LEAVING the International Sanatorium of the Palmera at the hour that
Allah willed it, which happened to be about eight in the morning of the
12th October, dressed in Moorish clothes, our faces far too white, and
our ample robes like driven snow, the low thick scrub of Argan, dwarf
rhododendrons, and thorny sandarac, and "suddra" {61a} bushes after five
minutes' riding swallowed us up, quite as effectually as might have done
a forest of tall trees. Mohammed el Hosein, fully aware of the
importance of getting accustomed to the Moorish clothes before at once
emerging on the beaten track which leads from Mogador to Morocco city,
engaged us in a labyrinth of cattle tracks, winding in and out for full
two hours through stones and bushes, following the beds of water courses
dry with the twelve months' drought, which had caused almost a state of
famine, and calling to us to hold ourselves more seemly, not to let our
"selhams" {61b} hang too low, not to talk English, and when dismounted to
walk as befits Arab gentlemen, to whom time is a drug.
After much threading through the tortuous paths, getting well torn and
sunburned by the fierce sun, we emerged at the crossing of the river El
Ghoreb, which runs into the sea at Mogador.
Here we encountered the usual stream of travellers always to be met with
at the crossing of a river in countries like Morocco; grave men on mules
going to do nothing gravely, as if the business of the world depended on
their doing it with due precision. Long trains of mules laden with
cotton goods going up to the capital; a travelling Arab family, the
father on his horse, his gun cased in a red cloth case, balanced across
the pommel of his saddle; his wife, either on foot or seated on a donkey
following him, the children trotting behind, a ragged boy or two drawing
a few brown goats, a scraggy camel packed with the household goods on one
side, and on the other with a pannier from which a foal stuck out its
head; and, lastly, two or three grown-up girls, who, as we came upon them
crossing the stream, lift up their single garment and veil their mouths
according to the laws of Arab decency. We sit and eat under a tree as
far away as possible from all the passers-by, and our clean clothes and
look of most intense respectability, secure us from all danger of
intrusion on our privacy.
No sooner seated than Swani seized my legs and pulled them violently, and
rubbed the knee-joints after the fashion of a shampooer in a Turkish
bath. On my enquiry he assured me he knew I must be suffering agony from
the short Moorish stirrups and cramped seat. I had indeed felt for the
past half-hour as if upon the rack; but a horseman's pride and
acquaintanceship with many forms of saddles had kept me silent. The
rubbing and pulling afforded intense relief, and I acknowledged what I
had endured, on his assurance that no one escapes the pain, and that the
most experienced riders in the land are sometimes kept awake all night,
after a long day's march, owing to the stiffness of their legs.
In mediaeval Spain, good riders were often designated as "Ginete en ambas
sillas," {63} that is accustomed to either saddle, _i.e._ the Moorish and
the Christian, and I now understood why chroniclers have taken the
trouble to record the fact. Strangely enough the high-peaked and
short-stirruped saddle does not cross the Nile, the Arabs of Arabia
riding rather flat saddles with an ordinary length of leg. The Arab
saddle of Morocco, in itself, is perhaps the worst that man has yet
designed, but curiously enough from it was made the Mexican saddle,
perhaps the most useful for all kinds of horses and of countries that the
world has seen.
The Moors girth loosely and keep their saddle in its place by a broad
breast plate; so that it becomes extremely difficult to mount, and to do
so gracefully, you have to seize the cantle and the pommel at the same
time, and get as gingerly into your seat as possible. Like all natural
horsemen, the Moors mount in one motion, and bend their knees in
mounting; thus, in their loose clothes, they appear to sink into the
saddle without an effort. Once in the saddle a man of any pretension to
respectability has his clothes arranged for him by a retainer, as being
so voluminous, it is quite an art to make them sit.
Swathed in the various cloaks and wrappings which constitute the Arab
dress, the feet driven well home into the stirrups, and gripping your
horse's sides with all the leg, the seat is firm, though most
uncomfortable at first. After a little it becomes more tolerable, but
few men can walk a step without enduring agony when they dismount after
three or four hours on horseback, especially as it is a superstition
amongst the Moors to mount and dismount as seldom as they can, for they
imagine the act of getting on and off fatigues the horse far more than
the mere carrying the burden on his back. Of course, both getting on and
off are done in the name of God, that is after the repetition of the
sacramental word Bismillah, used on eating, drinking, riding or
performing any action for which a true believer should give thanks to Him
who giveth benefits to man. It is the fashion amongst Europeans to sneer
at Arab riding, and no doubt an Arab in the hunting field would not look
well; and it is possible that a hunting man might also find himself
embarrassed to ride a Moorish horse in Moorish saddle fast downhill over
a country strewn with boulders, or at the "powder play," to stand upon
his saddle and perform the feats the Moors perform.
Horsemen and theologians are both intolerant. Believe my faith, and ride
my horse after my fashion, for no Nonconformist, Cossack, Anglican,
Gaucho, Roman Catholic, or Mexican can see the least redeeming point
about his fellows' creed, his saddle, horse, ox, ass, or any other thing
belonging to him.
Lunch despatched, green tea drunk, and cigarette carefully smoked behind
a bush, for men in our position must not give offence by "drinking the
shameful" {64} in the face of true believers, we mount again, and plunge
into an angle of the Argan forest, which extends from Mogador to Saffi.
Goats climb upon the trees, and camels here and there browse on the
shoots; under the trees grow a few Aras (_Callitris Quadrivalvis_), and
in the sandy soil some liliaceous plants gleam like stars in the expanse
of heaven. After an hour the trees grow sparser and we emerge into a
rolling country, and pass a granary, which marks the boundary between the
provinces of Ha-Ha and Shiadma, and take our last look of the sea.
The Argan trees become more scarce as we cross into the fertile and
well-cultivated province of Shiadma. Sand now gives place to rich red
earth, and Swani, pricking his mule with his new dagger, which he had
wheedled me to buy him under pretence that it did not befit my follower
to go unarmed, comes up and asks if, even in England, there is a better
cultivated land. I answer, diplomatically, that there is none, although
perhaps the soil of England in certain parts is just as rich. Being an
Arab he does not believe me for a moment, but ejaculates, with perfect
manners, "God is Great, to him the praise for fertile lands, whether in
England or Morocco."
The Kaid's house on a hill stands as the outward visible sign of law and
order, and Mohammed el Hosein imparts the information that the prison is
always full. 'Tis pleasant to go back, not in imagination, but reality,
to the piping times when prisons were always full, {65} maidens sat
spinning (I think) in bowers, and the gallows-tree was never long without
its "knot." This leads me to consider whether, if all the world were
regulated by a duly elected county council, all chosen from a properly
qualified and democratic, well-educated, pious electorate, and all men
went about minding each other's business--with fornication, covetousness,
evil concupiscence, adultery, and murder quite unknown, and only slander
and a little cheating left to give a zest to life--they would be happier
upon the whole than are the unregenerate Moors, who lie and steal, fight,
fornicate, and generally behave themselves as if blood circulated in
their veins and not sour whey? Despite the Sultan's tyranny, with every
form of evil government thrown in, with murder rampant, vices that we
call hideous (but which some practice on the sly) common to everyone, the
faces of the poor heathen Moors, whom we bombard with missionaries, are
never so degraded as the types which haunt the streets of manufacturing
towns. And if the face is the best index to the mind, it may be that the
degraded heathen Moor is at the heart not greatly worse than his baptised
and educated rag-clad English brother in the Lord.
As evening falls we pass a shepherd close to the high road, sitting down
to pray, beside him are his shoes and crook, and not far off his dog
looks on half cynically, and up above, Allah preserves his attitude of
"non mi ricordo," which is excusable where men worry him five or six
times a day. Still the shepherd must have been genuine, and could not
have known that infidels would pass his way.
The country here is chiefly composed of red argillaceous earth, the rock
limestone, and the general configuration round-topped hills rising
towards the Atlas. The Argan trees become more rare, and within sight of
our destination we see the last of them.
The Argan, like the Cacti of the Rio Gila, in Arizona, seems to be able
to resist any drought. Strange that all-wise Providence failed to endow
Africa with either the Cactus or the Aloe, both plants so eminently
suited to its climate. It was, however, left to poor, weak, erring human
reason to supply the want.
It is pleasing to reflect that for once the powers {66} generally opposed
to one another should have united in endowing a country with two
non-indigenous plants, which have taken to the soil as if they had been
originally found there. Is it reason after all that is infallible?
Meskala reminded me curiously enough of an "hacienda" in Mexico, with an
almost similar name Amascala, the same white walls, the same two towers
of unequal height over the gateway, almost the same corrals for animals
outside, formed in both cases of the branches of a prickly shrub, goats
feeding by the same turbid stream flowing through a muddy channel, and
the gate once opened, which in our case took at least a quarter of an
hour's entreaty mixed with objurgations, the self-same twisting passage
of about twenty yards in length, through which the stranger enters before
arriving at the great interior court.
The court, about two hundred feet across, was full of animals, belonging
some to the Sheikh himself, and others to the various travellers who had
sought shelter for the night within his walls.
We had a letter from the consul in Mogador setting forth that we are
friends of his, but not descending to particulars, so that we were
ushered into an airy upper room, and bread and butter, in a tolerably
lordly dish, was set before us. We were uncertain whether Sheikh el
Abbas penetrated my disguise, but if he did he made no sign; nor did it
matter much, as I intended to be taken for a Christian travelling in
Moorish dress to escape observation (as is often done), till near the
place where we break off into the wilds, and leave the main road to
Morocco city. Had all gone well, I hoped this would confuse the
hypothetic persons, and jumble up their substance to such an Athanasian
extent as to make recognition quite impossible.
Lutaif discourses much of eastern lands and reads el Faredi, an Arab
poet, to the admiration of the assembled elders.
Swani makes tea and Sheikh el Abbas drinks the three cups prescribed by
usage, lapping them like a dog, and drawing in his breath like a tired
horse at water, to show his great content. The upper room looked out
upon the court; and in the moonlight I saw a shepherd, assisted by a
little ragged boy, engaged in separating the goats from amongst the
sheep, and ranging them in two little flocks, after the fashion that the
good are to be divided from amongst the wicked, when this foolish affair
of life is finished with; though with this difference, that whereas in
this case the two flocks were nearly equal, who can suppose but that
after the last count, the goats will not exceed the sheep by at least ten
to one. In a corral hard by the horses eat, some camel drivers crouch
round a fire, and as I look at the unchanging Eastern life the call to
prayers reminds me that Allah has blessed it by continuity for a thousand
years.
The Sheikh sat long, talking of things and others, of the decline of
British prestige, the advance of Russia, the new birth of Turkey, and of
the glory of the Moorish kingdoms in the Andalos (Spain); and then of
business, and how the Brus (Germans), a nation which he says seemed to
have come into the world but recently, from some high mountains, are
bidding fair to be the first of Franguestan. The German Emperor strikes
him as being a great king. He is a Sultan, says the Sheikh, after the
fashion that the Spaniards used to say when Ferdinand VII. had
perpetrated some atrocity, "es mucho rey," that is, he is indeed a king.
{68}
I fancy that he knows I am a Nazarene, although my conversation is quite
evangelical, that is, yea and nay, and now and then a pious sentence
muttered very low to hide the accent. Lutaif and Swani answer for me, as
if I were an idiot, and step in, so to speak, between me and the Sheikh,
as when he asks, for instance, if I have seen the war ships of the
Christians, when they at once respond I have, and give particulars
invented at the moment, and I learn that ships steam more than fifty
miles an hour, guns carry twenty miles, to all of which I nod a grave
assent, and the Sheikh sips his tea and praises God for all his mighty
works.
Lutaif tells of a vessel at Beirout, a Turkish war ship, sent by the
German Emperor to the Sultan (he of Brus), so large that two young
Syrians of his acquaintance, who had shipped as sailors and got
separated, vainly sought each other for seven years, at night climbing to
the masthead, by day descending to the hold, but all in vain, because the
vessel was so huge; the Sultan could step aboard of her out of his palace
on the Bosphorus and after walking all day land in whatever country he
desired. This meets with great approval, and I have to confirm it to the
letter, and do so with a nod.
The night is hot and the mosquito hums in his thousand; but the Sheikh as
he goes warns us to bar the door, because, he says, "Sleep is Death's
brother," meaning that when one sleeps death may be near and yet the
sleeper be unconscious of it.
The muleteers retire to sleep beside their mules. Swani wraps up my feet
in the hood of one "djellaba," and draws another up to my head ready to
cover it when I feel sleepy, and as we lie upon the floor, on sheepskins,
watching the moon shine through the glassless window, Lutaif puts out the
flickering wick, burning sustained by argan oil in a brass bowl,
exclaiming, as he did so, "Oh, Allah! extinguish not thy blessing as I
put out this light." How much there is in names; fancy a deity,
accustomed to be prayed to as Allah by Arabs, suddenly addressed by an
Armenian as Es Stuatz, it would be almost pitiable enough to make him
turn an Atheist upon himself. I feel convinced a rose by any other name
would not smell sweet; and the word Allah is responsible for much of the
reverence and the faith of those who worship him.
We left Meskala early and in rain, which soon was over, and entering on a
little bit of desert country, the Atlas range appeared like a great wall
of limestone capped with white in the far distance.
For three hot hours we passed through a miniature Sahara, rocky and
desolate, stones, stones, and still more stones and sand, a colocynth or
two lying amongst the rocks, some orange-headed thistles, Ziziphus Lotus
here and there, some sandarac bushes now and then; the horses stumbling
on the stones, mules groaning in the sand, and no great rock in all the
thirsty land to shelter under from the sun. Three hours that seemed like
six, until a line of green appears, a fringe of oleanders on the margin
of a muddy stream in which swim tortoises, and by which we lie and lap
like dogs, and understand wherefore the Psalmist so insisted on his green
pastures wherein his Allah made him lie.
In England your green pastures have no significance, and call to mind but
recollections of fat cattle and sheep with backs as square as boxes, in
the lush grass between the hedges, as the express whirls past and the
stertorous first-class passengers hold up their wine glasses against the
light and praise the landscape as they eat their lunch. {70}
But in Morocco and Arabia green grass means life, relief from thirst, and
still to-day their poets stuff their verses full of allusions to the
pastures rare to them, but which with us make one at times long for a bit
of brown to break the sea of dull metallic green. Fig trees and olives,
oleanders {71a} with pomegranates, and a few palms make an oasis in the
little desert, and on a sheepskin spread on some cobble stones close by a
rock, exactly like the one that Moses is depicted striking in
old-fashioned Sunday books, the water rushing out in a clear stream, we
lie and smoke and fall a-talking of our chances of reaching Tarudant.
Mohammed el Hosein gave it as his opinion that if he could conduct a Rumi
{71b} there, he would make his name in Mogador as the best muleteer in
all the south, and all his previous fears seemed to vanish as he
descanted on the line of conduct to pursue when once inside. He seemed
to think the risk, if known to be a Christian, was considerable, and
counselled that we should encamp outside the gates and reach the town a
little after dawn when people were arriving to sell provisions, and then
go instantly to the Governor's house which was close to the gates, and
claim protection from him. Swani, who, as a native of Tangiers, though
he had seen the world and twice performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, yet
was a little uneasy in South Morocco, and thought it best that we should
go to some caravansarai (called in Morocco fondak) and try our best to
escape detection, I shamming ill, and Lutaif giving out he was a Syrian
doctor.
Ali the muleteer, who learned for the first time our destination, was in
an agony of fear, and said he must return at once; but when we pointed
out to him that he would then not only lose his wages but perhaps his
mule, he made his mind up, on condition I procured him a letter of
protection from the English consul in Mogador. Mohammed el Hosein,
before he left the town, had made me sign a paper stating I had engaged
him for all his life, and, fortified with this protection, I understand
he now bids all his governors and masters absolute defiance, wrapped, so
to speak, within a tatter of the British flag. Lutaif, who knew the
Governor of Tarudant, one Basha Hamou, who had been Governor of
Mequinez--a negro, and a member of the famous Boukhari {72} Pretorian
bodyguard--gave his opinion that Mohammed el Hosein was right, and that
though Basha Hamou might not be pleased, he would be obliged to give us
protection, and that he, probably after the first excitement of the
natives had subsided, would send us back under escort to Mogador. I held
my tongue, resolving that if we got there I would not return without a
good look at the place.
About a mile from where we sat was situated the castle of the local Kaid,
a castle set upon a rock, and strong enough apparently to set tribal
artillery at defiance; but our Lord the Sultan being "unfavourable" to
him, the castle was deserted, cattle stolen, crops all destroyed, and an
air about the place reminding one of some of the Jesuit Missions
(destroyed to show the Liberalism of Charles III.) which I have seen in
Paraguay. In fact the Kaid is only Kaid _in partibus_, and it is
understood a Sheikh in Fez has offered the Sultan 100,000 dollars to be
made governor, providing he (the offerer) might have a "free hand" with
the tribe; this means to oppress them, and in a year or two to take the
100,000 dollars out of them to pay the Sultan, and as much more for
himself. Strange that the Arabs, though so warlike, should in all ages
have endured so much oppression. It may be that the tribal system
renders them specially liable to this, for inter-tribal jealousies make
them an easy prey to any Sultan who can command money enough to set them
at one another's throats.
Ibn Jaldun (in the introduction to his history) says: "The Arabs are the
least fitted men to rule other nations, for they demolish the
civilisation of every land they conquer. They might be good rulers, but
they must first change their nature." This no doubt arises from their
incapacity to govern themselves. Still with all their faults they are a
fine race, and if they have demolished the civilisation of several
countries, they have in return left their own type wherever they have
conquered, and what type in the world is finer. I say nothing of the
more doubtful of their legacies, their system of numeration, and the
thoroughbred horse.
The grateful spring, fruit trees, and shady little oasis where we rested
rejoice in the name of Aguaydirt el Ma, a compound of Arabic and Shillah,
Ma in Arabic meaning the water, and Aguaydirt, no doubt having some
meaning of its own in the wild tongue it comes from.
As we ride through a bushy country with some straggling farms, we pass a
Sheikh on a good horse, long gun across the saddle, and a tail of ragged
followers on foot. It seems he is a tax collector, gathering the taxes
in person, and no doubt quite as effectually as the Receivers General
used to do in France, including even him who sleeps (his bubble burst)
under a flagstone in the door of San Moise, {74} in Venice, with a brief
dog-Latin epitaph, setting forth the usual lack of virtues of a man who
fails.
Curious to observe (again per usual) the fatness and good clothes of the
collector, and the mean estate of the poor "taxables," their downcast
looks, and all the apparent shifts and wiles they are putting forth to
escape the worst outrage that a free man can bear, that is to have his
money taken from him under the pretext of the public good.
Pleasant to gather taxes well armed on a good horse; a horse I mean that
could do his ninety miles a day for several days and carry something
heavy in the saddle bags.
I had a friend who, being for a short time governor of a province in a
Central American Republic, and finding things became too hot for him,
collected all the public money he could find, and silently one night
abdicated in a canoe down to the coast, and taking ship came to Lutetia;
and then, his money spent, lectured upon the fauna and the flora of the
country he had robbed; and, touching on the people, always used to say
that it was very sad their moral tone was low; the reflection seeming to
reinstate himself in his own eyes, for he forgot apparently that in his
abdication he but followed out the course which law had pointed out to
him in his official days.
Night catches us close to el Mouerid, a dullish pile of sun-dried bricks,
the lord of which, one Si Bel Arid, is an _esprit fort_, and knowing me
for a Christian, ostentatiously walks up and down talking on things and
others to show his strength of mind. Though disapproving of them, most
Moors like to be seen with Christians, in the same way some pious men are
fond of listening to wicked women's talk, not that their conversation
interests, but to show the asbestos quality of their own purity, and to
set forth that, as in Rahab's case no imputation can attach itself to men
of virtuous life. Therefore, as maiden ladies are said to love the
conversation of rakes, and clergymen, that of fallen women, so do Moors
love to talk with and be seen in public with the enemies of God.
El Mouerid looks miserable in the storm of rain and wind, in which we
leave it as the day is breaking. The Arab dress in windy weather teaches
one what women undergo in petticoats upon a boisterous day; but still
their pains are mitigated by the fact that generally men are near at hand
to look at them, whereas we could not expect to find admiring ladies on
the bleak limestone plain. Curious striations on the hills, as if the
limestone "came to grass" in stripes, give an effect as of a building, to
the rising foot-hills, into which we enter by the gorge of Bosargun, a
rocky defile which gradually becomes a staircase like the road from Ronda
to Gaucin, or that to heaven, almost untrodden of late years. We pass a
clump of almond trees, by which a light chestnut {75} mare is feeding;
she looks quite Japanese amongst the trees, buried up to the belly in
aromatic shrubs; a little bird sits on her shoulder, no one is near her,
though, no doubt, some sharp-eyed boy is hiding somewhere watching her,
for in this district no animal is safe alone. From the top we get our
first view of the Atlas in its entirety; snow, and more snow marking the
highest peaks, the Glawi, Gurgourah, and the tall peaks behind Amsmiz.
No mountain range I ever saw looks so steep and wall-like as the Atlas;
but this wall-like configuration, though most effective for the whole
range, yet robs the individual peaks of dignity.
To the east the stony plain of Morocco, cut into channels here and there
by the diverted water of the Wad el N'fis (a river I was destined to
follow to its very source), under the highest peaks of Ouichidan, upon
the very confines of the Sus. Here, for the first time, we see, though
far below us, the curious subterraneous aqueducts, looking like lines of
tan pits, with which the plain of Morocco is intersected everywhere.
These aqueducts, called Mitfias, are a succession of deep pits, dug at
varying distances from one another; the water runs from pit to pit in a
mud channel, and the whole chain of pits often extends for miles. Men
who undertake such herculean labour in order to irrigate their fields
cannot well be called lazy, after the fashion of most travellers who
speak, after a fortnight's residence in Morocco, of the "lazy Moors."
The truth is that the country-people of Morocco are industrious enough,
as almost every people who live by agriculture are bound to be. Only the
Arabs of the desert, and the Gauchos of the southern plains, and people
who live a pastoral life, can be called lazy, though they, too, at
certain seasons of the year, work hard enough. The Arabs and Berbers of
Morocco work hard, and would work harder had they not got the
ever-present fear of their bad government before them. When one man
quarrels with another, after exhausting all the usual curses on his
opponent's mother, sister, wife, and female generation generally, he
usually concludes by saying: "May God, in his great mercy, send the
Sultan to you"--for he knows that even Providence is not so merciless as
our Liege Lord.
About three miles below us are two curious flat-topped hills, looking
like castles. Mohammed el Hosein pronounces them to have been the site
of two strong castles of the Christians. What Christians, then?--Roman,
or Vandal, or Portuguese? Perhaps not Christian at all, but
Carthaginian; for in Morocco, any old building, the builders of which are
now forgotten, is set down to the all-constructing Christians, in the
same manner as in Spain, the Moors built all the castles and the Roman
bridges, and generally made everything which is a little older than the
grandfather of the man with whom you speak. Not but at times the person
questioned puts in practice, to your cost, the pawky Spanish saying: "Let
him who asks be fed with lies." What Christians could have been so
foolish as to build two castles in a barren plain, far off from water,
does not appear. At any rate, after a careful search, we can discover no
trace of building, and put the castles down with the enchanted cities
Fata Morgana, Flying Dutchman, and the like phenomena, which seem more
real than the material cities, ships, and optical illusions, which, by
their very realness, appear to lose their authenticity, and to become
like life, a dream.
Passing the castles, we emerged again upon a desert tract, which took
almost two hours to pass, and, at the furthest edge of it a zowia of a
saint, Sidi Abd-el Mummen, with a mosque tower, flanked by palms, rising
out of a sea of olives twisted and gnarled with age, and growing so
thickly overhead that underneath them is like entering a southern church,
out of the fierce glare of the sun.
History has not preserved the pious actions which caused Si Abd-el Mummen
to be canonised. In fact, Mohammed, if he came to life again, would have
a fine iconoclastic career throughout the world of the Believers; for
though they have not quite erected idols, graven or otherwise, yet all
their countries are stuck as full of saints' tombs, zowias of descendants
of saints, and adoration of the pious dead prevails as much as in the
Greek or Latin churches. True, the custom has its uses, as it serves to
indicate the distance on roads, and men as naturally enquire their way
from Saint (Sidi) to Saint, as from church to church in Spain, or
public-house to public-house in rural England. In other countries
Saints, before becoming free of the fellowship, have to show their
fitness for the post; but in Morocco no probation of any kind--that is,
according to our ideas--seems to be necessary.
I knew an aged man, who used to sit before the Franciscan Convent, in the
chief street of Tangier--a veritable saint, if saint exists. He sat
there, dressed in a tall red fez, {78} given by some pious soldier, a
long green caftan, clean white drawers, and a djellab of fine blue cloth.
Long hair descended on both sides of his face in locks like bunches of
chrysanthemums; his eyes were piercing, and yet wavering; for the poor
Saint was nearer to Allah than the common herd by the want of some small
tissue, fibre, or supply of blood to the vessels of the brain. Thus
clothed and mentally accoutred for his trade, a basket by his side, and
in his hand a long pole shod with iron, for he belonged to the sect
called the Derkowi, he sat and told his beads, and took his alms, with an
air of doing you a favour: for who gives to the poor does them no favour,
but, on the contrary, insures his own eternal happiness, and but gives
out again that which Allah entrusted to him for the behoof of man.
I happened one day, with European curiosity, to enquire what made the
venerable man so venerated, and was told that, having suddenly gone mad,
he killed his wife, threw off his clothes, and then marched naked through
the land--justice not interfering--for the mad are wise; and then, the
violence of his madness over, had quietly sat down and made himself a
sort of "octroi" upon passers by, after the fashion of blind Bartimaeus,
who sat begging at the gate. The explanation pleased me, and in future
when I passed I laid up treasure in that mothless territory, where no
thieves annoy, by giving copper coins; and was rewarded even here on
earth, for once I heard an Arab say: "This Kaffir, here" (speaking of me)
"fears neither God nor devil, yet I have seen him give to the old Saint;
it may be, God, the merciful, may save him yet, if but to show His
might."
And so it is that Saints' tombs stud the land with oven-shaped buildings
with a horse-shoe arch, a palm tree growing by, either a date or a
chamcerops humilis, in which latter case pieces of rag are hung to every
leaf-stalk, perhaps as an advertisement of the tree's sanctity or from
some other cause. The place serves as a re-union for pious folk, for
women who pray for children, for gossipers, and generally holds a midway
place betwixt a church and club. In order that the faithful wayfarers,
even though idiots, shall not err, in mountain passes, as in the gorge of
Bosargun, at four cross roads, passes of rivers, and sometimes in the
midst of desert tracts the traveller finds a number of small cairns, in
shape like bottles, which show--according to the way they point--where
the next Saint's tomb lies; for it is good that man should pray and think
about himself, especially upon a journey--prayer acts upon the purse;
alms save the soul; and Saints, though dead, need money to perpetuate
their fame.
After nine hours of alternating wind and heat we reached Imintanout, the
eastern entrance of the pass which, crossing a valley of the Atlas, leads
to Sus. So to speak Tarudant is within hail, three (some say two) days
and we are there, if . . . but the if was destined to be mortal, as it
proved. The straggling village almost fills the gorge through which the
road enters the hill. Above it towers the Atlas; a little stream (then
dry) ran through the place, which had an air between a village in Savoy,
and a Mexican mining town lost in the Sierra Madre. Brown houses built
of mud, stretches of Tabieh {80a} walls, the tops of which crowned with
dead prickly bushes, steely and bluish looking in the setting sun, the
houses generally castellated, the gardens hedged in with aloes, wherein
grow blackberries, palms and pomegranates, flowers, fig-trees, and
olives. Water in little channels of cement, ran through the gardens,
making of them an Arab paradise. Further up the gorge the Mellah
(Jewry), in which we catch a glimpse for the first time of the Atlas
Jews, servile and industrious, wonderfully European-looking as to type,
superior to the Arabs and Berbers in business capacity, and thus at once
their masters and their slaves.
The Kaid's house, perched upon a rock, I avoided like a plague spot,
fearing to be recognised and sent back to Mogador, and made, instead, for
the house of one Haj Addee, a Sheikh, {80b} which being interpreted may
stand in his case for country gentleman.
The Sheikh has been in Mecca, Masar el Kahira (Cairo), carries a rosary,
has some knowledge of the world (Mohammedan), and is not quite unlike
those old world Hidalgos of La Mancha, they of the "Rocin flaco y galgo
corredor," whom Cervantes has immortalised in the person of Don Quixote.
Friends interested in my journey in Mogador had recommended the Sheikh to
me as a safe man in whom to trust, before engaging myself in the recesses
of the Atlas. So, riding to his house, I sent in Swani with a letter
from an influential man in Mogador, and Haj Addee soon appeared, and,
after asking me to dismount, led me by the hand to his guest house. This
was an apartment composed of three small rooms, one serving as a bedroom,
the second as a place in which to store our saddles, tent, and camping
requisites, and the third, which had no roof, as sitting-room. All round
the sitting-room ran a clay divan, a fire burned in one corner, and
overhead the stars shone down upon us, especially the three last stars in
the Great Bear's tail, so that, take it for all in all, it was as
pleasantly illuminated a drawing-room as any I have seen. Hard by the
door stood an immense clay structure, shaped like a water barrel, which
served for storing corn {81a} in during the winter, and in the spring
broken to pieces when the corn was used.
Seated on the divan, I watched an enormous copper kettle try to boil upon
a brass tripod {81b} in which a little charcoal glowed, whilst in a small
brass dish a wick fed with raw mutton fat made darkness manifest. As I
look round the room it strikes me that there seems to be a sort of
dominant type of Mohammedan formed by religion, in the same way that in
the north of Ireland you can distinguish a Catholic from a Protestant,
across the street. Mohammed el Hosein, though of a different race, and
from thousands of miles away, presents the perfect type of an Afridi, as
depicted in the columns of the illustrated papers. Ali, our muleteer,
with his thin legs, beard brushed into a fan, and coppery skin, might sit
for the picture of a Pathan; it may be that an Oriental would discern a
great resemblance between a Dutchman and a Portuguese which had lain
dormant to our faculties, and if this was the case my theory would be as
well confirmed as many other theories which have revolutionised the
scientific world.
We talk of Mecca and Medina, of travelling from Jeddah, stretched in
"shegedefs" {82} upon a camel's back, of Gibel Arafat, the Caaba, and of
the multitude of different classes of Mohammedans who swarm like bees,
Hindoos and Bosnians, Georgians, Circassians, the dwellers in the
Straits, and the Chinese believers, whom my host serves up all in a lump
as Jawi, and says that they are little, yellow, all have one face, and
that their mother in the beginning was a Djin. It appears that at the
sacred places, the town of tents is of such vast dimensions that it is
possible to lose yourself and wander for miles if you forget to take the
bearings of your tent. It must be a curious sight to see the various
nationalities, the greater part of whom have no means of communication
other than a few pious sentences, and a verse or two from the Koran.
Swani, who is a double pilgrim, having twice been in Mecca, comes out
most learnedly as to nice points in Mohammedan theology. Though he can
neither read nor write, and is, I fear, not all too strict in the mere
practice of his religion, yet he can talk for hours upon the attributes
of God, and as judiciously as if he had been a graduate of St. Bees, so
well he knows the essence, qualities, power, majesty, might, glory, and
every proper adjective to be applied. The object of his hopes is to
induce me to perform the pilgrimage. He assures me that it is quite
feasible, has even arranged for my disguise, and tells me that in Mecca
he can take me to a friend's house, who is as big a Kaffir as myself.
His idea is that I shall go as a Circassian, which people I resemble as
to type, and when I say, "What, if I fall upon a real Circassian?" he
only answers, "That is impossible," in the same manner as when asked what
they would do if they discovered me; he answers, "they would not discover
you, you look so like a man from Fez." What annoys him is that I make no
apparent progress in the language, and I fear that I shall have to take a
longer pilgrimage before I am fit, even with such a guide, to throw the
stones on Gibel Arafat. Sometimes our talk ran on the wonders of the
West; the steamships in which the pilgrims sail from Tangier to Jeddah,
and on board of one of which, our host informs us, once when he was
praying, the Kaffir Captain touched him on the arm, and, pointing to the
compass, informed him he was not head on to the proper point. This
conduct seems to have impressed Haj Addee, and he remarks, "God, in his
mercy, may yet release that captain from the fire." As we were talking,
neighbours dropped in, in the familiar Eastern way, and sat quiet and
self-contained, occasionally drinking from one of the two long-necked and
porous water-jars, known as "Baradas," or the "coolers," which stand,
their wooden stoppers tied to them with a palmetto cord, on each side the
divan. Swani concocts the tea, using the aforesaid weighty copper
kettle, a pewter cone-shaped tea-pot, made in Germany, a tin tea-caddy,
painted the colour of orange marmalade, with crude blue flowers, which
kind of merchandise Birmingham sends to Morocco, to be sold at
one-and-sixpence, to show how much superior are our wares to those of all
the world. The host knocks off great pieces from a loaf of cheap {84}
French sugar with the key of the house, drawing it from his belt, and
hammering lustily, as the key weighs about four ounces, and is eight or
nine inches long.
Imintanout being, as it were, the gate of Sus, and the end of the first
stage of our journey, we ask most anxiously as to the condition of the
road. The way we learn is easy, so easy that trains of laden camels pass
every day, and the whole distance across the mountains is a short two
days. So far so good, but when we intimate our intention of starting
early next morning, then bad news comes out.
It appears the tribe called Beni Sira, sons of burnt fathers, as our host
refers to them, have stopped the pass, not that they are bad men, at
least our host is sure of this, or lives too near them to venture on a
criticism, but because they are dissatisfied with the new governor
recently appointed, and wish to get him into bad odour with the Sultan by
causing trouble. It appears those mis-begotten folk have fired upon a
party only the day before, and wounded a Jewish merchant, who is laid up
in a house not far from where we sit. A caravan of twenty mules was set
upon last week, two men were wounded and the goods all carried off. A
most ingenious system of proving that the governor is incompetent to
preserve order, and therefore must be changed.
Suspecting that the story was untrue, and only got up to prevent my
entering the Sus, I sent two messengers, one to see the Jewish merchant,
and tell me if he is really wounded, and another to a Sheikh, asking if a
traveller, going to pray in Tarudant, and skilled in medicine, can pass
that way. The report of fighting seriously alarms our muleteers, and
even Swani, though brave enough, looks grave at having to fight so far
away from home. Haj Addee--to show goodwill, or to impress us with his
power--offers, should the local Sheikh of the Beni Sira return an
unfavourable reply, to get his men together and fight his way right
through the pass. I thank him with effusion, but resolve not to place
myself alone in the middle of a tribal battle without a rifle, on a
half-tired horse, and deprived even of a Kodak with which to affright the
nimble adversary.
And so I lose a day, or perhaps gain it, talking to the curious people,
and prescribing wisely for ophthalmia; dividing Seidlitz powders into
small portions to be taken at stated times to serve as aphrodisiacs, and
watching an incantation which seems to cure our host of rheumatism.
Haj Addee was a sort of "Infeliz," as the Spaniards call a man of his
peculiar temperament. I am certain that in whatever business he entered
into he must have failed, he had so honest a disposition, and his lies
were so unwisely gone about, they would not have deceived a Christian
child. His rosary, each bead as big as a large pea, was ever in his
hand; he said it was made from the horn of that rare beast, the unicorn,
and he had brought it with a price at Mecca, from a "Sherif so holy that
he could not lie." It looked to me like rhinoceros horn, and so,
perhaps, the Sherif had lied less than he had intended when he sold the
beads. In the middle of the string were four blue beads, and between
these four beads a piece of ivory standing up like a cone, and called "el
Madhna," {86a} that is the "erect one." Besides the "Madhna" there was a
little comb, shaped like a stable mane comb, and made of horn, which
dangled from the rosary, and which Moors use to comb their beards after
performing their ablutions, and which they seldom carry in Morocco,
except they have performed the pilgrimage.
Haj Addee suffered from rheumatism in the left shoulder. This he called
simply "el burd," "the cold," and complained that he had exhausted all
lawful medicine and was about to try an incantation. {86b} So to us
entered a "fakir"--that is, a holy man--fat and white-bearded, and with
the half-foolish, half-cunning look, so often to be found in "holy men"
who are professors of some faith either inferior to, or differing from,
our own. The man of God gave me a scowl, and, I fancy, saw I was a
misbeliever, then sat down, after the fashion of his class, in the best
seat, and, mumbling something, drew out a dagger and wrote upon it, with
the juice of a plant he carried in his hand, some mystic characters. The
master of the house, together with a friend, stood up and held two pieces
of split cane about a yard in length. Both had the air the Italians call
"compunto," that is, they looked like people walking down the aisle of a
crowded church (as if they trod on eggs) after partaking of the Holy
Communion, and conscious that it is not impossible they may have eaten
and drunk their own damnation, and that before a crowd of witnesses.
The Levite, sitting in a corner, kept on muttering, and underneath the
cane rapidly passed the cabalistic dagger to and fro, just in the middle
of the reeds, touching them lightly, as the dagger moved almost like a
shuttle in his hands. The look of concentration and air of being
accomplices after the fact was kept up for almost five minutes, and quite
insensibly I find I joined in it, and, looking at Lutaif (a Christian, if
such a man there be) at Swani and Mohammed el Hosein, I found that they
too were fascinated, much like a rabbit in a snake-house moves towards
the snake.
It seems, of all the forces which move mankind, humbug is the strongest,
for humbugs are always taken in by humbug, and the very men who practice
on the folly of mankind fall easy victims to the manoeuvres of their
brothers in the art. Gradually the movement of the dagger grew slower,
then stopped, and then the mystery man struck the patient gently with the
blade upon the arm, broke the two canes across, tied them together in a
bundle, and put them on a ledge just where the thatch is fastened to the
mud walls of the house.
Admirable to observe the look of faith of all the standers-by. If ever I
witnessed a religious action, that is, taking religio and superstitio (as
I think the Romans did) to be synonymous, I did so then. Even the
Salvation Army, at its most unreasonable, never succeeded in bringing
such a look of ovine faith upon the faces of its legionaries. The
patient says that he is greatly benefited, and for the first time in my
life I see a religious ceremony begun, continued, and concluded (with the
result successful), and without apparent sign of a collection being taken
up.
Faith should not be divorced from its true spouse, the offertory. What
man has brought together, even the act of God should not disjoin, for
faith is so ethereal that, left alone, it pines and languishes in a hard
world, unless sustained by pennies in a plate, in the same manner as the
soul, which, as we all know (nowadays), is eternal, takes its departure
when the body dies, and lies unquickened if the head receives a knock.
The function over, we sit and talk, look at one another's arms, lie as to
our shooting powers, and, after careful examination of my pistol, to my
astonishment, our host produces a large-sized Smith and Wesson revolver,
which it appears he bought in Kahira (Cairo), and seems to think the most
important result of all his pilgrimage. Hours pass, and still no
messenger, and a fat Saint {88} rolls in, and salutes Swani as an
acquaintance of the pilgrimage. They kiss and embrace, hugging one
another and alternately placing their beards over one another's right and
left shoulders. As Burton observes, the Arabs are by far the most
emotional of the Oriental races. Poetry, or a well-told lamentable tale,
moves them to tears, and friends who meet often weep for joy.
Swani privately imparts to me, in Pigeon Spanish, which he tells the
Saint is Turkish, that the Saint is a humbug, and that when they last met
he would hardly speak to him, for he (Swani) was working as a sailor on
board an English pilgrim steamer, and dressed "a la inglesa, saber del
trousers, catchy sea boots y todo."
Still waiting for the messenger, I fall to observing the difference
between the Arabs and the Berber race. It is the fashion amongst
travellers in Morocco and Algeria to exalt the Berbers, and run down the
Arabs. "The noble Shillah race" has become quite a catch-word with every
one who sees a Berber and writes down his impressions. Curious that no
one talks of the noble "Tuareg race," yet the Tuareg's are Berber of the
Berbers, and their language, known as Tamashek, merely a dialect of the
Berber language, which spreads over the vast area of territory from
Tripoli to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the Mediterranean to Timbuctoo.
Undoubtedly the oldest known inhabitants of the countries which now are
called the Barbary States, they seem to have kept their type and customs
unchanged since first we hear of them in history. The Arabs found them
in possession of all Morocco, and drove them into the mountains and the
desert beyond, and though they forced Islam upon them, still the two
peoples are anti-pathetic to one another, have blended little, and you
can tell them from one another at a glance.
The Arab, one of the finest types of all the races of mankind, tall,
thin, fine eyes, aquiline noses, spare frames; walking with dignity; a
horseman, poet; treacherous and hospitable; a gentleman, and yet
inquisitive; destroying, as Ibn Jaldun assures us, the civilisation of
every land they conquer, and yet capable of great things, witness Granada
and Damascus; a metaphysician and historian; sensual and yet abstemious;
a people loveable, and yet not good to "lippen to," as Scotchmen say; and
yet perhaps of all the Orientals those who have most impressed themselves
upon the world.
The Berbers, short, squat figures, high cheekbones, small eyes, square
frames, great walkers, only becoming horsemen by necessity, as when the
Arabs have forced them to the desert; as fond of mountains as the Arabs
are of plains; in general agriculturists, whereas the Arab in his true
sphere prefers a pastoral life; the Berbers, little known outside their
mountains, look rather Scottish in appearance, that is, Scotch as
ordinary mortals see that race, and not as seen through "kailyard"
spectacles. It may be that the Berbers are a noble race, but personally
I should apply the adjective "noble" to the Arabs, and to the Berbers
give some such qualifying phrases as "relatively honest," "tenacious," or
perhaps, best of all, "bourgeois," which, to my way of thinking, best
expresses the characteristics of those Berber tribes who, in the north
side of the Atlas, are dominated by the Sultan's power. Where they touch
one another to the south upon the confines of the desert, it would be
hard to give the palm for savagery; and the great Berber tribes, Ait
Morghed and Ait {90a} Hannu, have become practically Arabs in their
customs and their use of horses. The Tuaregs, {90b} on the other hand,
have remained absolutely Berber, and indiscriminately attack Arabs and
Christians, and all who cross their way.
As to the name of Berber, ethnologists, after the fashion of all
scientists, have disagreed, taken one another by the beards, and freely
interchanged (and I suppose as faithfully received) the opprobrious names
which render the disputes of men of science and of theologians so amusing
to those who stand aside and put their tongues out at both sorts of men.
Breber, Baraba, Berber, all three phases of the word are found. Some
learned men derive the word from the Greek, and make it simply stand for
Barbarian. Others, again, as stoutly make it Arab, and say it means
"People of the Land of Ber." {90c}
Ibn Jaldun (always an innovator) has his theory, which seems just as good
as any other man's. He makes the Berbers to descend not from Shem, but
Ham (Cam as the Arabs call him), and relates that Ham had a son called
Ber, whose son was called Mazirg, and that from Ber came the Beranis,
who, in time, and by corruption of the word, turned into Berberes. If
not convincing, the theory shows invention, and smacks (to me) of the
derivations I have heard hacked out, so to speak, with a scalping knife
round the camp-fire; for, uncivilised and semi-civilised men waste as
much time in seeking to find out how the form of words got crystallised
as if they had diplomas from their universities.
Strangely enough, the people we call Berbers do not know the name, and
call themselves Tamazirght, that is, the noble. Their language is called
Amzirght, and resembles closely the Tamashek spoken by the Tuaregs, the
dialect of the tribes of the Riff Mountains, and that of the Kabyles of
Algeria. {91a} The Arabs neither use the word Tamazirght nor the word
Berber, but call the Berber tribes "Shluoch," that is, the outcasts; the
verb is "Shallaha," and the term used for the speech Shillah, {91b} a
sort of Shibboleth in Europeans' mouths, for very few even of those (who,
like the Germans and the Spaniards can pronounce the guttural) ever
attain to the pronunciation of the Arabic and Berber semi-guttural,
semi-pectoral aspiration of this word.
Till the last twenty years the greater portion of the Berber tribes,
although Mohammedans, owned but a nominal allegiance to the Sultan of
Morocco, and lived almost independently under their Omzarghi (lords),
Amacrani (great one), and Amrgari (elders), but nowadays, even in Sus and
in the desert, the Sultan's authority is much more felt. In fact, until
quite lately they lived as their forefathers--the Getulians,
Melano-getulians, and Numidians--lived before them, with the exception
that being driven to the mountains they had greatly lost the horsemanship
which made them famous to the ancient world. Even to-day it is not rare
to see them ride, just as the Roman writers said the ancient Numidian
cavalry rode, without a saddle or a bridle, and guiding their horses with
a short stick, which they alternately change from hand to hand to make
them turn.
The words Mazyes, Maziriciae and Mazyces occur in many Greek and Roman
writers, and seem not impossibly to be derived from Amazirght, or from
Mazig, the most ancient form known of their appellation. Leo Africanus,
himself a Moor, {92} calls them Amarigh, and says of them "they are
strong, terrible, and robust men, who fear neither cold nor snow; their
dress is a tunic of wool over the bare flesh, and above the tunic they
wear a mantle. Round their legs they have twisted thongs, and this
serves them also for shoes. They never wear anything on the head at any
season; they rear sheep, mules and asses, and their mountains have few
woods. They are the greatest thieves, and traitors, and assassins in the
world--" {93}
Even to-day this picture of them holds good in most particulars. The
Berbers of the mountains seldom wear turbans or anything but a string
tied round their foreheads. Generally they have a linen shirt to-day,
but often wear the tunic as Leo Africanus says, and now and then one sees
them with the twisted leg bandages like Pifferari. As to their moral
character, after some small experience, I rather hold to the view of Leo
Africanus, than that of Mr. Walter Harris. One thing is certain, that
they cannot lie more than the Arabs do, but then the Arabs lie so
prettily, with so much circumstance, and such nice choice of words, that
it all comes to be a matter of individual taste, for there are those who
had rather be deceived with civil manners by an Italian, than be cheated
brutally by a North Briton, for the love of God.
The first of all the tribes we hear of in history as living in Morocco
are the Autoloti of Ptolemy, who seem to be the Holots, who now live in
El Gharb, that is, the country between Tangier and the Sebu. In Hanno's
Periplus, the same word occurs, and the description of their country
seems to tally with the territory where they live.
Luis de Marmol, who was long prisoner with the Moors in the sixteenth
century, places a people called Holots, near to Cape Azar. Now it is
certain that the Holots are Berbers, and the testimony of the writers
referred to goes to prove the long continuance of the Berbers in the
land, and also seems to prove that in ancient times, as now, the Berbers
were not nomads, as the Arabs were, but stationary, as they are to-day.
Graberg di Hemso, in his curious "Speechio Geographico di Marocco," says,
"Questi Mazighi della Tingitana fabbricarono, ne quella costa in
vincenanza del capo Bianco la citta di Mazighan, che porta ad oggi il
loro nome di nazione." He quotes no authority for his statement, and it
is certainly at variance with fact, for Mazagan was founded by the
Portuguese in 1506, and it is called Djedida, _i.e._, New Town, by the
Arabs; still the name of Mazagan may yet commemorate an older town under
the style of Mazighan.
Be all that as it may, the Berbers inhabited Morocco ages before the
Arabs conquered the land, and gave them the religion of the sword.
Tradition says they were once Christians, and certainly in their
embroideries and decorations the cross is used. Yet, looking at the
matter from an artistic point of view, discounting (for the nonce)
morality, the cross, and honesty, it seems to me that noble is not a term
to use in speaking of the Berber, and I submit it better fits a race such
as the Arabs, who, in the persons of their horses and themselves, have
done so much to refine the type of all those peoples, equine and biped,
whom they have come across.
As night was falling, and a whistling wind springing up from the
mountains, the messenger appeared bringing the news that the Sheikh
refused to let anyone cross the pass, and that there had been a pretty
hot exchange of shots that afternoon between the men of the Beni Sira,
and a troop of cavalry crossing from Sus. This was a stopper over all,
for it was evident we could not force our way through a road winding by
precipices, held by a mountain tribe. Remembering the Arab proverb which
runs, "Always ask counsel from your wife, but never act on what she
says," I held a long palaver with Haj Addee, Lutaif and my men, on what
was best to do. Two courses were now open to me, either to wheel about
and follow the shore road by Agadhir, or else to try the upper and more
difficult pass to Sus, which starts above Amsmiz. This place was
situated about two days' journey further on, the pass, according to all
reports, took three good days to cross, and having crossed it, we should
still be a long day from Tarudant.
Lutaif had no opinion, and as the rest all counselled Agadhir, except Haj
Swani, who gave it his opinion that he would go wherever I did, I "opted"
for Amsmiz, arguing that to turn back would certainly dishearten my
companions, and if the Howara had been fighting a week ago, they would be
fighting still, and thinking that even if taking the upper road I failed,
I should see more of the interior of the Atlas, than I was likely to do
by any other route. After having cursed the Beni Sira thoroughly in all
the languages we knew, drank gallons of green tea, sat for an hour or two
listening to stories of the Djinoun, smoked cigarettes and Kiff, and
generally tried to imagine we were not disappointed, we retired to bed,
so as before first light to be upon the road. Our bedroom had no window,
and gave on the _al fresco_ drawing room I have referred to; all round
the walls were little recesses in which to put things, made in the
thickness of the wall, pouches and powder horns hung from goats' horns
forced underneath the thatch, three long "jezails," all hooped with
silver, one with a Spanish two-real piece, depending from the
trigger-guard, stood in the corner, a lantern made of tin with coloured
glass, gave a red light, upon the floor of mud a Rabat carpet in pattern
like a kaleidoscope or Joseph's coat, was spread; nothing of European
manufacture was there except a large-sized (navy pattern) Smith and
Wesson pistol, which, hanging by a red worsted cord upon the wall, seemed
to project the shadow of the cross upon the room.