ARZILLA.
After the spectacle of great cities in decadence, a moribund people, and
a lovely but melancholy landscape; after such sleep, such old age, and
such ruin, here is the work of the eternal hand, and here is immortal
youth; here is the air that revives the blood, the beauty that refreshes
the heart, the immensity in which the soul expands! Here is the ocean!
With what a thrill of delight we salute it! The unexpected apparition of
a friend or a brother could not have been dearer to our hearts than the
sight of that distant shining curve that gleamed before us like an
immense sickle, mowing down Islamism, slavery, barbarism, and bearing
our thoughts direct and free to Italy.
“_Bahr-el-Kibir!_” exclaimed some soldiers. (The great sea.) Others
said, “_Bahr-ed-Dholma!_” (The sea of darkness.) All involuntarily
hastened their steps; conversation, which had begun to languish, was
re-animated; the servants set up sacred songs; the whole caravan, in a
few minutes, assumed an air of cheer and festivity.
On the evening of June 19th we encamped at three hours’ distance from
Laracce, and the following morning entered the city, received at the
gate by the son of the governor; by twenty soldiers, without muskets or
breeches, drawn up along the road; by almost a hundred ragged boys, and
by a band composed of a tambourine and a trumpet, who came afterward to
ask for money—giving us an excruciating concert in the court of the
Italian Consular-Agent.
Upon that coast, sprinkled with dead cities—such as Salè, Azamor, Safi,
Santa Cruz—Laracce still preserves a little commercial life, which is
sufficient to cause her to be considered as one of the principal ports
of Morocco. Founded by a Berber tribe in the fifteenth century,
fortified at the end of the same century by Muley-ben-Nassar, abandoned
to Spain in 1610, retaken by Muley-Ismael in 1689, still flourishing at
the beginning of this century, with a population of about four thousand,
between Moors and Hebrews, it rises upon the incline of a hill to the
left of the mouth of the Kus, the Lixus of the ancients, which forms for
it an ample and secure port, closed, however, by a sand-bank against the
entrance of large vessels. In the port lie rotting the carcases of two
small gun-boats, the last miserable remnant of the fleet that once
carried the victorious army into Spain and alarmed European commerce.
Behind the hill there is a large grove of gigantic trees. The town has
nothing notable in it except a market-place, surrounded by a portico
sustained by small stone columns; but seen from the port, all white upon
the dark-green background of its hills, surrounded by a circle of high
battlemented walls of a dark calcareous tint, reflected in the azure
waters of the river, under that limpid sky, it presents a dignified
aspect, and despite the vividness of its colors, almost a melancholy
one, as if one felt compassion at the sight of the picturesque city
silent and alone upon that barbarous coast, by that deserted port, in
the face of that immense sea.
The camp was pitched that evening on the right bank of the Kus, and
raised early the following morning. We were to go to Arzilla, four hours
distant from Laracce. The baggage was sent on in the morning; the
Embassy left toward evening. I left with the baggage convoy, in order to
see the caravan under a new aspect; and I was glad I did, for it was a
journey full of adventure.
The laden mules, accompanied by muleteers and servants, went in groups,
at a great distance one from the other. I went on alone and rode for
nearly an hour over the hills, where I saw only one mule, driven by an
Arab servant, and carrying two sacks of straw, of which one supported
the head and the other the feet of a groom of the Ambassador’s, who had
been seized by a violent fever, and who groaned enough to move the very
stones with pity. The poor fellow lay thus across the mule, with his
head hanging down, his body bent, the sun in his eyes, and in this way
had he come all the way from Karia-el-Abbassi, and was to go to
Tangiers! And in this way are all the sick transported in Morocco who
have no money to hire a litter and two mules, and fortunate is he who
can have a bag of straw!
On the shore I was joined by the cook, Ranni, and Luigi, who did not
leave me again until we reached Arzilla.
We trotted for an hour over the sands, turning out here and there from
the direct road to avoid a marsh.
At this time the cook, who for the first time in all the journey was
able to speak freely, opened his heart to me.
Poor fellow! all the adventures we had had, all the great things we had
seen, had not freed him from a painful thought which had destroyed his
peace from the first week of his sojourn at Tangiers. And this thought
was an unsuccessful jelly made by him one day when we were dining with
the French Minister—a jelly which had given the first blow to his
reputation in the mind of the Ambassador, and whose ill success was due,
not to him, but to the bad Marsala wine. Fez, the court, Mechinez, the
Sebù, the ocean, he had seen and still saw them all through this medium
of jelly. Or rather, he had seen and saw nothing, because although his
body was in Morocco, his spirit was in Turin. I asked him to tell me his
impressions, and they were these, as nearly as I can set them down. He
could not comprehend who the beast could have been who had stamped that
country. He related his fatigues, his quarrels with his two Arab
scullions, the difficulties of preparing food in the desert, and his
immense desire to see Turin again; but he always fell back upon that
deplorable jelly at the French Minister’s. “I do not know how to cook?
Do me the favor when you are at Turin,” he said, touching my arm to
withdraw me from my contemplation of the ocean, “go and ask Count
so-and-so, Countess such a one, etc., whom I served for years and years!
Go to General Ricotti, Minister of War, who has been five years
Minister, and who can do just what he pleases; go and ask him whether or
no I can make a jelly! Do go; give me that satisfaction; it will not
take a moment when you are back in our country!” And he insisted so,
that in order to contemplate the ocean in peace, I was obliged to
promise.
Meanwhile we came up at every hundred paces or so with two or three
laden mules, soldiers on horse-back, and servants on foot; fragments of
the caravan that stretched along an hour’s journey before us. Among the
soldiers there were some from Laracce, ragged fellows, with a
handkerchief bound round their heads, and a rusty musket in their hands;
and among the servants, boys of twelve or fourteen years old, whom I had
not seen before, and who had escaped, I was told, from Mechinez and
Karia-el-Abbassi, and joined the caravan, with nothing on them but a
shirt, to seek their fortune at Tangiers, living meantime on the charity
of the soldiers.
In some of these groups there would be one telling a story, others
singing, and all seemed cheerful.
We stopped half-way, to breakfast in the shadow of a rock. And here I
saw a scene that revealed to me the nature of the people better than a
volume of psychological dissertation.
Near us there was a soldier seated on the sand, beyond him another,
further on a servant, and about fifty paces from this last another
servant, seated near a spring, with a jug between his knees. Wishing to
drink, I called to the first soldier, “_Elma!_” (water), and pointed to
the spring. The soldier answered with a courteous gesture of
acquiescence, and imperiously ordered the second soldier to go and get
some water. The latter made a gesture of obedience, and with threats and
reproaches, asked the nearest servant why he had not brought the water.
The servant in question sprang to his feet, made three hasty steps
toward the one seated near the spring, and called to him to bring water
instantly. The last, observing that I was not paying attention, did not
move. Five minutes passed, and the water did not come. I turned to the
first soldier and the same scene was enacted over again. Finally, if I
wanted water, I had to shout to the man who had the jug, who, after a
few moments for reflection, decided to get it, and brought it with about
the speed of a tortoise.
We resumed our journey. A fresh breeze blew, and a cloud covered the
sun, so that the ride was delicious; but as the tide continued to rise,
and restricted us more and more to the sandy path, upon which we
proceeded in single file, we soon found ourselves imprisoned between the
sea and the rocky heights which rose almost perpendicularly above our
heads, and obliged to go on among the stones, where the waves were
already breaking. Several times the mule came to a stand in terror, and
I found myself surrounded by water and wrapped in a cloud of spray. But
our hour, as the cook said, was not yet come; and after about a mile, we
reached a hill up which we climbed in haste, looking back “_a rimirar lo
passo_.”
With us there was an old soldier of Laracce, a little touched in the
head, who laughed constantly, but who knew the road. He made us skirt
the hill, and led us through a thick grove of dwarf oaks, cork-trees,
broom, and shrubs of various kinds; by a hundred twists and turns;
through thorns, and mud, and water, and darkness; in recesses where no
human creature appeared ever to have penetrated; and always laughing,
brought us, tired and torn, to the shore again, where we found a strip
of sand uninvaded by the waters.
Here, the caravan not having yet arrived, the beach was deserted, and we
rode for some time seeing nothing but sea and sky, and the foot of the
steep little hills which, forming so many little harbors, hid the
horizon behind us. We were going on in silence, one behind the other,
over the soft, carpet-like sand, every one of us occupied with his
thoughts miles away from Morocco, when suddenly there sprang from behind
a rock a spectre, a horrible old man, half naked, with a crown of yellow
flowers on his head,—a saint,—who began to inveigh against us, howling
like a madman, and making with both hands the gesture of scratching our
faces and tearing our beards. We stopped to look at him. He became more
ferocious. Ranni, without further ceremony, advanced to give him the
stick; but I stopped him and threw some money to the saint. The rascal
stopped, picked up the coin, looked at it all over, put it in his bosom,
and began to yell worse than before. “Ah! this time,” said Ranni, “he
shall have a good beating,” and raised his stick. But the soldier,
becoming serious in a moment, stopped him, and saying a few words to the
saint in accents of profound respect, induced him to be silent. The
horrible old wretch gave us one fulminating glance, and hid himself once
more among the rocks, where, it appears, he lives, feeding on roots,
with the sole purpose of cursing the Nazarene ships that pass on the
horizon.
We climbed the hills again, and rode for a long time through winding
paths among rocks and bushes. At some points, where the path ran along
the edge of the steep precipice, we could see far down the sea beating
upon the rocks, and a long stretch of beach, with the caravan straggling
along, and the immense horizon of the blue ocean dotted with distant
sails. The mountains where our road lay formed with their checkered tops
a vast waving plain, where there was no trace of cultivation, nor tomb,
nor cabin, nor human creature, and no sound but the distant murmur of
the sea. “What a country!” exclaimed the cook, looking about him with an
anxious glance. “I hope we may not meet with any unpleasant adventure.”
As for me, I asked myself whether there was no danger of lions. Going up
and going down, losing sight of each other, and meeting again among the
bushes, we travelled for two hours through these mountain solitudes, and
began to fear that we had missed the way, when from a height, we
suddenly discovered the towers of Arzilla, and the whole coast as far as
Cape Spartel, whose blue outline was drawn sharply against the limpid
clearness of the sky.
It was a delight for all the little caravan, but of brief duration.
As we descended toward the sea we saw far off a group of horses and men
lying down, who, as soon as they discovered us, sprang to their feet,
and to their saddles, and came toward us, spreading themselves out in
the form of a half moon, as if they intended to prevent our advance
toward the town.
“Here we are at last!” thought I; “this time we shall not escape; it is
a band,” and I made a sign for the rest to halt.
“Let the Moor be sent forward!” called out the cook. The Moorish soldier
ran on in advance.
“Give them a shot!” screamed the trembling cook.
“One moment,” said I; “before we kill them, let us see whether they mean
to kill us.”
I looked attentively at them; they advanced at a trot; there were ten of
them, some in dark colors, some in white; I could see no muskets; at
their head was an old man with a white beard; I felt reassured.
“Let us form a square!” cried the cook.
“There is no need.” The old man with the white beard had uncovered his
head, and came toward us cap in hand.
He was an Israelite. At ten paces off he stopped with his followers, who
were composed of four other Israelites and five Arab servants, and made
signs that he wished to speak to me.
“_Hable Usted_,” I replied (“Speak!”).
“I am so and so,” he said in Spanish, with a sweet voice, and bending in
an attitude of respect, “consular-agent for Italy and all the other
European states in the city of Arzilla. Have I the honor to be in the
presence of his Excellency the Italian Ambassador, returning from Fez,
on his way to Tangiers?”
I was amazed. Then I assumed a grave and courteous air, and glanced
round at my followers who were beaming with delight; and after having
tasted for an instant the honor of an official reception, I undeceived
the old Hebrew, with a sigh, and told him who I was. He seemed for a
moment displeased, but did not change his manner. He offered me his
house to rest in, and when I declined his hospitality, he would at any
rate accompany me to the spot destined for the encampment.
We all went on together, skirting the city, toward the sea-shore. Ah! if
Ussi and Biseo could only have seen me! How picturesque I must have
been, sitting on a mule, with a white scarf round my head, followed by
my staff, composed of a cook in his shirt sleeves, two sailors armed
with sticks, and a ragged Moor! O Italian Art, what hast thou not lost!
Arzilla, the Zilia of the Carthagenians, the _Julia Traducta_ of the
Romans, passed from the hands of the latter into those of the Goths, was
sacked by the English toward the middle of the tenth century, remained
for thirty years a heap of stones, was rebuilt by Abd-er-Rhaman-ben-Ali,
Caliph of Cordova, taken by the Portuguese, and retaken by Morocco, and
is now nothing but a little town of about one thousand inhabitants
between Moors and Hebrews, surrounded on the sea and land sides by high
battlemented walls, which are falling into ruin; white and quiet as a
cloister, and imprinted, like all the small Mahometan towns, with that
smiling melancholy which recalls the last look on the face of the dying
who are glad to die.
In the evening, at sunset, the Ambassador arrived, and came to the
encampment across the city; and I have still before my eyes the
spectacle of that beautiful cavalcade, full of color and life, issuing
out of a battlemented gate, advancing in picturesque disorder along the
shore, and throwing across the sands in the rosy sunset light its long
black shadows; and here, in fact, it may be said that our journey came
to an end, since the following morning we encamped at Ain-Dalia, and two
days afterward we re-entered Tangiers, where the caravan broke up in
that same little market-place where it had formed two months before.
The commandant, the captain, the two painters, and I left together for
Gibraltar. The Ambassador, the vice-consul, all the people of the
Legation accompanied us to the shore, and the farewells were very
affectionate. All were moved, even the good General Hamed-ben-Kasen,
who, pressing my hand against his mighty chest, repeated three times the
only European word he knew—“_A Dios!_”—with a voice that came from his
heart. We had scarcely put our foot upon the deck of the ship when, oh!
how distant in space and time seemed all that phantasmagoria of pashàs,
and negroes, and tents, and mosques, and battlemented towers. It was not
a country, it was an entire world that in a moment vanished from our
eyes, and a world that we should never see again. A little of Africa
accompanied us on board, however, in the two Selams, Ali, Hamed,
Abd-er-Rhaman, Civo, Morteo’s servants, and other kind young fellows
whom Mussulman superstition had not prevented from wishing well to the
Nazarenes and serving them with fidelity. And they also took leave of us
with warm demonstrations of affection and regret, Civo more than the
others, who, causing his long white shirt to float for the last time
before my eyes, threw his arms about my neck, and planted two kisses in
my ear. And when the steamer moved they saluted us still from a boat,
waving their red fezes, and shouting as long as we could see them,
“Allah be with you! Come back to Morocco! Farewell, Nazarenes! Farewell,
Italians! _A Dios! A Dios!_”
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
Minor errors in punctuation and formatting have been silently corrected.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
referenced.
The following table provides information on the relatively few
typographical errors, and their resolution.
p. 14 sh[ie/ei]ks Transposed.
p. 22 rep[i/e]tition Corrected.
p. 41 Posses[s]ed Added.
p. 141 tat[t]ooed Added.
p. 149 w[h]ere Added.
p. 181 ma[k/d]e Corrected.
p. 184 like[d] Removed.
p. 350 pass[s]ed Removed.