We saw some white villages on the top of the rising ground that bordered the valley; cube, palms, fruit-trees, flowering oleanders, and rose gardens were visible; the country was brilliantly green, and began to show here and there traces of division into farms. At last we entered a narrow, rocky gorge, and issuing thence found ourselves at the camp. We are upon the banks of the Miches, an affluent of the Sebù, near a little bridge built of masonry, and in a semicircle of rocky hills. The gray sky, like a leaden roof, sends down a pale dull light; the thermometer marks forty degrees centigrade; we are constrained to remain seven hours motionless in our tents. The air is heavy and burning. No sound is heard but the grasshopper’s chirp and Ducali’s guitar. A profound ennui broods over the entire encampment. But toward evening there is a change. A light shower refreshes the air; a shaft of rays, darting like a stream of electric light through the opening of the gorge, gilds one half the camp; couriers arrive from Tangiers and Fez, and Arabs from the villages. Two thirds of the caravan are in the river; and the dinner is enlivened by the apparition of a new personage, come from the great city of the Scherifs; the Moor Schellah, another of the protégés of the Legation who has a suit pending with the Sultan’s government; the most voluminous turban, the most rotund visage, the most comfortable and unctuous of fat Moors that we have seen between this and Tangiers. The next morning at dawn we resumed our march without other escort than the forty soldiers commanded by Hamed Ben-Kasen. A revolt had broken out in the confines of Algiers, and all the cavalry in Fez had been sent against the rebels. “We shall see many heads hanging over the gates of Fez,” said Ducali. After two hours’ journey among the broom-clad hills, we came out upon the vast table-land of Fez, encircled by mountains and hills, golden with grain, sprinkled with large duar, watered by the river of the Azure Fountain, which empties into the Miches, and by the Pearl river, affluent of the Sebù, which divides into two parts the sacred city of the empire. Flocks of cranes, wild geese, doves, pheasants, and heron, flew over it, and the luxuriant vegetation, full of smiling peace and light, made it like one vast garden. We encamped on the bank of the Azure Fountain river. The day flew by with lightning speed, what with visiting, hunting, the duar, Jews coming from Fez to relate the great preparations that were being made, and messengers from the court bringing the Sultan’s salutations. Arabs came, fording the river in families, first the camel, then the men, then the women with their children on their backs, then the boys and girls, then the dogs swimming. Caravans passed, crowds of curious lookers-on appeared; the sunset was exquisite, and the night more luminous than our eyes had ever beheld. In the morning at daybreak we were again on the march. We re-entered the hilly region, turned to descend into the plain, and threaded a winding road between two banks that hid the horizon.
A sonorous voice cried out “Behold Fez!” Everybody stopped. Straight before us, at a few miles’ distance, at the foot of the mountains, lay a forest of towers, minarets, and palms, veiled by a light mist. A joyful shout of “Here we are!” broke from every lip, in Italian, in Spanish, in French, Arabic, Genoese, Sicilian, and Neapolitan; and to the first brief silence of astonishment succeeded a buzz of conversation. We encamped for the last time at the foot of Mount Tagat on the shore of the Pearl river, at about one hour and a half from Fez.
Here throughout the day there was a coming and going and a bustle that made it seem like the general head-quarters of an army in time of war. Messengers from the Sultan, from the prime minister, from the grand chamberlain, from the governor, officers, major-domos, merchants, relatives of the Moors of the caravan, all well-dressed people, neat, ceremonious, surrounded by the air of a court and a metropolis, speaking with grave voices and dignified gesture, and telling of the formidable army, the immense crowd, the delicious palace that awaited us. Our entrance into Fez was fixed for eight o’clock the next morning. At daydawn we were all afoot. There was great use of razors, brushes, combs, and curry-combs, and an excitement of spirits that made up for all the tedium of the journey. The Ambassador put on his gilded cap; Hamed Ben-Kasen his dress sabre, Selim his red caftan, Civo a green handkerchief on his head, a sign of high solemnity; the servants came out in white mantles; the soldiers’ arms shone in the sun; the Italians put on the best they had in their trunks. We were about a hundred in all, and it may be affirmed that Italy never had an embassy more oddly composed, more gorgeous in color, more joyously impatient, or more eagerly expected than this one. The weather is splendid, the horses prance, robes float out in the morning breeze, every face is animated, every eye is fixed upon the Ambassador, who counts the minutes on his watch. It is eight o’clock—a sign—every one is in the saddle—and we advance with hearts beating high in expectation.
CHAPTER XI.
FEZ.
We had not advanced half a mile toward the city when we were surrounded by a throng of Moors and Arabs come from Fez and from the country round, on foot and on horseback, on mules and on donkeys, two and two like the ancient Numidians, so eager to see us that the soldiers of our escort are obliged to make use of the butt end of their muskets to keep them from pressing upon us. The ground being low, the city, whose castellated walls we had seen from the camp, remains for some time hidden. Then all at once it reappears, and between us and the walls we can see an immense white and crimson mass, like a myriad of lilies and roses trembling in the breeze. The city vanishes again, and again appears, but much nearer this time; and between us and it, the people, the army, the court, and a pomp and splendor and oddity that are beyond my powers of description.
A company of officers on horseback came galloping to meet us, and dividing in the middle, pass to the rear and join themselves to our escort. Behind them comes a troop of horsemen splendidly attired and mounted on superb horses, preceded by a Moor of tall stature, with a white turban and a rose-colored caftan. He is the grand chamberlain, Hadji Mohammed Ben-Aissa, accompanied by his suite, who, having welcomed the Ambassador in the Sultan’s name, joins the escort.
We advance between two rows of infantry soldiers, who with difficulty keep back the crowd. What soldiers they are! There are old men and mature men, and boys of fifteen, twelve, and even nine years of age, dressed in scarlet, with bare legs and yellow slippers, ranged along in single file without regard to height, with their captains in front. Each one presents in his own fashion his rusty musket and his crooked bayonet. Some stand with one foot foremost, some with legs apart, some with their heads on their shoulders, some with their chins on their breasts. Some have put their red jackets on their heads to shelter them from the sun. Here and there is a tambourine, a trumpet, five or six banners, one beside the other—red, yellow, green, orange,—carried as crosses are carried in a procession. There seems to be no division into squadrons or companies. They look like paper soldiers stuck up in a row by boys. There are blacks, mulattoes, whites, and faces of an indefinable color; men of gigantic stature beside boys who are scarcely old enough to hold a gun; bent old men with long white beards, leaning on their neighbors; savage faces, making the effect, in that uniform, of dressed-up monkeys. They all look at us with open eyes and mouth, and their line stretches farther than we can see.
A second troop of horsemen advances on the left. It is the old governor, Gilali Ben-Amù, followed by eighteen chiefs of inferior degree and by the flower of the aristocracy of Fez, all dressed in white from head to foot, like a company of priests—austere visages, black beards, silken caics, gilded housings. Saluting us, they circle round, and join our cortege.
We go forward, still between two lines of soldiers, behind whom presses a white and hooded crowd who devour us with their eyes. They are always the same soldiers, for the most part boys, wearing the fez, with red jackets and bare legs. They have blue, white, or green drawers. Some are in their shirt sleeves; some hold their muskets on their shoulder, some rest them on the ground; some press forward, some hang back. The officers are dressed according to their fancy—zouaves, Turcos, Greeks, Albanians, Turks—with arabesque embroidery of gold and silver, with scimitars, swords, curved poniards, horse pistols. Some wear the boots of a groom, and some yellow boots without heels; some are all in crimson, some all in white; some in green, and looking like masquerade devils. Here and there among them may be seen a European face, looking at us sadly and with sympathy. As many as ten banners are ranged in a row together. The trumpets sound as we pass. A woman’s arm protrudes itself between the soldiers’ heads, and threatens us with clenched fist. The walls of the city seem to recede before us, and the two lines of soldiers to extend interminably.
Another troop of cavaliers, more splendid than the first, comes to meet us. It is the aged Minister of War, Sid-Abd-Alla Ben-Hamed, black, mounted on a white horse with sky-blue trappings; and with him are the military governors of provinces, the commandant of the garrison, and a numerous staff of officers crowned with snowy turbans, and wearing caftans of every known color.