Chapter XI: FEZ (3)

We began the ascent on foot, accompanied by a part of the escort. The mountain is about one thousand feet above the level of the sea—steep, rocky, and without paths. In a few minutes the captain disappeared among the rocks; but for the commandant, Ussi, and I, it was one of the twelve labors of Hercules. We had each an Arab at our side, who told us where to place our feet; and at some points we were obliged to climb like cats, clinging to bushes and grass, slipping on the rocks, stumbling, and seizing the arms of our guides as drowning men seize a saving plank. Here and there we see a goat, seemingly suspended above our heads, so steep is the ascent; and the stones scarcely touched roll to the very bottom of the mountain. With God’s help, in an hour’s time we are on the top of the mountain, exhausted, but with whole bones. What a lovely view! At the bottom, the city, a little white spot in the form of an eight, surrounded by black walls, cemeteries, gardens, _cube_, towers, and all the verdant shell that holds them; on the left, a long, shining line, the Sebù; to the right the great plain of Fez, streaked with silver by the Pearl River and the River of the Azure Fountain; to the south, the blue peaks of the great Atlas chain; to the north, the mountains of the Rif; to the east, the vast undulating plain where is the fortress of Teza, which closes the pass between the basin of the Sebù and that of the Mulaia; below us, great waves of ground yellow with grain and barley, marked by innumerable paths and long files of gigantic aloes; a grandeur of lines, a magnificence of verdure, a limpidity of sky, a silence and peace that steeped the soul in paradise. Who would guess that in that terrestrial paradise dwelt and dosed a decrepit people, chained on a heap of ruins. The mountain that, seen from the city, appeared a cone, has an elongated form, and is rocky on the top. The captain mounted to the highest point; we three, more careful of our lives, scattered ourselves about among the rocks below, and went out of sight of each other. I had made but a few steps, when at the entrance of a little gorge I met an Arab. I stopped; he stopped also, and looked much amazed at my appearance and my being alone. He was a man of about fifty, of a truculent aspect, and armed with a big stick. For a moment I suspected that he might attack me and take my purse; but to my great astonishment, instead of assailing me, he saluted me, smiled, and taking hold of his own beard with one hand, pointed to mine with the other, and said something, repeating it two or three times. It sounded like a question, to which he desired an answer. Moved by curiosity, I called for the officer of the guard, who knew a little Spanish, and begged him to tell me what the man wanted. Who would ever have guessed it? He wanted to pay me a compliment, and had asked me _ex abrupto_ why I did not let my beard grow, when it would be more beautiful than his own!

The soldiers of the escort were following us all three at about twenty paces’ distance, and as we frequently called to each other in a loud voice, and it was the first time that they had heard our names, they found them strange, laughing and repeating them with their Moorish accent in the oddest way: “_Isi! Amigi!_” At a certain point the officer said, abruptly, “_Scut!_” ( Silence!) and they all were silent. The sun was high, the rocks were scorching; even the captain, accustomed to the heats of Tunis felt the need of shade; we gave a last look at the peaks of Atlas, scrambled down the mountain, and hastily getting into our crimson saddles, took the way back to Fez, where we had an agreeable surprise. The gate of El Ghisa, where we were to enter the city, was closed! “Let us go in by another,” said the commandant. “They are all closed,” answered the officer of the guard; and seeing us open our eyes, he explained the mystery, saying that on all festivals (this was Friday), from twelve o’clock to one, which is the hour of prayer, all the city gates are closed, because it is a Mussulman belief that exactly at that hour, but no one knows in what year, the Christians will take possession of their country by a _coup de main_.

We had, then, to wait for the opening of the gates; and when at last we got in, we were received with a flowery compliment. An old woman shook her fist at us, and muttered something which the officer refused to translate; but we insisting, he finally consented, with a smile, and an assurance that she was an old fool, and her words could do us no harm. What she said was this: “The Jews to the hook (to be boiled), the Christians to the spit!”

The doctor has performed the operation for cataract, _coram populo_, in the garden of the palace. There was a crowd of relations and friends, soldiers and servants, part disposed in a circle around the patient, part ranged in a long file from the spot where the operation was being done to the gate of the street, where another crowd stood waiting. The patient was an old Moor who had been quite blind for three years. At the moment of taking his seat, he stopped as if frightened; then sat down with a resolute air, and gave no further sign of weakness. Whilst the doctor operated, the people stood as if petrified. The children clung to their mothers’ gowns, and the latter embraced each other in attitudes of terror, as if they were looking on at an execution. Not a breath could be heard. We also, on account of the “diplomatic” importance of the operation, were in great anxiety. All at once the patient gave a cry of joy, and threw himself on his knees. He had seen the first ray of light. All the people in the garden saluted the doctor with a yell, to which another yell responded from those in the street. The soldiers immediately made everybody, except the patient, go out from the precincts of the palace, and in a short time the news of the marvellous operation was all over Fez. Fortunate doctor! He had his reward that very evening, when he was called upon to visit the harem of the Grand Scherif Bacalì, where the loveliest ladies showed themselves to him with uncovered faces, and in all the pomp of their splendid attire, and talked languidly of their pains and aches....

From time to time some renegade Spaniards come to see Señor Patxot. There are said to be about three hundred of these unfortunate men in the empire. Most of them are Spaniards, condemned for some common crimes, fugitives from the galleys of the coast; others, partly French deserters, are fugitives from Algeria; and the rest are rascals from all parts of Europe. In other times they rose to high positions in the court and army, formed special military corps, and received large pay. But now their condition is much changed. When they arrive, they abjure the Christian religion, and embrace Islamism, without circumcision or other ceremony, merely pronouncing a formula. No one cares whether they fulfil their religious duties or not; the greater part of them never enter a mosque, and know no form of prayer. In order to bind them to the country, the Sultan exacts that they shall marry. He gives to whoever wants her one of his black women; the others can marry an Arab free woman or a Moor, and the Sultan pays the expenses of the wedding. They must all be enrolled in the army; but they can, at the same time, exercise a trade. They generally enter the artillery, and some belong to the bands of music, the head of which is a Spaniard. The soldiers receive five _sous_ a day, and the officers twenty-five to thirty; if any one has a special talent, he can make as much as two francs a day. Lately, for instance, they were talking of a German renegade, endowed with a certain talent for mechanics, who had made for himself an enviable position. This man, for some reason unknown, had fled from Algeria in '73, and had gone to Tafilet, on the confines of the desert; there he stayed two years, learned Arabic, and came to Fez, entered the army, and in a few days, with some tools that he had, constructed a revolver. The event made a noise; the revolver passed from hand to hand, and reached the Minister of War; the Minister told the Sultan, who sent for the soldier, encouraged him, gave him ten francs, and raised his daily pay to forty _sous_. But such good fortune is rare. Almost all of them live wretched lives, and their state of mind is such, that although they are known to be stained with serious crimes, they inspire pity rather than horror. Yesterday two presented themselves, renegades since two years, with wives, and children born at Fez. One was thirty, the other fifty years old, both Spaniards, fugitives from Ceuta. The younger one did not speak. The elder said that he had been condemned to hard labor for life for having killed a man who was beating his son to death. He was pale, and spoke in a broken voice, tearing his handkerchief with trembling hands.

“If they would promise to keep me only ten years in the galleys,” he said, “I would go back. I am fifty, I should come out at sixty, and might still live a few years in my own country. But it is the thought of dying with the brand of the galleys upon me that frightens me. I would go back at any rate, if I were sure of dying a free man in Spain. This is not living, this existence that we have here. It is like being in a desert. It is frightful. Every one despises us. Our own family is not our own, because our children are taught to hate us. And then, we never forget the religion in which we were born, the church where our mothers used to take us to pray, the counsels they gave us; and those memories—we are renegades, we are galley-slaves, it is true, but still we are men—those memories tear our hearts!” and he wept as he spoke.

The rain which has been pouring down for three days has reduced Fez to an indescribable and incredible condition. It is no longer a city; it is a sewer. The streets are gutters; the crossings, lakes; the squares, seas; the people on foot sink into the mud up to their knees; the houses are plastered with it above the doors; men, horses, and mules look as if they had been rolling in mud; and as for the dogs, they were at the outset plastered in such a way that they have not a hair visible. Few people are to be seen, and those mostly on horseback; not an umbrella, or even a person hastening to escape the rain. Outside the quarters of the bazaars all is depressingly dark and deserted. Water is running and rushing everywhere, carrying with it every sort of putridity, and no voice or other human sound breaks the monotony of its deafening noise. It looks like a city abandoned by its inhabitants after an inundation. After an hour’s turn I came home in a most melancholy mood, and passed the time with my face pressed against the window-bars, watching the dripping trees, and thinking of the poor courier, who perhaps at that very moment was swimming a flooded river at the risk of his life carrying in his teeth the bag that contained my letters from home.

It is said, and denied, that there has been within a few days a capital execution before one of the gates of Fez. No head has appeared upon the walls, however, and I prefer to think the news is false. The description, which I once read, of an execution done at Tangiers, some years ago, deprived me of the barbarous curiosity that I formerly had to be present at one of these spectacles.

An Englishman, Mr. Drummond Hay, coming out one morning at one of the gates of Tangiers, saw a company of soldiers dragging along two prisoners with their arms bound to their sides. One was a mountaineer from the Rif, formerly gardener to a European resident at Tangiers; the other, a handsome young fellow, tall, and with an open and attractive countenance.

The Englishman asked the officer in command what crime these two unfortunate men had committed.

“The Sultan,” was the answer,—“may God prolong his days!—has ordered their heads to be cut off because they have been engaged in contraband trade, on the coast of the Rif, with infidel Spaniards.”

“It is a very severe punishment for such a fault,” observed the Englishman; “and if it is to serve as a warning and example to the inhabitants of Tangiers, why are they not allowed to be present at it?”

(The gates of the city had been closed, and Mr. Drummond Hay had caused one to be opened for him by giving some money to the guard.)

“Do not argue with me, Nazarene!” responded the officer; “I have received an order, and must obey.”

The decapitation was to take place in the Hebrew slaughter-house. A Moor of vulgar and hideous aspect, dressed like a butcher, was there awaiting the condemned. He had in his hand a small knife, about six inches long. He was a stranger in the city, and had offered himself as executioner, because the Mohammedan butchers of Tangiers, who usually fill that office, had all taken refuge in a mosque.

An altercation now broke out between the soldiers and the executioner about the reward promised for the decapitation of the two poor creatures, who stood by and listened to the dispute over the blood-money. The executioner insisted, declaring that he had been promised twenty francs a head, and must have forty for the two. The officer at last agreed, but with a very ill grace. Then the butcher seized one of the condemned men, already half dead with terror, threw him on the ground, kneeled on his chest, and put the knife to his throat. The Englishman turned away his face. He heard the sounds of a violent struggle. The executioner cried out: “Give me another knife; mine does not cut!” Another knife was brought, and the head separated from the body.

The soldiers cried, in a faint voice, “God prolong the life of our lord and master!” But many of them were stupefied with terror.

Then came the other victim: the handsome and amiable-looking young man. Again they wrangled over his blood. The officer, denying his promise, declared he would give but twenty francs for both heads. The butcher was forced to yield. The condemned man asked that his hands might be unbound. Being loosed, he took his cloak and gave it to the soldier who had unbound him, saying: “Accept this; we shall meet in a better world!” He threw his turban to another, who had been looking at him with compassion, and stepping to the place where lay the bloody corpse of his companion, he said, in a clear, firm voice, “There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet!” Then taking off his belt he gave it to the executioner, saying: “Take it; but for the love of God cut my head off more quickly than you did my brother’s.” He stretched himself on the earth, in the blood, and the executioner kneeled upon his chest.

“A reprieve! Stop!” cried the Englishman. A horseman came galloping toward them. The executioner held his knife suspended.

“It is only the governor’s son,” said a soldier. “He is coming to see the execution. Wait for him.”

So it was, indeed. A few minutes after two bleeding heads were held up by the soldiers. Then the gates of the city were opened, and there came forth a crowd of boys, who pursued the executioner with stones for three miles, when he fell fainting to the ground, covered with wounds. The next day it was known that he had been shot by a relation of one of the victims, and buried where he fell. The authorities of Tangiers apparently did not trouble themselves about the matter, since the assassin came back into the city and remained unmolested.

After having been exposed three days, the heads were sent to the Sultan in order that his Imperial Majesty might recognize the promptitude with which his orders had been fulfilled. The soldiers who were carrying them met on their way a courier, bearing a pardon, who had been detained by the sudden flooding of a river.

I frequently find merchants of Fez who have been in Italy. Forty or fifty of them go there every year, and many have Moorish or Arab agents in our cities. They go particularly to Upper Italy, where they buy raw silks, damasks, corals, velvets, threads, porcelain, pearls, Venice glass, Genoa playing-cards, and Leghorn muslin. In exchange they carry nothing but wax and wool, for trade in Morocco is much restricted; and it may be said that stuffs, arms, hides, and earthen-ware or pottery are their only productions which attract a European’s attention. The stuffs are made chiefly in Fez and Morocco. There are _caics_ for women, lordly turbans, sashes, _foulards_ of silk delicately woven with gold and silver, generally in stripes of soft and harmonious colors, very pretty at first sight, but unequal when examined, full of gum, and not wearing well. The red caps, on the contrary, which take the name from Fez, are very fine and durable, and the carpets made at Rabat, Casa Bianca, Morocco, Sciadma, and Sciania are admirable for solidity and richness of color. From Tetuan come in great part the damascened muskets, inlaid with ivory and silver, carved, and set with precious stones, of light and elegant form; and Mechinez, and Fez, and the province of Sus make the swords and daggers which are sometimes of such admirable workmanship.

Hides, the principal source of gain for the country, are well prepared in various provinces, and the scarlet leather of Fez, the yellow of Morocco, and the green of Tafilet, are still worthy of their ancient reputation. In Fez they boast particularly of their enamelled pottery, but it is rare to find the noble purity of form of the antique vase; and their chief merit is a brilliancy of color, and a certain barbaric originality of design which attract the eye but do not satisfy it. There are also in Fez a great number of jewellers and goldsmiths, who make some simple things in very good taste, but few, and of little variety, because the Amalechite rite proscribes the display of precious ornaments, as contrary to Mahometan austerity. More notable than the jewelery is the furniture which comes from Tetuan: book-shelves, clothes-pegs, and little polygonal tea-tables, arched, arabesqued, and painted in many colors; copper vessels also, chased in complicated designs and ornamented with green, red, and blue enamel; and, above all, the mosaics of the pavements and walls, composed in exquisite taste by clever workmen, who form the designs with marvellous precision.

There is no doubt that these people are endowed with admirable faculties, and that their industries would increase immensely, as also their agriculture, which was once so flourishing, if commerce could make them live; but commerce is hampered with a thousand prohibitions, restrictions, monopolies, excessive tariffs, continual modifications and the non-observance of treaties; and, although the European governments have obtained many privileges of late years, these are but small in comparison with what might be brought about, thanks to the wealth and geographical position of the country, under a civil government. The principal trade is that with England, after which come France and Spain, who give cereals, metals, sugar, tea, coffee, raw silk, woollen and cotton cloths, and take wool, hides, fruit, leeches, gum, wax, and a great part of the products of Central Africa. The trade which is carried on by Fez, Taza, and Udjda (and it is not of small importance, though less than that which the neighborhood of the two countries should produce) comprehends, besides carpets, the cloths, belts, thick cords, and all the parts of the Arab and Moorish dress, bracelets and anklets of silver and gold, vases from Fez, mosaics, perfumes, incense, antimony for the eyes, _henna_ for the nails, and all the other cosmetics used by the fair sex of Africa. Of more importance, more ancient, and more regular, is the commerce with the interior of Africa, for which place every year great caravans go forth, carrying stuffs from Fez, English cloths, Venetian glass, Italian corals, powder, arms, tobacco, sugar, small mirrors from Germany, feathers from Holland, little boxes from the Tyrol, hardware from England and France, and salt, which they get on their way in the Sahara; and their journey is like a travelling fair, where their own merchandise is exchanged for black slaves, gold dust, ostrich feathers, white gum from Senegal, gold ornaments from Nigritia, which are afterward sent to Europe and the East; black stuffs which are worn on the heads of Moorish women; _bezoar_, which preserves the Arabs from poison and illness; and many drugs which have been abandoned in Europe, but preserve their ancient value in Africa. Here is, for Europe, the chief importance of Morocco: it is the principal gate of Nigritia; where, being open, the commerce of Europe and that of Central Africa will meet. Meanwhile, civilization and barbarism contend upon the threshold.

The Ambassador has frequent conferences with Sid-Moussa. His principal intent is to obtain from the government of the scherifs certain concessions in trade by which Italy shall be the gainer: more I may not say. These conferences last more than two hours; but the conversation turns but briefly upon the real question in discussion, because the Minister, following a custom which seems traditional in the policy of the government of Morocco, never comes to the point until he has wandered over a hundred extraneous subjects, and when he is dragged to it by force. “Let us talk a little about something entertaining,” he says, in almost a beseeching tone. The weather, health, the water of Fez, the properties of certain tissues, some historical anecdotes, some proverbs, what may be the population of certain states of Europe: all these are more agreeable subjects than the one which is the purpose of the interview. “What do you say of Fez?” he asked one day; and being answered that it was beautiful, he added: “And it has another merit; it is clean!” Another day he wished to know what was the population of Morocco. But at last, the business must come; and then there are long phrases, hesitations, reticences, silences, a putting forth of doubts when consent is already decided upon, a pretended denial of condescension, a slipping through the fingers, a constant dropping of the subject just as the knot is about to be tightened, and then the eternal expedient “to-morrow.”

The next day, recapitulation of things said the day before, new doubts, restrictions, recognition of equivocations, regrets for not having understood, and for not having been understood, and exhaustion of the interpreter charged with the duty of making things clear. And then it is necessary to wait for the return of the couriers from Tangiers and Tafilet, who have been sent to obtain information—information of little consequence, but which serves to put off the solution of the question for ten days longer. And in fine, three great obstacles to every thing: the fanaticism of the people, the obstinacy of the Ulemas, and the necessity of proceeding cautiously, not exciting attention, with a slowness that looks like immobility. Under these conditions, Job himself might be expected to cry out; but then come the warm pressures of the hand, the sweet smiles, the demonstrations of an irresistible sympathy, and an affection that will only end in death. The most difficult affair is that of the big Moor Schellal, and they say that the fate of his whole life depends upon it; consequently he is for ever at the palace, wrapped in his ample caic, anxious, thoughtful, sometimes with tears in his eyes, and he keeps them fixed upon the Ambassador with a supplicating look, like that of one condemned to death and begging for reprieve. Mohammed Ducali, on the contrary, whose sails are swelled by favoring gales, is gay and sprightly, perfumes himself, smokes, changes his caftan every day, and strews on all sides his soft words, and jests, and smiles. Ah! if it were not for Italian influence, how soon those smiles would be changed into tears of blood!

We are experiencing in these days the truth of what was told us at Tangiers with regard to the effects of the air of Fez. Are these effects produced by the air or by the water? or by the rascally oil; or by the infamous butter; or by all these things together; However it may be, it is a fact that we are all ill. Languor, loss of appetite, prostration of strength, and heaviness of head. And with all these ill-feelings there is a weariness, an irritability, a sort of horror, that in a few days has changed the face of the whole house. Every one longs for departure. We have reached that point, inevitable in all long journeys, at which curiosity is dulled; every thing seems faded: memories of home rise up in crowds; all the longings, kept down at first, are alive and in tumult; and our own country is ever before our eyes. We have had enough of turbans, and black faces, and mosques; we are tired of being stared at by a thousand eyes; bored by this immense masquerade in white at which we have been looking for two months. What would we not give to see pass by, even at a distance, a European lady! to hear the sound of a bell! to see on a wall a printed play-bill! Oh, sweetest memories!

I have discovered among the soldiers of the guard one who has lost his right ear, and am told that it was legally cut off, in presence of witnesses, by another soldier whose ear the first one had mutilated some time before. Such is the _lex talionis_ as it exists in Morocco. Not only has any relation of a person killed the right to kill the assassin on the same day of the week, at the same hour and place where the victim fell, using the same weapon, and striking in the same part of the body; but whoever has been deprived of a limb has the right to deprive his assailant of the same limb. A fact of this nature, accompanied by very singular circumstances, happened some years ago at Mogador, and was related to me by a member of the French Consulate, who knew one of the victims. An English merchant of Mogador was returning to the city on the evening of a market-day, at the moment when the gate by which he was entering was encumbered with a crowd of country people driving camels and asses. Although the Englishman called out as loud as he could, “_Bal-ak! bal-ak!_” (Make way!) an old woman was struck by his horse and knocked down, falling with her face upon a stone. Ill fortune would have it that in the fall she broke the two last of her front teeth. She was stunned for an instant, and then rose convulsed with rage, and broke out into insults and ferocious maledictions, following the Englishman to his own door. She then went before the caid, and demanded that in virtue of the law of talion he should order the English merchant’s two front teeth to be broken. The caid tried to pacify her, and advised her to pardon the injury; but she would listen to nothing, and he sent her away with a promise that she should have justice, hoping that when her anger should be exhausted she would herself desist from her pursuit. But, three days having passed, the old woman came back more furious than ever, demanded justice, and insisted that a formal sentence should be pronounced against the Christian.

“Remember,” said she to the caid, “thou didst promise me!”

“_Che!_” responded the caid. “Dost thou take me for a Christian, that I should be the slave of my word?”

Every day for a month the old woman, athirst for vengeance, presented herself at the door of the citadel, and yelled, and cursed, and made such a noise, that the caid, to be rid of her, was obliged to consent. He sent for the merchant, explained the case, the right which the law gave the woman, the duty imposed upon himself, and begged him to put an end to the matter by allowing two of his teeth to be removed, any two, although in strict justice they should be two incisors. The Englishman refused absolutely to part with incisors, or eye-teeth, or molars; and the caid was constrained to send the old woman packing, ordering the guard not to let her put her foot in the Casba again.

“Very well,” said she; “since there are none but degenerate Mussulmans here, since justice is refused to a Mussulman woman, mother of scherifs, against an infidel dog, I will go to the Sultan, and we shall see whether the prince of the faithful will deny the law of the Prophet.”

True to her determination, she started on her journey alone, with an amulet in her bosom, a stick in her hand, and a bag around her neck, and made on foot the hundred leagues which separate Mogador from the sacred city of the empire. Arrived at Fez, she sought and obtained audience of the Sultan, laid her case before him, and demanded the right accorded by the Koran, the application of the law of retaliation. The Sultan exhorted her to forgive; she insisted. All the serious difficulties which opposed themselves to the satisfaction of her petition were laid before her; she remained inexorable. A sum of money was offered her, with which she could live in comfort for the rest of her days; she refused it.

“What do I want with your money?” said she; “I am old, and accustomed to live in poverty; what I want is the two teeth of the Christian; I want them, I demand them in the name of the Koran; and the Sultan, prince of the faithful, head of Islamism, father of his subjects, cannot refuse justice to a true believer.”

Her obstinacy put the Sultan in a most embarrassing position; the law was formal, and her right incontestable; and the ferment of the populace, stirred up by the woman’s fanatical declamations, rendered refusal perilous. The Sultan, who was Abd-er-Rhaman, wrote to the English consul, asking as a favor that he would induce his countryman to allow two of his teeth to be broken. The merchant answered the consul that he would never consent. Then the Sultan wrote again, saying that if he would consent he would grant him, as a recompense, any commercial privilege that he chose to ask. This time, touched in his purse, the merchant yielded. The old woman left Fez, blessing the name of the pious Abd-er-Rhaman, and went back to Mogador, where, in the presence of many people, the two teeth of the Nazarene were broken. When she saw them fall to the ground she gave a yell of triumph, and picked them up with a fierce joy. The merchant, thanks to the privileges that had been accorded him, made in the two following years so handsome a fortune that he went back to England, toothless, but happy.

The more I study these Moors, the more I am inclined to believe that the judgment unanimously passed upon them by travellers is not far from the truth, and that they are a race of vipers and foxes—false, pusillanimous, cringing to the powerful, insolent to the weak, gnawed by avarice, devoured by egotism, and burning with the basest passions of which the human heart is capable. How could they be otherwise? The nature of the government and the state of society permit them no manly ambition. They traffic and bargain, but they have no knowledge of the labor that begets fatigue of body and serenity of mind; they are completely ignorant of any pleasure that is derived from the exercise of the intelligence; they take no care for the education of their sons; they have no high aims in life; therefore they give themselves up, with all their souls, and for their whole lives, to the amassing of money; and the time that is left to them from this pursuit they divide between a sleepy indolence that enervates, and sensual pleasures that brutalize them. In this life of effeminacy they naturally become vain, small, malignant, tattling creatures; lacerating each other’s reputation with spiteful rage; lying by habit with an incredible impudence; affecting charitable and pious sentiments, and sacrificing a friend for a scudo; despising knowledge, and accepting the most puerile superstitions; bathing every day, and keeping masses of filth in the recesses of their houses; and adding to all this a satanic pride, concealed, when convenient, under a manner both dignified and humble, which seems the index of an honorable mind. They deceived me in this way at first; but now I am persuaded that the very least of them believes, in the bottom of his heart, that he is infinitely superior to us all. The nomadic Arab preserves at least the austere simplicity of his antique customs, and the Berber, savage as he is, has a warlike spirit, courage, and love of independence. Only these Moors have within them a combination of barbarism, depravity, and pride, and are the most powerful of the populations of the empire. From them come the merchants, the _ulemas_, the _tholbas_, the caids, the pashas; they possess the rich palaces, the great harems, beautiful women, and hidden treasures. They are recognizable by their fat, their fair complexions, their cunning eyes, their big turbans, their majestic walk, their arrogance, and their perfumes.

We have been to take tea at the house of the Moor Schellal. We entered by a narrow corridor into a small dark court, but beautiful—beautiful and filthy as the filthiest house in the ghetto of Alkazar. Except the mosaics of the pavement and pilasters, every thing was black, encrusted, sticky with dirt. There were two little dark rooms on the ground-floor; round the first-floor ran a light gallery, and on the top was the parapet of the terrace. The big Moor made us sit down before the door of his sleeping-room, gave us tea and sweetmeats, burned aloes, sprinkled us with rose-water, and presented his children to us—two pretty boys, who came to us white with terror, trembling like leaves under our caresses. On the opposite side of the court there was a black slave-girl of about fifteen, having on only a sort of chemise, which was open at the side as far up as the hip, and confined round the waist with a girdle, the slenderest, the most elegant, the most seductive female creature (I attest it on the head of Ussi) that I had seen in all Morocco. She was leaning against a pilaster with her arms crossed on her bosom, looking at us with an air of supreme indifference. Presently there came out of a small door another black woman, of about thirty years of age, tall in stature, of an austere countenance, and robust figure, straight as a palm-tree; who, as it seemed, must have been a favorite with her master, for she advanced familiarly, whispered some words in his ear, pulled out a small bit of straw that was stuck in his beard, and pressed her hand upon his lips with an action at once listless and caressing that made the Moor smile. Looking up, we saw the gallery on the first-floor and the parapet of the terrace fringed with women’s heads, which instantly disappeared. It was impossible for them all to belong to that house. The visit of the Christians had no doubt been announced in the neighborhood, and friends from other terraces had come over to Schellal’s terrace. Just as we were gazing upward, three ghost-like forms passed by us, their heads entirely concealed, and vanished through the small door. They were three friends, who, not being able to come by the terraces, had been forced to resign themselves to enter by the door; and a moment after, their heads appeared above the railing of the gallery. The house, in short, had been converted into a theatre, and we were the spectacle. The veiled spectators prattled, and with much low laughter, popped up their heads, and withdrew them again as if they had flown away. Each one of our movements produced a slight murmur; every time one of us raised his head there was a great tumult in the first row of boxes. It was evident that they were much entertained, that they were gathering material for a month’s conversation, and that they could scarcely contain themselves for delight at finding themselves so unexpectedly in the enjoyment of so strange and rare a spectacle! And we complacently obliged them for about an hour—silent, however, and much bored, an effect produced, after a time, by every Moorish house, however courteous its hospitality.

And then, after you have admired the beautiful mosaics, the handsome slaves, and pretty children, you look about instinctively for the person who is the incarnation of domestic life, who represents the courtesy and honorability of the house, who puts the seal on its hospitality, who gives its tone to the conversations, who represents to your mind the altar of the lares,—you seek, in short, the pearl for this shell; and seeing no one but women who have their master’s embraces without his affection, and children of unknown mothers, and the whole house personified in one being only, its hospitality becomes a mere empty ceremony; and in your host, instead of the sympathetic features of an honored friend, you see only the aspect of a sensual and odious egotist.

There is no doubt that these people, if they do not hate us absolutely, at least cannot endure us, and they are not without some good reasons. Being among the descendants of the Moors of Spain, many of them still preserve the keys of cities in Andalusia, and titles to the possession of lands and houses in Seville and Granada, and their aversion to Spaniards is peculiarly acrid, their fathers having been despoiled and driven out by them. All the others nourish a general hatred to all Christians, not only because this hatred is instilled into them in their schools and mosques from their earliest infancy, with the purpose of rendering any commerce with civilized races odious to them, commerce which, scattering ignorance and superstition, would undermine the foundations of the empire; but because they all have in the bottom of their souls a vague suspicion of an expansive, growing, threatening force in the states of Europe, by which, sooner or later, they will be crushed. They hear the rising murmur of the French upon their eastern frontier; they see the Spaniards fortified on their Mediterranean coast; Tangiers is occupied by an advanced guard of Christians; the cities of the west are guarded by a line of European merchants, stretching along the Atlantic coast like a chain of sentinels; ambassadors come into the country from different directions, apparently, to bring gifts to the Sultan, but, in reality, as they believe, to look, and scrutinize, and pry, and corrupt, and prepare the ground; they hear, in short, a perpetual threat of invasion, and imagine this invasion accompanied by all the horrors of hatred and revenge, persuaded as they are, that Christians nourish against Moors the same sentiments which the latter feel toward us. How can they change this aversion into sympathy when they see us, in our tight, immodest costume, dressed in gloomy colors, loaded with note-books, telescopes, mysterious instruments which we direct at every thing, noting all things, measuring all things, wishing to know all things; we, who are always laughing, and never pray; we, who are restless, chattering, drinking, smoking, full of pretentions and meanness, with only one wife, and never a slave in the whole country! And they form a dark idea of Europe, as of immense congeries of turbulent people, where there reigns a feverish life, full of ardent ambitions, unbridled vices, audacious enterprises, and tumult, a dizzy whirl, a confusion as of Babel, displeasing to God and man.

To-day great confusion in the palace, because of the first and unique attempt at amorous conquest made by a Christian among the lower personages of the Embassy. This excellent young man, upon whom, as it would seem, the diplomatic austerity of our lives for the last forty days had begun to weigh rather heavily, having seen, I know not whence, a lovely Moor walking in a garden, thought (we all have our weaknesses) that she would never be able to resist the attractions of his fine person; and without a thought of the danger, insinuated himself through some hole in the wall into the forbidden precincts. If, when arrived in the presence of his nymph, he made a declaration of love, or whether he attempted to suppress any preamble, whether the nymph lent a favorable ear, or fled shrieking from the spot, no one knows; for in this country all is mystery. It is known, however, that there suddenly issued from behind the bushes four Moors armed with daggers, two of whom sprang upon them on one side, and two on the other; and that the unfortunate young man would either never have issued from the garden, or would have done so with some holes in his person, if the Caid Hamed-Ben-Kasen Buhammei had not suddenly appeared upon the scene, and with an imperious gesture arrested the four assailants, and given the fugitive time to get back to the palace with a whole skin. The news of the event flew about: there was great excitement, and the culprit received a solemn admonition in the presence of us all, while the commandant, always witty, added on his own account a little sermon which produced a profound impression. “The wives of others,” said he, “and more especially the wives of Mussulmans, must be let alone; and when one is with a European Embassy in Morocco, one must make up one’s mind not to be a man. For, in Mahometan countries, these woman questions speedily become political questions. It would indeed be a fine responsibility, that of an honest young fellow, who, not having been able to resist an inconsiderate impulse, should drag his country into a war, the consequences of which could not be foreseen.” At this solemn discourse, the poor young man, who already saw the Italian fleet with a hundred thousand fighting men sailing toward Morocco because of him, showed himself so overwhelmed with the sense of his guilt that no further castigation was considered necessary.

I should much like to know what conception these people have of their own military power, and their own valor in war, with respect to the power and bravery of Europeans. But I dare not question them directly on the subject, because they are very ready to take offence, and I fear that my questions might be mistaken for irony or brag. I have succeeded, however, touching lightly and with caution, in picking up something. As to the superiority of our military power they have no doubts; for, if any doubts remained in their minds thirty years since, when they had not yet met with any severe reverses from European armies, the wars with France and Spain, and principally the two famous battles of Isly and Tetuan, would have dissipated them for ever. But with regard to bravery, it seems to me that they still think themselves much superior to Europeans, whose victories they attribute to their artillery, to discipline, and to what with them takes the place of strategy and tactics, namely, craft; but not at all to their valor. It appears that they do not consider victories gained by these means as real victories, nobly obtained. The common people also add to these the alliance with evil spirits, without which neither artillery nor craft would avail to conquer the Mussulman armies. Certain it is that to the pure-blooded Arabs and to the Berbers, who are the warlike majority in Morocco, bravery cannot be denied, or even the recognition of it restricted to that common and indeterminate courage which in Europe is considered, with chivalric reciprocity, the property of all armies. For even taking into account the nature of the ground and the secret aid of England, the army of Morocco, scattered, badly commanded, badly armed, badly provisioned, could not have confronted, as it did, for nearly a year, with a tenacity unexpected in Europe, the Spanish troops, highly disciplined, and furnished with all the newest offensive weapons, unless they had possessed great bravery in compensation for the military power that they lacked. We may deny the name of true courage to that fanaticism which sends one man against ten, seeking a death that shall open for him the gates of paradise; or to the savage fury which induces a soldier to dash his own brains out against a rock rather than fall into the enemy’s hands; or to the wild rage of a wounded man, who tears the bandages from his wounds and frees himself at once from life and a prison; or to the contempt of pain, the blind audacity, the brutal obstinacy, that seek death without any purpose to serve; but we must admit at least that these are elements of courage, and it is incontestable that this people gave many such tremendous examples to Spain. After two months of warfare the Spanish army had taken but two prisoners, an Arab from the province of Oran, and a lunatic who had presented himself at the outposts; and at the sanguinary battle of Castillejos five men only, and those five wounded, fell into the hands of the victors. Their traditional tactics are to advance _en masse_ against the enemy, to extend themselves rapidly, rush in, fire, and retreat precipitately to reload. In great battles they dispose themselves in half-moon shape, artillery and infantry in the centre, and cavalry at the wings, which seeks to envelop the enemy and catch him between two fires. The supreme head gives a general order, but every inferior chief returns to the assault or retreats when he thinks fit, and the army easily escapes from the control of the head. Indefatigable horsemen, dexterous marksmen, unflinching at a defence, easily thrown into confusion in open ground, they glide like serpents, climb like squirrels, run like goats, pass rapidly from a bold assault to a precipitous flight, and give an exaltation of courage that seems like furious madness, to a confusion and disorder without name. There are still in Morocco men who went mad with terror at the battle of Isly; and it is known that when Marshall Bugeaud began his cannonade, Sultan Abd-er-Rhaman cried out, “My horse! my horse!” and leaping into the saddle fled precipitately, leaving in the camp his musicians, his necromancers, his hunting dogs, the sacred standard, the parasol, and his tea, which the French soldiers found still boiling hot.

I meet so many negroes in the streets of Fez that I sometimes seem to find myself in the city of the Sôudan, and feel vaguely between me and Europe the immensity of the desert of Sahara. From the Sôudan, in fact, the greater part of them come—a little less than three thousand in a year, many of whom are said to die in a short time from homesickness. They are generally brought at the age of eight or ten years. The merchants, before exposing them for sale, fatten them with balls of _cùscùssù_, try to cure them, with music, of their homesickness, and teach them a few Arabic words; which last augments their price, which is generally thirty francs for a boy, sixty for a girl, about four hundred for a young woman of seventeen or eighteen who is handsome, and knows how to speak, and has not yet had a child, and fifty or sixty for an old man. The emperor takes five per cent. on the imported material, and has a right to the first choice. The others are sold in the markets of Fez, Mogador, and Morocco, and separately, at auction, in the other cities. They all, without difficulty, embrace the Mohammedan religion, preserving, however, many of their own strange superstitions, and the queer festivals of their native country, consisting of grotesque balls, which last three days and three nights consecutively, accompanied by diabolical music. They serve generally in the houses, are treated with kindness, are for the most part freed in reward for their service, and the way is open for them to the highest offices of state. Here, as elsewhere, it is said that they are now feverishly industrious, now torpidly lazy, sensual as monkeys, astute as foxes, ferocious as tigers, but content with their condition, and in general faithful and grateful to their masters; which, it would seem, is not the case where slavery is harder, as at Cuba, and where the liberty that they enjoy is excessive, as in Europe. The Arab and Moorish women refuse to accept them, and it is rare that a negro marries another than one of his own color; but the men, especially the Moors, not only seek them eagerly as concubines, but marry them as frequently as white women; from which cause comes the great number of mulattoes of all shades who are seen in the streets of Morocco. What strange chances! The poor negro of ten years old, sold in the confines of the Sahara for a sack of sugar and a piece of cloth, may—and the case can be cited—discuss thirty years afterward, as Minister of Morocco, a treaty of commerce with the English Ambassador; and still more possibly, the black girl baby, born in a filthy den, and exchanged in the shade of an oasis for a skin of brandy, may come to be covered with gems, and fragrant with perfumes, and clasped in the arms of the Sultan.