Flat country—Practice at Heliographing—Cold nights—Roadside
sacrifice—View of El Araish—Saints and lunatics—Reception at
Alcazar—Musicians—Town of Alcazar—“Kohl”—Sultan el Mansor—Battles of
Alarcos and Alcazar—Compounding a felony.
_Camp, outside Alcazar,
Thursday, 8th April 1880._
We seem to be leaving the pretty country behind us the farther inland we
get, and our road after leaving Síd el Yemáni, through the Fahs er
Rihán, or Plain of Myrtles, was flat and monotonous. If, however, not so
much to our taste as the hills and woods near the coast, it was fully
appreciated by our provincial escort as affording endless opportunity
for the exercise of lab el barôd, with which we have been indulged _ad
nauseam_ for two days.
Yesterday one of them nearly suffered in an unexpected manner from his
devotion to this pastime. He was the soldier in charge of the
luncheon-tent, and, instead of pitching it in a pretty little wood about
eight miles on the road, as he was specially ordered, went on four miles
farther into the flat sandy plain, at a place called Ghadda. We were all
furious, as there was neither shade nor water, and the old kaïd, sharing
our feelings, ordered him out for instant bastinado, which would have
been carried into effect but for Sir John’s interference in his behalf.
I think, in secret, however, we all regretted this reprieve, being
anxious to see the performance of the operation. After lunch on that day
I left the main body early, and cantered on into the next camp—El
Hamáya—unpacked the heliographs, which had just come in with the tents,
and sent one back on a mule to meet the column, getting mine, in the
meantime, to bear on the luncheon-tent, and flashing to my colleague
there what I had done. My messenger met the whole procession coming
along, and they halted with much solemnity to watch the proceedings. As
soon as we got the instruments aligned on each other, a message came
from the kaïd to “tell his servant to prepare hot water for his tea on
arrival.” I gave the message at once, and it made a great impression on
the kaïd when he rode into camp two hours later; but he evidently
suspects that through my instrumentality his servant has become leagued
with Satan, from whom he is convinced—so he told Sir John at the
time—that all these inventions emanate.
The camp at El Hamáya was prettily situated on a small sandy hill, with
the River Machassen, muddy, but full of excellent fish, flowing round
its base; the cold there at night seemed intense, and most of the party
wore their greatcoats at dinner. In the drawing-room tent in the evening
I sat playing chess in a big ulster and a rug over my knees, and even
then could not keep warm. One advantage of this severity of the weather
at night is that the Moors’ tongues seem to get frozen up, and
consequently the camp enjoys perfect quiet from after dark till the gun
fires in the morning.
His Excellency’s progress through the country is a great opportunity for
unfortunate victims of native tyranny to bring their complaints before
him, and one of their methods of attracting attention, which we noticed
to-day, is very singular. In the earlier part of the march we came
across the newly slaughtered body of a sheep with its throat cut, and
the blood flowing across the path. About twenty yards off sat its owner,
watching if any notice would be taken. Unfortunately, in this instance,
nothing could be done; we were approaching a large town, and had
attention or redress been extended to the poor man, the whole road
to-morrow might have been strewn with petitions and sacrifices, their
innocent blood pleading for inquiry.
The early morning sun shining on some white minarets and towers about
twelve miles off to the north-west, caused a dispute among the
authorities as to what town it was; eventually it was decided to be El
Araish; and as we think of returning home by the sea-coast, I daresay I
shall be able by and bye to describe the place.
The vast plain we rode across after leaving El Hamáya this morning was
beautifully green with barley and long rich grass, a pleasant thing for
scorched and aching eyes to rest upon. We seem now to have entered upon
a succession of enormous plains, bounded at a distance of six or seven
miles by moderately high mountains, but open on the west towards the
sea, which is about fifteen miles distant. At the foot of the hill, and
just off our track as we left camp, sat a holy man, half saint and half
madman, most scantily clad, and very dirty. He had a bit of sacking
spread in front of him, upon which most of the escort chucked a coin _en
passant_. In this country lunacy is regarded as a manifestation of
divine favour, God having taken the fortunate person’s reason into His
own keeping, to be restored to him hereafter in better case than had the
original proprietor been in continual possession of it; the Prophet,
too, specially commends the person of the lunatic to the good offices of
the faithful.
Our El Araish escort leave us to-morrow. When first they joined us at
Síd el Yemáni, they mustered about a hundred strong, but have now
dwindled down to fifty, His Excellency having dispensed with the
attendance of those to whom absence from home may be inconvenient. These
men are a kind of _landwehr_, or rather yeomanry, fine-looking fellows,
with well-appointed horses, and are bound to turn out on the shortest
notice from the chief of the district. Among those who are left is one
very picturesque youth with a dark bronze-coloured face set off by a
bright purple _jeláb_, or cloak, the hood of which, usually drawn up
over his head, gets blown back as he dashes past on his dark gray horse
in the lab el barôd, in which exercise he is a proficient. We shall miss
him to-morrow when the escort is changed on the frontier of this
province, as the bright colours he affects, and the striking expression
of his face, render him a distinguishing feature of the troop.
As we approached Alcazar this afternoon, after surveying it all the
morning from our luncheon-tent on a hill three miles off, preparations
for our reception became apparent. A small line of horsemen under the
acting kaïd of the place, and behind them a motley crowd of townspeople,
with last, but not least, in point of noise, the most indefatigable band
I ever heard, were assembled about half a mile from our camping-ground,
and accompanied us thither. As we proceeded the powder-play became fast
and furious; the riders rushing past us _ventre à terre_, with a yell
discharging their guns almost into our faces, while improvised crackers
were let off among our horses’ legs; all this, combined with the noise
of the _music_ (save the mark!), contributed greatly in the eyes and
ears of the populace to our successful entry. Arrived here, we took
refuge in our tents, while the spectators formed a large semicircle in
front, at one corner of which the musicians, prominent among whom were
two trumpeters, continued their performance with ever-increasing vigour.
Never shall I forget the faces of those two minstrels as, seated on
their thin, scraggy ponies, they blew an almost uninterrupted blast to
the delight of the crowd, and to our great and increasing wonderment;
their very souls seemed to go out into their instruments, while their
cheeks on either side were distended to such a degree, that they
resembled, both in size and appearance, ordinary bladders. We were
beginning, like the natives, to grow fascinated with the sight and
sound, when an order emanated from the tent of His Excellency, who was
busy writing despatches, for the concert to cease, and the performers
having been remunerated for their pains, the band moved off, the
trumpets braying loudly to the last.
As soon as our minds were sufficiently composed after the above musical
treat, we sallied forth to inspect the town about a quarter-of-a-mile
off; the party was “personally conducted” by our head interpreter, an
obese Israelite, whose good-nature is only equalled by his obtuseness,
and whom we have christened Tweedledum, while his colleague, who is his
counterpart in every way, is named Tweedledee. They are both Moorish
Jews, and the former seemed to have a large circle of acquaintance among
his fellow-believers in this town. He took us into the house of a
wealthy Jewess, who, after taking us up to the roof—from whence we had
an excellent view of Alcazar and its environs—regaled us with
sweetmeats, washed down by a thick luscious sort of wine, which, though
strong and heavy, was not unpleasant. The house was large and airy, the
top being open to the sky, but it was dirty and untidy, and the whole
quarter where the Jews lived filthy to the last degree. We took rather a
fancy to the town of Alcazar, with its quaint old Sôk or market-place,
and its winding main street roofed in by a trellis-work of vines. Here
we were followed by an eager and inquisitive, though quite civil and
good-humoured crowd, who manifested the keenest interest in the few
purchases made by the infidels. Among these were some mysterious-looking
little bits of cane, hollowed out, and containing a fine black powder
called _kohl_, a preparation of antimony, which is highly recommended by
the natives as a cure for inflamed eyes. Whether its fame is justly
acquired or not I shall know better hereafter, having submitted to a
plentiful application of it myself this evening at the hands of one of
the Moors, my eyes having bothered me considerably for the last day or
two in consequence of a couple of hours’ practice at too short a
distance with the heliographs. Their manner of applying the kohl is with
a stick the size of a knitting-needle, which, being damped, is dipped
into the powder, then drawn gently along between the eyelids, which are
closed upon it.
[Illustration: OUTER WALL OF ALCAZAR.]
As we are not accustomed yet to wading through miry and narrow streets
with an escort of soldiers keeping off the crowds by a free application
of their sticks, we were glad once more to get out of the good town of
Alcazar, beyond the gates of which none of the people followed us. It is
difficult to estimate the population of a town of this sort, and
travellers have variously put it at from 5000 to 30,000. In a
conversation I had with a rather intelligent Jew, who could talk a
little French, and who attached himself to us in the town, I learnt that
his estimate was 12,000, including 1700 Jews, which numbers I should
think were pretty near the mark. It has evidently been a place of
considerable importance in bygone ages, and the open ground to the
north, where we are encamped, shows many traces of ancient walls and
large buildings. The place is said to have been founded by Yakúb el
Mansor (the Victorious) in the twelfth century, in gratitude for shelter
accorded to him by a poor fisherman, when he had lost his way and got
benighted out hunting. This romance, however, falls to the ground before
the evidence of Edrisi and El Bekri, the latter of whom, living before
El Mansor’s time, speaks of the place, under the name of Sôk Kotáma, as
a “large and magnificent town.”[15] It was in the reign of this Sultan
that the giralda and mosque in Seville were built, as a record of his
victory over Alonzo of Castile at Alarcos, where a fabulous number of
Christians are said to have been killed, A.D. 1109. We passed to-day,
near the Wad el Machassen, the site of another and more recent battle
disastrous to the Nazarenes—that, namely, of Alcazar—where the King of
Portugal, coming from Azîla, a small village on the coast, was totally
defeated by the Moorish monarch, just three hundred years ago, and,
together with many adventurous spirits who had come from all parts of
Christendom to share his triumph, perished on the field of battle.
Windhus,[16] who passed through this country in 1721, writes that the
“Portuguese dispersed in the battle could not believe their king was
slain, but ran up and down crying ‘Onde este el Rey?’ The Moors often
hearing the word _rey_, which in Arabick signifies ‘good sense,’ told
them that if they had any _rey_ they had never come thither.” For many
years they believed Don Sebastian was still alive, and over his tomb
near Lisbon may be read the doubting epitaph, “Hic jacet in tumulo, _si
fama est vera_, Sebastes.”
This afternoon, as we were sitting at tea in the drawing-room tent, a
deputation of three of the headmen of the district waited on His
Excellency on behalf of a robber chief who was in jail in the town, and
in whose release they were interested. Some six months ago he and his
band had seized on a camel laden with grain, belonging to one Allarbi, a
servant of Sir John’s, and chief of the boar-hunters, whom he employs;
and in addition to the loss of the grain, the camel had died, the
robbers having over-driven it in their anxiety to escape from Allarbi
and some of his fellow-hunters, who had speedily put themselves on the
track. The robbery had taken place in a wood through which we passed
to-day, and the delinquents had been closely followed and overtaken, but
the grain was gone and the camel dead. The total loss to Allarbi was one
hundred and twenty dollars, but he had agreed to take ninety. The robber
had been in confinement ever since, but, owing to his interest with the
authorities of Alcazar, his case had not been sent up for the decision
of the Sultan, who would probably have inflicted a heavy fine, and
imprisonment till it was paid, to say nothing of a little flogging and
torture by way of expediting matters. He now offered seventy dollars if
he might be released, which sum the deputation had with them; and it was
curious to watch the eager argument of the three men, handsome and
intelligent-looking old fellows, as they pressed His Excellency to
accept the compensation, their expressive gestures and significant looks
enabling one almost to understand their pleadings. Allarbi was not
present, but at the door of the tent stood his brother Hadj Hamed, also
a retainer of Sir John’s, and in chief charge of all our camp
establishment. He being pretty well acquainted with the administration
of justice in the country, and knowing that if the case went up to the
Sultan his brother’s pecuniary satisfaction would be small, added his
word of advice to the arguments that were going on inside the tent; so
that eventually the compromise was accepted, and, the money having been
counted out, the deputation withdrew, evidently much delighted with the
success of their negotiation.