The pillars of Hercules

by David Urquhart

We next got our host to permit us to examine the arms. One was of Tetuan manufacture, one of Fez; the first spirally fluted on the outside: both barrels were inlaid with gold, were four feet and a half long, and ornamented at the muzzle like old pieces of ordnance. The mounting was silver, ornamented with the black figures which in the East are called Sabat. The locks were cumbersome, the work intricate, and all outside. There is a covering to the powder in the pan like the old pieces of the French Gardes du Corps. The price was twenty-five and thirty-five dollars: I should have guessed them at double. The daggers were in no way remarkable; but the cases, handles, and cords were very rich: one sword rang like a Damascus blade. Their swords are long and straight, slightly bent towards the point, and have a heavy thick handle with a peculiar guard.[241]

The only other piece of furniture was a Turkish sofra, or small hexagonal stool inlaid in tortoiseshell and mother of pearl, on which is placed the tepsi, or round tray for dinner. The carving of the sofra is peculiar, and might be taken for the model of some portion of a Gothic building. I now saw that this was no Turkish piece of furniture: the Turks, like the Romans, have borrowed from every other people what was most elegant or useful. Augustus introduced a stool from Spain to Rome—why should not one have been carried from Morocco to Constantinople?

As this Moor was reaching down one of the guns, his haïk fell off, displaying a rich blue and red vesture, while the volumes of the white toga cast their majestic folds around. Close by stood the Numidians—two antique bronzes. We cultivate the arts: we raise to the rank of sages and princes the men who excel in conceiving and portraying beautiful forms. Their works are the embellishments of temples and palaces, the glory of empires and the worth of millions. They have no schools of design; no science of colours; no artist—no, nor even tailors; and yet there was his costume—there was mine. I attempted to convey this to him: he said, “Our fathers have left us many good things, and we are content with them.”

Proceeding on our inspection, we passed through a succession of small courts and corridors, as if we were in the under-story of a palace. There were four houses joined together by doors broken through the wall: these houses are fitted one against the other like so many boxes, the lights coming from the court in the centre of each. In the kitchens there was a great assortment of wood dishes, like low corn measures, scrubbed white, as in Switzerland; rows of round pots, in which the fires are made, called nafé; and kuskoussoo dishes of pottery called Keskas, the covers in thick close basket-work, ornamented with colours. Every place, thing, corner, was most perfectly sweet and clean. On entering the store rooms it seemed as if we had penetrated into a chamber at Pompeii. (The whole establishment recalled Pompeii.) Jars of the shape and dimensions of amphoræ, only transversed at the point, stood in rows containing, not, indeed, Falernian wine, but kuskoussoo, pease, butter, rice, and even fresh meat. After it is packed, butter is kneaded hard into the orifice, and water is poured over it. Homer says, that in Lybia neither prince nor peasant wants for food, and this was confirmed by the large scale on which the arrangements were here made to meet the demands of hospitality. One of the court-yards, with an adjoining kitchen and store, was appropriated to cooking food, to be sent out to friends and strangers.

We now entered a court which rivalled the first apartment—all white, light and airy. At each of the angles there was a group of three columns, and from them sprang a lofty fretted arch, which occupied the centre of each of the faces. A narrow cornice in coloured stucco under the projecting eaves ran all round; so the stuccoes of Spain are not a lost art.

From this truly barbaresque hall, open to the heavens, we passed into the women’s principal apartment. It was a long and very narrow room, entered in the centre by lofty folding doors: the wicket only was open. At each extremity was a bed filling the width of the apartment, raised high and concealed by brocade curtains. In two successive stages were mattresses piled and covered with rich stuffs, and cushions, serving for divans by day and beds by night. The open space in the centre was covered with a mat, and there were low narrow seats around of folded carpets and coverlids. On each side of the door were wardrobe chests. The room, to the height of four and a half feet, was hung with red velvet, inlaid to imitate mosaics; but perhaps the mosaics may be the imitation with velvet of other colours.

The embroidery on the cushions, &c., is unlike anything else. There are patches of colour as though formed by a succession of the palms of an Indian shawl, one row blue, another red, and so on: the stitches are long and the work looks like satin with bindings, each long stitch being followed by a short one. There were fastened to the wall, and projecting from it, those many-coloured racks or brackets of which I have spoken, on which stood fine china-ware and ornaments. The rafters of the roof were ornamented in like manner, vermilion predominating. The sleeping apartment had portals like a church,[242] their hinges and sockets were on the outside; the large slabs were of arbor-vitæ, soft as velvet to the touch, and rubbed over with red ochre.

We were treated to a sight of the contents of the chests. The dresses were principally in brocade of Lyons; but otherwise, they were inferior to those of the Jewesses of Tangier and Tetuan, and had not the merit of native taste and work. Not so the jewellery. One necklace was peculiar: it was formed of large gold pieces, some of them cufic and coral balls, divided by bunches of pearls, in the centre of each of which there was a pierced amethyst. For the negresses, the necklaces were large coral beads and silver coins alternately, the coins being strung through the centre. The necklace does not go round the neck, but from shoulder to shoulder. At the shoulder it is fastened to a brooch of a very singular construction, and is in various ways a most interesting ornament. It is circular, and serves also to secure the haïk and in it the most precious stones they have are placed. One was an emerald an inch and a quarter in diameter. Such were Aaron’s ouches on the[243] shoulders to which the chains were attached.

This brooch is called kefkiat, and has a moveable tongue which traverses round a circle, in which there is a slip, so that after passing the tongue through the folds that are to be secured, you turn the circle and thereby the tongue fits on upon it as if it were a buckle. When I saw it, I was immediately reminded of the Highland brooch for the plaid, to which they have adopted the stones which their Hyperborean country affords; and I recollected having seen an ancient one which seemed to be like these. On visiting Dublin, subsequently to my return from Barbary, I saw in the museum numerous kefkiats, and on recognizing them as old friends, I was assured by the learned that I must be mistaken, for that these ornaments were peculiar to the Irish Celts. However, there they are—alone found in Ireland—alone worn in Barbary.

In an unfinished corner of the Tower Hassan, I found the wall as it had been prepared for the stucco: it was divided off in lines, crossing at right angles, like the frame-work that artists sometimes use, to verify the exactness of a copy. Over these were drawn a succession of intersecting segments of circles. By these they could work with certainty and celerity, and the mere intersection of the plain and curved lines formed the suggested patterns. This may account for the interminable variety of these, and the uniformity of their character. The stuccoes were of plaster of Paris, and on getting one of the workmen to describe the process of making it, I found that near Fez there is a large supply of arrowheaded selenite, corresponding with that of Montmartre, near Paris.[244] The colour is laid on with white of egg. The great instrument of the Moorish artist is the compass.