of whom is

carried off by the soldiers to be flogged, another is sent to prison, or,

if the seekers after justice wax more troublesome than ordinary, they may

all be thrown into prison by the heels together to calm them. At the same

time the basha absorbs bribes, and sweeps loaves of sugar, packets of

candles, and pounds of tea into his net. These are the ordinary bribes.

When he was appointed basha, a royal letter from the Sultan was sent to

Tetuan and read aloud in the mosque: then he entered upon his duties. He

must needs go warily from day to day; and even then luck may desert him

at any moment, and a summons may arrive from the Sultan--he is to go to

Court at once. I recollect in what abject terror, one basha, who was sent

for at a day's notice, set out upon his journey, only to find, when he

got to Court, that he was to have a more lucrative billet and a higher

post of honour. Many who have departed in terror, all unknowing of the

future, have found, when they reached Fez or Morocco City, where-ever the

Sultan might be, that their worst fears were realized. Either placed

under arrest, tortured, imprisoned, or bastinadoed, the little wealth

they had accumulated is extorted from them, under the pretext of there

being arrears in taxes or other dues, which must be made good. The

wooden jellab is used for the purpose of extorting confession in the case

of imaginary wealth supposed to be hidden (and much often is hidden): it

is made of wood, resembling in shape a long cloak, and placed in an

upright position; the inside is lined with iron points, which prevent the

body from resting against it without suffering. Inside this "jellab" the

basha is squeezed, standing up, and he remains there on a sparse diet of

bread and water till he divulges.

Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of War were sent to the prison

in Tetuan soon after the accession of the present Sultan; but that was

for plotting against his life. In the common gaol, heavily chained, under

the same roof with the herd of common prisoners, all they were allowed

was a curtain across one corner, behind which they sat. The Prime

Minister died there. The Minister of War is there to-day, March 1902,

and, after over seven years' confinement, getting fat. Some members of

the Rahamna tribe are there also. This tribe, which belongs to the far

south, near Morocco City, about eight years ago was in a state of

rebellion, to quell which the Sultan sent his army with orders to _eat

them up_. Their fat lands and fine gardens were ruined; men, women, and

children killed and taken prisoners; while six hundred of them were sent

to the Tetuan prison, and a great number--I do not know exactly--went to

Rabat. That was eight years ago. Sixty of them are in Tetuan prison now,

the remnant of six hundred. There is a kaid among them who is very ill,

dying: the eight years have done for him.

Since this was written, an order has come from the Sultan for the release

of the Rahamna tribesmen. In Rabat, unfortunately, almost all who were in

the Kasbah prison died long ago. Its insanitary condition has earned for

it the name of _Dar-el-Mout_ (the House of Death). But in the other

prison there were survivors. These came out with traces of the late

governor's butchery.

For trying to send a written petition to the Sultan three years ago,

which set forth their condition, and prayed that after five years'

confinement they might be considered to have paid for their rebellious

deeds, and be allowed to return to their own land for the last years of

their lives, the late governor, Ba Hamed, gave orders that their hands

should be mutilated. A knife was drawn across the back of the wrist,

cutting the extensor tendons of the hand: the hand was packed with salt,

and sewn up in wet cow-hide. When this was taken off or wore off, it was

not recognizable as a hand.

Miss Hanbury, who did her best to institute reforms in Moorish prisons,

and succeeded in Tangier, left at her death a sum of money, out of which

£5 came to Tetuan to be spent on their behalf. It fell into the hands of

the lady missionaries, and they spent it in making jellabs for the

prisoners to wear, whose garments are worse than filthy. Unfortunately £5

was not nearly enough to clothe all; it only provided a jellab for one

out of every three of the prisoners, and the poor wretches fought like

dogs for them.

"They will wear them in turns," the gaoler said. He and another Moor had

superintended the distribution of them; and to their lasting disgrace,

deaf to argument and remonstrance on the part of the missionaries, they

each appropriated a jellab to himself, saying, "This is my share; this

goes to me." They were of coarse material, such as neither gaoler nor

under-gaoler would ever wear themselves: all they would do would be to

take them into market and convert them into money.

"Moors have _no_ feelings," people say, and say wrongly; but that, to a

great extent, it is true take just one instance--the state of the

prisons and prisoners. It was enough in the distance to "wind" the Tetuan

prison. There remains the reflection--call it comforting if you

like--that a people who consent to endure such filth, and misery, and

harsh treatment, are not affected by them in the same way in which a

highly civilized people would be affected.

It is absurd to blame the Moorish Government; it is absurd to say, "The

people are obliged to endure." No people can be forced to endure: a point

comes beyond endurance, and they rebel, choosing death rather. The

vigorous and progressive race endures least. Therefore on the Moors' own

heads be the state of their prisons, the treatment of their prisoners: to

that cursed spirit of _laissez-faire_ half the blame is due; the rest

comes of their indifference to suffering, to bad smells and dirt and a

sedentary existence. It is manifestly unfair to blame certain ministers

and officials. Taking into consideration the manners and customs, hopes

and fears, of the Moorish people, their prisons probably suit them right

well, and they need no pity.

* * * * *

It was not always easy to get provisions, except life's bare necessities,

in Tetuan. Provision Stores, which were long out of their goods, always

had the same answer when asked for them--"M[=a]nana" (To-morrow); and

to-morrow never came. But it is unwise to "hustle the East": men have

died trying to find a way of doing so. Therefore we chewed with

philosophy the cud of the Moorish proverb:--

"_Manage with bread and butter till God brings the jam._"

On the whole we fared not amiss, while our establishment, with its two

Riffi servants, man and wife, worked well, until an occurrence took place

which shook it to its very foundations, and left us to the end with a

question which will never be solved.

One evening, about half-past five, just as we had settled ourselves down

after tea to read, there was an unusual stir on the stairs. A minute

later and the door burst open. Tahara staggered in, followed by S`lam,

who seemed very much excited and alarmed. The woman was deathly pale; her

eyes were ringed with black. R. and I, seeing she was ill, jumped to the

conclusion that something or other was very wrong with her, and tried to

make her sit down, or lie down, at once, on our divan. In a confused

scene which followed, the only words we grasped were, "Tabiba, tabiba"

(Doctor), and S`lam, at our instigation, rushed downstairs to go off to

Tetuan, and to bring back with him Miss Z----, one of the lady

missionaries. Tahara was almost beside herself, apparently with terror,

and for a few moments one was inclined to doubt her sanity. We tried

vainly to quiet her, almost holding her on the divan; but there was

evidently something on her mind which every moment threw her into fresh

agitations, and--_ah! what would we not have given to have understood

Arabic!_ for Tahara knew no French, like S`lam, and could barely say half

a dozen words in English; her Spanish, of which she knew a few words, was

Greek to us too.

"Signorita! signorita! tabiba!" she kept repeating, wailing, and then a

torrent of Shillah and Arabic and Spanish would follow, and we were at

our wits' end. At last R. managed to quiet her a little, and by-and-by to

make her try to help us to understand, by saying slowly in Arabic two or

three words which would be intelligible to us, together with the word or

so of English which she herself knew. Then we gathered that her one

desire was that I should go to the tabiba's. But why? We told her that

S`lam had gone. She burst out into fresh agonies and shrieks: "S`lam not

go! S`lam not go!" Then she got up, and apparently wished to go

downstairs--the last thing we thought she ought to do; but all our

efforts to keep her still seemed rather futile; and from what she was

trying to make us understand, there was more behind than we had an idea

of. She went, almost ran, down into her and S`lam's bedroom, we following

hard behind. Inside the room she tip-toed up to a recess high in the

wall, almost out of her reach, and with difficulty lifted down a small

bundle of rags. This she unrolled, fold after fold, before our eyes,

while a thousand guesses as to what was coming rushed through the brain;

the last rag came off, and a small blue bottle, about four inches high,

lay in her hand. She held it up to the light. It was half full of a

colourless liquid like water. We read the label--"Prussic Acid. Poison";

and an ugly fear took the place of vague conjecture.

"Who has eaten this?" R. asked in scanty Arabic.

"Anna" (I), replied Tahara.

The remedy of hot boiled milk rushed into both our heads at once, but

Tahara was again beginning in a fresh agony, which was now more

persistent than only terrified; and choking off her stream of words, we

managed to gather, that what she wanted was to go herself with me into

the city, at once, to Miss Z----. Now a few drops of prussic acid of

course meant that she had not long to live, and yet there were no

symptoms of poisoning so far as we could gather at present. She might

have taken it in a diluted form certainly. The whole thing was possibly

wild imagination on her part. At any rate Miss Z---- would understand

her, and that we could not do.

I hurried on my boots, questioning as to whether the woman really meant

that S`lam had poisoned her. R. helped Tahara wind her long white woollen

haik round her. In two minutes I was ready. Tahara slipped into her

slippers, and, with the white shrouded figure clinging to me, in the

fast-deepening dusk we started.

It took fully twenty minutes to walk from Jinan Dolero to the house in

the middle of the city where the lady missionaries lived and had a

dispensary. Miss Z---- had had some medical experience, and was a clever

woman. She understood, probably as far as any European can understand,

the Moorish character; and it was with some confidence--possibly on the

part of us both--that we set out. But the way seemed lengthy; I knew that

S`lam would be there long before we could arrive: through the city there

are at least three intricate ways by which the house is reached, and my

heart sank as I reflected that there was every chance of Miss Z---- and

S`lam's taking another way than our own, and thus missing us. Meanwhile,

it was growing darker every moment. Would the city gate still be open

when we reached it? Was it not certain to be shut when we wanted to

return?

Tahara hung on to my arm and hand. There had been rain, and we both

slipped about in the dark, and splashed into unseen pools; she took off

her pink slippers and carried them in one hand, and paddled along on her

bare feet at a Moorish woman's top speed, still shaking with terror.

Three or four times, dark as it was, she stopped and put out her tongue

for me to look at it. It seemed very pink, and I did my utmost to

reassure her, having disturbing visions of her collapsing altogether on

the grass; for if she was to be understood rightly and believed, she had

pains in her body, and breathing seemed an effort.

We were crossing the cemetery now by one of the intricate paths which

intersect it. There seemed not a soul within sight or sound. Every Moor

would be inside his house or hut. I hoped Tahara would pull herself

together and last as far as Miss Z----'s.

She said she was _bueno_, meaning good, better, and spoke again of the

bottle which she was carrying carefully hidden in her waistband. Then, as

far as I could understand, she wished me to know that the poison had

something to do with the signoritas--ourselves--and our food. This was a

most unpleasant reflection: I devoutly hoped that R. would not begin

dinner before I got back, and comforted myself with the assurance that it

was unlikely, there being no one to get it ready. We had no outside man

at that time sleeping in the house.

"S`lam _no_ good; S`lam _no_ good," Tahara kept repeating. And, to tell

the truth, our long-legged ruffian rose before my eyes as no mean

embodiment of a stage villain. The Riffis are notoriously treacherous and

put no value whatever on life; at the same time I knew that they made

good and faithful servants up to a certain point, and I shrank from

distrusting a man who had so far served us well. And yet, how much does

one know of them? Nothing. We had had suspicions that all was not going

smoothly with the two servants: though they had been married so lately

there was friction between them; Tahara had been heard crying at night,

and had looked red-eyed. It was likely, therefore, that there had been a

quarrel.

S`lam's old mother may have made mischief. She was madly jealous of

Tahara, whom S`lam had married without letting her know. He had gone over

to Tangier; had arranged the marriage with Tahara's brother, who was

living at Tangier with her; had brought her off, hardly a happy or

willing bride, for he told us that she cried the whole of the journey;

and had sprung her upon his old mother at Tetuan. In his bachelor days

S`lam's earnings had gone to the old woman. Now they were spent on his

wife and himself. Therefore Maman saw nothing that was good in Tahara,

and would have given much, no doubt, to see the last of her.

Meanwhile, the city gate drew near. Tahara was moving along firmly with

her hand in mine. The gate was still open!--that was a relief. We hurried

through, and, seeing a group of soldiers waiting outside, I judged that

it was just about to be shut. We were none too soon: the bars behind us

clanged into their places. I much wished that R. was not henceforth cut

off from all communication with me, and left outside the city entirely by

herself: there were the two guns and revolver; after all, the house was

no more likely to be molested on this night than on any other.

[Illustration: THE FEDDAN, TETUAN.

[_To face p. 208._]

The narrow streets were nearly pitch dark; shadowy figures passed us at

first; and Tahara drew her haik all over her face, leaving only a slit

for the eyes, and put on her slippers once more. Occasionally a little

shop had its hard-working inmate, sewing at slippers by the light of an

oil lamp; but for the most part all was black darkness. How long the

intricate streets seemed! We stumbled on the rough cobbles and slid into

the muddy gutter. Tahara's slippers again impeded her, and off they came.

I wished devoutly I knew where Miss Z---- was, and could make straight

for her, probably hurrying at that moment for Jinan Dolero, somewhere in

the maze of streets and houses. We crossed the great open feddan, all

deserted, and I strained my eyes for a glimpse of her tall figure beside

that of S`lam's--in vain.

Late as it was, children were about; they collected gradually behind us

and followed us, nor was it easy at that time of night to drive them off.

Tahara, though still struggling on, was leaning heavily on my arm. The

sooner we get to the Mission House the better.

Two more narrow lanes, a last winding alley, and the welcome door of the

tabiba's--never more welcome.

I called to Miss Z---- as I led Tahara into the courtyard. Her answering

voice was all I would have prayed for at that moment. She was just

starting with S`lam. Leading Tahara to the door, we found him on the

threshold, with his old mother, whom he must have gone first to

fetch--Maman, whom R. and I had ever distrusted: feeling that she was

after no good the first time she came to the house, we had limited her

visits.

I told S`lam to stay outside. He did not seem astonished at seeing his

wife and myself, asking not a single question of either. Miss Z---- took

Tahara upstairs into her bedroom, and I followed, explaining that Tahara

did not want any one else to come in. For a moment or two, after we got

her up into the room, all her old terror seemed to return; she was unable

to speak, and collapsed upon the floor--a ghastly colour. Briefly

explaining to Miss Z---- that Tahara believed herself to be poisoned, we

knelt down on the floor and examined her. There were no apparent symptoms

of poisoning--none; she was only cold and terrified beyond words. Miss

Z---- did her best to calm her, and laughed away her fears, hoping to get

rid of the state of panic which her condition suggested more than any

poisoning.

The next thing to be done was to persuade Tahara to explain matters to

Miss Z----. This might have been easy enough at Jinan Dolero with S`lam

out of the way; but here, feeling that he and Maman were under the very

windows, her terror was abject, and I almost gave up hope of getting a

syllable out of her.

We shut every window, we shut the door, we pulled down the blinds, to

satisfy her; we even stopped up the ventilation-holes; and then she still

hesitated and trembled.

At last, crouched on the floor, Miss Z---- kneeling by her, Tahara, with

her mouth at Miss Z----'s ear, murmured her tale in Arabic, while I

wished I could understand. _S`lam had given her poison. People in the

city had spoken against her and said evil things about her. S`lam was

jealous. He had been very angry. They had quarrelled, and he had poisoned

her. But he must never, never, on any account, know that she had been to

the tabiba's to tell the tale. If S`lam suspected that Tahara knew he had

tried to poison her, and had told us of it--well, her life was not worth

a flus._ Even I knew that. Then in a fresh agony of terror she crouched

on the floor. I told her to show Miss Z---- the bottle. Now to part with

the bottle, or to run the faintest risk of S`lam's seeing it, was

evidently a nightmare to the poor girl. If he ever found out that she had

taken it and brought it to Miss Z---- . . .

We wasted many precious moments in trying to persuade Tahara to take it

out of her belt, where it lay concealed, and show it to Miss Z----. She

looked at the curtains, at the door. Could S`lam possibly see? At last,

more or less by force, I got possession of it, handed it to Miss Z----

with one hand, and kept Tahara still on the floor with the other.

The stopper of the bottle, Miss Z---- thought, had a suspicious smell,

but she gave it as her verdict that the bottle itself contained nothing

but water. She recognized it at once as having belonged to S`lam's late

master, who always kept drugs in his house, and the name of whose English

chemist was on the label.

Miss Z---- poured a teaspoonful into a tumbler, and returned the bottle

to Tahara, who was getting rabid at the delay. The teaspoonful we decided

should be given to one of Miss Z----'s little chickens which she was

rearing. I said I would come in the morning and hear her report.

Meanwhile, Tahara had refolded and hidden the precious bottle as it was

before, and Miss Z---- had managed more or less to reassure her,

promising her that she was not poisoned this time, and laughing at her

panic. The pain of which she had complained had no doubt a natural cause:

giddiness might come on through bending over the charcoal fire cooking

dinner, Miss Z---- told her. Now Tahara's only terror was that S`lam

should ever find out what had happened. The bottle must be taken

home--must be replaced exactly where it had been found.

Unsatisfactory as such a course was, there was some risk in pursuing any

other. S`lam, if he found out that his wife had betrayed him or had

suspected him and come to us, might shoot her like a dog, in a passion,

and be inside the borders of the Riff in a few hours. And who would blame

him, if he gave as his reason for his whole line of conduct that his wife

had been unfaithful to him, false though such a statement might be?

A girl in Tetuan a few years ago was _suspected_ of having been seduced.

Her father took her and her mother out to the Mussulman cemetery, within

sight and hearing of the city--the girl was sixteen: he shot her on the

road, and he and the mother dug a grave and buried her by the roadside.

They went home, and no one said a word. The man still lives in Tetuan.

Miss Z---- evidently shared Tahara's fears, and was anxious to allay any

suspicions which S`lam might begin to entertain. First, however, she

found out from Tahara that S`lam had no intention of poisoning the

signoritas (_us_)--that was _quite_ a mistake--at least so the girl

assured her. Then, having once more reassured Tahara about her own

health, Miss Z---- led her downstairs; there she explained to S`lam and

to his old mother that the girl was very nervous, that she had not felt

well, was to take a pill that night (one had been given her), and was to

keep quiet to-morrow, in which case she ought soon to be quite right.

Miss Z---- wanted to walk out with me and to sleep at Jinan Dolero,

evidently not liking our passing a night alone under such suspicious

circumstances; but I was convinced there was no cause for fear, and I

think we both knew that the less we made of what had happened the better;

so, borrowing a lantern, I started back for Jinan Dolero, Tahara clinging

to my arm, S`lam lighting the way, and the old mother following.

Arrived at the city gate, it was shut. I had a strange wait alone with

Tahara and Maman, while S`lam fetched a soldier to unbar the gate. The

basha's leave had to be got, and the basha sent to the English

Vice-Consul to ask if it was his will that the gate should be opened for

a British subject. Eventually we got through, all except Maman, who said

good-night and went home.