The pillars of Hercules

by David Urquhart

I have never seen men so wild and savage; yet they are of a noble nature. The costume of the East is grand, rich, picturesque; but here is the antique. Elsewhere men are dressed, here they are draped. The figures around are statues, not men.

This is the most interesting country I have ever been in. I have trodden a new quarter of the globe,—I have beheld a new form of room, a new costume, a new kind of garden, novel and yet most ancient.

At a glance you perceive that here you have got to the fountain which falls back to whence it rises. If you had broken through to a people dwelling beneath the Pyramids, you could not have firmer assurance of rest and immutability; yet they are alive and on the surface of the earth, and in sight of that giant of velocity, Europe, which has been bounding from precipice to precipice of years, spanning gulfs of centuries, and counting thousands of revolutions of the sun to arrive only at forgetfulness. These know nothing of Old Time. He cannot, indeed, be denied in private intercourse; but as regards the state and society, his glass has no sand, his scythe no edge, his arm no swing.

At last I have met a janissary! Here only that proscribed race could find a resting-place for their foot. The persecuted, the tracked and hunted of all times, creeds, and systems, have found here their last home. The ocean here stopped the wanderer and the fugitive; the desert afforded them cover. His delight was unbounded: he has been following me about all day. The old janissary was of the Oda “Fish.” He showed me the fatal mark upon his arm. He took me to visit some Algerines who were employed in spinning silk, and in embroidery. They unbosomed themselves, and I discovered, although I might have known it before, that the Moors and the Algerines are two. One of these men had property in, I think, Tlemsin, which the French had offered to restore to him; but he preferred staying where he was, because not afflicted by the sight of the French. Our dress, and especially our uniform, produces a painful impression upon the eye of the eastern, and I could refer in illustration to Napoleon’s remarks on military costume when in Egypt, as given in the great work of the “Victoires et Conquêtes des Français.”

At Tangier I had to take up my quarters in a Jew’s house, and I went there late—merely to sleep; but that was out of the question, for the Jews collected in the patio, or centre court, made too much clatter. One night I was invited to tea by a party of Moors, from Fez, who were occupying an apartment in the same house. This happened to be my first meeting with the gentlemen of the country—and I shall not forget it. They wore large white turbans; were very portly, with sallow countenances, broad faces and foreheads. The haïk or white gauze web, in which they are wrapped in the streets, was laid aside, and they were seated cross-legged in a small circle with the tea-tray in the middle. Tea, and a large quantity of sugar, and sweet herbs, are put into the pot together. It was the first time I had heard the name of Abd-el-Kadir pronounced. I introduced it by asking them what news of the “Emir?” A sudden movement of surprise followed: they turned glances of astonishment the one to the other. One of them inquired what was thought of the Emir in Europe? I answered it was known that he was fighting in defence of his native land. There the conversation dropped. I, at the time, imagined this reserve to be prudential; but they hate him as an Algerine, and fear him as a disturber. They urged upon me that France was repeating in Algiers her former game in Egypt; and England doing the reverse of what she had done; and that France, stretching to Tunis on the one side, and to Morocco on the other, would involve Europe in war. I was often stopped in the streets with questions about the fortifications of Gibraltar.

“May I see,” said one, “a war ‘between England’ and France, and I shall die content.” “All the Mussulmans,” said another, “look to you. We have God in Heaven, and only England on earth.” An old Algerine captain told me that, at the time of the Spanish War, the Spanish consul had explained to him as follows, why England had succoured Spain. “The founder of their race had left to them a paper on which was written, ‘I leave you ships and men, and this commandment—when a robber appears on the earth, strike him; but touch not the booty;’ therefore the English drove the great Napoleon first out of Egypt, and then out of Spain, and took neither for herself.”

A Moor at Tangier, who speaks a little English, said to me, pointing to shot-marks, “French got guns so big—Moors so big (making a circle with both arms, and then a small hole with his forefinger and thumb) and then fire away. Shame! shame!”

The word Moor is a very awkward one. I do not like to use it, and know not what to substitute for it. There is no race so named. Barbary is inhabited by Arabs and Breber. The western part is again subdivided between the town and the country, the inhabitants of which are essentially distinct. Then the so-called kingdom of Morocco is composed of four distinct kingdoms, namely, Fas, which we call Fez, to the north; Marueccos, which we call Morocco, in the middle; Tafilelt to the east; Suz to the south. The term Moor, cannot be derived from Morocco, as is generally supposed, for if it were so derived, it would be confined to Morocco.

The metropolis has been sometimes at Morocco, sometimes at Fez. These kingdoms have been separated. Then the Mussulman dominion in Spain has been subdivided; then the African power predominating in Spain, and then the Spanish in Africa. Then there have been different dynasties and systems. A tribe has established its supremacy over the rest. A religious sect has done the same, whence the term Benimarines al Mahadehs and al Moravides. In the impossibility of fixing any term which should apply to the whole system, its races, faiths, and circumstances, the Spaniards adopted that which belonged to ancient Mauritania, and which, no doubt, was the name by which strangers knew the original race.

The difficulty which has presented itself to strangers has been no less a puzzle to themselves, and they have been wholly unable to confer a name either upon themselves or upon their country. They style themselves Mussulmans, and nothing more, and they use that term in every way. They would say “France has attacked the Mussulmans;” and, again, “There are many Mussulmans in the market,” meaning, in the one case the Moorish State, and in the other a mere crowd. Their own history is told in the name which they give to the country, the “West;” and the proper title of the Emperor of Morocco is the “Sultan of the West.” This was imitated by the monarchs of Portugal when they took the title of Prince of the Algarves.