Wherever elsewhere are found monuments of past splendour, the race has disappeared, or it lives in subjection to some other people. Here the descendants of the people who reared these edifices, still dwell unconquered around. They gaze upon them with stupid wonder, knowing not whether they are the works of genii or their fathers.
The magnificent remains spread around were the creation of a single reign, and had one date of maturity and desolation. What measure do they not give of the power of Morocco, in the time of our Henry I.? Like the pyramids, they were reared by captive hands; they were bedewed with Gothic blood, and Christian sweat and tears. To forty thousand of the Christian slaves employed in them, the Emperor had promised freedom on their completion, and he gave them liberty to choose a district for their habitation. His ministers represented that such a colony would be dangerous. “My word,” said the Emir el Moslemin (Miramolin) “is passed for freedom, and what is freedom without the means of protecting it?” They were settled in the mountains to the east of Fez. Wives were given to them, and they were called Shabanets, from Shaban, the name of the month in which the removal took place. For some generations they preserved their language and religion, and three hundred years afterwards we find them a powerful tribe at war with the Moorish sovereign. The Shabanets were at that time undistinguished from the surrounding population in manners, languages, and religion. There is no trace of persecution for religion, and their contests with the princes of Morocco were for their civil rights.
That war of borders and of centuries between Moor and Goth, must have been, in part, the image of the kidnapping of Africa as carried on to-day. The common prisoner for us is an encumbrance, for them he was the chief booty. The estimating of the value, and the distribution of the shares amongst the captors, were defined and arranged by a peculiar code. A captive, for instance, made from a fortress within cross-bow range, belonged to the captor on payment of a fifth of the value to the king. Beyond cross-bow range the captor received a third of the value from the governor who got the slave.
This treatment of a captive shocks our sense of military honour, and so the lesson which war ought to teach is lost—that each is answerable in his person and fortune for his nation’s acts. The judicial and sacred character of war remains so long only as the captive is treated as a guilty man. Our civilization respects in the prisoner the professional man, because it has converted war from the execution of a sentence into a trade. Riley relates a conversation with some of the tribe on the borders of the Timbuctoo desert. “We cannot,” said they, in answer to his remonstrances, “give quarter, because they ought to die who give us cause to use our weapons. We will not take quarter if vanquished, because we will not be beholden for life to such men.” He describes the tribe as peculiarly harmless.
From the tower we proceeded two or three miles up the river to orange groves on the low ground, belonging to the late governor, which appeared utterly deserted, and the fruit lay rotting under the trees. Our European sailors loaded their boats with fruit, and decorated it with branches bearing fruit and flowers. I fancied the companions of Hercules must have done something of the same kind.
We found here a party of the Sultan’s troops, who were giving and receiving a treat from each other. There were various little fires and round trays of tea: they hailed us and made us land, and we had to drink tea with them. There was a nephew of the Emperor amongst them, a fine lad, almost black, with beautiful Greek features approaching to that Abyssinian cast, some individuals of which have appeared to me to be the most wonderful specimens of the human race. Homer was of the same opinion.
Several Spanish renegades were pointed out to me: they were criminals who had escaped from the Spanish presidio. The Moors spoke of them without contempt; the Jews told me they were much esteemed. I had been told at Ceuta that few attempted to escape, and that, when they did, they came back again, in consequence of the bad treatment they received. The Spaniards have an “extradition” treaty with the Moors, but here that modern infamy meets its reward—the deserters become Mussulmans. How different the present practice of converting the fortresses on the frontier into depôts for culprits, from that ancient practice of the Spanish kings, by which the frontier fortresses were sanctuaries. When reading those old charters, I had imagined that the object was to people them, and such is the explanation given by the Spanish legal writers; but now I saw the real purpose,—which was to afford the malefactor, who had already escaped from punishment, relief from apostacy. The malefactor was sheltered for a year and a day, and was then free. He would have been kept there for life, had the object been to people the fortresses. This is further confirmed by the singular privilege of these sanctuaries to receive women who had run away from their husbands, and once within them they are freed from the bonds of matrimony. These provisions will be found in the Charter of Ferdinand IV., granted to Gibraltar, and afterwards confirmed by Alonzo XI. From the benefits of the sanctuary were excepted only traitors—those who had delivered up castles—those who had broken the king’s peace, or seduced their lord’s wife.
Thus Moses separated three cities of refuge “on this side Jordan towards the sun’s rising;”[201] that is, on the side of the enemy and on his border. The period of sojourn was contingent on the life of the high-priest.
Among the renegades are to be found the scourings from all regions of the earth; Spain, France, Russia, Belgium, Prussia, Turkey, Tartary, Egypt, and the whole coast of Africa. Nigritia and Central Africa may be added to the list; as the slaves may rather be considered outcasts who find a home, than free men reduced to servitude. Poles they have here in Africa, it is true; but as “condottieri” only. There are representatives of every race, and records of every conspiracy and rebellion. They number four hundred in the camp, and two thousand throughout Morocco. The police is so strict, that it is impossible that one of them should ever return. Dante might here have got the suggestion for his inscription over the gates of hell.
There were formerly a great many emigrants from Algiers. They have died and wasted away: as the French colonization has advanced, they have retreated before it: they have preferred abandoning the graves of their fathers, their homes, their substance, their friends, to living where the Fih ruled. Such an emigration must not be compared to that of Poland, or to the victims of any European revolution. There was here no dread of vengeance and no proscription. They departed in anguish of heart, and Morocco for them was no land of promise. Of many who had acknowledged themselves as Fih subjects, that have come to Gibraltar in a state of destitution, not one has ever applied at the consulate for pecuniary relief. The Consul has repeatedly proffered assistance; it has in every case been declined. This getting out of the way of their conquerors is strikingly pictured in the address of an old Moor to the captor of Gibraltar:—