Chapter VII

Entry into Fez—Compulsory welcome—Grandees of Fez—Kaïd
Maclean—Violence of soldiers—Merchants of Fez—Jews—Our garden in
Fez—Kaïd El Meshwa—Moorish etiquette—Grand Vizier—Streets and shops.

_Fez, Saturday, 17th April 1880._

The excitement of the Moors on getting to their journey’s end was great last night in camp, and rather communicated itself to us more matter-of-fact Nazarenes. Many were the questions His Excellency had to answer relative to the Sacred City. Some of us wanted to know if there was any hair-cutter in the town—a tradesman of whose professional aid most of us stand in need—forgetting that the razor, and not the scissors, is the only instrument employed by _coiffeurs_ of the faithful. Altogether, our ignorance of what we were to find was great; but this only added to the interest with which we looked forward to enlightenment.

Our camp was not more than five miles from the gates, but wonderfully few people came out to look at it; etiquette prevents the officials showing their curiosity, and the people, we heard, had been forbidden to come. This morning, the only person of note to make his appearance was Síd Búbakr; he had left us the day before yesterday to precede us into Fez, and hear what were the latest arrangements for our reception, which he rode out this morning to communicate. Fortunately the day was bright and sunny, and the clean white _sulhams_[29] which most of the servants had donned for the occasion, shone to advantage. They had all done something in the way of brushing themselves up. Boomgheis in virgin white looked the personification of innocence and chastity,—a character to which he is perhaps barely entitled, while green silk handkerchiefs adorned the smooth shaven and scarred heads of Abd-er-Rahman and “Dr. Hooker.”[30]

We had rather expected that His Excellency would request us to appear in uniform on the occasion, as one quite felt it to be a day on which either that or a frock coat and tall hat—had we such things in our kit—should be produced; but on reflection one recognised the fact that no costume could appear more striking and thoroughly outlandish to the eye of the Fasi[31] than that of everyday life! During breakfast Síd Búbakr, sitting at Sir John’s feet, conversed eagerly with him about, as we were told, the excitement in the city regarding our entry, the temper of the populace, and the orders the Sultan had given. It seemed that a certain class, instigated probably by the Grand Vizier, who is a fanatic of the worst type, viz. an ignorant one, had determined to take no notice of us, but to treat us with the contempt to which our creed entitled us. To obviate this, however, the Sultan this morning gave orders that all shops were to be closed and business suspended during the forenoon, and the outpouring of the inhabitants caused by this measure was a sight which none of us will readily forget. We got on our horses about 8.30, all curiously eager to see what was to be seen, and equally ignorant of the extraordinary nature of the spectacle that awaited us. For the first three miles there were only a few isolated groups of people come out to see us; but when within two miles of the gate the crowd had greatly increased, and it became necessary for the escort to close in a little for our protection, and for us to form ourselves into two ranks to enable them to encircle us more completely. I think from here to the gate the whole thing rather suggested scenes in a circus of impossibly gigantic dimensions, than anything else, but so constantly changing and varying as almost to baffle description, unless one had noted down all as it occurred. The first military party to meet us was a small body of horsemen, so gaudily and brilliantly attired, that in the far distance, as they came galloping _ventre à terre_ towards us through the lanes of people, they looked like a handful of precious stones thrown by a powerful and unseen hand, and glittering in the sun; with one funny exception, they were almost the only piece of colouring in the whole scene. Next we were met by the Governor of Fez, with a party of more soberly clad riders, attended by a strong guard. This official—an old and striking-looking man—greeted His Excellency with much emotion, but as he is the individual who has been squeezing our friends of Beni Aamer, we looked upon him with no loving eye, and would much like to give a quiet hint to the Sultan regarding his malpractices. When within a mile and a half of the entrance, our following was augmented by several of the notables of the place, among the most conspicuous of whom was the Kaïd el Meshwa, or Lord High Chamberlain of the Court. He is a man of great presence, about 6 feet 2 inches in height, and broad in proportion; and being mounted on a large white horse of about 16 hands, with a huge saddle covered with green silk, formed a striking figure in the procession. His complexion is almost black, as he belongs to the Bokháris[32] or hereditary bondsmen of the Sultan, but his voice and features are by no means unpleasing. He is one of the many instances in this country of “promotion by merit.” Born a slave, his father having filled the office of “washerwoman” to the royal household, he is now a rich man, and one of the highest Court officials.

Each of these grandees, as he came up, shook hands cordially with His Excellency, and then ranged their horses alongside his; while their guards, mingling with our escort, helped to keep off the mob. At this point the line of troops commenced; at least bodies of them were formed up at intervals on our right hand, while on the left were drawn up, about four deep, a motley line composed of many thousand Fasi, all armed with the long gun of the country,—a plentiful stock, apparently, from which to draw recruits for the regular army. The latter force took up the line on our left as soon as we arrived at the end of the armed populace. They were under command of Kaïd Maclean, lately an officer in the English army, but who has been in the service of the Sultan for about two years in the capacity of Instructor of Infantry, and to whose untiring exertions His Majesty is indebted for whatever efficiency is to be found in the dismounted branch of the forces in Marocco. Each regiment got the command to “present arms” as we passed, and executed it somewhat independently, according to their interpretation of the order. Bands of musicians at stated intervals played salutes, and groups of trumpeters sounded a flourish as we went by; while outside this lane of soldiers was a surging, seething mass of people, old and young, clothed and unclothed, mounted and on foot, pressing on and tumbling over one another in their anxiety to lose nothing of the sight, their eyes being constantly fixed on the strange-looking people whom their sovereign was so anxious to honour. Among these were grand-looking old men on mules, grave and reverend signors on large ambling horses, and occasionally on a donkey were seated two and even three half-clad and grotesque-looking creatures. Sometimes, when this moving crowd pressed too hard on the line of soldiers, some half-dozen of the cavalry in rear of us would break through the line, upsetting the soldiers, and charging promiscuously among the people, knock them off their feet, or their donkeys, as the case might be. The populace, though evidently holding them in much awe, seemed to take this species of practical rebuke very good-humouredly, and picking themselves up again, pushed forward as vigorously as ever. A line of about twelve wonderfully-clad people, with banners, posted inside the living street along which we rode, attracted our attention, and these, we were told, represented the chief merchants’ houses in Fez. A funnier and more bizarre-looking group could not be imagined; the first was a tall black-looking savage, who held his flag up and scowled at us, as though this mark of attention was sorely against his principles; the next to him, an aged-looking little dwarf, with a sandy beard, a complexion almost white, and a look of infinite cunning in his small red eyes as he squinted upwards at us; beside him, a fat, unwholesome, and nondescript sort of youth, with a flabby face about the same yellow hue as his banner, and so on,—no two of them alike, but each one calculated to haunt you in your dreams, were it not for the constantly changing supply of singular or revolting spectacles, each of which served to obliterate the last from one’s mind. The merchants are, of course, the class most interested in keeping up a connection with Europe, and they owe much to His Excellency’s influence with the Sultan on their behalf. Long ago, on a former occasion of Sir John’s entry into this town, some of them who were under a special obligation to him engaged several thousand women to go out and meet the procession; they took up their position on some rising ground, and as the cavalcade passed gave utterance to their peculiar shrill cry (something like a Swiss jodel), a sound they always make when wishing to express their satisfaction at or admiration of anything. The effect produced, as I have heard it, from only a few people, is curious enough, but coming from such a multitude of throats was very beautiful and striking. Shaw, who writes in 1732, describes the sound I allude to, spelling it phonetically, “Loo, loo, loo,” and says it is a corruption of the Hebrew “Hallelujah.”[33]

No ladies, however, came out _en masse_ to-day to meet us, but as we got closer to the city walls the moving panorama on either side became wedged among the dense crowd who had collected just outside the gates, and amongst whom were many veiled figures struggling for places where they could get a good sight of us. Groups of Jews, too, were to be seen—strange and weird-looking people; most of them in their small black caps and dark flowing robes. A few were mounted, and all had their slippers on, in neither of which luxuries may they indulge till outside the walls of any of the sacred cities. A long-suffering race truly are they, content to suffer these and all other indignities, provided only they can make a usurious profit out of their oppressors. But contemptible and despised as they so often are, they are not without great title to our respect when one considers how through good and evil report they stick together, always ready to help their weaker brethren, even at the sacrifice of—what they value more than their blood—money. This characteristic they have, to their honour, always possessed, and to the last they will be found “united by the close moral affinity of habits and feelings, treasuring in their hearts the same reliance on their national privileges, the same trust in the promises of their God, the same conscientious attachment to the institutions of their fathers.”[34]

The ground rises on either side of the road just before one enters the town, and this position was occupied by civilians of apparently a better class than the yelling crowd who had hitherto surrounded us. These people all wore prodigious white turbans, which, with spotless robes of the same colour, formed a curious contrast to their dark faces, directed towards and slowly following the movements of the strangers. Some half-dozen brass guns were drawn up near here; the officer in charge, a handsome man in a gorgeous dress, with a big white turban, rode up alongside of me, and rather startled me by asking in excellent French if I spoke that language. On my replying in the affirmative, he introduced himself as Monsieur Erckmann, captain in the French Artillery, and commandant of that branch of the Sultan’s army. Funnily enough he cannot speak a word of English, and as Kaïd Maclean does not understand French, they talk to each other in Arabic, in which language they both seem proficient.

Leaving on our right the high walls of the royal palace with its green towers and minarets, from one of which His Majesty, with his favourite wives, was said to be watching us, we passed under a gateway into the city, and a ride of less than an hour brought us through the most extraordinary labyrinths to the head of a steep and narrow lane, down which our horses slid till they deposited us at the gate of our present quarters. Macadam and his art of road-making are unknown in Fez, and there are not two consecutive yards in any part of our passage through the streets to-day where an English horse would not be in danger of breaking its knees and its rider’s head. The quarter of the town through which we first passed was open and partly ruinous; afterwards we got into a network of bazaars, but owing to the royal mandate closing the shops and hunting the people out to _welcome_ us, there was no crowd of any sort. Fortunate it was that they were kept out, for nothing short of a charge of cavalry could have cleared the approach to this place. A good many, of course, squeezed in with us at the city gate, mostly Moors, for the Jews were delayed by having to dismount from their mules, or to take off their slippers. One eager youth who had omitted the latter precaution was detected soon after, and levelled to the ground by a blow from the butt end of a gun. With the singular vitality, however, possessed by these people, he picked himself up, and with his shoes in his hand, I saw him presently running along parallel with us again, a large scar on his head bearing witness to the ungentle treatment he had received.

Dismounting at the gateway here, a guard of soldiers in red coats and knickerbockers, but no stockings, received us with a salute, and passing them, we found ourselves in a pretty orange grove about one hundred and fifty yards long by fifty across, with raised paths traversing it and several ducts of water running through in all directions; about the centre a walk paved with mosaics crosses it, at each end of which is a sort of house or kiosk. A few steps lead up to the level of the one on the west side, and in front of it there is a tank of water of considerable depth, with fountains playing in it. The house opposite consists of an entrance hall or public room about twenty feet square, lofty and lighted by a skylight; off it are three oblong-shaped rooms, all of which have glass windows to them—an unusual luxury in Marocco; the walls are covered half-way to the ceiling with pretty velvet hangings; one or two tables and chairs, specially made for us, and bedsteads, being the only articles of furniture. At the south end of the grove the space between the trees is a little more open, and there we have had our tents pitched, so as to keep the house on the east side entirely for dining and sitting-rooms. The bedsteads, &c., with which the side-rooms were provided have consequently been ousted, and owing to the magic presence of an Englishwoman, the place has already assumed an air of luxury and comfort about one quarter European and three-quarters Oriental. In the other house, in front of which the fountains play, Lady and Miss Hay have taken up their abode; while on the platform over the gateway, in solitary grandeur, is pitched the tent of the Bashador. The ground is very damp, but, with the aid of many donkey loads of fine sand and a number of planks, we have managed to lay down pretty good flooring to our tents; from the door of mine I have a capital view of the town below and hills in the distance. Another garden, also made over to us, is just below this, and here our horses and mules are picketed; behind us rises a high wall shutting out all view of our neighbours; in fact, unless one looks towards the east over the roofs and white terraces visible in that quarter, one would not know there was a town within ten miles, so thick is the foliage of the grove, and so distant sounds the hum of the city.

Among the notables who called to pay visits of ceremony to Sir John to-day were the kaïd of the Meshwa, or chamberlain, and the Sultan’s private secretary, an amiable-looking old man with a pleasant, and, what is uncommon here, a friendly expression of face. Both these visitors remained long in earnest conversation with His Excellency, the chief subject under discussion being the rather awkward announcement by the Grand Vizier (of which Sir John had got notice privately some time before), that it was quite incompatible with his position as Prime Minister, and his rank as maternal uncle of the Sultan, to call upon or even return the visit of any one. Under these circumstances the Envoy distinctly declined to pay the visit of ceremony which was due to the Vizier, without a guarantee of its being returned, with which rather hard nut to crack, his auditors, who were inclined to agree with him, took their leave. Among the governing class of Moors etiquette and prerogatives are of vital import; and as this fanatical Minister is most unwilling in all his correspondence, and now apparently in his personal dealings, to extend to Sir John the courtesies which the latter considers are due to the representative of Her Majesty, grave complications might have ensued. All negotiations with the Sultan are usually conducted through the Vizier; the political objects of the Mission might therefore have been frustrated, and our journey, which a French paper describes as “lointaine et périlleuse,” have been taken in vain. Great cordiality existed between His Excellency and Síd Músa, the talented predecessor of the present Vizier; and Sir John was naturally much disgusted at the turn affairs had now taken. Fortunately, however, at 6 P.M., a message came from the “maternal uncle” guaranteeing a return of the Envoy’s visit, upon which that able diplomatist, desirous of striking while the iron was hot, at once donned his official garb and proceeded to the house of the Minister, from which he returned, tired but triumphant, at 9 P.M.

As soon as we had got our tents pitched and had luncheon, some of us went for a walk in the town, accompanied by the interpreters, and escorted by six or eight soldiers. As long as we were in the narrow lanes with walls and windowless houses ever so high on each side, we did not come across many people to stare at us; but once in the regular thoroughfares, where the bazaars are situated, the astonishment and interest taken in us were unbounded. People left their work, customers their bargaining, to turn round and look at us, most of them following in our wake, while, along the streets parallel to the one we happened to be in, we saw scores of people hurrying to take up a good place at any corner we were likely to pass. Most of the streets in which there are shops are roofed over, when the houses do not meet at the top, with wicker-work or hurdles stretched across as a protection from the sun. They are roughly paved with slippery stones, and are not ankle deep in mud, as are the lanes by which we approached them.

Although one rather loses caste by being seen on foot, it is more convenient than riding, owing to the crowds of people and narrowness of the streets; also, in the places where the best shops are to be found one is obliged to walk, wooden bars being placed across the entrance of the street to prevent the ingress of mules and horses. The busy and commercial quarter is a maze of these narrow thoroughfares, from which the shops, or rather stalls, are retired a little way, and raised about three feet from the ground, forming a kind of alcove in the wall. The merchant sits cross-legged in this recess with his wares in front of and round about him, perfectly indifferent, as becomes a true believer, as to whether you deal or not; above his head, in the centre of his den, hangs a cord by which he lazily pulls himself up to stretch across for any article out of his reach which the customer may want to see. Each time, however, that we stopped to look at anything, the crowd pressed so uncomfortably upon us that it was all the soldiers could do to keep them off, and their activity in clearing the road increased to such a degree that, being uncertain how much knocking about the populace would stand, we cut short our visit, and must delay our purchases to some future date, when the sight of the Christians will have lost a little of its novelty.

The quarter where we are is divided into gardens like our own, each containing one house, and surrounded for the sake of privacy by high walls. These enclosures are intersected by lanes from which all view is excluded on either hand, and so narrow that two horsemen can with difficulty pass one another. The sanctity of the harem and of the mosque is much more carefully guarded here than in Mussulman countries farther east; and there is one street, at all events, in this city, where neither Christian nor Jew may enter, lest the taint of their presence should reach the mosque situated at the farther end. It contains the shrine of the son of Mulai Edris, the patron saint and founder of Fez, whose name is on the lips of every beggar in the street, and without invoking whom no bargain is made or business concluded.

We seem to have been wandering in the wilds for months instead of weeks, and dinner to-night under a solid roof, seated on chairs with backs to them, and at a table “on an even keel,” seemed to us a luxury carrying us back to a long-forgotten era of civilisation.