In The Tail Of The Peacock Part 15

The word _ginn_ originally meant "the secret," "the mysterious," "the hidden"; and the belief in ginns is part of the actual creed of Mohammedans, Arabs, and Berbers alike. But Moors have a hundred superst.i.tions. They believe that all animals had a language once upon a time,--that the horse prays to Allah when he stretches out his leg; that the donkey which falls down, asks Allah that the same may happen to his master. They say that the donkey was once a man whom Allah changed into his present shape because he washed himself with milk; that the stork was a _kadi_, or judge, who was made a stork because he pa.s.sed unjust sentences upon his fellow-men. It is therefore a sin to kill a stork, or a crow, or a toad, or a white spider, or a white chicken. A white spider once spun its web over a cave where Mohammed hid: his enemies saw it, thought therefore that no one could have recently entered the cave, and pa.s.sed on.

It is hardly necessary to say, that about Death--the Great Secret--there are numerous superst.i.tions. There were too many funerals in Tetuan: early in the afternoon one was often encountered at the Gate of the Tombs; death would only have taken place that morning, without much inquiry as to its cause, and whether by fair means or foul n.o.body knew and few cared. The procession came swinging along, stately men in flowing garments, white and dark, chanting the weird funeral hymn or "lament"--always the same mournful, monotonous cadence, rising and falling in the narrow streets, and at last out into the air. And then once through the Bab-el-M'kabar, the great company in white turn into the Moorish burial-ground, and arrange themselves in a long line against the hillside, and the chant becomes general, almost a great cry, full of the strange fascination of certain Eastern music, withal so unintelligible to Europeans.

The body, loosely wrapped in white, lies on an open bier. After a sort of service on that rough hillside against the walls of the city, the procession winds on again to the shallow grave: a last chant, and the body goes into the earth, and is quickly covered. A scribe, or reader, is left behind when every one has gone: he reads pieces out of the Kor[=a]n over the grave, and chants. Friends, mourners perhaps, will come out on other days, and sit round the tomb, reading the Kor[=a]n together, and singing the weird, sad melodies. You may see them. But I have never seen a Moor give way to the slightest outward expression of grief.

Mohammedans firmly believe, of course, in a Paradise to which the good are admitted: their conception as to this land of the hereafter, largely consisting of gardens and shade, adds a bridge, by which means alone access to Paradise is gained. The bridge (_Al Sirat_) is finer than a hair and sharper than a sword: the wicked invariably turn giddy and fall off into the pit of h.e.l.l, while the righteous negotiate it in safety.

A rich man, when he is buried, is provided with a vault. The body is laid on its right side, its sightless eyes turned to Mecca. During the first night, Mohammedans hold that the soul remains in the body for the purpose of being interrogated by two angels before it can be admitted into Paradise. They appear, and the body is roused to a sitting posture and to temporary life. It replies to the dread examination. If this ends unsatisfactorily, the angels torture and beat the body, until the sepulchre closes in upon it. But if they approve the soul's replies, they bid the man sleep on in peace in the protection of G.o.d.

Travellers complain of a want of "pageant" in Morocco. Ostentatious funerals and processions of all sorts, public demonstrations over trifles, the worship of gilt and glitter, and the emotional spirit called _loyalty_, of the present day, do not exist in El Moghreb. There is a spirit of simplicity about its shows; they do not breathe of money: old as their customs are, there is vigour in them and a certain amount of use, for the people have not outgrown them, do not make of them so many lay figures on which to display signs of their own great wealth.

The Day of the Great Feast up at Court with the Sultan, that is _the pageant_ in all Morocco. We missed it.

Connected with the bashas and kaids, who are the only great men in the country or in the cities, there is little or no respect or formality.

Only on Sundays a sort of "flash in the pan" reminds the Moor that he has a little despot in his midst, who is more or less lord of his life; and the drums are heard all over the city, the soldiers turn out, for the basha goes to pray at _El Aoli_ (noon) in his own particular mosque opposite his house.

On Friday, the Sabbath, the biggest _sok_ (market) in all the week, a little black flag was flown from the mosque-tops early in the morning to remind Tetuan of the holy day. The basha was inside the cool mosque, praying, at the hottest time of the day; outside a few people collected, though the same event happened every Friday. No Moor is ever busy, ever hurries, but can always wait. At a quarter to one a bugler on the east side of the street, who had been sitting in the sun with his bugle, got up and blew a call to fall in. About sixty soldiers, who had all strolled off after the great man had disappeared into the mosque, sauntered up from different directions. If they were a ragged and indifferently drilled company, there was colour in the ranks at least. Every man wore a short scarlet flannel tunic, a pair of white cotton drawers, and a red fez: one drummer had a tunic of beetle-green. As they lined the street, short st.u.r.dy men, with hairy legs and coffee-coloured faces, their bright bayonets flashing in the sun, the drums thumping and the trumpeter running up and down the scale, the dazzling sunlight gave a trace of splendour to the medley of scarlet and steel against the whitewashed walls.

Everybody waited expectant. A stout man in white came out of the mosque, ordered the small boys away, and saw that there was ample room for the basha to pa.s.s across the street and into his own house. Then the ordinary crowd of worshippers began to file out of the building--prayers over: green-blue kaftans lined with crimson silk, filmy white robes, snowy turbans, moved slowly along--a dignified, impressive crowd. There was a pause before the basha appeared, a man arranging his two yellow slippers side by side upon the doorstep of the mosque. Another moment and the great, voluminous, expected figure filled the doorway. A twist of his ankles and he was in his slippers, the bugle sounded, the ragged squad presented arms somewhat untidily, a line of servants bowed themselves low and respectfully before him, and the basha moved slowly across the street.

Leading his own troops, dispensing justice, an after-type of those great Arabs who sprang from the sands of Arabia and Africa, shook Europe, and flourished in Spain, a basha should be no tyrant, but a courteous gentleman, a n.o.ble of "The Arabian Nights." But there was no aristocratic trace about Asydaibdalkdar. Carrying his rosary in his hand, clothed entirely in white, his features bore traces of servility and sensuality, the result of poisoning the Arab and Berber blood with the strain from Central Africa. Slavery is proving fatal to the Moorish race. Unlike the well-bred Moor, the basha's face was deeply lined: cruelty, cunning, pigheadedness, all fought for the upper hand in his swarthy countenance.

He walked in under his own gateway into a courtyard beyond: there he sat down in a corner upon a seat--a great figure, much like some Indian G.o.d--while his underlings came forward, stood in a semicircle, bowed low, and saluted him; followed by his soldiers, who marched in single file into the courtyard, round it, past their chief, and out again--this three times, to the sound of drums; then, headed by the officer in command, they trooped off to the barracks, the basha's gateway was locked, and Church Parade was over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BASHA GOING TO PRAY.

[_To face p. 198._]

For half an hour all the gates of the city had been barred and bolted, while prayers were going on--there being a superst.i.tion among the Moors, arising from an old prophecy, that on a certain morning of a Mohammedan Sabbath, Christians will gain possession of the cities while the kaids and bashas are in the mosques.

Two hundred soldiers are allowed by Government to the governor of Tetuan, by means of which he is to maintain law and order. However, a hundred only were maintained, and the pay of the remaining half went into somebody's pocket. There was apparently little for them to do; drill was a thing unheard of, and they spent most of the day hanging round the basha's house or doing errands for him.

On the feast days there was _Lab-el-Barod_--the famous "Powder Play" of Morocco; and then the soldiers all turned out into the _feddan_ (the great market-square), and showed what Lab-el-Barod meant: to me rather a foolish game, with but one interesting point--that it is the imitation of the old Arab tribal battle. To-day the Moors gallop forward, stand up in their saddles, fire their guns under their horses' necks, over their tails--all this at full gallop--throw their guns into the air and catch them, and last of all pull up in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce, dragging their horses right on to their haunches, which evolutions are imitations of what their ancestors did with spear and javelin. Lab-el-Barod prevailed in Spain till the middle of the eighteenth century, and it is still played in the East with reeds. There is of course a picturesque element in it--white turbans, white garments streaming in the wind, scarlet saddles, flashing steel, hard-held horses with yards of tail, and above all, the lithe figures in perfect balance whatever their positions; but the performance is often too "ragged" to be impressive, and it strenuously demands flats of desert as a background.

The basha would always come out and look on when there was one of these "field days" at Tetuan: his figure was not adapted to his partic.i.p.ation therein, being perfectly in keeping with his walk in life, and that walk consisted in his sitting from six o'clock to ten o'clock in the morning, and from three o'clock to six o'clock in the afternoon, in a small open room off the street opposite his house, in a reclining position upon cushions, before him an excited group (as often as not), contradicting, swearing, gesticulating, abusing, all at the same moment--one of whom is carried off by the soldiers to be flogged, another is sent to prison, or, if the seekers after justice wax more troublesome than ordinary, they may all be thrown into prison by the heels together to calm them. At the same time the basha absorbs bribes, and sweeps loaves of sugar, packets of candles, and pounds of tea into his net. These are the ordinary bribes.

When he was appointed basha, a royal letter from the Sultan was sent to Tetuan and read aloud in the mosque: then he entered upon his duties. He must needs go warily from day to day; and even then luck may desert him at any moment, and a summons may arrive from the Sultan--he is to go to Court at once. I recollect in what abject terror, one basha, who was sent for at a day's notice, set out upon his journey, only to find, when he got to Court, that he was to have a more lucrative billet and a higher post of honour. Many who have departed in terror, all unknowing of the future, have found, when they reached Fez or Morocco City, where-ever the Sultan might be, that their worst fears were realized. Either placed under arrest, tortured, imprisoned, or bastinadoed, the little wealth they had acc.u.mulated is extorted from them, under the pretext of there being arrears in taxes or other dues, which must be made good. The wooden jellab is used for the purpose of extorting confession in the case of imaginary wealth supposed to be hidden (and much often is hidden): it is made of wood, resembling in shape a long cloak, and placed in an upright position; the inside is lined with iron points, which prevent the body from resting against it without suffering. Inside this "jellab" the basha is squeezed, standing up, and he remains there on a spa.r.s.e diet of bread and water till he divulges.

Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of War were sent to the prison in Tetuan soon after the accession of the present Sultan; but that was for plotting against his life. In the common gaol, heavily chained, under the same roof with the herd of common prisoners, all they were allowed was a curtain across one corner, behind which they sat. The Prime Minister died there. The Minister of War is there to-day, March 1902, and, after over seven years' confinement, getting fat. Some members of the Rahamna tribe are there also. This tribe, which belongs to the far south, near Morocco City, about eight years ago was in a state of rebellion, to quell which the Sultan sent his army with orders to _eat them up_. Their fat lands and fine gardens were ruined; men, women, and children killed and taken prisoners; while six hundred of them were sent to the Tetuan prison, and a great number--I do not know exactly--went to Rabat. That was eight years ago. Sixty of them are in Tetuan prison now, the remnant of six hundred. There is a kaid among them who is very ill, dying: the eight years have done for him.

Since this was written, an order has come from the Sultan for the release of the Rahamna tribesmen. In Rabat, unfortunately, almost all who were in the Kasbah prison died long ago. Its insanitary condition has earned for it the name of _Dar-el-Mout_ (the House of Death). But in the other prison there were survivors. These came out with traces of the late governor's butchery.

For trying to send a written pet.i.tion to the Sultan three years ago, which set forth their condition, and prayed that after five years'

confinement they might be considered to have paid for their rebellious deeds, and be allowed to return to their own land for the last years of their lives, the late governor, Ba Hamed, gave orders that their hands should be mutilated. A knife was drawn across the back of the wrist, cutting the extensor tendons of the hand: the hand was packed with salt, and sewn up in wet cow-hide. When this was taken off or wore off, it was not recognizable as a hand.

Miss Hanbury, who did her best to inst.i.tute reforms in Moorish prisons, and succeeded in Tangier, left at her death a sum of money, out of which 5 came to Tetuan to be spent on their behalf. It fell into the hands of the lady missionaries, and they spent it in making jellabs for the prisoners to wear, whose garments are worse than filthy. Unfortunately 5 was not nearly enough to clothe all; it only provided a jellab for one out of every three of the prisoners, and the poor wretches fought like dogs for them.

"They will wear them in turns," the gaoler said. He and another Moor had superintended the distribution of them; and to their lasting disgrace, deaf to argument and remonstrance on the part of the missionaries, they each appropriated a jellab to himself, saying, "This is my share; this goes to me." They were of coa.r.s.e material, such as neither gaoler nor under-gaoler would ever wear themselves: all they would do would be to take them into market and convert them into money.

"Moors have _no_ feelings," people say, and say wrongly; but that, to a great extent, it is true take just one instance--the state of the prisons and prisoners. It was enough in the distance to "wind" the Tetuan prison. There remains the reflection--call it comforting if you like--that a people who consent to endure such filth, and misery, and harsh treatment, are not affected by them in the same way in which a highly civilized people would be affected.

It is absurd to blame the Moorish Government; it is absurd to say, "The people are obliged to endure." No people can be forced to endure: a point comes beyond endurance, and they rebel, choosing death rather. The vigorous and progressive race endures least. Therefore on the Moors' own heads be the state of their prisons, the treatment of their prisoners: to that cursed spirit of _laissez-faire_ half the blame is due; the rest comes of their indifference to suffering, to bad smells and dirt and a sedentary existence. It is manifestly unfair to blame certain ministers and officials. Taking into consideration the manners and customs, hopes and fears, of the Moorish people, their prisons probably suit them right well, and they need no pity.

It was not always easy to get provisions, except life's bare necessities, in Tetuan. Provision Stores, which were long out of their goods, always had the same answer when asked for them--"M[=a]nana" (To-morrow); and to-morrow never came. But it is unwise to "hustle the East": men have died trying to find a way of doing so. Therefore we chewed with philosophy the cud of the Moorish proverb:--

"_Manage with bread and b.u.t.ter till G.o.d brings the jam._"

On the whole we fared not amiss, while our establishment, with its two Riffi servants, man and wife, worked well, until an occurrence took place which shook it to its very foundations, and left us to the end with a question which will never be solved.

One evening, about half-past five, just as we had settled ourselves down after tea to read, there was an unusual stir on the stairs. A minute later and the door burst open. Tahara staggered in, followed by S'lam, who seemed very much excited and alarmed. The woman was deathly pale; her eyes were ringed with black. R. and I, seeing she was ill, jumped to the conclusion that something or other was very wrong with her, and tried to make her sit down, or lie down, at once, on our divan. In a confused scene which followed, the only words we grasped were, "Tabiba, tabiba"

(Doctor), and S'lam, at our instigation, rushed downstairs to go off to Tetuan, and to bring back with him Miss Z----, one of the lady missionaries. Tahara was almost beside herself, apparently with terror, and for a few moments one was inclined to doubt her sanity. We tried vainly to quiet her, almost holding her on the divan; but there was evidently something on her mind which every moment threw her into fresh agitations, and--_ah! what would we not have given to have understood Arabic!_ for Tahara knew no French, like S'lam, and could barely say half a dozen words in English; her Spanish, of which she knew a few words, was Greek to us too.

"Signorita! signorita! tabiba!" she kept repeating, wailing, and then a torrent of Shillah and Arabic and Spanish would follow, and we were at our wits' end. At last R. managed to quiet her a little, and by-and-by to make her try to help us to understand, by saying slowly in Arabic two or three words which would be intelligible to us, together with the word or so of English which she herself knew. Then we gathered that her one desire was that I should go to the tabiba's. But why? We told her that S'lam had gone. She burst out into fresh agonies and shrieks: "S'lam not go! S'lam not go!" Then she got up, and apparently wished to go downstairs--the last thing we thought she ought to do; but all our efforts to keep her still seemed rather futile; and from what she was trying to make us understand, there was more behind than we had an idea of. She went, almost ran, down into her and S'lam's bedroom, we following hard behind. Inside the room she tip-toed up to a recess high in the wall, almost out of her reach, and with difficulty lifted down a small bundle of rags. This she unrolled, fold after fold, before our eyes, while a thousand guesses as to what was coming rushed through the brain; the last rag came off, and a small blue bottle, about four inches high, lay in her hand. She held it up to the light. It was half full of a colourless liquid like water. We read the label--"Prussic Acid. Poison"; and an ugly fear took the place of vague conjecture.

"Who has eaten this?" R. asked in scanty Arabic.

"Anna" (I), replied Tahara.

The remedy of hot boiled milk rushed into both our heads at once, but Tahara was again beginning in a fresh agony, which was now more persistent than only terrified; and choking off her stream of words, we managed to gather, that what she wanted was to go herself with me into the city, at once, to Miss Z----. Now a few drops of prussic acid of course meant that she had not long to live, and yet there were no symptoms of poisoning so far as we could gather at present. She might have taken it in a diluted form certainly. The whole thing was possibly wild imagination on her part. At any rate Miss Z---- would understand her, and that we could not do.

I hurried on my boots, questioning as to whether the woman really meant that S'lam had poisoned her. R. helped Tahara wind her long white woollen haik round her. In two minutes I was ready. Tahara slipped into her slippers, and, with the white shrouded figure clinging to me, in the fast-deepening dusk we started.

It took fully twenty minutes to walk from Jinan Dolero to the house in the middle of the city where the lady missionaries lived and had a dispensary. Miss Z---- had had some medical experience, and was a clever woman. She understood, probably as far as any European can understand, the Moorish character; and it was with some confidence--possibly on the part of us both--that we set out. But the way seemed lengthy; I knew that S'lam would be there long before we could arrive: through the city there are at least three intricate ways by which the house is reached, and my heart sank as I reflected that there was every chance of Miss Z---- and S'lam's taking another way than our own, and thus missing us. Meanwhile, it was growing darker every moment. Would the city gate still be open when we reached it? Was it not certain to be shut when we wanted to return?

Tahara hung on to my arm and hand. There had been rain, and we both slipped about in the dark, and splashed into unseen pools; she took off her pink slippers and carried them in one hand, and paddled along on her bare feet at a Moorish woman's top speed, still shaking with terror.

Three or four times, dark as it was, she stopped and put out her tongue for me to look at it. It seemed very pink, and I did my utmost to rea.s.sure her, having disturbing visions of her collapsing altogether on the gra.s.s; for if she was to be understood rightly and believed, she had pains in her body, and breathing seemed an effort.

We were crossing the cemetery now by one of the intricate paths which intersect it. There seemed not a soul within sight or sound. Every Moor would be inside his house or hut. I hoped Tahara would pull herself together and last as far as Miss Z----'s.

She said she was _bueno_, meaning good, better, and spoke again of the bottle which she was carrying carefully hidden in her waistband. Then, as far as I could understand, she wished me to know that the poison had something to do with the signoritas--ourselves--and our food. This was a most unpleasant reflection: I devoutly hoped that R. would not begin dinner before I got back, and comforted myself with the a.s.surance that it was unlikely, there being no one to get it ready. We had no outside man at that time sleeping in the house.

"S'lam _no_ good; S'lam _no_ good," Tahara kept repeating. And, to tell the truth, our long-legged ruffian rose before my eyes as no mean embodiment of a stage villain. The Riffis are notoriously treacherous and put no value whatever on life; at the same time I knew that they made good and faithful servants up to a certain point, and I shrank from distrusting a man who had so far served us well. And yet, how much does one know of them? Nothing. We had had suspicions that all was not going smoothly with the two servants: though they had been married so lately there was friction between them; Tahara had been heard crying at night, and had looked red-eyed. It was likely, therefore, that there had been a quarrel.

S'lam's old mother may have made mischief. She was madly jealous of Tahara, whom S'lam had married without letting her know. He had gone over to Tangier; had arranged the marriage with Tahara's brother, who was living at Tangier with her; had brought her off, hardly a happy or willing bride, for he told us that she cried the whole of the journey; and had sprung her upon his old mother at Tetuan. In his bachelor days S'lam's earnings had gone to the old woman. Now they were spent on his wife and himself. Therefore Maman saw nothing that was good in Tahara, and would have given much, no doubt, to see the last of her.

Meanwhile, the city gate drew near. Tahara was moving along firmly with her hand in mine. The gate was still open!--that was a relief. We hurried through, and, seeing a group of soldiers waiting outside, I judged that it was just about to be shut. We were none too soon: the bars behind us clanged into their places. I much wished that R. was not henceforth cut off from all communication with me, and left outside the city entirely by herself: there were the two guns and revolver; after all, the house was no more likely to be molested on this night than on any other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FEDDAN, TETUAN.

[_To face p. 208._]

The narrow streets were nearly pitch dark; shadowy figures pa.s.sed us at first; and Tahara drew her haik all over her face, leaving only a slit for the eyes, and put on her slippers once more. Occasionally a little shop had its hard-working inmate, sewing at slippers by the light of an oil lamp; but for the most part all was black darkness. How long the intricate streets seemed! We stumbled on the rough cobbles and slid into the muddy gutter. Tahara's slippers again impeded her, and off they came.

I wished devoutly I knew where Miss Z---- was, and could make straight for her, probably hurrying at that moment for Jinan Dolero, somewhere in the maze of streets and houses. We crossed the great open feddan, all deserted, and I strained my eyes for a glimpse of her tall figure beside that of S'lam's--in vain.

Late as it was, children were about; they collected gradually behind us and followed us, nor was it easy at that time of night to drive them off.

Tahara, though still struggling on, was leaning heavily on my arm. The sooner we get to the Mission House the better.