CHAPTERPAGE
I TANGIERS[1]
II HAD-EL-GARBIA[70]
III TLETA DE REISSANA[101]
IV ALKAZAR-EL-KEBIR[114]
V BEN-AUDA[126]
VI KARIA-EL-ABBASSI[138]
VII BENI-HASSAN[153]
VIII SIDI-HASSEM[167]
IX ZEGUTA[175]
X FROM ZEGUTA TO SAGAT[186]
XI FEZ[192]
XII MECHINEZ[329]
XIII ON THE SEBÙ[347]
XIV ARZILLA[362]

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
GENERAL VIEW OF TANGIERS[6]
FESTIVAL OF THE CIRCUMCISION[24]
MAHOMET[34]
MARRIAGE PROCESSION IN TANGIERS[36]
MOORISH HUSBANDMAN[54]
LOADING THE CAMELS[66]
PEASANT WOMEN OF THE INTERIOR[76]
THE ARAB’S MORNING PRAYER[78]
PEOPLE OF ALKAZAR[122]
THE GOVERNOR ABD-ALLA[138]
TAKING TEA WITH THE GOVERNOR OF KARIA-EL-ABBASSI[142]
A CENTIPEDE[146]
THE CAMEL CONVEYANCE[174]
SHOE SHOP, FEZ[202]
MOOR OF FEZ[216]
A SAINT, FEZ[224]
INNER COURT OF OUR HOUSE AT FEZ[226]
ON THE TERRACES, FEZ[238]
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GRAND VIZIER[242]
NEGRO SLAVE OF FEZ[284]
SLAVE OF THE SULTAN[310]
GATEWAY AT MECHINEZ[336]
PALACE OF THE GOVERNOR OF MECHINEZ[340]

CHAPTER I.
TANGIERS.

There are no two countries in the world more entirely different from each other than the two which are separated by the Straits of Gibraltar; and this diversity is peculiarly apparent to the traveller who approaches Tangiers from Gibraltar, where he has left the hurried, noisy, splendid life of a European city. At only three hours’ journey from thence the very name of our continent seems unknown; the word “Christian” signifies enemy; our civilization is ignored, or feared, or derided; all things, from the very foundations of social life to its most insignificant particulars, are changed, and every indication of the neighborhood of Europe has disappeared. You are in an unknown country, having no bonds of interest in it, and every thing to learn. From its shore the European coast can still be seen, but the heart feels itself at an immeasurable distance, as if that narrow tract of sea were an ocean, and those blue mountains an illusion. Within three hours a wonderful transformation has taken place around you.

The emotion, however, which one naturally feels on first setting foot on that immense and mysterious continent, which has moved the imagination since one’s childhood, is disturbed by the manner of disembarkation. Just as we began to see distinctly from the vessel the first white houses of Tangiers, a Spanish lady behind us cried out, in a voice of alarm, “What can all those people want?” I looked, and beheld behind the boats that were coming to take off the passengers, a crowd of half-naked, ragged Arabs, standing up to their hips in the water, and pointing out the ship with eager gestures, like a band of brigands rejoicing over their approaching prey. Not knowing who they were, or what they wanted, I descended with an anxious mind into the boat with the other passengers. When we had come to within twenty paces of the shore all this brick-colored crew swarmed into our boat and laid hands upon us, vociferating in Spanish and Arabic, and making us understand that the water being too low for us to land from the boats, we were to be transported upon their shoulders; which information dissipated our fears of robbery, and imposed in their stead the dread of vermin. The ladies were borne off in triumph upon stools, and I made my entrance into Africa upon the back of an old mulatto, with my chin resting upon his bare skull, and the tips of my toes in the water.

The mulatto, upon reaching the shore, unloaded me into the hands of an Arab porter, who, passing through one of the city gates, led me at a run through a deserted alley to an inn not far off, whence I almost immediately issued again with a guide, and proceeded to the more frequented streets.

I was struck at once, and more forcibly than I can express, with the aspect of the population. They all wear a kind of long white cloak of wool or linen, with a large pointed hood standing upright on the head, so that the city has the aspect of a vast convent of Dominican friars. Of all this cloaked company some are moving slowly, gravely, and silently about, as if they wished to pass unobserved; others are seated or crouched against the walls, in front of the shops, in corners of the houses, motionless and with fixed gaze, like the petrified populations of their legends. The walk, the attitude, the look, all are new and strange to me, revealing an order of sentiment and habit quite different from our own, another manner of considering time and life. These people do not seem to be occupied in any way, nor are they thinking of the place they are in, or of what is going on about them. All the faces wear a deep and dreamy expression, as if they were dominated by some fixed idea, or thinking of far-distant times and places, or dreaming with their eyes open. I had hardly entered the crowd when I was aware of a peculiar odor, one quite unknown to me among Europeans; it was not agreeable, and yet I began to inhale it with a vivid curiosity, as if it might explain some things to me. As I went on, the crowd, which at a distance had seemed uniform, presented many varieties. There passed before me faces white, black, yellow, and bronze; heads ornamented with long tresses of hair, and bare skulls as shining as metallic balls; men as dry as mummies; horrible old men; women with the face and entire person wrapped in formless rags; children with long braids pendant from the crown of the otherwise bare head; faces of sultans, savages, necromancers, anchorites, bandits; people oppressed by an immense sadness or a mortal weariness; none smiling, but moving one behind the other with slow and silent steps, like a procession of spectres in a cemetery. I passed through other streets, and saw that the city corresponded in every way to the population. It is a labyrinth of crooked lanes, or rather corridors, bordered by little square houses of dazzling whiteness, without windows, and with little doors through which one person can pass with difficulty,—houses which seem made to hide in rather than live in, with a mixed aspect of convent and prison. In many of the streets there is nothing to be seen save the white walls and the blue sky; here and there some small Moorish arch, some arabesque window, some strip of red at the base of a wall, some figure of a hand painted in black beside a door, to keep off evil influences. Almost all the streets are encumbered with rotten vegetables, feathers, rags, bones, and in some places dead dogs and cats, infecting the air. For long distances you meet no one but a group of Arab boys in pointed hoods, playing together, or chanting in nasal tones some verses from the Koran; or a crouching beggar, a Moor riding on a mule, an overloaded ass with bleeding back, driven by a half-naked Arab; some tailless mangy dog, or cat of fabulous meagreness. Transient odors of garlic, fish, or burning aloes salute you as you pass; and so you make the circuit of the city, finding everywhere the same dazzling whiteness, the same air of mystery, sadness, and ennui.

Coming out upon the only square that Tangiers can boast, which is cut by one long street that begins at the shore and crosses the whole town, you see a rectangular place, surrounded by shops that would be mean in the poorest of our villages. On one side there is a fountain constantly surrounded by blacks and Arabs drawing water in jars and gourds; on the other side sit all day long on the ground eight or ten muffled women selling bread. Around this square are the very modest houses of the different Legations, which rise like palaces from the midst of the confused multitude of Moorish huts. Here in this spot is concentrated all the life of Tangiers,—the life of a large village. The one tobacconist is here, the one apothecary, the one café,—a dirty room with a billiard-table,—and the one solitary corner where a printed notice may be sometimes seen. Here gather the half-naked street-boys, the rich and idle Moorish gentlemen, Jews talking about their business, Arab porters awaiting the arrival of the steamer, attachés of the Legations expecting the dinner-hour, travellers just arrived, interpreters, and impostors of various kinds. The courier arriving from Fez or Morocco with orders from the Sultan is to be met here; and the servant coming from the post, with his hands full of journals from London and Paris; the beauty of the harem and the wife of the minister; the Bedouin’s camel and the lady’s lapdog; the turban and the chimney-pot hat; and the sound of a piano from the windows of a consulate mingles with the lamentation chant from the door of a mosque. It is the point where the last wave of European civilization is lost in the great dead sea of African barbarism.

From the square we went up the main street, and passing by two old gates, came out at twilight beyond the walls of the town, and found ourselves in an open space on the side of a hill called Soc-de-Barra, or exterior market, because a market is held there every Sunday and Thursday. Of all the places that I saw in Morocco this is perhaps the one that impressed me most deeply with the character of the country. It is a tract of bare ground rough and irregular, with the tumble-down tomb of a saint, composed of four white walls, in the midst. Upon the top there is a cemetery, with a few aloes and Indian figs growing here and there; below are the turreted walls of the town. Near the gate, on the ground, sat a group of Arab women, with heaps of green-stuff before them; a long file of camels crouched about the saint’s tomb; farther on were some black tents, and a circle of Arabs seated around an old man erect in their midst, who was telling a story; horses and cows here and there; and above, among the stones and mounds of the cemetery, other Arabs, motionless as statues, their faces turned toward the city, their whole person in shadow, and the points of their hoods standing out against the golden twilight sky. A sad and silent peacefulness seemed to brood over the scene, such as cannot be described in words, but ought rather to be distilled into the ear drop by drop, like a solemn secret.