In The Tail Of The Peacock Part 7

Bread in Morocco is "pa.s.sing heavy," flavoured with aniseed and full of grit. Vegetables are to be had in abundance.

The slippers, which had been promised in three days, appeared in three weeks. Whenever we pa.s.sed the shop we asked after them: always the same answer--_M[=a]nana_ (To-morrow). "No, there was no b.u.t.ter to be had to-day, but _m[=a]nana_." "No, the pillows were not finished yet, but _m[=a]nana_." "The boots left to be soled were not ready, but _m[=a]nana_." Tetuan lives upon _m[=a]nana_: it is the reincarnation of JAM YESTERDAY, AND JAM TO-MORROW, BUT NEVER JAM TO-DAY.

Equally exasperating was the habit of every shopkeeper of locking up his shop and going off to pray or eat or chat. If a shop had to be revisited and purchases exchanged, the owner was invariably out, and the door fastened with lock and key. At 12.15 p.m. n.o.body could ever be found, but was presumably at the mosque. Again and again we visited the same shop: one day the owner was at a friend's shop, the next at home, and so on. We gave him up, to see his sleek cross-legged figure seated inside the little cupboard the very next time we pa.s.sed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHOPS IN TETUAN.

[_To face p. 94._]

Walking by a saint-house on the outskirts of the city, devout and impoverished women were often to be seen there, visiting the shrine and carrying with them small vessels of food, which they placed on the ground for the spirit of the holy man to eat. The window of the shrine was tied with a hundred sc.r.a.ps of rag and dead flowers, bits of wood, and paper and oddments of all sorts. Empty earthenware bowls later on, and pariah dogs skulking around, licking their lips, told a tale; but if asked if they really thought their saint would come up out of his grave and eat the food prepared for him, it was open to the Mussulman to answer the Christian, "And do you really believe that your dead friends come and smell the flowers you plant on their graves?"

Small-pox kills a great many Moors, and an incredible number are marked by the disease. It is looked upon much as measles are in England: cases are never isolated, and children are all expected to have it. Each year it is prevalent, and people may be pa.s.sed in the street with it out upon them; but every four years it breaks out seriously, and a large percentage of the population dies.

Last of all, in our shopping days a few things we bought by auction. No auctioneer is employed as in European countries, but the owner and seller himself perambulates the street or courtyard with his goods--a mule, or a frying-pan, or a carpet--calling out each successive bid which he receives on his article, pushing his way and jostling the motley mob of market people, peasants and loungers, silks and rags, until he has got his price, and hands over to its new owner his late possession.

CHAPTER IV

THE FAST OF RaMADHAN--MOHAMMED--HIS LIFE AND INFLUENCE--THE FLOOD AT SAFFI--A WALK OUTSIDE TETUAN--THE FRENCH CONSUL'S GARDEN-HOUSE--JEWS IN MOROCCO--EUROPEAN PROTECTION.

CHAPTER IV

Manage with bread and b.u.t.ter till G.o.d brings the jam.

_Old Moorish proverb._

WE had not been long at the fonda before the Fast of Ramadhan began.

Ramadhan, ordained by Mohammed, takes place in the ninth month of every Mohammedan year, and lasts for twenty-eight days, during which time the Faithful fast from dawn, when it is light enough to distinguish between a black and white thread, to sunset. It alters by a few days every year according to the moon, and when it falls during summer in scorching hot countries the agonies of thirst endured mean a penance indeed.

Ramadhan begins when the new moon is first seen. Tidings were sent from Tangier to say that it had been observed there, which tidings Tetuan handed on to the farthest mountain villages: a gun was fired from the Kasbah at sunset, horns were sounded, and Ramadhan began. It sometimes happens that Tetuan does not see the new moon till the day after Tangier has seen it at the beginning of the fast, in which case the Tetuan people are guilty of "eating the head of Ramadhan": this year it was not so.

During the twenty-eight days of the fast, every night, or rather every early morning at 2 a.m., the householder was awakened by the crashing of his knocker on his door and a shout bidding him "Rise and eat": the mueddzin at the same time from the top of the mosque called the hour of prayer, and long bra.s.s horns brayed to the same effect.

The month was almost over before we had learnt to sleep through it all.

As the fonda was in the Moorish Quarter our door was not exempt. Far away up the street the knockers clanked, nearer and nearer every moment, then the man's footsteps, then our own knocker sounded like a sledge-hammer, and "Rise and eat" followed: the man went on to the next door, and back again shortly up the opposite side of the street. And every Mussulman arose in the dark and had a large meal. Again at sunrise the big gun boomed from the Kasbah, the concussion shaking our ill-built room, and we woke once more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Cl.u.s.tER OF COUNTRY WOMEN.

[_To face p. 100._]

No doubt the original motive of fasting and abstinence in the Old Testament was the promotion of sanitary conditions. It is not good to eat pig in hot countries: thus pork was "unclean," and is to-day in Morocco.

Nor is the consumption of much spirituous liquor wise when the thermometer marks a hundred and one: hence the Kor[=a]n forbids the use of strong drinks. The same motive underlies the fast, which rests and relieves systems over-fattened and little exercised. But the "all or nothing" theory which governs the uneducated and knows no moderation runs a benefit into an abuse. Ramadhan had its disadvantages. Tetuan was revelling at night and in a sodden sleep through the day; work was slipshod and at sixes and sevens; men were irritable and quarrelsome; every one looked indisposed; and the excuse for it all was always Ramadhan. Worst of all, the countrywomen still tramped four and five hours into market with loads, and children a month old, only half nourished at the time of the fast.

But Ramadhan came to an end at last: Morocco breathed again. The day before the fast was over everybody was smiling, and Tetuan had but one hope, that the new moon would be seen that night, and thus the month of penance come to an end. After the letter from Tangier had been received next morning, which said that the new moon had been seen there, the gun from the fort thundered, the basha went in gorgeous state to the _Jama-el-Kebeer_ (Big Mosque) on a white mule, all caparisoned in blue, and read aloud the letter, the city was uproarious, and the mountains echoed again, for soldiers were sent post-haste up the valleys, and fired all day at intervals to notify to the fathermost villages that Ramadhan was over.

And the next day! The first day of the _Aid-el-Sereer_ (Little Feast)!

Everybody was in shining white, if not new, apparel, and all Tetuan was abroad. That among a people clad so largely in white and in gorgeous colours means a great deal, and the streets of Tetuan might have competed with the Park on the Sunday before Ascot. The Moorish crowd was almost entirely a male one, dressed like peac.o.c.ks: satins embroidered with gold and silver prevailed.

And if the snowy haiks and turbans and the resplendent shades of the kaftans were the first point about the feast, the sweetmeat stalls were the second. A Moor is a born sweet-tooth, and at every corner of the streets a board was stacked with creamy mixtures in which walnuts were embedded, with generously browned toffee full of almonds, with carmine-coloured sticks, with magenta squares of sweet peppermint, with blocks of nougat inches thick. And the joys of the feast seemed amply to compensate for the fast.

Mohammed ordained many minor feasts and fasts. Ramadhan stands out chief of the one: _Aid-el-Kebeer_ (Great Feast), falling two months and six days afterwards, is chief of the other.

The three reforms which Mohammed inst.i.tuted were temperance, cleanliness, and monotheism, at a time when reform was badly needed. He was born in Mecca five hundred and seventy years after Christ, an Arab of the tribe of Beni Has'sim. Christianity was not unknown around him in his day.

Always somewhat of a visionary and introspective turn of mind, when he was about forty years old he became deeply interested in the subject of religion. Living in the imaginative East, in a hotbed of mysticism and superst.i.tion, it was easy for him to conceive himself a chosen vessel of the Almighty, and to a.s.sume by degrees the role of prophet, in the honest belief that the words he uttered came direct from that G.o.d whose mouthpiece he conceived himself to be. A small band of followers by degrees collected round him, and in the ordinary course of events his end would have been that of a saint with a tombstone white; but, added to the saint's fanaticisms, Mohammed possessed the talents of a leader, and the ambition which accompanies those talents.

Men and more men were attracted to him; he inst.i.tuted among them a ceremonial of prayer, feasts, and fasts, and built a mosque at Medina, in which they worshipped. Persecution from their fellow-countrymen followed as a matter of course, and Mohammed's disciples, who began to call themselves Mohammedans, turned to him as their chief. The one "able man,"

he naturally a.s.sumed the position of a theocratic ruler, and led them against their enemies; while the words he spoke were committed to memory, const.i.tuting later on the Kor[=a]n.

As a general Mohammed was successful: battle after battle was fought and won, reverses were amply compensated for, and men flocked to his standard, while deputations from surrounding tribes poured in upon him, acknowledging his supremacy, and asking for instruction in his creed.

That creed was admirably adapted to suit the manners, opinions, and vices of the East: it was extraordinarily simple, it proposed but few truths in which belief was necessary, and it laid no severe restraints upon the natural desires of men; above all, its warlike tendencies captivated the men of its day, and war, which at first had been necessary in self-defence, was still carried on, and gradually came to be looked upon by Mohammed and his followers as a lawful means towards spreading their religion. In the name of a _Holy War_ the conquerors offered their defeated enemies the option of death or embracing the new religion, while the women and children taken in battle were sold as slaves, after the manner of the time.

And the Prophet's influence deepened and extended. Meanwhile, his sayings, or "the Kor[=a]n," were written down from time to time by one or other of his followers, on palm leaves, on stone tablets, on the shoulder-plates of goats and camels, and even tattooed on men's b.r.e.a.s.t.s; while his ritual was strictly carried out--prayer with absolution, frequent washing, fasting, almsgiving, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the recital of the formula "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and Mohammed is his prophet."

Prayer was offered up five times a day, as now, by every true believer--at sunrise, at midday, at three in the afternoon, at sunset, and two hours after sunset: the _adzan_ (call to prayers) was chanted at each time by the mueddzin from the minarets of the mosques. The first thing in the morning at sunrise the call ran, "G.o.d is great; G.o.d is great. Mohammed is his prophet. Prayer is better than sleep. Come to prayer; come to prayer." The believer, obeying the summons, washes, enters the mosque, and repeats from four to eight short prayers, with genuflections between each.

Mohammed strictly obeyed the forms of his doctrine, and himself performed the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca and the ceremonies round the K[=a]aba. He was familiar with at least part of the Gospels, but his knowledge was possibly scant and distorted: he was unfriendly towards Christians. For the Old Testament he had a profound respect.

As far as can be gathered he was a sober and meditative man: he sought neither state nor riches for himself, when either might have been his for the asking. He looked upon women from a point of view not unlike the characters in the Old Testament--a distinctly Eastern one. He possessed five wives, and probably concubines--bondwomen in much the same position as Hagar of old.

Mohammed inst.i.tuted the veiling of women, with corresponding restrictions on domestic intercourse, as a check upon undue s.e.xual licence--the curse of hot climates.

There is no reason to believe that Mohammed was not honest in the conviction that his mission was divine, and that, if he countenanced vindictive revenge, rapine, and l.u.s.t as a means towards the furtherance of his teaching, he justified the act in his own mind by what he believed to be revelations from a spirit other than his own.

A great character has perforce its great faults, and the courage and ambition which made so mighty a leader were naturally enough the rock upon which that leader split, blinding his eyes and distorting his point of view, leading him into compromise and error. But though self-deceived and fanatical, it is improbable that Mohammed was insincere. By the spirit of his day he must be judged. His day believed in him.

He died early in the seventh century, sixty-three years old, saying, "Verily I have fulfilled my mission. I have left that amongst you, a plain command, the Book of G.o.d, and manifest ordinances, which, if ye hold fast, ye shall never go astray." Within two years of his death the Mohammedan armies had overrun Syria; Egypt was in their possession, and the whole northern coast of Africa.

The sc.r.a.ps which contained in writing the sayings of the dead Prophet were all collected by his chief amanuensis: his followers appointed three judges to overlook the work. The new collection was written in Mohammed's own pure Meccan dialect, and every spurious copy was burnt. So carefully was this done that there is but one and the same Kor[=a]n throughout the vast Mohammedan world.

Mohammedanism satisfied the East for two reasons: first, because it was a warlike religion, and therefore appealed to warlike tribes; secondly, because, deeply underlying it, was the strong, calm spirit of fatalism, that world-old foundation-stone on which many a man has come to anchor.

The very word Mussulman means, "One who has surrendered himself and his will to G.o.d."

ISLAM is the belief in one G.o.d, one Prophet (Mohammed), the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the dead, the day of judgment, angels, a devil.

There are no subtle intricacies in such a creed, no mysterious contradictions to puzzle the uneducated mind; it amply satisfies a simple people; and probably no other dogma makes so many converts.

In Morocco to-day the Mohammedan religion is interwoven with the whole fabric of life. To the Moor Allah is always present, is behind every decree of the Sultan, and enters into the smallest detail of his own private life to such a degree that barely a single action is performed without invoking the sacred name. Religion is, according to the temper of the individual Moor, "a pa.s.sion, or a persuasion, or an excuse, but never a check": for a man may commit any sin under heaven, and "Allah is merciful; Mohammed is his prophet; all will be forgiven." And this is not hypocritical: the larger soul includes the smaller--that is all.

It follows as a natural sequence that, because Allah is as much part of a Moor's life as the air he breathes, he is forgotten. The repet.i.tion of words bulks so largely in Mohammedanism, that, as with the Jews of old, the letter of the law has killed the spirit. The evil of Mohammed's religion lies in its essential antagonism towards progress and civilization: scientific investigation is forbidden; a proverb runs, "Only fools and the very young speak the truth." Thus Mohammedanism will never advance or regenerate Morocco; for these tenets are Government policy.

At the same time there is in Mohammedan society a certain negative virtue which contrasts strongly with the gross immorality existing in Christian countries. The conditions of what is lawful for a Mohammedan are wide enough to content, and extremes offer no temptation. Polygamy, divorce, and slavery are all allowed, and war upon unbelievers is enjoined as a duty. And yet "social evils" and the lowest depths to which humanity falls are almost unknown in Morocco; while what is held to be sin is rigorously punished--adultery by stoning (a father has no hesitation in shooting his daughter himself), robbery by mutilation, and so on.

Unlike many Christian churches, a Moorish mosque is never closed: the sanctuary is always open. It is council-chamber, meeting-place, and for travellers at night resting-place. There are no priests in the European sense; but the _basha_ (governor) or the _kadi_ (judge) reads prayers on Fridays, a sermon follows, and letters or decrees from the Sultan are given out in the mosque after service.