EXCURSION ROUND THE STRAITS.
Tetuan, June 15th.
I have been a week in Barbary. I landed at Tangier, and crossed
the country to this place, but I have been too busy taking in and
digesting, to put pen to paper. If I could abstract my eastern self,
the task of description would be comparatively easy. Yet Morocco is as
different from the East, as the East is from Europe; nor has it only
the interest of diversity. This land seems the common parent of both:
things come suddenly upon you, which carry you back to the earliest
times, or afford the key to the commonest present customs. The idle
curiosity first awakened, is soon changed to a sense of the importance
of every trifle.
I will begin with the last thing I have seen. I have just returned
from the gardens called Kitan, about three miles from this place:
they are in a wooded valley at the beginning of the fore-foot of the
lesser Atlas, which towers above. We passed through lanes of tall
reeds, partitioning off other gardens, and entered by a gate a lofty
apartment, composed of split reeds woven together in various trellice
patterns: over the higher parts, the vine was trained; the sides,
windows, and doors were festooned with jasmine. Here our horses were
left; but the gardens in Morocco are adjusted for equitation, and the
covered alleys are high enough to be ridden through. The ornamental
buildings were ruined and the garden is let out as an orchard for its
fruit. A broad terrace supported a reservoir on a level with the tops
of the trees, and on it stood a pavilion. The whole exhibited a stamp
and character of its own, and one could quite imagine it to belong to
the people who had introduced gardening into Spain; or rather, who had
converted Spain into a garden. I was no less surprised to find realised
an early association of my own, of Morocco and gardens. No doubt the
materials are here ready formed,--luxuriant vegetation, infinite
variety of plants, charming sites; and these alone are enchanting to
us of more northern climes; but none of these are wanting in Spain--at
least the difference is slight, and in degree only; but here there is a
type and style.
There were the same hedges of reeds; lanes of cactus, trellices of
cane. Before Mirza crossed the Straits, or the Saracens issued from
the desert, the Arabs came not to teach, but to learn the culture of
flowers, and the irrigation of fields: they came to pluck the fruit,
not to plant the seed of the golden tree. So, in like manner, came the
Greeks. I want no books to tell me where were the Hesperides. I tried
to forget the taste, figure, and perfumes of the orange and lemon, and
the trees that bear them, that I might, with the Greeks who first saw
these bowers, enjoy the surprise of their dark perpetual green, of the
white untiring flowers, of the freshness, ever ready for the thirsty,
stinted by no season, and throughout the year lavishing on all the
bounty and the fragrance of their golden fruit.
I have never seen men so wild and savage; yet they are of a noble
nature. The costume of the East is grand, rich, picturesque; but here
is the antique. Elsewhere men are dressed, here they are draped. The
figures around are statues, not men.
This is the most interesting country I have ever been in. I have
trodden a new quarter of the globe,--I have beheld a new form of room,
a new costume, a new kind of garden, novel and yet most ancient.
At a glance you perceive that here you have got to the fountain which
falls back to whence it rises. If you had broken through to a people
dwelling beneath the Pyramids, you could not have firmer assurance
of rest and immutability; yet they are alive and on the surface of
the earth, and in sight of that giant of velocity, Europe, which has
been bounding from precipice to precipice of years, spanning gulfs of
centuries, and counting thousands of revolutions of the sun to arrive
only at forgetfulness. These know nothing of Old Time. He cannot,
indeed, be denied in private intercourse; but as regards the state and
society, his glass has no sand, his scythe no edge, his arm no swing.
At last I have met a janissary! Here only that proscribed race could
find a resting-place for their foot. The persecuted, the tracked and
hunted of all times, creeds, and systems, have found here their last
home. The ocean here stopped the wanderer and the fugitive; the desert
afforded them cover. His delight was unbounded: he has been following
me about all day. The old janissary was of the Oda “FISH.” He showed
me the fatal mark upon his arm. He took me to visit some Algerines
who were employed in spinning silk, and in embroidery. They unbosomed
themselves, and I discovered, although I might have known it before,
that the Moors and the Algerines are two. One of these men had property
in, I think, Tlemsin, which the French had offered to restore to him;
but he preferred staying where he was, because not afflicted by the
_sight_ of the French. Our dress, and especially our uniform, produces
a painful impression upon the eye of the eastern, and I could refer
in illustration to Napoleon’s remarks on military costume when in
Egypt, as given in the great work of the “_Victoires et Conquêtes des
Français_.”
At Tangier I had to take up my quarters in a Jew’s house, and I went
there late--merely to sleep; but that was out of the question, for
the Jews collected in the _patio_, or centre court, made too much
clatter. One night I was invited to tea by a party of Moors, from Fez,
who were occupying an apartment in the same house. This happened to
be my first meeting with the gentlemen of the country--and I shall
not forget it. They wore large white turbans; were very portly, with
sallow countenances, broad faces and foreheads. The haïk or white gauze
web, in which they are wrapped in the streets, was laid aside, and
they were seated cross-legged in a small circle with the tea-tray in
the middle. Tea, and a large quantity of sugar, and sweet herbs, are
put into the pot together. It was the first time I had heard the name
of Abd-el-Kadir pronounced. I introduced it by asking them what news
of the “_Emir_?” A sudden movement of surprise followed: they turned
glances of astonishment the one to the other. One of them inquired
what was thought of the Emir in Europe? I answered it was known that
he was fighting in defence of his native land. There the conversation
dropped. I, at the time, imagined this reserve to be prudential; but
they hate him as an Algerine, and fear him as a disturber. They urged
upon me that France was repeating in Algiers her former game in Egypt;
and England doing the reverse of what she had done; and that France,
stretching to Tunis on the one side, and to Morocco on the other,
would involve Europe in war. I was often stopped in the streets with
questions about the fortifications of Gibraltar.
“May I see,” said one, “a war ‘between England’ and France, and I shall
die content.” “All the Mussulmans,” said another, “look to you. We have
God in Heaven, and only England on earth.” An old Algerine captain
told me that, at the time of the Spanish War, the Spanish consul had
explained to him as follows, why England had succoured Spain. “The
founder of their race had left to them a paper on which was written, ‘I
leave you ships and men, and this commandment--when a robber appears on
the earth, strike him; but touch not the booty;’ therefore the English
drove the great Napoleon first out of Egypt, and then out of Spain, and
took neither for herself.”
A Moor at Tangier, who speaks a little English, said to me, pointing to
shot-marks, “French got guns _so_ big--Moors _so_ big (making a circle
with both arms, and then a small hole with his forefinger and thumb)
and then fire away. Shame! shame!”
The word Moor is a very awkward one. I do not like to use it, and know
not what to substitute for it. There is no race so named. Barbary is
inhabited by Arabs and Breber. The western part is again subdivided
between the town and the country, the inhabitants of which are
essentially distinct. Then the so-called kingdom of Morocco is composed
of four distinct kingdoms, namely, _Fas_, which we call Fez, to the
north; _Marueccos_, which we call Morocco, in the middle; _Tafilelt_
to the east; _Suz_ to the south. The term Moor, cannot be derived from
Morocco, as is generally supposed, for if it were so derived, it would
be confined to Morocco.
The metropolis has been sometimes at Morocco, sometimes at Fez. These
kingdoms have been separated. Then the Mussulman dominion in Spain
has been subdivided; then the African power predominating in Spain,
and then the Spanish in Africa. Then there have been different
dynasties and systems. A tribe has established its supremacy over the
rest. A religious sect has done the same, whence the term Benimarines
al Mahadehs and al Moravides. In the impossibility of fixing any
term which should apply to the whole system, its races, faiths, and
circumstances, the Spaniards adopted that which belonged to ancient
Mauritania, and which, no doubt, was the name by which strangers knew
the original race.
The difficulty which has presented itself to strangers has been no
less a puzzle to themselves, and they have been wholly unable to
confer a name either upon themselves or upon their country. They style
themselves Mussulmans, and nothing more, and they use that term in
every way. They would say “France has attacked the Mussulmans;” and,
again, “There are many Mussulmans in the market,” meaning, in the one
case the _Moorish State_, and in the other a mere _crowd_. Their own
history is told in the name which they give to the country, the “West;”
and the proper title of the Emperor of Morocco is the “Sultan of the
West.” This was imitated by the monarchs of Portugal when they took the
title of Prince of the _Algarves_.
The matter at present of most immediate interest in this quarter, is
the imposition of heavy duties on British Trade, of which I heard a
good deal at Gibraltar. I objected to a merchant who was complaining
of it, that the Sultan of Morocco was only conforming to European
science and practice. Yielding to this argument, he declared it to be
_ungrateful_, as we had stood their friends against the French--so
ignorant were they at Gibraltar of what people thought and said at
Tangier. I observed, that if the French did as he said, it was very
ungrateful in _them_, yet only a consequence of our own acts. He said,
“Oh we have treaties with Morocco, and our government will take care
to have them enforced.” I asked him what confidence he could have in
treaties with any power, since at Algiers, where we had a right to
trade on paying five per cent., we have submitted to the French tariff.
“Oh,” said he, “the Moors are not sharp enough to see, or strong enough
to take advantage of that.”
There is nothing more amusing than to hear a merchant of Gibraltar
speaking about “right” and “treaties.” It is the only place where you
hear such words. Yet their commerce is smuggling, which is here alone
on earth interdicted by treaty.
I have several times seen Dr. Hughes, the Roman-catholic Bishop, a
venerable and worthy man, whose name is well known in England from the
persecutions he has undergone in his endeavours--and I am glad to say
successful endeavours--to put down at Gibraltar that system of Church
government, or rather priestly usurpation, which prevails in Ireland,
and which makes Ireland England’s chief difficulty--namely, paying
priests by fees. He was very much puzzled to comprehend that I intended
to go to Rome, and that I should be acquainted with leading persons of
his church, and interested in it, without being about to join it: our
conversation was constantly interrupted by his returning, with a view
to proselytism, to dogmatic points. It occurred to me to repeat to him
what the captain of a Tunisian man-of-war, lying in the Bay, had said
to me just before. “What the Muscovites have long been in the East,
the French are now becoming in the West: the world is changed; _all_
(meaning Christians) have become robbers.” The subject of proselytism
was then dropped. Yet the Turk had put the case very mildly. Sir
Charles Napier wrote after the battle of Meeanee, “I rode over the
horrid field, and questioned my conscience. _The blood be on the head
of the Ameers!_” Alas! is this the way in which a Christian questions
his conscience?