ALKAZAR-EL-KEBIR.
At a certain point the ambassador made a sign to the caid, and the
escort came to a stand, while we, accompanied by a few soldiers, went a
short distance beyond to visit the ruins of a bridge. The place was
worthy of the silent respect with which we stood and viewed the little
that remained of what was once a bridge. Three hundred years ago, on the
fourth of August, over those flowery fields, fifty cannon and forty
thousand horsemen thundered and charged under the command of one of the
greatest captains of Africa, and the youngest, the most adventurous, the
most unfortunate of European monarchs. On the shores of that river were
put to death—by the implacable scimitars of Arabs, Turks, and
Berbers—the flower of the Portuguese nobility, courtiers, bishops,
Spanish soldiers, and soldiers of William of Orange, Italian, German,
and French adventurers. Six thousand Christians fell that day. We stood
upon the field of that terrible battle of Alkazar, which spread
consternation throughout Europe, and sent a shout of joy from Fez to
Constantinople. Over that bridge passed at that time the road to
Alkazar. Near it was the camp of Muley Moluk, Sultan of Morocco. Muley
Moluk came from Alkazar, the King of Portugal from Arzilla. The battle
was fought upon that plain, and along the shores of the river. Beyond
the ruins of the bridge there was not a stone or a sign to record it.
From which side had the cavalry of the Duke of Riveiro made its first
victorious charge? Where had Muley Ahmed fought the brother of the
Sultan, the future conqueror of the Soudan, a captain suspected of
cowardice in the morning, a victorious monarch in the evening? At what
point on the river was drowned Mohammed the Black, the dis-crowned
fratricide and provoker of the war? At what angle of the field had King
Sebastian received those death-wounds that killed with him the
independence of Portugal and the last hopes of Camoens? And where stood
the litter of Sultan Moluk when he expired among his officers, with his
finger on his lip? Whilst these thoughts were passing through our minds,
the escort stood afar off, motionless on that famous field, like a
handful of Muley Ahmed’s cavalry brought to life by the noise of our
passage. And yet very likely not one among those soldiers knew that this
had been the battlefield of three kings, the glory of their ancestors;
and when we resumed our march, they glanced about with curious eyes, as
if seeking among the grass and flowers for the reason of our halt.
We crossed the Mkhacem and the Uarrur, two small affluents of the Kus,
or Lukkos, the _Lixos_ of the ancients, which from the mountains of the
Rif where it is born, throws itself into the Atlantic at Laracce; and
continued our way toward Alkazar over a succession of arid hills,
meeting only an occasional camel with his driver.
At last, we thought as we rode along, we shall arrive at a city! It was
three days since we had seen a house, and every one felt a wish to get
away for a day from the monotony of desert life. Besides, Alkazar was
the first of the towns of the interior that we should reach, and our
curiosity was very lively. The escort fell into order as we approached
the place. We almost unconsciously ranged ourselves in two ranks, with
the ambassador in front flanked by his two interpreters. The weather had
cleared up, and a cheerful impatience animated the whole caravan.
Suddenly, from the top of a hill, we saw in the plain below, surrounded
by gardens, the city of Alkazar, crowned with towers, minarets, and
palms, and at the same moment there burst forth the cracking of musketry
and the sound of a most infernal din of music.
It was the governor coming to meet us with his staff, a company of
foot-soldiers, and a band of music. In a few minutes we met.
Ah! He who has not seen the Alkazar band, with its ten pipers, and
horn-players, old men of a hundred years and boys of ten, all mounted on
donkeys about as large as dogs, ragged and half naked, with their shaven
heads, their satyr-like gestures, their mummy faces, has not seen, I
think, the most sadly comic spectacle that can be witnessed under the
wide sky.
Whilst the aged governor was giving welcome to our chief, the soldiers
fired their muskets in the air, and the band continued to play. We
advanced to within half a mile of the city, to an arid field where the
tents were to be pitched.
The band accompanied us, still playing. The dinner tent was pitched and
made ready, and we entered it while the escort fired their muskets.
Meanwhile the band, ranged before the tent, continued to blow with
increasing ferocity, but a supplicating gesture from the ambassador
silenced it at last. Then we assisted at a curious scene.
Almost at the same moment there presented themselves to the ambassador,
one on the right and the other on the left, a black man and an Arab. The
black, handsomely dressed in a white turban and a blue caftan, deposited
at his feet a jar of milk, a basket of oranges, and a dish of _cùcùssù_;
the Arab, poorly attired in the usual burnouse, placed before him a
sheep. This done, the two darted lightning glances at each other. They
were two mortal enemies. The ambassador, who knew them and expected
them, called the interpreter, sat down, and began to question them.
They had come to ask for justice. The black was a sort of factor or
steward of the old Grand Scherif Bacali, one of the most powerful
personages at the court of Fez, proprietor of much land in the
neighborhood of Alkazar. The Arab was a countryman. Their dispute had
been going on for some time. The black, strong in the protection of his
master, had several times imprisoned and fined the Arab, accusing him,
and supporting his accusation with many proofs, of having stolen horses,
cattle, and goods. The Arab, who insisted that he was innocent, finding
no one willing to take up his defence against his persecutor, had
abandoned his village one fine day, and going to Tangiers, had there
enquired who among the foreign ambassadors was most just and generous.
Being told that it was the Minister from Italy, he had cut the throat of
a sheep before the gate of the Legation, asking in this sacred form, to
which no refusal was possible, for protection and justice. The
ambassador had listened to his story, had intervened through the agent
at Laracce, and had called upon the authorities at Alkazar to see to it;
but his own distance, the intrigues of the black, and the weakness of
the authorities, had all combined to put the poor Arab in a worse
condition than at first; and he was indeed again accused and subjected
to new persecutions. Now the presence of the ambassador was to undo the
knot. Both individuals were admitted to tell each his own story; the
interpreters rapidly translating.
Nothing more dramatic can be imagined than the contrast between the
figures and the language of the two men.
The Arab, a man of about thirty years of age, of a sickly and suffering
aspect, spoke with irresistible fervor, trembling, shivering, invoking
God, striking the earth with his fists, covering his face with his hands
with a gesture of despair, fulminating at his enemy with glances that no
words can describe. He declared that the other had suborned witnesses,
intimidated the authorities, that he had imprisoned him, the speaker,
solely to extort money, that he had cast many others into prison in
order to possess their wives, that he had sworn his death, that he was
the scourge of the country, an accursed of God, an infamous being; and,
as he spoke, he showed the marks of the fetters upon his naked limbs,
and his voice was choked with anguish. The black, whose every feature
confirmed one, at least, of these accusations, listened without looking,
answered quietly, smiled slightly with the edge of his lip, impassive
and sinister as a statue of Perfidy.
The discussion had lasted for some time, and seemed yet far from a
conclusion, when the ambassador cut it short by a decision that was
received favorably by both parties. He called Selim, who appeared upon
the instant with his great black eyes shining, and ordered him to mount
his horse and gallop to the Arab’s village, distant an hour and a half
from Alkazar, and there gather from the inhabitants information
concerning the persons and the facts. The black thought:—“They are
afraid of me; they will either be silent, or speak in my favor.” The
Arab thought, and he was quite right, that interrogated by a soldier of
the embassy, they would have courage to speak the truth.
Selim darted off like an arrow; the two disputants vanished and were
seen no more. We heard afterward that the village people had all
testified in favor of the Arab, and that the black had been condemned,
through the intervention of the ambassador, to restore to his victim the
money he had extorted from him.
Meantime the tents had been pitched, the usual poor wretches had brought
the usual _muna_, and a few of the inhabitants of the city had come into
the encampment.
As soon as it began to grow cooler, we proceeded toward Alkazar on foot,
preceded, flanked, and followed by an armed force.
We saw from a distance, in passing, a singular edifice, between the camp
and the town, all arches and cupolas, with a court in the midst, like a
cemetery. It proved to be one of those _zania_, now fallen into disuse,
which, when Moorish civilization flourished, contained a library, a
school of letters and sciences, a hospital for the poor, an inn for
travellers, besides a mosque and a sepulchral chapel; they belonged, and
belong still in general, to the religious orders.
[Illustration: People Of Alkazar.]
We approached the gates of the city. It is surrounded by old
battlemented walls; near the gate by which we entered were some tombs of
saints surmounted by green domes. Hearing a great noise over our heads
we looked up, and found it proceeded from some large storks, erect upon
the roofs of the houses, which were clattering their bills together, as
if to give warning of our coming. We entered a street; the women rushed
into their houses; the children took to flight. The houses are small,
unplastered, without windows, and divided by dark and dirty alleys. The
streets look like the beds of torrents. At some of the corners lie
entire carcases of donkeys and dogs. We trudge through the dirt, among
great stones, and deep holes, stumbling and jumping. The inhabitants
begin to gather upon our track, looking at us with amazement. The
soldiers make way for us with their fists and the butts of their
muskets, with a zeal which the ambassador hastens to restrain. A throng
of people now follow and precede us. When one of us turns suddenly
round, all stop, some run away, and others hide themselves. Here and
there a woman slams her door in our faces, and a child utters a yell of
terror. The women look like bundles of dirty rags; the children are in
general quite naked; boys of ten or twelve have nothing on but a shirt
tied round the waist with a cord. Little by little the people about us
grow bolder. They look curiously at our trousers and boots. Some boys
venture to touch the skirts of our coats. The general expression of the
faces is far from benevolent. A woman, in full flight, throws some words
at the ambassador which the interpreter translates:—“God confound thy
race!” A young man cries out:—“God grant us a good day of victory over
these!” We reach a small square, so steep and stony that we can with
difficulty climb it, and pass a line of horrible old women almost
completely naked, seated on the ground, with bread and other matters
before them which they appear to be selling. In the streets through
which we pass there is at every hundred paces a great arched door, which
is closed at night. The houses are everywhere naked, cracked, gloomy. We
enter a bazaar, roofed with canes and branches of trees that are falling
down on every side. The shops are mere niches; the shopmen, wax figures;
the merchandise, rubbish offered in joke and hopeless of a purchaser. In
every corner are crouched sad, sleepy, stupid-looking figures; children
with scald-heads; old women with no semblance of humanity. We seem to be
wandering in the halls of a hospital. The air is full of aromatic odors.
Not a voice is heard. The crowd accompanies us in spectral silence. We
come out of the bazaar. We meet Moors on horseback, camels with their
burthens, a fury who shakes her fist at the ambassador, an old saint
crowned with a laurel wreath, who laughs in our faces. At a certain
point we began to see men dressed in black, with long hair, their heads
covered with a blue handkerchief, who looked smilingly at us, and made
humble salutations. One of these, a ceremonious old gentleman, presently
came forward and invited the ambassador to visit the _Mellà_, or Jews’
quarter, called by the Arabs by that insulting name, which signifies
accursed ground. The ambassador accepting, we passed under a vaulted
door or gateway, and engaged in a labyrinth of alleys more hideous, more
wretched, and more fetid than those of the Arab city, between houses
that seemed mere dens, across small squares like stable-yards, from
which could be seen courts like sewers; and from every side of this
dirt-heap emerged beautiful women and girls, smiling and
murmuring:—_Buenos dias!_—_Buenos dias!_ In some places we were obliged
to stop our noses and pick our way on the tips of our toes. The
ambassador was indignant. “How is it possible,” said he to the old Jew,
“that you can live in such filth?”
“It is the custom of the country,” he replied.
“The custom of the country! It is shameful! And you ask the protection
of the Legations, talk of civilization, call the Moors savages! You, who
live worse than they, and have the face to pride yourselves upon it!”
The Hebrew hung his head and smiled, as if he thought:—“What strange
ideas!”
As we came out of the Mellà the crowd again surrounded us. The
vice-consul patted a child on the head, and there were signs of
astonishment; a favorable murmur arose; the soldiers were obliged to
drive back the boys who crowded in upon us. We went with quickened pace
up a deserted street, leaving the crowd gradually behind us, and coming
outside the walls into a road bordered by enormous cactus and tall palm
trees, felt with a long breath of relief that we were free of the city
and its people.
Such is the city of Alkazar, commonly called Alkazar-el-Kebir, which
signifies—the great Palace. Tradition says that it was founded in the
twelfth century by that Abou-Yussuf Yacoub-el-Mansur, of the dynasty of
the Almoadi, who conquered Alonzo IX of Castile at the battle of
Alarcos, and who built the famous tower of the _Giralda_ at Seville. It
is related that one evening he lost his way while hunting, and that a
fisherman sheltered him in his hut. The Caliph in gratitude built for
him on the same spot a great palace with some other houses, around which
clustered gradually the city. It was once a flourishing and populous
place; now it has about five thousand inhabitants, between Moors and
Jews, and is very poor, although it draws some advantages from being on
the road of the caravans that traverse the empire from north to south.
Passing near one of the gates we saw an Arab boy of about twelve years
old walking stiffly and with difficulty, with his legs wide apart in the
most awkward attitude. Other boys were following him. When he came near
we saw that he had a great bar of iron about a foot in length fixed
between his legs by two rings around his ankles. He was a lean and dirty
lad, with an ill-favored countenance. The ambassador questioned him
through the interpreter:
“Who put that bar upon you?”
“My father,” answered the boy, boldly.
“For what reason?”
“Because I will not learn to read.”
We did not believe him, but a town Arab who was present confirmed what
he had said.
“Have you worn it long?”
“Three years,” he answered, smiling bitterly.
We thought it all a lie. But the Arab again confirmed it, adding that
the boy slept with the bar upon him, and that all Alkazar knew him. Then
the ambassador, moved with compassion, made him a little speech,
exhorting him to study, to get rid of that shame and torture, and not to
dishonor his family; and when the interpreter had repeated it, he was
asked what his answer was.
“My answer is this,” replied the boy, “that I will wear the iron all my
life, but that I will never learn to read, and that I will die before I
yield.”
The ambassador looked fixedly at him, but he sustained his glance with
unflinching eye.
“Gentlemen,” said the ambassador, turning to us, “our mission is over.”
We returned to the camp, and the boy with his iron bar re-entered the
city.
“A few years more,” said a soldier, “and there will be another head over
the Alkazar gate.”