In The Tail Of The Peacock Part 23

Meantime, few, if any, of the kaid's retainers could have abstained from visiting us, to judge by the levee which we held for more than an hour: perhaps the black slaves were most interesting, but they were also hardest to remove, from the scene of such a phenomenon, as two Englishwomen within their own walls. Probably no such thing had happened within the memory of man; for Sheshaoua is off the beaten track to Marrakesh, nor do travellers as a rule sleep out of their tents.

While we had tea, under a battery of eyes, and further annoyed by the chatter at the open door and windows, a _mona_ (a present from the governor) arrived, and was set down at our feet. It was not the time--just after tea--to eat an immense dish of _coos-coosoo_, or a steaming pile of hot mutton and raisins, cooked in oil, which lay on the round trenchers, when the great beehive-like straw covers were raised: some of the hot cakes accompanying them might be managed, but the rest was handed over to the expectant servants, to whom coos-coosoo is as roast beef to the British labourer, though less stimulating, for it only consists of wheat or millet or maize flour, granulated, steamed, and eaten hot, sometimes crowned with chicken.

Following hard on the mona came a message from the khaylifa asking for medicine. Graphically answering my question as to what was the matter with him, the messenger stroked his waist: we found a pill, which was carried off with much grat.i.tude.

A short time elapsed, and then, to our horror, four slaves arrived, carrying great preparations for tea--bra.s.s trays, urn, and the whole paraphernalia--mint and sweetness filling the room. Again the servants benefited; and even a third time, after we were actually in bed; for the door was bombarded, and three women came in, and laid a great almond pudding, of much delicacy, covered with stripes of grated cinnamon, at our feet.

That night was the one bad experience of our time in Morocco. Though the guest-room was new and apparently clean, some matting had been laid on the floor, which we had not removed, and with the darkness its occupants came out in such numbers that, in spite of "Keating" round the legs of each bed, the long hours were taken up in warfare, and we never slept.

Next day the room was scoured out, and the lively matting ejected, while we were strolling round Sheshaoua between heavy showers of rain, which reduced the clay country to a state of quagmire. However, Sunday, after a peaceful night both inside and out of doors, broke fresh and clear: all the great loose thunder-clouds had packed themselves into long cloudlets with ruled horizontal bases; and in clear, rarefied air, standing up almost unearthly in their beauty, the Atlas range from end to end, was to be seen at last. Chiselled peak after peak, upon which no traveller has ever set foot, glistened in the sun, apparently about ten miles off, in reality more like thirty or forty. It was one of those mornings which have been thoroughly washed, and the swirling pea-soup river bore witness to the operation as surely as the air of purity which the whole country wore. All was radiant: down below, the orange grove of our arrival rang with nightingales and bulbuls; there was a scent of heaven, an undertone of racing waters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHIPS OF THE DESERT WE Pa.s.s ON THE MARCH.

[_To face p. 308._]

Just as we were packed up to start, the khaylifa sent and expressed thanks for our medicine, and asked that as a favour we would see his wives, one of whom was ill. They were found in mud rooms, dark and dirty, most uninteresting in themselves. One stout "lady" had a swelled neck, the other had cataract: both wished to be prescribed for. I recommended, through Omar, bathing the swelled neck: it was necessary from a cleanliness point of view. From the same point of view I shook hands hurriedly and departed, climbed into the saddle, and was soon far away from the kasbah at Sheshaoua.

CHAPTER XI

A PARTING MONA--FORDING SHESHAOUA RIVER--JARS OF FOOD--FIRST SIGHT OF MARRAKESH--A PERILOUS CROSSING--RIDE INTO MARRAKESH--THE SLAVE MARKET.

CHAPTER XI

"We who are old, old and gay, O so old!

Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told:

Give to these children, new from the world, Rest far from men.

Is anything better, anything better?

Tell us it then:

Us who are old, old and gay, O so old!

Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told."

W. B. YEATS.

WE were once more upon the march; and yet all links with the kasbah were not broken, for we had gone but a short way when a servant ran after us, carrying a familiar dish, known from afar--a parting mona. Laid at our feet, we tasted, as courtesy demanded, a coos-coosoo made of grated almonds, powdered sugar, and cream--a sweet which cloys at an early hour in the day, though to Moorish servants, at any and every moment of their lives, it is as caviare to the few. A circle was formed round the dish: in two minutes, all that was left, was "an aching china blank."

Quant.i.ty rather than quality distinguishes Moorish cookery. The rich man's dishes are more or less like the poor man's, only that he has six times as many; indeed, there are said to be dishes of coos-coosoo which seven men can barely carry. The Sultan's own cuisine is quite simple, better served, and more of it perhaps, than his subjects', but otherwise exactly the same.

Having disposed of the mona, our cavalcade started, and we rode down to the Sheshaoua River, still in heavy flood, but fordable since the fine night. The waters roared past between the crumbling banks: we saw in one place waggon-loads of red soil suddenly subside with a vast noise into the cataract which had undermined it. Upon the brink the men stripped themselves; then, wading into the torrent, hauled across mules, camel, and donkey one by one: we took our feet out of the stirrups, and managed to keep dry; the camel behaved admirably.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRANSPORTING OUR BAGGAGE.

[_To face p. 314._]

It was an uneventful day, across a bleak and stony country. Towards evening we pa.s.sed a ruined kasbah, rose-red in the sunset. Riding due east, our long sharp shadows pointed ahead: there was a peace over all things. The shadowed heights on the right, scooped into blue gullies and mighty crests, carried a veil of cloud on their tops: the good little red path we were on, was without a stone. As the sun dropped we swung along into a dim grey beyond, to the m.u.f.fled tramp, tramp of the mules' hoofs, _shuffle-shuffle through the night_, while a cool breeze got up, and a flight of birds high above us called aloud as they pa.s.sed over. Ah! but how good it was!--no telegrams, no conventionalities, no possessions worth worry or consideration. Strange, the influence which such a simple life has upon the mind: letters, and newspapers, and the topics of the day, and the world in general, have little interest for the time being, and get buried in the wastepaper-basket of trivialities, while the weather, and the state of the track, and little things in Nature, a.s.sume gigantic proportions and fill the mind.

We camped that night near another red ruined kasbah, whose long line of crumbling tapia walls against the Atlas Mountains stretched itself out like a watch-dog beside the forbidden hills. In the morning Arabs were more importunate than ever, one woman thrusting her head between the flaps of the canvas while we were dressing. A deal, meantime, went on in the kitchen-tent over a lamb, Omar feeling its neck and tail, and subsequently buying it for five shillings, after which it was silently dispatched on the far side, skinned, cut up; and the donkey bore a pannierful of meat that day.

Our blue jay of the ruined kasbah at Sok-el-Tleta turned up again on the march, beautiful as ever, and no less tame; but all the birds shared that distinction, and were of a confiding nature delightful to see.

Before Frouga, one of our next camping-grounds, was reached, we pa.s.sed a kasbah which six years ago was in the possession of a kaid, who may or may not be still alive, in prison. His province, at any rate, rose against him to a man at the late Sultan's death, and wrecked his castle, the Government disposing of him after he had escaped to Marrakesh. The orchards of almond-trees, with thriving beans planted underneath them, and the fat fields of barley, spoke volumes for the prosperity of his days. It takes much provocation to induce country people to rise and rebel against their kaid; for rebellion, if unsuccessful, brings down such awful vengeance on the heads of the tribesmen: therefore his hard case was probably just punishment.

Another river, the Asif-el-Mel, had to be forded on the same day. It was a bad crossing, we were warned by one sheikh not to attempt it, and neither of our men knew the ford; but some Arabs turned up, and they helped to get the mules safely across. R. and I had each four men with us: we tied our boots, stockings, camera and gla.s.ses round our necks, and rode over, careful not to look down at the race of the torrent, which has turned hors.e.m.e.n giddy often enough,--a raging river rather more than breast-high is not a thing to be trifled with. On the banks beyond lay a large and flourishing village, chiefly remarkable on account of its _Mellah_ (Jews' Quarter),--a strange thing to find so far from civilization; and yet it was not, for the interior of Morocco is full of wandering Israelites, who, living and dying in remote Arab and Berber settlements, become naturalized to a certain extent, yet ever "keep themselves to themselves," housed only in their own "quarter," under lock and key after sundown, and subjected to a few irksome regulations. Some of them become rich on the profits of the "middle man," buying skins and produce of all sorts from the country people, and pa.s.sing them through to the coast towns: such men may be worth from 3,000 to 5,000.

It is hard to conceive a race settling from choice amongst the squalor and filth of the lowest type of Arab, but as a matter of fact, the Jewish Quarter violated, over and above all the rest of the village put together, every tradition of cleanliness. The Berber villages of the north, dirty enough in all conscience, absolutely shone in comparison with the Arab douars in the south, or with their larger settlements, those semi-villages, whose flat-roofed huts were stacked with earthen or basket-work jars. These bottle-shaped jars, full of what Mohammed calls "the liquor of the bee," cream-cheese, barley, etc., were plastered with mud, and waterproof: when they occurred in twos and threes on every roof, the effect was striking.

It would have been a monotonous ride to Frouga except for the Atlas Mountains on our right, which we had been steadily nearing for days: now comparatively close, their gleaming snow-peaks were never without interest, and Omar told tales of travellers' experiences up in one or two of the pa.s.ses. The princ.i.p.al roads across the chain to Taroudant, Ras-el-Ouad, and the Sus, pa.s.s through Frouga, and make it an important place. It possesses an _inzella_, or sort of fondak, where men and transport are safe for the night under the protection of the kaid of the district.

We pitched our tents among little fields of beans and barley, planted with olive-trees, close to a mosque, and awoke when _es-sbar_ (sunrise) was called in sonorous tones from the top of the dome: a cuckoo answered the mueddzin, and a pair of little doves began to coo persistently.

The gardens of Frouga are celebrated--full of vines planted like hop-gardens, of p.r.i.c.kly pear, figs, pears, apricots, and corn, in between the fruit-trees. And yet the owners are not rich: the governors of the district see to that; for supposing a man becomes richer than the governor, X., he goes to the Government and says, "If you make me governor instead of X., I will bring you more money than he does, and here is a present at the same time." The Government accepts the bribe, and gives the man a letter stating that he is made governor instead of X.

The man collects his friends and ousts X., perhaps imprisoning him for life. A governor, therefore, never allows a man under him to possess capital. He may be rich in cattle and gardens, but he will have to pay the governor out of his profits from thirty to ninety shillings at stated times all the year round, and never have any "spare cash." If he refuses to pay, he is turned out of his own home and acres, which fall into the governor's hands. Naturally he prefers to cling to his gardens.

Beyond Frouga lay some of the most fertile land in Morocco. We pa.s.sed wonderful crops of barley and wheat, which in an average year, for every bushel sown, yield forty bushels. Moors say that corn in Morocco is known to yield, not forty, but a hundred-fold. In England fifteen-fold is considered an average crop. Morocco grows two crops each year: there is a spring harvest and an autumn harvest. It would seem, therefore, that if agriculture were encouraged, and light railways laid down to the coast, money would pour into the country--especially supposing that, instead of wheat, such a crop as linseed was grown. Russian and American compet.i.tion would probably diminish the profits to be made out of wheat, but a soil and a climate like Morocco might grow anything and everything. At present fraud and dishonesty seem the soul of trade: the Jew brokers cheat the Moors; the Moors sand their sheep's wool to make it heavy, mix paraffin candles with their beeswax, put all manner of things into oil, and so on.

But a single example shows the spirit of the country. A friend of ours found his horses becoming poor, yet he saw their corn taken out to them every evening: he examined it; it was quite good. After a time it occurred to him to look inside the horses' mouths, and he found the gums cut and lacerated in order to prevent their eating their barley, which, after it had lain a certain time on the ground untouched, was confiscated by the servants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARRAKESH.

[_To face p. 318._]

Meanwhile, each day as we marched on, brought us nearer to our bourn, and at last we found ourselves on a wide flat plain, unbroken, except by the trail which we followed, consisting of six or eight narrow paths, winding on side by side like railway rails--a splendid "high road" for Morocco. Truly it is a spare-room country. The snaking track might take up acres and acres of rich land. What matter! There is room.

It was still very hot: smoked spectacles kept off a certain amount of glare, and I wore two hats, a straw on top of a felt, having neglected to bring a solar topi; but even so the sun was unnecessarily generous, glowing on the splendid polish which some of the Arabs carried on their sepia-coloured skulls, and making it impossible to follow the crested larks, singing their heads off, up in the brilliant sky.

At last we felt a breeze, topped a low rise: an old greybeard all in white jogged up towards us on a donkey, a man running behind; a village lay below; but our eyes only went to one spot in the wide blue plain, which was spread out like a praying-carpet before us. That spot lay twenty-five miles off--a single tower, the Kutobea in Morocco City.

"Marrakesh!" cried Omar and Sad simultaneously.

We rode on, across dry plain, over old river-beds, through patches of olive-trees, pink oleander, and castor-oil plant; leaving Arab douars behind; meeting with white cow-birds which recalled Tetuan; pa.s.sing men with merchandise on camels and donkeys, strings of country people, and wanderers of all sorts; stopping to rest near wells where swallows were building in the brickwork and donkeys stood asleep in the shade; watching Arabs beating out corn with sticks, men ploughing, until we were once more amongst "greenery" and in a fertile stretch of country. Surely there was a river near. We pa.s.sed fine crops of maize; onions were doing famously; fields of bearded wheat rustled in a life-giving breeze. And then the Wad-el-Nyfs, the largest river we had to cross, came into sight.

Sad at the outset precipitated himself into a great hole, and was well ducked: eventually we all landed safely on the other side, though the start was far from rea.s.suring, some Arabs on the bank telling us it was "not good" to cross, and wading down into the torrent, for us to see that the water took them up to their necks almost at once, sweeping them down-stream. Before we rode into the water every man divested himself of each particle of clothing which he wore; and R. got across with two dark-skinned individuals clinging on to her legs, one on each side of the mule, a third hanging on to its bridle, and a fourth at its tail; while I followed also with four attendants. Not long ago, a party of missionaries was fording one of these very rivers, and neglected to have men at the mules' heads, one of which stumbled and threw its rider into the rapid stream: she was drowned. It was not deep at the time, or more precaution would have been taken: on the other hand, the stream is always like a mill-race, an accident can happen in a moment, and therefore a rule should be made, and never under any circ.u.mstances broken, to the effect that every rider have a man at the mule's head, and more than one, according to the state of the river.

We had a long hot ride to Tamsloect: the breeze, which was westerly, was useless to us; the track led over stony yellow hills; now and again we caught glimpses of the Kutobea standing up very far away; and all the time the great snow-fields, on the vast mountains, close upon our right, looked tantalizingly near and cold. Occasionally we watered the mules at a stream: tortoises were swimming about in one of these. But on the whole it was a singularly uneventful and a very sultry ride, until at last long lines of red mud walls, many gardens, three mosque towers, and some tall, dark, green cypress-trees proclaimed Tamsloect--an important village, possessing a Friday market, an unequalled view of the Atlas, and a saint, Mulai Abdullah Ben Ha.s.si.

An Arab, Hadj Cadour, is one of the great men in Tamsloect; and to him, having an introduction, we went. The best hours spent in Morocco were those lived with certain of the Moors themselves, sharing for a short time their simple and yet fantastic life, learning something of their innate courtesy and generous hospitality. Hadj Cadour was a host of the old aristocratic school. He was out at his garden-house when we reached the village, entertaining friends at a tea party; and upon our message reaching him, he sent back a man on a white horse to point out another of his gardens close at hand, where he suggested that the tents should be pitched, while R. and I rode out and joined his tea party.

Leaving Omar to superintend the camp, we started off after the rider on the white horse: he led the way through the village, finally into a labyrinth of gardens, where we brushed through bearded wheat such as I have never seen before nor since, which luxuriated with olives, fruit-trees of all sorts, and pale pink monthly roses. Presently in the midst of the semi-wilderness a little white house intervened, half buried in trees, and close to it, in the shade, under an olive, was gathered Hadj Cadour's tea party, six or eight dignified Arabs, in those perfectly washed and blanched garments which so fit their solemn, dignified manners, their sad and intellectual type of faces: not that Moors are necessarily either of the two last; but they look it--that is all.

A great tea-kettle, as usual, loomed in the background; carpets and thick red Morocco leather cushions made seats for the members of the charmed circle: we reclined there with the rest, talking, as far as a few Arabic words would carry us, of our starting-point, our destination, the road, the rivers, the weather, Hadj Cadour helping us out, one and all interested and anxious to be understood and to understand. Our host dispensed _sherrub de minat_, the wine of the country, made from grapes; the little dome-shaped pewter teapot was there, with its fond a.s.sociations of Morocco, together with the copper tray and circle of diminutive painted gla.s.ses; a gorgeous indolent sun poured down beyond the patch of shade; the hum and hover of insects vibrated in the air; and presently musicians were summoned--girls wearing pale green jellabs and silver ornaments, with yellow handkerchiefs twisted round their heads, men in bright colours. Sitting down between us, each was given a gla.s.s of sherrub de minat, and by-and-by they began to play. Weird and wild music it was, that of the _tareegea_, the _gimbi_, and the _tahr_, quaint native instruments of the roughest construction, and yet, as music, possessing fascination not a little.

The long kif-pipes were lighted, green tea and wine were sipped, the white figures stretched themselves on the cushions, and a great and dreamy content came over the faces under the white turbans. There was nowhere a trace of boredom such as mars so many European entertainments--rather the thing was loved for itself, and every man felt it and entered into its spirit. Now and then the musicians broke into a strange song, and the guests beat their hands and murmured in chorus; then again they would seem half intoxicated, in a harmless fashion, with kif and wine and music, and would appear to be absent in a world of their own. The music had a lilt in it, and often a suggestion of something half tamed, desperate, swung along with the cadences; and thin wreaths of smoke from the long pipes blew up through the olive branches, and an Arabic sentence dropped now and again on the ear: the hot, slow, sleepy afternoon waned. . . .

Poetry bulks so largely in the Arabic nature. Emotional and yet simple, that nature is, to a certain extent, appealed to by the refined. The sordid and vulgar have no attractions for it. There is no language more poetical than the Arabic language, where "snow" is called "hair of the mountain" and "rainbow" is "bride of the rain." "Red mullet" is "the sultan of fishes": "maiden-hair fern" is translated by "little cane of the well." Ordinary Arabic words show an extraordinary gift of description: the word for "secretly" means literally "under the matting,"