Morocco, Its People and Places

by Edmondo De Amicis

Taking Tea With The Governor Of Karia-El-Abbassi.

Notwithstanding the heat our camp was enlivened toward evening by an unusual concourse of people. On one side a long row of Arabs seated on the ground, watched the manœuvres of the cavalry escort; on the other, some were playing ball; a little farther on a group of women huddled in their coarse caics observed us with gestures of astonishment, and a throng of children ran about everywhere. The population seemed really less savage than those we had left behind.

Biseo and I went to look at the ball-players, who immediately left off, but after some consulting glances resumed their game. There were fifteen or twenty of them, tall fellows, big and athletic, with nothing on but shirts bound round the waist, and a kind of mantle made of coarse and dirty stuff, wound round the body like a caic. Their play was different from that at Tangiers. One struck the ball into the air with his foot; all the others rushed to catch it as it fell, leaping up into the air as if they were about to fly; and the one who caught it struck it up again in his turn. Often in the mêlée, one would fall, and others falling over him, and others again on them, the whole would roll about together kicking and screaming, and with small regard for modesty. More than one thus turned upside down displayed a curved dagger at his girdle, or a little purse hung from his neck, containing probably some verses from the Koran as a charm against illness. Once the ball fell at my feet, and I seized it, placed it on my open palm, made some necromantic gestures over it, and launched it into the air. For a few moments not one of the players dared to touch it. They came near it, looked at it, touched it with a foot timidly; and it was not until they saw me laugh and make signs that it was a joke, that they ventured to pick it up and go on with their play.

Meantime nearly all the boys who were running about had gathered around us. There might have been fifty of them, and all the clothing they possessed among them would not have brought ten-pence at the ragshop. Some were very handsome, some had scald-heads, most of them were coffee-colored, and the rest had a greenish-yellow tint as if they were plastered over with some vegetable substance. A few had tails like the Chinese. At first they stood about ten paces off, looking suspiciously at us and exchanging observations in whispers. Then seeing that we did nothing hostile, they came a little nearer and began to get upon tiptoe, and bend themselves about in order to see us on every side, as we do in looking at statues. We stood immovable. One of them touched my shoe with the tip of his finger, and snatched it away as if it had burnt him; another smelled at my sleeve. We were surrounded, and smelt all sorts of exotic odors; we felt as if they were plotting something. “Come,” said Biseo, “it is time to free ourselves; I have an infallible method”; and he pulled out sketch-book and pencil, and made as if he were about to copy one of their faces. In a moment they were all gone, like a flight of birds.

A little later some women approached. “Wonderful!” said we. “It is to be hoped that they are not coming to give us a dagger-thrust, in the name of Mahomet!” But they were only poor sick people, who had scarcely strength to walk, or hold up their arms to cover their faces; among them there was a young girl whose groans moved our compassion, and who showed only one blue eye full of tears. We understood that they were seeking the doctor, and pointed out his tent. One, helping her words with gestures, asked if there would be any thing to pay. We said no, and they tottered toward the doctor’s quarters. We followed to assist at the consultation. “What do you feel?” asked Signor Miguerez, in Arabic, of the first one. “A great pain here,” pointing to her shoulder, “I must see it,” said the physician; “take off your mantle a moment.” The woman did not move. This is the great point! Not one of them, not even a woman of ninety will let herself be seen, and all pretend that the doctor can divine what is the matter. “Come, will you or will you not unveil yourself?” said Miguerez. No reply. “Well, let me hear the others,” and he questioned them, while the first withdrew, sadly enough. The others had no need to unveil, and the doctor distributed pills and potions, and sent them away “with God.” Poor creatures! Not one of them was more than thirty years old, and already youth was over for them, and with its departure had come the fatigue, brutal treatment, and contempt, which make an Arab woman’s old age horrible; instruments for man’s pleasure up to twenty, beasts of burthen until death.

A Centipede.

The dinner was made gay by a visit from Ben-el-Abbassi, and the night was disturbed by a frightful invasion of insects. Already during the heat of the day I had foreseen the coming terrors in the unusual buzzing and swarming which was apparent among the grass. The ants were making long black lines, beetles were in bunches, and grasshoppers as thick as flies; and with them a great number of other insects unseen until now, which did not inspire me with confidence. Captain de Boccard, the professor of entomology, named them for me. There, among others, was the Cicindela campestris, a living trap, which closes the opening of its den with its own large head, and drops down into the depths the incautious insects that pass over it; there was the Pheropsophus Africanus, which darts at its pursuing enemy a puff of corrosive vapor from its tail; the Meloe majalis, dragging along its enormous dropsical belly swollen with grass and eggs; the Carabus rugosus, the Pimelia scabrosa, the Cetonia opaca, the Cossyphus Hoffmannseghi, animated leaf, of which Victor Hugo gives a fanciful description enough to chill one’s blood. And a great number of big lizards, enormous spiders, centipedes six inches long, crickets as big as my thumb, and green bugs as big as pennies, that came and went as if they were preparing by common accord some warlike expedition. As if these were not enough, I had scarcely seated myself at table and stretched out my hand to take my glass, when there appeared over the edge of it the head of a monstrous locust, which instead of flying away at my threatening gesture, continued to look at me with the utmost impudence. And finally, by way of climax, Hamed appeared with the face of one who has escaped a great danger, and laid before us, stuck in a cleft stick, nothing less than a tarantula, a Lycosa tarantula, the terrible spider, that “cuando pica á un hombre, when it stings a man,” said he, “Allah help him! The unfortunate one begins to laugh and cry, and sing and dance, and nothing but good music, very good music! the music of the Sultan’s band, can save him.” The reader can imagine with what courage I went to my bed. Nevertheless my three companions and I had been in bed for some little time, the lights were out, and silence prevailed, when suddenly the commandant sprang into a sitting position, and cried out:—“I am populated!” (Io mi sento popolato!) Then we too began to feel something. For a time there were furtive touches, timid punctures, ticklings and slight provocations of explorers and advanced sentinels that were not worthy of notice. But soon the big patrols began to arrive, and a vigorous offensive resistance became necessary. The struggle was ferocious. The more we fought the hotter grew the attack. They came from the head, from the foot, and dropped from the curtains of the bed. They seemed to be carrying on the assault under the direction of some great insect of genius. It was evidently a religious war. Briefly, we could resist no longer. “Lights!” roared the vice-consul. We all jumped out of bed, lighted our candles, and prepared for strategy. The common soldiers were slaughtered on the spot; the leaders, the big bugs, first classified by the captain, and sentenced by the commandant, were roasted by the vice-consul, and I composed a funeral eulogium in prose and verse which will be published after my death. In a few minutes the ground was strewn with wings and claws, legs and heads; the survivors dispersed, and we, weary of carnage, reciprocally named each other knights of various orders, and retired once more to bed.

The following morning at sunrise Governor Ben-el-Abbassi presented himself to escort us to the confines of his province. We descended from the high table-land on which our tents were pitched, and saw spread before our eyes the immense horizon of the plain of the Sebù.

This river, one of the largest in the Magreb, descends from the western flank of the mountain chain that stretches from the upper Atlas toward the Straits of Gibraltar, and in a course of about two hundred and forty kilomètres, swelled by many affluents, goes in a vast curve to throw itself into the Atlantic Ocean, near Mehedia, where the accumulation of sand, common to the mouths of all the rivers of Morocco on that side, prevents the entrance of vessels, and produces great inundations at certain seasons. The valley of the Sebù, which embraces at its commencement all the space lying between the two cities of Laracce and Salé, and touches at its upper extremity the high basin of the Muluia (the great river which marks the eastern boundary of Morocco), opens to Europeans, by the shore and by Teza, the way to the city of Fez; comprising, besides Fez, the large city of Mechinez, the third capital; which gathers to itself, it may be said, all the political life of the empire, and is the principal seat of the wealth and power of the Scher. The Sebù, it may be noted, marks in the north the confines which the Sultan never oversteps, except in case of war, the three cities, Fez, Morocco, and Mechinez, lying south of the river. In these three cities he sojourns alternately. There is also the double city of Salé-Rabatt, through which he passes in going from Fez to Morocco. He takes this road in order not to have to cross the mountains that shut in the valley of the Sebù to the south, their slopes being inhabited by the Zairi, a mixed Berber race, who have the reputation of being, with Benimitir, the most turbulent and indomitable of the tribes of those mountains.