CHAPTER III.
TLETA DE REISSANA.
The next morning we started before sunrise in a thick wet fog, which chilled us to the bone and hid us from each other. The horsemen of the escort had their cowls over their heads, and their guns slung across their shoulders. We were all wrapped in cloaks and mantles; it seemed like autumn in the Low Countries. In front of me I could discern nothing distinctly save the white turban and blue cloak of the Caid; all the others were confused shadows lost in the gray mist. We went onward in silence over the rough ground covered with dwarf palms, broom and wild plums, and fennel, in groups compact or scattered according to the crossing or forking of the road. The sun, appearing in the horizon, gilded our left side a moment, and again vanished. The mist presently grew thinner, and we could catch glimpses of the country. It was a succession of green valleys, into which we descended and came up again almost unconsciously, so gradual were the slopes. The banks were covered with the aloe and the wild olive. The olive which grows prodigiously here is left almost everywhere in its wild state, and the inhabitants use the fruit of the argan for light and food. We saw no signs of habitation, neither houses nor tents. We seemed to be travelling through a virgin country. From valley to valley, from solitude to solitude, after about three hours’ journeying we finally reached a point where the larger trees and wider paths, and a few scattered cattle here and there, gave token of an inhabited place. One after the other our mounted escort spurred their horses and galloped away over a height, others darted off in another direction, the rest arranged themselves in close order. Presently we found ourselves in front of the opening of a gorge formed by low hills, upon which stood some huts. A few ragged Arabs of both sexes looked curiously at us from behind the hedge. As we rode into the gorge the sun shone out, and, turning an abrupt angle, we found ourselves in front of a wonderful spectacle.
Three hundred horsemen, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, and scattered in a sort of grand disorder, came toward us at full speed, with their muskets held aloft, as if they were rushing to the assault. It was the escort from the province of Laracce, preceded by the governor and his officials, coming to relieve the escort of Had-el-Garbia, which was to leave us on the confines of the province of Tangiers, a point that we had now reached.
The governor of Laracce, a dignified old man with a great white beard, stopped the advance of his horsemen with a sign of his hand, saluted the envoy, and then, turning to the troop, who seemed boiling over with impatience, made a vigorous gesture as if to say, “Break loose!” Then began one of the most splendid lab-el-baroda (or powder-plays) that could be desired.
They charged in couples, by tens, one by one, in the bottom of the valley, on the hills, in front and at the sides of the caravan, forward and backward, firing and yelling without cessation. In a few minutes the valley was as full of the smoke and smell of powder as a battle-field. On every side horses pranced, arms glittered, mantles floated, and red, yellow, green, blue, and orange caftans mingled with the shine of sabres and poniards. One by one they darted by, like winged phantoms, old and young, men of colossal proportions, strange and terrible figures, erect in their stirrups, with heads thrown back, hair streaming in the wind, and muskets held aloft; and each as he discharged his piece gave a savage cry, which the interpreter translated for us:—“Have a care!” “Oh, my mother!” “In the name of God!” “I kill thee!” “Thou art dead!” “I am avenged!” Some dedicated the shot to a special purpose or person: “To my master!” “To my horse!” “To my dead!” “To my sweetheart!” They fired up and down, and behind, bending and twisting as though they had been tied to the saddle. Here and there one would lose his turban or his mantle, and he would turn in full career and pick it up with the point of his musket. Some threw their guns up in the air and caught them as they fell. Their looks and gestures were like those of men mad with drink, and risking their lives in a sort of joyful fury. Most of the horses dripped blood from their bellies, and the feet and stirrups, and extremities of the mantles of the riders, were all bloody. Some faces in that multitude impressed themselves upon my memory from the first. Among others, a young man with a Cyclopean head and an immense pair of shoulders, dressed in a rose-colored caftan, and who emitted a succession of roars like those of a wounded lion; a lad of fifteen, handsome, bareheaded, and all in white, who passed three times, crying, “My God! my God!” a long, bony old man, with a most ill-omened visage, who flew by with half-shut eyes and a satanic grin upon his face, as if he carried the plague behind him; a black, all eyes and teeth, with a monstrous scar across his forehead, who writhed furiously about in his saddle, as if to free himself from the clutch of some invisible hand.
In this fashion they accompanied the march of the caravan, ascending and descending the heights, forming groups, dissolving and re-forming, with every combination of color, till they seemed like the fluttering of a myriad of banners.
At a short distance from the end of the gorge the ambassador stopped, and we all dismounted to enjoy a little repose and refreshment under the shade of a group of olive-trees, but the escort from Laracce continued to exercise before us. The baggage-train went on toward the spot selected for the camp.
We had reached the Cuba of Sidi-Liamani.
In Morocco they give the name of Cuba (or cupola) to a small square chapel, with a low dome, in which a saint lies buried. These Cube, very frequent in the southern part of the empire, placed in general near a spring and a palm-tree, and visible by their snowy whiteness from a great distance, serve as guides to the traveller, are visited by the faithful, and are for the most part in charge of a descendant of the saint, heir to his sanctity, who inhabits a hut close by, and lives by the alms of pious pilgrims. The Cuba of Sidi-Liamani was posted upon a little eminence at a few paces distant from us. Some Arabs were seated before the door. Behind them protruded the head of a decrepit old man—the saint—who looked at us with stupid wonder.
In a few minutes our kitchen fires were lighted, and we were breakfasting; while an empty sardine box, thrown away by the cook, and picked up by the Arabs, was carried to the Cuba for examination, and made the object of a long and animated discussion. Meantime, the lab-el-baroda being over, the horsemen had dismounted, and were scattered all about the valley; some of them were resting, some pasturing their horses, while others, seated in their saddles, remained to keep watch as sentinels upon the heights.