S.L. Bensusan - Morocco

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[Illustration: A VILLAGE AT DUKALA]

I could do no more than deliver messages of consolation to the poor
tribesmen, who sat in a semicircle, patient in the quivering heat. The old
story of goodwill and inability had to be told again, and I never saw men
more dejected. At the moment of leave-taking, however, I remembered that
we had some empty mineral-water bottles and a large collection of
gunmaker's circulars, that had been used as padding for a case of
cartridges. So I distributed the circulars and empty bottles among the
protection hunters, and they received them with wonder and delight. When I
turned to take a last look round, the pages that had pictures of guns
were being passed reverently from hand to hand; to outward seeming the
farmers had forgotten their trouble. Thus easily may kindnesses be wrought
among the truly simple of this world.

The market of Sidi B'noor is famous for its sales of slaves and
horses,[15] but I remember it best by its swarm of blue rock-pigeons and
sparrow-hawks, that seemed to live side by side in the walls surrounding
the saint's white tomb. For reasons best known to themselves they lived
without quarrelling, perhaps because the saint was a man of peace. Surely
a sparrow-hawk in our island would not build his nest and live in perfect
amity with pigeons. But, as is well known, the influence of the saintly
endures after the flesh of the saint has returned to the dust whence it
came.

The difference between Dukala and R'hamna, two adjacent provinces, is very
marked. All that the first enjoys the second lacks. We left the fertile
lands for great stony plains, wind-swept, bare and dry. Skeletons of
camels, mules, and donkeys told their story of past sufferings, and the
water supply was as scanty as the herbage upon which the R'hamna flocks
fare so poorly. In place of prosperous douars, set in orchards amid rich
arable land, there were Government n'zalas at long intervals in the waste,
with wattled huts, and lean, hungry tribesmen, whose poverty was as plain
to see as their ribs. Neither Basha nor Kaid could well grow fat now in
such a place, and yet there was a time when R'hamna was a thriving
province after its kind. But it had a warlike people and fierce, to whom
the temptation of plundering the caravans that made their way to the
Southern capital was irresistible. So the Court Elevated by Allah, taking
advantage of a brief interval of peace, turned its forces loose against
R'hamna early in the last decade of the nineteenth century. From end to
end of its plains the powder "spoke," and the burning douars lighted the
roads that their owners had plundered so often. Neither old nor young were
spared, and great basketsful of human heads were sent to Red Marrakesh, to
be spiked upon the wall by the J'maa Effina. When the desolation was
complete from end to end of the province, the Shareefian troops were
withdrawn, the few remaining folk of R'hamna were sent north and south to
other provinces, the n'zalas were established in place of the forgotten
douars, and the Elevated Court knew that there would be no more
complaints. That was Mulai el Hassan's method of ruling--may Allah have
pardoned him--and his grand wazeer's after him. It is perhaps the only
method that is truly understood by the people in Morocco. R'hamna reminded
me of the wildest and bleakest parts of Palestine, and when the Maalem
said solemnly it was tenanted by djinoon since the insurrection, I felt he
must certainly be right.

One evening we met an interesting procession. An old farmer was making his
way from the jurisdiction of the local kaid. His "house" consisted of two
wives and three children. A camel, whose sneering contempt for mankind
was very noticeable, shuffled cumbrously beneath a very heavy load of
mattresses, looms, rugs, copper kettles, sacks of corn, and other
impedimenta. The wives, veiled to the eyes, rode on mules, each carrying a
young child; the third child, a boy, walked by his father's side. The
barley harvest had not been good in their part of the country, so after
selling what he could, the old man had packed his goods on to the camel's
back and was flying from the tax-gatherer. To be sure, he might meet
robbers on the way to the province of M'touga, which was his destination,
but they would do no more than the kaid of his own district; they might
even do less. He had been many days upon the road, and was quaintly
hopeful. I could not help thinking of prosperous men one meets at home,
who declare, in the intervals of a costly dinner, that the Income Tax is
an imposition that justifies the strongest protest, even to the point of
repudiating the Government that puts it up by twopence in the pound. Had
anybody been able to assure this old wanderer that his kaid or khalifa
would be content with half the produce of his land, how cheerfully would
he have returned to his native douar, how readily he would have--devised
plans to avoid payment. A little later the track would be trodden by other
families, moving, like the true Bedouins, in search of fresh pasture. It
is the habit of the country to leave land to lie fallow when it has
yielded a few crops.

There were days when the mirage did for the plain the work that man had
neglected. It set great cities on the waste land as though for our sole
benefit. I saw walls and battlements, stately mosques, cool gardens, and
rivers where caravans of camels halted for rest and water. Several times
we were deceived and hurried on, only to find that the wonder city, like
the _ignis fatuus_ of our own marshlands, receded as we approached and
finally melted away altogether. Then the Maalem, after taking refuge with
Allah from Satan the Stoned, who set false cities before the eyes of tired
travellers, would revile the mules and horses for needing a mirage to urge
them on the way; he would insult the fair fame of their mothers and swear
that their sires were such beasts as no Believer would bestride. It is a
fact that when the Maalem lashed our animals with his tongue they made
haste to improve their pace, if only for a few minutes, and Salam,
listening with an expression of some concern at the sad family history of
the beasts--he had a stinging tongue for oaths himself--assured me that
their sense of shame hurried them on. Certainly no sense of shame, or
duty, or even compassion, ever moved the Maalem. By night he would repair
to the kitchen tent and smoke kief or eat haschisch, but the troubles of
preparing beds and supper did not worry him.

[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO MARRAKESH]

"Until the feast is prepared, why summon the guest," he said on a night
when the worthy M'Barak, opening his lips for once, remonstrated with him.
That evening the feast consisted of some soup made from meat tablets, and
two chickens purchased for elevenpence the pair, of a market woman we met
on the road. Yet if it was not the feast the Maalem's fancy painted it,
our long hours in the open air had served to make it more pleasant than
many a more elaborate meal.

We rode one morning through the valley of the Little Hills, once a place
of unrest notorious by reason of several murders committed there, and
deserted now by everything save a few birds of prey. There were gloomy
rocks on all sides, the dry bed of a forgotten river offered us an
uncomfortable and often perilous path, and we passed several cairns of
small stones. The Maalem left his mule in order to pick up stones and add
one to each cairn, and as he did so he cursed Satan with great
fluency.[16]

It was a great relief to leave the Little Hills and emerge on to the
plains of Hillreeli beyond. We had not far to go then before the view
opened out, the haze in the far distance took faint shape of a city
surrounded by a forest of palms on the western side, a great town with the
minarets of many mosques rising from it. At this first view of Red
Marrakesh, Salam, the Maalem, and M'Barak extolled Allah, who had renewed
to them the sight of Yusuf ibn Tachfin's thousand-year-old city. Then they
praised Sidi bel Abbas, the city's patron saint, who by reason of his love
for righteous deeds stood on one leg for forty years, praying diligently
all the time.

We each and all rendered praise and thanks after our separate fashions,
and for me, I lit my last cigarette, careless of the future and well
pleased.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] As the gnat settles he cries, "Habibi," _i.e._ "O my beloved." His,
one fears, is but a carnal affection.

[14] _I.e._ Wives and children, to whom no Moor refers by name.

[15] It is said to be the largest market in the Sultan's dominions. As
many as two thousand camels have been counted at one of the weekly
gatherings here.

[16] The cairns are met frequently in Morocco. Some mark the place from
which the traveller may obtain his first view of a near city; others are
raised to show where a murder was committed. The cairns in the Little
Hills are of the former kind.

IN RED MARRAKESH

[Illustration: DATE PALMS NEAR MARRAKESH]

CHAPTER V

IN RED MARRAKESH

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai,
Whose portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp
Abode his destined hour and went his way.

_The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam._

There are certain cities that cannot be approached for the first time by
any sympathetic traveller without a sense of solemnity and reverence that
is not far removed from awe. Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Damascus, and
Jerusalem may be cited as examples; each in its turn has filled me with
great wonder and deep joy. But all of these are to be reached nowadays by
the railway, that great modern purge of sensibility. Even Jerusalem is not
exempt. A single line stretches from Jaffa by the sea to the very gates of
the Holy City, playing hide-and-seek among the mountains of Judaea by the
way, because the Turk was too poor to tunnel a direct path.

In Morocco, on the other hand, the railway is still unknown. He who seeks
any of the country's inland cities must take horse or mule, camel or
donkey, or, as a last resource, be content with a staff to aid him, and
walk. Whether he fare to Fez, the city of Mulai Idrees, in which, an old
writer assures us, "all the beauties of the earth are united"; or to
Mequinez, where great Mulai Ismail kept a stream of human blood flowing
constantly from his palace that all might know he ruled; or to Red
Marrakesh, which Yusuf ibn Tachfin built nine hundred years ago,--his own
exertion must convoy him. There must be days and nights of scant fare and
small comfort, with all those hundred and one happenings of the road that
make for pleasant memories. So far as I have been able to gather in the
nine years that have passed since I first visited Morocco, one road is
like another road, unless you have the Moghrebbin Arabic at your command
and can go off the beaten track in Moorish dress. Walter Harris, the
resourceful traveller and _Times_ correspondent, did this when he sought
the oases of Tafilalt, so also, in his fashion, did R.B. Cunninghame
Graham when he tried in vain to reach Tarudant, and set out the record of
his failure in one of the most fascinating travel books published since
_Eothen_.[17]

For the rank and file of us the Government roads and the harmless
necessary soldier must suffice, until the Gordian knot of Morocco's future
has been untied or cut. Then perhaps, as a result of French pacific
penetration, flying railway trains loaded with tourists, guide-book in
hand and camera at the ready, will pierce the secret places of the land,
and men will speak of "doing" Morocco, as they "do" other countries in
their rush across the world, seeing all the stereotyped sights and
appreciating none. For the present, by Allah's grace, matters are quite
otherwise.

Marrakesh unfolded its beauties to us slowly and one by one as we pushed
horses and mules into a canter over the level plains of Hillreeli. Forests
of date-palm took definite shape; certain mosques, those of Sidi ben Yusuf
and Bab Dukala, stood out clearly before us without the aid of glasses,
but the Library mosque dominated the landscape by reason of the Kutubia
tower by its side. The Atlas Mountains came out of the clouds and revealed
the snows that would soon melt and set every southern river aflood, and
then the town began to show limits to the east and west where, at first,
there was nothing but haze. One or two caravans passed us, northward
bound, their leaders hoping against hope that the Pretender, the
"dog-descended," as a Susi trader called him, would not stand between them
and the Sultan's camp, where the profits of the journey lay. By this time
we could see the old grey wall of Marrakesh more plainly, with towers here
and there, ruinous as the wall itself, and storks' nests on the
battlements, their red-legged inhabitants fulfilling the duty of sentries.
To the right, beyond the town, the great rock of Djebel Geelez suggested
infinite possibilities in days to come, when some conqueror armed with
modern weapons and a pacific mission should wish to bombard the walls in
the sacred cause of civilisation. Then the view was lost in the date-palm
forest, through which tiny tributaries of the Tensift run babbling over
the red earth, while the kingfisher or dragon-fly, "a ray of living
light," flashes over the shallow water, and young storks take their first
lessons in the art of looking after themselves.

When a Moor has amassed wealth he praises God, builds a palace, and plants
a garden; or, is suspected, accused--despotic authority is not
particular--and cast into prison! In and round Marrakesh many Moors have
gained riches and some have held them. The gardens stretch for miles.
There are the far-spreading Augdal plantations of the Sultans of Morocco,
in part public and elsewhere so private that to intrude would be to court
death. The name signifies "the Maze," and they are said to justify it. In
the outer or public grounds of this vast pleasaunce the fruit is sold by
auction to the merchants of the city in late spring, when blossoming time
is over, and, after the sale, buyers must watch and guard the trees until
harvest brings them their reward.

[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO MARRAKESH]

We rode past the low-walled gardens, where pomegranate and apricot trees
were flowering, and strange birds I did not know sang in the deep shade.
Doves flitted from branch to branch, bee-eaters darted about among
mulberry and almond trees. There was an overpowering fragrance from the
orange groves, where blossom and unplucked fruit showed side by side; the
jessamine bushes were scarcely less fragrant. Spreading fig-trees called
every passer to enjoy their shade, and the little rivulets, born of the
Tensift's winter floods to sparkle through the spring and die in June,
were fringed with willows. It was delightful to draw rein and listen to
the plashing of water and the cooing of doves, while trying in vain to
recognise the most exquisite among many sweet scents.

Under one of the fig-trees in a garden three Moors sat at tea. A carpet
was spread, and I caught a glimpse of the copper kettle, the squat
charcoal brazier tended by a slave, the quaint little coffer filled no
doubt with fine green tea, the porcelain dish of cakes. It was a quite
pleasing picture, at which, had courtesy permitted, I would have enjoyed
more than a brief glance.

The claim of the Moors upon our sympathy and admiration is made greater by
reason of their love for gardens. As a matter of fact, their devotion may
be due in part to the profit yielded by the fruit, but one could afford to
forget that fact for the time being, when Nature seemed to be giving
praise to the Master of all seasons for the goodly gifts of the spring.

We crossed the Tensift by the bridge, one of the very few to be found in
Southern Morocco. It has nearly thirty arches, all dilapidated as the city
walls themselves, yet possessing their curious gift of endurance. Even the
natives realise that their bridge is crumbling into uselessness, after
nearly eight centuries of service, but they do no more than shrug their
shoulders, as though to cast off the burden of responsibility and give it
to destiny. On the outskirts of the town, where gardens end and open
market-squares lead to the gates, a small group of children gathered to
watch the strangers with an interest in which fear played its part. We
waited now to see the baggage animals before us, and then M'Barak led the
way past the mosque at the side of the Bab el Khamees and through the
brass-covered doors that were brought by the Moors from Spain. Within the
Khamees gate, narrow streets with windowless walls frowning on either side
shut out all view, save that which lay immediately before us.

[Illustration: A MINSTREL]

No untrained eye can follow the winding maze of streets in Marrakesh, and
it is from the Moors we learn that the town, like ancient Gaul of Caesar's
_Commentaries_, has three well defined divisions. The Kasbah is the
official quarter, where the soldiers and governing officials have their
home, and the prison called Hib Misbah receives all evil-doers, and men
whose luck is ill. The Madinah is the general Moorish quarter, and
embraces the Kaisariyah or bazaar district, where the streets are
parallel, well cleaned, thatched with palm and palmetto against the light,
and barred with a chain at either end to keep the animals from entering.
The Mellah (literally "salted place") is the third great division of
Marrakesh, and is the Jewish quarter. In this district, or just beyond it,
are a few streets that seem reserved to the descendants of Mulai Ismail's
black guards, from whom our word "blackguard" should have come to us, but
did not. Within these divisions streets, irregular and without a name,
turn and twist in manner most bewildering, until none save old residents
may hope to know their way about. Pavements are unknown, drainage is in
its most dangerous infancy, the rainy season piles mud in every
direction, and, as though to test the principle embodied in the
homoeopathic theory, the Marrakshis heap rubbish and refuse in every
street, where it decomposes until the enlightened authorities who dwell in
the Kasbah think to give orders for its removal. Then certain men set out
with donkeys and carry the sweepings of the gutters beyond the gates.[18]
This work is taken seriously in the Madinah, but in the Mellah it is
shamefully neglected, and I have ridden through whole streets in the
last-named quarter searching vainly for a place clean enough to permit of
dismounting. Happily, or unhappily, as you will, the inhabitants are
inured from birth to a state of things that must cause the weaklings to
pay heavy toll to Death, the Lord who rules even Sultans.

I had little thought to spare for such matters as we rode into Marrakesh
for the first time. The spell of the city was overmastering. It is
certainly the most African city in Morocco to-day, almost the last
survivor of the changes that began in the latter half of the nineteenth
century, and have brought the Dark Continent from end to end within the
sphere of European influence. Fez and Mequinez are cities of fair men,
while here on every side one recognised the influence of the Soudan and
the country beyond the great desert. Not only have the wives and
concubines brought from beyond the great sand sea darkened the skin of the
present generation of the Marrakshis, but they have given to most if not
to all a suggestion of relationship to the negro races that is not to be
seen in any other Moorish city I have visited. It is not a suggestion of
fanaticism or intolerance. By their action as well as their appearance one
knew most of the passers for friends rather than enemies. They would
gratify their curiosity at our expense as we gratified ours at theirs,
convinced that all Europeans are harmless, uncivilised folk from a far
land, where people smoke tobacco, drink wine, suffer their women-folk to
go unveiled, and live without the True Faith.

Marrakesh, like all other inland cities of Morocco, has neither hotel nor
guest-house. It boasts some large fandaks, notably that of Hadj Larbi,
where the caravans from the desert send their merchandise and chief
merchants, but no sane European will choose to seek shelter in a fandak in
Morocco unless there is no better place available. There are clean fandaks
in Sunset Land, but they are few and you must travel far to find them. I
had letters to the chief civilian resident of Marrakesh, Sidi Boubikir,
British Political Agent, millionaire, land-owner, financier, builder of
palaces, politician, statesman, and friend of all Englishmen who are well
recommended to his care. I had heard much of the clever old Moor, who was
born in very poor surroundings, started life as a camel driver, and is now
the wealthiest and most powerful unofficial resident in Southern Morocco,
if not in all the Moghreb, so I bade M'Barak find him without delay. The
first person questioned directed us to one of Boubikir's fandaks, and by
its gate, in a narrow lane, where camels jostled the camp-mules until they
nearly foundered in the underlying filth, we found the celebrated man
sitting within the porch, on an old packing-case.

He looked up for a brief moment when the kaid dismounted and handed him my
letter, and I saw a long, closely-shaven face, lighted by a pair of grey
eyes that seemed much younger than the head in which they were set, and
perfectly inscrutable. He read the letter, which was in Arabic, from end
to end, and then gave me stately greeting.

"You are very welcome," he said. "My house and all it holds are yours."

I replied that we wanted nothing more than a modest shelter for the days
of our sojourn in the city. He nodded.

"Had you advised me of your visit in time," he said, "my best house should
have been prepared. Now I will send with you my steward, who has the keys
of all my houses. Choose which you will have." I thanked him, the steward
appeared, a stout, well-favoured man, whose djellaba was finer than his
master's. Sidi Boubikir pointed to certain keys, and at a word several
servants gathered about us. The old man said that he rejoiced to serve the
friend of his friends, and would look forward to seeing me during our
stay. Then we followed into an ill-seeming lane, now growing dark with the
fall of evening.

We turned down an alley more muddy than the one just left behind, passed
under an arch by a fruit stall with a covering of tattered palmetto,
caught a brief glimpse of a mosque minaret, and heard the mueddin calling
the Faithful to evening prayer. In the shadow of the mosque, at the corner
of the high-walled lane, there was a heavy metal-studded door. The steward
thrust a key into its lock, turned it, and we passed down a passage into
an open patio. It was a silent place, beyond the reach of the street
echoes; there were four rooms built round the patio on the ground floor,
and three or four above. One side of the tower of the minaret was visible
from the courtyard, but apart from that the place was nowhere overlooked.
To be sure, it was very dirty, but I had an idea that the steward had
brought his men out for business, not for an evening stroll, so I bade
Salam assure him that this place, known to the Marrakshis as Dar al
Kasdir,[19] would serve our purposes.

A thundering knock at the gate announced a visitor, one of Sidi Boubikir's
elder sons, a civil, kindly-looking Moor, whose face inspired confidence.
Advised of our choice he suggested we should take a stroll while the men
cleaned and prepared the patio and the rooms opening upon it. Then the
mules, resting for the time in his father's fandak, would bring their
burdens home, and we could enjoy our well-earned rest.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE CITY GATES]

We took this good counsel, and on our return an hour later, a very
complete transformation had been effected. Palmetto brooms, and water
brought from an adjacent well, had made the floor look clean and clear.
The warmth of the air had dried everything, the pack-mules had been
relieved of their load and sent back to the stable. Two little earthen
braziers full of charcoal were glowing merrily under the influence of the
bellows that M'Barak wielded skilfully, and two earthen jars of water with
palm leaves for corks had been brought in by our host's servants. In
another hour the camp beds were unpacked and made up, a rug was set on the
bedroom floor, and the little table and chairs were put in the middle of
the patio. From the alcove where Salam squatted behind the twin fires came
the pleasant scent of supper; M'Barak, his well-beloved gun at his side,
sat silent and thoughtful in another corner, and the tiny clay bowl of the
Maalem's long wooden kief pipe was comfortably aglow.

There was a timid knock at the door, the soldier opened it and admitted
the shareef. I do not know his name nor whence he came, but he walked up
to Salam, greeted him affectionately, and offered his services while we
were in the city. Twenty years old perhaps, at an outside estimate, very
tall and thin and poorly clad, the shareef was not the least interesting
figure I met in Marrakesh. A shareef is a saint in Morocco as in every
other country of Islam, and his title implies descent from Mohammed. He
may be very poor indeed, but he is more or less holy, devout men kiss the
hem of his djellaba, no matter how dirty or ragged it may be, and none may
curse a shareef's ancestors, for the Prophet was one of them. His youthful
holiness had known Salam in Fez, and had caught sight of him by Boubikir's
fandak in the early afternoon. Salam, himself a chief in his own land,
though fallen on evil days then and on worse ones since, welcomed the
newcomer and brought his offer to me, adding the significant information
that the young shareef, who was too proud to beg, had not tasted food in
the past forty-eight hours. He had then owed a meal to some Moor, who,
following a well-known custom, had set a bowl of food outside his house to
conciliate devils. I accepted the proffered service, and had no occasion
to regret my action. The young Moor was never in the way and never out of
the way, he went cheerfully on errands to all parts of the city, fetched
and carried without complaint, and yet never lost the splendid dignity
that seemed to justify his claim to saintship.

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