“A Jewish girl, the daughter of an ill-tempered mother, having been beaten and in great sorrow, one day ran into the adjoining Moorish house (at Tangiers the Jews have no separate quarters). The Moorish women were charmed with her beauty, spoke to her kindly, and advised her to be like them, and live with them, and she preferring them to her own people, repeated ‘La Illah,’ &c. The women thereupon went to the Caïd, and told him that a Jewish girl whose name was Skemish, and whose face was like her name (Sun), had come to them, and that God had enlightened her. The Caïd was glad, and sent for her. When she came, she said that the Moorish women had lied; but they having testified as before, she was shut in a prison with water only and black bread. The Caïd then, not knowing what to do, sent to tell the Sultan. Word came that she should be sent to Fez. The Caïd then sent for the father of the girl, and said, ‘You must pay me forty dollars for the expenses of your daughter’s journey.’ But he was poor, and could not pay the money; and he went lamenting through the streets, and so met the Spanish Consul, who gave him the forty dollars, and the girl was sent away with eight soldiers. A traveller overtook them on the way, and joining company with them inquired her story, and said she deserved death; but pitying her, he said he would converse with her; so they suffered him. This was no Moor, but a Jew and a neighbour, who had disguised himself as a Moor, in order to encourage her to remain steadfast and support her affliction. When they had come near the city, she was made to halt, and great honour was prepared for her. Four hundred young men, chosen from out of the servants of the Sultan, played before her the ‘powder game.’ Preceded by these, and followed by a great concourse of people, she was conducted to the palace. Next day the lady of the Harem came to her. She kissed her between the eyes; made her sit down by her side; told her maidens to bring rich clothes, and clothed her with them; and then taking her by the hand, they walked in the palace and the gardens, and the lady said, ‘All these things shall be yours, and you shall have a prince for a bridegroom.’ The Jewess answered to the lady, ‘What matters it to the bird whether its cage be of ivory or of reed, or whether it be hung in a palace or a hut?’ After several days, word was brought to her, that she must get ready and come to the Sultan. She came before the Sultan, and he called her, ‘My dear Skemish,’ and made her sit down beside him, and he was eating kusscousoo, and he said to her ”Eat.“ But she said, ‘I am a Jewess, and cannot eat kusscousoo prepared by your people.’ The Sultan said, ‘Islam is true.’ But she answered him boldly. Then three baskets were brought, one with embroidered clothes, in another precious stones, and in another pearls: ‘These,’ said he, ‘are the marriage gifts I had prepared for you, and you shall choose a bridegroom of the sons of the Caïd’s.’ But she answered him as before. He then became very angry, and said, ‘Now your blood shall run like water on the earth;’ and she answered, ‘I am ready to die.’ She was then given over to the Caïd to be judged according to the law as an apostate. The Caïd, when he found that his words did not persuade, nor his threats move her, assembled the rabbis and the elders of the Jews, and said to them, ‘If this maiden, once a Jewess, remain thus perverse, the Sultan will assuredly slay not her only, but every Jew in Fez. Advise then what you shall do.’ So the elders went to her in the prison, offering to absolve her of the sin, and telling her that it was better for one soul to perish than the whole people. She answered, ‘Every man must bear his own burden: the blood of all the people will not save me: I will not do this thing.’ And the Jews went out wondering. The Caïd then sent word, that on the next morning he would come with a crown of laurel (such was the word) in one hand, and the (paper, for her execution,) in the other. On the morrow, when the prison door was opened, she was kneeling on the ground, and remembering the words of the Sultan, she said, ‘Let my blood now run on the earth like water.’ So the Caïd was sorrowful, closed the door, and came again on the morrow, and found her kneeling in the same place, and again she repeated the same words; so it was appointed that she should die on the next market-day. And when the day came, four criers were sent forth to proclaim that a Jewish woman was to die, for she had reviled the prophet. When she was brought to the market-place, in the midst of a great concourse from the town and neighbouring country assembled for the market, she prayed to have a pair of trowsers; ‘lest,’ said she, ‘in the struggles of death, I should expose my nakedness; and some water, that I may wash and pray.’ Whilst she was washing and clothing herself, the executioner waved before her eyes a long knife, but she would not look on it, and having finished her prayer, she offered to him her neck; but he cut with the edge only, ‘for,’ said he, ‘when she sees the blood she will love life;’ but she called out ‘Your law commands you to kill, but not to torture me.’ And on that word he struck off her head and spat upon it.
“The Jews of Fez obtained the body on the payment of 3000 dollars, and gathering it up with the blood in a linen sheet, interred it with great lamentation, and they built over it a tomb like that of a saint, and those who are afflicted with disorders go to pray there, and are cured.”[199]
Compare with this, the story in Maccabees of the mother and seven sons, who suffered death rather than eat forbidden meat.
FOOTNOTES:
[198] From םרע haram, to heap up; the term was applied to the banks of tombs and the dams of rivers. Avienus considers these Harmata to be relics of the causeway which Hercules constructed to bring over the oxen of Geryon.
[199] The name given to the girl was “Sol,” as the story was told me in Spanish. It is the habit of those who themselves give descriptive names, to translate the names of other languages. I have therefore restored the Hebrew word and name, in which language the sun is feminine.
CHAPTER II.
RABAT.
I went to-day up the river in a barge belonging to one of the schooners in the harbour. We landed at the bottom of the harbour to visit the great tower. It is about seventy feet square, and under two hundred in height, but was never finished. The facing of one of the angles has been stripped off by lightning, showing the interior of the masonry, which is composed throughout of stones exactly squared. The wall at the upper part is between six and seven feet thick. It is ascended by an inclined plane, up which a carriage might be driven. The centre is an inner tower composed of five stories of square halls, with the roofs in stucco, like the Alhambra. The outside is figured and carved. In simplicity and grace, “Hassan” exceeds the Giralda no less than in dimensions. Whoever has seen the Giralda, will know how much the name enhances the charm of that structure. This personification, which to us is an abnormal effort, and belongs to an ecstatic state, is part of their daily life. We may be poetic; they are poetry. The sword of Antor, the sword of Amra Ibn Maad,[200] the horn of Timour had each its name; and I never hear a bugle without a thrill, having, as a child, delighted in the history of the latter hero. Those who gave a man’s name to a tower, would be horror-struck at a man’s name given to a dog. The tower “Hassan” calls up the siege of Jerusalem and Lower Antonia. There all the towers had names—Hippicus, Piphunis, Mariamne: so the gates had names, as Genuath; but the gates, like those of Rabat, were probably structures exceeding the towers in dimensions.
The staircase has been rendered impracticable both at the entrance and near the top, but we clambered up by the aid of holes in the walls. We could now take in the fortifications of Rabat. The whole forms a triangle, the sides of which are the river and the sea-coast; the apex is the Cazata on the point of Rabat. It covers a space of ground considerably larger than Granada.
Adjoining the tower there is a large cistern with ten parallel walls running half through it, and beyond this, the extensive area of a mosque with many of the columns standing. They are of granite, unpolished. A century ago a missionary mentions the mosque as unroofed, with three hundred and sixty columns. This group of buildings is surrounded by massive walls in Tapia with turrets.