S.L. Bensusan - Morocco

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"When he returned, and by the aid of your own Bashador in Tanjah prevailed
over the enemies who had set snares in his path while he fared abroad, he
stood up before my Lord and told him all he had seen. Thereupon my Lord
Abd-el-Aziz sought to change that which had gone before, to make a new
land as quickly as the father of the red legs[37] builds a new nest, or
the boar of the Atlas whom the hunter has disturbed finds a new lair. And
the land grew confused. It was no more the Moghreb, but it assuredly was
not as the lands of the West.

"In the beginning of the season of change the French were angry. 'All men
shall pay an equal tax throughout my land,' said the King of the Age, and
the Bashador of the French said, 'Our protected subjects shall not yield
even a handful of green corn to the gatherer.' Now when the people saw
that the tax-gatherers did not travel as they were wont to travel, armed
and ready to kill, they hardened their hearts and said, 'We will pay no
taxes at all, for these men cannot overcome us.' So the tribute was not
yielded, and the French Bashador said to the Sultan, 'Thou seest that
these people will not pay, but we out of our abundant wealth will give all
the money that is needed. Only sign these writings that set forth our
right to the money that is brought by Nazarenes to the seaports, and
everything will be well.'

"So the Sultan set his seal upon all that was brought before him, and the
French sent gold to his treasury and more French traders came to his
Court, and my Lord gave them the money that had come to him from their
country, for more of the foolish and wicked things they brought. Then he
left Marrakesh and went to Fez; and the Rogui, Bu Hamara,[38] rose up and
waged war against him."

The Hadj sighed deeply, and paused while fresh tea was brought by a
coal-black woman slave, whose colour was accentuated by the scarlet
_rida_ upon her head, and the broad silver anklets about her feet. When
she had retired and we were left alone once more, my host continued:--

"You know what happened after. My Lord Abd-el-Aziz made no headway against
the Rogui, who is surely assisted by devils of the air and by the devils
of France. North and south, east and west, the Moors flocked to him, for
they said, 'The Sultan has become a Christian.' And to-day my Lord has no
more money, and no strength to fight the Infidel, and the French come
forward, and the land is troubled everywhere. But this is clearly the
decree of Allah the All Wise, and if it is written that the days of the
Filali Shareefs are numbered, even my Lord will not avoid his fate."

I said nothing, for I had seen the latter part of Morocco's history
working itself out, and knew that the improved relations between Great
Britain and France had their foundation in the change of front that kept
our Foreign Office from doing for Morocco what it has done for other
states divided against themselves, and what it had promised Morocco,
without words, very clearly. Then, again, it was obvious to me, though I
could not hope to explain it to my host, that the Moor, having served his
time, had to go under before the wave of Western civilisation. Morocco has
held out longer than any other kingdom of Africa, not by reason of its own
strength, but because the rulers of Europe could not afford to see the
Mediterranean balance of power seriously disturbed. Just as Mulai Ismail
praised Allah publicly two centuries ago for giving him strength to drive
out the Infidel, when the British voluntarily relinquished their hold upon
Tangier, so successive Moorish Sultans have thought that they have held
Morocco for the Moors by their own power. And yet, in very sober truth,
Morocco has been no more than one of the pawns in the diplomatic game
these many years past.

We who know and love the country, finding in its patriarchal simplicity so
much that contrasts favourably with the hopeless vulgarity of our own
civilisation, must recognise in justice the great gulf lying between a
country's aspect in the eyes of the traveller and in the mind of the
politician.

[Illustration: A MARRAKSHI]

Before we parted, the Hadj, prefacing his remark with renewed assurance of
his personal esteem, told me that the country's error had been its
admission of strangers. Poor man, his large simple mind could not realise
that no power his master held could have kept them out. He told me on
another occasion that the great wazeers who had opposed the Sultan's
reforms were influenced by fear, lest Western ideas should alter the
status of their womenkind. They had heard from all their envoys to Europe
how great a measure of liberty is accorded to women, and were prepared to
rebel against any reform that might lead to compulsory alteration of the
system under which women live--too often as slaves and playthings--in
Morocco. My friend's summary of his country's recent history is by no
means complete, and, if he could revise it here would doubtless have
far more interest. But it seemed advisable to get the Moorish point of
view, and, having secured the curious elusive thing, to record it as
nearly as might be.

Sidi Boubikir seldom discussed politics. "I am in the South and the
trouble is in the North," said he. "Alhamdolillah,[39] I am all for my
Lord Abd-el-Aziz. In the reign of his grandfather I made money, when my
Lord his father ruled--upon him the Peace--I made money, and now to-day I
make money. Shall I listen then to Pretenders and other evil men? The
Sultan may have half my fortune."

I did not suggest what I knew to be true, that the Sultan would have been
more than delighted to take him at his word, for I remembered the incident
of the lampmaker's wager. A considerable knowledge of Moghrebbin Arabic,
in combination with hypnotic skill of a high order, would have been
required to draw from Boubikir his real opinions of the outlook. Not for
nothing was he appointed British political agent in South Morocco. The
sphinx is not more inscrutable.

One night his son came to the Dar al Kasdir and brought me an invitation
from Sidi Boubikir to dine with him on the following afternoon. Arrived
before the gate of his palace at the time appointed, two o'clock, we found
the old diplomat waiting to welcome us. He wore a fine linen djellaba of
dazzling whiteness, and carried a scarlet geranium in his hand. "You are
welcome," he said gravely, and led the way through a long corridor,
crying aloud as he went, "Make way, make way," for we were entering the
house itself, and it is not seemly that a Moorish woman, whether she be
wife or concubine, should look upon a stranger's face. Yet some few lights
of the hareem were not disposed to be extinguished altogether by
considerations of etiquette, and passed hurriedly along, as though bent
upon avoiding us and uncertain of our exact direction. The women-servants
satisfied their curiosity openly until my host suddenly commented upon the
questionable moral status of their mothers, and then they made haste to
disappear, only to return a moment later and peep round corners and
doorways, and giggle and scream--as if they had been Europeans of the same
class.

Sidi Boubikir passed from room to room of his great establishment and
showed some of its treasures. There were great piles of carpets and vast
quantities of furniture that must have looked out at one time in their
history upon the crowds that throng the Tottenham Court Road; I saw
chairs, sofas, bedsteads, clocks, and sideboards, all of English make.
Brought on camels through Dukala and R'hamna to Marrakesh, they were left
to fill up the countless rooms without care or arrangement, though their
owner's house must hold more than fifty women, without counting servants.
Probably when they were not quarrelling or dying their finger nails, or
painting their faces after a fashion that is far from pleasing to European
eyes, the ladies of the hareem passed their days lying on cushions,
playing the gimbri[40] or eating sweetmeats.

In one room on the ground-floor there was a great collection of
mechanical toys. Sidi Boubikir explained that the French Commercial
Attache had brought a large number to the Sultan's palace, and that my
Lord Abd-el-Aziz had rejected the ones before us. With the curious
childish simplicity that is found so often among the Moors of high
position, Boubikir insisted upon winding up the clock-work apparatus of
nearly all the toys. Then one doll danced, another played a drum, a third
went through gymnastic exercises, and the toy orchestra played the
Marseillaise, while from every adjacent room veiled figures stole out
cautiously, as though this room in a Moorish house were a stage and the
shrouded visitors were the chorus entering mysteriously from unexpected
places. The old man's merriment was very real and hearty, so genuine, in
fact, that he did not notice how his women-folk were intruding until the
last note sounded. Then he turned round and the swathed figures
disappeared suddenly as ghosts at cockcrow.

Though it was clear that Sidi Boubikir seldom saw half the rooms through
which we hurried, the passion for building, that seizes all rich Moors,
held him fast. He was adding wing after wing to his vast premises, and
would doubtless order more furniture from London to fill the new rooms. No
Moor knows when it is time to call a halt and deem his house complete, and
so the country is full of palaces begun by men who fell from power or died
leaving the work unfinished. The Grand Wazeer Ba Ahmad left a palace
nearly as big as the Dar el Makhzan itself, and since he died the storks
that build upon the flat roofs have been its only occupants. So it is with
the gardens, whose many beauties he did not live to enjoy. I rode past
them one morning, noted all manner of fruit trees blossoming, heard birds
singing in their branches, and saw young storks fishing in the little
pools that the rains of winter had left. But there was not one gardener
there to tend the ground once so highly cultivated, and I was assured that
the terror of the wazeer's name kept even the hungry beggars from the
fruit in harvest time.

[Illustration: STREET IN MARRAKESH]

The home and its appointments duly exhibited, Sidi Boubikir led the way to
a diwan in a well-cushioned room that opened on to the garden. He clapped
his hands and a small regiment of women-servants, black and for the most
part uncomely, arrived to prepare dinner. One brought a ewer, another a
basin, a third a towel, and water was poured out over our hands. Then a
large earthenware bowl encased in strong basketwork was brought by a
fourth servant, and a tray of flat loaves of fine wheat by a fifth, and we
broke bread and said the "Bismillah,"[41] which stands for grace. The bowl
was uncovered and revealed a savoury stew of chicken with sweet lemon and
olives, a very pleasing sight to all who appreciate Eastern cooking. The
use of knives being a crime against the Faith, and the use of forks and
spoons unknown, we plunged the fingers of the right hand into the bowl and
sought what pleased us best, using the bread from time to time to deal
with the sauce of the stew. It was really a delicious dish, and when
later in the afternoon I asked my host for the recipe he said he would
give it to me if I would fill the bowl with Bank of England notes. I had
to explain that, in my ignorance of the full resources of Moorish cooking,
I had not come out with sufficient money.

So soon as the charm of the first bowl palled, it was taken away and
others followed in quick succession, various meats and eggs being served
with olives and spices and the delicate vegetables that come to Southern
Morocco in early spring. It was a relief to come to the end of our duties
and, our hands washed once more, to digest the meal with the aid of green
tea flavoured with mint. Strong drink being forbidden to the True
Believer, water only was served with the dinner, and as it was brought
direct from the Tensift River, and was of rich red colour, there was no
temptation to touch it. Sidi Boubikir was in excellent spirits, and told
many stories of his earlier days, of his dealings with Bashadors, his
quarrel with the great kaid Ben Daoud, the siege of the city by certain
Illegitimate men--enemies of Allah and the Sultan--his journey to
Gibraltar, and how he met one of the Rothschilds there and tried to do
business with him. He spoke of his investments in consols and the poor
return they brought him, and many other matters of equal moment.

It was not easy to realise that the man who spoke so brightly and lightly
about trivial affairs had one of the keenest intellects in the country,
that he had the secret history of its political intrigues at his fingers'
ends, that he was the trusted agent of the British Government, and lived
and throve surrounded by enemies. As far as was consistent with courtesy I
tried to direct his reminiscences towards politics, but he kept to purely
personal matters, and included in them a story of his attempt to bribe a
British Minister,[42] to whom, upon the occasion of the arrival of a
British Mission in Marrakesh, he went leading two mules laden with silver.
"And when I came to him," said the old man, "I said, 'By Allah's grace I
am rich, so I have brought you some share of my wealth.' But he would not
even count the bags. He called with a loud voice for his wife, and cried
to her, 'See now what this son of shame would do to me. He would give me
his miserable money.' And then in very great anger he drove me from his
presence and bade me never come near him again bearing a gift. What shall
be said of a man like that, to whom Allah had given the wisdom to become a
Bashador and the foolishness to reject a present? Two mules, remember, and
each one with as many bags of Spanish dollars as it could carry. Truly the
ways of your Bashadors are past belief." I agreed heartily with Sidi
Boubikir; a day's discourse had not made clear any other aspect of the
case.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] "In Paradise are rivers of incorruptible water; and rivers of milk,
the taste whereof changes not; and rivers of wine, pleasant unto those who
drink; and rivers of clarified honey; and in Paradise the faithful shall
have all kinds of fruits, and pardon from their God."--Al Koran; Sura 47,
"Mohammed."

[28] The late Sir John Drummond Hay, whose name is honourably remembered
to this day throughout the Moghreb.

[29] When a Sultan appears in public on a white horse, it is for sign that
he is pleased; a black horse, on the other hand, is ominous to them that
understand.

[30] Literally "Learned Ones," a theological cabinet, the number of whose
members is known to no man, the weight of whose decisions is felt
throughout Morocco.

[31] 1873-94.

[32] Hareem.

[33] One of the titles of a Sultan. The "Lofty Portal" ("Sublime Porte")
and the "Sublime Presence" are among the others.

[34] Mohammed said: "Every painter is in Hell Fire, and Allah will appoint
a person at the day of Resurrection to punish him for every picture he
shall have drawn, and he shall be punished in Hell. So, if ye must make
pictures, make them of trees and things without souls."

[35] The reader will recognise the Hadj's reference to bicycles, cameras,
motor-cars, and other mechanical toys.

[36] Melinite shells.

[37] The stork.

[38] Literally, "Father of the she-ass," the Pretender who conducted a
successful campaign against the Sultan in 1902 and 1903, and is still an
active enemy of the Filali dynasty.

[39] "The Praise to Allah."

[40] A Moorish lute.

[41] Literally, "In the name of God."

[42] The late Sir William Kirby Green.

THROUGH A SOUTHERN PROVINCE

[Illustration: AN ARAB STEED]

CHAPTER IX

THROUGH A SOUTHERN PROVINCE

The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot;
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes
From leaf to flower, and flower to fruit.

_Atalanta in Calydon._

Even in these fugitive records of my last journey into the "Extreme West,"
I find it hard to turn from Marrakesh. Just as the city held me within its
gates until further sojourn was impossible, so its memories crowd upon me
now, and I recall with an interest I may scarcely hope to communicate the
varied and compelling appeals it made to me at every hour of the day. Yet
I believe, at least I hope, that most of the men and women who strive to
gather for themselves some picture of the world's unfamiliar aspects will
understand the fascination to which I refer, despite my failure to give it
fitting expression. Sevilla in Andalusia held me in the same way when I
went from Cadiz to spend a week-end there, and the three days became as
many weeks, and would have become as many months or years had I been my
own master--which to be sure we none of us are. The hand of the Moor is
clearly to be seen in Sevilla to-day, notably in the Alcazar and the
Giralda tower, fashioned by the builder of the Kutubia that stands like a
stately lighthouse in the Blad al Hamra.

So, with the fascination of the city for excuse, I lingered in Marrakesh
and went daily to the bazaars to make small purchases. The dealers were
patient, friendly folk, and found no trouble too much, so that there was
prospect of a sale at the end of it. Most of them had a collapsible set of
values for their wares, but the dealer who had the best share of my
Moorish or Spanish dollars was an old man in the bazaar of the
brass-workers, who used to say proudly, "Behold in me thy servant, Abd el
Kerim,[43] the man of one price."

The brass and copper workers had most of their metal brought to them from
the Sus country, and sold their goods by weight. Woe to the dealer
discovered with false scales. The gunsmiths, who seemed to do quite a big
trade in flint-lock guns, worked with their feet as well as their hands,
their dexterity being almost Japanese. Nearly every master had an
apprentice or two, and if there are idle apprentices in the southern
capital of my Lord Abd-el-Aziz, I was not fated to see one.

No phase of the city's life lacked fascination, nor was the interest
abated when life and death moved side by side. A Moorish funeral wound
slowly along the road in the path of a morning's ride. First came a crowd
of ragged fellows on foot singing the praises of Allah, who gives one
life to his servants here and an eternity of bliss in Paradise at the end
of their day's work. The body of the deceased followed, wrapped in a
knotted shroud and partially covered with what looked like a coloured
shawl, but was, I think, the flag from a saint's shrine. Four bearers
carried the open bier, and following came men of high class on mules. The
contrast between the living and the dead was accentuated by the freshness
of the day, the life that thronged the streets, the absence of a coffin,
the weird, sonorous chaunting of the mourners. The deceased must have been
a man of mark, for the crowd preceding the bier was composed largely of
beggars, on their way to the cemetery, where a gift of food would be
distributed. Following their master's remains came two slaves, newly
manumitted, their certificates of freedom borne aloft in cleft sticks to
testify before all men to the generosity of the loudly lamented. Doubtless
the shroud of the dead had been sprinkled with water brought from the well
Zem Zem, which is by the mosque of Mecca, and is said to have been
miraculously provided for Hagar, when Ishmael, then a little boy, was like
to die of thirst in the wilderness.

I watched the procession wind its way out of sight to the burial-ground by
the mosque, whose mueddin would greet its arrival with the cry, "May Allah
have mercy upon him." Then the dead man would be carried to the cemetery,
laid on his right side looking towards Mecca, and the shroud would be
untied, that there may be no awkwardness or delay upon the day of the
Resurrection. And the Kadi or f'K'hay[44] would say, "O Allah, if he did
good, over-estimate his goodness; and if he did evil, forget his evil
deeds; and of Thy Mercy grant that he may experience Thine Acceptance; and
spare him the trials and troubles of the grave.... Of Thy Mercy grant him
freedom from torment until Thou send him to Paradise, O Thou Most Pitiful
of the pitying.... Pardon us, and him, and all Moslems, O Lord of
Creation."

[Illustration: A YOUNG MARRAKSHI]

On the three following mornings the men of the deceased's house would
attend by the newly-made grave, in company with the tolba, and would
distribute bread and fruit to the poor, and when their task was over and
the way clear, the veiled women would bring flowers, with myrtle, willows,
and young leaves of the palm, and lay them on the grave, and over these
the water-carrier would empty his goat-skin. I knew that the dead man
would have gone without flinching to his appointed end, not as one who
fears, but rather as he who sets out joyfully to a feast prepared in his
honour. His faith had kept all doubts at bay, and even if he had been an
ill liver the charitable deeds wrought in his name by surviving relatives
would enable him to face the two angels who descend to the grave on the
night following a man's burial and sit in judgment upon his soul. This one
who passed me on his last journey would tell the angels of the men who
were slaves but yesterday and were now free, he would speak of the hungry
who had been fed, and of the intercession of the righteous and learned.
These facts and his faith, the greatest fact of all, would assuredly
satisfy Munkir and Nakir.[45] Small wonder if no manner of life, however
vile, stamps ill-livers in Morocco with the seal we learn to recognise in
the Western world. For the Moslem death has no sting, and hell no victory.
Faith, whether it be in One God, in a Trinity, in Christ, Mohammed, or
Buddha, is surely the most precious of all possessions, so it be as virile
and living a thing as it is in Sunset Land.

Writing of religion, I needs must set down a word in this place of the men
and women who work for the Southern Morocco Mission in Marrakesh. The
beauty of the city has long ceased to hold any fresh surprises for them,
their labour is among the people who "walk in noonday as in the night." It
is not necessary to be of their faith to admire the steadfast devotion to
high ideals that keeps Mr. Nairn and his companions in Marrakesh. I do not
think that they make converts in the sense that they desire, the faith of
Islam suits Morocco and the Moors, and it will not suffer successful
invasion, but the work of the Mission has been effective in many ways. If
the few Europeans who visit the city are free to wander unchallenged,
unmolested through its every street, let them thank the missionaries; if
the news that men from the West are straight-dealing, honourable, and
slaves to truth, has gone from the villages on the hither side of Atlas
down to the far cities of the Sus, let the missionaries be praised. And if
a European woman can go unveiled yet uninsulted through Marrakesh, the
credit is due to the ladies of the Mission. It may be said without mental
reservation that the Southern Morocco Mission accomplishes a great work,
and is most successful in its apparent failure. It does not make
professing Christians out of Moors, but it teaches the Moors to live finer
lives within the limits of their own faith, and if they are kinder and
cleaner and more honourable by reason of their intercourse with the
"tabibs" and "tabibas," the world gains and Morocco is well served. When
the Sultan was in difficulties towards the end of 1902, and the star of Bu
Hamara was in the ascendant, Sir Arthur Nicolson, our Minister in Tangier,
ordered all British subjects to leave the inland towns for the coast. As
soon as the news reached the Marrakshis, the houses of the missionaries
were besieged by eager crowds of Moors and Berbers, offering to defend the
well-beloved tabibs against all comers, and begging them not to go away.
Very reluctantly Mr. Nairn and his companions obeyed the orders sent from
Tangier, but, having seen their wives and children safely housed in
Djedida, they returned to their work.

[Illustration: FRUIT MARKET, MARRAKESH]

The Elhara or leper quarter is just outside one of the city gates, and
after some effort of will, I conquered my repugnance and rode within its
gate. The place proved to be a collection of poverty-stricken hovels built
in a circle, of the native tapia, which was crumbling to pieces through
age and neglect. Most of the inhabitants were begging in the city, where
they are at liberty to remain until the gates are closed, but there were a
few left at home, and I had some difficulty in restraining the keeper
of Elhara, who wished to parade the unfortunate creatures before me that I
might not miss any detail of their sufferings. Leper women peeped out from
corners, as Boubikir's "house" had done; little leper children played
merrily enough on the dry sandy ground, a few donkeys, covered with scars
and half starved, stood in the scanty shade. In a deep cleft below the
outer wall women and girls, very scantily clad, were washing clothes in a
pool that is reserved apparently for the use of the stricken village. I
was glad to leave the place behind me, after giving the unctuous keeper a
gift for the sufferers that doubtless never reached them. They tell me
that no sustained attempt is made to deal medically with the disease,
though many nasty concoctions are taken by a few True Believers, whose
faith, I fear, has not made them whole.[46]

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