CHAPTER III

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Difficulties of "Lodgings" in Morocco—A Spanish Fonda—A Moorish Tea Party—Poison in the Cup—Slaves in Morocco—El Doollah—Moorish Cemetery—Ride to Semsar—Shopping in Tetuan—Provisions in the City.


CHAPTER III

This by God's grace is El Moghreb—Morocco—and here a wise man is surprised at nothing that he sees and believes nothing that he hears.

It is not easy to find a lodging in Morocco: there are no dÂk bungalows—no large white English residences, with the familiar and hospitable Burra Sahib, a retinue of servants, spare horses, and a spacious bedroom at the disposal of the unexpected guest. Hotels, except at Tangier, are impossible for any length of time, unless to the vagaries of Spanish or Jewish cookery the heart can harden itself.

We steeled our souls, assisted by the grateful sense of freedom from all petty society functions, which in the nature of things are unknown in a city where one vice-consul, six women missionaries, and a post-office alone represent the British flag—where there is no English doctor, no English church.

Tetuan met all our needs: the only question was where to live.

Immediately outside its walls lies a land of gardens and orchards. Every Moor who can afford it has a garden, wherein he cultivates grapes and fruit-trees,—a dim reflection of that Paradise of his, which must be chequered with acres of shade cast by great rocks and gigantic olive-trees; which must be abundantly watered by running brooks of milk, honey, and wine; whose soil shall be flour, white as snow. The Moor's Garden of Eden reserved for the faithful after death bespeaks abundance and repose, differing but little from a certain Heaven of Epicures, wherein pÂtÉs de fois gras were eaten to the sound of trumpets. Somewhere in his garden outside Tetuan he builds himself a garden-house, to which in the summer he migrates with his wife and slaves and the children of both, his divans, carpets, and kitchen utensils: the town house is locked up and stands empty while he spends four or five months under his vines and figs.

At the time we arrived in Tetuan—early December—not a garden-house but still lay empty; and naturally in their direction our longing eyes turned—an impossible desire, it was said, thereby clinching the resolve to make a superhuman effort to bring it to pass: between living in the city and a garden there could be no choice. In the meantime a Spanish fonda must constitute a make-shift until that came which is laid down for those who wait.

Inside Tetuan two hotels presented themselves. With fonda number one we could not come to terms; it was not attractive-looking: we took a high-handed line and left. Fonda number two, after much haggling in Spanish, agreed to take us both at the modest sum of seven-and-sixpence a day, all included. No sooner was the bargain struck than a messenger arrived post-haste from fonda number one, to say that they would take us at our own terms. Their golden opportunity was lost. Report said fonda number one might be a trifle cleaner, but fonda number two had the better cook: the inside man carried the day in favour of number two.

A VEILED FIGURE OUTSIDE THE GATE.

A Veiled Figure Outside the Gate.

It was one among many flat-roofed whitewashed houses in the Moorish Quarter, in a street barely six feet wide. There was no outlook except from the roof-top, where the washing dried: there were no windows, the rooms depending for light upon double doors opening on to the tiny tiled patio—except in our own case, where the second room allotted to us was built over the top of the street, and had two windows cut in the walls by the Spanish occupants, neither of which quite shut, and provided us with an ample supply of air. The room beyond possessed dilapidated doors, which gave upon the patio. The patio was, of course, open to all the rain of heaven as well as to all the sun: it was the principal sitting-room of the family, where, downstairs, on fine days, they plucked chickens, made bread, washed, sat and received callers, did needlework and chattered; on wet days creeping disconsolately round the lake of water in the middle of the tiled floor, where the rain dropped—splash—taking refuge on one sheltered seat in company with three dogs, a cat, and a tame chicken, or retiring into the dark little rooms which surrounded the lake.

The family comprised Spanish parents, married daughter and husband, three unmarried sisters, a brother, and a lodger—an old Spanish music-master. The fonda was run by the married daughter, a lady with a temper, who made everybody else work: her mother and one sister cooked; the second sister was busy with a trousseau and a young man; the third and prettiest—Amanda—waited on us. On the whole we were not uncomfortable, in spite of the Spanish element. Our rooms were clean: one afternoon we found a chicken sunning itself in a patch of sunlight on the floor of one—nothing worse. Dinner was sometimes, and Amanda was always, lacking in certain points to a critical eye. Sometimes it was a skirt, sometimes a petticoat, she wore: except on high days, it was doubtful and dependent upon chance threads and pins. All Amanda's blouses were low-necked, whatever the time of day: the stains and slits and remnants of torn frills were unique. She wore her sleeves turned up, and silver bangles on her arms. Amanda never buttoned her boots, and often put in an appearance with bare feet.

But Amanda was redeemed by her head-dress and her manners. She wound a crimson shawl gracefully over her dark head, after the fashion of a mantilla, with an effect beyond reproach. Amanda had a gracious way of putting things: she bore herself with infinite dignity, and a je-ne-sais-quoi which pointed to a mixed ancestry; she had well-shaped hands.

At seven o'clock in the evening her knock preceded preparations for dinner, while she munched something or hummed a tune meanwhile. Seas of thin soup invariably preceded a dish of shapeless masses of "soup-meat," garnished with boiled peas. The third course consisted of chicken or partridge: on less happy occasions foreign and "shudderous" dishes appeared; a peculiar jelly shell-fish was the lowest ebb—that and pork we resented. Last of all, a tall glass fruit-dish would arrive, the standard sweet—flan (caramel pudding). Then a long pause. Finally, Amanda's step, with a great plate of hot toast and a tall tin coffee-pot: black coffee was the best part of the meal.

A day or two after settling into the fonda we were asked to our first entertainment in a Moorish house. Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli wanted Mr. Bewicke and ourselves to "tea" with him.

As in the case of "the Duke's" house, so here, all the womenkind were hidden away on account of the Consul. Mohammedans are jealous and suspicious of their wives and daughters to a degree, and strongly resent, if not prevent, an Englishman's going up on to the flat roof, lest he have a view of fair occupants beyond or below. Nevertheless, the wives always contrive to peep out of some loophole and see all there is to be seen.

Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli received us all three alone, as a matter of course, and led us upstairs to his best room. Like many others among the better class of Moors, our host had a shop and himself sold groceries. At the same time his sister is the wife of one of the Ministers; and as there is no respect of persons in Morocco, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli might be called upon himself any day to fill a high official position, and be obliged to go, raising money, if he had not wherewithal to support the post, which, if a lucrative one, would soon repay the outlay.

Trade at Tetuan, and apparently everywhere else over Morocco, is not what it once was: the old flintlocks, inlaid with silver wire and lumps of pink coral, are unknown since the last gun-maker died; snuff-nuts, even slippers, do but a small business. Living is more expensive than it was: it cost Hadj Mukhtar three shillings a day to feed himself and the whole household, he said.

The room into which we went—our host leaving his yellow slippers in the doorway, and motioning us all to sit down on the divans round the walls—was hung with a silk dado, tiled in mosaic, and overlooked a good-sized patio with a running fountain.

Our dirty boots compared unfavourably with the Hadj's clean, bare feet, which, as he sat down cross-legged on the white and embroidered cushions, were hidden underneath his voluminous garments; whereas ours, not to the manner born, contracted cramp, unless stuck out in an ungainly way.

A gorgeously upholstered bed filled up one corner of the room; a gun hung on the wall. There was nothing else.

Three little sons of the house and Mr. Bewicke's soldier-servant having followed us in and seated themselves, preparations for tea—already waiting, arranged in front of the divans on four brass trays, standing on four low tables a few inches high—began.

Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, sitting on his heels in front of his tea-table, making tea with his thin brown hands, and presiding over it all with true Oriental dignity, was a veritable Moses or Aaron reincarnated. Women and men alike mature rapidly in this country, putting on flesh and becoming matronly and aldermanic without at the same time growing lined or aged: a wealthy man of twenty-five is portly and slow of movement—the result of Eastern habits coupled with the climate.

Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, barely forty years old by his own account, had a white beard and moustache, no wrinkles, eyes of mild blue and benign expression, equally guileless and unfathomable.

Talking in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, he drew the tray close to the low divan in front of him, saw that his sons provided cushions for our backs, and proceeded to wash the green tea in a bright nickel pear-shaped teapot, with water from the great brass urn which stood over a charcoal-burner: the washed tea was then transferred into a twin teapot, which the Hadj generously filled with immense lumps of sugar out of a glass dish standing on a tray by itself, stacked high with great blocks split off the cone with a hatchet. Heavy with lump sugar, a handful of mint and bay leaves was also crammed into the little remaining space in the teapot, the boiling water out of the urn was turned on over all, filling up every chink, the lid shut down upon the steaming fragrant brew, and the teapot set back upon the brass tray, the centre of a ring of tiny gilt and painted glasses.

The eldest son—a boy of fourteen, dressed in red, and wearing a leather belt embroidered with blue, and a fez-bag fastened thereto to match, whose head had evidently had its weekly shave that afternoon—lit a lamp underneath a little incense-burner, filling it with sticks of sweet-scented wood, till an odoriferous blue smoke rose from it. With much care he carried the burner to us, and put it inside our coats, thoroughly impregnating every thickness with warmth and odours of cedar-wood. It was taken last of all to Mr. Bewicke's soldier, who manipulated it correctly as a Moor, putting it inside his flowing apparel, and sitting down with every fold closed in round him like a miniature tent, the burner smoking away inside. A scent-spray was then handed, with which we anointed ourselves in Moorish fashion, inside our hats, up our sleeves, and round our necks.

Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli poured out tea with a great elevation of the teapot, raising his arm and showing greens and blues mixed to perfection underneath his k`sa—a white woollen or silk robe worn only by gentlemen—which, semi-transparent and gauze-like, fell in white waves over his shoulders on to the divan. Under the k`sa was a long garment with wide sleeves and buttoned all down the front—a kaftan—of sea-green cloth, embroidered with gold. The kaftan just revealed a waistcoat of a shade of blue, with gold and green buttons and embroidery. Underneath this, and above his white cotton shirt and drawers, he probably wore a woollen jacket. But greens and blues and gold were alone visible. Sometimes several kaftans or several jellabs are worn one on top of the other, all colours mixed, particularly if the owner is travelling. Moors are a wool-clad people for the most part, due to the wet winter climate: the men's brown woollen hooded jellabs keep out the rain more or less, and the women's white woollen haiks answer the same purpose. The Hadj turned up his sleeves as he made tea, the underside of them being embroidered for this purpose. It was ready by this time, and brought us on a brass tray by the eldest son. Though the little glasses are not capable of holding much, the violent sweetness and the flavour of mint prevent the uninitiated from doing justice to the regulation three cups which courtesy demands should be drunk. But it grows, even upon the European, that steaming golden-brown beverage, fresh and fragrant with sweet thymes, while something in the climate of Morocco tends to make sugar acceptable after a few weeks. We supplied ourselves with sponge cake, pounds of which were piled on a brass tray in front of us: sweet biscuits, toasted nuts, almonds, and raisins abounded on the same lavish scale; while a wicker basket, like a large waste-paper basket, was full of thirty or forty round cakes of bread, several sizes larger than a Bath bun, made of the finest semolina flour, flavoured with aniseed and baked a warm biscuit colour.

The Hadj pressed third cups upon us, but with the innate breeding of every Moor understood the limited capacity born of early days in Morocco. A Moor is nothing if not courteous, and, whatever his real feelings, conceals them under polite speeches. He will, as somebody has said, "cut your throat most politely, most politely," or with profound urbanity offer you a cup of poison.

Our host had sipped a first cup before allowing the tea to be handed round—a custom observed to assure the guest that the teapot was free from poison, and that no deadly drink was offered us, containing seeds which should propagate a horrible disease in the intestines, destroying life sooner or later. Poisoning is only too common among the Moors themselves, cases occurring almost every day in the country. Once, when Sir John Hay was having an angry discussion with a governor—Mokhta—coffee was brought in. Mokhta, as usual, took the cup intended for the Englishman, and put it to his lips, making a noise as though sipping it, but which sounded suspiciously like blowing into it, and then offering it to Sir John. Not fancying the bubbled coffee, he declined, saying to Mokhta, "I could not drink before you. Pray keep that cup yourself," and helping himself at the same time to the second cup, which he drank. Mokhta put down the cup which he had offered Sir John, and did not drink it.

Some one in Tetuan dies every year of poisoning. Wives frequently kill their husbands. No two brothers, both in ministerial offices at Court, would dream of sitting down and eating together without precautions beforehand, on account of the marked pieces in the dish. One brother, as he dines, may invite the other, who happens to enter, to join him in the meal; but he will reply, "I have already dined." He dare not.

Meanwhile, Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli talked away in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, who translated for us. He said that Menebbi, the Minister of War who went over to England with the last embassy, and who is practically Prime Minister, lost a considerable amount of influence during the short two months he was away, but that he was rapidly gaining ground, and might be said to be completely restored to favour again. Menebbi is the only one of the Sultan's Ministers who is likely to help him to reform the Government of Morocco. A clever, crafty brain, the whole Court under his thumb, it yet needed but an absence of eight weeks to generate in that hotbed of Eastern intrigue such a tissue of false evidence and lies as nearly cost Menebbi his position, if not his life. His enemies possessed the Sultan's ear; every Menebbi had been removed from the army; he had probably not a single friend left in Morocco. With the fickleness of their race, his name was cursed at every street corner; and when spoken of, the people said, "There is no Menebbi." Hurrying back from England, the tidings of his fall reached Menebbi when he landed at Mazagan: he was to be arrested. But the man they had to deal with was one of those few who make a full use of every opportunity life ever offers. From Mazagan to Morocco City, where the Court was, a distance of a hundred and forty miles, he had a relay of mules and horses posted, and he rode without stopping. There were dead and sorry beasts left on the road that day. Menebbi rode up to the cannon's mouth, so to speak: he need never have gone to Morocco City, but that would have meant his sinking into private life and his banishment from Court; he preferred to "play to the uttermost," and he staked life and fortune on the card he held. Things in Morocco City hung on an eyelash: the great man galloped in from Mazagan, went straight to the palace, never paused a moment, straight to the Sultan's private door, straight into the presence itself. And who shall say what Menebbi said to the Sultan through that night which he passed with him—what false accusations he refuted, what diplomacy he used? Next day Menebbi was not at prayers; he was "sick": in other words, he had tidings of a plot to kill him on his way to the mosque. However, in time he righted himself: now his enemies are under his heel, and Menebbi breathes again.

The Hadj spoke of the great wish the Sultan has to visit England—an impossibility, for in the eyes of his fanatical subjects he would be countenancing the unbelievers, and his throne would be handed over to a successor: the throne to which he succeeded, for the first time in the history of Morocco, without having to fight his way to it—a fact owed to the Wazeer's sagacity. Keeping the death of the old Sultan secret for a few days, the Wazeer meantime bribed and forced the Ministers to accept the young heir as Sultan, hurried to Fez, summoned every citizen to the mosque, had the doors locked, proclaimed the news of the Sultan's death, and surprised or forced the whole mosqueful into swearing allegiance to the present ruler.

So far the Sultan knows only two or three places in his whole kingdom, and has practically spent his life at one—Morocco City, or Marrakesh, as the Moors call it. Nor would his journeys be reckoned blessings by the unfortunate country through which he passed. Only able to move with an army, that army, without any commissariat or transport, feeding itself upon its march, wipes corn and food off the face of the land as a sponge wipes a slate. "Where the Sultan's horse treads the corn ceases to grow." He seldom travels with less than thirty thousand followers; and, supposing he is passing through a turbulent tribe, fights his way as he goes, leaving ruin and desolation behind. "They make a desert, and they call it peace."

Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli had travelled considerably farther afield than his sovereign; he knew Genoa, Marseilles, Egypt, and of course Mecca. The Mussulman pilgrims passing through Constantinople on their way to Mecca this year are, he told us, very numerous, the Sultan having ordered the fares on the Massousieh Company's steamers to be reduced one-half for them. He thought that about two thousand Moors would be leaving Tangier in the early spring for the pilgrimage, returning some three months later. Neither the Hadj's sons nor Mr. Bewicke's soldier joined in the conversation, but continued steadily to consume tea, all eyes and ears.

At last the trays were removed; and there being no co-religious eye to shock, Hadj Mukhtar indulged in a cigarette, while we puzzled him with a few tricks of balance and reach, which pleased him quite as much as his boys: everybody tried their hands, and finally the Hadj sent his eldest son for an old, heavy sword, and, squatting on the floor, showed us a clever piece of leverage with it and his thumb, which it was in vain to try and imitate.

Watching our failures, he produced a snuff-box, a small cocoanut-shell, ornamented with little silver and coral knobs, with a narrow ivory mouthpiece, a stopper, and an ivory pin fastened to the cocoanut-shell to stir up the snuff inside—Tetuan snuff—noted for its pungent flavour. Hadj Mukhtar jerked the grains through the narrow mouthpiece into the hollow of the back of his thumb, where all Moors lay it, then lifted his hand up to his nose.

Near the door hung his rosary of ninety-nine beads, reminding the pious Mussulman of the ninety-nine attributes of God. Each of the ninety-nine beads corresponds to the name of some holy man, and as the bead is passed along with the hand the saint's name is murmured. Curious that the use of rosaries in the Spanish Church is said to have been borrowed first of all from the Spanish Moors.

The eldest son of our host was, his father told us, looking forward to beginning the Fast of RÁmadhan this year—fasting, as he was only a novice, for half the day instead of the whole of it: evidently as much importance and excitement were attached to the prospect as later on would attend the boy's marriage. This same boy of fourteen is learning to write in Latin characters, for a Moor a most unusual and advanced step: at present he was only wearing a little red fez cap, not having reached the age of turbans, with all their dignified symmetry. The Koran was all the literature the boy would ever know. Strange that a strong and sober people should have for ages confined their studies to the Koran, an occasional Arab poet, and a sacred treatise or two. There is, as I have already said, no literature, no art, no science, in Morocco, and no architecture—the Koran forbidding, it is said, research or study in any line except that of religion. Geography is entirely unknown. Like Moors in general, Hadj Mukhtar may have heard of London and Paris, and might know the names Germany and Russia, besides Mecca; but none of the former would have any connection or "place" in his mind, and Morocco must be, he is confident, the finest country under the sun. If it were brought home to him that his country is in a decadent condition, he would reply that at least it is good enough for him as it is; and that if Europeans were allowed to exploit it and to settle therein, the end would be prosperity for the Western civilization, and a knuckling-under on the part of the Moorish—which is true.

We talked on upon one and another subject till it grew late, but before we left our host took R. and myself to see his wife, downstairs, in a smaller room. Five wives are allowed by Mohammed, but few Moors in Tetuan were rich enough to afford as many, and contented themselves with slaves. We were not impressed by the very plain, sallow-faced lady, with a black fringe and hard brown eyes, who shook hands with us, and from her likeness to the eldest boy was probably his mother. The second son was evidently by a slave: there was no mistaking that likeness—a fat, happy individual, the greatest contrast to another slave, who, though well dressed, was pale and miserable-looking. Two or three other corpulent, smiling blackamoors made up the sum-total of the party in the downstairs room—most comfortable, lounging on the cushions, they looked, no mean advertisements of Hadj Mukhtar's "table." The principal and favourite wife possessed a noisy sewing-machine, which she proudly displayed.

Every Moor's establishment has its slaves—so many, according to his income: in Tetuan they are sold privately, and frequently exchanged one for the other, while the wives are as easily divorced. Every year something like three thousand slaves come into Morocco, chiefly from the Soudan: a few are stolen from Moorish tribes; the rest are brought in by Moorish traders, who catch them in various ways, such as scattering sweetmeats, or in hard times corn, round the villages, up to neighbouring coverts, just as a poacher at home entices pheasants with raisins, then pouncing out and carrying them off.

As there are no such things as Moorish women-servants, negresses and slaves of various types step into the gap, and the evil of this influx of black blood is seen in the deterioration of a fine race, and the increase of the type which tends towards thick lips, low foreheads, and sensual tastes. The slavery of Christians in Morocco, once common, has been by treaty abolished since the day when the savage Sultan Mulai Ismael had eleven thousand Christian slaves in Mequinez employed in building his walls, whose bodies, when they succumbed, were mixed in with the stones and mud of the buildings. Slaves are not ill treated in the present day, though now and again one may be flogged to death as the result of fault or the malice and slander of a jealous fellow-slave: as a rule they live happily; and if a female slave bears a male child to her master, by a law in the Koran both mother and son are ipso facto freed, though they continue to live on in the same house.

The last thing Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli showed us was his hummum, cunningly arranged to flank the kitchen fire at the back. A tiny room; but four of his wives and slaves could, he explained, take their bath in it at once. There was a small stone slab inside as a seat, and hot air came in by means of a pipe in one corner. The hummum, or Turkish bath, is partly enjoined by the Koran and partly taken for its own enjoyment; it is a feature of every Moorish house of any pretension, and largely used by men and women.

The evening was a dark one, and we picked our way back to the fonda by the light of lanterns: it is impossible to go out at night in Tetuan without carrying one; the streets are wholly unlit, and the refuse-heaps and central gutters unpleasant traps.

Next morning R. and I strolled out of the city in the direction of Ceuta by way of the BÁb-el-M`kabar (the Gate of the Tombs). Just beyond this gateway congregates in the road el doollah (the drove)—that is to say, the mules and donkeys belonging to any one in Tetuan who has no work for them on that particular day. They are all left by their owners at this spot in the care of a tall, tattered Moor, whose business in life is to look after them; and there they lie in the sandy road or lean up against the hot wall or each other, one of the saddest sights on God's earth, some of them infant two-year-olds, all of them overworked and starved. About midday the drover drives his charges off to the nearest grass—such as it is—and the ragged squad troops along the stony track without bridles and without spirit to abuse its freedom. They have none of them packs or saddles, unless their sore backs are too deeply aggravated to allow of exposure to the flies and dust; and in due time, one by one, the old or the dying drop tacitly out of the ranks; a couple of days—the scavenging dogs' work is done—and only a tangled knot of bones is kicked away from the roadside by the feet of the living generation, which have picked up the scantiest feed, and are straying back citywards again in the late afternoon, to be called for outside the BÁb-el-M`kabar each by its owner.

El doollah had not started; and leaving them all in the road below us, we passed the little knots of countrywomen who sit by the BÁb-el-M`kabar selling myrtle for laying upon the graves, and wound our way uphill through the old Mussulman cemetery, with its quaint domed tombs and toothed, arched doorways, cracked, decayed, and yellow with lichen, half hidden among the tangle of bushes and wild flowers on the rough slope.

The older of the tombs are probably those of the first Moors who fled from Spain in the days of that great trek back to Morocco: a much later and very conspicuous dome belongs to a brave lady, who, not a hundred years ago, did her best to defend Tetuan against the Spaniards, fighting side by side with the Moorish troops, and, in the course of the siege, accounting for half a dozen Spaniards, thereby earning for herself in due course a Joan of Arc reputation and a public sepulchre.

A MOHAMMEDAN CEMETERY.

A Mohammedan Cemetery.

The cemetery was overgrown with ayerna root, one of the commonest weeds in Morocco, poisonous when it is eaten raw, though it is possible, after boiling the root for ten or twelve hours, spreading it out to dry in the sun, and grinding it in a mill, to make a sort of bitter bread out of the flour, and to subsist upon that. This the poor do to a great extent, whenever corn runs short and they have nothing but roots and grasses to fall back upon: their pale yellow faces and emaciated bodies tell a tale of the ayerna root. We grubbed some up with a little difficulty in the stiff clay soil with nothing but sticks to help. Fifteen inches down we found the root, a small whitish bulb, the size of a bluebell root.

There is much desolation about the old cemetery, with its crumbling ruins; but the sun struck a key-note of splendour, and turned the lichened stones into nuggets of gold.

A black raven sat on a grey rock above us and croaked; below lay the white city—white beyond all English ideas of whiteness. Two tall minarets, with simple straight lines, only a mosaic of green tiling let into their flat faces, cut the peaks of the mountains beyond. At a quarter past twelve a little white flag slowly mounted to the top of each mosque; an infinitesimally small black figure appeared against the sky; then leaning over the parapet and looking down upon the humming city, a cry broke from the figure, and was carried over to us upon the wind—a cry which rose and fell, most musical, most sonorous: "Allah Ho Akbar—Allah Ho Akbar." The black dot moved round the parapet, and east and west and north and south chanted the great summons to the Faithful to prayer. And then the little white flag was hauled down.

On the other side of the river the neutral-coloured villages could be picked out by their white saint-houses. Morocco is stuck as full of saints' tombs—fuller—than England of dissenting chapels. They stud the land. Moors rid themselves of much valuable energy in the erection, by countless thousands, of tombs to the memory of the eccentric or pious dead; and distances are measured, tracks marked, not from church to church as in Spain, nor from village to village as in England, but from saint-house to saint-house, each of which is village-green, club, or public-house rolled into one, where the men gossip, the pious read, travellers halt, offerings are brought the dead saint, and sick children arrive to be healed—all at a little whitewashed building with a dome like an oven outside, and a horse-shoe arch, an olive- or a fig- or a palm-tree, a flag-staff hung with morsels of rag, and often a spring of water. At four cross-tracks, instead of sign-posts, heaps of stones, cairns, are to be found, placed in such a way as to indicate the direction in which the next saint's tomb lies.

A saint-house or two spot the green plain below the cemetery, which merges into the seven miles of flats stretching from the city to the sea, the haunt of wild duck, plover, and snipe, among wastes of coarse grass, marsh, and red tangle. Coils of grey river lie upon the flats: the very flatness over which the stream snakes is at once most strong—serene.

As we walked down the hillside, a brown figure upon a flat-topped tomb was silhouetted against the plain: he raised himself, and then again prostrated his body to the earth, his face set to the distant belt of blue sea, worshipping towards Mecca.

That afternoon we visited Semsar, a village two or three hours' ride from Tetuan, up in the mountains to the west. R. had a sedate brown mule with no idea of exerting himself: my mount was a clever little grey, nervous and rather handy with his heels, nearly kicking me more than once when I dismounted or mounted carelessly. We rode, as usual, on the high-peaked Moorish saddles, covered with scarlet cloth, such as every Moor uses—the stirrup-leathers of twisted scarlet silk, several thick saddle-cloths underneath, the girths never drawn, the saddle only kept from slipping over head or tail by scarlet britching and breastplate. It is impossible to mount unless the stirrup is held. After repeating the sacramental word "B`ism Allah" (a Moor mounts and dismounts in the name of God), with a man at his stirrups, he sinks without an effort into his saddle, amidst a furbelow of white robes, which he has afterwards arranged carefully for him. Possibly for this reason he gets on and off as seldom as possible, hugging the convenient maxim, common among the Moors, that mounting and dismounting fatigue an animal more than carrying a burden. He rides with his knees up to his chin: he is a natural horseman, and looks at home in his practically girthless and quite shapeless saddle, which must have given him a pang, if ever he galloped for his life in front of his enemies, and reflected that his safety was dependent upon the breastplate. A man, before now, has, as he rode, unwound his waistcloth, and twisted it round his horse's neck, for further security against the saddle's slipping back.

Mr. Bewicke and his soldier rode with us: the latter a dark, lean-faced, unwholesome-looking man, unable, like so many of his countrymen, to grow any hair on his face—an obsequious individual too, inspiring little trust; below his long blue cloak he wore brown riding-boots, embroidered with orange, and fastening up the back with orange-thread buttons.

My little grey bustled along; but once or twice, when the road fell away into a steep drop, his weak hind legs gave under him, and he "sat down": we soon learnt the effect which merely shaking the feet in the great angular stirrups has on mules whose sides have often been in touch with the sharp points, and jogged forward wherever the bad road allowed. We had left the city by another of its six gates—the BÁb-el-Toot (Mulberry Gate), the old name pointing back to an energetic past, when mulberries, silk-worms, and silk-weaving flourished around Tetuan—when the cultivation of sugar-cane, cotton, and rice in Morocco was more than a memory.

Following for a time the road to Tangier, we branched off to the right, and took a rough path winding upwards, passing a spring where women wash clothes, three parts walled in, to prevent their being seen.

A little higher up and one of the countless saints' tombs came in sight—better known in this case as the Robbers' Tower, where brigands congregate at sunset, and from an excellent coign of vantage keep a look-out on the Tangier road, to drop on any unfortunate so foolhardy as to be on it late in the day. After dark no Moor from Tetuan would walk near this saint-house.

Only a few weeks after this very ride a man was murdered on the Tangier road, why or wherefore no one knew, except that his body was found, brought into Tetuan, and buried without further investigation, since his relatives were neither rich nor powerful enough to institute a search and demand compensation.

Robbery in Morocco is almost sanctioned by Providence; it is made so simple. The lonely tracks, the absence of police, the inconveniences of travelling, and the innumerable wells scattered over the country, almost sunk for the reception of inconvenient bodies—one and all tempt a man to turn brigand; and yet Europeans are seldom attacked, in view of the fine imposed upon the tribe in whose territory a crime is committed.

Thus the borders, where several tribes meet, are always unsafe country, one tribe disposing of bodies which they have done to death by depositing them in the territory of the next tribe. But even in "Christian-ridden" Tangier a German was knifed three years ago walking home, as was his custom, at dusk. He happened to have no money on him. His murderer was given up to justice—that is, the basha of Tangier said some one must die, and together with the fine the tribe outside Tangier produced a man, who was duly executed, though whether he was the murderer . . . . . .

Meanwhile, we were leaving the millet-fields behind us—stubbles, an occasional stalk three feet high, no lying for birds—and were in a country of wild lavender and stunted bushes: these consisted chiefly of cistus or else palmetto, a little dwarf palm, the fruit of which is eaten by goats, and the root by natives as a vegetable, while its fibrous leaves make rope and baskets and a hundred things. A bleak undulating country, which ran up into rocky blue gorges and grey peaks on the right hand. The path was almost blocked at one point by an immense cairn on the top of a ridge—a holy pile, upon which the devout Moor in passing casts a stone, because from this spot the mountain can be made out on which the venerated shrine of Mulai Abdesalam lies, in Beni Anos, the goal of thousands of pilgrims each year. Though it is within a day's ride of Tangier, the country for miles around is forbidden to any European, and two Englishmen only have penetrated into the sacred city of SheshÁwan, which lies in the same district. Mr. Walter B. Harris and Mr. Somers, at different times, got inside, but only at sunset, and after lying in hiding all night had to flee for their lives at dawn.

Gradually we reached wilder and more rocky country, recalling Scotland as far as the open moorland went. If fir-trees were planted on the sheltered slopes, the fir-pins should, in conjunction with the natural soil, form land capable of growing vines—an idle dream in the Morocco of to-day.

Between two hills in front of us towered a cliff of rocky red limestone, which might once have formed the bed of some vast stream. Semsar lay where the waters should have struck the rock beneath as they fell: a more sheltered village could not be, facing south-east. The cliff above is still riddled with the remains of an old silver-mine, worked years ago by the Portuguese: the ladders and scaffolding inside have fallen to pieces, and after penetrating along dark tunnels on hands and knees for a certain distance an open shaft intervenes, and further exploration is impossible.

Semsar, nestled into its crevice, takes more or less the local brown; but among the thatched huts, rising one above the other like an uneven pile of mud terraces, a few walls were whitewashed, and of course a white village mosque stood guard over all on the top of a hillock. There is something a trifle "animal" in these villages, rough clusters of bee's-comb or ant-heaps or beavers' lodgings as they might be, assuming exactly the shade of their surroundings, as nests the colour of their hiding-places, or as the khaki-coloured sand-lizard, desert-lark, and sand-grouse of the great Sahara take on the yellow-ochre tone of that desert.

A friend belonging to Mr. Bewicke's soldier had ridden out behind us. He owned a garden at hand, and asked if we would go in and look at it. We stooped low under a white stone doorway, an imposing structure, invariably the entrance to every garden: the door generally painted Reckitt's blue, and kept locked with a key eight inches long, while on each side of the gateway the cane fence is tumbling to pieces and offering useful gaps to marauders—a curious inversion of the rule in Spain, where to this day they bar the window heavily and leave the door open.

Though to all appearance the owner was a hard-working Moor, the garden at any rate bore no great signs of expenditure of labour. We found ourselves in an overgrown wilderness of orange-trees, peaches, pears, figs, plums, damsons, cherries, white mulberries, quinces, jasmine, all overgrown and stabbed by the interloping prickly pear—a good fruit, too, in its way, and a "useful beast" as a hedge.

Half of his oranges were always stolen, the owner said; the remaining half brought him in from sixty to ninety shillings a year, selling perhaps at a shilling or two the thousand. He had evidently not the capital to get the half of what such fruitful soil could give with Gibraltar at hand for export, nor the means of securing to himself any money he made; and it is poor work putting money into the hands of the nearest extortionate sheikh. Yet his garden was, and is to every Moor, a source of great satisfaction and content: truly a field of the slothful, a garden where the mystic finds rest and heart's ease, and the two things which appeal most to sun-baked men—shade and water. It is enough in such a spot to drowse away the sunny hours amidst the hum of bees, the rattle of the tree-beetle; to muse upon some book of whose drift only a faint idea is intelligible, content to leave its problems in the limbo of the insoluble, where most of life's questions seethe harmlessly enough; then, turning, give thanks to Allah, who has made gardens for mankind, and doze again.

Farther on the path led us across streams banked with maiden-hair fern like rank grass. Water had worn the rock into grotesque shapes, a cavernous arch in one place, the banks, like a tunnel, almost meeting over our heads in another. Immense blocks of stone barred the way; it was not easy riding, but the mules climbed up and down rocky staircases with much tact, while we sat holding our breath.

Over one of these obstructions the breastplate of my saddle, which had only been fastened to begin with by three stitches of string, burst, and I found myself almost over the grey's tail: such a common occurrence that no Moor goes out without string and packing-needle handy; but this was past mending on the road, and I changed on to the soldier's mule, whose top-heavy saddle was no fit at all, and, shifting all over its back, required careful balance on the rider's part.

The road was only a few feet wide, and so overgrown that, as we jogged one after the other, trying to dodge grey arms of fig-trees, lying on the mules' necks under dark masses of foliage which shut out half the light, hatless, the stiffest bullfinch at home would have been ears of corn compared with what we went through.

At last, however, it came to an end, and the trail opened out into the village of Semsar. Nobody was to be seen; dogs barked as usual; some kids bleated inside a hut. We rode by the crazy hovels; a woman carrying water emerged, and a boy with a baby. Beyond the last brown erection we came to a saint's tomb. This meant the village green without any "green." Two or three country people sat in the usual meeting-place among trodden-down weeds, talking and smoking their long pipes, congregated round one busy man, who was chopping a log into a plough with an axe. Around the tomb was a group of olive-trees, preserved leaf and stick and all, not a branch even of dead wood off the ground removed, by reason of the sanctity of the spot. However small a grove, it would otherwise have been cut down, as affording cover to robbers and ginns (evil spirits). Thanks to saints' tombs the traveller in Morocco still meets with clumps and occasional woods of olives. The sunshine glowed on their hoary twisted branches, and flecked the gnarled trunks; the grey foliage cast patches of dense shadow on the brown earth under the mammoths, whose broken lines and odd elbows supported such masses of quiet colour and solemn shade. We wound our way to the left among the huts. Of any road between them there was none; the mules could barely climb over some of the boulders among the refuse.

Once quit of the "green," we saw no one again, and got much mixed as to direction. Finally, we struck a path with a descent into a pool and below a fig tree, which, having made ourselves small, we circumvented, and discovered that it meandered in time to the outside of the village. Following, we wound southwards by a gorge along a rocky stream, which has the reputation of rising suddenly after rain, and not long ago drowned three mules.

Stepping-stones are not provided in Morocco, and it is generally a case of plunging through a stream to reach the opposite side. Near a city with good fortune a Jew may pass, the chance may be worth waiting for; but no Mohammedan Moor would carry an infidel across on his superior back.

In time a different path led us back to Tetuan, and we rode in by the Mulberry Gate at sunset, as the mueddzin was calling upon true believers to worship.

On fine days we made many such excursions, and exploited the country for miles round. Showery and doubtful days were devoted to the city and shopping.

Shopping in a foreign city tends towards the accumulation of white elephants, which, safely landed in England, work havoc in an English home. Long flint guns from the Riff, and old blue dishes from Fez, and orange-striped rugs from Rabat look strangely out of place with wall-papers and oil paintings. The East will never sit down with the West, and the adjuncts of either are bound to "fight." And yet we shopped.

There are fewer more interesting ways of studying the outside life of the people; a little gossip and less reliable information are all thrown in to the bargain. The little Tetuan shops are a species of club, for each Moor has certain shops at which he habitually sits and may be found with more or less certainty. While the owner and his goods remain inside the shop, there is room for two people outside on the sill or doorstep, and a couple of fat leather cushions are provided for them. Even Mr. Bewicke was in the habit of sitting every day at Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli's shop and hearing the news, between four and seven o'clock every evening.

OUT SHOPPING.

Out Shopping.

He interpreted for us in our early days. We spent a whole morning buying humbells (striped carpets) at a shop where the owner was sitting on the floor playing chess with a friend and drinking green tea. All over Tetuan draughts and chess are played constantly on little boards, either on the doorstep or inside the shop. The game had its origin, like bridge and polo, eastwards of England, and was introduced into Europe after the Crusades, together with baths and other civilized habits. Our shopman looked exceedingly bored at the interruption. However, after much bargaining, we bought a humbell, having to point to everything we wished to buy, for no Moor likes a Christian to come inside his shop, because of his dirty boots. A Moor is either in a pair of clean yellow slippers, or else they are on the doorsill, and his feet are bare: he tosses all his silks, towels, embroideries, carpets, on the floor, and sits among them, while the purchaser stands outside, points to the shelves and heap, and trusts to the owner's divining which particular silk handkerchief is wanted.

In another shop we found a second humbell, chiefly black and orange, the property of a taciturn individual in a snow-white selham (hooded cloak), a turban to match, with scarlet peak, a dark blue garment underneath the selham, and a complexion like cream and roses. He lay at full length on a pile of many carpets. We stopped in front of the shop. Neither rising, bowing, nor bustling about to show off his goods, the white figure lay still, looking dreamily through and beyond us. We were bores. In reply to a question of price, a long sum was murmured. At last we expressed a decided wish to inspect the humbell, and, slowly rising, he condescended to lift it from a shelf, his looks suggesting that he would prefer being left alone. Again we asked his lowest price. Twenty-one shillings. We offered sixteen. Without deigning to answer, he solemnly folded up the humbell and put it away, then folded one by one the goods which littered the floor, and stacked them above the humbell on the same shelf. Still standing in front of the shop, we repeated our offer of sixteen shillings. He shook his head decidedly, made a deprecating gesture, and prepared to sink again on his couch. Mr. Bewicke forbade us to offer more; we walked away. A voice said in Arabic, "It is yours," and the humbell was thrown after us; the sixteen shillings were received with a sigh as the shopkeeper resumed his couch.

Tetuan makes many artistic "towels," which form the ordinary dress of the countrywomen underneath their old enfolding yellowish-white woollen haiks; but for quite the majority a towel as skirt and a towel as cape are sufficient for all purposes. There is the rare addition of a pair of cotton drawers.

The strong substance and fast scarlet dyes make these towels no mean substitutes for curtains, except that, like native goods in general, they seldom quite match, and distract the soul which demands "pairs" in all and everything.

A Jew we visited in the Jews' Quarter had a fine carpet for sale, made farther south, something like a Persian, the ground whitish, with harmonious reds and greens. For a long time we sat and tried to bargain in his odd little den up a dilapidated staircase and nearly pitch dark: he wanted £5. The pattern was a little small. We came away without it. Some of the old kaftans (robes of coloured cloth or satin or silk brocade, embroidered with gold or silver, buttoned down the front and with wide sleeves) were well worth buying: none are made like them nowadays, for common material is used; unfortunately the best are often in tatters.

We visited the Slipper Market, and, sitting on the doorstep of one of the shops, gave directions for two pairs—blue velvet embroidered with gold, and milk-coloured leather embroidered with green. Size, price, and colour were duly discussed; rain came on, we sat on the doorsill sheltering, and the basha—Tetuan's governor—was criticised. The slipper-maker had not a good word for him. To begin with, it seems he has no money, is of no family, and aristocratic Tetuan refuses to "hob-nob" with him. He dislikes Tetuan after Fez, whence he was transferred, and where he made more money. The other day a neighbouring tribe sent him a present of so many dollars. At the same time they owed him certain taxes, in lieu of which he accepted the money, but pointed out that the present must follow in due course. None ever arrived, and the basha sent his brother-in-law and a soldier to the tribesmen to ask an explanation of its non-appearance. The brother-in-law was tactless, incensed the tribesmen, and provoked them to bastinado him, whereupon the soldier lost his head, and fired his gun off into the air. He was promptly disembowelled.

The brother-in-law returned to the basha, stiff, but alive; and the country people give it as their verdict that the basha is a rapacious man. They threaten that they will no longer bring their produce into Tetuan to market, but will hold their own markets at some place chosen by themselves out in the country, and Tetuan shall come out to buy. Such a proceeding would be most inconvenient; for Tetuan is dependent for all its supplies on the country people, who hold their markets on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the feddan, where they sit upon the ground packed in hundreds, their chickens, eggs, butter, and produce in general in their laps and at their feet. Their beef and mutton are but second-rate, and the shapeless lumps of lean, tough meat take double as long as an English joint to cook, and make but a poor show in the end, hacked by the unskilful butchers past all recognition. Goat and fish are to be had, sometimes partridges, hares, and rabbits, occasionally a haunch of wild boar. Fish came in on certain days when the wind was favourable: there was then a rush on the fish market, and almost a free fight over the great panniers full of shining silvery sardines, and over the bodies of the sellers seated on the ground. The successful carried off a handful each, and the cafÉs and fish shops were soon frying sardines for dear life, while the little streets were thick with the steam of native oil and butter. Some big fish, four and five feet long, came into market sometimes, and a small boy would be hired by a purchaser to carry one home across his shoulder, its great head hanging down behind, and underneath a pair of thin brown legs like little sticks hurrying along the street.

Bread in Morocco is "passing heavy," flavoured with aniseed and full of grit. Vegetables are to be had in abundance.

The slippers, which had been promised in three days, appeared in three weeks. Whenever we passed the shop we asked after them: always the same answer—Manana (To-morrow). "No, there was no butter to be had to-day, but manana." "No, the pillows were not finished yet, but manana." "The boots left to be soled were not ready, but manana." Tetuan lives upon manana: it is the reincarnation of jam yesterday, and jam to-morrow, but never jam to-day.

Equally exasperating was the habit of every shopkeeper of locking up his shop and going off to pray or eat or chat. If a shop had to be revisited and purchases exchanged, the owner was invariably out, and the door fastened with lock and key. At 12.15 p.m. nobody could ever be found, but was presumably at the mosque. Again and again we visited the same shop: one day the owner was at a friend's shop, the next at home, and so on. We gave him up, to see his sleek cross-legged figure seated inside the little cupboard the very next time we passed.

SHOPS IN TETUAN.

Shops in Tetuan.

Walking by a saint-house on the outskirts of the city, devout and impoverished women were often to be seen there, visiting the shrine and carrying with them small vessels of food, which they placed on the ground for the spirit of the holy man to eat. The window of the shrine was tied with a hundred scraps of rag and dead flowers, bits of wood, and paper and oddments of all sorts. Empty earthenware bowls later on, and pariah dogs skulking around, licking their lips, told a tale; but if asked if they really thought their saint would come up out of his grave and eat the food prepared for him, it was open to the Mussulman to answer the Christian, "And do you really believe that your dead friends come and smell the flowers you plant on their graves?"

Small-pox kills a great many Moors, and an incredible number are marked by the disease. It is looked upon much as measles are in England: cases are never isolated, and children are all expected to have it. Each year it is prevalent, and people may be passed in the street with it out upon them; but every four years it breaks out seriously, and a large percentage of the population dies.

Last of all, in our shopping days a few things we bought by auction. No auctioneer is employed as in European countries, but the owner and seller himself perambulates the street or courtyard with his goods—a mule, or a frying-pan, or a carpet—calling out each successive bid which he receives on his article, pushing his way and jostling the motley mob of market people, peasants and loungers, silks and rags, until he has got his price, and hands over to its new owner his late possession.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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