[page 234]
Around an open courtyard, protected by an iron grating at the top, is a row of dirty columns, and behind them a kind of arcade, on to which open a number of doorless chambers. Filth is apparent everywhere, and to the stifling odour of that unwashed horde is added that caused by insanitary drainage. To some of the pillars are chained poor wretches little more than skeletons, while a cable of considerable length secures others. It is locked at one end to a staple outside the door under which it passes, and is threaded through rings on the iron collars of half a dozen prisoners who have been brought in as rebels from a distant province. For thirteen days they have tramped thus, carrying that chain, holding it up by their hands to save their shoulders, and two empty rings still threaded on show that when they started they numbered eight. Since the end rings are riveted to the chain, it has been impossible to remove them, so when two fell sick by the way the drivers cut off their heads to effect the release of their bodies, and to prove, by presenting those ghastly trophies at their journey's end, that none had escaped.
Many of the prisoners are busy about the floor, where they squat in groups, plaiting baskets and satchels of palmetto leaves, while many appear too weak and disheartened even to earn a subsistence in this way. One poor fellow, who has been a courier, was employed one day twenty-five years since to carry a despatch to Court, complaining of the misdeeds of a governor. That official himself intercepted the letter, and promptly despatched the bearer to Tangier as a Sultan's prisoner. He then arrested the writer of the letter, who, on paying[page 235] a heavy fine, regained his liberty, but the courier remained unasked for. In course of time the kaïd was called to his account, and his son, who succeeded him in office, having died too, a stranger ruled in their stead. The forgotten courier had by this time lost his reason, fancying himself once more in his goat-hair tent on the southern plains, and with unconscious irony he still gives every new arrival the Arab greeting, "Welcome to thee, a thousand welcomes! Make thyself at home and comfortable. All before thee is thine, and what thou seest not, be sure we don't possess."
Some few, in better garments, hold themselves aloof from the others, and converse together with all the nonchalance of gossip in the streets, for they are well-to-do, arrested on some trivial charge which a few dollars apiece will soon dispose of, but they are exceptions. A quieter group occupies one corner, members of a party of no less than sixty-two brought in together from Fez, on claims made against them by a European Power. A sympathetic inquiry soon elicits their histories.[*] The first man to speak is hoary and bent with years; he was arrested several years ago, on the death of a brother who had owed some $50 to a European. The second had borrowed $900 in exchange for a bond for twice that amount; he had paid off half of this, and having been unable to do more, had been arrested eighteen months before. The third had similarly received $80 for a promise to pay $160; he had been in prison five years and three months.[page 236] Another had borrowed $100, and knew not the sum which stood yet against him. Another had been in prison five years for a debt alleged to have been contracted by an uncle long dead. Another had borrowed $50 on a bond for $100. Another had languished eighteen months in gaol on a claim for $120; the amount originally advanced to him was about $30, but the acknowledgment was for $60, which had been renewed for $120 on its falling due and being dishonoured. Another had borrowed $15 on agreeing to refund $30, which was afterwards increased to $60 and then to $105. He has been imprisoned three years. The debt of another, originally $16 for a loan of half that amount, has since been doubled twice, and now stands at $64, less $17 paid on account, while for forty-two measures of wheat delivered on account he can get no allowance, though that was three years ago, and four months afterwards he was sent to prison. Another had paid off the $50 he owed for an advance of $25, but on some claim for expenses the creditor had withheld the bond, and is now suing for the whole amount again. He has been in prison two years and six months. Another has paid twenty measures of barley on account of a bond for $100, for which he has received $50, and he was imprisoned at the same time as the last speaker, his debt being due to the same man. Another had borrowed $90 on the usual terms, and has paid the whole in cash or wheat, but cannot get back the bond. He has previously been imprisoned for a year, but two years after his release he was re-arrested, fourteen months ago. Another has been two months in gaol on a claim for $25 for a loan of $12.[page 237] The last one has a bitter tale to tell, if any could be worse than the wearisome similarity of those who have preceded him.
"Some years ago," he says, "I and my two brothers, Drees and Ali, borrowed $200 from a Jew of Mequinez, for which we gave him a notarial bond for $400. We paid him a small sum on account every month, as we could get it—a few dollars at a time—besides presents of butter, fowls, and eggs. At the end of the first year he threatened to imprison us, and made us change the bond for one for $800, and year by year he raised the debt this way till it reached $3000, even after allowing for what we had paid off. I saw no hope of ever meeting his claim, so I ran away, and my brother Drees was imprisoned for six years. He died last winter, leaving a wife and three children, the youngest, a daughter, being born a few months after her father was taken away. He never saw her. By strenuous efforts our family paid off the $3000, selling all their land, and borrowing small sums. But the Jew would not give up the bond. He died about two years ago, and we do not know who is claiming now, but we are told that the sum demanded is $560. We have nothing now left to sell, and, being in prison, we cannot work. When my brother Drees died, I and my brother Ali were seized to take his place. My kaïd was very sorry for me, and became surety that I would not escape, so that my irons were removed; but my brother remains still in fetters, as poor Drees did all through the six years. We have no hope of our friends raising any money, so we must wait for death to release us."
[page 238]
Here he covers his face with his hands, and several of his companions, in spite of their own dire troubles, have to draw their shrivelled arms across their eyes, as silence falls upon the group.
As we turn away heartsick a more horrible sight than any confronts us before the lieutenant-governor's court. A man is suspended by the arms and legs, face downwards, by a party of police, who grasp his writhing limbs. With leather thongs a stalwart policeman on either side is striking his bare back in turn. Already blood is flowing freely, but the victim does not shriek. He only winces and groans, or gives an almost involuntary cry as the cruel blows fall on some previously harrowed spot. He is already unable to move his limbs, but the blows fall thick and fast. Will they never cease?
By the side stands a young European counting them one by one, and when the strikers slow down from exhaustion he orders them to stop, that others may relieve them. The victim is by this time swooning, so the European directs that he shall be put on the ground and deluged with water till he revives. When sufficiently restored the count begins again. Presently the European stays them a second time; the man is once again insensible, yet he has only received six hundred lashes of the thousand which have been ordered.