Missionaries at Tetuan—Poisoning in Morocco—Fatima's Reception—Divorce—An Expedition into the Anjeras—An Emerald Oasis.

CHAPTER VIII

Three times a week, from ten o'clock to twelve o'clock in the morning, the lady missionaries opened their dispensary, which, as there was no man missionary in Tetuan, was in women's hands alone, Miss Banks at the head. Though, unfortunately, she was not an M.D. nor a qualified surgeon, the good which she and her staff did was incalculable. The first day on which the dispensary was open after RÁmadhan over sixty Moors came to be doctored. The day I went, there were forty-four; and the two rooms—one for men, one for women—were as full as they would hold, while a large surplus stood waiting their turn outside. Most of them were of the lower class of Moors: the better class of women would ask Miss Banks to visit them in their own houses; the better class of men would not go to lady missionaries.

The patients sat round the rooms in a circle. Miss Banks went to each in turn, and made a note of the case in a book. This over, she retired to an inner room; and, among scales, and glass measures, and drugs, and tins, and bottles by the score, proceeded to make up all the various medicines. Meanwhile, two others of the staff took up positions in the middle of the circles of men and women, and read the Bible to them in Arabic and talked to them. They seemed to listen attentively, and one or two nodded occasionally in agreement with what was said.

Thus, though everybody was doctored and provided with medicine gratis, they had to sit and listen for a certain time to Christian views, nolens volens; and this is the chief opportunity which missionaries have of preaching to the Mohammedan world.

Many of the patients who had been before brought medicine-bottles and ointment-boxes to be refilled. If not, the bottles had to be paid for. In the first instance they were given in with the medicine; but bottles are things of great value to the labouring Moor, and it was found that the people came purely for the sake of getting them—once outside the house, the medicine was thrown away.

One woman paid for her bottle in kind—four eggs. Some of the bottles were absurdly small; others the reverse, for one woman appeared carrying a great earthenware water-pot standing three feet high.

"My daughter," she said to Miss Banks, "I want medicine."

"Yes, but I cannot give you medicine in such a huge pot."

"My daughter, I have been three days on the road, and I want much medicine."

Another woman, who looked old and decrepit, begged and prayed that a bottle might be given her. Miss Banks was adamant. The woman whined and entreated from ten till half-past eleven: "I am too poor to buy one. Look at me; I am ill," and so on—until at last one of the other missionaries begged Miss Banks to give her a bottle and send her away. Still she refused to break her rule. The last patient got up to go. It was twelve o'clock. The old woman thrust her hand into the rag round her waist, pulled out a bottle, and handed it to Miss Banks to be filled.

The cases we saw were numerous. A mother with two little boys whose heads had to be examined: they were dispatched with a box of ointment (sulphur and oil) and a bottle of medicine. A boy with swelled glands had them painted. A woman had her chest painted, a man various parts of him. Pills, ointment, powders, etc., were distributed, with manifold instructions, repeated again and again, until the patient's clod-like brain had been penetrated and set in motion. Even then one would turn round at the door and say, "Then I am to eat this ointment?"

A woman was given some salts wrapped in paper, to be mixed with water and taken the next morning fasting. She did not come again for a month, and she brought with her a large earthen pot half full of water and paper. She had mixed the salts in this with their wrapping, and had been drinking a mouthful daily, but felt no better.

Miss Banks gave a woman in good circumstances a bottle of medicine which was to last her eight days, and be taken after food; also some liniment for external use. An urgent summons came two days later: the woman was dying. "I thought it did me so much good that last night I took all the rest, and then I drank the liniment," she said. She recovered.

A man did the same with pills—was so much pleased with the effect of one that he devoured the rest all at once. They invariably ate the paper in which pills or powders were wrapped. On one occasion Miss Banks went to see a girl whom she was attending, and who seemed worse. The answer, when asked if she was having her medicine regularly, was, "Oh no! she's so ill just now. When she's a little better, we shall give it to her."

Supposing that a patient dies, or a man who has once been a patient dies, the people have no hesitation in saying to the missionaries when they meet them in the street, "Oh! So-and-so's taken your medicine, and it's killed him."

It is impossible to trust Moors with medicines which could damage them; this seriously handicaps a doctor: in extreme cases the dose must be administered by the doctor personally.

Besides the dispensary, the missionaries had day schools for the children, night schools for boys, and mothers' meetings for women. Here, again, the mothers who attended the meetings were given the material of the clothes which they made for nothing; but they were obliged to sit down and listen to a Bible lesson first. It was one way, it was an opportunity, of bringing Christianity before Mohammedans.

MOORS AT HOME.

Moors at Home.

Thus through the meetings and the schools and the dispensary the missionaries knew many of the women in Tetuan, and there were few houses into which they had not been at one time or another. Sometimes it was possible to read to the people in their homes, sometimes to talk. But with the men they seldom came in contact. Never with an educated Moor. He would despise women in general, despise Christianity past words, and decline to argue on such a point with a man.

People are apt to forget that Mohammedanism is a faith to which many millions of earnest and intelligent men and women have pinned their salvation. To talk and argue with these—it is almost a truism to say—a missionary must be "up" in that subject which they have at their finger-tips—namely, their religion. This means that he or she must have a complete knowledge of the Koran; must know the traditions relating to Mohammed and his companions; must be able to converse about the divinity and the innumerable saints of Islam; must have read various religious treatises; and, above and beyond all, must understand to the smallest point the habits of the Mohammedan himself, know his life, be able to follow his thoughts, understand his actions, and be in sympathy with his recreations as well as with his work, otherwise the missionary treads on the Mohammedan's toes fifty times a day, and provokes amusement, mingled with contempt, of which resentment is born.

Needless to say, few missionaries in Morocco, except at the end of their life's work, possess these qualifications. Only a limited number know the Arabic language: they speak it colloquially of course, but the immense difficulties, which a thorough knowledge of it entails, debar most of them from satisfactory study. After years upon years of hard work, an Arabian scholar frankly avowed to me that he had but skimmed the surface of the depths of the Arabic language.

As far as the old idea of missionary work goes—of preaching to an attentive throng of Mohammedans and baptizing converts—Morocco ranks nowhere. The missionary who comes out to El Moghreb does incalculable good in curing the hereditary disease and taint with which an Eastern nation is rife, and many influence the surrounding people by the example of a good life and contact with a civilized mind: he or she is to be profoundly admired for the determination with which one end and one aim are held in view from first to last, and to the furtherance of which the whole of life is made subservient; and yet the shadows of disappointment must darken that missionary's path sometimes, unless he or she is a philosopher. For we met with none who could point us out a single convert, openly declaring himself to be one. In Tetuan, after twelve years' work, there was not one. Two women there were, who acknowledged to the missionaries, that they preferred Christianity to Mohammedanism, and who in private make use of Christian forms of prayer, but they would not "declare" their belief.

It is said, and no doubt truly, that there would be many converts to Christianity in Morocco among the lowest class, if it were not for the persecution of the Government, and the strong anti-Christian feeling which exists amongst those in authority. The religion and the Government are one; the Sultan is the religious head, a direct descendant from Mohammed; consequently Mohammedanism is enforced. A woman who declared herself a Christian would have her children taken from her; a man would be flogged round the city and boycotted, if he was not killed. Thus the prospects of the would-be convert are not happy: all which the missionaries have to offer him is, on the one hand martyrdom, on the other a miserable line of compromise—a life, that is to say, of concealment and deceit towards those nearest him, for though Christian at heart, he must yet remain Mohammedan to the world. This latter course of compromise is the line which is followed, and it is the course which is tacitly inculcated by the missionaries. I heard of no martyrs, nor Christian Moors openly declared, living in Morocco at peace with mankind.

There is a hitch somewhere. Christianity is in danger of being dragged in the dust. If it were possible for missionaries to make their doctrines appeal to the powerful and more enlightened class among the Moors, influencing the country to such an extent that it should adopt Christianity of its own accord, this could never be so. But it is not possible. In the present state of Morocco the idea is laughable. It is hardly to be expected that the most fanatical and conservative nation ever evolved, will cast its religion, like a snake its skin, at the bidding of a body of despised Europeans. Before such a revolution could take place, the character of such a nation must entirely change; the Moor must be broadened and given a scientific training, if he is ever to become of a "progressive" turn of mind, desiring other ideals than those of his forefathers.

At the same time the missionary must be adequately equipped for the fray, must be a "strong man," must possess some of the qualifications of a leader.

The first point is the all-important one: that more knowledge should be given to Mohammedans—scientific knowledge; that they should be fired to improve their own condition and that of their country, making themselves capable of mixing as equals with men who stand for the highest products of civilization the world so far knows.

Then, educated and self-educating, their creed, whatever it is, will be the outcome of their secular training. It matters little what the belief, so long as the individual is free as air to adopt it or not at his own discretion.

It would appear, then, that Morocco needs schools, colleges, and men of unusual calibre to deal with them. The doctor-missionaries do a vast amount of good; but it would seem that effort directed in fresh channels should meet with better results, and that so far there has been a tendency to "begin at the wrong end." It is easy to sit down and criticise; it is easy to map out new paths, the difficulties connected with which, few critics can realize. While we see that many of the old by-ways are tortuous and lead to error, and that many of them only result in waste of energy, let us at the same time not forget to give all honour to those who set out to dig them, for even "defeat, is great."

One afternoon I walked round with Miss Banks, visiting patients. We started from the Mission House with a basket of medicines, ointment, thermometer, paint-brush, etc., and dived into the little, narrow, crowded streets of countless windowless houses. The first call we paid was at the house of a Moor in the capacity of "gentleman farmer": of course he was out. Miss Banks knocked; there was a movement on the other side, but no answer. She called through the keyhole, "Anna. Tabiba" (I. Doctor); and a discreet slave, trained by a jealous and distrustful master, opened at the sound of her voice. We walked into a three-cornered, tiled patio: the lady of the house came to meet us in a pink jellab, shook Miss Banks's hand and kissed her own, shook mine and again carried hers to her lips; then led us into a room opening on to the courtyard, with divans, in white, all round upon the tiled floor next the wall.

We all three sat down cross-legged on the cushions, and our hostess related her symptoms to Miss Banks. She had a bad cough, and seemed glad to have her chest painted with iodine. She was the daughter of her husband's cowman; and if, according to English ideas, somewhat below him in rank, was no worse educated than the first lady in the land. It is odd that, while Moors are gentlemen born, their woman-kind, narrowed and degraded, are in no sense aristocratic. They will stand upstairs and shout "Come!" to any one who is calling upon them and waiting below. "Sit down," they will say imperatively: it is always the imperative. If they are asked to show anything, they will bring it and almost throw it at the visitor's head. They have no "breeding."

Our hostess was thin, and not at all typical of a Moorish wife; for a Moor likes a waist which he can barely clasp with both arms, and women, when they desire to attract, fatten themselves at once. A woman who is engaged, is crammed with sweet fattening pills and farinaceous food.

At one end of the room we sat in, was a gorgeous four-poster bed, hung with scarlet, and covered with embroideries, the posts painted bright green, and a great gilt crown on the top of all. When no furniture is bought except divans and a bed, all the dollars can be piled on the bed. We left a bottle of mixture out of the basket and a doll for the only child, which would be treasured, for a bunch of rags is the nearest Moorish approach to a doll.

From this house we went on to our hostess' old home, where her father, the cowman, lived. The patio there was cold and bare, and seemed the general living-room; some wood was stacked in one corner; there was a well in another; there was an overpowering smell of "drains" everywhere; while in the third corner a poor, miserable little girl sat huddled up, with frightened eyes. Several families lived together in this small house, and no fewer than six women crowded round the girl to explain her symptoms to Miss Banks. It was only too apparent what was wrong, when she uncovered her neck. Syphilis, hereditary—a terrible evil, to be found all over Morocco, the result of Mohammedan customs and bad food. Considering that women are divorced and remarried over and over again, and that the conditions under which they live are so unhealthy, it is small wonder if disease in some form or other does not show itself. Examples are to be met with in almost any street—the features of the face obliterated, and so on.

The poor child, whom Miss Banks was treating, had been married. Now that this disease had broken out, her husband would probably divorce her. If she were cured, she might marry again. Her friends had brought her all the way from Shesawan to Tetuan to be cured, and a Jew doctor had offered to put her right for the sum of £4.

"But," said her friends, "suppose she dies? What shall we get for our money then?"

So they sent to the English tabiba, who cures for nothing.

Miss Banks left ointment and medicine. Cases can be cured if the patient will persevere long enough with the medicine; but many of them are too far gone when they first come.

An old man upstairs in the same house, but of a different family, claimed her attention next. Three weeks ago he was perfectly well. He went to a cafÉ one evening, drank a cup of coffee, came home, was seized with pain, and became completely paralyzed. It pointed to poison, but he had no enemies.

Mercury is very largely used as a poison, and is given in different forms. Little is thought of ending life by this means, unless there happen to be influential relations who object to their relatives being in this summary manner "put out of the way."

There is a girl now in Tetuan who keeps a shop. Her father and mother kept it before her, but she said that they were both so old, had lived so long, and had had their day, that she felt something must be done to secure her own turn, and that speedily. Therefore she gave them both some poison. There was a funeral. She took over the shop.

Another woman was anxious to poison her husband because he was about to take a second wife. She prepared him the dish with the poisoned pieces. Suddenly she saw her child run into the house and join his father at the meal. Careless of betraying herself, she rushed to her Benjamin with cries of alarm,—too late; he had eaten, and he succumbed that night. The husband died at the end of a year from the effects of the same poison. Some of the drugs which Moors use take even longer to destroy life, but it is only a matter of time. The woman was put in prison, but she came out after twelve months, and another man has taken her to wife.

Some missionary and poisoning experiences are amusing. People often came and asked for poison to administer to somebody who happened to annoy them.

A slave appeared once and said, "I have a mistress: she's very old, isn't she?"

"Yes," said the missionary.

"She doesn't enjoy life now much, does she?"

"No, I don't think she does much."

"Would she enjoy being with the Lord much more than living on like this?"

"Yes," said the missionary, "she would be far happier with the Lord."

"Then," said the slave, "give me some poison to send her to Him."

Meanwhile, Miss Banks looked at her patient, who might or might not have had his life tampered with; but there was little she could do then. We left that house and walked on into the poorest part of the city, down a little alley which was hard to find, in search of a certain door which was still harder. After two or three mistakes, we hit upon the right one, and knocked at an old, battered, rat-eaten entrance falling to pieces.

"Anna. Tabiba," called Miss Banks; and the door was opened by a countryman, a Riffi, rough-looking, only a coarse jellab over him, but with a kind expression on his face. The space inside was something like a chicken-pen. We stooped under a very low doorway in the farther wall, and went into a little shed-like lean-to, where the inhabitants evidently lived entirely. A boy of thirteen was lying on the ground, covered with a piece of sacking. The father squatted down beside him. Two girls were grinding beans close to them in a hand-mill—the old mill of . . . "the one shall be taken, and the other left."

Miss Banks and I seated ourselves on a wooden rail, which was part of a manger or a sheep-pen. These Riffis had been forced by famine to abandon their home and come down into Tetuan, where at first they had lived in a cave, on roots principally. The father would go out and hoe when he could get work—every land-owner has hoeing to be done; but lately he had had fever. The boy had an abscess, and could not move. In spite of it he smiled cheerfully, and was delighted with a new red jellab which Miss Banks brought him. Poor little chap! he did not live to wear it. I gave him a trifle to buy food. Beyond the dried beans in course of being ground, and half a lemon, there was no sign of anything to eat. Beans and lemons to fight an abscess!

STRAW FOR SALE.

Straw for Sale.

After Miss Banks had attended to the child, we took our way to the house of a Moorish doctor, who had been unable to cure himself, and had sent in desperation for his European rival.

He was lying on a divan upstairs, himself the colour of oatmeal porridge, with his wife attending to him; and he had a terrible sore on his thigh. This was duly attended to. The long fast of RÁmadhan might partly account for his state of health. In spite of his faith in Miss Banks, which he would sooner have died than acknowledged, he had unbounded confidence in his own skill as a doctor.

We asked him if he could read.

"Read? No. Why should he read? What was the use of reading? The thing you wanted to do was to remember. Now he, if he was doctoring any one, he would try first this herb and then that. This herb no good. Try another. Another no good. Another no good. He might try twelve herbs, and all no good. And the thirteenth herb would be good. And then he would remember that herb. Why! all his doctoring he taught himself . . ."

A rough sort of doctoring it is too, consisting of two remedies—a violent purge, or else burning with a hot iron. Every sore place is burnt; and for all sorts of illnesses, in cases of rheumatism, etc., etc., the patient is scored, perhaps all over his chest or back—"fired" like a horse. Sores are always cauterized. Bullets are never extracted. Wounds are bound up with earth and rags. A serious gunshot wound, means death. Certainly there is a wide field for women doctors in Morocco.

From this house we went on to one where the father, mother, and children were all having a meal—a poverty-stricken family again, where one of the children was wasting away with fever. The rest of the party were sitting round an earthenware pan, which was full of mallow leaves, stewed in native oil, with red pepper and garlic in huge quantities. They were dipping in their fingers, fishing out the greasy mallow and garlic, and laying it on their brown native bread and eating it. They insisted upon our joining them. It is no excuse to say "I have dined lately," for a Moor eats at any time, when there happens to be food. Miss Banks tasted the stew with a heroism worthy the noblest end.

We went on to the house of a man who has one of the best shops in Tetuan. It was consequently comfortable, and delightfully fresh-looking. The master of the house was in bed with fever—that is to say, we found him reclining on a divan on the floor, beside a gorgeous bed, with a lily-white turban fresh from the wash-tub wound round his head. We sat down on the divan running round the room, and Miss Banks was glad to hear that her patient had at last consented to take quinine. He was worn-looking, with small black beard and moustache. Moors, like every effete people, are unable to grow a great quantity of hair on their faces.

After visiting her cases Miss Banks suggested something of a change, and we turned into the best part of Tetuan, to pay a call upon one of the first families in Morocco, the head of which is now dead. B—— was probably the most wealthy and enlightened Moor in the city: he was once employed by Government, and he made his little pile; but he had never married—or, rather, his only marriage had ended in a speedy divorce; and most of his life he had been able to afford to keep a galaxy of slaves, whom he had freed in time, and whose offspring represent the family to-day.

The name of the chief of his slaves, and the mistress of the dead man's house at the present moment, is Fatima. Fatima has a history. B—— possessed twenty white slaves: they were chiefly stolen from villages in the south, and they passed into his hands; but his treasures were two beautiful Circassian women from Turkey, one of whom he sent to the late Sultan (who is the mother of the present Sultan), the other he kept for himself—Fatima. Fatima early showed a disposition far from humble, and B—— spoilt her. At last he made her head of his house and all his slaves. One day she caused two of these women to be beaten in such a manner that one of them died. The other vowed revenge; went to B——, and told him that she had seen Fatima looking through a window at a man in the garden below. Considering that a woman of superior class must not look out of her window, though the prospect be an arid yard, the statement was calculated to rouse B——. Brought up on such proverbs as "When the bee hums and the buttermilk ferments, place, O brother, a halter on thy little daughter," and to consider women "the nearest roads to hell," B—— took prompt and drastic measures. He chained Fatima up to a pillar for three months, and fed her on bread and water. Her eldest daughter was to be married. Fatima was released and told she might attend the wedding, but only as the equal of the lowest slave, and dressed as such. She said that she had been accustomed to mixing with the first-born of Tetuan as an equal, and she would go among them as nothing else. To break Fatima's pride, B—— married a wife; but the wiles of his old favourite were too strong for him, and he gave her presents, including a gold bracelet. The indignant wife, furious at her husband's attentions to a mere slave, got a divorce and left B——; whereupon he fell into the arms of Fatima, and she graciously consented to become once more head of his house. She is now the proudest woman in Tetuan, inclined to look upon the missionaries and European women in general as dust under her feet. Her ignorance is unbounded. "India!" she said to Miss Hubbard. "You say all India belongs to you English. You may well wish it did. You've only got one port."

Meanwhile, we had reached the door of this famous lady's house, and were clanging the great knocker. It was superior to any door we had "wakened" that afternoon—made of pale, cinnamon-coloured wood, and immensely wide, carved up above and brightened with great fork-like hinges and nail-heads as large as pennies. A vastly stout slave, smart in proportion, opened the door, and said something in Arabic to Miss Banks, which, translated, intimated that a large tea party was going on within. She led us along far-reaching, wide passages, which at length opened out into an extensive patio, paved with great black and white marble tiles, like a giant chess-board. A double row of finely tiled pillars supported the roof, and a fountain shot up water in the centre of all. The style of the building suggested that the dead man had known how to spend some of his money, and to make for himself a place refined and romantic rather than gorgeous.

Stepping down the cool aisles between the pillars, the slave took us towards a room opening out of the patio; and such a room!—hung with embroideries, surrounded with luxurious divans worked in scarlet and white, carpeted with deep-piled carpets, and yet no more than a mere setting for the fantastic butterfly world which seemed let loose inside. Tetuan's most aristocratic women, scented favourites of Moorish society, kept in lavender and reared on sugar and orange-flower water, are not among those things which one easily forgets. About twelve of them or more—enough to dazzle and not bewilder, furnish to perfection yet avoid a crush—were half reclining on the divans round the room. Fatima was on our immediate left as we entered; a holy Sharifa on the right; the daughter of another Sharif sat beyond her. The circle was one of Sanctity and Rank.

We shook hands with the mistress of the house, and were motioned to take our seats on the divan exactly opposite her.

Fatima was no disappointment. She suggested much, and more than fulfilled the promise of her history. She was pale and dark, with a little head like a snake's, thin sarcastic lips, and eyes full of smouldering devil. Two silver trays stood in front of her, covered with fragile porcelain cups and thin gilded cut-glass, with a silver-topped box full of fragrant mint, another quaint box containing fine green tea, an enormous cut-glass sugar-basin heaped with small rocks of white sugar, two silver embossed and steaming teapots, some scent-sprinklers and incense-burners of silver. At her elbow, on the floor, was the largest silver urn I ever saw, capable of supplying half a dozen school feasts; down the room, in a line, upon the carpets, stood round baskets, three feet in diameter, filled with palest cream-coloured bracelet-shaped loaves of bread, made of too fine and white a flour and too perfectly baked for any but the upper ten to indulge in. The centre basket contained perhaps fifty cakes—nothing on a small scale here—made of thin flaked pastry, iced over with sugar, filled with a confectionery of almonds, and quinces, and raisins, and orange-flower water, and an essence, one drop of which cost five shillings. These take a day to make, and are only met with in an elaborate mÉnage. Other tarts, lavishly coated with a snow of white sugar, contained jams and nuts and all the sweet things dear to the Moorish heart.

The movements of Fatima's small hands among the cups, covered with rings, each polished nail just touched with a half-moon of dark red henna, were born of dolce far niente, backed by a long line famous for their beauty: her restless black eyes alternately gleamed with cruelty and cunning; flashed with passion; grew sad as it is given to few eyes to grow.

Many embroidered buttons, as edgings in front, betokened garment within garment, which she wore, all of them at last confined by a broad, richly worked belt; her kaftan was of lemon-yellow, shining with silver borderings; the muslin "overall" was the thinnest atmosphere of white; there were many necklaces, chiefly pearl, round her neck, and, most characteristic of all, a tiny yellow silk handkerchief was knotted once round her throat; on her black head, colour ran riot in silks of all shades, tied and twisted and arranged as only a Moorish hand knows; her feet were wrapped in a soft pale yellow shawl, embroidered. She did not get up when we came in.

Multiply Fatima twelve times, in colours more opulent and more bizarre than her own, instead of her lithe figure, picture stone upon stone of sleek flesh, and some idea of the epicureanism of the scene is arrived at. Sitting on each side of us were two of the fattest women I have ever seen.

A GROUP IN THE FEDDAN, TETUAN.

A Group in the Feddan, Tetuan.

Meanwhile, Fatima signed to a slave to carry across the cups of tea which she had poured out, together with thin china plates; then we were supplied with the fine sweet bread. Miss Banks explained that I was not a tabiba (doctor). Fatima told her I was to ask about anything which I did not understand, and with interpretations we carried on trifling conversation. It was like stepping into "The Arabian Nights" come to life. These women seldom go out of doors, or, if they do, nothing is to be seen of them except a figure in an immense creamy woollen haik from top to toe, heavily veiled: possibly a pair of haunting eyes and beautiful slippers suggest an attractive "beyond." But here were we "i' the centre of the labyrinth," where mere men can never go; in a maze of hot imperious colour; in a world of ivory-tinted faces, flowing lines, and stately gestures; among abandon such as one little dreams of in a Mohammedan double-locked world.

They lie at the ends of the pole, the women of Morocco: the countrywomen, beasts of burden; the wives of the rich, sumptuously fed and caparisoned lap-dogs.

Amidst such a show of silk and embroidery no English-woman, in the utilitarian coat and skirt best fitted for travel, could feel other than out of place, nor resist the weak desire that the imperious Fatima and her circle should have another impression of our countrywomen made upon their ignorant minds than that given by short skirts and nailed boots—say, Covent Garden one night when the opera has drawn all the diamonds in town.

I remember the Moorish French Consul, in the Tetuan post-office, saw R. writing a card in there once.

"What a great thing it is," he said to Mr. Bewicke, "that your women can write and can arrange things for themselves. I go away; my wife cannot write to me. Our women are just like animals."

As far as I could gather, a Moorish woman does not think for herself until she is divorced. Her father, mother, or brother marries her to whomsoever he or she chooses; but when once she is divorced, she is free to marry after her own heart, and no one can interfere with her. Divorce was of course allowed by Mohammed. It is so common that no wife is surprised at being divorced a year after marriage, or six months, even a week. If she does not get up in time in the morning, her husband can divorce her, or if she becomes ill, or for a hundred petty reasons. Therefore upon the marriage-lines is always entered the sum of money which a wife brings her husband; a poor woman will bring from thirty shillings to three pounds, a rich woman from a hundred to three hundred pounds; and whatever the sum be, the husband must refund it to the wife when he divorces her. The actual getting of the divorce is simplicity itself. Man and wife go before the deputy of the governor of the city or province and state their case. The deputy will probably say, "Very well. Pay the woman such-and-such a sum mentioned in the agreement, and go your several ways."

A man, however, often changes his mind, and marries the woman whom he has divorced; and perhaps they are divorced a second time and married a third time. But he may not marry her the third time unless she has meanwhile been married by another man and divorced from him.

Many of the Moorish husbands leave their wives—the Riffis, for instance, going back into the Riff. If they are away over a year and send no money to the wife, she can claim a divorce: going before the deputy with a witness or two, it is soon arranged; she then probably marries a second husband. Were it not for this arrangement, Tetuan would be full of deserted wives.

It must be most difficult to try to "preach" either to the men or women. The men would not have it. I knew one missionary who used to sit in their shops and talk to them, but directly he veered round within a point of "religion" that talk was over. The women were less difficult in that respect; they would discuss the point: one woman I heard say something as follows:—

"Why should I turn a Christian? See—I may steal, I may lie, I may commit murder; my sins may reach as high as from earth to heaven, and at the day of my death God is merciful. He will forgive me all, because I witness to Mohammed as his Prophet. Your religion is a narrow little religion; mine covers everything. You go home and go away by yourself and witness to Mohammed as his Prophet, and all your sins will be forgiven."

It is a sign of their being low down in the intellectual scale when the members of society talk for the most part of "persons," just as it is a sign of a higher tone when the conversation runs chiefly upon "ideas." Among the women at Fatima's tea party there was no sort or kind of exchange of thought of any description, nor was there general conversation. They talked in a desultory way to each other about their children, their clothes, their food, their money, and each other—sometimes they included Miss Banks, but never touched an interesting point.

If a woman unable to read or write only meets women also unable to read or write, and knows but one man, her husband, who feeds her and values her much like a tame doe-rabbit, it is unreasonable to expect to find in her much intelligence and energy. Wives, when asked if they did not wish to do more, would not like to read or write or work, only laughed derisively. The idea was absurd: they could not understand any one wishing to exert herself in a novel and unnecessary way.

On my left, still sat the stoutest woman in the room—the holy Sharifa. She lost her snuff-box, and roused herself to hunt all over her enormous person for it—a work of time; but a friend had borrowed it, and it was passed back to her. She sat on the divan, cross-legged like some gigantic idol of ancient Egypt, many yards in circumference at the base, her fat little hands folded across the embroideries and gold-worked buttons and worked edges of the many gorgeous waistcoats and kaftans, which seemed piled one on top of each other on her immense frame. Her head, the size of two footballs rolled into one, was swathed in violet and scarlet silk: straight whiskers of hair, dyed jet-black, were combed a few inches down each cheek, and then cut short. The whole "idol" sat very still, speaking but rarely, and then in a harsh croak like some oracular and forbidding bird: "it" had the appearance of being comfortably gorged.

Meanwhile, Fatima signed or murmured to the slaves, and the sweetmeats were carried round, and the fragile cups refilled; and there went up a great aroma of sweet mint tea.

Through the wide doorway the patio and its colonnades of many pillars lay cool and shaded; cages of singing canary-birds hung from the ceiling; the fountain rippled in the middle; a tall girl in green and white sauntered across in her slippered feet, carrying a tray; a gaily dressed slave passed silently; and the whole thing might have been a dream. . . .

Past the patio lay the courtyard, all one large garden, with tiled walks and red-gold oranges and heavy foliage set against the blue sky. Broad date-palms, mimosa, and climbing creepers sometimes shook in a breath of wind. The clear tanks, full of ever-running water and lined with maiden-hair fern, moved with gold-fish, which matched the oranges; a pet monkey played amongst the lemons on a lemon-tree; a green parrot nodded to us from a bower of pink almond blossom.

We wandered round the sleepy, silent courtyard, and in and out the chequered greenery, hot with windless, sun-filled air, back through the black-and-white courts, until at last the great outside door shut upon Fatima, her tea party, and the eternal mysticism of the East:—we were without the gates of Paradise, and in an atmosphere of rude realism once more.

Soon after that afternoon of many calls with Miss Banks, a day up in the Anjera Hills, to the north of Tetuan, gave some idea of the strip of country which lay between us, and the sea, and Gibraltar. This country possessed the fascination of being little known. No one troubled to go up there, except its own wild inhabitants. Our own Consul had never been. The missionaries had not climbed so high, nor so far, this side the river.

Now the Tetuan sok (market) is greatly dependent upon the country people belonging to the Beni Salam tribe, who live up in the Anjeras; and from the flat white roof of our garden-house we had watched through a pair of glasses on market mornings, strings of women, winding by a precipitous path down the hillside, which is abrupt and mountainous, themselves dropping as it were from an upper world. They scrambled slowly down, one after the other, descending many hundreds upon hundreds of feet; then filed slantwise over the slopes, right into the rocky Mussulman cemetery, across that, and thence into the city by the BÁb-el-M`kabar. The relations of these tribesmen between themselves and the city are more or less friendly, and it is comparatively safe to wander about the mountains as long as the "enemy," as the Moors call the sun, has not set. We were most anxious to visit the country whence these market-goers came, appearing first upon the crest-line, then against the rough hillside, like a string of industrious white ants crawling down the wall of a house; therefore we engaged a youth with a downy beard and hairy legs and the big grey donkey—the most active of his race—and set off one morning at half-past nine, prepared to climb into a Top World, like Jack of the Beanstalk, by means of a path which was less smooth "going" than his supernatural ladder.

There was a strong north-west wind, and it was hardly an occasion for "aloft"; but there was no haze; the clouds were scudding away to South Australia; it was a day for a view.

Taking the broken road towards the city, we branched off to the right, crossed a stream, and began the ascent. No one could ride at this point. R. tried a tow by means of the donkey's tail, and met with a remonstrating kick. Certainly, if this could be called "one of the Sultan's highways," it was an odd specimen. We scrambled up the east side of the range of hills, sometimes by a succession of rocky staircases, sometimes sliding (backwards chiefly) on loose shale: how the donkey contrived to look after its four feet must remain a problem, but the Morocco ass is brought up from birth upon stony ground, with naÏve and simple notions upon the subject of paths.

It was a long time before our heads showed up above the top of Jack's Beanstalk (so to speak), and we met with a gale, at which the donkey's hair stood on end, and which occupied all our attention for a minute. We had seen Tetuan disappear far below us behind the elbow of a hill; the topmost point of the Gib. Rock had loomed into sight; Ceuta looked as if one might have thrown a stone upon it; and the Riff Mountains were next door, clear and blue. We had passed some red fritillaries and the bee-orchid, a little wild mauve crocus, and some magnificent clumps of white heath, which smelt of almonds and honey; had seen several pairs of stone-chats with their white collars; had sat down for many "breathers"; and at last were at the top, in a wind which flattened every palmetto-bush plumb against the hillside. It was a breezy spot for riding (and here one could ride, for the grey donkey was on terra firma once more); therefore we cut short a survey of the country below us, hurried off the crest-line, and followed the path which led straight away into the heart of the Anjera country. It was a good track when once the top had been reached, exactly the right width for one individual, and used by thirty or forty every market day—three times a week. At the time when the cave-men lived in England, single file was a standing principle in Morocco, and the practice still holds good.

The path was beaten hard, by bare feet, in the rich dark red soil, and had taken a shiny polish; the wind was held off us by boulders and small hillocks; we got along at a steady pace. On each side mountains and only mountains were to be seen, peak beyond peak, slope after slope, covered with short wind-tossed scrub and sharp, hard rock, except at any great height or in the prevailing wind; there ledge after ledge lay peeled by the weather, blistering in the sun, the scarified faces of the cliffs worn at the summits into pinnacles of gaunt stone. No mark of humanity, except the single red path, suggested that civilization ever troubled these heights, and there was hardly anything worth the notice of a goat in the shape of fodder.

The path rose and fell, skirting now this shoulder and now a gully, but keeping for the most part on high ground, here and there winding upwards across the sharp spine of a ridge, and, by way of some awkward staircase, once more landing us on the level. More often than not, the donkey had only himself to carry; the boy probably thought us mad, but there was no understanding what the other would fain have said. Except for the wind—and even that dropped—a great silence lay on the proud heights; they defied man to interfere with their grizzled dÉbris: the birds had forgotten to sing: all around was that certain awed solemnity, always to be found, in the companionship of the everlasting hills. But the air was champagne; the heather was mad in the breeze; the sky where it met the rocks, an intoxicating blue. And how the clouds "travelled"! Though, in spite of that, the hills never spoke: like the Sphinx, whose repose no dance of lizards nor flashes of sunlight can disturb, they are "too great to appease, too high to appal, too far to call." Occasionally a dip in the hollow back of a mountain showed the sea beyond: there are few seas bluer than the blue Mediterranean can be, and this was one of its days.

The polished track led us on: still no sign of a village, nor any evidences of civilization. At last from the top of a ridge we looked over and down into a calm green oasis, "a lodge in some vast wilderness," secluded, sheltered, where it would have been good to pitch a tent and camp for many moons. We swung along downwards, dropped under the lee of the hill, and our path skirted the fringe of the green oasis. It was not many acres in extent; it was covered with short scant grass; it would have made an ideal polo-ground.

Water lay over a small corner of it, and beyond a shadow of doubt it had once been the bottom of a lake; indeed, the Beni Salam tribe believe that water still lies underneath the turf. Here the first sign of humanity showed itself: two goatherds drove their flock down to the water, and one of them carried in the hood of his brown jellab a few hours' old kid; they soon passed on and disappeared among the boulders and heath.

The long level lines of the green oasis were broken at the edge by diminutive bones of rock protruding through the grass. Sunk in the hollow of the hills, there was little or no wind; the sun glowed indolently down on the green lawn, tempting us to stay; but the foot-prints in the red soil pointed forward, and we turned our backs upon the flat stretches of sunny turf and left the waveless tarn behind.

No more emerald oasis, but grey-green scrub and stones on the mountain-sides: we were up again in a stern and desolate defile, waste beyond waste strewn with rocks. The distances were oddly deceptive in the rare, clear air: a saddle between two peaks looked miles away—we were upon it in half an hour; again, a turret of rock apparently within a stone's-throw was a weary climb. And still the red trail snaked on before us. Even the big grey donkey began to lose its interest and to require "encouragement" from the Moorish boy.

We speculated as to whether we should ever reach a village before it was time to make tracks for the world below, while the sun was well up. At last, in front of us, a long low saddle intervened, with rising ground on each side: this we determined to scale, once mounted on top see all there was to be seen, and go no farther. And toil brought its unexpected and exceeding great reward. Standing on the crest-line, shading our eyes with our hands, mountain beyond mountain lay in the distance—the Anjeras, the hills of Spain, the Mediterranean, Gibraltar; while in the foreground clustered four villages, brown mud-coloured huts upon the brownish slopes, and only picked out of their surroundings by means of the one little whitewashed spot of a mosque. Below us a river had carved a gorge in the red soil and tumbled over worn boulders beside the nearest village, but it was more or less hidden from sight.

Much as we wanted to go on, it was impossible. First, there was not time. Secondly, the donkey would have had as much as was good for him by the time he got back. Therefore we chose a warm, sheltered spot, backed by sun-baked rocks and scented with cropped tussocks of yellow gorse; and there we lunched, the boy and donkey slipping out of sight, and leaving us alone, with the hills, and the sound of the wind.

It must be a long tramp into Tetuan, even for hill people born to the life of the open road,—four hours into the city with heavy loads of charcoal, faggots, chickens, eggs, butter, vegetables; four hours back again with oil, sugar, salt, tea, and every sort of necessary which is not home grown. And three times a week. And only women. We met a string of them as we set our faces homewards, like "toiling cattle straining across a thousand hills"; but they all had a word to say and a smile, as they sloped along at a steady swing.

The sun was setting when we left the good upper world of silence and the winds; by-and-by the crest-line intervened between ourselves and the strong serene heights—they were seen no more; and we came "hand over hand down the Beanstalk" which led to the white city below.