Chapter XVI

Heavy rain—Hill of Kanúfa—Telegraph versus heliograph—Ladies of
Mequinez—Selection of heliograph station—Bokháris—Final instruction
in heliography—Sultan Mulai Ismael—His cruelties and sanctity—Visit
to prison.

_Mequinez, Tuesday, 11th May 1880._

The march in here from our camp at Nedja was a long one, about twenty-two miles, and the heavy squalls of rain which beat in our faces continually made it most unpleasant. Such weather at this time of the year is perfectly unknown here, and is, as I noticed before, attributed by the natives entirely to the presence of the English Bashador. Besides the drawback of the weather, the conduct of the “son of the slave of the one God,” who insisted on riding with us, was far from satisfactory. Some of us had pushed on ahead of the main body to arrange about where the luncheon-tent should be pitched, and, instead of conforming to our steady trot, Síd Drís would lag behind, and then tear past us in lab-el-barôd fashion, loudly calling on his God the while. It was in vain we represented to him that at each manœuvre he bespattered us with mud, and begged of him to regulate his pace by ours; it was of no avail, his only answer being that Christians and Mussulmans had different ways of riding, and that Marocco “was a very savage country.” The plain of Fez seems to end, about twenty miles from that town, in a high ridge of ground, on the west side of which is a deep ravine crossed by a partially ruined bridge. The hills here closed in a little, widening out again as we crossed a second gully and came to another and higher table-land, which forms the plateau on which Mequinez is situated. On the edge of this the luncheon-tent was pitched, and Síd Drís and Gavass partook of that meal with us, enduring with composure His Excellency’s pressing offers of wine, bacon, and other unclean edibles. We rode forward in the same order as before, and came upon a large body of cavalry, under the Bashaw of Mequinez, waiting for Sir John at the head of a deep and rugged glen, the descent into, and ascent from which, was very bad going for the horses. To this official we sent as a herald the “son of the slave”—who was too glad of the excuse for a gallop—to inform him that His Excellency was coming on later, and to ask for a guide to the house we were to occupy. The range of hills to the north of the road was of a considerable height, and one called the Jebel el Kanúfa would, I at once perceived, make a good intermediate heliograph station, supposing it obscured the view of Mequinez from Fez, which, however, I found from observations on arrival here, would not be the case. I suggested to Síd Drís that a telegraph wire would answer His Majesty’s purpose better, and would be available for night work, for which he still has a hazy idea the heliograph would come in handy; but he says it would require guards every few hundred yards, as the people of the villages would never stand the sight of such a mysterious-looking apparatus, which, being set up by Christians, they might fear would accomplish the downfall of the sacred cities it connected. There is a vast olive grove, walled in like a park, through which we passed before arriving at the gate of the city. At the entrance of this enclosure was a ruined fort, to the top of which I climbed, at considerable risk, to see if I could make out the hill near Fez which we had suggested as the site for the heliograph at that end.

The approach to Mequinez from this side is very pretty. Near the entrance is an extensive and well-kept park, in the garden of which stands a large house, the property of some relative of the Sultan, and a steep paved road leads up from the valley in which these grounds are situated to the gate by which we entered. There were a good many people collected on our route, and the crowd round this house was so great we had regularly to fight our way through it; though, of course, the excitement of the people was nothing like that on our arrival at Fez, as we have sunk from our high estate to that of private individuals. This house, which the Sultan has had put at our disposal, is a handsome building, all the four rooms opening on the patio in the centre being lofty, and beautifully clean. In one of these Zouche and I had our beds, &c., placed, our chief and his family occupying the others; while in a house next door are located the remainder of the party. The roofs of the surrounding houses were crowded in the afternoon with ladies, mostly unveiled, who, I am sure, would, if allowed, accord us a hearty welcome, notwithstanding our objectionable nationality and religious tenets. All the people here seem more cheerful and healthy than the Fasi, possibly owing to the streets being wider and more airy, and the odours less varied and potent than those of Fez. The best shops are all in covered squares, which one has to visit on foot; but shopping presents the usual difficulties, caused by the curiosity of the populace. The children, too, seem positively in dread of us, rushing off after one look of terror, yelling “Nasráni! Nasráni!” as if the devil was after them, which they not improbably think may be the case. It is a tiresome practice, as the rest of the people are thereby unnecessarily warned of our approach. There is a remarkably fine gateway in the wall of the town near the Melha, and of this a good view was taken by Lawless. A smaller arch leading into the Jews’ quarter is interesting from its being the place where heads of rebels and murderers, and hands and feet of minor offenders, are nailed up as a warning to evil-doers. As there are no fresh warnings hoisted at present, I conclude the people of this district have been on their good behaviour of late. The cold at dinner in the evening seemed intense, though I do not know what the temperature really was.

My suggestion that the verandah round the top of the highest mosque should be utilised as a heliograph station being indignantly rejected, I started after breakfast with Síd Drís, Gavass, and one or two soldiers, to a place they told me was half a mile off, but which turned out to be about four. “Why did you say it was half a mile when you knew it was about ten times as much?” I asked. “You have a long march in the afternoon to make, and we did not think you would come if you knew how far it was,” was the candid reply. The place they wanted me to see was, except for its distance from the town, well chosen, being at the angle of a high battlemented wall which encloses a kind of settlement of the families of the Bokhári, or hereditary slaves of the Sultan. I was told these men are the descendants of a number of captives brought by a former Sultan, five hundred years ago, from the Soudan; but I am more inclined to agree with Dr. Lemprière, who, writing in 1793, says that the Emperor Mulai Ismael[75] introduced large numbers of negroes from Guinea and Soudan as colonists, and formed out of them a bodyguard for himself; these, I take it, were the ancestors of the present Bokháris. We got up with considerable difficulty to the top of the wall, and at the corner I mentioned was a large flat space, which will do excellently for my purpose. Not one of the men with me (two of them natives of Mequinez) could, or would, point out which was the Jebel Zalag, or hill above Fez. As, however, I had determined this point to my own satisfaction, I explained for the last time to my two intelligent pupils how they were to align their instrument on the Jebel Zalag at some fixed hour when their colleague would be there with his, and how to put themselves into communication with him.

The elevated plateau of enclosed land which lies between the Bokhári village and the town has at one time been laid out in elaborate pleasure grounds and gardens, among which the many buildings of massive construction—most of them, however, in ruins—are evidence of greater grandeur and extent than anything to be seen near Fez. All these must have been the work of Mulai Ismael only two hundred years ago; so the complete ruin which has overtaken many of the buildings is strange, except that everything in this country seems to develop a faculty for decay as soon as created; and of the Sultans of Marocco it may be said, as truly as of the Venetian Doges, “their palaces are crumbling to the shore.” This one on the south side of the town, built in 1680 by Mulai Ismael, was much damaged by an earthquake in 1755, and has since gone from bad to worse. The terrible cruelties practised upon his Christian slaves and others by this comparatively modern Nero have been the theme of one or two writers in the last century.[76] He was always attended by several hundred Bokhári youths, who delighted to act as his executioners, though they as often played the _rôle_ of victims, and were obliged to carry with them a “change of cloaths to shift when bloody,” as their patron was in the habit of beating and torturing them so that “sometimes you shall see forty or fifty of them sprawling in their blood, none of them daring to rise” till he left the place. Another disagreeable practice of this monarch was “tossing” his retainers. This operation consisted in four strong negroes seizing a man by the hams; they then threw him up with all their strength, and at the same time turning him round, pitched him down, head foremost. An Englishman who was witness of many of his barbarities, says,—“His wrath is terrible, which the Christians have sometimes felt; for one day, passing a high wall on which they were at work, he made his guards go up and throw them all off the wall, breaking their legs and arms;” and no doubt, in the walls past which I rode to-day are many skeletons of those whom he would order their fellow slaves to “bury alive and beat down along with the mortar of the wall.” His Majesty, however, was impartial in his cruelties, for he would frequently order his Moorish subjects “to be burnt, crucified, sawed in two, or dragged at a mule’s tail through the streets till they are torn to pieces.” Notwithstanding, and indeed chiefly by reason of his enormities, he was regarded as inspired by his subjects, and particularly his women, who numbered about two thousand, and of whom he would sometimes “despatch” as many as thirty in a day, “by what they call geesing,” which seems to have been some refinement of the art of hanging. The head of the eunuchs who looked after them was a man of immense power and wealth, who “keeps a seraglio of his own, which he maintains purely out of ostentation.” In Mulai Ismael’s reign this town became a flourishing city, and by the frightful severity of his punishments law and order seem to have been established throughout the empire, which for the first time was consolidated into one kingdom. The largest mosque in the place is named after him, and is considered as of almost equal sanctity with that of Mulai Edris at Fez.

On the way back from our reconnoitring expedition I mentioned to one of the party my wish to see the inside of a prison, every attempt to do so at Fez having failed, even when I applied to Síd Búbakr for assistance in the matter. He at once said he knew the kaïd of the jail here, and if we let the others go on in front, he would take me to it, which he accordingly did. Prisoners in this country are allowed to make baskets and do other work in the jails, that part of the profits which arises from the sale of the articles, and is not pocketed by the jailor, going to purchase food for the prisoners. If a man is unable to work, and has no friends outside to support him, the amount he gets is very little indeed—in many cases not enough to support life, and deaths from starvation in time of famine, when prices are high, are numerous. The casual visitor to a jail only gets as far as a strong door, with a hole cut in it, from which there issues an insufferable stench, and through which small lean arms are thrust, holding out wicker and grass bags, &c., for sale. I never heard of anyone getting beyond this door, but leaving it on our right, we came to a small court where several evil-looking officials were sitting. After some remonstrance my friend and I were taken to a doorway strongly barred, and so low that I had to bend almost double to get under; having accomplished which we found ourselves in an open yard with fifty or sixty occupants. Some looked as if they thoroughly deserved to be there; others, utterly hopeless and dejected, as though the irons most of them wore round their legs were eating into their soul; others, again, were fighting and tearing at each other over some food, while the remainder sat stolidly expectant of whatever might befall them, and apparently quite indifferent as to what that might be. All, however, joined in a murmur of astonishment at the unexpected apparition, and as they crowded round to get a nearer sight of the Nazarene, I thought I should take away many a lively souvenir of my visit. Suddenly, the heavy lash of their gentle guardian descending on their bare shoulders caused a general stampede, and gave me an opportunity of looking round. In a room off the open court were three or four men decently dressed, and of a different class from the wretches in the yard. One was a middle-aged man in a dark blue sulham, or native cloak; he had an angry yet unhappy expression, and seemed known to my cicerone, who told me he was, till lately, colonel of one of His Majesty’s regiments. “And why is he here?” I asked. “The order of our lord,” with a shrug of the shoulders, was the reply. A young, rather good-looking fellow, lying in the opposite corner, I was told had been Bashaw of a province in the south. “And for what crime is he here?” The same answer and another shrug was all the information I received. On my way out my attention was attracted by a man so emaciated as to be hardly human, round whose bony limbs the irons had made a horrid festering sore. As he lay on the ground, he stretched out a hand to touch me as I passed, and on enquiry into his case I heard he had been an inmate of that filthy den for eighteen years on a charge of murder, for which he had been unable to pay the blood-money. “But I never committed it,” he kept on saying, as he overheard the conversation between the jailor and my guide; and certainly, whether he did or not, I think in his case the punishment exceeds the offence. I expect a moderate sum of money would have procured the release of any of these prisoners, except, perhaps, the Colonel and the Bashaw, who were being detained and periodically tortured till they had disgorged the treasure they were supposed to have amassed during their respective commands. This is a not unfrequent ending to the tenure of a high governorship. The gang followed us to the grating through which we made our exit, with cries which seemed to be of entreaty and expostulation, and from another quarter of the jail came some piercing yells, into the meaning of which I enquired. “It is a madman who is sick,” they answered; and on my wanting to see him I was told he was a saint, who, during his periods of indisposition, gave utterance to things it would be “harámi” for a Christian to hear. I hope the story was true, but the thickness of the leather bastinado-cords which the jailors carried, and the fact that at least one man in that prison during the last six months has died under the lash, made me doubtful on the subject. We found, on getting outside again, that the rest of the party, having noticed our horses being led about at the foot of the lane, had divined our whereabouts, and were exceedingly indignant with my friend for his indiscretion in admitting me to the jail. He seemed much perturbed at the disapproval of his fellows, and begged me never to mention his name as having acted as my cicerone on the occasion, hinting that from the way the others spoke he may have endangered his own liberty, if nothing worse, by his good nature.