Kaïd of Habassi—Passage of Wad el Sebú—Arab women—Pigs and evil
spirits—Beni Hassan—Curiosity of villagers—Sick and blind—Sentries
at night—Illness or accident—Rain—Missing the road—Quitting the
plains—Síd Búbakr—Geographical difficulties—“Kúbbe”—Nomenclature of
villages—Famine—Foreign tyranny.
_Camp, Zeggota,
Wednesday, 14th April 1880._
Before the camp was struck at Habassi on Monday the tents had the
advantage of an hour’s hot sun, which, luckily for the poor mules,
effectually dried the canvas and lightened the loads. We had to start
punctually at 8.30, as the River Sebú (the Subur of Ptolemy) lay between
us and our next camp at Jum’a el Hawáfi, and we were warned that the
heavy rains might have made it difficult to cross. The kaïd of Habassi
accompanied us to the river, which forms the boundary of his territory.
He is the youth at whose house we had tea on the day of our arrival near
his village, and when the rain set in, he sent us a hospitable
invitation to consider ourselves his guests as long as we were detained
there. It seems that all expense incurred by our making extra halts, or
departing from the itinerary laid down by the Sultan, falls upon the
chief under whose protection we happen to be; so we were glad to get on
the march again and cease to be a burden to our host. He was mounted the
morning we left on a dun-coloured horse, with the ordinary high saddle
covered with green silk, the saddle-cloth being made of the same
material, and the reins and headstall of silk cord to match. He talked
on a variety of topics as he rode beside the Envoy, and France coming on
the _tapis_, was much surprised to hear that though England was the
smaller country of the two, the Queen had more Mohammedan subjects than
the Sultan of Marocco. He spoke about Napoleon, of whose fame he had
heard from the French, and his rather loose ideas on the subject of
Waterloo were probably derived from the same source. He was interested
at hearing now that we had been victors there, inquiring what was our
loss on that occasion. The pay and amount of rations given to our
soldiers he was very curious about, and I was glad to be able, through
the medium of His Excellency, to furnish him with accurate statistics.
An hour’s ride across the plain brought us to the river bank; the Wad el
Sebú at that point is a deep, muddy stream, more than a hundred yards
wide, flowing between clayey banks about thirty feet high, with a
considerable strip of mud between their base and the water. It looks as
if it could rise considerably in the rainy season; the current was
pretty strong, about three miles an hour, but not sufficiently so to
prevent the construction of a bridge of boats or pontoons, while its
whole course from the point where we crossed to its mouth at Mehdía
could quite well be navigated by steam barges with a small draught of
water; in fact, from what I can learn from the natives, the river must
be more or less navigable as far as Fas (Fez).
Our luncheon-tent had been sent across early, and on his own side of the
Sebú the kaïd had pitched his tent so as to superintend the transport of
ourselves and camp out of his district—an operation which occupied about
two hours. The largest of three rickety, flat-bottomed boats was ready
to take us across, and having said good-bye to the kaïd of Habassi, who
dismounted and accompanied His Excellency to the water’s edge, we
embarked. Our servants had done what they could, by covering the bottom
with straw and rushes, to dam up the water which surged from side to
side with every motion of the boat, and had concealed the wet planks we
sat on with rugs. Notwithstanding these precautions, a more casual and
apparently perilous means of conveyance for a personage of such
importance as the Envoy Extraordinary of Her Majesty, to say nothing of
his suite, can hardly be imagined. However, with a pious
“bismillah,”[22] His Excellency took his seat, and by the favour of the
Prophet and the strong arms of the half-naked savages who worked the
boat, we reached the other side in safety. The permanent escort and all
the camp were yet to follow, and from the top of the bank where our tent
was pitched we had a good view of the curious scene below us. Moors
yelling and shouting from the bank, from the boats, and even from the
river, across which many of them swam, and horses screaming after their
kind, formed the usual vocal accompaniment to any labour required of
them. How any of the latter animals emerged from the ordeal with
unbroken legs was a marvel. There being no gangway of any sort to enable
them to walk on board, the only alternative was to leap from the shore
into the bottom of the boat; some of them, after getting their forelegs
in, resolutely refused to follow up with the hind ones till they were
forcibly lifted off the ground and hustled into their place. Each boat
held about eight, and though they are inveterate fighters when on shore,
community of danger seemed to keep them quiet while afloat. The officers
of the escort, with their chief and the standard-bearer, came over
separately, the red flag being held aloft in the bow, while in the stern
sat the old kaïd, rapidly muttering prayers, as is his wont when not
engaged in conversation. We found the luncheon-tent pitched near a group
of half a dozen Arab tents, and though they were of a dirtier and more
wretched appearance than usual, the few inhabitants seemed to be
prosperous enough; some of the women, too, who came to stare at the
Christian who was strolling past their doors, wore very pretty silver
ornaments. As the owners seemed peaceably disposed, and there were no
men of the village near, I tried to make a bid for a small necklace
which adorned the person of a rather pretty girl, taking it up in my
hand and offering a couple of dollars to the owner. My intentions,
however, were misconstrued, and though their manner and gestures were
friendly in the extreme, I judged it advisable not to prosecute
acquaintance any farther. In the same village I was surprised to see a
couple of little black pigs disporting themselves, as I always imagined
the unclean animal was tabooed from the company of the true believer. On
enquiry, I find that the Moors, who are superstitious to the last
degree, imagine that the evil spirits who are busy among them prefer
making a tabernacle in the carcase of a pig to taking up their abode in
the bodies of the faithful. Of the two evils, therefore, they choose the
least, and suffer pigs gladly till they think they are full of devils,
when they drive them out into the woods, and replace them with a fresh
lot. Such, at all events, was the explanation of the little pigs’
presence as afforded me, through the interpreter, by a venerable Moor,
and on my remonstrating with him on his credulity, he not inaptly
remarked—“I am surprised at your disputing the possibility of such
things, as I have been told that one of the prodigies performed by your
prophet Aissa (Jesus) was causing evil spirits to leave the afflicted
ones, and live in swine.” The age of miracles, though past with us,
still continues in Marocco, and the simple-minded Moor fails to see why
such a state of things should have altered since the days of Christ, any
more than have his own style of dress or manner of life, which remain
precisely the same.
We left our halting place at 1.30, the last we saw of El Gharb, or the
Western Land, being the white tent of the kaïd of Habassi shining in the
sun, with his green-caparisoned horse and well-appointed escort waiting
to take him back to his little sovereignty, while the English Mission
moved onward into the robber land of the Beni Hassan.
This district has only lately been brought under a sort of _quasi_
subjection to the Sultan, and has long enjoyed an evil reputation for
being the hotbed of murder, theft, and other misdemeanours.
M. Tissot, who is now ambassador at Constantinople, lately visited this
province, and as he is an observant traveller, and concise in narrative,
I quote from his description of the people:—“Les Beni Ah’sen ont la
réputation meritée d’être d’incorrigibles pillards.... Sauvages et
inhospitaliers, ils ne laissent pénétrer personne sur leur
territoire.... Il y a trois mois à peine que, malgré la présence du
Sultan à R’ Bat, le harem du premier ministre a été pillé et égorgé par
les Beni Ah’sen, et que sept cents hommes, envoyés pour punir cet
attentat, ont été anéantis. L’Empereur lui-même n’a pu se frayer un
passage, à cette même époque, qu’en mitraillant ses indociles
sujets.”[23] His Excellency had read us this paragraph at luncheon,
omitting none of the horrid details, so it is not to be wondered at if
we cast back a longing eye to the friendly Habassi already disappearing
on the horizon, or if our hearts beat high at the prospect of meeting
the murderous hordes so graphically described by M. Tissot. And here I
must pay a humble tribute of thanks to that eminent diplomatist for the
valuable information contained in his pamphlet. It is always in
somebody’s hands, and has been our _vade mecum_ throughout our
wanderings. Curiously enough we had no other work on the country among
us, to which omission the thumbed and tattered condition of Tissot bears
ample testimony. “Poor Tissot! What would he say if he saw the condition
of his little book?” remarked a member of the Mission, not considering
that the said Tissot would take this evidence of appreciation as the
highest compliment we could pay him. It was therefore resolved to have
the pamphlet handsomely bound in its mean condition, and presented, when
our wanderings were over, to the talented author as a mark of our
gratitude for information derived therefrom.
The country seemed to change a little after leaving the Sebú, the Arab
encampments becoming more frequent, and cattle and cultivation a little
on the increase. After an hour’s ride we heard some firing ahead of us,
and presently came in sight of our new escort. They were, as usual,
drawn up in line, and their kaïd, advancing, welcomed the Envoy, but
with more constraint and less cordiality than the previous governors had
shown. A more wild and strange-looking lot than these Beni Hassan I had
never seen; and it was noticeable that, as they formed up in our rear,
the permanent escort did not mingle with them in the familiar manner in
which they treated other irregulars, having possibly formed part of the
force which the Sultan lately employed against this tribe. As they
defiled past us on either side to take up their position behind our
party, the thought forced itself upon me that, under any other
circumstances than the present, I should—and probably with the greatest
reason—have felt extremely ill at ease in such company. The sullen
expression, too, of these bronzed and bearded bandits, as they either
stared one in the face or kept their eyes fixed on the ground, seemed to
show that the wholesome restraint under which they temporarily found
themselves sat uneasily upon them. Till the warriors of Beni Hassan
performed it, we had never seen justice done to the game of lab el
barôd; their horses were better, and the gaudy but ragged riders were
more dexterous and reckless than any that had preceded them. By way of
showing us the uncertainty of human life, there was one, at least, among
the guns that had something in it more solid than powder only, as one
could easily tell by the report. Such accidents, however, might happen
from the method of keeping their powder, viz. loose in a leather bag at
their side, into which foreign substances of all sorts may easily find
their way. Into this bag they plunge their hands, then pour the contents
down the barrel, and ram the bullet home with an ill-fitting rod. To
extract the latter is often the work of four men, who pull and jerk at
either end quite unconscious of any danger of explosion. When we got
near our night’s camping ground at Jum’a el Hawáfi, these independent
yeomanry wheeled off to their own ground, where their kaïd’s tent and
two or three others were pitched, without, as is usual, accompanying the
Bashador to where he and his suite dismounted.
In the afternoon some hundreds of half-starved and miserable-looking
people from the district assembled close by to look on at the powder
play to which some of the Beni Hassan people treated them. I walked over
with Zouche, with two or three soldiers as escort, to see the battle,
and we were much amused at the sensation we created. Though more or less
civil and respectful, their undisguised curiosity and astonishment were
very funny to witness. They would look us all over from head to foot, as
if we were statues or stuffed specimens, and then turn away, many of
them covering up their faces to hide their amusement at our outlandish
appearance.
The civilian population are not half such fine-looking fellows as either
the __’askár__,[24] or the militia, out of whom our escorts are taken,
and disease of every form seems rife among them. A poor fellow at that
camp was brought to the doctor blind of one eye (as more than half the
population seem to be), and with little or no sight in the other. It was
a case which could have been successfully treated by a surgeon in a
hospital; but here, of course, without proper appliances, it was out of
the question to do anything, and the man went sadly away. The number of
halt and sick who come in hopes of treatment, and, as they all do, of
certain cure, is getting large. Their hesitating manner of coming, and
their dress—especially that of the Jews,—remind one of the people in old
Bible pictures, while their simple faith in the little that can be done
for them must be very like that of the multitudes who crowded round a
greater Physician eighteen centuries ago.
Our camp on the Sebú at Jum’a el Hawáfi was well protected with
sentries, the Beni Hassan kaïd’s son placing them himself at 9 P.M. at
intervals of about ten yards. So many were there that it seemed as
though almost every robber in Beni Hassan must have been employed, an
arrangement to which the camp, perhaps, owed its safety. A mounted
patrol rode round continuously, whacking the head of any unfortunate
sentry who did not show satisfactory symptoms of watchfulness, which
caused the poor wretches to keep up a regular chorus to keep themselves
awake; while a short way off, in the lines of the Beni Hassan escort,
the sound of music and revelry was heard till nearly daylight. We gave
some of them a treat about 11 _P.M._ The night was wet and dark, and
just as the mounted patrol were passing my tent Lawless and I emerged
with pieces of magnesium wire flaring in each hand. The effect was
magical, and flight instantaneous; gradually, however, they came back,
and one or two of the more courageous even took a bit in their hand and
held it while burning.
It has often been present to my mind what a serious matter it would be
if illness or accident of a severe nature overtook any Christian of the
party; the whole camp could not be delayed on one man’s account, and in
fact, in many places we have stopped at, supplies would not be
procurable, while the risk of remaining alone would be too great to be
contemplated. Yesterday morning I thought I was about to see the problem
of what was to be done with any such impotent Nazarene solved in my own
person, as I woke at 5 A.M. in great pain and hardly able to breathe;
the distemper, however, passed away in a few hours, and was pronounced
by the _medico_, whose aid I solicited at 7 A.M., to have been muscular
rheumatism. English servants are people who, under such circumstances as
ours, usually manage to get themselves laid up; I have warned mine (who,
with the exception of Sir John’s man, George, is the only one in camp)
of the futility of any such proceeding, and up to the present moment, at
all events, he has developed no threatening symptoms. It was raining so
hard that after striking the camp, and sending it on, we remained behind
in the drawing-room tent,—which, though leaky, was better than
nothing,—till after luncheon, when we rode straight through to our
destination, a place called Sbenats, near a Síd house[25] which marks
the boundary between the Provinces of Sherarda and Beni Hassan. It was
our last ride through those weary plains, whose alluvial soil makes them
bad camping ground during this wet weather. Since following the course
of the Sebú, the Arab dúars have been much more numerous, and at Sbenats
there were four or five of them, with as many as thirty or forty tents
in each, within a radius of two miles of us. The country on this, the
left side of the Sebú, is far more backward in crops than what we have
travelled through hitherto; and it is gratifying to learn that the heavy
rains we have had the last three days have been anxiously wished for,
and are now attributed to our interest and goodwill. After all the usual
methods of praying for rain have been exhausted, a curious and
characteristic plan is adopted. The Moors, wrapped up in their conceit,
imagine that all their prayers are pleasing to the Deity, and as music
in His ear; consequently, when these fail they “turn the Jews out of the
town, and bid them not return without rain, for they say though God
would not give them rain for their prayers, He will give the Jews rain
to be rid of their importunity, * * * * *”[26] Such, at all events, is
still the belief of the true Mussulman of Marocco, and you could as
easily shake that as you could the foundation of the mountain of
F’ilfal, which we see to-night towering in the distance.
It is curious how easily one misses the road on those flat trackless
plains we have left behind, and several of us having galloped on a long
way ahead yesterday, with the intention of getting into camp early,
found ourselves entirely at fault. The whole place seemed a dead level,
but no tents could be seen, or living being to act as guide. Far away
behind us we could just make out a dark shadow on the plain, moving
slowly along, and this we knew to be His Excellency, with the rest of
the party and escort. Looking at them from this distance the powder play
had a very pretty effect; every now and then one saw, detaching
themselves from the main body, little dark spots, from which, after they
had gone a short way, a small white cloud shot forth, but of course the
report which accompanied the smoke was inaudible. We had to wait about
ignominiously till they came up and put us again in the right direction,
and to bear as patiently as we might the taunts of our friends. In vain
we declared we had gone off in an easterly direction in pursuit of a
bustard; our wrong direction had been noticed, our hesitation remarked,
and our character as pioneers is gone.
[Illustration: A MID-DAY HALT. ON THE ROAD TO FEZ.]
It was a relief to quit the region of the plains this morning, and to
enter, after an hour’s ride, a narrow gorge which led us in to the
mountain range of Mulai Edris. Before leaving the plains we passed a
road which branched off to the right, and which Kaïd Ali told us led to
Mequinez, from which place and from Fez we are about equidistant. We had
luncheon to-day a little way off the track, or road as it may now almost
be called, the tent being pitched under a low cliff, among the shelving
rocks of which we found the most delightful shade. In the hillside were
several caves, so possibly this may be one of the districts mentioned in
the Periplus of Hanno as inhabited by Troglodytes or dwellers in caves.
A mysterious race they must have been, living more like beasts than men,
with no articulate language, but fierce, active, and “swifter than
horses.” Their treatment of the dead was far from reverent, for they
“bound the corpse neck and heel together, fixing it to a stake, and
pelting it amid shouts of laughter.” The only stirring events during our
halt were the chastisement, by the kaïd’s order, of one of the
soldiers—a very ill-looking fellow—for refusing to clear away stones
from the place where the tent was being pitched, and the other was the
arrival in camp of one Síd Búbakr, from Fez, an ally of Sir John’s, and
an office-bearer at the Court of Marocco. Destined as he is to be the
medium of communication between the ambassador and the Sultan, no one
fitter for the work could have been chosen; he is a man about fifty or
sixty, without a hair on his face, and is accounted here a person of
great intelligence. Having a large business of his own in the town of
Marocco, he has had in the course of his professional travels a good
deal of intercourse with Europeans, and has visited Spain and Gibraltar.
Report says he is in private a great smoker, and that he does not,
secretly, despise the juice of the grape. I could forgive both these
transgressions were he only able to express himself in anything but his
own barbarous tongue.
Our road after luncheon led through a succession of round grassy hills,
which reminded me of some parts of Peeblesshire, till after about an
hour and a half’s riding we turned off to the left, and, ascending a
hill, saw from the top our present camp on the other side, and about one
hundred feet below us. It was rather bad going for the horses crossing
the ridge, as the track passed over ledges of slippery rock which the
recent rains had left in a greasy state, and the animals had to hop from
one to the other after the manner of goats—a mode of progression which
was, fortunately, accomplished without accident.
Between 4 and 5 P.M. we got to the top; the sun was getting low in the
horizon behind us, and the view in front was varied and very beautiful.
At our feet lay an undulating and grassy plain, bounded on our left and
front, _i.e._ to the north and east, by range upon range of hills; on
our right hand the Jebel Silfat, in the Zarhún district, is high enough
to shut out any more distant hills, while on its slopes, and
picturesquely situated, were two villages, distant respectively about
seven and four miles. They appear to be built of gypsum, and without the
aid of a glass might, even at this short distance, easily be taken for
part of the rocky surface of the hillside. M. Tissot calls them in his
map Kheira and Beni Aamer; but after interrogating several natives on
the subject, I could not make out that they rejoiced in any other name
than that of the tribe which inhabits them, viz. the Beni Aamer. To make
a map of this country with any attempt at correct nomenclature would be
a thankless and heart-breaking task, as in many cases the inhabitants,
intelligent apparently otherwise, have no idea of the name of the
village in which they live. Often the name of a place, _e.g._ Kariya ben
Aouda, Kariya el Habassi, &c., is synonymous with the name of the family
in whose hands the governorship has been for one or two generations; but
should the kaïd’s family become extinct, or the office for any reason
pass out of their hands, the name of the village is changed, thus
forming a continual obstacle to the labours of the geographer. The
number of names, apparently of towns, which one sees in any map of
Marocco, make it appear to the uninitiated a thickly populated country,
the fact being that you may travel for days and even weeks together
without seeing anything in the shape of a town, the only symptom of
habitation being the dúars, or small collection of Arab tents, or
possibly a dshar, _i.e._ a group of huts or rough stone buildings; the
former denote the presence of the wandering Arabs, the latter that of
the Berbers, or original inhabitants of the country. The names, however,
which catch one’s eye in the map appertain to the Síd houses or tombs of
Saints, small white cupola-like buildings, called by the natives
“kúbba.” There are many of these kúbbe dotted about the country, and
they give their name to any village near them. Information of any sort
is hard to be obtained in this land of lies and subterfuges, but as
regards dates, their ignorance is _bonâ fide_, most of their
calculations being made relative to the date of the famine, or of the
last war with Spain or Portugal. If you ask a man his age, his answer is
probably, “I was such and such an age when the Spaniards took Tetuan
from us,” and so on. Hence it is difficult to know when any of the kúbbe
were built, especially as for neither love nor money could one get
inside to look for dates or inscriptions. The buildings seem made of
stone or plaster, and are square, with a small dome at the top, the
whole coated thickly with whitewash. Close round them are a few trees,
the only ones of any size in the country, and the place is looked after
and kept in repair by some descendants of the deceased occupant, who
receive contributions for the purpose from every right-minded traveller.
If in want of more funds, they stroll the country with a banner and one
or two instruments (I was nearly inserting the adjective musical), with
which they soon raise sufficient for their own and their deceased
relative’s requirements.
Besides the plans I mentioned for naming villages, there is another
which struck me as ingenious, viz. that of calling them after the day of
the week on which the market nearest to them is held, a practice which
prevails, I think, in Syria and parts of Egypt; _e.g._ the place where
we encamped some days ago near the Sebú was called Jum’a el Hawáfi, the
former word signifying Friday, the latter the name of the district; so
with Hadd el Gharbía, one of our first camps,—Hadd signifies Sunday, or
the “first day,” and El Gharbía the province. As the market day never
changes—at Alcazar, _e.g._, it has been held on a Monday since the time
of Leo Africanus, the Moorish historian of the fifteenth century—this
method has more of permanence in it than any other.
These markets are largely attended; besides live stock of various kinds,
grain and butcher meat, stuffs of native manufacture, &c., are sold in
great quantities.
The evening was stormy, and just before the sun went down below the hill
on the side of which our camp is pitched, the colouring and effect were
fine beyond description. A strange lurid light lit up the valley below
us, and the surrounding hills, while overhead masses of dark clouds
drove quickly past before the strong south-west wind. The two villages I
mentioned shone out exactly like patches of red fire against the dark
hillside, and the half of a rainbow which spanned the plain was changed
into the same colour, and reflected back the glory of the setting sun.
The scene was very impressive, and now that the sun had disappeared
behind the hill, the strong reflected light, striking upwards from
between the drifting clouds, made the distant ranges appear quite close
for a moment; then, as the sun sank lower, they again grew dim and far
away, the loftier tops shining out to the last against the darkening
background, and finally disappearing altogether, as the gloom of the
approaching night, which follows so close upon the daylight, came down
upon the landscape. The heat of the day had been excessive, and it
hardly needed the sound of distant thunder to warn us of the deluge that
was coming. About dinner-time it began with one or two brilliant
flashes, which lighted up our dining-tent unpleasantly, completely
eclipsing the three or four candles and tent lantern, and showing off
our complexions—sun-burned as we are—in a ghastly hue. Trenches had been
dug round the upper side of our tents, which are on a considerable
slope, so our chances of being washed away during the night are
lessened; while it is pleasant again to feel, if any reliance can be
placed on what these people say, that a whole district will commend us
in their orisons to-night to the holy keeping of the Prophet for our
goodwill towards them in bringing down the rain.
Traces of the late severe famine seem more apparent on this side the
Sebú river than farther north. Disease, too, the sure consequence of
famine, has made great ravages, not only among the poorer class, but to
a great extent among the richer people, who never can have known what
hunger is. In a small district we passed through two days ago, the kaïd,
in apologising for the smallness of the retinue brought to meet us, said
it was not only because a number were away fighting, but that during the
last eighteen months no fewer than sixty of his followers had died of a
sort of low typhus which had been devastating the country. Even now the
very poor class have nothing to eat, and no money to buy food. “Give us
meat!” some of them cried this evening. “In God’s name, we have nothing
to eat but grass!” and they look as if they spoke only the bare truth.
To-day, as Hadj Hamed was distributing the carcases of two sheep, by
order of His Excellency, to a lot of poor wretches at the last camp,
they snatched the meat from him, and, tearing it up, began to eat it
raw. Just beyond, too, where our horses were picketed, the body of a man
was found dead, apparently of starvation, and was buried by our grooms.
His body was noticed in the early morning; so the poor man had probably
wandered round the camp till, unable to go any farther, he had lain down
and died within a stone’s throw of the tent in which we were dining. It
is horrible to think how little one can do to alleviate suffering of
this sort, while at the same time it is gratifying to hear from educated
natives that they are still mindful of the large amount of help that
came from England during the famine, and also are aware from whence it
came. Making allowance for the flattery and compliments which they
naturally pay to a Mission like ours, there is no doubt that the English
are held in much higher esteem here than are any of the Continental
powers. Next to ourselves the French have most intercourse with Marocco;
but though they have succeeded in making themselves dreaded, they have
neither sought for nor obtained the goodwill of the people.
In this province, Sherarda, an act of tyranny and extortion has lately
been committed by a foreign official, which is, I hope, without parallel
in these latter days of diplomacy and civilisation. The story is unique,
and having made notes of it as I heard it related through the medium of
an interpreter, I think it worth a place in my diary. It seems that the
official in question, some months ago, was sent from his embassy with a
message or letter to the Sultan. When at a convenient distance from his
chief he gave himself out as an ambassador, and demanded to be treated
as such. Passing through this place his number of servants and animals
was six and fourteen respectively. The usual _mona_ for this number was
brought, but he returned it, and demanded corn for two hundred animals,
also two sheep, six loaves of sugar, 6 lbs. candles, chickens, eggs,
tea, &c. Eventually he accepted half the amount of corn, but all the
rest was insisted upon. He sold the sheep, the chickens, and part of the
barley to a Moor of the place, the rest he carried away; the load being
too much for his animals, his people seized a mule from its owner and
placed on it two boxes and a mattress belonging to their master. The
mule, however, bolted, leaving the load upon the ground; and the
muleteer, in a fright at being left alone with the foreigner’s chattels,
got the kaïd of the village, who, in the presence of a British subject
and two _adúls_,[27] opened one of the boxes, and after taking an
inventory of its contents, which consisted solely of cooking utensils,
put it and the other box, which was locked, on a camel, with the
mattress, and sent them all into Fez. Mr. ——, however, refused to
receive them, stating that the box which had been opened contained
jewellery and orders to the amount of several thousand dollars, and sent
in a formal complaint about the robbery. Four soldiers were then sent to
demand the robbers. The poor kaïd, who knew that no robbery had been
committed, yet dreading his lord the Sultan, sent up eight innocent men
to Fez. These were put in prison and flogged, without success, to make
them confess—one man for certain, and it was rumoured two, dying under
the lash. Still the _soi-disant_ legate pressed his demands, and hints
of active interference on the part of his Government helped to influence
the Sultan’s advisers. A body of twenty-five __’askár__ were accordingly
sent to the village to say that the money must be paid. The kaïd then
sent for the headmen and sheikhs of villages, and said,—“My friends, it
has pleased God to heavily afflict our province, and by the mouth of a
lying Christian to incense the ear of our lord the Sultan against us;
but we must bow to fate. What is to be done?” It was then agreed to ask
for a fortnight’s respite, during which time they sold their crops and
raised, first one half, and then the remainder of the required sum. With
the latter instalment the kaïd, accompanied by the British subject, went
to Fez, told the Vizier the facts, and that he had a man with him to
substantiate them. It was all of no avail; the money was paid, and the
foreigner returned home much pleased with the private results, at all
events, of his mission.
In detailing this disreputable story I make no insinuations against the
Government which has thus been disgraced, and which is doubtless as
honest and upright as our own; but the rogue in question was a bold and
subtle one, and though other Governments were probably informed by their
representatives of the above facts, his own immediate superior is
presumably still unaware of them. At the same time, if their prestige in
this country suffers, ours derives but little benefit thereby, for as
the Moors think that the devil has tarred all Christians with the same
brush (they credit Sir John, perhaps, with a lighter coat), we are
thought capable of acting similarly, should occasion offer. The
incident, at all events, serves to prove how great is the necessity for
a foreign Government to employ as its representative among a people like
these a man whose own moral instincts render him incapable of employing
as his subordinate any one who could be guilty of such glaring
malpractices. With specimens, too, such as these to damn his endeavours,
the attempts of any well-intentioned foreign representative to gain by
example and moderation the goodwill and favourable opinion of this
unfortunate race are rendered almost futile.