BENABU. 1857.
In December 1857, Mr. Hay writes to his sister-in-law:—
Poor Benabu has been arrested at Fas by the Sultan and imprisoned. All
his property has been confiscated except the house in which he
lived. The property and jewels of his wives have not yet been touched.
To the surprise of everybody the Sultan has appointed, in Benabu’s
place as Basha, the youngest son of the former governor of Tangier,
Alarbi el Saidi. He was a bookbinder and very poor, but no sooner
did he get the Sultan’s letter, than he assumed the reins of power
well, and with the dignity of a grandee. We are already good friends.
The story of Benabu, whose sudden downfall is here alluded to,
deserves, we think, to be repeated.
The Basha of Tangier, Kaid Mohammed Ben Abdelmalek, better known
as ‘Benabu’ (_Anglice_, the son of his father), was Governor of
that province in the year 1857. He had previously held the post of
Commander-in-Chief of the Sultan’s Cavalry, was distinguished for
bravery when His Sherifian Majesty, whom, it is believed, ‘Allah
protects,’ marched annually against rebellious tribes ‘to eat
them up,’ an expression very significative of a Moorish monarch’s
plan of campaign.
Benabu had also been for many years Governor-General of the
Rif Provinces. He was a Rifian by extraction, as are most of the
inhabitants of Tangier. One of his ancestors, in the time of Charles
II, when the English were in possession of Tangier, commanded an army
sent to invade that place. In a sanguinary conflict which took place
between the Moors and the English, when the latter stormed the heights
where the Moorish forces had encamped above the river of Bubána,
about two miles from Tangier, Benabu’s ancestor was killed.
The site is called to this day the ‘Mujáhidin,’ or ‘Warriors
of the Faith.’ It is considered holy ground, as those who fell in
that battle against ‘Infidels,’ were buried on the spot. Kubbas,
or cupola-formed mausoleums, were erected, in which the bodies of
the Moorish chieftains were laid. A regiment of our Foot-guards took
part in the action, and it is said that the member of the Guards’
band who plays the cymbals used to wear an Oriental costume, in
commemoration of this battle.
When Mr. Bulwer was sent to Tangier on a Mission by the British and
Spanish Governments, to settle the differences between Spain and
Morocco, in 1845, I gave him a long rapier which I had found at low
water in the ruins of the fine old mole which the English blew up,
from a dog-in-the-manger policy, when they gave up the place. The
hilt had on one side a C. on the other a rose. Though it had lain for
nearly three centuries in salt water, I managed to restore the weapon,
which proved to be of beautiful steel, and before I introduced the
lance for pig sticking, I had at full gallop killed boar with this
rapier on the plains of ‘Awara.’
One night I had donned my dressing-gown and was about to go to bed. It
was late; lights had been extinguished and the servants had retired,
when the porter at the gate of the Legation, a Moorish soldier,
lantern in hand, appeared. He was trembling with excitement and
could hardly articulate as he addressed me. ‘The Basha is here,
alone in the porch. He came on foot and is without an attendant. He
wishes to see you at once. He has commanded that “I shut my tongue
within my teeth.”’
I received the Basha, who was an old friend, in my dressing-gown. He
was about six feet three in height, and of a Herculean frame. His
features were very marked; a prominent Roman nose and massive jaw,
with eyes like a lion; shaggy locks hung beneath his turban over
each ear. The general expression of his countenance was that of
a stern tyrant, but in conversation with those he liked, his face
beamed with good humour, and he had a pleasant, kind manner.
Benabu was very intelligent, and not a fanatic, as Moorish grandees
generally are. After friendly salutations, and bidding him welcome,
I inquired the cause of his visit at such an unusual hour.
The Basha, having looked around repeatedly, to satisfy himself that
there were no eavesdroppers, said, ‘I come to you as the only
friend I can trust, to beg a great favour. This evening an officer
arrived with a letter from the Sultan, summoning me to the Sherifian
Court. I leave to-morrow at daybreak. You know,’ he continued,
‘what this means—either it is to extend my government to the
district of Anjera, which I have applied for, or it is to place me
under arrest, and then, by long imprisonment, or even the bastinado,
to extort, under the pretext of arrears of taxes or other dues, the
little wealth I have accumulated during my long and arduous services,
both in campaigns and as Governor of the Rif. I am an old soldier, and
it is my firm intention, even if I were put into the wooden jelab[31]
or other torture, not to give one ‘fels’ either to the Sultan,
the Uzir, or other rapacious satellites of the Court, who, no doubt,
expect to fleece me as they do other Bashas and Sheikhs, even if it
is the Sultan’s will that I am to receive some mark of his goodwill.
‘The favour I have to beg of you,’ continued Benabu, ‘is that
you allow me to leave in your possession some bags of gold I have
brought with me.’
I looked at the Basha; he had nothing in his hands, but, beneath the
ample folds of his ‘sulham,’ I observed that his huge chest and
body were distended to an extraordinary size.
‘I am very sorry,’ I replied, ‘to hear of the sudden summons
to the Court, which, I fear, bodes no good. I shall be happy, as an
old friend, to do anything to help you; but,’ I added, ‘it will
be a delicate matter for me, as British Representative, to receive
in deposit a large sum of money, which might hereafter be claimed
as arrears of taxes due to the Treasury, and the British Government
might disapprove of my having placed myself in a false position.’
Benabu replied that he had paid up all arrears of taxes; that the
money he wished to leave with me was not only savings effected
during a long career of forty years, but money inherited from his
father. He added, ‘I have also other money, which I secretly placed
some time ago, for safety and profit, in the hands of a wealthy Jew,
who is under foreign protection.’
Benabu reminded me, that when war broke out between Spain and Morocco
I had allowed the Moorish Minister for Foreign Affairs—Sid Mohammed
Khatíb—to deposit about £10,000 in my hands, and he pleaded so
earnestly that I gave way.
Taking the key of a cellar where I kept a stock of wine, and which my
butler never visited unless I accompanied him, I led the Basha to it.
‘Can no one hear or observe us?’ asked the Basha, as we descended
into the cellar. I replied that the servants were all in bed, and
that the porter at the gate could not intrude, as I had locked the
front door of the Legation.
Bag after bag was extracted from Benabu’s portly person, and
deposited in an empty bin, which I selected for that purpose.
I observed to the Basha that the bags were not sealed, being merely
tied with string, and offered to fetch sealing-wax, requesting him
to mark on each bag its contents.
He declined, saying he really did not know the amount of money each
bag contained; and had neither time nor inclination to count the
coin, but added, ‘it is all good, and safer in your hands than
in a bank.’ By laying some laths on the top of the pile, and then
bottles of wine, the treasure was well concealed.
On returning to my study, I took up a sheet of paper and pen, and told
the Basha I was about to prepare a receipt, stating that a number of
bags without seal, contents unknown, had been deposited by him in my
cellar, and that I was not responsible for losses occasioned by fire,
robbery, &c. ‘Do you think,’ said the Basha, ‘I am “hamak”
[mad] to take such a receipt? Don’t you understand that, going as
I am to the Court, I may be searched? If I leave such a document
with my wife—no woman can hold her tongue—the secret would be
betrayed. My sons are spendthrifts, and not to be depended on.’ I
suggested that he should take my receipt and hide it in his house,
or bury it in his garden until his return from the Court.
He declined, saying, ‘Walls have ears, trees have eyes, so not
only must I decline to take a receipt, but I beg that you will keep
no record of having received these bags from me.’ I remonstrated,
saying, ‘I may die; my heirs will find the money in the cellar and
will rightfully appropriate it, even if you or your heirs were to
claim the money, for there will be no proof that you are the rightful
owner. You also,’ I added, ‘are in the hands of “Allah,”
and may die.’ Benabu replied, ‘We are all in the hands of
“Allah.” What is written[32] by the Almighty is written. I have
entire confidence in you, and if you die, as you say might happen,
and your son and daughters, whom I know and love as my own, got
possession of the money—it could not fall into better hands.’
He then took leave, and wishing him ‘God speed,’ I let him
out by the garden-door. Summoning the porter, I told him the Basha
was leaving for the Court in the morning, and had come to announce
his departure; I warned him not to let any one hear of the visit,
as it might give offence to other Representatives, upon whom he had
not time to call to take leave. ‘Remember,’ I said, ‘you are
a soldier of the Basha, and if you betray his visit he may some day
mark his displeasure.’
Benabu departed for the Court the following morning, leaving his
elder son, who had been his Khalífa, or Lieutenant-Governor, in
charge of the government of the province.
On the arrival of Benabu at the Court, he was summoned by the Uzir,
who informed him that the Sultan was dissatisfied with the accounts
rendered by him of receipts of taxes and dues during his government
both of the Tangier and Rif provinces; that a house had been allotted
to him, where he was to reside, and consider himself under arrest
until more regular accounts were presented. Benabu replied that the
Uzir knew the Rifians never paid tithes upon land or agriculture; that
he had transmitted regularly to the Court the presents of mules and
other gifts which the Rif population had delivered to him, as their
customary annual tribute to the Sultan, as ‘Prince of Believers
and Allah’s kaliph;’ that as to the Tangier province, he had
presented annually an account of receipts of taxes, and other dues;
that the receipts had greatly diminished on account of irregular
protection being extended by Foreign Ministers and Consuls to rich
farmers, and to the peasantry in general, and that all protected
persons were held by the Foreign Representatives to be exempted from
the payment of taxes or other contributions to the Government.
Guarded by the Uzir’s kavasses, Benabu was taken to the small
house that had been prepared for his confinement. He was allowed
to retain one of his followers; the bodyguard he had brought from
Tangier was dismissed, and ordered to return.
Months passed, Benabu remained under arrest; his son, the Khalífa
at Tangier, died. This misfortune, and the harsh treatment he
had received as an old and loyal servant of the Sultan, preyed on
his mind. Prostrated by an ague, followed by typhus fever, Benabu
petitioned the Sultan to be allowed to send for his younger son
Fatmeh. This was granted, and Fatmeh arrived a few days before his
father’s death.
On the return of Fatmeh to Tangier, I waited some days expecting
him to call and claim the money left in my possession; but he did
not appear, so I sent for him.
After expressions of condolence about the death of his father,
I inquired whether he had found him still sensible on his arrival
at the Court, and whether his father had given him any message for
me. He said he had found his father in a dying state, but perfectly
sensible, and that he was able to give him full directions about his
property: that he had spoken of me and had used the words—‘God’s
blessing be on his head, he has been a true friend to me and to the
Mohammedans!’ ‘Did he not mention,’ I asked, ‘that he had
seen me the night before he left Tangier and had placed money in
my hands? Did he not mention also that he had left property in the
hands of a Jewish friend?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘a large sum with ———, which I have
had the greatest difficulty in recovering, though my mother had a
receipt. Two thousand dollars were paid by my family to recover the
money left in the Jew’s hands.’
‘Did your father not tell you,’ I repeated, ‘that I had also
received a deposit in money for which, as requested, I did not give a
receipt?’ On Fatmeh replying in the negative, I told him to return
to his mother and ask her whether her late husband had ever mentioned
his intention of secretly depositing money in my hands; adding,
‘Come back, unattended, to the Legation at midnight, and without
knocking enter at the garden door, which you will find open.’
At midnight Fatmeh returned. I awaited him. He informed me that his
mother had never heard or supposed that any money had been deposited
with me. We then descended into the cellar and, pointing to the bin
where the bags lay, I told him to remove the bottles and laths.
‘These bags,’ I said, ‘contain coin left me by your father,
who refused to accept a receipt. They now belong to his heirs. I
know not the amount, but wish you to open each bag before you leave,
and to bring me to-morrow some proof that you have delivered the
money to your mother.’
Fatmeh took down a bag, and opening it, exclaimed in a very excited
manner, ‘Gold!’ Each bag was opened with the same exclamation, his
excitement increasing. Having finished the examination of the bags, I
told him to put them as his father had done, in the ample folds of his
dress, above the girdle. ‘All?’ he said. I replied ‘all.’ He
hesitated, and then turning to me, observed: ‘Shall I not leave you
half?’ ‘You are “hamák,”’ (mad) I replied. ‘Don’t you
understand, that if I had wanted this money I might have kept all?’
So he interned bag after bag in the ample folds of his dress until
they could hold no more, for he was a smaller man than his father.
Three bags remained, which he said he could not possibly carry in
his dress, and begged that I would keep them. I replied angrily,
and fetching a basket, put the remaining bags into it, and, bidding
him ‘Good-night,’ I passed him through the garden gate.
Next day I received, through a mutual Mohammedan friend in the
confidence of the family, a message from Benabu’s widow, to say
her son[33] had delivered to her all that he had received from me.
A week passed, and Fatmeh again asked me for an interview. He informed
me he had come with a message from his mother and sister to reiterate
their thanks, and to beg that I would not refuse to accept, as a
token of their gratitude, a Spanish ‘three-decker,’ of which
Fatmeh gave the following history.
‘In the last great naval war between Spain and England, my
great-grandfather was Basha of Tangier. He was on the most intimate
terms of friendship with the Spanish Representative, and was a strong
partisan of Spain and unfriendly towards the English. Having granted
to the Spanish Representative some special privilege unauthorised by
the Sultan, his intrigues and proceedings came to the knowledge of
His Sherifian Majesty. An officer and an executioner were dispatched
forthwith to Tangier: my ancestor was decapitated, and his head
was placed by special order of the Sultan over the gateway of the
residence of the Spanish Representative.
‘Amongst other gifts which had been presented to my ancestor by
the Spanish Government was the model of a Spanish three-decker, in
a glass case, about four feet long. It was much prized by my late
father, and my mother and our family beg you to accept it.’
I accepted the gift of the line-of-battle ship. It was a curious
old model, very complete, with figures of sailors in the rigging,
and Spanish flag flying.
This model may have been of the ‘Santissima Trinidad,’ one
of the largest three-deckers sunk by the English at the battle
of Trafalgar. Her masts were washed ashore on the Moorish coast
not far from Cape Spartel, were taken possession of by the Moorish
authorities and floated down to the mouth of the river Wad el Halk,
which enters the bay near the site called ‘old Tangier[34],’
an arsenal built by the Romans wherein to lay up their galleys. The
masts were floated as far as the village of Sharf, and placed across
the high banks of the river; parapets of masonry were built on each
side to form a bridge for horse and foot-passengers.
The bridge was still in use twenty years ago, and I have often crossed
it; but one of the masts having given way, it was taken down by order
of the Sultan, and a Portuguese architect was employed to erect a
stone bridge in its place. The Portuguese had nearly completed the
work, when a freshet from the hills levelled it to the water’s
edge, hardly leaving a vestige of the fabric. The Moors declared the
bridge was accursed by Allah, as the Sultan had employed an Infidel
‘Nazarene’ instead of a Mohammedan architect. A Moor was then
dispatched from Fas by the Sultan to rebuild the bridge, which he
executed in a satisfactory manner on three arches and sluices.
An aged Tangerine, some twenty years ago, told me that he and
many other Moors witnessed from the heights of the hills near
Cape Spartel[35] the great battle, and that their hearts were with
the English. He said the firing was terrific, with an occasional
explosion. Wreckage and many bodies were cast upon the African shore.
Benabu was the best Governor I have known during the forty years I
was at Tangier. Under his iron but just rule, murder, robbery, and
even theft became unknown after the first year of his government. He
made terrible examples of all criminals.
Cattle-lifting was, and still is, a common practice throughout
Morocco. On his first appointment as Basha he sent the public crier,
on a market-day when the mountaineers and peasantry flock in to make
their purchases, to proclaim that the severest punishment would be
inflicted on robbers or other criminals.
He kept his word, for the next market-day two cattle-lifters, caught
red-handed, were brought before him. After hearing the evidence,
they were severely bastinadoed. Benabu had caused an iron brand to
be prepared with the letter س (‘sin’), the first of the word
‘sarak’ meaning robber. On the forehead, just above and between
the eyebrows, these robbers were marked with the hot brand.
Their property was seized and confiscated, and after issuing a fresh
proclamation that any criminal who had been branded, would, on a
second conviction of crime, have his hand or foot or both amputated,
according to circumstances, Benabu liberated the robbers, and reported
his proceedings to the Sultan, making known to H.S.M. that he had
found on his appointment murders, robberies, and crime of all kinds
prevailed, and that there was no security for life or property outside
the walls of Tangier, and he requested the Sultan’s authority to
cut off the hand or foot of any person branded with the ‘Sin,’
who was again convicted of a murder or robbery with violence.
The Sultan approved of his conduct, and complied with the request.
Six months after the branding of the two robbers, one of them was
caught, having robbed some cattle and wounded the herd in charge.
The delinquent, stripped to the waist, was mounted on the back
of a donkey. The animal was led through the principal streets and
market-place; two soldiers followed with the bastinado, which is a
rope of twisted leather about four feet long. The lash was applied
every twenty paces to the back of the prisoner, who was compelled
to proclaim his crimes in a loud voice. He was then taken off the
donkey in the middle of the market-place, where a fire was lit,
and on it an earthen pot stood filled with boiling pitch.
A butcher, the first the soldiers could lay hands on, was seized,
and ordered to sever a right hand and left foot.
The unfortunate butcher remonstrated in vain. The condemned man was
laid on the ground, his hands were untied; the right hand was taken
off at the joint, and the stump plunged into the pot of pitch to
stop hemorrhage and prevent gangrene.
The left foot was amputated in the same manner. Charitable
bystanders carried off the victim to a small house in the town
called ‘Morstan[36],’ where paupers seek shelter at night. There
he was provided with food and water for some months. He recovered,
and could be seen crawling about the streets or sitting at the gate
of the town, begging[37].
Murder, robbery, and cattle-lifting ceased throughout the Tangier
province. Life and property were safe. Thus this cruel and barbarous
mutilation of one ruffian saved hundreds of innocent men from murder,
and women and helpless Jews from outrage.
On a shooting excursion to a district about eight miles from Tangier,
I found in a sheltered spot about forty beehives[38]. There was no
village within a mile of the hives, and there was no hut even for a
guard. Passing a cowherd attending some oxen, not far from the hives,
I inquired to whom they belonged. He said they were the property of
the village of Zinats. I asked whether there was no guard to watch
the property, which could easily be carried off at night. Pointing
towards Tangier, he exclaimed, ‘Benabu.’
There was a very beautiful young Mohammedan widow at Tangier, who led
a dissolute life. Fatmeh, the Basha’s son, was a constant visitor
at her house. Benabu had repeatedly warned his son to discontinue
his visits. He summoned also the widow; and after censuring her
misconduct, he told her that if she again admitted his son into her
house he would mar her beauty, which was the cause of his son’s
disgraceful conduct.
Some weeks afterwards, Benabu was informed that Fatmeh had again
visited the house of the widow. He was arrested and imprisoned,
and the widow was brought before the Basha.
‘You have not,’ said the Basha, ‘kept your promise to me,
or taken heed of my warning. Your beauty has brought disgrace upon
my son and myself.’
Turning to the guards who attended in the ‘Meshwa,’ or Hall of
Judgment, he said, ‘Bring a barber.’
The barber was brought.
‘Cut off,’ said Benabu, ‘below the cartilage, the tip of this
woman’s nose.’
The barber, trembling, begged that the operation might not be
performed by him. ‘It shall be as you wish,’ replied the Basha;
‘but then your nose will be taken off for disobedience.’ The
barber obeyed, and the tip of the nose of the pretty widow was cut
off. ‘Go,’ said the Basha to her; ‘you will now be able to
lead a better life. May Allah forgive you, as I do, your past sins!’
When Benabu, as a young man, was Kaid in command of a body of cavalry,
he received orders from the Sultan to escort with his troopers a
foreign Envoy to the Court at Marákesh. During the journey to the
capital, the camp had been pitched in the neighbourhood of a large
village, where a ‘Marábet’ or holy man dwelt, who was looked
up to with great veneration by the villagers.
This fanatic, having observed the Envoy seated in his tent with a
light, and the door of the tent open, fetched his long gun, squatted
down at about fifty yards, and took a pot shot at the ‘Nazarene
Infidel.’ He missed the Envoy, but the ball, passing through the
tent, killed a horse of one of the escort on the other side.
Benabu, hearing a shot, rushed out of his tent, and seeing a strange
man making off, had him arrested and brought before the tent of
the Envoy.
‘This assassin,’ Benabu said, ‘who calls himself a Marábet,
has attempted to take your life, and thus placed in jeopardy my head;
for had he killed you, the Sultan would have beheaded me.’
Benabu then drew his sword, and, ordering the guards to bare the
Marábet’s neck and shoulders, turned to the Envoy and said:
‘My lord the Sultan, whose life may Allah prolong, has alone the
power of life and death; but I am ordered to protect your life at
all hazards through this country as the Representative of a great
friendly Power; and therefore, to deter others, I am determined
to make an example of this villain who has attempted to take your
life.’ Then, raising his sword, he added, ‘Give the signal,
and the head of this assassin shall fall at your feet.’
The Envoy requested Benabu to sheathe his sword, saying that he
believed the man to be mad. Benabu, who, no doubt, felt persuaded
that the Envoy would never give the signal for the execution of the
man, put his sword in the scabbard; the man was then bastinadoed
and sent off early next morning to the Governor of the district,
with a request that he should be confined in a dungeon until the
Sultan’s decision was learnt.
Benabu demanded also that a good horse, with new saddle and bridle,
should be sent by the Governor at once for the soldier of the escort
whose horse had been shot; this was done.
The name of Benabu went forth far and wide, and the Sultan, on
the arrival of the Mission, promoted Benabu to the rank of Kaid
‘Erha.’