I felt a great pity for the Arab servants who accompanied us on foot, loaded with umbrellas, field-glasses, albums, clocks, and a thousand objects of name and use unknown to them; constrained to follow our mules with rapid step, suffocated by dust, scorched by the sum half-fed, half-clothed, subject to every one, possessing nothing in the world but a ragged shirt and a pair of slippers; running afoot from Fez to Tangiers, only to go back again; and then, perhaps, to follow some other caravan from Fez to Morocco, and so to go on throughout their lives, without other recompense than just not to die of hunger, and to repose their bones under a tent at night! I thought as I looked at them of Goethe’s “Pyramid of Existence.” There was among them a boy of thirteen or fourteen years old, a mulatto, handsome and slender, who constantly fixed on us his large dark eyes full of a pensive curiosity, seeking to speak confusedly of many things, and dumbly demanding sympathy. He was a foundling, the fruit of no one knew what strange amours, who, beginning this fatiguing life in the Italian Embassy, would probably never cease until he should fall dying in some ditch. Another, an old man all skin and bones, ran with his head down, his eyes closed, and his hands clenched, with a sort of desperate resignation. Some talked and laughed as they panted on. Suddenly one darted from the ranks, passed before us, and disappeared. Ten minutes afterward we found him seated under a fig-tree. He had done a half mile at top speed, in order to gain upon the caravan and enjoy five minutes’ rest and shade.
Meantime we arrived at the foot of a small mountain, called in Arabic the Red Mountain, because of the color of its earth; steep, rocky, and still bristling on its lower part with the remains of a felled wood. This climb had been announced to us at Tangiers as the most difficult part of our road. “Mule,” said I to my beast, “I desire you to remember my contract with my editor,” and I pushed forward in a bold and reckless manner. The path rose winding among great stones that seemed to have been placed there on purpose to bring me to grief by some personal enemy; at every doubtful movement of my mule I felt a whole chapter of my future book fly away out of my head,—twice the poor beast came down on her knees, and launched my soul upon the confines of a better world,—but at last we reached the summit, safe and sound, where to my amazement I found myself in the presence of the two painters, who had gone on ahead in order to see the caravan climbing up. The spectacle was well worth the fatigue of the rapid ascent.
The caravan stretched back for more than a mile from the side of the mountain into the plain. First came the principal members of the Embassy, among whom shone conspicuous the plumed hat of the ambassador and the white turban of Mohammed Ducali, and on either side came a troop of servants on foot and on horseback, picturesquely scattered among the rocks and shrubs of the ascent. Behind these, in couples and groups of three or four, wrapped in their white and blue mantles, and bending above their scarlet saddles, the horsemen of the Moorish escort looked like a long procession of maskers; and behind them came the endless file of mules and horses carrying trunks, furniture, tents, and provisions, flanked by soldiers and servants, the last of whom appeared like white and red points among the green of the fields. This many-colored and glittering procession animated the solitary valley, and presented the strangest and gayest spectacle that can be imagined. If at that moment I had had the power to strike it motionless, so that I could contemplate it at my leisure, I think I could not have resisted the temptation. As I turned to resume my road, I saw the Atlantic Ocean lying as blue and tranquil as a lake at a few miles’ distance. There was but one ship in view, sailing near the coast, and toward the strait. The commandant, observing her with his glass, discovered her to be Italian. What would we not have given to have been seen and recognized by her!
From the Red Mountain we descended into another lovely valley, carpeted with red, white, and lilac flowers. There was not a house, nor tent, nor human being, to be seen. The ambassador deciding to halt here, we dismounted and sat down under the shade of some trees, while the baggage-train went on.
Around us, at the distance of a few steps, the servants were grouped, each holding a horse or mule. The artists drew forth their sketch-books, but it was of no use. Scarcely did one of the vagabonds perceive that he was an object of observation than he hid himself behind a tree, or drew his hood over his face. Three of them, one after the other, got up and went grumbling off, to sit down about fifty paces further on, dragging their quadrupeds with them. They did not even wish the animals to be sketched. In vain the vexed artists prayed, and coaxed, and offered money; it was all useless waste of breath. They made signs of no with their hands, pointing to the sky and smiling cunningly, as if to say, “We are not such fools as you think us.” Not even the mulatto boy, or the Legation soldiers, who were familiar with Europeans, and knew the two artists, would permit their persons to be profaned by a Christian pencil. The Koran, as we know, prohibits the representation of the human figure, as well as that of animals, as a beginning of and temptation to idolatry. One of the soldiers was asked, through the interpreter, why he would not consent to stand and have his portrait taken. “Because,” he answered, “in the figure which he will make the artist cannot put a soul. What is the purpose of his work then? God alone can create living beings, and it is a sacrilege to pretend to imitate them.” The mulatto boy answered, laughing, “Have my portrait taken! Yes, when I am asleep: then it does not matter, and I am not in fault; but never, if I know it, shall it be done.”
Then Signor Biseo began to draw one who was asleep. All the others, grouped about, stood turning their eyes, now on the painter, now on their sleeping companion. Presently the latter awoke, looked about him, made a gesture of displeasure, and went off grumbling, amid the laughter of his fellows, who seemed to be saying, “You are done for now.”
After an hour more on the road, we saw the white tents of the encampment, and a troop of horsemen, sprung from we knew not where, came toward us, yelling, and firing off their guns. At about ten paces off they stopped, their chief shook hands with the ambassador, and his men joined our escort. They proved to be soldiers of a species of landwehr belonging to the place where our camp was pitched, and forming part of the army of Morocco. Some had turbans, some a red handkerchief bound round the head, and all wore the white caftan.
The encampment was placed this time upon a barren spot; in the distance on one side was a chain of blue mountains, on the other verdant hills. At about half a mile from the tents were two groups of huts built of stubble, and half hidden among prickly-pear bushes.
We had hardly seated ourselves in the tent when a soldier came running, and planting himself before the ambassador, said, joyfully, “The muna.” “Let them come in,” said the ambassador, rising. We all rose to our feet.
A long file of Arabs, accompanied by the chief of the escort, the soldiers of the Legation, and servants, crossed the encampment, and, ranging themselves before our tent, deposited at the feet of the ambassador a great quantity of coal, eggs, sugar, butter, candles, bread, three dozen of hens, and eight sheep.