Morocco, Its People and Places

by Edmondo De Amicis

The band accompanied us, still playing. The dinner tent was pitched and made ready, and we entered it while the escort fired their muskets.

Meanwhile the band, ranged before the tent, continued to blow with increasing ferocity, but a supplicating gesture from the ambassador silenced it at last. Then we assisted at a curious scene.

Almost at the same moment there presented themselves to the ambassador, one on the right and the other on the left, a black man and an Arab. The black, handsomely dressed in a white turban and a blue caftan, deposited at his feet a jar of milk, a basket of oranges, and a dish of cùcùssù; the Arab, poorly attired in the usual burnouse, placed before him a sheep. This done, the two darted lightning glances at each other. They were two mortal enemies. The ambassador, who knew them and expected them, called the interpreter, sat down, and began to question them.

They had come to ask for justice. The black was a sort of factor or steward of the old Grand Scherif Bacali, one of the most powerful personages at the court of Fez, proprietor of much land in the neighborhood of Alkazar. The Arab was a countryman. Their dispute had been going on for some time. The black, strong in the protection of his master, had several times imprisoned and fined the Arab, accusing him, and supporting his accusation with many proofs, of having stolen horses, cattle, and goods. The Arab, who insisted that he was innocent, finding no one willing to take up his defence against his persecutor, had abandoned his village one fine day, and going to Tangiers, had there enquired who among the foreign ambassadors was most just and generous. Being told that it was the Minister from Italy, he had cut the throat of a sheep before the gate of the Legation, asking in this sacred form, to which no refusal was possible, for protection and justice. The ambassador had listened to his story, had intervened through the agent at Laracce, and had called upon the authorities at Alkazar to see to it; but his own distance, the intrigues of the black, and the weakness of the authorities, had all combined to put the poor Arab in a worse condition than at first; and he was indeed again accused and subjected to new persecutions. Now the presence of the ambassador was to undo the knot. Both individuals were admitted to tell each his own story; the interpreters rapidly translating.

Nothing more dramatic can be imagined than the contrast between the figures and the language of the two men.

The Arab, a man of about thirty years of age, of a sickly and suffering aspect, spoke with irresistible fervor, trembling, shivering, invoking God, striking the earth with his fists, covering his face with his hands with a gesture of despair, fulminating at his enemy with glances that no words can describe. He declared that the other had suborned witnesses, intimidated the authorities, that he had imprisoned him, the speaker, solely to extort money, that he had cast many others into prison in order to possess their wives, that he had sworn his death, that he was the scourge of the country, an accursed of God, an infamous being; and, as he spoke, he showed the marks of the fetters upon his naked limbs, and his voice was choked with anguish. The black, whose every feature confirmed one, at least, of these accusations, listened without looking, answered quietly, smiled slightly with the edge of his lip, impassive and sinister as a statue of Perfidy.

The discussion had lasted for some time, and seemed yet far from a conclusion, when the ambassador cut it short by a decision that was received favorably by both parties. He called Selim, who appeared upon the instant with his great black eyes shining, and ordered him to mount his horse and gallop to the Arab’s village, distant an hour and a half from Alkazar, and there gather from the inhabitants information concerning the persons and the facts. The black thought:—“They are afraid of me; they will either be silent, or speak in my favor.” The Arab thought, and he was quite right, that interrogated by a soldier of the embassy, they would have courage to speak the truth.

Selim darted off like an arrow; the two disputants vanished and were seen no more. We heard afterward that the village people had all testified in favor of the Arab, and that the black had been condemned, through the intervention of the ambassador, to restore to his victim the money he had extorted from him.

Meantime the tents had been pitched, the usual poor wretches had brought the usual muna, and a few of the inhabitants of the city had come into the encampment.

As soon as it began to grow cooler, we proceeded toward Alkazar on foot, preceded, flanked, and followed by an armed force.